the last girl to kiss Elvis goodbye

 

Lillian Portnoy was the model that gave Elvis a box of cheesecake and kissed him goodbye as he boarded the USS Randall on September 22, 1958. Portnoy was the last girl to kiss Elvis goodbye as he sailed for Europe..._,___

Elvis Put up Big Numbers on Cash Box’s Singles Record Chart

 

Elvis Put up Big Numbers on
Cash Box's Singles Record Chart ( CON'T)

Cash Box gave Elvis more #1 ratings

One big difference between the two charts, however, is in the key category of Elvis's #1 records. Thirteen Presley singles reached the top of both the Billboard and Cash Box charts. They were "Heartbreak Hotel" (1956); "Don't Be Cruel" (1956); "Love Me Tender" (1956); "All Shook Up" (1957); "Teddy Bear" (1957); "Jailhouse Rock" (1957); "Don't" (1958); "Stuck on You" (1960); "It's Now or Never" (1960); "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" (1960); "Surrender" (1961); "Good Luck Charm" (1962); and "Suspicious Minds" (1969).

Billboard credited Elvis with a fourteenth #1 when "A Big Hunk O' Love" sat atop the "Hot 100" for two weeks in 1959. According to Cash Box, however, that Elvis single never was the top seller during any week that year, and so it peaked at #2 on the magazine's "Top 100 Singles."

However, Cash Box more than made up for denying "A Big Hunk O' Love" #1 status by assigning Elvis 5 additional chart-topping singles that never reached #1 on the "Hot 100." They were "Hound Dog" (1956); "Too Much" (1957); "Return to Sender" (1962); "In the Ghetto" (1969); and "Burning Love" (1972). All of those Presley records had peaked at #2 on Billboard's chart, except for "In the Ghetto," which reached #3. What's more, Cash Box credited Elvis with having 8 consecutive #1 single records starting with "Hound Dog" in August 1956 and running through "Don't" in March 1958. The longest #1 streak for Elvis on the "Hot 100" was 5 titles from 1959-1961.

Overall, then, Cash Box credited Elvis with 18 #1 single records, while Billboard limited him to just 14 chart-toppers.

• Cash Box gave Elvis more top 10 ratings

When it comes to singles that reached the top 10 on the charts, Cash Box was again more charitable towards Elvis than was Billboard. A total of 45 Elvis titles reached the top 10 of the "Top 100 Singles" chart, with just 38 achieving the same status on the "Hot 100." Obviously, Presley's heavy record sales, which earned him higher chart positions on Cash Box's sales chart, was blunted somewhat on Billboard's air play oriented chart by weekly DJ reports that were apparently a bit soft on Elvis.

A couple of other differences in Elvis's chart histories on the Cash Box and Billboard single record ratings resulted from the difference in how the two charts were compiled. The first has to do with how long certain Presley hit records remained on the two charts.

In the 1950s, Elvis's big hit singles spent much more time on Billboard's chart than they did on the Cash Box best seller list. For instance, the Billboard-to-Cash Box "weeks-on-chart" ratio for some of Presley's early hits include "Heartbreak Hotel" 27-21, "Hound Dog" 28-21, "Teddy Bear" 25-16, and "Jailhouse Rock" 27-20. The biggest difference in length of chart run, however, goes to "All Shook Up," which remained on Billboard's chart for 30 weeks but stayed on Cash Box's list for only 18 weeks. The natural assumption is that long after sales of these Elvis hits had run their course in the record shops and dropped from Cash Box's sales chart, they continued to be popular on the radio. DJ air play reports to Billboard then kept those titles on that magazine's list for an extended period of time.

After Elvis returned home from the army in 1960, the discrepancy in chart run length of Elvis singles on the two charts essentially disappeared. The chart runs of his first four post-army singles—"Stuck on You," "It's Now or Never," "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and "Surrender"—were all within one week of each other on the "Hot 100" and the "Top 100 Singles."

• Cash Box dilemma—how to handle Elvis's two-sided hit singles

The fact that both sides of Elvis Presley singles record releases were often popular presented the Cash Box chart compilers with a dilemma. When a consumer purchased a two-sided 45, which side should be credited with the sale for chart placement purposes? There was no problem when one side was clearly more popular than the other. For example, it was obvious which song most buyers wanted when they purchased the "Return to Sender"/"Where Do You Come From" single in 1962. The credit dilemma came when both sides of the single were seemingly equally popular.

Take, for instance, "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel," Elvis's biggest double-sided hit. When the single began flying off record store shelves after its release in July 1956, Cash Box assigned all sales credits to the "Hound Dog" side. It was logical to assume teenagers were purchasing the record for that side, since Elvis had recently performed controversial TV versions of the song on both "The Milton Berle Show" and "The Steve Allen Show." Elvis's "Hound Dog" recording was already at #2 on the Cash Box chart by the time "Don't Be Cruel" made its chart debut on August 11. Starting the next week, Cash Box listed "Hound Dog" as the #1 selling single record in the country for 4 straight weeks. As Elvis's single continued to out-sell all comers, Cash Box began assigning sales to the flip side, "Don't Be Cruel," which moved into the #1 spot on September 15. When that title remained atop the chart for 5 more weeks, it meant that Elvis's "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" combo had been the nation's top selling single record for 10 consecutive weeks.

Things did not go so smoothly with Cash Box's handling of some other Presley two-sided hits. For instance, in the fall of 1961, RCA released Elvis's "Little Sister"/"(Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame" single. Both sides received heavy radio exposure and seemed equally popular with Presley fans. Using their regular combination of sales and DJ air play reports, Billboard rated both songs almost equally on the "Hot 100." "Little Sister" was on the chart for 13 weeks, reaching #5. "His Latest Flame" charted for 11 weeks and peaked at #4. Cash Box, however, apparently chose to assign the majority of the record's sales to the "Little Sister" side. As a result, although both sides were on the Cash Box sales-only chart the exact same number of weeks they had been on the "Hot 100," "Little Sister" peaked at #5, while "His Latest Flame" stalled out way down the list at #21. It this case, the Billboard rating system probably provided the clearer picture of the record's two-sided popularity.

• Cash Box provided better record of Elvis's singles

Overall, though, during the 1950s and 1960s, Cash Box's "Best Selling Singles Chart," untainted as it was by the biases of disc jockeys, offered a more objective documentation of Elvis Presley's single record releases than did Billboard. Cash Box's sales-only figures upgraded the chart position of many Presley recordings from their lower ranks on the "Hot 100." Unfortunately, Cash Box's singles chart did not remain true to its original reliance on sales data. In the 1970s, the magazine began adding radio air play to its selection criteria. For the next two decades, until its demise in 1996, Cash Box operated in the shadow of "Big Brother" Billboard. 

A Graceland´s Story

 

Program from a Hereford cattle auction at Graceland in 1942. In 1939, Ruth Brown Moore and her husband, Dr. Thomas Moore inherited 158 acres from Ruth's mother and developed it into Graceland and Graceland farms, naming it after Grace Toof, the original landowner. Dr. Moore was also a well-known breeder of prized Hereford cattle and Graceland would host occasional cattle auctions like one advertised in this program. Charles and Ruth Cobb, who were residents of Graceland, show a photograph of Ruth's father, surgeon Thomas D. Moore, with one of the family's registered polled herefords at Graceland Barn, taken in the 1950s. Ruth Cobb is one of the few people outside Elvis Presley's family to visit the upstairs of Graceland. It was before it opened as a tourist attraction, and Cobb, who lived there before Elvis, soon learned her old upstairs bedroom had been turned into a music room. Cobb visited in 1967 at the invitation of Elvis' grandmother, and later when the Presley family planned to turn the home into a tourist attraction. It reminded Cobb of her own music career and left her slightly quizzical about a few decorating changes. "We did not have a jungle room growing up," she says. There was also no fabric on the ceiling of the billiard room in her day. "We didn't have a billiard room," she says. Other distinctive touches added during Elvis' ownership of Graceland drew little attention from Cobb, but there was one: "Elvis didn't like the chandelier we had in the dining room. It came from New Orleans. He put up some garish thing." As part of this week's observations of Elvis' birthday, Graceland is celebrating its 70th anniversary, and mementos of its early years are part of a new tour. Cobb, 82, and her husband, retired lawyer Charles Cobb, 86, married in 1948. She had grown up at Graceland as an only child. When she married Charles Cobb, they remained at Graceland with her parents at first while Ruth toured the country as part of a professional harp ensemble. She would later become harpist for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra from 1953 to 1973. Her father, Dr. Thomas Moore, was a prominent surgeon and urologist. Her mother, Ruth Brown Moore, was a volunteer who enjoyed club work and became president of the Tennessee Association of Garden Clubs. They built Graceland in 1939, naming it for Ruth's great aunt, Grace Toof, who had left the farm to Ruth's grandmother. The grandmother divided her 520-acre farm into three parts, leaving it to her three children. Two of them sold their shares to Ruth's father. The house on 20 acres began as what Ruth Cobb calls "just a comfortable country home." It would become as familiar to America as Tara, Scarlett O'Hara's home in "Gone With the Wind," and it would rival Monticello, Mount Vernon and other once-private homes among the biggest tourist attractions in the country. There, Ruth's father taught her to shoot well enough that she once downed three geese with a single shot. He also taught her to fish in a 25-acre manmade lake behind the house. But her first love was music. Ruth played the piano, but she loved the harp, studying, then touring with one of the world's leading harpists, Carlos Salzedo. Her favorite music was classical, but Ruth says she liked all music from country to Elvis' music. "I wasn't really crazy about his music, but my mother marveled at his hymns," she says. When her mother decided the property was more than she wanted to keep up, she asked Ruth and Charles if they would like to stay. "We just didn't have time to take care of a big house," says Charles. "It cost $1,000 a month to keep it up. The yard alone was like trying to take care of a golf course. We had a yard man who worked two to three days a week." When the property was put up for sale, Ruth said there were three potential buyers -- Sears Roebuck Co.; a private party who wanted to turn it into an exclusive restaurant, and Elvis. By then, most of the surrounding land had been sold to developers for a subdivision, and the lake behind the house had been drained. Ruth says a church, Graceland Christian Church, wanted to buy 5 acres on the northwest corner of the property. Sears and the restaurant interests did not want to split the 5 acres off for the church, but Elvis said he would be glad to have a church next door, she says. That helped seal the deal. Ruth and Charles built their own home in Coro Lake and later moved to Central Gardens before retiring to Trezevant Manor. Charles met Elvis during the closing on the sale of Graceland, but Ruth never met him. She has since returned to Graceland as a tourist with her grandchildren. "I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like home," she says.

__,_._,___

Are You Lonesome Tonight spends 11 weeks in the Top 10

 

Are You Lonesome Tonight spends 11 weeks in the Top 10

Elvis's Are You Lonesome Tonight? entered Billboard's "Hot 100" at #35 on November 11, 1960. It charged past his own It's Now or Never, which was at #47 that week, on it's way down the chart after spending five weeks at #1. The next week Lonesome was at #2, before settling in at #1 on November 28, only it's third week on the chart. It displaced Stay by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in the top spot. Are You Lonesome Tonight? held on to #1 for six weeks, before giving way to Bert Kaempfert's instrumental Wonderland by Night. Elvis's record held the #2 spot for two weeks before starting its slow withdrawal from the chart. In the end, Are You Lonesome Tonight? spent 17 weeks in the "Hot 100," 11 of them in the top 10.

Elvis wasn't the only one to capitalize on his hit recording. At least five female singers took a ride on Presley's rocket by recording answer records. In its December 5, 1960, edition, Billboard took notice of the phenomenon as follows:

"Elvis Presley's smash hit waxing of 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' has inspired the biggest flock of answer records to any one disking in years. And all of the answer disks are by fem artists, indicating the effect that Elvis still has his large, loyal and young female following. The answer records, complete with heartfelt recitations, include diskings by Dodie Stevens on Dot, Linda Lee on Shasta, Ricky Page on Rendezvous, Thelma Carpenter on Coral and Jeanne Black on Capitol."

The first four versions were all titled, Yes, I'm Lonesome Tonight. They kept the original lyrics, adding only a change in the personal tense. Thus Turk and Handman were still credited as the writers and Bourne-Cromwell as publishers. Variety reported that at first the publishers "weren't anxious for an 'answer' song so soon after the release of the Presley disk for fear that it hurt the original's sales momentum." However, since all four recordings adhered to the original lyrics, they couldn't be stopped, and when it became clear that nothing was hindering sales of Elvis's record, the publishers were said to be "walking on clouds."

Jeanne Black went a little different route. Her answer song, Oh, How I Miss You Tonight, was a different tune, but with her own touching recitation added. "It is all as if they are singing to Elvis personally, thru the media of recording," Billboard noted.

Are You Lonesome Tonight earns three Grammy nominations

The scramble was on for the record labels of the five answer songs. "All of this romantic effusion has caused a wild sales race on the part of the five diskeries," Billboard reported, "as trying to get their copy of the Elvis answer to disk jockeys, distributors and dealers before their competitors can do the same. There are reports that some enthusiastic sales personnel are calling competitor's versions unauthorized but a check of the publishers indicates that all versions are not only authorized but welcome."

Meanwhile, Colonel Parker was ecstatic over all the furor created by Elvis's latest mega-hit. "Sort of confirms his belief that Elvis remains the No. 1 singing act in the business," noted Billboard of the Colonel. Insiders in the recording industry didn't agree. At the 1960 Grammy Awards, Are You Lonesome Tonight? by Elvis was nominated for "Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist" and "Best Vocal Single Performance" by a male artist. He lost in both categories to Ray Charles and his recording of Georgia on My Mind.

75´s PICTURES

.Heading to his afternoon show in Uniondale, NY on July 19, 1975 

summer of 1957

taken in the summer of 1957,  Elvis with a boy called Jackson Frank who became a noted figure in the British Folk music world of the 60s. The story says he was badly burnt in a severe fire at his elementary school, and thereafter Elvis sent him encouraging messages for his recovery. He and his mother stopped by at Elvis's new house Graceland, so it says, and having explained who he was , Jackson was invited in to meet Elvis. Elvis was a major influence on Frank at the time and when his mother took him to Graceland to help him recuperate was one of the highlights in Frank's tragical carreer.

73´s PICTURES

Greeting a fan before his afternoon show in Seattle on April 29, 1973

Source - Seattle Times
April 30, 1973
Elvis excites two Arena audiences
by Patrick MacDonald

There was no penetrating Elvis Presley's security web around the Seattle Center Arena yesterday, where he had shows at 3 and 8 p.m. Both sold out weeks ago.
Jim Borda, 23, Mercer Island, collects Presley memorabilia and he showed up at the first show wearing Elvis buttons and carrying copies of Elvis' earliest recordings. 1954 releases from the Sun label in Memphis.
"One of the guys in the band saw me and got Col. Parker (Presley's manager) and he took me to see Elvis. "This is only going to be an in-out thing," Col. Parker told me before we went into the dressing room. He said we wouldn't be staying long. But Elvis talked to me a while after they took the picture."

Elvis with Red West, Lee Ricketts and Sonny West in Las Vegas February 1973. Lee worked with the Hilton Hotel security for a while and then went on with Bobbie Gentry as a Security person

2 above are...Backstage with fans in Las Vegas on February 18, 1973
ELVIS "AUSTRALIAN" FANS MEET ELVIS
by Willy Weerts (Dutch fan, now living in Australia)

Although there were 94 people on the trip only about 25 were real Elvis fans & members of the Australian FC. One way or another Col. Tom Parker heard about our bad seating at the first show we saw in Vegas (16th Feb dinner show), so the next day he called Bob (Stephens) and they arranged with Emilio for better seating for the next 4 shows that we saw. The Colonel also promised Bob that he could pick 4 people who would meet Elvis backstage. Virginia (Coons) picked the lucky numbers (I remember Rex you sitting in the same booth as her that night). 3 girls were the lucky ones (my wife being one) + another guy and of course Bob. Just after 8pm on the 18th, the lucky ones were led to the place where Elvis would come out from. They waited for about 40 minutes, talking to The Stamps etc. before Elvis appeared. When The King appeared it was all in a big rush. According to my wife the meeting lasted about a minute. Still in that time they were introduced and some photos were taken (4 slides and 1 colour photo, the later is re-produced on the right). They were all given a blue scarf by Mr. Diskin (see photo). This particular photo was taken by Tom Diskin with my wife´s camera. Elvis is wearing the blue jumpsuit with gold scrole, Bob Stephens on El´s left, with Willy´s wife standing in front of Elvis.
Before his matinee show at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale (Long Island, NY) on June 24, 1973 - In the photos are members of the Norwegian Fan Club, "Flaming Star", presenting Elvis with the Norwegian silver record for She's Not You/Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello and Aloha From Hawaii. Members of the group included Fan club President Pål Granlund, Erik Lorentzen and artist Per "Elvis" Granberg -
2 above are...With members of the Pittsburgh police department on either June 25 or 26, 1973