The Harder They Come: 50th Anniversary and Musical Adaptation

By Harvey Kubernik

 

During 1969, Jimmy Cliff’s “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” “The Israelites” from Desmond Dekker & the Aces, and a hit single from Johnny Nash, “Hold Me Tight,” earlier exposed reggae to radio airplay in Southern California and several Stateside areas. In the summer of 1972, Nash’s “I Can See Clearly” reached number one on the US Billboard and Cash Box charts.

Island Records’ Chris Blackwell, the visionary A&R man and label owner had signed a handful of reggae artists to bring the probing bass propelled messages from Jamaica to a global audience.

In June 1972, the Jamaican crime drama film The Harder they Come, directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, starring Jimmy Cliff premiered in Jamaica.

It tells the story of Ivanhoe Martin, (Jimmy Cliff), a young singer who arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, desperate and eager to become a star in that country. He falls in love with a woman and quickly signs a record deal with a powerful music mogul, and soon learns that the record game is rigged. Angered and confident, Ivan becomes increasingly defiant, and finds himself in a battle that threatens not only his life, but the very fabric of Jamaican society.

The well-received film yielded a reggae soundtrack courtesy of the Island company that further positioned these intriguing, enticing sounds to the world.

A publicist, Michael Ochs, who I knew from his 1969-1972 PR department tenure at Columbia Records in Hollywood, was hired by record producer and talent scout Denny Cordell to publicize the soundtrack of The Harder They Come. Michael wrote for Melody Maker in 1972. We both attended a handful of regional June 1972 concerts by the Rolling Stones after the release of Exile on Main Street.

Ochs mailed a copy of The Harder They Come LP, a press kit and a mango fruit, all contained in a burlap bag that arrived to my college dormitory single room at Zura Hall at San Diego State University. The package’s mailing sticker came from Mango/Capitol Records.

In 1972 I had only written a couple of record reviews at the time for The Hollywood Press. I suggested a review of the album in the school newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and was rejected.

The hypnotic reggae pulse on my record player was so captivating. I needed to see this movie.

In November 1972 I caught the debut of The Harder They Come in Hollywood at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where it screened as part of Filmex, the Los Angeles International Film Exposition. The place was packed and the crowd loved it.

Independent producer/director/film guru Roger Corman secured domestic distribution of the movie via his company New World Pictures.

The landscape and musical climate of the United States was altered by the December 26th -December 31, 1972 premiere of The Harder They Come at the Nu-Art Theater in Westwood, California.

In February 1973 it was booked in New York City, and gained a small cult gathering at nationwide midnight movie showings in select locals. However, it was the movie’s soundtrack that quickly generated pivotal FM radio spins that spring of ’73.

The Harder They Come soundtrack was recorded at Dynamic Sounds in Kingston, Jamaica. It housed selections from Jimmy Cliff, the Maytals, the Slickers, Scotty, Desmond Dekker, and the Melodians.

 “Denny Cordell called me in 1972 and wanted me to do the publicity for the soundtrack,” recalled author and archivist Michael Ochs to me in a July 2021 interview.

 “I saw it at Filmex, and loved the soundtrack album. I fell in love with reggae. Denny and Leon Russell were partners in Shelter Records and Leon spent a lot of money on a remote recording truck. I was at the Wailers taping in October 1973 at the Capitol studio which was fun. It was like a big rehearsal leading to a real performance.

“The rock press loved the movie and the soundtrack. It was too unique for AM and FM radio. Black radio programmers were not receptive at all. At the time there was a dearth of originality. When this happens, the media tend to go to roots music, like blues. Reggae was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was important to promote it. At that time, I wasn’t sure if Toots [Hibbert] & the Maytals or Bob Marley was going to be the leader of the movement.

“Denny then hired me for the Shelter label. He agreed to pay a salary, an office and a secretary. J.J. Cale and Phoebe Snow were two of the artists I worked with.

 “Denny agreed to fly me down to Kingston if I could get a story in Rolling Stone so I called my friend Michael Thomas and he sold it to Stone. So, Rolling Stone paid for Michael to come from London to do the story. Chris Blackwell loaned us one of his houses for us to stay in—me, Michael and photographer Arthur Gorson.

“Robert Christgau didn’t stay there but came at the same time to do a five-part story for Newsday, a Long Island paper. Michael and Arthur went into Trench town to interview Marley but they were the only two that were allowed in. For the rest of the time, we were down there, different reggae artists, including Toots were sent to the house to talk to Michael for the story.”

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Roger Steffens is the author of seven books about the Wailers, Bob Marley, and the history of reggae. His award-winning Reggae Beat radio program was syndicated to 130 stations world-wide. Since 1984 he has lectured internationally with a multi-media presentation called The Life of Bob Marley. He is the co-founder of The Beat magazine and served as founding chairman of the Reggae Grammy Committee for 27 years. Roger is the former national promotions director for reggae and African music of Island Records.

I asked Steffens about The Harder They Come.

“Back in early summer of 1973 an Australian gonzo journalist named Michael Thomas wrote an extraordinary article in Rolling Stone outlining the history of Jamaican music from the ska and rock steady eras into the emerging internationalization of reggae, particularly through the success of The Harder They Come film. It featured some of the major Jamaican stars of the moment, including the movie’s lead Jimmy Cliff and Toots & the Maytals. The mesmerizing tale was based on the true story of a ’40s gunman named Rhygin (“raging”) who killed cops and became a folk hero.

“The film became a lynchpin of a newly popular trend of Midnight Movies from coast to coast. In Boston it played in Harvard Square for eight years, and when Jimmy was playing in that city, he was known to enter the theater unannounced and jump on stage pretending to hold six guns, mimicking a scene in which he is photographed in his gun-tottin’ bad boy pose, in a photo studio, much to the audience’s astonishment. 

“The day after I read the article, I saw the movie in a tiny northside theater in Berkeley, holding about 40 seats. When the scene of a midnight chalice-smoking scene came on screen, everyone in the theater lit up and there was so much smoke in the room you couldn’t see the screen! On the way home I bought the soundtrack, which led me to seek out recordings by each of its contributors.”

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The world premiere of The Harder They Come, Suzan-Lori Parks’ musical adaptation of the 1972 film is scheduled to be staged at New York’s Public Theater during February 16th-March 26th 2023 in the Newman Theater.

The show includes “You Can Get It If You Really Want It” and “Many Rivers to Cross” by Grammy Award winner Jimmy Cliff, based upon the film produced and directed by Perry Henzell and co-written with Trevor Rhone. Music Supervision, Orchestrations, and Arrangements by Kenny Seymour, choreography by Edgar Godineaux, co-directed by Sergio Trujillo, directed by Tony Taccone. Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and the Public’s Writer-in-Residence.

In 2005, The Harder They Come had been adapted into a stage musical by the Royal Stratford East and UK Arts International in the UK where Henzell oversaw the script.

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On the day Duke Ellington died, May 24, 1974, I encountered Johnny Nash in the lobby of Columbia Records on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. We had a brief chat.

I acknowledged his seminal 1967-1972 work with the Wailers, where he developed Marley’s nascent songwriting abilities on his JAD record label. Johnny smiled when I mentioned his co-writing of a song, “Some of You Love,” with record producer Phil Spector in 1961 when he was inked to ABC-Paramount Records. Spector first met Nash, and songwriter Tommy Boyce, during their Army physical examinations.

As Johnny and I left the elevator ride, I wished I would have reminded myself to tell Nash how much I loved his song “What Kind of Love Is This?” Joey Dee & the Starliters had cut the tune in 1962 for the Columbia studio picture Two Tickets to Paris.

I eventually witnessed eight Bob Marley & the Wailers concerts during 1975-1979. First time was July 13, 1975 at the Roxy Theater in West Hollywood.

I interviewed the group in 1976 for Melody Maker. Our conversation was held in such a smoke-filled room in West Hollywood at the Island Records office in California on Sunset Blvd I forgot to turn the tape machine on!

John Lennon and Yoko Ono attended a Wailers’ May 16, 1976 Roxy show. While waiting for their car to arrive in the parking lot of the adjacent Rainbow Bar & Grill, I thanked John for introducing me to reggae and blue beat music that he touted in music publications and radio interviews.

On July 22, 1978 I went to see the Wailers at The Starlight Bowl Ampitheatre in Burbank. A few reporters were given tickets and all access backstage passes. At the time press coverage in the US was important for the Wailers and Marley’s mission.

I watched the concert from the wings standing the whole evening with Mick Jagger, holding daughter Jade in his arms. Mick still happily managed to pass some ganja to our circle that included Peter Tosh, the opening act the next day for the Rolling Stones at Anaheim Stadium.

Before the awe-inspiring evening concluded, a sweaty Bob Marley ran to our side of the venue, brushing up against me on his way to talk to Peter, who then joined him for a surprise appearance during “Get Up, Stand Up.”

Tosh later told Roger Steffens, “Mi slap Bob’s hand and him say, ‘Bwoi, de Pope feel dat one.”’

Three days later the Pope died.

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Bob Marley has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1994) and ASCAP Songwriters Hall of Fame (2010).

The first US residency for the multi-room Bob Marley One Love Experience will be held in Southern California at LA’s Ovation Hollywood – from January 27-April 23, 2023.

Visitors will see Marley’s entire Rock & Roll Hall of Fame archive at the exhibition, alongside previously unseen photos, rare memorabilia, concert videos, guitars, lyric sheets, sneakers, a Marley-branded jukebox, and Marley-themed artwork. There will be a silent disco with headphones at the Soul Shakedown studio, where fans can dance along to Marley’s music. One area celebrates the Marley family legacy and philanthropy.

The event is created in partnership with the Marley Family and Terrapin Station Entertainment. The exhibition’s director and producer, Jonathan Shank, added: “The Bob Marley One Love Experience has already created so many positive vibrations for fans in London and Toronto, and it’s an honor to continue to have the opportunity to curate and produce the exhibit right in the heart of Hollywood.”

Tickets available on The Bob Marley One Love Experience website.

 

© Harvey Kubernik 2023

Harvey Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 they wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s Docs That Rock, Music That Matters.

Kubernik’s writings are in several book anthologies, including The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey has written liner notes to CD releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special, the Ramones’ End of the Century, and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.

In 2006, Kubernik was invited to address audiotape preservation held by the Library of Congress in Hollywood.

Chasing the White Light: Lou Reed, the Telepathic Secretary and Metal Machine Music

By David Holzer

 

Fifty years ago, Lou Reed released Transformer. In among “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Make Up” and “Vicious,” cuts that would launch a cartoon Rock N Roll Animal persona which would typecast Lou for years, was “I’m So Free.” A weedy platform-hopping rocker, it’s always sounded to me like filler with slapdash lyrics. But, not so long ago, I started to wonder about the “Saint Germaine” Lou references in the song. Up until that point, I’d always assumed he was just one of the real-life Warhol superstars or invented characters with whom Lou peopled the songs on the album:

Oh please, Saint Germaine

I have come this way

Do you remember the shape I was in

I had horns and fins

I’m so free

I’m so free

Do you remember the silver walks

You used to shiver and I used to talk

Then we went down to Times Square

And ever since I’ve been hangin’ round there

 

It turns out that Saint Germain—as the name is commonly spelled—was an 18^th century composer and musician revered by Theosophists as also an alchemist and great spiritual master. Theosophists follow Theosophy, the religious, occultist group co-founded by mystic, author, and trickster Madame Blavatsky in New York in 1875. So, what’s Saint Germain doing on an album that has defined a certain kind of sexually fluid, narcotically informed and ham-fistedly decadent rock and roll for decades? And why does it read like Lou is sending up a prayer to him?

The answer, I believe, lies in the fact that, although, as it’s commonly understood, alchemy refers to the transmutation of metals and the fabrication of gold, for Theosophists there’s a spiritual dimension to the practice. Saint Germain was a spiritual alchemist. Spiritual Alchemy is the transmutation of man’s animal nature into the Higher Self. In “I’m So Free,” Lou, who had “horns and fins,” animal attributes, sounds like he’s begging to be transformed. To the accepted meanings of Transformer, spanning transforming underground cult hero Lou into a pop star and blurring sexual identity —“shaved her legs and then he was a she”—among others, I would say we can add spiritual transformation. But that still doesn’t explain how Lou even knew about Saint Germain.

Before we go on, I should mention that, in an earlier version of the song recorded in 1970 in Lou’s bedroom at his parents’ house on Long Island after he’d left the Velvet Underground, he sings “Do you remember the shape I was in/I was covered in sin,” making the lyric feel more about redemption. But by October 27, 1971, when the sessions gathered on I’m So Free: The 1971 RCA Demos were recorded, the line had become “I had horns and fins.” Lou already had transformation on his mind.

 

Billy was a good friend of mine

 

A clue to as to why Lou mentions Saint Germain is buried in the verse that begins “Do you remember the silver walks.” My gut feeling is that this refers to Billy Linich AKA Billy Name. Name was part of the group of avant-garde musicians that gathered around drone-meister La Monte Young in the late 1950s—in Billy’s own words, he was a “human drone”—before becoming court photographer to Andy Warhol’s Factory. Lou and Name were great friends, occasional lovers, and, for a time, fellow methamphetamine devotees. Lou adored Name. Speaking on radio WBCN-FM in Boston in early March 1969, the month the Velvets’ third album was released, he describes Name as “divinity in action on earth” and, as the photographer of the cover of the third album, taking pictures that are “unspeakably beautiful…pure space, for people who have one foot on earth and another foot on Venus.” When Lou liked someone, he gushed.

Name was responsible for silverizing Warhol’s Factory with the tinfoil he slapped on nearly every surface. Talking and shivering suggest speeding. More significantly for our quest to explain the appearance of Saint Germain in the song, Lou also claimed to have introduced Name to the work of Theosophical writer and teacher Alice Bailey:

“A friend of mine got so far into it he locked himself in a closet for two years and never came out and I know exactly what he was doing because I was one of the few people he let in, visited him periodically, checked he was alive and he explained to me what he was doing and I know what…because I was the one who started him on the books [of Alice Bailey] and he went through all fifteen volumes and when you follow that book, it teaches you, you know the seven centers of the body and moving the energy. It can be dangerous. Meditation can be dangerous if it’s not done correctly…You can do things that aren’t right, but he was literally going off his body cell by cell. It was really something to see.”

According to an interview Name gave to UK newspaper The Guardian in 2015, he shut himself away for about a year, but the reason was rather more prosaic. “I didn’t really relate to the Factory any more…I’d have visitors like Lou Reed, but I really wanted to get my negatives in order and that took a lot of time.”

Name finally left the Factory in 1970 because, as he told author of the piece Sean O’Hagan, he was “saturated by silver.” But, all those years later, looking back on his time in the New York avant-garde from a hospital bed in Poughkeepsie, Name said, “I miss the times when I was really free.”

(more…)

New Box Set Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Elvis Presley’s 1972 concert trek

By Harvey Kubernik

 

RCA/Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment released the Elvis On Tour box set, a newly-compiled 50th anniversary celebration of Presley’s monumental 1972 concert trek (premiering unreleased live and studio material) digitally in December 2022 and physical issue in 2013 on January 27.

A seven-disc set, with the audio selections available in digital and physical configurations, the Elvis On Tour box set includes six audio discs (premiering previously unreleased Elvis concert performances and studio rehearsals) and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s Blu-ray edition of the MGM Film, Elvis On Tour, winner of Best Documentary Film at the 30th Golden Globes Awards in 1973 and the last feature film starring Elvis Presley to be released during the artist’s lifetime.

The box set is produced by Ernst Mikael Jørgensen and mixed by Grammy Award®-winning Memphis-based producer Matt Ross-Spang. The original recordings were made by Felton Jarvis and Al Pachucki.

Disc 1 was recorded live on April 9, 1972, at Hampton Roads Coliseum, Hampton, Virginia, and contains all previously unreleased material. Disc 2 was recorded live on April 10, 1972, at Richmond Coliseum, Richmond, Virginia, and contains all previously unreleased material. Disc 3 was recorded live on April 14, 1972, at Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina, and contains all previously unreleased material. Disc 4 was recorded live on April 18, 1972, at Convention Center Arena, San Antonio, Texas, and includes previously released material (from 2003’s Elvis: Close-Up box set), remixed for this release.

Disc 5 features the tour rehearsals, recorded live at RCA Recording Studios on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, California, on March 30 and 31, 1972. The disc is comprised primarily of previously unreleased tracks in addition to performances previously available on the official Elvis Presley collector’s releases Elvis On Tour – The Rehearsals (Follow That Dream CD 2004) and 6363 Sunset Boulevard (Follow That Dream CD 2001) as well as The Great Performances (RCA 1990).

Disc 6 completes Elvis’ rehearsals with his band at RCA Recordings Studios with performances recorded March 31, 1972. The disc includes previously unreleased takes on Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times” as well as performances previously available only on 6363 Sunset Boulevard, Elvis On Tour – The Rehearsals and Amazing Grace (RCA 2CD 1994).

Presley and band prepared for his 1972 personal appearances at the RCA studios in Hollywood. The facility had been home to Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack, Henry Mancini, Shorty Rogers, Gogi Grant, Jesse Belvin, Jack Nitzsche, Kim Fowley, Nik Venet, Harry Nilsson, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater, Electric Prunes, the Monkees, Jose Feliciano, Merry Clayton, the Rolling Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham, and Elmer Bernstein.

“Studio A and B were both the same size,” described the legendary RCA engineer/producer, Al Schmitt in an interview I conducted with him. “They were big rooms, and then there was also Studio C, a smaller room. You could mix in either room. The studios had very high ceilings and a nice parquet floor. One of the things that made them so unique was that we had all those great live echo chambers. I think there were seven of them. The nice thing about doing everything at one time was that you knew exactly what it was going to sound like.

“RCA had a great microphone collection. Just fabulous. Great Neumann and Telfunken microphones. Great RCA microphones. Plus, they had the great, original Neve console. And they were just spectacular. They were so punchy. There was a punch and a warmth and still one of the best consoles ever made. They were using a lot of Scotch tape then.

“There were no isolation booths. None whatsoever. But we had gobos, we would have around. Like a separator where you could isolate things. We did have some small rugs that we would put down sometimes under the drums and things.”

As Elvis Presley’s national tour played to sold-out secondary markets across the country in 1972, Elvis was enjoying himself on-stage and finding electrifying new ways of connecting to audiences at every show. Working with a band and set lists of his choosing, Elvis was channeling the music he loved most—from pop and gospel and traditional country to blues and rock and contemporary hits—while transforming his own greatest hits with fresh arrangements, turning nostalgia into an unforgettable concert experience packed with immediacy.

Award-winning filmmakers Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel (Mad Dogs & Englishmen) went on the road with Elvis Presley and his band with all-access passes, cameras and crew to chronicle the King of Rock & Roll at his on-stage peak in MGM’s Elvis On Tour documentary film.

The film captures Elvis, the human being driving the myth, behind-the-scenes backstage with his eyes open and his defenses down. MGM’s original press release described the Elvis On Tour film as “the first intimate look at the enigmatic country boy who became the world’s most celebrated musician.” Both documentary and concert film, Elvis On Tour features montage sequences supervised by Martin Scorsese. The film was released on November 1, 1972.

The Elvis On Tour box set includes behind-the-scenes liner notes by Jerry Schilling, a longtime personal friend and member of Elvis’ inner circle. The package also features an illuminating essay by rock historian/musician Warren Zanes, founding member of the Del Fuegos and Professor at New York University.

According to Zanes: “The set lists and the performances of the Elvis On Tour period bring a rare thing: a fifties legend working in the early seventies who was still taking his audiences to new places….The core band, including Ronnie Tutt, James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, Jerry Scheff, John Wilkinson, Charlie Hodge, the Sweet Inspirations, J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, and an orchestra led by Joe Guercio, had gotten to a place at which Elvis could inject spontaneity, allowing the arena shows to have a measure of the unexpected….

“1972 was a year of one-hundred-sixty-five performances. In Jorgensen’s words, it was a ‘climax of his career.’ While the ’68 Comeback Special marked the significant point at which Presley returned to live performance, 1972 was the year in which the artist revealed most completely what he wanted to do with the creative energy such a return kicked off.”

A definitive portrait of the artist in 1972, the Elvis On Tour box set arrives in the wake of the release of Warner Bros Pictures’ epic big-screen drama, ELVIS, from filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, starring Austin Butler in the title role and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ longtime manager and technical advisor.

“Compiling this set was very easy – include everything RCA recorded,” explained Ernst Mikael Jørgensen in a 2022 email. “So that’s what we did. The surprise in here is just how well is Elvis singing and the tightness of his band. The shows are the climax of ‘The Elvis Presley Show’ as we know it, eventually reaching its commercial peak with Aloha from Hawaii.”

After my family saw Elvis Presley the ‘68 Comeback Special, my parents Hilda and Marshall went to see one of his August 1969 shows at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and afterwards gave me an enthusiastic review.

On November 14, 1970 I took three buses from West Hollywood to Inglewood to see Elvis Presley’s debut at the Forum, his first concert in Southern California in 13 years. In 1968 I saw the Doors at the Forum, the Rolling Stones twice in 1969 at the same venue and now Elvis. It was a devoted beehive hairdo crowd like a casting call from another era. Thousands of cameras clicked and flashed when Elvis emerged on stage. Presley’s voice sounded terrific as I sat in the colonnade section.

Returning home later that evening, I discussed the one-hour Presley show with then GO! magazine reporter Rodney Bingenheimer at the Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine Street over hot tater tots.

“I worshiped The Elvis the ’68 Comeback Special and he was back on the pop charts again,” beamed Bingenheimer. “During 1969 when I was writing a column for GO! magazine. I went to the Elvis press conference in Las Vegas when he was making his debut at the International Hotel. I know he played Las Vegas in the fifties on a bill with Liberace, but this was Elvis’ return to performing after eight years. Grelun Landon, who was the head PR guy at RCA in Hollywood, took care of me. Nick Naff the PR guy from the Las Vegas International wanted me to cover the opening night as well.

“As a fan and reporter, I had a weekly music column in a national paper distributed in record stores, as FM radio was only a year or two old at the time. Over the years I was at many Elvis’ openings and closings. After the first show in August 1969, and around a couple of parties, Colonel Tom Parker told me that Elvis saw GO! and said, ‘Get me a subscription to GO!’”

Grelun Landon who helmed the RCA Public Affairs office at the record label was the first advocate of my nascent music journalism efforts. In 1972, Grelun arranged two press tickets for Presley at the Long Beach Arena on November 15.

I sped over to the RCA 6363 Sunset Boulevard building to get the ducats. I encountered Col. Parker in the elevator, and magazine columnist/English Disco nightclub owner Rodney Bingenheimer, picking up his Elvis tickets. Parker handed us Presley Christmas calendar cards and we still have them.

Grelun played us an acetate of a dramatic Presley live version of Marty Robbins’ “You Gave Me a Mountain” that sounded fantastic.

Man, I was ready for Elvis Presley in Long Beach.

I was aware of earlier well-received and heralded four Presley dates in New York in June of 1972 at Madison Square Garden. George Harrison, Paul Simon, Lenny Kaye, manager/record producer Mike Appel with his client, Bruce Springsteen, and David Bowie were in attendance. So was music archivist and rock historian Ron Furmanek.

“Went to all the shows, waited on line for 20 hours for tickets, had 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rows center,” marveled Furmanek in a November 2022 email exchange. “Shot super 8 film too, saw Colonel Parker standing in front of the stage, and to have Elvis right in front of you like that was amazing! I took my eleven year old little brother. It was his first concert!”

After I left that awe-inspiring Elvis Presley Long Beach Arena show from mid-November ’72, I felt, or recognized, the influence of music director William (Billy) Goldenberg on Presley’s set list and his 1968-1972 recording career. Goldenberg had collaborated with director/producer Steve Binder and engineer/producer Bones Howe on the Elvis Presley the ’68 Comeback Special

Goldenberg, a graduate of Columbia University and a protégé of the Broadway Legend, composer Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls), brought a rich harmonic sensibility to his craft that remarkably suited the caterwauling punch of fifties rock ‘n’ roll.

“I met Billy Goldenberg, the musical director when I was directing [the pop music TV series] Hullabaloo,” recalled Binder in a 2008 interview. “He was working with Peter Matz, who was the musical director on Hullabaloo and Billy was the dance arranger. Then I brought Billy along to do Elvis. And the fact that there is this Jewish New York Broadway kid who basically in 1968 re-shaped Elvis’ entire musical career, the two of them hit it off so well. It really says something important about opposites attract.”

Goldenberg subsequently was the musical director and scored Presley’s 1969 movie A Change of Habit. In the very early seventies, he composed music for Steven Spielberg’s television episode in the Rod Serling- hosted Night Gallery.

“From the very first meeting I liked Elvis,” expressed Goldenberg in an interview we conducted in 2008. “We had a great rapport. He always looked after me and was supportive. There was a movie soundtrack by Quincy Jones, In Cold Blood, probably the most interesting score I had ever heard at that point. It was a fusion of that kind of country redneck sound but at the same time something very classical underneath it all. Evil, sexual, and spooky. Elvis personified all of those things. And the music had too as well.

“His voice invited you into the arrangements. I wanted it all to be seductive. Because Elvis was the ultimate seducer. It also touched on some of the Beatles’ stuff. The darker Beatles’ stuff. And I knew Elvis would get it because he was really a receiver,” summarized Billy.

Steve Binder, the director of Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special in 2005 told the Elvis Australia fan club that Goldenberg had “truly changed” Presley’s musical direction. “After that he loved big bands and full orchestras.”

On September 1, 1957. Elvis Presley performed at Seattle’s Sick’s Stadium. James Marshall Hendrix is fourteen years old, as impressionable as a Little Leaguer on opening day. He made detailed notes on every song Presley did—’Hound Dog’ in particular captured his ear. In 1969 Jimi Hendrix jammed on a version of ‘Hound Dog’ while he and his father Al were making up songs inside Jimi’s apartment documented in film footage.

Last century I asked the songwriting and production team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller about working with Presley. Their tunes are covered on Elvis on Tour, including “Hound Dog.”

“Hound Dog” was initially written at the request of Johnny Otis, the bandleader and A&R man for Big Mama Thornton, who wanted Leiber and Stoller to listen to his acts and see if they could write some songs for them. Elvis knew the Big Mama ‘Hound Dog’ record, because he was a student,” underlined Mike Stoller. “And it was a woman’s song. Jerry wrote the lyrics for Big Mama and I think we recorded it in 1952, and it was released in early ’53. It was a big R&B hit. In 1956 Elvis heard a lounge act doing it in Las Vegas.”

“Jerry and I actually produced, without credit, the records, our songs in particular, that were in the M-G-M film Jailhouse Rock. He asked for us to be there. We had never met him before. He was a very good-looking young man, very energetic. I mean, he just kept going and going in the studio. He’d say, ‘Let’s do another one.’ And it would go on and on until he felt he had it. The studio was booked for the day, and we were used to three-hour sessions.”

“He loved doing it,” reinforced Jerry Leiber. “He wasn’t someone who was doing it and wanted to go home, like a lot of people. He had more fun in the studio than he did at home. He was very cooperative and a workhorse.”

“I ended up spending a little more time with him than Jerry,” added Stoller, “because I played the role of his piano player in Jailhouse Rock, which Jerry was supposed to play, but he had to go to the dentist that day,” Mike volunteered.

“I thought he was the greatest ballad singer since Bing Crosby,” emphasized Jerry. “I loved to hear him really do a ballad, because we were writing rhythm & blues, torch ballads. As far as I’m concerned, nobody cuts Little Richard on rhythm tunes. You have to go far and wide. But Presley was the ultimate in the ballad. It was just his singing. Pure talent.”

In 1974, I covered the Beverly Hills press conference for Melody Maker when George Harrison announced his solo tour. He itemized charities he would be working with that year including, “a concert in Los Angeles for the Self Realization Fellowship. It was founded by Paramahansa Yogananda. He happened to be a big influence in my life. I’d like to repay his in a small way.”

Paramahansa Yogananda, who was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, (January 5, 1893-March 7, 1952), was an Indian Hindu monk, yogi and guru whose teachings of meditation and Kiya Yoga reached millions of people through his organization Self-Realization Fellowship. His teachings of yoga provided unity between Eastern and Western religions. During 1925 in Los Angeles, he established an international center for SRF.

Yogananda’s life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, was initially published in 1946, and expanded by him in subsequent editions. It’s been a perennial best seller having sold millions of copies, and translated into many languages. George Harrison would give the book to friends and musical associates.

In 1950, Yogananda held the first Self-Realization Fellowship World Convocation at the international headquarters in Los Angeles. He also dedicated the beautiful SRF Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades that has since become one of California’s most prominent spiritual landmarks.

Elvis Presley had visited Self-Realization Fellowship center on Sunset Blvd. near the Pacific Coast Highway in Southern California and devoured Autobiography of a Yogi from the movement’s founder, Paramahansa Yogananda. Presley and his wife Priscilla also had a friendship with Daya Mata of the SRF retreat in the Mount Washington area in East Hollywood. Sir Daya Mata, born Rachel Faye Wright, was President and spiritual head of SRF from 1955 to 2010.

In Elvis and Me: The True Story of the Love Between Priscilla Presley and the King of Rock N’ Roll, by Priscilla, with contributions from Sandra Harmon, Priscilla mentioned her husband’s fascination with spirituality. Elvis made several trips to the Mount Washington retreat for sessions with Daya Mata hoping to attain the highest form of meditation.

“As Elvis’ fascination with occult and metaphysical phenomena intensified, [his friend] Larry introduced him to the Self-Realization Fellowship Center on Mount Washington, where he met Daya Mata, the head of the center,” Priscilla wrote. “She epitomized everything he was striving to be.” According to Priscilla, “Mata resembled Elvis’ mother, Gladys Presley.” Elvis would call her “Ma.”

Jerry Schilling is the author (with Chuck Crisafulli) of Me and a Guy Named Elvis. Jerry was a longtime insider/adviser and trusted Presley employee. Last decade I interviewed Schilling, one of the executive producers on HBO’s Elvis Presley: The Searcher. He currently manages the Beach Boys.

“Elvis was a seeker,” described Schilling. “He did go to the Bodhi Tree (spiritual book store in West Hollywood that opened in July, 1970). There was a part of our group that did not like that. I was in the minority with Larry Geller. Elvis was open to show a spiritual and vulnerable side. He was into that. What I loved about it was that through his spiritual quest I got to know the man even deeper. We would go to SRF in Pacific Palisades and Mt. Washington in East Hollywood many times.”

In 2004 I asked record producer and author Andrew Loog Oldham about Elvis Presley for my book Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music In Film and On Your Screen.

“Man of hope, dreams and glory,” replied Oldham, who produced the Rolling Stones’ 1964-1967 sessions at RCA studios in Hollywood.

“You must remember that Elvis only toured the UK on screen and vinyl, therefore he had the first and last word and the best audio and lighting. This was also the era when TV was a black and white affair afforded by the few that ran from 5PM to 10 PM and did not feature the likes of Elvis. I think King Creole, Jailhouse Rock and Flaming Star were best; loved the interplay with Katy Jurado; loved him with Carolyn Jones in King Creole …

“Elvis seemed to have these great confrontations with older ladies in his flicks, Lizabeth Scott in Loving You. The images that I remember best are Elvis singing ‘Crawfish’ on a balcony in New Orleans is just classic, singing ‘Baby, I Don’t Care’ poolside in Jailhouse Rock in those great Zoot suit pants, cable knit sweater with the pure Armani neck and those black and white loafers to die for.

“Elvis gave us hope and attitude. The Beatles opened our minds and hearts but Elvis opened our legs, of course the pill helped.”

 

© Harvey Kubernik, 2022

 

 

In 2008 Harvey Kubernik penned the liner notes to Elvis Presley the ’68 Comeback Special box set 40th anniversary edition. He is also an interview subject on the 40th anniversary deluxe edition Jailhouse Rock DVD where he comments on Presley’s singing, dancing and choreography for the “Jailhouse Rock” number captured on screen.

Kubernik is the author of 20 books, including Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows published in 2014 and Neil Young Heart of Gold during 2015. Kubernik also authored 2009’s Canyon Of Dreams: The Magic And The Music Of Laurel Canyon and 2014’s Turn Up The Radio! Rock, Pop and Roll In Los Angeles 1956-1972. Sterling/Barnes and Noble in 2018 published Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik’s The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz. In 2021 the duo wrote Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child for Sterling/Barnes and Noble. Otherworld Cottage Industries in 2020 published Harvey’s book, Docs That Rock, Music That Matters. Kubernik’s writings are in several book anthologies, including, The Rolling Stone Book Of The Beats and Drinking With Bukowski. Harvey wrote the liner note booklets to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, The Essential Carole King, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, the Ramones’ End of the Century and Big Brother & the Holding Company Captured Live at The Monterey International Pop Festival.