Elvis Blog – Post #6

DATELINE: Amelia Island (near Jacksonville, Florida)
Remembering Wednesday 1 August 2012, 4:30 Am

ELVIS QUOTE:
“We were poor, man, poor…and we left for Memphis overnight.”

ELVIS TRIVIA:
Does the Sun Records Studio label depict a sunrise or a sunset?

ELVIS HISTORY:
Sunday 1 August 1954
Elvis gives a short interview on KWEX radio in West Memphis Arkansas. This large city, considered part of the Memphis metropolitan area, is located directly across the Mississippi from Memphis.

At that time, Elvis was still only a regional phenomenon. He was still working his regular job at Crown Electric and earned $42.51. Scotty Moore and Bill Black also continued their day jobs until about mid-October. Elvis will not receive a royalty check from Sun Records until November.

Elvis will not become a national star until he comes to Jacksonville, Florida and Judge Gooding catapults him into fame and the history books by saying, “Don’t move so much as a little finger.”

The photographers for “Life Magazine” snapping pictures of screaming girls, along with the local police lined up waiting to arrest Elvis, and Judge Gooding the audience (along with his daughters) made for an exciting night in Jacksonville.

AMELIA ISLAND, FLORIDA:
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Today, with the help of Steve Covey and Sherry Czerniejewski, I am going to publish Elvis Fans in the 21st Century

The book has been a long, long time coming. I had two offers to publish the book in past years, but the offers came with the same caveat—I had to write some really good dirt on Elvis for spice. Never would I publish anything about Elvis that didn’t stress how nice, and how religious, he was.

The cover of my book is a grainy, slightly-out-of-focus photograph of Elvis standing in a hotel doorway in Tampa when he came there for the first time. It was taken by a (then) thirteen-year-old Wanda Sprung with her Brownie Camera. She showed me the camera and the negative.

Her interview, videotaped by my daughter, Jayme Trolle, on 21 July 2012 in Tampa, is the last interview in the book.
The book is dedicated to Norma Mercedes Williams. Without her we couldn’t have written a book about Elvis—and to Sherry Czerniejewski and Steve Covey. Without my critique partners there would be no books at all from me.

TRIVIA ANSWER:
The rooster suggests it’s a sunrise.