It was just the opening Tom Parker had been looking for.
3
May 10–13
Ocala, Orlando, Jacksonville
Long before Elvis Presley stormed the peninsula, the west coast of Florida was Tom Parker country. A Dutchman and illegal alien whose real name was Andreas van Kuijk, Parker was prematurely bald, loud, and given to chomping on Havana cigars. Often wearing a fedora, he radiated a take-charge, in-your-face attitude that would seem to reflect his nickname, “Colonel” Tom Parker. But like much of Parker’s background, this was a ruse, a smokescreen, an honorary title bestowed upon him by a crony in Louisiana, not an actual rank earned through service to country. As was the case in other aspects of Tom Parker’s public biography, when the layers were peeled back, reality was far different.
Parker was drummed out of the U.S. Army as a young enlisted man, a drama that played out in Florida long before he started promoting his newest rising star and potential cash cow. Then he started to rebuild his life in the Sunshine State, at first barely surviving in a hand-to-mouth existence as a “carny”—promoting carnival acts and animal shows. Parker would do anything to separate spectators from their money; Tampa police once had to put a stop to a scheme where Parker buried a pony up to its knees and then charged customers a dime to view “the world’s smallest pony.”
In 1940 Parker landed employment as a field agent for the Hillsborough County Humane Society. The job provided a steady paycheck and a rent-free second-floor apartment in the Humane Society’s surprisingly well-appointed, Spanish-accented headquarters at 3607 North Armenia Avenue in West Tampa.
Parker cared for homeless animals, raising money and the Humane Society’s profile in the community; a job he pursued with a carny’s sense of showmanship and zeal. One of his most famous moneymaking schemes involved the establishment of Tampa’s first pet cemetery on the Humane Society’s grounds; a move that proved prescient, considering how commonplace such memorials are now.
Around 1935 Parker married Marie Mott, who had a young son from a previous marriage. Throughout a fifty-year marriage that included frequent lengthy separations, Parker and his wife remained devoted to each other. In the early days Marie helped Parker manage the animals and the shelter’s books. Long before he masqueraded as “Colonel” Tom Parker, he told volunteers at the humane society to refer to him as “Doctor.” During the holidays Parker reveled in playing the role of Santa Claus for Tampa-area schoolchildren if it meant he could be the center of attention.
Though he had multiple chances to become a United States citizen with little or no penalty, Parker never did so. That decision would have a dramatic effect on Elvis Presley’s career. What remained certain about Tom Parker’s character was his lust for money and games of chance, his iron will to the point of being a bully, a tin ear for music, a love of cigars, and his indomitable work ethic. Tom Parker was a force of nature.
His first venture in concert promotion came during World War II. As a vehicle to raise money for the Humane Society and the war effort, Parker and two partners rented out the Homer Hesterly Armory, the same venue into which he would see to it that Presley was booked again and again.
Fort Myers Auditorium, 1958. Photo by Johnson, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/75517.
Parker may not have known music, but instinctively he knew the Grand Ole Opry stars’ appeal to central Florida’s working class. In a shrewd move he managed to get a local grocery chain to sell tickets discounted with a newspaper coupon. Fans turned out in large numbers for the show featuring Grand Ole Opry host Roy Acuff and the college-educated actress Minnie Pearl, who played the role of corn pone hostess. After that initial show’s success, Parker equated concert promotion with dollar signs; this was the perfect vehicle for his endless ambition and for a carnival man’s mastery of manipulation. Parker had found his calling.
Holmes Davis, a teenage usher at the Peabody Auditorium who spoke with Elvis Presley after his first-ever Florida performance. Courtesy of Holmes Davis.
By the time “the kid” Presley came to his attention, Parker had already parlayed concert promotion and artist management into his ticket out of Florida. By 1955 he had moved to Nashville, and he managed country crooner Eddy Arnold until the singer felt Parker was being dishonest and fired him. Despite their parting of the ways, Arnold never lost his respect for Parker’s business acumen: “He was a ball of fire, he worked hard, he got up early, and he was a nondrinker,” Arnold reflected. “He was good with the record company and he was good with the personal appearances. He was absolutely dedicated to the personality that he represented.”
By May 1955 Memphis disc jockey Bob Neal had taken over management of Presley from Scotty Moore. Neal brought in Parker, then an agent for Hank Snow Attractions, because of Parker’s ability to get Presley on out-of-state package tours like his initial foray through Florida. It was Parker who enlisted Mae Axton to promote Presley’s first Florida tour; that alone turned out to be a monumental development in Presley’s rise to stardom. After watching from the shadows Presley’s effect on audiences, Parker had designs on taking over the young entertainer’s entire career, leaving small-timers like Neal and Moore behind.
Parker put his boundless energy to work as Presley’s advance man. That meant getting into town early enough to schmooze with the people promoting the upcoming show. On May 10 Parker asked Jim Kirk, a legend in Ocala broadcasting and politics who at the time was just starting out as general manager of the town’s first country radio station WMOP, to meet him after lunch at a restaurant on the town square.
“He was one of the rarest human beings I have ever met,” said the affable Kirk, recalling the forcefulness of Parker’s personality. “He assumed everyone thought as he did and if not you were wrong so let’s get on with it.”
As the two began discussing his new star, Parker checked his watch and told Kirk, “Just sit there. I want you to see him come into town.” Kirk wondered how Parker knew precisely when that was going to happen.
In no time, Kirk said, “This pink Cadillac comes down the square, down the street and this young man with slicked back hair is driving, a good lookin’ lady beside him and he drives by and he waves.” Dumbstruck, Kirk asked Parker how he knew exactly when Presley was going to show up. Parker, basking in the glory of his maneuver, told the inquiring young radio man, “I told him.” At times, Elvis Presley was a puppet on a string to Parker’s gamesmanship, but Ocala was another small step toward stardom.
The Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach, where Elvis Presley performed his first Florida concert. Photo by author.
The author with Jim Kirk at the Southeastern Pavilion in Ocala, where Kirk booked Elvis Presley for his first Florida headlining performance. Courtesy of Marc Rice and the author.
Jim Kirk, who gave Elvis Presley his first opportunity to headline in Florida. Courtesy of Marc Rice and the author.
That episode convinced Kirk of the young singer’s star power and the authority his promoter wielded: “He choreographed how the kid was coming into town. It tickled me a lot,” Kirk said.
Prior to that Parker had been calling Kirk, urging him to abandon the advertised line-up WMOP had put together for that night at the Southeastern Pavilion, a sprawling open-air venue with grandstand seating for 2,500 and a red clay floor used for rodeos and livestock showings. Parker wanted Presley as the headliner and didn’t care if the more established country stars—whom the majority of the crowd had bought tickets to see—performed at all. “I want to center it all on him,” Parker insisted. “He can carry the whole show.” There were stories of Parker offering the other musicians extra pay if they would step aside and let his young protégé close the show.
“He’s not exactly country music,” Kirk hesitated, not sold on the idea of an unknown kid closing a show full of established stars like Hank Snow, Faron Young, and Slim Whitman. This was still almost a year before Presley had any of his best-known hits and
appearances on national television. Parker would not let up: “I guarantee he won’t hurt it, or I’ll make up the difference.”
In making his decision, Kirk had more to go on than just the bombastic Parker’s assurances and gut instincts. WMOP’s best-known disc jockey Ward Goodrich, who went by the name Nervous Ned Needham, was also an early fan of Presley and a well-known music promoter.
At barely five feet tall, Needham wore a cowboy hat and bright yellow boots and played all kinds of music: country, gospel, and ethnic. Like Brad Lacey in Fort Myers, Needham played Presley’s earliest singles and helped build a buzz with his audience over Presley’s high-energy live shows. “This kid Elvis Presley is going somewhere,” Needham told his listeners. “He’s going to be big time, mark my words.” Unlike Parker, Needham had an ear and eye for upcoming talent and a significant background, having seen other stars on the rise.
Needham lived the typical journeyman radio man’s life. In 1951, as an all-night country disc jockey in New Orleans, he booked and met another young star about to make history—Hank Williams, whom he described as “a mournful soul.” Williams’s career trajectory resembled Presley’s and came crashing down even sooner. His death nine months shy of his thirtieth birthday was brought on by alcoholism.
“Ned was a marvel at all kinds of music and told me all about Elvis,” Kirk recalled. But there was still a significant risk of offending the other performers and the audience, many of whom wanted to see a traditional, wholesome country concert. Though all of the posters promoting that night’s show to this day still list Presley far below Hank Snow, Faron Young, and Slim Whitman, Kirk decided to make Presley the night’s headliner. He acknowledged that his on-air announcer Ned Needham wasn’t the only one nervous that night: “I worried a lot about the show.”
It was all set. Elvis Presley would perform his first headlining Florida concert in a back country livestock pen with a flatbed trailer as his stage. If anything went wrong or the crowd got mad and wanted their money back, Jim Kirk would become the focal point of their ire, and he knew it. The stakes were high.
According to Needham, other stars from the Hank Snow jamboree, tired of being upstaged by Presley, weren’t all that upset to do one or two songs and exit. It was almost like having the night off and still getting paid. But the audience didn’t see it that way. Kirk said some fans, upset at not hearing many of the hit songs they wanted, “were cussing.” As the time grew nearer for Presley to perform, one thought kept repeating in Kirk’s mind, “What are we building up to? Are they going to buy it or are they going to kill me?”
At 9:30 Presley windmilled onto the stage in that red-sequined jacket with black lapels, white shirt, and black pants, belting out his most famous song to date, “That’s All Right.” Sensing the gravity of headlining, Scotty Moore and Bill Black juiced up their accompaniment of the frenetic young performer. “He was unbelievable,” said Needham, who had seen the best many other big-time music stars had to offer.
Generations later, sitting in the exhibition hall where it all happened, Jim Kirk agreed: “It was quiet for a minute, then all hell broke loose.”
“He was jumping up and down like a Mexican jumping bean. He was buzzin’,” recalled one of the legion of teenagers in the audience, Nita Billera. Sixteen-year-old Dale Summers had crawled under the fence, his main objective to meet girls. He had neither seen nor heard of Presley: “We were impressed by the wildly gyrating, new young singer who broke three guitar strings during one number and ended up playing a guitar belonging to Hank Snow before it was over.” Teen girls started coming out of the stands, preferring to take a seat in front of the stage on that red clay floor. It could have been made of hot coals; nothing would keep them away.
“We just lost control of the crowd,” Kirk remembered. Even more startling was how Presley, the mild-mannered kid who drove into town so calmly, could have such a commanding stage presence, such an alter ego. “I was looking at someone who transformed himself when he got on stage with a guitar in hand,” Kirk marveled.
Kirk said the other stars who’d taken a back seat to Presley for the night looked on trying to comprehend just what they were seeing. When it was all over Presley remained at his makeshift dressing room in the cattle pens, signing autographs and mixing with the few new fans who sought him out. According to local lore, one schoolgirl who felt sorry for Presley kept going back and asking him to sign the same piece of notebook paper.
Today when we look at vintage film footage of Presley gyrating his way across some early southern stages, we’re watching it through blinders, taking in what amounts to a black and white negative of someone who burst into the milieu so full of life, in such vivid color. That is the advantage those early fans hold over us all. Years before the Beatles, love-ins, the Laugh-In TV show, flower children, social media, and smart phones that bring all that is unknown to within a simple few key strokes, Presley’s young audiences witnessed fullon the explosive, immediate impact of his talent when it was all still fresh and new. This was merely the first inkling of Presleymania in Florida.
The 25- to 30-minute performance also made a negative impression on many older people in the audience. Security guard Tom High told his daughter, “The man should be ashamed of himself the way he shakes his hips and moves his body.” Others accused Kirk of just trying to make a buck. “The fella who managed the pavilion thought it was the nastiest thing he’d ever seen,” said Kirk. “He never did forgive us for bringing something like that in.”
The next day Presley was all anybody wanted to talk about in the local high schools. When the night’s receipts were counted, it was the most successful show WMOP staged at the pavilion. Kirk’s assistant handed Parker his share; the energetic promoter’s instincts had paid off. From that night, Kirk said he was forever on Presley’s boat. His take on Parker remained equally indelible: “He was the damnedest salesman I’ve ever seen,” Kirk declared. “I thought about him a number of times when we had trouble with the Russians, we should have sent him over.”
Kirk, the man to bring the first country music radio station to Ocala, had unwittingly unleashed rock and roll there too, with all its excitement and controversy, in one explosive and memorable performance.
Elvis, Scotty, and Bill moved on to Orlando, the next stop in what had already been a remarkable week in Florida. Compared to some of the long drives between one-night gigs, the eighty miles between Ocala and Orlando meant an easy trip down US 441. With plentiful visual ephemera like the faded glory of vintage motels and lakeside resorts, it is apt to compare the old mother road, also known as the Orange Blossom Trail, to America’s far larger bygone byway Route 66, now enjoying a tourism revival. In 1955 both were in their heyday.
Elvis, Scotty, and Bill were scheduled for two evening shows at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Orlando, known by locals as “Muni-Aud.” As an added bonus, having no matinee show meant the boys would have some actual downtime. Presley decided to take a trip out to the Butler chain of lakes in southwest Orange County, where a family of country music enthusiasts had invited artists on the Hank Snow tour out for some relaxation and home cooking.
Today the Butler chain is home to some of the most opulent communities in central Florida. Celebrity athletes, actors, and assorted well-to-do families enjoy picturesque lakeside living in high-priced, gated golf communities. In 1955 the area was considered out in the country; more of a camp with weekend homes you could buy cheaply, accessible strictly by dirt roads.
Local resident Larry Grimes recalled the pink Cadillac he saw in the driveway at 5405 West Lake Butler Drive. “I didn’t really know who the guy was,” said Grimes. “Just a young musician visiting the folks two doors down.” When the young man came over and asked, “Could you teach me how to water-ski?” Grimes was happy to oblige.
For decades Grimes’s aunts argued over which one of them drove the speed boat towing the future king of rock and roll. On May 11, 1955, Presley could mix with everyday people and enjoy simple ple
asures without worry of being swarmed. One of the most endearing aspects of Presley’s earliest days barnstorming Florida was his open accessibility to fans. He had yet to start living within the cloistered walls of fame.
In short order Presley was able to get up on water-skis and circle the cove on Lake Butler. Grimes said, “He seemed to enjoy it, but didn’t say a whole lot.” After a couple of trips around the lake Presley swam back to shore in a motion Grimes found “awkward.” Almost as soon as the young man came over, he thanked Grimes and headed back to the neighboring lake house.
It wasn’t until later that Grimes and his family found out who the young musician was. “To me, he was just another hillbilly singer,” Grimes said, chuckling at the notion that at one time, Presley really was nobody. Helping him water-ski was nothing more than a neighborly gesture of friendship to a stranger out in the country.
That evening Presley pulled up behind Orlando’s Municipal Auditorium. He and the boys were once again relegated to warm-up status, back down from the headlining heights of the previous night in Ocala. With little time until he was due to go on, Presley breezed his way toward the back door when a young girl stopped him. It was Doris Tharp-Gurley, the Daytona Beach teenager who had seen him live from a distance earlier that week. There were no security guards, nor massive tour buses, and no entourage. All Gurley had to do to achieve her dream of meeting Presley was wait near the back door.
Elvis Ignited Page 3