Synopsis
This memoir of life with The King offers an insider's perspective on the devlepment of rock and roll. Guitarist Scotty Moore's association with Elvis dates back to when he was a member of the Blue Moon Boys, the band that Elvis toured with for three years before hitting the big time. Moore went on to play on many of Elvis's legendary early recordings. In the prologue, Keith Richards emphatically sings Moore's praises.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-07-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 271 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 20.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
When Elvis Presley first showed up at Sam Phillips's Memphis-based Sun Records studio, he was a shy teenager in search of a sound. At first, Sam ignored him, but the teen was persistent, so Sam asked another musician, a guitarist who worked with a local band called the Starlite Wranglers, to get in touch with Elvis. The name of that guitarist was Scotty Moore. After days of desperate attempts, they were ending one session when they began horsing around with a souped-up version of an old blues number, "That's All Right, Mama". Sam Phillips stuck his head out of the control room window and said "What are ya'll doin'?" "Just foolin' around", Scotty replied. "Well, keep it up", Sam replied, and promptly recorded what turned out to be Elvis's first single - and the defining record of his early style. That record launched a whirlwind of touring, radio appearances, and Elvis's first break into Hollywood. Scotty and Bill were there all the way - in fact, they were billed as a group, the Blue Moon Boys. It was only after "Colonel" Tom Parker came on the scene, snatching up Elvis's contract from a local promoter, that the band was relegated to second place and eventually pushed out of Elvis's inner circle. For Scotty, who had been so close to the young singer, losing touch with him was hard. He managed to carve out a place for himself in the recording industry, primarily as an engineer and producer, although he continued to play on sessions for Elvis and others through the '60s, '70s and '80s. Although unhappy about his treatment by Colonel Parker, he has never before told the true story of how Elvis, he, and Bill created the original rock 'n' roll sound. With Bill Black and Elvis both dead, Scotty is the only remaining member of the original trio who can tell the real story of how Elvis transformed popular music - and how Scotty himself created the guitar sound that has become the prototype for all rock guitar that has followed.
Industry Reviews
"The sad trajectory of Elvis Presley's life is a familiar story, but this memoir does shed a little new light on the early years."
Kirkus Reviews (05/15/1997)
"If Elvis was the pelvis, then Moore and bassist Bill Black were his first great kick in the pants....Dickerson faithfully reproduces Moore's voice, which is modest, point-blank and disdainful of myth....Moore never gets too mushy about his famous friend."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Sarah Vowell (08/17/1997)
"Scotty Moore [was] the guitarist on those first amazing songs recorded at Sam Phillip's Sun Studios in Memphis. They started out as partners (with bassist Bill Black), but Elvis soon became the focus of the group, and Moore a $200-a-week employee. In the end, while Elvis made millions, Moore took home only a little more than $30,000....The one problem with the book, which is a valuable addition to the body of Elvisiana, is that Moore didn't want people to think that he'd really written it, and so the distancing third person makes this more of a sideman's story than it really was. The truth is that it was the synergy between Elvis, Moore and Black that made those recordings so incredible. And, though it's acknowledged too rarely, Moore's solos, particularly those on 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and 'Baby, Let's Play House'` are an important part of the foundation of rock guitar. This would be a better book if Moore had conveyed the excitement he surely must have felt that early morning in July 1954 when, after hours recording ballads that didn't quite work, Elvis began to play bluesman Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup's 'That's All Right, Mama' and he and Black fell in behind him."
Washington Post Book World - David Nicholson (08/17/1997)
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