Archive Review: Peter Guralnick's Careless Love (1999)

Subtitled “The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley,” Careless Love is Peter Guralnick's second book on the great American icon, a sequel of sorts to the writer's critically-acclaimed Last Train To Memphis. Picking up where his first book left off, Guralnick chronicles the life of Elvis from his induction into the Army in 1958 through his death almost twenty years later.

Careless Love, by any accounts, is an exhaustive work, with some six hundred and fifty pages of story, over six hundred footnotes and more than a dozen pages of bibliography. For his work on both books, Guralnick is to be envied as a scholar and a journalist. Created from hundreds of personal interviews, magazine articles, and books, Careless Love will leave you knowing more about the rise and fall of Elvis than you ever cared to know.

Nonetheless, it's a story worth telling. Elvis was the first true rock star, and if his excesses and undignified death have been documented extensively elsewhere, they've not been done to this extent or provided such context. Guralnick's Elvis is a troubled man, an artist whose startling rise to fame only created its own problems. Elvis had his eccentricities, to be sure – his fondness for underage girls, for instance, is knowledge to even the most casual Elvis fan, but Guralnick puts it in perspective, with Elvis' desire for innocence and purity represented by these teenage paramours. Elvis was also a responsible man, a corporate kingpin with dozens of relatives and employees on the payroll.

Most of all, Guralnick's Elvis was an immature man, burdened with unprecedented fame and the fortune to indulge his fantasies. Self-centered to a fault, Elvis always had to be the center of attention and affection, and would often play friends, relatives and employees off one another, manipulating them for his own purposes and enjoyment. Given the sordid debauchery of today's standard rock star, Elvis was a choirboy. He always had his girlfriends, often times carrying on relationships with more than one woman (or girl) at a time.

He was sincerely against drugs, although his own abuse of various pharmaceutical substances escaped him. He and his posse often got rowdy and tore up hotels and such, and, at times, would rough up overzealous hangers-on. But, in his heart Elvis was a good-natured, conservative, God-fearing mama's boy from deep in the heart of Dixie. All else aside, this is how Elvis pictured himself, and who are we to argue with it?

Guralnick goes into great depth in Careless Love on the relationship between Elvis and Col. Tom Parker, his manager and promoter and, perhaps, the real creator of the myth that was Elvis. It's interesting to read of the love/hate relationship between Elvis and the older Parker, the lengths to which Parker would go to ensure “his boy's” success and loyalty. The details of Elvis' relationship with Priscilla are also laid bare, from his earliest infatuation with a teenage girl through their stormy marriage and eventual divorce.

One important myth, that of Elvis' racism, is touched upon only marginally by Guralnick, mostly in tales of Elvis' meetings with various R & B artists. From my reading of Careless Love, it doesn't seem to me that Elvis Presley was more or less bigoted than any other Southern white male of the era. Often accused of “ripping off” black artists, Elvis has a sincere love for many blues, gospel, and R & B songs and artists and, indeed, helped the careers of many of the black artists he respected.

Another myth shattered by Guralnick is that of the “evil” Doctor Nick. A Memphis physician, who ended up on Elvis' payroll, Dr. George Nichopoulos is usually made the villain of the Elvis story. Guralnick gets to the heart of the matter, which is that Dr. Nick, as he was known, truly cared for Elvis. Realizing that he couldn't control his famous patient – much less oversee his actions twenty-four hours a day – instead Dr. Nick did his best to try and lessen the impact of various drugs on Elvis' system and keep the star alive, if not healthy. There were plenty of other unscrupulous physicians and pharmacists who were ready and willing to provide whatever pills and powders that Elvis wanted, and Dr. Nick fought a valiant battle to try and keep Elvis from killing himself. He failed in the end and, with Elvis' death, became the scapegoat for Presley's self-destructive behavior.

At its core, Careless Love is the story of a man overwhelmed by his fame and the expectations that accompanied it. Like many artists that would follow, Elvis fell prey to celebrity and its requirements. An uncertain man, Elvis was never quite sure that he was good enough, that he could juggle performing and recording and movies and keep the fan's adoration that he craved. Only in the music did Elvis find release, and in the end even it couldn't save him. It's the music that Elvis created, however, that built and continuesth and legacy that is Elvis Presley. (Little, Brown 1999)

Buy the book from Amazon.com: Peter Guralnick's Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley

Little Richard – The Best of the Specialty & Vee-Jay Years

Little Richard – The Best of the Specialty & Vee-Jay YearsOne just can’t overestimate the importance and influence that Mr. Richard Penniman – better known as “Little Richard” – had on the evolution of rock music. Along with Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, Little Richard formed the Holy Trinity of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, influencing a generation of rockers and soul shouters to follow, from the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Elton John to James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Prince, among many others. Little Richard’s string of hits, classic songs like “Long Tall Sally,” “Lucille,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” and “Tutti Frutti,” have long been considered standards of rock ‘n’ roll.

Little Richard’s flamboyant and incendiary mix of New Orleans boogie-woogie, R&B, and gospel music was revolutionary in the mid-to-late 1950s, and throughout a lengthy career that continues to this day, Little Richard’s most groundbreaking work was created during his tenure with the Specialty Records and Vee-Jay Records labels.

On June 2nd, 2015 Specialty Records, which is now a division of the Concord Music Group, will release Little Richard’s Directly From My Heart: The Best of the Specialty & Vee-Jay Years, a three-CD box set featuring 64 songs that document the singer and pianist’s gravy years with the two labels, circa 1956 to 1965. Directly From My Heart includes Little Richard’s classic hits from the era, single B-sides, and several rarities as well as a 30+ page illustrated booklet with seldom-seen photos and brand new liner notes by singer/songwriter and music historian Billy Vera.

After short-lived stints with RCA Victor and Don Robey’s Peacock Records, Little Richard was signed by Art Rupe’s Specialty Records label in 1955. Rupe sent Richard to New Orleans to record with legendary producer Cosimo Matassa and an all-star band of Crescent City talents like pianist Huey Smith, guitarist Justin Adams, bassist Frank Fields, and drummer Earl Palmer. After a bumpy start, the sessions started rockin’ and the results were pure magic; Little Richard enjoyed a run of success with Specialty, placing fourteen songs in the R&B Top Ten between 1955 and ’57, at which time he temporarily retired from rock ‘n’ roll to pursue the ministry.

Upon returning to secular music in 1964, Little Richard signed with Vee-Jay Records, where he spent a year, recording classic material like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” and “Money Honey,” which were released on the Little Richard Is Back album. The Upsetters, Richard’s touring band at the time, included a young hot-shot guitarist who would later find his own stardom as Jimi Hendrix. But during Richard’s hiatus, pop and rock music had evolved, and British Invasion bands that he’d influenced, as well as the Motown sound, dominated the charts.

Directly From My Heart: The Best of the Specialty & Vee-Jay Years includes all of the above-listed songs, and many more, the three discs representing a particularly inspired and prolific period of Little Richard’s career that would lead to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a well-deserved status as a legendary artist.