JIMI AND ELVIS

Several biographies have told the story of Jimi attending an Elvis Presley concert at Sick's Stadium in Seattle 1 September 1957. This story probably originated from Jimi's brother Leon Hendrix (but I can't at the moment find a direct original verbatim quote attributed to any particular person) and some sources vary the story a bit by stating that Jimi couldn't actually afford a ticket and hence watched the concert from a field nearby with a view of the stadium.

There was a well know spot called "Tightwad Hill" 1 aka "Cheapskate Hill" located next to the stadium left field. This was the slope located between the stadium and a road and the four houses in the foreground in this picture:

sicks small
SICKS' STADIUM IN 1967
By Seattle Municipal Archives [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Scott Wyatt took great photos of Jimi on stage at Sicks' Stadium 26 July 1970, published on pauldorpat.com in 2021 (be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page). These offer a glimpse of Tightwad Hill with the audience watching the concert (and a security guard watching the audience) and one of the four houses in the above picture can be seen behind Jimi.

Pete Howard of PosterCentral.com kindly allowed me to use a picture of the Elvis concert poster:

Elvis Seattle 1957 poster
SICK`S STADIUM 1957 POSTER
Image courtesy of  PosterCentral.com

If you want to know more about the poster here`s Pete`s YouTube video on the subject:


THE CONCERT

The Elvis Presley concert took place at Sick's Stadium on Sunday 1 September 1957 at 8.30 p.m. Tickets cost 1.50$, 2.50$ and 3.50$,  16200 people 10 attended the concert. The first part of the show consisted of various support acts: "Before Elvis came on we were treated to a whole group of singers, dancers, comedians, jugglers, marimba players and orchestral numbers - all performed by those whom the management assured us were "personal friends of Elvis" (Do you suppose a Major Bowes unit ever got stranded in Tennessee?" 2 ("Major Bowes Amateur Hour" was an US talent show with radio programs and tours).

The first hour of support acts was followed by an intermission, then after 10 p.m. Elvis appeared with his band Scotty Moore (guitar), Bill Black (bass), D.J. Fontana (drums) and the Jordanaires (vocals). Two contemporary reviews of the show give a very good idea what the evening was like:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2 September 1957 http://blog.seattlepi.com
Seattle Daily Times, 2 September 1957 http://auction.graceland.com

There are no audio recordings of the concert but concert attendee Myrna Crafoot wrote down "Songs Elvis Sang In Person" in her diary. 9 The list may be incomplete or may contain errors and is out of sequence. Myrna apparently first wrote the songs down, then tried to give them sequence numbers so the list must have been made after the concert, but it does give us a good idea of what was performed. I'll list the songs here in the sequence that she numbered them:

1. Heartbreak Hotel
2. All Shook up
3. I Got a Woman
-   Mean Woman Blues (no sequence number noted, follows "I Got a Woman" in the listing)
4. That's When Your Heartaches Begin
5. I Was the One
6. Teddy Bear
7. Don't Be Cruel
-   Hound Dog (no sequence number noted, follows "Don't Be Cruel" in the listing, according to a concert reviews this was the last song performed)
8. Love Me
9. Fools Hall of Fame (written down in the listing as "New Song" followed by a some text that has been crossed over and "Fools Hall of Fame" written above it)
10. Blue Suede Shoes
11. Blueberry Hill

"Fools Hall of Fame" was rarely performed by Elvis and never (as far as currently known) recorded by him. Even though the back of the stage was covered with a huge "Jailhouse Rock" -banner advertising his upcoming movie & single Elvis apparently didn't sing the song as no mention is made of it in the diary or the concert reviews.


THE ELVIS DRAWING

A picture attributed to Jimi of Elvis playing guitar and surrounded by titles of well known songs of his has been published in several books and shown at various exhibitions, with some Googling you can find relatively good photos of it on the internet.

This drawing is often said to have been made by Jimi after attending the Elvis concert in Seattle but is this really true and is there any evidence to back this story up?
Can it be proven that the drawing was made in 1957, let alone after the concert, and was Jimi the author?

Let's start with dating the drawing. Pretty much the only way to do this is to check the various song titles written on it so I cross referenced the release dates and original artists (not all of the tracks were recorded by Elvis).


THE SONGS

Original song titles are listed first followed by the title(s) as written on the drawing in parentheses (some songs appear multiple times in the drawing with variations in the spelling). The original release dates for the Elvis recordings (on 45, EP or LP) of these tracks have been taken from the liner notes for "The Complete 50`s Masters" box set.

Playing For Keeps (I'm Playing for keeps) 01/57

Honey Don't (Honey Don't) - not recorded by Elvis, released by Carl Perkins on a Sun 45 in 12/55

Hound Dog (Hound Dog, Hound Dog) 07/56

I Need Your Lovin` (I need your lovin`, I need your Love)
The track listed on the drawing as "I need your lovin`" and "I need your Love" is a bit problematic. Elvis released only one track in the 50s that (almost) fits the title on the drawing and that's "I Need Your Love Tonight" released 03/59. However, all other tracks listed in the drawing were released in 1957 or earlier and the two versions of this song don't quite match the title of the Elvis track (or the lyrics as the word "tonight" is very clearly mentioned several times in the lyrics) whereas other songs listed in the drawing have quite accurate titles.

It seems unlikely that the songs listed on the drawing would include one solitary song from 1959 and none from 1958 if the drawing was made in 1959. Jimi would have been 16 or 17 at the time, that a teen of that age would only have named one hit song from the preceding two years seems very unlikely.

There was however a song released in 1957 that does match both the title and the time frame, "I Need Your Lovin` " by Conway Twitty released on a Mercury 45 in 03/57.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9dQgjeQ8jI

The vocal delivery on the track by Conway Twitty is also very much reminiscent of Elvis and the drawing does include  tracks by Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent, not exclusively Elvis. It of course can't be confirmed that this is the correct track but I believe it's a very strong contender.

After I first published this page Stephen Galvin emailed me with the following comment: "it should be noted that Elvis’ version of  “That’s All Right” includes the line “I need your lovin’ “ toward the end of the song, and it may have received modest radio play as the single was repressed and made available by RCA after they bought out Elvis’ contract from Sun late 1955". 12

Too Much (Too Much) 01/57

Love Me Tender (love me Tender, love me tender, Love me Tender) 09/56

Blue Suede Shoes (Blue Suede shoes, Blue Suedes Shoes) 08/56

My Baby Left Me (my Baby Left me, My baby left me) 05/56

Don't Be Cruel (Dont be Cruel, Don't be Cruel, Don't be Cruel) 07/56

Be-Bop-A-Lula (Be Bop -A Lul) - not recorded by Elvis, released by Gene Vincent on a Capitol 45 in 05/56

Rip It Up (Rip it up) 10/56

Paralyzed (Parilized, Parilized) 10/56

I Want You, I Need You, I Love You (I want you I need you I love you) 05/56

Heartbreak Hotel (Heart Break Hotel) 01/56

You`re A Heartbreaker (Heart breaker) 12/55

(There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me) (Peace in the Vally) 04/57


So taking the release dates of all of the songs listed into consideration it seems that the drawing probably WAS made in 1957 as four of the tracks were released that year and all of the others predate 1957 (discounting the uncertainty about the artist/date of "I Need Your Lovin` "). Also, all of the 1957 songs were released before the 1 September Seattle Elvis appearance so it is entirely possible that the drawing was made after the concert.


DRAWING DETAILS

The drawing pretty accurately pictures a guitar used by Elvis in 1957, nicely captured in this shot:

Elvis Presley in 1957
ELVIS IN OTTAWA, CANADA 3 APRIL 1957
Courtesy of BytownMuseum https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

and also clearly visible on stage at the Seattle concert
http://www.scottymoore.net/seattle57.html

Though of course anyone watching the concert from "Tightwad Hill" couldn't have seen any details of the instruments being played and pictures of Elvis were easily obtainable so it's not proof of the author actually attending the concert - but certainly an indication that he or she had paid close attention to the guitar. Note also that in the drawing the text "Elvis" is not located at the top of the body of the guitar but at the bottom, either the picture was drawn from memory and the text misplaced or the text was moved to the bottom so that it can be seen, otherwise Elvis's arm would have obscured it in the drawing.

So did Jimi actually make the drawing and write the song titles on it? For the drawing itself it's impossible to tell, we don't have any reliable way of comparing it to Jimi's other drawings. But we can compare the handwriting on the drawing to later examples and the results are quite interesting.

I'm by no means an expert or even a novice in the field but it looks to me that at least 3 different persons wrote the song titles:

"Too Much"
The title "Too Much" (bottom left in the picture) can be compared to a later example of Jimi's handwriting, the exact same phrase appears in the lyrics for "Belly Button Window" and it's a very close match (taking in consideration that some 12 years separate the two pieces of paper from each other if indeed both were written by Jimi). In the Elvis drawing "Too Much" appears for a 2nd time though (top right in the picture) and this title does not resemble to other one very much at all and might therefore have been written by a different person than the first example. In conclusion, I do believe the "Too Much" located at bottom left in the picture was written by Jimi.

"Parilized"
The title "Parilized" appears twice in the drawing and again the two versions would seem to have been written by two different persons. Pretty much all of the letters in the two titles have been drawn in a different way when compared to each other, especially clear with the letter "z". Neither resembles Jimi's handwriting so by now I'd say at least two persons in addition to Jimi were writing down the song titles.

"Peace in the Vally"
Note the misspelling of  "Vally"  for "Valley," Jimi's handwritten lyrics for "Valleys Of Neptune" dated 7 June 1969 have the same spelling mistake with the song title misspelled "Vallys Of Neptune," . Also, when you compare the two written "Vallys," the 1957 and the 1969 version, next to each other they are in my eyes a perfect match and very likely both the handwriting of the same person, Jimi.


THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW

Elvis made his third appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on the 6th of January 1957. Though Jimi's father Al had a record collection there's nothing to suggest Jimi ever had money to buy records when he was young so he most likely would have heard Elvis on the radio and TV. We do not know if he watched this particular broadcast but it's highly likely that he or his friends did.

Elvis performed the following seven songs on the show:

Hound Dog
Love Me Tender
Heartbreak Hotel
Don't Be Cruel
Too Much
When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
(There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)

Very interestingly of these seven songs six are listed in the drawing, the only one missing is "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again". Elvis also during the show played the same acoustic guitar with the "Elvis" engraving that is pictured in the drawing. None of this is conclusive proof that the drawing would have been made based on this TV broadcast but  it does suggest there's a strong possibility that the drawing was done in early 1957 sometime after the Ed Sullivan Show appearance. Certainly it's much more probable that the drawing was inspired by the Ed Sullivan Show than the Seattle concert as only four of the songs listed in the drawing were performed at the 1957 Elvis Seattle show. That's 4 out of 13 songs for the concert and 6 out of 7 songs for the TV show that appear in the drawing.

So could the date of the drawing be January 1957? All of the release dates of the various songs would fit this theory except for two:

"(There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)" - only released by Elvis in April 1957 but as it was performed during the Ed Sullivan Show there's no conflict with a January 1957 date for the drawing

"I Need Your Lovin`" - I theorized that this title probably refers to a track released by Conway Twitty in March 1957. It's quite interesting that this song is again problematic and might be a hint that my theory is wrong and the song listed in the drawing is not the Conway Twitty track after all. Then again as the drawing features some titles twice and in different handwriting styles and done with different pens the titles might have been added over a period of time, there's no reason that the drawing should have been worked on during one date only. So January 1957 is a possible date but some titles could have been added later or the whole drawing might have been made in or after March 1957. It does however look more likely that the picture was made before the Seattle Elvis concert, not after it.

The audio from the 6 January 1957 broadcast has been released on the 2 cd set "Elvis On Television" (Memphis Recording Service MRS10056060) and the official Ed Sullivan Show YouTube-channel has all of the performances in excellent (upscaled) HD quality:

"Hound Dog / Love Me Tender / Heartbreak Hotel":




"Don't Be Cruel":



"Too Much":




"When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again":



"(There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)":




LEON HENDRIX

A had a chance to show Leon Hendrix a copy of the Elvis drawing in person in September 2016 11 and before I could even ask him about it he said that he did the drawing, not Jimi. According to Leon Jimi was much better in drawing than him and the Elvis picture, being a bit crude, is clearly Leon's handiwork, not Jimi's.


WHO MADE THE DRAWING?

Conclusions? Leon Hendrix makes a good case about it being him who made the drawing but it all took place more than 60 years ago. Al Hendrix whose collection the picture came from apparently said it was done by Jimi (though I haven't got a direct quote for that ) so we have two conflicting stories from people who were both there.  Leon was born 13 January 1948 and Jimi 27 November 1942, thus in early 1957 Leon was 9 and Jimi 14 years old. The drawing does look a bit primitive and one might expect that a 14 year old Jimi would have done a better job of it. Then again realistic drawing wasn't something that Jimi ever really did, even later in life. The attention paid to the guitar suggests that the author was very interested in the instrument, could of course have been someone else as well other than Jimi but there isn't any proof for that either.

I believe that Jimi definitely did write down some of the titles but that at least two other persons participated in the making of the picture as a whole. Not hard to imagine at all, a group of children spending time together, one or more make the drawing, all children add song titles to it together. Leon Hendrix is of course an obvious candidate to have participated but I believe that at least one additional person took part in the making of the picture. Based on the evidence that we currently have the drawing could have been done by Leon but as some of the handwriting is Jimi's and as the drawing has handwriting by at least three different persons on it there must have been at least one more unknown author.

So I believe that Jimi was involved in the making of the drawing, exactly which parts were his contribution cannot be confirmed but it isn't that important either. Regardless of who may have been involved in addition to Jimi the drawing very well illustrates the impact that Elvis had on Jimi and his whole generation.

I would very much like to hear from any handwriting experts, how many different people do you believe were involved in the writing of the song titles? If you can help out please email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD'S FAIR
An Elvis film, "It Happened At The World's Fair", released in April 1963, 13 was set at the 1962 World's Fair (officially known as "Century 21 Exposition", 21 April 1962 - 21 October 1962) in Seattle. Of course not all of the scenes were actually filmed on location but parts of the movie were shot in Seattle between 5 September 1962 - 15 September 1962. Jimi had left Seattle in 1961 when he joined the army so it's unlikely that he saw any of the filming but he couldn't have missed the news of Elvis shooting a movie in his home town.

The World`s Fair location is really used just as a sales gimmick in the movie, it plays no real part in the story. Elvis visits the actual fair a few times, rides the monorail, visits the Space Needle and admires the General Motors Firebird III "space-age car". Most of the rest of the movie is also set in Seattle but filmed on a studio set, the World`s Fair -theme is kept up by the use of posters, Century 21 -logos and a Space Needle cigarette lighter & statues.

it happened at the worlds fair dvd
IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD`S FAIR - 2004 DVD RELEASE

So, there isn`t an actual direct Jimi connection here but you do get to see some authentic 1962 Seattle footage. For more information on the filming read this blog.


ONE TRACK HEART

"Suey" by Jayne Mansfield seems to be a close relative of "One Track Heart" by Elvis Presley. Both songs are largely based on a distinctive bass figure which kicks the songs off and then features prominently throughout. The bass figure in the Elvis song has additional notes compared to the Jayne Mansfield song (and is also played at a faster tempo), but the two bass parts are very similar to each other.

Jimi played guitar on the 1966 recording of "Suey" which wasn't released until 2018. The version with Jimi on guitar had the vocals by Jayne Mansfield edited in from an earlier version (recorded circa 1965 and released as a single in 1967) that did not involve Jimi. That story is quite complex, you can read about it here.

Here`s a comparison sample of the bass figures edited back to back:

1. One Track Heart
2. Suey (1967 single)
3. Suey (2018 single)


Here`s the full Elvis track:



And here`s a sample of the original c. 1966 recording of "Suey":



The important role that the bass parts play in both songs and the more than superficial similarity between the bass figures do make one think that the resemblance is down to more than just co-incidence.

It is of course always possible that both songs have a third unknown song as a common ancestor, but "Suey" seems to have surfaced roughly a year after "One Track Heart" was released which also suggests a direct connection between the two.

"One Track Heart" was composed by Bill Giant, Bernie Baum and Florence Kaye, "Suey" in turn is credited to Ed Chalpin and Doug "Jocko" Henderson, neither of whom is known as a composer (circa 1965 Chalpin was a record producer and Jocko a radio DJ).

Release dates
"One Track Heart" was included on the Elvis Presley lp Roustabout, the soundtrack to the movie of the same name.
The Roustabout lp was released on the 19th of October 1964 14 and the film opened in New York City on the 10th of November 1964 15.

According to the official Elvis website elvisthemusic.com "One Track Heart" was recorded on the 3rd of March 1964 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood and personnel was as follows (clearly based on general info about the sessions as opposed to this one particular song as four guitar players and two drummers are listed):

Guitar: Barney Kessel, Tiny Timbrell, Billy Strange, Scotty Moore
Bass: Bob Moore
Drums: D.J. Fontana, Buddy Harman
Piano: Floyd Cramer
Saxophone: Boots Randolph
Vocals: The Jordanaires

Here`s the copyright registry entry for "Suey" from the Library of Congress Copyright Office 16 :
SUEY; w & m Ed Chalpin & Doug Henderson. © PPX Pub., Inc.;
3Jan66; EU91916O.

A copyright for "Suey" was applied for sometime in late 1965, roughly a year after the release of the Roustabout -soundtrack lp leaving little doubt about which one came first.


THE ELVIS MEDLEY
During a marathon studio jam session on the 23th of January 1970 the Band Of Gypsys (with Buddy Miles on drums and Billy Cox on bass) recorded an apparently impromptu medley of Elvis songs. The jam included the following titles:

- Trouble (vocal snippet)
- Heartbreak Hotel
(vocal snippet)
- Blue Suede Shoes
(jam with vocals)
- Jailhouse Rock
(intro & improvisation)17

Though seemingly all improvised we don`t, however, know how much of the jam was actually planned in advance. Most of the Elvis-part of the recording was released on the Jimi Hendrix lp Loose Ends in 1973 though an extended version can easily be found in collector circles.

The recording starts with a lengthy segment of Jimi explaining to Buddy how he wants him to play the drums, "real old time". So though the jam was in all likelihood recorded just for fun Jimi still wanted the band to play in a very specific style, and may have been thinking about recording the songs in advance.

Loose Ends cd
LOOSE ENDS - 80S CD RELEASE

The jam MAY have been inspired by the Elvis tv special, "Singer Presents Elvis" (aka "´68 Comeback Special" which actually is not it`s original name). A soundtrack lp with a selection of songs from the show was released 22 November 1968 and the TV show first aired 3 December 1968.19 Why Jimi would have wanted to record an Elvis medley in January 1970 (apart from just having fun) is unknown but several things point to a possible "´68 Comeback Special" connection:

- the medley includes a snippet of "Heartbreak Hotel" with Jimi doing a piss-take of Elvis. The "comeback special" Elvis-version of the song features Elvis doing a piss-take of himself, these two are very similar. Heartbreak Hotel is of course a very famous Elvis song so Jimi choosing to sing this particular track is no surprise. But is it likely to be just a co-incidence that Jimi chose to do a piss-take of Elvis singing a song which Elvis also chose to do a piss-take of himself? Additionally, Jimi`s "vocals" are very similar to those of Elvis` - it sounds a lot like he`s directly imitating the Elvis` "comeback special" version of "Heartbreak Hotel".

Listen to short samples of this part from both versions:


- on the "comeback special" Elvis did "Trouble", "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Jailhouse Rock" all as parts of medleys - as did Jimi. It has to be said though that "Blue Suede Shoes", the main song in the Band Of Gypsys medley, wasn`t included on the original Elvis soundtrack lp or TV broadcast.

- a short 40 second version of "Trouble" done as a medley with "Guitar Man" kicked off side A of the Elvis soundtrack lp, and was then followed by another medley which includes both "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Jailhouse Rock". The Band Of Gypsys medley also starts with "Trouble", then goes into "Heartbreak Hotel" and later includes snippets of "Jailhouse Rock". So all three tracks are included on the Elvis lp, as part of medleys and in the same sequence. "Blue Suede Shoes" is again the odd one out...

All of this is circumstantial evidence - we don`t have a picture of Jimi with the lp in his hand. But the multiple similarities to "Singer Presents Elvis" TV show & soundtrack lp do in my opinion suggest that Jimi may have been well familiar with it.

Tue, Dec 3, 1968 – 8 · The News-Item (Shamokin, Pennsylvania) · Newspapers.com
MEMORIES
One reason Jimi may have been listening to the Elvis soundtrack lp is the song "Memories" - but what follows here now is extreme speculation on my part.

"Memories" was first recorded by Elvis for "Singer Presents Elvis", the song lyrics include the phrase "purple haze". For Hendrix fans this of course immediately evokes the Hendrix song by the same title, but would the songwriters and/or Elvis have made the same association in 1968?

I did a little pseudo-scientific research and checked how many times the phrase came up in the newspapers.com database in the period 1955 - 1970. The results do indicate that the phrase was probably very rarely used in US English before Jimi recorded & released  "Purple Haze" in 1967: I got just 30 hits for the phrase in 1966 but 504 hits by 1968. 18

"Memories" was credited to Billy Strange and Mac Davis. It would seem that Billy Strange took little part in the actual writing of the song. Mac Davis:
"Well, 'Memories' was my first top ten record, but Elvis had cut some of my stuff for movies and a guy named Billy Strange, who used to work with Nancy Sinatra here in Los Angeles, used to come by my office. I worked for a publishing company over in Hollywood and he'd come by the office looking for material and we'd shoot the breeze and I'd play him songs that everybody else had written and then I'd play him some of my stuff, too."

"And so they set up the big TV special in 68, I guess it was, and there was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits from the Sun days. They asked me to write a song bookending that, you know, about looking back over the years. And I sat up that night at Billy Strange's house and started writing about six o'clock in the evening and at eight o'clock the next morning I had written 'Memories'. And we had to run down and do a demo on it that morning and present it to the powers that be and it turned out that they cut it and used it in the TV special and that became my first top ten record." 21

Mac Davis was a former Vee-Jay exec and recording artist. He released two singles for Vee-Jay in 1963 and was employed as Vee-Jay`s "sales and promotion manager for the south" at least for the period of October 1963 - October 1965. 20 During this time Davis` office was in Atlanta, Georgia (Little Richard`s home town) and he was working for Vee-Jay for Little Richard`s whole tenure on the label.

Davis must have worked with Little Richard (and possibly at least met Hendrix) during his time at Vee-Jay. So as a former Vee-Jay employee, Little Richard`s label mate and a professional songwriter it is very probable that he would have been aware of Jimi`s music by late 1968 when "Memories" was written. Born in 1942 Mac Davis was 26 in 1968.



Studio recording, the mentions of "purple haze" occur at 1.21 & 2.09 in the above YouTube clip. Below is Elvis` performance of "Memories" from the "Singer Presents Elvis" TV special (sung to a studio backing track):



Regardless of what the songwriters intention or inspiration for using the phrase was Jimi surely would have gotten a kick from hearing Elvis sing about "purple haze". IF he actually heard the song that is, but one would imagine that he must have. The song was released as an Elvis single A side in 1969 so if Jimi didn`t catch it himself surely someone would have pointed out to him that Elvis was on the radio singing about "purple haze"...

BUT, like already stated, any suggestion that the song "Memories" and Jimi Hendrix had any connection to each other is just me speculating and thinking out loud... no actual evidence to back this up so far. If anyone has a way of contacting Mac Davis and asking him about this please do...

So, to recap - we have no solid information at all on whether Jimi owned the Elvis soundtrack lp - or owned any Elvis records for that matter, saw the TV show or was aware of the mention of "purple haze" in "Memories". I`m mainly discussing all of this here in the hope that someone will come up with more information, new insights or just completely debunk the whole theory of a connection between "The Elvis Medley" and the "´68 Comeback Special".


THE INFLUENCE

Jimi rarely talked about Elvis in interviews, I have found only two mentions so far (if anybody can come up with references to Elvis made by Jimi please let me know).

From Music Maker February 1968:
"Colour just doesn`t make any difference. Look at Elvis. He used to sing better when he sang the blues than when he started singing that beach party stuff. He could sing the blues - and he`s white." 22

From Sunday Mirror, 11 February 1968. Jimi starts off talking about Petula Clark:
"But I dig her. I think she`s great and progressive - which is more than I can say about a lot of pop stars. Take Presley. He`s still got plenty of fans, but the only progress he´s made is on his bank statement. That`s not my scene. Nobody who is continually experimenting with music makes big money, but they get respect in the right quarters." 23

But any late 50s teenager in the US would have been influenced by Elvis and indeed many references to Elvis do pop up in Jimi's later music. He recorded cover versions or quoted snippets of "Hound Dog", "Blue Suede Shoes", "One Night", "Blue Moon", "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Trouble" (these tracks are all documented, Jimi may of course have referenced Elvis on any number of occasions that we currently have no reliable record of).

Elvis additionally recorded his own version of several tracks that were also recorded and performed by Little Richard and it's quite likely that Jimi played at least some of these tracks live with Little Richard as a member of his band but for these there is no recorded proof: "Hound Dog", "Rip It Up", "Tutti Frutti", "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy", "Long Tall Sally", "Ready Teddy" and "Money Honey"

Elvis probably also influenced Jimi's stage performances, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported in its 2 September 1957 issue in a review written by John Voorhees: "Toward evening's end, Elvis gave everyone a turn by feigning a serious look, standing relaxed and quiet and announcing that the next number would be the National Anthem. Wham! He sang "Hound Dog" instead and the roof came down with a scream that sounded like 12.000 girls all having their heads shaved at once." 2

Jimi later often included a similar joke during his own live performances, "Wild Thing" was  preceded by an introduction with Jimi referring to it as a National Anthem and the guitar solo included a quotation of "Blue Moon", like for example on the version recorded in Worcester 15 March 1968. 3

"One Night" was recorded "live" by Curtis Knight & the Squires in 1965/1966 (though the vocals were by Curtis Knight and we don't know who selected the track). 4

"Hound Dog" was recorded several times, for BBC Radio 6 October 1967, at a soundcheck at the Royal Albert Hall 24 February 1969, a studio version at Olympic  Studios 22 February 1969 and even as part of a filmed acoustic jam at his London apartment in February 1969. Clearly a track that Jimi was very fond of. 5

The Band Of Gypsys recorded an "after hours" "Elvis Medley" on the 23th of January 1970. This included Jimi playing & singing snippets of Elvis songs: "Trouble (snippet) / Heartbreak Hotel (snippet) / Blue Suede Shoes / Jailhouse Rock (snippets)".

Jimi also recorded a soundcheck version of "Blue Suede Shoes" on 30th of May 1970 at Berkeley. 6

On the 26th of July 1970 it was Jimi's turn to play the Sicks' Stadium 8 in Seattle, he doesn't seem to have made any reference to seeing Elvis there in 1957 before, during or after the concert (which was recorded from the audience and circulates among collectors in very poor quality).

Elvis also popped up at Jimi's final public appearance, the jam with Eric Burdon and War at Ronnie Scott's in London 16 September 1970. As far as can be ascertained Jimi wasn't present at the club for the first set, only joining the band halfway through the second set, so he most likely did not hear the band play "Mystery Train" at the end of their first set but the performance has still become part of the Hendrix legacy as both sets were recorded from the audience. 7

Eric Burdon preceded the song with an ad libbed introduction: "You know sometimes, when your girl gets up and walks away, and you don't have no friends to roll around your head, when things are getting really bad, sometimes, sometimes you know, sometimes it's hard, sometimes in your thought first thing you wanna do is get on the next train, take yourself home, get on the next train, take yourself home, hear my train a-coming baby, hear my train a-coming now, hear my train a-coming people, coming down the line right now - get! [Get yourself a?] ticket?"




SOURCES:
1 http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?displaypage=output.cfm&file_id=1501

2 Seattle Post-Intelligencer review in the 2 September 1957 issue, written by John Voorhees http://blog.seattlepi.com/thebigblog/files/library/1957_Elvis_in_Seattle_clips.pdf

3 Released on the CD Live At Clark University (Dagger Records  DBRD-12033)

4 the Curtis Knight live version of "One Night" only circulates among collectors and hasn't been officially released. It's clear that the band based their version on the Elvis Presley version of the song as it features the same cleaned up lyrics as the 1958 Elvis single does.

The original Elvis 45 "I Got Stung / One Night" (RCA Victor 47-7410) shows up on several radio station playlists from 25 October 1958 onwards, for example WTRY in Troy, New York. A full page ad for the 45 was published in the 1 November 1958 issue of Cash Box and the single was also reviewed and selected to be the "Disk of the Week" in the same issue. The single entered the Billboard "Honor Roll Of Hits" at number 19 in the 10 November 1958 issue). Note that the A side / B side coupling / listing for this 45 and 78 varies a lot depending on the discography / text / pressing but I'll go with "I Got Stung" as the A side as that's how the original 1 November 1958 full page ad in Cash Box listed the single, both on the sleeve pictured and in the text.

5 Where to find the various versions of "Hound Dog"
- BBC Radio 6 October 1967 version available on the Sony Legacy CD "BBC Sessions"
- Royal Albert Hall 24 February 1969 soundcheck versions (multiple takes) are available on the (semi)official Charly 3 CD box "The Last Experience" but are in much better quality on the collector 2 cdr set ATM-227/228 "Experience"
- The studio version recorded at Olympic  Studios in London 22 February 1969 was released on the Sony Legacy 4 CD boxset "West Coast Seattle Boy"
- The acoustic jam version from Jimi's apartment February 1969 was filmed for a never finished concert movie, circulates among collectors

6 An incomplete version of the Band Of Gypsys studio jam (which does include the relevant parts) was released on the Polydor CD Loose Ends (Polydor 837 574-2), an unedited version of the recording circulates among collectors. The 30 May 1970 Berkeley soundcheck version of "Blue Suede Shoes" can be found on the Polydor CD In The West (Polydor 837 312-2). Also reissued by Experience Hendrix / Sony Legacy but with a reworked tracklist so that release cannot be recommended if you want to have the original In The West -album. Both versions do however contain the same soundcheck version of "Blue Suede Shoes".

7 The complete recording circulates among collectors on the 2 cdr set ATM-249/250 "Eric Burdon and War at Ronnie Scott's - master"

8 Quote from Wikipedia: "After Emil Sick died in 1964, and various members of his family shared ownership, the name of the park was changed to reflect that fact, from the singular possessive form "Sick's Stadium" to the plural possessive form "Sicks' Stadium" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick's_Stadium." Hence, when Elvis played the stadium in 1957 it was called "Sick's Stadium" and when Jimi played there in 1970 the official name of the venue was "Sicks' Stadium". There seems to have been quite a lot of variation to the spelling though, a lot of Seattle 1957 memorabilia  auctioned by Graceland Auctions 7 January 2016 included a ticket stub, newspaper ads and articles and all these together featured three different spellings of the Stadium name: http://auction.graceland.com/september_1__1957_elvis_presley_seattle__washingto-lot491.aspx And the front of the building itself apparently always had the name in big letters as "Sicks Seattle Stadium" so everyone can basically use any spelling that they feel like.

9 Myrna Crawfoot's diary was apparently auctioned on eBay sometime in the 2000s, this is where the photo of the page with the Seattle concert song list originates from. If anyone has more accurate information or better quality pictures of the book please let me know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. With thanks to "drjohncarpenter" and http://www.elvis-collectors.com

10 concert review by Marjorie Jones Seattle Daily Times 2 September 1957 http://auction.graceland.com/september_1__1957_elvis_presley_seattle__washingto-lot491.aspx

11 Leon Hendrix visited the Handel House Museum at 25 Brook Street in London for a meet and greet on Saturday 24 September 2016. I attended but unfortunately I didn't have time for a longer discussion and only managed to get his comments on the drawing, didn't get a chance to talk about the Elvis concert

12 email from Stephen Galvin 14 May 2017

13 I couldn`t find a contemporary source for confirmed "official" release date but movie theaters around the states started showing the film in early April 1963, ads turn up in several newspapers

14 release date as given at elvisthemusic.com/music/roustabout, the 31 October 1964 issue of Cash Box featured a full page ad for the album stating "NOW AVAILABLE".

15 Daily News, New York, 8 November 1964 & 10 November 1964

16 Library Of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries 3D Ser Vol 19 Pt 5 (Volume Catalog of Copyright Entries 1965 Music Jan-June 3D Ser Vol 19 Pt 5)

17 with thanks to Joel Brattin for noticing the inclusion "Jailhouse Rock" -intro, quoted several times during the jam.

18 Here´s a list of mentions of the phrase "purple haze" found in the newspapers.com -database, searches performed 27 July 2019. At the time the website gave the number of total pages in the database as 518,376,171, so this is a pretty reliable statistic of how commonly used the phrase was in US newspaper news items between 1955 - 1970:

1970 "491 matches"
1969 "413 matches"
1968 "504 matches"
1967 "161 matches"
1966 "30 matches"
1965 "102 matches"
1964 "49 matches"
1963 "71 matches"
1962 "53 matches"
1961 "90 matches"
1960 "212 matches"
1959 "300 matches" (a lot of these hits seem to come from a race horse named "Purple Haze")
1958 "560 matches" (a lot of these hits seem to come from a race horse named "Purple Haze")
1957 "385 matches" (a lot of these hits seem to come from a race horse named "Purple Haze")
1956 "347 matches" (a lot of these hits seem to come from a race horse named "Purple Haze")
1955 "100 matches"

So there is a sharp increase in search hits in 1967 - 1968, when Hendrix released the song "Purple Haze" and rose to fame in the USA.

19 the lp release date is listed as 22 November 1968 on the official Elvis website https://elvisthemusic.com/music/elvis-tv-special/

20 Mac Davis Vee-Jay singles:
Mac Davis - "A Little Dutch Town / Lookin` At Linda" (Vee-Jay VJ 492) USA January? 1963, reviewed in the 9 February 1963 issue of Cash Box
Mac Davis - "Honey Love / Hey Monkey" (Vee-Jay VJ 565) USA October? 1963, ad published in the 2 November 1963 issue of Billboard
Mac Davis also worked for Vee-Jay:
A news item published in Cash Box 26 October 1963 under the headline "Vee Jay Announces New Posts" stated that "Further announcement was made of the appointment of Morris Mac Davis as sales and promotion manager for the south. He will be headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia." Mac Davis was still working for Vee-Jay in October 1965 as reported in Cash Box 23 October 1965 under the headline "Vee Jay Completes Return To Chicago": "Mac Davis, southern sales and promotions"

21 interview published on the "Elvis Australia" -website 27 April 2019 https://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview-mac-davis.shtml

22 From Music Maker February 1968, reproduced in Foxy Papers #3 by Ben Valkhoff, page 21

23 From Sunday Mirror, 11 February 1968, reproduced in Foxy Papers #3 by Ben Valkhoff, page 45. The uncredited writer of the piece says that he called Jimi after a concert in Phoenix, Arizona, but the Experience didn`t play in Phoenix in February 1968. There were two concerts in Arizona that fit the time frame, 5 February in Tempe and 6 February in Tucson.

(Almost) the same quote was used in the Jimi Hendrix Experience Royal Albert Hall February 1969 concert program notes written by Tony Palmer:

"You`ve got to be progressive," he says, "Take Presley. He`s still got plenty of fans, but the only progress he´s made is on his bank statement." Either the "You`ve got to be progressive" -bits was Palmer paraphrasing Jimi from the original interview piece, or it`s taken from the original telephone interview notes / recording from February 1968 (done by Tony Palmer?). Either way it`s not included in the 1968 Sunday Mirror piece.

I originally made the wrong conclusion that Jimi`s opinions on Elvis expressed here would have been influenced by the December 1968 "comeback" tv special where Elvis "returned to his roots". Which of course had yet to be filmed in February 1968.