Elvis Presley, the icon whose music sailed through generations, nurtured a passion that was more than evident through his live performances. Each night, to the delight of adoring audiences, Elvis and his backing band transformed stages with a vigor that few could parallel. Despite the varying degrees of enthusiasm Elvis had for his musical career over the years, he experienced moments of profound dedication to his craft. It was during these periods that Elvis imposed one strict rule on his band: they were never to get comfortable onstage.
A Hunger for Authenticity: Challenging Complacency in Performance
In the heart of his performance philosophy was a lesson Elvis learned early on, possibly as far back as high school, during a talent show which sparked his love for live music. Elvis thrived on the reaction of his audience; he craved the electric connection shared in these moments. He expected his band to share in this pursuit, but their casual demeanor at times tested his patience. A particularly telling incident recalled by Elvis encapsulated his frustration, “Those guys were reading Better Homes and Gardens and stuff like that — they play music so well they can play their part and they’d say, ‘Think I should build that patio on my house?’” according to Peter Guralnick’s book, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley.
While his band could perform their pieces flawlessly, even while engaged in casual conversation about home renovations, Elvis found this complacency unacceptable. He yearned for their undivided attention and commitment to the performance. The solution? Elvis began to unpredictably switch songs during performances, “So what I did, I switched songs on them,” he explained. “And the orchestra was there, they’d go into the intro, and I’d say, ‘Whoa, I don’t want to do that song, let’s do something [else].’ So they’d go through the sheet music real quick, and consequently, I got them; they had to watch me.”
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Elvis’s Dedication and Its Offstage Echoes
This strategy was born out of necessity; if a performance did not reach the level of excellence Elvis expected, he would scrutinize the setlist, rearrange songs, and dedicate countless hours to identifying the root of the issue. His commitment was unwavering, “I change the songs around,” he said. “I’ll go back and stay up all night and work — working on it, you know, worrying about it. I find out what it is that’s not getting off the ground, you know, the first four or five numbers. Because it’s very important.”
Yet, this intense focus was not constant. There were periods when Elvis seemed to move through performances mechanically, leaving memorable shows behind as hazy memories. “There have been actual shows that he has done that he can’t remember,” his bodyguard Sonny West revealed in the book Elvis: What Happened? Adding to the complexity of his performances, Elvis sometimes opted to share personal philosophies over singing, “Sometimes, he gets up there and talks and talks to the audience instead of singing. He will give his philosophies on life, and it’s very boring. People go there to see the old Elvis magic.”
The tension that punctuated Elvis’s performances also seeped into interactions offstage. Members of Elvis’s entourage were omnipresent, creating an atmosphere of unease. This constant vigilance extended to his backing band, who found themselves navigating a maze of social cues to determine when it was appropriate to engage with Elvis. Backup singer Joe Moscheo captured the sentiment well, “The little bit of time you had with him, he always treated you so good,” he said. “But there was always an underlying nervousness: you never knew when it was okay to talk to him and when it wasn’t; there was always somebody telling you what you could and couldn’t do. [And you sometimes got the feeling that] Elvis didn’t even know it.”