From the Archives: Scotty Moore Remembers Elvis.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 03, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 030301np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Interview With Scotty Moore
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with FRESH AIR.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame holds its 15th annual induction ceremony on Monday. On today's FRESH AIR, we hear from guitarist Scotty Moore, who will be inducted under the new category of Side-Men. He was Elvis's first guitarist and manager, playing with Elvis through the '60s. He'll tell us about playing on Elvis's first recording session.

Also, Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Romantics," the debut novel by Pankaj Mishra.

That's all coming up on FRESH AIR.

First, the news.

(NEWS BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will hold its 15th annual induction ceremony on Monday. This year, they're introducing a new category, Side-Men. One of the five inductees in this new category is Scotty Moore, the self-effacing musician who was Elvis's first guitarist and first manager.

Moore played with Elvis from 1954 through the '60s. As Peter Guralnik, author of the definitive biography of Elvis, writes, "Guitar players of every generation since rock began have studied and memorized Scotty's licks, even when Scotty himself couldn't duplicate them."

I spoke with Scotty Moore in 1997 after the publication of his memoir "That's Alright, Elvis." An Elvis boxed set called "Platinum" had also just come out, collecting 77 previously unreleased tracks.

We started with a previously unreleased take of "Lawdy, Miss Claudie (ph)." Listen for Scotty Moore's solo.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "LAWDY, MISS CLAUDIE," ELVIS PRESLEY, SCOTTY MOORE)

GROSS: Before Scotty Moore recorded with Elvis at Sun Records, Moore recorded at Sun with his own country band, the Starlight Wranglers. That's how he got to know the owner and mastermind of Sun Records, Sam Phillips.

SCOTTY MOORE, ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE: Well, we became just great friends through that connection and the job that I had. I was off early in the afternoon, and if Sam wasn't working in the studio or something, we'd go by and we'd have coffee next door at a little cafe there.

And just discussed the business in general, Have you heard so-and-so and the record they've got out, and the way they're doing it? And different sounds. And Sam was always saying, Well, if we can just find something different, if we can find that little niche, you know, to get in between all this other stuff that's happening.

And Marian (ph), his secretary, was having coffee with us one day and she said, "Sam, what about that boy was in about a year ago and cutting that acetate for his mother?"

And Sam said, "Yes, best I remember he had a pretty good voice." And that's all I needed the next couple weeks. I'd say, "You know, have you contacted that kid yet, blah blah blah?"

And finally I guess he got tired of that, and he told Marian, said, said, "Take that guy's number, and bring it out of the file, and give it to Scotty." And he turned to me, he said, "Give a call and get him to come over to your house and see what you think about him."

And of course I did. And that was on a Saturday. I called him, he came over on Sunday afternoon, and, oh, we spent, a guess, a couple hours. Seemed like he knew every song in the world.

GROSS: Well, when you asked him to come over and do some songs for you, what songs did he sing?

MOORE: Everything. I mean, he did Billy Eckstine (ph), he did Eddie Arnold. I don't remember a specific song, necessarily, but, I mean, he just knew all these songs.

GROSS: And he -- did he do them in the style of the singer who had the hit version?

MOORE: Yes.

GROSS: So he was singing in a lot of different voices.

MOORE: Oh, yes.

GROSS: Did you have a sense of what voice was really his?

MOORE: No, because he would -- at his age, he still didn't have that timbre yet.

GROSS: Oh, the deep voice (inaudible).

MOORE: The deep voice.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: So musically you thought he was versatile, but you couldn't tell who he was.

MOORE: That's fair to say. And in fact, when -- after he left that day, I called and relayed that basic information to Sam. I said, I said, "You remember you told us to go out and get some original material," and he said, "Well," he said, "I'll tell you what," he said, "I'll call him and get him to come in and audition." And he said, "Just you and Bill Black come in. I don't need the whole band, just need a little -- you know, just a little noise behind him."

So the next night we went in, which was the audition, and then we were taking a break, and is when the thing exploded. Elvis just jumped up and started just flailing his guitar and singing, "That's Alright, Mama." Just nervous energy.

GROSS: Now, that was a song by Arthur Cruda (ph).

MOORE: Kurrup (ph), yes.

GROSS: Did you know the song when he was starting to play it?

MOORE: No, no, I'd never heard it.

GROSS: So you just started to fill in behind him?

MOORE: Right, Bill...

GROSS: Not knowing the song?

MOORE: Bill started just slapping a bass, and it sounded pretty good what he was doing, so I started in just playing some kind of rhythm thing with him too.

GROSS: And then Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Records, liked it and asked you to lay it down on tape?

MOORE: Yes, he was in the control room. The door was open, and -- when we was doing that. And he came, stuck his head out there, said, "What... " said, "What are you guys doing?" And we said, "Just kicking (ph) around," you know. He said, "Sounded pretty good through the door." He said, "Let's put it on tape, see what it sounds like."

And we made a couple of cuts, and we listened back and made some changes and stuff. The best I remember is only like, maybe, four or five.

GROSS: Four or five takes?

MOORE: Takes, yes. We might have stopped, you know, Elvis got too close, popped a mike, or something of that nature, but this seemed like it didn't take but a few minutes to do it. Or at least it feels like that now.

GROSS: Well, let's hear the version that was actually released of "That's Alright," Elvis Presley, my guest, Scotty Moore, on guitar.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "THAT'S ALRIGHT," ELVIS PRESLEY AND SCOTTY MOORE)

GROSS: When you recorded this, Scotty Moore, did you have any sense that this was something new and exciting that was happening, this was the beginning of something important?

MOORE: All of us knew when we listened to it that it was different. But we didn't know what direction, because it was an R&B song, and with the instrumentation coming through it into more of a country flavor, so it was a mixture. And...

GROSS: And what you're playing there is really a very jazz influence.

MOORE: Well, yes and no. I'm trying to -- I had just begun -- had been turned onto Chet Atkins with his thumb finger (ph) playing a few months back, and I had been trying to figure out how he did this. Sounded like two guitars. And I was beginning to understand it, but I couldn't do it. But then I started doing a rhythm thing on this, to just try to fill it up. And as with three or four takes went on, I kept trying to stab the little notes in as I was doing the rhythm.

GROSS: Those little high notes that you're talking about?

MOORE: Yes.

GROSS: Yes, I mean, you know, those high notes that you play in the fills are so unexpected in a rhythm and blues song, I think.

MOORE: Yes, they would have been, right.

GROSS: They're kind of delicate for that.

MOORE: Oh, sneaky.

GROSS: (laughs) Sneaky. I like that.

Well, it's interesting too that here's, you know, this, like, really early rock and roll record, and there's no drummer on it.

MOORE: No, what...

GROSS: I mean, drums are, like, the backbeat of rock and roll and everything, and you're starting off without a drummer.

MOORE: Well, it was -- like I said, it was -- number one, it was an audition, on the first thing. But even after that -- well, Sam used to build slap (ph), and then he would add the tape delay on top of that, which gave it a -- the rhythmic thing also. But he always said -- oh, he hated drums, he hated drums. And when I got a little more in tune...

GROSS: Sam Phillips was saying he hated drums?

MOORE: Yes. But after I got a little more into the engineering savvy, it was a small -- the room was not much bigger than this. He couldn't control them. That's the reason he didn't like them. (laughs)

GROSS: Now, what was -- what were your thoughts about Elvis's guitar playing?

MOORE: He was a wonderful rhythm player as far as -- you know, as acoustic open-type rhythm. He had great rhythm. And had great rhythm in his voice, if you listen. He did a lot of things with the voice that just came natural to him. I think he got that through the gospel influence, you know, the Well, well, wells and that type thing, especially the bass singers would do in gospel music.

GROSS: Now, tell me the truth. After you started recording with Elvis, did you think, This guy's a great singer, or were you thinking, This guy's OK?

MOORE: Oh, well, we became more aware after just three records that he liked the challenge, but he was very particular about songs. He had to get into them, feel them good. Now, true, most of this stuff on Sun was -- it wasn't original material. There were some that were remakes of R&B and some -- couple of country things like "Milk Cow Blues" and things like that.

But when we went to RCA, things changed. He was absolutely picking his own material then. And I went to one of his sessions, and have a stack two feet high of acetates. And the first couple hours he would spend going through those, and he might listen to eight bars and zap it across the room. And then he'd listen about halfway, and he'd put that in another stack to come back and listen to again.

GROSS: This is, what, demos that had been made for him?

MOORE: Demos, right. And that's the way he did it. And very few times that I ever seen him, that one he kept in the maybe stack, and would actually try, that he would then throw away after he heard it back. He had that good a ear.

GROSS: Did you have any say in it?

MOORE: No, thing that he (ph) didn't -- he let us do whatever we wanted to as far as putting the song together musically.

GROSS: Do you remember one of the songs that was picked out of the demo pile like that?

MOORE: I think "Don't Be Cruel" was picked like that. Of course, (inaudible) could try to keep their main writers in what they thought at (ph) the top of the stack too, you know. (laughs)

GROSS: My guest is Scotty Moore, Elvis's first guitarist. We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "BLUE MOON," ELVIS PRESLEY)

GROSS: Let's get back to our 1997 interview with Scotty Moore, who was Elvis's first guitarist.

Now, you ended up booking and managing Elvis in the early days of his recording career, when he first got started at Sun Records. This was, I think, at Sam Phillips' suggestion. What did that mean? What was the work you were doing?

MOORE: Well, yes, I was doing that, trying to book some jobs, and -- but the management thing, there were -- when Dewey Phillips started plying the record in...

GROSS: This is Dewey Phillips, the Memphis DJ who broke Elvis's first record on the air.

MOORE: Right, and it was breaking like crazy around Memphis. And there were two or three, quote unquote, "promoters," bookers, started calling Elvis. And he didn't know -- you know, he didn't know what to tell them or anything. And we were talking about it at the studio. And it was actually Sam's idea.

He said, he said, "Tell you what," he said, "Elvis, why don't you sign a contract with Scotty for a year as your personal manager. That way you won't -- you will not have to lie," because he just -- he didn't feel comfortable about dealing with that stuff. And he says, "That'll give us all time to find somebody that we all like and think we can work with."

And that was Bob Neill (ph), who was a local disk jockey. And he started booking us all through Mississippi, Arkansas. And then you-know-who came into the picture and just gradually eased Bob on out.

GROSS: Talking about Colonel Parker. So with -- did you actually have to do any of that booking yourself early on?

MOORE: Yes, I did quite a bit that first, I'd say, six months or so, yes.

GROSS: So tell me what it was like early on before people really knew who Elvis Presley were when you were trying to establish dates.

MOORE: It was rough. I mean, you know, we're talking about making for the group, you know, $25 a night, you know, maybe driving 50 miles.

GROSS: How would you describe what Elvis and the band were doing to someone where -- if you were trying to book yourselves into a place, a place where they hadn't heard you yet?

MOORE: Oh, well, it was almost impossible if they hadn't heard the records on the radio. I mean, how do you describe it? Here's this kid going to come out in pink pants and white stripe and white buck shoes and a New York duck haircut, in Mississippi. (laughs) No, we tried to find places that they at least heard -- they had heard him on the radio or something.

And then he would -- man, when they saw him, it was kind of a shock value, you know.

GROSS: When was the first time, like, when you saw him that way?

MOORE: It didn't bother me, but that the Sunday I was saying he came over to the house.

GROSS: This is before you recorded.

MOORE: Yes. And my wife was there, and she kind of gave me the jaundiced eye, and I thought she was going out through the back door when she saw him.

GROSS: What, how was he dressed?

MOORE: He had on a white lace see-through shirt, and it was either black or pink slacks with a white stripe down the side. And it was just unusual for the norm. But he always wore those flashy clothes and stuff like that.

GROSS: Let me play another record from the Sun sessions. And I thought we'd play "Mystery Train."

MOORE: Hey, good, that's my signature song.

GROSS: Yes. So tell me a little bit about what you're playing on this and what it was like to record this track. Share some memories about it.

MOORE: It was a slow R&B song...

GROSS: That Junior Parker had recorded before.

MOORE: Right, that Junior Parker had -- yes. And we ended up just getting the tempo up more, and I changed the rhythm thing around. I mean, I've always loved it. It's just a fun thing to do. We still -- I still use that as playoffs and stuff on things I do.

GROSS: Now, did you and Bill Black work out the rhythm on this, or did -- was this a groove that you just happened into together?

MOORE: Well, Bill was just naturally -- he had -- he was a natural -- just naturally fall in slap bass and, you know, put the rhythm in there. He might not hit every note dead on, but that rhythm would always be there. We always went for feel. If it felt good, if there was some little bobble or something, note wasn't quite true or something, it didn't matter, because once you get that feel and you keep trying, it'll just go downhill. You reach that peak, and it's gone.

GROSS: OK. Well, this is "Mystery Train," Elvis Presley and my guest, Scotty Moore, on guitar.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "MYSTERY TRAIN," ELVIS PRESLEY AND SCOTTY MOORE)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is guitarist Scotty Moore, who we just heard on "Mystery Train." And he's written a new autobiography called "That's Alright, Elvis."

When did you start realizing that Elvis was really catching on in a very emotional way with his fans?

MOORE: I would say that after we did the first couple of TV shows with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, after we went to RCA. Before that, most of our shows and stuff had been all in the Southeast. There had been some, granted (ph), that starting to see the hysteria and so forth, but it really didn't come home to us till we did those shows, that national exposure. Then it just seemed like the floodgates opened up, you know?

GROSS: Now, how did you feel about this? On the one hand, it was, like, really good news for the group that the singer was so popular. On the other hand, he was getting so much of the attention. Did you feel envious of the attention that he was getting?

MOORE: Oh, no, no, that never even crossed our minds. No, that, we hoped, would mean bigger paychecks, bigger paydays, you know, for everybody.

GROSS: Did it?

MOORE: Nope.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: But it did grow a little bit, but not very much. That's kind of what I'm saying with the title of the book. The pay raises, the perks and stuff, as he got bigger, bigger, bigger, didn't come along for the band, and I'm just saying, that's OK, it's not -- we were be paying -- were being paid a fair wage as far as the man on the street with an everyday job.

GROSS: Right.

MOORE: You know, $200 a week back then wasn't bad at all. But then you take -- as he got bigger, and we had to get into these bigger hotels, and people expect you to take them to dinner, and we bought our own clothes and paid our own hotel bills out of what we were making. And we were saying, you know, Hey, some of this should come from some other source, you know. And that was the thing.

We weren't -- we weren't arguing about that we didn't have enough to pay the bills at home, but it was all this other stuff that was really expected of you that you couldn't afford.

GROSS: Scotty Moore, recorded in 1997. We'll hear more of the interview in the second half of the show. On Monday, Scotty Moore will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the new category Side-Men.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Coming up, we continue our conversation with Scotty Moore, Elvis's first guitarist. And Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Romantics," the debut novel by Pankaj Mishra.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "I'M ALL SHOOK UP," ELVIS PRESLEY)

(BREAK)

GROSS: On today's archive edition, we're listening back to a 1997 interview with Scotty Moore, who was Elvis's guitarist from 1954 through the '60s. Moore will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday in the new category, Side-Men.

I spoke with him after the publication of his memoir "That's Alright, Elvis."

You moved to RCA with Elvis in 1956.

MOORE: Right.

GROSS: So what were some more of the changes that happened with the change of recording company when you moved from Sun to RCA?

MOORE: Well, first of all, RCA was a -- at that time, the studio was a big, huge room. But they had -- although Sam was a technical guy also, but now you got an engineer, and you got a guy running the tape machine, and you got the producer sitting there, and, you know, the way the big boys did it.

GROSS: Did you like that change? Did it make you feel, like, more professional, or less in control?

MOORE: In some ways, they started out -- it wasn't very long -- probably that first session, they found out. We're playing the intro, and I flubbed the first note, and they punch in EWF (ph), you know, take two. And they finally eased off of some of that stuff.

GROSS: I mean, they were deciding the take wasn't...

MOORE: Well, it...

GROSS: ... good before you even started playing. (laughs)

MOORE: Yes, right. And we weren't used to that kind of stuff, you know...

GROSS: Right, right.

MOORE: ... (inaudible) let you get into the song, and then start doing that.

GROSS: Did it ruin your rhythm?

MOORE: Well, it ruined your train of thought sometimes. You know, you'd just get -- But they adapted real quick. They still had tech members, but they'd wait till we finally got the song worked up, and we got a few of the glitches out of the way. Then they'd start in with the tape numbers.

GROSS: What would you say is your most copied guitar solo from the Elvis records? Or one of the most?

MOORE: Probably "Heartbreak Hotel," maybe. I don't know. I mean, I've never been asked that before. Somebody do a survey.

GROSS: (laughs)

MOORE: Write in, folks, and tell me. (laughs) I don't know.

GROSS: Well, why don't we go for "Heartbreak Hotel."

MOORE: OK.

GROSS: Tell me your memories of this session.

MOORE: Well, of course, that was the first one on RCA. And they were trying to get basically the same sound that Sam was getting, had gotten with us in Memphis. And they had this big long hallway out in the front that had the tile floor, so they put a big speaker at one end of it, and mike at the other end, and a sign, Do Not Enter, and they were -- they used that -- that's where we ended up with that deep real room echo instead of the tape delay echo that Simon used.

Now, there is -- it's hard to hear, there is a little tape delay on it, but, you know, their tape machine didn't match his, and so it's just very slight. And then he ended up with just -- with the acoustic echo.

And I'll give them credit, they didn't -- I don't know they knew -- maybe they didn't think about it, but the room echo, at that point, was sound effects they used in the movies. They weren't using them for recording. And then here comes this, and it's so drastic. But it worked for the song. When you say, you know, "at the end of lonely street," it's so distant.

And I'd like to say this, if you don't mind me speaking of these technical things, one thing that Sam did that I don't believe he realized when he was doing it, and I didn't until years later, that I got into engineering, he pulled Elvis's voice back close to the music. You know, all the -- Sinatra and all those things where the voice is so far out in front, and he more or less used Elvis's voice as another instrument.

GROSS: Into the mix.

MOORE: Into the mix. But didn't bury him, like a lot of the rock things, you know, later.

GROSS: Right.

MOORE: But he still -- but closer.

GROSS: Now, your solo on "Heartbreak Hotel," is that something you had prepared before the session, or is this something you had worked out?

MOORE: No, no.

GROSS: No?

MOORE: No, everything we ever did was just spur of the moment.

GROSS: Did you learn the song at the session, or did you know it before that?

MOORE: No, learned it at the session.

GROSS: Well, all right, let's hear it, 1956, "Heartbreak Hotel."

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "HEARTBREAK HOTEL," ELVIS PRESLEY AND SCOTTY MOORE)

GROSS: That's "Heartbreak Hotel," my guest, Scotty Moore, on guitar, and he's written an autobiography, which, of course, includes his years playing guitar with Elvis Presley. It's called, "That's Alright, Elvis."

Did you see Elvis undergo a personality transformation as he became more and more famous, you know, a recording star, a movie star, a heartthrob, an icon?

MOORE: You know, the years I spent with him, he seemed to take it in stride. Yes, I saw all the things changing around him, you know, with the movies and such. And he became more secluded as he gathered his entourage around him, because he didn't feel like he could go out, and didn't want to cause a scene, you know, in just going to, like, a famous restaurant or something.

But as far as personality change and stuff, I didn't become aware of any until after I left him. And then he started in the '70s, and I don't know the inside, and I've heard, of course, and read a lot of stuff. But it still amazes me, because just a few months before he died, I saw some footage, and when he was so bloated, he was just -- and I said, There's something desperately wrong. Because he was very vain, and there was no way that he'd go out in front of people like that.

GROSS: Did you feel like he...

MOORE: I don't think...

GROSS: Yes.

MOORE: I don't think he could see hisself in the mirror at that point.

GROSS: Did you feel like you didn't recognize the person he had become?

MOORE: No, I didn't.

GROSS: Did you communicate with him at all during that period?

MOORE: No. And it was not because of any conflicts or anything, it's just that with this entourage around, and there was two or three of those guys that were really good guys, but still, he could call me a lot easier than I could get through to him. You make -- you know what I'm saying, make the call, you don't know if he ever gets it or not. And so I just left it for him.

GROSS: But he did not call, though.

MOORE: You never know what was being -- what he was being told.

GROSS: Right.

When did you stop playing with Elvis, and what was behind stopping?

MOORE: The -- well, actually it was the 1968 special, which now they call the comeback special.

GROSS: That great TV special where he's wearing a leather jacket and the leather pants. (laughs)

MOORE: Yes. Well, he was -- I mean, he would (inaudible) but he was an absolute Adonis on that show. He looked good, he was in great shape. And if that man had a pill in him at that point, well, I'd like for someone to prove it to me. I mean, he was just -- And he was ready. He was nervous, because he -- when he found he was going to have to -- these two little groups they brought in, (inaudible) in the round thing (ph), that made him nervous.

But he was anxious. He only had, I think, one more movie to finish before all the contracts were done. And he wanted to get back, get back performing. That's where he was best at, what he loved to do.

GROSS: Did you stop playing with him because of conflicts over money?

MOORE: Not from the '68 point of view.

GROSS: It was before that.

MOORE: Bill and I left him at one point for about, I don't know, six, eight weeks, but we went back. They called us back and worked on a per-gig basis. It was just trying to get his attention, you know. That's what strikes are all about, isn't it?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Right, right. So that was a good concert for you too, that TV comeback?

MOORE: Yes. In fact, D.J. and I had dinner with him at his house, and he did something that...

GROSS: This is the drummer.

MOORE: Drummer, yes.

GROSS: D.J. Fontana (ph).

MOORE: Fontana. And -- because that was always -- regardless if he was around, if he wanted to say something to you, he never made any moans about, go and whisper, or anything like that. But that night he asked D.J. and I to go back in another room with him, and he asked us, said, "How would you guys like to do a European tour?" Of course, we said, "Sure, just let us know."

And he asked me, he said, "Do you still have your studio?" And I said yes. He says, "What's the chances of getting there and locking up (ph) for a couple of weeks?" And I said, "Just give me some warning so I can block the time. I didn't tell him I was going to charge him for the time."

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: And those two things never materialized. I have no earthly idea what he had in his mind about going into the studio, don't know.

GROSS: It was Vegas after that.

MOORE: And then the Vegas -- they -- well, they did call -- management called all the Nashville players about Vegas. It was going to be a two- or three-week deal. Nashville was at its absolute peak. The Jordanaires (ph) alone had 40 sessions on the books with Owen Bradley (ph). And we all got to go (ph). They made some pitiful weekly salary offer, and we all got together and said, Well, all we can do is just make a counteroffer and show them what we'd lose if we did it. And, of course, it was ridiculous for them out there.

And next thing I knew, they were -- they headed into Vegas, and I just figured at that point that that was the end of it as far as my side of it. And I still had a studio, so I just -- I didn't -- you know, like, official, Well, I'm quitting playing today. But I just got into the studio work, and just laid it aside, you know.

GROSS: My guest is Scotty Moore, Elvis's first guitarist. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Back with Elvis's long-time guitarist, Scotty Moore.

When you stopped playing with Elvis, you virtually gave up the guitar for, I don't know, close to 25 years, I think.

MOORE: Twenty-four years, right.

GROSS: I guess I can't understand that.

MOORE: Well, after I sold my studio, then I started a tape duplicating company. And then also an industrial printing company. And so I was pretty busy. I mean, there really wasn't time for thinking about playing. I sold off what guitars I had, and...

GROSS: Well, sure, I mean, you created a life for yourself in which there wasn't time for playing. But you could have created a life for yourself in which there was no time for a tape duplication service because you were playing so much guitar. Did you try that, or...

MOORE: No, no, I really didn't.

GROSS: Was it because you didn't care about playing any more, or did you make the assumption that there wasn't going to be a place for you?

MOORE: Well, it really started when I had the studio. I mean, you try to draw people in, and you don't want to create a -- what am I trying to say?

GROSS: You didn't want to compete with the people you were recording?

MOORE: Yes, I didn't want them to be intimidated in any way. SO I just kind of kept, you know, in the background, unless somebody recognized me or something like that. I didn't push it to the forefront at all.

GROSS: But even that, why did you want to run a recording studio instead of being onstage playing guitar?

MOORE: I just -- well, I told somebody one time, they asked me the same thing, I said, Well, shoot, why would I play guitar, I play the whole orchestra, you know. (laughs)

GROSS: So you really enjoyed being...

MOORE: I did.

GROSS: ... behind -- being behind the controls?

MOORE: Yes, really did.

GROSS: I guess it must have felt good to be in control, because in the band, you know, Elvis had more say than the musicians did, and in the recording studio there was people from RCA who were calling the shots.

MOORE: You might be right. Don't mess with me, I'll turn you off.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: I'll hit the red button.

GROSS: You started playing again, what, in the early '90s, was it?

MOORE: Ninety-two.

GROSS: And what was behind that?

MOORE: Well, I'll have to back up a little bit there. About 18 -- two years, '90 -- I went to a little gathering for -- with -- for Carl Perkins. Carl and I, of course, had known each other from Sun days. And there was somebody else down there, and I think said, So why haven't you two guys ever recorded anything together? And actually I had done one session with Carl in '75. He wrote a song with all Elvis song titles called "EP Express."

But other than that, we never had recorded anything together. And that's when this guy asked -- says, Say, why don't you two guys record something? And Carl and I looked at each other and said, Well, why not?

And we talked about it a minute, and we said, OK. Well, on the whole (ph), just a few weeks later is when the throat cancer hit him. And he was laid up for, like, 18 -- about 18 months with that. Christmas of '91, I believe, called him just to see how he was doing. Well, it wasn't Christmas Day, it was, you know, during that period. And he said, he says, "Scott, you won't believe it, I just came from the doctor today," and he said, "they gave me a clean bill of health."

And I said, "Well, does that mean we can go back and do this recording?" And he said, "Yes, yes, we'll do that." And he said -- and I said, "Well, now, look, I haven't played in 24 years." He says, "Aw," he said, "you just like falling off a bicycle, you know," (inaudible). (laughs)

So (inaudible), you know, pumping each other. And I think it was February of '92 we actually got together in the old Sun studio and did something.

GROSS: When you picked up your guitar about 24 years after you'd put it down to record with Carl Perkins, had you played it -- I mean, did you remember (laughs) how to play? Had you played at home in the interim?

MOORE: No, no, I didn't even have any guitars.

GROSS: Gosh. Can you tell me you didn't miss it those years?

MOORE: I really didn't. I've thought about that really hard, and it -- well, I was so busy doing other things, I guess I just -- and -- But the thing that really got me, when I realized it was in my blood, the Elvis celebration August of that year, '92, I went to Memphis and did the show with Carl. And I was standing over in the wings, and Carl was fixing to bring me out, and I'm thinking to myself, You're supposed to be nervous.

And I walked out, and just -- it didn't bother me a bit. And I was really surprised. And that's when I told myself, it's in your blood, you might as well admit it.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Tell me, you know, in the years after Elvis's death, there have been cult groups that have risen around him, people who swear that they've seen him even though he's been dead and so on, everybody knows what I'm talking about. What goes through your mind when you see the way even in death he is worshipped? Well, you know him as -- you knew him as a man, not as a god.

MOORE: Yes, well, he wasn't -- They're misguided. I don't want to be sarcastic and say, you know, get a life, but it's OK to like somebody, but don't -- you don't idolize them like that, you know. He wouldn't have liked that. He really wouldn't. And he didn't like being called the King, either.

GROSS: He didn't?

MOORE: No. He said there was only one King, it was the man upstairs.

GROSS: Do you feel bad that Elvis died during the period when you weren't really in touch, so you didn't have a chance to maybe talk about things with him that you might have liked to talk about before he passed?

MOORE: Well, yes, in one way, but in another way, I always -- he was so vain, I could never see him growing old gracefully.

GROSS: Huh, that's interesting. But like you were saying, if he was so -- like, he was so vain, and yet he managed to allow himself to balloon the way he did.

MOORE: That just astonishes me. I don't know. I will never understand that.

GROSS: But you can't imagine an aging Elvis.

MOORE: No, I mean, if he hadn't got into that situation -- no, I never could. In fact, the guys, we used to talk about, you know, say, What's he gonna do when he gets about 60? you know.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: What if he goes bald? you know. Just all kind of stuff like that. (laughs)

GROSS: Well, Scotty Moore, I'm really glad you're playing again, and a pleasure to have the chance to talk with you.

MOORE: Dear, it's been a pleasure, and enjoyable.

(END AUDIO TAPE)

GROSS: Scotty Moore, recorded in 1997. On Monday he'll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the new category Side-Men.

The other sidemen to be inducted are King Curtis (ph), James Jamerson (ph), Earl Palmer (ph), and Hal Blaine (ph).

Coming up, Maureen Corrigan reviews the debut novel by Pankaj Mishra.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Scotty Moore
High: Guitarist and record producer Scotty Moore was Elvis Presley's first guitarist and manager and one of the early influences of the rock guitar sound. On Monday, March 6th, Moore will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He will be part of a new category of honorees, "Side-Men." He co-wrote an account of his work with the king of Rock'n'Roll, "That's Alright, Elvis."
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Scotty Moore

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Interview With Scotty Moore

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 03, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 030302NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Maureen Corrigan Reviews 'The Romantics'
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:48

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Pankaj Mishra is a regular contributor to "The New York Review of Books" and "The Times" Literary Supplement. In his first novel, "The Romantics," he turns his critical eye toward literature and his native India.

Maureen Corrigan has a review.

MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BOOK CRITIC: Death by reading. That could well be the subtitle of lots of novels, because so many of them are basically cautionary tales, warning their readers against the danger of reading novels.

Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" is the epitome of this kind of tale. A beautiful young woman escapes the tedium of her marriage by reading love stories. She takes their plots too much to heart and, poof! before you know it, her life is destroyed, all because of her libertine ways with a library card.

"The Romantics," an evocative first novel by Pankaj Mishra, is the latest entry in this literature-can-be-lethal subgenre. The chief casualty here is a likably earnest Indian college student named Samar (ph). Rootless and eager to expand himself beyond his provincial Brahmin upbringing, Samar has traveled to the holy city of Benares, the place where mountains of corpses are cremated daily by the banks of the Ganges, and pilgrims bathe themselves in its holy water.

Instead of immersing himself in the Ganges, however, Samar plunges into a rigorous program of heavy reading in Western thought. He dutifully makes his way through Schopenhauer and the criticism of Edmund Wilson, as well as -- uh-oh, here comes trouble -- the novels of Turgenev and Flaubert.

An impressionable loner, Samar has all the symptoms of terminal bookwormitis. When he ominously declares, in the opening pages of "The Romantics," that, "I wanted to read and do as little possible besides that," he might as well be signing his own spiritual suicide note.

Of course, like most authors, Pankaj Mishra has been infected by reading too, most obviously here by E.M. Forster and his anxious East-meets-West classic "Passage to India." "The Romantics" is a kind of updated riff on Forster's novel. In the intervals when Samar looks up from his books, he makes the perilous acquaintance of a group of expatriates, a middle-aged British spinster named, all too obviously, Miss West, some latter-day hippies searching for Indian enlightenment, and a beautiful Frenchwoman named Catherine, who ignites his Flaubert-fed fantasies.

After he and Catherine sleep together, Samar thinks to himself, "I had a growing conviction that after the dull, pointless years of drift, I had been predestined for the moment when I met Catherine, the encounter in which some of the richness of life and the world were revealed to me."

That poor sap! He makes the terrible mistake all of us devoted readers are susceptible to. He imposes plots on his life, seeing climaxes and conclusions, when all he's really experiencing with Catherine is a minor blip on the flatline of his own solitude.

In the way it mercilessly charts the reduction of Samar's life almost to the vanishing point, "The Romantics" reminded me a lot of the moody novels of Anita Bruckner (ph), whose characters flail against but never break out of the prison house of self.

All of this sounds depressing, but Samar is such a sweet, idealistic, and eloquent narrator, even if his insights are sometimes shaky, that his retrospective account of his misspent youth is compelling. And especially if you're curious about contemporary India, "The Romantics" conjures up vivid images of a country fixed in a state of chaos.

Young people lucky enough to attend college, Samar tells us, exhaust their youth preparing for civil service exams, memorizing whole essays on Gandhi and Nehru, cramming their heads with arcane statistics about the Indian economy. Samar recalls waking up each morning in Benares to the sounds from nearby houses, radios blaring devotional music, wet laundry being slapped against the bathroom floor, the voices of people queuing up before the municipal tap in the alley below.

He describes the naked pilgrims in that city, processing past coconut and flower sellers, watchful monkeys, and the ubiquitous rubbish. If you're into India, reading "The Romantics" will whet your wanderlust. If, like me, you find the thought of all that cow dung in the street off-putting, this novel probably will strengthen your conviction that it's preferable to stay home and just read about the place.

GROSS: Maureen Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed "The Romantics" by Pankaj Mishra.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer is Audrey Bentham. Dorothy Ferebee is our administrative assistant. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our theme music was composed by Joel Forrester (ph) and performed by the Microscopic Septet. That's Joel Forrester playing now.

I'm Terry Gross.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, PIANO PIECE, JOEL FORRESTER)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Maureen Corrigan
High: Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Romantics" by Pankaj Mishra.
Spec: Entertianment; Pankaj Mishra; "The Romantics"

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Maureen Corrigan Reviews 'The Romantics'
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.