Elvis' guitarist still doing all right, mama
by Larry Katz
Friday, May 17, 2002
On a hot July night in Memphis in 1954, 22-year-old Scotty Moore got together with Elvis Presley and changed the world.
Moore played guitar on Presley's first record, ``That's All Right, Mama.'' He would go on to record more than 300 other songs with Presley.
Moore's playing, a revved-up distillation of blues and country with a hint of jazz, created the basic vocabulary of rock 'n' roll guitar.
``When I heard it,'' Rolling Stone Keith Richards said of Moore's playing on ``Heartbreak Hotel,'' ``I knew that was what I wanted to do in life. . . . Everyone else wanted to be Elvis. I wanted to be Scotty.''
Moore never received a fraction of Presley's fame or fortune. He was happy to let Elvis take the spotlight then and seems happy today at age 70 to play second fiddle to former Stray Cats' bassman Lee Rocker, a rockabilly enthusiast who doesn't exactly rate as a household name himself.
Rocker and his band, with Moore as featured guest, are on a short East Coast tour that plays Sunday at the House of Blues in Cambridge.
For rock 'n' roll fans with a sense of history, it rates as a major event: Moore's first Boston-area appearance, at least to the best of his recollection.
``I don't think we ever played there in the early days,'' he says - in fact, Presley did not perform in Boston until 1971, three years after Moore stopped working with him.
Lately Moore hasn't done much more than brief, occasional tours with Rocker. Still, it's remarkable he's playing at all, considering that he stopped for 24 years.
Moore had reason to call it quits. In the 15 years he worked with Presley he made a grand total of $30,000. Few who have contributed as much have gotten so little in return.
With characteristic Southern politeness, the good-natured Moore refuses to condemn Presley for allowing him to be treated so shabbily. But undoubtedly he deserved more. If not for him, Sun Records' owner Sam Phillips might never have gotten around to recording Presley.
After making his first record with a honky-tonk band called the Starlite Wranglers, Moore began hanging around the studio. He heard Phillips mention a young singer named Elvis Presley and spent two weeks bugging him for Presley's phone number. When he finally got it, he invited Presley to his house. The next day, Presley auditioned for Phillips with Moore and bass player Bill Black as his stripped-down band.
During a break after several uneventful hours, Presley started singing a blues song, ``That All Right, Mama.'' Phillips got so excited that he started rolling tape.
``We didn't go in to cut a record that night,'' Moore says from his Nashville home. ``Sam just wanted Bill and I to go in with Elvis and furnish a little noise and lo and behold we cut the first side of a record. Sam didn't know what he was looking for, but thank God he knew when he heard it. It was something different.''
Moore was Presley's first manager, but was shunted aside and eventually replaced by the crafty Col. Tom Parker. He and Black became salaried employees. When Presley went into the Army in 1958, they lost their jobs. When Presley resumed his career focusing on movies and recordings, Moore became a hired hand.
``Well, I didn't get rich, but it was better than picking cotton,'' he says. ``But as Elvis got bigger, the band's salaries didn't get bigger. And more was expected out of us. Elvis stayed in seclusion and we were hit with all the newspaper and radio interviews. Then there's all these people who expect you to take 'em to dinner. Who could afford that side of it?
``Elvis just didn't understand our situation. I wasn't angry with him, but I was angry with the management side. They could have made things better for everybody and wouldn't.''
Moore appeared with Presley on the singer's ballyhooed 1968 ``Comeback Special'' and never heard from him again. He started a printing business and opened his own recording studio. His guitar stayed in its case until 1992, when old friend and fellow Sun veteran Carl Perkins got him to start playing again.
He hasn't stopped. Moore started working with Rocker in 1994, when he played on Rocker's ``Big Blue'' CD. He and original Presley drummer D.J. Fontana released an album with Richards, Ron Wood, Jeff Beck, Cheap Trick and other admirers, ``All the King's Men.'' Last year Paul McCartney got to live out his Elvis fantasies when he joined Moore and Fontana and recorded ``That's All Right, Mama'' for ``Good Rockin' Tonight,'' an all-star Sun tribute.
Moore and Fontana hope to do a new album featuring all British guests. Title: ``All the Queen's Men.''
``I could just sit here and stare out the window, but I don't feel like doing that yet,'' Moore says. ``I started playing again 10 years ago after not hitting a note for 24 years. I figure I'm owed 14 more years.''
Lee Rocker with Scotty Moore plays Sunday at 9 p.m. at the House of Blues, Harvard Square. Tickets are $16. Call 617-497-2229.
Elvis' guitarist still doing all right, mama
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