Hal Long is certain that the first spot that Elvis Presley played in Gladewater was the Mint Club on the Tyler Highway, just one of several juke joints sitting on the edge of town. Tom Perryman remembers that tickets for the evening show were $1.00 a head. However, according to both Perryman and Long, the crowd was not overwhelming.
Perryman has said that he gave the band all the receipts plus money from his own pocket to make a total of $90.00 to help Elvis and the band pay their Shreveport bills and buy gas to get them back to Memphis.
Only adults could enter the Mint Club and the law was enforced strictly in this Bible-believin' town, Thus, robbed of a potential teenage audience, Elvis Presley played to a sparse crowd at the Mint.
Knowing the trio was short on money, Perryman invited them to his house to eat. "I didn't know what to think", said Mrs. Perryman. "We had this little house and all of a sudden it was filled with people. Elvis was a little greasy looking, but I learned to like him. And he was always polite. He always called me Mrs. Perryman, and he always called Tom... Tom". "Elvis loved banana pudding, but he would eat almost anything", she said.
Elvis Presley had actually met Perryman in August 1954. In their initial conversation, Elvis told Perryman that he, Scotty and Bill were broke, couldn't pay their motel bill, get their clothes out of the cleaners or buy gasoline to back to Memphis.
"I had a friend, William Smith, who owned the Mint Club and I asked him if he'd give them the door and he take the bar if I brought them out", said Tom Perryman. "He said 'Come on'. We went by the radio station first, and plugged the show. We went out there and I think ninety dollars was all they took in. I normally got fifteen percent for my commission, but that night, I didn't take anything. I gave it all to them. And Elvis never forgot that".
Art Attaway remembers the Elvis concert in the Gladewater gym where Elvis Presley embarrassed a couple of girls after the show. "My friend and I had just started getting into music about then", said Attaway. "He was playing guitar and I was playing banjo. After the show, we went backstage to talk with Elvis. He didn't have security people surrounding him at the time. We were talking music with him, asking him how long it had taken him to get where he was, when these two girls started hanging around, and I don't think they were after him for his autograph! Elvis made an off-colour remark to them, like 'Spread your cheeks and smile at me'. They got offended and left".
"We asked him what key he played in and he laughed and said, 'Any key I can hit'. We walked him to that pink Cadillac and there was popcorn all over that car".
Art Attaway later saw Elvis Presley at the Rio Palm Isle Club near Longview, "became a fan of the first time I saw him", and remains a fan today. In addition, he has three daughters who, each Christmas, still receive Elvis-related gifts.
There is a persistent rumour in Gladewater that Elvis Presley also appeared at the Roundup Club on the Tyler Highway. No advertisements have been found, but this time-frame best fits the scenario. The Roundup was noted for its rough clientele, and there are some local residents who feel that Elvis would never have ventured near the place. As will be seen, Elvis Presley did perform in other roadhouses with at least as bad a reputation.
Ralph Woods of Gladewater, steel guitarist in a local hillbilly band in the 1950s, recalls Elvis Presley dropping in almost nightly for a few days to sit in with the band. Woods says that at this time he was playing at a club owned by Gene Wortham. This club was later called the Roundup. The stage on which Elvis Presley performed at the Roundup is now on display at an antique store in Gladewater and still draws a few Elvis Tourists to the area.
Harold Brewer remembers Elvis Presley more for a kind-hearted gesture than what he did on stage in Gladewater. "We had this poor boy in town, James Aubrey. He was about six feet tall. They were so poor his mama cut his hair", said Brewer. "He didn't have the money to get in to see Elvis play. After the show, Elvis was going out the side door. He saw James Aubrey and he could see how poor he was. He put James Aubrey in his Cadillac and drove him down to the Shamrock Cafe and bought him a cheeseburger and a Coke, then brought him back up to the gymnasium. That always impressed me about Elvis". Harold Brewer said that Elvis Presley loved hanging out at Watts Grocery, whose motto was "We may doze, but we never close".
"He'd come in there every time he was in Gladewater and order three slices of baloney and a box of crackers and he'd go over and stand in the corner and eat and never say a word to anybody. He never drank. One day he came running into Watts Grocery and told them to hurry it up, he needed a whole stick of baloney - now! There were these girls chasing after him and he was trying to get rid of them. They gave him the stick and he ran to the door, hung the stick between his legs and hollered, 'Hey girls', and began waving that stick back and forth. That chased them away. That's funny, because my daddy always said Elvis wore a sausage in his pants on stage".
"He never gave nobody no trouble", said Brewer. "He liked to eat down at the Shamrock Cafe and sometimes they'd stay at the Gladewater Resort Motel for six dollars a night and share a room; sometimes Room 104".
THE MINT CLUB - Hal Long vividly recalls that the Mint was "a juke joint, a hole in the wall". It was an old green building at this time, locally referred to as the "Green Hut". There was a small area, which might hold fifty people, toward the front of the building for dancing with a bar off to the left.
The one feature of the Mint that distinguished it from the half dozen other roadhouses near Gladewater was the canvas canopy leading out from the front door and covering the driveway. The original Mint Club burned to the ground sometime later, only to be replaced by a similar structure.
Gladewater was a small town located in the center of east Texas, a strongly religious section of the country. According to Janice Welton of Gladewater, the Mint was one of the several honky-tonks just outside the city limits. Patrons had to be twenty-one years of age to enter, so there were not many teenagers who were aware of Elvis' early shows in Gladewater. She remembers that "Elvis Presley was considered by many families to be unacceptable for children to see".
'Last Train To Memphis' by Peter Garulnick wrote:On the basis of Tillman Franks' enthusiasm, and his promise of work, they settled in at the Al-Ida for what was intended to be a two-week period in the middle of November, only to discover that Tillman, who had suddenly become persona non grata at the Hayride, couldn't deliver. Just how panicked they must have felt can be deduced from Scotty's vivid memories of being "marooned" in Shreveport, stranded without even the money to pay their hotel bill or buy enough gas to get back to Memphis. In fact they were not stranded for long, and they may simply have spent all their money in expectation of making more. In any case, within days Pappy Covington had work for them in Gladewater, Texas, some sixty miles west of Shreveport.
Pappy called Tom Perryman, a young go-getter who had made his mark in Gladewater at radio station KSIJ, where he had been working since 1949. In addition to deejaying, he had served as engineer, newsman, sports announcer, sales manager, program director, and general manager at various times and also started a local talent show, which he broadcast first from the studio, then, as it grew, from the local community center and the three-hundred-seat movie theatre in town. Eventually he put the show on the road, where it played schoolhouses and high school gymnasiums in towns throughout the outlying area. Perryman also booked Hayride shows and occasionally put recording artists with his traveling talent show as a kind of extra draw, which was how he met Jim Reeves, then a DJ in Henderson, Texas, whom he later came to manage and partner in various enterprises. He began to book some of these single artists into clubs and honky-tonks like the Reo Palm Isle in Longview and in general was one of the busiest promoters in Northeast Texas, a territory that appeared to be as music-mad as Memphis or any other region in the country. He had been playing "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" since it first came out, "because of the unique arrangement. That sound was just something you never heard." So he was not completely at a loss when Pappy Covington, with whom he had already booked quite a number of shows, called on a Monday morning and wondered "if I had a place where I could put an act quick.
He said, 'There are some boys down here that are broke, they don't have the money to get back to Memphis.' Well, I had a friend that had a honky-tonk right out on the Tyler Highway. So I said 'Yeah, I guess so,' and I called this buddy of mine, and he said, 'Yeah, I'm not doing anything, come on out. Who are they?' I said it was this new act out of Memphis called Elvis Presley. So sure enough, I played that record a lot the next two or three days and come Friday night, here they come. Just Elvis and Scotty and Bill in a Chevrolet with that big old bass on top of the car.
"The way it would work, I would book the show, the club owner would take the bar, and I would take the money off the door. My wife, Billie, would usually work the door. Then we would pay the expenses of the gig, if you had to pay a sponsor or what little advertising there might be. Most of the advertising was done on my [radio] show, and we'd do a live show from the studio, too, promoting that night's performance. Then I would take fifteen percent of the gross, and what was left would go to the act. I never will forget: that first night we took in a total of ninety dollars. That was all we had. Of course I didn't take any of it. I knew those boys needed the money, so I gave them all of it.
"You know, he was really a natural. When Elvis was performing, everyone had the same basic reaction. It was almost spontaneous. It reminded me of the early days, of where I was raised in East Texas and going to these 'Holy Roller' Brush Arbor meetings: seeing these people get religion. I said, 'Man, that's somethnig.' You'd see it in the later years with the big sound system and the lights, but Elvis could do it if there wasn't but ten people [in the room]. He never realised what he had till later years. He said, 'Man, this sure is a good crowd in this part of the country. Are they always that way?' I said, 'No, man. They never seen anything like you.' Nobody had.
'Elvis In Texas' wrote:Good morning, Texas. This is radio K-S-I-J, serving the Gladewater community with s"some mo' of yo' favo' right, requested, recorded, cowboy, western, hillbilly folk and mountain William tunes, with some old un's, and sad un's, leg-a-shaking, toe-tapping, knee knocking, tearjerkers. So if you've written in, stick around and listen in, as we get ready to get gone, like a turkey thru the cawn".
DJ Tom Perryman ruled the radio world from his small town in East Texas. Like an IP address in the musical net, Tom knew everyone who knew anyone, especially DJ's. And DJ's in the fifties arbitrarily determined if a record ever got played. In short, they could make ya', take ya', shake ya', or break ya'.
One morning Tom received a call from his old pal Tillman Franks. Got someone I think you might like, Tillman told the DJ. Not many records, but what there is, is gold. You should have heard the girls screaming their heads off at the Hayride. Intrigued, Perryman told Tillman he knew a dive on Tyler Highway where they could slide Elvis in. There's no stage fence, but the bands hardly ever get hit with beer bottles anymore... even if they stink.
Done.
And on that note (E sharp), Texas welcomed Elvis to the Lone Star State. (Actually Elvis snuck in the back door in Houston. He popped his head in for a concert in which no one remembered his music or his fuzzy face.)
When Elvis stepped off the Greyhound, he looked like ten miles of bad asphalt. Starved, exhausted, and wrinkled beyond recognition, Elvis even smelled like a man who had been sleeping in a car for awhile... a very small car. Which in truth, he was. In Shreveport, the agent who supposedly booked his little band for the next two weeks suddenly became blacklisted by the clubs. Elvis and the Blue Moon Boys found themselves stranded in Louisiana with very little money, no place to stay, and few prospects of a prospect. Some of the Hayride gang dug up a few little digs around town to earn the boys some gas money and the occasional hamburger. Then Tillman Franks found the job in Gladewater for them. They had just enough money left to throw Elvis on the bus and pay for gas to get Scotty and Bill to East Texas with all the equipment.
Gladewater DJ Tom Perryman and his friend Hal Long met the bedraggled singer at the bus station. He wasn't hard to spot; shockingly dressed anorexics wouldn't come into fashion for decades. The East Texas gents took Elvis down to the Green Hut café to stuff his face with a burger or two, hoping they didn't have to feed him intravenously While the young man chowed, Hal made him peel off the prunified jacket. Hal's wife worked at the dry cleaners around the corner. He ran it down there for her to work some magic. Tom checked Elvis into the Res-Mor Motel, so the boy could get some shut-eye before that night's show and preferably a long hot bath as well (with lots of soap).
A couple of hours later with a little rest, a shave, and a freshly pressed jacket (how's that for service?), Elvis reemerged a new man. He sauntered through the once prosperous oil town and found his way to that evening's venue, the Mint Club (not that he could miss it, covered from top to bottom in sickly, three-cents-a-gallon chartreuse ...hence the name).
tom and Hal's wives stood at the door selling tickets. Elvis introduced himself and ventured into the claustrophobo-joint, spotting Scotty and Bill already assembled o stage. The Mint Club might not be much to look at, but hey, at least it had a stage. A couple of weeks ago, they played a blood drive. There's nothing quite like singing to an audience that passes out after the first song (and they tip you with orange juice and Twinkies).
A clean but well-worn looking crowd propped the bar up, swilling longnecks and jawing loudly. When Tom and Hal arrived well into the set, the situation hadn't changed one iota. Elvis and the boys jammed at record volumes, attempting to drown the conversations around them.
Fixin' to visit Bobby Rae after this. Did you hear about what happened yesterday?
Just heard about it from my cousin's uncle. He's the one who sold him the tractor.
Well, Erma Jean said she didn't want anymore young'ns, anyway...
Tom Perryman leaned against the bar, straining to listen to the music and liking what he heard. He noticed a group of women crowding the stage, giving the singer the once over. Their enraptured expressions convinced Tom that he needed to tell a couple of his fellow DJ's about this guy. Maybe the kid had a future.
At the break, the girls swarmed Elvis. He gave them autographed pictures for fifty cents and hugs for free. One bold young lady asked if he would mind her taking a picture with him; she just happened to bring her camera. Elvis readily agreed but asked if he could get extra copies to send home to his mamma. No problem.
Either out of sympathy or very good business sense, Tom Perryman gave the musicians the entire evenings take, instead of shaving his standard twenty-five percent. The boys wrapped up the concert and returned to their Res-Mor ninety dollars richer.
The next morning while Scotty and Bill snoozed, Elvis strolled into town. He popped into the Roundup, a beer joint, to see what passes for entertainment on other sections of Gladewater, and later scored some barbecue at the Green Frog to sustain him through the long drive.