Baby, Let's Play House_ Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him - Alanna Nash [63]
However, Bob Neal, now Elvis’s official manager, jumped at the chance. He recognized Parker as a “razzle-dazzle character” but knew the Colonel had clout, and that he was an uneducated genius, a brilliant tactician. He also saw that Parker could put Elvis on the package tours that he took out to other parts of the country, into New Mexico, for example, beyond the Hayride’s reach.
On January 15, 1955, Parker and his lieutenant, Tom Diskin, traveled to Shreveport to watch Elvis—outfitted in a rust-colored suit, a black-dotted purple tie, and pink socks—captivate the Hayride audience. Afterward, at the Captain Shreve Hotel, they met with Neal and hammered out an arrangement by which Parker would work in partnership with Bob on Elvis’s bookings.
Already, Parker schemed to take total control of Bob’s new sensation. But until Bob’s management contract expired the following year, the Colonel was careful not to show his hand, even though it was obvious that Neal didn’t know what he had: “I always felt that Elvis was going to be a big artist, but I didn’t really realize the true scope. Nobody had ever been that big.” On the other hand, Parker, a shrewd dealer with uncanny knowledge of human nature, knew what brought people into the big tent.
Born in Holland as Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, he had entered the United States illegally in 1929, and after a stint in the U.S. Army, folded into the carnivals at the height of the Depression. It was there, between hawking his now infamous foot-long hot dogs (a hint of meat at each end, with lots of slaw in the middle), that he honed the merchandising and marketing skills he would later apply to the recording industry.
His entrée into the music business was Gene Austin, the 1920s crooner (“My Blue Heaven”) who needed an advance man for his tent show, the Star-O-Rama Theater, in the late 1930s, the last hurrah of his career. Parker segued to booking country shows—particularly Pee Wee King and Roy Acuff—while employed as the field agent for the Hillsborough County (Florida) Humane Society in Tampa. Acuff later flirted with the idea of letting Parker manage him. But eventually, the bandleader thought better of it and told Parker to keep his eye on King’s young vocalist, Eddy Arnold.
The two teamed up in 1945 (“I was just a poor, hungry guy who owned a guitar,” Eddy said), and Parker worked around the clock on his behalf. While continuing to operate out of Tampa, he acted as Arnold’s booking agent and manager, using the two-fingered hunt-and-peck system to type letters on flamboyant stationery festooned with Arnold’s photograph. Soon the Colonel (his title was honorary, bestowed by Jimmie Davis, the singing governor of Louisiana, in 1948) was prosperous enough to move to a stone house outside of Nashville. Ever the showman, he kept a team of miniature ponies in the backyard.
Their association made Arnold one of the biggest stars ever to come out of Nashville, with a repertoire of number one records, radio shows, and two Hollywood movies. But Parker’s brash, rough-hewn style clashed with Arnold’s sophistication and polish. And in the early 1950s, Arnold learned that Parker, who took a 25 percent commission for exclusivity, was working with other artists on the side.
Both Arnold and Parker had encouraged Texas fireball Charline Arthur to come to town (Elvis would pay plenty of attention to her wild stage movements, allegedly borrowing a few), and Arnold wasn’t threatened by his interest in developing the teenage Tommy Sands. But when the Colonel began booking dates for Hank Snow, Arnold dissolved the majority of their business dealings in 1953, Parker still getting the best of him with a financial settlement.
With his own Jamboree Attractions, the Colonel began booking Grand Ole Opry stars, placing many of them on New York radio