I knew Elvis was different by his clothes and his actions on stage. I said, ‘The boy’s got something. What it is, I don’t know.’ The first show at the Louisiana Hayride was kind of lukewarm. It was a country-oriented crowd, and they weren’t quite used to what he was doing. They weren’t ready for it. After the second or third time, that changed and we had kids coming in. But it was a gradual thing. We didn’t really know it for a couple of years. We knew we were getting bigger crowds, but we didn’t know exactly how big he was. I don’t think he knew, because we were always going from one town to the next. We didn’t have the chance to hear any critics, although we knew the security had gotten tight. But we really didn’t know that he had become so famous. We didn’t pay attention […]

May 1985 Issue