So when Nesui Ertegun said to us, listen, Ahmet and Jerry and I love your records, and we know how to sell them, uh, you guys know how to make 'em, why don't you make 'em for us, we'll sell 'em. Because, that sounded great. Because prior to that time, we could never cross the Rockies.

And that's how rhythm and blues --

Came over the mountains.

There you go.

The coming of the deal with Atlantic Records, this leads in turn to the splintering of the -- okay, we're going to go to the Coasters later, right? We're trying to keep to a timeline here. I think what we're up to now is …

Smoky Joe's Cafe.

That's the most boring story of all, I just want to warn you.

I think we're going to talk about, because at the same time that Atlantic comes in, also Elvis picks up "Hound Dog" and you're in a famous ocean disaster, which maybe you could tell us about. I've never actually heard you say --

I have. And if you ask him that question again, I'm going to tell him about my gall bladder operation.

All right. The Andrea Dorea first --

And the gall bladder next.

I never win this one.

Actually this story is probably better told by Jerry. It's more interesting.

Yeah, I'm much more objective about it. Because he sank on the boat, in fact, he's not even here. I'll tell you about what happened to him. We going to do that now? Well, I, I went to New York, I was supposed to meet Mike in New York, and we were supposed to, uh finalize our deal with Atlantic, and I believe also, was it with RCA?

No.

I knew you were going to help me out again. When was that?

1958.

It was later.

Yeah. When we moved to New York.

Okay, well, '56 was the finalization with Atlantic, and Mike was coming, on his way back from a, an extended holiday in Italy on the Andrea Dorea, and I was in the Algonquin Hotel. And uh, it was the first time I had been left loose in a hotel by myself. It think it was what, 22 years old, was that -- what year was that?

23.

23? And I had, I, I had always loved the Algonquin Hotel. I'd been there like twice, I'd visited the place and I loved what it looked like. And I knew all about the Algonquin Round Table and all that nonsense. So I checked into the Algonquin Hotel and uh, I remember taking a shower, and uh, this is late in the afternoon, like 5 o'clock or something like that, or 6 o'clock. I don't remember exactly when. And I ordered um, I ordered a martini and a pack of Camels, I used to smoke in those days. And uh, it came, and I was just, I was luxuriating in this hotel. And I had the, had the radio on, it was something, somebody like Symphony Sid, some disk jockey was playing something, and there was this, an urgent, a station break, and this calamity, you know, came on. And they announced the sinking of the Andrea Dorea. And I couldn't believe it. I thought, my God, you know, I came here with this hair-raising story of a fishing trip that I was in off the coast of Southern California. You know, where we almost lost our lives. We were out 60 miles at sea fishing and we lost all power and everything, and the sharks were surrounding our little fishing boat because the fishing fleet was coming in and cleaning their fish and the blood was all over the water, and there were like thousands of sharks and our captain was drunk, and he left the tool kit on shore. So he couldn't fix anything, you know? And I'd come with this hair-raising story to tell Mike -- topped again. And then of course I recovered and I was upset. But of course at first I was really angry, I was shocked. So, I thought, my God, you know, Mike is on the Andrea Dorea. And Jesus, we got the number one hit in the country. Hmm. Well, reports started coming through about, some people being in lifeboats and some people being picked up by a United Fruit boat, etc., etc. Then a telegram came through to Atlantic from Mike saying that he was okay. Right? And he would be in some time, at some point, the next day or whatever. I don't remember exactly what the time sequence.

Well, we came in at night actually. And we were supposed to be in that morning.

And we were waiting all that day.

Twelve hours late. And when I got to the dock, uh, the first person I saw was Jerry who came running up to me with a suit, an Italian silk suit which he brought for me, assuming that I might not have any clothes.

And I figured he was all wet. I mean, you know, you sink you get wet.

At any rate, the first thing he said to me, we got a smash. He said, "Hound Dog". And I said, no kidding, Big Mama Thornton? That record? And he said, no, no. Somebody named, uh, Elvis Presley. I said, Elvis what?

How to deflate right? Elvis what?

How did Elvis, how did the whole arrival of Elvis affect you. What was your take on that at first. After going through your whole thing about authenticity and the blues?

I tell you, the first time I heard Elvis Presley, I think the first time I heard Elvis, and this might be confused, help me out here. I was sitting in Atlantic's offices with Miriam Beanstock, who was a partner, and Jerry Wexler, and Ahmet. I don't think Mike was there that afternoon.

I was in Europe.

Right, and you know what? I think it was before "Hound Dog", I think it was before it was a hit. I've got this confused in terms of time sequence. But they were playing Elvis Presley records, and they were playing them because they were evaluating them.

They were Sun Records.

It was Sun Records, yeah, of Elvis Presley. And the discussion was, do we want to go for it. Because they were, Elvis was being offered to Atlantic first and they wanted 25,000 dollars advance. And Atlantic turned him down. I remember what the, the, the discussion was about at that time. Sort of the, off the cuff remarks were, yeah, he's pretty good, but you know, he's white. I mean, like, you know, he can't really sing the blues. I mean, like, you know. It was that attitude. So RCA picked it up obviously vis a vis the Auberbachs who were running his publishing company with the Colonel, and the rest is obviously history.

What about the bluegrass, like the Bluemen of Kentucky, juked-up kind of stuff. Did that make any kind of separate impression in addition to the blues stuff, or was it all sort of one?

I didn't see any distinctions being made. I didn't see any distinctions between even later on, the pop stuff, like, you know, the pop blues, pop rock and roll and the blues, and the really early authentic stuff. I mean it was all, nobody, nobody was that clearly, you know, concerned about making those kinds of, sort of academic aesthetic judgments.

Was anybody concerned with making any kind of judgments about whether this might be -- I get the impression that nobody was particularly that concerned with this development, that it wasn't that revolutionary?

Nobody thought it was, really, at the time. I think they just thought he was a better version of, of, uh, of Bill Haley. I mean they didn't know who he was yet. You know? Even with one hit or two hits. You know, people in that business, you know, can be very, very hard, you know, blind-sided and cynical. He's doing hits, but you know, what's his name was better. Everybody thought, um, what's his name, not Ray Peterson -- "Pretty Woman."

Oh, Roy Orbison?

Yeah, Roy -- they would say he's good, but he's not Roy Orbison.

We're just going to finish up this Elvis bit and then go to the Coasters. How did it develop after that you ended up writing for the Elvis movies and playing in the band in "Jailhouse Rock." What was your attitude toward that with the writing and playing.

Uh, after "Hound Dog", the Auberbachs, the publishers who handled all of Elvis's music asked Jerry and me if we had any other songs that might be good for Elvis. And Jerry thought of this song that we had done with this R and B duet on Spark Records, Willie and Ruth, a song called "Love Me." And um, it was submitted to Elvis, he liked it, he recorded it, it came out on an EP and it became a big, big hit. After that they started to give us, uh, assignments for movies. Uh, the first one being "Loving You" which I think had been called something like "Lonesome Cowboy" until we submitted the song "Loving You" and they changed the title. And the next one was a song, uh, a movie, I forget the original title, it ultimately was "Jailhouse Rock" and Jerry and I were in New York having a great time. We were staying at the Gorham Hotel. We had a suite with two bedrooms and a living room where we rented an upright piano. And we were having a great time and we were presented with this godawful script, and we didn't even bother to look at it for a week. And I think it was a Saturday morning, Gene Auberbach came to the hotel and said, boys, I need the songs for the movie.