Thang ya vary mush

I interviewed Steve Allen years ago and pressed him on the Elvis "Hound Dog" segment and he told me that his was a comedy show and to him, having Elvis sing to the hound dog was comedy. He was very defensive about that. I also asked him about how he'd read rock and roll song lyrics on his show and make fun of some of the lyrics in hit songs, ie: Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti". His one word answer...comedy! It was one of my least favourite interviews.

Here's another perspective on the Allen appearance that uses contemporary press accounts to argue Allen wasn't the rock and roll hating villain he's been made out to be.

https://www.elvisinfonet.com/Spotlight-Presley-The-Steve-Allen-Show-Shane-Brown.html

of all of the 1950s long-running variety-format shows, it was Steve Allen’s that welcomed more rock ‘n’ roll acts than any other, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, The Coasters, The Diamonds, and Fats Domino, and most of these appeared on more than one occasion.  Why would someone who hated rock ‘n’ roll include these performers when he could easily have attracted bigger names from outside the genre?  The Diamonds and The Coasters were hardly bringers of great viewing figures – and, it should be added that, at the time of his booking, neither was Elvis.

on June 22 1956, syndicated columnist Charles Mercer wrote an open letter to Allen encouraging him to drop Elvis from his show.  Mercer concludes by writing:  “My argument against his appearance is simply lack of talent.  I can’t for the life of me see why you want to have such an untalented guy on your program.” Less than a week later, Allen responded in print with a letter to Mercer.  He defends Elvis’s previous behaviour on television, and then proceeds to comment on Mercer’s accusation that Elvis was talentless.  “Who is to say that Elvis has no talent?” he writes.  “You may say it, and a few million other people might be found to support you, but I am sure that additional millions will rise to his defense (sic) and say that he has oodles of talent…I’ve just seen the screen test Elvis has made for Hal Wallis and I predict that he has a big future in pictures if Wallis will cast him wisely…When I was a teenager all the adults I knew told me Frank Sinatra had no talent.  Later I’ve heard that Vaughn Monroe had no talent, that Liberace has no talent.  I’m sure the point is obvious.”

What seems remarkable here is not that Allen is defending the decision to have Elvis on his show (we would expect that), but that he goes far beyond that, comparing him to showbiz establishment figures like Sinatra and Liberace.   Allen isn’t just doing what he has to do to back up his own decision, but is fighting Elvis’s corner as well.

But what about the the ridiculing of rock ‘n’ roll through the infamous reading of the lyrics of Be-Bop-a-Lula which is often hauled out as an example of Allen’s hatred for the genre?  If that wasn’t a contempt for rock ‘n’ roll, what was?  Again, the issue here is that we only know half of the story.  Here is an excerpt from a 1992 interview with Steve Allen:

Art Fein: You’re sometimes known as an enemy of rock. There’s that business of you reading the rock lyrics slowly, like Be Bop a Lula.

Allen: I was doing that routine a long time before any of America’s kids knew about rock. The first time I ever did that was 1948. I just used popular songs. The first song I ever did in that way was a big hit called Love Somebody:
Love Somebody, Yes I do.
Love Somebody, Yes I do.
Love Somebody, Yes I do.
Love Somebody, but I can’t say who.

It was a silly experiment that night, but I realised I’d stumbled on a good bit. I can keep changing the songs for the next fifty years, it will never go out of style.


Allen goes on to tell Art Fein that at the time of the interview in 1992, he was using the lyrics to Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones.  But the main point here is that the hit from 1948 of Love Somebody was by Doris Day, thus showing that the routine had nothing to do with rock ‘n’ roll at all, and that the lyrics of all genres of popular music were a suitable candidate for the comedy routine.

Last edited by Hansa (June 30, 2024 5:15 pm)