Legends: Glen today and young Glen. TCB Band: Jerry Scheff,
Ronnie Tutt, James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, John Wilkinson and
Charlie Hodge.
"I thought Elvis was about the worst piano player I
ever heard!"
Glen D. Hardin played in Elvis' 70s road-band for six
years, tickling the ivories and arranging things like
The Wonder Of
You, Let It Be Me and
I Just Can't Help Believin'. Before that, he
was an in demand session-musician, arranger and songwriter, working
with artists like Merle Haggard, George Jones, The Everly Brothers
and Ricky Nelson. After leaving Elvis in 1976, he has toured with
Emmylou Harris, John Denver, The Crickets and, since 1997, with the
ELVIS THE CONCERT show. In this interview we talked about his years
with The King.
You started working for Elvis in February 1970. What
were your first impressions of him?
The
first time I met him and played at a rehearsal, I enjoyed his
company very much. He was a lot of fun, very friendly. We didn't
work very hard, we just played and laughed, told jokes… He seemed
like a very ordinary fellow. I enjoyed his company a lot.
Musically speaking, did he contribute a lot of ideas?
At
that time I didn't notice that much 'cause we just did some of his
old stuff. But from then on, yeah, he contributed a whole lot. Most
of the time he knew an awful lot about what he wanted, and he was
very clear about things. He was especially good at working with
singers. He left a lot of orchestration work to me, and I did that
the way I wanted it. It was very easy to work with him.
It's been said that he had difficulty taking
criticism…
Well, I
don't remember ever criticizing him outright! (laughs) But no, I
don't know, I don't think he was like that. I think he could take
direction very well. As a matter of fact, when he did all those
movies, he was known to be very cooperative. You know, just do the
job as best as he could.
How many songs did you rehearse in February 1970
(approx.)?
Oh
gosh, it was a lot, as I remember. Elvis loved to get together. With
him it was more than just get together and work. He just loved to
get together, hang out with the guys and have a good time. But while
he was at it, we'd get a lot of work done. As I remember, we ran
through an awful lot of songs. And some of them we only ran through
one time, just in case he ever wanted to do it. So we got a lot of
work done - it was a lot of songs. But I think most of us grew up
with his music, so we knew it. It wasn't like I had to learn an
awful lot of things.
Elvis often played piano in private. Did he ever jam
together with you?
Not
together. I know he did play a little bit… I thought he was about
the worst piano player I ever heard! (laughs)
How did you start arranging material for him?
I
did right from the start. He came in one day, and started singing
Let It Be Me, the Everly Brothers song. The orchestra took a break,
he started singing it and we started playing along with him. But he
didn't know the words, he couldn't remember them.
I didn't know them
either. And then when the orchestra came back after the break, he
said: "Well, maybe we'll work on that tomorrow or sometime when I
get the words". So when the rehearsal was over that day, I went
upstairs and called Los Angeles and got the words, and I sat down
and arranged that. I put that together for him, and had it there the
next day. Hired some people to copy the music and all that. And when
he came in to rehearse, I had a security guard come and tell me that
he was coming down the hallway. Just as he got to the door, I kicked
it off with the orchestra, and then he'd know what it was. I handed
him a big lyric sheet with all the words on it. He just loved it.
And it's such a beautiful song, you know, it's just one of those
that you can't miss. So that's how it got started.
Your first recording-session with him was in March
1972. Was there a big difference between playing live and recording
in the studio?
I
would have thought we recorded before that, but I'm not sure. Was it
in '72?
Yes, March 1972 at RCA Hollywood.
I
would have thought we recorded before 1972…
Yes, but that was live.
Oh
okay, I see. Yes, there is a difference between playing a live
performance and playing on records. You have to be more careful when
you're recording in the studio, but with live performance you can do
things… You know, you'd be a little sloppier. It doesn't have to be
as perfect as in the studio.
In June 1972 the Elvis Show went to New York City -
That must've been special.
Are
you talking about Madison Square Garden? Yeah, that was special. He
was really singing great. Well, he always did sing great, but it
seemed to me I never heard him sing better. I was disappointed when
the record came out, because it didn't sound good to me. It sounded
speeded up slightly. I think they remastered that later a lot
better, I've heard.
Yes, that's right.
I
was really disappointed back in '72. I think I probably played it
one time.
Still, I think it sounded better than the
Aloha
album. The mix on that sounds very flat.
I
used to think that all of the Elvis mixes were terrible. But I've
heard that they've remixed that. In fact, I've heard it and I think
it's just wonderful, the remixed
Aloha. But I was always
disappointed with Elvis' albums, how they'd sound.
Did Elvis ever comment upon that?
No,
I never heard him say much about that.
It seems odd to me that you guys sound much better on
other albums from that era, like for instance Emmylou's releases.
Yes!
I really don't know who was responsible for that, but I think it's
the Colonel. It could have been a lot better.
Do you have any special memories of the Aloha
show?
Yes, a lot
of them. I really enjoyed that. We had a real good time.
Did you rehearse a lot for that show?
We
went over to Hawaii and rehearsed some.
Legends: Elvis, with Glen D. Hardin in the back. TCB Band then:
James Burton, Glen D. Hardin, Jerry Scheff and Ronnie Tutt.
In February 1973, there was an incident onstage,
where some people got one stage and a fight started…
I
don't really know, it seemed like it was over before I… I think a
couple of guys tried to get on the stage. Red and Sonny West grabbed
them. The guys that tried to get on the stage had some friends there
that wanted to get into the fight. But there was too much security
around, and it got stopped real quick.
Did you socialize with Elvis?
A
lot, yes. He was very easy to sit down and talk to, and we'd talk
about just everything in the world. He was a very good listener. He
loved to tell stories, he loved to hear stories, he just loved to
hang out with the boys and have a real good time. He felt real
comfortable once we'd get behind closed doors, lock the door,
nobody's coming in. We were all lil' Southern boys, you know, so we
could just be ourselves. Laugh and have a great time.
Did he talk about his early days?
Yes,
he used to talk about the early days of his career.
He played in Lubbock, TX. several times in 1955. Did
you see him back then?
Yeah, I did. If my memory is correct, he was… All of a sudden they
were playing him on the radio. The first time he came to Lubbock, it
was for a car-dealer. They played on a flatbed trailer at a carlot.
And I think he got $75 for that performance. Two or three months
later he came back again, and I think he got $600 for a performance.
That's a pretty good job. And then he came back sometime thereafter,
and then he got $6000! So you can see how things just took off like
a rocket for him.
There's a photo of Elvis being mobbed in Lubbock, and
Buddy Holly is in that photo.
I
was at an Elvis show one day, and Buddy was on that show.
Did you know Buddy?
I
knew him, but I didn't know him well. I started playing with the
Crickets after he died.
A.D.: We were talking about Elvis in private earlier.
Did you notice a change in him after the divorce?
Yes.
I think it hurt him very deeply. He couldn't handle rejection. I
think he loved Priscilla very much, and I think he wished it hadn't
happened.
Did that in your opinion affect his performances?
No,
I don't think so. I think he became very careful of what songs he
sang because he didn't want people to think he was singing to
Priscilla, even though he was…
There's a dialogue from a concert in September 1974
where he keeps saying that You Gave Me A Mountain does not relate to
his life. It's almost like he has to convince himself.
Yes,
exactly.
I'm going to play another dialogue from that concert
for you
(the "drug dialogue" is played).
(pause)… He was doing drugs when he said all that. He was into
prescription drugs, you know. He was terribly mistaken about some
things. He thought that drugs that you buy on the street are
dangerous, but he thought, if you get them from your doctor, it's
okay. We all know that's not the way that works. He was very high
when he said all that. It's very sad. I hadn't thought about that
for many years, but it's very real, and I feel sad about it.
It's been said that most of the TCB band members
wanted to leave Elvis in early 1976, because you guys couldn't stand
to see Elvis deteriorate.
(nods) Yeah, I did leave. I had already been working with Emmylou
anyway in 1975. She booked all of her concert-dates around Elvis'
schedule so she could have us, so I worked way too hard that year.
Did all of her shows, and Elvis' too. I had to drop one of them, and
I didn't want to drop Emmylou. And the situation with Elvis was
getting kinda sad.
The last recording-session you did with him was at
Graceland in February 1976.
It
kinda went nowhere. We were there a long time before he ever got
started. I had told him I had to leave for England on Friday or
Saturday, finished or not, and Elvis didn't start recording until
Thursday. So I left and David Briggs or somebody else came in.
There's been some rumours about songs being recorded
during that session, like Feelings and
America The
Beautiful.
I
don't remember Feelings, and I actually don't remember
America The
Beautiful. I keep hearing about that.
There's a few seconds of that song on one of the
session-tapes, but the rest of it was erased.
Somebody was asking me if maybe he had said something terrible about
America. I don't think he would have done that. If he did, I'm glad
Felton erased it. 'cause I don't think Elvis meant it, he was very
patriotic.
Legends: TCB Band now: James Burton, Ronnie Tutt, Jerry
Scheff and Glen D. Hardin. TCB Band, live.
Do you remember the "blue" version of
Hurt?
Yeah.
Is it a reflection of his state of mind at the time?
I
think it is, isn't it. A lot of people think that's wonderfully
funny, but to me it's terribly sad. I think it's drugs.
This was the last you saw of him, and he died about a
year later. Was that a surprise?
Not
really.
How did you hear the news?
I
happened to be in Memphis, I happened to be working with Emmylou. We
opened a show for Willie Nelson. I went up in the early afternoon,
got down to the coffee shop to have something to eat, and it was
Emmylou's drummer John Ware who told me. I didn't want to call
anybody, there was nothing I could do about it anyway. I was sorry
to hear it, of course, but I didn't go to the funeral or anything.
We've been talking about some of the bad things, but…
Oh,
I only remember the good parts. There were so many good times. I
think I've told you more here today than I've ever told anybody,
especially on a tape-recorder. I don't really like to talk about it,
and I may not ever talk about it again. But you know, there's not
anything I can add to what's already been told about the drugs and
that sort of thing. I know a lot of things about Elvis that I would
never tell anybody. It's nobody's business, you know. Things that I
wouldn't want anybody to tell about me. I don't mind talking about
him with you and fans who are interested to know, 'cause they feel
like I do about him. They love him dearly and deserve to know the
truth.
I think many fans still wonder about what happened to
Elvis in the final years.
I
think a lot of Elvis' problems were Colonel Tom Parker's fault.
Elvis should have flown around the world, have a good time playing
for his fans all over the world. The sad thing is that me and the
rest of the boys are now playing all over the world for all kinds of
people. It's wonderful, you know, to travel the world, have a good
time, have some different food, see how others live, enjoy your
hospitality in your beautiful country and all that. It's just a damn
shame that Elvis didn't get to do that. He wanted to, I know for
sure he wanted to. It would have been exhilerating for him.
It would have presented him with a new challenge.
Oh
certainly, no doubt about it. I think he would have done some of the
greatest shows he ever did, if he'd done that. When we got together
and came to Europe to do the big screen show, we suddenly felt sad
about the fact that, here we are doing it all these many years
later, and he never got to do it. And that's a shame.
Coming back to the Colonel, I got the impression that
you're not too wild about him…
Well, I hardly knew him. I had no dealings with him at all. None of
us in the band. We made our deals with Elvis. I think Elvis wanted
it that way, he didn't want the Colonel to interfere with the music
side of it. The Colonel was very tight with money, of course. He
went CRAZY when he found out how much Elvis was paying us. But I
didn't like him. He spoke to me twice in six years!
And what about his relationship with Elvis?
I
think Elvis should have dropped him years ago. He wanted to.
Strangely, he had some kind of fear that… When he first started, he
was on the radio and everything and people were crazy about him, but
he wasn't making any money. And I think he had the feeling that
they'd been together so long, and the Colonel had gotten so many
deals for him, that if he would ever dissolve that partnership, then
it might suddenly be all over.
You mean almost like a good luck charm, something
that brings you good luck, and bad luck if you throw it out?
Bad
luck if you throw it out, yes. Near the end he didn't like the
Colonel at all, and spoke terrible about him.
And yet he never really stood up against him.
For
some reason or other he didn't. Maybe the drugs had to do with that,
I don't know.
Now you're playing behind 'Elvis' again in ELVIS THE
CONCERT.
Yeah, it's
great fun to do. It's a great show. Even though we're up there for
two hours, it seems like we're only on stage for a few minutes. It
just goes so fast. And the fans just absolutely love it. We all
noticed that there's a lot of 20 year old people in the audience,
and younger even. We were in Finland and there was a beautiful
little girl. She was probably 11 or 12 years old. She was right up
the front of the stage, and she was watching everything like it was
a circus. She loved everything and she was singing all the words.
Maybe her mother and father were Elvis-fans or whatever, but it was
really wonderful. So there's a whole new generation of people out
there.
Thank you for the interview.
Well, you're welcome. I enjoyed doing it.
Source:
Elvisnews.com |
