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13 “Red Hot at First . . . Blue at the Very End” When Dewey Phillips’s decline began sometime during the mid-1950s he was probably at the peak of his power. Before his descent, Red, Hot and Blue could not have been more red or more hot. Daddy-O-Dewey, whose local popularity continued to profit by Elvis’s growing fame, enjoyed mastery of the airwaves. Exhilarated by their lion’s share of a rapidly growing youth market now turned on to the new rhythm and blues sound, station management decided to strike while Dewey’s iron was hot. Not only was their superstar receiving attractive offers from other stations but there was also talk of going national with his show—coast to coast over the Mutual Network. It was during this period that Dewey repeatedly turned down much more lucrative offers in other cities because he did not want to leave Memphis.1 The station realized that the best way to exploit Dewey’s increasing renown was through the powerful new medium of television. The thinking was that Dewey’s loyal radio following would switch over to television. Because that was where the big money was, that’s where he should be. Still, WHBQ knew the risk involved. The station had never been entirelycomfortablewiththealwayspotentiallytroublesomeDewey —Robert Johnson once said “it was easier to deplore than ignore him”—and television was a fresh venture. Station management figured that Dewey’s radio audience had always been limited to those who had made a deliberate choice to follow him. Television, however, was a new medium with a mesmerized following. Many tuned in just to see what was on. Management was undoubtedly more anxious about Dewey’s unsettling 13.175-192_Cant.indd฀฀฀175 2/8/05฀฀฀1:56:58฀PM DEWEY฀AND฀ELVIS 176 antics in front of this wider and largely unexplored audience than with what he said to devoted followers on the radio. The best example of that anxiety can be seen in the station’s decision to have a one-night-only trial program before putting Dewey on television permanently. On August 25, 1956, WHBQ-TV first presented Dewey to a television audience on a Saturday night show at 8, Phillips and His Phriends. It followed the Lawrence Welk Show, causing Robert Johnson to caustically remark that Dewey would be a “sort of beer chaser for the champagne music.” The Commercial Appeal later reported that this single show caused a “minor explosion” of telephone calls, even though the “vast bulk of calls were highly enthusiastic.” Nonetheless, Dewey did not appear on television again on a regular daily basis until December 31, more than four months later.2 On the very last day of 1956, WHBQ-TV permanently placed Dewey in a favorite late-afternoon slot—3:30 to 4:30, a move obviously designed to catch the teenaged after-school crowd, evidenced by the fact that Elvis would be his special guest on the first show.3 The program was called Pop Shop and was to be “simulcast” with radio. Dewey would presumably continue to do his regular thing, just as he had done on Red, Hot and Blue—play records and be Dewey. Because he was being seen as well as heard, however, the new medium presented the biggest challenge of his career. Dewey had acquired his reputation solely on being unique, a faceless disc jockey. Some critics were quick to express the notion that he should have stuck to his original medium. The format of the Pop Shop was essentially the same as for Red, Hot and Blue—perhaps best described by Robert Johnson as “casual pandemonium ”—but television was not always complimentary to Dewey. Welton Roy, the WHBQ engineer who had constructed the special studio just for Dewey’s radio show, also arranged separate accommodations for him for television. The show was conducted live from a permanent set isolated on the second floor in an area originally designed as a storage place for the station’s other sets. Pop Shop usually opened with the star cozily ensconced behind a large desk, surrounded by turntables on each side. Spread out on the desk were various kinds of noise-making paraphernalia (his favorite was Myrtle the Cow), affording Dewey endless opportunities whenever there was a lull in the action. “We made up the show as we went,” says Durrell Durham, Pop Shop’s director. “Dewey was in charge of the music, but nothing else. While one record was playing, he...

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