Scotty and Elvis: Aboard the Mystery Train

Postscript

245 POSTSCRIPT When it comes to Scotty’s place in rock ’n’ roll history, the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards is emphatic with his opinion: Scotty is Number One. First of all, he was laying the licks down for my generation. He gave us the grounding. If you are my age, he was the beacon. You heard a lot of other cats later, but Scotty is the one who turned you on. To me, and it’s a sad thing to say, but without Scotty, Elvis wouldn’t have been as big. It was Scotty and Bill Black’s rapport—and Scotty’s ability to understand the space he was working in. Elvis got big so quick, he overshadowed the band. Parker, the beloved Colonel, being the man he was, saw no percentage in the band. It is really scandalous what Parker did to Elvis. I’m sure the Colonel told him that Scotty and Bill were being paid a fortune. Knowing this business— and knowing the Colonel—I would put money on it. For his part, Scotty takes praise today much as he took it in the beginning : with a grain of salt. To his way of thinking, some 50 years after he helped lay the foundation for a multi-million-dollar music industry, it still has a surreal quality to it—not the music, but the history of it, the way it happened as he lived it day to day. When he says “walk a mile in my shoes” if you want to understand the music, he does so with both conviction and humility. Scotty has finally accepted his role in American music. In doing so he has realized that what he for so long fancied as a magical interlude in his life was instead history in the making that ultimately affected every facet of American society. —James L. Dickerson This page intentionally left blank ...