Presley does a good job on his songs and the skit, a send-up of how the “Louisiana Hayride” and “Grand Ole Opry” casts would sell their sponsor products. But the historical record shows that Elvis felt humiliated wearing a tuxedo, and later singing to Sherlock, a Basset Hound in a top hat, while doing “Hound Dog.” Note that he cuts the song very short. That was not an accident. Presley would never forget that evening, an unfunny attempt by comedian Allen to present “the real Elvis” to a nationwide audience. But perhaps it fueled him creatively, as the very next day he cut one of the greatest sessions of his entire career at RCA New York, including “Any Way You Want Me,” “Don’t Be Cruel” and the powerhouse official cut of “Hound Dog.”
Much has been written about The Steve Allen Show appearance over the years, and one would perhaps be forgiven for thinking that there was nothing left to talk about in regard to what might be Elvis’s most infamous TV appearance amongst his fans. And yet, with each retelling of the story, much of the information required to give a fair hearing to Allen is conspicuous by its absence. In the past, this might have been done because some of the information was not available, but with the appearance of online newspaper and magazine archives over the last decade (and, indeed, websites such as YouTube) it is much easier to piece together the complete story rather than the fragments of it that have been passed down amongst Elvis fans over the last sixty years. After all, alongside Parker, Allen has become the second of the pantomime villains in the Elvis story, and it is time to investigate anew in order to see what really happened, and what Allen’s real relationship with rock ‘n’ roll was.
