Gram's parents saw their young son's interest in music early on; saw the way he responded to the radio, even as the baby fat still lurked in his cheeks. They gave him piano lessons with a neighbor, Mrs. Maynard, and filled the house with instruments—a kid's size drum set, a trumpet, a toy piano installed in the light-filled enclosed porch at the back of the house.
Rock was in its raw and nascent form then, birthed in the blues of the South and just about to find its own feet. After school Gram would bike to the boxing factory to wait for his dad on the concrete stoop. He'd watch as the workers gathered for after-hours jamborees, pulling out guitars and banjos and embarking on noisy renditions of the favorites tunes of the day, songs by Patsy Cline, Lefty Frizell, Hank Williams.
Music threaded through Gram's daily life too, floated out of car windows, blasted out over Waycross' main drag during Saturday night sock hops. There was music at home, with friends, music filling up Gram's young head. Certain sounds drew him, moth to flame—the earthy, sexual swagger that Jerry Lee Lewis coaxed from the piano keys, that enticing boogie-woogie strut that spoke of grown-up daring and something else too, something masculine and slightly predatory.
At his lessons Gram carefully picked out the tunes he loved, diligent, focused, finding his way across the keyboard with a preternatural ease. He learned the standards his mother loved Cole Porter tunes, swinging Nat King Cole numbers, then found his way through his own quickly developing tastes, trying his best to play with the same yearning and high emotion he saw in his heroes.
Summer evening were spent with fingers pressed to the keys, the blurred chirp of insects outside, the low tide smell of the swamps mixed with the sharp sweet scent of Mrs. Maynard's sugar cookies. When he was eight years old, he wrote his first song, fingers skittering across the ivories, tapping out a makeshift ramble he brazenly dubbed "Gram Boogie."
Meanwhile, the world was rolling forward, Chuck Berry singing "Maybellene," The Teenagers asking "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?". Rosa Parks was refusing to give up her seat on the bus, James Dean had just died in the twisted wreckage of his Porsche Spider, and Elvis Presley was about to conquer a nation with one thrust of his pelvis.
Gram was only nine when he went to see Elvis for the first time. He had heard Elvis on the radio, seen pictures of the chiseled cheekbones, the dark-eyed sneer and he had begged his parents for tickets. Gram, almost always, got what he wanted and on Feb. 22, 1956, he was there to see his hero, live and in the flesh.
He had come with two giddy, pretty, young bobbysoxers in tow, already the ladies man. He tried to act cool and smooth, but he was excited beyond words, butterfly stomached and fidgety with anticipation. He played the gentleman, nonetheless, waiting patiently with the girls in the long line of ticket holders, leading them through the crowd, a hand on the small of their backs. He sat between them in the echoing auditorium, looking up into the high domed ceiling, listening to the restless noise of the audience, the quick intake of a thousand breaths as the lights finally went low.
Elvis had recorded his first demo at Sam Philips' Sun Studio in July of 1953, and by the time he arrived in Waycross he was riding a crest of regional popularity. In a few months time he'd appear on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time, and seduce the world in the process. But in Waycross that night, he was still young and hungry, not yet the superstar, "The King" in the polyester rhinestone jumpsuit.
Just a few days before the Georgia shows, Elvis had stopped in at RCA in Nashville to record some tracks for his upcoming " Elvis" album. He'd laid down "Lawdy Ms. Clawdy" and "Heartbreak Hotel" just 48 hours before arriving in Waycross. He had been on tour for months by then, playing that night with Little Jimmy Dickens as the opening act, two shows a day, one at 7 and another at 9 pm.
When Elvis finally took the stage in Georgia, he looked young, impossibly young, full cheeked and grinning, brown eyes catching the lights in the rafters, hair greased, black and immovable, liquid bright. He started the show off by blowing through what were to become classic hits, "Hound Dog", "Don't Be Cruel", "Love Me Tender". The tiny amplifiers did their best to beat against the screams of the crowds.
Elvis threw himself into the performance with a desperate energy—cocky, beautiful and completely fearless. He was just realizing the effect he had on his audiences and he was wielding that power joyfully, aware of the ripple that shook the room at every thrust of his pelvis, aware of the picture he made in his shark skin suit.
Gram watched everything with saucer eyes—the hip shake, the raw ache in that beautiful voice and he watched the crowd too, the way the girls' faces had gone pink, mouths slightly open, a slight glint of moisture on the lips. He watched the way they closed their eyes and swayed, the way they clutched the backs of the seats in front of them, knuckles white as they held themselves up, the way the music took hold of them and shook something down deep.
When the show was over something went empty in the room, a hot longing rose up from the crowd and Gram finally knew what he wanted. Later he would make his way backstage, push along the auditorium hall, sidle past instrument cases and groups of young women with curls in disarray, fanning themselves with damp programs. He would march straight into Elvis' dressing room, where he would demand an autograph and offer congratulations with the mix of audacity and good breeding he had learned from his mother.
The allure of music, for Gram, was obvious. He had always gotten the most attention when he was performing- impromptu piano recitals at his grandparents', strumming guitar on the front steps of the house in Waycross, belting out "Jailhouse Rock" for the neighborhood kids. After the Elvis show, he began to take Ms. Maynard's piano lessons even more seriously, hungry to learn. He was a natural, with the thin and graceful fingers of a born player, beautifully shaped and impossibly long. He was also an innate performer, content in the spotlight, always craving adoration, even from a crowd of strangers.
Long afternoons were spent perched on the front steps, lip-synching to the worn grooves floating up from his singles collection, the local girls gathering to watch the show. Elvis would come through the tiny speakers of the portable record player, echoing across the lawn through the needle scratches and heat warped vinyl and Gram would sing along. He would mimic the snarl, the smooth ballad ringing, the deep-throated pleading, all the while trying to find his own way through the songs.
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Jessica Hundley's Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography Of Gram Parsons, from which this excerpt was taken, was published in November 2005 by Thunder's Mouth Press. It is available wherever fine books are sold.
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