FEATURE:

When “The King” Came To Town

Above and facing page: Moffatt interviews Elvis Presley during his 1957 visit to Hawaii. Photos courtesy of the Tom Moffatt Collection.

"The year was 1957 and hip, handsome Elvis Presley was dominating the American music scene. An excerpt from a brand-new book by legendary promoter and radio personality Tom Moffatt recalls the king of rock-and-roll’s first concerts in Hawaii."

During his 50 years as a radio personality and promoter in Hawaii, Tom Moffatt, 75, has staged the biggest acts in the entertainment business — from Led Zeppelin to Elton John, Rudolf Nureyev to the Harlem Globetrotters, Frank Sinatra to the Rolling Stones.

Watermark Publishing’s latest release, The Showman of the Pacific: 50 Years of Radio and Rock Stars, is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at show business through the eyes of the legendary “Uncle Tom.”

In this excerpt, Moffatt describes the excite-ment that hit Honolulu when Elvis Presley gave his first two concerts here on November 10, 1957. Maybe you were there!

One day I was emceeing a talent show at Farrington High School, and Ron Jacobs called me from the station (KHVH) to say that Elvis Presley was coming to Honolulu Stadium for a concert. This was big news, and when I announced it from the school stage, the kids went berserk.

Just before joining KHVH, I had held a contest on KIKI Radio with a friend, Dick Howard, the advertising director for Consolidated Movie Theaters in Hawaii. With Dick’s help I was able to give away the hat Elvis wore in his first movie, Love Me Tender. The contest generated 53,000 letters. The hat was presented to the winner at a special showing of the movie at the Waikiki Theater, on a Saturday morning in December 1956. That was the first time I experienced people screaming in a movie theater.

Now Elvis was actually coming to the Islands to perform. The concert was added onto the end of a long mainland tour despite the promoter’s advice to forget it. The promoter was Lee Gordon, an American who brought the first rock-and-roll shows to Australia. Gordon said he didn’t think Hawaii had enough fans to fill the stadium once, let alone twice. Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, knew better. He was well aware of the Love Me Tender hat contest.

There was another attraction for the Colonel in the Islands. This was something none of us knew at the time, probably not even Elvis. The Colonel’s real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, and he was Dutch. Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1929, he served at Fort DeRussy and then at Fort Shafter, and it wasn’t until after he was discharged that he started calling himself Thomas R. Parker, the name of his Hawaii commanding officer!

What happened next was amazing, too. KHVH was Honolulu’s rock-and-roll station, the Elvis station, and a few days before the concert date, we were told that Colonel Parker had taken the entire eighth floor of the Hawaiian Village Hotel for Elvis and his entourage, the floor below our studios! As soon as the word got out, the fans began to gather. One girl from Kaneohe strung one of the longest leis ever made and gave it to Jacobs and me. Jacobs hung it from the lanai outside Elvis’s suite, and it reached all the way to the ground. It was there when Elvis checked in, after a four-and-a-half-day cruise on the S.S. Matsonia.

Of course, we had our own welcome planned. It was Ron’s idea: what we did was create the world’s first Elvis impersonator. The day before the shows, Donn Tyler, a member of the station staff, was dressed and made up to look like Elvis, given an Elvis wig, and put in the back seat of a white convertible next to a make-believe Colonel Parker. The idea was that Jacobs would then give them a tour of the island while I went on the air. It was Saturday morning, and every record I played was one of Elvis’.

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Meet The Showman of the Pacific The Showman of the Pacific: 50 Years of Radio and Rock Stars is a 240-page coffee-table autobiography of Tom Moffatt that’s packed with more than 400 classic photos; anecdotes from celebrity contributors, including Neil Sedaka, Johnny Tillotson and Sid Bernstein; and stories about KPOI radio’s POI Boys, the Hawaiian music renaissance, Sunshine Festivals inside Diamond Head and much more. Doo-wop, disco, rock-and-roll, symphony, sports, opera, ballet, theater — all the highlights of showbiz in Hawaii are here. Jerry Hopkins, a former correspondent and editor at Rolling Stone who also has written best-selling biographies of Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix, co-authored The Showman of the Pacific. It is available for $34.95 at bookstores and other retail outlets statewide, or you can purchase the book directly from Watermark Publishing by calling 587-7766, e-mailing sales@bookshawaii.net or going on the Web site www.bookshawaii.net.

First they went to Kalihi, and some-one called the station to say they’d seen Elvis driving down King Street. Then they drove over the Pali to Kailua. It got bigger and bigger, and I kept taking the calls from people on the street. The plan was for Ron and his friends to arrive at the stadium during one of the biggest high-school football games of the year, a contest between McKinley and Punahou.

After bluffing their way through the gate, the car halted in front of the stands and, as Ron described it later in HONOLULU magazine, “Gene Good [who was broadcasting pre-game activities live on KGU], in the midst of discussing the undefeated Punahou team, froze in mid-sentence — gasped — whispered to someone — paused — then raved hysterically, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, Elvis Presley, the King of Rock-and-Roll, has pulled into Honolulu Stadium right before our eyes!’”

The stadium went bananas. Both teams stopped their warm-up exercises. The McKinley band stopped playing and chased the car as it now started circling the field. The Punahou band struck up “Hound Dog” while Gene Good announced, “You’re hearing it all exclusively here on KGU, 760 on the dial!”

I’d played Elvis records for about six hours when Ron and the others got back to the studio, reporting what had happened. I signed off at 3 and was told someone wanted to talk to us on the phone. An anonymous voice told us that Colonel Parker wanted to see us downstairs. We went down, scared to death. He was wearing a straw hat and a string tie. He looked at us for a minute. He wasn’t smiling. Then he said, “You boys got a fair sense of humor. Now, I heard your little stunt. And you know what? It should sell some tickets.”

It was at that point Elvis entered the room. “Elvis, say hello to Mr. Moffatt,” the Colonel said. I shook hands, and he said, “Pleased to meet you, sir. Sure is a pretty place y’all got here.” He was then introduced to Mr. Jacobs, and the Colonel said, “Elvis, these boys got us some good publicity today, gonna sell tickets. Okay if they emcee the shows tomorrow?”

“Sounds good to me,” said the man whose records I’d played all day. “Nice meetin’ you fellas. See y’all at the show.”

I was to emcee at the afternoon concert, Jacobs at the one that night. I was wearing my white jacket, and when I walked out onto the field, there was this huge reaction from the crowd. The Colonel told me to get up on the stage and introduce Elvis.

“Where is he?” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” the Colonel said back. “Just introduce him.”

The band was already in place. Then Elvis arrived in a limo with his Memphis Mafia, the gang of good ol’ boys he took with him wherever he went. I think about all the technical support the acts use now. All Elvis had was the boxing ring; that was his stage. The sound system was pretty much what they used for boxing. And his lights that night were the boxing lights. But that didn’t matter, with the raw excitement projected by Elvis Presley.

One thing I’ll never forget was his encore number. He had just done “Hound Dog,” started to go off the stage, and of course the crowd went crazy. So he came back and he did this slow, sexy version of “Hound Dog.” He jumped off the stage and sang to the audience. And the barriers were nothing like they are today, just a piece of fencing. So you could see Elvis through the fencing, and he was down on his knees singing.

“Yoooouuuuuu ain’t nuuuuuuuuthin’ buuuut a hooouuuuund dawg…” And the crowd went totally nuts.
Then he was swept away in a limo with his band, another car following close behind carrying the Memphis Mafia. Of all the rock-and-roll shows I did, that was the one Rock-and-Roll Moment.

Later there was a press conference at the hotel, and I did a little interview with Elvis. I asked him what he thought of our promotion. He said, “I listened for a little while, but got tired of listening to myself, so I changed the station.”

It didn’t matter. From that time on, we had the inside track. Whenever Elvis came to town, the Colonel always made sure that I was the only one there with a microphone.

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The Other Side of Uncle Tom

From top: Moffatt with Carlos Santana (photo by Richard Upper); with Jan and Dean (by John Lau, City Art Works); Mick Jagger (from the Tom Moffatt Collection); Jimi Hendrix (by Robert Knight); with the Everly Brothers (by John Lau, City Art Works).

Tom Moffatt is a self-proclaimed homebody. Although he attends every special event he promotes — some 25 concerts, sports events, plays and dance performances each year — he says, “I can’t wait to get home to my wife and cook clam linguine.”

Moffatt relishes the simple life — a bit surprising for someone who has hobnobbed with the likes of Liza Minelli, Johnny Cash, the Eagles and Sammy Davis, Jr. He’s happiest when he’s swimming at Waimanalo Beach, watching “Desperate Housewives” and unwinding with a game of backgammon. He loves listening to the music of Earth, Wind & Fire and can’t resist a slice of lemon meringue pie.

Having lived in the islands for the past 50 years, Moffatt is saddened by what he regards as overdevelopment. “On Kauai, I used to love the drive to Hanalei Bay, but now there are shops and hotels all along the road,” he says. Molokai is now his favorite local escape because “it’s the only island that’s remained the way it was.”

Traveling often is part of his job, and Moffatt doesn’t mind it at all. In November 2004 and twice last year, he went to Bangkok to finish The Showman of the Pacific with co-author Jerry Hopkins. The people there, he says, “were amazing — among the most open and friendly people I’ve ever met.”

Moffatt also enjoys visiting Rarotonga, Indonesia, Palau, Guam and Tahiti, noting “I just like the island feel.”

Home for him, however, will always be Hawaii, and he’ll continue to do what he loves — promoting shows and hosting “Uncle Tom’s Rock-and-Roll Drive-in” Saturday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon on KGMZ 107.9 FM, an “oldies” station that plays classics from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

“When I deejay, that’s my recreation time,” Moffatt says. “I take people back to a happier time in their lives.” — Corinne Ann Knutson

Favorite song: “One Particular Harbor” by Jimmy Buffett

Favorite movie: The Godfather

Favorite book: Tales of the South Pacific

Favorite color: Blue

Childhood ambition: Lawyer

First job: Dishwasher

Dream vacation: South Africa

Most recent splurge: Traveling to Canton, Ohio to see Steve Young inducted into the Football Hall Of Fame

Biggest thrill: Sitting in the audience when Elvis introduced me during one of his shows at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1969

Little-known fact about yourself: I was the publisher of Honolulu’s first TV Guide

Happiest moment: Learning that I was named by the Honolulu Centennial Commission as one of the 100 most influential people in the history of Honolulu

Most satisfying achievement: Helping to raise more than $500,000 for hurricane victims when I presented The Iniki Benefit Concerts at Blaisdell Arena on November 8 and 9, 1992. Headliners were Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and The Pahinui Brothers. Jimmy Buffett was a surprise guest.

Current goal: Stay healthy and keep doing what I’m doing

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