As Told By..... SHAUN NIELSEN The first time I took the whole group (the group that was to become Voice) to see Elvis, he flew us to Las Vegas. Tom Jones was having trouble with his backup singers, and we were gonna be like a gift from Elvis to Tom. We were put up in a nice hotel at Elvis expense, and then he brought us up to his room to sing for Tom that night. This had to cost him a lot of money. We got up to sing, and I remember that right in front of us were Tom Jones, Bobbie Gentry, and Elvis Presley! I was intimidated, to say the least. Anyway, Tom told Elvis that he had just signed a contract with The Blossoms, and if he got rid of them hed probably be sued, so he didnt feel like he could use us. Afterwards, Elvis called us back up to his suite, and we sat there on the floor in the bedroom for a long time, just chatting. He said, Well, I know youre probably disappointed, so Ive drawn up this little contract. It was on a sheet of toilet tissue! The opening line said, For the sum of one hundred thousand dollars...we would travel and sing and work with him and write songs for his music publishing companies. He said, Would you boys be interested in that? As soon as we revived ourselves, we said, Sure! Wed love to do that. That was in 1973. That same hundred thousand dollars would be equal to two hundred fifty to three hundred thousand dollars today. After he signed the contract with us, Elvis went to the phone and called his dad. He said, Daddy, I just want you to know Ive finally got my own group. Those were his words. We were basically just to travel and sing with him when he felt like it. Sometimes hed send a plane for us in Nashville, just to take us to Memphis to go to the movies! Then sometimes after the movies wed go back to Graceland and sing all night. That basically was our job. We also opened his show at the Las Vegas Hilton for two or three years.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 13:58:25 +0000
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