Michael Rose's carefully researched video biography of Elvis's early years in Tupelo, so often almost totally negelected in other biographies {Jerry Hopkins skips the entire period when Elvis and family moved from East Tupelo to Tupelo, proper. Just SKIPS it!} Elaine Dundy spoke to an older man named John Allen Cooke, who was African-American, and gave Elvis a job as a child. But she spent only a couple-three pages at most on this period of his life. And then it was on to "Memphis." Even Peter Guralnick did not take the initiative to interview a single person in the N. Green St. neighborhood {or, at any rate, to mention that they had NAMES}. It is a matter of public record that Elvis lived on Bell's grandfather's land, although calling it "mixed" is more of a "21st century" description than what it really was at the time. Grandpa Bell, apparently noticed that some families, white families were living in alleys by the fairgrounds, and just southeast of Shakerag in very poor conditions. Clearly, the Presleys were invited under the circumstances of the time.
To his credit, Mr. Bell never sought to become, as have others, a "professional Elvis neighbor." I won't mention any names, but one from Memphis pops up CONTINUOUSLY, offering his stories, even when some have been discredited by others who knew both him and Elvis. And he keeps talking. Mr. Bell simply waited until someone decided to ask. No one, all the years, had ever entered the Tupelo Hardware Store, either, until Elaine Dundy, and she found out that Elvis wanted a rifle, after all, which was denied him. {He made up for it!} But the point is that people like the late Forest L. Bobo, who people now fondly remember, were usually ignored. Bobo even swore out a statement about the rifle! Guralnick doesn't mention him, anyway.
And there is an older man, I am sorry that I don't have all the names in front of me, who is also interviewed, and he remembers Elvis as a child sneaking around Shakerag jukejoints - outside them, "late" as he put it. He laughed. "Onliest way I remember Elvis was as a little kid." A strange little kid who was memorable because, frankly, he "didn't belong" but indeed he did. A white neighbor remembers that Elvis attended the Sanctified Church of which Bell speaks {Bell seems to indicate that he was uninterested, which makes sense for a kid that age, but that "Elvis was fanatical." This is WELL corroborated: Elvis was definitely fanatical about spiritual music of all kinds, but we never did find out why. This helps.) For people to believe those who run after biographers of all kinds, and who have made a sort of hobby of it, or more, and NOT to believe someone who never sought to profit in any way his whole life, when he certainly could have done so, is unfair. Michael Rose apparently sought out the people of N. Green St., and most have probably moved on long ago. Bell's family owned the land, which can be the only reason he's still there. And all this time, no biographer interviewed a single black person, and some even skipped entire periods of time so as not to do so.
I do not think that, in his seventies, Bell wants "recognition" because he had plenty of time over at least the past 32 years. If no one was interested in any of the people of that part of Tupelo where the Presleys lived at such a crucial time in Elvis's development, well, he did not seek them out. No one even cared about who owned the land, their name, or if there were any children there Elvis's age. Bell does not say "I": he says "we." Unfortuntely, like the Presleys, people have left Tupelo because "the City" seemed to offer so much more. The Presley family found it quickly that it did not. But eventually, they settled in even as they struggled.
And finally, Elvis remembered a bit of blues he'd heard live in Tupelo as a child. A bluesman who identified himself only as "Arthur" was just passsing through, making a living. Singing a song most musicologists agree was probably "I Don't Know It" that later became "That's All Right" - with a different melody, chord progression, and some of the same, and some different lyrics {Crupup repeated the "That's All Right, Mama" lyrical refrain in many, if not most of his songs}, and that kid who really "didn't belong" on N. Green St., or hanging about Shakerag {also confirmed by James Ausborn elsewhere: Elvis took him, once, and he was quite overwhelmed by the difference in his brother's more linear manner of presenting music} - well, that kid was there to hear. He didn't really remember it a few years later. Sam Phillips had to TELL him of the source of the music, and then he remembered the encounter {Crudup did not remember the child Elvis, of course} and remembered most the "feel" of the music.
If Elvis's future actions in "violating the law" in Memphis by attending "all-[black]" events {a number of newspapers covered these events, had pictures of some, and even the Press-Schimitar captured a surreal event in 1960, just days after Elvis returned from the service. He climbed up the conductor's stand and conducted the orchestra during "the performance for Negroes" as they called it, and then invited several deaf students {all-black} to his home after the performance. This, they could not ignore.
But biographers could. And did, just as they never bothered the neighbors, or even, with Hopkins, the entire neighborhood. It was as if it had never happened: Elvis's life at 12, or at 13 . . .
But he DID have a richly textured and unusual life at that time, and it has, almost too late, been ignored.
Robin Markowitz, Ph.D.