Heartbreak Hotel Tenor sax cover by Leo Salu

[saxomonica]

Hi Leo, another great song as usual from you! Sweet edge to your tone.

There is a good write up on Wikipedia about this air here ~

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbreak_Hotel

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other choice bits that go deep down in the belly, strange and almost morbid even ..

1) https://performingsongwriter.com/heartbreak-hotel/

2) https://groovyhistory.com/heartbreak-hotel-elvis-presley-song-history-meaning-lyrics/3

3) https://elvisdaily.com/2023/08/19/elvis-presley-heartbreak-hotel-song-meaning/

And from ROLLING STONE ~

The story has been repeated thousands of times, with minor variations, in magazines, books, blogs and documentaries. In some versions, the heartbroken man shoots himself; in others, he leaps to his death from a hotel window. There are occasional references to a failed romance and to the destruction of all traces of identification before the fatal act. There’s always a one-line suicide note: “I walk a lonely street.”

But there’s never a name. For 60 years, the true identity of the man whose death inspired “Heartbreak Hotel” has remained a mystery. Florida songwriters Tommy Durden and Mae Boren Axton always claimed the creative spark for Elvis Presley‘s first-ever Number One hit was a 1955 newspaper story about an anonymous man’s suicide and his cryptic note about that “lonely street.” (The paper cited is usually The Miami Herald.) And yet, no one has ever turned up the article, or even provided much clarifying detail.

This is surprising, considering that “Heartbreak Hotel” had a colossal impact – both on Elvis’ career and on rock & roll history. It was Elvis’ first nationwide hit after a string of regional successes, and it changed the lives of countless future stars – John Lennon, George Harrison, Keith Richards and Robert Plant have all proclaimed its transformative effect. Elton John, recalling the day he first heard the song, said, “That weekend, my mum came home with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and that changed my life. … Elvis Presley changed everyone’s life. I mean, there would be no Beatles, there would be no Hendrix. There would be no Dylan.” Paul McCartney once declared it nothing less than the most important artistic creation of the modern era.

Axton, a teacher and publicist as well as a songwriter and radio host, went on to become a big wheel in the country-music scene – the “Queen Mother of Nashville.” She’d interviewed Elvis in May 1955 during the Florida leg of a Southern tour, vowed she’d write his first million-seller. A few months later, she cajoled the singer into listening to a demo of “Heartbreak Hotel.” Reluctant, at first, to hear the pitch, Elvis was soon mesmerized by the song. “Hot dog, Mae, play it again!” he is said to have exclaimed. Axton played it 10 times. “He knew the whole song before he left the room,” writes Peter Guralnick, author of the highly acclaimed 1994 Elvis biography Last Train to Memphis.

Durden and Axton gave Presley the third writing credit when he agreed to record “Heartbreak Hotel” in January 1956, his first single after moving from Memphis-based Sun Records to Nashville’s RCA. Elvis’ sexually charged recording – combined with the singer’s electrifying TV performances that spring, particularly one for a Milton Berle special in April ’56 – catapulted him into a kind of celebrity orbit the world had never seen.

Axton died in 1997, Durden in 1999. To the end, they credited the brokenhearted man in that elusive newspaper article as their inspiration. Now, at last, from the digital morgues of old newspapers, comes a breakthrough. And it turns out that the story of the real-life man behind “Heartbreak Hotel” is as tragic and surreal as the gloomy scene “down at the end of Lonely Street.”

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Here’s a informative vid, that is if you have time ..

[Leo Salu]

Always fun to read about the background of a song, who knew all these details were available. Thanks Mark and again I appreciate your comments. Currently working on a new song from Johnny “twisting the Night away” stay tuned. Leo

[Wayne Galtier]

Hello Leo

Just posted another video. Fly Me To The Moon.

Wayne

[Author]

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