Ozzie Nelson forbade Ricky from appearing on ‘Bandstand’

Eric Hilliard “Ricky” Nelson was born in 1940 in Teaneck, N.J., the youngest son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, a couple with one of the most popular situation comedies on early television.

 

Ricky Nelson had a teenage crush on a girl, but she wasn’t impressed much…until he told her he was a rock’n’roll singer. That white lie caused a love crisis when she told him to prove it. Ricky convinced his folks that he was a quick learner and to give him a singing part on the show. He and his guitar delivered.

In the rock’n’roll reference book “Dick Clark’s The First 25 Years of Rock & Roll,” coauthors Michael Uslan and Bruce Solomon devote an entire section to the musical influence of Ricky Nelson. They wrote:

“Ricky’s voice and mannerisms were heavily influenced by Elvis Presley (who was five years older than Nelson), but they were promoted and packaged very differently,” Uslan and Solomon said. Elvis was raucous and raw. Ricky was the clean-cut, preppy guy.

Yet, Elvis and Ricky “stand together in rock’n’roll history as two major rock acts who never appeared on Dick Clark’s ‘American Bandstand’ TV show.”

 

Basically, when “American Bandstand” made its big splash in August 1957, Elvis Presley was focusing on making hit movies in Hollywood. Sources said Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker saw no commercial advantage in booking his client to appear on “Bandstand” at that point in Presley’s career.

Music historian Robert Seoane said: “Ozzie Nelson knew he had a goldmine in his hands and would showcase his son Ricky at the end of every few episodes. Being a control freak, Ozzie forbade his son from appearing on any other national television show as a performer.”

Ricky Nelson lacked Elvis’ flair and devilish attitude, but parents of teenage girls said that was OK and gave him two thumbs up. 

Between 1957-62, Ricky Nelson recorded 30 songs that entered the Top 40, more than any other artist except Elvis Presley. Nelson’s Number One hits were “Travelin’ Man” and “Poor Little Fool.” (The latter song was written by 18-year-old Sharon Sheeley after she had broken up with Don Everly of The Everly Brothers.)

 

The “British Invasion” in 1964 changed the playing field, Seoane said, and Nelson experimented with other sounds, hoping to gain traction with future generations. He waded into country music with the Stone Canyon Band

To help pay the bills, Nelson agreed to perform at a nostalgic “Rock & Roll Spectacular” show on Oct. 15, 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, along with Chuck Berry, Bobby Rydell, The Shirelles, The Coasters, Gary U.S. Bonds and Bo Diddley.

Nelson sported shoulder-length hair and was wearing bell bottoms and a purple velvet shirt. He didn’t look the same. He planned to transition from his oldies into some newer material.

 

Nelson “started out playing some of his chestnuts, including ‘Be-Bop Baby’ and ‘Hello Mary Lou,’ delighting the crowd,” reported Songfacts.com. “He played ‘She Belongs to Me,’ a minor hit from just two years earlier, and then sat down at a piano to go into his cover of ‘Honky Tonk Women’ from his upcoming album.”

Nelson started to hear booing from the audience, so he got up and exited the stage. He did not appear with the other artists in the finale.

Deeply hurt, Nelson opted to make “lemon aid” from the experience, writing the song that he considered to be his “greatest musical achievement” – “Garden Party.”

 

A classic line from the lyrics continues to resonate: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

Dick Clark ensured that Elvis Presley’s popularity didn’t slip

Despite its best efforts to keep Pvt. Elvis Presley under wraps during his tour of duty during 1958-60, the U.S. Army had its hands full. The famous rock’n’roll singer was an international celebrity.

After completing basic training at Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas, Presley was deployed to Europe, stationed in Friedberg, Germany. He was classified as an armor intelligence specialist with a tank battalion in Company D, but mostly, he drove a Jeep for Reconnaissance Platoon Sgt. Ira Jones of Company C.

 

Presley’s presence created plenty of headaches for the Army, said Todd DePastino of the Veterans Breakfast Club, based in Pittsburgh, Pa. “Every move Pvt. Presley made had to be coordinated at the highest levels, so the Army could enforce crowd control over swarming fans, reporters and photographers. Elvis was bigger than any of his commanders or general staff officers assigned to handle him.”

“Guards kept watch 24/7 for girls trying to scale the fence and catch a glimpse of the famous singer. At the Army post office, clerks battled a 15-fold increase in letters to the battalion from fans around the world,” DePastino wrote.

“The king of rock’n’roll settled into a routine like that of other soldiers. He reported to duty at 7 a.m. He took classes in map and compass reading. He washed his jeep and did calisthenics. He planted munitions and scouted for enemy mines. And he spent his Friday nights scrubbing latrines to be ready for Saturday inspections.”

Even while Elvis Presley was tucked away in Germany, his legendary manager Colonel Tom Parker “kept the home fires burning,” noted Elvis Presley historian Alan Hanson.

Parker approached Dick Clark, host of the popular “American Bandstand” television show, about broadcasting exclusive, live telephone interviews with Presley. “Parker recognized Dick Clark’s influence with teens; Clark had the ability to understand and communicate with young people,” Hanson said.

 

Three interviews were arranged while Presley was in Germany that allowed Presley to speak directly to Clark’s massive audience of record-buying teenagers. Presley told his fans that although the Army prevented him from performing songs, he was still working on his music, playing the guitar in his room. He said he was itching to return to “the entertainment world.”

Clark reassured Presley that the “kids still loved him and his music and always would.”

 

Presley left Germany on March 2, 1960, and was released from active duty shortly thereafter. He had attained the rank of sergeant.

 

Hanson said Presley did, indeed, work on his music in Germany “singing to himself to keep his voice in shape and expand his range, especially to reach and hold notes at the top of the register. He kept up with trends in popular music beyond rockabilly, country and gospel. He even made home recordings that covered a wider range of music than he had ever performed in public.”

 

To his repertoire, Hanson explained, “he added strong pop ballads, such as ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ and ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’ Combine all that with the pop arias ‘It’s Now or Never’ and ‘Surrender,’ and it’s clear that Elvis returned to the music business in 1960 as a much more diverse vocalist than he had been before entering the Army in 1958.”

“Elvis’s first movie after getting out the Army was ‘G.I Blues,’ which received mixed reviews from critics,” Hanson said.

 

Here’s what The New York Times writer had to say about it: “Gone is that rock’n’roll wriggle, that ludicrously lecherous leer, that precocious country bumpkin image, that unruly mop of oily hair….Elvis is now a fellow you can almost stand.” 

A pair of early teen music idols skipped ‘American Bandstand’

Only two of the major rock’n’roll super stars from the late 1950s-early 1960s era never performed live on the “American Bandstand” television show, hosted by Dick Clark.

 

It’s a good trivia question. Who are they? Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson. It wasn’t because Dick Clark didn’t like the teen idol singers. Quite the contrary, he appreciated their talents and gushed praises toward both.

 

Rather, the men who managed the rising careers of Presley and Nelson were responsible for distancing them from the “American Bandstand” dancers. The stories have some similarities.

Presley’s manager was Thomas Andrew Parker (shown below), who came to the United States from the Netherlands in 1929. Amidst the Great Depression, times were hard. Parker worked the carnival circuit and enjoyed success promoting the carnival musicians.

 

Parker helped one client, vocalist Jimmie Davis (shown below), get elected governor of Louisiana in 1944. In return, Davis awarded Parker with an honorary rank of “colonel” in the Louisiana State Guard. Parker liked the sound of that…and referred to himself from then on as Colonel Tom Parker.

 

Parker happened to “discover” the talented singer Elvis Aaron Presley of Tupelo, Miss., in 1955…and by 1956 Colonel Parker had become his manager. He promptly sought opportunities for Presley to shine by making selective television appearances (three spots on “The Ed Sullivan Show”), while launching an acting career in the film industry.

 

Everything was going swimmingly until those plans were interrupted by Uncle Sam in 1958.

Todd DePastino, executive director of the Veterans Breakfast Club, based in Pittsburgh, Pa., said: “Presley dutifully registered with the Selective Service 11 days after his 18th birthday in January 1953, while the draft was feeding battlelines in Korea. With the signing of the Korean War Armistice Agreement in July 1953, conscription numbers plummeted.”

So, it came as quite a shock when the local draft board reached out nearly five years later to tap Presley to become a soldier. “By that time, he was famous. He’d released three Number One records and signed a major Hollywood movie deal,” DePastino said.

 

Everyone anticipated that Presley would draw an assignment in “Special Services” that would keep him in the spotlight, entertaining the troops, like Glenn Miller and Mickey Rooney had done in World War II, DePastino wrote.

“It’s hard to believe, but the Army didn’t think Elvis would be much of a draw among GIs. ‘Our studies indicate that his basic appeal is to young girls,’ said an Army spokesman.”

“The Navy tried to lure Elvis into a blue uniform with a promise to perform at naval installations and enjoy his own priority housing,” DePastino said.

Parker, however, didn’t like the idea of Presley singing on stage for Uncle Sam. “Such performances would be free-of-charge and remain forever in the public domain, meaning no royalties for the Colonel and his star client,” DePastino reported.

“The Colonel also knew any special treatment by the Pentagon would brand Elvis a coddled celebrity and only compound his intense unpopularity among those who disapproved of his rowdy music, leg-shaking performances and long-haired appearance.”

“The best strategy, the Colonel told Elvis, was to profess a readiness to serve in any capacity,” DePastino said.

Presley told reporters: “I’m not gonna ask for anything. I’ll do what they want me to do.”

It began with the military haircut on March 26, 1958, at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. About 55 members of the news media crowded into the small barbershop to report on the “Haircut Heard ‘Round the World.”

 

“Hair today, gone tomorrow,” quipped Elvis from the barber’s chair. He’s in the Army now….

Coast Guard aviation took root in Carteret County, N.C., in 1920

One of the pearls of information that connect Carteret County, N.C., and the U.S. Coast Guard was shared recently by Capt. Tim List, Commander of Coast Guard Sector North Carolina (shown below).

 

He said the history of Coast Guard aviation officially began in 1920 at Camp Glenn in the community of Carolina City, just west of Morehead City.

In 1905, the State of North Carolina acquired a sandy tract of land on a bluff overlooking Bogue Sound to be used as a training site for the North Carolina National Guard. An installation was built in 1906, named Camp Glenn after Gov. Robert Broadnax Glenn of Rockingham County, who served from 1905-09 (shown below).

 

Barracks, sewers and other infrastructure could readily accommodate 400-500 men. Between 1911-18, Camp Glenn was the “permanent site of the annual encampment of the North Carolina National Guard.”

 

After World War I, Camp Glenn served briefly as a U.S. Navy air station. The camp was turned over to the Coast Guard and became operational on March 24, 1920, as the first Coast Guard Air Station in the nation.

The reason why the Coast Guard wanted an “aviation arm” was simple, according to Lt. Cmdr. William Pitts Wishar, one of the earliest Coast Guard aviators. He said: “Any ship in trouble at sea had to be searched for by a surface cutter, and vital time was lost searching. The sea is awfully large.”

“An airplane, in weather that would allow it to fly and search, could cover enormously greater areas at sea than a cutter could.”

Wishar was selected by Lt. Cmdr. Stanley Vincent Parker, Aviation Aide to Rear Adm. William Edward Reynolds, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, to serve as commander of first Coast Guard air station.

 

Lt. Cmdr. Parker

“Parker asked which of two available surplus Navy air stations would be better for our Coast Guard aviation work: the one at Morehead City or Key West, Fla?”

Wishar said: “I gave him my ideas. Key West would be a better-weather, less rugged station. The Coast Guard had to prove the worth of aviation as an adjunct to its duties. The rougher-weather Morehead City station was closer to the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ (Cape Hatteras).”

“We would have more opportunities to locate vessels in distress, derelicts, menaces to navigation and vessels ashore on Diamond Shoals, Lookout Shoals and Frying Pan Shoals. Parker was in accord and informed the Navy that the Coast Guard would take the Morehead City station.”

The Navy left behind a small fleet of seaplanes, including five HS-2L Curtiss flying boats and two Aeromarine 40 flying boats.

 

With a crew of 11 pilots and nearly 20 enlisted men, Air Station Morehead City went about its mission: Saving life and property in coastal regions and adjacent waters, enforcing laws and assisting other federal and state officials, assisting fishermen by spotting schools of fish and surveying and mapping.

 

In 1921, Rear Adm. Reynolds (shown below) appealed to the U.S. Congress for funds to continue operation of the Morehead City Air Station, stating that “it had proved its worth.” Congress, however, declined to appropriate funding for continued operation. The facility was decommissioned on July 1, 1921. Men were transferred to other assignments.

 

“A few enlisted personnel under Carpenter Theodore Tobiason were left to complete shipments and clean up,” Wishar wrote. “I was transferred to Charleston, S.C., as Captain of the Port, later to a cruising cutter. Thus ended the first stage of Coast Guard aviation.”

Today, the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla., pays tribute to the origin of Coast Guard Aviation in Carteret County.

Carteret County, N.C., salutes Coast Guard’s ‘Queen of the Fleet’

Happy 80th birthday in 2024 to the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Smilax (WLIC-315), homeported at Station Fort Macon at Atlantic Beach. The vessel is affectionately known as “Queen of the Fleet,” the oldest vessel still performing official Coast Guard duties.

Writing for the U.S. Department of Defense information services office, military historian Walter T. Ham IV said the 94-foot Smilax was built by Dubuque (Iowa) Boat & Boiler Works on the Mississippi River. She was launched on Aug. 18, 1944, and commissioned Nov. 1, 1944, during World War II.

 

“The allied forces had another 10 months of fighting ahead before victory in Europe and the Pacific would bring World War II to an end,” Ham wrote.

“With nearly eight decades of water in her wake, the Smilax is an octogenarian inland construction tender that was enthroned as the Coast Guard “Queen of the Fleet” in 2011 when the medium endurance cutter Acushnet (WMEC-167) was decommissioned in Ketchikan, Alaska.

“To mark her special status, Smilax displays a gold hull number instead of a white hull number like the rest of the Aids to Navigation (ATON) or ‘Black Hull’ cutters,” Ham said. “Smilax crewmembers wear a gold 315 insignia on their nametags.”

 

Prior to coming to North Carolina in 1999, Smilax rotated through Coast Guard assignments at Fort Pierce and New Smyrna Beach, Fla., and Brunswick, Ga.

From Station Fort Macon, Smilax is tasked with “helping mariners to get home safely by maintaining the buoys and beacons that enable them to avoid hazards and find the safest route around the scenic shores of North Carolina’s Outer Banks,” Ham said.

He noted that Smilax serves a territory that ranges from the Alligator River and Kitty Hawk Bay in the Albemarle Sound to Calabash Creek at the North Carolina/South Carolina state line and includes 1,325 fixed aids and 25 floating aids.

“Smilax pushes a 70-foot barge with a crane that can lift up to 8.2 tons,” according to Ham. Additionally, a buoy deck crane can lift aids that weigh up to 5 tons.

“In 2013,” Ham said, “Smilax crew members worked with divers from the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to salvage five cannons and multiple barrel hoops from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the flagship of Edward Teach, the legendary pirate captain better known as Blackbeard.”

 

The pirate ship ran aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718. The wreck was discovered by divers in 1996 at a depth of about 28 feet, located about a mile offshore from Fort Macon State Park.

“Weighing almost a ton each, the cannons that struck fear in the hearts of 18th century seafarers spent nearly 300 years on the seafloor before the Smilax crew hoisted them on to the cutter’s buoy deck,” Ham wrote.

(The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort is the official repository for artifacts from Queen Anne’s Revenge Project. More than 300 items are now on display.)

Details of a happy Smilax human interest story were included within the original application for Carteret County to gain certification as an official “Coast Guard Community,” which was authorized in 2015.

A key member of the Military Affairs Committee at the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce had “connections” aboard the Smilax. Her husband held the rank of Petty Officer First Class.

The couple arranged for their first-born son to be baptized aboard the Smilax in 2012, as shipmates, family, friends and community members looked on. The Coast Guard Reserve national chaplain officiated.

A photograph from that christening was the centerpiece of the “Coast Guard Community” application.

Several ‘Coast Guard stories’ connect to Carteret County, N.C.

When the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alexander Hamilton was torpedoed off the coast of Iceland on Jan. 29, 1942, by Germany’s U-132, it was the first Coast Guard casualty of World War II.

Thirty-two Coast Guardsmen were killed during that attack, including Livingston Ward Brooks of Harkers Island, who was the first Carteret County, N.C., resident to die in World War II.

(Generic U-boat painting)

Yet, 81 crew members from the Alexander Hamilton were rescued at sea.

The last three Coasties to abandon ship were Cmdr. Arthur Graham Hall and two of his enlisted men – Down East Carteret County “boys” Hugh Salter of Sea Level and Nathan Robinson of Atlantic.

Hall, a native of Washington, D.C., advanced to become a Rear Admiral in the Coast Guard. His final assignment before retirement in 1954 was as superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. (shown below).

 

In 2009, Cheryl Burke of the Carteret County News-Times interviewed veteran Hugh Salter as part of the newspaper’s Independence Day coverage. 

Excerpts from her article follow:

“Mr. Salter was born in 1921 in Sea Level, a small, isolated fishing village. He had no idea he would land 20 years later on a ship that would head to the bottom of the icy North Atlantic waters of Iceland.”

“Mr. Salter, 19, joined the Coast Guard on Aug. 13, 1940. After boot camp training in Baltimore, Seaman 3rd Class Salter was assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter Alexander Hamilton, which was based in Norfolk, Va.”

“His vessel was assigned to weather observation patrol in the mid-Atlantic between the Azores and Bermuda,” Burke wrote. “He continued in that service until war was declared in December 1941 (and the Coast Guard automatically came under the authority of the U.S. Navy).”

“Thus, when the Alexander Hamilton left port on Dec. 21, 1941, Mr. Salter found himself now serving on a ship considered a Naval vessel.”

“The Alexander Hamilton was assigned to escort convoys in the North Atlantic, which was an especially dangerous assignment because German submarines had found convoys easy prey in that region,” Burke reported.

“Mr. Salter and his five-man crew, including Mr. Robinson, were manning a 3-inch deck gun on Jan. 29, 1942, when the U-132’s torpedo hit the Alexander Hamilton’s starboard side just between the fire room and engine room.”

 

Hugh Salter finished his tour of duty with the Coast Guard in 1945 and returned to Carteret County…and to his bride, Blanche “Bob” Daniels Salter of Cedar Island. He got a job working as a truck driver for T.A. Taylor Seafood Co. in Sea Level.

A former Coast Guard chum from Durham told him “there was money to be made in barbering,” Burke wrote. “Mr. Salter decided to attend barber school in Durham during the week, commuting home on weekends. His wife had found a job at the Morehead Garment Factory in Morehead City.”

 

“While in barber school, Mr. Salter broke his arm playing baseball,” Burke said.

“I managed to graduate from barber school without cutting a single head of hair or giving a shave,” Hugh Salter said.”

“He became an apprentice at Jeff’s Barber Shop in Beaufort,” Burke wrote.

 

“In 1948, he was asked if he would be interested in serving as a special deputy sheriff at a newly opened greyhound track near Morehead City.” (Operated by the Carolina Racing Association, the state-of-the-art complex was located in the 4800 block of Arendell Street, where Parker Buick GMC and the shopping center are today.)

 

“That was the first step that led to a long career for Hugh Salter in law enforcement and politics.”