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Hyundai, there's joy in every journey. And we continue with our American stories. Greg McDonald got his start in show business as a teenager after meeting Elvis Presley and his manager Colonel Tom Parker while changing their AC filters in Palm Springs, California. Greg went on to manage Ricky Nelson for 17 years and worked under Colonel Parker and Elvis shortly after Parker began managing Elvis in the 1950s.
Here's Greg with the first time he met Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker. When I was a young kid, my dad was a part-time preacher and a part-time air conditioning mechanic and we used to work for Oral Roberts who was a famous evangelist preacher. Oral Roberts had this giant tent that used to belong to Ringling Brothers.
It had 10,000 seats and my dad was one of the preachers and we'd travel with that tent and set up 10,000 chairs and set up the stage and put the tent up. And when the revival was over, when Oral Roberts was finished with that revival, we'd come back to Palm Springs, California where my dad did pretty good in air conditioning because it's very hot here. He was in the air conditioning business.
So I was only a young teenage kid and my dad and the company had me out changing filters in the Las Palmas area of Palm Springs, California. And at that time, that's where a lot of the old movie stars lived there. So Elvis was renting a house that belonged to Jack Warner, the famous from Warner Brothers studio.
I knew it was the Warner house because I had a key to the house. It was summertime and I was supposed to go in and change the air conditioning filter. So I'm in the house.
It's hot outside. I don't think anybody's home. So the air handler for the air conditioning system was in the hall inside the house. So you had to change the filter in the belt, which is all I could do. I was just a kid. I had to take a screen off and crawl under the air handler and I'm under the heater air handler and I'm laying on my back and I'm reaching down for my tools. And there's this little white dog trying to bite. And I'm cursing the dog and I'm annoyed with this dog and every time I reach down into the hall, I'm laying on my back and my feet are out in the hall. So every time I reach out from my hip joint toolbox, this dog tries to bite me. So I'm cursing pretty loud now.
I don't think anybody's home. So I look down between my shoes and there's a face down there. And it's Elvis. And I knew it was Elvis even when I was down on my back. He grabs the dog and he keeps looking underneath where I am and he says, boy, what are you doing under there?
I said, I'm trying to change your darn filter, but your dog's trying to eat me up. He says, he's laughing at me now. He says, come out from under there. So I crawl out and I knew it was Elvis immediately. He was only wearing a robe.
He wasn't wearing his jumpsuit. So I get out and we start talking and he thinks it's so funny about that dog. And I said, well, I said, well, your dog's trying to eat me. He said, it's not my dog. The girl out there by the pool, that dog belongs to her.
She's a friend of mine. But she wasn't dressed. And as soon as he figured that out, he went over to the curtain and shut the curtain.
Elvis was pretty cool about that. So he said, what are you doing? You're just a kid. You're a mechanic? I said, well, I'm not really a mechanic.
I could change these filters. And I get so much a house and I'm going on my bike with a wagon all over the neighborhood here. And he said, this isn't my house.
It belongs to Mr. Warner from Jack Warner Studios. And I don't really know who that is, but obviously he did. So he says, sit down. And we sit down and he says, why are you doing this?
I said, well, we have to work. And I told him, I said, we work for Oral Roberts. And he immediately sparked Oral Roberts. He says, I know Oral Roberts.
I love Oral Roberts. So he starts quizzing me about. He said, so your dad's a preacher. And I said, yeah. He said, well, that means you're an Assembly of God kid. I go, yeah, I guess I am. And he says, you know, so am I. I went to the Assembly of God in Tupelo, Mississippi.
My mama brought me there. So this now this sets off another. We weren't talking about rock and roll music. We were talking about preachers. And he's testing me now. He says, tell me, did they bring snakes to your church? I said, yes, they did. Yes, they did.
They brought rattlesnakes. And he said, yeah. And I said, my mom used to sit us in the middle pew so that if we sat near the aisle, the idea was if the snake reached out for you, you would sin.
You were a sinner. And Elvis is laughing all over the room. He says, my mom Gladys did the same thing. She sat us in the middle pew so we wouldn't be near the rattlesnake.
And now both of us are laughing about this snake because it really did scare the crap out of me. So that's what we're talking about. And he says, so you travel with the tent?
I go, yeah, we do. So he wants to know how we put that tent up. And I said, well, it's an old circus tent canvas tent with all the poles and ropes and all the roughnecks. Those are the men that grab those poles and push the canvas up. They're called roughnecks.
These are all old, tough guys, mainly old circus hands. He said, well, how do you pull that up with an elephant? He said, no, we don't have any elephants on the show.
We do it with big tractor trailer trucks. He laughed. I said, you think we bring elephants to the to the revival? He told me, I guess not. But he had seen the circus used to pull up the tent with elephants.
And this went on forever. And we weren't talking about him being a rock and roll star music. We were talking about preachers. And he said, OK, kid, who's the organ player for Oral Roberts?
And I said, a guy named Buford Dowell. He says, how do you know that? I said, because one of my jobs was to help him move his Hammond B3 organ up onto that darn stage in his Leslie cabinet.
And Elvis is now walking around there and laughing out loud. He says, you're right. He said he's the best organ player in the country and I can't get him to come and play with me because he won't play secular music.
Won't play rock and roll. I said, well, I know him very well. So through this whole piece with him, which was very interesting. Phone rings and he answers the phone and somebody named the colonel is on the phone. Well, I didn't know who Colonel Parker was. He's obviously telling the colonel, I'm over here talking to this kid and he's a funny kid. And he works for Oral Roberts and he's changing my filter in this air conditioner. So the colonel told Elvis on the phone, send that kid over here.
I need my filters changed. And it was only a couple blocks away where the colonel lived from the Warner house. So I say goodbye to Elvis. You know, I'm getting ready to leave and I'm shaking his hand and he's he's he says, I'll see you somewhere.
I'll see you again. And I he didn't really say anything other than we'd had a lot of fun. So I go over to the colonel's house and I knock on the door and I'm expecting some military guy to show up. And it's just an old man in a robe. And he says, come in. So I changed the filter and then he has me come into his sitting room with his wife, Marie's cats.
They both set my lap. And he says, now tell me about this story about Oral Roberts. I love those preachers. That went on for 27 years. I got along with him and he just sort of I don't know. He he he kept me as long as he worked. And we were very, very close. And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Greg McDonald. He's the author of Elvis and the Colonel, an insider's look at the most legendary partnership in show business. And his co-author on that book was Marshall Terrell. The story of Greg McDonald's first encounter with Elvis and Colonel Tom Parker here on our American story. Hello, it is Ryan, and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we?
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