GlenGlenninterview

ROCKABILLY HEROES/Glen Glenn

The Latest Glen Glenn Interview

 



By Randy McNutt

An interview with Glen Glenn, the pioneer rockabilly from California, was posted on YouTube on January 1, 2013, by videographer Barry Conrad of Glendale, California. Conrad shot the interview, which at first features an Elvis impersonator's performance, at the former Elvis and Priscilla Presley home in Palm Springs. 

Glenn tells Conrad what it was like to meet Elvis in 1956 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in L.A. Glenn also performs for Conrad and some friends, and tells how he first signed with a record company and became a rockabilly singer. 

The Presley house, originally called the House of Tomorrow for its innovations, was the site of Glenn's interview on April 29, 2000. It was once called Presley's getaway house for the times when he was performing in LasVegas and other locations in the West.

Thanks to Barry for sharing this with me and my readers. Barry, owner of Barcon Productions, has been a friend since my college days. Check out his films on the paranormal sometime. He has won many awards for his documentaries and features on ghosts and UFOs.

I interviewed the amiable Glen for my book We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement, published by HHP Books in 1989 (now out of print). He told me he recorded "Everybody's Movin'" at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles in 1958, using his band. Era Records heard the tape and signed him to a contract.

"Then I was drafted a few months later," he said. "That hurt because I couldn't promote my record. I couldn't go on American Bandstand and other shows; all I could do is perform on the Army base in Hawaii, where I was stationed. Here I had a pick hit of the week and I couldn't even take advantage of it."

Glen was an Elvis fan early on. "I heard about Elvis through the Maddox Brothers and Rose," he told me. "I said, "Man, he is different!"

And here you can hear Glen talk more about the King. Enjoy!

Image from We Wanna Boogie.

Interviewer Barry Conrad (left) with friend Randy 

McNutt, author of the rockabilly book "We Wanna Boogie."