Keister reflects: 'Nobody quite like Elvis'

Courtesy Shane Keister

Pianist Shane Keister spent a little less than three weeks on the road with Elvis Presley at the twilight of the King's career.

Shane Keister is one of the few people who turned down Elvis Presley.

Elvis' longtime pianist Glen D. Hardin left Elvis' TCB Band in 1976 to play piano for Emmylou Harris. Keister, who had worked on Elvis' 1975 album "Promised Land," was invited by Elvis to replace Hardin.

It was tempting, says Keister, but there were several hitches.

It is a story he is scheduled to tell Saturday as part of "Conversations on Elvis," 2-3:30 p.m. at Memphis Marriott East. Others scheduled as guests for the discussion include former members of the J.D. Sumner & The Stamps gospel quartet and Jeannine Johnson, sister of the producer and director of "Elvis On Tour," the 1972 documentary film about Elvis' life on the road.

Keister's life on the road with Elvis was a brief interlude in a lifetime of music that began at age 3 when he used to reach up to the piano and pick out the notes to "Mary Had A Little Lamb."

His natural facility as a toddler led to lessons, and Keister soon moved on to his childhood favorites, Bach and Chopin. "I grew up playing classical music," says the pianist, now 61. His resumé also includes junior and senior high jazz bands, choral music and neighborhood bands. Originally of Huntington, W.Va., his family moved to Portsmouth, Ohio. He studied music at Marshall University and North Texas State University, paying his tuition as a studio musician in the Dallas area, he says.

When Elvis invited him to go on tour in 1976, Keister says he wasn't looking for a new job. "I was a full-time studio musician in Nashville and making a fair salary." His salary on the road with Elvis would have been roughly half of what he was making in the studio, he estimates.

And there were other drawbacks. "I was told that Elvis was a nice guy to work for, but if he wants to work you have to work. That means that if he wants to record at 2 a.m. in Memphis you have to be there."

Also, life on the road would have meant living out of a suitcase and on tour buses, and Keister said part of the tour was at the same time as an annual camping trip that he and his father had turned into a tradition.

Elvis was "very gracious," saying he was glad that Keister had "a father like that. Then he asked, 'Would you consider being my first call as a sub?'" Keister agreed.

He spent a little less than three weeks on the road with Elvis at the twilight of the King's career. "The guy was phenomenal," he says. In fact, he says, almost everyone else was like an "imitator. In today's terms there's nobody I can think of who does that except maybe Jerry Lee (Lewis)." They had rock and roll "flowing in their veins," he says.

Hardin, who spoke at a previous Conversations on Elvis, said Elvis had lost part of his onstage spontaneity by 1976, but Keister says, "I never saw him not having fun." If Elvis didn't think a song was appealing to his audience, he sometimes stopped after the first few lines and called for the band to play something else.

For Keister, his stint with Elvis included one of his own biggest onstage embarrassments. At Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, he says a member of Elvis' entourage stepped between him and Elvis, so that he was unable to see a karate-like move that was Elvis' cue for Keister to begin playing. "I couldn't see Elvis. Finally, when I did see him, he was glaring at me. I learned later he'd given me three different cues. Elvis told the audience, 'Well, folks, we've got a new piano player. He can't seem to pay attention.' I had 75,000 people laughing at me."

Hardin once described Elvis' self-taught piano playing as "ham-handed," but Keister called it "communicative. He didn't have classical technique, but he had the ability to make someone understand how he wanted something to feel and how fast he wanted it to be."

Keister's favorite Elvis song was "Can't Help Falling In Love," and he says it could apply to Elvis' fans and their lasting love for the rock idol. Among those he has worked with, Keister said the only musicians whose energy could rival Elvis' were Paul McCartney, Celine Dion and Billy Joel.

Still, he says, "There's nobody that's ever been quite like Elvis -- nobody with the combination of talent, ambition and that kind of natural chutzpah and uniqueness."

-- Michael Lollar: (901) 529-2793

--------------------

Conversations on Elvis

2 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Saturday at the Memphis Marriott East, 2625 Thousand Oaks Blvd. Tickets: $20, available at Graceland Ticket Pavilion. For more information on these and other Elvis-related events, visit elvis.com.

--------------------

© 2012 Go Memphis. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.