A Final Thought: The Night Elvis Asked My Mother Out
By Mitch Allen
On February 22, 1956, at the age of 18, my mother attended an Elvis Presley concert at the City Auditorium in Waycross, Georgia, a small town just north of the Okefenokee Swamp near the Florida border. After the concert, Mom and a group of her friends were invited backstage to meet Elvis, who promptly asked my mother out on a date.
She refused.
“Why did you turn down a date from Elvis Presley?” I often asked her.
“He was sweaty and had acne,” she would always answer, shivering with disgust, the only woman in the world to have a gag reflex at the mention of Elvis’s name.
A friend of hers did say yes to the King that evening, a decision Mom says ruined the high school girl’s reputation.
Also in the audience that same night was a 9-year-old boy named Ingram Cecil Conner III, who was deeply affected by Elvis’s performance and that of the warm-up group, The Louvin Brothers.
Two years later, my mother met and married a sweet boy from Phenix City, Alabama, and a year later gave birth to my older brother, Michael. She was a secretary at the Muscogee County School District at the time but had to quit her job when her pregnancy began to show because in 1959 the men in the office could not be reminded where babies come from.
Mom went on to have two more children (me and my sister, Amy) and live a relatively happy, simple life, mostly in the quiet suburbs of Columbus, Georgia.
But little Ingram Connor lived a different kind of life. His father was a famous World War II flying ace who was present at the attack on Pearl Harbor, and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy citrus magnate with orchards in Waycross and Florida. Ingram’s father committed suicide in 1958—four months after my parents’ wedding and the day before Christmas Eve—when Ingram was barely 12 years old. His mother soon remarried, so Ingram (now “Gram”) took on his new stepfather’s surname and became—Gram Parsons.
In 1961, at the age of 14, Gram began playing guitar and keyboards in cover bands in clubs his stepfather owned in Winterhaven, Florida, and in 1963, he formed The Shilohs and started performing in hot spots like Greenwich Village. His alcoholic mother died of cirrhosis in 1965, just as he was graduating from a prestigious boys’ school in Jacksonville, Florida.
Meanwhile, Mom was now living in Milledgeville, Georgia, caring for a husband and three children under the age of 6, easing her stress by enjoying an occasional glass of Cold Duck and smoking two cartons of Kent cigarettes each week. Kent was one of the first brands to offer a filtered cigarette, promising “the greatest health protection in history,” even though the original filters contained blue asbestos.
Mom died of lung cancer in 2013.
Gram studied theology at Harvard, where he got into folk and country, but left after a year. He formed various groups before joining The Byrds in 1968. He befriended several members of The Rolling Stones and quickly left The Byrds, moving in with Keith Richards at his home near Stonehenge.
In 1969, Gram started the Flying Burrito Brothers, then launched a solo career, and from 1970 to 1973 he toured with Emmylou Harris.
In 1973 his L.A.-area home burned down due to a rogue cigarette, and while hanging out at his beloved Joshua Tree National Forest, he died of a drug/alcohol overdose at the age of 26, alone in a hotel room. The following day, Jim Croce died in a plane crash, Bobby Riggs lost to Billie Jean King, and my mom made meatloaf and mashed potatoes, probably.
Gram’s stepfather insisted that his body be buried in Louisiana, but a few of his close friends knew he wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered at Joshua Tree. So they rented a hearse, stole Gram’s body from the Los Angeles airport, took it to Joshua Tree, poured five gallons of gasoline into the casket, and set it on fire. There was apparently no law against stealing a body, so the guys were each fined $750 for stealing the coffin.
Gram Parsons ranks No. 87 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” Elvis Presley is No. 3, behind Bob Dylan and The Beatles.
Mom didn’t care much for rock and roll.
She didn’t make the list.