The Bobby Bones Show - The Reinvention of Elvis with Spencer Proffer, legendary Record Producer and Documentary Filmmaker, and Steve Binder,

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

On this episode Buzz Knight interviews Spencer Proffer, legendary American Media Record Producer and Documentary Filmmaker and Steve Binder,the acclaimed director of the legendary Elvis Presley 68 Comeback Special with a discussion on the new Paramount + Documentary “The Reinvention of Elvis-The 68 Comeback.The conversation with Steve Binder goes deep into the making of the historic television event that resurrected the King of Rock n Roll and solidified his place in music history.Steve shares his background, how he got the incredible opportunity to work with Elvis and the behind-the-scenes drama that unfolded as he had to deal with the notorious villain, Colonel Tom Parker(Elvis’s Manager).You get a tremendous look at Elvis that you haven’t seen and you also get insight into the bond that Elvis and Binder shared.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice in silence, correct? I doctored the test once.

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Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast, music history on foot. This is the podcast that covers music storytelling from authors, filmmakers, and musicians. We're available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, IHeart, the podcast Playground, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, please share this with your friends. On this episode, join host Buzz Night with T. two visionaries in the media and entertainment business. They're here to talk about their new documentary reinventing Elvis, the 68 comeback from the great folks at Parano Plus.

Spencer Proffer is the film's producer, and he's also the founder of Meteor 17. He's one of the most successful documentary filmmakers of our time, most recently with the award-winning Don McLean Doc the day the music died. He's also the man behind the John Coltrane Dock, documentary, Chasing Train, and a host of other great work. We're also joined by director, producer, and award-winning Trailblazer Steve Binder.

As the 68 comeback show was coming together, Steve Binder was the man right in the middle of this incredible story in music history. He stood up to Colonel Tom Parker, who ruled the Elvis Empire with an iron fist. He pushed Elvis to greatness as he built an environment of trust with the king. Let's join BuzzNight with Spencer Proffer and Steve Binder next on Taking a Walk. Well, gentlemen, it's an honor to have two of the most iconic figures in music history on Taking a Walk. I'd like to welcome Spencer Proffer and welcome Steve Binder. Congrats on the triumphant release of your new Paramount Plus documentary. And I'd like to say, welcome back, Spencer, to Take in a Walk, your past episode.

with me talking about your illustrious career and your Don McLean documentary was a moment of serendipity for me as we've become pals and I'm so grateful. But Spencer, let me ask you first. How did you and Steve Binder become pals years ago? Very simple. First of all, you should put Steve's name before mine anytime. But we became pals because he rejected me as a rock and roll artist when Steve was probably the most acclaimed television director in America, and he was hired by NBC to do the comeback special, which he'll tell you about with Elvis. And I knew a lady who worked for Steve's partner, Bone's house. So I had an audition for Steve with my band, and after two songs, he blew me off. And in other words, he didn't blow me off rudely, he blew me off thinking I wasn't good enough.

He was right. No, the truth of this story signed, you know, exclude to mention the associate. My partner, we'd have to turn on any new artist. Well, Buzz, I've got to be honest, and this has nothing to do with this paramount plus, you know, Doc, which I think is, you know, quintessential, and I'm very proud to be the producer of it next to my friend Steve.

I wasn't that good. And years later, when Steve had a management company and he had Rick Springfield and he had an air supply and I was running ANR United Artists, he came to me and I had just finished brand signing the ELO connectivity to releasing the records and was making Tina Gers' last queen album. I was a rock guy. So I admitted that to Steve. I think he liked my candor. We've been friends ever since. That was 1974. I love it. I love it. Well, Steve, there are so many storylines in this documentary, certainly

the hero, meaning you, and the villain, and Colonel Parker and the star and Elvis. But one of them also is your tremendous legacy, sir, as a pioneer and a trailblazer. Your work with the Freedom Spectacular, the Petula Clark special. Talk about how you were shaped to be a bold creator who has always had the courage of your conviction in your pursuit of justice. I think it all really stems from your upbringing. I was one of the fortunate ones in life who had tremendous parents who wanted to give my and myself. all the opportunities that they never had when they grew up. Parents had never had the opportunity to go to college,

even though I never graduated. I did in the Army and right in my senior year at the University of Southern California. And I was lucky enough when I went into the military to get a job with the American forces. A gentleman by the name of Pete Beung in Life of the Mr. A friend of a few people that I met in Europe while I was announcing, like Jim Backus, led to the other. And the comic named Supi Sales. That led to Ellen and I direct the Testing House. And when you do a show like that, you meet everybody in show.

One of the camera and behind the camera. And I just made such a concern. I mean, if you don't know something, say, help you in the entertainment industry really comes from the great people that I've worked with. Even the guys that helped who I worked with nomination for, I mean, and thank God there was somebody who did. And, you know, Spencer became a very important part of my life because talking today, Buzz, to be honest with you, is all due to us. You just want to leave and a few people read it. This is something that the whole world would be interested in. And he's the one who pushed what's happening right now in my writing.

and I have so much to be thankful for. And I've loved my work, and now I have the opportunity to spend all those missed. I collect my personal from lots and lots of time right now with all my grandkids. Combined marriage with my wife of 27 years. We have nine grandchildren and a great-grandchildren. So many people. Spencer, when you first met Steve years ago, did you see, His amazing ability, which, by the way, you also share in managing artists with tremendous grace.

Well, the one thing I knew from people who I knew that knew Steve, other than my just direct one-on-one was artists, be it Diana Ross, be it, you know, gosh, I don't know, Steve, you got it on him, I think, for your Barry Mantle who's special. All his work that he did when he directed, I feel like. I'm as manager, but I'm not. I get no commission. I just get love. But when he did the Soul Train Awards, Hullobleu, all his shows, I figured out it was as much about his personal connectivity to the talent more than just

him being a suit. The furthest thing that Steve Bender is is a corporate executive, the thing that I love and admire and feel mentored by my friendship with Steve is his ability to have artists. revere him. When he introduced me to Diana Ross years ago, after he produced that Central Park special, I think it was the first Showtime special, a million people showed up. Diana said, I am so excited to meet you because of Steve Bender and she starts raving. My first five minutes in talking to Diana Ross, who's her own superstar, is how great a guy Steve Binder is to work with. And I think he did five specials with her, including a big jazz.

jazz thing. So the thing I relate most to Steve is because I do relate to the artists I work with musical these days when I make mini movies, why I think we make great friends and great partners, because we relate to the creatives more than we relate to P&L statements. We make money, but we make money doing good work. Bottom of my biographies is everything. And Spencer, passion for being passionate and in tribute to each other. And each and every way. When I mentioned the business started,

there was no videotape even invented on Kinescope, which was nothing more than taking an electronic screen and recording off of coming in. They're one time live, and that's the end of it. And I think I now, at least, you know, are going to be just as, I mean, when you realize when you watch on is a telephone, and I thought that's, sure enough, I'm wearing a watch where you can make phone call, not only get to the moon in spaceships, but we're trying now for Mars.

I mean, that's all fantasy when you're growing up and you're a kid and optimistic of what kind of world we're going to end up with, but I'm also very optimistic. Well, Steve, there are some storylines in here and some moments in history. history, and I'd like to ask you of a couple of them if you could take us back, because that's what the documentary does so brilliantly. It takes you back in time as if you were there as a fly on the wall. So can you tell that infamous first Elvis meeting story and concurrently the first one with that Colonel Parker guy? Well, before I even begin telling, you know, the only time I had any exposure, caning getting into the business, I think, and Scotty Moore, I'd been reading and hearing you know, most adults found amusing. And then, you know, he kind of disbanded, ended up. He wasn't

recording anymore. He was basically singing songs in the soundtrack of him on in the youth called time. I met Elvis. I wanted to know after Belafonte in an emotional moment of an anti-war song that they were duetting. They represented no idea

at the time that anything, see if I was interested, if they had a deal with Elvis. I'm not interested. We were producing the Fifth Dimension and the association and tried to meet Elvis' press. I was expecting,

I don't even know what I was expecting, but all I know is when I got to the MGM studio immediately started gifting. He made me a member of his snowman's. The commission is if you snowed some and I'll just use the initials at BSing to be in the colonel's club. The initiation was free but to get out of the club I think was like a hundred thousand. It was strictly an honor membership card and a book also gave me a Christmas songs. Want Elvis to do execute it if you do the show and I went back to my office, and I mean, the colonel went back to my office thinking, you know,

well, I had a meeting, and I guess I'll never meet him. And next thing I know, when I got back, my secretary said, hey, Steve, there's a message from Finkel to be the executive on the Elvis Presley afternoon, and on the clock, boy, into my office. I mean, you know, I'm definitely married man. Suddenly, he looked around, mentioned in the associate meeting how comfortable he felt that he was finally going to be. talking with somebody. He asked me, it's because I took him to my office and back alone. What do you think of my career? He looked at me for a split second, and I didn't know how he was. Finally, somebody speaking some truth to me. And we just hit it off from day one. And when he went home, I think she was

two months old at the time. And Priscilla, I'm going with him. I'm going to do whatever he asked me to do. I only knew Elvis when we started that first day on the 60, the end of it, because when it was over and I delivered the master and incident where we were home, our apartment in Hollywood, I'm with him four months until the very end. Incredible. My God, incredible. Spencer, your documentaries, they find this absolutely mesmerizing and brilliant way. to musically respect the past, but kind of pay it forward to the future in terms of how you showcase multi-genre influences and kind of weave them into the storyline. Can you talk about how you did this with this documentary? I leave it to the guy who were the principles. One of my skills,

assuming I have a few, is to be a vacuum cleaner magnet and let the creators who did the work like the great artists. I'm telling you, when Paul Simon had a producer, Roy Halley, it was still Paul Simon's songs. When Mick Jagger performs, he's got producers, but at the end of the day, it's Mick Jagger. And same with Cat Stevens or anybody that's great, Carol King, etc. Steve Bender is one of those greats, and it was the responsibility and the good fortune I had in hiring John Scheinfeld, who's a fantastic documentary director, to pull this out. We spent lots of time with Steve. I've known Steve a long time. I had a very clear vision of what this could be, but I'm not a director.

I've directed a lot of videos, but I'm not a documentary or a film director. My job is to provide the opportunity for them to be as brilliant as they are. John Schinfeld did a brilliant job. He's a very, very fine director, but it's all about Steve Bender. This isn't the Elvis documentary. It's Steve's, and Elvis was the vehicle by which Steve exerted. Not exerted, it's the wrong word, but he showcased his brilliance in providing a platform for Elvis to be Elvis. That's what we did with the Don McLean doc.

That's what I'm doing with numerous projects that are forthcoming. I really have to hand it to the creators to be who they are. My job is to pull it out of them. You know, Buzz, I'm going to tell you a story that I haven't told very many people ever happened on this special. And I talked in Tom Sarnock in that big second meeting with Elvis. Join me. I am designer, Gene McAvoy, the art direct, Alan Blind, Chris. And I said, everybody you're going to be meeting will be people you'd never.

met before and they're all new and you just got a family. These are the people that I love working with. Starting back, 1960, I love the people on that. And that's putting as my musical director with a young man named Billy David Winner's Dance, so talented, Blanket for Elva, a major success with Nancy Sinatra. And they had produced, you've got to get an album out. You've got to record at least nine more songs. And every time I called him to say, and he said, I got more and more nervous. I'm going to fire you. And I said, why?

Then you know Elvis, and that's the way. I had no music. I'm going to fire. You know what you're doing. Go ahead. And I said, Billy, can you? I need you to do. He took all.

And at our first recording session, you know, he walked in the studio and he saw a 35 musicians in Hollywood. I don't like any of it. You have to promise me to send everybody home. And I promised him I would do that. And Elvis walked back in the studio. and they immediately bonded. And Elvis even with Mary Tyler and Billy to the sound of the rock and roll soundtrack.

Steve, when you were in the midst of the 68 comeback special, you were with Elvis at a dark period in American history when Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. What was that moment like? This is on the sunset strip, or we went to NBC to all the new material for the end. And we're, you know, just four in the afternoon or 4.30. And we'd work until, you know, midnight or normal evening in the piano room, rehearsing some of the music. Motion from another office that I think Alan, and we ended up spending the entire night until the sun came up in the morning.

not talking about the show, but talking about what's going on in our country. I mean, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, you know, and the Vietnam War was, and it was amazing to me to know, studied all that was going on historically in the United States. And it came to going on with these assassinations at the highest level. I think it had a lot to do to bond all of us with Elvis, where, I mean, I like the guy from beginning, to end. That was my experience with him. I found him on the comeback special was kind of a United Nations on wheels. And we had balked at anything. We featured him in the gospel segment with the blossoms.

I mean, I never saw any racism coming from Elvis. I found he got into any conversation other than show business where we talked about our personal lives. I found him, you know, very open and liberal. I'm one of those, unfortunately, I guess, to many screaming liberals, if I can dream. And that's been my feeling before that I was appalled because I kept running into, not on purpose, but all these racist, and I understand in the South at that time, and cutting out the black actors in white movies, basically. I just came from a very, worked in my, as a kid. I worked in my dad's gas station. It was a, to them were either black or Latino or whatever. And, you know, they were my buddies. I mean, I didn't think of them as being different from anybody else.

Well, I'd like to close with a question for both of you, first Spencer and then for you, Steve. Same question. It's a time of tremendous division today. And Spencer, can you talk about how you feel this documentary about the healing and unifying power of music is more important than ever today? I think Steve's vision of colorblind being race, blind, being religious, blind is right with where the world could be and should be. Steve's very close friend, Mike Stoller wrote a song with Jerry Lieber and Benny King called Stand By Me, which I am going to make a definitive film about how that song speaks. And when Biden went to stand next to Zelensky, when South Koreans decided to contribute a lot of money to stand next to Ukraine in their plight, And that really kind of is personified by the spirit of Stand By Me,

which has done what this documentary does is it just shows that good music, good vision, and, you know, Steve being able to put people in the round, let Elvis Jam with his guys and capturing it handheld. I think that's timeless, but I think that's good for all races. Opio, we in Black, Cross the Dock, about how there was a moment in time when he saw, this as a kid growing up, it really touched him. And he's a superstar today. He's a three-time Grammy winner, and yet he is a human being. So I'm a true big believer that what Steve did

and what eldest did has transcended time, and I think music travels. I think father and son by Cat Stevens sitting on the dock of the bay by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper, these all are songs and things that transcend race and time. And I think a lot of it started with what Steve did with the Patello Fonte, what Steve did here, and be the guy to help bring this to the world. So if that's any kind of a sign-off, that's my opinion. I'm sure Steve has even a more articulate version. Articulate you, Spencer. The feeling is that pain getting into the energy. You know, the first album that I ever got, which I suggest that, Your listeners,

played in the 1930. By somebody I got to meet, live in that Frank Sinatra made famous humanitarian. Up in Washington, the state of one, I remember wearing out the 78th in the set, do an American, and then he'd go into all the American, and he'd deal with in the back questioning his Americanism,

on CBS with the CBS Orchestra in the 30s, and I think it jammed the at CBS, responded to that piece. In terms of music, and you've got to be exposed to those kind of things, and thank God. My non-new enough to sister and I to so many forms of the language that can be understood in your native tongue and so notions and feelings, and whether you understand the I and everything, that's a piece of music. The television, I realized the soundtrack doesn't matter. Well, I couldn't even now, and let's get back to the Elvis Presley special, I think.

that soundtrack is important. I look at it today and I could have shot that last month. I it didn't need to be done 50 some years ago. It's not dated in any way and the driver to the whole thing in the act, the knife and the orchestra's soundtrack. Enough about... Well, thanks for chilling my soul in a beautiful way. I can't wait for everyone to see this documentary It's just tremendous. It's the reinvention of Elvis, the 68 comeback special, Paramount Plus. I can't thank you enough, Steve Binder and Spencer Proffer for being on the Taking a Walk podcast.

Thank you, Buzz. It's been a pleasure from my point of view. Buzz, you're a rock star. I appreciate you. And yes, I do want the world to hear it. And I want them to feel what Steve Binder feels, because that's what we should, society and it's a world, that's what we should feel. Thank you, gentlemen.

Taking a walk with Buzz Night is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is

not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct?

I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Gillespie and Michael Rancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Farrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice. ever, he goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head

against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes.

You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body. Having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.