R.I.P. Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires

Gordon Stoker, member of the quartet The Jordanaires, has died at the age of 88. Here is another obituary.

The Jordanaires had a long and fruitful career, as backup singers for many big stars, but their most well-known collaboration is with Elvis Presley. The Jordanaires sang with Elvis from 1956 to 1970. It was a great working relationship.

During the movie years, the Jordanaires sang with him on all of the soundtracks. Some of those songs were, admittedly, pretty awful, but the Jordanaires would help Elvis come up with arrangements, finding their “way in” to dismal material. “Okay, so we’ll come in here, we’ll do this behind you …” It was a problem-solving mission, more than anything else. Elvis was normally an upbeat positive guy (see Gordon Stoker’s memory below), but on one particular day in the 60s, it all must have got to him a little bit. He and Gordon were looking over some music, and Gordon was talking about what they could do with this song to make it pop, to make it better. Elvis was quiet. Quiet enough that Gordon asked him, “What?” Elvis said, “If there had not been The Jordanaires, I guess there would not have been a me.” A rather extraordinary statement from one of the biggest stars in the world. Gordon said, “No, no, Elvis! You don’t mean that!” And Elvis said yes, he did. “You guys took an interest in me,” said Elvis. They helped him when he was stuck, they were can-do kind of guys who always could turn a song into something, but more importantly, they didn’t give up on Elvis. They were his backup singers, and they had his back.

Gordon Stoker never forgot that moment.

Here, in an interview on April 7, 1992, Stoker describes how they first met Elvis, and also discusses the experience of doing the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956:

It was about 1955 and we were working with Eddy Arnold and we came to Memphis to do a show with Eddy Arnold at Ellis Auditorium. And Elvis had been hearing us sing on the Grand Ole Opry. He loved spiritual music and he had been hearing us sing on the Grand Ole Opry, the NBC portion of the Grand Ole Opry, a spiritual almost every Saturday night. He loved male quartets and so he came back behind stage to meet us and that was the first time we met him. And the only way really, to tell you the truth, the only way I can really remember [this] was the fact that he had on a white coat, a pink shirt, and black trousers, and in those days you just didn’t see a pink shirt on a guy, you know? I think that’s really the reason that I remembered him. Ed Sullivan was a very warm person, extremely warm. Ed only came to the actual filming of the show, he didn’t come to the dress rehearsal, and actually when Ed walked over to [Elvis] and shook his hand – was the first time the Jordanaires and Elvis and DJ and Scotty had met Mr. Sullivan. We didn’t know what to expect and neither did Elvis. It’s so funny. Everyone said, ‘Get it while you can cause Elvis isn’t going to be around long.’ This is what all the officials told us, head of the publishing companies, head of different organizations, said ‘The guy’s not going to be here long, so get what you can.’ But Elvis looked at everything and did everything the best he could do, and when we went onto Sullivan, he was determined to do a super job. I think he took more liberties on the Sullivan Show than any act did in those days. No one flubbed a word in those days. Of course Elvis flubbed a word on several songs and he’d make a joke out of it. Elvis always made the best … he always took the best attitude and always did the best on anything he went to do. Yes, he was very nervous because there was a lot of pressure on him. He wanted the Jordanaires as close to him as we could be, as you’ve noticed in several of the scenes. He constantly would step back and step on our toes because we were so close to him. The sound people didn’t want us as close as we were, as you might know, but he wanted us there close. And for that reason, that’s where we were. I would say that he was an inspiration and he was the kindest, most generous person – but extremely kind. He was an inspiration to me, for me to have more patience and to never fly off the handle, so to speak, and to just wear a smile and make the best out of any situation. He loved to sing spirituals. Elvis tried out for two male quartets as you might know, and didn’t pass the audition. Isn’t that weird? I would say to him, ‘Sit down at the piano or pick up the guitar and sing me a song’ – because there was no one that could put as much feeling into a song. Of all the artists we worked with, they all used a word sheet up in front of them, music or a word sheet, but Presley could listen to a demo a couple times and get up at the microphone and sing it, every word, never miss a word. That tells you that he lived each song that he was recording, every word meant something to him, and he made it the best he could make it.

R.I.P. Gordon Stoker.