Whether the cause was The Monkees, the Dave Clark Five, Paul Revere and the Raiders or countless others, Ann Moses’s days as an editor at Tiger Beat magazine were filled with teen idols that were sending young, and not-so-young girls around the country into joy-filled hysterics when you’re talking about the mid to late 1960s. From what she knew, neither time nor interest existed for someone like Elvis Presley, who by then seemed to be from another age.
Ann, who would know—one of the main sources of information about teen idols for young readers—said, “In my mind, Elvis was not Tiger Beat material.” She would eventually become the editor of that particular magazine. “In 1966 and 1967, he was still producing those cheesy films; even if his voice was beautiful, the songs were merely written to complement the films, thus they were pretty insipid, too.”
Which, it should be mentioned, was not her usual attitude as she became a fan right away when the King of Rock ‘n’t Roll showed up on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. She says, “After that,” with a chuckle, “we got a single of ‘Hound Dog’ and even though my parents thought it was really stupid, they did get me an Elvis Presley scarf.” Naturally, then, like everyone else in America, unless your parents were burning his recordings or whatever else, mine were encouraging. And I listened in my bedroom; they had no need of hearing any of it. Of course, it was the period of The Beatles and I hadn’t even considered Elvis from when he entered the Army in 1958. By “63 or “64.”
Having said that, she embraced the opportunity to visit Elvis’s office at MGM Studios since she also worked for England’s New Musical Express magazine. She explains, “NME would be thrilled to get anything on Elvis since he never featured there in his lifetime and thus he had these loyal admirers ready to learn more. When I got outside, it was very another: his office had a high ceiling and 100% of every space— walls, floor, ceiling—was Elvis images. Though I still didn’t think Elvis fit Tiger Beat, I was really impressed.
Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special
Ann normally distributed the free tickets she obtained from the RCA Records publicist to friends who were fans every time an Elvis movie would open. The exception came when she went with friend Tony after learning tickets for “something special” at NBC Studios in 1968 “needed” her attendance.
“We ended up in the very second to last row of bleachers they had set up in the studio, with a stage below us,” says Ann, who has autographed copies of her biography Meow! My Groovy Life with Tiger Beat’s Teen Idols on her website. “Those bleachers housed about a hundred people; it was not a really large auditorium at all. It was close-minded. And as we’re seated there, just before they’re ready to announce Elvis, who comes strolling up the aisle, Priscilla Presley and she, like Elvis, had transformed in ’68, especially her hair style. He looked considerably hipper, far more like this. His huge sideburns set off a trend entirely. She sat close behind Tony, and I assumed he died and headed to heaven since her knees were pressing into his back.
She says, “then one of the stage hands came out and was kind of prepping us for Elvis and he says, ‘We’d like some of you to come down and sit around the little stage.'” That stage had to be, I suppose, 10 feet by 10 feet. It was minute. I was among the people they decided to descend upon the stage to seat. And next thing you know, Elvis walks out and it’s those moments you’ve seen of him standing in the black leather gear and I’m practically two feet from him at various instances.”
Ann Moses’s opinions about Elvis Presley suddenly underwent a kind of metamorphosis: “I was simply so overwhelmed! He was astonishing. The most charismatic individual I have ever come across in my life. I was close enough to glance in his eyes to find he understood the effect he was producing. The knowledge that he was in charge and that he understood exactly what he was doing was simply such a wonderful epiphany for me.’s.