Name: Otis Blackwell on Letterman, January 10, 1984
Uploaded: 2017-09-22T02:28:17.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Otis Blackwell on Letterman, January 10, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-09-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Otis Blackwell on Letterman, January 10, 1984' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-09-22. Transcript available.

welcome back to the show now i have i have been assured that the bird is in no
danger up there
can you hear she's still up there and this apparently happened also in
rehearsal and
we retrieved her at that time and so she'll be just just fine and also the guy
on the plane
wasn't really that fat but if you hear a bird up there that's polly continuing
her trick
my next guest has been called the most influential songwriter in rock and roll
history and i mentioned
some of these songs earlier it's unbelievable great balls of fire breathless
handyman return
to center and fever and we're delighted to have him on the show tonight please
folks give a nice
welcome to mr otis blackwell
it's a real pleasure to meet you i was uh don't be cruel the first song of
yours that elvis presley
recorded yes it was how did that uh come about well it's a hard story i uh at
the time there was no
uh definite story i um i was writing songs freelancing
uh-huh what were you doing when you weren't freelancing
i guess anything that came along and making a dollar too yeah that was honest
uh-huh so you're just beginning as a songwriter yeah yeah i uh i had written
about six or seven songs
uh day before christmas christmas christmas and uh i found out that uh i could
get some advance money
for some songs so i stayed home a few days and wrote these songs
and it was christmas eve and snowing yeah no hat yeah holes in the shoes
standing on the corner
my friend ride brought me over to this office shout out my music that this was
located right here
in new york right yes it was yeah and asked me to play some songs for the
gentleman there
my name is mo gail and i played the six songs
now for the for the six days so i think it was eight songs i got 25 advance for
each song yeah
what year was this a hundred years ago all right so one of one of them was uh
don't be
one of the songs was don't be cruel and it got to elvis presley now on the
sheet music here
it says uh oh this is nice this uh it's like being in the cocktail lounge at
trader vix isn't it
uh otis on the on the sheet music here it says uh words and music music by otis
blackwell and elvis
presley now did he work with you on the song at any time no he didn't then then
how does his
name get on the uh well that seemed to have been the practice at that time i
found out later on
yeah uh it was told to me that uh
in order for me to get elvis presley you had to i had to put his name on the
song yeah okay now uh we're
going to talk more about this stuff and you're also going to sing for us
tonight aren't you yeah i
hope so yeah well we're looking forward to it uh we got a pause here for just a
second we'll be right
back with the odys blackwell plus
so
so
thank you paul welcome back folks uh let's get down to the uh rink again and
see how the thing uh
the uh the rain is doing i understand uh there's dave maloney right there from
the new york rangers so
apparently we are playing a little hockey this evening and i have also been
told that we have
rescued the bird
and uh i've got part of uh a goalie's uh outfit on here and i'll be going down
there in a few minutes
tomorrow night on this program linda ellerby will be joining us and also our
own larry melman will be
a greeting folks at the empire state building that'll be tomorrow night uh otis
blackwell is
with us tonight and we were talking about don't be cruel now uh otis in
addition to writing the songs
you actually would record demo tapes wouldn't you yeah i'd make the demo tapes
for him now what was
the purpose for that what did they do to with them when they got the tapes well
they showed him the
song and uh elvis they would play the songs and then he'd be called the tune as
it was now i was uh
we were talking about this this afternoon is it true that when he heard you you
performing the
material that he would imitate your style uh when he recorded the song well
they did come out very
close to the demos that we did yeah and uh did you did you feel funny about him
imitating so closely
what you were putting on tape or or not well no i i felt a little funny the
first time and after
he sold four million i didn't yeah takes the sting out of it i guess sure uh
now did did you ever meet
elvis presley no i never met elvis how many years were you writing songs for
him well i had signed
up with him on the contract to be a writer of justice company uh for five years
and in that time you
never met him why was that i never met him uh the early part of the uh uh what
we were doing i never
wanted to meet him i didn't want to meet him rather at the time i wanted to but
didn't at that time we
had something i thought that was going pretty good i thought as long as i my
songs were getting over to
him and he was doing them the way that i would like for him to be done uh in a
sense we had met yeah
so you're actually worried about messing up the chemistry by meeting the man
physically well you
never know yeah yeah did uh did you ever perform in those days no i when i was
about 18 19 years old i used
to sing you know but i decided not to do it when i found out that you could
make a good money writing
songs yeah doing all right but you have now an album called uh let's talk about
us odys blackwell and
you're going to do a song is it from the no no i know what you're going to do
tonight yeah tell the
folks what you're going to be singing here well we're going to do don't be
cruel yeah uh the album
is about uh some songs that i had done there are a lot of the songs that uh
that he had recorded and
some that he had accepted but never got into the studio to do all right well we're
looking forward
to it and this will be don't be cruel as it was initially written by mr otis
blackwell let us go on
go on over there and do this
you know i can't be found
sitting home all alone and if you can't come around
at least please telephone don't be cruel to my heart so true
baby if i made you mad something that i might not say
yeah please let me give the back the future looks bright ahead don't be cruel
to my heart so true
to my heart so true
well i don't want no one to love
well i don't want no one to love
well i don't want no one to love
maybe it's just you i'm thinking of
now don't stop thinking of
i don't be cruel to my heart so true
well why should we be here for
i really love you baby close my heart
i don't want to be cruel
to a heart so true
please baby don't be true
to a heart so true
well i don't want no one to love
well i don't want no one to love
well baby it gets you i'm thinking of
now let's walk up to the future
let us say i do
well then you know you'll have
and i know that i'll have you
i don't want no one to love
i don't want no one to love
oh my heart so true
please baby don't be cruel
oh my heart so true
well i don't want no one to love
baby it's just you i'm thinking of
wonderful that was very nice thank you
well thank you gentlemen
honest blackwell we'll be right back with dave maloney