In the mid-50s, a school-teacher, and a former dishwasher repairman collaborated on writing a song allegedly inspired by the suicide note of a despondent man that was included in an article published by the Miami Herald. It would turn out to be for the King of Rock and Roll Elvis Presley… The song? Heartbreak Hotel. In fact the schoolteacher named Mae Axton vowed to Elvis that she would write his first #1 million seller and she did. Although Presley’s label RCA thought the song was a disaster. They hated it and predicated it would fail. It went to #1 for 7 weeks and was the biggest song of the years. Years later the school teacher who wrote it, would have a song Hoyt Axton who would write a #1 hit for Three Dog Night called Joy to the World making them the only mother and son to do so in history. Over the years the writing of Heartbreak Hotel from a newspaper article has become a mystery. Curiously, there is no evidence of such an incident in the public records of the State of Florida, nor is there any proof of a news article that was published on the alleged suicide by the Miami Herald. It’s the conflicting and mystifying story of the first #1 pop song by the King of Rock ’N Roll…NEXT on Professor of Rock.”
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It’s hard to believe that there was a time when Elvis Presley was not one of the all-time greatest pop icons. But, long before he was crowned the ‘King of Rock ’N Roll,” some of Elvis’s fellow musicians looked down upon him as a “kid who wasn’t going to go anywhere.”That is exactly what singer Glen Reeves thought of Elvis, after he begrudgingly agreed to perform the vocal for a demo of a song crafted for Elvis to record.
The song on that demo was “Heartbreak Hotel”- becoming Elvis’s first #1 pop single, and propelling the 21 year old performer into an international phenomenon: How the composition of“Heartbreak Hotel”evolved is a confusing, mysterious, and, ultimately puzzling story. The co-writers- Mae Boren Axton, and Tommy Durden both claimed that the inspiration for the song came from a newspaper article published in the Miami Herald about an unidentified man who committed suicide in a Miami hotel room.
Tommy Durden was a steel guitarist playing in bands from Gainesville & Jacksonville, Florida. Although Durden was a professional musician, who backed up luminaires like Tex Ritter & Johnny Cash, he didn’t make much money as a hired player.
He still needed to have ‘day jobs’ to make ends meet, such as being a dishwasher repairman. One morning in the summer-of ‘55, Durden grabbed the Miami Herald from his front porch, and read an article about an unidentified man who killed himself in a Miami hotel room.
No one knew the man’s name, which seemed to be exactly what the deceased wanted. According to the news paper report…before taking his life, the man destroyed all of his identification certificates, and left a suicide note with only one cryptic line…
“I walk a lonely street”……