This Friday night a concert hall in Belo Horizonte, Brazil is going to fill up for Elvis Presley. That by itself is strange, because Elvis never once performed in Brazil. He only ever played shows in the United States and Canada.
The show is called “Elvis in Concert,” and it works in a way you almost have to see to believe. Elvis sings up on a giant screen, from real footage of his 1970s performances, while a live 30-piece orchestra plays along with him right there in the room. The timing has to be exact. When it lands, fans say it feels like he’s back.
But the screen isn’t the whole story. Down on the stage, in the flesh, is a man who stood next to Elvis and played for him all those years ago.
He’s 85 now. And he’s billed to be there Friday.
His name is Jerry Scheff. He played bass in Elvis’s group, the band Elvis called the TCB Band, from 1969 to 1973 and again from 1975 to 1977. Another player, Duke Bardwell, held the spot in the couple of years between. So when the orchestra swings into one of those big 1970s numbers on Friday, the low end you hear is coming from the same man who played those songs with Elvis the first time around.
Scheff already had a famous credit to his name before Elvis, too. That’s him on bass on The Doors’ “L.A. Woman” and “Riders on the Storm.” Not a bad resume for one musician.
Here’s Elvis working with that same band, so you can picture who Scheff was to the sound.
Elvis rehearsing with his 1970s TCB Band in 1972
The Brazil tour opened in Sao Paulo on Oct 23. After Belo Horizonte on Friday it moves on to Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Curitiba through early November. There’s an official Graceland exhibit traveling with it as well, brought straight from Elvis’s Memphis home.
Angie Marchese, who runs the archives at Graceland, put it plainly when the tour reached Brazil. “Elvis dedicated so much of himself to his work and connected deeply with his audience on a very personal level,” she said.
One of the warmest moments at any Elvis show was always when he turned around and introduced his band to the crowd. This next clip gathers those introductions from across 1969 to 1977, so you can hear Elvis name the men who backed him, Scheff among them.
Elvis introducing the members of his band on stage
Nearly fifty years on, most of the people who shared a stage with Elvis have stepped back or moved on. For one of them to still be picking up the bass and playing those same parts, now beside Elvis on the big screen, is the kind of thing fans in Brazil won’t want to miss. Watch the clips above and you’ll see exactly what Jerry Scheff brought to that music.