Jerry and
Elvismusic go way back. In 1966, Jerry played trumpet on the soundtrack of
“Easy Come, Easy Go”, as well as on number of other sessions. “I needed
the money”, Jerry remembers. “Someone called and asked me: ‘Is this Jerry
the trumpet player?’ So I said ‘Yes’, and I got the job.”
By 1969, Jerry Scheff was a well-established and frequently
used studio musician, known for his bass playing on some of the Doors-records
amongst others. “I wasn’t an Elvis fan until our first rehearsal”, Jerry
says. “James called and said: you have to hear this guy. I thought: ‘Nobody
can be that good. But he was. The next day, I brought my wife to the rehearsal.
She was even more impressed than I was.”
In 1973, not long after the Aloha show, Jerry quit the
TCB-Band. But in 1975, he rejoined the group. “Elvis was very loyal. One day,
his office called and said that they needed a new bass player. A few days later,
I was on stage again with Elvis and his band. I still remember Elvis looking at
me, as if he didn’t understand what I was doing. You see, the show was more
settled than it was when I had left it. But I didn’t know that, and I played
just the way I did in 1973…
Jerry continued to be a studio musician in the eighties and nineties, working with a.o. John Denver and Roy Orbison.
