Quotes about Elvis Presley

thumb|Elvis Presley and Priscilla with Lisa Marie, February 1968 Elvis Aaron Presley (8 January, 1935 – 16 August, 1977) was an American singer, musician, and actor. Popularly known by his first name as "Elvis," as "The King of Rock and Roll" or simply as "The King," he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. thumb|By honoring Presley with the Medal of Freedom, the President paid tribute to someone who arguably did as much to bridge the cultural and racial divide as anyone who ever lived, an impressive and unifying act from someone usually considered the most divisive of presidents. ~ Gary Abernathy thumb|Of course, it was 1957, he had a beautiful blonde on the back of his motorcycle. Now, I wasn't watching the blonde and I didn't know who he was, so I took him down to the Las Vegas police station where I then worked and I gave him a pass... ~ Joe Arpaio thumb|I don't think any two men on this planet ever had the charisma of Elvis Presley and Jackie Wilson. The two of them remind me of each other: the charisma. ~ Hank Ballard thumb|In Las Vegas, he was a different Elvis, putting on the blitz, the neon signs dared him. In a sense, he codified, encapsulated, permeated, embodied Americana. It was so real in its total artificiality, as Elvis brought it all together and made it work. ~ Tom Constanten The last names, or first or given names by which people are best known and whose quotes are included below are arranged alphabetically, for ease of reference. When the person being quoted has a royal, or religious title, they can be found by looking for their first or adopted name. Examples: Bhumibol King of Thailand; Elizabeth II Queen of England; Albert II Prince of Monaco; Astrid, Princess of Norway; Deborah Duchess of Devonshire; Pope Benedict XVI . A When I was about five years old, they again showed "Aloha from Hawaii" here in my country, Norway. I had my parents wrapped around my finger, so they would let me stay up and watch it, because it was on after midnight. I was so amazed by the performance......... Abbath, Norway's globally renowned black metal superstar, as told to Tim Dawson of Team Rock, and published on 15 November 2016.... That is why we can waste no time promoting legitimate role models. This is where N.B.A. players come in. In 1956, Elvis Presley received his polio vaccine before one of his appearances on television, launching a highly effective vaccination campaign that by 1960 had reduced annual occurrences of polio by 90 percent. Health policy professionals suggest that public health campaigns using celebrities should focus on celebrities who are influential in particular communities in order to build trust. N.B.A. players, 81.1 percent of whom are Black, appeal to the under-35 and African-American demographics Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in an Opinion Editorial on the Covid 19 pandemia, entitled "We Should Let Some N.B.A. Players Jump the Vaccine Queue", as published in the NYT's February 1, 2021 edition. It's probably asking too much that “Ruben Brandt, Collector” sustain its pop-art ebullience across its entire running time. But the dips are hardly depressions, and there's nearly always a frisky detail to enjoy or virtuosic tableau to bathe in, all of it augmented wonderfully by Tibor Cári's appealing score. Mostly, though, Krstić, whose background encompasses set design and sculpture, painting and photography, has shown everybody how to throw down the first-feature gauntlet at the age of 66: with Warhol's holstered “Elvis I & II” facing down our hero and declaring, “Draw!” Robert Abele, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times Milorad Krstić's animated film “Ruben Brandt, Collector” and as published in their November 13, 2018 edition. By honoring Presley with the Medal of Freedom, the President paid tribute to someone who arguably did as much to bridge the cultural and racial divide as anyone who ever lived, an impressive and unifying act from someone usually considered the most divisive of presidents. Gary Abernathy, contributor for the Washington Post, in an article dated 20 November 2018, and entitled "Trump honoring Elvis? It's about time", in reference to Elvis' being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in a ceremony held at the East Room in the White House, on November 16, 2018 In 2004,at age 13, I became such an Elvis fan that I wanted to either marry him or be him, then I made my parents listen. He is my mentor... Valentina Acevedo, Argentinean rocker, as noted in an interview published in the TUS Radios Necochea's edition of 26 January 2024. Songwriter Earl Brown was tapped to create a special finale song that reflected Elvis' emotions about the social upheaval of the time. According to the show's director Steve Binder, the resulting song, “If I Can Dream,” was recorded with Elvis in the dark, almost in a fetal position, writhing on top of the studio's cement floor. And when he got done, Elvis came in the control room and asked for the song to be played more than a dozen times. Later, Binder also crafted a gospel segment populated with racially diverse singers and dancers, which he knew would spotlight the Southern-born Presley's disdain for prejudice. Fittingly, it was the highest-rated TV special of 1968 and signalled the rebirth of Elvis's career. Lori Acken, of ReMIND Magazine, reviewing NBC-TV's 1968 Elvis special, as published on February 6, 2018 I loved Elvis since i was a kid, as my dad was a huge Elvis fan. His range was incredible high, or low and he could croon. His impact on me was his love of African American music. Yolanda Adams, in a filmed interview for Gracelancom I am reminded of a comment made shortly after the death of Elvis Presley by a musician he had worked with. He pointed out that despite an impressive vocal range of two and a half octaves and something approaching perfect pitch, Elvis was totally willing to sing off-key when he thought the song required it. Those off-key notes were art. Patrick H. Adkins, The Dream Vaults of Opar I hate that I missed Elvis and I wish I would have had a chance to see him Trace Adkins, as a guest to Bill Maher's podcast, streamed live on February 14, 2024. Black culture has historically pioneered music, dance, fashion, and it’s then been emarketed as Elvis (Presley) or whatever..... Ben Affleck Ben Affleck, a year after he and his fourth wife Jennifer Lopez, as well as her daughter by a previous marriage, were photographed on their wedding day, in 2022, as they proudly posed inside a plush pink Cadillac they insisted had been one of Elvis' properties, the above quote from Mr. Affleck as noted in an article published in the "Essentially Sports' March 18, 2023 edition which detailed his producing, directing and starring in the 2023 movie "Air", about Michael Jordan's joining the Nike brand. I was there taking in the show when it happened. Out of the crowd, I can still see it, an orange, medium sized frisbee comes floating up. I'm like ' Oh, that's going to make the stage. It did. It sailed right into Elvis, smacking him just above his right eyebrow. Bam!! I watched closely as Elvis, just a few feet away from me, absorbed the blow, then imagined the worst. He dropped to one knee, looked me right in the eye — I think he thought I was a bodyguard and not the curtain raiser I was that night — and said. 'I've been shot'. "No, Elvis, it's just a frisbee" I said. Not an attempted assassination, just one more painful byproduct of fame, I thought. "Oh," responded Elvis, then got back to his feet and started singing again. Like he always did. For that night, at least, the show wasn't over.... Percy Ahrendt, recalling the time on June 22, 1977. 6 weeks before Elvis death, when he took a job at the Sioux Falls Arena as a curtain raiser, in a story captured in an article entitled "Elvis feared a bullet. This bystander was there to to ease his mind", as published in the INFORUM's July 8, 2025 online edition. He was an extraordinary figure of his and our time, his legacy tremendous in terms of the music he created, his films, and as an entertainment personality. The generosity that he showed toward others is simply remarkable and I think it's these aspects of his character, his persona, that make him such a special person. Albert II, Prince of Monaco, after his visit to Graceland on August 7, 2010 as noted by EPE. In an era when radio stations refused to play Chuck Berry songs, calling it “race music”, Elvis broke down barriers. Janet Albrechtsen, Australian columnist, in an article entitled "Beware mob rule in the new racism" published in The Australian on 23 November 2017. I've kind of been infatuated with Elvis since I was a kid, just always watching documentaries and stuff on him. It had a little bit to do with that and, honestly, I just wanted him to have something that wasn't very common. Jason Aldean, explaining why he and his wife named their first son Memphis, as published on Soundslike Nashville on September 30, 2017. I remember we were in his bathroom, he took my hand, asked me to sit down in a black leather chair, said some beautiful things and then he asked me to marry him. Personal relationships of Elvis Presley Ginger Alden, who found Elvis lifeless in the main bathroom at Graceland, six weeks after he asked her to marry him in that same bathroom, in an interview for CBS aired in 1982. When Elvis Presley died in 1977 I was no more than six. On that summer night in August I was sitting between my parents in my grandfather’s house in Italy where we were spending the summer holiday. We were watching television, then delivering to viewers the news of his death, with scenes of fans wailing at the departure of the artist who had engaged the world with his music and gyrating dancing, and personal charisma that made him adored by girls and an inspiration for boys. Last Thursday, at around midnight I received a call from one of my friends telling me that Michael Jackson had died, and one website confirmed the news even before CNN had. Both of them died, and there have still been those who say that death has not touched them and that they still live amongst us with their music and greatness. Yasser Al Ghaslan, Saudi blogger and journalist, as noted in the Global Voice's 30 June 2009 edition. As a child, I saw Elvis Presley. So that was something, I mean he was this person with a guitar and that was the image I wanted to be. I wanted to be a musician so I got my first guitar when I was thirteen years old, and I felt, oh man, now that I have the guitar, I got the music. But it started from that.... Lucky Ali, on what pushed him towards music, in an interview with WION'a published in their April 6, 2022 edition. Let us remember that Elvis’s style — which often included all-leather outfits and flashy jumpsuits — was also controversial for its mid-century time period. So, is Post Malone truly our modern-day Presley? Judging by his care-free attitude and penchant for leather Cuban heeled boots —another, Presley favorite—the verdict would appear to be yes. Cristian Allaire, for Vogue (magazine) Vogue, in an article entitled "Is Post Malone the new Elvis Presley of today?", as published on December 2, 2018 I was standing in the hallway, just before the show, and one of the managers told him there was a girl on the telephone who was in the hospital. She said she had tickets for the show but couldn't come as she had a serious illness. And Elvis said, 'I want to talk to her', so he marched into a room and held up the entire show for fifteen minutes to talk to that girl, asking her several questions, with warmth and interest. Just before hanging up, I remember he said, 'No, honey I don't have a blue Cadillac. I've got a pink one, a black one, a white one – a pause, and then he said, oh yeah, I do have a blue one'. He was a gentleman and I respected that immensely. Lew Allen, a then 17 year old student who went on to earn an Associate's Degree in photography and a B.A. in Fine Arts/Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was asked to photograph Elvis at the Cleveland Arena in Ohio, on November 23, 1956 because of a labour strike affecting the three major newspapers, as told by Mr. Allen in an interview published in Rock paper on June 6, 2005. It embodies everything I look for in a tune, simple and striking at the same time Herb Alpert, on why did he chose Elvis' version of "Are you lonesome tonight" as the lead single leading to the release of his album "50 years", in an article published in US Rocker's September 15, 2024 edition. Rock n' roll, through Elvis, became a target of southern segregationists, who believed that race mixing led, inevitably, to miscegenation and that exposure to black culture promoted juvenile delinquency and sexual immorality Glenn C. Altschuler, in his book "All Shook Up: How Rock 'n Roll Changed America" (Oxford University Press 2003) Obama is like Elvis, there will always be demand for impersonators of such popular and historical people. Ilham Anas, Indonesia's most successful Obama impersonator, as reporter in This week in Asia, on November 5, 2016. After one of Elvis Presley's last shows, I was heading back to my car when a matron from Zachary stopped me and gushed about how wonderful he had been. Didn't you just LOVE him?" she asked. "Well, I thought he looked tired and sick and was just going through the motions." Whereupon she whacked me on the head with the rolled-up Elvis poster she was carrying. LOL. I took it in stride — nobody ever said it was easy being a music critic. ... Music critic Smiley Anders, writing for The The Advocate (Louisiana) Advocate in an article published on their March 25, 2019 edition. I discovered the blues in a funny kind of a way, from the age of seven when I was listening to my father's war-time collection of big band jazz. It had that thing about it – I didn't really know what it was –, that set the pulse racing a bit; and then I heard echoes of it again, with early Elvis Presley. Ian Anderson, singer, flautist and leader of Jethro Tull, explaining to G.Brown, of the Denver Music Examiner, his first experience with hearing the blues, starting at the age of 7, as published in that newspaper's online edition, on August 11, 2008. Unbelievable! To hear my father grouped together with Elvis Presley, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, it's a dream. John Anderson, son of painter Waltyer Inglis Anderson, speaking of his father's induction into the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Experience Hall of Fame, as reported by ABC center on December 16, 2017, with the other 17 members being Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Leontyne Price, Elvis Presley, James Earl Jones, Jim Henson, Morgan Freeman, Oprah Winfrey, Sela Ward, George Ohr, William Faulkner, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and John Grisham His latest album, "Piano", is a collection of his past work, stripped down so all you hear is his beloved piano. It was hearing an Elvis Presley song that sparked his passion for the piano when he was young. About ABBA-founder Benny Andersson's decision to take up piano, at age 11 in his native Sweden, specifically after hearing "Treat me nice", the B side of the "Jailhouse Rock" single, as noted by Tom Power of CBCRadio on December 10, 2017 After doing ‘Dr. No’ with Sean Connery, the brass at Paramount proposed that I co-star with Elvis. At first I turned the offer down, mainly because after having dated James Dean, I had imagined Elvis to be an "ordinary" person. So they organized a meet-up and, to my amazement, I immediately fell for his charm. He was extremely well educated and when I told him I hated Rock and that I liked Gospel, he gave me his entire collection of gospel songs. Little did I know that was his main source of inspiration. Anyways, we became instant friends and he loved to cook for me when we were on location. He told me he would have loved to live in Europe and, when I told him my husband had sold our BMW 507, he gave me another as a present. Twenty years later, in 1982, I auctioned the one Elvis gave me for US$300,000 and then the person who bought it from me later sold it for 1.2 million (USS dollars). He was in fact, a one in a billion type, a wholly adorable person and we remained in touch till his death. Swiss actress Ursula Andress in an interview published in Mujer Hoy, on 12 January 2016. Beto, he's a rock star right now, he's Elvis Presley, Maximo Anguiano, of the Texas Organizing Project, in reference to Beto O’Rourke being the candidate who could unseat Sentaro Ted Cruz in the 2018 mid-term elections. In Vegas, we'd meet and we'd talk about everything. Slowly he started coming over to see my show; he'd sit up there and I'd come back after the show and we'd talk music. He would show up, this incredible God-like figure. He had everything, and the voice —what a great voice he had. Then, on August 17, 1977 I happened to be in Las Vegas, so when I turned on the news and learned of his death, I cried all day. He was a cool, nice man. Paul Anka, from his autobiography "My way" I want to celebrate his life. He was so gifted, I just cherish his memory, his generosity, and he was so private, like I am. He knew about honour, and respect, and was so considerate, and his manners, and the way he was so civilized. And as an entertainer he will never be repeated. I wanted him to know all that, and I did tell him, but very few others did... Actress and entertainer Ann Margret, in an interview with Charlie Rose, as broadcast on February 11, 1994. I have visited Graceland and you could see the man was overwhelmingly honest. He never professed any taste other than his own, that is, country boy made good. He never pretended to be anyone else. Adam Ant, leader of Adam and the Ants, a punk rock band, in an article published on September 5 2017, at the Tampa Bay Times One day while he and Richard Davis were conversing he removed the watch from his wrist, handing it to Davis and stating there was something wrong with the back of it. When Davis turned the timepiece over to inspect it, he saw to his great surprise that the case back had been inscribed, "To Richard, From E.P. Elvis then said, "I guess it's yours now". He was known for being extremely generous, often giving away his valuable personal belongings as presents so it was not surprising that he gifted his prized 18kt yellow gold Corum (watchmakers) Corum Buckingham to Davis. Antiquorum Antiquorum Auctioneers's notes for those attending the November 11 2018 auction held in Geneva, Switzerland, and highlighting the sale of a yellow 18k gold Corum 1960 Buckingham wristwatch gifted by Elvis to Richard Davis, his long time friend and last wardrobe manager, as detailed in Antiquorum webpage. It was the early 1970s. I was 22, working in some little show in a hotel that's now gone, and he was doing a gig at the Las Vegas Hilton. We met backstage at a Tom Jones concert, then he showed me some karate moves, with a small party of folks ending up at his penthouse suite. There, he turned to me and said he had something to show me in his bedroom, so I thought, 'Oh, here comes the cliche,’ Turns out, he just wanted to read to me from Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet.” It was a sweet moment, as he sat on a footstool beside me and read like a child, his finger following the text. He signed the book, gave it to me and told me to have a blessed life. He was so sweet, that's what struck me the most. In retrospect, I view him as a prisoner of his fame. That, and his roots in gospel music and the church, fueled his desire to seek out more knowledge about the world and self-realization. Actress Susan Anton, as told to Michael Grossberg at Dispatchcom. ( After a year of playing Elvis Presley on the screen),Austin Butler is still talking like him Not a bad person to be stuck talking like. Unfortunately, his next project is "The Jerry Lewis Story" LOL. Judd Apatow, poking fun at Austin Butler's Elvis accent as he emceed the 2023 Director's Guild of America Awards in an article published in the Daily Mail's February 20, 2023 edition "Are You Lonesome Tonight?” hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on Nov. 28, 1960, becoming Elvis' 15th No. 1 single. It would remain at the top of the chart for six weeks and nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist and Best Male Vocal Performance. A live version recorded in 1969 in which Elvis cracks up laughing almost throughout the spoken-word section would be a minor hit in England in the 1980s. At one point in that recording, Elvis becomes even more amused at one of his backup singers, who continues her part despite his laughter. That singer was Cissy Houston – Whitney Houston's mother. Charles Apple, in an article entitled "Hitmaker" as published in Spokane's The Spokesman-Review's November 22, 2020 edition The biggest surprise about his singing had been revealed when he gave us a private concert and sang "Love me tender" a soft, ultra-slow ballad at the quaint music bungalow on the far west side of 20th Century lot. It was away from the bustle of traffic and from the big stages and it looked like the kind of cottage Walt Disney would have built for Snow White and Prince Charming. This was where Elvis felt relaxed, comfortable. So Ken Darby sat at the grand piano at the far end of the living room and Elvis stood a few feet behind him and in front of a tall stained-glass window. He stood erect, as if he was in a choir. Ken started to play the soft melody and I hardly knew that Elvis had started to sing, as his voice, barely louder than the piano, was pitched slightly higher than his usual. It had a lot of resonance and vibration and Elvis was on-key for every note, no matter how long, short, high or low. When he finished, it seemed only normal to express our amazement. "People think all I can do is belt, I used to sing nothing but ballads before I went professional. I love to sing slow, but seldom get to do it", he said, then continued to explain that, as a boy, an only child, he would sing like that when he sang with his mother and dad in church. "It was a small church, only seated about 75, you couldn't sing too loud there." Army Archerd, a columnist for Variety then interviewing Elvis for the Photoplay magazine and who was present at the sessions, including an intimate concert for a dozen or so, which preceded the actual recording of the "Love Me Tender" soundtrack, as noted in a document entitled "Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1956)" as digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Media History Digital Library. When my cousin, four years older than me, played me two and a half minutes of music, which changed my life. That music was Elvis Presley, singing Hound Dog, and for the next six months – to my mother's absolute horror – I didn't want to hear anything but the rawest rock'n'roll I could lay my hands on. Do you know? For those who didn’t live through the Fifties, it’s really hard to imagine the enormous cultural gulf which existed between England and America at that time. Elvis himself was a God and in some of the first footage that we saw in England, seemed to us like an alien super being from a distant universe. Rod Argent English musician, speaking about his reaction when told his band the Zombies would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as noted by RollingStone's 30 March,2019 edition.. I'm definitively going to make a record with him. You would be surprised what we could do together. You ask me if I think he is good. How many Cadillacs was it he bought.? That boy's no fool... Louis Armstrong, interviewed by Memphis Press Scimitar, March 1, 1957 edition.} My Cuban blood was flowing. My hips were revolving. I would have made Elvis look as if he was standing still Desi Arnaz, in his bio, "A book" , referring to his moves in 1939, while doing the conga. Of course, it was 1957, he had a beautiful blonde on the back of his motorcycle. Now, I wasn't watching the blonde and I didn't know who he was, so I took him down to the Las Vegas police station where I then worked and I gave him a pass... Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recalling his most memorable traffic stop, which involved a speeding motorcycle driven by a young Elvis, as published in an interview with CBS's channel 5 on August 8, 2018. Naming the single greatest cultural icon of the 20th century is subjective and highly debatable, but Elvis Presley's claim is one of the strongest. His unparalleled influence on music, fashion, and youth culture fundamentally reshaped popular entertainment and made him a global symbol of rebellion and charisma. Artificial intelligence's answer, via google and as of October 2, 2025, to the question on whether Elvis is indeed the greatest cultural icon of the 20th Century, the other candidates being the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, Walt Disney and Charles Chaplin with the latter two having been born on the 19th Century Arguably some of the most important tracks in the history of Rock and Roll, Elvis' SUN recordings demonstrate what a dynamic and talented vocalist he was; the young, raw, unadulterated Elvis whom musicologist Francis Davis once called "the greatest white blues singer”; I'm not one to argue with Mr. Davis. Art's Strange World review of the CD "The Sun Sessions" (15 August 2007) I am the greatest contemporary artist of all-time. Rapper ASAP Rocky´s claim, which writer Jake Boyer of "Highnobiety" sarcastically said "puts him the same playing field as everyone from Michelangelo to Elvis Presley", as published in their online page on November 22, 2017. And he left the game wanting. I think Bjorn could have won the U.S. Openan the Grand Slam. But by the time he left, the historical challenge didn't mean anything. He was bigger than the game. He was like Elvis or Liz Taylor or somebody. He'd lost touch with the real world Arthur Ashe, speaking abour *Bjorn Borg's immense popularity at the height of his fame, as published in the spoprtskeeda's February 19, 2025 edition. He was stationed in Germany doing his service so on the occasion he would go visit Paris coinciding with my time there. On his first visit, he took 40 dancing girls from the Lido to the Prince des Galles Hotel. On his next, he suddenly took a great shine to me but when someone told him I was trans-sexual, he stayed away. But, if by chance we would be in the same club, he would sent me a bottle of champagne every time. He was a divine human being. April Ashley, a MBE, born George Jamieson and the first male Briton to have full sex reassignment surgery, recalling the time she met Elvis in 1959, as published in the Mirror on November 4, 2018. Where were you when you learned of Elvis Presley's death? I was at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center near Juneau, Alaska, escorting a group of senior adults. Like JFK’s assassination, the first moon landing and 9/11, it's one of the events engraved in our memory, at least for us of a certain age. Elvis may have left the building for the last time 46 years ago, but he is still very much a part of our lives. Chaplain Timothy Botts Greg Asimakoupoulos, as published in the April 2, 2023 issue of the Kitsap Sun I found him to be an interesting person, had an entourage of good old boys, was busy with karate, breaking his hand while doing it, but he was nice and cooperative and friendly. I really liked him. Ed Asner, on the first time he met and worked with Elvis, namely during the shoot of "Kid Gallahad", in 1962, in an article published on July 16, 2018 on the Houston Chronicle. Princesses Margrit of Denmark (now HRH, the Queen of Denmark), Margaret of Sweden and I, were assigned to represent the people of Scandinavia on the SAS' maiden intercontinental flight to Los Angeles. We went to Disneyland, then to the Paramount Studios. He was making a film, we watched him sing a song and then he greeted us. He was very polite, a man with an M in capital letters. He was very pretty, had been our idol and we three had heard all his records, seen all his movies, so when I found out he had died, I was very saddened. Princess Astrid, Mrs. Ferner Princess Astrid of Norway, as told to Roger Mogstad, son of Tor Mogstad, the Princess's personal hairdresser on October 12, 1987, and as detailed in a clip from Youtube, THE KING, THE PRINCESS & ME In times of trouble, I put my faith in Elvis Presley, who represented the South's better angels. He was a hard worker, and although he lived the high life, he never forgot that he had been born into poverty. And he was a self-made talent, perhaps the greatest entertainer of all time, born in a two-room shack in Tupelo, Miss., in 1935. I've been to that small shotgun house many times, reflecting on what it says about America. Greatness can be born anywhere. His father Vernon was a laborer who was often out of work, and the Presleys relied on the kindness of family and neighbors to get them through the hard times. When Elvis was young, the Presleys lost it, and they ended up shuttling around Tupelo, often living in black neighborhoods, where Elvis famously developed an ear for black gospel and blues to supplement his love of the old-time gospel he knew from his own church.I still believe in my heart that most Southerners are still more like Elvis than President Trump. We are most likely to pull over and help someone stranded on the roadside. Most of the people I know in my Mississippi town would give you the shirt off their backs. Most Southern preachers don't spend Sundays in the pulpit spewing hatred and intolerance. Most people agree that racism and white supremacy are evil. Even preschoolers know it's always better to tell the truth and take your lumps than lie and evade. And yet here we are. We know right from wrong, but most of us down here voted for wrong. As Elvis once said, “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away. Ace Atkins, in his article, "In Elvis we trust", part of TIME magazine's August 6 special issue on the American South. Elvis changed the country music scene quite a bit; he almost put country music out of business. He was white, but he sang black. It wasn't socially acceptable for white kids to buy black records at the time. Did I have any sense of how big he was going to be when he first came to RCA? Oh yeah, we knew. Back in those days, if a guy got hot in one area you could spread it around the country, maybe the world. He was already so big in East Texas and Louisiana you couldn't get him off stage with a firehose. We knew. When he came in to do “Heartbreak Hotel” I called up my wife and told her to come over. I said, You might not get a chance to see him again, he's gonna get so damn big. Chet Atkins, Pop Chronicles, Show 8 – The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 2, interview recorded January 1968. Coming upon these tapes, unspooling them and watching them glide across an Ampex 440 reel-to-reel deck for the first time was the closest I'll ever get to being a real life Indiana Jones (franchise) Indiana Jones. Beyond the staggering realization of what we had found, there was a musical element that also knocked our socks off: On these tapes Glen is singing pure rock and roll and with a sense of joy, passion and wild abandon that can only have come from knowing that his idol, the avatar Elvis Presley, would be an audience of one for these recordings.” Stephen Auerbach, detailing for RollingStone what he felt after finding and playing tapes which had been lost of Glen Campbell doing demos for Elvis, as published on October 31, 2018. When Elvis came back from the service and he was greeted by all the publicity, the press, the photographers, reporters, and so forth, someone said to him "Well, what do you think now that you're not number one but Avalon is ?" And he said " Oh, I love his song "Venus" and there's room for everybody." And I thought that was really genuine, nice compliment. Frankie Avalon, as noted in whenstarsmeetstars. 1) Ed Sheeran 2) Will Smith 3) James Cordon 4) Peter Kay 5) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 6) Elvis Presley 7) Prince Harry 8) Michael Jackson 9) Beyonce and 10) Kim Kardashian UK Avis Budget Group's list of most favoured celebrity travel buddies, from a poll taken in July of 2018, of over 14,000 consumers across Europe, aged 18-66+ including 1,000 British nationals I was about to say you were doing a disservice to fat Elvis who had much more dignity than Donald Trump does right now. What the hell is he talking about? He doesn’t have a clue. That’s just sad.” John Avlon's retort to Jim Acosta's comparison of former President Trump to what he called "Fat Elvis" during a CNN interview, as broadcast on May 2nd, 2021 B I doubt it, although he did record "Any Day Now", and that’s one of those things where you think, “Great!”, and you hear it and it’s not so great. It was the same thing with Frank Sinatra and the Count Basie band, with Quincy Jones producing. They did "Wives and Lovers", which is in 3/4 time, but they did it in 4/4. I said, “Quincy, what happened?” He said: “The Basie band can’t play in 3/4.” Burt Bacharach's pompously ridiculous answer during an interview by Dave Simpson, a reporter from The Guardian on whether there were any great singers or musicians he'd wish to have worked with, or did work with, specifically Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Quincy Jones, as published in the newspaper's May 25, 2016 edition. Did I? That was extremely immodest and foolish of me, my apologies. I would never dare to be so presumptuous. I am only interested in the legacy my father has left behind, and I would like to work towards giving it strength and respect for as long as I live. Indian entertainer and former politician Amitabh Bachchan's answer to a question posed by a reporter on whether he recalled his once saying that he would like to leave a lasting legacy in the world, to be a sort of Elvis Presley, as published on the "Asian Age" on May 13, 2018 I'm living proof that Elvis was a pretty good driver. As innocent as the BMW 507 with its white paintwork might have looked, with a 150-horsepower V8 under the bonnet, it was something very special and Elvis drove like a maniac! Foot hard on the gas, then hard on the brakes, switching between lanes, slaloming between cars – it was like all hell had broken loose. (I was scared), and as a result wasn't quite able to enjoy the experience. The unvarnished truth is that I was just happy that we managed to get the car back to the dealership without a scratch on it. That short time I spent with Elvis was wonderful, though. The next day, I wrote to my mother , saying that I'd driven 100 miles up the autobahn with Elvis Presley. She thought I was kidding.” Gus Backus, a member of the racially mixed doo-wop group The Del Vikings, recounting for BMW Group Classic the time then Private Elvis Presley asked him (then serving with the US Air Force in Germany), to accompany him as he was test driving a BMW 507 in Frankfurt. It was after the test drive that Elvis ordered specifications be made on another BMW 507, the now famous BMW 507 chassis #70079 previously owned by German car racer Hans Stuck and which is currently housed at the BMW Museum after a two year multi million euro restoration. In May of 1998 I was in the middle of an Elvis Presley obsession, so I went to Graceland. Everything about the place seemed awesome to me, from the giant Corinthian columns out front, to the purple and yellow room with three televisions built into the wall, to the big man’s grave out back. But what has stuck with me the most from the visit is a particular story about Elvis. Elvis had grown up poor, and I’m sure when he was poor money was important. But when he started to make more money than he could ever spend, or maybe just enough money to have every material thing he wanted, it no longer held importance to him. So, during a party at Graceland he was inside with a guest who came from a poor background, and the other partygoers were outside on the lawn. His friend commented on how sophisticated all of the partygoers seemed. Elvis walked over to his desk, pulled a stack of money from one of the drawers, opened a window, and threw the bills out the window. The partygoers scrambled after the bills, shoving each other, trying to grab as much money as they could. Elvis turned to his friend and said, “They’re not that sophisticated.” Brett Baker, for Chicago now, published on December 22, 2016. i) We can even hazard a little analysis as to what made his voice so appealing. "That curious baritone," one critic called it. Actually, that is inexact. The voice had mixed propensities, hovering between tenor and bass and everything in between. Even a convincing falsetto lay within his range. One thing he was not, ever, was "Steve-'n-Edie", the polished, professionally accomplished Vegas artistes who once pronounced on an afternoon interview show (Mr. Lawrence enunciating the sentiment for himself and his partner/wife, Ms. Gorme), "We don't really think of Elvis as a singer. But he was a star." It is only when, years later, one gets past the indignation of hearing such apparent ignorance, that the sense of the observation becomes clear. A singer is someone like Steve Lawrence rolling effortlessly (and meaninglessly) through a shlock-standard like "What Now, My Love?". More or less like doing the scales. A star is the persona in whom one invests one's vicarious longings, a being who is constantly hazarding — and intermittently succeeding at — the impossible stretches that every soul wishes to attempt but lacks the means or the will to. It's not a matter of virtuosity. ii) Take My Baby Left Me (1956) by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, the black Mississippi sharecropper whose That's All Right had literally been Elvis' first recording, in 1954. Crudup kept his blues in a bucket; Elvis put the lid on, and cooked; bar by bar, the song comes together; first comes D.J. Fontana's rapped-out drum riff, then a top-to-bottom run from Bill Black's stand-up bass, then the controlled gallop of Scotty Moore's lead guitar; then, last of all, Elvis singing in that imperious velvet growl of his, "Yes, my baby left me! Never said a word"; it is the most underestimated song in the canon; there is lightning in that bucket, and it could drive a train, any train. It literally took us into a new age. Endow a university! Elvis was a university. Whoever those mystics are who teach that the universe began with sound could use him as their full curriculum" Jackson Baker, i) in "Memphis Magazine" (July 2002) ii) as published in "The Memphis Flyer", August 8-14, 1996 edition He was fantastic. When he danced, the people danced, the girls would actually faint because of what he was doing. The people didn't care if he was white or black, he was a good artist and they felt his music. Lavern Baker, commenting on her covering one of Presley's best early 60's songs, with a few changes in the lyrics, which she recorded in late 1961 as a answer to Presley's "Little Sister". Presley's voice was remarkable in the sense that, through it, he touched people in a way only great artists can do. (In fact), the people he touched are as diverse as humanity itself and, because of that his popularity has transcended race, class, national boundaries, and culture. There is no simple answer about why that is so, all I can say is he had that magic. When Elvis Presley was first popular, many people said that he did not have a good voice. Almost everyone, today, knows that he did, but more people today should see him not simply as a performer, but as an artist with a great soul. John Bakke, professor emeritus of the University of Memphis, in an interview with the US State Department, transcripted by UNUSINFO on July 18, 2006 on the legacy of Elvis Presley I don't think any two men on this planet ever had the charisma of Elvis Presley and Jackie Wilson. The two of them remind me of each other: the charisma Hank Ballard, rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, lead vocalist of the Midnighters, as noted in the book "Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops" by Tony Douglas. With him, it's the pictures that spoke loudest about the man behind the genius. Take Sunday Times photographer Chris Smith's classic shot in which a scowling Seve, handsome head turned from the driving rain, jacket held across his chest like a matador's cape, and he is curling his lip. It tells you everything you need to know about his mood, his game, and his grim determination to outfox the elements and annihilate his opponent. It's pure Elvis. About Seve Ballesteros, Spain's all time greatest golfer, as reported in the Sunday Times on May 8, 2011. Then, in 1954, Elvis happened. The influence that the softly spoken Mississippi native had on popular music – and in particular rockabilly – is incalculable. First billed as 'The Hillbilly Cat' (again a nod towards black and white influences), the boy with the seemingly rubber limbs sang both blues and country songs infused with elements of this new rockabilly movement to the bemusement of a music industry not yet aware of the significance of what they were listening to. They didn't know it at the time, but the music establishment had just changed forever. Two years later he signed with RCA and the ensuing exposure he received on national television introduced rockabilly to its widest audience yet and, like fire to kindling, there was no stopping its spread. Other labels swooped to sign up any artists who sang even vaguely similar to Elvis and there was a bona fide musical gold rush underway and record executives and studio bigwigs fell over themselves to capitalise on this musical trend which was now sweeping the nation – ultimately playing a big part in rockabilly's eventual downfall, as more and more people tried to make money from it, (thus) watering down its raunchiness as they tried to make it appear to as large a market as possible, and (finally) taming its sound beyond recognition. Excerpted from an article entitled "The Roots of Rockabilly: Examining the origins of a rock n' roll movement", by John Balfe, and as published in www.entertainment.ie I might be the biggest Elvis fan you've ever met. I mean, I've seen it all. And I just loved him. I don't know what it was. I mean, probably the same reason everybody loved Elvis. Cause he was electric. He was just electric, the greatest entertainer I've ever seen, and I think the reason why was because — and I heard him say it many times in interviews — , he always did what he felt. Genuinely did what he felt. It wasn't choreographed. It wasn't, OK, well, I'm gonna do this move at this time. It was coming up from inside of him, and it was coming out. That's what it was, and that's why people connected with it. Cause it was the real deal.” Country music songwriter and singer Frankie Ballard who, along with a few others, voted Elvis as the top entertainer in CMT Top 40 artist countdown, as published in CMT´s online edition of November 21, 2014. It was the autumn of 1971, and two tickets to an Elvis show turned up at the offices of Creem magazine, where I was then employed. It was decided that those staff members who had never had the privilege of witnessing Elvis should get the tickets, which was how me and art director Charlie Auringer ended up in nearly the front row of the biggest arena in Detroit. Earlier Charlie had said, “Do you realize how much we could get if we sold these things?” I didn't, but how precious they were became totally clear the instant Elvis sauntered onto the stage. He was the only male performer I have ever seen to whom I responded sexually; it wasn't real arousal, rather an erection of the heart, when I looked at him I went mad with desire and envy and worship and self-projection. I mean, Mick Jagger, whom I saw as far back as 1964 and twice in ‘65, never even came close. Rock critic Lester Bangs's opening sentence in Elvis' obituary, by special request from and published by the Village Voice on 20 August 1977. I mean, don't tell me about Lenny Bruce, man – Lenny Bruce said dirty words in public and obtained a kind of consensual martyrdom. Plus which Lenny Bruce was hip, too goddam hip if you ask me, which was his undoing, whereas Elvis was not hip at all. Elvis was a goddam truck driver who worshipped his mother and would never say "shit" or "fuck" around her, and Elvis alerted America to the fact that it had a groin with imperatives that had been stifled. Lenny Bruce demonstrated how far you could push a society as repressed as ours and how much you could get away with, but Elvis kicked "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window" out the window and replaced it with "Let's fuck." The rest of us are still reeling from the impact. Sexual chaos reigns currently, but out of chaos may flow true understanding and harmony, and either way Elvis almost single handedly opened the floodgates. Lester Bangs, "Where Were You When Elvis Died," originally published in "The Village Voice", August 29, 1977. Republished in Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung pg. 215-216 Elvis' lowest effective note was a low-G, as heard on "He'll Have To Go"(1976); on "King Creole" (1958), he growls some low-F's; going up, his highest full-voiced notes were the high-B's in "Surrender"(1961) and "Merry Christmas Baby" (1971), the high-G at the end of "My Way" (1976 live version), and the high-A of "An American Trilogy"(1972); using falsetto, Elvis could reach at least a high-E, e.g, as in "Unchained Melody" (1977), so, it was very nearly a three-octave range, although more practically two-and-a-half. George Barbel, as a follow up to a question on what was Elvis' range, as published in All Experts.com, on 20th May, 2007. I have nothing to do with him and therefore no reply is necessary Briggite Bardot Brigitte Bardot's answer to a journalist who had been present at Elvis Press Conference at the Prince des Galles Hotel in Paris, on June 17, 1960, and where Elvis had stated he would welcome meeting her during what turned out to be his first of three US Army furloughs in Paris. Would she meet him? the journalist asked. As published in Briggite Bardot.net's August 16, 2017 edition. By the time we got towards the end of our stay there, Elvis was worn out, so he got all the singers individually to do a song. Of course, all the musicians knew that I play and sang and they knew some of my songs. Elvis was obviously hesitating and thinking of something else to do, and Ronnie said: 'Let Bardwell sing'. He just went, 'Yeah, right ...'. And Guercio said, 'No, really. You wanna do something else, let him sing, because he can sing'. So Elvis went, 'Ladies and gentlemen, my bassplayer is going to sing now'. So Charlie Hodge gave me his guitar and I got Charlie's mike. Charlie was holding another mike on the guitar, for me to play it. And I didn't know what to do. I mean, how am I going to follow Kathy Westmoreland doing 'My Heavenly Father'? And Donnie Sumner said, 'Do the Hurricane song'. You know, 'Please Don't Bury Me' by John Prine. I got to the last verse of the song that's a bit off color. We were going from 'My Heavenly Father' to 'Kiss My Ass Goodbye', and it just took everybody by surprise. That was a really good moment, because I had shown Elvis a part of me that he didn't know of. He knew that what we had just done was show business, and it was good show business, because it was entertaining. I went back to the dressing room after the show, and Tom Diskin knocked on the door. We let him in, and he said 'I have a message for you from the Colonel' So I figured that I was fired when he sent Tom Diskin into the dressing room, but he said, He wants me to tell you that that's one of the funniest things he's ever seen at an Elvis Presley show'. I was thrilled with that. If I didn't do anything else I had done that. That was fun TCB Bass player TCB Band Duke Bardwell's story of how how he got to sing John Prine's ‘Please Don’t Bury Me’ during the October 14th, 1974 closing show in Lake Tahoe, NV, in an interview with Arjan as published on the FECC Forum'spage. Baritones UnBound continues the second season of Asolo Rep's five-year American Character Project, an in-depth look at this nation and its people. No other voice has defined the United States quite like the booming sound of the baritone. From Sinatra to Elvis and much more, this musical journey chronicles some of the most beloved singers and songs of all time. Conceived by Broadway leading man and threetime Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch and created by Merwin Foard, three dynamite baritones take the stage to give us a captivating musical tour of the baritone voice throughout history, namely Marc Kudisch, Jeff Mattsey, and Timothy Splain. Veteran singers Jeff Mattsey and Mark Delavan join Kudisch in an illuminating performance studded with classics from Broadway, opera and beyond. From Gregorian chants to well-known arias (“Ah! Per sempre,” “Largo”) including show tunes (“I am a Pirate King,” “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’”) and popular music (“It Was a Very Good Year,” “It’s Now or Never,” and “Pretty Women”) Baritones Baritoners Unbound's 2015' Press Release, in an article entitled Celebrating the UnCommon Voice of the Common Ma"n Our son's name would be Elvis.... Travis Barker, drummer for the band Blink 182, to his ex-wife Shanna Moakle, a former Miss USA, who expressed shock that Barker would tell his future bride to be Kourtney Kardashian Kourtney Kardashian, via an Instagram dated 9 November 2021, that he would choose that moniker due to its connection to the film "True Romance". Another time we played with Herman's Hermits who were very popular. Frankly, we didn't rate them musically, but we were impressed when they told us about they having met with Elvis Presley, "Elvo" to us. And when they told Ian Anderson he sang like 'Elvo' he was very flattered and to this day the rest of the band and I always call Ian 'Elvo'!” Barriemore Barlow, drummer for Jethro Tull in an interview with Nick Dent-Robinson, recalling their attending Elvis' August 11, 1969 show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas on the special invitation of UK record producer Terry Ellis (record producer) Terry Ellis and as published on 03/04/2014 at the Jethro Tull Forum. In 1956, I was President of his Los Angeles Fan Club and when I met him I noticed he had bad complexion and realized he wasn't perfect. So maybe it was a chance for me to make it in Hollywood (LOL) On Two Fronts: Latinos & Vietnam Gregg Barrios, award-winning playwright, poet, and journalist, from an oral history interview on June 21, 2016, San Antonio, TX. A few days before Christmas one year, Elvis was in the store buying guns for some of his friends as gifts. There was a customer off to the side looking at a display case that held nothing but expensive Browning over-under shotguns. Presley went up to the gentleman and commented on how nice the guns were. The man agreed, but said they were way out of his price range, since they were all probably in the thousand dollar plus area. Elvis asked the guy which one he would buy if he was purchasing, and the fellow said probably the Diana grade with the gold inlay. Elvis then went back to the counter where Jerry Knight was, and as he left said to Jerry, "When that guy gets ready to leave, take that Diana grade shotgun out and put it on the counter and give it to him. Tell him Elvis said Merry Christmas." Jerry said he did just that, and he thought the guy was going to faint when he received the gift. Ken Barnes, who worked at Kerr's Beverly Hill's Sports Shop, as published by the Californian on December 13, 2017. Not only did Elvis give teens their own music with which to identify, he proved that much of the disposable income of this generation would be spent on music, fashion, and media of its own choosing and thus turning that generation into a high-pro!le, identifiable group with their own fashion sense, hair styles, slang, taste in music, preferences in movie stars and other favorite pastimes. Richard Barnet in his book The Story Behind the Song: 150 Songs that Chronicle the 20th Century. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. I just come off the air and got a phone call telling me that they had just found Elvis dead, so I was in shock, as I thought for a moment that we had contributed to his death, minutes earlier having been, as I was, the first person to review the book that laid it all out. Moreover, given that people knew that I didnt make up stories and because of the large audience I had just reached in "Good Morning America", I thought that we may have had sent Elvis over the edge. I'll never know... Rona Barrett in the documentary The Definitve Elvis, The Memphis Mafia What's more, the asset class “fine art” is to investing, is what science fiction is to the rest of literature. The "extreme" characteristics of sci-fi and high-end art help teach investors—or readers—important lessons. Science fiction speaks to human nature, while art offers a window on the nature of asset markets. What then qualifies as "extreme"? Take Andy Warhol. In 1986, collectors could buy a Warhol "Triple Elvis" painting for about $200,000, but a "Triple Elvis" went for $81.9 million at auction in 2018. That's a 400-fold gain—an investor's dream. The average annual return of the "Triple Elvis" works out to about 20.6%. Pretty good. And there is nothing more fundamental to investing than returns. Barron's December 6, 2019 laud of the value of a "Triple Elvis" by Andy Warhol, as noted in an article entitled Don't Pay $120,000 for a Banana by Al Root. article entitled "Other Investing Lessons From Art Basel While Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison were ruling the rock-pop charts in the US, he had everyone grooving to his music in Nepal. The song "Deula yo joban timilai deula" may have sounded similar to what was trending internationally, but was given a funky twist of his own, and arguably was responsible for introducing rock and pop to the entire nation. He became a heartthrob in his country and was soon called the Elvis Presley of Nepal because he came like a breath of fresh air in a music scene dominated by traditional tunes. About Kumar Basnet, as noted in the Kathmandu post's March 15 edition. On the evening of the Oscars, with Austin seated next to me, I understood intimately what he felt when it was time to learn if he would climb those stairs to the stage. So, I took his hand and held it softly as the winner was announced. Although his name wasn’t called, Austin is no less a winner. The time had come for Austin to say goodbye to Elvis as he began to embrace an infinite universe of possibilities as an actor. I can’t wait to see what he brings us next. Excerpt of Angela Bassett's laud of Austin Butler, who as a result of his lead role in Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis", was listed as one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2023, as published on the said magazines' April 13, 2023 edition. His generosity.. Natasha Bassett's reply to a reporter asking what in her view defines Elvis the most, as beamed live on May 25, 2022 at the opening of ELVIS, at the Cannes Film Festival He started drawing on my front all the way down to my navel, doodling as I spoke to him, in front of hundreds at his dressing room after his August 1970 opening show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Incredible sensation, he used a biro!!! That night back at my hotel, alone, I undressed and there they were, the doodlings. I did not wash until they wore off... Shirley Bassey, as told to talk host Graham Norton. As Jack Wilshere completed his first 90 minutes in the Premier League for Arsenal in over three years, and was arguably their best player in the 0-0 draw at West Ham's London Arena on Wednesday evening, "A Little Less Conversation", the song by Elvis Presley, was the tune that played the players off the pitch, the lyric urging for "a little more spark" a fair assessment of the game. But it is the line about the need for "a little less conversation, a little more action" that best sums up his situation at Arsenal... Adam Bate, one of Sky Sports top anchors, assessing Wilshire's performance for his network, in an article published on December 11, 2017 ( Since Elvis' "The Wonder of you" is the song played at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium before players enter the field this could explain West Ham fans' decision to play "A little less conversation" when they, in turn, feel their own team needs to improve its play). He had a musically textured rhythmic voice that had emotional intelligence; concentrate on his voice: sweet, remorseful, defiant, suggestive. Eileen Battersby, literary correspondent, citing the reasons for her being hooked on Elvis after "discovering" him inadvertently as she changed the dial looking for her favorite classical music radio station, as published in the "Irish Times" in August of 2002. Ronnie James Dio, Bon Scott, Bruce Dickinson and Elvis Presley. Blaze Bayley, lead singer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden, citing his biggest musical influences in an article published in Metalcastles's February 29, 2020 online edition. In "Mystery Train" (1955), he rocks out with an astounding depth, Elvis' voice never sounding so rich, nor so pleading; best of all is his final spontaneous laugh & whoop of excitement, worth its weight in gold. Review of the CD "Elvis at SUN", by Piers Beagley, as published in EIN, on 30th June, 2004 Imagine Beatty in the Paul Newman part and you can kind of see it, but what about the Redford part? Apparently, Redford wasn't cast yet and Beatty had a mighty strange idea for his co-lead. Yes, that's right, he wanted Elvis Presley. Ultimately, though, Beatty did not appear in the film, reportedly because he found the two-hander was too similar to his recent "Bonnie and Clyde". Now, picturing Beatty and Elvis in those parts is a fascinating "What if?" but what the public got was probably the best possible version of that movie... About Warren Beatty having chosen Elvis as his co-star in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a movie which he later passed on, in an article by Eric Vespe entitled "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid could've starred Warren Beatty And Elvis" as published in the November 8, 2022 edition of Slash Film They are two equivalent beasts even with their differences. Diego Maradona is Elvis Presley singing 'My Way' at his last concert at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. He embodies the deity, the absolute power, the sunset, the snowy peaks and the abyss. And Lionel Messi is Paul McCartney, the long-play list, the continuity and the health. To ask one of them to have what the other has doesn't look to be a proof of social intelligence but one of galloping dissatisfaction of a country that doesn't conform with having two of the three best footballers in history in less than 40 years. Argentinean novelist Juan José Becerra, in an article published in July of 2016 at El Clarin, his country's most prestigious newspaper. I'd have been off playing with my bow and arrow or something and Cliff Gallup had a big impact on me too, of course, but the Elvis stuff was the real start of it. It was the rocket ship taking off for a whole bunch of us Jeff Beck, explaining how after hearing his older sister's 78rpm record of "Heartbreak Hotel" the idea of becoming a musician instantly popped into his head, as stated in an article in Guitar Player Magazine's July 1997 issue. I met Elvis in 1968 at the Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas and had a drink with him. A lady asked him for an autograph but he didn't have a pen, so I gave him mine. Then he gave me the pen back and that's when I said, “Naw, you keep it Elvis. I don’t think anyone’s going to be asking for my autograph. William O. Beck, in an interview with Jeff Sterling for the Titusville Herald, and published on August 13, 2018. Elvis is right up there with death and taxes in things that can't be avoided, Writer Joel Beers, reviewing the 1968 NBC TV Elvis Special for OC Weekly, on January 4, 2018. I was scared of him when I was a child. He was very sexual. There was something — the sexual vibe of Elvis was out there, big time. Joy Behar, who was 14 in 1956, speaking about his feelings for Elvis, as director Sofia Coppola stopped by her show, to talk about her movie "Priscilla", as broadcast on October 31, 2023. Like some sort of Grammy-powered "Super Friends", John Legend, Post Malone, Jennifer Lopez, Blake Shelton and more than a dozen more artists joined forces on February 17, 2019, for a prime time television special titled “Elvis All-Star Tribute". The union of Post Malone and Urban demonstrated that — for Elvis Presley Enterprises, at least — the show's mission, in large part, was to affirm the idea of Elvis' universal appeal. Adam Lambert wore a blue suit and blue suede shoes during his version of "Blue Suede Shoes", while Jennifer Lopez went full J.Lo during "Heartbreak Hotel"- Another highlight was Mac Davis' solo rendition of "Memories," a song he wrote for the original 1968 special. Davis, 77, the elder statesman amongst the performers (beating John Fogerty by four years), shared a poignant memory of holding the then infant Lisa Marie Presley during a visit to Elvis' Bel Air home. He later was joined by John Legend, who sang a Davis composition that has emerged as one of Elvis' biggest posthumous hits, "A Little Less Conversation." Others on the show included Darius Rucker, Ed Sheeran, Kelsea Ballerini, Alessia Cara, Josh Groban, Pistol Annies and Little Big Town. Lisa Marie did not perform, but introduced a gospel medley segment featuring Carrie Underwood and Yolanda Adams; similarly, actress Riley Keough, Lisa Marie's only daughter, introduced Dierks Bentley, who contributed with the rocker, "Little Sister". “I’m here tonight because 50 years ago a King returned,” said Shelton, host of the program and — not coincidentally — a judge on the hit NBC vocal competition program, “The Voice.”, then adding that the original special had been often imitated but never surpassed while, in addition changing, as it also did, the game forever in music and television. The Commercial Appeal John Beifuss, writing for the Commercial Appeal in an article entitled "Post Malone, J.Lo, Blake Shelton: The Elvis '68 Comeback comeback",as published on their February 18, 2019 edition. Different as our sounds were in 1956, I could see that we were in parallel tracks, Elvis was interpreting one kind of black music, R&B, while I found my inspiration in black folk songs, spirituals and calypso. ( A year passed, and while in Las Vegas) Elvis came backstage to say hello and he couldn't have been more decorous, insisting in calling me Mr. Belafonte. Only later would I learn that he had hung out for years with a lot of black musicians and had come by his style legitimately. (Alas), he performed with such put on flash that over the next years, I noticed, he inspired a whole generation of R&B players who thought they could put that flash on, and become Elvis, too.. Harry Belafonte in his autobiography, My song, published in 2011. I have been following the sound of my own voice since childhood, growing up in a family of academics in Knoxville. I spent my formative years playing air guitar while listening to the monolithic stereo console in my parents. My first concert experience was seeing an Elvis Presley in Knoxville. I was just about four years old but have some vivid memories of holding my parents' hands and people screaming, so it was kind of scary. I also remember him doing ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Teddy Bear.’ And ‘Teddy Bear’ was such a favorite at the age of four that I brought out a big styrofoam guitar for it. Brian Bell, discussing the effect seeing Elvis show in Knoxville, on April 8, 1972 had on him, for Live4ever, published on April 15, 2007. I knew Elvis getting the bug to entertain, singing gospel music for the congregation in his own church, but there was something that was more important to him. It was black music. He wanted to be a gospel singer the way the black people sang. Long back, he'd sing to a broom, pretending it was a guitar. We thought he was crazy.... Sam Bell, Elvis' closest African American childhood friend in East Tupelo, MS, and the main source for Director Baz Luhrmann's research on Elvis' pre-teen years for his 2022 movie Elvis (2022 film) Elvis, in an interview taped in Memphis, TN in December of 2020 My favourite song of all time? I like Elvis' "Love me". Jude Bellingham,in an Mackenzie interview brooadcast on June 28, 2024. One evening, it's said he rocked around the clock all night before disappearing into one of the rooms along with eight eager Bunnies. What happened behind closed doors remains a mystery, but Hugh Hefner was apparently so impressed that he named the spot 'The Elvis Room'. Alex Belloti, in an article entitled "Playboy mansion secrets – ghost sightings, Elvis' wild night with Bunnies, 'sex rituals" as published in the Daily Mirror's August 6, 2021 edtion. The whole exhibition is focused on artists that I’ve listened to at some point in my life who represented something. Lana Del Rey, I was listening to her a lot when I was around 14, and that was really the start of me developing my own taste in music. Adele, she’s iconic as well, and a lot of people would recognize that album. Elvis Presley too — he’s a huge artist. So I wanted the album (cover) to be recognizable, but also for the Western artists to be big, just to show how important these Arab artists are as well.” Zineb Belrhiti, the UAE's top album designer, telling the Arab News why she chose Elvis images as well as those of Lana del Rey and Adele as inspiration for the album covers of Arab artists, in an article published on August 5, 2021. Elvis Presley is undeniably one of the most iconic and influential figures of the 20th century. Bendigo Art Gallery's Curator Lauren Ellis' laud of Elvis, as noted in Scenestr's March 28, 2022 edition. Did you ever meet Elvis Presley? Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI's question to the then terminally ill Irish comedian Frank Carson, who, in 1987, had been ordained with a Papal knighthood of the "Order of St. Gregory" by the now Saint Pope John Paul II. The then sitting Pope's interest, expressed some 30 years after Presley's death, may lie in the fact that he was stationed, as a young professor within the German priesthood at a town not too far from Presley's barracks during his 18 month stay in Germany with the US Army. Carson's zany reply to the Pope? "Not yet, your Holiness, but I soon will", (Published in the Belfast Telegraph on August 10, 2017). I think she's going to become as big as Elvis Presley. He was, incidentally, the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person too. Tony Bennett, referring to singer, songwriter, and actress Lady Gaga in an article on Billboard published on August 17, 2011 and during an interview with the Guardian, on 17 October, 2013. I remember the first time in '56, I saw Elvis. I'm like, I'm buying that record because it's just the look that gets you, it's almost as much as the music. I kind of always had this theory that you look and listen with your eyes and your ears at the same time. He was the first rock 'n roll artist I loved. In my life, I started with him, but as I got into music, Elvis and the Rolling Stones led me to blues. Bill Bentley,American music industry executive in an interview with Salon, published on May 25, 2018. I listen to a lot of Elvis on the school bus. My bus driver, Ken Lyons, is — was, he's not with us anymore — but he's the biggest Elvis fan. So Channel 13 on SiriusXM radio, many, many nights listening to Elvis Presley and him educating me on Elvis. He's great, he's one of a kind. You can label him however you want to, but his country career was unbelievable. He had a voice that even if you didn't see all the moves and how good looking he was and all that stuff, you just listen to his voice when he's on the Louisiana Hayride with Faron Young and it's like, 'Wow, his voice is really unbelievable.' Great singer. And lot to learn. Dierks Bentley, in an interview with popculturecountry and published on their February 15,2019 edition. i) New Eminem diss!! ‘RAP ELVIS’ If he don’t respond in 48 hours he’s cancelled,“ ii) ‘Rap Elvis’ already destroyed him. mI already killed him with ‘Rap Elvis.’ Where’s he at? Where’s the response? I want to battle him face-to-face. I think he’s overrated and sucks as a rapper.” Benzino, dissing Eminem i) in an Instagram following his release of a song entitled "Rap Elvis" which he launched on January 31, 2024 and ii) in another instagram dated 24 February, 2024. The reason I chose Elvis Presley' songs as the teaser for this article is to trigger some autobiographical memories for adults who were adolescents when his music topped the charts, which he dominated throughout the 1950s. Hopefully, these songs will inspire older adults, baby boomers, and people of all ages to get up from your chair and dance.... Christopher Bergland, activities of daily living in an article entitled ̊"One More Reason to Keep Dancing̊" as published in Psychology Today's December 19, 2018 edition. It'a highly profane parody of my song and therefore, I am telling my staff to call radio stations and demand the song be banned from airplay. Irving Berlin's description of Elvis' version of "White Christmas" which led, inter-alia, to the firing of Al Priddy, a DJ at the Portland, Oregon-based radio station KEX, who played the song (which was only available in an album), in late 1957 in spite of the station's management warning him not to, with Priddy later getting his job back after public outcry, and as published in the "American Songwriters" ' December 2, 2025 edition. Appropriation, then, has something to do with intent. When another culture's property is exploited for profit, that's appropriation, and it's always deserving of criticism. Elvis was just being Elvis. In "Elvis Presley:The Searcher" an HBO documentary, its signal achievement is in showing how the singer's early years, family culture, and socioeconomic background made inevitable the musician he was to become. It makes clear that he was, first, and foremost, a committed artist, utterly dedicated to music and its ability to move people. Robby Berman, as published on the Big Think's April 19, 2018 edition, in an article entitled "Was Elvis Presley a cultural appropriator of black music? Fernest Acernaux was not playing zydeco on that accordion, it was rhythm and blues. And you couldn’t make it playing French, so we played blues and rock ‘n’ roll from Fats Domino, Bobby Blue Bland and Elvis Presley. Rod Bernard, celebrating his 72 years of pioneering "swamp pop", which combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun and black Creole music, as ´published in the Daily Advertiser on November 6, 2017. Next stop was the Sun Studio. It was not the old one at 706 Union Avenue, by many considered the birthplace for the post war youth culture. Even if Elvis Presley was the most talented artist of his generation, had he not been born, someone else sounding similar, but not as good, would have probably surfaced in another town and in another studio. Talking about Elvis, it was six days before I arrived in Memphis and tried to meet him, albeit unsuccesfully, that I had actually seen Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five in Chicago. Since we had been sharing the same dressing room after their performance, I could have been the first person to tell Elvis that I had met his future son-in-law, later to be married to his then unborn daughter Lisa Marie.. Jonas Bernholm in his book Soul Music Odissey Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution – the 60's comes from it.” Leonard Bernstein, as told to TIME founder Henry Luce's top aide Richard Clurman in an article published by TIME on August 10, 2017. Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest there ever was, is, or ever will be. We did not have the airwaves he had, but he delivered what he obtained brilliantly. Let me conclude by saying that I realized during those early years that Elvis and I were creating a new sound. When I heard on the radio that he had died, I had to pull my car over to the shoulder of the road as I couldn't believe the initial reports. Elvis's art was a unique art, his style influential enough to be copied by many. But, no one can copy his. The one thing Elvis had that no one else had was THAT voice Chuck Berry as published in http://www.elvis.net/whattheysay/theysayframe.html as noted in Harry DeWitts Elvis, the Sun years, and In a AugusT 18 of 1977 phone interview Eventually, everybody has to die, except Elvis. Dave Berry, as published in http://www.elvis.net/whattheysay/theysayframe.html We all had similar tastes in the band it seemed. I don't remember the first album I bought but the first record I got was Hound Dog by Elvis.And of course, everybody listens to Elvis now and then. Pete Best,the Beatles' first drummer, in an article published on May 4th, 2015 in which he was asked what was the first record he bought and whether he still listens to Elvis 40 years after his death. Welcome to the "Veranda Suite", Elvis Presley used to stay here... The Beverly Wilshire Hotel's Front Desk introduction to room 1001 on the 10th floor, which highlights a rooftop yurt purported to provide its guests with a one-in-a-million urban glamping experience right in the centre of the city of Los Angeles, as detailed in an article in the Telegraph on February 21, 2018. i) When you think of Vegas, of show business, of flash, of those performances, you think of Elvis. He is iconic; a lot of performers today look to that for inspiration ii) You have to have soul to sing like Elvis, and Elvis had soul" " Beyonce, i) as published in www.graceland.com and ii) Elvis Viva Las Vegas documentary. "Cant's help falling in love" it shall be About Jeff Bezos' decision for that 1961 song from Elvis' 1961 "Blue Hawaii" to open the festivities in connexion with his wedding Lauren Sanchez on June 27, 2025, as sang by Italian tenor Matteo Bocelli and as published in Vanity Fair's June 28, 2025 edition. Elvis Presley movies – I'm a big Elvis fan – although I don't think you should feel guilty about pleasures. UK comedian Sanjeev Bhaska's answer to a question on what is his biggest guilty pleasure, in an interview with the Mail Online published on July 29, 2018. When they asked me where I would want them to place my statue, I said I wanted it to stand between the figures of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, Asha Bhosle, Superstar singer from India, on what she told the Madame Russaaud people in London on the day her statue, only the second from a woman from her country, was unveiled,as published on INDIARV's online website on October 2, 1917. This is a case produced by the Thai Nakorn company, the best silversmiths in my country and as you can see, it reads “To Elvis Presley Hollywood 1960” with my special dedication to you, Sir, reading " “King Bhumibol Adulyadej to the King of Rock ดnด Roll”-- King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej's words while gifting Elvis with a silver case, on the ocassion of their meet-up at the Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, CA, on June 21,1960, and as published by the Pataya Mail on February 19, 2023. Incredibly, a decade later, Elvis gifted that unique combined lighter and cigarette case to an English teacher by the name of Ursula Adelaide Aylmer Nixon, who kept it until she passed away in 2021 at the age of 92, with her family then deciding to offer it for auction on 2 April 2023, where it sold for $70,000. Elvis Presley is the pivotal figure in our story about a spectacular house where everything is questioned to subvert the traditional view of private space, which becomes a stage.' Valextra Alberto Biagetti, commentong on the Atelier which bears his name's forthcoming exhibit which challenges the idea of domestic space while painting a psychological portrait of a generation whose most private moments are not private at all, and as published in Wallpaper's April 17, 2023 edition. Elvis Was A Democrat Joe Biden's ad, as circulated before the 2020 Presidential election. Intensity of communication, emotion, how the fusion of poetry is related to me as a listener. I'm disappointed by the bland and perfect vocal accomplishment, which I hear on so many recordings. Which is not to say that classical singers shouldn't try to become vocally masterful. I take my cue more and more from good pop singers. The other day I was looking at an early concert of Elvis Presley. It was fascinating to watch, the body language, the vocal suppleness Conor Biggs, Irish bass/baritone and classical singer, a founding member of Psallentes, a Gregorian chant ensemble, explaining to Michael Dervan, of the Irishman, for tips he looks for in a recital, as a way to better communicate with a listener, as published on that paper on February 1, 2013 In late 1959, Ibn Saud, the then King of Saudi Arabia. was spending time in Germany for medical reasons. One of his sons was a huge Elvis admirer, giving him a precious garment with golden applications, a waterpipe and a tea set with the royal crest on it, as a thank you gesture for his having left the Grunwald Hotel so that his father and his entire entourage could make total use of it. Soon after posing with the garment for the King's son at his newly rented house on #14 Goethestrasse, his friend and fellow GI Charlie Hodge had a zany idea: why couldn't he go out and walk in front of the German people, or anyone, for that matter, using the garment so as not to be recognized. This was finally done on February 1960, as he took a cab to the "Mainzer Karneval", a big public party, staying there for 3 days in the nearby town of Mainz which was not far from Bad Nauheim. And nobody noticed the by then Sgt Elvis Presley, in spite of him being accompanied by Hodge, plus two bodyguards all dressed as sailors as well as by a mysterious girl from Bad Nauheim, who did the translations. Elvis joined the whole programme, the clubs, the pubs, the bars, parades but stayed sober. The others did not, LOL. but they all returned safe, late at night. As published by BILD, Germany's highest selling tabloid, in an article published in March of 1960. (For) Mississippi: Elvis Presley. He served as perhaps the most important figure in the mainstream popularization of early rock, his Billboard chart legacy being equally astounding. He's scored 109 Hot 100 hits between the chart's start in 1958 and 2020 (!) and boasts the most charted albums in the archives of the Billboard 200 albums chart. Simply, he's still the King of Rock & Roll. Billboard (magazine) Billboard,in an article focussing on the top 50 US artists from each of the 50 states of the Union, as published on their July 4, 2020 edition So I said "Why don't we turn out all the lights so we don't see this vast empty looking studio the size of a football field and make it as intimate as we can?" We could barely make Elvis out through the glass from the control room into the studio when we cued him the backing-track. And then, Elvis started to sing. It was magic,. Next thing I know he's curled on the floor in almost a fetal position singing with a microphone next to his mouth. The hair on my arms were standing up. And that's the take that we wound up using on the soundtrack album. I did not use it in the TV show because I'm a total believer that if you're doing television I don't want anyone lip-syncing. I want the real thing. And to be completely honest, as great as the sit-down shows are, had I been able to get cameras and tape him there, it would have been even greater. I never put anybody I worked with on a pedestal, yet the first time I saw him, I was awed, first of all, by the way he looked. If he was not famous, you would still stop and stare. As a director, you're looking to see which is the good side, the bad side. Elvis was perfect from every angle. It was like a god walking in towards me... Steve Binder, director of the 1968 NBC/TV Special explaining how Elvis recorded "If I can dream", on June 23, 1968, exclusive for The King's court, on February 6, 2010, as well as in an interview with Vanity Fair published on August 17, 2018. His privileged access let him show Muhammad Ali away from the ring: preaching or sleeping, posing with black leaders like Malcolm X and James Meredith or playing with his children or with Elvis Presley. About Howard Bingham, the photographer who took an estimated 1 million pictures of Muhammad Ali over more than 50 years while becoming one of the boxer's closest friends, as published in his obituary in the Seattle Times, on December 23, 2016 Time magazine at the turn of the century asked its readers to tell them who they thought was the person who contributed most to the 20th century. Well, obviously people said Martin Luther King Jr, others said Nelson Mandela and Elvis Presley. But who do you think was chosen? Einstein, whose books I saw being burned in 1933... Journalist and Holocaust survivor Walter Bingham I’m a kid of the ’60s. When I was growing up I used to love going to see Elvis Presley in the cinema. I’m still a big Elvis fan. They’ve rehashed some of his music, with Elvis singing, along with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Really incredible, so beautiful. Myself and my wife actually played one of the songs – And The Grass Won’t Pay No Mind – at our marriage ceremony, as we were walking into the registry office. Irish Journalist Charlie Bird in an interview with the Irish Examiner as published on their March 11, 2021 edition. The Elvis effect, resulted in a lot more people getting poliovirus vaccinations. We need a series of ‘Elvises’ to promote vaccination for COVID-19 protection Pamela Bjorkman, structural biologist at the California Institute of Technology, in an article published by USA Today's April 19, 2021 edition. Cilla would record and perform Beatles numbers throughout her career, but in the 60s and up to the mid-70s, she did more than most. Her renditions of "Yesterday", "For No One", "Across The Universe" and others became big favourites with radio DJs, not to mention with The Beatles, who always liked the way she interpreted their material. Previous praise from Randy Newman, for her take on one of his songs had been sweet music to her ears. And just imagine how she felt when Paul McCartney said to her that her "Long And Winding Road" was the song's definitive version. She had, however and this to her dying day, something to be immensely proud of – Elvis Presley had her "You're my world" on his famous jukebox at Graceland. About UK singer Cilla Black, in an article published at the Sunday Post̪'s December 28, 2018 edition but which nevertheless fails to highlight that it was her "You're my world" which was actually being played at Elvis' jukebox when the Beatles visited him at his 525 Perugia Way home in Bel Air, California on August 27, 1965. I was in a friend's studio when a buddy of his called and told him. 'I got some news for you. Do you want me to tell you now or later?' I said later because I was in the studio when President Kennedy was killed and also when Martin Luther King was killed, so I knew the effect bad news can have on a session. When the session was over he told me and I thought he was joking and it didn't hit me until I lay down to sleep. The one other time that I experienced that was when my mother and my son died. It wasn't because he wouldn't he doing any more of my songs. It was like a piece of the whole business. I mean some people you just figure are never going to die. Inside, they'll always live. When they're gone, a certain piece goes and you just can't believe it. Reaction of Otis Blackwell, the African-American songwriter, singer, and pianist, whose work significantly influenced rock and roll, to the death of Elvis Presley He would probably be considered a baritone, but he could reach notes that most baritone singers could not. Much of his abilities emanated from a very intense desire to execute a song as he wanted to do it, which meant that he really sang higher than he would normally be able to. When the adrenaline is going, and the song is really pumping, you can get into that mode where you can actually do things, vocally, that you couldn't normally do. So he had a tremendous range because of his desire to excel and be better, and that's why he could do a lot of things that most people couldn't. Terry Blackwood, lead singer of the Gospel group, the "Imperials". The moment he walked in, it was almost like all the guys there were bowing down to him, but he didn't care whatsoever. It was an amazing time, because the electricity just floated through the air. Everybody there was on cloud nine but he just acted the way a country boy would act. Elvis was truly a gentleman and a sweetheart of a guy. Drummer Hal Blaine, telling Rollingstone what it felt like to be with Elvis in the studio during the taping of 1968 NBC special, and in an article published on August 16, 2017. My grandmother, known as Ms Topp at the local public school, lived on Church Street. She taught Elvis Presley music and I'll tell you a funny story about it. Years later when I asked what he was like, she said ‘Oh you know, he really was a sweet boy but he didn’t have a lick of talent’ so that tells you something about how we judge talent in our family that's for sure,” LOL. Marion Blakey, former head of Rolls-Royce North America and of the Federal Aviation Administration, recalling what she calls her "first claim to fame", in an interview to Tupelo's Daily Journal published on October 31, 2018. Record producer Phil Spector, who is currently serving his sentence for the 2003 shooting death of actress Lana Clarkson,finally settled his divorce with his third wife, Rachelle Short. In the settlement, signed December 4, 2018, they are forced to sell their infamous castle and evenly divide the proceeds, while she keeps many of her vehicles, most notably a 2015 Aston Martin Vanquish and even a small aircraft. He, on the other hand, keeps his various Grammy Awards, Gold and Platinum Records, a 1965 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III and John Lennon memorabilia, including an electric guitar and a lithograph, as well as a pair of diamond cufflinks gifted personally to him by Elvis Presley. Blast magazine, in an article entitled "Phil Spector splits castle with ex-Wife, keeps diamond cufflinks from Elvis in divorce settlement", published twenty days after it was finalized, in an article published on December 24, 2018. From Thursday to Sunday, fans traveled in a mob mentality with Tiger Woods, sprinting from hole to hole and emphatically yelling “He’s like Elvis Presley,” and, “We want to roar with you, baby!” along the way. It was the “Walking Dead” meets “Caddyshack.” A strange combination.. but the truth. Jon Blauvelt, recalling the way Tiger Woods captivated the attention of thousands upon thousands of people who stormed upon Ponte Vedra Beach for the sole reason of watching him play, as published in the Ponte Vedta Reporter on May 13, 2018. But better Elvis should pay those multi-millions in taxes (thereby doing as much for the War on Poverty) than you or I. "If his manager", said Goldman, "had sheltered his income from the taxman and invested it intelligently, Elvis Presley could have been as wealthy as Bob Hope". Well, I ask you. But I think we can be grateful to Elvis for his grin, his pelvis, his leap, and for the punky, biracial, engaging, ineluctably erotic and still mysterious tenor of his voice. Roy Blount Jr., reviewing Albert Goldman's Elvis, for the NYT in 1981. See also Kelly Phillips Erb's essay on Forbes, focusing on Elvis being his country's highest personal taxpayer for almost a decade. He had an amazing charisma, was so passionate about what he did, and the people could feel it. James Blunt in a 1997 filmed interview I remember well the afternoon when Elvis Presley and his mother came into the Tupelo Hardware. He wanted to buy a .22 rifle and his mother wanted him to buy a guitar. I showed him the rifle first and then I got the guitar for him to look at. I put a wood box behind the showcase and let him play the guitar for some time. Then he said he did not have that much money, which was only $7.75 plus a 2% sales tax. His mother told him that if he would buy the guitar instead of the rifle, she would pay the difference for him. The small amount of money that he had to spend had been earned from running errands and doing small jobs for people. Forrest L. Bobo, of the Tupelo Hardware store in Tupelo, MS, in an affidavit written in 1979 where he confirmed the details of the purchase of Elvis first guitar, a 1940 Kay model, paid for by both Elvis, with his savings, and his mother, for his eleventh birthday and on January 8, 1946. There is no denying that Elvis had a great talent. He possessed a pliant voice with extensive range and a soft and enveloping timbre. Plus, he was an extremely charismatic person. It’s curious that the two songs of his I sing the mosthave a long history behind them. In both cases, Elvis' versions are extraordinary and memorable. Yet I have the wishful thinking that I too had something to say, to add, artistically speaking, to the performance of these classics. The melody of "Love Me Tender" comes from a sentimental ballad from the time of the American Civil War. It’s a song with roots that go back to the 1800s. As for "Can't help falling in love" the melody is even older, being taken from a very famous Romanza composed at the end of the 18th century, Plaisir d'amour, a well-known French love song that was composed in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini. Andrea Bocelli's laud of Elvis the singer and the artist,in an interview with The Express as published in their January 15, 2022 edition We're now trying to get the National Park Service to recognize his home in Louisville as a national historic landmark. Hopefully we can partner with them to continue to run it as a museum, like they've done it with Martin Luther Kings home in Atlanta and with Elvis Presley's home in Memphis. Ali walks among those giants.” George Bochetto, trial lawyer and former Pennsylvania State Boxing Commissioner in an article published at Wave3 on February 24, 2019 She came back, and that was that. We never spoke about it again. Kind of flattering, now that I look back, to know that she chose me over Elvis. Very few men can say that... Peter Bogdanovich, commenting on how he reacted to Cybil Shepherd's returning to him after Elvis and she were having an affair in 1972 and, after a month or so, he asked her to choose between them, in an interview for the Biography channel on the life of Cybil Shepherd At age 5, he decided that he wanted to be a musician when his father took him to the Elvis Presley concert in his home town of Sioux City on May 26, 1956. About US musician Tommy Bolin, (1951–76) former lead guitarist for the UK band Deep Purple, in an article penned by Tom Longden and published on the Des Moines Register on 23 December 2017. Three friends of mine and I were singing ‘Teddy Bear" and I remember thinking it not at all remarkable that we would sing this Elvis Presley song. So here's these four black young men singing, ‘Just wanna be your Teddy Bear,’ We just said, “This is OK, this guy is alright.‘ I think my peers thought Elvis Presley was OK. Julian Bond, African American Civil rights leader recalling the time, in 1957, when he and his friends found themselves singing an Elvis song at an ice-breaker event at Atlanta's prestigious black Morehouse College, as published by the Independent on August 16, 2017. We Germans will never understand U.S. foreign policy. You save Europe with The Marshall Plan, Berlin with the Airlift, and then you turn around and give us.... Elvis Presley." The Federal City of Bonn's Public Relations Office on the arrival of PFC Elvis Presley to Germany, on October 3, of 1958. i) I recently met with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and some of the other leaders of the American civil rights movement, and they reminded me of the cultural apartheid rock & roll was up against. I think the hill they climbed would have been much steeper were it not for the racial inroads black music was making on white pop culture. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival were all introduced to the blues through Elvis. He was already doing what the civil rights movement was demanding: breaking down barriers. You don't think of Elvis as political, but that is politics: changing the way people see the world. ii) In Elvis, you had the whole lot; it's all there in that elastic voice and body. As he changed shape, so did the world. His last performances showcase a voice even bigger than his gut, where you cry real tears as the music messiah sings his tired heart out, turning casino into temple. I think the Vegas period is underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible pathos. The big opera voice of the later years -- that's the one that really hurts me. Bono lead singer of U2, for Rolling Stone magazine, as published in their April 15, 2004 edition.- 2004 Issue Rolling Stone I identify a lot with Elvis. He was a loyal guy and love his style of singing. Jon Bon Jovi as published in http://www.elvis.net/whattheysay/theysayframe.html Elvis Presley was serving in the military in 1959 when he came under the weather. Doctors diagnosed tonsillitis and suggested that the vocalist, then the biggest performer in the universe, have his tonsils removed. Presley, already more trustworthy than most modern performers in his pleasant acceptance of military duty, agreed. The problem was that no doctor nearby wanted to risk operating on the star, fearing that malpractice would leave him without his golden voice, and either a lawsuit or an an angry fan could ruin any medical career and/or life. They gave him penicillin instead and fortunately everything worked out Ryan Book, in The Music Times Dec 1, 2014 When Bob King and I hosted our radio shows on WBMK and WKGN in the 1980s, we played R&B music of the 1940s through 1969, talked about the music, the artists and stories related to the music industry and revealed the real names of the performers while taking requests from the listeners. We would chuckle as we introduced “The Twist” by Ernest Evans. How could our audience know that the real name of the man who recorded “It’s Just a Matter of Time” was Benjamin Franklin Peay? I believe I would have changed my name to Brook Benton, too. Yet one could go from bad to worse. I don't know why Otha Elias Bates McDaniels changed his name to Bo Diddley. Dinah Washington had 34 top 10 records. She didn't like her birth name, Ruth Jones, and changed it. Some of the others were James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, with 107 hits during the time we were on the air. Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer changed her name from Eleanor Gough. Many referred to her as Lady Day. Ella Fitzgerald, the most honored jazz singer of all time, won the DownBeat magazine poll as top female vocalist more than 20 times. Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul with 60 numbers on that chart during our broadcast. Although we did not play any Bessie Smith, we knew she had been dubbed Empress of the Blues. Finally, on our shows we recognized Elvis Presley, who had 33 numbers on the R&B chart, as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Robert J. Booker African American freelance writer and former executive director of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, in an article published by the Knoxville News Sentinel on 11 October 2016. We became very good friends, leased homes in Bel Air and visited each other. And back then, in the early 60's of course, I had a wife, and four little children, he was not married, and would come over some afternoons unannounced and visit with me, my wife and my children. They would maybe jump out of the swimming pool, and come running up and get in his lap, and he would become soaking wet, you know, and I would say, 'Girls, don't do that'. And Elvis said, 'Oh, no, let them, let them'. And I knew that he wanted a family. Pat Boone, in an exclusiv3e interview with David Adamas, for elvisaustralia He was not quite a hillbilly, not yet a drugstore cowboy. He was a Southern — in that word's connotation of rebellion and slow, sweet charm. Stanley Booth, casting back to the 1950s in his Esquire magazine article “Situation Report: Elvis in Memphis, 1967.” I may consider filing a resolution for Indiana to honor Elvis, after all we should do something to recognize the fact that his last concert was here in Indiana. Bruce Borders Representative for the 45th District in the Indiana House of Representatives, former Mayor of Jasonville, Indiana and an Elvis ETA since 1980. Like a bloated Elvis Bored Panda's description of Tom Cruise's look during the "F1" London premiere, as pubishe in their June 24, 2025 edition. i) We must not condemn music which is not on a level as high as we’d like. A person who is listening to Elvis Presley in a five and ten is listening to a folk singer and is getting something from it. ii) The only thing he does like me is that he doesn´t come back for an encore. When he walks away the show is over. Comedian Victor Borge,present at the Civic Auditorium, in Omaha, on May 20,1956. We've drafted people who are far, far more important than he is. Chairman of the Memphis Draft Board Stanley Bowers's statement to the media, made public about a month before it became known that he had made a special visit to Graceland, over the 1957 Christmas period, to PERSONALLY inform Elvis of his impending draft, the first time that such a special gesture had ever been made by any Army Board, to any draftee, in the history of the US Armed Forces, as noted in the book, "Colonel Parker, the Curious life of Elvis' manager" Apparently Elvis heard my demos, because we were both on RCA, and Colonel Parker thought I should be introduced to him and maybe the two of us start working in a production-writer capacity. But it never came to pass. I would have loved to have worked with him. God, I would have adored it. He did send me a note once, which read "All the best, and have a great tour." I still have that note. He was a major hero of mine and I was probably stupid to think that having the same birthday as him meant something. David Bowie, commenting on what could have taken place had he and Elvis worked together, as published in interview bowiewonderworld and wwwelvisnet. He loved Elvis. He once said to me, ‘Elvis is real pretty. People love him because all the women love him – he’s so pretty. I’m not as pretty as Elvis and he draws all the women out of nowhere’. Now, whenever Muhammad and I were in Elvis’s company he was always down to earth, similar to Muhammad, loving to give and help others. Sometimes when people are that great or popular they have arrogance and an ego, but Elvis and Muhammad did not. He used to play his records all the time... Belinda Boyd, AKA Khalilah Ali, the former wife of Muhammad Ali, and mother of 4 of his children,in an article published in the Mirrors's September 9, 2023 online edition. My celebrity crush was Elvis Presley. I got to first meet him with George at Madison Square Garden in 1972. Patty Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton, in an interview with the Sydney Herald in an article entitled " Pattie Boyd: What my marriage to George Harrison and Eric Clapton taught me, as published on May 5, 2018. Two years later, she accompanied Clapton to a meet up with Elvis at a Memphis cinema. (Kindly refer to Clapton's entry). To have Elvis come home, so to speak during this bicentennial year for the state he was born into is very exciting, Betsy Bradley, Director of the Mississippi Museum of Art, in Jackson, MS, commenting on the loan of a "Triple Elvis" by Andy Warhol, from Richmond's Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and which is being shown at the Jackson museum as part of its Mississippi bicentennial exhibition and as reported by CBS's WJTV Channel 12, on November 29, 2017. When I was in high school, playing for Crystal City High at an away game in Memphis, I climbed up the wall that surrounded Graceland, reached over to a limb that was from a tree inside the wall, snapped the leaf off the tree and kept that leaf in my wallet for about six years. Bill Bradley, NY Knicks forward, then U.S. Senator for the state of New Jersey who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in the 2000 election. in an article for CJonline, published on January 27, 2000 He was such a nice guy to work with, a quick study. He'd go over and play the demo acetate and listen to a bunch of them. When he finally found one he liked, by the time he walked from there back over to the mic, he knew the song. Harold Bradley, guitarist who worked with Elvis in Nashville, as noted in his obituary published on CMT News̺'January 31, 2019 edition. Some of the girls were telling me about him, this new kid on the block and I was thinking, who is this upstart? Anyways, I was playing a concert with Johnny Horton in Odessa, TX,and when the curtain opened there was only six people in the audience. Elvis was playing nearby and that's where everybody was. So we gave the people their money back and all headed over to the high school field house to see Elvis. We went backstage but he was swarmed by girls. He couldn't even get out. We tried to get his attention but there were too many people. And then I met him. I'd never seen anybody like him. He had a cute half-grin and these sleepy eyes, and he laughed a lot. I was so struck by his looks, that I probably didn't hear the first fifteen things he said to me. Mom didn't care for him in the beginning, but when he snarfed up two of her biscuits in a matter of seconds and whispered to me, 'Does she have any more?' she began to warm to him. She saw him then, I think, as more like one of her own sons. After that, she'd even smile a little when I'd mention him. When we'd travel to shows in Texas or Arkansas, Elvis and I would sit in the backseat and sing gospel songs at the top of our lungs. The guys in the front would plug their ears and we'd just die laughing. We never officially broke up or said goodbyee. That's the last time I ever saw him, until he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show... Singer Carolyn Bradshaw, whose hit "The marriage of Mexican Joe", preceeded Elvis ' first professional recording at SUN, in an article published in Newsweek's October 22, 2023 edition. I was in Las Vegas giving a corporate presentation, because that's how I made money in the off season. Elvis called and I was skeptical at first. But then there is that specific way he spoke, and it was definitely him. He told me he liked the way I played and invited me to see him. It showed how much of a fan he was, that he wanted an NFL player to come and play with him and his buddies. But I had to catch a flight in an hour and man, it would have been the story of a lifetime, playing backyard football with Elvis. And I still think about it now. Terry Bradshaw, recalling with much fondness the day when the phone rang at his Las Vegas hotel room, in the midst of the Pittsburgh Steelers' 1970s glory days, as noted in an article entitled "NFL, the story of Elvis and his NFL fandom" as reported by Fox News on their January 8, 2018 edition. Elvis defined the concept of celebrity before it became ubiquitous. His evolution from prodigy to recording artist to actor to movie star and ultimately to myth are all depicted in the collage. AI was used to create his final transformation into a resurrected larger-than-life idol Marco Brambilla, explaining to DesignBoom magazine the reasoning behind his having fit Elvis' pilgrimage into a Las Vegas Sphere at the Venetian Resort’s larger-than-life LED screen —the highest resolution screen ever built, with its 16,000×16,000 pixels of resolution, as published in the magazine's October 1, 2023 online edition. Elvis Presley bloated, over the hill, adolescent entertainer, suddenly drawing people into Las Vegas, had nothing to do with excellence, just myth. It’s convenient for people to believe that something is wonderful, therefore they’re wonderful. Marlon Brando, as stated in an interview published in Playboy magazine's January 1979 edition, thus only seventeen months after Presley passed away but more than three decades BEFORE his companion of eight years Rita Moreno, wrote in her 2014 autobiography entitled "Rita Moreno: A Memoir", that during their time together she once went out on a date with Elvis then duly informed Brando, but in both cases only to make him jealous. Brando, who threw chairs all over when told, died in 2004, weighing 310 pounds and was never aware of her ruse. Winston Churchill would add wisdom, war stories and outrageous comments. As a dyslexic, and I love to learn from people with very different minds to my own, English mathematician and early computer developer, Ada Lovelace would be my second of six guests. Elvis Presley, one of the greatest entertainers of all time and an example of people with great talent, along with Nelson Mandela, would bring magic to the evening. Finally, the only person on my list whom I have already met is Princess Diana, the most delightful company, her presence at my dinner party spreading joy, laughter, and kindness around the room. UK Billionaire Richard Branson's ideal dinner party, albeit partial, list, as published in Real Clear Life's edition of September 30, 2016. Heartbreak, jealousy, loneliness-, Elvis Presley gave luxuriant voice to these less than cheerful emotions, but did you ever think of him as a balladeer of the unbearable bleakness of being, of the horror of existing without purpose in a godless universe? In the improbably vivacious London-born production of "Woyzeck", vintage Elvis recordings provide much of the background music for Daniel Kramer's adaptation of Georg Büchner's great, prophetic drama of existential emptiness from the 1830's. Dolly Parton and, more predictably, Beethoven, make aural guest appearances but it's the voice of the Pelvis that sets the rhythm of life. And if the "wedding" of Presley and Büchner is more shotgun marriage than natural love match, at least you leave the theater feeling less suicidal than you normally do, after two hours with one of the grimmest heroes in Western literature. Ben Brantley, Chief Theater critic for The New York Times, in his article "Where Existential Despair Meets Elvis" (18 November 2006) A supplicant asks priest and television star Father Gavlin "Who is more popular, the Pope or Elvis Presley?" The question is rhetorical... Gaylord Brewer, discussing celebrity on the Woody Allen "A Casebook" (p.124). Like most black people in the South, and to whom God has pressed down the harp of a thousand strings, that harp only needed tuning. Elvis' voice was that type of voice that agreed with the thought of Calvary. He had that type of bent and that type of inclination, AND ATTITUDE, that suggested that God could use him. I gave the music a different approach, a new beat, one beat, two beats, high or low, it didn't matter. So, I said come on in here and put your things together. And it was a glorious experience and Elvis was in that group. And when Elvis passed away it was a saddening thing. It was as if the clouds themselves started crying. W. Herbert Brewster, African American Baptist minister, composer, dramatist, singer, poet and community leader, explaining both how he changed the format of many gospel composed songs that led to him writing legendary Gospel songs many iconic Gospel legends such as Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin and others would go on to record, as well as the chance of fate that led to him meeting a yet unknown teenage Elvis Presley when radio DJ Dewey Phillips reached out to him in the early 1950's to integrate his All-Black Church services with some of Dewey's White listeners of his R&B music station, and as quoted in both "Elvis Presley & The Black Community – That Echo Will Never Die" and in his book "People Get Ready!: A New History of Black Gospel Music". When you walk into a New Zealander's home there's occasionally a portrait of the Queen or the Pope, but more often than not, hanging on a lounge wall, is a piece of Elvis Presley memorabilia. You'd see a hell of a lot of Elvis. As far as we kiwis are concerned, Elvis never left the building. Jackie Bridges, secretary of the Memory of Elvis Fan Club New Zealand, recalling her times in real estate in the city of Auckland, in an article entitled " Kiwis can't help falling in love with the memory of Elvis Presley", as published in Stuff.co.nz on August 11, 2018. I didn’t really know what it was, but they were interested in me reading the script. I wasn’t an actor and wasn’t pursuing being an actor. It was just an avenue, to be honest, of making some money because I’d just left school. They flew me to New York, and I had an audition, and I got the thing. Aliyah's Interlude Brigitte Call me baby's lead singer Wes Leavins on getting the part of Elvis Presley in a NY theatre's production of the "Million Dollar Quartet", as published in WTTW's March 1, 2024 edition. In early 1969, at American Studios in Memphis, I had a secret entrance made from an underground garage, a trap door coming from underneath the basement, so Elvis could drive in and the people wouldn't chase him. Girls would pull his hair, as well as his clothes off and all that stuff, which was fun, but eventually it got to be a pain. So I told him how he wouldn't have that problem, he could just go in, come up the steps, and we would record.. David Briggs, in an article published on Billboard magazine, November 25, 2016 and entitled "As Nashville Grows and Gentrifies, David Briggs Sets About Preserving Music Row History" I'd have Sir David Attenborough though I think everyone would have him. Then Emma Thompson was one that I think would be really nice to have dinner with as she's always seemed like a really interesting lady, so she would be on my alive list of guests. In terms of deceased people, I would have a young Elvis I think, or before he was at his peak anyway. Then JFK. They would be four interesting people, with different backgrounds. You could go right back and say Julius Caesar but I am NOT sure he would totally get what David Attenborough's been doing... Miles Briggs, British politician and member of the Scottish Parliament after the 2016 election, answering a question of what would be his ideal short list of dinner guests at his table, as published in Horywood on January 17, 2018 i) The late writer Norman Mailer, used to tell me that, in history, only a few names get known. So, you know, Andy Warhol would paint Mao Tse Tung or Elvis Presley. I think Trump always wanted to be in that class of a known name.ii) I see Elvis as someone who was a pioneer in smashing up some of the conformity of the Eisenhower fifties. There was something about him, an aura, that he created which made him one of the revolutionarfigures of Cold War America. Douglas Brinkley, describing the by then former US President Donald Trump as someone clever and smart but with no sense of history,in an interview with CNN on 15 July 202 and ii) as quoted in Paramount ?lus' in Reinventing Elvis. Be more like Elvis, Matt Brittin, Director General of the BBC, telling employees he wants them to get involved in a little less conversation and to go, instead, for a little more action amid massive, albeit impending job cuts, as noted in the Daily Mail's October 7, 2026 4dition. That's when the price of art really started going up.... Billionaire Eli Broad, after pointing towards Andy Warhol's "Single Elvis", since 2015 gracing the walls of the then recently built family-owned Broad Museum in Los Angeles, CA, and as told to reporter Jeffrey Fleishman who interviewed him and his wife Edye inside the museum for the LA Times on August 22, 2015.. We at Fox were the only people who could put John Wayne, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe in movies and not have them do any business, Jack Brodsky, Fox producer, as noted in Vanity Fair's April 1998 edition In the live music business, it doesn’t get any bigger than stadium concerts. Thanks to the large seating capacity of most stadiums, artists playing at the top echelon of touring can earn $4 million to $5 million per show — double and triple what they can earn at arenas.But the model for stadium touring business wasn’t drafted by a major concert promotion company or a professional sports executive, but by a 16-year-old girl named Kay Wheeler who found herself swept off her feet by a Mississippi singer named Elvis Presley. According to the new book "Rock Concert" by Wall Street Journal music and arts contributor Marc Meyers, Wheeler convinced the Cotton Bowl to host a concert headlined by the “Blue Suede Shoes” crooner, convinced a local radio station to be her partner, and drew in a capacity crowd thanks a letter writing campaign promoting the concer Dave Brooks, reviewing ** Marc Meyers,'s "Rock concert", an oral history telling the story of the individuals who helped launch the modern live music industry, as published in Billboard's December 18, 2021 edition I'm sitting in the drive-through and I've got my three girls in the back and this station comes on and it's playing "Jailhouse Rock," the original version, and my girls are jumping up and down, going nuts. I'm looking around at them and they've heard Dad's music all the time and I don't see that out of them." Garth Brooks, as published in www.graceland.com I like what he's doing. He’s rocking the blues, that's all he's doing. Rock and roll is here to stay because it comes from natural people. Rock and roll is a natural steal from the blues, and the blues will never die and the blues can't die because it's a natural steal from the spirituals. Bluesman Big Bill Broonzy, considered a profound influence on numerous African American musicians, including Muddy Waters, all of whom admired him, not just for his musicianship, but for having the courage to write several songs dealing with the injustices African-Americans suffered, particularly in the Jim Crow era, as stated in one of Studs Terkel's Chicago radio shows, sometime in 1957. Also equally important, perhaps even more important, were Big Bill Broonzy's blues songs of protest (he wrote a number of them) about African-Americans and what they were dealing with in the Jim Crow era. I named it Planet Elvis (17059) because I had discovered a similar one, just two days before and which I called Rock and Roll (17058). It just seemed befitting... Australian astronomer John Broughton, after having discovered a couple of small planets at the Ready Creek Observatory, located at the Gold Coast, in Queensland Australia, on April 13 and 15 of 1999, both of which now duly inscribed in Wikipedia's List of Minor Planets. Well, they were James Brown, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Rick James, Prince (musician) Prince and Donny Hathaway.... Bobby Brown, naming his biggest musical influences in a 1989 interview He always felt like somebody I should do and I think the Luhrmann film bounced the idea back into my head. So when I came to paint, he just sort of made sense. Elvis is one of these big characters that end up populating your life even if they’re in the background, even if you don’t listen to them or watch them a lot. Years ago I had this quite clear thought that at some point, shortly before death, we’ll each have this sense of ‘Oh those were all the people, not just celebrities but anybody who populated my life Illusionist Derren Brown on the affection he has acquired foricons like Elvis, and thus his having made him the first subject of a painting since the lockdown, as noted in the Express', September 17, 2023 edition. Imagine Elvis with a master's degree performing a whole set about mandatory staff meetings. About Eddie Brown, who in 2017 posted a video called, 'What Teachers Really Say." which went viral, as did his next 60, making him an icon among educators throughout the US, as highlighted in the CBS Evening News' edition of February 9, 2018- He said I was good and I said he was good, we never argued about that. I wasn't just a fan, I was his brother; Elvis was a hard worker, dedicated, and God loved him. Last time I saw him was at Graceland, We sang 'Old Blind Barnabus' together, a gospel song. I love him and hope to see him in heaven. There'll never be another like that soul brother. James Brown, in the book Elvis Has Left the Building: The Day the King Died, p 30 He was one of a kind, nobody like him. And they all respected him. The unique thing about talking football to another celebrity is that it never comes as real, but with Elvis you could because he understood it at that level and that made it good for me to exchange because I could talk to him as I couldn't talk to an actual novice. He was the biggest personality, was truly big and I'm happy he was a friend of mine Jim Brown, in a documentary entitled NFL Elvis, released on 30 November of 208. Elvis was just his own thing, man. My grandmother was a huge fan of Elvis; I remember she used to have this amazing Elvis bag that she would take everywhere, it was just her face unwrapped in a handbag. As I got older, I started listening to his music, and if you really listened to him, he wouldn’t be afraid to do anything. I find myself trying to look like him all the time, in “Blue Christmas” or “Hound Dog.” No matter how long this world lasts, he will still be talked about. Kane Brown, stating his love for Elvis in an article entitled "Why Ken Brown loves Cookie Monster, Elvis Presley, and ‘Ted Lasso’ and published in the NYT's January 11, 2022 edition As a vocalist, Elvis Presley possessed the rare ability to give the melodramatic a genuine authenticity; it's easy to take Elvis Presley for granted and yes, we all know that Elvis had a huge role in defining rock in the beginning, but few of us really know what that means; but then there's that voice, which Elvis uses to cut through to the most complex meaning of the song — the meaning that the song's writers might not even know exists — and lay it bare. On "From Elvis In Memphis", he takes the longing sentiment in "Any Day Now" (1969), his voice lending it a certain buoyancy that most artists would never even think belongs, and in doing so he embeds a deceptively simple pop song with depth and mystery, all through inflection; a craftsman at heart, his experimentation didn't manifest itself in innovation, but in refinement of his already incomparable technique; as a result, "From Elvis In Memphis" documents what happens when an artist who instinctively personalizes the songs he sings decides to get even more personal; the outcome is raw, stripped of all pretense, and dedicated to the idea of the song, his voice bringing with it a grave amount of weight; if you want an indication of why Elvis deserves a place in current pop culture, pick up "From Elvis In Memphis"; the music speaks for itself; authenticity never goes out of style. Marty Brown, music critic for Culture Cartel.com, reviewing "From Elvis in Memphis", on 15 August 2002 In 1969 I was playing piano for the Stamps and we got invited to go to the Elvis suite at the International, after his first show there on July 31, 1969. J.D. Sumner, who was Elvis' idol from way back and the leader of the Stamps, said that we would have to flip a coin to see who would go with him to the suite and meet Elvis. And I won, and then when I entered the room, and saw him, I thought "Man if I could look like this dude, I could get every chick in the world. He was the coolest person I have ever seen in my life. Playing piano for him, even if it was only fir the last two years of his life, defines my own life, in spite of all the success I've had as a producer since. Tony Brown American record executive and pianist, known primarily for his work in country music, producing Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, and George Strait, in an interview with the Today show, on August 16, 2017. Elvis Presley, at age 13 Argentinean singer and director of the the Espacio Malaver Singing School Franciso Brunetta's answer as to who was his first and greatest influence, and at what age that took place, as published in Queen's Chronicle's edition of September 15, 2016. Brunetta was born actually 5 years AFTER Presley's death. I‘m a music man and like to DJ on the decks in my kitchen, where I often listen to tunes while rustling up food, a bit like Gordon Ramsay. I love Ray Charles, Sting, Dire Straits and sometimes I‘ll even drop some Elvis and all that has got me into a bit of bother with neighbours Frank Bruno, in an article entitled "UK Boxing legend Frank Bruno in trouble with neighbours for blasting out Elvis tunes" as published in the "Stock Daily Dish" 's December 1, 2019 edition. What's amazing is that when we were walking up the stairs to come up, I was like ‘Gosh, a lot of cool people have come up these stairs.' That’s when Stephen Colbert pointed out to me that Elvis Presley performed right where our interview was taking place. He’s your dream collaboration,” Dierks Bentley, who was co-hosting then asked me: “Living or dead? I choose Elvis, which is a weird thing to ask somebody. People are like, ‘Living or dead? Who would you like to perform with?’ I'm like, ‘That’s kind of weird, but I always say Elvis. In fact, try to perform my shows like Elvis is watching and try to do the best I can night in and night out and have a big ol’ performance." Luke Bryan, during the taping of his segment at the Ed Sullivan Theatre, for CBS's Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as published on CMT News on March 29, 2017 His death is like that of Elvis Presley. African American Kobe Bryant fan, on his death at age 41 following a horrific helicopter crash, as told in an interview outside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA, on January 26, 2020 My first-grade music teacher played a video of an Elvis performance for the class and that was it for me. My mom dyed my hair black and I got a leather jacket, and she made me a gold lamé jacket, and I started writing ‘Elvis’ on all my papers because I believed, in first grade, that I was Elvis.” Tyler Bryant, frontman for Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, arguing in favor of music programs not being cut in elementary schools, in an interview with Billboard and published on 26 October, 2017 I hold no brief for Presley and I’ve never seen him, but when police are allowed to set up cameras and be judge, that’s an invasion of an artist’s rights and should be looked into, mighty carefully, by every artist and actors’ agency in our business. Yul Brynner Oscar winner for Best Actor in 1957, defending Elvis after the Los Angeles police set up cameras to watch his second show at the Pan Pacific Auditorium and ostensibly have some kind of proof should his behaviour be deemed inappropriate, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, on 29 October, 1957. I think that soul has little to do with the colour of your skin or where were you born. It's the same with acting, if the actor believes in the story, so does the public, so I thank Elvis, who is one of my favourite singers in both the R&R and R&B fields, for doing the music I love the most. Canadian superstar Michael Bublé, in an interview to the Diario La Razon, in Buenos Aires, prior to his performing in his wife's country, and as published in that daily's online edition on 10 September 2014 At first his Vegas career didn't go quite as planned. In fact, Elvis's first appearance in the gambling capital was in 1956 at the New Frontier Hotel. However, he didn't receive the support from local publications, with many believing that his rough sound wasn't what the middle-aged audience in Vegas at the time wanted. Therefore his two-week residency was cut short after just a week. Nevertheless, he made the perfect comeback with hundreds upon hundreds of consecutive sell-outs from 1969 until December 1976. He opened the then-International Hotel Casino, with more than 2,000 fans turned out for opening night in July 1969 which saw the line that lead into the city's largest showroom stretch to the hotel's front lobby. No one has quite made as much of an impact since. Brett Buchanan, in an article entitled "Who Is The Biggest Celeb To Perform At Vegas?" published at Alternative Nation on October 14, 2016 Just the other day, I was interviewed for a story, and sure enough, the interviewer brought up my night with Elvis in Paris and couldn't believe I had been in that close a relationship with him. People don't want to hear about President de Gaulle, President Kennedy or Frank Sinatra. They weren't that important, compared with him. A picture was taken of the two of us, but I can't find it. People just have to take my word for it. This is how it all happened. Elvis, in his Army uniform and on leave from Germany was staying at the Hotel Prince de Galles, so the moment I got the tip I went there to interview him and at one point I said, "What are you doing tonight?" He said, "Nothing, sir."I said, "Come out with me and I'll show you Paris." He said: "That would be very nice, sir. No one has offered to take me out in Paris." "That's because they don't know you're here. We'll just go out, the two of us, so we won't be bothered by a lot of fans." I came home for dinner and told my wife, "I'm going out with Elvis Presley tonight." She didn't believe it. I said: He's in Paris all alone and I'd be doing our country a service by showing him around." My wife didn't like the idea of the two of us going out on the town. She said, "I'd like to come along." I told her, "I promised Elvis it would only be the two of us." She said, "Why didn't you bring him here for dinner?" I said, "That wouldn't be Paris." I recall now her saying to my children, "Do you know who Daddy's going out with tonight?" They asked, "Who?" My wife said, "I can't tell you, but you have his records in your room." I picked Elvis up at his hotel and told him the Lido had the best show in town and I could get him the best table. After the show, we went backstage and that's when all the fun began. Everyone who has interviewed me wants a complete description of how he performed that night. I have been living off Elvis Presley ever since. To this day, when people ask me what was my greatest night in Paris, I tell them it was at the Lido with him. If only I could find that damn photo... Art Buchwald, Pulitzer Prize winner journalist, humorist and commentator recalling his time spent with Elvis in Paris in June of 1959 in an article entitled The King and I, and published by the Paris based newspaper he worked for many years as a columnist, the International Herald Tribune, in 2006. Presley brought an excitement to singing, in part because rock and roll was greeted as his invention, but for other reasons not so widely reflected on: Elvis Presley had the most beautiful singing voice of any human being on earth. Presley, for some fans, was primarily a balladeer. "Don't Leave Me Now" (1957), is a love song given distinctiveness by Presley's twangy enunciation, and sustained by the guitar and rhythm sections designed perfectly to complement the balladeer, filled out towards the song's end – as with so much of Presley- ,with what one conveniently calls the heavenly choir, which wafts him home but never overwhelms the country lilt Presley gives his music. said: William F. Buckley, Jr. in his article "The Crooner, R.I.P.: Perry Como and the casual mode," published by the National Review on June 11, 20 I think it's a little harder to churn out interfaces with sociology. When I was a kid and Elvis broke through it was a sociological phenomenon that lasted through the Beatles and even a bit through Fleetwood. I grew up in Atherton, California, with my two older brothers, one of whom, Jeff turned me onto Elvis. Without Jeff, I probably wouldn't be here today, so damn you, Jeff!!!." Lindsay Buckingham, lead singer and guitarist for the UK/American band Fleetwood Mac, speaking at the University of Southern California after a two-hour performance and Q&A session at the University's Bovard Auditorium and as published by Billboard on May 1, 2015 And then of course, the same Phillips auction that saw the new Speedmaster record, also gave us the new overall record for an Omega wristwatch in the form of a watch was owned by Elvis Presley. It absolutely crushed its pre-sale estimates of CHF 50,000-100,000 on the way to $1.8 million, overtaking a record set by a rare observatory tourbillon sold at Phillips's in November of 2017 Geneva sale. Jon Bues, writing in an auction report on the sale of Elvis' 1960 Omega on May 12, 2018, the buyer being the Omega Museum on Biel Switzerland. Angel loved kittens, horses, shopping and Elvis Presley. Most of all she loved giving hugs. Her parents would often take her mushroom hunting, usually carrying her Bible with her . The Buffalo Reflex's obituary of Angel Elizabeth King, age 10, who died of brain cancer on December 15, 2018 and as published on their December 22, 2018 online edition. He was the only man from Northern Mississippi who could shake his hips, and still be loved by rednecks, cops and hippies. Jimmy Buffet, as published in http://www.elvis.net/whattheysay/theysayframe.html I will release my tax returns if Donald Trump does too and yes, I will again wear my Elvis costume and even dance with Hillary in the streets of Omaha, as she wants, if she wins. US Mega Billionaire Warren Buffet's promise, as delivered in an interview following an article published on the Washington Post on August 1, 2016. In 1967, we were once performing two sets at DC's Cellar Door (a 163-seat music club) at 34th and M streets and as we were changing for the second set, the manager tapped on our door and said, ‘You have five minutes. By the way, 'The King' is in the house. I was the baby in the group and the others had seen queens and kings, they perform all over the world. I had never seen a king. I changed my clothes and cleaned up. I peeked and when I looked out, there was Elvis. He and Col. Parker were secluded from the audience. They had been there for the first set. When he stood up I was breathless. He asked me to sit down, but I had to go. I said, ‘I want you to know, I followed your career.’ And he said in his Elvis voice, ‘The Platters were very influential in my career. You did extremely well on ‘I Only Have Eyes for You.’ He said he liked the way I sang it in the first set. I went back and told the guys and they didn't believe me. I said, ‘Yes he is out there.’ We go on stage and I was looking for him. I had the microphone in my hands and he was gone..... Milton Bullock when asked what was his favourite moment as a singer for The Platters,in an interview for the Daily Herald and published on 16 September 2018. He had a love for God, his family, the congregation and a true reverence of Elvis Presley. About Reverend Clayton Burch, of Goshen Free Will Baptist Church in Mount Holly, as quoted from his eulogy by Rev. Tommy Bulla, and as reported in the Gaston Gazzete on December 8, 2018 One male vocalist stands out above all others, and that is Elvis Presley. To understand why, I suggest listening to Elvis's 1954 Sun recording of "Blue Moon" and his 1960 version of "Fever." And be sure not to miss his rockabilly version of "Good Rockin' Tonight." Then check out his tender, sweet version of "Crying in the Chapel." Next, listen to the powerful high notes he hits on "American Trilogy," especially his version of "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Then listen to his undervalued masterpiece "What Now My Love" and "It's Now or Never." The latter is wonderfully sweet, until the power of Elvis's voice kicks in and takes the song to another dimension. Now listen to him growl out "One Night." Finish by listening to his enchanting country-flavored "That's Alright (Mama)" and gospel songs like "Peace in the Valley." Try as I may, I can't think of another male singer who can go from nearly infinite sweetness, to ferocity, to spirituality, to tremendous power the way Elvis does. With the right song in hand, he was untouchable. But was Elvis the greatest male falsetto singer of all time? It's hard to say if Elvis was really singing falsetto at times because his voice was so wonderfully high, pure, sweet and effortless. But does it really matter how he did what he did? Poet and music columnist Michael R. Burch, as noted in his website The Hyper Texts and for an article entitled the World's Greatest Falsetto singers Rock and roll then, is a combination of gospel songs, blues, bebop, the love ballad, the folksy material of the hillbilly or western type song, and things based on personal experience. Rock and roll today has no color lines in its listening appreciation or in its development. Dan Burley, African American musician and journalist, as quoted in a chapter detailing the mass reaction to the early Elvis by the black community and as noted in page 135 of the book entitled "Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race"by Brian Ward. He stepped onto the stage, the band started to play, His hips began to move. He sang 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and before he was done, the crowd was whirled into a frenzy. Boy, he was different. As soon as he walked into the building you could feel his energy. He had the looks, the songs and the charisma. Whatever a star has, he had it – more than anyone else.” Guitarist Sonny Burgess, talking about seeing Elvis perform, in 1955, in an article on the WashingtonTimes.com When at last I made my journey to the land of the blues, I never dreamt for one minute that I'd actually become friends with the guys who were my mentors, heroes and my cultural icons. (Witherspoon's) voice held a great mysticism for me, like when I first heard the voice of Elvis Presley—you knew it was coming from the source. Eric Burdon, lead singer of "The Animals", commenting on his meeting bluesman Jimmy Witherspoon, as published in Gadfly's March 1998 edition. I met Elvis two times. The first was a very brief situation in Memhphis, Tennessee in 1956. He remarked about my singing. He liked my singing and my style of singing and things like that. I said 'Hey man, we all love what you're doing. You're doing it baby.' It was that type of situation, And the next time, was in Los Angeles, in 1957. He asked me about my gold suit. I had a gold suit that I wore. He asked me where I got it and I told him. Next thing I know, Elvis had his own gold suit. When I went back to my tailor to get another gold suit made, which I was only paying $450 for, which was big money in those days, my tailor said "Oh no man, I make suits for Elvis now. Those suits are $900." I can't believe you man. I'm the guy who started it.... But, that's the way life is, man... Salomon Burke, as published on vinylmagiccom on its May 1, 2019 edition When I was on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' I met Elvis. He was doing his 2nd appearance there, was super hot, very sweet and I even got his autograph for my kid sister. And did I think there would be something between us? Well, yes I thought so, but he didn't.(LOL) Comedian Carol Burnett, in an interview with Andy Cohen, and speaking about meeting the 20th Century's greatest celebrities, as published on TooFab on May 10, 2018. We never played together but I went to where he was playing and doing the blues. He took the blues and made rock 'n' roll out of it. And he give an account of everything he did. He said this is so-and-so's music. You know down in Birmingham, I can't think of the guys name, but Elvis did one of his numbers. Had it on a record, ya know. He went down there where Elvis was playing and walked up and his car had quit on him on the highway.After he got done with his album, he bought him a brand new car. He would do things like that. He made 2 or 3 people down in Atlanta and Birmingham rich, ya know. He had been doing their music and they didn't think they were gonna get nothing out of it, but he went down and found 'em, in fact bought 'em homes, gave them money and everything. I think he helped the black people. I sure enough do... R.L Burnside, African American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist, as published in Rockmattares, from an interview in 1996 entitled "One bad ass bluesman" I love Elvis. He fascinates me. He's like the first rock star with the power of television. They just intersected and ascended to a level that no one had never been before. This man kicked up every door for all the rest of us. Bill Burr, commenting on how Elvis opened up the field for everyone else who followed, in a skit for a 2023 episode of Comedy Comer. Burroughs is "The Elvis of Letters! About William S. Burroughs, as noted in AllMusic, in an article about the 1985 release of the album of the said name. He's Elvis. We've found Elvis and he looks like Tiger. Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Centre at the University of Oregon, comparing Tiger Woods with Elvis Presley. One day, my mother-in-law received a call from the school principal, who said that George was in his office, after having disrupted his music class. In true Elvis fashion, he'd taken a piece of charcoal and drawn sideburns and then tried to perform as Elvis for the other children." Former US First Lady Laura Bush, recalling his mother in law's, the also US First Lady Barbara Bush, having to go to school to pick up the future President of the United States, then 10 year old, after his having been on partial detention for imitating Elvis. You Memphis politicians had better watch out if Elvis Presley ever decides to enter politics. George H. W. Bush, during a speech at a luncheon previous to the Jaycees ceremony honoring Elvis, in 1970. Elvis Presley was a great entertainer who helped define an era. Thirty years after his death, his unmissable sound and sensational performances continue to influence generations of artists and inspire countless fans. This week is an opportunity to celebrate his life and career and be recognize his enduring contribution to popular culture. US President George W. Bush's laud of Elvis on the 30th Anniversary of his death, in a letter addressed to EPE and the Presley family, sent from his White House office and signed by him on Jul 19, 2007 I believe he really was a sweet and fun loving nice guy who couldn’t say no.Nobody would want to be that famous. I was already asked if I felt I was like him. Thank god I don’t I don’t think human beings are really built to withstand that kind of fame. Kate Bush,in a 2006 interview on whether why someone would have actively wished for an impossibly outrageous level of fame, while hypothesizing that, in Elvis's case, he never truly sought it in the first place as reprinted in the November 9,2025 edition of Far Out I heard Elvis Presley and I knew what my life was meant to be. Robert Butcher, English born photographer, best known for his American Madonnas and Liars, as published in Geeks of Doom. i) I am just profoundly honored that Baz has invited me on this journey with him. It’s an extraordinary privilege. And I just feel so blessed to be working with such singular directors like him and Quentin Tarantino. ii) It was huge shoes to fill. I think when I began the process of this I set out to get my voice to sound identical to his. I held that for a long time and what that does is it also instills fear; that I'm not going to achieve that or whatever. That got the fire inside of me burning to work and work and work. Austin Butler, i) as reported by People magazine on its July 23, 2019, edition in connection with his being cast as Elvis in Baz Luhrmann's 2020 biopic ii) and by MENAFN on their March 17, 2022 edtion Elvis is the legend. I mean, my brothers loved Elvis, and so I’ve been listening to Elvis since 1957 when he first came out. Apart from the Beatles, there is nobody bigger than Elvis. To see him live, it’s like, here’s four kids from Aston and Birmingham coming over and getting to see him perform.” Geezer Butler's laud of Elvis, as published in the November 1, 2025 edition of Farout. I've got nothing on the King Mark Butler, downplaying his Elvis singing, at a political rally, as reported in newscomaustralia's October 25 2023 edition. Mile is a lot like Elvis Presley, she has a great style and her hairstyle is the best in this tournanament Peter Butler, Head coach for the Women's Bangladesh Soccer team which first appeared in the 2026 Women's AFC Asian Cup, in reference to Goalkeeper Mile Akhtar, as published in the New Nations's March 5, 2026 edition Why can't you see, what you're doing to me.... Gral. Micael Bydén, Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, singing "Suspicious Minds" while marching in front of a huge crowd at 2018's Stockholm's Pride parade. The third time I saw him I was with Bobbie Gentry and he asked me, and my friends to go up to his suite, at the Las Vegas Hilton, which I did with my manager. It was so nice. John Byner, while promoting his book “5 Minutes, Mr. Byner”, as recirded in an interview for youtube in 2018. C Elvis Presley? I can't see that he has any talent. Cab Calloway, as reported in The Ottawa Citizen (April 3, 1956, before he ever saw Presley perform) You got Elvis and David Bowie … they’re my heroes. It’s clear to me that Elvis was an opera singer Nicholas Cage, as noted in the Verve Tomes' January 28, 2021 edtion It was weird to play Elvis when I was 42, knowing that he died at that same age. TCB, baby! Bruce Campbell, on his X account, reflecting on playing Elvis in the comedy horror film "Bubba Ho-Tep" , as published in Screen Rant's August 16, 2024 online edition. His life took a major turn at the age of 10, when listening to Radio Luxembourg and he heard Elvis Presley. Cindy Campbell, speaking about his dad, Irish Musician Eamonn Campbell, in an article published on October 27, 2017 by Irish Herald I met him in Albuquerque, NM, in 1956 and I got to see him on the raw, with Bill, Scottie and DJ. They were just awesome, so electrifying, with so much energy. I could understand why he was becoming so big then, and become even bigger later. He was a very handsome man, his aura and his honesty. His charisma was huge, but his was very special..... Glen Campbell, in an interview with Elvisaustralia. I didn't see a color, he wasn't white, he wasn't black... he was Elvis. Naomi Campbell, UK model and actress, in Elvis Lives an ABC 2002 Special. I met him in Albuquerque, NM, in 1956 and I got to see him on the raw, with Bill, Scottie and DJ. They were just awesome, so electrifying, with so much energy. I could understand why he was becoming so big then, and become even bigger later. He was a very handsome man, his aura and his honesty. His charisma was huge, but his was very special..... Glen Campbell, in an interview with Elvisaustralia. I remember the moment I got interested in music. I was 10 years old, sitting in a friend’s attic in our eastside Dayton neighborhood. His teenage brother played a 45 rpm single of Elvis Presley singing “(You Ain’t Nothin’ But a) Hound Dog” on a portable record player, and I was hooked. I felt guilty at the time, recalling that a few years earlier my mom had boycotted the “Ed Sullivan Show” when Elvis made his first appearanc there. I had no idea who Elvis Presley was. I was 7. But in 1956, rock and roll was scary for many parents.In a way, of course, all this goes back to Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph 80 years earlier. Back then, he thought he was inventing a playback dictaphone machine, which would make life easier for clerks taking notation from bosses. He had no idea that his invention would spawn a multi-billion dollar global music business.... Richard Campbell, Professor emeritus and founding chair of the Department of Media, Journalism & Film at Miami University at Oxford Ohio, writing as a guest columnist the Dayton Daily News' March 23, 2025 edition, in an article entitled " The sound of music … Edison to Elvis" Had Presley never sung a note he might have still caused a stir, but sing he did. Watershed hits such as "All Shook Up" (1957) or, for instance, "Are You Lonesome Tonight", (1960), were eminently Presley's from the moment he put his stamp on them. His jagged, bubbly highs, and Southern baritone jump from those recordings like spirits from a cauldron. Elvis crooned romantically, then screeched relentlessly, always pouring his heart into the lyric and melody. After Elvis, the male vocalist could no longer just sing a song, especially in the new world of rock-n-roll. The "feel" of a performance far out-weighed the perfection of the take. James Campion, in his book "The 25 Most Influential Americans of the 20th Century", published in 1996. The Camarón Island is for San Fernando what Elvis Presley is to Memphis Antonio Canales (flamenco), flamenco dancer extraordinaire,. discussing the tourist attractions in the Cameron Islands as published in Andalucia Information's 25 July online edition. We let him sing, he did fine and the crowd loved him but I thought at the time he would be a flash in the pan. Ace Cannon, recalling the night in the late summer of 1954 when DJ Dewey Phillips brought a guy to the Eagles's Nest, where Ace was playing with his band, and asked him to let him sing a song, as published in Scotty Moore's online page. I don't get it. Why would all these people stand in line for so long to get my husband's autograph? I wouldn't stand in line for anyone, except for one person – Elvis Presley. Dot Cannon, wife of Billy Cannon, twice a Heisman Trophy winner for LSU's football team, and an All American who later became a pro player in teams in both the AFL and the NFL. When I met him the first time in Memphis at the Peabody Hotel, it was a thrill. The thing was, he turned around and said to me “Freddy, I bought 'Tallahassee Lassie' and put it in my jukebox at Graceland”. All these singers were in the room, like Fabian, Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell, Chubby Checker, you could go down the line. So when he said that in front of all of them, he made me feel like a hundred feet tall. He liked my record because it was rock-and-roll. That was the biggest compliment of my life. Freddy Cannon in his autobiography "Where the action is" You can not knock the fact that he's one of the kings of rap. His ability is second to none and he's definitely gonna go on the Mount Rushmore of Rap as one of the kings. He's Elvis Presley, the guy that took it to another level Nick Cannon for HipHopDX, speaking about Eminem, in an article published on their January 3, 2019 edition There is no way to describe the pandemonium. I never saw as many women in my life. They were screaming, yelling. I was just horrified. I thought, 'They're going to kill him.' And they would have if they could have gotten loose, I'm afraid. Comedian Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, who'd come in on the flight with Elvis to be one of his co-stars at the Pearl Harbor USS Arizona Memorial benefit, as noted in Biography's December 4, 2018 online edition. The opening strains of "Heartbreak Hotel", which catapulted Presley's regional popularity into national hysteria, opened a fissure in the massive mile-thick wall of post-war regimentation, standardization, bureaucratization, and commercialization in American society and let come rushing through the rift a cataract from the immense waters of sheer, human pain and frustration that have been building up for ten decades behind it. Critic Robert Cantwell, in his memoir Twigs of Folly Elvis Presley gave me the only dinner party I've ever heard of his giving in Las Vegas. He lived very near me in Palm Springs, CA, and just as he was going to open at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, he invited me for dinner at the hotel. I had never seen him before, but he was nice and I sort of liked him. Truman Capote, on the night he met Elvis at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, in August of 1969, as published on hellsunutterablelament's August 2, 2010 edition. In Memphis, they had built a football stadium, so we televised it for a two weeks to test the market. One Monday I am in the hotel, and so I get a phone call and this guy identifies himself as one of my fans, and he says he's Elvis Presley. I thought he was kidding, so he said "You don't believe me, go down to the front of the hotel in 10 minutes, and I ll prove it to you" So I went down there and he walks out of a Rolls Royce, we shake hands and takes me to Graceland. So after 15 minutes, I went to do the basket ball game then I came beck to his house. We sang, spoke, and suddenly he asked me if I had dinner, and if I liked barbecue ribs, so I stayed until 6 am eating a barrel of BBQ Ribs from The Rendevous, a restaurant which he called to make the order himself. That is how sensitive that guy was. Harry Caray, sportscaster on radio and television, in a 1998 interview with Roy Firestone I almost died when I was told I would be his co-star. He was an extraordinary handsome person with a very down to earth personality and a velvet voice. When he sang in the film I would melt. "Why is this happening to me?" I would say. I just couldn't believe it... Elsa Cardenas, Mexican actress who starred with Elvis in 1962's Paramount-produced "Fun in Acapulco" In New Haven, they put me on the stage to help whip up some interest in "Bayou". They hollered when I did the dance. It out-Elvises Elvis. Years later, during the filming of Change of Habit, he came up to me and said, ‘Aren’t you Timothy Carey? Didn’t you do The World's greatest sinner?" I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘I always wanted to see that movie- Do you have a 16 mm version?’ I only had a 35 mm, but we proceeded to talk about it. He knew all about it. I only had four prints. That was one of the reasons that I didn't send it. All hail the King! Oh, and Elvis too. Timothy Carey, who would later appeared in Elvis last film, Change of Habit (1969), recalling the time he played the first of two characters, the other being the lead in "The world's greatest sinner", whose dancing was totally and purposely based on Elvis's act, as told to columnist George Murray in 1958. The first thing I think of when I think about coming to Las Vegas and playing is always Elvis, it's always the first thing on my mind. When we were working on 'The Joke, my producer Dave Cobb wanted me to understand the emotion and intensity in a song, so suggested my listening to 'American Trilogy' Brandi Carlile, as published in www.graceland.com and on Billboard's edition of February 2, 2018. Elvis? He was a bogus white guy with sex appeal and good looks who ripped off a lot of great black music, watered it down and made it safe for lame whites who couldnt handle the experience of raw emotional black music. Never grew as an artist, remained an entertainer. Fuck Elvis" George Carlin, comparing four amongst the greatest entertainers of the 20th Century and rudely dismissing Elvis, Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra. His choice for the greatest amongst them was Michael Jackson who, as he put it, "should be given a bunch of kids and let him dance, as noted in a YouTube entitled "Michael Jackson beats them all" and which quite understandably has yielded less than 3,000 views in 10 YEARS. Both came from humble backgrounds and meteorically captured their respective fields in a way that seemed to break entirely with the past and they both went into film as a means of exploring the mythic dimensions of their celebrity. John Carlin, as quoted in Christie'e laud of both Elvis and Andy Warhol, in connection with the May 15, 2019 sale of a Double Elvis, as noted by Christie's online page. In 1957, I traveled for the Toronto Telegram to Buffalo for Elvis' first concert there. I observed that he was a quiet, soft-spoken fellow, not so much affected by his newfound stardom as bewildered by it. He was savvy enough to hoist himself onto a backstage sawhorse so that, in a photo of the two, he appeared much taller than me, though the difference was actually only an inch. That photo became my treasured family memento. Canadian reporter Mike Carmichael, as noted in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Telegram, on 23 November, 2017 in an obituary entitled "Carmichael, a witness to history". The success of posthumous duets is often indirectly correlated to the respect with which the dearly departed is treated: the higher the pedestal, the less convincing the result. Wisely, the female country stars on “Christmas Duets” try to match Elvis Presley's mood, whether it's Carrie Underwood's tenderness on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (1957), or Wynonna Judd's brawn on “Santa Claus Is Back in Town.” (1957), On a wild eight-minute “Merry Christmas Baby,”(1971), Gretchen Wilson saunters up to the song, full of attitude, before giving in; it sounds as if she's flirting with Mr. Presley just across the bar. Jon Carmanica, reviewing the "Christmas Duets" album for the New York Times, as published on 4 December, 2008 i) In dealing with "Elvis", I am bringing a lot of my own feelings, because I really love Elvis, loved his music, in some sense, I feel lucky to direct a movie about a man who was bigger than life, a human being, yes, but who became mythical.ii) The biggest problem with Kurt Russell playing Elvis were his ears. They're like cab doors sticking out LOL, so we had to tape [them] down against him. It was unbelievable.It was an incredible effort on his part. He became Elvis up there. And he has a tin ear. He can't sing. He can't do anything. Lip syncing away, lip-syncing his heart out. And literally he was that performer. He became Elvis. John Carpenter,i) in an interview on the making of the ABC film Elvis (1979) which he directed and later,ii) as discussed in a Nov 2,2025 edition of Slash Film. I wanted to meet him so a few friends from Jackson and I traveled to Memphis on Jan. 18, 1971, to the Jaycees' 10 Outstanding Young Men of America ceremony. Elvis was the final recipient that evening at the old Ellis Auditorium. Of course, everyone was trying to get to Elvis, but security would stop them and send them back. It looked like I wasn't going to meet him, after all. But my friends kept urging me, ‘Go on, Martha. Go see him.’ We were only about 40 feet from him. So I finally walked over toward him.” I was stopped by security, only to have Elvis step in: “Let her come on,” he said. I had my program for him to sign, and he did. Then Elvis said, ‘Would you like my water glass?’ I said, ‘Yes, please.’ He said, ‘Would you like my nametag?’ ‘Of course,’ I told him. That water glass has never been cleaned. It's in a shadow box with the nametag in the glass and the autographed program displayed. His DNA has never been washed out of that glass — and never will be. And the man who presented Elvis his award, George H. W. Bush, became America's 41st president 18 years later. Martha Carr, recalling the day she met Elvis, for the Clarion Ledger, and as published on March 8, 2018 I was 34 when I met him. You had to realize that my father, being Mexican American, was very, very strict. He never allowed us to hear rock 'n roll or anything on the radio. Anything that had to do with music was the Big Band era with the records they had and/or the ranchera Mexican American music and the Mexican artists. So, when I would hear about Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, I could not relate to the hysteria. Okay, so I was in Vegas and I was engaged to this doctor who took care of Elvis when he was there. One day he said, "Elvis wants to meet you." so I said, "Oh, yeah. Right!" He said, "No. Really. So, we went to his show, but my attitude was like "Show me!" I was looking at the show, obviously as a fellow performer the overall look of the show, the staging, the lighting and I was so impressed. Then his singers came out, The Sweet Inspirations. They were incredible. So, then he came out in his white suit. I noticed his stance and I'm thinking to myself, he is standing up there very sure of himself. Plant yourself well and the way his fingers would kind of bend. Of course now everybody's going crazy and I'm looking around and going, "Wow!" Then towards the end of the show he says, "Now I'd like to introduce one of the greatest singers because she sings from her gut" and I'm looking around because the people are all screaming and I said, "Oh, my God, who the heck is here?" (Laughs). He says, Miss. Vikki Carr!" My fiance said, "Vikki, stand up!" I said, "I'm trying to. My brain is saying stand, but my legs won't work. So, I finally stood up and then Elvis has his hand out. So, I went up and he gave me a kiss on the cheek. And then he dedicated It's now or never to me. He was wonderful to me. Vikki Carr, as told to Gary James in an undated interview published on wwwclassibandscom. As explained by his wife and stylist Almudena Navalón, his fantastic "look" at concerts is inspired by the outfits used by music megastars as Elvis, Freddy Mercury or Mick Jagger. About Manuel Carrasco's stage apparel, as noted by Cadena 100's March 24, 2024 online edition. As the "The Times" correspondent reminds him of Elvis Presley, he pauses, then reconsiders, "Oh yes, I think he was a fantastic artist and the best in his field. Absolutely. Spanish tenor Jose Carreras, in an interview for the Times in which he had suggested that no rock and roll singer can take on classical music, except perhaps for Elvis Now, we all know that Elvis went to heaven. But while he was here, he did like to raise a little hell Jim Carrey, channelling his "Helvis" character, a cross between Elvis and the Devil while in the process of opening his Saturday Night Live monologue, broadcast on October 25, 2014- Not yet, your Holiness, but I soon will, Irish comedian Frank Carson's zany reply to Pope Benedict XVI, on whether he had ever met Elvis as he laid on his death bed, in an article published in the Belfast Telegraph on August 10, 2017. i) Guess who celebrated their 40th birthday today?” Elvis Presley. He is now wearing orthopedic blue suede shoes He looks very young, though, but I hear he got an orthopedic, I mean he got a surgical hip lift...he is only allowed to swivel now in the presence of a registered nurse. That's what the nurse told me and ii) If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead NBC TV's Johnny Carson, as taken from his monologues as broadcast on the Tonight Show, at NBC, on Jan. 8, 1975 and March 21, 1991, respectively. I listen to a lot of Elvis Presley. He is one of my favorite musicians of all time. Singer Sofia Carson's answer to Parade as to who does she listens to the most on her iPod, as published on November 25th, 2016 Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than twenty years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country.” President Jimmy Carter' official statement following Elvis' death, as reprinted by graceland.com He had a thing like sort of a quiet charisma because certain people have this confidence. And I am not saying he was Elvis Presley, but he ended up doing a sketch where he's kind of doing an Elvis type singer and did it so well. Dana Carvey recalling hockey icon Wayne Gretzky's only appearance on Saturday Night Live, in 1989, which he hosted as well, in a segment entitled "Waikiki Hockey", a parody of Elvis movies, where Gretzky plays a busboy who enters a Hawaiian ice hockey tournament to impress a girl, as noted in an article entitled An Oral History Of The Time Wayne Gretzky Hosted SNL, as published on the Aug 29, 2019 edition of Forbes I don't know if I'd be in any hurry to do another research-intensive project. I found that out the hard way when I tried jumping into another one — during the final stages of production on ̊"Jesusfreak" — that dealt with the last few weeks of Elvis Presley's life. It seemed quite fitting to go from Jesus to Elvis... Joe Casey, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter and describing why he felt his comic book, graphic novel entitled "Jesusfreak" should be bookended by the lives of Jesus and Elvis, as published on their March 18, 2019 edition That night at the "Eagle's Nest", I remember, he was playing a (1942) D-18 Martin acoustic guitar and he was dressed in the latest teen fashion, but the thing I really noticed though, was his guitar playing. Elvis was a fabulous rhythm player. He'd start into "That’s All Right", with his own guitar, alone, and you didn't want to hear anything else. Johnny Cash, in "Cash, the autobiography", recalling the first time he saw Presley perform, at the "Eagles Nest", in Memphis (1954) Hey Elvis, how's Vegas? David Cassidy's sarcastic reaction to someone at the other end of the phone who wanted to talk to him and had introduced himself as Elvis Presley. In fact, it was indeed Presley, in 1974, asking Cassidy, whom he had never met, whether his then 6 year old daughter Lisa Marie, a huge fan of David, could get the chance to meet him, which she did, on the next day, as noted in the book Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend. We are seeing disruption, and it is freaking out the news media and the old establishment in Washington, Its like watching Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show. Alex Castellanos, Cuban American Republican strategist, speaking about the situation after the US 2016 election at an ABC Sunday News Powerhouse Roundtable hosted by George Stephanopoulos and broadcast on December 4, 2016. At 4225 Beach Drive SW, stands the Chambliss House, a bright blue home on the Puget Sound with a plaque above the doorway that states "Elvis Presley Slept Here, May 18, 1962." The plaque speaks the truth, according to Alan Chambliss, building owner and 30-year resident. He wasn't around to witness Elvis, but tells the story like it happened yesterday. About 15 years ago, Chambliss noticed a man and woman filming his house. Wondering what the fuss was about, he asked them what they were doing. Their father, dying of cancer lived in the upstairs apartment years before and loved it so much the family wanted to document it as part of a remembrance video. While making their keepsake, the family mentioned that the dying man was Elvis Presley's army buddy and that Elvis once spent the night in the upstairs apartment. As proof of their story, they showed Chambliss pictures of their father with the music legend. Elvis and his chum kept in touch throughout the years. In 1962, Elvis came to Seattle to film "It Happened at the World's Fair" and the friend picked him up from Sea-Tac and drove him to the house on Beach Drive. "He didn’t expect to stay the night at first," Chambliss says. Perhaps the Rock-and-Roll Legend was a sucker for water views Chambliss let the dying man's family film the upstairs apartment. About three weeks later he received the plaque, now mounted above the doorway, along with a thank you note for being so welcoming. As told by tenant Bob Castonguay, who now rents the upstairs apartment that Elvis slept in, as published in the West Seattle Herald Many of our vagabonds, the sons of the burgoise, can be seen gallivanting around with their tight trousers, some of them with a guitar heralding Elvis Presley attitudes which lead them to erroneously believe they will be able to freely attend rallies where they can lobby their gay and effeminate ways. But we will not allow such degenerate feelings. Fidel Castro in a speech delivered in front of 100,000 at the steps of the University of Havana on 13 March 1963, the day that signaled the last nail on the coffin of rock music as an art form in Cuba, until at least the first decade of the 21sty Century. Elvis had a center of gravity that was low, but also set back and deep; his sexiest moves – legs lolling back and forth, smooth like jelly, hips rolling and tossing everywhere – were performed as if there were a paperweight on a string tied around his waist, and hung from his lower back; with his own weight adjusted to the back, he could free one leg to twist, pop, and jerk while maintaining perfect balance; Elvis' glory was in the shifting of his weight; when he gets going fast, the force of the shifts make his shoulders jerk so hard he looks like he is being electrocuted. New York Sun columnist Pia Catton, explaining the reasons for Elvis' star quality, as a stage performer, (16 August 2007) You can't be both Elvis Presley and Miles Davis", I once said to him. But then when someone recently asked me what his dreams were when he was young he answer to me was that he wanted to be Elvis". American entertainment producer and business owner Bob Cavallo, former manager of Prince, explaining his client's longings, as published by both the Texas Public Radio's online page on Saturday, December 6, 2014 and by the Examiner, on April 26, 2016. I was very moved by your letter. I’m sure your dad would have been very happy with his Elvis-themed funeral. Thinking about it, I would be very happy with one too — to be ushered into the next world by the voice of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll singer of them all. Kentucky Rain, that’s what I’d like, Kentucky Rain and How Great Thou Art — Elvis singing gospel, with heaven and all its angels listening. It was a lovely thing to do for your dad. Sounds like you did a great job.' Nick Cave, when asked what songs would he like played at his funeral,as part of the Red Hand Files series and as published in its 19 August 2021 edition. Ten years earlier, incidentally, "How great thou art" was also the song played at Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire's funeral which took place at her own Chatsworth House and atteded by then Prince Charles, amongst other royals. One day I was nervous and struggling with one scene that stretched into about 30 takes, and I could see the director was getting frustrated,so I started stuttering. Then Elvis said, 'That's it, it's a wrap, the little lady and I are going to have something to eat", so he took me to dinner and the next day I nailed the scene immediately. At that early age, I didn't understand the magnitude of his fame and popularity, but he was a true gentleman... Vicky Cayetano, Philippine born child actress who at age 6 starred with Elvis in "It happened at the World's fair" and later became the First Lady of Hawaii, following her marriage to Governor Ben Cayetano (D). Michael Jordan’s partnership with Nike has earned him more than $1.5 billion – not for his jumpshot, but for his ‘Airness’ and persona. The Elvis Presley estate still generates millions each year from merchandise, themed events, and image licensing. Elvis’s music is indeed protected by copyright, but his ‘brand’ – the hairstyle, the sideburns, the glittering jumpsuits – may be protected by publicity rights. The Centre for Economic Policy Research's views on publicity rights, as noted in an article entitled "Elvis’ ghost, Jordan’s Airness, and the new economics of publicity rights" and published on their November 16, 2025 online edition, If the worst thing (anyone) can say about me is that I am like Mick Jagger and Elvis, I must be doing something right Dino Cazares's response to a fan calling him out for being egotistic, as noted in an article entitled “Dino Cazares Has the Perfect Response to Fan Comparing Him to Mick Jagger and Elvis" and published on Meta Head Zone's March 11, 2026 edition. There was a crowd gathered in one corner of the PX store and the rest of it seemed deserted, though the parking lot was filled with Jeeps, so I asked what was going on and they said that Elvis Presley was over there. I thought to myself, well, that's interesting, and I went about my business, got what I had come for, then went out to my jeep to kill time for a while. Some time later, I noticed that Elvis was walking out of the store directly toward me. His Jeep was parked right next to mine. So we hung out and talked for 45 minutes. I asked someone to shoot a photo, but I never got a print. I also asked for his autograph, which I sent home to the daughter of one of my store managers who was a fan. He was just the nicest guy you could meet, an ordinary guy, with one exception, and that was that he was even better looking than he was in pictures LOL. Gus A. Chafoulias, Chairman of Titan and of GM Rochester, who served in the US Army with Elvis in Germany, in an article entitled "Business Person of the Year: Chafoulias, at 80, has no plans to slow down", as published on the March 8, 2019 edition of the Minnesota Post Bulletin. "Elvis", in fact I wish Austin could play him in my Bob Dylan biopic, especially since Dylan is on record as to his admiration of Elvis and his SUN Period. Timothée Chalamet's answer as to which was his favourite biopic, in a joint interview with Austin Butler, following their latest movie "Dune 2" and published in a Youtube clip on March 6, 2024. I've always loved Elvis, how he entertained, how he performed, so that's where I try and take inspiration from Jake Chamberlain, discussing "Miss Trouble", his first album in an interview with Amanda Hill and as published in the Standard Journal's online edition of March 13, 2015. Obviously after the Elvis concert, I said how can this any better? It was mid August of 1969. The year after, Bill Medley played the smaller lounge, and since I had been in high school a fan of the Righteous Brothers, I went with my girlfriend to see him, sat down in one of those half moon booths. So, in the middle of Bill's concert, I noticed the entire room, about 500 people, all stand up so I turn around and watch as Elvis walks down the aisle towards the stage. He had not even been introduced, and by a struck of luck, sat next to me and my girlfriend at the booth, So I rushed outside to see if I could get a pen, to get his autograph, which I did. When I came back, with paper and pen in hand, I waited until Bill stopped singing, and I then asked Elvis to sing an autograph. To my amazement, he instead started talking to me as if he and I were friends our entire lives, and when I told him I was a music major, he asked me about my courses at the University of Las Vegas. Unbeknownst to Elvis and I, Bill and the entire audience remained silent during our conversation, looking at us, for a full five minutes.LOL. So, finally, he signs the autograph, shakes my hand, and says " Stay in school". The impression of him being who he was, and of talking to a man who had changed the world, was amazing, but more than anything I will cherish how he treated me.... Christopher Chandlers's laud of Elvis Presley, on the 81st anniversary of Elvis birth, January 8, 2017 (YouTube) In a "Family Guy" parody of Rocky VI, Rocky goes to fight a boxing match on Mars. Even though there's no oxygen, he's not afraid of fighting an alien on another planet. Is there anything that would put fear into either Sly Stallone or Rocky Balboa? The answer is Elvis Presley. Since Elvis couldn't just go to- /a th02e/atr2e do-w them theatre down the block, he invited Sly to come down to Graceland with a copy of the film and do a private screening. Stallone was too intimidated and instead just sent a copy, which Elvis watched with friends and enjoyed Chris Chan Roberson, in an article entitled "On the sly", published at CBR.com on October 8, 2018. Charlie was always aware of the public. While at the Manoir in the 1950's, a friend visited him and brought him a record of a new singer called Elvis Presley. Charlie hadn't heard of him. "This man has made a sensation in the States," his friend said. "I can't understand it. He wiggles his hips and sings and people go mad." "If he's made such an impact," Charlie replied, "he must have something. You can't fool the public." -- Charles Chaplin' in his biography by Jerry Epstein Jerry Quarry and I got married right before his August 31, 1973 2nd round KO of James J. Woody, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. And, after that, we to see Elvis in concert at the Las Vegas Hilton. In fact, Jerry's mom was with us and she loved Elvis. Once there, his mom asked Red West backstage if she could have a scarf for Elvis to sign. Some time later, Red handed her a scarf but when Elvis recognised me, he threw me up in the air and said, ‘Hi kid how are you doing?’ It was so cute, such a fabulous feeling. Then he looked at Jerry and said: “Listen, you’d better treat this girl good. I know her and if you don’t, I’m gonna kick your butt!” to which Jerry said “Yes sir! Yes sir! LOL. But then, suddenly, Jerry's mom threw the scarf back in my face. When I asked her why she had done that, she said “Look at this.....He signed this to you, not to me... Arlene Charles, recalling the hilarious time when Elvis, with whom she had worked seven years earlier in "Spinout", finally got to meet her husband, heavyweight boxer Jerry Quarry as well as her mother in law, both of whom had been huge Elvis fans, as noted in the Express's July 14, 2020 edition. i) Ummm, OK. Here was a white kid that could rock and roll, made a lot of people listen to songs that they would not have listened to, rhythm and blues, or whatever you want to call it, and the girls would swoon over him. I dont want to talk more about Elvis because I am gonna lose one third of my fans LOL ii) I wasn't knocking Elvis. He did a lot for the music industry and particularly for the black music industry. Ray Charles's i) answer on whether Elvis was talented, as told in a 1994 interview with Bob Costas. He had been the main act during a Memphis benefit show for African American needy children held on December 7,1956. The organizer Rufus Thomas invited Presley to come out into the stage to say hello to the 14,000 African Americans in the audience but when he did he had to escape to the dressing room as 2,000 African American females, mostly teens, swarmed the stage just as Charkes was being led to the piano. Since no one introduced them after the show,he never liked Presley until BB King, who had opened for Charles, told him what had traspired, ii) interview with Vancouver's The Province, in which he clarifies that his views on Elvis, as stated in the Costas interview, were strictly related to Elvis being called The King, an explanation directly related to his having spoken with BB King on Presley not being disrespectful to him on the night of December 7, 1956 and as published in their February 1, 1995 edition. I once opened my mailbox and there was a letter from Elvis Presley. I opened it, read it and I was scared to hell. He asked me to discontinue using his name in association with the car so I never used it again" Tommy Charles, singer and radio personality who had become famous in 1966, as the DJ who wanted to publicly immolate records by the Beatles after John Lennon said they were "bigger than Jesus", as stated in a 1970 interview with John Cargile of the Birmingham Post Herald, in turn reprinted in Jackie Jouret's book about the 1957 BMW 507 Elvis had once owned, a unit Charles bought second hand in 1961 for $4,500 and which he then drove in various races in the US South while enhancing its "worth" as "the Elvis Presley car". After a couple of more owners, and a two year restoration by BMW Classic, (2014-2016) the car with the chassis 70079 is now estimated to cost US$18 million. I've always been a big Elvis fan, so the idea of taking this classic and splattering it with some signature INK bloodshed struck me as a match made in hell... Spencer Charnas, frontman for Ice Nine Kills, in reference to their 2021 haunting cover of "Can't help falling in love", as published by Livewire's February 11, 2021 edition. During our rehearsal with him, some guys fell off the bandstand laughing at Elvis. It was so shocking to all of us, we couldn’t believe it.” Pat Chartrand, musician paying in the CBS New York TV Orchestra during Elvis' first appearance at the Dorsey Brothers show, in late January of 1956, as noted in elvishistoryblog. He looked like a prince from another planet, narrow-eyed, with high Indian cheekbones and a smooth brown skin untouched by his 37 years. When Elvis started to work with the mike, his right hand flailing air, his left leg moving as though it had a life of its own, time stopped, and everyone in the place was 17 again. It was a lesson in dominance; we had just seen the comic who couldn't control anybody, not even himself, and that had got us nervous; now Elvis made it all right again.Elvis used the stage, he worked to the people. The ones in front, in the best seats, the ones in back, and up in the peanut galleries. He turned, he moved, and when a girl threw a handkerchief on the stage, he wiped his forehead with it and threw it back, a gift of sweat from an earthy god. Young girls moaned, and stood in their seats trying to dance, and one kid took a giant leap from a loge seat clear to the stage, only to be caught and taken away. A special champion comes along, a Joe Louis, a Jose Capablanca, a Joe DiMaggio, someone in whose hands the way a thing is done becomes more important than the thing itself. When DiMaggio hit a baseball, his grace made the act look easy and inevitable. Friday Night at Madison Square Garden, Elvis was like that. He stood there at the end, his arms stretched out, the great gold cloak giving him wings, a champion, the only one in his class. Chris Chase, critic for The New York Times, reviewing Elvis June 9 concert, the first of four back to back he performed there, and on Sunday, June 11, 1972 He as such a nice person, when I found out he died, I really was saddened Chubby Checker, recalling the time he found out about his death Take me, take me... Eight year old Judy Chelette's retort to the then 20 year old Elvis after witnessing first hand her much older sister Mary Jo Chelette's decline of an invitation from Elvis for the two of them to go out on a date, this taking place on the night of 25 November 1955 and as noted in a eulogy for Judy by writer Ken Stickney published in the Port Arthur News' November 2, 2018 edition. The first concert I attended was an Elvis concert at Oakland when I was eleven. Even at that age he made me realize the tremendous effect a performer could have on an audience. Cher, as published in www.graceland.com The series of Warhol inspired works by Russian artists was not done especially for this exhibition, but when the Moscow curator Andrei Yerofeyev heard about them, he did everything in his power to include the works in the show and catalog. The show ends with two black and white canvases facing each other from opposite walls with space for exhibition visitors in between them. On one wall is Elvis Presley dressed as a cowboy pointing a gun at the visitors. Across from him are executioners of the NKVD with red stars on their caps shooting back..... Peter Cheremushkin of The Moscow Times's, review of the first massive Andy Warhol exhibition at the Sevkabel Port, in St. Petersburg and entitled "Russian Artists Take Andy Warhol's Pop Art Vision and Run With It", as published in the Moscow Times' July 2, 2021 editon. I was in the studio, and they were mixing it over at Little Victor. I probably shouldn’t tell this, but I’m gonna tell you the truth. I was a publisher also, and I had published all of these songs. We shipped to all of the little stations, and the record label would ship to all of the big stations. I’m thinking, ‘Man, we’re gonna have to ship every one of these things, and I’ve got to get it to these little stations. If they start playing it on the big stations first, then these DJs are going to be mad at me. I’m thinking about all the stuff that I’ve got to do as far as work on this thing, and dreading it. Then all of a sudden I thought: ‘Here I’ve got a single by [Elvis] coming out. This is the greatest thing you could have happen, and I’m sitting here dreading it. It’s time for me to get out of this business...LOL. Jerry Chesnut, discussing the process of the release of Elvis'1975 single "T.R.O.U.B.L.E, which he had written and was in charge of distributing, as told in a 2014 interview with the Tennessean And the singer explodes, no longer laying back, now letting it fly. It is a raw, ragged sound, but the singer is so far into the moment that he doesn't care, and neither does anyone else. "When I read your lovin' letter, my heart began to sink," he roars with ache and ardor in his voice. "There's a million miles between us, but they didn't mean a thing." This glorious minute of "Trying to Get to You" is from Elvis Presley's 1968 television comeback special, one of 77 previously unreleased performances collected on a new four-CD box set, "Platinum: A Life in Music" (RCA). It affirms that 20 years after his death on Aug. 16, 1977, after countless books, albums, tabloid stories, imitators and Graceland tours have wrung seemingly every drop of mystery from his legacy, there remains plenty to learn about Presley. Or, perhaps more precisely, relearn. For in the last 20 years, the essential truth about Presley has been lost. But the truth of his 23 years of public music making is this: He was the most quintessentially American of singers, an artist who drew no boundaries between Saturday night blues and Sunday morning gospel, middle-of-the-road schmaltz and dirt-road hillbilly country. And he could swing a tune like nobody's business. More than anything else, those two factors--his openness to just about any kind of music and his ability to personalize that music with his unique feel for rhythm--are why Presley mattered, and still matters. The Chicago Tribune's review of Platinum, published on August 3rd, 1997 I don’t know if it was the algorithm … or the Elvis movie coming out, but I just became inundated with Elvis stuff [on my streaming feeds) so I started thinking a lot about Elvis and I was like, I’m going to try to collect some songs that I’d written, and some covers that I would want to pitch to Elvis. So the songs that I wrote, I was writing like an Elvis impersonation. Tyler Childers,in an article entitled Tyler Childers Embraces His Inner Elvis On New Album ‘Rustin’ In The Rain, as published in Live for Live Music's Friday, September 8th, 2023 edition. Having had the opportunity to work with these recordings, I am now more convinced than ever that Elvis Presley was the most passionate vocalist this world has known. Andy Childs, US country music singer-songwriter, writing on the liner notes for the album "Where no one stands alone", released in 2018. I remember exactly where I was when I heard Elvis had died. I was 10 years old, in the back of my mum’s car, as she waited to get the fanbelt replaced. I’m not sure I’d even heard of Elvis, and I don’t think my mum had mentioned his name before or since, but I recall being in no doubt that something momentous had happened. I had the urge to tell Priscilla all this but that would have been ludicrous, so I didn’t. Adrian Chiles's recollection when meeting Priscilla Presley, in an article entitled "I met Priscilla Presley and I couldnt believes she was in the same building as me", and published in the Guardian's October 9, 2025 edition. Recorded at the Beatles' old Abbey Road Studios, it offers one more chance to enjoy Presley's voice in a different context, deliciously backed by a world-class orchestra geared toward the nuances of his delivery. It's a new twist on a very familiar, and treasured, body of work. This one is a tried and true concept, basically a variation on last year's quite successful posthumous pairing of Presley with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but the fact that it's been done once before doesn't diminish the pleasure. There are few surprises, but it's a reminder of Presley's range and vocal dexterity. The orchestral style suits Elvis well: taken out of the rock and roll context, there is no need for his swagger or his snarl, as the orchestra is restrained and understated, allowing Presley's vocals alone to carry the day. The orchestral format also gives rise to "live" concerts with Elvis singing on screen while the Royal Philharmonic performs. A series of six British shows in major arenas this fall is expected to draw thousands of the faithful — the number doesn't seem to be dwindling, even 39 years after his death in a country, the UK, where he never performed. The China Post's review of the album The Wonder of You, as published on 21 October 2016. Personally, I resent the ‘shouldn’t do that’ attitude of many guardians and reformers who want to straighten out the younger generation. I am young and don't doubt that I need a great deal of correcting, but when we stop listening to Elvis, stop reading comics, stop doing this, and stop doing that, what are we going to do then? In short, what have you older folks provided for us in the way of wholesome entertainment? Until you older folks can provide something in this line, I would appreciate it if you leave our literature, music, and Elvis alone. Harry Chinnis, in a letter to the Editor of Charleston's Post and Courier, in regards to another letter to the Editor dated July 3, 1956, in which a man by the name of W.A. Morris (kindly see his letter, under the last name Morris, below) had stted that it would probably would require a hurricane to de-contaminate the entire estate of South Carolina properly after Presley's appearance on June 28, 1956. One year I met President Eisenhower, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and thought I had met all the important people in the world.,. The Chordettes̼'s baritone singer, Carol Buschmann in an article published on December 17, 2018 by the USA Today Network and entitled 'Bring me a dream': Remembering Wisconsin's famed Chordettes We haven't been the same since Elvis. He defined an era, he was America, the fresh young outsider who shook up the system, the shining star with clay feet and the dissipated innocent who could not understand what he had become. That is the stuff of legends. Sandra Choron and Bob Oskam, in the introduction to their book ̊"The 328 best (and worse) things ever said about Elvis Presley" published in 1991 by Citadel Press̼ Books. i) Then, in mid 1968 he taped a television special in a black leather suit, in front of a select live audience, opening with "Guitar Man" and closing with a mild social-conscience song, "If I Can Dream". But it wasn't until Greil Marcus brought out the recording of that performance for me, almost three years later, that I realized how significant it had been. Marcus has spent as much time listening as anyone who is liable to be objective, and he believes Elvis may have made the best music of his life that crucial comeback night. It's so easy to forget that Elvis was, or is, a great singer. Any account of his impact that omits that fundamental fact amounts to a dismissal. ii) Elvis made a great many major recordings, and no matter what jaded undergraduates think, few rock and rollers of any era have moved with such salacious insouciance. But it's my best guess that rocking or romantic, young or old, thin or fat, innocent or decadent, inspired or automatic, Elvis touches the millions he touches most deeply with that ineffable chestnut, the grain of his voice; from the pure possibility of "Mystery Train" and "Love Me Tender", to the schlock passion of "In the Ghetto", no singer has ever duplicated his aura of unguarded self-acceptance. The very refusal of sophistication that renders him unlistenable to Sinatraphiles is what his faithful love most about him. (In fact), listeners with looser standards in cultural articulation have a clearer pipeline to the meanings that voice might hold. i) Rock critic Robert Christgau, from his article entitled, "The King and I", as published in www.robertchristgau.com and ii) in his 1973 book "Any old way you choose" It's called 'Love Song of the Year' and it's on the 'Promised Land' album, When I met Elvis, he leaned over and said, "How do you like what I did with your song?".Not one single artist who used my songs ever did something like that, but Elvis did. Chris Christian as noted in an interview with Newswest 9, and published on their February 23, 2019 edition. Elvis Presley is widely regarded as the most significant global cultural icon of the 20th century. Auction house Christie's's laud of Elvis, as presented to bidders prior to the auction held in their NYC office on 17 May, 2018, and which later translated into an Andy Warhol's "Double Elvis" being sold, for the second time in 6 years, for another US̩37,000,000. Elvis was a brilliant artist. As a musicologist — and I consider myself one — there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black people, we all knew that. (In fact), Eminem is the new Elvis because, number one, he had the respect for black music that Elvis had. Chuck D explaining how his feelings for Elvis' legacy are much more complicated than it was suggested by the lyrics in his song, "Fight The Power", which was written 12 years earlier (published following an interview with the Associated Press in connection with the 25th Anniversary of Presley's death) I came late to the Elvis party. I never grabbed on to his shooting star in the ascendancy of his career. I was more into groups. And then a strange thing happened. Either Elvis changed or I did. Almost two decades ago, I began my oldies show on Thursday nights on WSRK in Oneonta and this is where I had the epiphany that Elvis Presley possessed one of the best male singing voices to ever climb the charts. Deep, passionate, powerful, no frills, no twang, no screaming. Classic. In the 1950s, nobody knew what he was. Still, it is the voice. I'm in awe of it and am a little embarrassed that I jumped on the bandwagon so late. But now that I am on it, I'm in the front seat, cheering all the way. Elvis is the King, let nobody doubt it. And if you are still a parade straggler, take my suggestion. Find yourself a copy of “An American Trilogy” (1972). It was recorded live before a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden. This is Elvis' magnum opus. As he slides from “Dixie” to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” you will be swept away. The orchestra provides the fanfare, the urban sounds of the background singers will mesmerize you and Elvis' vocals will lift you up. This one performance can actually be transformative. It is powerful yet sensitive, subtle yet bombastic. I don't know how, but it all works. And his voice was never better than on this song. “American Trilogy” is a Master Class. By a truly great artist. Big Chuck, radio personality, WSRK in Oneonta. NY, as published in the Daily Star, on January 12, 2015. From 1952 to 1980, we called it the industrialization generation. From 1980 to 2000, it was the democratization generation. Post-2000 we call it the millennial generation. I came of age in the 1980s and I have been very much influenced by American culture. In fact, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley were the biggest stars for the Korean people. Phillip Chun, Chairman of the Paradise Group, a market-leading integrated resort (IR) developer currently building Korea's first IR near the international airport in Incheon at a cost of more than $1 billion, in an article published on September 19, 2016 on the Worldfolio. When we visited Blenheim Palace, as Oxford University's Class of 1979 for post graduate diplomatc studies, the man who acted as Cicerone for us was Oxonian Godfrey Davis. As we got closer to the end of the tour, we approached a cardboard removable visual timeline where the largest photo was that of Sgt Elvis Presley. Questioned as to why was this so, Davis explained Sir Winston had come to like Elvis as a result of listening to "Its now ot never" and "Surrender... About Sir Winston Churchill 's liking of Elvis Presley, as told to members of the Foreign Service Programme by Godfrey Davis, the translator of the Magna Carta, during a tour of Blenheim Palace in the winter of 1979. Elvis Presley has had an unprecedented and lasting global impact on music and pop culture Jody Gerson and I, along with the Universal Music Publishing Group teams around the world, couldn’t be more excited and honoured to work with the Authentic Brands Group in making sure that Elvis’ iconic legacy endures for generations to come. Marc Cimino, Chief Operating Officer at Universal Music Publishing Group on the acquisition of Elvis catalog, as reported by PRNewswire on 13 April, 2022. Who the hell's limousine is that?” That was Elvis Presley’s reaction to the sight of a long, black limo parked in front of the General Cinema in Memphis–one of Elvis’s favorite spots for personal midnight movie screenings. The limo happened to belong to me. In fact I had made a pilgrimage to meet him, at the special request of Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis’s entourage. “I think it’s probably Eric’s!, Schilling later told me how he answered Elvis question. Now, inside the theatre, the chance for a great summit meeting seemed to diminish when Elvis walked in and saw me and Pattie Harrison (George’s ex), sitting about 12th row center--right in Elvis’s seats. There was some tension, until Schilling made the introductions, and right away I made it really clear how much respect I had for him. Seeing that, he relaxed and turned into a charming host, and we fell into a really nice, friendly conversation. Eric Clapton in an article published in EC MUsic News, dated December 27, 2010. It’s rare when an artist’s talent can touch an entire generation of people. It’s even rarer when that same influence affects several generations. Elvis made an imprint on the world of pop music unequaled by any other single performer.” Dick Clark, as published in Elvis.net I was lucky to be 12 years old when rock ‘n’ roll really busted out. I saw Elvis in Tulsa at the Fairground on his first big tour and all the girls screaming. I couldn't hear for days after that. He came out and did a half an hour without stopping. It was just amazing US Photographer Larry Clark, recalling for Andy Warhol's Interview the time when as a 12 year old he saw Presley perform in April of 1956, and published on November 9, 2010 I met him in 1969 with Karen Carpenter, neither of us had ever met him before, so we went so see him perform at a show in Las Vegas. He was on great form and then we were invited back to his dressing room and, well, he was flirting with us. In the end I got us out of there and that really amused Elvis and when I saw him again after that we both had a good laugh about it. Petula Clark, her meeting Elvis, as noted in petula-clark-on-meeting-legends-of-stage-and-screen-13004/#ZUtve4JAGDc7XYvu.99 Taking ownership in the wrong way (Michael Bolton trying to out-soul Percy Sledge in “When a Man Loves a Woman”) can lead to accusations of cultural appropriation — a nice euphemism for stealing. It's complicated. Pat Boone did sound like he was ripping off Little Richard with “Tutti Frutti.” But Elvis, to me (and to James Brown), sounded like he was delivering the goods". Roy Peter Clark US editor, and teacher of writing in an article published on Pointer on August 16, 2018. If I had to make a list of the most dependable things in my life, it would be a pretty short list. I’ve lost a ton of faith in humanity over the years, my favorite TV shows keep getting cancelled, and I’m pretty sure my smartphone is plotting against me. But there are two things that have never, ever let me down: Elvis Presley and barbecue. So here’s to them – two constants that have carried me through life’s most challenging periods. They may not solve all my problems, but they sure make them easier to swallow. And in a world where nothing seems certain anymore, I’ll take all the reliability I can get. B.T. Clarke, Publisher of the Georgia Sum, in an article prnyed in their June 7, 2025 online edition. The first time I heard Elvis was via the western movie "Love Me Tender" in 1956 or ’57. I was a cowboy nut. "Love Me Tender" was also the first time I came up against female hysteria. I haven’t got a homosexual bone in my body but that is the most handsome man that ever lived, without a doubt. You can’t take your eyes off him. Also, to have a voice like that. Incredible. Charisma ain’t a big enough word for it. I get asked if punk was a rejection of Elvis and his style of rock ’n’ roll. But people who have a go at Elvis just miss the point. Elvis would shoot at the TV, and if something was on that he didn’t like the look of, it was the Colt 45. Elvis out‑punked everything. He wrote the book on punk. I never saw punk rock as being a rebellion against Elvis Presley, otherwise I wouldn’t have done gigs with bands like "The Clash" and "The Sex Pistols". I’ve never been to Graceland, but before the pandemic my plan was to honour this. I had a full tour sheet stretching into next year and I thought, “As soon as we get these gigs out of the way, me and my wife are going to go on the holiday of a lifetime.” I was going to get an open-ended rail ticket from Grand Central Station in New York finishing at Graceland. Every August, on the anniversary of Elvis’s death, I write something about him. So I’ve got books and books and books of poetry and stuff around Elvis… The man who didn’t love Elvis is not as other men. He is condemned to miss the point time and time again.” Elvis, he’s the king of the world.”. And which song do I want to bne played at my funeral? Elvis' Peace in the valley-. Punk rocker John Cooper Clarke on the October 14, 2021 edition of the Financial Times, as well as on the Guardian's Honest Playlist's 24 Apr 2023 edition. "It's Now Or Never" from "O Sole Mio", "Surrender" from Torna A Sorrento", "Tonight Is So Right For Love" from "Bacarolle and The Tales of Hoffman", "Today, Tomorrow And Forever", from "Liebestraume no. 3 in A flat", "Can't Help Falling In Love" from "Plaisir d'Amour", "Sleepy Heads" from "Guten Abend, Gut Nacht", "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Johann Strauss II, and "Tonight's all Right For Love", from Strauss "Tales from the Vienna Woods". According to the UK's Classical FM, the 8 times Elvis Presley borrowed from classical music, as published on 14 February 2018 He was a fantastic Monty Python fan. He would watch us, while seated in bed with his wife, and do our sketches while simultaneously having to learn all the dialogue. John Cleese, in an interview with the Nightly Show, recounting what Priscilla Presley once told her friend Barbara Trentham (Cleese's 2nd of 4 wives) Very early in his rise to music fame, Elvis once visited the Tennessee Governor's mansion after his manager called ( my father) Governor Frank Clement and said he wanted him to meet Elvis. He told him to bring him out and also invited a group of African American state prison musicians called The Prisonaires. Everyone eventually retired to an upstairs room, where Elvis and the Prisonaires took turns performing numbers. Elvis got so carried away that he stayed until 3 am.He seemed shy, and so soft-spoken. Tennessee Congressman Bob Clement's recollections of his father, Governor Frank G. Clement on a night in 1957 when he hosted a meeting at the Governor's mansion with Elvis and the R&B group the Prisonaires, as related in the book entitled "Presidents, Kings and Convicts" by the younger Clement, and as published by John Shearer in the Chattanoogan, on March 27, 2017. In fact, Dylan's most recent Broward Center concert came just one month after the Nobel announcement, and despite all the public confusion and pearls-clutching over his win, the then 75-year-old artist appeared to be in high spirits, even striking Elvis Presley-inspired poses while leaning on his microphone stand and breaking into bowlegged, broncobuster shuffles during songs that otherwise would seem to reject them.. Jake Cline, reviewing Bob Dylan's latest appearance in Ft Lauderdale, FL, in an article published on SouthFlorodacom on August 6, 2018 on You know, Bush is always comparing me to Elvis in sort of unflattering ways. I don't think Bush would have liked Elvis very much, and that's just another thing that's wrong with him. He was the first and the best, and is my favorite of all time. Bill Clinton, during the 1992 presidential campaign, obviously unaware that Bush was a Presley admirer, and had in fact met him at the 1971 Jaycees ceremony, during his time as US Ambassador to the United Nations. No element of the South's culture has had more influence on the culture of the U.S. and other nations than its music. While the ballads and fiddle tunes brought by British settlers provided the foundation for what would become country music, the work songs and field hollers that were a vital part of the slaves' African heritage formed the basis of the blues. These musical forms did not always respect the South's racial divisions. There was more interaction than many realized as both the blues and country music grew more commercialized and, as members of both races left the farm in droves, more urbanized as well. When local radio stations and recording studios in cities like Memphis and New Orleans began to feature the work of both black and white performers after World War II, the closer contact and familiarity bred the revolutionary new sound that would become "rock 'n roll." Elvis Presley quickly won an enormous youthful following as a white singer who sounded "black," but if he succeeded by borrowing heavily from black stylings, he also helped to open the door to white audiences much wider for a host of black performers ranging from Little Richard to Chuck Berry. Author James C. Cobb, in an article entitled History of the South, Abbreviated: The Ol' Bloviator Boils It Down, published in "Flagpole" magazine's 17 February 2016 edition. The "Shrine" Auditorium in Los Angeles, was his first California stop, then Long Beach. He's the cat man... Eddie Cochrane, who turned to rock after seeing Elvis at a concert at the Sportatorium in Dallas, TX on April 16, 1955, correcting his wife Alice, who had said she had attended Elvis first concert in California, at the Long Beach Arena. The exchange took place in London, during Eddie's last tour there. You won't find many books that range from Elvis to Helen Keller to Sir Isaac Newton that can change your life. This one also could" John Cochran, former ABC News and White House correspondent, speaking about Dr. E. Gaylon McCollough's memoirs and musings, in an interview with Fox News, Channel 10, on August 29, 2018. Sometime in the mid seventies, Elvis befriended a young black woman who was having trouble purchasing a car, struggling as a student in college at the time, so he went into the dealership got the car, then asked her to report to him the next day saying she would get a steady job answering the phones at Graceland (where most of her time was spent doing very little), thereby allowing for her to both have a place to study and focus on her school work and grades. She was ONLY required to report him every quarter showing him her grades. So not only did he buy a car for her, but he purposely *created* a job for her, where she could receive a steady paycheck while studying. Marion Cocke, Elvis' nurse, in an interview for the documentary "Why Elvis" Elvis is the greatest blues singer in the world today. Joe Cocker, who started his career imitating Elvis under the name Vance Arnold, circa 1961, as noted in about education.com Born in Tupelo, Miss., he was an only child whose parents scraped along on odd jobs until the family moved to Memphis when Elvis was 13. He was fanatically and unabashedly devoted to his mother. He was buried near her after the kind of awful, agonized public wake that attended the passing of Rudolph Valentino and Judy Garland. Eighty thousand fans jammed the street outside his Memphis mansion, Graceland, hoping for a view of the body; 30,000 were admitted to the house. Dozens swooned, cried, keened and passed out from the heat outside the mansion gates. Two people were killed when a drunken driver plowed into the crowd. After the funeral at Graceland, a cortege of 16 white Cadillacs led a slow procession down Elvis Presley Boulevard to the cemetery. There the lawn was banked with some 2,200 floral tributes — an imperial crown of golden mums, hortisculptured hound-dogs and guitars, sunflowers in wine bottles. Memphis ran out of flowers; reinforcements were sent in from California and Colorado. From out of the barrage of funeral images, one reaches for a single last memory.searches for an epitaph. Go back to one of his SUN Records, and there is one that seems particularly appropriate. "Well", Elvis starts off, in a raw drawl then rushes into the verse "I heard the news, there's good rocking tonight" Now there is, for everyone. Elvis saw to that. . Abridged from Jay Cocks's obituary as published by TIME magazine in an article entotled "Last stop on the Mystery Train" and dated August 29, 1977. The healing power of music isn't just anecdotal and Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that uses personalized music playlists to help improve the lives of those suffering from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, is dedicated to helping patients through the power of song. Along with enabling patients to find renewed meaning and connection by giving them access to music, the organization's work has been effective at reducing the use of anti-psychotic medications and helping manage the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, according to a Brown University study. To celebrate the organization's fundraising efforts to provide music and joy to patients nationwide, I wish to share a playlist featuring several of the most popular songs from Music & Memory's facilities around the world, including nostalgic favorites from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to The Supremes. The latter's "Stop! In the Name of Love" tends to be one that people remember from high school and that makes them happy, according to the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Frank Sinatra's "Theme From New York, New York" is being requested by almost every nursing home in Delaware, bringing joy to many and improving mood and behaviors. Also, as reported bu the states of Wisconsin and Texas, Elvis' "Hound Dog" inspires movement in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Dan Cohen, in an article entitled "Giving Tuesday playlist: songs that help bring joy to Alzheimer’s patients", as published in USA Today's November 27, 2018 edition. I was relieved that all the stuff we'd been feeling for so long found expression in Presley and in rock in general. I was playing his records all the time to friends when they'd come over. I'd say, 'This guy is a great singer' – and they thought this was some kind of inverse snobbery, but it wasn't. Presley had that special kind of voice which makes your heart go out to a singer. I was a huge fan of Elvis. In fact, I was in town until today and bought a compilation LP of the man. Soon you will hear me sing “Don’t” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight” – but not at the plate. My voice is too deep, with 20,000 cigarettes leading my tone of voice three to four notches down too far. Leonard Cohen, as told to Bard Oses in an interview published on March 26, 2012 at "Leonard Cohen Jukebox" internet page. ) Of course, the main harbinger of the homer era was probably Ruth himself. After “Heartbreak Hotel,” no one wanted to be Perry Como. They wanted to be Elvis Presley. After 1920, no one wanted to be Ty Cobb. They wanted to be Babe Ruth. The old game had been about precision, strategy, incremental progress. The new game was about power, the single blast that busts open the piñata. Writer Rich Cohen, as published in the Washington Post on 27 October, 2017 in an article entitled Baseball didn't always love home runs. Here's how they took over the game. He treats the song as a private meditation, full of pain and the yearning to believe. Though the lyrics speak of hope, Elvis turns them into a cry, as if reaching for one last sliver of light in engulfing darkness. 'I am alone', he seems to be saying. But maybe, just maybe, we can find someone or something to cling to. In his case, it's God. But each of us, hearing him, reaches for our own salvation; if great art needs nakedness (then), those few minutes of Elvis alone at the piano amount to the most naked performance I've ever witnessed. Nik Cohn, commenting on Elvis Presley's rendition, totally alone at the piano, of "You'll never walk alone", as witnessed by a full house of 17,500 gathering at the second of his two shows at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, NY, on 19 July, 1975, as published on the Guardian's Sunday edition, on January 21, 2007, in an article entitled "The 25 best gigs of all time". Forty one years ago this week, as the BBC's correspondent in Washington DC, I was filming an interview with a lawyer about political corruption when his secretary burst in. 'Oh my God,' she cried, putting her hands to her face. 'Elvis Presley's dead!' Without a word, my cameraman and I packed up and headed to Washington's National Airport. When we landed in Memphis, it was late. Early on the next morning, we were outside Graceland when I was suddenly aware of a very big man next to me. 'Mr Cole,' he said, very firmly, 'I am the Deputy Sheriff of Memphis. I am commanded by the Presley family to invite you to visit with the deceased. He then took me by the elbow eventually ushering me through the doors to a scene I shall never forget. In the hall, a coffin had been placed on trestles. Behind it, in a sombre arc, stood members of the Presley family, including Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla, daughter Lisa Marie, and his father Vernon. One by one, I shook hands with them, extending my arm across the coffin where the greatest singer of the 20th century lay dead at the age of 42. Twenty years later, in 1997, I was telephoned by a BBC producer. He said he was making a programme about cults. He said they looked through all the newspaper, radio and television coverage when Elvis died and were sure that I had been the first person to report that some people were refusing to believe that he was dead. What he didn't ask was how I could know for sure that it was Elvis in the coffin. And of course, I couldn't as I had never seen him in the flesh before that morning. So, when you next read about Elvis Presley being spotted, aged 83, down at the chip shop or on the Moon, you now know who to blame: Me. Michael Cole, BBC Washington correspondent on the day Elvis died, as told in an interview for the Mail Online and published on August 14, 2018. You see through the eyes of Queen Victoria how she saw the world. When she was young, she drew ballerinas, opera scenes, melodrama, but when she was older she drew landscapes, children, very domestic, simple things. Also tremendously helpful to me were my own two personal encounters with Queen Elizabeth II, who in 2015 succeeded her great-great grandmother Victoria, as the longest-reigning British monarch. Our first meeting was at the premiere of Dr. Who, at which time the she told me that to travel through time and space must be fun. I next saw her at a polo match. What was most interesting and helpful was how people responded to her. The Queen's presence, as opposed say, that of Elvis Presley, was a hushed silence followed by calm... Jenna Coleman, UK actress playing Queen Victoria, as interviewed by Jane Levere for Forbes' January 12, 2019 edition This sound is like burnished gold, it shines. In Elvis's voice the ants will hear manifest destiny. Nick Coleman, reviewing Elvis' voice in his book "Voices: How a Great Singer Can Change Your Life" , as published by The Guardian on January 14, 2018. Truth is like the sun you can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away Judge Russell Adam Coleman's quoting Elvis Presley as the Hong Kong High Court he chaired rejected a judicial review filed by a woman who entered Hong Kong using a one-way permit obtained on the basis of family reunion with her Hong Kong permanent resident husband, whom she had already divorced and as published in an article entitled "Judge quotes Elvis as High Court dismisses one-way permit case" in the Hong Kong's Standard's November 19, 2025, edition, I accidentally met Elvis in 1967 in Palm Springs, California. I was 15 years old, and had just finished marching in a parade with the high school drill team and band.All of a sudden, one of my pals shrieked, "There's Elvis Presley!" I looked across the street and there he was. My girlfriends and I ran across four lanes of traffic to see him up close. He looked tan, healthy, trim, was very cordial, charming even, to the people who had gathered in the crowd, signing things they handed to him. After several minutes, he thanked everyone and said he needed to go inside to see his dentist, I, being an overly excitable 15-year-old, yelled from the outskirts of the crowd, "Please, Elvis, just one more signature!"He looked over the heads in the crowd, smiled at me, and said, "Okay, just one more."And he let me through and I stood there, looking up at Elvis Presley. Gobsmacked doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. He asked me what I wanted him to sign and I realized I had nothing. So I said, "Sign my back. I meant the back of my shirt, but he lifted my hair and placed the pen on the back of my neck and started writing. "Sign the back of my shirt." I said. I could feel the pressure of his pen on my back and as he wrote he spelled out, "T-h-e b-a-c-k o-f m-y s-h-i-r-t" as though he were signing my exact words.I turned around and said, "Is that what you wrote?" And he gave me that curled-lip grin and said, "No, honey, I wrote my name." And he went inside the dentist's office... Colleen Collins, award winning author and writer of dozens of novels published by Harlequin Enterprises, on the day she met Elvis, as published in her webstite's August 16, 2017 edition. Run by controversial ex-Lotus boss, Dany Bahar, and based on the Lamborghini Huracan, the Project Panther is designed to be a modern interpretation of the DeTomaso Pantera. Produced between 1971 and 1992, the Pantera was initially powered by a Ford V8 engine making around 250kW of power, before later models pushed that figure closer to 265kW. But the car isn't famous for its engine, nor its rakish good looks. Instead, it's best known as the car Elvis Presley shot. He bought a Pantera for then-girlfriend Linda Thompson. After a fight, he tried to leave in a blaze of V8-powered burnout smoke but the car refused to start. So rather than giving it the last laugh, Presley whipped out his revolver and fired three shots, leaving two holes in the steering wheel and one in the floor. As far as we can tell, there are no bullet holes in Bahar's modern re-interpretation.... Scott Collie, reviewing the Project Panther car for Caradvice on December 17, 2017 Thomas A Dorsey's "Peace in the Valley" became one of the most popular songs during WWII. When the war was over, it might have been forgotten altogether if it wasn't for a single performance on January 6, 1957, when Elvis Presley dedicated it to the 250,000 Hungarian refugees fleeing a Soviet Invasion. Thanks to that performance more than US$6m. were raised. Hymn Ace Collins in his book "Stories behind the Songs and Hymns about Heaven" I've come up under people that were before me that inspired me: Elvis Presley, Little Richard, you name it from back in the day, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone. All these cats had not only music, but they had expressions in what they wore." Bootsy Collins African American musicians in a 2001 interview with Tom Murphy as published on the West Word Music Elvis Presley did more to change the course of popular music and youth culture than any other entertainer in the twentieth century, beginning with his meeting Sam Phillips in 1954, at the Sun Records label, in Memphis. In 1956, for Presley's first single at RCA, producer Steve Sholes was adamant that Phillips' sonic treatments be adhered to, as closely as possible. So, in attempting to recreate the Sun echo sound, Sholes relied on the ambiance of RCA's then-cavernous recording studio in Nashville, rather than the tape-delay method; the major problem facing Sholes was Presley's tendency to get carried away with the music and wander away from the microphone; so, rather than spoil the singer's fun, Sholes decided to position three microphones around Presley to capture his quivering voice, no matter where he strayed; the results were breathtaking. Columbia University's "History of Record Production" (Part II of syllabus) Elvis was danger, and passion and sex, and he broke all those barriers. M. Tye Comer, Editor for Billboard, in an interview with Geraldo Rivera for Fox's Rise to Fame, as broadcast on January 8, 2015. All the Christians felt Elvis was a sin, so my sister Sarah and I loved Elvis, We obtained an Elvis record, sneaked it into dad's study to listen to it, BUT NOT BEFORE placing a towel across the bottom of the door to muffle the sound. I then obtained an autograph from him while I visited Memphis, which remains one of my treasured possessions. Charles Paul Conn, President of Lee University in Cleveland, TN, recalling his younger days in an article published in the Cleveland Daily Banner, on October 21, 2017 The generosity and public spirited zeal with which you donate your services to the Arizona Memorial Fund are appreciated by all of us in the Navy. Secretary of the Navy John Connally's words, read by Rear Admiral Robert L.Campbell, just prior to Elvis entering the stage to deliver his promise to donate all the proceeds, and more, towards the construction of the Arizona Memorial, on March 25, 1961. The above mentioned contribution, then set at US$64,000, is equivalent after adjustments made for inflation to $517,574, in 2016 dollars. The black leather concert from Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special Mezzo soprano Sarah Connally's answer to the question of what would she consider to be her musical guilty pleasure, as published in the Guardian's March 6, 2016 edition. About two days after Elvis's 1969 Vegas shows, I was back in New York and went into Albert Grossman's office because I was trying to see Bob Dylan and he managed him. He said that he was in Woodstock. For some reason he suddenly put me on the phone with Dylan and I didn't know what to say to him because I hadn't planned to interview him. I told him I'd just been to see Elvis. From that moment instead of me being a Bob Dylan fan we were both Elvis fans. Dylan asked me precisely, "What did he do? Did he do the Sun stuff? Did he do 'That's All Right, Mama'? Did he do 'Mystery Train'? Who's in the band?" Dylan read the New York Times review but he wanted to know what I thought of it. All these questions. Two days later I'm back in England and I'm on the phone with John Lennon and I get exactly the same questions from him about Elvis. Lennon asked, "How was the show? Did he do any of the Sun numbers? Did he play 'Mystery Train'?" It showed me more than anything that rock stars are basically fans. Ray Connolly, UK columnist, novelist, script-writer and interviewer and biographer for both Lennon and Presley, as told to Ken Sharp, of EIN, on January 9,2010 Prince had great respect for Elvis, the Bar Keys, Al Green and the influence on the music world from the Memphis' sound. Norman Connors, African American music producer and University of Memphis professor whose spouse, R&B singer Cherrelle is Prince's cousin, in an interview from WREG News Channel 3 Memphis. I met Elvis on a football field. I was trying to get to him and I finally sent him to the floor. That's how we became friends. I like Elvis a lot, he is a legend who just died too young. Robert Conrad in an interview with the PM show. In Las Vegas, he was a different Elvis, putting on the blitz, the neon signs dared him. In a sense, he codified, encapsulated, permeated, embodied Americana. It was so real in its total artificiality, as Elvis brought it all together and made it work. Tom Constanten, keyboardist for the Grateful Dead, as interviewed by the BBC in 2017. In the mid fifties, Presley initiated a new phase in the popularizing of African American vocal techniques, combining them with influences from country music to create a unique style full of hiccups, between the beat accents, and striking register shifts, from chest voice baritone to falsetto. First, when writing about the echo effect in his early SUN recordings, Richard Middleton, in his "Studying Popular Music", says the effect is largely used to intensify star presence, in fact, Presley becomes larger than life. Conversely, as Henry Pleasants noted in his book "The Great American Popular Singers", Presley was said to dominate a vocal style appropriate to different generic contexts, thereby developing a vocal multiplicity, a sound for country, a sound for gospel, a sound for ballads and a sound for R&B. Continuum Encyclopèdia of Popular Music of the World, Volume II (Performance and Production), section pertaining to relevant vocal techniques in modern music. The first thing you think of is his cool charisma, his electric personality, the larger than life thing that all those figures embody. But there’s also that little wide-eyed, innocent, naive country boy that is as much a part of it as anything. Elvis embodied both of those. Mike Cooley, songwriter, singer, and guitarist from Tuscumbia and a member of the band Drive-By Truckers. talking about Elvis in an installment of the “Birthplace Sessions,” filmed on the front porch of the Presley home in Tupelo, Mississippi. Well, I love Elvis Presley. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's earnest assertion to another CNN reporter who asked him if he (who is not married and in fact is openly gay), wouldn't mind being married by an Elvis impersonator, as reported by CNN and as part of the 2018 New Year's celebration in a live broadcast from Las Vegas.NV. i) He was wearing giraffe skin pants and Aladdin shoes and a pair of socks that Elvis gave him ii) Rock has always had religion. After all, it started as gospel music. Elvis Presley knew every gospel song ever made. I'm not an alarmist or nihilist, but the world gets more dangerous every day. I think our natural survival instinct makes us question where we stand with God even if some claim atheism.” Alice Cooper's tale of his visiting his friend, Salvador Dali, another huge Elvis fan, at the St Regis Hotel, in New York ii) As published in the foreword to Mark Joseph's newest book on Rock and Religion. On his live versions of songs like "How Great Thou Art"(1975),"Unchained Melody"(1976) and "Hurt" (1977), you will be able to hear how high he can go; but, it is essentially on "What Now My Love" (sang live at his "Aloha from Hawaii" global telecast, which reached 1 billion viewers when first aired in 1973), where he goes up three octaves at the end of the song, that you can really hear his true vocal power. Cory Cooper, vocal connoisseur, on Presley's vocal range, as published in ALLEXPERTS.com, on 4 February 2005. Elvis Presley all the way. He was my hero when I was seven and remains so to this day UK poet John Cooper Clarke's answer to the question of who his heroes are, as published on the New Statesman magazine's November 7, 2018, edition. She was involved in everything we did at the Junior Shop, our ladies' wear store. I remember her working very hard, but one thing that always really stood out for me was when someone would come in needing a dress for a family member who had passed away. She would always say, ‘just take it. Even when some of those people insisted on paying anyway, she would tear up the check right after they walked out the door. She used to have us call the radio station to request Elvis Presley singing ‘How Great Thou Art’ all the time. As her health increasingly declined, I knew there was one last thing I could do for her, so I had it playing when she died. Laura Cooper, speaking about the death of her mother Gaynelle Blackmon Nunnelley, a huge Elvis fan, in an article entitled "Remembered for kindness" and as published in the December 25, 2018 edition of Alabama's Arab Tribune After the success of "Crazy Heart", I was offered several musical projects, including a film about Elvis, but chose not to pursue it at the time because I didn't want to be confined to just one genre. A modern approach to a musical biopic, which I might have applied to a project like an Elvis film, would likely move away from a traditional linear timeline and instead focus on specific eras or psychological conflicts to explore his internal struggles.... Scott Cooper, in an interview with Pete Hammond where he asserts that the style he opted when writing a screenplay and directing a movie about a moment in Bruce Sprimgsteen's life _("Deliver me from nowhere" which did poorly at the box office), could also apply to a movie about Elvis (whose Baz Luhrmann's biopic, in 2022, grossed $300m worldwide), as published in the November 4, 2025 edition of skjbollywoodnews.com Music has been very much democratized and that's good news and bad news. The threshold has gone down. Anyone can make music at home with a laptop. All you need is something to say. In older times you had to practice on an instrument and be good on an instrument to be able to make music, and then you had to go to the man to get a recording budget and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now, it's completely democratic. Every darn fool can make music and I like that. It's like campfire music. Its purpose for humanity is not that it's specialists like me who get to sit on my throne on high and make the music and you just got to sit there and take it. The real purpose of music is for all of us to do it ourselves. The problem is being as big as Elvis Presley or The Beatles. I'm happy though because I like all that new competition. It's good that it is democratized, but not so great for being a rockstar.... Stewart Copeland, former Police drummer, on aspiring musicians not needing recording labels to make it, as published by the CBC in an interview made before his playing with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in late September of 2022. Since 1962, and the first appearance of Elvis, as silkscreened by Warhol, the face of America changed. The most insistent question posed by the ElvisWarhol series concerns the nature of their specifically charged content, and the viewing of Warhol's imagery not as signs, but as icons dealing with a larger content of culture in America. To a large group of Americans, Presley has long been a folk hero, yet his musical impact has overshadowed his sociological significance. Presley's importance is not simply as a popular entertainer but as a bearer of new verities. UK art curator's laud of Elvis Presley, as noted in his "Warhol and Elvis", Studio International, 1971. Often I err on the side of being too collaborative. I re-edited "The Outsiders" because Warner Brothers felt it was long, and that was a mistake. My father had also written a soaring, romantic score for it. I wondered if it was the right choice, but I couldn’t say that to him. By the time I recut the movie in 2005 he had passed away, and I balanced the schmaltzy music with more of what the Greasers would have listened to: early Elvis Presley.... Francis Ford Coppola in an article published in the Guardian's November 1, 2021 edition and entitled ‘Tom Cruise was an intense kid’: How Francis Ford Coppola made The Outsiders" SUN Records founder Sam Phillips was surprised that the then 19 year old Elvis Presley knew bluesmen like Arthur Crudup -- but he had spent his last 6 years immersing himself in the blues and Beale Street, where the music and culture of the black Mississippi Delta had settled. Presley was so "blue" -- and his speech so Deep Southern -- that radio announcers took pains to assure listeners in the still-segregated South that the young singer was white. If you go to Sun Studio today is like to travel in time. At 706 Union Ave., it's still 1954. "You are walking on holy ground," the guide tells visitors... Christopher Corbett writing for the Washington Post, in an article entitled "Sun Worship" as published in their August 2, 1996 edition. One day at the MGM lot a round Italian looking guy came into the set. He said something like “I’m one of Elvis’ guys, we are shooting at stage 16 and since Elvis saw “Synanon” and loved it he would like to invite you to lunch.” What did I say? Hell yes! Before I knew it I was in Elvis’ dressing room eating a catered lunch. Alex Cord, in reply to numerous of his fans asking him if he ever met Elvis, as quoted from his online page on its October 19, 2013 edition There is nothing comparable to her level of stardom and her fan base — you're on the level of Elvis, Michael Jackson or the Beatles in their heyday, Former New York Police Department Chief Kenneth Corey, reflecting on Taylor Swift' fame as he discussed protocols taken by law enforcement for her forthcoming wedding with Travis Kelce, to be held at Madison Square Garden, and as noted by both the NYT and AOL's July 3, 2026 online edition Elvis is the SUN, the progenitor of rock. So it's Elvis, Dylan and Cobain.. Billy Corgan, as noted in the Allison Hagendorf Show's June 23., 2023 edition. We are startled, on the amazing "Blue Moon,"(1954), by his trick of shifting, in a heartbeat, from saloon baritone to pants-too-tight wailing and by his near Hawaiian avoiding of consonants ("Ya-hoo A-know Ah can be fou'/ Sittin' home all alo'"), from "Don't Be Cruel" (1956), a song that comes close to redefining the art of the pop vocal; So, what's left? A terrific crooner who was closer, in intonation, vocal virtuosity and care for a song's mood, to Bing Crosby, than to any top singer of the rock era. Toward the end, he still had it as a Gospel balladeer, the choir-soloist power of the hymn "He Touched Me" (1971) — his voice breaking poignantly at the end of the hymn, as if he had just seen Jesus — still thrills and haunts. So does his desire to please an audience of kids and grandmas, instead of comfortably occupying a niche, as almost every pop star has done since. Richard Corliss, TIME magazine`s Music Editor, reviewing the "Platinum", box-set, as published in the magazine`s January 8, 2003 edition. The Danish gave birth to not only Lego. Legends are also top billing in that part of Europe and most deal with Vikings and Norsemen pillaging and plundering — visiting neighbours not in a nice way —. But this boutique nation also houses a big tribute to Elvis Presley. Now, one probably knows about the mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbour and may be surprised to discover how small it is. And yet another may likewise be aware of Hans Christian Andersen, a Dane whose fairy stories, including The Little Mermaid, have delighted young readers and listeners all over the world. Presley's life was another sort of fairytale, all the more so for being cut short. And the legend came in tangible form to a Danish town, thanks to a fan who, as an eight-year-old boy, had heard "Burning love". On that day in 1973 Henrik Knudsen could not, as the song went, have been lifted any higher so by the time Elvis died in 1977, he was absolutely hooked. In school, his English teacher, who was from East Germany, told him his music was banned in her country. Forbidden? Music? Very interesting. So he got books from the library and found out all he could. For Henrik, the flame of love lasted into adulthood. In 1990 he founded The Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Denmark and within three years he had gathered truck-fulls of Presleyana to open an exhibition. From there the only way was over the top and into a sizeable building in the town of Randers, about an hour's drive north of Aarhus, Denmark's second city. And then Graceland Randers was born... Patrick Cornish, for the The West Australian, in an article published in the Travel section of their December 27, 2018 edition and focusing on how Henrik Knudsen and his extraordinary replica of Graceland, now a big tourist attraction in Denmark, came into being. Well, I mention this in very close proximity to Captain Beefheart because they are completely worlds apart. But if you listen to "Elv1s 30 # 1 hits" you realise what an amazing setup he had. The songs are all absolutely genius. That record is completely on another planet to what Captain Beefheart was then doing, but I prize these two equally, and they’ve both influenced me. The thing is with Elvis, he was there, and he’d been established, so the whole time through my teen years, until when he died in 1977, he had been a constant feature. The wallpaper in my life, so he was always there, but I didn’t really see it until now. Same with {{w|Groucho Marx} } and he died in the same week. Suddenly, the two were gone. It was like someone had come in and had started stripping the walls. So, that rocked me… and then I wrote "No More Heroes’ the following week Hugh Cornwall, frontman for the band The Stranglers's laud of Elvis whose compilation album "Elv1s 30 #1 hits" he considers amongst his favourites of all time, as noted in a article entitled "Doctor’s Orders: Hugh Cornwell prescribes his favourite albums" and as published in Far Out magazine's November 12, 2025 edition. Note: Although neither Elvis or Grouocho Marx are mentioned by name in "No More heroes", the song was written in their memory. Now Ali is in ring center, dancing around in that robe Elvis Presley gave him at his last fight in Las Vegas, some 6 weeks ago prior to his fight against British Champion Joe Bugner. Sportscaster Howard Cosell's introduction of Muhammad Ali for his first fight against Ken Norton, an event he called for ABC TV' Wide World of Sport's on March 31, 1973 Such was his star power, that I would compare him with Elvis Presley Joan Coulson, on how much power she noticed, as a 15 year old, the future Archbishop and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu seemed to have over the minds of all South Africans, as reported in the Agence France Press's 30 Dec 2021 edition i) When my pop music pals were singing in the mirror pretending to be Elvis Presley, I was pretending to conduct his band. ii) I was once sitting in my youth in a terrace house listening to him singing "Hound Dog" so did I ever think in a million years that The King would one day sing something I had written? No. Sometimes I have to pinch myself about that. I still get tingles when some DJ with excellent taste plays Elvis singing "My Boy" and I remember when I sat down and wrote those lyrics Phil Coulter, quoted in i)the Irish Times's October 12, 2019 edition.and ii) at the Newsletter's 14 January 2022 edition. Max is pretty assertive, isn't he, when it comes to pointing out any deficiencies, not only in himself, but in the team; that is part of his make-up. (In fact), this is like the greatest comeback since Elvis' 1968 TV special, just unbelievable. He's come out swinging, and he's actually changed the perceptions of a lot of people who weren't his fans and now have to acknowledge just how strong and consistent he's been. David Coulthard's laud of Max Verstappen, as he prepares his return to greatness in the 2025 Formula 1 competition, as noted in an article entitled "Max Verstappen compared to Elvis Presley ahead of titanic 2025 F1 showdown, and published in the December 3, 2025 edition of racingnews365. He stood for rock 'n' roll at a time when rock 'n' roll was rebellion, but I think he stood for so many more things than that. He was a southern kid, came from very humble roots, became very popular and very rich and very famous. In this country, that's the American Dream. And that's the Elvis story. What was interesting is that at the outset, Elvis came in through the Country and Western world, signed by RCA in Nashville, not in New York, then went to Pop and soon started to have hits on all three charts, including the R&B chart, and was landing hits everywhere, a fact that totally surprised the music industry. But they were surely delighted to make the money.. John Covach, Professor and Chair, Department of Music, School of Arts and Sciences at the Eastman School of Music, at the University of Rochester, in an article for the Atlantic, published on January 8, 2016 and during his lecture entitled "Out of Nowhere: The Surprising Emergence of Elvis Presley and The Beatles, available on YouTube since March 7, 2014. With all the Led Zeppelin comparisons and stuff – it was very much a hybrid of 1957's 'Jailhouse Rock' by Elvis Presley and the middle piece was inspired by a Jeff Beck Group song called 'Rice Pudding.' David Coverdale, Whitesnake's mastermind, discussing the band's staple 1987 hit "Still of the Night,"in an interview with Ultimate Guitar as published on 2 December 2017. He was very funny and had charisma that was bigger than life. I enjoyed our friendship. Ralph Wolfe Cowan, the only painter for whom Elvis ever sat, recalling the moments he spent with him, in 1969,as noted in an article published in the January 8, 2010 edition of the Smithsonian magazine. Of course everyone is influenced by hearing or seeing the music of the era being performed by the people that made it famous. Take for example Elvis Presley — I think at first glance you see this rock ‘n’ roll god who gets every girl, and then you hear such a beautiful melody and vocal and it completely changes the way you view music. It broadens your mind. Growing up listening to him, I think everything right from the phrasing, the presence on stage has influenced me in some way. Harrison Craig, Australian singer who was runner up in the Voice's 2013 edition, in an interview for news.com.au, published on 9 March, 2017 on the influence the city of Las Vegas and Elvis had on his performing and singing style. But let's not be to harsh on Mr.Presley. Doubtless he is doing the best he can. But when the American public shell more than a million dollars in one year to see him, well, let us leave it at that, but maybe this is the Elvis Presley Century., Ed Creagh, for The Troy Messenger in an article entitled "Craig Wonders whether the 20th Century will be known as the Century of Elvis Presley", as published in The Troy Messenger's Friday Nov. 30, 1956 edition. I met Elvis only once and I figure him for a pretty nice guy. And as to music, I really dig his stuff. Thomas W Creel, in late 1959, the member of the Army's Company D of the 13th Cavalry stationed in the then West Germany who was selected by Hollywood producer Hal Wallis as Elvis's double in the exterior scenes shot on that country for "G.I. Blues" mainly because Wallis felt he looked and walked like him from a distance, as reported in the Army-edited newspaper the Stars and Stripes's issue of November of 1959. It’s difficult to imagine the feeling in this city that has existed in the last few months since he’s actually been here. The impact he has had has gone beyond football, beyond that of Manchester and the Premier League – it’s absolutely incredible. What he did on Wednesday night is exactly what he’s here to do which is to bring magic to the stadium. It’s almost like Elvis Presley is in Manchester, he’s like a god. About Cristiano Ronaldo's impact on the city of Manchester as noted by Gary Neville in an article published in the Daily Star's October 24, 2021 edition. It was a question that would occupy biographers, novelists and the public to the end of the century and beyond. It would spawn theories of conspiracies and cover-ups that would range from Hollywood to Washington. The imagery of Marilyn Monroe would survive to be reinvented and recycled in ways none of us could have imagined in 1962. Yet after 15 years, we might have learned something about that process when the news of Elvis Presley arrived in August 16 1977. I was on vacation that month. If the death of Marilyn seemed sensational, it was sedate compared to Presley's passing, which became a story of crowd control. Now, a good obituary invokes nostalgia in some, curiosity in others and no one could manage both better than my colleague Charles Kuralt, but he couldn't peer into the future and see all the peculiar ways in which Presley mania would persist. Almost two months later to that day, the top story on the CBS Evening News was the death of Bing Crosby. Now, he, Sinatra, Reagan, Churchill and others whose obituaries have been written all lived long enough to see their debts to fame settled.Monroe and Presley did not. They were given the riches, but they were cut off before their time. I don't know if they were unhappy, but for their public, it was easy to imagine their youth and self-destruction as a kind of romantic, self-inflicted martyrdom. To many, that aura is at least as fascinating as the person, or the work, but it only materializes after the obituaries have been filed, as life goes on, even in death. Walter Cronkite for NPR News in an article entitled "The Art of the obituary" , and as published in their April 20, 2006 edition. I never went through the Elvis period. David Crosby, in an interview published in the Fretboartd Journal's April 2013 edition. He helped to kill off the influence of me and my contemporaries, but I respect him for that because music always has to progress, and no-one could have opened the door to the future like he did. Bing Crosby, as published in iheart.com Yeah, I think I do. Aside from the performing, we were up in his suite at the Sahara in Lake Tahoe and the guys were all just sitting around. We were having just a general conversation. He liked to do that. He would have that just about every night after work. The guys would all come up to his suite and they'd sit around and chat. And I remember him just getting so involved in the conversation and listening so carefully to what everybody else had to say. He never once dominated. He never once tried to say, 'Hey, I'm the boss'. You know, this is what I got to say. He really cared about what the other people contributed to the conversation and he listened. And I respected that so much because unfortunately as I said earlier, we have so many people in our business who are ego controlled who don't understand that maybe somebody else does know something. So I was very profoundly affected by that and respectful of him Comedian Norm Crosby's answer to a reporter who asked him whether he had any special memories of him, from an interview published in Facebook's Elvis Educatiuon Forum page. Titley uses the memoirs of mostly former nuns very adroitly to give us a sense of what life was like during this period for those who felt or were persuaded that they had a vocation. Despite the church's toxic fear of sexuality, the “Brides of Christ” designation for nuns had a very unhealthy aura of sexual desire built into it, channelling feelings that would otherwise have found outlets in human sexual partnerships. One nun recounts how her teacher (a nun) was thrilled when Dolores Hart, an actress who was the first to kiss Elvis Presley on screen, became a Benedictine sister: even Elvis could not compete with Jesus. Catriona Crowe, Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland, reviewing Brian Titley's "Into Silence and Servitude" for the Irish Times, and published there on January 7, 2018. I still really don't know to this day what the fuck that was all about. All I know is, I arrived in LA, got to my hotel, as I'd done umpteen times before, started unpacking, and there was a knock at the door and a team of FBI guys wanted to sit down and discuss something with me. And then, for nearly two years, they were always around. I remember going to the Golden Globes and having, like, 16 security guys with me. I don't even know why...and of course, people were like: 'Look at him, he thinks he's fucking Elvis' Russell Crowe,in an interview to the Daily Mirror, discussing the time he was targeted as a possible kidnapping subject by Al Qaeda, sometime in 2001. We should do it right now. You want a little bit of Elvis? "One for the money, two for the show... Tom Cruise, after acknowledging he had never sang in public, and as broadcast in the Jay Leno Show's 11 Dec 2008 edition. Yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis, and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard Ted Cruz, in a tweet to Donald Trump, who suggested his father had been a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald,sent on May of 2016 I wasn't thinking and thought I must press the suit and since it was a gold lamé, it wrinkled like the face of a modern Keith Richards!!! Manuel Cuevas Mexican born designer best known for the creation of Elvis' US$10,000 Gold Lame suit for Nudie's in Hollywood. He was actually recalling, in 2016, what happened moments before Elvis and Col. Parker picked up the suit at Nudie's, in the spring of 1957, as told in the book "Manuel, the Rhinestone Rembrandt". There's also the Elvis connexion, the idea that he faked his death in 1977, but wanted to carry on being on screen, so he made a cameo appearance in "Home Alone". Remember the rocker at the airport? Child actor and singer Macaulay Culkin, pointing out some of the interesting conspiracies that derived from the huge success of "Home Alone", in an interview with the Irish Times published on March 3, 2018. Actor Ed Asner and I quickly became friends. We would sit outside our dressing rooms and talk about politics and the civil rights movement. Ed described himself as a liberal and he didn't agree with what was going on in the country. One day as we were talking Elvis came over to join the conversation. So there the three of us were Elvis, Ed Asner and myself – kicking it around. Elvis played the doctor running a medical clinic in the ghetto. I played a black militant and Ed was the local police officer that played peacekeeper.I was impressed to be working with Elvis but you must remember these were turbulent times for our country and nobody knew what sudden provocation might shape or change our interactions on a daily basis. One evening after we finished shooting Elvis invited me to his dressing room. He was about to release a new album and wanted to get my opinion on one particular song; "In the Ghetto". I really enjoyed the song. I was impressed and I told him so. He was pleased that I liked it and he shared his satisfaction with me we had a drink or two. During a certain part of the evening I took it upon myself to ask him a question that had been on my mind for some time I was rather reluctant to ask given our conversation thus far has been so pleasant. but I felt like I had to pose this question to him. I said you know "Elvis, there is word going around our community that you said 'the only thing black people could do for you what shine your shoes and buy your records." Silence. More silence. Uncomfortable silence. I began to think that he was going to kick me out of his room. Suddenly he surprised me,got slightly emotional and look me dead in my eyes. "I've heard that rumor" he said "It's a vicious lie, and if I knew who started it I would flat kick their asses" He went on to say that he had a special place in his heart for black people declaring that he learned to sing by listening to black people sing gospel and the blues. He claimed he learned how to dance by watching black dudes do their thing. Some of the people closest to him, he said, were black. I could tell immediately that the rumor I had brought up deeply hurt his feelings. I could also tell that he was speaking to me from his heart. That conversation really opened my eyes to the person that Elvis Presley really was -- not the media portrayal ,not the stage persona, not the roles he played in movies, but the real Elvis Presley, the man. He truly earned my respect and we parted ways as friends. Years later I was on location in Knoxville Tennessee co-starring in a television series [Roots] when I got word of Elvis's passing. It shocked me and I was tremendously distressed by his death, as was the whole country. African American actor Ji-Tu Cumbuka, from his biography" A Giant to Remember: The Black Actor in Hollywood" I think we're living in a very diverse country now, and if you look at the nativity, traditionally, it was Mary and Joseph, whereas every time I go to a Nativity play it's a loose story. I think it is time to modernise it a little bit and bring a bit of diversity. Why would people not want Elvis and Lobsters instead of Jesus? Come to think of it, when you go to watch the nativity you go and watch them perform. Jessica Cunningham, former candidate in the Apprentice, making the case, to hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, for UK primary schools to ditch the traditional nativity in favour of a more modern and diverse play, the latter after a survey revealed that only 37% of schools will be performing a traditional nativity play, and as reported by UK Yahoo news on December 11. 2018. I'd been quilting for 40 years, lost all of my teaching gigs and seminars for the rest of 2020. They sell for about $9,500 each and I do four-day retreats that can cost $1,400 but after making more than 100 masks, I realized I was going to have to restructure my business. I did a lecture and studio tour on Zoom, and then hosted my first online class. I was skeptical as to how many people would pay $35 for it, but was thrilled that 268 people signed up for the webinar. It's not like I'm Elvis Presley, but that's a cheap workshop with me.” Joe Cunningham, noted quilter from San Francisco, CA, on his now making a profit doing masks, after the 2020 pandemic and as reported by the Washington Post on their July 1, 2020 edition in an article entitled "The pandemic-fueled demand for masks has reignited interest in an age-old skill" Vocally is where I see him as this great synthesiser of American traditions; his voice is something of a shape shifter, it can sound high and mournful and soulful, and he can also sound like a preacher, or be quite gruff, or be a sweet crooner; it's not the tone, it's the technique, like he had to adopt all these other techniques and put them together to make something extraordinary; the reason there are so many Elvis impersonators is because the voice is undoable – it's a mystery. Justin Currie Scottish songwriter and singer, explaining Elvis´art to staff writer Graem Thompson, as published in the Scottish Herald, on 26 July 2010. I was making 'The Rat Race' at Paramount and he was also on the lot, shooting "G.I. Blues". So I happened to be walking by a trailer when its door opens, I look up, and there he was, so he grabs me, pulls me in and he says, 'Mr Curtis, I want you to know what a fan I am. I used to watch your movies in Tennessee'. And I said, 'Please, don't call me Mr Curtis'. And this handsome kid looks at me and says, 'So what do you want me to call you?' And I said, 'Just call me Tony'. And I said, 'So what do I call you?' And he said, 'Mr Presley'. Bam, was he funny. We had a great time together. Tony Curtis, as ´published in For Elvis Fans Only on May 18, 2008 When I was asked to direct Elvis and after a few conversations with him, I began to sit up and take notice. This is a lovely boy, and he's going to be a wonderful actor. When I told him that he would sing three ballads without one single movement, I didn't get the answer you'd expect. Instead, he merely nodded and said simply, 'You're the boss, Mr. Curtiz.'I found him an amazingly restless, ever-searching young man, pliable, absorbing with a bounce like a rubber ball. In my manner of thinking, he possesses much the same qualities which Gary Cooper and John Wayne showed when they first started in pictures --with one notable exception, namely that they capitalized and still capitalize on an element of awkwardness, while Elvis is agile and resilient with a smoothness that you'd expect in a veteran. I guarantee that he'll amaze everyone. He shows a formidable talent. What's more, he'll get the respect he so dearly desires. Two time Oscar winning Director Michael Curtiz, focusing on Elvis acting capacities in King Creole, which he directed, as published in the Daily notes, on April 9, 1958 "Younger Now", my new album, was inspired by my love of Elvis Presley and the fantasies I had about him. I used to rewind one of his movies, Blue Hawaii, just to hear him say my name. I would do this over and over and over again because he would say 'I love you, Miley' and I would fantasize HIM telling ME that he loved ME. Miley Cyrus, revealing for the Daily Mail the source for inspiration for her latest album, Younger now, in an article published on 28 September, 2017. D My fans always remember and recognise me for "Disco Dancer", making the song and me inseparable. This song is also special because its various movements and dance steps are inspired by the great singer and performer Elvis Presley. I feel my pelvic thrust "Disco Dancer" was just a bad copy of Presley's signature move and for me, he will always be the King of dance.” Mithum Da, real name Mithun Chakraborty, Indian actor, singer and former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, in an article published by the Bollywood news on February 5, 2018 Elvis Presley's incendiary vocal performance of "Baby, let's play house"(1955), hails from rockabilly's formative era, when the rules hadn't yet been cast in stone, and Elvis was still experimenting in overdrive, searching for the compelling sound that would catapult him to icon status in little over a year. Presley's slapback, echo laden hiccuping – briefly rendered "a cappella" before the snarling low end guitar of Scotty Moore enters –, segues into an irresistibly lascivious declaration of lust, and a not-so-subtle hint of violence. Both of Scotty Moore's immaculately conceived, and executed solos were monstrously influential to the rockabilly idiom, copied by countless Southern axe-wielding teens. And Bill Black slaps his thundering upright bass so percussively, that no drummer was necessary. Bill Dahl, reviewing Elvis' fourth release at the Sun Records label, for AllMusicGuide.com Millennials, those born in between 1980 and 2000, get blamed for ruining all kinds of things, from iconic brands, to the economy. That generation is portrayed by the media as being stubborn, lazy, entitled, whiny, and oh yeah, capable of wiping out entire industries with just the flick of a mason jar. But what the baby boomers seem to forget is that every older generation casts aspersions on the young folks, shaking their heads at how things change and reminiscing over the “good old days.” There was a time when Elvis Presley's gyrations were considered the height of vulgarity. Now we have HBO. Amanda Harding, for the Daily Beast's The Cheat Sheet, in an article published on March 2, 2018. We were taking a late-night ride in Elvis's Stutz Blackhawk down Hollywood Boulevard. At a stop at a public bathroom, Elvis accidentally locked himself out of the vehicle, so he broke the driver's window to get back in. We were eventually pulled over by police officers who were more interested in speaking with Elvis than giving him a traffic citation. LOL Dick Dale, as stated in an article entitled "Dick Dale on Elvis Presley" and publshed pn the Elvis Presley fans of Nashville's Facebook page on May 5, 2025. From a shy young boy to global superstar, the icon of the 20th century that was Elvis Presley is still as enigmatic today as when he was alive. One of the most celebrated and influential popular musicians of all time, his gift and talent, flaws and failings are as enchanting now as they were when he first snarled his lips Beth Daley, Editor and General Manager of Australia's The Conversation, in an editorial published on August 14, 2017. Growing up with the Beatles, then Bowie, I used to think Elvis Presley was an old-fashioned crooner,someone your auntie liked, a hillbilly rocker with greasy hair who starred in cheesy films.I had no idea that before Elvis, blues music was played by black people, country [music] by their white neighbours, and gospel by both, but never together.I was blind to the fact that, before Elvis, radio stations and record labels, like everything in the south, were divided by colour.It was Elvis who, guided by the effervescent record producer Sam Phillips, as if by magic, merged the blues, country and gospel and created the soundtrack to the modern world. He didn't "steal" black music. He absorbed it from an early age, growing up in poor neighbourhoods in Tupelo, MS, then Memphis TN. He lived and breathed rhythm and blues. He had soul. Susan Dalgety "Embrace legacy of Otis (Redding) and Elvis in the name of freedom", The Scotsman (July 21, 2018). You cut the hair of the greatest singer and now you can say you cut the moustache of the greatest artist. Incidentally he came to my place in 1972, in NYC, we had a great time and as we bid our goodbyes, I told him how I loved the shirt he was wearing. So he took it off, slowly, and handed it to me. When he left the building he was naked from the waist up. LOL. Anyways I then used it to paint that week, and for sentimental reasons, I never failed to put it on again, whenever I painted" Salvador Dali's words to Larry Geller, Elvis hair stylist, after spending with him an entire week in Paris, during which he insisted he trimmed his animated and eccentric moustache, as published in Geller's Leaves of Elvis Garden. I eventually went to Woodstock, the Monterey Festival, Altamont and did the Manson story for Rolling Stone so to cover Elvis' first live show in many years was a must see for me. Elvis was still a huge idol. We saw him as a god. It was a quasi-religious experience. It was one of those wonderful symbiotic events where the audience and the star are both creating a combined energy field. Elvis was getting off on it. It was like some sort of a strange play starring this kid from Tupelo, Mississippi who was made King. That show was a really ecstatic event for me to witness. Much of the audience was the same age as him but Elvis seemed ageless, almost like a folk hero. David Dalton, covering Elvis first show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas on 31 July 1969, for Rolling Stone the magazine whose editorship he had headed two years earlier when he was barely 22 years old. When I saw Elvis on Ed Sullivan, I knew he was having more fun than any other human being up there, actually he was having cosmic fun, and I wanted to do it, too. I didn't want to be no rock star, when I was young I didn't even know what that was. I just wanted his job, whatever it was. Jim Dandy, lead singer and frontman for the American Southern rock band Black Oak Arkansas, in an interview published on September 7, 2016 at TEAMROCK.COM It was just before Christmas 1962 and as I was driving from El Paso to the East Coast, I began forming the idea that would become this song; not very long afterwards my long-time friend Bob Johnston invited me to Nashville, and we finished this one together; Bob did a demo on it and when Elvis came to town, he picked it up and held it for almost a year in what was then called his portfolio; so, anyway, he recorded it and it was by far the biggest thing that had ever happened to me in my life. Charlie Daniels, explaining how the power ballad "It hurts me" came into being, and what it meant to him, as published in SONGFACTS.com I just loved Elvis. We had a couple of pictures together from 1969, so I put the first near the bar, at my club. But they kept stealing it, in fact it and the other, as well as numerous copies, disappeared twice a week for a period of thirty years. They had to be replaced hundreds of times. Anyways, one day, a cute girl walked up to me, and then asked me whether she could take a picture, so I got all excited and just as she got real next to me to have our picture taken, she just took the Elvis picture, left the club and said "Thanks Rodney, you're as doll". What was also hilarious was when my wife discovered that Elvis had a handkerchief that was apparently stained with his sweat and it went for a lot of money. So I had a 'eureka' moment. I sweat more than anybody, so my sweat has to be as good as Elvis' sweat, right? So my wife went right to work, ordering hundreds of perfume-sample bottles and setting about farming my perspiration. She was the 'sweat collector, taking a sponge and spoon and collect my sweat -- about an inch at a time.. She thought we could water it down but I said, 'No, that wouldn't be right.' " Ultimately, the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, where I performed a lot in my later years, put the brakes on the operation: "They said, no, we couldn't offer that sweat. An insurance issue. I was crestfallen." My wife still keeps the cloudy fluid in a Tupperware container, which she'll transfer to a crystal decanter for special occasions. "It means a lot to her, she knows how hard I worked to make people laugh." Rodney Dangerfield, from his autobiography Its not easy being me. Elvis did a jab, then another jab, a right cross, then a hook out, followed by a right cross and a left hook. It was one more than we had designed for the routine. In fact I was already slipping out my mouthpiece that protected my teeth when he landed that additional, unexpected punch. Boom!!! Elvis had cut my mouth, which bled a little bit. But he was so apologetic for accidentally hitting me. He was such a gentleman. A nice man. A wonderful human being Michael Dante's recollections of working with Elvis in a boxing fight scene during the filming of "Kid Galahad", as noted in Parade's July 8, 2024 edition Rock 'n' Roll was not my cup of tea, so you could understand why I was not crazy about Elvis Presley. Before I met him, one day driving along Sunset Blvd, I heard on the radio a singer, unknown to me, singing beautifully an English version of "O Sole Mio". To my great surprise, the announcer said that the singer was Elvis. When we worked together in "Viva Las Vegas" we became very good friends and I found out what a wonderful person, gentleman, performer and dear friend he really was. I also had an opportunity to work with Elvis off camera. He asked me to help him with the Italian lyrics of "Santa Lucia" I did it with great pleasure and that confirmed what I already knew was another facet of his great talent. He learned the song in no time whatsoever and, as you well know, performed it beautifully. If I had a chance to talk to him. I would tell him how much I miss him. Cesare Danova, Italian American Actor, in a letter to Sue Weigerat, who invited him to appear as a guest in an event focusing on the life and death of Elvis Presley He always wore his affinity for Elvis Presley like a batch, covered "Trouble" on his eponymous band's Thrall-Demonsweatlive EP in 1993 and most recently, filmed a Danzig Legacy concert video that stylistically recalled Presley's '68 comeback special, playing in the round with guitarists from throughout his career and singing in front of his name lit up in red. Although he credits director Mark Brooks with the theme for the film, he said he loved the idea himself and is even in the midst of recording an LP of Elvis covers. "Elvis is actually how I got into music, since I was a kid, I was cutting school pretending I was sick and I would lie at home watching old movies, and "Jailhouse Rock" came on and I was like, 'I want to do this. This is great.' And that's how I veered to music. But the thing that has connected all of his sessions is his desire to record new versions of Elvis songs for the upcoming Danzig Sings Elvis LP. "I'm stripping some of the stuff down to the bare bones, very old-school Fifties echoey slap-back vocals," he says. Every time I go back into the studio to work on a new Danzig record, if we have time, I'm like, 'Let's do another Elvis song.' So I keep adding and we'll see what ends up on the record." Some of the songs he has recorded, he says, include "Home Is Where the Heart Is" and the Faron Young–composed "Is It So Strange?" It's a connection that has been a part of him for years. "We have been stopping by Graceland and Elvis' grave since my days in [goth-punk group] Samhain," Danzig says. "Just, you know, hanging out." Glenn Danzig during a visit to Rolling Stone, recalling how Elvis Presley influenced him and how, coincidentally, he went on to write songs for Presley's one time Sun Records label-mates Johnny Cash ("Thirteen") and Roy Orbison ("Life Fades Away"), as published in the magazine's online edition on July 1, 2015. He adjusted the music and the lyrics to his own particular presentation. Elvis has the most terrific ear of anyone I have ever met. He does not read music, but he does not need to. All I had to do was play the song for him once, and he made it his own. He has perfect judgment of what is right for him. He exercised that judgment when he chose ‘Love Me Tender’ as the film's theme song. Ken Darby, on Elvis' treatment of a song whose rights he had given to his wife, Vera Matson to share with Elvis, in spite of neither of the three writing a single line of it, and as noted in an article entitled "5 Best Elvis Presley Ballads" and published on Cheatsheet's April 17, 2023 online edition. Screw them all, you can't go on like this. Bobby Darin's reaction when told by Elvis that he was having a horrible time with bad scripts, pills and diets, as told by his wife Sandra Dee in an interview published at wwwelvispresleymusiccomau. I loved Elvis and his music. My grandmother Mary had an Elvis jumpsuit custom made for me and I’d do Elvis tunes around the house. One day my dad came to pick me up from my mom’s for a visit. He said to me “I hear you’re an Elvis fan; you're a traitor like all the rest!” and he laughed. He said "go put on your jumpsuit and let me see your moves!” Now it was one thing to do my Elvis act for my mom and grandmother but my dad was another story. I just froze and felt really uncomfortable. He said again "show me some moves!” I knew he was joking and that it was all in good fun. Years later, I was supposed to meet Elvis with my dad at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1973. Sadly, that meeting never took place. Sometime a year or so after my dad died my mom and grandmother took me to the Hilton to see Elvis live. I will never forget the excitement of seeing him walk onto that stage to the theme of “2001 A Space Odyssey.” The room was electric and quite honestly I've never experienced anything quite like it to this day. Elvis was a musical treasure/phenomenon and a kind and generous human being Because my mom was so painfully shy, she didn’t let Elvis know we were in the audience and so, again, I never got to meet him. Dodd Darin, Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee's son, on why he never met Elvis, as published in wwwelvispresleymusiccomau. Elvis Presley was not just an enormous personality, but also a huge comic book fan. Reportedly, a fan of Captain Marvel Jr., he modeled his looks on him, including the hair with a spit curl, high collars, a short cape, and a lightning belt buckle. Notably, Elvis also appeared in DC comics. Shuvrajit Das Biswas, Editor of Newsbytes, in an article entitled "At ComicBytes, five celebrities crazy about comics", published on October 27, 2018 Melding a range of disparate influences, along with his energetic jiving, to create a new musical form that still sways listeners -- and in its time, helped break race barriers in the US -- he became a best-selling and influential solo musician of his generation and a significant cultural icon. That explains Elvis Presley's depictions across all media, save literature, where his appearances rarely match his status. His fictional forays -- which span cosmic comedy, high fantasy, science fiction, horror and more, by authors from Douglas Adams to Sir Terry Pratchett (along with Neil Gaiman), from Stephen King to Rick Riordan and Robert Rankin to John Grisham -- see him appear in various guises and forms but rarely in the way we know him. And that is rather unfortunate, for his life has all the makings of a captivating story. From a humble background in the first two decades of his life, he rose to global fame which he retained in his remaining life -- despite his visible physical decline in the final years of his short but eventful life.He had good relations with his parents, was courteous to all, respected fellow singers and acknowledged many as better, and hated the title "King of Rock 'n' Roll". His untimely death left many people shocked, and others suspicious. This is behind the most familiar Elvis trope -- "Elvis Lives". It works on the supposition that Elvis is not dead, and that, either by conspiracy, alien abduction (and later return), or retirement, he is still among us. Vikas Datta in a survey of novels that feature Elvis (March 25, 2018). Elvis was never short of any stage performance. There is still a lot to be learned there. It gives you an idea of how to work a stage. He drew people in, you know, defiantly. He had that look; he looked like a star. At any rate, I can't compare myself to Elvis, not even a little bit. People put you on a pedestal; it almost feels like you're being worshiped sometimes which is not normal for a human being to deal with, not even a little." Chris Daughtry,as published in www.graceland.com When I photographed him in 1960, right after he got back from the Army, I had direct access to him, rode with him in the train all the way from Fort Dix in New Jersey to Graceland. It was so interesting to see all the girls running by and screaming and crying at every stop. And I was right there with him, eating sandwiches and laughing. At that time, there was no wall between the photographer and the star. But then, after I finished that shoot, it was as if a kind of curtain came down. This was the start of publicists getting involved. You didn't have direct access to celebrities anymore. Henri Dauman, one of Life magazine's top photographers and the father of Philippe Dauman, discussing how stars and newsmen started to see the value of publicity,in an article published at the Hollywood Reporter on April 27, 2018. One night at about 1 in the morning I got a call for me to get the aircraft ready to fly from Memphis to Denver, a 2 and a half hour flight. En route, I asked one of the people in his staff, what was the reason we were flying there. He told me it was to get some peanut butter sandwiches. Right, I said. But when we landed, a limo pulled next to the plane, and a man got out with silver trays and there they were, peanut butter sandwiches for all of us. It was the best I have ever had... Elwood David, pilot for the Lisa Marie aircraft, recalling a 1976 trip to Denver, in a 1984 television documentary entitled Graceland. The first time I heard Elvis he was singing a song that my brother, Mack, wrote, called "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine" and he blew me away. Elvis was no accident, a great singer. He was very distinctive in the way that he interpreted lyrics. His rhythmic patterns and the way that he pronounced words was so distinctive that it was not like anybody else It probably came naturally for him. He did any kind of song an could be real and believable with any kind of song. He didn't restrict himself to any one style, never did. Hal David, commenting is work with Elvis during the making of Kid Galahad and the songs he worked in for the soundtrack, in an 2006 interview with Elvis100percentdotcom He loved all of the well-known performers, but the one that really brought him out of his shell was Elvis Presley. Ronald C. Davidson's son, describing the musical taste of his namesake father, a pioneer of fusion power and Professor Emeritus of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. i) While writing a song in 1977, I learnt that Elvis had died, which influenced its lyric. Staying in New York at the time, I looked out my window late at night, saw a single light on in one of the buildings, then imagined that light being the apartment of an ardent Elvis fan, which became the character Dan the Fan in the song. In fact, the line, "The King is dead, rock is done," is a reference to Elvis. ii) In fact, Elvis turned up one night during our 1969 gig at the Whiskey a GoGo. He sat in the corner with his wife. I didn't know until after. I wouldn't have been able to cope... Ray Davies, leader of the Kinks, on the writing of ROCK 'N' ROLL FANTASY, which he called a "Method acting songwriting job", as published in SONGFACTS.com and ii) in an interview with actor Mark Hamill and published on April 20, 2016 i) I think Elvis took a huge chance in doing "In the Ghetto". It was a big risk. ii) The first time I saw Elvis in person I knew he was special. Number one he was the prettiest man you ever saw in your life, he was really beyond handsome. There was something electric about him. Coming along when he did, moving the way he did, jumping around the way he did, plus the fact that every woman was totally mesmerized by him. Everything came to standstill when you saw Elvis. This was when he was 19 and again when he was 30. I saw him at both instances and there was the same reaction both times. You couldn't have wiped the smiles off their faces with a hand grenade. He knew what he could do and what he had and he played on it. He came along at a time in the Fifties, him and James Dean, it was the two of them. They were everything. Mac Davis, i) in an interview to EIN, published on July 31, 2013. ii) idem, in 2006 I have a respect for Elvis and my friendship. It ain't my business what he did in private. The only thing I want to know is, 'Was he my friend?', 'Did I enjoy him as a performer?', 'Did he give the world of entertainment something?' – and the answer is YES on all accounts. The other jazz just don't matter'. 'Early on somebody told me that Elvis was black. And I said 'No, he's white but he's down-home'. And that is what it's all about. Not being black or white it's being 'down-home' and which part of down-home you come from. On a 1 to 10, I would rate him an 11 Sammy Davis Jr, as published in http://www.elvis.net/whattheysay/theysayframe.html, published in the magazine's online edition on July 1,2015. After I'd seen through Christianity, I was still influenced by the elegance of the living world, what appeared to be intelligent design. And that was reinforced when I discovered that my great hero, Elvis Presley, had done a religious album, called Peace in the Valley. Elvis was kind of a minor God to me and my companions, so when I discovered that he was religious, it felt like a call from heaven. This is Elvis, personally calling me. Richard Dawkins, English author and scientist, on how his world was changed by Elvis Presley, as published on MPR news, on October 7, 2013. After a day on set we were talking about how youngsters have to save every penny to buy a car after their graduation. In the US, most youngsters were given a car, not so in the UK.I was 17, but soon after Elvis took me outside and told me to close my eyes, at that moment I knew he had a surprise waiting for me, but never in my wildest dreams could I have thought of a sports car. It was a white 1967 Ford Mustang convertible. Elvis handed me the keys and said 'It's yours.' I couldn't believe it, but I think if he was able to help somebody, he liked to do that. Annette Day, whose only acting role was as a rich heiress in MGM's 1967 "Double Trouble", as told in an interview quoted for the Express's August 31, 2021 edition by Stefan Kiryazis. Many say that the his passing was akin to the assassination of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King or Robert Kennedy, in that they remember precisely where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Like them, I, too, remember. I was on the air at WSRW, filling in for one of the guys on vacation and going to the AP teletype machine when I saw a bulletin in bold print, much as a national emergency bulletin would appear, announcing that earlier in the afternoon he had been found dead in Graceland. I also remember waiting to announce it to make certain it was real and not a hoax. Unfortunately, it wasn't.... Herb Day, writing for The Times-Gazette on October 29, 2018, in an article entitled "So you think you're Elvis? I say emotional because you don’t just drive a Corvette. It drives you—and not in a chauffeur kind of way, either. I’m talking about the nameplate and everything that it stands for. The impact it had on pop culture, car culture, and the entire American culture. I struggle to think of a car that has had more songs written about it, nor can I think of one that has shaped so many dreams. To say the Corvette is just a great car is like saying Elvis was just a great singer. They are far more than that. They are the original American Idols. James Deakin, automotive journalist and TV host at CNN Philippines, in an article entitled "The Corvette, Like Elvis Presley, Is The Original American Idol" and published at the Philippine Tatler on October 18, 2018 We had a really brilliant Elvis double. And he certainly moved like him. They even did a little CG work on his face to make him a little more like him. [laughs] Originally, his song played much longer through the scene, but Director Denis Villeneuve said that when they were cutting it they just had little echoes of the song and it was much eerier because of that. Isn't that interesting? Cinematographer Roger Deakins, answering the question of why the Elvis "malfunctioning hologram" scene worked so well in the 2017 movie "Blade Runner 2049", as published in the LA Times on 20 November 2017 That is really amazing James Dean's reaction after hearing a minute's worth of “That's alright Mama” being played by actress Steffi Sidney at a record player she had in her dressing room during the 1955 shoot of the Warner Brothers' production of "Rebel without a cause", as noted by Quora. i) At the time (circa 2016), I was just listening a LOT to Elvis Presley. It was my ring phone, and the ring tones and it was all about Elvis. ii) I was only able to get through the pandemia thanks to my two puppies, Elvis and Salsa. Their names tell you what I really like" Ana de Armas i) 's reply to Jimmy Fallon as to why she had named her dog Elvis, as broadcast on his show's 18 April 2023 edition ii) in an interview with the Hormiguero, Spain's top movie magazine as published in a you tube released in connexion with her starring in the 2022 Bond movie"No time to die". ". I think he’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen since Elvis. I love him Luann de Lesseps's laud of “Delicious” Joe Bradley before singing in his podcast on November 16., 2024) It just fired him up to be in front of people again. He had a charisma where he and the audience became one thing. Not just the little girls, but also women and everybody got caught up in it. Guitarist Mike Deasy, telling Rolling Stone what it felt to play guitar for Elvis in the 1968 NBC special, and in an article published on August 16, 2017. Well, Elvis of course! What an extraordinary question! Deborah Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire's answer to John Preston's question of who would she have preferred to have tea with, Adolf Hitler, whom she met and had tea with in 1937, and her idol Elvis Presley, who she never met, as noted in an interview with John Preston of The Daily Telegraph and published in September 2007 Although most of the other boys wore white tuxedos, Elvis chose a relatively conservative dark blue suit. Shyly, he pinned a pink carnation corsage on Regis' dress and as they entered the Continental Ballroom at the Peabody, the band was playing, and couples were already out on the dance floor. But Elvis steered her to a seat and offered her a Coke. "I can't dance," Elvis apologized. She took it that he didn't dance because he was so religious and sweetly replied, "That's all right." And so they sat out the entire night, talking and sipping on soda pop while watching the other couples. Finally, they all lined up for the grand march, stepping through a mammoth heart as their names were called and their picture was taken. A few weeks after the prom, Elvis dropped by Regis' house to see her and found that she and her family had simply vanished. Regis's mother, financially strapped, had decided to move the family to Florida to live with her relatives. Regis said she was "embarrassed" to tell Elvis how bad their financial situation was, so she never said goodbye. In the family's move to Florida, she lost her photo but Elvis always kept his, and a few years later Gladys gave a copy to a fan magazine. By then, Elvis was a sensation, with very specific dance moves all his own. Actor Eddie Deezen, who was filming the prom scene on the set of "Grease" when Elvis died, recalling Elvis' own prom night with his date Regis Wilson in an article for Mental Floss entitled "The Sad Story of Elvis Presley's Senior Prom and published on May 5, 2018 Before becoming an artist, Peret Peret was a youngster who was not happy selling textiles with his dad, adored Elvis, rock and even R&B but one day decided to do it the rhumba way. Then suddenly, after a show in Madrid, he received a little piece of paper with a time, a room number and a hotel so that they could meet, alone. Then a few days later, he received a similar one, but from the man's wife. About Alain Delon Alain Delon and his wife Natalie's proposals to sleep with the gipsy Elvis, but without either one knowing it, as stated by Peret in the 2018 documantary "Peret, I am the rhumba" by Camila Zapata, published in a Vanity Fair article dated March 22, 2019 end entitled "Peret, the gypsy Elvis who Alain Delon tried to seduce". Only I know if there was romance or not Macaria (actress) Delia Beatriz de la Cruz Delgado, Mexican actress and producer better known as Macaria, who has kept the nature of her relationship with Elvis secret for almost 60 years, as published in the Goaspotlight's January 10, 2022 edition. Al Pacino Al Pacino was saying "Hoffa's like the Beatles, you know – so famous, like Elvis Presley". Well, 'size' was important for this ( 40 year old) story, told in such a small, intimate way... Robert De Niro Robert De Niro, telling Tom Nicholson why were the Elvis and the Beatles non-scripted references inserted in a scene of Netflix's 2019 production of "The Irishman", about the "disappearance" of Jimmy Hoffa Jimmy Hoffa, and as published in Esquire's August 11, 2019 edition. "Happy Xmas" by John Lennon "A Marshmallow World" by Dean Martin and "White Christmas" by Elvis Presley. Inès de La Fressange Inès de La Fressange, French model, fashion designer and perfumer as told to Vogue Paris, whose unnamed interviewer asked her to name her three favourite Christmas songs and as published on December 13, 2018. i) My young black panther, he is a fine young man. He has the look of a Latin, dark and lithe, moves like a cat, is a good actor and I even like his singing. I would like him for a son ii) In 1960 Dolores del Río finally returned to Hollywood. She starred with Elvis Presley in "Flaming Star" directed by Don Siegel. Having been out of Hollywood for eighteen years at this point Presley nevertheless received her with a bouquet of flowers and said: "Lady, I know exactly who you are. It's an honor to work with one of the biggest and most respected legends of Hollywood. As you will be my mother in the film, I want to ask permission for my ophthalmologist to make contact lenses that mimic the color of your eyes". Del Río immediately took maternal affection to the young Presley. i) From and ii) about legendary Mexican star of the stage and screen Dolores del Rio and her instant affection for Elvis, as noted in her biography by Linda Hall, Beauty in Light and Shade, and published in 2013. But then there's Elvis. I love Elvis Presley, in a totally non-ironic way. Benicio del Toro, in an interview for Earnoize, in April of 2014. Elvis Presley had a world-shaking transformative talent, and his genious, joy, soul, sadness and danger were admirable, especially when seen through the brilliant lens of director Baz Luhrmann, whose take on Presley's life, as played by Austin Butler, I consider the best movie of 2022. Guillermo del Toro in an interview with Variety, on June 12, 2023 Well, I guess could use the extra income because I've waited a long time for my present Elvis Presley hit. The money from the juke boxes would help me and my family a lot. Why shouldn't I be paid? I wrote the lyrics for the song. Claude Demetrius, complaining about his not getting the royalties for the lyrics to Elvis' 1958 #1 hit "Hard Headed Woman", which hit the top of the Billboard charts as Elvis was already in Ft. Hood, TX, and as as reported by the New York Daily News on its December 1, 1958 edition, by which time Elvis was already serving in Germany. Elvis Presley`s talent as a musical artist was double barrelled and more; his voice, on the one hand, was extraordinary for its quality, range and power, as well as being a unique stage performer with instinctive natural abilities in both areas; he was the master of a wide and diverse range of vocal stylings and ventriloquist effects, from the clear tenor of his C&W heroes, to the vibrato of the Gospel singers he loved, his voice invariably possessing an aching sincerity and an indefinable quality of yearning virtually impossible to pigeonhole. From the U.S Department of the Interior`s paper on criteria for greatness as a vocalist, which, together with all aspects of his life and legacy, led to the inclusion of his home, Graceland, in the National Register of Historic Places, in 2006. He was wearing black and looked like ten Greek Gods as he tore through "Love me Tender, "Don't be cruel, and "Jailhouse Rock". He was sweating, in the flesh, alive, inhaling and exhaling. And there I was, breathing the same air, sitting with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, completely and entirely beside myself. Some sideburned greased monkey appeared after the show, asking Jimmy if he would like to meet Elvis. He said "No, thank you," and I never quite got over it.... Pamela Des Barres, rock and roll groupie extraordinaire, actor, author and magazine writer, blaming her then love interest Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin for declining to meet Presley after his midnight show at the International Hotel (now the Westgate, Las Vegas) on August 12, 1969, ostensibly in reference to the fact Page knew she was a huge Elvis fan but because of his jealously-derived decision, never got to meet him (as noted in page 139 of her biography. "I am with the band"). I was 13 when he died and the media response was so overwhelming that I tried to get some information on him. One night while looking at my father's record collection, I found three of his 1956 singles and then tried to play them on the family's old record player, but it would not work. But I felt it had a vibration so I listened to those records by making the turntable turn, with the help of my index finger. And it was right there and then that I became a fan. He was a genius. Donato de Santis on how he became an Elvis fan, as told in an interview dated June 1, 2026 and broadcast on Argentinean televisio's Otro dia perdido. Sam Phillips originally drafted Elvis to replace an absent ballad singer but, after pairing him with ambitious guitarist Scotty Moore and his upright bass-playing friend Bill Black, the music quickly veered in another direction entirely; the SUN Sessions began as an impromptu jam, the absence of drums being purely incidental given it was a small studio, but the light echo the producer used to compensate, inadvertently had an effect on Presley's own voice which was far more interesting; Elvis himself was a raw talent, but his singing prowess was immediately apparent, with a vocal range of roughly three octaves, perfect control and ability to jump between bass, baritone and tenor with the greatest of ease; over fifty years after the fact, we can see that what teenagers saw in him, was a genuinely brilliant vocalist that could just as easily convey a soft ballad, as it could a wild rock song; as a rule, the importance of an album is completely separate from its actual quality but, invariably, albums this influential are influential because they're genuinely great recordings, and "The Sun Sessions", though not formally compiled until 1976, were certainly great, great classic recordings. Dave De Sylvia reviewing "The Sun Sessions", and Elvis' vocal abilities, for SPUTNIK Music, on June 1, 2006 The voice of Elvis Presley is perhaps the most contested acoustical phenomenon in modern culture. I can understand why some listeners may prefer the original versions (of R&B artists) to Presley's covers, but it is more difficult to claim that these were immoral or unethical. In terms of vocal style and instrumental arrangement, Presley actually borrows relatively little, his appropriations (being) more straightforward, taking from the materials already protected by copyright: lyrics and melody. So, unless he can be criticized for not imitating an original R&B artist's rendition, we have to reevaluate Elvis' transgressions. Joanna Demers, in her book “Musical appreciation, musical meaning and the Law”, published in 2007. Anyways, after his midnight show, I spent about fifteen minutes with him, in the hope to take him to bed, but there is a limit to what a woman can say to arouse a man, even for a French woman. I have yet to see, to this day, a more strikingly beautiful man.. Catherine Deneuve, in her 2005 autobiography "Close up and personal" recalling the time she met Elvis on August 8, 1969. In terms of being a groundbreaker, Elvis is at the forefront, breaking ground before groundbreaking was invented. What comes before groundbreaking, anyway? Whatever it is, that's Elvis. Elvis's career took off with the torque equivalent to that of ""Space Shuttle Atlantis[, and rarely slowed. Elvis had entered the building with an uncompromising style that began with black pants within which his famous hips tortured everyone from young women to fathers. Summing it up, slicked back, jet-black hair in a subtle pompadour with modest sideburns, black button-down shirt tucked into black straight-leg jeans with pair of slender, 50s-style Gucci boots will forever be a cool look... Alicia Dennis, defining why Elvis was ranked #8 by Zimbio, in the all time list of the most influential people in the field of fashion in the 20th Century, as published in Zimbio's December 15, 2008 edition. It’s a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care. It’s about how Elvis was her man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships – how everybody’s heart is like a god in some way, and that’s not a very balanced view of someone, is it?” Depeche Mode's frontman's Martin Gore's explanation as to how his song "Personal Jesus" came into being, as noted in the October 20, 2025 edtion of Dar Out. Once the vaccine is available to the early majority, it is important to employ word-of-mouth “seeding” techniques. That means enlisting mega-influencers—celebrities, prominent clergy, and social leaders—and everyday people who serve as micro-influencers to endorse the vaccine and encourage people to seek it. In the 1950s, when polio was rampant, Elvis Presley extolled the benefits of his own widely publicized vaccination, generating buzz about the shot. US noted economist Rohit Deshpande, writing on the COVID pandemia for the Harvard Business School in an article entitled "How Influencers, Celebrities, and FOMO Can Win Over Vaccine Skeptics" and as published in the HBS journal's January 29, 2021 edition. A 262-year-old rare artifact stolen in 1952 from the Dearborn Historical Museum was returned Tuesday — just in time for the city's 90th birthday. The artifact, a powder horn on loan from the Detroit Historical Society which originally went missing just before the opening of an exhibit entitled "Saga of a Settler.", was recovered by the FBI's Art Crime Division team in Philadelphia, from an auction in Pennsylvania. That Division, created in 2004, has recovered since more than 14,850 items valued at more than $165 million in art-related investigations worldwide, diving into cases such as the theft of Elvis Presley's memorabilia to pre-Colombian South American artifacts. The Detroit Free Press's account of the extraordinary find, by the FBI, of a powder horn used both in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and as published on their January 15, 2019 edition. Elvis Presley is ready to help pedestrians rock'n'roll across the street in the German town of Friedberg near Frankfurt. Three traffic lights featuring his image have been placed around the town's Elvis Presley Square to commemorate the singer. While people are waiting to cross, he appears in the red light striking a pose at a microphone. When the lights go green he is shown swinging his hips in a famous dance move. Transforming traffic lights has become something of a trend in Germany, with the most famous being the Ampelmännchen in East Berlin now installed throughout the united city followed by the Kasperl character in a pointed hat in the city of Ausberg, the Mainzelmännchen in Mainz, the Beethoven traffic lights in Bonn and even the Karl Marx figures in Trier. The Deutsche Welle's official announcement that the German Police authorities in Friedburg have now installed Elvis-themed traffic lights to commemorate his having been posted there for 8 months with the US Army, and as published on their December 6, 2018 online edition. David Karns and John Grabish, since a very early age, were influenced by three kings: Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley and King Coal. They grew up, as Elvis fans, in two small Schuylkill County towns shaped by King Coal and graduated from Nativity BVM Catholic High School in the 1960s. As priests at Catholic parishes in Berks, Lehigh and Schuylkill counties, they devoted their adult lives to preaching the word of Christ the King. But Father Grabish is a solo act now. Father Karns, who last served as pastor of St. Stephen's in Port Carbon, Schuylkill County, died a year ago of cancer at age 69. Not surprisingly, he left his collection of Elvis memorabilia to Father Grabish, pastor of St. Paul and St. Joseph parishes in Reading. On Nov. 10, 2018 from 7 to 11 p.m., Father Karns' Elvis collection and other 1950s and '60s memorabilia will be auctioned during a gala in the Inn at Reading, Wyomissing whose proceeds will go to the St. Paul and St. Joseph maintenance funds. In his homily at Father Karns' funeral at St. Ambrose Church on Oct. 12, 2017, Father Grabish recalled their visits to Normandy Beach on Memorial Day in 1994, the 50th anniversary of D-Day. and, of course, to Graceland, the Sun Studio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Both priests had been celebrants in the annual Mass in observance of Elvis' death, which is held on Aug. 16 at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Memphis. Though his homily quoted the Book of Job and the Gospel of John, Grabish's most poignant tribute to his friend came as he quoted Elvis : "Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind. Memories, sweetened through the ages just like wine". Ron Devlin, writing for the Reading Eagle in an article entitled "Elvis was part of tie that bound priests as friends for decades", as published on November 3, 2018 When in 1955 Chuck Berry arrived in New York for the Alan Freed Big Rock and Roll Show, he checked into the Alvin Hotel and soon after, went over to Manhattan to meet Freed. It was from Freed that Berry heard some gossip about Elvis, but Barry told Freed that he was already aware of him. Not only had Elvis played St Louis, his hometown, but he had heard about him all over the South. The crossover popularity of Berry's music was further demonstrated when ̊"Maybelline" was covered by white jazz artists and established orchestra leaders looking to rock music for new material. Berry was surprised at the number of jazz and big band artists that liked his song. He had realized during those shows that his music and that of Elvis were in fact creating a new sound... Howard DeWitt, in his book, ElvisːThe Sun years. I started watching a lot of videos of Elvis Presley. The way he held the crowd in the palm of his hand. He also said in one of his interviews that the crowd is like sheep. They will go as directed. You have to actually own that moment so I imagined myself being Elvis Presley the next time he was on stage and it worked. Varun Dhawan, Indian actor, explaining to Zoom, how watching Elvis helped him to overcome stage fright, in an interview published on Mar 22, 2018 | I have never made no secret of my affinity for Elvis Presley. My favorite song is "Suspicious Minds.