Guitarists from the United States

"I like Brando's acting ... and ... and . Quite a few of 'em I like."

"Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to ... juvenile delinquency? If people are going to be juvenile delinquents, they're going to be delinquents if they hear ... Mother Goose rhymes."

"... I just know that, right now, ... the biggest record selling business there is is rock and roll."

"I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in."

"It just happened. I like to sing, and well, I just started singing and folks just started listening. I can't tell folks that I worked and learned and studied, and overcame disappointments, because I didn't."

"I'd like to thank the Jaycees for electing me as one of their outstanding young men. When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed, has come true a hundred times... And these gentlemen over here, these are the type of people who care, they're dedicated, and they realize that it is possible that they might be building the kingdom of heaven, it's not just too far fetched, from reality. I'd like to say that I learned very early in life that "Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain't got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend — without a song." So I keep singing a song. Goodnight. Thank you."

"The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn't know what all the yelling was about. I didn't realize that my body was moving. It's a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, "What'd I do? What'd I do?" And he said, "Whatever it is, go back and do it again.""

"The image is one thing and the human being is another...it's very hard to live up to an image."

"Man, I was tame compared to what they do now. Are you kidding? I didn't do anything but just jiggle."

"A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It's my favorite part of the business — live concerts."

"'To judge a man by his weakest link or deed is like judging the power of the ocean by one wave.'"

"'There is a season for everything, patience will reward you and reveal all answers to your questions.'"

"'Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.'"

"What honey? What is that? It's a sign, I can't see it, wait a minute. Oh, thank you darlin', thank you very much. Oh, thank you. The thought is beautiful dear, and I love you for it, but I, I haven't been caught up in this thing and I can't accept this kingship thing because to me there's only one, which is Christ."

"I had too much praise, too much flattery and fawning over and I needed to remember who I was, where I came from. One time I called a relative in Tupelo. It was Christmas and they were havin' dinner. I asked, 'What?' and she was kind of quiet, then said, 'Meat loaf.' I was shocked as we'd had the best, you know, turkey, ham, steak, everything. She said that it was near the first and they'd run out of money so they just had meat loaf. It hurt me. and so, I ate meat loaf for about eight months, every night, so I'd remember where I came from and to remind me of how many people were unable to have what I did. It was kind of a penance..."

"I'm strictly for [Adlai] Stevenson. I don't dig the intellectual bit, but I'm telling you man, he knows the most."

"Baby, if I made you mad For something I might have said, Please, let's forget the past, The future looks bright ahead. Don't be cruel to a heart that's true. I don't want no other love, Baby it's just you I'm thinking of."

"When you looked into my eyes, I stood there like I was hyp-notized. You sent a feeling to my spine, A feeling warm and smooth and fine. But all I could do were stand there paralyzed. When we kissed, ooh what a thrill, You took my hand and, ooh baby, what a chill. I felt like grabbin' you real tight, Squeeze and squeeze with all my might. But all I could do were stand there paralyzed."

"A well I bless my soul What's wrong with me? I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree. My friends say I'm actin' wild as a bug. I'm in love, I'm all shook up. Mm mm oh, oh, yeah, yeah!"

"The way she held your hand, The little things you planned. Her memory is with you yet, That's someone you'll never forget."

"Sweetheart we're alone And you are mine. Let's make this night a night to remember. Don't make our love a cold dying ember, For with the dawn, you'll be gone."

"Love me tender, love me sweet, Never let me go."

"The only thing black people can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my music."

"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........."

"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"

"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!”"

"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."

"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..."

"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 , 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."

"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."

"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."

"I hate that I missed Elvis and I wish I would have had a chance to see him"

"Black culture has historically pioneered music, dance, fashion, and it’s then been emarketed as Elvis (Presley) or whatever....."

"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...."

"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."

"In an era when radio stations refused to play Chuck Berry songs, calling it “race music”, Elvis broke down barriers."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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...."

"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."

"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."

"It embodies everything I look for in a tune, simple and striking at the same time"

"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"

"Obama is like Elvis, there will always be demand for impersonators of such popular and historical people."

"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. ..."

"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."

"Unbelievable! To hear my father grouped together with Elvis Presley, William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, it's a dream."

"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."

"After doing ‘Dr. No’ with , the brass at Paramount proposed that I co-star with Elvis. At first I turned the offer down, mainly because after having dated , 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 , 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."

"Beto, he's a rock star right now, he's Elvis Presley,"

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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 Buckingham to Davis."

"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."

"( After a year of playing Elvis Presley on the screen), is still talking like him Not a bad person to be stuck talking like. Unfortunately, his next project is "The Jerry Lewis Story" LOL."

""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."

"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.""

"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."

"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..."

"My cuban blood was flowing. My hips were revolving. I would have made Elvis look as if he was standing still"

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"I am the greatest contemporary artist of all-time."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 . 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.”"

"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."

"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"

"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.”"

"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.”"

"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."

"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.”"

"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.”"

"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""

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I have nothing to do with him and therefore no reply is necessary"

"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 . 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"

"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”)"

"Our son's name would be Elvis...."

"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'!”"

"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)"

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"His generosity.."

"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..."

"As 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..."

"He had a musically textured rhythmic voice that had emotional intelligence; concentrate on his voice: sweet, remorseful, defiant, suggestive."

"Ronnie James Dio, Bon Scott, Bruce Dickinson and Elvis Presley.."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"I'd have been off playing with my bow and arrow or something and 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"

"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."

"Elvis is right up there with death and taxes in things that can't be avoided,"

"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."

"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."

"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.."

"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."

"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...."

"My favourite song of all time? I like Elvis' "Love me"."

"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 was apparently so impressed that he named the spot 'The Elvis Room'."

"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.”"

"Elvis Presley is undeniably one of the most iconic and influential figures of the 20th century."

"Did you ever meet Elvis Presley?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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...."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.."

"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.”"

"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"

"Eventually, everybody has to die, except Elvis."

"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."

"Welcome to the "Veranda Suite", Elvis Presley used to stay here..."

"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" ""

""Cant's help falling in love" it shall be"

"Elvis Presley movies – I'm a big Elvis fan – although I don't think you should feel guilty about pleasures."

"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,"

"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”--"

"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.'"

"Elvis Was A Democrat"

"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"

"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."

"(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."

"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..."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Record producer Phil Spector, who is currently serving his sentence for the 2003 shooting death of actress ,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."

"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."

"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."

"He had an amazing charisma, was so passionate about what he did, and the people could feel it."

"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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"I identify a lot with Elvis. He was a loyal guy and love his style of singing."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Like a bloated Elvis"

"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."

"We've drafted people who are far, far more important than he is."

"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."

"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..."

"My celebrity crush was Elvis Presley. I got to first meet him with George at Madison Square Garden in 1972."

"To have Elvis come home, so to speak during this bicentennial year for the state he was born into is very exciting,"

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"A supplicant asks priest and television star Father Gavlin "Who is more pupular, the Pope or Elvis Presley?" The question is rhetorical..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.."

"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..."

"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."

"That's when the price of art really started going up...."

"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,"

"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"

"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.""

"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."

"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..."

"Well, they were , , , , and ...."

"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"

"Imagine Elvis with a master's degree performing a whole set about mandatory staff meetings."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Elvis Presley, at age 13"

"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 . 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"

"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.""

"His death is like that of Elvis Presley."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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:"

"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!!!.""

"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."

"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 ."

"He was the only man from Northern Mississippi who could shake his hips, and still be loved by rednecks, cops and hippies."

"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."

"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....."

"He had a love for God, his family, the congregation and a true reverence of Elvis Presley."

"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?"

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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..."

"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)"

"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..."

"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."

"Burroughs is "The Elvis of Letters!"

"He's Elvis. We've found Elvis and he looks like Tiger."

"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.""

"You Memphis politicians had better watch out if Elvis Presley ever decides to enter politics."

"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."

"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. It’s hard to have the whole world looking at you."

"I heard Elvis Presley and I knew what my life was meant to be."

"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."

"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.”"

"I've got nothing on the King"

"Mile is a lot like Elvis Presley, she has a great style and her hairstyle is the best in this tournanament"

"Why can't you see, what you're doing to me...."

"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."

"Elvis Presley? I can't see that he has any talent."

"You got Elvis and David Bowie … they’re my heroes. It’s clear to me that Elvis was an opera singer"

"It was weird to play Elvis when I was 42, knowing that he died at that same age. TCB, baby!"

"His life took a major turn at the age of 10, when listening to Radio Luxembourg and he heard Elvis Presley."

"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....."

"I didn't see a color, he wasn't white, he wasn't black... he was Elvis."

"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...."

"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."

"The Camarón Island is for San Fernando what Elvis Presley is to Memphis"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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'"

"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""

"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."

"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 new-found 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."

"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."

"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."

"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, every one 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Not yet, your Holiness, but I soon will,"

"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"

"I listen to a lot of Elvis Presley. He is one of my favorite musicians of all time."

"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.”"

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"Hey Elvis, how's Vegas?"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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"."

"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.'"

"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..."

"’s partnership with 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."

"If the worst thing (any one) can say about me is that I am like Mick Jagger and Elvis, I must be doing something right"

"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 awhile. 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."

""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."

"I've always loved Elvis, how he entertained, how he performed, so that's where I try and take inspiration from"

"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...."

"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"

"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." --"

"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..."

"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."

"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""

"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..."

"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.”"

"He looked like a prince from another planet, narrow-eyed, with high Indian cheek bones 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 , a , a , 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."

"He as such a nice person, when I found out he died, I really was saddened"

"Take me, take me..."

"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."

"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....."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"One year I met President Eisenhower, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and thought I had met all the important people in the world.,."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Elvis Presley is widely regarded as the most significant global cultural icon of the 20th century."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 approched 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..."

"Elvis Presley has had an unprecedented and lasting global impact on music and pop culture and I, along with the Universal Music Publishing Group teams around the world, couldn’t be more excited and honoured to work with the in making sure that Elvis’ iconic legacy endures for generations to come."

"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."

"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.”"

"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"

"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."

"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"."

"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."

"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-."

""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"."

"He was a fantastic Monty Pythom fan. He would watch us, while seated in bed with his wife,and do our sketches while simultaneously having to learn all the dialogue."

"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."

"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.."

"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."

"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."

"The "Shrine" Auditorium in Los Angeles, was his first California stop, then Long Beach. He's the cat man..."

"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""

"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."

"Elvis is the greatest blues singer in the world today."

"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. ."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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..."

"This sound is like burnished gold, it shines. In Elvis's voice the ants will hear manifest destiny."

"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..."

"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...."

"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 wasnt 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."

"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.""

"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."

"Elvis was danger, and passion and sex, and he broke all those barriers."

"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."

"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."

"The black leather concert from Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special"

"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."

"Prince had great respect for Elvis, the Bar Keys, Al Green and the influence on the music world from the Memphis' sound."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Well, I love Elvis Presley."

"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.”"

"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."

"Elvis Presley all the way. He was my hero when I was seven and remains so to this day"

"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."

"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...."

"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...."

"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."

"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...."

"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..."

"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."

"Elvis is the SUN, the progenitor of rock. So it's Elvis, Dylan and Cobain.."

"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."

"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 , 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..."

"Well, I mention this in very close proximity to 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"

"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."

"Such was his star power, that I would compare him with Elvis Presley"

"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"

"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."

"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.."

"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.'"

"He was was very funny and had charisma that was bigger than life. I enjoyed our friendship."

"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."

"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.,"

"I met Elvis only once and I figure him for a pretty nice guy. And as to music, I really dig his stuff."

"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."

"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."

"I never went through the Elvis period."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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'"

"We should do it right now. You want a little bit of Elvis? "One for the money, two for the show..."

"Yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis, and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard"

"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!!!"

"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?"

"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."

"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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

""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."

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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""

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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"

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"Screw them all, you can't go on like this."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"He loved all of the well-known performers, but the one that really brought him out of his shell was Elvis Presley."

"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..."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"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...."

"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."

"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?"

"That is really amazing"

"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""

"I think he’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen since Elvis. I love him"

"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."

"Well, Elvis of course! What an extraordinary question!"

"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."

"Before becoming an artist, 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."

"Only I know if there was romance or not"

"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..."

""Happy Xmas" by John Lennon "A Marshmallow World" by Dean Martin and "White Christmas" by Elvis Presley."

"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."

"But then there's Elvis. I love Elvis Presley, in a totally non-ironic way."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 and , 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...."

"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."

"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."

"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.."

"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..."

"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?”"

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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"."

"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..."

"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."

"I have never made no secret of my affinity for Elvis Presley. My favorite song is "Suspicious Minds. I first got into Elvis after discovering a longtime associate provost, who was an avid Elvis collector, was retiring. So, one night I dressed up as Elvis and sang at her retirement party. Here's the interesting thing: I put on the Elvis outfit and parents flock to me and want to take a picture, but their kids didn't recognized me"

"I went down to Vegas, had never met him, I was awed, amazing live performer, electric, and halfway through the show he introduced me and it was like, worshiping a God, and then that God says, hey stand up, take a bow, so I stood up and the audience started to cheer, and some telling me to get on the stage with him. Over the years, I thought of it, but I am glad I didn't, it wouldn't have been a good idea. He was warm, very generous to me and I think it was best left at that."

"That is going to be my Elvis dress, Catherine"

"Two uniquely American art forms spawned in the 20th century were comic books and rock n' roll. But before that, in the early 1940s, the Captain Marvel comics became so popular that he even outsold those of Superman for several years. So, the character's publisher decided to create a spin-off hero and one of the new Captain Marvel Jr. comics' most ardent fans was a young boy named Elvis Aaron Presley. So when did he exactly come across it? No one is sure but a copy of 1947's Captain Marvel Jr. #51 is placed on the desk in the recreation of his childhood room at Memphis' Lauderdale Courts housing complex. There are the other clues: Elvis' early haircut seems very much based on that of Freddie Freeman from his late '40s period. Elvis' signature "half capes" worn on stage also seem very inspired by those worn by the teenage hero. And the insignia for Elvis' core rhythm section, the TCB band? It's a very Shazam-esque lightning logo. These all point to direct homages to the superhero he grew up loving the most. And in turn, ever since it was revealed how much Elvis loved Captain Marvel Jr., the comics themselves have returned that inspiration. In the 2000s era Teen Titans series, Captain Marvel Jr. was described as a big Elvis fan. Another famous homage took place in DC's seminal graphic novel Kingdom Come, where we get a glimpse of a future version of Captain Marvel, Jr., whom artist Alex Ross specifically designed to look just like '70s-era Elvis. He even named the character "King Shazam," as a tribute to him. So, will Jack Dylan Grazer pay homage to Elvis in Shazamǃǃ, the movie? Unknown, but if it were to happen, it would sure be in keeping with tradition."

"I was 11 when he died and that's when I saw King Creoleǃǃ What a guyǃǃ The moment I got to school I spent the whole day imitating him. It was like a rocking pneumonia."

"He arrived on the scene when the young needed a romantic image. He filled the bill and on top of that, he can sing."

"Tonight, I want to introduce the greatest entertainer of all time. Mr. Elvis Presley. He was Las Vegas and if it wasn't for him, so many performers like myself would not have the chance to do what we do in this town. He really was the king.”"

"Marilyn (Monroe) and Elvis each defined what it means to be a ‘Category of One,’"

"That ran its course and rock ’n roll came round, Elvis Presley happened and that changed the whole thing. So that was the advent of proper rock ’n roll..."

"I feel like I'm not the only rapper here, Elvis was like a rapper, wore fancy clothes, he drove a Cadillac!!""

"I fell in love with this song, mostly because of Elvis' superior voice, not really thinking about the true meaning behind the lyrics, but rather how the title relates to the music genre I play as DJ house music."

"Reflecting on (Lebron James)'s impact of social media, former teammate and San Antonio Spurs champion Danny Green highlighted how the digital age has altered the reverence once associated with (sport) figures like Michael Jordan,Green observed, “That aura, I saw it a lot earlier on. When he was in Cleveland, he was a rockstar. By the time we got to L.A., when he was in Miami, they had so much access to him, people didn’t idolize him as much, and they criticize ( him).” This sentiment echoes beyond basketball, affecting modern-day pop stars and actors. Where legends like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley once captivated with their mystery, today’s celebrities must navigate constant exposure."

"Some people I cannot even imagine with a beard. Elvis Presley comes to mind. I thought Elvis with a beard would be very strange, then I did an Internet search and by golly there they were, a plethora of young Elvis Presley images in photographs with beards and mustaches. How does a child of the sixties like me not remember Elvis with a beard? Shoot, somedays I can't remember what I ate for breakfast. or my last bowel movement. As usual when I speak of Elvis Presley's physical appearance I throw out a kind of disclaimer. Look, I am a flaming heterosexual male but that Elvis was one handsome dude.."

"Oh God, help!!!! it has to be exquisite"

"I grаvitаted towаrd good old rock ‘n’ roll, аnd I still do to this dаy. Some of Elvis Presley’s songs chаnged my life аnd helped ne become the musiciаn I am now. Thаt wаs the kind of stuff thаt mаde me wаnt to sing"

"It was amazing when the assistant director knocks on the door of my dressing room trailer and he comes in, and right there, behind him in the doorway stands Elvis Presley. It was unbelievable. So Elvis gets into the trailer and he introduces himself first to my Mom, the gentleman that he was, and then he introduces himself to me and I'm telling you the man was totally gracious as can be and again that's pretty much the essence of Elvis, he was gracious, understated, humble genuine, he was a true gentleman from the old school, in fact so understated that he really listened to you. He was the genuine article. I tell you towards the end of the production, I had turned nine years old and they had a little surprise birthday for me on the set and Elvis was there. My nephew who was about the same age and was my stand was there also, so Elvis bought me gifts for my birthday and GAVE my nephew gifts too so that HE wouldn't feel left out. And I thought that was awesome..."

"His was the one voice I wish to have had, of all those emanating from singers in the popular music field."

"i) When I was playing at the Flamingo Hotel, in 1969, I went to his room and played for him. I remember him telling me, “You know, Fats, I’m opening up tomorrow but when I first came here I flopped!" But when he got back there it was all gold and every night it was sold out. Boy, he could sing. He could sing spirituals, country and western, everything he sang I liked. Elvis Presley did a lot before he passed. He made movies, he was traveling, everything. I don't see how he did it; you'd have to stay up day and night. ii) Elvis came to see me before he got a record deal. I liked him. I liked to hear him sing. He was just starting out, almost. He wasn't dressing up. Matter of fact, he had plain boots on. He wasn't wearing all those fancy clothes. He told me he flopped the first time he came to Las Vegas. I loved his music. He could sing anything. And he was a nice fellow, shy. His face was so pretty, so soft. I'm glad we took this picture."

"One day, I got a phone call and the guy said "Hey look what Elvis Presley has done, he's covered your masterpiece". I was all shook up, first because I was his fan, and also because I would do covers of his songs, albeit in my terrible English. Years later, I went to Graceland and saw the RIAA Award for "You don't have to say you love me" and naturally, I again felt so honoured."

"And we do what we like to call “crockers”, whenever Elvis Presley dies or congressman so and so die, a statement of accomplishments, condolences, regrets, and whatnot. I did the one on Elvis Presley. Rex Granum said they were getting a lot of calls in the press office, and they wanted one, so I leaned heavily on his being a humble young man from obscure beginnings who nevertheless went off to serve his country without complaint at the very height of his fame and fortune, as a truck driver in the German motor pool. Anyway, that didn’t work as I had planned. Rex still insisted on doing a crocker so Rick Hertzburg finally did one."

"When they celebrated the 10th anniversary of his death, it was more like a canonization, people lining up to visit Graceland, both women and men, with tears in their eyes..."

"Elvis, what he had was this unique quality, remember I described the sensation of people in that geographic location of the United States at that particular time being a mixed culture artistically? They were playing country, gospel, jazz and the blues and you did not know whether they were black or white, or who's playing what, because you're not looking at a tube, all you're doing is listening to a radio, and they are so good at emulating each other's styles that you don't know what's happening. Elvis blotted up as close as any white man could, the black culture. And he was sensitive to the black culture. If he heard something that he fancied doing and it was white, he didn't make it sound black. If it was black, he didn't make it sound white. He kept it in its tradition. That was one of Elvis' unique facilities."

"What he actually did was take 'black' and 'white' music and transform them into this third thing; (in the final analysis), no one sang so many different kinds of music – rock, gospel, country, standards –, as well as Presley sang them, at such a high level, and for such a long time."

"Radio Head, Harry Styles, and Elvis Presley— that is the wide range of genres likely responsible for my sound and style of writing."

"Is music fandom a realm of spiritual practice? Do fans use their connections with heroes to adopt practices like veneration, sanctification or idolatry? While appearing to be magical and important social figures, stars are not necessarily deified. In the two decades since I started researching Elvis fandom, I have never met anyone who was “saved” or redeemed by Elvis Presley. On the other hand, I have met many fans that have been seduced, fascinated, empowered and inspired by his music. They all say that he has changed their lives for the better, but none expect heavenly rewards because of their fandom. Elvis loved gospel and used it to enter the mainstream. Despite his own intentions, he did not, however, practice “worship” music. His fans respected his values, some saying that Elvis used his music as a God-given gift, in part because the reading aligns Elvis’ values with his talents......."

"I take offence at being accused of being Bono or Prince — I would have thought Elvis was more appropriate."

"I just love Elvis"

"In a survey taken in 1996, a sampling of Chinese people were asked to name three famous Westerners. They chose Jesus, Nixon and Elvis. The Chinese, the most closed society over the last half century knew about Elvis? Oh yes, they knew. In fact, that same year, a NYT reporter attending a Chinese US summit, spoke of the time when the Chinese leader , then visiting the Philippines, proceeded to do a duet, in perfect English, of "Love me tender" his partner being his host, President Fidel Ramos."

"Elvis wore a halo. Otis Redding did, too. You knew you were playing with a star when you played with them."

"Kim Jong-il was obsessed with Elvis Presley, his mansion crammed with his idol's records and his collection of 20,000 Hollywood movies included Presley's titles. He even copied the King's Vegas-era look of giant shades, jumpsuits and bouffant hairstyle."

"Well, you might have known trouble was coming if you were here in 1957. That was the year Elvis Presley paid us a visit. I think we might have made him famous, too.""

"i) When I first heard Elvis' voice, I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. ii) Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun didn't think much of my songs. He produced some great records, no question about it, like Ray Charles, Ray Brown, just to name a few. But Sam Phillips, he recorded Elvis and Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Radical eyes that shook the very essence of humanity. Revolution in style and scope. Heavy shape and color. Radical to the bone. Songs that cut you to the bone. Renegades in all degrees, doing songs that would never decay, and still resound to this day. Oh, yeah, I'd rather have Sam Phillips' blessing any day. iii) You feel like an impostor, when someone says something you know you're not, like you're a prophet, or a saviour. Elvis, yes, I could easily want to become him. iv) I went over my whole life. I went over my whole childhood. I didn't talk to anyone for a week after Elvis died. If it wasn't for Elvis and Hank Williams, I couldn't be doing what I do today. v) When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' I thank God for Elvis. vi) I liked Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine. That's the one recording I treasure the most ... it was called "Tomorrow Is a Long Time." I wrote it but never recorded it."

"I remember him working on the next stage, always with an entourage of about 15 guys. And I also recall that everybody was doing fast draw – that was the gimmick then. Who was the fastest gun? I was particularly good at it and I can remember taking on Elvis. He was a good guy. And we knew each other and, at that time, we both felt were on the brink of really going somewhere. I get a kick out of my wife, who is quite a few years younger. She’ll say, ‘Did you know Elvis Presley?’ I’ll say, ‘Sure’ She’ll look at some old picture of me and say, ‘What a babe!’ (Laughs) We were all hanging around at the same time, in the 1950s. We were all here in town, and all struggling in various things. I was doing Rawhide. There was a camaraderie among the younger group."

"He's one of the three greatest of all-time along with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley."

"In 1971, at a hotel, he treated me like a peer, just a great guy. So cool, great manners. I had seen him first in Phoenix in 1956, and we sat at the Grand Stand at the Fairgrounds, so girls are climbing on top of the fence. And then a car enters through the race track, stops, girls are going crazy, Then nothing, until the door pops open and he gets out and on to the stage, starts singing, man that was exciting., What a great way to come in a show. I was country, but seeing this, I turned into rock, because Elvis was the one who defined and made it huge."

"He was a lovely, lovely human being, gentle, kind, and I loved his music."

"A musician who also felt the power of Presley's Madison Square Garden shows was Paul Stanley, the rhythm guitarist and primary lead vocalist of the rock band Kiss who, as a struggling musician and part-time cab driver at night took numerous customers to, and from the Garden during the three days of Presley's NYC engagement. Hearing about and feeling the excitement directly from those who shared his numerous rides made him think very seriously about his future career, promising himself to one day fill the Garden, something which he accomplished with his band in early February 1977, some 5 months before Presley's death."

"I was talking with Elvis' manager, and he said, ‘Come on up to my room, and you can meet him.’ I've had people up to my room when I've been on the road who have turned out to be boors, and I didn't want to do that to him. So I said, ‘No, but thank you.’ I figured since we also had the same promoter that I'd be bound to run into him — but then, of course, he died three or four months later so I never did get to meet him."

"He could sing good. An enormous talent, he had an ability to stir peoples"

"Elvis Presley has only become more legendary in recent years with so many films and documentaries about his iconic life. Let's face it — he's the one who showed us all how rock stardom was done from the start.”"

"He was a very happy, joyous kid, great to be around. He had an ability to stir people's souls, an enormous talent. Needless for me to say that he was very dear to my heart"

"The myth makes it bigger but when you go in there, you know where you are. I've been in many places bigger than that and it ain't the same""

"I ask him what it's like to know that he's now part of a franchise that will outlive him. It's an impossible question for him to answer, and when he does it, he endears himself to me forever by quoting Lester Bangs’s 1977 obituary for Elvis Presley, which doubled as a eulogy for the community bred by shared reverence. “At the end of it, Bangs is like, ‘We’re not gonna ever have this again, so instead of saying goodbye to Elvis, I’ll say goodbye to you,’ ”"

"I can remember sitting in front of my television set at age 25 and watching the Elvis special. I already knew that I could never do what he did as an artist, but seeing that show had a great deal to do with my dreams of having a career in television production."

"When I was seven years old, I saw Elvis Presley on TV. That hit me as to why I wanted to play music. Through a succession of different instruments, I ended up with the guitar. Then when I was 24, I heard my first mandolin player, Jethro Burns, at a bluegrass festival in Indiana. Those two and Bill Monroe, of course, were my main, early influences."

"My girlfriends and I are writing all the way from Montana. We think it's bad enough to send Elvis Presley to the army, but if you cut his sideburns off, we will just die. You don't know how we feel about him, I really don't see why you have to send him in the Army at all, but we beg you please please don't give him a G.I. hair cut, oh please please don't! If you do, we will just about die!"

"Some of the mossbacks of our city, who haven't had a youthful thought since the Civil War, say that rock and roll music is the theme song of juvenile delinquency and that Elvis Presley is making ‘dead end kids’ out of the whole generation. Nothing could be more idiotic. It is supposed to be perfectly all right for every bald-headed man in American to drool as Marilyn Monroe goes slithering across the pages of our time on the arm of husband number three. But the very moment that youth dance and Elvis shakes his left leg a bit, it's supposed to be juvenile delinquency of the worst sort."

"Rock n' roll won't last. Labels don't make money on long play albums. No single artist is worth $35,000. That's what the majority believed when Elvis Presley signed on RCA's dotted line and released his debut self-titled album in March of 1956. The bulk of RCA ’s rock n’ roll gamble was recorded in Nashville and augmented with a few previously unreleased SUN selections to round out the platter. I could argue that the chemistry between Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black was put through the washin' machine once the Blue Moon Boys went to RCA– but I'd probably lose the debate. Even for hardcore rockabilly enthusiasts who consider SUN the alpha and omega, it's hard to fault the version of “Money Honey” or lambast the album's cover of Ray Charles' iconic (if misogynistic) “I Got A Woman”. The crown jewel of the album is the lead track, “Blue Suede Shoes”. In fact, Elvis Presley became the first rock n' roll album to sell a million copies, shattering industry notions, establishing Elvis as the genre's first megastar, and for good or ill, changed popular music forever after."

"Now tell me all about Elvis Presley? Will he come to England?'""

"Any president who wants to be a king - he should go to another country if he wants to be a king. We don't have kings here. Only Elvis"

"And here this entity was standing in the doorway, this black suit on, and there was absolutely a dead silence in the room, just like somebody had sucked all of the air out of it. And he came in and stood behind a chair, and Dad got up and walked around and shook hands with him, and he sat down at the end of the table. And then the sergeant-at-arms from the legislature, they were meeting in a joint session, which meant that the Senate and the House of Representatives all came together there. And the galleries were filled with people screaming. And when the sergeant-of-arms came down and said it was time for Dad and Elvis to go on upstairs to the legislature, that was when Elvis came up and sat down next to me, the sergeant-of-arms said, 'Okay, time to go,' Elvis says, 'You're going, aren't you?' And I said, 'No, I'm not gonna be a part of this'. And he says, 'Yeah, I need for you to go'. And I said, 'I don't think I'm supposed to go. There's not seats arranged up there for me, and seats were a premium, believe me'. And he said, 'Yeah, you've got to go'. He grabs my hand, and Dad gives the nod, it's okay, go ahead, you know. And here we go, out through the crowd, down the hallway, up the steps, and then into the opening, and the Speaker of the House, Mr. James Bomar announced that Elvis Presley would be presented to the House of Representatives. At first I was somewhat nervous around him. I mean the persona was so immense, you know. And then it didn't take long though, when he became comfortable with you, that all of that just dissipated. And it was just like you had known him forever..."

"Having those voices surround me as I sang was the most indescribable feeling I had ever experienced. Now I understand why this means so much to you."

"In January 1971, I was attending a conference on the 10 Outstanding Young Men of America, which that year was held in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis Presley was one of the ten being honored and then-congressman George H.W. Bush was the guest speaker. At the end of the program, Bush ran up to Presley and shook his hand. I was able to photograph the encounter. So years later I said, "Oh my gosh. I was right up there on Elvis but I didn’t realize how important Bush was going to be. I met Presley later at the conference and hoped to get a photo with him, but I got his autograph instead. The truth is I wimped at the last moment when I met him that night in the receiving line..."

"I was fourteen when I met him and took photos of him. One morning, I persuaded my mother to drive before daylight to where I believed Elvis was filming on location. A pink Cadillac with Tennessee plates, parked outside of an unassuming house told me my hunch was right. Elvis suddenly strolled out and up to me and began nonchalantly chatting. He had an amazing aura as he almost seemed to float, not walk towards me. I then told him about how neighborhood kids had made fun of my adulation for him. The blood rushed to my head and I could feel myself blushing as my mother blurted out to Elvis, "Oh, you have no idea how many days he would come home from school having been in fights to defend you!" "I'll teach you something to take care of that," Elvis grinned. "Karate?" I asked. "Yeah. "Well, I had no idea what karate really was. I only knew the term because I had read so much about Elvis' fascination with the sport. I had some idea that it had to do with judo. He never mentioned the offer when I saw him over the next month or so. As we sat around and chatted Elvis' moods seemed to roller coaster regularly. Oh, he was always friendly, always sweet but you could see lonely wash up regularly. All these years later, I am still starry-eyed as I fondly remember the softly spoken and seemingly shy Elvis behaving like a comforting big brother."

"As a teenager in England, the first record I ever owned was a 78rpm copy of Elvis' Tutti Frutti/Blue Suede Shoes. I became a huge fan and was always first in line at my local record store to buy his new singles. To me he was the absolute epitome of a star. He never toured in the UK, so in 1969, when I was on the road with Jethro Tull, we made the pilgrimage from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to see his performance at the International Hotel. That evening stands out as a milestone event in my life."

"Elvis' manager whose real name was Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk, was an illegal immigrant with a dubious history, who adopted the guise of a Southern gentleman with the name 'Colonel Tom Parker, then concealed his origins and further exploited Elvis, a genuine good-hearted talented young man from Tupelo Mississippi."

"To quote Elvis Presley my favorite artist, "Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you.""

"After his midnight show on August 24, 1974, tired of the racist implications inherent in the white angels mounted on the huge walls of the Hilton Showroom, Elvis used a ladder and with the help of , proceeded to paint them all black, save for one, who he said represented Jerry, then in a serious relationship with one of his backing singers, Myrna Smith of the African American group the . He then also painted one of the decorative eighteenth century, court-of-Louis-XIV ladies also hanging on the showroom wall black, to represent Myrna. On the next day and in nearly all of the succeeding shows, he jokingly compared himself to Michelangelo, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Hilton management, which had nothing to do with the placing of the angels and or the ladies, this being done by the art designers hired by the previous management under Kirk Kerkorian, could only listen..."

"I think because he’s kind of this godlike figure and he’s larger than life, the most interesting thing to me was finding this little boy in him - because he’s kind of stunted, because he became so massive, sort of so quickly."

"With a name that blends two of the most famous musical legends of all time, Elvis Marley Aparecido Bittencourt is not just a footballer — he’s a walking tribute to Elvis Presley and Bob Marley. It’s a name that sounds like a concert tour more than a footballer’s, but that’s exactly what makes it so special. Elvis Marley played with a rock-star flair that made his name both fun and unforgettable. A footballer who embodies two musical icons in his name? That’s Brazilian football at its quirkiest."

"For Mrs. Clinton to suggest I was telling Barbara Bush personal stories about the Clintons is extreme paranoia. First, I would never ever do such a thing, and second, anyone who knows Barbara Bush knows she would never tolerate or listen to such nonsense. What was interesting was Bill Clinton's allergies to Christmas trees, George H.W. Bush calling himself “Mr. Smooth," and the large collection of Elvis Presley CDs stored in the East Wing."

"I'll tell you one thing. One respect I do have for that guy was that, well, obviously he was a great artist. When I was trying to learn "Jailhouse Rock" for the "Without me" video, I was like "Man, this guy could dance!!""

"The first time I laid eyes on him was a couple of years before I met and worked with him. He got out of a white Cadillac, on his way to the theatre he had rented on Memphis, he was on the sidewalk and I was at a distance of three feet from him, and I kept walking and remember thinking that I had never seen a better looking person in my life, like if he wasn't real. He was cute..."

"So his mother Julia took him to services at the St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church in Pittsburgh every weekend, several masses back-to-back on Sunday. I filmed in that church where you see the iconostasis that includes several images of saints with gold leaf paint, in very static poses with a gesture. Those look very similar to Andy’s portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor, and even “Triple Elvis.” Many art historians believe that Andy internalized and absorbed the formal look of those icons and also the almost-glamor that they projected within his world growing up...."

"When it was announced in early 1958 that Presley had been drafted and would enter the U.S. Army, there was that rarest of all pop culture events, a moment of true grief. More important, he served as the great cultural catalyst of his period, projecting a mixed vision of humility and self-confidence, of intense commitment and comic disbelief in his ability to inspire frenzy. He inspired literally thousands of musicians—initially those more or less like-minded Southerners, from Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins on down, who were the first generation of rockabillies, and, later, people who had far different combinations of musical and cultural influences and ambitions. From John Lennon to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan to Prince, it was impossible to think of a rock star of any importance who did not owe an explicit debt to Presley."

"He personified a new form of American popular music in the mid-1950s. Rock and roll was a guitar-based sound with a strong (if loose) beat that drew equally on African American and white traditions from the southern United States, on blues, church music, and country music. Presley’s rapid rise to national stardom revealed the new cultural and economic power of both teenagers and teen-aimed media—records, radio, television, and motion pictures."

"Elvis Presley is the supreme socio-culture icon in the history of pop culture..."

"On the sunny side, there was that moment, during Pres. Trump's 2019 State of the Union address, when the place erupted with a gusty/lusty HAPPY BIRTHDAY. This was to honor a man in the audience Trump saluted for valor in surviving first the Holocaust and then the Pittsburgh “Tree of Life” massacre – and now his 81st birthday. There was nearly breakdancing and moonwalking in the balconies of Congress. Decorum be damned. We are Americans. Freedom is our bequest. Frivolity is our nature. I saw the same gusto at the Navy base in Haifa; also for an impromptu birthday. They are Israelis. Their love of life and country runs so deep they can't sit still and prefer to party, as it was that day in America. For where else but in America and Israel would a solemn occasion turn spontaneously to rock and roll? Try that in the parliaments of other countries while the leader speaks, and see who comes out alive. Instead, we insist on joy. We celebrate our freedoms through acts of whimsy. Long ago we traded in their Richard Wagner for our Elvis Presley."

"I do not think they should meet Elvis through the efforts of any newspaper representative. In my view, the meeting can only be arranged as entirely private and unpublished. It is absolutely inadvisable to allow any pressman or photographer to interview, or take pictures whilst they are in his house."

"The idea of Elvis Presley cherishing the Book of Mormon had captured the popular imagination of Latter-day Saints. The story of this book has been told by fireside speakers, classroom teachers, newspaper columnists, and an independent filmmaker. And the story continues to circulate throughout the market for “uplifting” books and social media. However, after carefully analyzing the historical opportunities for Presley to have read this volume and the handwriting throughout its pages, I affirm that Elvis Presley did not write in this Book of Mormon. A detailed presentation of the analysis with photographic evidence will be published in a forthcoming issue of BYU Studies, but my findings about the book's history, its forged signature, and its forged annotations are as of this moment, final"

"The so called “self-lecture” series meets during one day of the month, allowing anyone to give a lecture in one of our halls on any topic to do with culture — ranging from Peter the Great's insistence on exhibiting fleas at the oldest museum in Russia, the Kunstkamera all the way to arguing about the finer points of Elvis Presley's music. This is a chance not just for the audience-attendance being always free-to-learn something new and interesting but also for the orator to practice public speaking and get even more immersed in a topic of interest."

"Yes, life has taught me not to leave anything for tomorrow. I've made a list, some are personal, intimate, others are places I have to visit before I die, like going to Japan, which I did two weeks ago. And, it all actually started when I was at the intensive care unit, and all I kept thinking was that I wasn't going to make it to see Elvis' house."

"In keeping with the spirit of the week, Senator Ernst introduced the "Cost Openness and Spending Transparency Act (COST Act) after a report released this week from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified several government projects which did not follow the guidelines, incluiding a $90,000 NIH study focused on a sour cream and onion flavored potato chip resembling Elvis Presley."

"When I visited Graceland, I expected rhinestones and shag carpet. I didn’t expect to be emotionally moved. As I toured the house, I found myself increasingly wrapped up in the story of Elvis’s private life. Graceland uses iPads and headphones for self-guided tours, which provide narration, archival images and options that allow you to learn more about each room. I hadn’t fully appreciated how versatile Elvis was as an artist — or how young. He recorded his first song at 18, and by 23 he was already a global star. And by 42, he was gone. As I made my way through the complex, I was struck by the epic scale of Elvis’s short-but-eventful life. In just 42 years, Elvis made more than 30 films, performed over 1,600 live shows and built a fan base that spanned the globe. The tour gave me a sense for his charisma, kindness and crowd-pleasing charm, but also the fatigue, the pressure and the toll of his relentless fame. For me, the most moving part of the tour was the Meditation Garden, Elvis’s final resting place. He is buried there alongside his parents, grandmother and a memorial to his stillborn twin brother. The space is quiet with flowers, fountains and a low stone wall that curves around the graves. After all the flash and fame on display, this part of Graceland tells a more personal story, one that feels unexpectedly tender.Before going to Graceland, I thought I had a pretty clear picture of Elvis, from his early stardom to Vegas glitz. But being there added layers I didn’t expect. Graceland is not just a museum about a musician: it’s a window into a unique American life and a reflection of the era that shaped it."

"I would occasionally miss the bus that took me from my post back to my living quarters. When that happened, a fellow soldier in my battalion, the most celebrated soldier in the Army, Elvis Presley, who lived a few doors away would offer me a ride. And despite all the hoopla surrounding his military service, he remained remarkably humble and grounded. I'd first met him at Fort Hood in Texas and saw each other every day while we finished training in a M48 tank battalion. After six months, our company was then shipped off to Germany. There Elvis lived a few doors from me. In fact, throngs of German girls camped out in front of his residence. If he revealed in all the attention, he didn’t show it, was kind of on the shy side and wasn’t one to shout out, ‘I’m Elvis Presley the superstar.’ He just kind of kept to himself. But keeping to himself also didn't mean he was aloof. Out in the field, he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty and never shied away from the work that was expected of him, and the rest of the tank company. After our two-year enlistment ended we parted ways and wouldn't see each other again until 1972, a short time before he was to play a concert at the old Chicago Stadium. I knew a Chicago police watch commander who was working security that night and although the police tried to stop us, my wife and I, from getting backstage at first, Elvis saw them and talked with them for a few minutes. It was the last time we would see or talk to him."

"In 1982, we went to Washington DC, and did the tour of the FBI Building, visited Pres. Kennedy's grave at Arlington Memorial and had our pictures taken outside the White House. From there we went to Graceland. Pablo loved Elvis. While we were there he bought his entire record collection. From that moment on, he played his tapes all the time, even danced like him. In 1991, when we first surrendered to the Colombian Army authorities, that collection was one of the few things he took to prison with him. When we escaped from prison a year later, we could not take it with us even if we had wanted to. The reason? It had been just stolen by a jail mate, something Pablo deeply regretted..."

"i) And as a human being? As long as I live, I know I will never see anyone have such a profound effect on people. He could make anyone feel like he was the most important person in the world just by talking with him. He had charisma and charm that is just indescribable and he didn't even have to sing. When Elvis entered a room, you could feel the energy of his presence tingle at your nerves because the power of his magnetism was that intense and Elvis was just as perplexed by this phenomenon as you or I. He was a humble man but keenly aware of his unique gifts and spent most of his life searching the spirituality, over and over throughout his life asking himself, Why me? Since his death I have asked myself the same question, “why me?” and why, of all the people Elvis met in the service, did he pay special attention to me? In fact, why was I even in the Army? Did destiny lead me into the Army for the sole purpose of meeting Elvis Presley? Why was I selected to become “right hand man to the most celebrated entertainer in history, and to be chosen by Elvis Presley as a best man at his wedding? ii) When you worked for Elvis it wasn’t eight hours a day or 10 hours a day. It was 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because we did everything together. went on vacations together, traveled together. Everything we ever did we all did it together."

""I was in Washington studying music and wanted to meet the perfect boyfriend, get married, etc. But for some reason I also wanted to visit a convent in Nashville but had no money to finance the trip, so a friend who was going to Graceland to pay her respects offered me a ride and, as a result and thank God for Elvis, I became a nun!!"

"Alemayehu Eshete is one of the most popular singers to emerge from the golden age of music in the capital Addis Ababa. His “rock n roll funk” stylings and Elvis manner of dress and way of acting has given him “dint of rampant Americanism,” as well as the nickname of The Ethiopian Elvis,"

"Well, Jesus and I are Capricorns, and Elvis Presley was born on the same day as me. I read an article the other day about only children and about they being more successful because they never have to compete for love,"

"By virtue of Elvis Presley being Mississippi's most beloved son."

"It had been expected for a half a million dollars to be raised from the music festival which included appearances by Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, the Staple Singers, the Dells and others, including the Rolling Stones. With the money raised, plans had been made to use part of it for some work to be done on the Robert F. Kennedy Park and Playground in Fayette. More than 47 years later, the then Mayor Charles Evers finally revealed that Presley, who along with the Stones did not participate in the festival, had wanted to come and perform there, especially because of his being a huge follower of B.B. King. Evers said he and his brother, Medgar, fought for change because they knew Mississippi would be the greatest state in the nation if that change took place. With the nomination of Evelyn Gandy, James Hardy, Aaron Henry, Ida B. Wells and Elvis he now believes Mississippi is one of the greatest states to live in..."

"I guess I should have set a price before I set foot in the boat, but I felt pretty ritzy later that day as we stepped into our gondola. "How much to sing "O Sole Mio?" I asked. I had been taken with the song and Venice since seeing it in movies. If there was one piece of music associated with Venice and its canals, it was this. I knew that Pavarotti had recorded it. So had Caruso. And Mario Lanza. And Elvis Presley, recently released from the Army, had a version written for him called "It's Now Or Never." Without missing a beat the gondolieri told me, "Sixty dollars, U.S." He put his oar in the water and we splashed off. He was a pretty good singer, actually, and I imagined that we were in an old MGM Technicolor musical. My wife Roz was smiling and I was thinking, Yeah, this is a magical moment. I thought about imagining this moment from the time I was growing up in Brooklyn, and that I probably never would have wanted anything better. When we had gotten married all those years before, taking a gondola on a Venice canal, listening to "O Sole Mio" and "It's now or never", it wasn't something I even dared consider. It would have been a fantasy. Now, I was living that fantasy as we held hands and he wound up with a full-throated last note. When the sail ended, I peeled off three twenty-dollar bills, and thanked him. We walked away, humming."

"I really am a big Elvis fan – at six foot three I’m one of the biggest. In all the excitement about accompanying the Beatles to their meeting with Elvis, I sent my suit to the cleaners to prepare for the big meeting. However, the cleaners had sewn up my pockets where I kept a bunch of guitar picks that I always had on hand for the boys. So, inevitably when Elvis asked for a guitar pick that night, I went into a panic. I couldn’t access the picks in my sewn-up pockets, so I frantically ran into the kitchen and smashed up a bunch of plastic spoons to create makeshift picks. I’d have loved to have given Elvis a pick, have him play it, then got it back and had it framed."

"In 1956, cast me as a bullfighter in the film adaptation of 's "The Sun Also Rises", with most of the cast as well as Hemingway himself opposing me. But when Zanuck saw me learning the trade in Mexico, he said “The kid stays in the picture. And anybody who doesn’t like it can quit.” By 1957, when the film opened, I was receiving more mail than anyone else at Twentieth Century Fox, apart from Elvis Presley."

"I remember when I first saw Elvis, I had been playing guitar since I was 8, so then I saw him I said, WOW, finally people are gonna know what a guitar is. (After him) it was cool to have a guitar around your neck, when before, it wasn't""

"The moment I first saw him, the presence he had, wow, he was so beautiful, and had such a charisma that no one could even utter a word. Anyways, a couple of days later, at the MGM Commissary, which was a gigantic place, you know, full of stars, directors, I was seated in a table, my back was facing the door, and then everybody started to get up, and they were all rushing outside, so I turned around and you know, when you are trying to look through a glass, with the sun behind you, so you kind of cover your face, and it was Elvis, outside, looking for me, inside, so there he was, at one of the lowest times in his career, and all 700 people, many celebrities themselves, rush and try to meet him. He almost didn't have a chance to survive THAT kind of celebrity..."

"Then candidate Joe Biden, didn't even run for President in 2020. The press ran for him against Donald Trump. In fact, there were more Elvis sightings in the summer of 2020 than Biden's sightings"

"Had he not kissed, he'd be our Jesus."

"Elvis Presley would probably have to be my biggest musical influence. After all, he was from the same region as I am and it inspired me to continue my music career into college, even though my major is architecture."

"I was fortunate enough to auction Elvis Presley's jet, which was kind of cool"

"Elvis Presley shared the soul of black music's best performers. He was a reflection of our life experience"."

"Teenagers dominated the mid-20th century, the term being invented only in the 1930s, and no one gave them more visibility than Elvis Presley, who began his own career at 18, embodying the teen desire for liberation from their parents' culture and mirroring their more open sexuality, as he gave youth everywhere in the world music to call their own."

"John and Paul hit it off very quickly. There was something both of them had that just locked together. Perhaps it was a crazy kind of attitude towards life, a contemptuous mockery that later became the trademark of the four Beatles, or perhaps it was just a teenage friendship that stuck. As far as John was concerned, Paul was not only a good guitarist – as good as John himself – but he also resembled their mutual idol, Elvis.”"

"Well I did a couple of movies with Elvis, he was really fun to work with, a really nice guy"

"I have enjoyed a lot of songs of various genres in my life but Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and John Denver are my favorite American male singers."

"It's been more than five decades, but there's still such freshness to the recording, such unexpectedness bursting through the familiarity. Scotty Moore and Bill Black, on guitar and upright bass, hang on for all they're worth, trying to keep up with this crazy kid as Elvis's voice – urgent, insinuating – floats out over the beat, a croon that joins joy and nerves and arrogance (already you can hear his sneer), and that voice turns almost spectral as it slides into its upper register whenever it comes to allll ri-iiiiii-ght. (Forget “E pluribus unum’’ or “In God we trust.’’ The words that should appear on our currency are “That’s all right. What I was hearing transcended beauty..."

"At that moment, Ali seemed to me to be not so much a measuring stick against other great heavyweights such as Louis, Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, as of Elvis Presley. Elvis was the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, The Greatest in his own sphere, a man who was both drawn to and repelled by the limelight he so easily attracted. And I wondered if the golden cage of fame, sought by many, attained by few, was all it was cracked up to be when Muhammad Ali embarked on his quest to put himself on a pedestal unknown to any boxer. In 1993, the United States Postal Service conducted a nationwide poll to determine which version of Elvis Presley should appear on a commemorative stamp. One version was of the 1956 lean and hip-swiveling Elvis; the other was the 1970s sequin-jump-suited and noticeably plumper Las Vegas model. The vote was, of course, a landslide for the young Elvis. Were a similar vote be put to the American public for an Ali stamp, one being the young, sleek and impossibly gifted boxer who did things no heavyweight had done before or since, or the older, retired Ali who was cited for his humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society, the outcome would be as preordained as had been the one for Elvis. That class of humanitarians and philanthropists might be in short supply, but they still are more plentiful than individuals who can perform feats of athletic excellence that can make mere mortals gasp in amazement."

"Priscilla was a bride in a sort of fallow land. Elvis took her to Graceland when still a teenager, put her in "pause", then married her once she became a woman.."

"It's like people saying Elvis Presley was only famous because he was white. He had, y'know, the rhythm of James Brown but he had his own thing. He was Elvis, he wasn't just a white man. Things like that are going to be picked up between black people and white people and anybody, it doesn't mean a person is or isn't great because they're influenced by something associated with another race. It doesn't matter. Anyway, that period was different, like when he was there, they were stopping everything, and he had the moment for real. While I'm here, its not all about 50 Cent, but it was all about Elvis.”"

"People say “If Elvis had been a more astute businessman or taken more interest in the workings of his career, he would have been a much bigger star.” But God Almighty, he made more money than anybody I know of. And next to Jesus and Coca-Cola, nothing’s any better known than Elvis Presley..."

"Not wanting to spoil anyone's party, but in the context of the Grand Bear market of that time, and it certainly was a Very Grand Global Bear Market, the demise of Lehman Brothers was by no means the most important event, and it happened quite late on the timeline as well. Today, books have been written and the event features in a number of documentaries, while the question "Where were you when Lehman went bankrupt?" sits right up there with 9/11, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of Elvis Presley."

"I want him to have an earring hanging from his tongue. He is the REAL love of my life. When I am with him, and I walk with him, is like being with Elvis Presley."

"Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and all I wanted to be was Elvis Presley. But listening to Elvis was not allowed."

"After Elvis goes through basic training, he should do entertaining. That's what I did did five years ago — and it was the greatest experience of my life. I don't know what he's got. Certainly, he's no singer; even he must admit that. Maybe it's the beat. All the rock 'n' roll singers have it, and the beat seems to be important in today's market. And frankly, I don't think Elvis is right in the way he plays on the emotions of the young girls."

"Elvis....Elvis Presley.............. Im all shook up"

"No, because Vince is Elvis Presley. Elvis never did Johnny Carson even once. I get asked more about what kind of guy Vince McMahon is than anybody else in the wrestling business."

"I learned music listening to Elvis' records. His measurable effect on culture and music was even greater in England than in the States.""

"As a youngster I discovered what I could do almost by accident. I grew up in Lima, where my father was a folk singer and my mother managed a pub that presented live music. So, as a teenager, I would sometimes sing a variety of popular songs from Elvis Presley onwards. I was drawn to music from the start so I started guitar lessons at 11 and began to learn music theory at about 14. Then I started to write my own songs but always this was pop-oriented. It was only when I entered the National Music Conservatory at age 17, that I started to discover classical music. In fact, I came late to classical music, preferring instead pop music and Elvis Presley."

"From his eerie 1954 reading of “Blue Moon” up to 1976's “Hurt,” Elvis established himself as a pre-eminent ballad singer, something a lot of people forget in the flurry to hail his anarchic rock material. “It Hurts Me” from 1963 isn't the first great ballad of his career, but it's one of the finest. Recorded in Nashville at the same session which yielded his supple version of Chuck Berry's “Memphis, Tennessee,” “It Hurts Me” fuses Elvis' love for gospel melisma with the heartache of a lover forced to stand on the sidelines of a romance. He approaches the song — a forbearer of the Four Seasons' “Silence Is Golden” — at first delicately, as if he's afraid any force would snap the song's tension. By the second bar, the song is all tension, with the pain of watching the right woman with the wrong man becoming too much to bear. When the roaring finale comes sweeping through, its two minutes and some-odd seconds seem to have encompassed a lifetime of anguish."

"Mickey Mantle's mystique is unquantifiable. He's like Clint Eastwood and Elvis Presley. There's something there. An aura. The manliness of all three of them. Each of them is a classic in their field."

"I remembers watching the Elvis special when it aired in December 1968, just as my band was beginning to erupt as a major force in rock & roll. In fact, we released our first Top 40 hit, “Suzie Q,” that same year. Many people my age, especially after the Beatles, had kind of pushed Elvis aside a little bit. And that was the neat thing about the special — there was Elvis, your long lost friend, looking really good and sounding good. It was great to have him back."

"Alas, no paths crossed with Elvis. Shucks"

"The public's imagination was caught by Elvis through two things: his unique ability to synthesize all American music styles and his fantastic interpretive qualities as a vocalist; that he managed to keep the public's attention after the music began to suffer, is due to his remarkable charisma, an unparalleled force that was stronger than any ten other men in his peer group; (while) it's the charisma that allowed him to get away with covering substandard songs like "A Little Less Conversation," (1968), it's his musical ability alone that elevated it to a status it didn't deserve, creating something so endearing that the simplest of remix jobs could make it sound contemporary, a quarter-century after his death; he may always be a punchline to some people, but the continuing evolution of our fascination with the King has to do with his ability to reinvent himself every time he's heard; even, apparently, from beyond."

"He was a cultural icon and his legacy spilled over into the culinary world."

"It’s big, full of color and pattern and imbued with the outsized personality of its most famous owner. Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis, Tennessee, is the second-most visited house museum in the U.S., with over 600,000 visitors a year. Only the White House sees more tourists."

"After the Second World War's boosts, top tax rates wouldn’t dip below 90% until 1964, when they plunged to 77%, remaining in that range until 1982, when they dropped to 50%. In comparison, for the tax 2013, the top tax bracket is 39.6%, kicking in at $400,000. Elvis remained in the spotlight since 1956 until his death, and he continued to tour despite health problems related to his lifestyle. Even when he didn’t tour, he made money, as was the case in the early 60′s, when despite having no personal appearances, he earned $5 million a year ($40,000,000 in today’s dollars). By 1973, he was still raking in money and, as if to give credit to his manager's assertion ("I consider it my patriotic duty to keep Elvis up in the 90 percent tax bracket", was Col. Parker's motto), he was allegedly the top taxpayer in the country."

"Elvis Presley was a masterful vocal artist. I really do appreciate what Elvis was able to do."

"During this trip, Dean Nichopoulos was injured on the slopes, requiring a visit to the local hospital. Upon realizing, from a look at his insurance card, that he must have been related to Elvis Presley's doctor, the nurse mockingly asked, “So where is Elvis?” without realizing that the ski mask-clad who was standing right in front of her was precisely Elvis. When she pointedly asked of him, “And who are you?” he calmly replied, “The Lone Ranger.” The nurse, having none of what she thought were just shenanigans, simply went about her business. Because of safety reasons, Elvis appeared on the slopes only in the evenings and in a rented skimobile, with his nighttime adventures prompting a then 19 year old college student by the name of Susan Ford to complain to the US Secret Service and the local police of local violations by Elvis."

"On Wednesday August 22 1956, Colonel Parker called me to report to the bungalow where Elvis was rehearsing 'Love Me Tender' with Ken Darby, the film's music director. They also had to choose some hoedown numbers to be featured in the picture. As we were ready to leave, there was a change in tempo and Elvis sang, "We're gonna move" a lively spiritual. As he stood standing next to the grand piano with Mr. Darby playing – with his head back and thick dark hair tumbling over his eyes, Elvis was oblivious to those around him. When we all left the bungalow, (I noticed) he walked in front."

"It was scientist Isaac Newton who told us in his "Three Laws Of Motion" that each action has an equal and opposite reaction. One could say the same about the behaviour of human societies. Glance at history and you will see what I mean. The Regency period, with an example of a randy slob who later became George IV, was a time of loose morals and widespread immorality. Then came the Victorian era. This we are told was a time of rigid prudishness. That lasted for more than a hundred years. I recall it as a provincial shopkeeper's son in the 1940s. Back then, respectability was all. When did British society revert to its natural preference for randiness? There were three impulses. One was the arrival of The Pill. ­Another was the arrival of marijuana. And yet another was the arrival in the mid-1950s of pop music. I recall the utter horror of the older generation and the forecasts of the end of civilisation and teenage girls swooning at the wildly gyrating hips of Elvis Presley. The pop fraternity was king and the pop stars “screwed around”. In short I wish the sudden legion of moralists (where have they been all these years of Playboy and Penthouse?) would put two short words on their bucket list of chores to accomplish before they drop off the perch. A simple resolution: Grow Up."

"I felt like I was meeting Elvis Presley or the president."

"Art didn't quite hear what all the fuss was about (he even asked, “What kind of a name is that?”), but he went with an offer for the contract. He then called me a few days later saying there's no way he's pay what Sam Phillips wanted — $50,000. His highest offer was $35,000, so I said, ‘Art, you can give him $500,000, it won’t matter, you’ll make it back on the first record" Then “He said, ‘You’re insane.’ I said, ‘Possibly, never had to debate that, but I know what I’m telling you.'” Art never went above $35,000, Elvis' contract went to RCA for $40,000, and the rest is history."

"I started singing in 1967. My brother had a song book which contained songs of Elvis Presley so we used to share the songs and I would imitate a lot of English songs. This helped me when I went to Victoria Falls Casino Hotel where I would sing and entertain whites in the early 1970s. I joined The Four Brothers in 1983 and that is when we recorded ‘Zvinonaka Zvinodhura’ and the following year, we did the ‘Tosangana Ikoko’ album which had eight tracks."

"It was the best thing that ever happened ... to me I mean."

"I remember seeing David playing in a local band before I even went to the school since my dad was David's art teacher. I remember seeing this band play on the school steps and this thing with hair sticking straight up and playing the saxophone doing Elvis Presley songs. I looked at my dad and said, “Dad, who is that?” He said, “Oh, that’s Jones.” I said, “I want to be him""

"A few months after I released my version of "Crying in the Chapel", RCA released Elvis' version and sales of mine crushed. By sheer chance, I had a encounter with him in California, a few years later. so I confronted him over the issue and told him his version had cost me a lot of money. After explaining that he had not been aware that his song was going to be released, he just quietly got out his checkbook and wrote me a check. I was still upset so I didn't look at it until several months later when Christmas was approaching and money in my family was tight. Worse, my mother had already scraped together what little money she had so she could buy presents for our family at that time. Except she didn't really buy the presents because she only had enough money to put them away in layaway. Anyways, I unfolded the check and let me tell you, I had never seen that many zeros on a check before. It was for US$10,000 (the equivalent of US$80,000 in 2017 dollars). I then took just US$50 dollars for myself, and sent the rest to my mother. And they never had a better Christmas."

"When Elvis heard me sing this song in Las Vegas in late August of 1958, he became so emotional that he had to leave the show. The next day, he sent me two dozen yellow roses with a note explaining that he had just lost his mother and hearing me sing 'Mama' was more that he could bear"

"While His Holiness' collection is mostly made up of Classical music, it also includes an old album of Édith Piaf’s greatest hits; Argentine tango tunes, especially by Astor Piazzolla and a 25-disc collection of Elvis Presley’s Gospel songs-"

"My mom was a huge Elvis fan, she's always, ever since I can remember, always had small Elvis dolls and random Elvis memorabilia around the house. Growing up, I finally asked her why she decided to name me Elvis, and originally, she was going to name me Gregory. But she had a dream two weeks before I was born that she was at an Elvis concert and her newborn baby was at the concert as well. So instead of Gregory, she decided to call me Elvis. Yeah, she was about as big of an Elvis fan as possible."

"If you're ever in Japan, consider a trip to "Chineskikan",two hours outside Tokyo in the city of Chichibu. The museum is the only one of its kind ion the world, dedicated entirely to rocks that look like human faces. Owned and operated by Yoshiko Hayama, "Chineskikan" is home to some of the most spectacular stones nature has to offer, with rocks that resemble everyone from Elvis Presley to E.T."

"I was just really getting started good when he came out. I loved his work. He was one of a kind. People talk about somebody being big, and people will compare them to Elvis, but there's never been another Elvis. I never got to meet him, but I talked to him on the phone one time. He was looking for a song, and he told me he loved 'Chain of Fools' and he asked me if I could write a similar song for him. I tried, but all I could think about was the other song and I never could write it. That's the closest I got to meeting him.""

"We are still considering names, but since the twins were born on Elvis' birthday, I guess that for now we can call the little boy Prince Elvis."

"He's really the only white man who can sing the blues. He's got a real feeling to it, which comes from the contact he had as a child with negroes"

"I was discharged today and I'm doing very well, feel real good. I just would like thank the staff at Elvis Presley Trauma Center and many, many thanks to all the well-wishers. It's great to know people care about you."

"Freddy had two people in a pedestal, Elvis Presley and John Lennon. Those were the people he thought made a difference in music and he would never had dreamed he would be put in the same pedestal alongside them. I think he got his wish..."

"As far as I'm concerned, I hope this rage passes as quickly as it has spring up. Elvis strides on stage, takes a wide-legged stance, grabs up a guitar, gives it a couple of whangs, opens his mouth and starts gyrating. He shivers and shakes, he quivers and quakes. The faster Presley moves, the more agitated the crowd becomes. An announcer implored the crowd, “If you want to see Elvis Presley in the pictures, write Paramount Pictures. As far as I can learn from Paramount’s local office, there is no deal cooking on Presley."

"When I was 20 years old and TWISTED SISTER began, I don't think I would have ever asked someone who was 60 where the music industry was going. I think that I would look around at my peers and see where the scene is at, rather than go to, let's say, Elvis Presley's producers and go, 'Hey, man, give me some advice as to how I can move forward because I don't think that they're seeing things the way I'm seeing things. When they were 20, they were seeing things in their way. So when I talk to 20-year-olds, I say to them, number one, I didn't have a mentor — I never had a mentor. And number two, I was smart and I just looked around me. I think it was impossible to think that before Elvis came, nobody thought Elvis was gonna come. And it should never be predictable."

"He has sung for years about murder and biblical torment and characters who hurt one another just for the philosophical kick. It's a nasty congruence that his lyrics set him up to sing about a death he knew nothing of, until it was time to record, something of a ham — possibly down to thinking Elvis Presley is as biblical as anything else."

"In the Sun Studio in Memphis it hit me like a blow. What a musician, what an upheaval. It is still there, the old microphone, the silver Shure 5-5 with the lateral grooves, by means of which a certain Elvis Aaron Presley in July 1953, just 18 years of age, made his first recording. This man has shaped pop culture like no other, in fact influenced all music after him."

"He touched their lives...."

"At Sun Studio in Memphis Elvis Presley called to life what would soon be known as rock and roll with a voice that bore strains of the Grand Ole Opry and Beale Street, of country and the blues. At that moment, he ensured — instinctively, unknowingly — that pop music would never again be as simple as black and white."

"He is more like an Elvis Presley or a Marilyn Monroe, who died early and left their impression on the world."

"To the extent that the cultural-appropriation police are urging their targets to respect others who are different, they are saying something that everyone needs to hear. But beyond that, they can plunge into doomed tangles. American popular culture is a mishmash of influences: British Isles, Eastern European, West African, and who knows what else. Cole Porter committed no wrong by borrowing from Jewish music and Elvis Presley enriched the world when he fused country-and-western with rhythm-and-blues."

"Sakuraba is just magic, proving to the world that the Gracies could be beat. He walked into that arena like if he was Elvis and he was the man who did it."

"Fifty-six years ago last April, in a studio on Fifth Av in Nashville, a 25-year-old Elvis Presley spit out another platinum-selling record. “It’s Now or Never” hit the airwaves one day after the 4th of July, and topped the charts for weeks. It sold over 20 million records worldwide and became one of his most successful releases. Studios up and down Nashville's famed “Music Row” have cradled the genius of America's music masters for generations. For Elvis Presley and many others, that six-block span has been a place where dreams really can come true. But today, in a global internet economy rife with piracy and wanton copyright violations, the future of America's music industry is threatened. For many musicians, songwriters, and the more than 56,000 Nashville workers whose jobs depend on the resilience of America's music industry, the time to fight back against those threats truly is “Now or Never.”"

"At one point, Elvis used to have football games in his front yard in LA. Glen Campbell and I were on Rick Nelson's team and we would play against his. At first, it was supposed to be flag football but people wound up with black eyes and things like that. It got pretty rough, but I think that's where Glen might have hooked up early with Elvis. Then, it was when Glen and I played "The Crossbow", that Elvis would visit whenever he was in Albuquerque. They even had a little balcony to keep Elvis' group out of the crowd down below..."

"They mention me and they mention Elvis, not the same... RELAX. Not more slaps than Presley..Elvis super legendary."

"Was Elvis up to the challenge? He was. The resulting Elvis special, which aired on December 3, 1968 on NBC, became the top rated show of the season and NBC's biggest success of the year. But the key moment came on the night of June 4, when Elvis was at the Binder/Howe offices. A television set broadcasting Senator Robert Kennedy’s speech at L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel played in the background; the presidential hopeful had just won California’s state primary. Minutes later, Kennedy was shot (he died 26 hours later on June 6) and the assassination provoked a cathartic reaction in Elvis. From the moment that was on, for the rest of the night, we sat in that room and Elvis started to tell us his life story..."

"After Trump-Clinton, the Vice-Presidential Debate Isn’t Exactly ‘the Return of Elvis’"

"Decades ago, during the polio epidemic, people were hesitant to get the vaccine, which became available in 1955. Public sentiment turned in 1956, after the biggest influencer of that era, Elvis Presley, got the shot backstage before he made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Immunization levels among teens at the time rose from 0.6% to 80%."

"Yuri was a celebrity, a hero of the USSR, the first man in space. For the Kremlin, he defined the Soviet spirit. Born poor, then becoming one of the world's most celebrated. He was the Elvis of the Soviet Union."

"I identify myself with Elvis, especially the last ten or fifteen years of his career. He never wrote a song in his life but if he hadn't sung them, they would mean nothing."

"In the early going at the Charlotte Coliseum, there were scattered notes here and there that made you wonder if finally he was gonna do it but, always, he would pull up short, rely on the grins, the charisma and the legend, until finally a little before 10:45, he came to the gospel classic, "How Great Thou Art"-. And that was it. As he came to the part where he belts out the title, he sounded like Mario Lanza with soul, cutting loose a series of high notes that would tingle the spine of even the diehard skeptic; but crescendo came on a song called "Hurt"; it's an old song that Elvis didn't record until a couple of years ago, and the key ingredient is its range, an awesome collection of notes that could leave a normal set of vocal chords in shreds; he finished in what seemed his most potent style, but wasn't satisfied, and mumbled to the band, "Let's do that last part again."; he did, and if there was anyone among the packed-house crowd who had thought Elvis was a fluke, they no doubt came away converted."

"My father had very specific tastes, and that's what we listened to, namely Chopin, Bach, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and David Bowie. I think that's it."

"I jumped out of my 1975 Firebird and rushed to get photos of him. So, that's when he turned to me and said "Who are you with cat?"

"There is only Elvis and me, and I couldn't say which one of us is the best."

"Only through his very early stuff, I liked the rawness of Mystery Train and the recordings at SUN. His power as a performer, was incredible. ."

"In May of 1959, at the Midnight premiere of "King Creole", in Mexico City, more than 500 teenager broke into the cinema, overtook various side balconies and threw seats and even burning papers to those in attendance at the floor below. A huge fight erupted. As many girls tried to leave the cinema, they were stripped of their clothings and harrassed by the rioters. Police arrived at about 1 am in the morning but incredibly, there were many injured but no arrests."

"Elvis Presley brought down the house and all the attendance records of the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo came tumbling down on the shoulders of his white shirt Saturday night at the Astrodome. The largest crowd ever to attend a rodeo performance to Houston – 43,614 screaming fans – were present Saturday night for the rodeo and Elvis' fourth of six performances. Hours earlier, he had drawn the largest matinee crowd – 34,443 Saturday and his two performance total exceeded by former records by the two-performance total attracted by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans two years ago. In fact, the four performances in which Presley, his band and vocal group have have appeared thus have drawn a total of 131,064 people to the Astrodome. It is by far the greatest start that the Houston event has made since it moved to the Dome in 1966. Presley who has never been known as a talker on stage, probably expressed it perfectly Saturday night when he commented: "You have been a fantastic audience," he said prior to introducing his associate in the 45-minute show. Police are stationed around the arena to keep the audience away from Elvis but Saturday afternoon, a fan sneaked in through the rodeo chutes and was within a few feet of the star when he was apprehended by police..."

"Oh thank you Sir, you've made my day..."

"I have a great respect for him and I have to say that "Viva Las Vegas" was the very first job I ever had, so he was the first person I worked with in a movie. It really was a big influence on me. Maybe it was me that made it up, but I thought, he's a person, I'm a person. If he can do it, I can do it. And he made you feel like that, too. You know, he made you be an equal. And, of course, it wasn't true, but as I said I lived in a big fantasy world and still do, but he made you feel like you were the same. And I think that really was an incredible catalyst for me. I mean, you're working with Elvis Presley and he thinks that you guys are alike so maybe, if he can do it, you can do it. So then something like that, it's a subliminal subconscious incredible influence he had on me."

"I was appearing at the Sands and a friend of mine, a fellow comedian working with Elvis, told him I'm a black belt. So I got a call from one of Elvis' buddies. He traveled with this massive entourage. So this pal tells me, "Would you be interested in doing Elvis Presley the honor of sparring with him?" I said, "Sure, I’ll give the kid a break." *Laughs*. He rented a hall and arrived with this huge group of people. We looked at each other and he calls me "sensei," which means "teacher." I said, "Oh Elvis, you don’t have to call me that because we’re of equal rank." And he says, "OK, sensei." Then he goes, "Do me a favor, please. Don’t hit me in the face because I have a show to do tonight." And I said, "Well, don’t hit me in my face because I, too, have a show tonight." He responds, "Sensei, if I hit you in the face, it would be an improvement." I said, "I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?" Then we spar. But he was wonderful. He was very, very good in fact. I've sparred with a lot of people and not many were as good as he was. But when we weren't sparring, he was a gentleman at all times."

"I am an angry man, so angry I burn myself and I heat up the air around me. This is the nuclear fuel I use to make my music. In a world so full of pain and madness we need to be better than ever, to evolve not devolve, to become masters of our fate and stop listening to the snake talkers who would steal our last breath. It's time to go Elvis and shoot the cursed TV."

"Elvis let you know that he cared about you, that he noticed you. He made you feel good. No other entertainment stars ever took the same effort Elvis did, to be honest. They didn't. He took that extra step. Elvis took good care of us, man, I swear to God. Bonuses at the end of tours, also (on top of the regular paycheck). I mean nobody treats musicians and the people that were with him the way Elvis did. Nobody.""

"Elvis, and that was it"

"The Elvis tattoo on my chest? I started listening to 'Jailhouse Rock' and loved it."

"I started my first job in 1977 at the age of 14 as a carhop at an A&W Root Beer restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. The day I was hired, I was promoted to lead carhop when a radio DJ interrupted the music and broke the news that Elvis had died. The lead carhop took off her money belt and announced ‘I must go to Memphis.’ She drove off in her Ford Pinto and was never heard from again. The money I saved that year definitely helped pay for tuition and college expenses and it was a super fun job and a great experience. I learned the value of a dollar and how to make a seriously delicious root beer float – all thanks to Elvis Presley."

"First of all, I admire Elvis, not just as a singer but as a creator of a style, a personality. What he has achieved is worth of respect. Regarding the rivalry between Rock ´n Roll and Bolero, there are enough fans for both styles."

"One time, Elvis was in town and invited folks to his suite for a party. His idea of a party? Eating food and having his backup singers belt out gospel songs..."

"What makes Elvis such a phenomenon well after his death ? This question is best answered by resorting to a more socio-anthropological approach concerned with Elvis’ significance within a wider cultural ensemble.It seems to me one key to understanding Elvis is to first recognize that his figure is paradigmatic of an important cultural shift that occurred in America in the post-War days and the advent of consumerism, as philosopher Charles Taylor has abundantly argued. Acknowledging this makes the heuristics of comparisons with Christian apostleship analytically ill-fated. Second, Elvis can probably best be understood in relation to the ‘civil religion’ of the United States of America as developed since the second half of the twentieth century. Elvis arose in the glory days of America, with the birth of rock’n’roll and the feeling of the becoming of a new golden era — an era of which Elvis fans today are probably somewhat nostalgic.Elvis is intimately tied with a certain feeling and idea of ‘America’.Elvis is a mythical figure in the pantheon delimiting the American Dream : he is a model, and Elvis fans confess finding his life a source of moral lessons: ‘work hard, use your talent, follow your star and be a star’. Furthermore, Elvis confirms the individualist Self-Made Man myth of American Capitalism: “even a boy raised in poverty in Mississippi could make it big” . Elvis is a perfect deity for post-radical transcendence culture: as all stars, he is both unreachable in stardom yet an ordinary guy. This duality without seizing what is at stake, is precisely the reason given by impersonators for what they do (p. 183). These are just a few hints, but it seems to me undeniable that the Elvis phenomenon is potentially rich for religious studies investigation. Rather, Reece’s conclusion is that there is religiosity in Elvis, but that Elvis is not likely to spawn religious movements. (However), Elvis, through this special connection to consumer society’s air du temps and mythological foundations, provided one of the most vivid and enduring templates for rock-star mythology for the past half-century, and probably for decades to come."

"The thing is, I've always wanted to be a star. I've always wanted to be an Elvis Presley or a Tupac – like, a huge icon."

"The inspiration for my career came from Elvis Presley. I heard him singing ‘My Way" and that somehow gave me the strength to start a painting business. I knew it was time, as they say, to take the bull by the horns, create my own job. Almost fifty years later, I am still painting, still doing it my way."

"What thrills is that people are still getting upset by a bunch of herberts larging it and carrying on.That’s exactly what rock ‘n’ roll is there to do: Elvis, Little Richard, the Sex Pistols Kneecap. Music is meant to shake things up"

"Well, it started when I saw him was as a little kid at a 1957 concert at LA's Pan Pacific Auditorium concert. 'Then, I became a hairdresser, so the first time I cut his hair, which was in 1964, it took about me 45 minutes to finish it and the whole time Elvis didn't say a word, but his eyes would follow every move I made. I was then already working with people like Warren Beatty & Paul Newman and the most handsome guys of the movies, but I can tell you Elvis eclipsed them all. He had the face, the voice, the career, the fans, the fame, the money and he had.... the hair, which was unbelievable to work on. He insisted that I trim his animated and eccentric moustache."

"Singer Lloyd "Lonzo" George (of the "Lonzo and Oscar" C&W duo), was visiting his relatives, so his teenage nephew, Jim, invited all his friends to his house to meet his famous uncle. But there was one quiet 15-year-old boy whom Jim's parents would not allow to come inside their house. He was poor so they called him “white trash” and treated as if he was from a lower class. When Jim told Uncle "Lonzo" that the boy outside had a guitar but didn't know how to tune it, he gladly offered to show him how. Since he not allowed inside the house, they arranged to meet outside. It was obvious to "Lonzo" that the boy was embarrassed and felt out of place in a rich neighborhood. The boy's guitar was old, cheap, and hung around his neck with just a piece of string. After "Lonzo" showed the shy teenager how to tune his guitar, he offered to teach him some songs. The boy was so surprised and happy that Lonzo spent two whole hours playing and singing with him that he started feeling confident in his own ability to play and sing. "Lonzo" never met that boy again, at least not face to face. That boy was Elvis Presley."

"This looks to be a movie made for theaters, a major event.-"

"Friday's article about the contribution of minority groups throughout American history brought some fascinating reactions. First, quite a few folks who aren't usually fans of me or of National Review actually reached out and said, “Thank you for writing this.” No doubt a lot of people hunger for the message, “Your ancestors helped build this country, too” and perhaps with it an alternative to a well-established and not-all-that-accurate narrative that minority groups' role in America was almost entirely that of the helpless victims. But it was perhaps even more amazing to see the (admittedly mostly anonymous, possibly bot-like) responses on Twitter — who appeared deeply upset by a list of how minority groups shaped America from the beginning. The goal was to repeat it enough to make people think whites barely had a hand in building the nation, Really? You think people are going to forget or overlook the first 43 presidents, the Pilgrims, John Smith, Paul Revere, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Henry Knox, Thomas Edison, Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill, Butch Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickock, Wild Bill Donovan, Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, General George S. Patton, Neil Armstrong, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, Elvis Presley, the Wright Brothers, Chuck Yeager, Will Rogers, Douglas MacArthur, Charles Lindbergh, J. Edgar Hoover, Ernest Hemingway, John D. Rockefeller, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Billy Graham, Henry Ford, T. S. Eliot, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Upton Sinclair, General John J. Pershing, Robert F. Kennedy, Earl Warren, Andy Warhol, Allen Dulles, Frank Lloyd Wright, Norman Rockwell, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, the Minutemen, the Green Mountain Boys, the Texas Rangers, Is there anyone who's even remotely historically literate who believes that “whites barely had a hand in building the nation”?"

"Some years ago, while in Memphis to officiate a wedding, I took some time to visit the home of Elvis Presley. I was reminded of his complicated life. He was certainly not a perfect person but, in the rooms of Graceland, there was memorabilia showing how he gave enormously to charities in Memphis, and how he loved his mother more than anything. Not perfect, but there WAS a lot of good in him..."

"Elvis Presley's spirit is another that keeps coming forward, but seemingly, is not at rest. He wants to communicate, he’s there..."

"What intrigues me is how memory colors history, what remains in the end is collective memory. Elvis in that sense was an excellent way to study the period after the Second World War, for epitomizing those times. It was the beginning of the cold war, but also the start of a firm and optimistic belief in the future."

"Presley of course was not only a pioneer in music, but also a cultural icon whose influence has endured over generations. One of the earliest musicians to make rockabilly – an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music, rhythm and blues – popular, Presley was also a consummate showman. And he had a huge influence on Bollywood as well, most obviously on Shammi Kapoor, who was inspired by him all the way from his looks to his moves, and to his movies as well."

"Wearing a black outfit with a classical cut, a white shirt with a stiff collar and a pearl gray tie, it was the non-casual nature of Elvis’ clothing which was was the first surprise of seeing him. Based on photographic documents in our possession, we were expecting a more audacious and more casual look. Rather than slouching in an armchair and spreading out like a warmed-up marshmallow, he sat behind a small table covered with a green rug, a classic at press conferences. It was hard to imagine that, not so long before, this young man was turning upside down the nervous, sympathetic, lymphatic, digestive and other systems of American teenagers.”"

"i) Religion in and of itself and spirituality are the absolute pure tools of a songwriter. For instance, if you listen to mountain music or immigrant music or bluegrass music, religion was the only subject. So when you listen to that kind of music, you realize they didn't have anything else but religion. So religion over the years and through rock ‘n’ roll and through people like Elvis Presley, hey, just listen to him singing gospel music, c'mon.... It never went away, it never will and the idea of true faith is behind every artist that ever gets to the place they want to be ii) I remember the time I stopped in at Graceland to say hello to Elvis after he had performed in Las Vegas a version of a song I wrote, "Words". I was allowed to go up the driveway – the yellow brick road if you like – and I got to the front door and there was a limousine there. His uncle told me I could go up and knock on the door and I might get to meet him. So I knocked. But for some reason he didn't come out. But that’s ok, because I looked inside the limo and saw the first television in a car I’d ever seen and that was all a thrill anyway."

"Know thyself means that you need to know what you want out of life. What are your strengths your weakness, your values, your morals, your beliefs. Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Muhammad Ali, Abraham Lincoln and Harry S. Truman are listening to this class from the walls of this classroom where their photos hang. Hopefully, you, my students are, too, because if you are one to be happy, you need to love yourself for who you are, always striving to improve. My fear is that too many people judge themselves on who they are NOT and what they don't possess physically and materially. I think life is too short to focus on the negative.”"

"In the collective memory of his fans, he reigns as the sleek musical genius who soaked up the multiple influences of America's vernacular music -gospel, country swing, rhythm 'n' blues—, and made them his own; Bob Dylan, one of pop's favorite poets, put it best: Elvis, he said, was "the incendiary atomic musical firebrand loner who conquered the western world."

"I’m all shook up by the glowing reviews. One (I am most proud of) was from a guy who is a self-confessed Elvis nerd. And He said he was looking for errors and facts that were not right but they were all spot on, so I was really excited about that. I’m truly holding my breath and hoping readers love it as much as I’ve loved writing it."

"The Museum of the Bible is without a doubt the newest, most intriguing and most talked-about attraction in DC. Since opening in December 2017, more than 200,000 people have visited it. The second floor of the building, called “The Impact of the Bible.” clearly deals with the bringing of the book to the United States and its impact on the nation. There, its most popular item is Elvis Presley's Bible. It's not exactly archaeology, but people had their pictures taken next to its glass display case with way greater excitement than any other item, including what was observed next to a stone brought from Jerusalem."

"i) I don't really think Elvis' voice was significantly lower than those of any other baritones. The color of the voice and the sense of warmth and richness of tone gave the sense that the voice was much deeper. Elvis, in fact, did not force his lower register, comfortable as he was with it, which in turn gave the impression that it was lower than those of other baritones. ii) People will often say that opera singers sound too stiff and operatic when singing contemporary music. This is because the vowels in an operatic style tend to be more open, whereas in a rock style singers tend to thin out the vowel. There is nothing wrong, and everything right, in opening the vowel in the higher register so that the higher notes can be sustained. Elvis Presley was very open in his singing style even though he was 'the' rock and roller."

"The likelihood is that the last movie (Pres. John F. ) Kennedy saw was "From Russia With Love", but he isn’t the only Bond fan in the book. Elvis Presley hired out a Memphis cinema to screen "The Spy Who Loved Me" in the weeks before the end credits rolled in his own life. From this starting point, the Presley chapter spirals off into a playlist of songs, including one from the movie "Roustabout" which featured a small role for Richard Kiel, who went on to play the metal-toothed baddie in … yes, "The Spy Who Loved Me"."

"He was very good, great, nice, sweet and a gentleman."

"Along with the rest of "Deep Purple", I once had the chance to meet Elvis. For a young singer like me, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It's the same as being in school — you learn by copying the maestro. His personality was also extremely endearing, his interviews were very self-effacing (and), he came over as gentle and was generous in his praise of others. He had a natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery. Those early records at the Sun Records label are still incredible and the reason is simple: he was the greatest singer that ever lived."

"I wasn’t really known as a country music performer. I was trying to be more like Elvis and those people at the time. I didn’t consider myself a country act."

"It was Elvis' Jailhouse Rock that made me first pick up a guitar and say, ‘I’ve got to do a bit of that. He was absolutely brilliant. Elvis, in his very early years, was staggering"

"When I was about 10, my dad took me to an Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash concert in Lubbock. That had a profound effect on me. As a result, I completely fell in love with that New Orleans (sound) that I liked on the radio, with Little Richard and Fats Domino. That music is really in a sense still my very favorite."

"I was living in France about five years ago, and that's when I discovered the Elvis Sun Sessions recordings. To me, most people know the later Elvis stuff, you know, "Blue Suede Shoes" and what he later recorded at RCA. But this stuff just has the energy and modesty and integrity of where he came from. It's his start and it was really the start of rock and roll, holding on to the roots of American music in every way, the blues, rockabilly. I think these recordings represent really the discovery of one of the greatest singers and performers of all time. It's the beginning"."

"We"ll survive Elvis. He can't last, I tell you flatly, he can’t last"

"Fred Maddox came back from a Louisiana Hayride Show and told me I should listen to this kid singing. On April 2, 1956 Fred called me and asked me to come to San Diego if I was interested in meeting Elvis. On the trip down I thought that since I'd seen other acts play at the Arena, I doubted he'd fill it. It was packed, Presley went wild, the girls never stopped and you could hardly hear him over the noise. I had never heard such a reaction to an artist, even being on shows with some of the biggest country singers of the day, so that's when I decided, that this is what I had to do"

"As far as I know, Presley and Gould never crossed paths. A media-mediated symbiotic relationship existed between the two of them, however, which extended beyond their dependencies, night-crawling work habits, and inner circles of hard-core loyal friends. Like Gould, Presley had the hermit's need for sanctuary in the studio, where his genius, every bit the equal of the pianist's, harnessed the full potential of playbacks and editing to sharpen and refine even the most thrown-off sounding uh-huh. The degree their sexuality was groomed for media consumption was another shared attribute."

"The same mystic power Michelangelo held in his hands Elvis held in his windpipe, a power nobody should have been allowed to put a price on, but for the love of the ‘ching!’, they did."

"He became nationally known in April 1945 when, as CBS's morning-radio man in Washington, he took the microphone for a live, firsthand account of President Roosevelt's funeral procession. The entire CBS network picked up the broadcast, later preserved in the Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly record series, I Can Hear it Now. Later, through his Talent Scout television show, he significantly assisted the careers of Pat Boone, Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher, Connie Francis, Leslie Uggams, Lenny Bruce, Steve Lawrence, Connie Francis, Roy Clark, and Patsy Cline. Yet he proved fallible. In April of 1955, he turned down Elvis Presley."

"Our bomb shelter generation revolted against the stiff, straight old ways. They threw away their traditional leather shorts for blue jeans and started standing and walking like cowboys. They were bored with '0 Tannenbaum!' and skipped 'Ach du lieber Augustin' to hear rock n' roll. Elvis Presley was just what they were looking for -- an American Pied Piper to lead them to excitement.""

""Elvis" “Tupac,” “Obama”"

"The day that Elvis died, Aug. 16, 1977 was a pretty big deal. Not as well remembered was Oct. 28, 1956, the day that he got a polio shot. The event, staged at CBS studios by the New York City health department, made the national television evening news and the New York Times. Photos suggest that he was having a blast. The New York City health department arranged for the public inoculation in order to encourage adolescents — the group most susceptible to polio after young children — to get their shots. Only a very low percent of the city's teenagers had received the newly licensed Salk vaccine. I'd like to think that if Elvis were still with us he'd be getting an HPV shot — vaccination rates for the cancer-causing human papilloma virus are among the lowest of recommended vaccines — and tweeting about it. But he has left the stage. Instead of Elvis posing for a shot we have celebrities caught up in the trap of unscientific thinking promoting vaccine refusal last year. This is not a red-blue issue: Green Party candidate Jill Stein is a vaccine skeptic as well. If that irrational fear-based movement continues to gain ground and data-driven medical science and advances that can save lives are ignored, we'll watching people get sick or even die from preventable diseases. Luckily, the movement has a way to go in the United States.. August is National Immunization Awareness Month, a good time to check that you and your family are up to date on vaccine coverage/ According to a survey conducted in 2014, and published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 87.6% to teenagers were up-to-date with the Tdap (tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis) vaccine and 60% had meningitis vaccine coverage. The rate for HPV vaccine, which requires 3 doses, was lower, perhaps because of its cost or opposition to the inoculations on the grounds that the way to avoid a sexually transmitted disease is to abstain from sex. HPV is transmitted sexually and the vaccine can prevent most genital warts and most cases of cervical cancer, which is projected to kill 4,120 women in 2016. Young men and women who get the vaccine also can dramatically lower their risk of some anal and oral cancers, which are on the rise. I miss Elvis, the King of Vaccines."

"Gorgeous ! - or same equally effusive effeminate word – is the only way to describe Elvis Presley's latest epiphany at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Not since Marlene Dietrich stunned the ringside with the sight of those legs encased from hip to ankles in a transparent gown has any performer so electrified this jaded town with a personal appearance. Without twanging a string, burbling a note or offering a hint of hip. Elvis transfixed a tough opening night audience of flacks and entertainers simply by striding on-stage in the costume of the Year. Not quite the erotic politician that Jim Morrison proved to be when he disrobed on stage. Elvis manages very well his constituency by occasionally grabbing a lady at ringside and kissing her firmly on the mouth. Grander than the "Fountainblue," the International has found itself an attraction magnetic enough to pull the shut-in generation over 30 out of their ranch houses onto nonstop jets and down in to the Valley of Loose Gold where the King presides over his people, with eternal youth and joy and jamboree."

"He is to the US National Football League what Elvis Presley is to rock-and-roll. He’s the king.”"

"They had me convinced that no teenage girl was safe around him. They wanted to have him watched at the theater and they wanted his hotel room watched. They had him pictured as a real villain. In my chambers, I warned him and his manager that I would be present at the first of six shows and that I had prepared warrants charging him with "impairing the morality of minors". As if for proof, deputies would be stationed in wings of the theater, I added. Once on the stage, he opened with "Heartbreak Hotel", threw his hips out once and so I immediately told the lawyer on the theater, in a whisper that I was going to put him in jail, sure as anything. But then, miraculously, Elvis caught himself. "Wait a minute. I can't do this. They won't let me do this here," I heard Elvis say. To everyone's amazement, instead of shaking, wiggling, and jumping around, Elvis stood perfectly still, wiggled his little finger suggestively in place of his usual movements, which thrilled the crowd, who I guess found "the finger" both hilarious and deeply erotic. So in the end, my wife, my three daughters and their girlfriends all watched as Elvis wiggled his finger suggestively throughout the show. And they roared when Elvis dedicated "Hound Dog" to me. Everybody in the audience got the biggest charge out of that. I was later told that Elvis continued the finger twitching movements throughout the other five Jacksonville shows. But he had made some new fans, including my grandson, Tony, who would grow up to idolize him by plastering his posters all over his bedroom walls."

"I had never seen him in person. I could hardly speak when I saw him..."

"I was told a couple of pieces of advice, one was ̊"just remember that whatever you do, try your best, because they aren't going to choose your best scene with Elvis, but Elvis' best with you". When I met him, he was utterly flattering. I then felt like an older sister for him, even taught him to twist. There was something about his wholesomeness, his courtesy, and that is why he is still as big as he is."

"He acknowledged to me that he was part of a new generation of communists who embraced Western rock and roll, including Elvis."

"Until recently, Western research on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union all but ignored the role of rock music in those societies. There have been a few academic articles on rock in socialist countries, but no serious book-length studies. Last November, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies held its first session ever on the subject. However, the recent collapse of the Iron Curtain has revealed societies not only aware of, but also significantly involved in, Western-style rock culture. In fact, none other than Raisa Gorbachev has publicly declared herself a fan of Elvis Presley"

"It's real gold, it cost $2500, some sort of impregnated unborn calf skin. It's very dramatic and almost unbelievable when you see an artist walk out on a stage and receive an ovation like the one we have witnessed tonight"

"Mississippi is also about people helping people. We lead the nation in charitable donations per-capita. When disaster strikes, our people respond with immediate relief for their neighbors, as they did after the Mississippi River flood of 1927 and following devastating hurricanes like Camille and Katrina of recent times and dozens of tornadoes and fires. Elvis Presley helped to rebuild McComb after a January 1975 tornado nearly leveled the place by giving a concert to aid storm victims. Today, Presley's birthplace in Tupelo is among the state's leading travel destinations, rivaling the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River-area casinos that annually pour millions of badly-needed dollars into the state treasure. There are more musicians, singers and other artisans of note per square foot here than anywhere else in America. Presley and Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner presided over our creative class, but they have been surrounded by a skyful of bright lights in the artistic constellation."

"I remember having a conversation with some of the older artists at STAX about when Elvis was breaking in the mid 1950's like the Reverend Bishop Dwight Arnold “Gatemouth” Moore, a disc jockey who had been a huge blues singer in the 1920´s and 1930's and became a gospel singer thereafter. In fact, it was he who said, 'Elvis gave us a second career'. That's what some people thought, but it's like you hear, some thought he was doing great things for African-Americans, bringing a respect to that music. I've read the newspaper articles of the time and the sense of fear and anger that Elvis instilled and the way he was despised was a real jolt, and it remains an amazing representation of America at the time. At the same time, the fact it was a white guy doing it made it different and I think a lot of people did get a new life."

"In the music world, there had always been a distinction between black and white music, the assumption being that black was R&B and white was pop. But with the explosion of Elvis and rock and roll those clear distinctions began to disappear. In fact, Elvis Presley was the first white artist to blur the lines of color among artists."

"It’s always been my dream to come to Madison Square Garden and be the warm-up act for Elvis."

"My uncle Perry came in, when I was six and started to create this character in the mirror. Because he was putting on this show, all my family were in the act so I was head of security, wearing this little official gold jacket, and suddenly there are all these screaming people, and my uncle – who has a moustache, a birthmark on his face and no hair – becomes Elvis and he's amazing. When the show was over, it felt like this weird emotional storm had taken over our house and sometimes when I try to figure out why I'm acting, I figure that had to be it."

"I had always wanted to meet Elvis. I was deeply involved in musical comedy. I was a chorus boy on Broadway — I was brought up and trained that way. So I asked if we could arrange for me to come and meet Elvis… and I got it. I brought Joey [Walsh], the guy who wrote ‘California Split’ with me, to see Elvis. Joey and I went into the dressing room and Elvis opened the door. He had a gold-gilded .45 pistol in his belt. His father, Vernon, and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker were there and then left. I told him to be a free spirit. He said, ‘Hey, man, you’re crazy,’ and then I said, ‘I ain’t crazy, Elvis. I’m scared just like you. Your daddy and the Colonel aren’t going to let us be alone for too long. You’re a cash cow to these people. Why don’t you come out (with us) and just be free, just be a free spirit? Leave Elvis here and come out and be free.'"

"That the prime exponent of this new style of music should be a singer who possessed no prior professional experience was an anomaly; (in fact), not only were most of the mannerisms that would define his vocal style present at the creation — from the sudden swoops in register to the habit, derived from gospel singing, of starting his lines with a throat-clearing "well" that gave whatever followed the feeling of a retort, but what was even more impressive was the extent to which his first professional recording was marked by the trait that has characterized every great popular singer: the absolute assertion of his personality over the song; from this, it might be concluded that Presley was simply a "natural.", but the truth, as ever, was more complex than that."

"When he shot the television set? He also shot at 50 other people. LOL. What I do remember was when we sat together backstage for two hours. And he was a charming, delightful man. And at one point I said, "That's a beautiful ring you have there." He said "You like it?" I said, "It's beautiful!" He took it off his hand and put it on mine. He gave me his ring. And years later all the jewelry I had in my house – I trust everybody. I was brought up to believe that you cannot steal, cheat or lie and I've been stolen from, cheated or lied to all of my life. And so jewelry – who needs it? But this one was something special to me and it's gone."

"On May 3, 1957, at Hollywood̺'s Radio Recorders Studios, Elvis and his band were working on a soundtrack session for “Jailhouse Rock". Bill Black had a difficult time laying down the bass line for (You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care on his new electric bass, and he eventually gave up, frustrated. Elvis surprised everyone by picking up the bass and playing the part – so perfect that Jerry Lieber performed a scratch vocal, and the two recorded the perfect instrumental master for Elvis to sing a new vocal track over, which he did less than a week later."

"I never met him but I believe I will see him in heaven because he was very deeply religious, especially in the last two or three years of his life."

"We were shooting a musical number on a merry-go-round where he's taken this little girl to the park and she's riding around and Elvis is singing to her. Well, she was a very young girl and she could only work for a few hours a day with us getting into all kinds of penalties and overtime. So when it came time to do Elvis' close up the little girl wasn't available to do the offstage. So Elvis said to me, 'I always feel better if I can sing to somebody'. He says, 'I wonder if you would mind standing beside the camera and let me sing to you when I do my close ups'. So I had Elvis Presley sing a song directly to me in a movie, and that was quite a thrill. (In fact), of all the people I've ever worked with in my entire life, and I've been a director for 47 years, Elvis was wonderful, the politest and nicest actor I ever worked with. A great guy.""

"But that doesn't mean I view systematically scrubbing Alex Jones from the internet, as Apple, Facebook, and YouTube have tried to do, as a victory. Why? Because I enjoy hip-hop, Elvis Presley, and "The Catcher in the Rye" -- and at some point in our country's history, all three were in the sights of people who didn't approve of its content (or in Elvis' case, hips). Again, I don't like what Jones has to say but I do like the fact I can call him an idiot. That's America, baby."

"I was in a Hollywood restaurant having lunch and he bounded up and said he'd seen me in "King Solomon’s Mines" more than 60 times. I told him I was flattered. Elvis then shook his head sadly and added: ‘I didn’t have any choice in the matter, Mr Granger. You see, at the time I was working as an usher in a cinema where the godawful film was playing. LOL."

"I have a crush on Elvis Presley."

"Every day, there are new stories about deepfakes and Artificial Intelligence-cloned voices and images that manipulates someone’s likeness without their consent. This is not just a problem that effects celebrities, this is a human problem that affects us all. As a mother of three daughters, I am terrified by how this technology has been used to exploit teenagers. It’s fitting that this bill is named the ELVIS Act, because Elvis Presley performed so many different types of songs–from love songs to the blues, from pop songs to gospel music–but he infused them with his distinct voice, likeness, and personal qualities to create something new. Every individual should have the right to control their unique God-given qualities."

"As sound leaves the body, it needs to resonate against something specific. There are options – you can direct that flow of sound to the nose, the throat, the jaw or to the sinus cavities in the face-, but I think what Elvis did – as evidenced by his lip curl – was to aim the vibration stream right at his teeth."

"I believe in moments that change everything, are powerful, mostly unplanned, and define lives. I remember the exact moment I met Toni. We were both at Batson Children's Hospital, she as a patient with her mother, and I was the visitor. I was with a team of people whose entire purpose in being there was to treat the soul while the physicians treated the body. We were responsible for giving children moments of relief from months of pain. Toni needed a moment. She had not felt like coming out of her room in a while. Leukemia will do that. This was our first moment. Our next was Hallowing also at Batson. Toni's mother and I exchanged numbers, and I stayed in touch regularly. She told me Toni's whites were very low and she was in isolation. No visitors. Our final moment was at the end of 2016, when Toni introduced me to a song I'd never heard before, in a church of all places. I sat in the back by myself until Toni's Childlife workers from Batson came to show their respects and maybe have one more moment and then we listened to Elvis Presley sing that "There must be peace and understanding sometime, strong winds of promise that will blow away, the doubt and fear" What a moment! I wish I could say I planned all of my life-changing moments, but I can't. Proverbs 16:9 says, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.” I planned to be at Batson, but I didn't plan the moment. That was all God and a little girl named Toni. Now, I'm so thankful for unplanned moments. Those little bits of peace and understanding from God and someone else who had no idea they were shaping my life. If we can be anything for anyone, why not a moment? Why not live Elvis' song and be a strong wind of promise that blows away someone's doubt and fear.......if only for a moment?"

"Some details just get lost to history. There were many people involved in the effort. Elvis was certainly the most high-profile, but without his help it would have taken much longer for the Arizona Memorial project to come to fruition. He was very patriotic, which I think is lost sometimes too. Just one of those stories that needs to be told in the larger picture of December 7, 1941 and all those who gave so much effort to see the men of Arizona memorialized properly."

"I don't think it is an exaggeration to say he remains is the most influential person to ever come from Mississippi. And we've had a lot Mississippians who have left their mark on the world. But Elvis changed the world."

"i) I loved Mahalia Jackson, all the great gospel singers, but the most important music to me was those hip-shakin' boys, like Wilson Pickett and Elvis Presley. I just loved Elvis Presley. Whatever he got, I went out and bought. But I liked “Love Me Tender” the most. In fact, Elvis had an influence on everybody with his musical approach. He broke the ice for all of us ii) Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, you know, I liked them all. See, we were used to the Motown era and the Stax era. And I really had an Elvis Presley collection of records, myself. I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I liked all the Elvis records, had no idea I would move to Memphis, Tennessee, and (in fact) I didn't know Elvis lived in Memphis."

"Elvis manages to pull off exponential, seismic shifts in energy, unleashing hoards of it through his voice whilst, within the space of a second, racing up the highest, most absolute vocal intensity; it's almost voyeuristic to see a single performer put so much energy; you look around to see if it's really possible; the voice just becomes a big tank panzering through the screen, punching in chorus after driving chorus and it is insanely, inexplicably thrilling seismic TV, bigger than the moon landing, a one-man volcano of energy; he makes it seem so damn effortless and, despite all the waiting and expected attention during the solo numbers, he always puts in an on-performance, the three unflagging takes of "If I can Dream" all intense, committed; and he does this through vocal performance alone, not moves; this is probably one of the few times where the vocals mattered most to him, and it shows; after days of intense singing, he hardly even loses his voice; I challenge any current pop singer to match this three-day heavy intensity, this sheer rock and roll energy."

"His flip-flops in 1988 on abortion and other issues so important to Deep Blue State voters was so legendary that Dick Gephardt became a running joke in Berkeley Breathed's "Bloom County" comic strip. After being abducted by aliens, 30-something permanent frat boy and womanizer Steve Dallas underwent a process of "Gephardtization"ː On board their spaceship, the aliens had originally planned to transplant Elvis Presley's brain into Steve's head. However, after Steve threatened the aliens with a lawsuit, they decided to perform the "Gephardtization" process on him instead, which was the same procedure used previously on Dick Gephardt to completely reverse opinions and attitudes. After being presumed dead by the residents of Bloom County, Steve was zapped back to earth a few days later. To the whole county's amazement, he was now a sensitive, caring liberal and feminist. He also stopped wearing his trademark sunglasses, quit smoking, and got a perm."

"I was making for the door when he opened his eyes, blinked, as if he wasn't sure for a moment what I was doing there. He twitched a shoulder toward the phone and said ‘Would you mind calling room service and ordering me a fried-egg sandwich?. At that moment, it might have been clear I was born to be a restaurant critic. I just didn’t know it yet..."

"It's easy to buy his pitch; after all who knows better than Vladimir Putin what the threat of foreign interference can mean for an unstable government? But the truth of the matter is that his “wall” will serve only to isolate the people of Russia from the world. Putin will have an “off” switch if an election doesn't go his way or a foreign press publishes some dirt he doesn't like. He'll have the power to disrupt his people's communication and keep open-source idea exchanges at arm's length. Sure, data finds a way. Just like Levi's blue jeans and Elvis Presley records took up residence in the basements and attics of rebellious Russians in the 1950s and 1960s, the people of Russia will find a way to circumvent the censors and access the world-wide-web. But not all of them. Many will embrace the change."

"Well, what strikes me about it is there may be a lesson here in how the great wheel turns, that is, in 1956, when Presley hit the national scene and some of us rock 'n' roll aficionados found him entertaining it's safe to say, I would guess the art section of the "National Review" didn't greet him at the time with hosannas. And now, by the time he died, he becomes Middle America's favorite guy, the guy who was nice to his mother, emblematic of the values that people thought 20 years earlier he was challenging?"

"I learned the psychology of people under pressure. There was something inside me that said, ‘Someday, I’d like to write a song like (‘An American Trilogy’) that Elvis sings. Presley and I often worked in the same Nevada hotels. He inspired me, and I, in addition, had learned many patriotic songs during my high school years, especially those by John Phillip Sousa. I always knew that if he ever landed in Nashville, I would write a song reminiscent of Sousa, and Presley’s trilogy. And in 1983, I did."

"Returning to my car after buying the tickets, four huge guys came toward me down the alley. One looked familiar, then I remembered the picture my girlfriend had shown me. ‘Are you Elvis Presley?’ I asked. ‘I surely am,’ he replied. I asked for his autograph and got it. When I gave it to my girlfriend, she fainted."

"Ok, so I think Elvis would've dug Bruce, because he not only sings from his gut and heart, he paints really deep canvases with his words. Even if you can't stand his voice, no one, but no one, can take away his incredible talent of writing. Man to get Elvis singing a Bruce song, WOW!! Anyways, so I was in Hollywood shooting an escape from a straitjacket hanging upside down on the Hollywood sign, and my photographer said let's eat at George Santo Pietro's Restaurant. We got there and it was sparsely occupied a few tables, very private and next to me and just behind me sat Bruce Springsteen eating with someone else (I was told later it was a guitarist from the Stones) I got nervous and my date said go up and say hey. I waited for the guitarist to leave while others in the restaurant left. Here's my chance, should I? should I? Oh shit. So I said "Hi I'm Michael Griffin. I'm in town shooting a show and I love Elvis music and yours". Holy crap Bruce said sit down. We were talking and ordered another pizza, US$34 for that pizza and stuff. We kept going on and on about Elvis and the feel of music in the gut and how when I was given a Bruce record (the River) I finally found that OTHER guy who sings from the gut and writes it perfectly too. Bruce was incredibly nice, just down to earth cool guy no airs about him. Dinner ended and I thoroughly enjoyed my expensive pizza with The Boss at Santo Pietro's..."

"Elvis is Dead And I Don't Feel So Good Myself"

"So we made plans to go to a local football game, and a Greyhound bus pulled up in Graceland so we all got in, wives, girlfriends, everyone. We watched the game, had a great time. Before the end of it, Elvis wanted to leave, so the bus was now en route to Graceland when suddenly there was a railroad crossing, and a train stopped there, so we couldn't advance. Elvis opens the door of the bus, there is no one outside, very dark, ghetto territory, so Elvis keeps walking alone, goes through between two train cars, so I followed him, and we finally see a liquor store, with eight African American middle aged men seated on the curb drinking. He walks up to each one, introduces himself as Elvis Presley and then asks, "Does any one of you have a car"? One guy says that he does, he stands up and says, "Yes, I do", so now Elvis asks him if he can take us to Graceland. It was a very old Olds, with no windows. Elvis gets in, and off we go, me, Elvis, and three of the eight guys, to Graceland. En route, he said he would give them 100 bucks, but he had no money, and neither did I, or so I thought. Once we got to Graceland, they honked, but the guard does not recognize the car, so he goes back into the gate. Elvis stick his head out the window frame, orders the guy to open the gates. And then, what does Elvis do next? He takes the three African American guys he just met through a personal, midnight tour of Graceland. After that, he gives each a hundred dollars, the three bills I had in my pocket, all along, but didn't remember having. That was Elvis Presley..."

"Before him I had never met what I would call a true rock 'n' roll hero. Screw Elvis and Keith Richards, Lemmy is the king of rock 'n' roll. A living, breathing, drinking legend. No one else comes close."

"The Writers Institute's intimate dinner gatherings – typically 10 or 12 seated at a round table with a modest buffet from our University at Albany campus food service – are a reminder that wonderful things happen when we turn off our mobile devices, make eye contact and actually engage in the give-and-take of dialogue. At a recent dinner, the conversation swung around a couple of otherworldly experiences. One story revolved around a "possessed" Elvis Presley clock, actually a detour into paranormal activity. The Lady who spoke and her husband, explained that they were both fans of Elvis so they made a pilgrimage years ago to Graceland, where they purchased a kitschy clock that featured Elvis swiveling his hips in sync to the movement of the clock's tick-tock. The batteries had long died, but they left the clock on the wall for sentimental reasons. A decade later, the Lady described that while she watched a recent documentary on Priscilla Presley, the clock surged back to life and Elvis began swiveling his hips once more after years of stoppage. I was the dubious journalist again, arguing that so-called dead batteries retain a small amount of voltage even though they stop powering a device. Sometimes, they mysteriously recharge, but she refused to yield to the notion that the clock's unsettling movement could be explained by natural laws..."

"In western art song and opera, voices like those of Kathleen Ferrier, Luciano Pavarotti or Maria Callas have the capacity to leap out from the score to touch anyone who has ever heard their unique sound. There have always been certain singing voices that seem to reach out and speak to something beyond most of the others. Some great voices do this, in part, because their distinctiveness is intimately associated with some large moral cause: Paul Robeson with racial justice or Joan Baez with civil rights, for example. Others achieve their connection by representing the zenith of a particular cultural tradition: Umm Kulthum in Egypt, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in Pakistan or Youssou N'Dour in Senegal. Still others uniquely embody a time and place in their art: John McCormack with early 20th-century Ireland, perhaps, or Édith Piaf with postwar Paris. In 20th-century pop music, the voice of Elvis Presley is as iconic and identifiable in the west as that of Teresa Teng – whose voice was memorably described as “seven parts sweetness, three parts tears” – is in the east. No list of examples will be exhaustive. There are, it goes without saying, many others. Yet when Rolling Stone selected Aretha Franklin as the greatest popular singer of all time, we all understood why."

"An evening auction of "Post-War and Contemporary Art" held by Christie’s of New York (USA) on 12 November 2014 raised a record art auction total of $852,887,000 (£598,244,000). It featured works by artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichenstein, Willem de Kooning and Jeff Koons. Two silkscreen-on-linen prints by Warhol – "Triple Elvis (Ferus Type)" and "Four Marlons" – alone made $81.9 m (£57.5 m) and $69.6 m (£48.8 m), respectively."

"Everybody has an Elvis — an artist they value above all others, whose songs speak to them in a way they cannot fully describe. In other words, music that feels like it was written specifically for them.Tom Waits is my Elvis."

"Elvis got that number and made it famous, but I didn't get a chance to shake his hand"

"But the core of the album, and perhaps the core of Elvis' music itself, are the soulful gospel-flavored ballads. Well, it's often seemed as if Elvis bore more than a passing resemblance to soul singer Salomon Burke. The way in which he uses his voice, his dramatic exploitation of vocal contrast, the alternate intensity and effortless nonchalance of his approach, all put one in mind of a singer who passed this way before, only going the other way. And here he uses these qualities to create a music which, while undeniable country, puts him in touch more directly with the soul singer than with traditional country music. It was his dramatic extravagance, in fact, which set him apart from the beginning, and it is to this perhaps, as much as anything else -- to the very theatrics which Elvis brought to hillbilly music --, that we can trace the emergence of rock & roll."

"When one studies the properties of atoms one found that the reality is far stranger than anybody would have invented in the form of fiction. Particles really do have the possibility of, in some sense, being in more than one place at one time. Thus, and essentially, anything that can happen does happen in one of the alternatives which means that superimposed on top of the Universe that we know of, is an alternative universe where Elvis Presley is still alive. This idea was so uncomfortable that for decades scientists dismissed it, but in time parallel universes would make a spectacular comeback. This time they'd be different, they'd be even stranger than Elvis being alive. There's an old proverb that says: be careful what you wish for in case your wish comes true. The most fervent wish of physics has long been that it could find a single elegant theory which would sum up everything in our Universe. It was this dream which would lead unwittingly to the rediscovery of parallel universes. It's a dream which has driven the work of almost every physicist."

"So there we all were, Pete Seeger, Too Rodriguez and I, in Denmark, a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, playing at a Folk Festival with thirty thousand screaming, drinking, laughing, singing people. And we were all singing an old Elvis tune! It was then that I suddenly realized how proud I was to come from a country where our songs are known and loved all over the world, by all kinds of people. I also learnt a little bit about what folk songs are, or are not, in fact sometimes they are not even about anything. Again, there we were, singing an old Elvis tune that did not say anything about the state of the world, but boy, more was being said about who was singing it and about how they were feeling, than we trying to sing a lot of songs that try to say a lot of stuff..."

"I'm not much of an Elvis Presley fan, but when I found an "Elvis 24 Karat Hits!" LP a few years ago I played it once or twice and filed it away. In the midst of writing this review, I by chance played that LP again. This time Elvis spoke to me, his phrasing and power, and his band's rockin' rhythms got my juices flowing. The mmf-1.5 brought me closer to Elvis' music, something I had not ever noticed before..."

"I had visited him several times back in April. No name marked the thick metal door that sheltered his loft from the neighborhood derelicts and crack vendors, and the ground-floor studio/kitchen/dining room looked both busy and cozy. The floor would always be covered with unstretched canvases in various stages of completion, and he would trot messily across them to fetch me a beer or tend to the spaghetti. The place looked lighthearted, with dark-side-of-Pop touches—portraits of Elvis and James Dean—and a giant birdcage adorned with a rubber bat and containing the bird's nest that he sometimes wore to parties. The only visible artwork not by him was a portrait of him by his one-time mentor Andy Warhol."

"I think and my roots are blues, country, soul and rock. Rock is fourth believe it or not. I did not start out playing rock; I started out playing blues and R&B. When I was going back – my first musical experience with my father was listening to Hank Williams. And then Elvis Presley came along and my big sisters went with that, so that's really country/rockabilly/blues. So those are my roots and they are really starting to come out even deeper..."

"I once had a personal visit with Elvis Presley following his 1972 concert here in San Antonio. He had a deep sensitivity for the Lord, received Grammy's for his religious recordings, "How great thou art", and "He touched me", sang about heaven with a real passion and touched the lives of people even through a record. I know some of you are going to start writing me nasty letters for saying such nice things about Elvis Presley... Please... when you get to be perfect... then send me the letter."

"Elvis touched the life of every ear that heard him, and you could not help to LISTEN while he sang."

"I believe the three most important events of the 1950's were the Brown vs Board of Education decision, the building of Levitttown and the emergence of Elvis Presley."

"I was asked who would be my dream opponent in the ultimate game of truth or dare, anyone, living or dead, and I picked Elvis Presley who I love so much that I named my dog after him."

"Ị've always been obsessed with Elvis Presley."

"He was already assured of his ability as a performer since he had been perfecting his style on the road for more than a year. If you look at that first appearance on Stage Show, you'll witness a young confident singer with his own unique style. He would enhance his popularity with five more appearances on Stage Show (February 4, 11, 18; March 17, 24) and would become a superstar by the end of that year. On that historic television debut of January 28, 1956, the spotlight was first shown on the two people who had made it happen – the promoter and the performer – disc jockey Bill Randle and the new singing sensation, Electric Elvis."

"I adored all that period in the history of cinema — everything that spilled forth from the Actors Studio. I actually wanted to be an actor before I became a singer. But when I was 12, I discovered rock ’n’ roll through Elvis Presley. He became a part of my life, had a great voice and was the first rock star I saw in the cinema. His voice, the way he moved, everything was sexy. The first time I saw him, I was paralysed." In fact, the day he died, my entire youth went with him."

"In 1957, I missed out on booking Elvis Presley by just $3,000 dollars, and Elvis unfortunately never played The Steel Pier or anywhere else in Atlantic City, ever. It was an unfortunate miss, to say the least. I had negotiated feverishly with Colonel Tom Parker to book him. It all came down to just a few thousand dollars. but I refused to budge on paying Parker’s demand. This major loss taught me a valuable lesson. By 1958 I was determined to never again repeat that mistake which led me to the most iconic booking in Steel Pier history, which became better known as the day Ricky Nelson “Rocked The Steel Pier, with 44,000 fans breaking the all-time attendance record and physically moving the pier, leaving many to believe (Ricky Nelson included) that the pier would collapse into the sea"

"The point of Elvis Presley was that, after a dismal eight years on the screen, he returned to the stage where he always belonged and to the grinding treadmill of being on the road, which has killed so many of America's artists; he may not have pushed the boundaries of music farther but when he opened his mouth to release that baritone – the only white voice that could ever match the blues-, all you could feel was his longing and your own stirrings."

"The most affecting part of the book is a series of emails exchanged between mother and daughter when Carrie took a road trip in 2001 to visit Elvis Presley's home, Graceland, as well as her mother's childhood home in San Antonio, Texas, and the Belleville, Ark., home of her great-grandmother, Mae Jones, who raised Burnett. Carrie's emails are full of lively intelligence, sharply observed detail and a warm sense of humor, as well as her growing desire to learn more about her family's past."

"I went to Alana and told her that if she wanted to get married we'd have to get married right there and then. So we got married in Elvis's suite at the Las Vegas Hilton. Elvis was smart, would come over and sing gospel music and we'd have dinner. And I was at his funeral some years later. I flew in on his airplane "Lisa Marie" with the Sweet Inspirations. That was a freaky day when we took him out of Graceland to the cemetery and we were all in the white limousines. A very, very freaky day. Things happened that I'll never forget. The stewardess on the plane told me that his milkshake mug broke that day on landing. And when they picked me up they said the blanket in back, in his bed. had caught fire. And I saw for myself, when they brought his body out of Graceland this huge branch of a tree just cracked. Not some little willow. There was a weird energy happening there and you could feel it."

"In the 1956s to 1957s, I began to think about why artists were concerned with things that had nothing at all to do with their everyday lives. We all went to the movies at least three times a week in those days. But most of them returned to their studios and painted monochrome or abstract pictures. That's why I drew up a program in which I wrote down everything that seemed important to me for contemporary art. A kind of manifesto that I hoped would also interest my colleagues — but it didn'. My first artistic realization of this manifesto was the installation "Fun House," which I designed for the London exhibition "This is Tomorrow" in 1956. In fact, visitors had to squeeze through a narrow corridor past pin-up pictures, hundreds of advertisements, movie posters and spinning color discs, while songs by Elvis Presley and Little Richard alternately blared from a jukebox. With the things I exhibited in the "Fun house", I tried to reflect the young people's attitude to life. Music, science fiction movies, objects. I was pretty much alone in the exhibition with that. Everyone else was looking back rather than into the future. But it was my contribution that caused a sensation."

"In 1969, Elvis gave my father the chance to record a song called "Angelica", a ballad which was originally meant for Elvis to record. Dad recorded it, but Elvis was very distraught when my dad fell ill then died from a massive stroke shortly after, so he not just sent my mother a rose each day dad was in the hospital but then when he passed away, flowers for the next six months..."

"I've heard some musicians say, ‘That man ain’t sayin’ nothing.’ It’s just a matter of rival performers trying to detract from those who are doing business. As far as I’m concerned, a man that sells that many records must be saying something to somebody."

"When healthy and serious, he was flat-out the world's greatest singer. In his voice, he possessed the most beautiful musical instrument, and the genius to play that instrument perfectly; he could jump from octave to countless other octaves with such agility without voice crack, simultaneously sing a duet with his own overtones, rein in an always-lurking atomic explosion to so effortlessly fondle, and release, the most delicate chimes of pathos. Yet, those who haven't been open (or had the chance) to explore some of Presley's most brilliant work – the almost esoteric ballads and semi-classical recordings –, have cheated themselves out of one of the most beautiful gifts to fall out of the sky in a lifetime. Fortunately, this magnificent musical instrument reached its perfection around 1960, the same time the recording industry finally achieved sound reproduction rivaling that of today. So, it's never too late to explore and cherish a well-preserved miracle, as a simple trip to the record store will truly produce unparalleled chills and thrills, for the rest of your life; and then you'll finally understand the best reason this guy never goes away."

"You lucky bastard..."

"If His Holiness Pope Francis has 1,728 CDs in his music library, I suspect that Elvis Presley' “How Great Thou Art” may be one of his favorite. Not only is it ranked as one of the most popular hymns of all time, but Presley’s version even won a Grammy Award for Best Sacred Performance in 1967. If Mozart “lifts” Pope Francis to God, Presley's “How Great Thou Art” is sure to at least make his soul sing."

"At auction, there are many names with a stellar multiplication factor beyond the obvious entertainers, people who have influenced history as leaders, politicians, captains of industry, artists, musicians, sportsmen, people with personal qualities that resonate with a very large marketplace. Therefore, items with a connection to Princesses Diana and Grace, as well as to Audrey Hepburn, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Elvis Presley, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali and Yves St Laurent all command big prices at auction."

"A style and panache that come close to pure magic. Lithe, raunchy, the sweat pouring down his face, he now moves with the precision of an athlete, the grace of a dancer, flamboyant and flashy, sexy and self-mocking, he works with the instincts of a genius to give poetry to the basic rock performance."

"Elvis Presley was an important influence to my generation and we all loved him very much. I wrote a song called “All Over the World,” influenced so much by his ballad "Where do you come from" that the British musician I was working with, Charles Blackwell, put backing singers behind me who sounded exactly like the Jordanaires. I think that had something to do with the success that song had in England. Back in the ’60s, when Elvis wasn’t performing, I always said, “The day he comes back to the stage, I will go to see his show.” When it happened, at the beginning of the ’70s, I made the trip to Las Vegas. I was not disappointed at all. I was amazed."

"As it is, polls show the public’s trust in the Knesset is devastatingly low. So, if you oppose the death penalty, the fact that the coalition is legitimizing it is a problem. And if you support the death penalty, the fact that this bill will probably change nothing is a problem. The same goes for any of the other bills. What the Knesset needs now is what Elvis Presley once called a little less conversation, a little more action – if only the coalition partners will let that happen."

"During the course of their mili­tary action, they became the largest manufacturer of bikes in the world, and through their popularity their reputation and bold image be­came instant staples of the brand. Surprisingly, it was 46 years after the company’s founding that the black leather jacket famous with Harley riders emerged. The outlaw image of riders rocking their jackets on-top of their Harley’s transcended culture with movie actors, legendary singers and superstars, such as Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley."

"I pretty much started acting out of the womb, all kidding aside, it started when I was at Lebanon High school, actually at the library. It was not long after Elvis died when I had actually started listening to all of his records, so one of my buddies at the football team asked me to do my Elvis imitation, right there so I said I no, and then they said to just do it quietly, and I said that if I did it, it had to be loud, so I went into "Teddy Bear", and they all liked it, and then they all started to move closer to where I was seated, so then I stood up and it was kind of festive, because it was around Xmas. And then I got on top of a table, and the response was so great that I sort of became a performer, without knowing it. What happened next is that Robin Rogers, a beautiful girl at the school, who knew me as "the best football player" and was there, came up to me and said that she was involved with the school theatre, and that I should join her there, and be an actor. So I did become one, and it was all thanks to Elvis and Robin..."

"Some horses enjoy greater popularity after they've won the Derby. Silver Charm who won the 1997 Kentucky Derby, today lives out his retirement at Old Friends Farm in Georgetown, Kentucky. The owners of the farm say that tours of Old Friends Farm have doubled since Silver Charm retired there, likening his appeal to that of Elvis Presley's."

"Atheism is not a philosophy, not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, 'atheism' is a term that should not even exist. No one needs to identify himself as a 'non-astrologer' or a 'non-alchemist.' We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs.”"

"Many people have been giving him trouble for swinging his hips. I swing mine and have no trouble. He’s got publicity I could not buy"

"If ever there were a human equivalent to liver and onions—hated or loved, but no in-between—it was the late E. Hunter Harrison, personally synonymous with the term “Precision Scheduled Railroading,” and whose mention invokes often disquieting debate on theories of management and how best to deliver shareholder value in the short-and long-term. Say “Hunter,” and contemporary railroaders know precisely of whom you speak, a most complex disrupter of the status quo, equally identifiable in his bold pinstriped suits and excessive displays of rock-star-like bling conceivably masking an extension of his childhood infatuation with Elvis Presley."

"Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis" comes out in the summer, and I play B.B. King. That’s really cool, I’m really excited for people to see it. It’s going to be epic,”"

"I met him later at Madison Square Garden. And at that time, I had my uniform, the worn-out denim jacket and jeans—looked like a rag-man and I had a big beard and moustache and long hair down to my waist. They took me to meet him and I'm sitting there, thinking "Well, where’s Elvis, then?" And finally he came out of the back and he was immaculate. I felt like a real grubby little slug and he looked like Lord Siva or something, seemed to be about eight feet tall and his hair was black and his tan was perfect and he had this big white suit, a gold belt about four feet wide and he was towering above me so I just put a hand out and said "Hello, Elvis, how are you?"—just cowering like this little rag-man. (In fact) we all loved him and he's still there in his spirit and in his music...ii) Jesus Christ said "Put your own house in order"' and Elvis said "Clean up your own backyard" so if everybody tries to fix themselves up, rather than trying to fix everybody else up, there won't be a problem."

"If it once was assumed that Elvis fans defined themselves by class, and were predominantly from the lowers stratas, this is an assumption that has long been confounded. His fans are also Presidents, Prime Minister and royals. In May 2014, Prince William and his brother Prince Harry and their cousins went to Memphis for a friend's wedding. In spite they were born after Elvis death, the power of Elvis mystique made them pay their respects just like millions have..."

"Red, maybe, but Reed was no Elvis"

"He is visionary in the spirit of the savior of the venerable New York Times, Adolph Ochs or, better yet, Elvis...."

"Presley's long-time manager admitted it to me, over tea, that the real reason why my attempts to bring Elvis to London had failed, was his own uncertain immigration status. Parker was an illegal and didn't want to risk leaving the US – so it was him, not Elvis,”"

"There are so many layers there. I think his voice is otherworldly. It has a soulfulness that I find very, very moving. And his beauty, his exquisite beauty. That voice, that beauty, it feels like such a gift to the world. He’ll always be a huge figure in my life. I was fascinated with Elvis as a child. You hear it in the voice, you know. Me, as a singer, I think we don’t talk enough about what artists are actually doing. We talk about their lives, and find out more about their history. But when you actually just listen to his voice, it’s incredible. It’s unlike anything else, so moving. It’s beyond my comprehension. I can’t even describe in words how magnificent his voice is."

"Elvis, they say, died in 1977, the very same year Orrin began serving in the United States Senate. At the White House, they had just a single medal for the two of them..."

"Elvis Presley, the quintessential American singer. One of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century. Forty-one years after his death, he still commands a large and loyal following. His Memphis home Graceland has recorded over 20 million visitors since it opened to the public in 1982."

"I met him at the NBC set of "Laugh in" in June of 1968 because he used to rehearse in the studio for his NBC special that year. Anyways, in walks this guy, and he was soooo beautiful, that it just took my breath away, everybody's breath away. And he walked up to me, and he tussled my hair, and he said 'You look like a chicken that's just been hatched'. 'And I didn't know what to think, I thought it was a compliment. But my god, I've never met a guy with so much charisma in my life'"

"Elvis was a giant and influenced everyone in the business."

"This guy didn’t have to give me the time of day. But somehow he had that charm, or maybe it was a knack, of making me feel important at a time when it was important for me personally to be made to feel important. Perhaps, now, I see it clearer, but there is no getting away from it. I had never met — before or since — never read of, nor heard of, any man who could so totally disarm you with charm, generosity and what appeared to be spontaneous love, as could Elvis Presley. Today they use the word charisma. Well, Presley had it to spare in truckloads.”"

"Sorry, Elvis, but you have always been my idol and, if I had just shaken your hand when we were introduced a second ago, you would have not necessarily remembered me, but now that I went down to the floor and bit your ankle, you will"

"I just loved him!!!"

"I've been fascinated with that guy Elvis all my life because I know there is an extraordinary human being underneath that two dimensiuonal facade we see culturally. In fact, I've always been captivated by stories that humanize iconic figures, and Elvis may be the most iconic of all. He was a cultural lightning rod in the 1950s, but by the mid-60s he was culturally irrelevant. As a fan I've always wondered why he didn't do more to satisfy his musical ambitions, and as a filmmaker I've always wondered how much it hurt Elvis the human to see Elvis the icon fade into obscurity. I originally pitched this film as a sports movie: this is an aging superstar with one final chance to throw a Hail Mary and prolong his dying career. If he fails, he's finished. If he succeeds, he continues on. Not only did he succeed, he delivered one of the most indelible performances in music history. This is the story of a stunning triumph amidst overwhelming adversity"

"I remember the revelation it was to me when I realized I'd rather be smart in the way Elvis Presley was than in the way, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein was. The thing was, you could imagine you could be smart like Wittgenstein by just thinking hard enough, but Elvis just had it. It was almost spiritual. A kind of grace."

"We were on location in Crystal River, FL (Weeki Wachee Mermaid Show), where I had him all to myself when what seemed like thousands of people showed up to see him there. They were standing behind a wire fence meant to keep them away from him and I was really overwhelmed by it, because I'd never seen such madness for someone. He then sent me back to the place we were all staying and remained there signing autographs for about three or four hours. And I was so touched by that. He really revered his fans. He was lovely with them. I was very impressed and it was really one more thing to love Elvis for."

"I got to see him twice. The first time he played the Catholic Club, which was like a gymnasium at the local Catholic high school. He and Scotty Moore and Bill Black — a three piece. He was hot. He wasn't famous yet but he was hot. I think he had put out, like, three records that I had heard. The girls were there, too and you couldn't really hear because they were starting to act up."

"One of his favourite musicians to watch was Elvis Presley. In fact, Jimi specially idolized him, loved his music but more than that he liked the passion he showed on stage ii) He'd play for me all the time when I was a kid. After our mother was gone it was hard on me, and I had a hard time sleeping some nights. Jimi would hear me crying sometimes and come sit on the bed next to me and play me songs on the guitar to help me relax until I could fall asleep. He played a lot of Elvis songs to me, especially "Love me tender" and Heartbreak Hotel." iii) My uncle Al at the time was having financial difficulties so Jimi came to live with us, for about a year, and he would play the guitar on a broomstick, so at that time we are all listening to Elvis Presley. iv) In 1969, I was sitting next to Jimi when Elvis Presley's new Soulful recording of 'Suspicious Minds' had just came out and the DJ started playing it. Jimi reached for the radio, turned up the volume and started singing along. 'Great song'. He was excited Elvis was coming back with new music and live performing. v) Back at the BBC, he chose a bluesie list that included his tribute to Elvis Presley, with Hound Dog, a crowd pleaser which would start to creep into many of his later live shows."

"You`ve got to be progressive. Take Elvis. He's still got plenty of fans and just look at the progress he´s made on his bank statements..."

"Presley had a unique voice, with a quite tonal perspective. He could belt tenor range notes and his vibrato is understated, especially in ballads. His pitch accuracy is also hidden, and that is one of his most outstanding qualities. Dynamically, he knew how to sing each song, leaning in, and making each performance even more personal than the writer of the song had meant or had wanted it to. The best examplle of his vocal ability is the totality of what he sang, namely in the sense that every song he sang sounded as good as it did. His natural vibrato covered several semi tones, which made his singing even more dramatic. He had the ability to change his voice to suit a song, rather than the other way around. Over the years, he added that smokey quality and the raspiness in his voice was all natural, but it was always a voice that rested in between the notes. He is one of the most heard singers of all time, which means that ultimately, his voice, at his best, can not be categorized because as npointed out earlier, it will always remain one that rests in between the notes, no matter who listens to it."

"I met Elvis in 1968 when he went to the clinic for treatment of saddle sores from riding horses. We treated him after hours. That night, I was in the room assessing Elvis, and he was sitting in the corner talking to me with his head down. I walked over, lifted his chin and said, "Elvis, if you talk to me, you look at me" I thought I was in trouble when my boss, Dr. Nichopoulos called me to his office and, with a solemn look on his face, asked me what I'd said to Presley. I told him and that is when he grinned and said "He liked you...""

"He was so above the normal person, so intelligent and humble. But look at his voice, its tremendous range, his musical abilities. And he, I mean some men are good looking, some have great personalities but he had it all. And then, I was very surprised, because he used to love to recite the Lord's Prayer. And I was a Christian in my early childhood days, Mom even saying that we had a Bible on our dining room table. But I didn't really know, and I think Elvis was one of the little budding seeds in when we would have our spiritual talks. But I had no clue that an actor would have a love for God or even want to talk about the Bible. That was a surprise, a very pleasant surprise, and he had a part in turning my life around"

"The day Elvis Presley died, which is her birthday, I remember her saying that she felt his spirit pass through her. It struck me as an arrogant statement. Now I'd be hard pressed to disprove it."

"Think too of the impact on the U.S. of earlier immigrant groups that came in search of liberty. Without the scientists who escaped Nazism and fascism in the 1930s and 1940s—such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard and Edward Teller—there would have been no atomic bomb, and World War II would have likely ended with a slow, brutal invasion of Japan at a cost of many more lives. A particularly good parallel with the current plight of Afghans is the evacuation of 38,000 Hungarian refugees to America after the Soviet crackdown on the 1956 revolution, thanks to the Eisenhower administration’s Operation Safe Haven. Giving those victims of communism a home in the U.S. became a national crusade. Among those who broadcast the appeal was Elvis Presley on “The Ed Sullivan Show”; in 2011 Presley was posthumously named an honorary citizen of Budapest."

"At first it was funny, but then just sad. That's pretty much how many Indonesians felt when they saw pictures of politicians Fadli Zon and Setya Novanto at a 2015 press conference held by American presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It was hilarious because it was so unreal. First, how did they get there, and why? Of all the places to visit in New York, why choose Trump's campaign headquarters? Second, what's with the star-struck faces? Couldn't they play it a little cooler? It's Donald Trump, for heaven's sake, not Elvis Presley!"

"Elvis was both a now underrecognized figure of individual artistic genius and an acknowledged but increasingly underconsidered figure of cultural revolution. The democratic impulse behind rock 'n' roll – the union of black and white, urban and rural, sophisticated and rough – had had been a kind of subterranean reality, especially in the South, for years, but became a marketplace reality across the country at the moment of Elvis' mid-'50s emergence. It was driven by a post-war youth culture whose surfeit of discretionary income had the buying power to turn a pre-existing subculture into mass and Elvis into a star. Before, it may have seemed unlikely in a nation so divided that the many tributaries of American music, and the cultures they represented, could come together in one music and one man, though Elvis was only the brightest star in a broad constellation. Elvis was a figure of great disruption who became a figure of great unity, if only for a little while. Maybe this moment needs that reminder, if we can look far enough to Young Elvis to see it."

"Wearing a red Make America Great Again baseball cap, the former president became the night's DJ and selected songs from opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley, and James Brown, anonymous sources told the New York Times"

"While others might have voices the equal of Presley's, he had that certain something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime..."

"We would send him tapes of our games. Jim Brown was his hero."

"One scene in Houston was illustrative of the feeling about Presley. While he performed from a portable stage in the center of the Astrodome, some 40 policemen and security guards lined the wall that separates the field from the audience. At one point, a youth in his early 20s walked through a gate and began strolling toward the middle of the field. When a policeman called to him, the young man began running deliberately toward the stage and Presley. Normally, this type of scene will cause an audience to applaud the runner or boo the police, but there was a clear feeling of tension in the Astrodome. What was the intruder up to? All too often, charismatic figures attract the unbalanced. There was an obvious, audible sigh of relief when a policeman tackled the young man a few feet from the stage. The concert resumed but it took a few moments for the audience's attention to return fully to the music. Perhaps more than any other scene in Las Vegas or Houston, the tension shown when Presley was threatened (even the vague possibility of a threat) demonstrates the unique bond between him and his audience. More than a performer, Presley is a phenomenon. It is his exceptional talent as a singer and showman that enabled him to attract his original audience and to attract a new one today. But talent is only one reason he wears a crown. The other reason centers around the special relationship with his audience"

"There's also a special Elvis section, featuring vintage photos and artifacts such as a midcentury-era leather couch that provided a comfy seat for the crooner, some of which courtesy of late radio icon Tom Perryman, who helped a young Elvis get a foothold in the music industry, seeking out gigs in a variety of venues, from beer joints to the backs of flatbed trucks. Thousands of visitors stop by the exhibit annually to glimpse memorabilia linked to the “King of Rock and Roll.”"

"I visited eleven countries with Pres. Eisenhower during a massive 1959 peace-building campaign, took a helicopter tour of Washington with Pres. Johnson to see the devastation from the riots after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and stood on the South Lawn as a disgraced Pres. Nixon boarded Marine One for the last time and left the White House. I met Arnold Palmer when Eisenhower played golf with him at Augusta National, got the word that Elvis Presley had showed up unannounced at the White House’s northwest gate to talk to Nixon and was at Cape Canaveral to watch the Apollo 11 launch, which first put men on the moon."

"It’s insane the charisma he had. I’ve never seen anything like it to this day. When I saw Elvis on television, I just fell in love with him completely. As a singer, I want to be able to relate to an audience like this man did. Of course, nobody can – he was the best there ever was.”"

"I wear glasses anyway but I wear slightly different ones, and when I'm not working, I tend to grow a bit of a beard or stubble. I very rarely get spotted, but if I'm shaved and I've got a suit on, then I do. But there are ways of not being recognised, just by not catching people's eye and walking fast," he explains. But I'm not Elvis Presley, I'm just some comic and I haven't been on TV for a while."

"I don’t know about you, but when I see Bill Clinton I think of Elvis Presley. Tonight, the former president tried to ease the suspicious minds of Bernie Sanders’ supporters and make them feel burning love for Hillary Clinton. It was a complicated challenge: Improving the public perception of his wife, who is–in a word–unliked, while he's liked much more. Recounting how they met in college, he was charming. He credited her with inspiring his interest in public service. He made her sound committed, and tireless, while making himself sound like the second banana in their marriage. He called her the best mother in the world, his best friend, a change maker. But Bill Clinton has lost some of his Elvis: This wasn't his best speech; and I don't know if it will change a single vote. If Hillary Clinton wins, then Bill will also be moving back into the White House. So both are applying for jobs. In 1992, when he was a candidate, he told voters they'd “get two for the price of one” if he were elected. In 2016, that will be true again, if she is."

"Even in his laziest moments, Presley was a master of intonation and phrasing, delivering his rich baritone with a disarming naturalness. And when he caught a spark from his great T.C.B. Band, Presley could still out-sing anyone in American pop. You can hear it here on inspired versions of Muddy Waters' "Got My Mojo Working"(1971), Wayne Carson's "Always on My Mind"(1972), Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" (1975), McCartney's "Lady Madonna"(1970), Percy Mayfield's "Stranger in My Own Hometown"(1969), Dennis Linde's "Burning Love"(1972) and Joe South's "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" (1970)."

"Elvis Presley had an 8 year exclusive run at the Hilton, entertaining some 2.5 million people, enough to fill the Rose Bowl 25 times over, the city's all time most successful performer."

"I am indebted to Scott W. Johnson, my fellow at the Claremont Institute, for many things over the years, but not many rate higher than his "introducing" me to Elvis Presley. I came of age (i.e., reached the 9th grade), just in time for the "British Invasion" and, despite my childhood memories, soon came to think of him as the ultimate in passe; so, I was astonished when Scott told me, a year or two ago, that in his opinion Elvis Presley was the greatest male vocalist of the 20th Century; I had never thought of him in that light, to put it mildly, but that conversation caused me to realize that I had never actually 'listened'; starting then, I did – with the aid of Scott's encyclopedic music collection –, so if you have never gotten past a cartoon image of Elvis, do yourself a favor and 'listen'."

"Even in those conformist years, though, rebels were tinkering at the edges. In 1939, Philly barber Joe Cirello, after experimenting on a blind boy who hung out in his Society Hill shop, invented the duck's-ass cut and rode it all the way to Hollywood. Elvis Presley raised a ruckus with his pompadour. In retrospect, it didn't take much to get hair's cultural watchdogs agitated. There's a famous photo of Elvis getting his hair cut in 1958 as he enters the Army. The barber took a whole inch off the sides. Still, girls wailed..."

"I just had to make my own version of one of my favourite songs from Elvis! The idea was to respect the original whilst adding my own “twist”. I had a hard time coming up with a cover art that would be “kitsch” enough for this one. Then I looked over at my cats and there they were – sleeping in an almost-heart-shaped position! Click! Anyway, here is a song to get you in to the right mood while preparing for your Valentine’s Day’s date, or to send to your loved ones to tell them how important they are!“"

"It begins and ends in Sept. 1956 when he returned to his hometown to perform before an adoring, screaming crowd at the state fair. The documentary spends most the time delving into his childhood days in Tupelo, which included sneaking peeks into late-night blues joints and singing at black g̈ospel tent revivals. It's clear that Elvis Presley lived the music before he became a recording sensation."

"In the spring of 1957, if his life had taken a different path, it might have been possible to see Elvis filling out law school applications, or interviewing for his first job as college graduation approached. But the hardworking son of Gladys and Vernon Presley was already his family's sole breadwinner and already looking, at the age of 22, to purchase them a new home. He found that home on the outskirts of Memphis—a southern Colonial mansion on a 13.8-acre wooded estate. With a $1,000 cash deposit against a sale price of $102,500, he agreed to purchase the home called Graceland on March 19, 1957. He had already bought one house for his parents on Audubon Drive, in East Memphis, but that residential neighborhood had become overrun with gawkers and worshipers as Elvis became a megastar. There was also the matter of the growing entourage of extended family and friends around Elvis driving the need for a larger home base. Officially, Graceland was where Elvis, his parents and his grandmother Minnie Mae lived, but unofficially, it was also the home of the ever-changing cast of childhood friends who surrounded and often drew salaries from Elvis. Many girlfriends and one wife also came and went at Graceland during its 20 years as Elvis's base of operations. Today it is preserved precisely as he left it when he passed away, in his upstairs bathroom, on August 16, 1977. In the years since then, it has become one of the nation's most popular tourist attractions —the second-most-visited house in America after the big white one on Pennsylvania Avenue."

"The opening flips between a fired up Elvis Presley and a leather-clad Blake Shelton trading verses on “Guitar Man” against a multi-level backdrop of silhouetted guitarists,then it closes with Shelton looking up as Elvis' image fades into the famous red lights spelling out his first name, basking in the glow of perhaps the greatest marriage of rock & roll and television in history."

"When I met him, I had a very small role in his movie, “Live A Little, Love A Little,” but he was very kind to me. He didn't mind when I had to do 5 or 6 takes of a very simple scene. I guess I had expected him to be kind of wild and boisterous, but that was not the case. He ran lines with me, worked out a realistic way I was to knock him down in one scene, was friendly every day, liked jokes and told some good ones. I was smoking a Dutch cigar one day and, when he asked about them, I gave a few to Elvis. The next day, there was a whole pack of those cigars on my chair on the set. We talked about karate and he showed me some moves – even had the prop man set up a brick for him to break. He liked my square-toed boots and asked me where I got them – I heard he bought a half-dozen pair like them in all available colors. We also talked about things we did back home in Mississippi, like squirrel hunting. His boys were around him all the time – I talked a lot with Charlie Hodge. It was a memorable time. I never had any contact with him after that. I could not help but be impressed with how down-to-earth and laid back he was."

"And now, his revolutionary approach to period sets, his signature life’s-a-party filmmaking, his bold visual style and his ability to create a cutting-edge soundtrack seamlessly blending old and new, all converge in a 2022 release we didn't realise how much we needed: ELVIS"

"Elvis shifted our universe culturally like no one has before and he deserves to be treated like an historical figure, like Henry Ford or Thomas Edison, but instead he gets weighed down by sensationalism, and that keep us from the truth. In fact, his story is looked on as one of destruction, but it is a futile struggle to survive, through poverty and then through health issues. It was hard to be Elvis, no one had done fame like that before, and no one else could do it for him. He was trying to function within his reality."

"He's not more than 20 feet away, bigger than life. A face worthy of Adonis, with that innocent lock of hair hanging over his forehead and those bedroom blue eyes. The audience is deathly still, as if Pagliacci, the high priest in the white Superman suit up there was praying a collective prayer for all the shattered rebels of bygone eras. I think I see tears in his eyes, but can't tell for sure, seeing as how I am crying myself..."

"Being around longer than other people, you can’t help but have a certain amount of wisdom that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, and it’s inescapable. I don’t know how you write this, but when I started out, if there had been something released even once a photograph of somebody giving somebody else a blow job, end of career. And now, it makes someone a star. That’s extraordinary. Elvis Presley was on the Ed Sullivan Show and they did not photograph him below the belly button, not his gyrations. I remember women, when I first went to New York to study, every once in a while you’d see a woman crossing the street without a bra, just in a t-shirt, and it was an event, it was extraordinary."

"Sometimes I feel my life is very surreal (like when) I looked back the time we wanted to have a tour of Graceland and once there got what we were told was a special tour that was only given to rock bands. So we got to see things that everybody didn't get to see and had our own tour guide dedicated to us. The eternal flame at Elvis' tomb was out that day, so we stood around and sang “Heartbreak Hotel” ala Spinal Tap. Later on I recounted the story to Billy Steinberg and he said, wait-wait, stop-stop, it's a great story but why don't we write a song called “Eternal Flame”? And I said okay. So that's how it started. And along with "Walk like an Egyptian" they both songs went to #1 which was pretty amazing."

"When I first started wrestling he used to come in for the semi-main/main event, ride a Harley with a helmet and sit way up top at the Mid-South Coliseum. He would have beeen my dream tag team partner the one guy that I would've loved to have in the ring with me..."

"After we did the pool scene I went back to my dressing room and when I pulled the chord by the door, all of a sudden this huge flame fired at me, it was pouring out of the socket. I was so scared that I shouted for Elvis and so he came running back and pushed the door open, took me out of there and then he invited me to dinner. We talked a lot about the problems he was having, deeply concerned as he was about what was going to happen to him with the Army thing. That night I told him that he'd never have anything to worry about and that his big concern should be that nobody was ever going to say no to him. Now, during the shoot, we were in love and that is what made those scenes great because it was totally believable. It was so intense when we did it, and when we were on film that I even made things up so it was so off-the-wall. I mean, when we kissed and I said that I was coming "all unglued" , that was all an ad-lib."

"Riding a streamlined rock-and-roll beat, the singer's vocal swoops, slurs, hiccups, moans and growls added up to a new pop singing vocabulary that was instantly memorized by scores of imitators. The antithesis of a relaxed conversational crooning, Presley's style was fraught with tension and animated by an attitude of self-conscious melodrama, woving the whole unwieldy spectrum of pop singing – country-blues, Italianate crooning, Gospel, soul shouting, and honky-tonk yodeling – into an integral personal style. His crowning touch was to accentuate the spontaneously exuberant humor that had always been an ingredient of country, and the blues, but singing it in a way that seemed to poke fun at his own accomplishment."

"It was the summer of 1977. I was fresh out of high school, living on my own, generally disinterested in the church but not yet an atheist. Once a month I attended the church I grew up in, and sat with my parents. They'd be happy to see me in church, and afterwards I could score a good Sunday dinner and use the washing machine.Elvis Presley had died a few days earlier, and to my surprise the pastor mentioned it as he began his sermon.Except he didn't eulogize Elvis; he ripped the dear departed icon a new one. “He called himself The King. Well, he was the King of nothing. There is only one King, and that is Jesus.” he said. After about five minutes of Elvis-bashing and equating rock and roll to blasphemy,a Danny Wiggins stood up and said “You're just wrong. Elvis was a good man. He sang Christian music when he wasn't singing rock and roll and he never set himself up as a competitor to Christ. Everything you're saying about him is just not true.” And with that, Danny walked out of the sanctuary and out of the building, while the pastor and a few church elders called out after him. From a different section of the sanctuary, an older woman and her husband took their toddler and wordlessly followed Wiggins out, while the pastor stood and sputtered at the pulpit. After a minute, he looked at his notes and resumed his sermon from the point he'd left off but the modern Exodus continued: two young men I didn't know walked out, followed a few minutes later by the only black guy in the congregation, and after that by a couple in their 40s. By the time the sermon ended, eleven people had left. Several of the church's younger members who hadn't stormed out gave the pastor a piece of their mind afterwards. That's my happiest memory of attending church. That minister had always been a mean old man, and he gave his congregation a choice — believe in God or believe in music. Several of them made a choice he hadn't expected. It was a Sunday that really rocked the church, pun intended."

"So what happened to the gifted scholar who spent his years in Rhodesian jail to acquire a long list of degrees and whose only frivolity was his passion for Elvis Presley?"

"They sent us all the songs they had clearance for and I wanted to do something that had not been done before, so that's why I chose Elvis' version of The Wonder of you. Not only I had already sang the others, but they would be much of a challenge. I wanted to "jenifferize" that tune and put my own stamp on it."

"None of us could have made it without Elvis"

"He' just like Elvis, there will never be another like him"

"This song I'm dedicating to a really good friend of mine who has passed on. One of the greatest ever entertainers. The song 'Tupelo', it was his favorite song of mine, and it's where he was born. Dedicating this to Mr. Elvis Presley. And I hope wherever he is, he's resting at ease.""

"He not only ate in Waco during his years at Fort Hood, but he slept here, too, and the house where he did is now open for others to do the same. The children of Eddie Fadal, a local DJ and businessman who befriended him when the rock 'n' roll star was in Central Texas, have repurposed their family's three-bedroom red-brick home at 2807 Lasker Ave. into a vacation rental with a '50s and '60s flavor and decorated with Elvis memorabilia. It's called, naturally, The Elvis House."

"I regret that it was not possible for me to see you during your visit to our HQ's. However, I do hope you enjoyed the tour of our facilities. Your generous comments regarding this Bureau and me are appreciated and you may be sure that we will keep in mind your offer to be of assistance."

"Elvis is just a young, clean-cut American boy who does in public what everybody else does in private. He has more hair on his sideburns than Bing Crosby does on his head."

"I spent my 71 birthday at his Graceland home, my wife decided it would have to be in his car museum and I even played on his last piano. In fact, President Clinton, who is also a great Elvis fan, recommended on the last time I saw him, to read "Last Train to Memphis", and I have. I Love Elvis..."

"It was on a Sunday, on September 15, 1967, when a yardman who had worked at Graceland, went to Vernon Presley's nearby home to see about getting his job back at Graceland. Vernon told him the job was not available anymore as it had been a temporary one only, while the regular man, an African American was sick. The yardman complained that it was pretty raw to give his job to "a negro", then left Vernon's home, after threatening both Vernon and Elvis. A half hour later, according to police reports, he appeared at the Graceland Gates, drunk, arrogant, cursing, then taking a shot at Elvis. He missed his target, and Elvis then knocked him to the ground with one punch."

"I can close my eyes and remember the day my friend died. It was a hot summer day. He was someone I had never met, who never even knew that I existed. But he was someone who touched my life in a profound way, possibly even saved it in those lonely wee hours of the silent mornings when the demons made their play for my soul. My mom died in February of 1976, when I was 15. I felt lost, depressed, unwanted. I felt my mom was the only person that loved me, and that I would never know love again. And it got worse.I had never gotten along particularly well with my father, and that relationship withered and died in the years that followed. He told me he wished I had died instead of my mom, told me when I fell asleep that he was going to kill me. I spent many nights sleeping under my bed, or trying to surround myself with boxes as I slept sitting up in a corner of my bedroom. The time he stuck a shotgun in my mouth and said he was going to blow my head off, I no longer cared. I just closed my eyes and waited for the gun to go off. The truth is I wanted to die. I used to sleep with a loaded pistol pointed at my head, hoping that I would accidentally shoot myself in my sleep. I thought that I would never know sunshine again. But, through it all, when my thoughts darkened and I'd cry and wish I was dead, there was always one ray of happiness that winked through the storm. It was that friend, Elvis. When I was depressed—and that was often—it was usually the sound of Elvis's voice that brought me back from the edge of the abyss. Yeah, we never met, but he was my friend all the same. He helped walk me through a difficult time in my life and he's been there ever since. Elvis may have left the building, but he'll never leave my heart. I love you, Elvis; and thanks for being a friend."

"Elvis invited me out to the 20th Century Fox recording studio. I was standing about five yards away from him, and he was singing into a mike and I couldn't hear him. I thought how strange it was. And then he asked for a playback and his voice came out and I thought 'Wow!' I knew so little about music, it was a different world to me, that he could be actually recording something that would come out that clearly, and yet I was like in touching distance off him and I couldn't hear his voice. I showed him around Hollywood and we got to know each other pretty well for the two weeks. He was a very sweet and innocent naive kind of guy"

"When Elvis Presley first hove into sight like a Kansas tornado on Milton Berle's show, I decided to have none of him. I've neither seen nor met him. l've been appalled by the whole Presley disease. But when I learned he was appearing at our Pan-Pacific, I asked Col. Tom Parker for a couple of tickets and' went; it was a shattering experience. Now I understand why 9000 people lost their minds over him. He's a split personality, young, likable, wanting to please; but when he went into his act, it was very like a neighbor of mine in Altoona who had fits, fell down and writhed on the sidewalk.Elvis rolled over and over on the floor still clutching the mike, but his performance isn't sickness, (in fact), whole families were there, nice people. Dozens of policemen surrounded the stage but turned their backs on Elvis to watch the audience and see that no one moved. They were told if they got up or walked down the aisle toward Elvis the show would be over. In former days police would have been looking at the performance. I've seen performers dragged off to jail for less. But Elvis' audience got the emotional workout of their lives and screamed their undying love for the greatest phenomenon I've seen in this century."

"We lived at Faxon and Stonewall. Elvis Presley and I were good friends and he liked to come over to my house because my mother would make him toasted cheese sandwiches and his beloved peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Three years after graduation, I received a phone call from Miss Ginny Allensworth asking me to come over to Humes and help Elvis with his English because he had been invited to sing on the Ed Sullivan Show. I laughed and said, "Miss Ginny, Elvis wouldn't listen to me when we were in school and I doubt if he would listen to me now." I did meet Elvis at Humes and he agreed to let me coach him. After talking for a while, he said, "Well, if you are so intent on helping me, why don't you come to New York, too, to be sure I do it right." I ended up backstage at the Ed Sullivan Show and got to see Elvis perform...."

"I would like to make this like Elvis Street, Elvis Presley. Aretha Street. Aretha Franklin. Her museum and whatever else we can do around here"

"Elvis loved gospel music, he was raised on it, and he really did know what he was talking about; we would jam with him for an hour, and he had a feel for it and was "tickled" to have four "church sisters" backing him up; he was singing Gospel all the time, (in fact), almost anything he did had that flavour. You can't get away from what your roots are."

"We were all in a room with my mom and the Sweet Inspirations and this man walks in, with a mink coat, glasses and it wasn't like you say "Nice to meet you, Elvis". In fact, you don't really JUST meet Elvis, you LOOK at Elvis. Amazingly beautiful"

"Elvis' early vocals, was a witches' brew of gospel swoops, falsetto shrieks, growls, howls, and scat...an anthem to human cockiness, to the healing, transcendent powers of the life-force..."

"Afer Elvis Presley, nothing was the same. Rock ’n’ roll might have emerged in the international consciousness 10 months earlier with "Rock Around the Clock", but nobody wanted to be Bill Haley. Everybody wanted to be Elvis. If you didn't want to be Elvis, you wanted to be with him. With a series of now legendary — and at the time risque — TV appearances on Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey's Stage Show and the Milton Berle Show, "Heartbreak Hotel" rose quickly to No 1 by April 21, 1956. It stayed there eight weeks. Presley, with his first million-seller, had rearranged the musical and social landscapes of a changed America. He was just 21 years and 137 days old. He had 21 years and 30 days to live."

"So what it boils down to was Elvis produced his own records. He came to the session, picked the songs, and if something in the arrangement was changed, he was the one to change it. Everything was worked out spontaneously. Nothing was really rehearsed. Many of the important decisions normally made previous to a recording session were made during the session. What it was was a look to the future. Today everybody makes records this way. Back then Elvis was the only one. He was the forerunner of everything that's record production these days. Consciously or unconsciously, everyone imitated him. People started doing what Elvis did."

"I am over the f.....g moon, I can't wait, so proud of my honey"

"'Baby, if I made you mad/Something that I might have said?/Please forget the past/The future looks bright ahead/Don't Be Cruel', As Elvis said, it's tempting to forget the past, and look ahead to a brighter future. I suppose that's especially common in the halls of government..."

"His presence, the star power, the voice, the dance moves, I mean that's what you call a superstar and his gospel roots were transcending"

"Walter Anderson, B.B. King, Jim Henson and Elvis Presley, these are artists who have had a lasting impact on Mississippi culture. That is why the “Mississippi to THE MAX” project is being put in place for elementary school students throughout Meridian Public schools. We contracted with a local teaching artist who wrote four lesson plans integrating social studies, math, science and reading, along with the arts,” In February after all these lessons are taught, our fourth grade students will go to the MAX museum and they will get to see our exhibits there. And in addition to the usual exhibits, they’ll get to see the brand new Jim Henson exhibit. Only fourth grade students are a part of this project since Mississippi history is a topic in their social studies curriculum. And it’s so important I believe for our students to understand that Mississippi has produced some of the greatest, most well-known artists of our time. And the impact that those artists have had on our culture, as well as the nation’s culture, and the world."

"Now, to skip a half century, somebody is going to rise up and tell me Rock and Roll isn’t jazz. First, two or three years ago, there were all these songs about too young to know—but. The songs are right. You’re never too young to know how bad it is to love and not have love come back to you. That’s as basic as the Blues. And that’s what Rock and Roll is— teenage Heartbreak Hotel—the old songs reduced to the lowest common denominator. The music goes way back to Blind Lemon and Leadbelly—Georgia Tom merging into the Gospel Songs—­Ma Rainey, and the most primitive of the Blues.(2) It borrows their gut-bucket heartache. It goes back to the jubilees and stepped-up Spiri­tuals—Sister Tharpe—and borrows their I’m-gonna-be-happy-anyhow-in-spite-of-this-world kind of hope. It goes back further and borrows the steady beat of the drums of Congo Square—that going-on beat­—and the Marching Bands’ loud and blatant yes!! Rock and Roll puts them all together and makes a music so basic it's like the meat cleaver the butcher uses—before the cook uses the knife—before you use the sterling silver at the table on the meat that by then has been rolled up into a commercial filet mignon. A few more years and Rock and Roll will no doubt be washed back half forgotten into the sea of jazz. Jazz is a great big sea. It washes up all kinds of fish and shells and spume and waves with a steady old beat, or off-beat. And Louis must be getting old if he thinks J. J. and Kai—and even Elvis—didn't come out of the same sea he came out of, too. Some water has chlorine in it and some doesn't. There're all kinds of water."

"Interest on Elvis has helped generate $3.2 billion in tourism and create 35,000 jobs in our city. In fact, it was the opening of Graceland that was the beginning of tourism as we know it today, in Memphis..."

"I have been praying for you for many years, you are my bellsheep, I said to him. He didn't know what that meant, so I explained, that in a Holy Land there is one sheep with a bell, so when he moves, the bell makes noise, and they all go his way. So I then told him that I will be praying so that he will have the spiritual experience to lead million of people to our Lord. And it was at this time that he was so moved that he began to weep and his body began to tremble, and I had a prayer with him, asking the Lord to give him strength and peace, through the Holy Spirit. Suddenly, his daughter Lisa Marie came in, and she asked me, "Why is my dad crying", and then he gently touched her head, asked her to wait outside, and closed the door. I told him that there were many people outside waiting for him, and he said. "No, not now, I want us to stay here, please don't leave me."

"When Elvis first started at Humes, he was really poor. The office sent a letter home about a classmate who couldn't come to school when the weather was bad because he had holes in his shoes, had no warm coat and needed a haircut. It didn't name him, but we all knew who it was. My mom gave me some money and a jacket she had bought for my brother Bill. I was so proud to take the jacket and the money to the office. My parents had hearts of gold. Now, whenever he walked by any one of us, we would look at each other and laugh and giggle. One day he asked one of our classmates why we laughed when he walked by. She was so dumbfounded that she blurted out "It's because we think you are so good-looking." I guess he was surprised also,so he just broke into a grin and walked away."

"The show I will never forget and that influenced my soul as a performer was in Las Vegas. As soon as the signature intro began, it was like being transported to another world. The anticipation of him walking onstage was electric. Last-minute big shots and their girlfriends handed maître d's thick tips to get closer. His show was so polished and took you on a journey that made you laugh and cry. He was filled with humility and charisma and tongue-in-cheek humor. It was a total roller coaster. The audience was just as exhausted as he was by the end of the show. Backstage, and I — both quiet and shy — waited with our own guests for Elvis' second entrance, this time to greet us. He bumped his head and said, “I never could figure out how to get out of that door." That was a pretty good icebreaker. Elvis was concerned as he sat down to chat. “Did I introduce you OK?" Ha! I was in awe and he was worried about my intro. I wish I'd had an iPhone! About 4 years earlier, when I first met him, he didn't shake my hand, he embraced me. And I thought "My god, I couldn't believe it. We became friends. He was one of the greatest, most affectionate people I have ever met."

"In the end, though, it is his voice above all, that lives on; from the very beginning as a bright and eager youngster capering around the SUN studios, excitedly hammering together two musical styles to create an unforgettable allow, all of his own, right up until the later years, spent booming out ballads in the massive auditoria that were his domain during the seventies – even during the frequently written-off Hollywood years-, his voice never let him down; it is impossible from this perspective to imagine a world without Elvis, his voice booming out from radios and computers, from spaceships circling the further reaches of the galaxy, his voice echoing back; (in fact), it is almost inconceivable that any single individual could have made such a mark."

"We spent the day together, singing 'I Almost Lost My Mind' and other songs. He is very spiritually minded, showed me every courtesy, and I think he's one of the greatest'"

"The Democratic majority has gone angling for headlines and air-time. On the other side, the Republicans are sycophants who conjured up every conspiracy theory short of blaming the Russian probe on Elvis Presley."

"It is a daunting task to unveil a sculpture of a man who is still one of the most recognised figures in the world, 40 years after his death, but I am honoured to be given the chance."

"I was always struck by the idea that when John Lennon was singing back in Germany, he was trying to be Elvis Presley, but it was nothing like Elvis Presley. That's very exciting to me that you can be inspired by something so much that it drives you to this point, but nobody outside of yourself can see that that is where it's coming from."

"One thing Cary did admit when we worked together in 1966, – the two of us, sitting and talking between scenes, was that he had a crush on Elvis Presley."

"As long as I can continue doing what I love, I don't care how I'm described. Maybe I should be flattered – after all Elvis was a kind of revolutionary. Actually, if he had trained he might have been a great opera singer.""

"Elvis or Elvis Presley"

"Early in Eric Idle's "sortabiography", "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", the comedy legend describes how, in the brutal, abusive environment of the Royal Wolverhampton School, it was Elvis Presley who saved his life. The curative power of rock'n'roll kept the spark alive in boys who might otherwise have lost all hope in a cold world. How does it feel, then, a good six decades later, for Idle himself to know that for someone like me, he IS Elvis?"

"My only idol is Elvis Presley, I have all his songs and a number of his films at my Miami apartment."

"Sinatra and Elvis were geniuses, I am not. In fact, I analyzed the singing of Sinatra, Elvis, Nat King Cole, and Marvin Gaye, and they all sang from the gut. They are my favorite singers. In fact, I haven't bought an album in thirty years but you can always catch me listening to Elvis and Marvin Gaye. Of all of them, Elvis is the biggest phenomenon that popular music has experienced in the last 50 years."

"As far as famous people go, once you're known by a single name, you're on a whole different level. Madonna. Bono. And of course, the biggest celebrity of all: Elvis. And if you think of an Elvis recipe, likely only one dish comes to mind, which makes Elvis' Grilled Peanut Butter And Banana Bacon sandwich the greatest celebrity recipe of all time."

"There was something every bdecade since Elvis and his hips"

"Our route home from the library took us east on Main Street. As we passed city hall, I happened to glance over, and there on the grassy field, perhaps the most prominent spot in the town, was a statue of Elvis mimicking the pose from the iconic 1956 photograph of him performing at the Mississippi-Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo. Somehow -- and I'm not sure how to put it into words -- my feelings about the man had changed from what they had been two hours earlier. No longer did I see Elvis as the one-dimensional character whose on-stage flamboyance spawned hundreds of impersonators, but rather a shy, ambitious country boy intoxicated by the richness of the music all around him, who absorbed that music and made it uniquely his own."

"Results were calculated using a song's beats per minute (BPM) and energy to determine how fast, loud and noisy a track feels. To ensure safer driving, the music you listen to should mimic the human heartbeat, with a BPM that falls in-between 60 and 100. The Vehicle Finance Provider Moneybarn, after analyzing almost one hundred of the most popular Christmas songs, ranked Elvis "O Little Town of Bethlehem" as the fifth safest, with "Carol of the Bells" by John Williams being the safest, and ̊"Underneath The Tree" by Kelly Clarkson, the least safe."

"Who would have thought, as a young kid walking along the streets of Birmingham, that I would one day be mentioned in the same breath as Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley."

"We've played this song for a couple of years now and we really wanted to capture it live so we recorded it acoustically for the 7 inch... it's a well travelled song – not just for Elvis, and one that means so much to us and our journey so to say we're proud of it coming out on vinyl is a massive understatement"

"At a certain point, the absurdities pile one on top of the other to such a height, that any form of denial of history is legitimated by the UNESCO approach. If there are no Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, one might as well say that Elvis Presley signed the American Declaration of Independence, such is the level and the type of discourse UNESCO is engaging in."

"Elvis is one of the few artists who's much, much bigger than the music. He's almost mythological, representing so much to history and popular culture. His is not a life, but a series of chapters in history, an icon in the strict sense of the word. It's blues, it's rock, but it's about a masculinity and sexuality that had been repressed and then comes out on TV. And it's like, 'Wow, nothing's really going to be the same after this.'""

"While in Italy, my brother Ira got a guitar and visited a teacher for an introductory lesson. He saw the teacher's long nails on his right hand and was told that he would have to practice classical music. Absolutely not, said Ira, I want to be Elvis Presley. So then I volunteered to take his place and had an instrument custom-made, just to know that it was something personal, that I wasn't sharing it with other kids, like a piano, and that impressed me. It was something I could cradle and caress. When you hold a guitar, it becomes part of you. You can feel the vibration. I was a shy kid. So being able to play something that wasn't loud and bombastic, it expressed my own feelings."

"Elvis' initial hopes for a music career involved singing in a gospel male quartet. His favourite part was bass baritone, and he himself had an almost 3-octave vocal range... Yet to posterity's surprise, such a superlative and magnetic natural talent always remained humble --perhaps too humble to keep performing forever."

"A lot of people are knocking this Elvis Presley guy, but I think he's all right."

"Elvis Presley, the first and greatest American rock-and-roll star, whose throaty baritone and blatant sexuality redefined popular music, was found dead at Graceland, his home in Memphis, yesterday at 2:30 PM. He was once the object of such adulation that teen-age girls screamed and fainted at the sight of him, but was also denounced for sexually suggestive conduct on stage. Preachers inveighed against him in sermons and parents forbade their children to watch him on television. In his third television appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, his act was considered to be so scandalous that the cameras showed him only from the waist up. He was more than a singer--he was a phenomenon and a show-business legend before he was 25 years old as well as the highest-paid performer in the history of the business by the time he reached 30 years of age. In the spring of 1958, he was drafted into the US Army as a private, an event that caused as much stir as an average Super Bowl. "The Pelvis," as he was known, was stationed in West Germany for two years and was given an ecstatic welcome home by his fans. In 1967, Mr. Presley married Priscilla Beaulieu, the daughter of an Air Force colonel he had met during his military service, and had a daughter named Lisa Marie. Although concrete details of their private life remained sketchy through his deliberate design, the fan magazines were full of reports of marital difficulties, and the couple separated then divorced in 1973. He was a generous and often sentimental man who gave Cadillacs away with startling frequency, from time to time seeing some stranger, nose pressed against a car-showroom window, and inviting the person to go inside and pick out the color he or she liked best after which he would then pay the entire cost of purchase, on the spot. Mr. Presley's movie career ended a year after he had triumphally returned to television, with critics remarking on how little he had aged. He kept in shape for years with karate, in which he had a black belt, but his penchant for peanut butter and banana sandwiches washed down with soda finally caught up. After his death became known yesterday, radio stations around the country began playing nothing but Presley records. At his death, he had been an indelible part of the nation's musical consciousness for 20 years. He is survived by his 9-year-old daughter Lisa Marie, his father and grandmother, all of whom happened to have been at Graceland on the day of his death,."

"As one watches the first movie, my hair changes a lot because about three weeks into shooting, a crew member said, `Elvis is leaving the building.’. The director, , then shut down shooting and said, `You’re right, he looks like Elvis. LOL."

"At one point during our downtime while in Lake Tahoe, my brothers Jackie and Michael must have wandered off, as they found themselves in one of those wide service type elevators. There they were, watching their feet when the elevator stopped, opened and then.. Elvis entered. "You're those Jackson boys? he asked. They nodded, dumbstruck. You would think that having met Smokey Robinson, Sammy Davis and Jackie Wilson, that nothing could faze you, but the randomness of that shared elevator ride was the biggest unexpected thrill for them. Not that it lasted long. After a few seconds, and with a "Good luck fellas", he was gone. But that was the day Michael would meet the future father in law he would never know."

"I consider Elvis an unacknowledged pioneer in the black rights movement. Elvis had to fight with racism too, at the beginning of his career, with the major radio networks refusing to play his music because it was black music. Elvis broke the barriers and ever since, black musicians had a door open."

"He had been invited by , brother of slain civil rights activist to perform with Mahalia at an event in Mississippi but had to decline due to previous scheduled engagements. But being a fan of Mahalia's since he was a child, he found out she was visiting in town not far from where he was filming his movie at the time and he sent for a car to bring Mahalia to visit him on his movie set. Witnesses said it was one of the few times he appeared legitimately starstruck, to the point of emotional. When Mahalia arrived on the set and he first saw her he ran across the room pulling a chair over next to his chair to have her sit and relax where he could spend time visiting with her between filming scenes. Elvis spent a lot of time just looking at her adoringly and started to say something to her about growing up hearing her music but also telling her she reminded him of someone. Then she said Elvis's voice trailed off as he seemed lost in thought, but they presumed he was about to tell her she reminded him of his own mother. At one point he did in fact look at her and said softly "Mahalia, you're just like my Momma...". Mahalia was moved by his comment and found out later that when Elvis was young and lived in Tupelo he used to listen to gospel singing and went to Pentecostal Church. Mahalia said that explained why he could sing Gospel as good as he could."

"Your dad was always an inspiration to me. And I bet you I am going to end up like him, a dead but glorious King"""

"I’d done my show (in 1955), and I was back in a room. My daddy was in there with me, and we’re hearing screaming, and it was kind of scary. Daddy said, ‘Well, heck, there might be a fire or something. I’ll go check. You get your purse and stuff gathered up. So I did, and daddy left. And in a few minutes, he came back, stood there in the doorway and said, ‘Wanda, you’re not going to believe this. You’ve got to come see it for yourself.He took me to the wings of the stage, and I look out and here’s Elvis doing all these gyrations and all these girls around the stage screaming and reaching for him and crying, and I thought ‘What in the world?’ That was a first for me."

"As a free speech near-absolutist, I unreservedly defend the right of anyone to trumpet political views. But more than ever I admire those celebrities who steadfastly resist the temptation (or the hectoring) to talk politics. There are still some of them, following the footsteps of one of the greatest entertainers in American history. At the peak of his long career, Elvis Presley's influence on popular culture was unparalleled, but about politics he would say nothing. A classic illustration occurred during a pre-concert press conference at Madison Square Garden in 1972. It was at the height of the antiwar movement, and Presley, an Army veteran, was asked for his thoughts on the Vietnam War protests. “Honey, I’d just as soon keep my own personal views about that to myself,” he answered modestly. “I’m just an entertainer and I’d rather not say.” Faced with the pressure to get political, Elvis knew how to shake it off. Would that could still be said about Taylor Swift?"

"The move from Tupelo to Clarksdale was mainly a change in soundtrack. In Tupelo, the radio was dominated by Elvis Presley. I remember my grandmother telling stories about Elvis. They knew him in the Black part of town — that’s how poor he was-. When Elvis was a kid, he would sit on the porch of a nearby house and play guitar. I was never a fan of his..."

"Charles Manson in his prime or Richard Ramirez? Who was more popular with women? You are kiddin' me. Ramirez drives fems crazier than Manson ever did. Had to unplug the phones from outside the holding tank after they nabbed him. Unplugged the fax. Disarmed the email, Plus they had a cordon of fat-ass deputies cheek-by-jowl in riot gear. It was like the offensive line of the Oakland Raiders, just to protect Ramirez from his female admirers. It was like Elvis in his prime."

"After months of neglect, the U.S.S. Potomac was in poor condition and had to be cleaned up for the ceremony. A few days before the event, in early February of 1964, Presley's people contacted the Long Beach Port authorities asking how much it would cost to have the boat cleaned up and painted for the dedication, the answer being that it would take at least three days and $18,000 to make it presentable. There wasn't that much time, so then it became a question of how much it would take to just paint the side that faced the dock and the international press waiting therein? It was $8,000 so they did it""

"He was a unique artist – an original in an area of imitators."

"When Elvis came on the studio, and heard my song, he wanted it to be played again and again..."

"In a big club just outside of Memphis, I once shared a bill with a very young Elvis Presley. I didn't know what to expect and he actually turned out to be supercool and extra-respectful, with his 'pleased to meet you, ma'am' gentlemanly manners. He also touched my heart, many years later when my good friend Jackie Wilson was down and out, vegetating in some funky convalescent home. Elvis moved Jackie to a decent hospital – and paid for everything.""

"I have to respect Elvis accomplishments. He took R&B and made it respectable to white people. Plus it was B.B King, who knew Elvis personally, explained to me Elvis was quick to respect and acknowledge the black artists who influenced him."

"And so Elvis was going to come over and take the whole bunch of us out to have ribeye steaks, and so I was so excited. I'm in doing a "vogue," I can't believe Elvis is going to walk into the studio and he's gonna see me singing. I couldn't believe it, I was just flipped out. So anyway, the phone rings and Scotty Moore answers the phone, and he looks out. He says "Come on in" and I went in. It was Elvis on the phone and he couldn't make it over. And Elvis was "I'm sorry man, why don't you guys come over to Graceland when you can" and "We'll be in town for awhile, come on over to Graceland," and I was so disappointed, I really was, but it was great meeting, him on the phone, I never met him in person. I only had a couple of days left in Nashville and we had to finish up the album so I never made it over to Memphis. And I always regretted that..."

"It is a weakness of the mind to preconceive a judgment of your thought, before the act is done. Despite the acid hemlock stirred by "The Las Vegas Sun" , Mr. Presley will survive and live to sing some more. Perhaps this cat should have studied grand opera, or the fiddle (but), I don't join that school of thought. You see, he's a natural and any dope knows what a natural is. His vocal is real and has a hep to the motion of sound, with a retort that is tremendous. Squares who like to detract their imagined misvalues can only size a note creeping upstairs after dark; this cat can throw them downstairs, or even out the window, with a depth of tone that can sink deeper than a well. He can wilt into a whisper faster than a gossipmonger can throw down a free drink and he really makes them cry. Presley's voice is that of American youth looking at the moon and wondering how long it will take to get there, something new coming over the horizon, all by himself, and he deserves his ever-growing audience. Yep, this boy's sails are set and he's got wind. Good luck and the best of everything. I hope they hold you over! After all, ten million cats can't be wrong."

"We loved Elvis & Elvis loved us""

"All the members of Dextress come together in the common affinity for hard rock. While each individual loves this genre, we all also bring some diversity outside the Dextress sound. Our bassist Reece Runco finds inspiration from Jesse Cook, Roy Khan, Beck, and the performance style of Mötley Crüe, while being very influenced as a bassist by Steve Harris, Michael League, and Geddy Lee. Our animal behind the kit Keith Runco is very much into death metal. He's very passionate about Behemoth and Benighted. His biggest influences as a drummer are Inferno, Jojo Mayer, and Tommy Aldridge. And Our lead vocalist Eric Paulin is strongly influenced by Sebastian Bach, of Skid Row and Ray Gillen of Badlands and finds Elvis Presley an overall inspiration."

"I was crying of happiness so much that I wouldn't have even been able to recognize Elvis..."

"Bruce Johnston and I met Elvis in the late ‘60s. He was working in the studio across the hall from us so Bruce and I went over and introduced ourselves and he was very delighted to see us. He was trim and great looking, just like his album covers. He hadn’t gone back out on the road yet. We encouraged him to get back to work and he took us up on it."

"Without any question, it would be Elvis Presley’s "It's Now or Never", because that was number one when I was born. I have always said that I came into this world with Elvis singing it, and I’m going out to Elvis singing it.."

"When he hit the world, this is one of the most beautiful people anybody had ever looked at, and he's also coinciding with the explosion of the mass media invention in America. We are unleashing levels of power through cinema and television and radio that the world has never really experienced before, and we're combining that with the fire power of such a truly beautiful, majestic, authentic creature — this Elvis Presley. So what is an Elvis Presley? It's a funny name with this amazing figure who's part black, part white, looks like a Greek statue one second, looks vaguely like a woman the next second. I think Elvis even stands for something much deeper, something akin to Lincoln or Herman Melville or Emily Dickenson or Franklin Roosevelt, or even Teddy Roosevelt. I think he stands for something about how America became what it is, in the best sense. What he symbolized, in the best sense, was to say to so many people, if he could make it, they could make it. That’s the majesty of Elvis Presley."

"Bob King's", the nightclub, was packed and it was filled with anticipation. Even a seasoned musician like Sonny Burgess knew the vibe in the club was different that night. As Elvis Presley stepped onto the stage and the band started to play, his hips began to move and as sang "Good Rocking Tonight" the crowd was whirled into a frenzy. Burgess has witnessed hundreds of musicians and bands and played before millions of fans throughout the United States and Europe during his long career that has spanned more than 50 years, but the guitarist has never experienced the energy and emotion he felt the night he heard Elvis play that tune, back in 1955. "Boy, he was different," Burgess told The Jonesboro Sun. "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."

"I listened to Elvis Presley become, I watched Chuck Berry become, I listen to Little Richard and all that music was part of my upbringing"

"It's like Elvis, you don't remember how he passed away, you remember his 50 number-one hits and how he revolutionized rock and roll music, Taker knows how to do it, Shawn knows how to do it; they have done it for years, and now they have done it [in] multiple generations. So nostalgia is really, really hard to top, but it's every now and then; you can't do it every week."

"If his gyrating stage moves were performed by a Negro, he would be put in jail. He has been a bad influence as far as other performers...."

"Elvis was of the last generation to experience the magic of Hollywood's golden age, a time when options for mass entertainment were few. Mmovies brought people out of their homes and into public spaces and the cinema was his special arena"

"The transformation is quite impressive and is something that not many people realize is doable. The doctor implants eyelashes, hair, I never knew you could do that until I went to see Doctor Kahen. I'm really happy with how I look now, everyone talks to me about it, even my bank teller commented on how good my hair looks."

"It is when Guralnick shows how young Elvis made his way through this cultural briar patch, that we get what we need. He got voluptuous phrasing and ecstatic self-confidence from gospel, wit and menace from the blues, homespun sincerity from country and, from what we can now call gay theatrics, he got glamour and self-parody. He played the outlaw and the good son. How he flirts with his audiences, first being casual, fervent, sneering, then inviting us to laugh at, or with him. ¨As you desire me¨, he is saying, ¨so shall I be¨. Was he a great performer? Yes and yes again. He galvanized rock-and-roll and made you feel the fun and the risk and all the contradictions. That's self-invention, and that's entertainment."

"I remember one night we were talking in his room. He told me, ‘Mary you know we moved here from Tupelo when I was thirteen. Most of the stories that people read about the move say that we moved because times were so hard in Tupelo. Well, Mary, that is true; however, a few months before we moved here there was a couple that lived by us there in Tupelo. He was a cab driver. One night he came home in a rage and murdered his wife. In fact, he butchered her and cut her throat. The wound was so deep it almost severed her head. All of the neighbors were looking around and I saw that woman, too. I’ll never forget what she looked like. I began to have nightmares about it and cold sweats. So Daddy and Momma decided to go ahead and move to Memphis then. We did move here so Daddy could find work, but I don’t know if we would have moved, when we did, if that hadn’t happened."

"When Elvis first started at Humes, he was really poor. One day the office sent a letter home about a classmate who couldn't come to school when the weather was bad because he had holes in his shoes, had no warm coat and needed a haircut. It didn't name him, but we all knew who it was. My mom gave me a whole dollar and a jacket she had bought for my brother Bill. I was so proud to take the jacket and the money to the office."

"His departure for the Army and Hollywood made his last appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1957, as young America's unofficial leader, his crowning moment. He had brought youth to a prominence it had never known in American culture"

"Elvis was singing "That's All Right" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky". The sound went straight up your spine. The way he sang, the singer sounded black, but something about the songs was really country". I was crazy about Elvis, loved that churning rhythm on the bottom. He didn't have drums yet, but the rock and roll part was unmistakable."

"Presley brought rock'n'roll into the mainstream of popular culture, as he set the artistic pace, other artists followed. He, more than anyone else, gave the young a belief in themselves as a distinct and somehow unified generation—the first in America ever to feel the power of an integrated youth culture."

"At the close of his state visit to the Philippines, he showed a taste for American songs during a two-hour pleasure cruise around Manila Bay, as the guest of Philippine President Fidel Ramos. The trip on Ramos's presidential yacht was the highlight of the second day of his three-day state visit to the Philippines. Apparently aware of the Chinese leader penchant for songs, Ramos brought with him a string quartet, so after a breakfast of porridge and fruit, the 68-year-old Ramos invited him to sing, so the two leaders then ended up performing a duet of Elvis Presley's hit "Love Me Tender" which prompted Ramos into remarking: "That's the favourite song of Bill Clinton, so you have to prepare. When he visits you, you will surprise him."

"In his book "Elvis’s Army", Brian Linn argues that after years of bad press, the U.S. Army was eager to market itself as a new and improved force: an egalitarian, racially integrated institution through which men from all walks of life could build character, gain valuable professional skills, and become good citizens. Conscripting celebrities, even those as famous as Elvis, allowed the Army to promote its reforms while also pushing back against criticism that privileged men might be able to dodge the draft, supposedly a universal call of duty. Prior to his service, Elvis often starred in films as the laidback rebel. He was an icon for youthful disobedience, as well as a target for conservative criticism. But after a two-year stint in the Army, most of which he spent in Germany, As a result, the Army boosted its reputation, and Elvis relaunched himself as a mainstream star through films, like "G.I.Blues", which offered a light-hearted, patriotic message that military service could be fun and personally transformative."

"Syrus Jin, in a Foreign Policy article entitled "When Pop Stars Make for Secret Weapons" as published in their March 5, 2023 edition."

"He is the Elvis of the computer world"

"When I was in third grade, I got up on the stage and I did my Elvis impression and I sang ‘Hound Dog'. And the girls in the fourth grade started screaming, and I said to myself, ‘There’s something going on here. This is kinda cool if the girls in the fourth grade are screaming for a kid in the third grade. One day, my mentor told me that I should consider becoming a professional musician. And for a teacher, an adult, to tell me that was very important, that was an epiphany. It was a real eye-opener. Elvis was great."

"I've got the habit of listening to Elvis Presley from my mother. In fact she married my father because he promised to take her for an Elvis Presley show, which he did on their honeymoon."

"No other white artist but Elvis was the greatest Ambassador for black artists. Not only was he legitimate and came from the same background as many of us, but he had an integrity and class that most whites at that time did not. For that matter, many whites today don't have it. He publicly and privately treated us as equals. And his actions ultimately set a public example for many others to follow. This is the only place on Earth you will get the most truth about that. Everywhere else around this country folks got it twisted. It's a disrespect to not only Elvis, but to us. Anyone wants to discredit that man send them on down here to me! Myself and some friends will be glad to set them straight.""

"Elvis Presley changed everyone's life. I mean there would be no Beatles, Hendrix or Dylan. I mean, he just was the man who changed music without question. When they had a Rolling Stone poll about who was the most influential people in rock n roll, I think The Beatles were number one and I just said, you know, “What? No, Elvis was number one. I know he drew his influence from Gospel and Blues and Country Music and Black Soul music whatever, but he was the one that started it all. I was looking at an old Life magazine and there was a picture of him and I thought he was from Mars or something. And then that weekend my mother came home with ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and that changed my life. Years later, I saw him in Las Vegas and I mean he was fantastic at the Hilton. But the only time I met him was very briefly before he went on stage in Washington DC, a year before he died. And it was very sad but even though it was very sad, even on stage and my mother, who was with me, said, “Well he’s not going to be alive much longer, is he?” She was really sad. And I was too, he was my idol too. But even though he went through the motions and was not really there at the scene at the end of that concert, there was still flashes of brilliance, in spite of being hugely overweight, but when he actually sung a couple of lines it was magical. You don't lose that magic, no matter how fucked up you are, you know, you just. If you're brilliant, snatches of that brilliance will come through. And later in my life I end up a recluse in my own bedroom, you know, taking cocaine, so I'd kind of did become HIM. But what happened to him, you forget he died when he was only 42, for Christ's sake. I mean he was only 42. And it's one of the great tragedies. I don't think anybody actually said “Elvis, you can’t do that, you mustn’t do that”. Rewinding back, I played piano at a very early age, it got me attention and I liked it, but music wasn't my dream until I discovered him in 1957. I was sitting in the little barbershop in our village, waiting to have my hair cut, and I saw this picture of Elvis. He looked like an alien — really weird but amazing. And after I saw Elvis and heard his music, there was no going back."

"These days the bright London boy who passed his 11-plus and left school without any exams is touring the country with a talk show. In the likes of Southampton, ­Workington, ­Peterborough and Coventry he'll focus on the social significance of his life's soundtracks, from Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the rest. Music is his passion, politics always an interest. In the 1960s he was in a couple of rock bands as a rhythm guitarist and backing singer but when it became apparent that he wasn't going to become an overnight rock star, he got a job as a postman instead. However his love of music has never faded. Johnson adds "I was was a huge fan of Elvis and The Beatles so when Radio 1 celebrated its 50th anniversary recently it made me feel nostalgic as I remember when it first started broadcasting and what an incredible treat it was to be able to listen to pop music all day. I still play the guitar but I don’t think I’m going to be back on the stage any time soon"."

"Honestly, the first one was Elvis Presley. When I listened to Elvis when I was a kid and heard “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog" — you want to talk about an 8-year-old kid losing his mind? “Jailhouse Rock,” songs like that, made him kind of an American hero. But he also came across as kind of taboo, kind of a little bit rowdy, and a little bit too much for some people. That really stuck with me. Yeah, I was born ten years after he died, but everybody loves Elvis. Hell, my grandma loves Elvis. But when he came out, man, he was a little bit of a bad boy, too. He had that edge. Something about Elvis made you think if you smarted off, he might slap you. I heard that in his music. I heard that “I don’t really care what y’all think,” that whole “I’m going to boogie-woogie if I want to boogie-woogie” attitude."

"Elvis Presley was born to a death. His twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, was delivered first, didn't live at all, and everything that happened next was a swaggering wobble between those two poles. Denis Johnson, who passed away from liver cancer at 67 in May 2017, references Elvis glancingly in several of his works — "Train Dreams" (2011), "Tree of Smoke" (2007), "Jesus’ Son" (1992), and in both the final pages of his first novel, "Angels" (1983) — and the last of five stories in his posthumous collection "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden", where the author makes liberal use of the legendary performer."

"i) I've been asked to write down who I am most grateful for in this holiday season. And the answer is Elvis Presley. We are a very musical family and he sings my favorite Christmas song, which "Why cant everyday be like Christmas". So now it's turned out that I've sang it to all my daughters when they were babies and they all fell asleep on me. ii) Woman wanted him, men wanted to BE him, or just hang out with him.”"

"Hendrix and Elvis were the ones who sparked my interest in music. When I saw Elvis play the acoustic guitar back in the day with 'Jailhouse Rock,' that's when I wanted to play. I think I was 6. All I could think of back then, was that would be a great job..."

"The Bee Gees for their harmonies, the Beatles because they were so ahead of their time and Elvis, who was indeed, an amazing swagger, had incredible moves and his voice is so iconic."

"He's started the whole thing. I liked his early records."

"I think Elvis and BB King both did as much for the world of music coming through Memphis as anyone."

"Years later I met him, by chance in Hollywood where I was living. He was riding in a limousine and I was out walking my dog. He spotted me and pulled over. We went over to my home and sat out front talking about old times. After a while he grew melancholy and confided in me, “Carolyn, I’ve lost my way home.” It was heartbreaking as he had grown weary and disillusioned..."

"Now and then in a magazine, you will come across one of those features about your dream dinner party guests, encouraging you to wonder whether, inter alia, you could sit Elvis Presley next to Mother Teresa. I saw one in a mid-market woman's magazine the other day. Well, all I can say is that I'll be at the top table, after scrubbing John Lennon from the list, and certainly leaving Elvis, Mother Teresa, Ian Dury, Orson Welles and Peter Sellers. Incidentally, I wouldn't want to sit down with Karl Marx unless he was genuinely interested in what I'd been doing at work all day..."

"I guess everybody in the world tried to be a little like Elvis at the time, but there was no way you could compete with him if you just were doing country."

"Elvis was great. I loved him. When we worked on "Love Me Tender", everyone to a person, was determined to detest him. They couldn't believe he could just show up and be a movie star. They were prepared to hate him. By the time the shoot was over, everyone adored him. I'll tell you a story about him that probably nobody else knows. We were doing "Stay Away Joe" and were the only two actors working that day. And I just happened to look across the highway, and there was an old battered pickup truck, patched up and with the tires gone. And there was a rocking chair in the back of it with a lady tied to it.It turned out the lady was in her eighties and she was a true Elvis fan, had no money and her family had driven 300 miles with her tied in the rocking chair because she was crippled up and couldn't get in the cab. Me being blabbermouth, I went over and told Elvis. He stopped everything. He had them back the truck over and put it right up next to the camera. He got her situated, and he always had his band with him, so they broke out their instruments and they gave her a thirty-minute performance. She stayed with us the rest of the day. He took her to lunch, and just took her everywhere he went. That's Elvis Presley."

"i) So we left that CREATIVE era of jazz, bebop, bigband and went into the '50s. It was like coming from modern jazz to poop tunes like "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window," and so on. It was unbelievable. But then Elvis Presley changed that whole thing because he opened the way for black music to come in ii) Even from 30 feet, as I sat in the front of the CBS orquestra section, and with his back to me, as we all faced the camera, I knew right and then that he would be a huge star"

"Blues, country, pop, rock and roll, gospel, and beyond, this man could sing anything. From the rockabilly of the Sun Sessions, to the MOR of "Wooden Heart"(1960), to the later day "Burnin' Love"(1972), Elvis proved that he had the skills as a vocalist that few have, or will ever have."

"Not any big ones, but I had a picture taken that haunts me to this day. I'd just come off stage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to be greeted by Elvis Presley, Merv Griffin and Norm Crosby. Elvis knew how to work himself up for pictures and he ended up looking like, well, Elvis, any doubling of the chin magically concealed. So naive, grinning me, however, clearly had an extra chin, later to be surgically eliminated. It was something to do with the singing. I had it cut out, now I've got the mark of Zorro under my chin, that's why I grew this beard. Never have your photo taken with Elvis Presley."

"I feel good. It was kind of nail-biting all day yesterday. It'd be nice to have $3,300 in my pocket and still have the cup, and I hate to see it go. In fact, it's really going to be weird putting something that has that kind of value in an envelope and sending it off to the people who bid the most in auction, the owners of the "Icon Hotel" in Luton, U.K"

"Elvis is my man."

"The Presley, Beatles and Castro appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show have one thing in common: at the conclusion of the appearances, Sullivan stands at center stage and declares them all to be outstanding citizens of their countries..."

"I think it’s a little bit too much and kind of overwhelming. I mean, it puts a real big strain on me personally in my life. It’s always great to be respected and admired, but to a point where it exceeds certain living situations, and it’s not that much fun to me. I think it was fun to a certain degree, but it really was kind of embarrassing the way people treated as if I was an Elvis Presley or a God, and that’s a very uncomfortable feeling for me.”"

"He would appear twice a night at the Hilton in Las Vegas so after the second show one night, I asked the guard behind the stage if I could meet him. As I was then playing with Cowboys, I was let in. So there he was with a towel around his head exhausted after performing two shows, but was very friendly. He was also a huge fan of Coach (Paul W. 'Bear') Bryant, my coach at the University of Alabama, so we got along extremely well. I think the key was that we came from similar backgrounds, just country boys who remained the same even after hitting the big stage."

"Your CD is wonderful, and you have a great sounding voice. Reminds me of an Elvis jazz sound. I just I always loved Elvis's sound, but you're definitely an original and certainly are my taste. You have a jazz sound. Just great!!"

"Pharaohː Male, a Baritone with a registry from a Low B to High G#. He is the most powerful man in Egypt living in a strange psychological place and is desperately searching for the truth in his dreams. The character is in style an homage to Elvis Presley."

"I watched the audience as he walked out on stage, and so many had their faces in their hands. They'd sit there and cry. It was almost Biblical, as if the clouds had parted and down a shaft of light came the Angels."

"Of the millions of cars that have ever been built, only a handful of individual vehicles are truly legendary. James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder. Ingrid Bergman’s Ferrari 375 MM. Frank Sinatra’s Dual Ghia. The Lincoln Continental in which John F. Kennedy was assassinated. There are others, of course, but it’s a short list in any case. And no matter what the criteria, only two BMWs truly deserve to be on it. One is the Touring-bodied 328 coupe that won the Gran Premio di Brescia in 1940; the other is the 507 owned by Elvis Presley while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army."

"The memory that stands out most in my mind is the first time I saw that face, the face that was soon to be the most recognized face in the world: the deep-set eyes that would make girls scream and cry; the full, pouting lips that would make them swoon. I'll never forget the first time I saw the flawless face of Elvis Presley.”"

"I wanted to look at Elvis the non-saint, as well as the nature of songs from the ‘50’s, all that postwar optimism; he’s iconic, a wonderful singer with an amazing body of work, but he’s a bit like Billie Holiday, you’re not ‘allowed’ to be critical."

"I was working in the early 2000s with Wieden & Kennedy, an exclusive, high-brow ad agency based in Amsterdam, and they were literally on the same street where my studio was. We knew each other really well, had worked together and, at a certain point, somebody knocks on my door, walks inside, and says, "Tom, I've got something, but we don't know what to do with the music." He plays me this world championship soccer commercial for NIKE directed by Terry Gilliam, a five-minute movie where you see all the star soccer players play games with one another in the belly of a ship. The commercial was called, "The Secret Tournament" , they were looking for music and had tried a few different things, like Elvis' A Little Less Conversation,' and I said, 'Oh, I know that song.'" But they said, " Problem is that it's too short and we need five minutes." I said, "I can make this work. Give me a couple of days or a week and I'll come back to you." He said, "You don't have a couple of days or a week, I need this in five hours." And I said, "Well, just give me five hours (laughs)." So he left, and at that point in time, I was producing the first record of a UK-based DJ by the name of Sasha, the biggest thing on the planet. So he came in and he said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I've gotta spend four or five hours on this Elvis thing." So he said, "I'm gonna go get a massage and get some food, I'll be back in five hours and we can continue working." So he goes to get a massage, comes back at 8:00 pm. And when I played it for him, he smiled and looked at me and said, "This is a number one hit." I said, "Ah, you're kidding, this is just for a commercial," but he said, "No. You don't understand what I'm saying: this is a number one hit." Famous last words! So I sent it out to NIKE, and they loved it, and they started talking to the Elvis estate. They were talking with the lawyer of the Elvis estate, and he says, "We just played the track for Priscilla Presley, and she really loved it. Tell me, who is the producer on this track?" And then the guy on the NIKE side says, "His name is Junkie XL." And it goes quiet. After half a minute, he says, "You have to be kidding me, right?" So we shortened it to JXL and it went into the commercial, which ran worldwide and did really well. And then the track started having a life of its own and eventually, we decided to release it as a single. So I spent a little bit more time on it to produce it as a proper release, and that's the track most people know today, yes, the one that became a number one hit in many countries."

"From the darkest of backgrounds, Elvis' voice emerges with such realism that you could take singing lessons, his vocals so irresistible and smooth, and with such startling definition, that the clearest and most concise way I can describe the experience, is that I never felt as though I was listening to a recording."

"During his rendition of "Hurt", (1976), he was in even better voice, singing in a register that gave more impact to his phrasing, and even hitting notes that could cause a mild hernia. And, after they drew a good crowd reaction, he offered them in a reprise that was tantamount to masochism."

"He was electrifying in his white jumpsuit, with his cape on, quite humble but he had an aura. There are very few people who have triple-X charisma, and Elvis was one."

"I want to produce music that is timeless, music that lasts for decades and centuries, like Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, The Temptations and Prince's songs. One-hit wonders are for lucky people, not talented people,"

"The young Elvis Presley, without any doubt."

"Elvis Presley was known for his kind and generous heart. Every Christmas he would donate $100,000 to local charitable organizations. He personally delivered a wheelchair to a disabled woman and gave a necklace to a sick child in a hospital unable to see him perform. Moreover, it is hard to explain an admiration for one particular individual such as Elvis. I admired this man not only for his contribution to the music industry, but also for his love for all of his fans,"

"To go out Albemarle Rd, to the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round, and seeing Elvis at the Carolina Theater."

"Elvis is the one man that stands alone in the history of Rock-N-Roll. He was the first and the best, shook the world by its very foundation. Over the years I've seen stars come and go, but never have I seen a star match the impact of Elvis Presley. Elvis may be gone, but the echo will never die."

"He was criticized for turning down the role of Sundance in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", after insisting unsuccessfully on doing the film with Elvis Presley as Butch."

"It shows that anything's possible because I wasn't the president of the student body. It was certainly a very fateful and important meeting in the course of my life. Too bad I hadn't been there the day before — I would have met Elvis."

"In 1969, I hitched from New England to Nevada to see him, to meet him, so I showed at the Las Vegas International Hotel's delivery room, I hid in a closet, until Elvis and his entourage passed by, so that is when I jumped out and told him I was one of his biggest fans, and wanted to be a star to which Elvis replied, "I believe that will happen, son". I got his blessing..."

"Presley's early days represent a kind of liberation in his fans own lives, which to that point were painted in black and white and dominated by their parents' conservative views. His music gave them an art form, and to a degree, an identity all their own. More than anything else though, it's the uniqueness of Presley's voice and talent that shall prevail. There's never been anyone like him and likely won't be."

"Next to the kitchen door, Elvis Presley is sticking his tongue into a young woman’s mouth. I never understood why he made millions of girls cry, until I saw that photo, used as an ad as it was, for Sam Shepard’s play "Fool for Love"."

"What's happened to the alliance is that the great relationship we have had with the Americans in wartime, and the cultural affinity with the jazz period of the 1920s, the swing era in the 1940s, Elvis Presley and rock and roll, Hollywood, the sitcoms, and the relationship between the citizens of Australia and the citizens of America, society to society, has been suborned by this now sacramental and foolish tone we are ­encouraged to have about the ­alliance."

"He was out for fun, he never rehearsed. He was 19 and he had a motorcycle and he liked to ride the streets, looking for excitement. So often I'd see him zipping along Union Street, a new girl on the back of that motorcycle, or walking with two or three girls at once. Later he'd tell me, 'I'm sorry I didn't introduce you, Marion. I didn't know their names'.""

"A hard drinker with an ever-present cigarette in his mouth, he liked to dress like Elvis at company meetings and maintain a level of fun in the workplace."

"That Elvis boy can sure dance but he's not as good as me though (LOL)"

"Elvis Presley was rock & roll's first real star, not to mention one of the most important cultural forces in history, a hip-shaking symbol of liberation for the staid America of the 1950s. A white Southerner singing blues laced with country, and country laced with gospel, he brought together American music from both sides of the color line and performed it with a natural sexuality that made him a role model for generations of cool rebels. He was repeatedly dismissed as vulgar, incompetent, and a bad influence, but the force of his music and his image was no mere merchandising feat. Presley signaled to mainstream culture that it was time to let go. Four decades after his death, Presley's image and influence remain undiminished."

"My first of ten fantasy dinner guests is Elvis, someone I first fell in love with when I was a kid but I wasn’t quite sure what it was I fell in love with. It wasn’t as much his music as his charisma – and I don’t think I really understood charisma until I saw him. I remember one Christmas as a kid I watched "Jailhouse Rock" and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was so charismatic that even in the scenes where he was in the background, it was him I paid attention to. For me, he was the one who always set the pace, so I would want him at my party."

"Someone I knew invited me into the house. At the far end of the room was the gleaming copper coffin that contained his body. A couple in their late twenties stood beside the casket, she was sobbing and he had his arm around her. Behind the coffin, an arch led to another room where a glass statue stood high off the floor, twirling slowly, adorned by glass beads that leaked like water. Potted plastic palms surrounded the coffin and on the wall was a painting of a skyline on black velveteen. When Priscilla entered she offered me a Coke then introduced me to his father, Vernon Presley, who was watching the 10 o'clock news in a nearby bedroom. Nobody in the group around him spoke. Later, at the front door, I interviewed Charlie Hodge “It’s really hard to believe,” he said. “I went to the dentist with him on Monday night around 9:30. We were getting ready for the tour and we talked about the songs we’d use. But we never did rehearse" Outside the front door were hundreds of wreaths, some spelled ‘Elvis’ in flowers, others were shaped like crowns, broken hearts, hound dogs and blue suede shoes...."

"I was a 13 year old kid sitting on the front row on Hank Williams' last performance at the Municipal Auditorium. It changed my life. A couple of years later, during one of Elvis ̪Presley's appearances with the Louisiana Hayride, I was also in attendance there, with a friend, and we got real mad at all of the girls screaming when Elvis was doing his shaking. It upset us that we couldn't hear anything"

"I often wondered if Elvis mania will ever truly die. I'm too young to remember the apex of his career, but I vividly remember the deep mourning that followed his death. For years — maybe, still? — his birthday and death day were marked by vigils in Memphis. The other day, I was charmed by a TV commercial that features Elvis impersonators from around the world using FaceTime to sing the Elvis ballad "There's Always Me." Anyone under 30 probably wonders who these strangely dressed guys are. To me, the commercial was literally music to my ears."

"Elvis was almost pure style, his clothes, hair, the way he sang, the way he moved on stage, his half-kidding sneer. The first superstar..."

"My mom had me at 21, and hers had her at 21, so I think 25 is too old. Marriage is just something I wanted to experience in my lifetime, to be honest. As to being the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, it did help me in the business. I'm very privileged, like the normal story of moving to LA and it takes you three years to find an agent? I got one in a week"

"He was a nice guy, a perfect soldier who didn’t do anything wrong in his two years. It was awesome to meet him, especially for a little old farm boy like me. It was like, ‘How did this happen?’ It was pretty neat, there’s no question about it. When he died, that was so sad because he still had so many good years ahead of him, It was shocking that would happen. He was the best entertainer in the country ever.”"

"When he bought the first Stutz Blackhawk ever made, it had been ordered for Frank Sinatra but they sold it to Elvis, so Frank vowed he would never buy one because in the pecking order, nobody could compare with Elvis and even to this day, nobody ever has,,,"

"Don't worry, Elvis, Cary cries at everything that is beautiful. Ballet. Paintings. Sculptures. Poetry. You.""

"I always argued that Elvis was arguably, potentially a very good actor. Barbra Streisand wanted him to play opposite her, but Col Parker stopped it. That would have been something to dream about."

"They are some of the most iconic and unique displays of architecture, each home with a distinct style reflecting its location, history, or previous owner. Ahead, find out which are the most photographed, starting with Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley."

"Elvis propositioned the both of us, saying bluntly that he really liked our butts. My sister and I were both unimpressed as rock'n'roll wasn't our thing at all. At any rate, good looking men are not for either of us. Just Imagine waking up in the morning to the horrible feeling of being in bed with someone who looks much better than you do (LOL)"

"Just the sight of seeing that music being played live and this feeling that was just so different from anything prior to that. That had a hell of an impact on me. I didn’t know what I was gonna do or how I was gonna do it, but I knew that I had to be a part of this somehow.”"

"In Memphis, we listened to Blind Mississippi Morris belt out BB King's classic in a bar on Beale Street. But it was another King, he with an affinity for Kahlil Gibran, who was beckoning me. I expected Elvis Presley's Graceland to be a temple of tacky brimming with shag rugs and frequented by zealous impersonators in blinged-out one-pieces. We scoffed when the woman selling tickets said the tour could take three hours. We ended up needing four. Sobia and I found many nationalities. "So many people try to copy him, but he was the ultimate,” said Rishi Khanna, a fan since his youth in India, “Elvis’s music is from the divine.”"

"The most popular thing in American culture is Elvis Presley"

"“How would I describe it? Elvis Presley. Michael Jackson"

"Elvis was great, and it took me so long to realize it. As I got older, I figured this man was the real deal."

"Elvis had risen to fame in the 1950s under the guidance of manager Colonel Tom Parker – real name Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk – an illegal immigrant from Holland who was terrified of leaving the United States lest he be deported, so Elvis never went on the lucrative international tours that are the lifeblood of most musical acts. Colour television in Australia was still more than half a decade away, but even in black and white, Elvis was mesmerising, marching triumphantly on to the stage for what was billed as the biggest benefit satellite television entertainment event of all time. And, in Brisbane, barely a television screen had anything else"."

"Ali was at an Elvis show in Las Vegas and asked to meet him. He was taken to the dressing room and Elvis did his karate motions while Ali did his shadow boxing, facing one another. It was Unreal"

"It was a revelation in a lot of ways. You could really only compare it to music, bands like The Beatles and Elvis, where things actually changed."

"i) While they were civil, they never really had much to say and I might feel a chill between them and me. But Elvis was different. I remember him distinctly because (inter-alia) he was friendly, polite to a fault, spoke with this thick molasses southern accent and always called me 'sir'. I liked that. When he appeared at the Goodwill Revue, a yearly benefit for needy black kids sponsored by WDIA, he did himself proud. Remember this was the fifties so for a young white boy, by then a big, big star to show up in an all-black function in 1957 took "guts". I believe he was showing his roots and he seemed proud of those roots. ii) I hold no grudges. Elvis didn't steal any music from anyone. He just had his own interpretation of the music he'd grown up on, same was true for me, the same true for everyone. I think Elvis had integrity (In fact), more than anyone, he was the guy who kicked the revolution into high gear. (Moreover) what most people don't know is that this boy was serious about what he was doing, he was carried away by it. When I was in Memphis with my band, he used to stand in the wings and watch us perform. As for fading away, rock and roll is here to stay and so, I believe, is Elvis. He's been a shot in the arm to the business and all I can say is ‘that’s my man’. iii) In the 1970's, I decided to try my luck in Vegas and Frank Sinatra helped get me into the lounge at Caesar's Palace. That was my first venture into big-time Vegas. But my second involved Elvis. It was Elvis who encouraged the Hilton to book me in the lounge while he was playing in the showroom. My band and our lounge act was strong and if it had been any other entertainer other than Elvis, we might have even drained business away from that showroom. But it was Elvis.. iv) to me they didn't make a mistake when they called him the King."

"I altered my stage name to King because of my love for horse racing, but also after my favourite singer, Elvis Presley."

"As you know I'm trying to be one of the best and hopefully it can happen. Elvis is down in the books as a great one and I'm really happy to actually be here, around his surroundings, around his homeland."

"My dad penned an as-yet unpublished volume which he titled "Rock 'n Roll: Triumph Over Chaos", There's an enormous amount of unspoken-of history of my dad and Elvis' relationship. Actually, his relationship with my entire family. A lot of people think he was a prejudiced kind of human being but that's not true. He spent a lot of his life with my father and my uncle, at my grandmother's home. They were very close.""

"Elvis performed twice at the Miami Beach Convention Center in 1970, arriving in Miami International Airport, where a helicopter brought him over to Miami Beach at the helipad. A limo picked him up there and drove him 10 blocks to the Convention Center. Just before leaving Miami, he got back in the limo to go back to the helicopter and on the way there he said to the limo driver, "Do you own this limo, or do you work for the company?" And the driver said, "I work for the company." And he said, "Now, you own it." The limo driver's tip was the limo."

"I may be the King in Los Angeles but there's only one King."

"Elvis Presley's talent brightened millions of lives. He widened the horizons of my world certainly. The first record I ever owned was a 78 rpm of "Hound Dog" backed by "Don't Be Cruel" and when I listened to those tunes I felt about ten feet tall and I grinned so hard that I felt like the corners of my mouth would meet in the back and the tip of my head would simply topple off. All I know about R&R is that it makes people feel good. Elvis Presley more than made me feel good, he enriched my life and made it better."

"In 1970, once Ray had seen Elvis in Las Vegas, now that was what you could call flash, he would say, that was the start of a huge rift between him and the rest of Kinks. Now it was going to be Ray's dressing room, his bottle of champagne, his limo. He obviously had got it in his mind that he was going to be like Elvis and that the rest of us were HIS band."

"I was ushering here in Los Angeles at the "Vogue Theater", that's how I supported myself before I started acting, and about ten o'clock one night a Mercedes Benz 600 Limo bigger than this room, with Elvis in it, pulled up. And I guess at one point in his life Elvis must have made a deal with God, that God would let him be Elvis if Elvis promised he never let anyone forget seeing him. And I say this because when he got out of the Mercedes he was decked out in such a way that, you know, Priscilla Presley is a beautiful woman, right? And she was standing next to him, right? Well, I never saw her. I didn't see anybody and there were 24 people with him. As I was telling you earlier, I was in show business since I was a kid and I was never thrown by any celebrity, but when I saw him walking towards me, I went limp. I froze. And all I could say was "It's the King, It's the King, It's the King, the King's here". And he said, "Thank you very much...""

"Elvis Presley is my favorite singer and my favorite film is "Elvis On Tour"."

"I always have to go back to the way Elvis Presley or James Brown would have held themselves. And Elvis could just sort of stand there and just be very casual and very cool. And James Brown was so acrobatic. And such a showman. Of course, Elvis’ influence on the band extends beyond our live performances. I wanted to outdo my bandmate’s outfits, so I decided to draw inspiration from Elvis' 1970s wardrobe, as well as Elizabeth Taylor’s looks in the film Cleopatra. I would would draw outfits with colored pencils and work with fashion designer Amber Doyle to bring them to life. Some of my outfits are pretty similar to the white jumpsuits Elvis wore during the last leg of his career. In addition, our band has covered the classic early rock ‘n’ roll tune “That’s All Right.” Countless rock ‘n’ roll bands wouldn’t be the same without Elvis’ influence and our band is no exception."

"Today, the price tag for the car and restoration is around NOK 180 million (USD 18 million).."

"This mission, or the extension of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) will let implement such provisions of the Minsk agreement as the disarmament of illegal armed groups, the formation, monitoring and verification of the withdrawal of Russian troops and military hardware, ensure distribution of humanitarian aid, ensure proper conditions for local elections under the OSCE standards. I urge the Security Council once again to take the lead in establishing such a mission. Just two weeks ago, we exchanged a Russian major for one of our hostages. Of course, the Russian side can also claim that Elvis is alive, but no amount of lies will change the facts.""

"My favorite aspect of Presley's career was whatever day it was when he recorded “Suspicious Minds"."

"My first association is Elvis. I was so shocked when I read that he was 42 when he died. That's so young. How can I be older than Elvis when he died? He was the only American that everyone knew in our culture. My father loved him, and it's what we grew up with. He was this godlike creature. The day he died, I was nine. I remember taking the bus to school and someone said ‘Elvis is dead’. And everyone kept saying it: ‘Elvis is dead, Elvis is dead, Elvis is dead’. We didn't cry, because we were too young, but it made such an impression. I can't think of anyone with that kind of influence now."

"I'm in awe of people who've accomplished wonderful things and succeed. It was really something when I met Walter Payton. He was just the most humble person that I had ever met and I just met Beyoncé and I really have a lot of respect and admiration for her and the success that she's had. And when I ran across Elvis Presley""

"i) Watching Elvis perform on the Ed Sullivan Show with my father, I saw how he looked at me, with real horror, that I liked it. Elvis Presley was a beautiful young person whose recordings were just colossally great. But basically the best stuff he ever did was on the Sun record label. ii) In many respects, thinking about it, the movies were a bigger draw to American rockers when they were kids because Elvis wanted to be James Dean and Marlon Brando. I remember being surprised when I heard that Elvis wanted to be a movie star, and that was kind of disappointing because, to me, he was the total rockstar.”"

"I'm working with a studio in the US from January. So maybe mid-year there might be something."

"Last night, at the House of Commons, there was no quorum. Out of our 259 members only 37 were present. The missing ones went with their kids to see Elvis."

"In 1955 I saw Elvis in Amarillo, TX and he told me "Man, if you've got a band and some good songs, get into a recording studio cause something is fixing to happen."

"It's not that President Trump can't win a “war” with Steve Bannon. He can, but if the president is Elvis to Bannon's Ozzy Osborne, well, Ozzy still has his fans."

"i) Yes, I really love Elvis He is the best and a class by himself when he sings rock or ballads or any type of songs. I never get tired of listening no matter how many times I hear him over more than 40 years in my life. Above all, I like his songs, say, ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You’ and ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song’. I almost forgot to say this: my birthday is January 8, the same day of Elvis. ii) Love me tender, love me true..."

"At a time when men of color and white men could not drink out of the same water fountain, my great friend the late Otis Blackwell and Elvis were rocking the world. Now, I'm trying to bring us some new music from Otis, made today in today's feel, but sort of "old school meets new". It's gonna be another 'All Shook Up,' another 'Return To Sender,' I am thanking anyone and everyone right now, because we are going to be a team and do this, and do this together. It was never about color, it wasn't about status, it was about the music."

"My Hulk/Elvis series draws a parallel between Presley's status to that of the Hulk, representing celebrity and pop cult"

"Do what you can to ensure your baby enters the world in the month of January. That's apparently when the brightest and best are most likely to surface, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Social Sciences. Luminaries like Jeff Bezos, legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, NHL great Wayne Gretzky, and such celebrities as David Bowie, Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley were all born in January."

"Elmer nodded hello — we were the only ones at the cemetery — and he took that as an invitation to shuffle over, his generous smile emphasizing how glad he was to meet me. After some small talk, I was anxious to be alone so I could have a silent conversation with my grandmother and he obliged, walking away. This second encounter at the cemetery seemed uncanny. Sorry that I'd brushed him off the first time, I engaged the conversation, learning about his wife, who had passed in 1985. When he jumped to describing how he liked making cheesecake topped with strawberries, his blue eyes brightened. I found him charming. As I left, I told him I'd look forward to running into him again sometime. On my next visit to the cemetery, I was startled: on my grandmother's headstone hung a clear plastic baggie, attached with duct tape, holding a note. In sloppy cursive, above a phone number, it read: “I’m getting things to make cheesecake for you. Call me. Elmer.” Although I had never met an elderly man in the cemetery to receive a homemade cheesecake, I didn't hesitate. His generosity toward my family and me quickly progressed. He volunteered to plant flowers at my grandmother's grave to replace my artificial flowers. He started leaving surprise deliveries on our front porch every week: pumpkins for the kids, treats for our dog, birdseed and Elvis Presley commemorative coins. Gradually, he scaled back on both deliveries and expectations. Some people we pull into our orbit and others, like Elmer, make a surprise landing with flares. For five years, he and I remained friends. A year ago, at 87, he passed away..."

"In a sudden gesture of respect in Las Vegas, Elvis Presley had taken the robe off his back and given it to Ali..."

"When I turned 14, in 1989, I moved to Moscow and discovered the life of underground bohemia, it was the Perestroika years and I became involved with a counterculture circle of Soviet hipsters. We called ourselves “Stilyagi", were all (finally) allowed to listen to Elvis Presley and went to Viktor Tsoi’s concerts."

"Beyond the ambiance, it really is all about the wine, the so-called "one-off" reds, whites and rosés all bottled with artistic labels sold at the winery, online, and as part of Tank Garage's wine club. The production facility doesn't host customers but they do have a special guest in there: Elvis!! They have installed a 40-foot mural of Elvis Presley overlooking the cellar and they often ask themselves while putting together the blends, 'What would Elvis do?"

"On October 28th, 1956. Elvis Presley, who, just a month earlier, had set the world record for most viewed telecast in TV history, takes the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show for the second time. He gyrates through “Don’t Be Cruel,” shakes out “Hound Dog” thus cementing himself in the collective memory of an entire generation one shake, rattle and roll at a time. On October 29th, 1956 the L.A Times columnist Dick Williams writes, “Sexhibitionist Elvis Presley has come at last in person to a visibly palpitating, adolescent female Los Angeles to give all the little girls’ libidos the jolt of their lives.” And while Elvis’ three performances on Ed Sullivan are all well-situated in the pantheon of American music history, Williams thought little of it, concluding, “If any further proof were needed that what Elvis offers is not basically music but a sex show, it was provided last night.” Presley, sober and Christian, saw his act as art. To Williams it was pornography. Elvis was dancing to his own music, consumed with passion. Williams wasn't even listening."

"Love songs are like a fairy tale, but a musical form. Any love songs that are old school, but have a nostalgic feeling to them, I love. My favorite is Elvis ' Can't Help Falling in Love. It's such a romantic song, Whenever you listen to it, it gives you that warm feeling inside, very comforting, that you could find somebody that loves you that much one day."

"It's almost like seeing Elvis."

"When I was first becoming a songwriter, I never would have dreamed that Elvis would sing not just one of my songs but three of them and with so much soul. I feel a lot of gratitude for that."

"It was King Creole, the title of an Elvis movie from 1958, morphing with a south London accent into “King Krule"."

"Thanks to Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, Aug. 16 forever will be known, to quote a song from my youth, as the day the music died. We don't agree about much as a country and a people now. We find some of the silliest reasons imaginable to turn disagreements into arguments, arguments into fights, fights into brawls and brawls into wars. But most of us did agree about Elvis. And Aretha. More important, we agreed that we wanted to live in a country where stories like theirs were possible. We wanted an America in which the son of an ex-convict Southern sharecropper and day laborer could vault from working as a truck driver to becoming a king. And we wanted a land in which a black, teenage, unwed mother could leap from being in the choir in her father's church to becoming a queen. Elvis and Aretha became royalty the same way – through hard work, by breaking down barriers and by being talented. So talented. Perhaps it was a coincidence that they both died on Aug. 16. Maybe it was a quirk of fate. Possibly a message from the universe. All I know is that, for a lot of us, that date will be the day the music died, the anniversary of when the King and the Queen left us. Long may they reign."

"I was born in the fifties so it's part of my fabric. These were some of the things I had in common with Lemmy, from Motörhead although Lemmy was ten years older and I think he was quite shocked to hear about some of the the music that I listened to because he was going, “How did you know about that?” And the reason that I knew is because I had an older brother and sister. So by the time I was two or three years old, I'm hearing this stuff on their record player and on the radio. My first conscious song that I can remember is “All Shook Up,” by Elvis Presley. I loved that song, really loved that song, and that's my first recollection of music and I just don't know why. It was like I was just attracted to it and I can recall that."

"I started my DJ career nearly 75 years ago in San Francisco, and am still playing the oldies but goodies. In fact I’ve loved radio all my life and I still do, even if things have changed radically since I lured Elvis and Natalie Wood to Scrivner’s drive-in at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga."

"He was as poor, or more poor than we were and lived around the corner from me. He had an old beat-up guitar and was pretty good with it, even back then. We also played sandlot football and he played with us Negroes all the time. In fact, I clearly recall seeing Elvis and BB King on a street corner playing together during their hungry days. And (all of ) that was before the world knew there was an Elvis Presley."

"Do you think I'm at that level? It's within sight. Well, then, that's more terrifying that you think that.""

"My childhood hero was Elvis Presley and I wanted to emulate his look"

"Number one for me and no one else comes close; ignore for a second that Presley was the most beautiful human being of all time and that he was easily the most electric performer ever; in his prime, he could sing anything (rock, opera, metal, soul, blues, country – no problem); all the wonks will tell you he did his best work at Sun Records, but for me his immense '50s RCA output is so explosive that it puts everyone else to shame; it’s not just that Elvis had an amazing instrument, no one ever had so much fun putting it to use; whirling back and forth from low to high, from raspy to angelically pretty, the only singer ever that could take any song and transform it into something that sounded like it came from somewhere else, a galaxy or two away."

"Elvis was a shy likeable youngster who told me he'd be happy to do half as well for himself as I had done in my career."

"Perhaps the only other voice to touch me (Luciano Pavarotti's voice being the first), was the voice of Elvis Presley; to watch him perform as I did along with Carl (Palmer), and Keith (Emerson), both in 1971 and again later in 1976 was an absolutely awesome and breathtaking experience; like Pavarotti, Presley had the power to reduce most people to tears very quickly and indeed to move them to think very carefully about their inner spiritual beliefs; as far as singing is concerned, the human voice is a matter of the expression of passion in the understanding of the human condition and, upon seeing both of them perform, I very quickly came to realise that they were each capable of expressing more feeling, with their voices, than I had ever thought possible."

"They come here because they want and if they're still shopping at closing time, we don't make them leave. We accommodate our guests. They have driven so many miles and they want to see where it all began. Through the long years, I have learned it's usually best to treat celebrities visiting as regular people. When Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were here, they were in ball caps and we just let them look around. was happy to have his photograph taken, while Facebook founder preferred no photos. was practically unrecognizable in a cap and blue jeans."

"Elvis had an impact on everyone. Elvis and The Beatles. Both of those artists are the reason most of us are musicians, those of us that come along in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I can’t remember if I heard him first, or if I saw his performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” first. But I had all of his 45s as a kid in the 1950s — “Hound Dog,” Heartbreak Hotel" — all of them."

"My wife and I passed him in the hallway and were impressed by how good he looked, the handsomest guy we ever saw. Minutes later, he went into Barbra Streisand's dressing room. Years later she revealed in an unpublished interview the extraordinary scene that followed. She was alone, sitting at her dressing table when Elvis, whom she had never met, entered. After Elvis closed the door behind him, he said simply, "Hi," and an awkward silence followed. Suddenly he reached over and picked up a bottle of red nail polish from the vanity table. Without a word, he fell to one knee, took Barbra's hand in his and began, slowly and painstakingly, to apply the bright crimson varnish to Barbra's tapering fingernails. The intimacy of the gesture, the supplication of it, stunned Barbra, who stared in fascination as Elvis worked, and when he finished, she mumbled "Thank you.""

"Elvis really bestowed himself on his fans, thus making himself worthy of a Nobel Prize as well."

"There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home... He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect from rock 'n' roll singers. While he sings in a lower voice than ever -and what I liked about the early records was that beautifully vulnerable high voice-, he opened his Boston concert (1971) with "That's Alright Mama" (1954), singing it with enough verve to scare the unsuspecting. It was his very first record, and although it doesn't sound quite the same as when he did it 17 years ago at the Sun studios in Memphis, I was moved by the fact that he was doing it at all. It was a tour de force of theatrics, professionalism, and, happily, music. (In fact), he sings so well, the audience hesitates to press him for more, his purpose being to please himself by pleasing them, never to please them by pleasing himself."

"The music of Elvis inspired me and my son Imanol from a very early age and he is so good at interpreting his songs that the public doesnt really know whether they are going to applaud him or Elvis"

"My roots are deep regardless. I was truly blessed because it's such a rich area for music — a lot of the traditional music, of course, with both Cajun and zydeco, but all the generations that have come up, especially the younger groups, have one foot in the past and one very much in future, and they're doing their own thing with it. In fact, all music was special to me. It was just magical. I was very much hooked by music from Day 1. Elvis Presley was the reigning king coming up when I was still living in Jackson, MS. And then moving here to LA, in addition to whatever was on the radio, there was always, like, a new business opening up, and they'd have Cajun bands play. They also had their own TV shows on Saturdays, and I'd watch those. I was definitely snakebit. Especially with the guitar, obviously."

"His chest and his heart were OK, and he had a fever caused by a significant ear infection, but it never entered my mind that he would shortly die. He was very, very cordial, that is what I remember the most about him."

"He was a wonderful person, and a lovely man to kiss. During the movie shoot, we did it (kiss) in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. He is a wonderful person, you can't define him in one line"

"He had total love in his eyes when he performed. He was the total androgynous beauty. I would practice Elvis in front of the mirror when I was twelve or thirteen years old.""

"I walked up to him, and I just stared at him, on a train, bound to New Jersey, from Texas, as we were on our way to Germany."

"Author Johnny Lang, recalling the first time he reall talked to Elvis.as resported on Fox News' August 15, 2023 edition"

"We were out to dinner one night, with my husband and brother in law, and someone at the bar said he had just passed away, and it really, really, really ruined my night, everything. He was the biggest star that has ever been in the world."

"In 1956, I bought my Elvis records at Duvan Music in downtown Sioux City. They had a booth there where you could sit and listen to the record before you bought it. I had 'em all. So did every kid at Central High. So my friend and I bought tickets for the May 23 Elvis concert, the cheapest ones. It was a mob. It took a half-hour for us to squeeze and wedge our way to the stage. It may have been warm in there, I don't know but all I remember is the electricity. He came out there with a saunter like he knew what he was doing, singing 'Mystery Train' first and all you could hear was the first words 'Train a ride'. After that, it was just bedlam, and screaming, along with Elvis and his two musicians. And he was so cool, rebellion in the flesh. I mean who grows his hair long like that? And shakes his butt? We loved him. I played harmonica at the time, was almost 17 and he was only 21, not much difference. I just stood there with my mouth open thinking, my God, this guy has picked up on something. He had charisma, the crowd in the palm of his hand. His musical ability had a lot to do with it, he wasn't just a pretty face. I used to listen to the blues on black radio stations at night and I said, 'This guy's a black musician in a white man's body. Elvis had a real strong sense of gospel and was just fascinated with gospel groups."

"I was walking through a narrow hallway past Elvis’ dressing room, right after a show when I saw a movie star type a bit further up the hallway. He turned around and it was Cary Grant. He loved Elvis. Anyways he looked up at me, and with that English accent he says: “Here’s the drummer! Is it ‘Bob’? Oh boy, I loved your drumming so much. It was a pleasure to meet you, Bob!”. I remember calling my brother, who’s also an actor, and saying: “You are NOT going to believe this!. Anyways, of all the other artists that I have worked for, he was so professional and at the same time so loving. Elvis was such a good guy, a really good person. I think it was easy for him to be that way, because he was so talented, very confident, and perhaps that gave him a generosity of spirit. Usually it’s the lesser talents that have certain ugly character traits, probably because they are not as confident. But Elvis was just wonderful."

"I was awed by "the presence" and was a wonderful caring person and he was fit, slender and couldn't be nicer to me. It was really wonderful..."

"I'll tell you something, last Christmas I saw Elvis do something. The Salvation Army kettle at Main and Beale Streets wasn't getting any money. Elvis watched the people passing by for a while not putting money in, then he went over and put a bill in, then he began to cut up and told the people 'Let's help the poor folks out so they can at least have a Christmas dinner'. He got complete strangers to smile and then the money started dropping. So, give the boy a break. Memphis will be proud of him. He's a grand boy. I'm 53 and I grew up in the Jazz Age, so we never thought much about the Charleston or the Black Bottom crazes. I don't like rock and roll, but Elvis is different. They talk about juvenile delinquency and here is a boy who didn't have much except what was inside himself. He just has Rhythm in him and it has to come out. I think he has done a pretty good job of lifting himself. He's full of life and already I can see the rough edges being smoothed out. That dance he does, nobody said anything when Marguerite Piazza did the 'St. Louis Blues'."

"It may surprise you, but I am a Presley fan. Elvis recently saw my folks in California and told them he was a fan of mine, that I had been an inspiration to him.... What that boy has done is phenomenal. He has busted many of the disc sales records I held, in little over a year."

"I have everything ever done by Elvis, I have all his master recordings. And if you go to my home,it's like a museum there..."

"All we ever heard about back in the fifties was the space race and how we were lagging behind the Russians. That and Elvis"

"Steve Allen's ethics were questionable from the start. He fouled Presley, a fair-minded judge would say, by dressing him in white tie and tails. This is a costume often seen on star performers at funerals, but only when the deceased has specifically requested it in his will. Elvis made no such request—or for that matter, no will. He was framed. It was a gag from which no ordinary twitching vocalist ... could be expected to recover. Elvis recovered. As he left the hall, more dead than alive, he found the street hip-deep in bobby-soxers. And he bloomed like a rose, they tell me, and writhed again as of old."

"He is one of the great American icons. Rock'n'roll just kind of formed around him. Even Elvis called him the King."

"When I came on the sound stage and met him for the first time, he was like a mannequin, sitting there, so still and I thought, “Wow they have a mannequin that looks just like Elvis!” He got up, shook hands with me, and said “Nice to know you, Sir.” He was just as polite and nice as he could be. We talked about a lot of different things. He was interested in karate, which I had studied with Chuck Norris many years before. He was also interested in many of the books and writings I was involved in. He told me about his reading of Gibran's The Prophet, as well as certain things I had no idea I was going to use later, years after he passed away. I did a lot of the things that he told me in the Kurt Russell TV biography, where I had to write in an annotated script, which meant you had to take note of where each thing came from in the margins (almost like a bibliography). The legal department didn't know how much could be done without being sued, so they wanted to have every part of it locked down. It was a lot of Elvis..."

"The year was 1956 and I was in grade 6. Elvis Presley made his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on TV and the music world was changed forever. Our school music appreciation teacher, Mr. Francis, was visibly upset, trying to teach us to love Brahms and Beethoven — but at recess, the girls would bring out a little record player and we'd hear Elvis. Mr. Francis responded by bringing an Elvis record to class, and using a hammer to smash it in front of us. He told us the music of the masters would live forever, but by next year at this time, this flash in the pan — Elvis Presley — would never be heard of again. Now, fast forward to yesterday where a paper cup Elvis drank from back in a 1956 outdoor performance just sold for more than $3,300. Maybe fittingly, it was bought by the owner of the "Icon Hotel" near London, England. What do I learn from this? I doubt some of today's entertainment will stand the test of time, but I keep watching for paper cups. Let me know what you think."

"I was starting in the movies, had no money then, he knew it, so after liking a few of the stunts we did in "Blue Hawaii" he gave me a US$100 bill which I used to have a great meal, a filet mignon, and pay the rent. Had I saved it, and asked him to autograph it, I would have made US$100,000 on that US$100 note. He was a great guy."

"It seems almost inexplicable that the human race, with its ravenous appetite for entertainment, should have failed over so many decades to produce another Callas and Elvis. Neither Pavarotti nor Madonna come close, nor ever will. The desperate efforts of a universal music industry have yielded nothing more enduring than Cecilia Bartoli, the mini-voiced mezzo who tops the opera charts, and the high-kicking, faintly archaic Kylie Minogue, who belongs more to the smiley era of the Andrews Sisters than to the grim virtual reality of Bill Gates. In fact, when we commemorate the Presley and Callas anniversaries, one month apart, we confirm a catastrophic failure of cultural renewal."

"Despite the name and best-known (striped t-shirt) scenes, Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" is not really a “prison flick.” His character does go to jail, where he discovers his musical prowess and pursues it once he gets out, but his journey to stardom proves even more challenging than his time behind bars. His James Dean-ish “bad boy” character makes bad choices, and it all leads to an obvious journey of redemption. But this one ain't about the story; it's about the exhilarating music and its star, whose charisma was so off the charts that it was quite fittingly criminal."

"I once certified the authenticity of an Elvis Presley soundtrack album, kept and played by Bruce Lee for over a decade. He had put his personal Chinese chop on it, as was customary in all his albums. This one we listened to endlessly, huge admirers of Elvis as we both were."

"He never lost that Southern, genteel, gentlemanly persona. Of course, that came from his mother. I loved that about him. He was that way to the end"

"What was once a tiny town of considerable character is now 6 times it size. Guess what: They are trying to turn me into a tourist attraction like Graceland and Elvis Presley.""

"I remember the first time I saw him on TV, when he burst upon the music scene like a blazing comet and the indescribably powerful impact he had on the youth of the nation -and the world.""

"The spirit of Elvis is way bigger than the music. I don't know how many Elvis records I actually bought. It wasn't my generation, but the spirit, the attitude, the vibe, the cool of Elvis? Elvis had many phases, many stages. Depending on who you are and how old — are you military Elvis with the perfect complexion? Were you beginning Elvis when he upset everybody with [imitates Presley's voice]? Or were you end-stage Elvis, which frankly, I enjoy that as much."

"He named the band "Ten Year After" because by 1966 it had been ten years since Elvis' advent. Some time later, in 1969, we got invited by Warner Brothers to see Elvis in Las Vegas. I thought he was terrific with James Burton on lead, Ronnie Tutt on drums, Cissy Houston and the Sweet Inbspirations on back up vocals. Fabulous. Alvin, who was the biggest Elvis fan amongst us, was disapponted because that night Elvis didnt sing "Jailhouse Rock" LOL."

"Backstage at Washington DC's ’s two locations — the Lansburgh Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall — actors and crew members maintain elaborate shrines to a creative icon. Not the Bard, but Elvis Presley. The tradition started one night in 1989. During a performance of “The Beggar’s Opera,” stage manager James Latus heard a loud sound during the show and asked his assistant, Audrey Brown, if she knew who was responsible. “Uh, um, uh…Elvis!” (In fact) Brown, a Memphis native, refused to rat out the real culprit, which led Latus to take the joke to its natural conclusion and create a full-blown shrine, consisting of a tasteful Elvis postcard and candle. Actors and crew people started donating items for good luck. When the company moved to the Lansburgh Theatre in the 1990s, the Elvis shrine came, too. Around this time, the theater received a letter from then-First Lady ’s press secretary. They were planning to come see a show, but they wouldn’t have time to visit the shrine. The letter was promptly framed and added to the shrine. But when the Clintons showed up, Hillary insisted on making a pilgrimage. The shrine now holds a photo of her pointing at the copy of her press secretary’s letter. Latus said he’d like to see an Elvis-inspired Shakespeare adaptation one day. His vote is for “King Lear,” while Cox would like to see an Elvis “Macbeth”. Both, of course, are tragedies. The Shakespeare Theatre doesn't have any Elvis-themed projects in the works right now, but maybe, with enough prayers at the shrine, some day it will happen."

"I wanted to channel my inner Elvis..."

"He had an incredible, attractive instrument that worked in many registers; he could falsetto like Little Richard, his equipment was outstanding, his ear uncanny, and his sense of timing second to none; (in short) he could sing. And when it came to the blues, Elvis knew his stuff, his knowledge being almost encyclopedic. Mike (Stoller) and I were blown away. In fact, the conversation got so enthusiastic at the studio that Mike and Elvis sat down at the piano and started playing four-handed blues. He definitely felt our passion for the real roots material and shared that passion with all his heart. Just like that, we fell in love with the guy. ‘Let’s get started,’ Elvis said. ‘Let’s cut some records.’ And then we jumped right into ‘Jailhouse Rock""

"Elvis's music is the one true gift he's left behind, and it is continually being shared with the world. The music will never die, but apart from that, it's the other intangible things that keep him alive- his love, his laughter, his films, all the photos that we see and have access to will keep him alive, for generations to come. The last time I saw him, In 1974, he did put in a great show."

"He looked, sounded like anyone on the planet in 1956"

"i) Elvis was the thing. Whatever people say, he was it. I was not competing against Elvis, Rock happened to be the media I was born into. He was the one, that's all. Those people who picked paint brushes like Van Gogh, probably wanted to be Renoir, or whoever went before him. I wanted to be Elvis."

"I would show people and it felt like bragging rights. The public was like fascinated when they saw all the presidential cars: Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower. Now, we have a large collection of Abraham Lincoln cars that I am proud of because we are in the Land of Lincoln. Then I got into stuff like Elvis Presley...."

"Ali was my idol, Bruce Lee was my idol, Sugar Ray Robinson was my idol and Elvis Presley was my idol, so I combined those 4 to make Sugar Ray Leonard."

"In any case, there's something beautifully uncomfortable at the root of the vocal style that defines the pop era, the simplest example coming at the moment of the style's inception, i.e. Elvis Presley: at first, listeners thought that the white guy was a black guy and it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that when Ed Sullivan's television show tossed this disjunction into everyone's living rooms, American culture was thrilled by it, but also a little deranged, in ways that we haven't gotten over yet; ultimately, the nature of the vocals in post-Elvis popular music is the same as the role of the instrumental soloist in jazz; that's to say, if it isn't pushing against the boundaries of its form, at least slightly, it isn't doing anything at all; so, we judge popular vocals since 1956 by what the singer unearths that the song itself could never quite, and (this) explains why Elvis is always rock, even when singing "Blue Moon""

"Top Ten Things Elvis Would Say if He Came Back Today. 10. I’ve been dead 38 years, and I still look better than Keith Richards 9. What do you know? The Jets still suck 8. I’m hungry — is there are any food stuck in my sideburns ? 7. I can’t believe I missed the McRib Sandwich!6. Who’s this ‘Richard Simmons,’ and why’s he keep trying to hug me?5. I’ve been dead 38 years, – of course I want fries with that! 4. Heaven was great until that freaky bastard Tiny Tim showed up 3. That Letterman punk’s on the TV — where’s my revolver? 2. I haven’t been dead — I’ve been starring in a series on CBS 1. Lisa Marie married who? Top Ten Things Elvis Would Say if He Came Back Today Top Ten Things Elvis Would Say if He Came Back Today II 10. Maybe I should get me one of them Wonderbras 9. Sonny, Red, help me brush the dirt out of my sideburns 8. This new President and I disagree on a lot of things, but french fries ain’t one of them 7. Is there something I just don’t get about Pauly Shore? 6. What happened to Ed Sullivan, and who’s that dork using his theater? 5. Can I get that Miata in pink? 4. What’s my old smokin’ buddy Suzie Molinari doin’ these days? 3. All you people who thought I was alive this whole time — you morons! 2. I’d heard Lisa Marie married Michael Jackson, but this guy in the wedding photos is white 1. Bob Dole? Didn’t I meet him back when I was dead?"

"I got a portable radio that I put under my pillow at night and played quietly: listening to the Platters sing “Only You” and “The Great Pretender” (with its alternating high A flats and B flats at the start of the reprise, which was way out of my capabilities) or the Five Satins singing “In the Still of the Night” or even Johnnie & Joe singing the wonderful"

"I started looking around for new acts—like some country-and-western people. I tracked Presley down in New Orleans and spoke to his manager Tom Parker. I told him we'd like to use Elvis on several shows. He was thrilled to death. I booked Elvis for the following Saturday. I bought him for four shows for a total of five thousand dollars. Presley's national debut on Stage Show was like nothing that anyone had ever seen before on national television. It was the raw against the cooked, postwar prosperity versus prewar propriety, an atomic burst of sexual vitality obliterating the palled remnants of Depression-era glamour. The sloe-eyed Presley had a leering smile while his body gyrated with unabashed sexuality. A strong country blues sense emanated from the handsome young singer ... whose forelock drooped over his face, added to his allure. Elvis Presley was rock ’n’ roll, which was suddenly embraced by the emerging generation as its own music. Its sound shattered the complacency of the 1950s and broke the ground for the anti-establishment culture coming in the following decades And with its visual impact, television would suddenly cause the look of a musical artist to become almost as important as the content of his or her music. His arsenal of bumps and grinds again alternately shocked, terrified, and delighted the television audience. He had nothing to learn from Tommy Dorsey musically."

"As our Chief Investment Officer opined on the morning after the Brexit vote, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that uninspiring economic outcomes lead to unexpected political outcomes— or at least those considered outside the mainstream... So, with apologies to Elvis Presley, 59 million Donald Trump voters and 13 million Bernie Sanders supporters can't be wrong."

"It sounds trite,contrived, but that was like the Holy Grail. The light went off. This spark led me on a musical journey that took me from running around my house as a boy wearing Elvis-inspired cardboard sideburns glued to my face, to receiving a birthday kiss from Elvis' wife, Priscilla Presley, at the Box Tops' induction ceremony into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in November of 2018."

"Well, I don't know. I had a really good role model. When I was thinking about getting out of the Draft, I thought of Elvis going into the service at the height of his career and doing what he had to do for his country without complaining. So, thinking of how Elvis did that, I thought to myself, I'm going to do the same thing and I'm going to be proud the rest of my life for it, and I am. It's just amazing how many Vietnam vets come up to me at these shows and thank me for doing what I was supposed to do. So, I wouldn't change that for anything."

"Well, I don't know. But they had Katharine Kersten and me and two liberals in rotation. Now they don't. Although I will have a column on Elvis in there pretty soon. It's called, “Why Elvis Still Matters.” I love Elvis. But, in fairness to the Star Tribune, they have been exceedingly open-­minded. And so has the Pioneer Press for that matter."

"I said, ‘Elvis, I’m going to ask you one thing before we part company here. If you die, do you think you’d go to heaven or hell?’ And he got real red in the face, and then he got real white in the face, and he said, ‘Jerry Lee, don’t you ever say that to me again."

"I knew him when we were both making movies at Paramount, where he made his presence quite well known at the studio. He was a really nice kid, one of the nicest people I have met in show business. We had our own projects to work on, of course, so we didn't see each other a lot, but when we did it was always good. Elvis seemed very humble, and he had great respect for other actors."

"A lot has been written and said about why he was so great, but I think the best way to appreciate his greatness is just to go back and play some of the old records. Time has a way of being very unkind to old records, but Elvis' keep getting better and better.”"

"You need more glitz in your act"

"In the beginning, Elvis was like a tornado skipping erratically across the musical landscape, his talents raw, wild, and unfocused but within a short time he was able to rein in his vocals and become a master of both seductive nuance and mesmerizing bursts of energy. Scotty Moore was the perfectionist who worked to find musical counterpoint to Elvis's energetic vocals, setting a new standard for lead guitarists with his precise musical licks. Bassman Bill Black was the person who entertained Elvis and first showed him how to relate to the public. Finally, working in sync with Bill, drummer D.J. Fontana provided the rhythm that transformed high-energy, country-blues selections into rock 'n' roll. Whether the magic that occurred during the Sun Sessions was an accident or a logical amalgam of diverse musical talents, will be debated for years. What will not is the immense impact those sessions had not just on the genesis of rock 'n' roll, but on American culture itself, setting in motion social and political changes that ultimately redefined America in the eyes of the world."

"My wey, Blueberry Hill, Love me tender, The times they are changing and For all the girls I loved before."

"I really got interested when I got into high school, about grade nine. I heard "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley and I went and bought a guitar and so did a friend of mine. We both bought guitars and we practiced Elvis impersonations, way back when we were 15-years-old. And that was how I learned how to play the guitar. Elvis Presley has a great recording of my song "Early Morning Rain". He did such a good job on it too, and it was probably the most important recording that I have by another artist."

"Growing up during the pre-rock ‘n’ roll era, I fell on the ground when I heard “Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956. I thought, ‘Man this is happening. Years later I met him while rehearsing for his ’68 Comeback Special. Our road manager was Jerry Williams, a promoter who knew Elvis so one June evening Jerry asked us to go down and see him. When we arrived between 9:30 and 10 o’clock that night, Elvis decided to take a break. He came out right on Sunset Boulevard, standing on the sidewalk leaning against the building. Jerry exclaimed, “You can’t stay out there!” And this is Elvis Presley, right? He looks like Elvis Presley. Elvis replied, “Look, nobody is gonna believe it’s really me”. It was the truth. We're just rapping back and forth. People came by, and they'd do a double take—‘Nah it can’t be Elvis’—and they'd walk on. Nobody will ever be like him. I would have given anything to have seen him at the Overton Park Shell [renamed the Levitt Shell] in Memphis when he was about 20 years old. Elvis rocked harder than almost anybody. If he's in heaven right now—and I'm sure he is—he's probably smiling as he looks down and says, “Look how many people are trying to do what I did”."

"Here is a nonchalant phenomenon whom, as yet, no one has accurately described, a young man who has an inherent ability to arouse mass hysteria (or should I say ecstasy?) wherever he goes, yet is unassuming and completely untouched by the fabulous success he has achieved almost overnight."

"He's Elvis and the Beatles combined"

"Two of Elvis Presley's favourite hobbies were watching TV and firing guns from his extensive collection. And occasionally he'd combine them to explosive effect. Whereas most viewers reach for the remote, the King of Rock and Roll had his own way of dealing with shows he didn't like, and the result was a graveyard of bullet-riddled TV sets behind his Graceland mansion. This particular set had originally sat in his daughter Lisa Marie's bedroom, until one night when Elvis was struggling to get a signal. Instead of getting it fixed, he shot a hole in it with a nearby handgun, and gave it to his nurse Letetia Henley to toss on the pile. However, she decided to test it first and found it had incredibly survived Elvis' wrath, so she gave it to her daughter instead. And more than 40 years later in August 2018, the set was offered for auction at Graceland – still in working order, and complete with the original bullet hole – where it sold for $4,000."

"One illustration of this is a man named Elvis Presley. His voice is recognized the world over. What you may not know about him is that as a child, he was baptized in Jesus' name and received the Holy Ghost in an Apostolic church. He could have been a saint in the church and a music minister, and be an old man in a Pentecostal church in the south. His name and voice are still immediately recognized, even by those who were not yet born when he died. But the price he paid was all wrong. The peace and security of a solid walk with God, for fame."

"He was a big part of my musical education."

"I saw him a couple of times at the Hilton, and the first time I went backstage, I talked to him for about an hour. He was a very shy, wonderful person. He asked me if I got recognized in public, and I said I did, but not like him. He said he couldnt go anywhere, so I told him to do what Bing Crosby does, wear an old sweater, grow a beard, whatever. And then he said, "Well, Mr. Little I couldnt do that.......... people wouldnt get any autographs LOL"

"I had idolized him growing up, to me he was the sacred monster of rock'n' roll. And Elvis was equally intrigued by my performance in The Mod Squad, so he invited me to his show in Nevada. He once left me a poem scrawled on a torn-off scrap of paper on top of my pillow and gave me a ring with jewels shaped in the letter P...."

"i) Elvis? Thank God for the goodness and the glory! I knew Elvis could do today what he's doing cos he's real. He's a champion who's has lived and kept the title, he's for real. Elvis is a southern child that is down to earth, he's beautiful just beautiful. I saw him, not too long ago, when I was singing I can't stop loving you on the stage, and I heard someone yelling and clapping, and I looked and I saw Elvis waving to me. He is true, a real pioneer ii) Like, see, when Elvis came out a lot of black groups would say, "Elvis cannot do so and so and so, shoo shoo shoo" And I'd say, "Shut up, shut up." Let me tell you this—when I came out they wasn't playing no black artists on no Top 40 stations, I was the first to get played on the Top 40 stations—but it took people like Elvis to open the door for this kind of music, and I thank God for Elvis Presley. I thank the Lord for sending Elvis to open that door so I could walk down the road, you understand?. iii) he was God given, an integrator, a blessing, they would not let black music through, a Messiah comes every thousand years and he was it this time. iv) Elvis was a good friend. One of the sweetest gentleman, and a good singer, ESPECIALLY with gospel."

"I was 10 years old and riding my bicycle at the Paramount studios during the early years of "My three sons", when suddently I came over a huge Cadillac. I was looking at it in awe, and Elvis came from behind me and offered me to take a ride inside the lot. My dad had told me to never take a ride with strangers but Elvis was no stranger to 60, even 100 million people in America, so I agreed. Anyways, I was amazed that he had a TV in a car. It was awesome to watch Popeye cartoons with him..."

"He closes with a song called "If I Can Dream," a late contribution from vocal arranger Walter Earl Brown -- a plea for peace and understanding that in the murderous year of 1968 had a timely urgency --; dressed all in white, planted before his name in lights forty feet high, he folds his body into the song as if in pain, a pain he means to kill with hope; it is as raw and real as any performance I've ever seen, the beginning of the last phase of Presley's career and, if much of what followed look like decline, it was also an apotheosis; he had only nine years to live."

"Elvis Presley. He was just the complete package. It's sort of the original."

"Elvis performed one of my songs but sadly he recorded it and that was the last thing he did. Therefore I killed him.”"

"It's what Elvis Presley used to tell his fans every night. We might have played this song 2,000 times but there's a bunch of people out there who have never heard it played live."

"He was the Neil Armstrong, the Edmund Hillary, the Elvis Presley of his sport. Sir Roger Bannister transcended athletics. He did..."

"All right, all right, Elvis has left the building. I've told you absolutely straight up to this point. You know that. He has left the building. He left the stage and went out the back with the policemen and he is now gone from the building."

"I had two big brothers. One was into rockabilly and the other into R&B. And the latter was the one who turned me onto everything from James Brown and Little Richard on through Aretha. And so I had this, what I call two ‘cradle’ languages and they somehow — I've spent my whole career trying to find that middle ground where I could blend the two. Now, being the first kid in my family to arrive home after school, I found myself in the position to raid my rockabilly brother's record collection, so I would always play ‘Hound Dog’, over and over and over again. And I had no visual to put with that. At age 8, I didn't know who Elvis Presley was, but the music was amazing. And it was all about fun, you know?"

"I've had offers to write a book about Elvis, but you know, they really didn't want to publish the stories I had to tell. They only wanted the dirt – the scandal. I never saw him use drugs and I never saw him being mean to people. He had problems, everybody does, but he was a sweet guy – real religious, and he was patriotic, he really loved America. The publishers said nobody wants to read about that stuff. I just couldn't be a part of another book trashing him, he was a real good guy and he was always nice to me.—"

"He's a multi-genre artist. You can't put him in one bracket. And, why should you? He plays guitar. He also does hip-hop music by rapping and singing. Why should we have to put his music in a box? We all want something different. We all want something new. He is, to me, the all-around artist of today. We're looking at the modern-day Elvis."

"I'd had it in my head to be a pop star for some years before the loose idea of forming a band first bubbled up inside me. The trigger was going to see Jailhouse Rock at The Scotia cinema in 1958. I was 10-years-old and Elvis knocked me sideways and awakened all sorts of feelings inside."

"I taught him some lyrics in Spanish and he learned them. I wrote it for him the way it was sung (phonetically). He was very talented. It was very difficult Mexican music."

"Elvis Presley this rare, talented, magnificent, generous and yet lonely man.A generosity that no celebrity could have. Giving for him was natural, but for those who received it was too much. Alone as few reach such dizzying heights. A prisoner of fame and fortune and a self-taught legend that surrounds him, but during those few brief years – especially during the times when Elvis, me and Marie were together – where we were able to share the special space reserved for the popular . Inside, together, none of us were alone."

"I bet you wish they would stop screaming..."

"Since the awards are all about history, I put together a few facts from the past that range from visits from famous political people such as President Kennedy and Winston Churchill to the following story about Elvis Presley staying in the hotel. He had ordered a hamburger cooked well-done and loved it so so much he went to the kitchen, found the cook and announced with a broad grin: “I just wanted to thank the person that made the best burger I have ever had."

"i) The other recording session I always think of was Elvis. Not in my wildest dreams — I mean, it was like how is this little girl singing background for Elvis Presley? How do things like that happen? The stars lined up, everything was in order, and Elvis fell in love with me because of my gospel background. Whenever he would get a chance he would go to me, 'Do you know this song? Come on, let’s go sing it.' Gospel music was the closeness that we had. "If I Can Dream" is my all-time favorite Elvis song. It was a big record, but not as big as it could have been. It was one of those records where you'd think it sold 10 billion copies, but it didn't. I did that song in my show a couple of times, but it's a really hard song to sing, it really is, the meter is really difficult. You have to really study hard to learn how to sing that song. That's why I don't sing it anymore ii) He did interact with the Blossoms, but it had a lot to do with our gospel. I came from a gospel background and my father was a minister, so I knew a lot of old hymns of the church, and that's what Elvis sang. That's how he interacted with us. Actually, when he got ready to do his 1968 comeback special, we didn't know we were actually going to be in the special because we were just singing in the background. But because of us talking to him all the time, and talking to him about gospel and everything, he told the producers, "No, I want the girls in this. I want them to be singing. He was a gentle giant."

"He was in the big room at Western Recorders, and had his cape on at the time (laughs). He was preparing to go back out on tour and he was asking us, “Well, what’s it like?” He was a really kind gentleman, couldn't have been nicer and definitely knew who The Beach Boys were. We saw him play live in Vegas at The Hilton and he was darn good. I mean, what a voice..."

"i) Rather than a biopic, I see it as a canvas, hugely ambitious, but I want to cover his whole life, many aspects of which will be truly surprising. I am now listening to a lot of Elvis and his range astounds me, from Country and Western to rock, to soul and pop. That's probably the most misunderstood thing about him as a vocal artist. There was nothing he couldn't sing.ii) When I look at musical biography, it’s not really about the life, I’m not about lionising Elvis. I just saw him as the best canvas on which to explore America in the modern age, the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.” The engine of that drama, he says, is the relationship between an artist who spanned genres, eras and races, and the P.T. Barnum character of Colonel Tom Parker, the former circus carny who made and then ruined him.I saw this story of the Colonel and Elvis as a really great prism through which to explore the latter part of the 20th century. Elvis represents what happens when a kid lives in one of four designated white houses in a black community. Something new comes about, a fusion between country and African-American music, gospel and country-and-western music."

"As an artist, he always personified total unrestrain.."

"This cat came out in red pants and a green coat and a pink shirt and socks, and he had this sneer on his face. He stood behind the mic for five minutes, I'll bet, before he made a move. Then he hit his guitar, a lick, and he broke two strings.So there he was, these two strings dangling, and he hasn't done anything except break the strings yet, and these high school girls were screaming and fainting and running up to the stage. Then he started to move his hips real slow, like he had a thing for his guitar.For the next nine days, he played one-nighters around Kilgore, and after school every day, me and my girl would get in the car and go wherever he was playing that night, in Gladewater, Alpine, Gonzales, and Lubbock, were other country singers witnessed the spectacle and heeded his call – Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings. That was the last time I tried to sing like Webb Pierce or Lefty Frizzell."

"There's a speech in the play about a mythical bird that has no legs and can, therefore, never come to rest and just hovers in the sky until it does because there is no place to land. It evoked such a memory of what I felt when I watched Presley at work: something otherworldly, inhuman (not unhuman), a kind of restless spirit that could never rest anywhere. And I thought how extraordinary it might have been to hear that speech from someone exactly like that but totally unaware of his own separation from the rest of us'."

"During my long career in broadcasting, I've had the chance to interview lots of famous people; it was late summer in 1976 when I was sent out to the Arena to cover some sort of special announcement from manager Bob Kunkel, whose look, as soon as we entered the room, told us that this was no hunting and fishing extravaganza he was promoting but an Elvis Presley concert; before leaving, I cornered him to ask about helping arrange an exclusive interview; he laughed and said, 'Good luck with that'; so, instead, I managed to get six tickets, at 15 dollars each, with each of our daughters having to come up with five bucks each, on their own, to help cover the cost; the show itself was memorable for the music, and his voice was strong but he looked tired and not well. A few months later, Elvis was back; this time, his voice was even stronger but he looked worse; two months later, he was dead and that's when my family and I went to see him, one last time, in a memorable trip where we and thousands of others, walked slowly through those gates to view his grave. That 'show' was for free..."

"It felt like we were watching Elvis"

"Whereas, Elvis Aaron Presley was born on this day in 1935 to Gladys Love and Vernon Elvis Presley in Tupelo, Mississippi and whereas Elvis' unparalleled style and song craft continues to thrill audiences, create fans and inspire new generations of musicians around the world every year we do hereby proclaim Jan. 8, 2018, as the day to celebrate the life, the work and the 83rd birthday of Elvis Aaron Presley. Thus we urge all citizens of the world to recognize the contributions of our own King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley, to music, this community and the world,”"

"I’ve always hated Elvis Presley from an early age. A really boring Irish cousin of mine used to be in the Irish Army. He was an Elvis fan, and he came over to my family’s house and brought all these Elvis records and sat down in my room because I had the record player. He played them for eight solid hours. Over and over. I’ve never forgotten that nonstop sound, which left me with a solid hateful impression for THAT Elvis Presley. If anyone who plays in a band digs Elvis, then it’s clearly not for me. I absolutely did not visit Elvis’s Graceland (during the Pistols' last tour), and I think Paul and Steve might have. I know I didn’t, even though we drove past it on the way to the gig. I deliberately turned my head away. I didn’t even want to see it..."

"Elvis did the Comeback Special in '68. He was falling in the ratings and it brought him right back onto the throne and, when you watch him sing – and "Baby, what do you want me to do" in particular, which is a cover of an R&B song by Jimmy Reed, Elvis makes it his own – you see this music is HIM, he's got every inflection, every feeling 100 per cent out there for all to see, it's so thrilling to watch, it's infectious. With singers and musicians, there's the surface of something and then real deep levels of being IT, and nobody gets close to Elvis because he gets that thing at the deepest level and it comes alive with him and everybody feels it, and it's like magic. He looked so great in his black leather, but even if he looked weird he'd still be King. Elvis is the total package, he was born for it.""

"As elusive as his book is, what is perceived as truth has remarkable staying power. Lynch uses an epigraph by Elvis Presley from whence comes the title of the book: “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t going away.” The Janus-faced nature of the book is put into relief by setting it against the journalist's craft, a juxtaposition that permeates the story. At the end, even we the readers don't know the whole truth about the main character, Roger, but we also have learned that it is perceptions and innuendos that matter more anyway."

"After playing the ukulele I told my mother I wanted a solid body guitar, because I would then be able to sing Elvis. I really liked his songs, was determined to play guitar, and ended up recording “Don’t Be Cruel”, In fact, in grade schools they started calling me Elvis Presley, the black Elvis, - they said I was trying to wear my hair like Elvis. Then I formed an all an all girls band, Bobby Lynn and the Idols."

"Certainly the most recognisable and ubiquitous semiotic marker in American cultural history, he embodies the quintessence of the postmodern condition."

"I used to mime music-making to records before I started formal piano lessons around age nine, but it was seeing Elvis Presley perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957 that really got me excited about playing music. I was totally in love with both Elvis and Bo Diddley, but that wasn't allowed in my house. I wanted to be a guitar player, but they wouldn't allow a guitar in the house. I had to play classical music on the piano, so it took a long time to get somewhere. Eventually, my dad bought me an alto saxophone and I fell into playing sax but before long, rock ‘n’ roll struck as part of the British Invasion, and I reverted to the keyboard."

"I don't know where that story came from. The other day, my niece begged me to tell her, so I had to swear to her, on my life, that Elvis and I had never met. And we did not."

"It might seem strange to write the phrase “a nobody” in the same sentence as Elvis Presley. But really, in rock ’n’ roll icon terms these days you're nobody until you have had a major multimedia museum exhibition in London. The Presley estate’s 1.5 million artefacts have been curated down into about 450 pieces on display here. No musical artist – or probably any human being ever – is surrounded by as many out-there stories. And as much as the music or the clothes, it is the myths that make Elvis ELVIS. There’s the police light he used to place on top of his car so he could pull people over and give out his autograph instead of tickets. LOL. The cheque for $3,000 he carried around with him until he found the perfect golden palomino horse to buy (he finally handed it over to someone, folds and all, in January 1967). A secure Mark 900 briefcase and phone with handwritten instructions, the pad with the notes for his proposed kung-fu film and the tiny white faux fur coat he had made for Lisa-Marie when she was a toddler. And on and on it goes, serving as a reminder that however weird and wild The Beatles or Bowie or Michael Jackson or Prince or Madonna or Kanye or anyone else may have got, Elvis Presley was weirder and wilder before them all. He invented the idea of the megastar eccentric and looked and sounded fabulous while doing it. This great exhibition is fitting testament"

"Others get a kick out of Elvis, a passing phase so I recommend the Government feed the souls of men with the music of Beethoven and Dvorak. I never realized that I was so far out of date until I saw this artist on a CBC television production. Heaven help us if that is the way our generation is going..."

"But it is Presley's singing, halfway between a western and a rock 'n' roll style, that has sent teenagers into a trance; they like his wailing in a popular song like "Blue Moon" or such western tunes as "I'll Never Let You Go", but they go crazy over the earthy, lusty mood of such rock 'n' roll numbers as "Money Honey"; and the reason is simple enough: Presley sings with a beat; and you can be certain that there'll always be music with a beat and that, whether you like it or not, there will always be an Elvis Presley."

"France's Elvis brought a part of America into our national pantheon. And all of us in France have something of Johnny Hallyday in us."

"He is probably more famous than anyome who has ever been famous"

"Oh, they can kiss my ass,” she says of critics who might accuse her of borrowing other cultures’ fixtures. It's a topic she seems interested to discuss. “I’m not appropriating anything. I’m inspired and I’m referencing other cultures. That is my right as an artist. They said Elvis Presley stole African-American culture. That’s our job as artists, to turn the world upside down and make everyone feel bewildered and have to rethink everything.”"

"It was Elvis’ 1957 film Jailhouse Rock which first inspired my brother and I to pursue a life in pop music. To this day, the track ‘(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care’, from the movie, remains my favourite. We saw the film when we were really young. Even if you divorce it from that scene in the movie, for me, it’s musically kind of the essence of everything that pop music should be. That track awoke something in me, beckoning me to the world of pop stardom. Upon watching the movie, my younger self couldn’t help but think, “Oh God, someday, I want to be that guy at that swimming pool, being as cool as I can possibly be, standing there singing in front of all these women at the pool party.“ With this song, there’s something so basic about it, and it’s really, really short. I think it’s just around two minutes long, but it also shows you don’t need to overstay your welcome in a pop song. You can say it all in around two minutes, and if you’ve got the goods, like he did, there’s no problem. It just makes you go and want to replay it that much quicker. There was the Elvis in his pre-army days, and he was the absolute coolest person there was."

"I came home from school one day in the fall of 1857 and my mother said she read in the newspaper that Elvis Presley was going to play the arena right near my high school. She didn't want me to go see Elvis. But years later, when the Electric Factory Concerts I then headed booked Elvis at the Spectrum, in 1971, she was the first to ask me for tickets..."

"When Ed made his weekly call to the Trendex ratings service, he confirmed what he had suspected: Allen's show with Elvis had soundly beaten his, garnering a 20.2 rating with a 55.3% share (about 40 million viewers), compared with his own show's 14.8 rating and 39.7 % share (roughly 19 million). Within the week, he called Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. It was time to make a deal. Colonel Parker, knowing he had Ed where he wanted him, extracted a whopping $50,000 for three appearances, far more than any previous Sullivan guest. On September 9, 1956, the camera would pull up at times to show only his upper torso. Yet the limited camera angle didn't dampen the effect —if anything, his facial expression, the abandon on his face, was more potent than even his gyrating hips. This was untamed beatific energy, the definition of charisma, a bolt of white-hot energy. The all-girl cheering section sounded like it was on the verge of storming the stage. Never before had so much female sexual desire been broadcast into so many American living rooms. The evening was a decisive ratings triumph, garnering a 43.7 Trendex rating, an 82.6% share, translating to some sixty million people, or about a third of the country— the largest television audience to date. Indeed, Elvis' performance of “Hound Dog” that night would be one of a small handful of moments that defined the decade."

"In his Grammy-winning 1986 song "Graceland," Paul Simon reveals his thoughts during a road trip to the home of Elvis Presley in Memphis. In the lyrics, Simon states, “For reasons I cannot explain there’s some part of me wants to see Graceland.” Even though I can't list myself as a dedicated fan, I have always appreciated his tremendous talent and the major impact he had on the world of entertainment. Not only his musical talent crossed many genres, but there's no question that he is one of the cultural icons of the 20th century. So once there, we were impressed by the mansion itself, which continues to have the feel of the 1960s-style residence Elvis developed and loved so much. The original 10,266-square-foot Colonial Revival style mansion was built in 1939 for a Memphis socialite and her husband. The expansive surrounding property includes the “Meditation Garden,” containing the graves of the singer, his parents Vernon and Gladys and his grandmother Minnie Presley. So, do we recommend the Graceland experience? The answer is yes, as the house, property and family cemetery are all definitely worth seeing."

"Yes, I've known him for his music and films, and indeed he is one of my favourites"

"I had not paid attention to Elvis before 1969 but I really hadn't cared about music at all, until I was about 12, so I got into the Beatles and Elvis in my mind, at that time, was always this old dude. And then I heard "Suspicious Minds", "Any day now", and many songs that he did after the movie contracts were over and that is when I really started to love Elvis, and that was all the way to the end."

"Performing a few more classics like "Crossroads" and "Vincent" from his "American Pie" album, he takes a break between songs to talk about setting off from his hometown for the first time to pursue his music in California and witnessing the the MGM Studio auctions in the late 60's. Moving on, he took a step back in time to "And I Love You So", from his debut album, Tapestry, released in 1970. The song became an instant classic at its release, and was covered by many of the greats including "my favorite", McLean revealed, "Elvis Presley", who recorded it and used it in 125 of his live performances from 1975 until his death in 1977."

"My next book is about how the U.S. Army tried to ‘transform’ itself to meet the challenges of the atomic bomb, as well as the American experiment with a large peacetime, short-service citizen-soldier force and conscription. The idea that someone as famous and controversial as Elvis Presley could be drafted and become a symbol of the U.S. military and the nation's commitment to the defense of the free world fascinates me. His exemplary military service was well chosen, for that young man quietly accepted the call to duty, raised his hand and took the oath, wore the uniform and performed soldierly tasks as well as he had cavorted on the stage before adoring teenyboppers. Thus, after years of unremitting effort, the all-volunteer force that many call “the best Army this or any other nation has ever fielded” has come to face new enemies, new challenges with, if not sublime confidence, at least sturdy resolution. In considering the long hard period of transformation, one ponders the profound commentary of Elvis Presley's first sergeant: “By submitting to the draft and entering the Army as an ordinary private, Elvis accepted the discipline of an institution that had come to play a vital role in transforming men from assorted backgrounds into soldiers and Americans. A condensed version of those lines might stand as a pretty good inscription on the Pelvis’ tombstone."

"In "Clambake", Elvis was going to do a scene in a bar with Shelley Fabares, and in the back these waiters were wearing —you know, the tasseled cup hats and also wearing vests with gold trim and stuff, so I went and put one of those on, as a joke, and then they put a moustache on me. So I'm cleaning up a table, and Elvis is about 5 or 10 feet away from where I'm cleaning, and as he's talking to her, I'm knocking over glasses and finally they said, “Cut!” And he didn't look around —he just kind of shrugged— but I did it purposely three times in a row, and on the third time he turned around and said, ““What the hell are you doing over there? Well, anyways, I did the next take right, and you can spot me back there. He used to called me “Double Trouble,” actually because they did a movie where he was playing cousins and he had to play a blonde, so his Memphis Mafia kept teasing him: “You look like that guy on The Big Valley! So we used to play tricks on each other all the time. He’d be on stage at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, and I’d come off the other side from where he’s leaning down and singing, and I’d get some scarves and bring ’em out, and he’d hear this roaring over there from the other side of the stage, and he’d see me and go, “What the hell are you doing over there?” We'd do stuff like that all the time. We had a good time and yeah, well, Elvis and I were friends. It's too bad he died so young."

"Elvis took risks by being a pioneer in his adaptation of black culture. He received huge stick for perpetuating what some of his Southern brethren were referring to as “degenerate nigger music” and the threat it posed to the social order by the fact that blacks and whites were digging his music whether listening to it on the radio or live at (segregated) venues. Much has been made of the way in which he conducted his private life, but this had a lot to do with his living within a kind of fame that few humans could comprehend. So many people often remember how well mannered and humble he appeared to be in his interactions. He may not be ‘The King’ to all but his impact on the course of music history cannot be denied and should not be denigrated."

"I always thought that singers have what I call the Elvis Presley syndrome — they think they're Elvis Presley. But they're not Elvis Presley."

"Ever since I was a kid, I was just glued to the record player. I would save allowances to buy Elvis records every week and still remember when I first heard "It's Now or Never". I thought that was the greatest rock 'n' roll record I ever heard. It just blew my mind. But it blew my mind even more when my mom showed me it was actually an Italian aria. O Sole Mio, remains a part of my performance repertoire to this day. It was like, 'There you go. There is a connection with all of this music.' It all started from there.""

"Other than Sinatra, there are only a handful of people who meant as much to the world of film as they did to the world of music, Bing Crosby, Doris Day and Elvis Presley"

"Since emerging in 2003, Chen has become China's highest-profile fashion photographers. Her work regularly appears on the covers of the Chinese editions of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle. She is known for her bold, vibrant style that merges Chinese tradition with high fashion; Gender reversal is a central theme in Chen's work, as seen in a series of portraits, where Chen cast the Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, as various pop culture icons, namely Marilyn Monroe, Che Guevara, Superman, Bruce Lee, and Elvis Presley."

"The audience listened attentively as Eric Meola told about the one that got away – a sore spot for every professional photographer. It was catching up with Bruce Springsteen in an airport the day Elvis Presley died. Meola recounted how as he approached, he saw Bruce sitting on some luggage reading a newspaper with the headline proclaiming the end of Elvis. Bruce put the paper down and noticed Meola coming and at that point the moment was gone. "I wasn't about to ask him to recreate it", he said."

"Be like Elvis, go man go"

"The music of Elvis Presley is very lively and popular, and I am glad to know that you are as fond of his music as I am, too."

"It was a little painful for me to get involved in the 1968 Special. There were two choreographers already hired by NBC, Claude Thompson and Jaime Rogers and although I had danced for Elvis, I wasn't one of their dancers, nor they knew who I was. But either Elvis, director Steve Binder or Joe Esposito suggested I be allowed to dance, so they assigned me to Jaime's dancers. After an embarrasing start, after all, each choreographer prefers to use their own dancers, things were better for me. I was in a scene which Jaime directed but the NBC censors cut, the bordello scene. Now, on the side Lance Legault and I worked with Elvis on some the dancing sequences and we would sometimes give him advice. He was an amazing listener, and one of the best natural dance movers that I ever worked with. He could do everything, an ability to just feel it from the inside out. But the one thing that stood out in my mind on the set was when I was called over to where the guys all hung out, taking a break. And he was talking, seated while giving a donation to a group of nuns that were on the set. And I am thinking to myself, OK, this man makes a very good living, I would assume but he was taking his five minute break to talk to each one of these nuns, and find out where they were all from. And I was just standing there listening. And that meant so much to me. It was unbelievable experience to watch him give like that. To give money is one thing, but to give of his time, and to give of his soul and to care about where all of these nuns came from, that was just such a highlight and memory for me."

"It wag a lead pipe cinch that at the first masquerade party around these parts, some guests were sure to come as Dodger baseball players. Sure enough Harry James, Betty Grable and Mrs. Monte Proser did it first at the "howling" Halloween shindig hosted by Sy Devore and Sol Meadows. Debbie Reynolds was a clown and Eddie Fisher a "teenage" werewolf. Marie McDonald, had no trouble looking like a gorgeous princess on the arm of Harry Karl, her private life prince. Joanne Bradshaw came as "backless" Vikki Dougan. Nat "King" Cole showed up as Elvis Presley, although the original was present. No people in the world love getting dressed up in costume more than actors who spend their lives getting dressed up in a costume for a living, so a large time was had by all."

"This was the plan: we would take a holy and sacred picture of Elvis Presley, to the very summit of the earth; once there, we would place it with sincere reverence amongst the chimerical shimmering palaces of ice and snow and then, accompanied by some weird Zen magic, we would light joss sticks, dance about making screechy kung-fu noises, get off our faces, and that would be it: Planet Earth saved. Simple.”"

"Elvis Presley swam under musical waters where country ballads, New Orleans trumpets and urban and rural blues converged. In the US South, music was not a passtime, rather a way of life, a contradiction which fascinated and transcended the day to day hardships, congregation and the devil's music. Elvis' genious was to absorb it all, then propell the so called rock and roll amalgam into open space, while simultaneouly becoming its only true King"

"It is difficult to imagine two more dissimilar personalities than Elvis Presley and Mahatma Gandhi. And yet the words of Elvis Presley are strangely close to Gandhi's thinking when he said that he dreamt of an India where he would be able to wipe the last tears of the last child, words reminiscent to what Elvis once said and I quote "I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling that he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world""

"Actually I wouldn't be here in jail if not for those people you call family. They are the ones who put me here. I didn̪'t want to be seen, just be left alone in the desert. But they said, he is our star. I would have gone ahead and let you bleed an Elvis Presley, you could have HIM for your little dreams, not me. I lived in Elvis Presley’s house, man. He ran me out of the yard. I got mad at him, I was going to throw some rocks at him. I never liked him even a little bit, but everybody else always kow-towed to him because he was rich and everything. To me, I don’t give a fuck how rich you are, I’ll just bust you up anyway."

"I never met him, although I saw his show in Las Vegas, and the great feeling I had after listening to his version of "Somos Novios" ("Its impossible") was always so well known in music circles that the other day I received the main master, in acetate form, from a friend who just passed away. It's without a doubt my most valuable treasure."

"One of the 17 objectives of sustainable development is the reduction of inequality. A listen to Elvis Presley's "In the guetto", about poverty in Chicago, can help focus this strategy, which has no bounds, in view of globalization, of race, color or creed."

"Pistol was the Elvis of Basketball"

"William and Harry remembered Diana listening to Elvis and them all singing "Hound Dog.”"

"While Archbishop Justin Welby has denied statements about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s secret wedding that took place three days before their publicized royal wedding in 2018, pictures have proven otherwise, showing Welby dressed as Elvis in the secret ceremony, with a quiff that represented the famous rock singer’s hair, sideburns, and shades. Archbishop Welby also held and strummed a red guitar in tribute of Meghan’s love for the late Elvis Presley."

"He was ahead of his time because he had such deep feelings and had the privilege of deep feelings because he was deeply loved by his mother, Gladys. He was able to appreciate profound beauty in sounds and he started a musical revolution. In fact, they say all revolutions start from love."

"If any individual of our time can be said to have changed the world, Elvis Presley is the one. In his wake more than music is different. Nothing and no one looks or sounds the same. His music was the most liberating event of our era because it taught us new possibilities of feeling and perception, new modes of action and appearance, and because it reminded us not only of his greatness, but of our own potential. As to his comeback in 1968, it was the finest music of his life. If ever there was music that bleeds, this was it.The second edition of my book came out after Elvis died, and I was asked to put the whole Elvis chapter in the past tense, and I said no. The reason was that Elvis' presence was so powerful, I felt he's always in the present tense. When you listen to anything that says Elvis Presley to you, whoever you are, whether it's "Long Black Limousine" or "Jailhouse Rock" or "Milkcow Blues Boogie" or "Any Day Now" — I could go on forever — but the physical presence is so strong that death walks away. There's an obscene Elvis outtake of "Stranger in My Hometown". Elvis is singing and suddenly it becomes completely autobiographical, and he explodes — he says "I'm gonna start driving my motherfucking truck again. All them cocksuckers stopped being friendly, but you can't keep a hard prick down." He just goes off, yet it's completely musical, not just breaking down and screaming. He's right there. Every one of his greatest performances is in a way unfinished, because the emotion in them is so rich and so strained, in the best way, trying so hard to say what you mean emotionally, though you can never say everything, so as you listen, you add to that, you're engaged, you're taking part in the dialogue. So that will always be the present tense."

"Elvis made more girls cry than anyone so the reference ( to flip the script there with a song about making boys cry), was irresistible. It was important that the song could represent empowerment without being divisive, because that's how Elvis was. In fact, I didn't know a lot about him until I visited Graceland recently. Beyond his music, I'm moved by how much he cared for people. I've been telling my friends and fans some of the things I learned about it, and I'm excited that some of them are discovering him for the first time because of my video for ‘Boy Cry.’””"

"Critiques of the Ed Sullivan program assumed that the Presley appeal was strictly telegenic—not vocal. His vocal style, in fact, was every bit as mobile as his hips. Since most of the journalists on the Elvis beat denied him any artistry, his two-and-a-third-octave range was never mentioned and the music itself was rarely analyzed."

"i) The biggest thing Elvis had was the command he had on stage, how he could control the crowd and the band. There’s a performance where he does ‘Hound Dog" and at the end he slows it down, and – to me – it looked like an improv moment, not like something they rehearsed. It was like Presley saw girls in the audience freaking out and said to himself: ‘Watch me slow it down – and then really go nuts.’ And he slows it down at the end and then starts his little dance.....ii) impersonating Elvis at the age of four is when I first realized I wanted to become a performer."

"Many artists are taking pictures of Elvis Presley, for example, and flipping them to create various iterations of color or texture. A lot of what Pop-Art has become is solely based on the familiar image and very little behind it. With my work, I want to talk about why Elvis or Audrey Hepburn will live on forever. Icons of mid century American history are still so prevalent today because they had interesting stories and immense talent, not just great marketing skills. Warhol said it best, that everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes. The important aspect is having something positive to say."

"Elvis Presley was an explorer of vast new landscapes of dream and illusion. He was a man who refused to be told that the best of his dreams would not come true, who refused to be defined by anyone else's perceptions. This is the goal of democracy, the journey on which every American hero sets out. That Elvis made so much of the journey on his own is reason enough to remember him with the honor and love we reserve for the bravest among us. Such men made the only maps we can trust."

"I don’t know what President Trump’s future holds, but I think Elvis rock ’n’ roll music’s still playing"

"There are some things — football, particle physics, heavy metal, and constitutional law among them — that I love, but don't love nearly as much as I love the way people love them. Give me a choice between watching the Super Bowl and watching people talk about the Super Bowl for two hours, and I'll always pick the latter: Listen to someone explain their passion, and eventually, they'll show you their soul. But at the very top of this list of loves, there can only be one man, Elvis Presley. I love him, I think to myself as I leave Graceland, as much as I can love a human being I have never truly known. But, maybe more than anything else about him, I love him for the fact that both his presence and his absence created a space for people to come together and try to comprehend the capacity for destruction and redemption, the sheer power, of their love. I love the potential for intimacy and revelation such a space allows. I love that it has lingered long enough for me to find it...."

"Recently, I was watching a tribute to Elvis Presley, and the host mentioned how much Elvis loved singing gospel music. However, his record producers were not interested in him making a gospel album. They thought it would be a waste of time and would not be profitable. But Presley proved them wrong. Elvis released his first gospel album “How Great Thou Art” in 1967. It was a very personal album for him, and ended up winning him his first Grammy Award. Later, he won two more Grammies, each were for gospel music."

"I think many hugely successful people have slight imposter syndrome or a great deal of imposter syndrome. When you think of Elvis’ background, he came really from very simple, impoverished origins. He was the first person to graduate from high school in his family. So you have this guy who has a vision for himself, who meets this extraordinary merchandiser, entrepreneur, manager. And in the space of a couple of years, Elvis becomes one of the most famous people on the planet. I think that there was some kind of marriage made in that alchemy, where Elvis would’ve thought to himself, would I be Elvis without the Colonel? And the Colonel certainly believed that he was 50% of that Elvis-Colonel alchemy, because that’s how much of Elvis’ money that he took."

"I remembered meeting Elvis and he was the one who told me my dad was the king of cool. I'll never forget that."

"I never sang to people. I sang for them, so in 1956, I told that to Elvis Presley. After that he sang not to but for the audience. A subtle difference."

"After Ann Margret's show, which I had opened for, Elvis came up to see her, they were friends, so there were in a suite and I see this beautiful woman, Priscilla, his wife, coming in, and then I see Elvis, he looks wow, lean, great, so he walks by me, sees me, and says.... "Son you have an oblique sense of humor...."

"I idolized Elvis. I sent him so many songs and I never heard word one. Then one day in 1976 I was pitching songs and this famous publisher sat down next to me and says, ‘Layng, do you have a song for Elvis?” There were three I thought might work. Interestingly, the one I was least excited about, the one I almost didn't bother to send in, was the one Elvis chose. The song was "Way Down." Someone in the music industry called me i 1977 to tell me "Way Down" was climbing the charts. I was so excited. Two days later, I got another call, this time from my attorney. She said, "Layng, are you near a television? Elvis Presley is dead. How did this happen?. He listened to my demo of me singing It was just the most impossible thing I've ever heard of. And it still is, that my song would be the last he released as a single."

"He came in, and they I.D. him. LOL. And he actually left his license at the front while he went in and hung out for a while. I think Rodney still has it."

"I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Elvis had died. We were driving over the moors to Sheffield when the news came on the radio. Four-year-old me leant over from the back seat (no seatbelts in those non-risk averse 70s) and poked my head between mum and dad as we listened in silence and shock. I was very young, but I still understood this immense loss. The most beautiful man, with the most beautiful voice, was no more, and I would never get the chance to see him when I was old enough to buy my ticket to America…...."

"I seldom do, unless I stub my toe."

"Elvis was sort of the first impact on me – his charisma, his performing prowess..."

"If there is one small glimmer of good news, it is that decent, thoughtful and sane voters slightly outnumber the bigots and lunatics. I want to live in an America where that victory is not only mathematical, but political — the America of Walt Whitman's imagination, Elvis Presley's voice and Martin Luther King's oratory."

"Two months ago scarcely anyone but economists had even heard of mechanism design. Suddenly, it has notoriety worthy of an Elvis Presley ( a man who) somehow manages to attract a huge public following without even trying. Indeed, he can't very well try since he's been dead for 30 years. Yet, isn't it remarkable that, for one week a year, that kind of attention is focused not just on economics, but on physics, chemistry, medicine, and literature. And for that astounding accomplishment, I'd like to express my warmest appreciation to the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel awarding bodies."

"He was an instinctive actor, quite bright, very intelligent, not a punk. In fact, he was very elegant, sedate, refined, and sophisticated."

"Presley's vocal range was exceptional – amazingly so for an untrained singer. It ranged from Low F in the bass register to top B Flat and B in the tenor range. This is over two octaves, when most singers can only manage just over one octave. Quite apart from the range of Presley's voice (and this range remained with him throughout his life, a fact proved by his recordings) the equally surprising thing was that its quality and distinctive timbre remained constant throughout this range. This is also exceptional and quite the most conclusive proof – if any were needed – that Elvis Presley possessed a natural gift for singing which was completely and utterly rare. For if it were not – where are all the other Elvis Presleys?"

"Throughout the hearing, Mattis was treated to bipartisan praise with Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain announcing at the start that he couldn't be happier that Mattis had been nominated. "I think you're going going to be an extraordinary defense secretary,", Senator Ted Cruz then told Mattis, including a story about how excited his chief of staff, a former Marine, had been when Mattis visited Cruz's office. "If Elvis Presley had walked into the office, he wouldn't have been more thrilled than to see you walk in, General.""

"He was a phenomenon unlike any other, like a lighting bolt. I was hearttbroken when I heard about his death. He meant a lot to all of us..."

"I wasn't a big fan of him as I only knew him from the Dorsey and Sullivan Shows. But then he won me over when I spent the entire day of the concerts with him, in his dressing room, where he took a lot of his time talking to me and asking me questions about Jazz music and my musical influences. From his part, he said he loved gospel music and the blues the most. I found him to be an earthy kid, a first class gentleman and an exceptional family person."

"I found that I could do Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock", and that's the great thing, you could pick it up and in a few hours, you could get to something that make you feel good. (Years later), Freddy wrote "Crazy little thing called love" as a tribute to Elvis, of whom he was very fond of."

"The record industry is fully aware that premature death sells records. After Chester Bennington, the 41-year-old lead singer of the group Linkin Park took his own life, there was a 7,000% surge in the group's music plays. When rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry died aged 90, his music sales went through the roof, even though he hadn't released a new album in nearly 40 years. Prince was the top-selling artist of 2016, according to Billboard, outselling every other artist, living or dead, with a total of 7.7 million that year. While in even more notable moments of music history, John Lennon's musical comeback album went on to sell seven million copies in the following six months. But it was Elvis Presley who eclipsed them all. If there was Elvis product in stores following his death, they all got picked clean". In fact, Presley catalogue sales reportedly totalled 200 million copies worldwide in the four months after his passing."

"Toyota, the Japanese automaker, said yesterday that it would invest $1.3 billion to build its eighth North American assembly plant just outside Tupelo, in northeastern Mississippi. The plant will build the Toyota Highlander, a crossover vehicle, and will employ 2,000 workers. Production is expected to begin in 2010, and reach 150,000 vehicles each year. The decision brings Toyota to an area best known for being the birthplace of Elvis Presley."

"A rise in the number of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases has highlighted the growing trend for parents not to have their child vaccinated. Could the activities of a group of teenagers against polio in 1950s America inspire a fresh look at the effectiveness of pro-vaccine public health information campaigns? Well, today, thanks to a 50 year global effort to eradicate polio, only two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) remain polio-endemic. It was a very different situation when the Salk vaccine was licensed in 1955. Even in 1957, as many as 30% of people still had no inoculations, and a third of all new cases were in teens, its use threatened in the USA by ‘vaccine hesitancy" And then young people themselves – and Elvis Presley – became the answer to the problem, in what might be the first, largest and most successful case of teen health activism of the time. The fight waged against vaccine noncompliance in 1950s America, he suggests, could provide important lessons for the world today."

"Best wishes"

"In our survey the option that most people liked was 'Well-known popular music from any period'. This was closely followed by 'Well-known classical music' and 'Well-known music from the last year'. What do these categories actually mean when it comes to artists? Maybe think of the top 3 as Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti and Katy Perry."

"I remember him being tall, slender and so beautiful. I mean, what a beautiful man. And he had this beautiful voice. He was a spiritual guy, and he loved to read anything about being spiritual. He wasn’t so much religious, but spiritual. And I, too, was fascinated by those things. So we bonded over that. We used to exchange books on the set, and it was great fun. We would have conversations all the time about being spiritual. It was a good relationship, very solid. I knew he really wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. He was almost too beautiful to be thought of as serious. It must be very awful to be at the very top like that because nobody could possibly relate to what it’s like to be there and expect you to stay there. He of course embraced it beautifully. But I think he was also pretty lonely and wanted more for himself. He was, of course, very special. But I don’t think he saw himself that way. There was a sadness about him. It just makes you wonder what could have been. I loved Elvis."

"Music, like marketing, is one of those areas of film making that often get overlooked by producer/directors. I know of one who had a budget of USD $1,000,000 and never thought about spending any of that money on music. While this would be problematic for any type of movie, it was particularly bad in that the movie was a biopic about Elvis Presley. After three years, he moved on to other failed projects, but his investor, knowing that he'd poured a lot of money into a movie that can't even be released, eventually broke down and paid Presley's estate significant more money to acquire at least some music royalties for the movie. Since he didn't want to overspend, he ended up purchasing the rights to just one hit song and one “deep cut.” And the producer's brother ended up composing most of the Elvis-esque music for the film..."

"As a jazz educated singer I had reservations about entering the Elvis world. There can be a lot of judgement about his music and the image that has been created of him over many years. But I found myself completely falling in love with his songs. Each night on stage I would discover another lyric, another chord change, another nuance that thrilled and moved me all at once. Studying the Elvis songbook, I found breathtaking recordings of the same songs by other artists. I was literally stopped in my tracks. These musical masterpieces were being revealed to me and I had Elvis to thank for it"

"John Lennon said that before Elvis there was nothing. After Elvis, nothing was the same. Perry Como is said to have said that Elvis was a threat to the moral health of the nation. What brighter endorsement could you wish for? Dial him up singing ‘Lonesome Tonight’ and marvel at the shambling majesty even as you ache for what's lost. Another thing about Elvis was that he was the most beautiful man in the world. To be as beautiful as that and also as bad was an alluring combination, love potion and lethal poison. When Pope Paul VI died within a year of Elvis, many of us shrugged. There'd be another Pope along in a minute. But there'd never ever be another Elvis. Dissing the dead Pope while singing hosannas to Elvis's immortality was the pitch-perfect response...-"

"I am working on several, actually. I've just delivered scripts on George Washington, John Lennon and Yoko Ono and I am also looking at making something on Elvis Presley."

"I'd been to Graceland (twice) but never to his birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi, until today"

"My earliest memory of music was Elvis Presley when I was four and a half years old. I then reached into my parents album collection, which is very extensive, and pulled out a record of his. From that moment on, in 1992, I really took to the music industry,"

"i) Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention, so we didn't put him on the list because he was more than merely an artist, he was Elvis. ii). I'm primitive on music. I don't want to learn it, it's too serious, too like homework. And nothing about my childhood inspired me with a love of classical music. My dad was a bit of a jazzer so if a symphony came on the radio he would immediately turn it off. School was no better, you would have just had to play one Elvis record and we would have been hooked. We'd have turned up in droves to that lesson. (In fact) I've got so many vivid memories of being a kid in Liverpool. Like everyone I suppose, I have millions of memories of those days. I remember John and I going up to the airport on our bikes to watch the planes. It makes me smile to think that they named the airport after him. So then I think back to getting the bus with George, going to school. And then the memories go beyond that, to getting the bus to "The Cavern" or the "Grosvenor Ballroom". And then the memories go beyond that and beyond that, and I have to remember that I was one of the guys that all that was happening to. You have to pinch yourself and say ‘did that REALLY happen?’. Did I REALLY meet Elvis?”"

"When I took him to my Frankfurt home for lunch, my wife offered to make him a hamburger, but he wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asked for another one.."

"He was a precious gift from God we cherished and loved dearly. He had a God-given talent that he shared with the world and without a doubt, he became most widely acclaimed, capturing the hearts of young and old alike. He was admired not only as an entertainer, but as the great humanitarian that he was for his generosity, and his kind feelings for his fellow man. He revolutionized the field of music and received its highest awards and became a living legend in his own time, earning the respect and love of millions. God saw that he needed some rest and called him home to be with HIM. We miss you, son and daddy. I thank GOD that HE gave us you as our son. Elvis Aaron Presley January 8, 1935-August 16, 1977. Son of Vernon Elvis Presley and Gladys Love Presley and father of Lisa Marie Presley"

"He is such a big Elvis Presley fan that he has been known to dress up as Elvis, complete with white silk jumpsuit and black puffed-up wig. At the Parkes Elvis Festival, he had no qualms about being photographed with fellow Elvis fans and then Labor opponent Sam Dastyari"

"Elvis Presley. It's a big, all-American icon with a sense of duty..."

"In 1954, R&B̪ writer Charles Singleton and I wrote "Trying to Get to You," which was first recorded by The Eagles, a black vocal group. Elvis Presley heard their version in a store in Memphis, and he decided to record the song. Elvis did it like The Eagles. Amazing how he did that. He wasn't a big star at that point, and we thought that he couldn't sing. We just didn't understand, yet, were grateful to him. Thank God for Elvis."

"Dylan heard the news while he was at his farm in Minnesota, with his children. I was playing with the kids and planning a birthday party for Samuel Dylan's 9th birthday. Dylan was writing songs for his next album, which turned out to be Street Legal. When Dylan told me that Presley had died, and I said I was not a fan, he didn't talk to me for a week. He really took it bad, was really grieving and said that if it wasn't for Elvis he never would have gotten started. He opened the door, Dylan told me, then went over his whole life, his whole childhood and didn't talk to anyone for a week."

"Growing up, I could sing every Elvis song. In first or second grade, I'd wrap a scarf around my neck, put a big hibiscus flower in my shirt pocket, and perform Live From Hawaii. He came through Monroe, Louisiana, on one of his last tours, and my mom was going to take me, but I got mumps. When she was getting ready for the show, I was lying on the floor kicking and screaming because I couldn't go. In fact, every artist puts a bit of the King into every performance. We're all just trying to be Elvis, aren't we?"

"Swipe to see me attempting a classic Elvis move after the film, and my beautiful, most elegant lady, my number 1 supporter from day 1, screaming like Elvis’ fans in the movie! Wow! What a great movie about a great man and a great crew and story! Thank you and God bless Elvis Presley and his entire family and team ❤️ this is a must watch!"

"No, we all started with rock ’n’ roll, Elvis Presley and the whole Sun Records gang. In my case, while riding my bike in '56, I heard “Heartbreak Hotel" and Ii was then that I wanted to play the guitar."

"The headline news of "Platinum", which can be appreciated by fans, scholars, critics and religious fanatics alike, is the inclusion of a newly discovered 1954 demo of the unsigned Elvis singing a lilting wisp of a pop song called "I'll Never Stand in Your Way". His unsophisticated performance is mesmerizing; clearly indebted to the style of the "Ink Spots", Elvis' airy tenor floats delicately above his own guitar accompaniment, aching and somewhat pinched in its feeling; you sense the singer itching to cut loose, to really swing the lyric, open it up; it is in those moments, when the pentimento of the blues vocalist reveals itself, that the melding of styles that soon would change the course of popular music is on fleeting display; it's rare when a single song can be said to make a pricey box-set worthwhile, but this particular "Rosetta stone" of a rare cut, does precisely that. Big time."

"Man, he was a bada—! Love Elvis, I remember the day he died, riding go-carts at my grandmothers house in west Monroe Louisiana 42 years ago.""

"Surely there has not been such a pelvis since Elvis Presley was in his prime."

"When Elvis died 40 years ago next Wednesday, it was like the death of John F. Kennedy 14 years earlier; both men had been such a part of American lives that—for those alive today who remember the events— where they were when they heard the news became almost as important as the news itself. In a way, it made each a part of the story. O was never in the same room with JFK, but I was with the early Elvis. I spent one long Elvis afternoon, during which I watched him perform, then conversed with him and, finally, interacted with him as a part of a group. During much of it, I observed a sweet, unsophisticated young man at close hand. He was exactly what I had expected and yet not at all so.As a writer in the New York bureau of TV Guide magazine, I was invited to attend a press conference, before which I could talk with Elvis and observe him rehearse for his second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show as well as receive his first polio shot. The afternoon rehearsal was in progress when I took my seat, but the theater was black and strangely silent. Suddenly—shockingly—the stage exploded into red light, dark music and that singular, riveting presence. I don’t even remember the song, though I think it was “Hound Dog.” What I do remember—vividly–is the power of this young performer, the charisma of the man—the mouth, alternatingly pouting, leering, grinning, the sensual modeling of the facial contours and the eyes—those erotic eyes with their kohl-like shadows, promising, threatening. And, of course, the notorious pelvic thrusts. After the rehearsal's end, I joined numerous members of the press to watch the administering of the polio shot, memorable primarily because at the time, and as he later confided to me, Elvis hasd a wholesome fear of needles. It was a scary experience for Elvis, but, as always, he managed a smile for the camera..."

"What made the young Elvis an agent provocateur? The leading lunatic theory is that he was a space alien. The more prevailing opinion is that he was a product of the magic medium of his place and time: radio. So let us now praise that great, subversive force in American culture. Radio helped Elvis develop his interest in and affection for the music of black culture. In that pre–rock ’n’ roll era, America was an apartheid nation and in much of the country, black and white didn’t mix. They attended separate schools (with the approval of the U.S. Supreme Court) and they didn’t shop together, worship together or live in the same neighborhoods. Segregation was relatively easy to enforce. It was the law. Elvis was the visible embodiment of a musical revolution. He was an interpretive, not a creative artist. Many musical innovators experimented with blending musical styles, but they all lacked the charisma, the charm, the look…the everything that Elvis had and that he represented. He was a catalyst; his was the face that launched a thousand hips."

"Honestly, the most unique thing I may have found was the Elvis Presley cardboard cutout that we now have...."

"I would kiss them both on the mouth."

"For me, it all started with Elvis. I must've been six, maybe seven years old when I saw him on the Ed Sullivan show, wasn't supposed to be watching, raised as I was in a strict Catholic family, and Elvis the Pelvis was sin. But like most Catholic parents, they watched to see just how sinful Elvis was. He was shot from the waist up, I could see that from my hiding place behind the couch. But Elvis' music and energy ignited my first desire to rock 'n roll. My father was a professional magician with a love of movies, and that's where my childhood creative energies were directed. In fact, through my entire teen life my dream was to be a rock and roll rebel."

"Was that the guitar hick?"

"For Presley's evening concert, only 37 of the 259 MPs showed up for the night session in the House of Commons. The rest had gone to see him perform."

"I decided if I was going to China, I was going to go to Shanghai, I just love that word. What Madrid was for Hemingway and Paris was for Dorothy Parker, I want Shanghai to be my Paris. Next thing I know, I'm in China and the people there are so sweet and they'll do anything for you. At one school, in preparing the students who would be attending Columbia University and due to my association with “The Catcher in the Rye,” I assigned it as reading for students and said the idioms in the story would cause confusion. Another assignment to write about a famous person led to a humorous exchange with a student who asked me to write about “Cat King, King of Cats.” Following some research together, I finally learned who was being referenced. He was talking about Elvis Presley. In China they know him as the Cat King, King of Cats.”"

"i) Hanging out with the British Royal Family didn't faze me —I called them all by their first names. In fact the only time I ever got that way was when I met Elvis. He checked out the pre-movie stage version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where I played the motorcycle-riding Eddie. I felt like, Oh my god, I can't believe where I am!So Elvis comes up to me and tells me "Well, I hear everyone wants to do an Elvis impersonation [for Eddie] but you didn’t", so the one thing I managed to say to him was, 'No, because there's only one you and only one me..."

"I used to do Elvis at my shows at the Sands, in 1968, before he returned to the stage in 1969, so this guy tells me in a little piece of paper that "He is here" , so when the lights were put on him, it took me about a half hour to catch up with my audience. Later, he would walk in my shows, and the next day, there were lines to see me, because they thought Elvis could do it again, and he did, every night."

"I'm a very non-religious person. I think everybody has the right to believe in any religion they want. Whatever makes you happy is absolutely fantastic. That's a perfect question to say 'no comment' to, because I don't really wanna hear anybody else's opinion, and I don't think anybody should wanna hear my opinion, because it's very, very personal. And nobody knows anything anyway. So it's, like... If I had to choose a religion, it would be the Elvis Presley religion."

"I was lucky enough to see Elvis Presley's opening concert at Madison Square Garden on June 9, 1972. Usually, you are not allowed to bring a camera to a concert. But the audience and the entire event were so wild that no one paid any attention to me. Over the years I watched the footage again and again. Then the Viennale called and I immediately thought of my Elvis material. The only problem was that I didn't know what kind of musical soundtrack to use. I tried everything and was close to giving up when I happened to hear a Viennese waltz on the radio. That was it! What could be better than Elvis and Strauss?"

"The Biden administration is also doing its vaccine push. The Pentagon is also reportedly looking at plans to mandate that all 1.3 million active- duty troops have vaccine mandates, that they be required to get the shot, just as they already do for actually more than a dozen other diseases and precautions.And the most famous draftee in American history, Elvis Presley, take a look at what we might learn from history. He bared his arm for a vaccine. That was part of helping reassure the public about that over 60 years ago.This is important stuff.We can keep learning together. We can do this togeher"

"I'm not taking a moral stand in this case. My purpose in asking why you're booking Presley has another basis. Your television career has been marked by a high sense of humor and a great respect for talent. Presley certainly is not funny—though that is not my complaint against him. My argument against his appearance is simply lack of talent. I can't for the life of me see why you want to have such an untalented guy on your program.""

"He certainly was inspired by black music, but I don't get why people are going after Elvis. If you are going to take the stick out on him, you better take it out on the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, everybody. If you are going to villify Elvis then why don't you just tear down the whole United States?"

"It was one of just 254 built between 1955 and 1959. The original owner was the German race car driver Hans Stuck, who piloted it to win several hill-climb races in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 1957. During his ownership, it also won an award at a well-known "automotive beauty" competition and was used in the feature film "Hula-Hopp Conny." In 1959, Elvis bought it from a dealer in Frankfurt, then was given a registration from the U.S. military, which changed every year, resulting in the car getting "lost." After extensive research by both BMW Group Classic and American journalist Jackie Jouret,the car's history started to being verified. Presley had used the 507 between his home in Bad Nauheim to the U.S. Army Base in Friedberg, but when he returned to the US in 1960 he traded it at a Chrysler dealer in New York, which, in turn, sold it to radio moderator Tommy Charles. After outfitting the car with a Chevrolet engine, Charles launched a successful racing career with it, winning a major race in Daytona Beach before selling the car in 1963. The car eventually ended up with space engineer and car collector, Jack Castor. He drove it occasionally before storing it in a pumpkin warehouse with plans to restore it. Though he had collected numerous parts for the car's restoration, it was still in storage when he happened upon a magazine article by Jouret, about Elvis' lost BMW 507! Castor realized that the car he owned had the same chassis number Jouret had uncovered and the pair met at the warehouse to look at the car. Very quickly, Jouret became certain that this car was, indeed, the car owned by Elvis. After further investigation, the car's full history was traced and BMW Group Classic embarked on a 2-year project to restore the BMW 507 to its original condition, you sing many of the parts that Castor had gathered, as well as building a complete 3.2-liter V-8 engine from spare parts to the specifications of the original engine. Today, the 150 horsepower, all-aluminum engine sits under the bonnet of the Feather White BMW 507, and is the star of the Show at the BMW Museum in Munich."

"He was drop dead handsome, a major flirt, and a naturally charming man who was a master of the sexual smile"

"Not only Jane Russell looked lovely in a red dress, but she sang "Ain´t Misbehavin´" and "I´ve Got a Crush on You" quite adequately at St. Jude Hospital benefit show at Russwood Park last night. Danny Thomas master of ceremonies and Elvis Presley, got along well. Backstage it was "Doll Face" that Danny called Elvis, and Elvis called him "Mr. Thomas." Danny went out to Presley´s 18-room manor and personally invited him to appear on the program when he was unable to obtain Presley´s top secret telephone number. The two big hits at the so called Shower of Stars Show were the then reigning Academy Award best actress winner for 1956, Susan Hayward and Elvis who didn´t sing, but pleased the crowd with a nice talk."

"Elvis Presley remembered a pledge to Memphis charities he made in 1961 after his discharge from the Army and has thus sent checks totaling $105,000 to charities in Memphis, Mississippi, California, Kansas and Nebraska. Thirty-nine charities received checks during ceremonies held at the auditorium of the publisher of both The Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Elvis, who once received aid from The Commercial Appeal-American Legion Christmas Basket Fund, has never forgotten he once was hungry and needy."

"I would love to do an Elvis movie one day. That would be amazing znd already got Elvis' iconic hairstyle."

"The Melado barbershop has a novelty. A few days ago, Jesús Méndez Lastrucci, the biógrapher of sculptor Antonio Susillo gifted Melado with a Roman-like bust of him. So now Melado can boast of sharnig the same iconic status as the world famous "Los Seises Marriott Hotel" in Seville, and Elvis Presley, two of the sculptors' most notable subjects.,"

"i) I'm going to be like him one day............ ii) I like to live life. I certainly work hard for it, and I want to have a good time. Don't deny me that. It might not come again and I want to enjoy myself a little. I liked to sing, I don't know, call it natural gift or whatever, you know, I'm not afraid to say it. It's just I like to sing and then I suddenly realized that I could actually write songs and then make my own music rather than before I would, you know, sort of copy Elvis Presley. iv) Why people like David Bowie and Elvis Presley have been so successful? Because they give their audiences champagne for breakfast? No, because they're what the people want."

"As I left Princess Diana's funeral service, I was so suddenly struck by the extent of it all that I bottled up all the way home. I was so upset because I really did like Diana, having met with her numerous times. And I always had a laugh with her and really admired her. Most of all, I thought she was so great not to be consumed by everything that had happened to her and to keep giving and giving and giving. I thought she was a really great person – the Elvis of compassion-"

"He never understood the artistic claims that were made for him, probably thought very little of the nature of his appeal, or his music; yet, as author Greil Marcus points out in "Mystery Train", it is possible to see (all that) as a positive factor; Presley viewed "rock and roll" as for the body, not the mind, so he recorded and performed accordingly; and, if much of his rock music sounds superficial, it was thanks to his undoubted vocal talent and extraordinary charisma that, at least, it was all gloriously superficial and celebratory; he knew better than to take it seriously and, in doing so, he became the consummate rock figure, one that defined its spirit by delighting in its very limitations."

"I wrestled in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa, North America and Mexico. My name, it was like Elvis..."

"Enchanted as I was by the story my mother, an aspiring singer, telling me of meeting Elvis in the early days of his career after witnessing him bring down the house at a live broadcast of "Louisiana Hayride", it became apparent that Elvis was polite, courteous and unassuming, addressed her as "ma'am," shook her hand and thanked her for enjoying the show. I am elated as his now regained role as an unparalleled musician and cultural innovator."

"People usually mention Freddy Mercury as a lyric singer, but among the baritones, Elvis was the only singer who had the talennt and registry to do that. I own all of his records, he wass terrific."

"But it was on the gospel numbers, such as the stunning "How great thou art", (1977) that Presley showed the awesome power of his voice. The fact that he has one of the greatest voices in popular music has been obscured by the mystique that has surrounded him."

"Elvis was coming down on the left side of the driveway and I jumped out of our jeep. His uncle Vester saw me and said, "Where you going? I was determined to meet Elvis, so he drove me over to him and introduced me. And Elvis said: “How you doing, son?”. Elvis called me son and I’ll never forget it"

"I got the job as Sgt. Presley’s escort, probably because I was a professional musician before the Second World War. He was an extremely pleasant, sincere young man who took the time and trouble to speak to everyone he met. The lucky fans who were in the right place at the right time were left with great, lasting memories. While Elvis was only at Prestwick Airport for 90 minutes, his influence on the people that were there lasted a lifetime."

"After about an hour a few of the guys walked out of the huge room and the others kept talking to me. And I'm assuming now when I think back that the ones that left went to Elvis and probably told him that I was OK. So as I was talking to the other guys, literally without turning my head or looking to any side, that was when I felt this huge, huge presence. It's completely unexplainable and I felt this energy and I turned to my right and I looked and there standing in the doorway was Elvis Presley. And he was not the Elvis that you would imagine. He had on a simple blue sweatsuit with white stripes down the side of the arms and a little white tennis hat on. He just looked like a guy that was lounging in his house, relaxing with his buddies. And that's the Elvis that I met, no jeans, no T-shirt, no sweater, not one of his big blouse shirts or anything like that- just very normal. I stayed that night until 7 o'clock the next morning. He put on a karate exhibit for me with Sonny and Red West and he had the guys call The Bodhi Tree -and they got me all the spiritual books and brought them over in the middle of the night from the store because he realized I was very spiritual and that we would have that in common."

"My dad was riding down Sunset Boulevard on his motorcycle when suddenly, a limo pulled up next to him. The driver rolls down his window and says, 'Sir, I have Elvis Presley in the car and he'd like to meet you. After they had spent some time together, dad began to exit the limo when Presley stopped him with a surprise request: his autograph!!!"

"Our culture includes Elvis Presley, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash, Jackie Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Douglas Macarthur, Milton Friedman, Edgar Allen Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Edison and again, for emphasis, Elvis Presley....."

"In the eleventh grade Elvis and I were in Miss Thompson's Civics class. He was a class clown and in the middle of our mid-term exams with everyone concentrating on the test, he called from the back of the room in a loud voice “Miss Thompson, Miss Thompson,” “What Elvis?” she answered. Then he asked “Why did the chicken cross the road?” The whole class broke up laughing except, of course, Miss Thompson. She quickly replied “See me after class, Elvis""

"And I got cast in "Sun Records" when I was 17, still in high school, and through an open call audition, me and my mum drove up and I had to kind of fight my way in there. I was too young to really audition but fought my way still. And then I got a call two weeks later that I had the part. And since I had applied to college, I kind of just said, 'Hey, I'm going to treat this as my college experience'. And I went and did that movie.It definitely changed my life."

"My sister could sing opera if she wanted, and we used to sing duets together like the Ponselle Sisters, and I also enjoy classic Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland. Of today's voices, Madonna, Mary J. Blige -- people who know how to communicate--. And I love Elvis Presley. Quite a nice mix!"."

"But she got her own back because when she got a little bit older, she dated Elvis Presley, who I was madly in love with, of course, as was everybody at the time. So I think that kind of compensated for it being the "back of a head" in the film."

"Rock and roll is that center place between country and blues and R&B and gospel. When I think of rock and roll, the first person I think of is Elvis Presley. And yeah, he did ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ but he also did those crazy tender ballads. To me, that's still rock and roll.”"

"And he came from East Tupelo, jumping at all of us, a carnal, metallic hero shamelessly imitated, a glorious founder. Even today it seems like I remember everything about him, especially how he defined the myth and monument of the culture of contemporary expressionism. He invented everything and led a ship which we could all board, and led many to sing everything when all we would have done without him is sing boleros. He was rock and roll, is today and shall always be tomorrow. God bless Elvis Presley."

"Elvis loved karate and his moves on stage, in the 70s, were karate inspired. One day in 1971 he went to see my show, then invited me to go see his at the International, so on the way there, at the elevator, I found myself in the company of Alice Cooper, Chubby Checker and the most popular porn star at that time, Linda Lovelace, all of whom were also invited by Elvis. So there we were in the biggest suite in Las Vegas, waiting for him to greet us when he finally came out, but dressed in a karate gi. He did a couple of moves until, out of nowhere, another man jumped in front of us, like the butler in the Pink Panther movie who comes our of the closet and attacks his master and I said.. Gee, that's great!!!"

"At his big New Year's Eve party, I got to sit and talk with him and it was just great. He was the voice of my generation and I had a million questions to ask him, but all he wanted was to talk about that session of 'Kentucky Rain,'. "More thunder on the piano, Milsap,' he had said when we recorded it. I then asked him if he would like to get up and sing and added that we knew all his songs. 'No, I want to sit here with my friends and not have to worry about singing". He knew we did know how to play his songs, and all, but he didn't want to get up and sing and that was fine with me. It was his party."

"Lesson #1 is that rock music is in the fighting spirit, not in the amperage of the guitars; indeed, some of the toughest rocking has come from all, or mostly acoustic bands; Elvis presented a primer lesson from the famous Sun sessions, with a simple blues song through the most famous faux false start in rock history; he and the boys start out all slow and bluesy, before stopping the band cold and calling it out like the hippest beat poet: 'Hold it fellas. That don't... move me. Let's get real, real gone for a change'. Then they did, let it loose, turned every bit of intensity in their beings into a jumping arrangement, much faster and more rhythmically nuanced a performance than the opening. Much of the intensity is in the fast and furious, but precisely laid out detail work; there is a strong sense of spontaneity and discovery, but what ultimately makes this a hall-of-fame performance is the vocal performance; Elvis doing tricks, making sudden octave wide jumps. "If you see my milkcow..." There is a charismatic determination of spirit that Nietzsche would no doubt have recognized as the will to power; when the King got through with it, it was no longer anything to do with a high calcium drink, but about the singer's assertion of his place in the universe."

"You see, pop music was something else in that time, dancing to Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and the Everly Brothers. However, this was before the landscape went through a dumb vanilla period that allowed folks like me to flourish – by which point, I bought an instrument and started to sing"

"My parents brought home Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" and I would sit there, on my stomach, with my face right at this little record player, playing that song over and over and over. I didn't know what Elvis looked like, what any of this was about, all I knew was there was some kind of groove and energy coming off it. That is when I lost interest in playing Kick the Can or Red Rover with the neighbourhood kids and with a gift of his first guitar, I became a bit of a withdrawn kid who loved being at home strumming my guitar.”"

"I listened to some absolute dross when I was young... we weren’t all lucky enough to grow up to Elvis"

"Actually my dad saw Elvis before he was well known. In mid November of 1954, he and mom were down in New Orleans staying with Frank and Isabell Monteleone, who owned the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On the weekend, they went to their place in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The Monteleones said, “There’s a little club about a half hour from here. They’ve got this singer there, and we ought to go up and see him.” Then, after seeing him and when my dad was preparing his original written story of "Thunder Road", he wanted Elvis to play his younger brother Robin Doolin. In 1957, my parents as usual had a Christmas party, and they invited Elvis to discuss the matter. My mom served us some delicious roast beef and I remember at the end of the party and after everybody had left, my dad and Elvis were at the piano taking turns playing and singing songs. My dad loved jazz and knew a lot of Southern jazz songs. Dad would be like, “Do you know this one?” I sat there half the night listening to them. At 13 years old, I knew who Elvis Presley was. It was something. Elvis wanted to play the part, but his manager Colonel Parker claimed that Elvis had too many obligations to fulfill and too many film contracts already pending to take on my dad's project. But I think the real problem was that Parker was unhappy that someone had gotten straight to Elvis without going through him..."

"I never saw him off the set, but twice, and yet I considered him one of the best friends. A real southern gentleman he was. One of the nicest persons I have ever met in my entire life."

"Elvis had an open time period, and I think Colonel Parker remembered all the fan mail that kids wrote from Hawaii. So to fill that one date that they needed, they decided to come, and that's why he came to in November of 1957"

"I never met him until I was in a rehearsal, in 1969, and he just walked up one time – I'd worked with him with the Sweets for 6 months I think – and he said, "Hey Stump – how you doin?" and shook my hand. I was shocked, because I didn't know that the man knew my name & stuff. You know, Rick Nelson was really good looking but he couldn't touch EP. I mean that man Elvis was something else! When I first saw him – I'm not gay at all – I thought man – this man is really cool neat cat, man! Anyways, i was with him in August of 1974 when he, Jerry and Red painted a female figure drawn into a mural located in the west wall of the Showroom Internationale, as if she was black. They waited until 3 am, got some ladders and black paint, and Elvis did the painting."

"He's all for love and who else can give you this? Elvis Presley for President!"

"Frankly speaking, I don't know much about rock and roll music and I enjoyed some when I was in high school and college. But I stopped listening after Elvis Presley..."

"To me Elvis Presley's best records came after he got out of the Army. I mean, just his delivery. “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” and “Surrender” and “Little Sister,” “His Latest Flame,” “She’s Not You,” even some of the early movie songs like “Follow That Dream” and “King Of The Whole Wide World” that I list among my all-time favorites. But, rock ‘n’ roll purists think that after 1957 there isn't anything any good. I think this is so far off base it's laughable."

"Elvis gave us a second career'. In his beginnings, he told us he had always enjoyed singing `Precious Lord Take My Hand." That was one of his favorite songs"

"It hosted presidents and one king — Elvis Presley in 1955,”."

"He was a nice young man. There was no problem with him at all. I worked as his drill sergeant for about a month after Elvis was drafted into the service. During his time at Fort Hood Elvis was treated like all other soldiers, and not as THE rock 'n' roll superstar he then was. He wanted to be a tanker, taking armored training. I think it was great to be exposed to a person like that."

"He was pioneer of doing a little bit of everything, a triple threat, so yes I am following on his footsteps."

"I thought anyone who had been the center of all that insanity for so long would have some of it rub off on him. But, after working in "Change of Habit" with him, I realized I'd never worked with a more gentlemanly, kinder man. He was gorgeous."

"Dot continued to travel between Britain and America when I was out there, in between her tours and engagements. In Los Angeles, she once appeared at the 'Moulin Rouge' club in Hollywood, one of her biggest fans being a young Elvis Presley, who attended most of her performances and repeatedly asked her to sing 'This Is My Mother's Day!' He came backstage and, being very nervous, introduced himself to me – as though I didn't know who he was.'Hello, I'm Roger,' I said.'How are you, sir?' he asked.'Lovely to meet you, sir.' He insisted on calling me 'sir' throughout our chat, and acted as though he was in awe of me. Him! In awe of me! Elvis then told Dot how much he admired her and hoped he might have just a little of the success she had achieved. If only he knew. If only I knew!"

"Sam Phillips used what we call 'slapback' or 'tape delay', which lent an otherworldly patina to Presley's voice. And I don't know if Sam was really conscious of it at the time, but if you listen to old pop and country records back then, the voice was always so much farther out from the music; Sam kept Elvis' voice close to the music, so, in essence, Elvis' voice became another instrument."

"I want to be like Marlon Brando, dress like James Dean, and sing Like Elvis Presley,""

"i) My delight in dating Elvis hinged entirely on one fact. I knew that no one could possibly make Marlon Brando more jealous. I wanted to get even, Brando had done me wrong, so I went from one kind of king to another. I dated Elvis, who was absolutely gorgeous and had a perfect kind of face, but he was not interesting to me. When Brando saw a photo of us two, in the papers, he was furious, he threw chairs, It was wonderful. ii) When he took the polio vaccine, he was wonderful, a fabulous and important advocacy which should continue to work with today's celebrities vis a vis the COVID 19 pandemia."

"Elvis, yes! Elvis was my man. You know, I used to go up and view his shows."

"I never met a more polite kid in my life."

"Just pretend everyone in the audience is sitting there in their underwear."

"It probably will require a hurricane to de-contaminate this area properly after hix appearance here. I know hundreds, and there must be thousands, who deplore the type of music that is being fed to the younger elements of our community. Let us hope that those who feel as do will make themselves heard so that something may be done to curb the mouthings of that avaricious maniac."

"He is the best ever, the most original, started the ball rolling for us and deserves the recognition."

"As a musician, I was inspired by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Beethoven and Chopin and so I will always be the same Michele, but with different moods. We are going to have a lot of rough and strong things but a lot of emotion, too. As far as the lyrics are concerned, it will be more mature."

"We have a mutual friend who uses the phrase "That’s skinny Elvis", all day long when describing something cool"

"They did a survey not too long ago about how many people believe Elvis is really dead. And if I remember correctly, it was around 20 percent thought it was some government plot, that Elvis was still alive somewhere, and the government was served well by promoting the idea that he died when he was still alive. And I like Elvis. But I’m pretty sure he’s dead"

"The 2019 arrival of a new BMW 3 Series as an event that resets the parameters of the executive car class, because every time a new one comes along, it usually succeeds in smashing its key rivals and becoming the car to beat. It is as momentous in the motoring world as the Apollo moon landings or the death of Elvis."

"Representing Elvis is something only dreams are made of..."

"I have to say I had some very good scenes with him in "Loving you", but I found myself going to every shot, every scene in which he sang because I was completely taken by listening to him sing. I could not believe the charisma. Incidentally, my uncle was the opera star Mario Lanza (married to my dad´s sister Betty) and I knew what it was like to encounter not just an actor or a singer, but somebody that you knew was going to be a legend. Mario was going to be the next Caruso and Elvis, I thought, ´he is in that class´. This man is going to live forever because that voice is not just for us, but for the people of God."

"When something is ‘out’ in the golf swing, the body has a way of trying to adapt and doing the best job it can to hit the ball - and the 'Elvis leg' is one of those examples! If you’re really narrow, the legs can kick in and you’ll start extending up to try and find some space. There’s just no room here.This is a classic poor impact position among those who have a penchant for early extension. The ‘Elvis leg’ is where players are basically trying to get out of their own way."

"I've been an Elvis fan all my life. It started in 1957, but regrettably, I never met him."

"You knew it was going to be a dismal night this Wednesday when just a few minutes into the debate, ABC interrupted the candidates for a long commercial break -- the first of many. By the time it was over, the audience had had enough.Makes you think that if Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were around, they'd be sandwiched between a Viagra ad and Victoria's secret. In a real debate the candidates would face each other on the stage with no one but a timekeeper to enforce the clock. As it is, these 'debates' are commercially-staged press conferences about as connected to reality as an Elvis Presley sighting."

"I can still remember when you visited me in my humble home at Beatrice Cottages and we listened to Elvis and sang along and laughed together, then you revealed your soul to me, your dreams, your hopes – and I wrote your first biography..."

"I don't admire nobody, but Elvis Presley was the sweetest, most humble and nicest man you'd want to know. Singing ability, he a had everything and he was pretty, I know. And when it comes to boxing nobody has the class, the style, the wit, the speed and beauty of Ali. When it comes to singing nobody had everything like Elvis. And the last thing, he did lot for poor people, he cared for people, he had a good heart, he just wasn't a person who was great with talent but great in spirit and with God in his heart, and this is great too. I realise how good I am in my profession, I don't praise nobody if he don't deserve it, cos I am the greatest of all time in boxing, in boxing. I said boxing! I'm telling you, not just you all, the Elvis fans, so naturally you praise Elvis, he's of European race as you are, but I'm black, I'm a Islamic, I'm 100% different from you. And I tell the world Elvis was the greatest of all time. I'm a Muslim who's black who stands up for what he believes. I don't have to say what I don't feel, I'm not false I don't have to say this. I'm free. He to me is one of the greatest singers, actors and all round men of all time. With all the brothers together, none are better than Elvis Presley"

"A day for people to reflect about the things that were most important to my father, like self-love and self-respecy. My father loved children, so in some way, developing around them through the school curriculum. I think the "Ali Center" is just terrific to always mention and something called "ighters Heaven in Deer Lake", Pennsylvania, where my father trained for all of his big fights, and where he lived in between his fights. The Beatles photograph, the famous Michael Jackson photograph, the Elvis Presley photographs were all taken there. It’s been totally reconditioned into its original state; so along with preserving my father’s legacy through Muhammad Ali Day, I know from my own family how important it is to create these centers to connect with the community to house all the core values of my father and what was important to him."

"I) So, I think it started with "Lilo & Stitch" but one day when my then 2 year old son and I were listening to this podcast called "A History of Rock 'n' Roll in 500 Songs", he heard Elvis' 'Mystery Train'and he goes, "Dad, I like that song". Then we started listening to more Elvis and, as were sitting at home one day, I said, 'Do you want to see what Elvis looks like? Do you want to watch him sing?' He goes, 'Yeah," I turned on the Elvis 1968 comeback special, and my son, 2 years old, was riveted, more than "Inside Out", "Moana"... anything. He was staring at Elvis in a leather suit, seating down and singing and he could not look away. And then he got his own guitar, and he played it in his chair, as Elvis did, so he now he thinks you only play guitar while sitting. He's never gonna stand up. LOL II) So, we're in the jungle room, ... and we're looking around, and Malcolm goes, 'Dad, can I meet Elvis now?' "It had never come up while listening to 'Hound Dog.' You don't go, 'You know, son, this guy's dead, right? You want to know how he died?'" "So, I go, 'No, you can't.' And, he goes, 'Please, I want to.' I go, 'Oh, no. It's not like a permission thing.' Then I realized all his grandparents are alive and he's never had a goldfish," he continued, realizing at that moment that his son wasn't familiar with the concept of death. "He doesn't know. Like, he doesn't know. And he's about to find out in the jungle room at Graceland that everybody dies. And so how did you convey this?" "I said, 'Elvis is in heaven now.' And he said, 'Why?' "And I said, "Uh, well, sometimes when people are in their early 40s, and they have a job and schedule a lot like daddy. Uh, and some of the same issues as daddy. They go to the bathroom and they go to heaven.'""

"The board meets every Wednesday at the old courthouse in Inverness. Last week I walked into the old courthouse and there was a portrait of Elvis Presley on the wall, greeting me. “Good morning,” I said to Elvis as I entered the building. I did a double take because he appeared to wink at me. Later in the meeting we had a visit from Paul Perregaux, a Citrus Hills resident who has qualified to run for the Citrus County Community Charitable Foundation board, the nonprofit organization that will decide how the proceeds from the lease of Citrus Memorial Hospital will be used. I asked Paul to give us some background on his life experience so we could let residents know why he was running for the office. The longtime banker pointed out that he had an Army career before he worked for the financial industry in New England and noted he was once assigned a driver by the name of Elvis Presley. And yes, it was that Elvis Presley. “He was a very nice young man” said Paul. Later that same day, back at the Chronicle office in Meadowcrest, we had a very extraordinary visit from April Royal, the widow of Phil Royal I sat for a few minutes with April and as we sat there talking, April Royal explained to me that her recently deceased friend Dorothy Jean's absolute favorite musician was Elvis Presley. Her residence at the Key Center was adorned with photos and paintings of Elvis. In July of this year, April and Phil attended the Key Center's annual auction. Phil had been on the Key Center board for 20 years and had a special relationship with Dorothy Jean Cole. At the July charity event, what comes up for auction but a large velvet portrait of Elvis Presley? According to April, Phil took one look at Elvis and said he needed to purchase the velvet masterpiece for Dorothy Jean. “I don’t care what it costs,” Phil told April. “We need to buy Elvis.” The Royals were the top bidders. Phil wanted to wait until after the Run for the Money to give the present to Dorothy, but fate got in the way. Phil died during the run at a very young 47 years old. His family and our entire community have been rocked by the tragedy. April Royal has been an incredibly strong woman during the aftermath of the tragic events. Just last week she saw the Elvis portrait at her home and decided she had to go visit Dorothy Jean. So she loaded Brelyn and Elvis into the car and went to the Key. She presented the Elvis portrait to Dorothy as a last gift from Phil. Dorothy was delighted to spend time holding Brelyn and she had a big smile on her face. And now, just a few days after that visit, Dorothy Jean Cole has passed away. The irony was almost too much to comprehend. In a very strange way, the velvet King helped me better understand what courage looks like."

"I used to babysit for a Sergeant Phelps at the US airbase and was at work one day when he turned up at my house and told my mum that Elvis would be at the airbase that night and I should go if I wanted to see him. My mum ran to a phone box to call me at work. I couldn't believe it – I loved Elvis, I had all his records. I changed into my American jeans, lumberjacket, bobby socks and blue suede shoes and cycled the three miles to the airport base. I dropped in at my friend Muriel's and she said she would come too but I couldn't manage to give her a ‘backie’ so we skipped and ran all the way. When we got to the base there was a small group of people already there, standing at the barrier in front of two huge Cadillac cars. Muriel and I were right at the barrier, were so excited and suddenly the plane was in front of us. The door opened and there was Elvis. He was so handsome in his uniform. He waved and we started screaming. He shouted: ‘Where am I?’ and people shouted back: ‘Prestwick’. Elvis came down the stairs and looked fantastic with that beautiful smile. We could nearly touch him. Then Muriel did an amazing thing. She jumped over the barrier and threw herself on him – a couple of huge military policemen scraped her off and put her back over the barrier. The next thing we knew, he was away. We went to the café where the young folk hung out and told people we had seen Elvis. They were all laughing at us but the papers the next day proved it.”"

"That’s my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you’d see pictures all over of Elvis. He’s just the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And I think it’s because he had such presence. When Elvis walked into a room, Elvis Presley was in the f***ing room. I don’t give a f*** who was in the room with him, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe.”"

"In fact, the overwhelming influx of white rappers has become so pervasive that hip-hop queen Nicki Minaj offered a tongue-in-cheek Instagram observation on the trend: “It’s a great time to be a white rapper in America huh?” Nicki also came with receipts — a screenshot of the iTunes Top 10 Rap/Hip-Hop songs displaying six slots filled with Caucasian spitters: the aforementioned Malone and G-Eazy as well as NF, Macklemore, Machine Gun Kelly and a certain gifted-yet-weary rhyme legend (Eminem), who is most responsible for flipping hip-hop's racial course as Elvis Presley once did with the Black musical art form known as rock and roll."

"I named this huge dinosaur Elvis inter'alia, because of its uniqueness and Pristine Pelvis."

"But things began to change in late October 1957, thanks to Elvis announcing the impending arrival of “a rock ’n’ roll Christmas.” The setting was a San Francisco press conference and the reference pertained to the imminent release of Elvis’ Christmas Album. Unsurprisingly, the media took the bait, waxing indignantly about the desecration of Christmas music. Even Time magazine got into the act. At the height of its influence, the magazine did one of its trademark putdowns, warning of the “most serious menace to Christmas since I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”"

"It's now or never, as Elvis Presley used to say."

"I was the twenty-seventh person on standby, on the last flight out of New York City to Memphis the night before the funeral. Miraculously, I got to Memphis and took a cab to Graceland- They'd stopped letting people into the house at that point but everybody was trying to get a photograph of Elvis in the casket, and there was a $50,000 bounty on it.. But the actual funeral was a spectacular thing. I still have incredibly powerful impressions of it, to drive the route and see all the hundreds of thousands of people waiting for him to roll by. It was incredible—very powerful and was about 90 degrees. Waiting in the shade, and all the signs said "God bless you, Elvis. When the hearse rolled out on the street, and it reached the speed it was going to go at, I burst into tears. It was like the long, slow walk And it was just so poignant, then all the helicopters converged on the cemetery, overhead, and there was a riot at the other gate, you know, at the back gate—people were trying to storm into the cemetery. The hearse was arriving, and I started racing, running from where we were. We started running towards where I thought the riot was coming from. On the way I encountered the hearse being led by 24 motorcycle cops. It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen, because these cops they were guarding Elvis. And all of the sudden there was one man standing in the cemetery right where they were passing by, and there was not supposed to be anybody there. There's one guy, and it's me. And this cop gave me a look that said, "If you move, I will shoot you right through the heart." I mean, I just froze—you know, like when your hair stands on end. Anyway, as they tried to carry it up the steps, they almost dropped it—it fell like sideways. But then there was a very strange moment when Priscilla actually left. Because you could feel Elvis. You could absolutely feel his presence everywhere. And when she left, it was almost like you could feel his real love went with her, as she rode out of the cemetery. It's was an amazing feeling. I'll never forget it. Well, you gotta have role models. He was an extraordinary guy."

"Wise men say, only fools fall in love"

"Some people adore goats, some people believe the earth is flat, some even believe Elvis Presley is still alive. Simon Busuttil can believe whatever he wants but when the rest of the country hears these things, they laugh."

"Just above the lobby, the “Impact of the Bible” floor highlights how Scriptures have influenced cultures across the globe — from education and literature and art and architecture to a King James Bible owned by Elvis Presley which is just steps away from mannequins adorned with dresses by fashion designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, who have featured icons of the Virgin Mary in their brand."

"In 1959 (during his time in the Army), he came under the weather and military 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."

"Love me tender. love me true...."

"Few people in my village have the slightest clue about life in America. To them we might as well be the center of the universe. I'm one of few lucky or unlucky ones (depending on how you look at it) who happened to, miraculously, have had the opportunity to live in both worlds. It goes without saying that I can also speak with confidence that my level of confusion is unparalleled. Once, I had confused Elvis Presley for Yuri Gagarin. In fact, there are people in Kokoland who still believe so. What difference will that make, anyway, when folks still believe that the Earth is flat?"

"The Postal Service is being wasteful in spending nearly US$300,000 to promote its Elvis Presley stamp. To break even, they would have to sell more than one million stamps to collectors who do not then use them."

"The first time he was booked at the International, in July of 1969, some of us had our doubts. I mean, we opened July Fourth with Barbra Streisand, who'd just won an Oscar, had three pictures going. She was one of the hottest entertainment properties in the world. We knew we had something. Elvis [who was the second performer at the new hotel] was an unknown stage property who hadn't appeared live anywhere in eight years. We knew he'd be something of a draw, but my God! Elvis was a blockbuster, turning out to be an even bigger draw in subsequent runs at the International. I'm not sure how this figure was verified, but it has been reported the Maitre d' and head waiters split $10,000 in tips per night when he performed the following February."

"When a polio vaccine became available in the United States in the 1950s, the March of Dimes, an organization that had been affiliated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, made a major advertising push, with posters featuring young children who were most at risk of being infected. To boost public interest in the vaccine, Elvis Presley got vaccinated backstage at “The Ed Sullivan Show and it was seen as a patriotic thing,"

"As Kazuya Kosaka and other young country musicians earned wider popularity, they learned that new artists in the US, like Elvis Presley, were sweeping away American audiences. In the series “the Legacy of Western Singer" in Music Life in 1956, music writer Takatada Ihara introduced “the one-of-a-kind singer Elvis Presley who has emerged like a comet out of the blue.” Presley’s look and sound were novel among country musicians in Japan so Kosaka and fellow country artists began recording Presley’s repertoires with Japanese lyrics as new style of country & western. Taking off his cowboy outfits and changing into Presley-type suits and jackets, Kosaka released “Heartbreak Hotel” in Japanese from Japanese Columbia. Previously known as the “Japanese Lefty (Frizzell),” Kosaka now became known as the “Japanese Presley. By the late 1950s, the country & western in the mainstream Japanese popular music sounded like Elvis Presley, if not rock ‘n’ roll. Since the emergence of Elvis Presley, these writers and fans celebrated country & western musicians in Japan began playing a “new style” of music more driven by the rhythm and some sung in Japanese. Some writers called this recent western music as “western with youthfulness and taste..."

"My biggest musical influences are Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin"

"Basically, I tried to mimic my big brothers in a sense. It was the days of peg pants, like today. Usually, when you inherit clothes from your bigger brother, the pants were longer anyway, so there was plenty of room to roll them up. So, yeah, I mimicked Elvis Presley, with his collar up and his slicked-back hair. He was cool, so we dressed as kids similar to what our big brothers did and the stars that we had seen. And I started (dressing) as Elvis (did) because, of course, he was special. My dad was with me one time in Vegas and we were allowed to go backstage where I introduced Elvis to my father. He took my dad and sat down on the couch and they sat there for about 30 minutes just talking and that. Boy, I tell you what, that was something. I'm standing there and Elvis is spending time with my dad. That day, I didn't tell him I dressed like him. He was wonderful. What a gentleman. He was close to the height of his career — one of the heights. I mean, he was always the smart one and the only person I was really thrilled by, and always appreciated his taking time out to talk to my dad, and I do to this day. ."

"I used to work in a record shop and one afternoon I heard them playing "Blue Moon" through the speakers. I'll always remember it coming through the fog. Later, I used to stand in the front room with a plywood guitar shaking my ass like Elvis. He was a genius."

"They kicked off the evening at the Commander in Chief Ball, swaying to the song American Trilogy by Elvis."

"There was something about Presley's voice. He had a wide vocal range: he could go up and down and stay in-between, with equal ease. There was also a powerful sensuality to his voice. You would know that if you had listened to ‘It’s Now Or Never.’ Besides he had great musicians backing him up."

"I love Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, even Marilyn Monroe. They had an iconic sense of style. I hope we don't lose that."

"In the aftermath of Elvis Presley Estate litigation flurry, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, providing clear statutory language ensuring personality rights are not extinguished at death and their descendibility to others. Additionally, the Tennessee Court of Appeals confirmed the descendibility of personality rights under common law in another case brought by the state against the “Elvis Presley International Memorial Foundation” for their unlicensed use of Elvis's name. The foundation argued there was “no descendible right of publicity in Tennessee and that Elvis Presley's name and image entered into the public domain when he died. The court made a clear distinction between the right to privacy and right to publicity, highlighting the economic value of a celebrity’s image, and in reviewing the Sixth Circuit's previous opinion on the matter, found their prior decision was made “without considering Tennessee law. Instead, the court recognized Tennessee has an “expansive view of property” and concluded a celebrity's right of publicity is a “species of intangible personal property” protected in Tennessee. Specifically, the court found descendability of personality rights promotes "an expectation that the investment in valuable capital assets will benefit one's heirs after death, the protection of contract rights, the discouragement of consumer deception, and the policy against unfair competition.Thus, the court held "Elvis Presley's right of publicity survived his death and remains enforceable by his estate and those holding licenses from the estate."

"Elvis Presley once said that a man is one thing and an image is another. I didn't really know what Elvis meant by saying that until I was invited to visit the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. As I approached it, I saw this statue of Joe DiMaggio in his Yankee uniform with his arm around a little boy. It was the most sensitive looking work of art that I have ever seen."

"Imagine Elvis Presley watching our show. He repeated episodes I'd even forgotten about, even remembering them word for word. And he gave me some great tips about things to do on my tour. You'll never know how much tonight has meant to me..I touched his Gold jacket..."

"Elvis came out when I was a disc jockey, and I was playing country music. He came out and he was doing rock and roll, or blues, or whatever they called it back then so I played Presley’s tracks on my station all the time.SpI got a little criticism for it, from some of the old dye in the wool puritan country fans, but I thought he was great. Presley recorded one of my songs, “Funny How Time Slips Away and he even used to send me a Christmas card every year. But I never met him"

"Of course, the Elvis connection is not lost on me. Nevertheless, I was a little young to appreciate Elvis. He was a bit beyond me.”"

"Around 3,000 years ago, David became King of Israel, and he named Jerusalem the capital. Now your father echoes his great deed by again recognizing that Jerusalem is our capital, for now and forever. Your father and I are so much alike, we both love Israel, have Jewish grandchildren and similar futures ahead of us. In fact, the great King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, could have been speaking about Donald and I when he sang ‘Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock. Everybody in the whole cell block. We’ll be dancin’ to the Jailhouse Rock'."

"It was an ordeal of sorts for many of us —the compulsory monthly haircut at our boarding school in Tiruchy in the 1950s-. Few liked to have their painstakingly grown locks trimmed, let alone sheared off—and for a good reason. Elvis Presley was our much-loved idol then and most of us tried to emulate his puffed hairstyle— something the spoilsport warden frowned upon. He opined that a crew-cut suited us, and Tiruchy's sultry weather, better. So, fearing that we might be ‘scalped’, we drew upon all our reserves of charm to persuade Dasan, the surly school barber, to minimise his snipping and shearing so that we didn't look like skinheads! He grudgingly obliged us. We boys used to fervently hope that he wouldn't turn up to trim down our nicely burgeoning Elvis hairdos, but he always did, clad in a white shirt and dhoti carrying a rexine bag containing the tools of his trade..."

"About 125 persons were lined up at the showroom reservation counter early Monday, normally a slow day. Last Saturday some 500 persons were there at 10 am in hopes of getting reservations during the busy weekend. Many were turned away. Officials at the International Hotel said weekends were sold out and that bookings during the week were "tight" for Presley's first appearance before a live audience in eight years. Some Presley fans came all the way from Europe to see the show. The hotel received a letter from a woman in France with a 100 franc note enclosed as a deposit for 10 shows. The woman wanted reservations for both the dinner and midnight shows for five straight days. So far we have yet to have an empty seat in the house. He is the hottest thing that has hit Las Vegas," said Bruce Banke, an executive of the hotel. It was his first stage appearance in eight years and his only return engagement to Las Vegas in 13 years. Presley in the flesh has lost nothing. It was still all there. Gyrating legs, wide stance, a bobbing head with tossed black hair, rotating guitar, knee bends and the pounding rhythm of such tunes as "Blue Suede Shoes", "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock," "Heartbreak Hotel" and one of his newest recordings "In The Ghetto" He was contracted to appear here for an undisclosed salary. Reportedly, Presley is being paid as much as Barbra Streisand who opened the resort in early July for a reported $1 million during a three-year period. Actor George Hamilton was among the first nighters along with businessmen of the Howard Hughes organization. A plane load of admirers flew in from Atlanta, and members of the news media converged here from the East Coast and Europe. Temperatures outside the International Hotel neared 110 degrees the night Presley opened inside the 2,200 seat showroom – after viewing an hour of Presley's gyrations – blood pressure were on the rise. Presley received a long standing ovation. It was one of the the rare occasions when a Las Vegas standing salute was sincere rather than rigged with a few cronies of an entertainer planted down front to stamp and scream approval."

"At first I would see a kid who used to come over to the Plantation Inn Club when we were over there. That kid was Elvis Presley. He would show up every Wednesday and Friday night to see me do Calvin's Boogie and Junior's Jive. I feel that Elvis' later success actually broke the ice for civil rights, because that was the issue during that time, the fact he sent the black idiom all over the world in his music."

"i) I played a rock and roll star in the fifties... Who was that big guy then, Elvis, yeah, Elvis, well we did a movie in England at that same time ii) I knew I could never sing like him, but just did my best."

"The recent news about robocalls takes me back to last November. I was coming in the back door loaded down with stuff for Thanksgiving. The phone was ringing, but I told myself, “Let it ring, don’t answer it. Don’t do it — you are going to drop something, you know it." “Ignore the phone call,” I said aloud to no one, yet I knew I wouldn't ignore the call. So I put down the bags — really dropped the bags — and rushed to the phone. As I put away bags of squashed lettuce and more — thank goodness, no eggs that day. “Return to Sender.” an old Elvis Presley song came to my head. In my mind's eye I saw a tall, handsome man standing in front of me singing that song. I picked up the phone to look at it — and like a light bulb, an idea came to me. A button. That's what we need: a button, I said in my head. When the calls come in and you know it's not for you — it's not for anyone human — you could press the "star" button twice, maybe, and the call goes back. Every single time. So here's my question for the technicians and scientists out there: Why can't we return robocalls to the people who send them? We should be able to. In fact, we would all be so thankful to the technicians and scientists of the world for developing such a technology. And they don't even need a new name for it. “Return to Sender” would do. I'm sure Elvis wouldn't mind."

"Dressed in a chic black tunic and bell bottoms, Elvis Presley stepped onstage last week at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and launched into the driving beat of "Blue Suede Shoes." The audience of 2,200, most of them over 30, roared and squealed in nostalgic appreciation. In spite of his updated look, Elvis hadn't changed at all in the nearly nine years since his last personal appearance. Oozing the sullen sexuality that threw the America into a state of shock in the 50's, he groaned and swiveled through a medley of "Jailhouse Rock," "Don't Be Cruel," "Heartbreak Hotel," "All Shook Up" and "Hound Dog". It was hard to believe he was 34 and no longer 19 years old. In fact, there are several unbelievable things about Elvis, but the most incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars, Presley shot to the top in 1956 with "Heartbreak Hotel" and has stayed in the uppermost tax bracket ever since. When, during a news conference after the opening, a British entrepreneur offered Elvis a million pounds sterling for one appearance in London, it was Parker who answered: "Bring me a deposit tomorrow. Elvis arrived in Las Vegas a week before the show and immediately began rehearsing five hours a day-losing 10 pounds in the process. Only celebrities and big spenders were there opening night to hear Presley sing a lot of oldies and one new song, with a new message aimed at the black rock market. "In The Ghetto" chronicles the evils of poverty in a Chicago slum and could signal the birth of a social conscience for Presley. Another recent record release, "If I Can Dream," proclaims brotherhood according to the gospel of Martin Luther King, but did not appear on the Vegas program. When asked if these songs marked a new direction he might take, Elvis answered, "I go by the material. When I got 'In The Ghetto,' I couldn't turn it down."

"I have seen spectacular performers, Buffalo Bill, Enrico Caruso, John Philip Souza, Billy Sunday, Al Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Liberace but I have never witnessed a storm of excitement like the one generated by Elvis Presley."

"It was huge. I was terrified, I remember that I had my little white lace dress. It was very scary, invited as I was to see Elvis's show and to meet him afterwards and even more intimidating, if incredibly flattering, as he was covering one of my early country hits – If You Love Me, Let Me Know. I went with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber backstage and Elvis was supposed to come and meet us. But something happened, he had an emergency and he had to leave. It was one of those 'Almost!' moments..."

"From the first quavering notes of the song, it was obvious that there was something different about him -- you could detect his influences, but he didn't sound like anyone else. There is a quality of unutterable plaintiveness as Elvis, in 1953, sings "My Happiness", a pop hit, in 1948, for Jon and Sandra Steele, and a sentimental ballad that couldn't have been further from anyone's imaginings of rock-and-roll. It is just a pure, yearning, almost desperately pleading solo voice reaching for effect. The guitar, Elvis said, "sounded like somebody beating on a bucket lid," with an added factor of nervousness that Elvis must surely have felt. But even that is not particularly detectable -- there is a strange sense of calm, an almost unsettling stillness in the midst of great drama. When he finished, the boy looked up expectantly at the man in the control booth. Mr. Phillips nodded and said politely that he was an "interesting" singer. "We might give you a call sometime.""

"Recently, someone asked the question of who had been the one individual who'd helped save the most money in the US healthcare industry in the last century. The answer – surprisingly – is Elvis Presley. On October 28, 1956, Elvis got a polio vaccination before his appearance on national TV. That event was responsible for raising immunization levels in the US from 0.6% to over 80% in just 6 months. No other single individual has had that kind of impact on healthcare in the US."

"These last three years he's been so used to people tearing at him wherever he goes that he's drawn-into as hell. He's so used to being alone with a few close friends and going for drives and playing records that you can't get him out"

"A toss-up between seeing Elvis live in Las Vegas in the 1970s and taking a dip in the thermal waters of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon ..."

"While vastly different individuals, Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King Jr. were all brave Americans who firmly stood for what they believed."

"We were first called the Grim Reapers and we recorded at this place in Janesville (Wisconsin). It was in a barn and this guy [had] a four-track machine. We recorded a song called ‘Cruisin’ for Burgers' and we did Elvis' ‘Hound Dog, When the people at Epic Records heard it, and they decided they liked us well enough where they gave us a record deal, they asked us to change our name to Fuse which eventually became Cheap Trick in 1973. Ad then we lived through a series of highs and lows before encountering a particularly difficult era in the mid-‘80s. That changed with the release of our 1988 comeback album Lap of Luxury, which contained another Elvis track, in fact it was the only version of an Elvis song that went to the Top 5 – ‘Don’t Be Cruel. So there’s two references to Elvis Presley in our career.”"

"A group of teenage girls stood at the driveway eager to see a glimpse of him. Then, as someone inside ruffled a curtain, the girls all screamed, totally convinced that they had seen Elvis. Was that Elvis at the window? we would all scream. And, of course, it never was but just another exciting Saturday night at Audubon Drive..."

"I wasn't even born when Elvis passed away, but I am hugely grateful for the musical doors knocked down by him. It was good to have people like that who weren't scared to take chances back then. You don't take chances to do it in vain; you take chances musically because you care, or you want to be different, or you want to see what would happen if you mix this with that. It takes an open mind, but Elvis was one of those people that whatever he did, it was right. I love the fact that Elvis was a country boy."

"I knew little of him before we met at the White House. But, as I talked to him, I felt he was basically a very shy man. People say that because he had trouble at the end of his life, that he could not have been a good example, but they overlooked the fact he always used medication prescribed by his physician, so I think that he was always a very sincere and decent man."

"Elvis Presley is my spiritual father and, as you may know, Maria Callas is my spiritual mother."

"Eminem is a King in his own right, a genius. He's our Elvis and I think we should claim that.""

"I came to Hollywood as a teen because I was in love with Elvis Presley and I wanted to meet him. And one day, on a movie set, I did, and he gave me the opportunity to work as a hair specialist in a film he was then making. I want to thank all those who have made this possible and last but not least, Elvis Presley without whose kind help I wouldn't be here today. And you should see what it was to see him..."

"Like myself, Elvis was introduced to the world of self defense while in the military. He would study many styles under many different ethnic instructors throughout his life. In 1959 he started as a student under German , (a Shokotan sensei), then was mentored under Japanese Teugio Murakami (a Shokotan master), Korean Kang Rhee (Sa-Ryu TaeKwon Do Grandmaster), Americans Hank Slemansky (a Chito Ryu stylist) and Ed Parker (the founder of American Kenpo – who would remain his lifelong teacher), and Filipino Dan Inosanto (later Bruce Lee’s student). Elvis’ love for martial arts permeated his career in music and movies, where he'd often demonstrate his self-defense moves. I'll never forget seeing him perform, sitting in the front booth with Bob Wall as the special guests of his wife Priscilla at a dinner show at the Las Vegas Hilton and being captivated by his charisma and showmanship. That was the day Bob and I first met him, when, after the show Elvis invited all of us up to his suite, where we talked until 4:00 in the morning. At first I thought, “What are we going to talk about?” I knew nothing about music, but I knew I could talk about martial arts all night long! And we did! I was impressed with his self defense insight and devotion. Even after two shows earlier that evening, Elvis stayed to the early morning hours shooting the breeze with us. That was a special night for all of us, which I'll never forget. Elvis was a real nice, down-to-earth guy, who made you feel in a few hours like you had known him forever. I still enjoy his music and films."

"Before any of my debates, I listen to Elvis Presley's version of “My Way.”, just to get myself psyched up..."

"He is arguably one of the most iconic figures in American culture, the boy from East Tupelo who wanted a gun for his 11th birthday, got a guitar instead and went on to change the world introducing a unique musical style that combined pop, country, gospel and rhythm and blues. Although he moved to Memphis at a young age, Presley's home was, and will always be Tupelo..."

"It didn't take Americans and the rest of the world long to discover Elvis and it is abundantly clear that they will never forget him. His popularity continues to thrive years after his passing, with each new generation connecting with him in a significant way. Elvis, known throughout the world by his first name, is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of 20th century music and popular culture, and his status as a cultural icon appears ever stronger as time goes by. His extraordinary talents produced achievements that remain unparalleled in American and world history. The international superstar was an accomplished and influential artist in several genres of music - rock, pop, country, R&B and gospel - and he triumphed on television, the concert stage and the silver screen. American culture and music changed irreversibly because of Elvis. It would be difficult to tell the story of the 20th century without discussing the many contributions made by this legendary, iconic artist."

"The entourage was assembled, and the caravan headed out so Puffy, Biggie and I got into my Ford Explorer. I had a six-disc player, and it automatically went to Elvis 'Suspicious Minds' and Puffy was like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Biggie was in the back and he said, ‘Hey, man, chill out. Elvis was cool,’ I thought it was so awesome that Biggie was sticking up for me for listening to Elvis.” ~"

"Nowadays, with the cult of celebrity so firmly ingrained in western society, it seems obvious that having a leading star flash their wrist at a large audience would see a brand's sales go through the roof. But when Elvis Presley wore the Hamilton Ventura in the 1961 film Blue Hawaii, the then American brand couldn't have imagined the enduring effect of Presley's contribution."

"That was the one thing that they knew that could conquer the world. They had the greatest dancers. They had the greatest choreographers and teachers in the world. And so at the time of Nureyev's defection, they were going to the West, and it was just two months after Yuri Gagarin went into space, and it was an enormous embarrassment to them, as he was also one of those enormous stars that you probably won't get again. He and people like him, like Elvis, they were sort of larger than life, and they stood out more. ..."

"Never has there been a more obsessed-over American pop icon than Elvis Presley"

"So go ahead Bruce, and give me the Elvis take on cultural appropriation right now. I don’t want to get waylaid I should say, but I am a big Elvis fan. And I’m not a believer of narrowingly defining who gets to do what. I think we steal from everybody, from everywhere and that’s the nature of humanity, of culture, that is how ideas migrate. That’s how music gets created. That is how food gets created. I don’t want us to be thinking that there’s this way for that person and that way for the other person. I think what’s always been relevant about cultural appropriation is if the black person who writes the song and who performs it better can’t also perform it and can’t get the record deal. I’ve got no problem with white artists doing black music cause I don’t think there’s such a thing as simply, exclusively black music or white music, or Hispanic music. It’s the economics and the power dynamics underneath it which Elvis obviously was part of, but he didn’t create it."

"In Michelle Obama's Netflix documentary "Becoming" her stylist, Meredith Koop, fingers a suit that awaits the first lady turned bestselling author backstage on her book tour. It's pale pink and pimped with diamanté. “She is not a minimalist,” Koop deadpans. “When I look at this suit I do see Elvis and I don’t have a problem with that.” That's nothing. It's followed up in short order in the TV show by Obama's now-infamous turn in gold-sequined Balenciaga thigh boots, and a dress slashed so high that you are left in no doubt that thigh boots are precisely what they are. This isn't mere Elvis style. This is Lady Gaga too."

""One good turn deserves another/Be my love, I'll be your lover/It's all part of nature's laws/If you'll scratch my back, then I'll scratch yours" That's not a poem; it's actually the first stanza of an Elvis Presley song, titled ‘Scratch my back". The phrase, ‘scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ was not coined by the writers of Presley's song, having been in existence way before Presley was even born but what it basically means is that a favour done will be returned, and that nothing goes for nothing."

"When I was at Harvard, and it's the 80s, and I had sort-of come of age with 60s and 70s music, so Elvis wasn't a big interest of mine. And, then in 1983, I listened for the first time to The Sun Sessions, Elvis' earliest work that he did with Sam Phillips. It blew my mind. It was like a drug. I couldn't get enough. It made me go out and buy a guitar. It made me try and play that music. And, in a sense, I've never gotten past that music. I can't get past early Elvis. I appreciate other music, but I'm always drawn back. It's just this energy. What I've always noticed about Elvis is there's nobody more talented, or better looking. He's a rare example of the complete package and he is at the right time. He's got it all. I listen to Elvis nearly every night on Sirius. I love it. Yet, there's always part of me that's very sad that Elvis couldn't have lived to see how great his work was. He was someone who was revered. To see that whole generation come out and play with him and support. And let him know that his work meant something in the American tapestry, but he never got that chance."

"As you know, I died in Chicago. I lost my life and I went to heaven because I was very good and sang very lyrical songs. And I got to talk to God and he said, 'Well, what do you want to do? You can go back and be anyone you want.' So I thought who do I want to be? And I thought, I wanted to be the guy who was the King of Pop, the king of show business, Elvis Presley If there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution. If there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley into becoming Che Guevera. If you don't do that, you're just beating your head against the wall, or the cop down the street will beat your head against the wall. We have to discover where he is, he's the ultimate American artist.""

"He wasn't quite human, looked angelic. Jailhouse Rock is my favourite of his songs because he could turn a really shitty life, in a prison, into something happy"

"She has a taste in music that almost perfectly reflects her style, having been in politics for longer than a large portion of the electorate has been alive, and her musical tastes appear to be just mainstream, contemporary Top 40 radio music. Another large portion of her playlist features Jennifer Lopez, Marc Antony and Juanes. But like her opponent, Clinton also professes a love for the music of her youth, including her being a fan of Elvis Presley,"

"(In fact), Elvis Presley was a fan. I was thrilled by that; I really was. We never know how we affect the people we come in contact with. We cannot decide how it is we affect anybody. It makes me feel wonderful when I feel that it is something I have done that makes them go on."

"There is just too much difficulty for getting radio airplay for my new music. Most every song today is the same chords for maybe 300 bars. But I imagine they said the same thing about us when we were jumping around on Elvis Presley and Little Richard and Fats Domino and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and James Brown. I guess it's all in what you call evolution..."

"O'Keefe was deeply depressed by Elvis Presley's death. He was his idol and O'Keefe would keep telling friends that he would be next. Six days after appearing on the Seven Network Show Sounds (which was a little over a year after Presley's death), O'Keefe passed away from a heart attack."

"I think the best analogy for where we are right now is that America is Elvis Presley... the most beautiful, talented, rebellious nation in the history of Earth. And now, America is wheezing its way through ‘Love Me Tender". But America's still the King.”"

"When political leaders present war as the only solution, it is up to artists to remind people that finding peace is still possible. That is the starting point for a Kosovo-based theatre company, Qendra Multimedia, whose new play returns to the last war in Europe before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and explores how it was stopped.The lesson it draws, and the genre it chooses to present its findings, is unexpected: the diplomacy of peace as a farce, albeit a necessary one. Dramatising roundtable talks between the fictional warring countries of Banovia and Unmikistan, the play is a frenzied comedy in which vain generals can only be lured to the negotiating table by promises of Hollywood films celebrating their actions. Opposing parties get drunk while negotiating demilitarised zones, mix up drafts of ceasefire agreements and sign on the wrong dotted line. Maps of disputed territories are partitioned with paper scissors until holy lands turn into showers of confetti. And yet, at the end of the 90-minute performance, former enemies lock arms to sing Elvis Presley’s Peace in the Valley""

"I don’t like to seem like I’m bragging, but I’m going to ask you a question. Who owns Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Forever 21? and JC Penney? Me!!! My real business is I own 50 brands, So, when I was retiring, I’m looking around, I’m like ‘How does Michael Jackson and all these guys live forever?’ So, one of the chapters in the book, joint venture-ship. So, I called the three companies, seemingly Authentic Brand Group, Simon Property Group, and Brookfield Property Partners and they bought my brand for a lot of money. So, I took half that money, put it back in the company, now I’m the number two guy in the company. I put money back in the company, and now I own all those other brands, so if I ever go away, we still got Elvis."

"Of course, it was hard to get to Elvis because you had to go through Parker. But when I found myself in Las Vegas, in August of 1969 I had a way in and that was through my friend Tom Jones. Tom was friendly with Elvis so he fixed it with Parker that Tom and I could sit close enough to take some photos of him performing on stage. Afterwards I went backstage and met Elvis and he just struck as the best looking man I’d ever seen, even better than the pictures..."

"The first thing he did when he came out in 1955 in Texas, it seemed like he was spitting on the stage. It all affected me like the first time I saw that David Lynch film. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it too. In fact, he was the firstest with the mostest."

"They wanted to kill rock ever since Elvis Presley went into the Army, but the rock chain kept on going, until today."

"As Elvis noted, 'A little less conversation, a little more action, please.'"

"It's hard to pick one, because I love Celia Cruz’s depth, Elvis Presley’s vibrato, Ray Charles’ texture, and Amy Winehouse’ melancholy flow;"

"Pat, then 13 as I was, got the tickets through her mom’s boyfriend who was a captain or something with the St. Louis Police Department. After the show, he asked us if we wanted to go backstage and meet Elvis, Once there, I noticed everyone was trying to get his attention, wanting him to sign things and take his picture, and he would say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ to everyone. No matter how crazy it got, he was unfailingly polite. I like that he didn't at all act like a big shot. The photo with us, once it hit the papers, obviously, was a big hit at my school. People would bring it up to me all the time. When the picture was taken, I happened to have my eyes closed, so all my friends would tease me. They'd say, "You’re in love with Elvis, your eyes are closed" LOL. After graduating from Roosevelt High in 1960, I got a bachelor's degree from Mizzou in 1964, the same year I competed in the Miss Missouri pageant. Though neither of us, Pat and I, were able to follow his entire career, it was all really sad what happened to him. But I just remember how nice he was to us."

"I got a letter from Elvis in 1961, I was 16, and the letter said, “I just want you to know I put "Halfway to Paradise" in my jukebox.” When I finally met him in the ‘70s, I was headlining the Hilton in Las Vegas and was actually following him a week later. I sat with him in his dressing room and then I said, “Let me ask you a question. Do you remember writing a letter to me, saying that you liked "Halfway to Paradise?” And he calls Priscilla into the room, and he said, “Tell Tony what my favourite song is.” And sure enough, it was "Halfway to Paradise","

"In late 1956, at a Buenos Aires railway station where I ended up sleeping my first night after arriving from the provinces, that is when I heard his voice, which caused me shock, fear, but it also generated an artistic purpose on me. It changed my life. ii) Years later, I noticed Peter Rock was the best Latin American Elvis, until I saw Sandro"

"It was at the Forum in LA., in 1974. We were so far up in the nose bleeds it seemed longer to get to our seats than it did for Elvis to do his set. It was an education that gig, It was the first time I had seen merchandising sold so professionally at a venue. He must have been the richest bloke on the planet,."

"I remember watching this guy walk through the door as a regular human being, and the night before he was a master of the stage. That magic that aura, that whatever, he left it on the stage, because when he was with you he was a someone you could talk to, in other words, a very, very nice person."

"I’m telling you, he’s like Elvis. Everyone screams just getting a glimpse of him."

"Me, as a fan of music, I wasn't real sure at first — I wanted to see how it is — but this is something groundbreaking. For me, I would love to see a David Bowie [hologram performance], or I would love to see... maybe not a whole night, but AC/DC with... four songs with Bon Scott. Especially, people I've never seen — Elvis, I'd love to see an Elvis one"

"People talk of his range and power, his ability and ease in hitting the high notes. But the real difference between Elvis and other singers was that he could sing majestically in any style, be it rock, country, or R&B – because he had soul. He sang from the heart. And that is what made him the greatest singer in the history of popular music."

"It was in Vegas in '73 and it was really something to see. They really didn't know what to do with each other. Obviously Elvis was enthralled to be in Ali's presence, but so was Ali, he loved Elvis. Elvis came in to Ali's hotel room with the robe, 'The People's Champ' written on the back in jewels. Ali sees Elvis coming in and says, 'Hey, that's Elvis, man. He looks pretty good!' And both of them looked at each other like good-looking women would look at each other to appraise how they look. At that time, Ali was at the height of his good looks, so this was probably the best-looking black guy and the best-looking white guy on the planet in that room, and they were looking at each other like roosters. 'You look good, Ali.' 'Yeah, you're looking good, Elvis'. So here they are and they really wanted to be friends with, and respected each other and the love was there, but they couldn't quite get as close as they would have liked. But the robe Elvis presented to Ali that night was the only one he ever kept.."

"i) I am doing probably what they were doing up there, which is try to emulate the music I heard coming from America in some shape or form. It's defining coming from America, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly if you like, like in the modes of what (Elvis) Presley was doing and inspiring so many people like Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, all of them. And then accessing the blues and wanting as much to be sort of B.B. King, do you know what I mean? It was this sort of growth, really, of this voracious appetite I had for all things six strings, really. I can see how it manifests across the board. ii) We got to meet Elvis on May 11, 1974. He'd been the one who'd done so much for so many, setting everyone alight and flighting right under the radar with all of this black music, doing numbers by country blues artists like Arthur Crudup and Sleepy John Estes. It was unbelievable. He was one of us. And think about it! He started in 1954 – that was more than ten years before we arrived. It's miraculous that he made it through! He had the hand of God over him, he really did. He was the one that brought it all together. He brought blues and race music to the white culture. Rewinding to 1974, we were invited to see him play and then invited back to a party afterward. We went up to his suite. There was just a few other people. I can tell you we were really nervous when he came in the door. He really moved as naturally cool in real life as he did on film. That wasn't an act, that's just how he really was! It was real cool to us. It was a little awkward at first because his music meant so much to us but then somebody said 'You know that hot rod you drove in the movie 'Loving You'? And that was that everybody just drove into the conversation relaxed and had fun. He was wonderful a fantastic man!!! On this day in 1998, I played at Tupelo, where Elvis was born and raised, when there were no local attractions apart from the cotton fields or getting to Memphis. When Elvis grew up it must have been pretty bleak but the white and black picked the cotton side by side and the local indigenous music provided the soundtrack to this tough environment and it took the visionary genius of Elvis to blend those musical sources and change the world."

"I just obeyed my parents' objections to my continuing to see Elvis, who was two years younger than I was and even asked me to marry him, so I remained with Howard Hughes, whom I had loved for two years inspite of never being alone with him."

"There is perhaps no other person in human history who has been imitated and idolised as much as Elvis. In the face of his omnipresence, how can a performer who is met with the task of portraying Elvis make it feel real? After all, even footage of the actual man can feel uncanny, as if he, too, is yet another impersonator playing up the tropes."

"It was during filming that I remember a particularly special day. Elvis and the assistant directors gathered the whole cast & crew together on set for an important announcement. Elvis was beaming. I remember the anticipation of what he would say, and he stood up on a couple of apple boxes and shared with us all the news that his wife Priscilla was expecting. His famous smile and the glint in his eyes expressed such happiness! Everyone applauded and yelped ‘congratulations!’ Then, Elvis looked over at me among the crowd, pointed, and said, “And I want a little girl just like you!” It was an unbelievably happy moment – I ran over and hugged him..."

"I didn't think much of him when I first met him in Las Vegas in April of 1956 before he was a movie star. After working with him in Jailhouse Rock, I saw a complete different side to his character and then I enjoyed working with him."

"Back in the early days of Storage Wars, Dave Hester happily filled the role of resident baddie, driving folks crazy with his belligerent swagger, always looking to pick a fight or drive up the price of a unit that someone else wanted, even if his only objective was to stick in their craw and get them to lose their cool. But in spite of the rascally overtones, Hester was still a savvy player who did well during his time on the program. The best example of his success came all the way back in the first season, when Hester bought a storage unit that was loaded with newspapers. At first it seemed that all Hester had done was purchase a load of outdated periodicals. But then he discovered that the stash was all from the same day: August 17, 1977. Sound familiar? That's the day after Elvis Presley died. The unit ended up being a gold mine, with the plethora of papers all sporting the King of Rock and Roll's face adding up to a staggering $90,000."

"But the last side, recorded during rehearsals for his 1968 television special, is another treat, as fine and tough and overflowing with heart and soul as any of his 50's recordings. Playing an electric guitar, rather than his customary acoustic model, he traded fluid rhythm and lead parts with Scotty Moore, their interplay almost telepathic. And with his original drummer, D. J. Fontana, stoking the fires, this music moved, from the ferocious version of Rufus Thomas's Sun Records label blues "Tiger Man" to Jimmy Reed blues shuffles, to smoldering New Orleans triplet-style blues-ballads like "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "One Night". This is rock and roll as good as it gets."

"I remember that all my music listening had to be from the single family wireless receiver, which was built like a piece of furniture and took up an entire corner of the front room. It was from this Ekco set that I first heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel". It was a musical epiphany for me. His moody syncopated delivery was astonishing, daring, disrespectful. My father came in while I was listening and he asked, "Something wrong with the set?". He was going to check the valves at the back but I told him that it was Elvis Presley and that he was meant to sound like that."

"Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Elvis Presley has received more than 43,551,804 page views. His biography is available in 160 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 154 in 2019). Elvis Presley is the most popular singer, the 13th most popular biography from United States (up from 15th in 2019) and the most popular American Singer."

"Drinking with my mom, she wanted to know what my jump suits were so i showed her Elvis Pardi!"

"When he turned it on, Elvis sang with the spiritual fervour of one who spoke in tongues, not so much communicating with the listener, as communing. Our continuing fascination with Elvis is a testament to both his charisma and his voice. The details are secondary. To paraphrase the literary critic and poet Al Alvarez, all that matters is that you hear the voice. When this happens, Elvis Presley doesn't just hold a mirror up to nature, he creates an eternal moment, leaving the sound of his voice on the airwaves as distinctly as Leonardo Da Vinci forever fixed the Mona Lisa smile in time."

"JFK, Elvis, Ronald Reagan, John Candy and Donald Trump"

"I've had the luckiest and greatest life you can imagine, like when Elvis Presley turned to me and introduced me to Johnny Cash. Before I knew it, I was standing in between the two legends."

"Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were born two months apart in 1946 into a revolutionary culture that soon would embrace a hip-swiveling crooner named Elvis Presley and Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Basically, everything you need to know about them can be found in these two mid-century icons. A fellow Southerner, Clinton saw himself as Elvis. Even now, his face sometimes betrays Elvis's smoldering glance with the slightly curled lip. Trump, a New York City boy, was Hefner. He collected all the toys of the Playboy lifestyle — boats, planes, cars — the best of everything a guilt-mongering rich boy would seek to glam up his sex appeal. Mar-a-Lago was his Playboy Mansion. All three of his wives have been bunny quality, and Trump Tower isn't just a tall building."

"Come to think of it, Elvis, having black females as background singers might be bad going into southern regional areas, such as Texas.."

"When I was in the Army, I had several buddies get tattoos but I never did. I always told myself if I ever got one it would have to be significant. Well this tattoo is very significant to me in a lot of ways.The “57″ represents my time serving as Missouri’s 57th Governor. Then, as a lifelong Chiefs fan, serving as the 57th Governor when the Chiefs won the 57th Super Bowl was a welcomed bonus, and the lightning bolt is a tribute to my love of Elvis Presley and his motto of “taking care of business in a flash.”"

"The news I could bring is that I met up with The King"

"I don't know of anybody that doesn't like Elvis or heard anybody say, ‘Oh, I don’t like his singing.’ Everybody loved Elvis, and I just think that's incredible. He was so different in every way — his voice, his style, the way he moved, the way he looked. He just had this charm and charisma and a lot of sex appeal. Elvis loved my song I Will Always Love You.'. In fact, I talked to Priscilla Presley not very long ago and she said to me, 'You know, Elvis sang that song to me when we walked down the courthouse steps when we got divorced. He was singing to me I Will Always Love You.'""

"He was remembered as an ambassador who had a hand in the Redbirds moving from Louisville to Memphis, the building of AutoZone Park, and by extension, the Grizzlies' move from Vancouver to Memphis. He made Memphis sports what it is. He's the guy. What Elvis Presley did, that's what he did."

"As with the first time we stepped into this amazing world — it is the extraordinary intimacy of Elvis's vocal performances that is truly breathtaking, the exquisite and effortless way he takes us on an emotional journey with him, through delicate sensitivity to power and grace all within a magical 3-minute song. You can't imagine how often we heard these songs during the course of this project but I can honestly tell you that every single time Don Reedman and I played each song it really did feel as if we were listening to a private performance held just for us in our own home. Our home is the Abbey Road studio and we were listening to the greatest artist that ever lived."

"I love Elvis, the whole Elvis story, who he is, where he came from. I mean, I've been to his (childhood) house in Tupelo, I've been to his teenage residence in Memphis, that (Lauderdale Courts) public housing apartment. I mean, he was so frickin' cool."

"Whether one is an Elvis fan or not there is no doubting that no church in Grimsby or any other town, possibly, has ever seen anything like it before, the most moving and joyful service I have ever officiated at. Some people used to think rock and roll was the devil's music but Elvis was a devout Christian."

"Designer Peter Blake worked with The Beatles to stage the cover of the "Sgt. Pepper's" album, which was filled with life-size cardboard likenesses of famous figures including Mae West, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Edgar Allen Poe, Fred Astaire, Sonny Liston, Dylan Thomas, Laurel and Hardy and Karl Marx. John Lennon even requested the inclusion of Hitler and Jesus in the artwork, but he was turned down. (As to) Elvis, he did not appear on the album cover because it was felt by the Beatles he was too big an icon to be included."

"I went in, in 1957, and was soon stationed in Germany with Elvis Presley and Gary Crosby – Bing Crosby's son. We were there so I said why don't we start a band, so we didn't have to do any hard work in the service. We tried to get Elvis to join us and I used to see him every day but he wanted to get away from music for a while, while he was in the service. So me and Gary Crosby, we started it and called ourselves the Jazz Blues Symphony Band. As to hearing people talk about Elvis having racial tendencies, that was a lie...."

"I love his voice"

"Living with my parents in Rapid City, S.D, I was 14 or 15, and Elvis Presley coming to town. This was a month or two before he died. I witnessed women throwing everything onstage -- everything that goes with an Elvis show. It was fascinating.""

"By the early 1960s, only half of the total goal of $500,000 had been raised, so journalists from Hawaii reached out to newspapers across the country for support. Elvis Presley was inspired, and decided to put on a show in remembrance of the men aboard the Arizona and veterans as a whole. There were 4000 available seats for the show, 100 VIP ringside seat tickets which sold for $100 apiece. Using values adjusted for inflation, a VIP ticket cost nearly $800, in 2016 dollars. All of the profits were to be used for the construction of the USS Arizona Memorial. Over 3000 people greeted Elvis upon his arrival at Honolulu International Airport. The concert alone raised $52,000, which was 17% of the total goal for the memorial. While it wasn't enough to completely fund the construction, the performance spread awareness about the fundraiser with an additional $10,000 being personally donated by Elvis and Colonel Parker. Today, people visiting the Arizona Memorial can see the plaque that thanks Elvis and his fans for their contributions to the monument, which was dedicated and built over the next year. The Arizona Memorial today is a symbol of the men aboard the USS Arizona who now stand eternal watch. Attracting over a million visitors annually, the Arizona Memorial makes for an exciting morning of activities...."

"I predict that Elvis Presley's star will fall as quickly as it rose..."

"Our last Mississippi destination was a major reason for my trip South. I told Bob I wanted to see the boyhood home of Elvis Presley in the small town of Tupelo, the singer’s Bethlehem. The humble birthplace had been preserved. Then as now there stands a two-room shotgun shack without indoor plumbing or running water. Bob and I were told by our guide that Jackson Browne and actress Patricia Neal had been quite recently to Elvis’s Tupelo home. “We get people from Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain. Some are fans, some aren’t who are on a tour package. On an icy day we’ll still have 10 or 20 diehards who push through and make it. In summer 1987 I came out of the ladies’ room and I did a double-take,” said our guide. Elvis the Pelvis was standing in the gift shop. “Except for his Australian accent, I couldn’t tell the difference.” And another story. “We had a guy once who came in with black shoes covered with white polish and wearing lots of jewelry. He said, ‘I’m Elvis. Do you have any mail for me?. Anyways, Bob was, though much agonized, portraying a straight man. He never indicated otherwise during our trip through Mississippi. It was years later that, choking, he came out to me: “What would you think if I told you I was gay?” “I wouldn’t think anything,” I answered. “Who cares?” It took more years for him to totally believe me. My final visit with Bob was in Iowa where he’d taught, where he was dying of cancer but surrounded, happily, with cute young men. I well remember you, my fellow Mississippian."

"Maybe you've heard or seen of him, a country star whose striking accessories -- not to mention his acrobatic voice, are evocative of Elvis."

"I played trombone for Elvis in 1972, on many of his tours that year. In a technical sense – air, attack, tone, key and rhythm, yes he was very very good. He had great gut instincts, tremendous talent and abilities and was not shy about saying what he wanted or when he thought that something was wrong or could be done better. But more important than that is the fact he was an entertainer. He understood his role and knew how to move an audience. His phrasing an expression showed talent that was natural"

"In America, Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King have wonderful memorial museums..."

"It was the era of Elvis Presley..... It was my youth"

"Roald Dahl and Stephen King are my Elvis Presley and my Beatles'"

"In the 1962 film "Kid Galahad", Presley portrayed a young man just out of the Army, training to be a prizefighter. He was helped on set by boxing trainer Al Silvani and former welterweight champion “Mushy” Callahan. Since the film's release, the location has drawn Presley fans from around the globe. Real estate broker Robin Oates was one of 50 Idyllwild Elementary School students who were extras. He remembers meeting Presley at age 11 and recalls that it was a “big thrill, pulling three or four kids out of our school and have us for the day. We’d go into one of the local restaurants that the film crew rented. Elvis and others from the film crew would throw a football in the street nearby during breaks. One time, several of us were told to stand in a certain area. Then, he appeared out of nowhere and gave us each an autograph. At night, fans would hang out in front of the house where he was staying. In 2016, 54 years after the movie was shot there, visitors continue to come on tour say, from the UK, to see the lodge. Bob Smith, volunteer archivist with Idyllwild Area Historical Society, escorted them. “It was a pilgrimage,” says Smith, with a smile."

"Although I played no role in those sessions, I was called on for another service. Chips said, ‘Dan, bring your camera down.’ So I took shots of Elvis and the musicians. People are amazed I didn’t say anything to him but what would I have said? ‘Hey, you’re as pilled up as me?"

"The moment the MC mentioned that Elvis had left the building, Ann Marie Royer, my then girlfriend who was a nurse from St Vincent's Hospital in Worcester, MA, insisted that we stay, as it occurred to her that Elvis, who she had not been a fan of before the concert, had to come back for an encore. He had to, she said. It didn't matter how many times I told her he wasn't coming back, but since I was actually driving her car, I reluctantly, albeit diplomatically, agreed we stay until she finally gave in and that was the moment she realized we were the last two people still in the building, out of the 16,200 who had seen Elvis' show at the Boston Garden on the night of November 10, 1971. She had become a fan, at least for a wwhile..."

"It was precisely the creation of my chocolat Eiffel Tower, when I was 21, that led me first to Paris, then to Frankfort, in Germany. There I met Catalina Liz, a Spaniard in whose cafeteria I worked, and which was visited several times by Elvis Presley, then with the US Army. He loved my pastries, really."

"This boy had everything. He had the looks, the moves, the manager, and the talent. And he didn't look like Mr. Ed like a lot of the rest of us did. In the way he looked, way he talked, way he acted – he really was different. We have sadly lost the most popular man to have ever walked on this earth since Christ. But even back then, when people would laugh at his sideburns and his pink coat and call him 'sissy' -- he had a pretty hard road to go. In some areas motorcycle gangs would come to the shows. They would come to get Elvis, but he never worried about it. He went right out and did his thing and before the show was over, they were standing in line to get his autograph too. God intended for Elvis Presley to do what he allowed him to do. That's why he made him so good looking. I used to get close to him, tried to find a fault so I could go out and tell the world that he had a big mole back here, but, nah, he had no mole back there. Rock and roll is where it is today because the front door of this studio was opened and that kid walked in here and moved an awesome mountain that sat in the way for people like me who might never have gotten anywhere. And he was my friend.."

"I felt there was a man there who truly cared about people. But his life was on a level that my life was not on. I felt like Phillip Dunne [director] fawned all over Elvis. Elvis' attitude was – I saw Elvis looking around that set and summing up people faster than anyone else could have, and I felt that after a short period of time he was disappointed in Phillip Dunne, but he was too polite and well behaved to say anything. He tried very hard to make this film better than his other movies, and you saw him trying and asking questions. And I just believe the sad thing is that [the director] did not have the ability to help Elvis through it. I remember one scene; we were sitting in the truck, and we were supposed to be driving home from a dance or going to a dance, and in the script he was supposed to break into song, turn on the radio and start singing. And to me it was like "yuk," I was very young and I thought, " my sisters are going to tease me, this is so embarrassing and tasteless." You see, I was a snob, too. But – and this was the nicest thing – while we were rehearsing, finally the director walked away, and Elvis looks at me and says, "God, this is so embarrassing. Nobody would ever do this in real life. Why are they making me do this? He never used his star power – never. Maybe he should have. Maybe he did it on some level, but he sure didn't do it on the set. I felt like he was younger than me, this very humble person who would make statements that he believed in. All I know is that there was a person there with a refined heart and soul, and I say refined on any level you want to look at it. When you meet someone like that, you know they're there,The essence of Elvis was a fine person as I've ever met."

"Elvis Presley released hundreds of records throughout a career that spanned slightly more than two decades. He also starred in thirty-one feature films and two documentaries. He was photographed throughout his career, and images of him on film are part of the American visual experience. However, he only sat for one portrait painter, Ralph Wolfe Cowan"

"I don't like that. I mean, I could understand if I was Elvis Presley."

"You couldn't take your eyes off of him.""

"The day I met him is permanently etched in my brain for several reasons. You see, it was November 19, 1970 - my birthday. So I was feeling in a jovial, festive mood and I told my wife I was going to give myself a present that day. I was going to goof off for the entire day..I left her in charge of the limo I used, and my parting words to her were "Unless it's a dire emergency I don't want to hear from anyone.." A few hours later the beeper sounded ..'You're working tonight for someone you won't turn down....Elvis Presley." I rushed back to town, put on my chauffeur's uniform and headed for LAX. He came off the plane and my instantaneous thought was that he was the most charming and gracious person. We hadn't travelled many miles on my limo when Elvis, with his marvellous sense of humour, hearing my British accent decided to call me Sir Gerald. And from that moment on, for all the years I drove two pf his Mercedes 600 and his last Rolls Royce, I was always Sir Gerald to him"

"I was in love with Elvis Presley and I wanted him to be in "A star is born" so Barbra and I flew up to Vegas and we met with him. Parker didnt agree. Later, after the movie was shown, Priscilla Presley called me and said he wanted to see it on opening day, which he did, and that he cried that he didn't do it..."

"He phoned me and asked me if I would mind if he recorded 'The Wonder of You.' I said, 'You don't have to ask permission; you're Elvis Presley.' He said, 'Yes, I do. You're Ray Peterson."

"I'd never thought much about rock 'n' roll until that moment, when I both caught the Elvis fever and kicked off my love of music. And I never got rid of it. There was a huge crowd, the biggest crowd I've ever seen in the streets of Ocala and then, I swear to God, a line of white Cadillacs pulled in, and I was standing up on a box to see over everyone's head, because a big roar started up when the cars pulled in. Guys in mohair suits began bounding out of each car. Is that Elvis?, I muttered every time. He finally stepped out radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I'd ever seen in my life. At 50 yards, we were stunned by what this guy looked like, and then he came walking right towards uncle Earl, aunt Ellen and little old me!!! I still don't know, to this day, what he said to us, because I was just too dumbfounded. And then he went into his trailer. The day after, I learned all of those early Elvis songs and having that kind of background in rock 'n' roll, of where it had come from, has served me to this day. It became an invaluable thing to have. So for that, I thank him."

"Fany was his country's most famous and finest guitarist. In 1946, he moved to the Republic of South Africa as a migrant miner, recorded with Miriam Makeba, his guitar work not matched there either. Known as the Elvis Presley of the Marrabenta style he is credited with expanding on it with modern influences from Johannesburg."

"His face darkened into a frown, but he managed to finish 'All Shook Up'. Then with his eyes flashing, he pointed to Scotty Moore and addressed the crowd. "He got egg on his guitar, Whoever threw that will never make the Yankeesǃǃ" After a moment's pause, which did not cool his ire, he again faced the crowd 'Most of you people came here to enjoy the show, the guy who threw the egg will never make it. I mean it, Jack, we're just trying to put on a nice show'. The guilty were William Quinn 20, from New York,William B Oates, 21 of Brooklyn, James Stark, 20 of Greenport, New York and John Eidt, 20 of New York City, and they spent the night in jail."

"So often in the careers of great men and women of history, there came a point in time where they were told their talents were not sufficient to realize their dreams. In the case of Elvis Presley, these words came early and often. But by the end of the 1950'a he was a musical phenomenon who electrified millions of attendees at his live performances. Until his untimely death in 1977, Elvis had an indisputable role in creating the modern American musical landscape and the development of a unique youth culture. Elvis' importance to the inception of rock and roll, and contemporary music as a whole, cannot be overstated, his image transcending the categories of the music he played and the movies he starred in to become a cornerstone of modern pop culture. Depicted in every material form imaginable, his estate at Graceland remains a pilgrimage site for fans of his music. In February of 1961, at a charity luncheon and concert arranged by the record company with the Governor of Tennessee present, RCA Records presented him with a plaque commemorating the 75 million records he had sold worldwide, the first artist in history to reach this impressive milestone. Accompanying this plaque, RCA Records also gifted Elvis with an 18-karat white gold and diamond Omega wristwatch, purchased by them at Tiffany & Co. The concert itself was an immense success, raising $51,612 (close to a half a million in 2018 dollars) for various charities. Sometime in 1962, the watch was exchanged by Presley to the current owner's uncle after the latter had expressed his admiration for the timepiece during a chance meeting inside a lounge at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. We are proud and thrilled to present, for auction, what once belonged to the man who simply said, in response to questions regarding his popularity, "All I do is sing and dance a little." It is, without a doubt, a superb vintage timepiece with one of the most fascinating provenances to ever appear on the world auction market."

"Get yasself a wheelbarrow load of mad hogs, run ’em through the front door, and tell ’em Phillips sentcha. This is Red Hot and Blue comin’ atcha from the magazine floor of the Hotel Chisca. And now we got somethin' new gonna cut lost, DEE-GAWWWW! cut LOOSE! Good people, this is Elvis Presley"

"Elvis? He was great, a real natural guy..."

"Society, Lord Byron predicted, will eventually narrow into two tribes, “the Bores and Bored.” If so, maybe Elvis should shoulder some blame. The illusion of consensus found in the title of his 1959 collection “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong” — a “customer is always right” moment for pop music — suggests a broad democratic crowd, immune to second-guessing. But not even Elvis would have believed that. Today, the title has been parodied so much — self-deprecatingly (Blues Traveler's “1,000,000 People Can’t Be Wrong”), hubristically (“100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong”) — that whatever truth it once contained in Elvis- case is buried beneath geological layers of cynicism."

"But what struck me most was his quality of genuine humility – humility mixed with intense determination. He was, innately, one of the most introverted people who had ever come into the studio, but for that reason one of the bravest, too. He reminded me of many of the great early blues singers who had come to SUN, in fact his insecurity was so markedly like that of a black person. On July 5, 1954, he sang everything he knew – pop stuff, spirituals, just a few words of [anything] he remembered. He watched me intently through the glass of the control room window – I was no longer taping, and in almost every respect this session had to be accounted a dismal failure, but still there was something. Every so often he looked up at me, as if for approval: was he doing all right? I just nodded and said "You're doing just fine. Now just relax. Let me hear something that really means something to you now." Soothing, crooning, my gaze locked into his. Finally they decided to take a break. It was late, he was clearly discouraged, and everybody had to work the next day. Maybe, I thought, they ought to just give it up for the night, come back on Tuesday and try again. Scotty and Bill were sipping Cokes, not saying much of anything. I was doing something in the control room and, as Elvis explained it afterwards, "this song popped into my mind that I had heard years ago, and I started kidding around with [it]. It was an up-tempo song called "That's All Right, Mama", an old blues number by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. "All of a sudden," said Scotty, "Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. I think I had the door to the control booth open so I stuck my head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And they said, 'We don't know'. 'Well, back up,' I said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'"

"I just love Elvis' singing. And I am his biggest fan"

"Elvis came by the "Memphis Funeral Home" often, our employees all new him, and he would even sing for service. I also remembered the time Elvis buying a new Lincoln for a mother and her children who would walk by the local dealership often just to eyeball the cars. The young mother, as she walked out of the showroom, asked the salesman, “Was that Jesus?". I never met a more humble man than Elvis but what made him so special to me was I got to know him. I guess he was the most famous person I’ve helped bury, and I’ve buried thousands over 60 plus years."

"Forty years ago, I had the privilege of studying for a doctorate, at this same university, where you and your wife studied law and I still feel nostalgic about Harvard, about Elvis Presley, about Edgar Allan Poe, and about Martin Luther King. So I toast to you, Mr. President."

"I would go on a minute's notice. I love Elvis Presley,"

"I had successfully shoved all those fantastic automob iles to the back of my mind and had curtailed ‘‘if only’s’ to a passing moment of idle retrospection until I was looking at the autographs on the Autographs Ink stand at the Memorabilia show and realised that if I had kept the cars and had the foresight to have an autograph book handy throughout my career I would be heading into the sunset with my future assured. For instance Elvis Presley. His moniker changes hands at a cool couple of grand and upwards. In 1960 and 1961 was in a karate dojo with him in LA and even got to do a kata or two with him at his home in Perugia Way. And I had a morale advantage over him. He kicked me on the chest once and was terribly apologetic. That was the time when I should have moved in on him and demanded a couple of dozen signatures. In fact, why didn't I whack a load of 10" X 8" in front of him and say “Sign”. LOL"

"Once upon a time, all we knew about Elvis was that he sang like a motherfucker; and that was all that mattered; you know, when you gas up and you go to pay inside the gas station and you hear Elvis singing Surrender, (1961), you know that the mystery of that guy, was everything; the voice, and the mystery, and the not knowing; and I think the great thing about anything that you hear over the waves is, you don't want to know too much, you know?"

"After I won my first Masters in 1961, I received an invitation telegram from Elvis. A telegram, not as easy as a text is today. We were playing in Los Angeles and I went to the set of ‘Blue Hawaii’ where Elvis was finalizing the filming. He saw me walk in the room and yelled ‘CUT!’ The gentleman he was, Elvis went and put a jacket before he came to shake my hand. Elvis was just starting to play golf and asked for a few swing tips. He gave me a practice swing, and I swear, it was like a cow giving birth to a roll of barbwire. So, I adjusted his grip and told him he really had to use his hips during the downswing. He said, ‘Baby, you’re talking to the right man.’ And gave us all a little shake. Memories are the cushions on life, but what a gentleman he was. He was my age, yet died so young, a tragedy, a man who could give EVEN so much MORE to society."

"A grade schooler in western Kentucky when Elvis came on the scene, I had grown up with his music and movies. When his tragic death occurred in August of 1977, I was a young pastor in middle Tennessee. The following Sunday, my sermon was titled “Heartbreak Hotel.” That morning I shared my grief with many others. Elvis was the type of person such that many who had never seen him in person felt they knew him — personally. Some folks will declare with deep conviction that Elvis led many people astray and that he is burning in hell. Others are just as strongly convinced that, by God's grace and a faith he sang and spoke of, he is in heaven. Daring not to judge or speculate, I can simply hope that he is in heaven. I have no answer to whether there will be concerts in heaven, but the Bible makes it clear that there will be plenty of singing."

"Elvis Presley has been described variously as a baritone and a tenor. An extraordinary compass- the so-called register-, and a very wide range of vocal color have something to do with this divergence of opinion. The voice covers two octaves and a third, from the baritone low-G to the tenor high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat. Presley's best octave is in the middle, D-flat to D-flat, granting an extra full step up or down. Call him a high baritone. In "It's'now or never", (1960), he ends it in a full voice cadence (A, G, F), that has nothing to do with the vocal devices of R&B and Country. That A-note is hit right on the nose, and it is rendered less astonishing only by the number of tracks where he lands easy and accurate B-flats. Moreover, he has not been confined to one type of vocal production. In ballads and country songs he belts out full-voiced high G's and A's that an opera baritone might envy. He is a naturally assimilative stylist with a multiplicity of voices – in fact, Elvis' is an extraordinary voice, or many voices."

"Growing up, Elvis Presley's quasi-gospel ballad "Crying in the Chapel" was the first secular recording allowed inside their strict "Church of God in Christ" home in West Oakland, California. Ruth, Anita, Bonnie, and June were only allowed to listen to the radio on Sundays and on top of that, it had to be gospel stations. Years later, Anita, reflected on the fact that it was "so unbelievable that someone like Elvis Presley could relate to the story in their song 'Fairytale' and want to record it". She thought Elvis "did it beautifully and was very pleased with his version, capturing the emotion in the song", as he did. Ruth "also spoke positively of Elvis's final album 'Moody Blue' and defended him against charges of any cultural appropriation""

"One of Elliott's properties is the Rail Haven Inn/Best Western. at 203 S. Glenstone Ave., which has a unique room — one that attracts travelers from out-of-state as well as locals. It's the Elvis Room — where a 21-year-old Elvis Presley stayed in 1956 after a performance at Springsfield's Shrine Mosque. As far as anyone knows, the room suffered no damage."

"Think of Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland- It was once just a house, now it’s a shrine."

"When I was a kid, we moved from Canada to the US, first to Pasadena, then to Palm Springs. This guy who lived across the street was the PS's airport manager and he really liked us, so he’d tip us off when famous people were flying in. One day, he told us Elvis Presley was flying in at 3 p.m. and if we showed up we could meet him. He let us ride with our bikes on the tarmac and then, this private plane landed, the steps came down and... there was Elvis. We ran towards him and he picked me up and swung me around, hugged my sister, signed autographs, and talked to us. Finally, one of his guys told him they had to go, but as they drove off, he rolled down his window and waved goodbye to us all the way down the road. He was so nice, really cool and it was so great to meet him and shake his hand.."

"The emergent cultural wars between Mexico and the US over rock 'n' roll, however, took a dramatic turn on 19 February 1957 when a comment gleaned from an alleged border interview with Elvis Presley appeared in Mexico's largest newspaper, "Excelsior", in which the rock 'n' roll star was quoted as saying, "I'd rather kiss three black girls than a Mexican." Two days later, a Mexican woman was quoted in the same column as saying, "I'd rather kiss three dogs than one Elvis Presley." At first unnoticed by the public at large, this exchange soon unleashed a torrent of anti-Presley criticism, his records were burnt at the Zocalo, and he was denied radio airplay, all of which while sustaining a powerful backlash against Presley and the mass media itself. Most people now dismiss the remark as completely false, some even attributing it to an act of political vengeance against him. In fact, it had been started by a high-up Mexican tycoon who wanted to contract Presley for a private birthday party, for which he sent him a blank check to fill in as he wished. Presley, according to the story, returned the blank check, so the tycoon, extremely offended, and with the help of a top politician, invented the storyline about Elvis not liking Mexican women."

"Once a year Parkes, a sleepy mining town in rural Australia, explodes into colour and song hosting a five-day festival and extravaganza to celebrate Elvis Presley, now billed as the southern hemisphere’s biggest tribute to the superstar. The town’s transformation extends beyond this year’s Parkes Elvis Festival generating A$13 million (US$9.3 million) for the local economy as more than 27,000 people visited to attend some 200 themed events. "It’s helped the whole economy", noted Parkes Motel owner Andrew Porter of the frenzied growth in tourists. The New South Wales state government is projecting an injection of Aus $43 million (US̩30.6 million) into the wider region surrounding Parkes this year due to the festival, a much-needed source of income amid a severe drought as the event has helped develop Parkes' service economy – and its numbers. This extends to the sporting field with another regular fixture – a rugby game – featuring teams with players wearing copies of his trademark white jumpsuit. The population has increased by four percent to around 12,000 in the past decade, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in sharp contrast to the declining or static trend in other regional and rural towns. Inspired by the Parked Elvis Festival huge success, other small towns have started their own events such as the ABBAFestival in nearby Trundle and the Bob Marley Festival in Kandos, said University of Wollongong Human Geography expert Chris Gibson, who has compiled a database of some 2,800 festivals across the country..."

"Steve Sholes, who produced the session, said, “Roll the tape.” And I said, “But I haven't heard the song yet!” And he said, “Roll the tape, Bill!” and I look and the studio is totally black out there. I can't see a thing. I said, “You're kidding!” He said, “No, roll the tape!”. So, I roll the tape and I don't know what's going to happen. And a guitar starts off, and then a bass comes in, and Elvis starts singing. And I still can't see a thing in the studio. And I'm afraid to turn any mikes off because somebody may come in and start playing. All of a sudden, Elvis stops singing and just starts talking. And I say to myself, “This is awful!” because you don't normally put a lot of echo on dialogue. And I thought, next take I'll just turn it down, so we just did the take all the way through. If you listen to the dialogue, the echo matches the effect, because he says, “And the stage is bare, and I'm standing there…”. Later, I said, “How about that echo?”. Sholes said, “Screw the echo, that's a hit!”. And it was done in one take..."

"This was a white kid in the 1950s going on Beale Street, learning from masters of black music like Roy Hamilton, Jackie Wilson and others. He was different, interesting, but not something you felt the magnitude of at first – not until you heard Dewey Phillips playing 'That's All Right' on [his radio show] 'Red, Hot & Blue'. Hearing what he was doing, singing black music with a confidence and a uniqueness, made me and other African-American talents say, 'This guy has something'. And he did! We felt that maybe he was opening up a market that had been not fully opening up to black music, breaking down barriers to a greater appreciation of what black music truly was. That opened up more doors for artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Brook Benton and so many others. We felt that maybe he was opening up a market that had been not fully opening up to black music, breaking down barriers to a greater appreciation of what black music truly was. That opened up more doors for artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Brook Benton and so many others. He was soulfully expressing the songs with an r'n'b flair, showing what black music was through his perspective. What Elvis did for me was cement in my mind the great potential reach of r'n'b and soul music. The credibility that he bought to it, whether he viewed it that way or not, doesn't matter, because this was the net result. What Elvis did for me was cement in my mind the great potential reach of r'n'b and soul music. The credibility that he bought to it, whether he viewed it that way or not, doesn't matter, because this was the net result.This documentary gives the complete picture of the person, his greatness, some of his secrets, some of his ups, some of his downs and an abundance of his power. And people would love to see how much of a production role Elvis had in the music that he made. It was a real honor for us at Stax Records, for [Elvis] to record there. He was as soulful as anyone. He was amazing at whatever he chose to do."

"I think Elvis was just a beautiful singer He had the swag. He had the sauce."

"The 21st century is beginning to see (and hear) things differently, though, and many of us now take a broader view of Caruso's art and achievement (and thus) when Ben Watt compares the great tenor with Elvis Presley is a sign of more enlightened times. The digital age gives us unfettered access to the whole of music, unfiltered by snobbery and tradition, and perhaps Caruso can be released from the stale old classical ghetto. In his time, he was indeed as good as Elvis."

"I'm customized to do everything I shouldn't do, I've learned all that I know by stubbornness and (the) blue I got my schooling more or less on the street, My eyes have seen a thing or two. And though my heart has made me weary,I like everything about you, yes I do, yes I do, yes I do, yes. I like the way you look, the way that you talk I like the way that you move when you walk, My mind is set on you,My pelvis is on fire And I can't shake it off"

"Elvis was a (Gospel) singer par excellence. On "Milky White Way", (1960), he' got the strength of a bassman and the sweetness of a tenor. The heritage we have in Elvis' gospel music is a gift to the world."

"There was a real threat of danger, a cold war with an iron curtain and there was a Soviet army stacked up on the other side, so those were serious times. He was just another soldier, he was Elvis Presley but at the same time they assigned him in accordance with the needs of the service and unlike others who have gone in the military from celebrity life and essentially used their talents to entertain troops, he was a scout. Despite living in a house "off post", when it came to the field Elvis Presley was not a celebrity and I think his fellow soldiers respected him for his dedication even though he was as famous as he was. When I met him, he was out in the field and he was recognized for his professional performance in the Third Division which I, interestingly, subsequently commanded 28 years later and it occupied the shallowest part of NATO battle front. Elvis' unit and my unit were in that division and we had the toughest job and it was a time of heightened tension. Anyway, we were in this wooded area and I was driving along in my jeep and somebody noted that, there he was. When I walked over to him he saluted and was very proper and what struck me was that he looked just like another GI. Other than the fact that he was REALLY Elvis Presley, he acted, and I saw him, as just another soldier, in the woods, kind of dirty, doing a job...""

"The Denver Zoo hopes that 11-year-old polar bear, Cranbeary may be expecting. But to be sure, staff sent a sample of her poop to an expert at predicting polar bear pregnancies – Elvis, a beagle working with the Cincinnati Zoo. It is nearly impossible to determine if polar bears are pregnant through traditional tests, so zoos are trying this new approach. Denver Zoo is one of 17 zoos with possibly-pregnant polar bears that have gathered up samples for Elvis to examine. Elvis has a 97 percent success rate in determining polar bear pregnancy and we are anxiously waiting to find out if Cranbeary the polar bear might become a momma bear this year!"

"As to Elvis, some experts believe that the release of music he did not approve in life can reward his fans, but at the same time could end up hurting his legacy over the long term. While alive, he almost always only released music he thought was great but after his death, many of the songs he thought were not, were released on new albums. This is one reason many artists prefer to keep their material under wraps forever."

"i) When you got the last name Presley everybody's gonna get the question, are you related to Elvis? Well, my granddaddy and Elvis' granddaddy were brothers. In fact mine carried Elvis and Gladys down to visit Vernon, his daddy, at the state penitentiary, when he did a little time for altering a check. ii) Mississippi is proud of Elvis. I think his story was a story of somebody that started off with nothing"

"I would continue to do the Elvis Presley show because it is something that's been in my life for years and I won't let it down,"

"Baby let's play house" and "Don't be cruel"

"It hit home when I turned 42 as that was the age when my father died. I have moments when I wish he had lived to see my children, and I speak to my little ones about him. I tell them who he was and we all love his music."

"i) I still find myself captivated by many of Elvis's songs, his style of translating lyrics with music giving the listener the sense that even though he's singing, he's speaking his feelings and living them throughout the song. When I listen to “Don’t,” which he recorded when he was only 22-years-old, I can't imagine anyone else singing this heartfelt song with such an emotional connection to the words. ii)his taste was so diverse. Yes, country, rhythm and blues, black music, but he also loved opera and Bach and Brahms. By setting his vocals in a pop-classical context, I wanted to expose him in a way that he never had the opportunity to — wanted to, but never was able to..."

"After what seemed to be an eternity, a baby boy was born, dead. I was desolate at the loss of our child. But then my father put his hand on my wife’s stomach and announced, ‘Vernon, there’s another baby her. At the time Elvis was born, medicine hadn’t advanced far enough for a doctor to predict twins, so his arrival took us completely by surprise. Gladys and I were so proud of Elvis and enjoyed him so much that we immediately wanted more children. But, for reasons no doctor could understand, we had none after him."

"Elvis laughed, cried, worried about people. He had a generous streak as long as the mighty Mississippi and delighted in being able to help people. He could be angry, funny, sad or happy, just like everyone else. He had all these little traits just like other people, but he was a lot more too. He became a part of our lives and even with his closely guarded privacy, he drew us into his life so willingly and lovingly that he was, in fact, a part of each and every one of us. He made us sing because of his songs, he made us cry at every pain, either mental or physical that he bore, he made us laugh at every little grin he gave, but most of all, he made us love because he gave us love. He gave us himself and asked us for nothing in return."

"I was about 10 years old, the first time I heard Elvis Presley's voice, pouring from my father's car radio, in East St. Louis, Illinois; I can't recall the song, whether it was a ballad or a rocker (but), what I remember is how his voice, that smoldering rumble of a voice, made my skin tingle; I don't know why, but I just loved his voice, his sound just did something to me."

"Elvis recorded “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and, at every show, he played it. The Beatles, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Fats Domino, James Brown —all the big acts who have ever recorded rock ‘n’ roll at one time recorded it. It was the first rock ‘n’ roll song that made me a teenage idol with both blacks and whites. In 1952, it was called race music. What opened the gate here in America for race music was that generation of young white boys and girls, but when Elvis got in, he opened the door that much wider. In fact, all the chords are the same, they're not black and white, unless it's on paper. The music and melodies never change."

"He was breathtaking, really, it was very difficult to focus.."

"i) I realize I'm part of a musical history and I revere the legacy of my predecessors, so, for instance, when playing live I'll do some of their bombs, or say, we play "Jailhouse Rock" as a tribute to Elvis. So why Elvis you ask? Well, I was brought up in a black and white world. I dig black and white; night and day, rich and poor, man and woman. I listen to all kinds of music and I want to be judged on the quality of my work, not on what I say, nor on what people claim I am, nor on the color of my skin. ii) I met Elvis Presley at the Dick Clark show at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, a place where a great musical extravaganza with some of the greatest artists of the day always would appear. We were sitting in the audience and Jackie Wilson had just finished his set and then Dick Clark came out, but before he introduced the next act he wanted to announce someone special had arrived, "Ladies and Gentlemen" The lights went down and all of a sudden spotlights went to the back of the room. I looked around and it was Elvis, He was looking cool and wearing shades. He snatched his shades off as if saying "Hello Everybody!, then came walking down the aisle to his table and he saw Louise, stopped said "Hi Louise. Hi Nikki" and they started talking. I stood up and he said "Hi." I said "Hi, I'm Pepe. It's nice to meet you." I shook his hand. He said something else to Louise, and then said "See you later" and went to his table. By the time I was in Las Vegas, I had already met tons of celebrities-- Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, Dionne Warwick and Wayne Newton. I also met Ike and Tina Turner. I drank champagne with Adam Clayton Powell and I met Redd Foxx but, when I saw Elvis, I said, now that man's a star. It was a different kind of thing.""

"We've come up with a different style in this album. Elvis' “Can’t Help Falling in Love” is a perfect “wedding song” that was somewhat difficult to adapt, but we wanted a new generation to feel it the bachata way."

"The Prince de Galles has counted among its guests Winston Churchill, Marlene Dietrich Elvis Presley and Pele to name but a few of the long list. It is located in Avenue George V, and it's the eastern neighbour of the Hotel George V. – named after the King of England, who, as we all know, was the father of the Prince of Wales. The two hotels, however, bear no family relationship..."

"( That night) after eleven o'clock, Tony Prince took over on ( Radio) Luxembourg. Dazed, frequently in tears, just quietly playing Elvis records and reminiscing into the small hours, as long as it took him to negotiate his grief. The world stopped for a little while. Not long afterwards, it was time for me to return to school, for the start of my third year, when we were supposed to start taking this education thing seriously. There was some gentle mocking on the part of my classroom peers over Elvis' passing, and it struck me that, for nearly everyone my age (or so it seemed), Elvis didn't speak for them, or to them. It's fair to say that the girls in my class tended to like Abba, Boney M, ELO and David Soul, whereas the boys went for Genesis, Queen, AC/DC and Rush. Elvis was somebody your parents liked, regarded as something of a square. I am not sure whether any of these artists came close to sniffing Elvis shoes, never mind filling them, and in any case nor could they have done; as only Elvis could have unbolted the door, made the impact on life – not just on music – that he did. If the postwar generation wanted to burn, not just forget, “the war,” and not grow up as robotic replicas of their parents, Elvis was the active agent who forced newness through to that society." ii) When in 1972, I was made president of the Elvis Presley fan club, we took 200 fans to Vegas to see him. Parker invited 11 of us down to the dressing room and suddenly there he was, leaning against the wall. He had a black suit on, and the first thing that hit you was how handsome the guy was. He came over and was very polite, and I started to interview him for my show, The following year I went back, taking my programme director Ken Evans with me. Elvis was one of the few stars Ken had never met. To return the favour, when we arrived in LA, he took my wife Christine and I to spend an afternoon with Mae West. She gave us some carrot cake and tea. Elvis yesterday, Mae West today. We were buzzing! Tony Prince for the Guardian, published on 4 December 2016. Unquote"

"My Fellowship took me to the USA and UK looking at local history – my research problem was to ask where will the next generation of volunteers come from to manage our historical societies – what programs have been successfulin “firing up” a passion for local history? From there, it took me to historical societies scattered amongst the “knee high by the 4th of July” corn fields of Indiana, to Nashville where the American headquarters of local history sits between the Civil War and Elvis Presley, to Illinois, to Washington, to Troy in New York State, New York City, London and finally Norfolk. It was a brilliant mix of the “grass roots” to the more established; from country societies to more urban;from entirely volunteer run, to historical societies with eighty staff; from the “can do”culture in the USA, to well funded from the Heritage Lotter and , policy driven programs in the UK."

"He was good. I mean, all the girls liked him, and there is a film of that performance, somewhere."

"My biggest influence because of his charisma and sheer, pure talent was Elvis Presley. He still influences me today, actually, and with the help of the internet I can watch videos of him performing live anytime I want."

"Based on Pro-Ject's T2 record player, it boasts a dimmable LED Elvis log. This edition continues that T-2 philosophy perfectly, combining authentic performance with a design that celebrates one of music's greatest icons."

"He was in Miss Scriverner's home room with me. She was always bragging about how he would make it big one day. When he won the talent show singing “Old Shep”, she went on and on about it for days. Little did we all know that what she predicted for Elvis would come true in such a huge way."

"I dont think as far a screen image is concerned, there is no one like him"

"Elvis had the biggest impact on me, he captured and embodied the whole thing. He had that rockabilly, rock and roll, pop and ballad thing. He was all wrapped up into one for me. I loved listening to “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” and I just looked forward to each and every new song that came out.”"

"He had gone through the divorce with Priscilla, but he was definitely there to work. And this guy could do anything vocally. He could croon with Sinatra or scream with Little Richard. And what (I) admired the most about Presley -- then and now -- was his intelligence. especially when it came to human emotions."

"The greatest voice of all time."

"My own musical ambitions were born when I was five, watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV. When Elvis Presley burst on to the screen, singing 'Don't Be Cruel,' I felt my first sexual thrill, though I didn't know what it was at the time."

"Based on our company's recent growth, his items have resonated with shoppers, with overall sales in the previous 52-week period ending January 22, 2017 advancing 26% as a result of sale of products bearing his name alone. His is one of the fastest-growing segments in the beauty industry."

"When I was riding the bus to school every morning, I would usually see Elvis sitting at the corner of Alabama and Poplar, listening to a black man in a chair playing a guitar. He wanted to play and sing like that man. He was a country boy with big dreams. After he became famous he did something to thank every person who ever helped him in any way."

"At age 25, Lennon wrote “Run For You Life,” a jealous, immature rant inspired by Elvis Presley's recording of Arthur Gunter's “Baby, Let’s Play House,” a song written from the perspective of a spurned lover who wants his former girlfriend with college aspirations to return to him. Elvis performed it live with hips a-thrusting, leaving little doubt as to what he had in mind by “house play.” In the last verse Elvis delivers this dire warning: “Now listen to me, baby, try to understand, I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man.” Lennon's song picks up where “Baby, Let’s Play House” finishes, Most disturbingly, at the end of the song Lennon emphasizes his seriousness: “Let this be a sermon, I mean everything I’ve said; baby, I’m determined and I’d rather see you dead."

"I was a kid of my own generation, so I loved Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Elvis before I was a teen..."

"The 2018 Pohottuwa Party victory is a Mahinda Rajapaksa victory. At all election rallies, the former President was cheered like mad when he arrived on the platform. It reminded me of Elvis Presley, who was virulently hated and deeply loved in equal proportions throughout his career. But Elvis did not care, he continued singing."

"I grew up playing sports and listening to Elvis Presley, whose music I favored; in fact, when an opera singer came on the "Ed Sullivan Show", I'd think 'Turn this off,'""

"My favourite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are!"

"Even as a child, I studied him. I watched videos, I read books, I found every song I could possibly find. One of my favorites was a collection of early Sun Records recordings that included outtakes, and I would just listen over and over to the sound of this young, uncertain, shy Elvis continually and frustratingly f*** up the same song over and over again. And Sam Phillips saying ‘don’t get so damn close to the mic, Elvis.’ Just getting to hear that, and getting to hear his voice crack, and something about the nervous laughter of the King himself — I don’t know, it just made me feel like it was OK for me to not be perfect. I loved Elvis so much that I convinced myself that I had a spiritual connection to him. I really thought that when leaned over to buckle my…second daughter into her car seat and I sang ‘Blue Moon’ …and she smiled at me for the very first time. Then I knew I did have a spiritual connection. Even a couple weeks before that, even being invited to this, my oldest daughter, completely unprompted, said ‘I think I have a spiritual connection to Elvis.’ I had never told her — or anyone — that I felt the same for much of my life. So, something about the Ramseys and the Presleys, we got a direct line!”"

"I had done some soundtrack things earlier in the sixties with him. I never felt Elvis was a man out of time. What you have to understand is that his music never died. You know, at the time, a lot of people were saying he didn’t have a hit record for a couple of years; his career is over. I never thought that at all. It never would enter my mind. Because I know, from the first time I saw him on Ed Sullivan to the days I got to work with him, that this guy could go on forever. The only guy who will stop this guy from going on is himself. That night in 1968 I got the Elvis call. I remember one thing, it was on a Saturday and we all were making a fortune. Double scale. Golden time. Big time. I know this was a little different for Elvis working with us. Sometimes he sang live with us and sometimes he overdubbed. As a matter of fact he sat down at the piano with me a few times for me to straighten out the part he had to sing on ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ We were on the incidental and interstitial music that was all over the soundtrack. What’s more important than hearing Elvis in headphones is that I got to hear him as a human being, having chats, going back and forth. He had a musicality to him. Look, Elvis has innate musical skills. I guess we were all taking Elvis into a different world. It was a completely different thing for him from the A band, or the Memphis band. Just having the Blossoms on the sessions. Elvis loved the Blossoms. He knew Darlene Love and he was now playing with the Wrecking Crew. Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Mike Deasy, Tommy Morgan, Chuck Berghoffer, Frank De Vito, vocal contractor BJ Baker and yoursutruly."

"A singer, at work, is usually thinking only about making it through the song without flubbing it. Look what's involved: breathing plausibly, remembering the lyrics, nailing the high notes, staying with your band or chorus, maintaining a soulful facial expression and looking good. You might also be whacking a guitar. And -- because Presley did -- you also have to move, oscillate, arm-wrestle with the microphone, throttle it, skid across the stage on your knees, fling your head back and spread your arms; and then you want to salt it with what you possess of art...he flings his voice up beyond the grip of gravity, and then surrenders, like a skater in a leap."

"Musicians like Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston were strongly rooted in gospel music and in the same vein, many musicians of Christian faith begin their musical journey young. In fact, lessons and performances take place in and around the church."

"I would have loved to sing a duet with my childhood idols, Elvis and Piaf. And I will soon, thanks to new technology"

"I've always said I wish my life could be like an Elvis movie, say "Roustabout and "King Creole. And that if "Cold Case" came back today, and we could could reunite, that we somehow were able to discover that Elvis is still alive."

"i) In the early 1950's I DJ'ed in a radio program called "Hillbilly Bandwagon". This was before country music was called country music. So, one day, a guy walks in by the name of Elvis Presley. This was before he was really famous, age 19, I guess. He had come to plug his records at our station, so I had a brief conversation with him. Of course, I was always very proud to have met him, but my wife when I told the story too often, she finally looked at me, smiled as only a wife can smile, and said "I can beat that, HOG...."", That is how she calls me when she is going to tell me something awesome, and that was when I found out my wife had dated Elvis when she was 16 years old. And now she never ceases to remind me, you know, that if things had gone differently, Elvis Presley would be alive today and anchoring the CBS News ii) Fidel Castro could have been Cuba's Elvis."

"We don’t mail Elvis a Social Security check, no matter how many people think he is alive."

"When I think about my family, I listen to André Rieu, a violinist and conductor who is very popular in Europe ( but), when I think about living like it’s my last day on earth, I listen to Elvis Presley"

"I’m inclined to sympathize with Presley in the controversy he’s stirred up. He’s accused of inciting juvenile delinquents. That’s ridiculous. You can’t tie a delinquent kid to a hit record by Presley. Charges against him are unfounded, unfair, and bigoted. People resent his success. He’ll be around a lot longer than most of them think. And his records have stimulated a controversy that’s helped the whole record industry—we have Elvis to thank.”"

"My mom ans her sisters sang in churches and in 1956 there was an Elvis tour in Arkansas and he asked them to sing back-up for him. Unreal....."

"Historically famous as the birthplace of Elvis, the small northeastern Mississippi city of Tupelo is now also known as an amazing place to live. Forming a triangle with Memphis and Nashville, Tupelo shares a lot of similarities with the two booming cities – including an incredible musical scene, culinary hot spots, and rich history – but unlike its two unchecked growth neighbors to the north, Tupelo has retained all of its character, charm, and, happily, low prices."

"He epitomized America and for that we shall eternally be grateful. There will never be anyone else like him, so lets just rejoice with his music."

"One Friday night, Tapp and the "Hee Haw" honchos were flying to Hollywood, with the flight stopping in Memphis. So they were sitting in first class, taking up almost all the seats and on came Elvis Presley with his entourage including Col. Parker, with Tapp now sitting beside Presley. He sat across from them, kept looking and finally said, ‘Why do I know you? Is it from on a show?” Presley told Tapp. Yes, Tapp said, It is ""Hee Haw". “You hear that?? They’re from Hee Haw!!!!” the King told his court. “We stop our show everyday until Hee Haw’s over, then we proceed,” Presley said. “It was quite a compliment,” Tapp said, smiling."

"Because in a team full of rock stars, he is Elvis Presley."

"In 2023, I was singing Elvis Presley songs at a Bury Market pub. Now, two years later, I’m on one of the biggest stages in the world singing my own songs'"

"I'd already discovered black music with Big Jay McNeely at the Blue Sax in North Hollywood and made the blues-jazz connections, so I wanted to experience this Elvis thing. He was a support act to Freddy Martin at the Frontier, a fancy supper club that we couldn't afford. So I persuaded the guys to pool cash and we came up with $10, then charmed a waitress to let us dine on rolls while we watched the show. From the moment Presley started with “Hound Dog”, I was a convert. It was electrifying, a validation, to see these stuffed-shirt socialites who'd come to see Freddy Martin clamp up in reverence. I thought, Hey, a kid with nothing, from nowheresville, can do this!”"

"Channeling our inner Elvis with some help from the best in the business. What a night ."

"There's something a little unsettling, a little frightening, about the best and earliest music recorded by Elvis Presley. I'm thinking about the magical and mystical Sun Records recordings from 1954 and 1955, about the obviously haunting "Blue Moon" and about the lonely, lonely "Tomorrow Night", but I'm also thinking about the more upbeat "Mystery Train" whose haunted history reaches back to Junior Parker, the Carter Family, and deep into the haunted places of American music, both black and white. The music is spare, almost hollow. Elvis's voice is at once both youthful and ancient, exuberant and lost, its echo like a shadow cast upon the ages."

"In 1958 at the age of 17 Otis started his professional singing career, briefly touring with the “Pat Tea Cake” band before forming his own band, “The Pinetoppers” in 1959, with well known Macon guitarist Johnny Jenkins. The Pinetoppers performed Elvis songs and country music songs in the Macon area. They also toured on the “Chitlin’ circuit," a network of black nightclubs throughout the Southeast and the white frat house circuit across the Deep South."

"In 1968, he moved into Las Vegas quickly. He bought a piece of land across from the Flamingo Hotel. It was 80 acreHe was originally the landlord for that property, and he made millions on that deal. He then shortly thereafter bought an off-strip property, the first one that had ever been done.That’s where the International Hotel was built. It was a very, very expensive property at the time, it was off-strip. The first two people to appear in the show room there were Barbara Streisand and Elvis Presley and that was the beginning of Kirk Kerkorian’s ascension as the largest power broker in Las Vegas."

"The first time I met him I was blown away, I just looked at him and said, 'damn, you about the best looking thing I ever did see, kinda wish I was a girl right now, Elvis."

"He did have talent, that excitement. We knew the effect he had on future singers and players. I ran out and bought a guitar after I saw him."

"A decision to get vaccinated isn’t made by each of us, individually, looking at available information and making a choice for ourselves. In other words, it’s not necessarily about the evidence. It’s about something bigger. People tend to respond to community norms. If we think about it, it’s somewhat logical. We tend to look to people who we think are either similar to us or who share our beliefs. There have been previous public health campaigns, for instance, that provided information from breast cancer to polio. In fact, in a more unified era, giving Elvis Presley his polio vaccine during a staged photo op attempted the same feat."

"I am a big fan of Elvis music. He shaped the future of rock and roll and I would take my daughter and my mum who is 85 and lots more family and friends to Graceland. It would be a great trip"

"Then, like Alice through the looking glass, I stepped through a door still bearing a desiccated Christmas wreath, and that's when everything got awesome. Graceland's formal rooms are all white carpet and gold trimmings and mirrors. With its hide-covered furniture and lamps hanging from chains and vines draping a stone wall, the Jungle Room did not disappoint, but downstairs was the real action: a room with three televisions embedded in the walls, a sectional sofa with sequin-bedecked pillows, a mirror-topped coffee table bearing a bizarre porcelain creature of indeterminate origin gazing toward the door, and a billiards room with walls and ceiling entirely upholstered in pleated floral fabric that might have been fashioned by a seamstress on mushrooms. Somehow it felt like more than checking off an item on a bucket list. Maybe it had something to do with a dawning sense that I was moving past the delayed gratifications of motherhood, past the time of putting off what I wanted to do. Or maybe it had something to do with coming full circle, of making a vow just as our marriage was beginning and finally seeing it through just as we were on the verge of being alone again. Mirror after mirror, there I was, right in the heart of Graceland: smiling and smiling and smiling. Unquote"

"In the mid-60s, when Elvis was making those godawful movies and my friends and I were buying albums by the Stones and the Yardbirds, a mate and I would always go to see Elvis on the big screen; we knew the formula and always used to laugh about them afterwards, but what I also remember is what used to happen in the cinema: not long after the opening credits the audience would start talking and laughing through the dialogue – but the second Elvis sang everyone would stop and listen; Elvis' voice had that effect, even when he was considered as a joke by a generation grown up on tougher music and rock musicians who seemed much more rebellious, dangerous and innovative; so, for me, it has always been about the music and even when he was all but lost to us, in those final years, you can still hear that raw passion flare up; and I defy anyone, knowing that he had just separated from his wife and was heartbroken, to listen to "Always on my Mind" and "Fool", and not be moved; you can hear a man whose heart is breaking; listening to the best of his music, whether it be raw rock'n'roll or those genuinely heart aching ballads, confirms for me that Elvis has never left the building."

"Take a track like "One Sided Love Affair"(1956), and really examine every nuance of his voice, every caress, every tease and every growl that he lets loose for the song's duration, and you`ll you come to understand that the reason Presley's voice has been so often imitated is because it was unique and, furthermore, fuckin' great; no phony piano intro, not even a puerile lyric could have ever stopped him from turning this song into a real classic; imagine, then, how great it is when Elvis gets to sing material that is up to his standards — like on the Sun Records label song "Tryin' To Get You" (1955) - , probably the bluesiest song on this record, where Presley shows a sense of determination, not just a combination of nobleness and sex, but an expression of guts as well; quite simply, this is a guy who knows what he wants, and knows he's gonna get it, and his confidence – never arrogance –, is so contagious that by the end of the song, you believe it too."

"Many of them had camped out overnight, and on the morning of June 7 they filed through the estate's famous iron gates. That day, 3,000 Elvis Presley fans paid $5 to be the first to visit Graceland, the mansion where he had lived and found dead in 1977 at the age of 42. Moving through the gaudy Southern mansion, as Reuters described it, fans saw the trophy building, with its gold records and costumes, the living room's stained-glass peacocks, and the meditation gardens, where Elvis was buried. Paul Simon made a pilgrimage to Graceland in song, and Bruce Springsteen actually leaped over the wall in 1976. But in 1957, it was just a nice, colonnaded mansion in the Memphis suburbs that Elvis, then 22, bought for his parents for $102,500. Today 600,000 people a year visit Graceland, and it lives on in dreams."

"One day, when I was very very young, We ended up playing poker. During the game he casually asked one of his entourage about the new Chrysler car that was released that day and then handed him a wad of cash and said, ‘ Go get one.’ ‘ Any special colour?’ ‘ Nah, I don’t care’ he said ii) Had he done "A star is born" he would have been incredible, like Streisand wanted him to""

"I got to meet Elvis, an adorable, sweet Southern boy as charming as he could be. No wonder all the girls fell all over him.He was as wonderful in person as he was on the screen. He didn't want to make some of those films at all, but you know, you have to do what you have to do and now Elvis is gone, we're lucky we have what he did do."

"Elvis Presley was a legend, even in my homeland of Korea. When I received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Elvis Presley and told me that he was interested in continuing his studies in the martial arts under my direction, it occurred to me that this was most probably someone's idea of a joke; however, several hours later, I found myself seated behind my desk with him, seated across from me. Elvis then told me that it was at Master Ed Parker's suggestion that he contacted me. I was more than flattered, I was overwhelmed. He then insisted on training in regular classes with other students. He quickly realized that students were watching him rather than paying attention in the class so he asked me to arrange a demonstration which would allow the students to view his technique and see that he was attending class as a martial artist, not as an entertainer. I selected a day when a promotion (rank advancement) test was already scheduled and combined the two events. I selected this day because Elvis particularly enjoyed working with children and the student to be tested was a boy. Elvis was very humble. As a student of the martial arts, he was physically strong, his technique was excellent, one of the best. He was a master entertainer and a master showman, but he was also a Master human being. In many ways, Elvis taught me more than I taught him."

"The 146.5 million cumulative RIAA Album Awards, spanning 101 separate Gold (or higher) albums, makes Elvis the earner of the most Gold and Platinum Album Awards of any artist in the history of the RIAA"

"When I was a child of 5 or 6, I loved my little record player, but, other than children's storytelling albums, I owned only two albums — both gospel: Johnny Cash's “The Holy Land" and Elvis Presley's Gospel."

"On board I sing a song that Andrew Lloyd Webber and I wrote for Elvis, “It’s Easy for You.” We have a little Elvis interlude. When I was a spotty 15-year-old, Elvis was my hero, and I never dreamt that many years later, he would sing a song that we wrote. When he was in Vegas, we met his music publisher, Freddy Bienstock, and he said, "Oh, Elvis’s always looking for good songs.” This was after Elvis had broken up with Priscilla Presley, and we wrote “It’s Easy for You,” about leaving a wife and child for another woman. In 1977 it came out: It was the last track on the last album he recorded before he died. It's the one song many people haven't heard, but one I think they enjoy very much in the shows."

"As far as rock, he was the boss..."

"I want to thank Jim Carrey, one of my biggest fans, then Will Smith, my Mama, Elvis Presley, J. Cruz, Cece, Power 106, my girl, my kids and Eddie Murphy.""

"I owe Elvis Presley my career and the entire music business owes him its lifeline..."

"Good records just get better with age. But the one that really turned me on, like an explosion one night, listening to Radio Luxembourg on my little radio when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, was “Heartbreak Hotel”. That was the stunner. I'd never heard it before, or anything like it. I'd never heard of Elvis before. It was almost as if I'd been waiting for it to happen. I'm supposed to be asleep; I'm supposed to be going to school in the morning Then, “Since my baby left me” – it was just the sound. It was the last trigger. That was the first rock and roll I heard. It was a totally different way of delivering a song, a totally different sound, stripped down, burnt, no bullshit, no violins and ladies' choruses and schmaltz, totally different. It was bare, right to the roots that you had a feeling were there but hadn't yet heard. I've got to take my hat off to Elvis for that. The silence is your canvas, that's your frame, that's what you work on; don't try and deafen it out. That's what “Heartbreak Hotel” did to me. It was the first time I'd heard something so stark. Then I had to go back to what this cat had done before. Luckily I caught his name. The Radio Luxembourg signal came back in. “That was Elvis Presley, with ‘Heartbreak Hotel.'” sh*t!"

"As I tell my kids now, ‘No, I didn’t know Abraham Lincoln.’ But Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr, I had a chance to meet, and know. But I missed Elvis and I regret that. I was too young when he died."

"Elvis was huge in the fifties, had his troubles in the sixties, but he came roaring back in the seventies, when he was huge all over again. He took over Vegas and made the town his own. When he was playing the Hilton, everyone was happy because business trickled down from this show to everywhere else. I'd only met him in passing, but people kept saying he was a big fan of mine. I was flattered but never really believed it. Then one night, when I'm on stage at the Sahara, there he is, with his girlfriend, Linda Thompson, and they are heading for the stage. The audience goes nuts, and all I can say is "Elvis it's great to see you. Looks like you got enough gold around your neck to sink the Titanic. "He laughs and his eyes tell me he's feeling no pain. "Mr. Rickles" he says, "I have a poem I'd like to read in your honor". And I said "Thank you, Elvis. I really appreciate it. Please do". The poem is flowery and no one knows what it's about, so when he's through I say: "Elvis, we love you. You're a genius and a gentleman for gracing my stage. Now, do me a favor, take your chain, belt and cape and go home.""

"My orchestra shall always aim to create a vibrant atmosphere bringing Sostakovich, Ravel, Elvis and Sinatra together."

"Although many people have a hard time defining charisma, they believe they know it when they see it. Most will agree that certain historical leaders, say like Presidents Kennedy, FDR, Ronald Reagan and leaders of social movements, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, as well and celebrities like Elvis Presley all had charisma. But when it comes to the specific political leader that people support, charisma may be in the eye of the beholder. Charismatic leadership, as theorized by sociologist, Max Weber, was primarily in the relationship between leader and followers. According to Weber, certain followers are drawn to a particular leader and imbue that individual with charisma. An emotional bond forms between leaders and followers, and as long as the followers are happy with their chosen, charismatic leader, all is well. One thing is certain, however. In order to be considered charismatic an individual has to have the ability to connect with and “captivate” followers. So what is the common element that underlies charisma potential? It seems to be the ability to communicate emotionally to others – to be able to inspire them with emotions communicated nonverbally."

"A Graceland expansion would mean economic growth. Representatives with Elvis Presley Enterprises told the council that this decision would be a big deal for the city, with local impact over the next 30 years expected to be $9.3 billion dollars."

"For me, he was always "Saint Elvis", so when I had the chance to sing in Las Vegas at a luxury hotel and as back up to the Smothers' Brothers act, I immediately rushed to the Hilton, where he was appearing. Just his entrance was out of this world, indescribable and peerless, and, as singer he always pushed the envelop, an amazing performer all the way to the end"."

"On my radio show, I recall hearing Elvis Presley's “Heartbreak Hotel” playing on my Aunt Babe's radio. It was my most impactful musical memory. That happened when I was six and it just slayed me. Nothing would ever be the same."

"I never quite “got” Elvis until after his death, but now I fully understand people's fascination with him. That man could really sing. He reinvented himself more times than David Bowie and I remember dancing to this song with the most beautiful woman in the world."

"I thought Janet Leigh, who played my part in the movie, was beautiful and that Kay Medford should have done the mother. Maureen Stapleton is a brilliant actress, but she’s not funny and Kay was funny. Somebody else should have played the Elvis Presley part. That’s my opinion, but who the hell am I?"

"i) It was the highest rated documentary ever, catchin a 43 % share, until Monica Lewinsky interview by Barbara Walters. ii) If I wanted to have someone come to my house to entertain my family for the Thankgiving holidays, I would choose Elvis."

"He was a kind, very nice, honest and beautiful person. He had a lot of heart and that’s why he sang so nice."

"I went to the cinema to see "Loving You" and when I decided to pursue a career in rock, I changed my last name to that of the character played by Elvis."

"My goodness, we all loved him, I met him many times, our children went to school together, he was terrific, a true gentleman"

"This friend of mine and I got tickets for a couple of bucks apiece. In fact, was just a kid when a country music show came to Baton Rouge, LA. In the middle of the show, they announced a special guest sensation from Memphis. So this guy comes out in a pink suit – he didn't even have a drummer – and starts jumping around while they're setting up the amp and a big acoustic bass. Then he started in with, “Well that’s all right, mama,” and we all went, “Hey, that’s the song we like on the radio,” because the station was playing it in Baton Rouge. There was Elvis. He did That's All Right and Blue Moon Of Kentucky, the B-side of his first record. We went to the back of the school afterwards, where he had this little Cadillac pulling a trailer, and they were loading the bass and stuff into it. He was talking to some of the country music guys about cars. He was probably 18 or 19, and I was 12 or 13. I'm just looking at him, thinking this guy is really cool and different. Little did we know..."

"Anywhere in the world, not before, during or after has there been a bigger music star than Elvis Presley. I always wanted to record one of his ballads, but in English, and I chose the title track for his second movie, "Loving you" ..."

"Sixty-two years ago Sunday, Elvis Presley took the stage at CBS studios in New York and smiled as a city health official stuck a needle in his left arm. The publicity stunt, broadcast nationwide before Presley's 2nd appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” was meant to convince the American public that the new polio vaccine was safe. It worked. And playing to Presley's demographic apparently helped. About 75 percent of Americans under 20 had received at least one polio shot by August 1957, when the first national survey was taken; this rose to nearly 90 percent by September 1961, according to a 1962 public health report."

"Here is what is was for me. Elvis came along and this soundwave came out that ran right through me"

"It's the birthday of the King, as Elvis Presley would have said.""

"Robinson was a harbinger of an important shift in American life, one of the first of a burgeoning black culture, held in check by legal and social stricture that was about to burst forth and dominate the mainstream. He and Elvis Presley both played black, brought black style into the mainstream and were demonized as polluters before they were lionized as cultural heroes. Would Presley have been possible if not for Jackie Robinson? Perhaps, but it is probably more correct to see Robinson and Presley as historical inevitabilities, as the first cracks in the cultural dam."

"Elvis was the best looking, nicest, most down to earth man I have ever met, funny to say that, but it's true, it was like a guy you went to school with, anyone who spend any time with him would tell you. He cared how he looked, but no conceit. The best gig I saw had to be his concert at Empire Stadium. There was nothing like it beforehand. He was the first guy to rent stadiums. I'd emceed shows, but standing in front of 26,000 people was nerve-racking."

"Not only did blacks know Presley, he also knew blacks. “I always wanted to sing like Billy Kenny of the Ink Spots. I like that high, smooth style. I never sang like this in my life until I made that first record—That’s Alright, Mama. I remembered that song because I heard Arthur (Big Boy) Crudup sing it and I thought I would like to try it. Presley was making more money singing rhythm and blues than black performers of the day, with Elvis’s nearest competitor, Fats Domino, expecting to earn $700,000 in 1957. (In fact) Otis Blackwell, writer of two huge Presley hits “Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up.” confirmed, “I got a good deal. I made money and I am happy.-"

"Elvis Presley had also one Grammmy (single), for a spiritual, Now if Elvis had one, what can I say...LOL"

"Elvis was technically fearless and instinctive in his use of technique. In his early material in particular it is as if his voice is finding and creating the lyrics as he is singing them."

"In "T.R.O.U.B.L.E", (1975), his baritone was still as solid as ever, with its humorously cavernous bottom and its nasal vibrato on top. When he is putting out, reaching for the top notes and shaping phrases with the same easy individuality that has always marked his best work, he is still the King."

"It's like if you're playing Elvis Presley and you've only got whatever amount of scenes in the movie, you're not gonna work any less hard on the part because you've got less material. You're gonna be like, 'I'm playing Elvis Presley!"

"Well, here we go again. Like Elvis in 1968 we eagerly await for the Tiger Woods Comeback Special. We've been here before, of course. Only last month, the former world's No 1 who is now 898th, called off his return at the PGA Tour's Safeway Open just three days before the start of the event..."

"Just about everywhere we played, it happened. Sometimes it would be more people than other times, depending on the size of the crowds, but after that first time, when there was a riot, Elvis did not invite the girls backstage anymore. I think he learned that it was not a good idea."

"Looking at the last century of US history, no other individual can fairly be said to have changed US culture so much while receiving so little recognition for having done so: the gap between what Elvis actually accomplished and the degree to which we understood those accomplishments is far wider for him than it is for any other figure."

"When things are happening you don't appreciate them as much as later, like when Elvis Presley made his comeback special, I was in the recording studio and this was an historical milestone. Photography takes you there."

"I must confess that when Fidel spoke despectively about “elvispreslians”, I felt a conflict within me because since I was a kid, I loved both Elvis and his songs. I felt that more than the music itself, Fidel wanted to criticize the old youth in Cuba, those that did not think like he did. It was a truly awkward moment for me, but I was able to get over it, perhaps because my political hierarchies were always more mature than my musical ones..."

"I'm not a singer, and I'm not from the United States. But I randomly listened to country music growing up in England. My dad would play old songs and I was obsessed with Elvis Presley to a point where my family, if it was Christmas or something like that, they'd always get me an Elvis LP. My auntie—who's a Scottish jazz singer— was massively supportive of me liking Elvis. So when this movie came up, I was like, ‘This is the closest I’ll ever get to playing Elvis Presley.’"

"The next frontier for immersive storytelling may be your headphones, thanks to a new spatial audio platform that Vrai Pictures is set to unveil at SXSW next month. Traverse, as the platform is called, allows users to map their surroundings with the help of mobile augmented reality (AR) technology, and then explore immersive audio experiences in their own living rooms. One of the first experiences to be powered by the new platform is called “From Elvis in Memphis.” It allows users to experience his music by walking through a physical space, with Traverse's app making it spatially sound like they're in the studio with Elvis himself. In the middle of a performance, you can walk right up to him. You can also walk up to any of the other band members. The music suddenly shows a dimensionality that was always there but couldn't be experienced. It just needed the creative insight, the right platform, the tools, and the technology to be realized."

"Woooooo, oh my God, he's so good"

"In 1991, Graceland gained a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, keeping Elvis Presley ahead of his time even in death. The National Park Service now honors the place Elvis called home from 1957 to 1977 when he died. It's very, very rare that a site is placed on the register when its the home of a famous person whose achievements are less than 50 years old, said George Berklacey, chief spokesman for the National Park Service. But the keeper of the national register, Jerry Rogers, felt Graceland and Presley were “an exceptional significance,” Berklacey said."

"So I went to his show and he introduced me as his friend. I went for about eight nights in a row just to hear him introduce me that way. And I found a little way to get backstage before the normal people got backstage and I went back there and he always treated me with such respect. I loved that about him. I remember one night backstage when he said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go play a little blackjack. Why don’t you come with me?’ And he said, ‘You know, I would give anything in the world to go out there with you’. But he thought he would get hurt, and the more I think about it, he couldn't have sat at the table like I did. I judge people by how well they treat me. That's what I loved about him. He made me feel so comfortable and I didn't really know him..."

"About five or six years ago, I met the guys who bought the so called Graceland West in Palm Springs, CA. RCA Records had acoustically treated the residence and Elvis recorded a few records there. I asked the owners if we could record there, and they agreed to it. We came prepared with songs, set up shop and had most of the “Here to Eternity” record done that first week, but the finality was premature. As a kid, I always dreamed of doing a double-album and that just sort of happened. Stepping into Elvis’ one-time California escape, I felt his influence throughout the album-making process. Shawn Grove and I slept in the home for the majority of sessions. It was all very magical, because we all grew up on Elvis, being from the South and all, and he’s still all godlike down here. As far as I can tell, I’m the first man to sleep in his bedroom since Elvis himself. We recorded in the bathroom, the kitchen, out by the pool. Then Lisa Marie’s bedroom became the production control room. As fate would have it, our stay in Palm Springs coincided wih her own untimely death on January 12, 2023. The night she passed, the ceiling in her bedroom fell..."

"Elvis Presley press-agented as a singer and entertainer, played to two groups of teenagers numbering several thousand at the city auditorium here, Monday, May 14. As newspaper man, parent, and former member of Army Intelligence Service, I feel an obligation to pass on to you my conviction that Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States."

"Oh good, they didn’t send me the photograph of me and Elvis to sign.I get three or four fan letters a week and they all send me that picture of me and Elvis to autograph. I just hate that picture. I hate that dress I’m wearing and the bag I’m carrying. I just wish there were one other picture out there. It was taken in November of 1955, at the Country Music Comvention, in Nashville. He knew who I was, but I didn’t know who he was. I looked to get away from him and he kept following me.LOL. He had that charisma. Some people are just destined for fame. Later, while in NY, one of the movies we saw together was "Helen of Troy". I looked at Elvis, and I thought: he’s better looking than the guy on the screen. He had a magnificent profile, like a Roman coin. At the time, Elvis felt all the tumult about him was very amusing and in fact never really quite understood it, at that age. When I rode with him to Idlewild aiport after the Ed Sullivan Show, these girls were running after the limo and I realised that that was probably the last time I was going to see him. And it was. I once played Memphis and the phone number that he had given me was no longer in service. When he died, I remember just feeling so badly. Later, I realised that he was trapped."

"Calistoga up the road was significantly affected by the fire along with other regions like Atlas Peak and Mt. Vreeder, but on the latter there were properties like the reservation-only "Outpost Wines" — known especially for its juicy Zinfandels — that survived. Thankfully the fire didn't affect the recent opening of "The Ink House" on the way to Rutherford, an 1800s house where Elvis Presley once slept and was reimagined as a hyper-luxurious B&B with butler-style service, not to mention plentiful Castellucci wine by the same family and a Bentley house car for dropoffs and pickups."

"At some point on the night of October 22, 2018 the home fans at Old Trafford Stadium will probably sing a round of "Viva Ronaldo". From distant metro platforms to wind-raked terraces, it has been a Manchester United standard of the past decade, an Elvis-riff on those six years when he transformed himself from dazzling gadfly to the best footballer in the world. Until then, this still feels like a homecoming curiosity, a reminder of just how exhilarating that "Ronaldo-as-Elvis footballer" was; and a reminder too, whatever his ultimate destiny, of happier past associations for a player who was for at least three of those years, the best the league has ever seen."

"About Cristiano Ronaldo's first trip to Manchester to play his old team since he joined Juventus AC, as written by Barney Ronay in an article entitled "Ronaldo’s return to Old Trafford a reminder of how life used to be", published in the Guardian's October 21, 2018 edition"

"i) Q magazine bravely attempted to name the best and worst singers ever. They did a good job, wisely going big with Elvis as the to choice. ii) There was no model for Elvis Presley's success; what Sun Records head Sam Phillips sensed was something in the wind, an inevitable outgrowth of all the country and blues he was recording at his Union Avenue studio; enter Presley in 1954, bringing with him a musical vocabulary rich in country, country blues, gospel, inspirational music, bluegrass, traditional country, and popular music -- as well as a host of emotional needs that found their most eloquent expression in song; his timing was impeccable, not only as a vocalist, but with regard to the cultural zeitgeist: emerging in the first blush of America's postwar ebullience, Presley captured the spirit of a country flexing its industrial muscle, of a generation unburdened by the concerns of war, younger, more mobile, more affluent, and better educated than any that had come before; (as such), the Sun recordings were the first salvos in an undeclared war on segregated radio stations nationwide. iii) At Sun Studio in Memphis Elvis Presley called to life what would soon be known as rock and roll with a voice that bore strains of the Grand Ole Opry and Beale Street, of country and the blues. At that moment, he ensured – instinctively, unknowingly – that pop music would never again be as simple as black and white.”"

"Though Elvis seems nearly as much a function of time and place as of talent and personality, his rise was clearly no accident. Peter Guralnick presents Elvis as the vessel, Sam and Dewey Phillips as the catalysts, and rock 'n' roll as a historical inevitability. Now, "Why him?" is what other Memphis boys kept asking in the summer of 1954, when Sun issued his first single, "That's All Right Mama" backed with "Blue Moon of Kentucky". There were a hundred other kids in Memphis with talent and ambition, any one of them as accomplished as Elvis so, again, why him?. To Marion Keisker, Sam's assistant, "He was like a mirror in a way: whatever you were looking for, you were going to find in him. In short, he had all the intricacy of the very simple." This ability to mirror the dreams and yearnings of others is the hallmark of every great star, from Judy Garland to Marilyn Monroe to James Dean. Within two years, Elvis would be one of them."

"In December of 1968, while punching a heavy bag in a gym in L.A. I hear a voice sing out, 'Hey, Lionel! What's doin'?' And it was Elvis Presley himself. I was in awe of him, but he said he was in awe of me (LOL)."

"I was really impressed and surprised to learn a lot of things about him,"

"It had been a sensational interview and I knew I had everything I needed for an excellent story for Rolling Stone. I truly felt a real connection with Paul Rogers and his new band Band Company which gave me the courage to do what I did next: invite the singer to see Elvis Presley, who was performing on the night of May 11, 1974 at the Inglewood Forum. And I knew Rodgers was a huge fan, even trying to sneak into Graceland one time back when he was with his previous band Free. As we made the 45-minute drive to the Inglewood Forum —a huge 20,000-seat arena where the Los Angeles Lakers played— Paul couldn't stop talking about finally seeing Elvis. We parked and I handed Paul his ticket. He looked at it like it was the Holy Grail itself. We walked inside, found our seats and from the moment Presley took the stage, Rodgers could barely contain himself, screaming, shouting and jumping up and down like a kid, acting the way I did when I first saw his previous band, Free, so many years earlier when they opened for Blind Faith. Watching Paul while he watched a then-34-year old Elvis do his thing felt like an out-of-body experience. It was like some perfect circle. When the lights came up and as everybody was exiting the arena, Paul saw various members of Led Zeppelin along with Peter Grant, who by then managed both Bad Company and Led Zeppelin, going backstage. I knew I wouldn't be able to go there myself, but I didn't really care, all I wanted was for Paul to get to meet his hero. However, we were stopped by a pair of burly bodyguards guarding the backstage entrance. I tried to explain to them that this was Paul Rodgers, but they weren't bulging. Eventually, we had a message relayed backstage and when Peter finally came back out, he told Paul he couldn't get him in. If Paul was hurt by being treated so selfishly —it felt as if Led Zeppelin wanted an audience with the King all by themselves— he didn't show it. Paul was still jubilant so when we returned to the hotel, that's when Paul told me, “I’ll just tell my friends I talked to him anyway." He had purchased a souvenir booklet and would use that as evidence though Paul and I would always know the truth."

"Few have probably heard of him unless you're a serious fan of Jewish cantorial music. But if you have, you know he's the equivalent of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti -- a singer to be remembered forever."

"Elvis Presley’s home, Graceland, is behind me. I just went on a tour throughout the crib. Very enlightening. Elvis was a legend, an icon. As we all can see, me and Elvis had a lot of things in common. His ranch is Graceland, mine is Promiseland. I love the planes. I love he was a hustler. He was a man amongst the people. I’m doing something different today.”"

"It was a nice shot of adrenaline for him.."

"His 2019 election victory took him from popular buffoon to prime minister just like Elvis’ comeback TV special in 1968, which crowned him the undisputed king of rock ‘n’ roll. However, after a year, the name ‘Boris’ suddenly no longer sounded like a buddy, but now carried the same contemptuous undertone as ‘Maggie’ , the last person in office who was customarily referred to by her first name. Once the brand has become a dirty word, there is no turning back. The fact is Johnson is now in the ‘Fat Elvis’ stage of his career"

"I was contacted, not all that long ago, by the son of a military officer who was at the time the military attache to Prime Minister Harold Holt. He told this story just before he died to his son who told me that his dad was in Harold Holt's office and Harold was struggling with popularity and the anti-war movement. The officer said to Harold Holt “what you need is an Elvis Presley. Get Normie Rowe called up”. If the Prime Minister says something is going to happen then there is a pretty good chance it is going to happen"."

"After Maria Callas, Elvis Presley is the #2 of the Holy Trinity for taking blues, gospel and spirituals, and sexing them together while also desexualizing the more rough-edged and raunchy root ingredients (ie: removing the black stigma) to make it into rock n' roll and music for the masses. Elvis had an undeniably great voice and incredible moves..."

"Even as a kid, I knew music was central to my personality. Like many of us, I recognized that it could also be my source of income after I saw Elvis Presley on The Tommy Dorsey Show. When he made it so big, all us Southern boys thought maybe we had a shot, too."

"In Bedford there’s probably more chance of seeing Elvis than seeing your local GP.”"

"David Trimble was a huge fan of Elvis Presley and his favourite film was "King Creole", The song used during the tribute, "Trouble", is the most well known song from that film and was used to reflect his wide range of interests."

"As he stepped back into the ring, singing as if his life depends on it, you can feel the visceral thrill as this underdog eagerly reclaims his title. It paid off in spades, rejuvenating his career and proving that, as pop culture spun on its axis, even its most stalwart participants could change gears and reinvent themselves. It wasn't quite Ali vs. Foreman, but as 1968's highest-rated television special, it was close."

"He was a really, really, really good looking guy who could really sing, Elvis is the definition of IT. He is one of the people that I owe for choosing a life in music."

"We three became four again when my sister Loree, who had entered a convent just a couple of years before me decided to return to the outside world. It was later transpired that it was the nuns who had decided Loree should return to the world. In fact, as a novice she had refused to surrender her Elvis Presley vinyls to Mother Superior. Later, (Our own) Mother became convinced that the Good Lord might have had a different vocation in mind for Loree."

"Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman's "Viva Las Vegas"(1963), was custom-written as the title song for Elvis Presley's 14th film, a rollicking tribute to the city of gambling given a spirited performance by Presley and his session musicians; strangely, it remained an underrated Presley song for a long time, finally beginning to gain some recognition from an unexpected quarter when the "Dead Kennedys" recorded it in 1980, their radical recontextualization of it helping the song to an independent life beyond its origins; on its own, it can now be appreciated as a tribute to Las Vegas that probably deserves to be the city's official anthem."

"After his show, Sammy Davis Jr said he would arrange for my wife Joyce and I to see the best entertainer in Las Vegas which, considering Sammy´s fame, was quite a compliment (Once at the show), the audience was enthralled as the singer sang songs of every genre. And that evening I became a fan of Elvis Presley. Even today, particularly on Sundays when we do not get to church, Joyce and I listen to Elvis singing gospel songs."

"They decamped to Munich in June 1979, and he had just checked in at the glittering Bayerischer Hof Hotel and stepped into the bath to wash away the travel grime, when a melody came to him. It was a hiccup-y rockabilly number, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It had affectionate elements of the recently departed Elvis Presley, who had been a major vocal influence on him. Calling for assistant Peter Hince to fetch him an acoustic guitar, he wrapped a towel around his body and began to bash out the skeleton of what might be the most uncharacteristically simple song he ever wrote, which took him five or 10 minutes, doing it on the guitar as he did, and in one way it was quite a good thing because he was restricted, knowing so few chords."

"Entertainment-wise Elvis Presley played a big part for me because I'm out kicking my foot across the stage, but Elvis Presley did the same thing I do. He can get away with it. (It) kind of opened the door for me, along with B.B. King and all the guys who have come before me (Chuck Berry, Little Richard) who set a trail for me to come through the door. Now I'm one of the top five who are left to do this and I thank God for putting me in this position. I never thought that I would be an icon as the leading role of the blues cats, man, especially the black blues cats. I never thought I'd be here."

"In the '50s, listening to Elvis on the radio in Bombay – it didn't feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me. I suppose what's interesting about rock and roll is it was the first cultural phenomenon that was about, for, controlled by and made by young people. And your mother didn't like it. Certainly my mother didn't, though she got used to it, eventually. In fact, I think Elvis was the one who got to her."

"For me it goes back to Elvis. The reality is, my experience with Elvis and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ as a wonderful revelation is exactly the same experience that Paul McCartney had, that Keith Richards had, that Mick Jagger had, that they all had because they're all just sitting in England wondering what they're going to do. And Elvis comes over the airwaves and changes everybody's life.”"

"It's funny – because we didn't talk a great deal about him. That was one thing we never got around to. When I played Elvis, in 1979, then in 2001, a lot of people said to me “Boy, you must be a great Elvis fan”. When you play a real person you have parameters. When you play a famous person that everyone knows, now the parameters become very finite. It's your job to go right up against the edges of those parameters. I said I worked with him, as a child, in 1962, but I did not know that much about his career or anything. I remember him distinctly, because I worked with him for two weeks on the movie and most of it was with him. I saw him off-camera a lot. But in 1979, I learned about him. And when I learned about him, I became a pretty decent Elvis fan. But nothing like Quentin, he probably knows everything about him. He knows about his music, he's probably seen all his movies. Yeah, so someday I'll say hey, tell me some of your feelings about Elvis."

"I'm a big Elvis fan, so I went to see him when he was playing in Las Vegas and, after the show, I was invited up to his room to meet him. I was very excited so I blurted out: "Why did you make all those stupid movies?" I couldn't believe I've said that and felt so embarrassed but Elvis just said, "Last thing I remember I was driving a truck" So now every time I say something stupid, I think of Elvis.""

"I had met him on a few occasions, but we hadn't spent any time together. One night in 1971 after a show at the International, I went backstage, where he was with a group of his buddies discussing where they were going to eat. He spotted me and called me over. 'Hey, man, you ever have a peanut butter and banana sandwich, on white bread?' "I thought he was putting me on, so I played along. 'Love 'em,' I said." 'Great, man! You're coming with us!'"'Where we going?' I asked. "'San Francisco, brother" So we flew out of McCarran Airport on Elvis's private jet, landing there about an hour later. There were eight of us, and he did the ordering. An initial round of sixteen sandwiches was sucked up in minutes, washed down by gallons of lemonade. I had one. After the meal, we got back on the plane and flew back to Vegas. Once we were in his suite, he decided he wanted to watch a Western movie. A projector was set up and a 1930s oater with Hoot Gibson began. As i saw it, Elvis and his crew were whooping it up like real cowboys, and I wondered what the hell I was doing there. Then the guns came out. Elvis packed a 1942 Beretta 9 mm pistol given to him by General Omar Bradley, with the others having revolvers. He fired the first shot into a wall, and everyone followed suit as if mimmickimg the action in the movie, where Gibson was chasing a bunch of bad guys and trading shots with them. I thought a couple of live rounds would've been it, but then Elvis started overturning furniture, and the guys divided up into two sides. I ducked behind a couch as everyone hid behind cover and traded shots. They aimed high, but bullets can travel through walls, and who knows where they could've wound up. Within a minute, the "Gunfight in Suite 3000" was over and every­one repaired to the bar to get loaded, pun intended. I stayed a while, but I couldn't hear a damn thing because I was temporarily deaf from the gunfire. But I love Elvis. He was unique for what he was, he was statuesque""

"It seems like since the early days of rock and roll, there's been a uniform that's consisted of jeans, T-shirt and black leather jacket," she says. Elvis Presley, though, served his version with a twist: He was very much influenced by African American style on Beale Street in Memphis and incorporated everything from shiny suits to the poet-sleeved shirts his mother made for him into his wardrobe. But Presley wasn't exactly one for playing by the rules"

"To have two cycling riders of the calibre of Kelly and Roche emerge independently of one another within the space of four years, is akin to the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, producing a second Elvis Presley shortly after the first. It is a most astonishing accident of history."

"Elvis Presley summed it up perfectly when filming the musical "Roustabout". The director, John Rich, wasn't particularly impressed with his entourage hanging around and playing practical jokes on one another. When Rich approached him about his traveling companions clowning around and disrupting, he didn't back down from his director. He told Rich, "When these damn movies cease to be fun, I'll stop doing them." Cheers, Elvis. Couldn't have said it better myself."

"There were maybe thirty people in the room and he walks in and the first thing that happens is our eyes meet. He's probably fifteen feet away from me and then he flings a grape that hits me right between the eyes, in the forehead. I didn't talk to him that night other than when he came over and knelt down while apologizing. So he then joined the rest of the people in the room and so I took my cue and left. Elvis had qualities that no other human being has, had, will have. Some of them are so hard to describe because the charisma, the qualities that he had were almost not of this world, you know. They were, a lot of times, angelic. But it was his innocence that really impressed me. His biggest joy was in the giving..."

"Although the beachside hotels on the bay supplemented most of the older hotels, El Mirador maintained its status, primarily because of the iconic cliff divers, or clavadistas, who dived from a platform outside the hotel more than forty meters into the water below. The classic image of cliff divers in Acapulco was immortalized in popular culture worldwide by the film "Fun in Acapulco" (1963), in which Elvis Presley plays a former acrobat, down on his luck and stranded there."

"Every time he'd appeared on Letterman, he'd had to change his act. Written down, worked out, pre-approved by the production staff, his sweet improvisational melody was sliced and diced into a sampled, discordant riff. He just didn't come across. And he hadn't yet figured out what to do about it. At least not until that twelfth appearance. His ghost appearance, resonating forever in the memory of the Ed Sulli­van Theatre, there, center stage, near Elvis's swiveling hips. Another really big show, never to be seen."

"Elvis Presley was more influential as a performer than any other musician in world history. In some respects he resembled other influential performers, including the famous Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840) and the Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt (1811–1886). Like them Elvis was exciting, charismatic, and enormously successful. Unlike Liszt and Paganini,however, Elvis did not compose any of his own music, yet the ways in which he performed the songs he sang transformed twentieth-century popular music worldwide. At his best, was most influential as a Southern White singer who introduced audiences throughout the United States and around the world to Black American music, especially to rock ‘n’ roll, a form of rhythm and blues. He was also influential because he combined in his performances elements from different American singing styles, including gospel, rockabilly, country-western and standard' pop numbers; he even employed bel canto singing in a few songs borrowed from Italian music. His stage persona was extremely influential as well, simultaneously glamorising, as he did, rock music and making it seem ‘dangerous’, thus even inspiring aspects of punk rock in the 1970s. Later, his performances as a touring artist and a Las Vegas entertainer contributed to the birth of glam rock."

"We finished a take and the phone rang and it was one of Elvis's associates, a guy I had met through Chet [Atkins] many times. And so this associate of Elvis says "Buffy? Elvis just recorded your song, "Until It's Time For You To Go." By this time I was pretty much over Elvis. When I was thirteen, Elvis was fresh. He was young. He was healthy and beautiful, and he was sexy and a natural musician. He was everything. He was just everything. But, it was just a total surprise as Elvis had by then already gone into kind of a different style. He no longer had that young rebel thing going for him. But when he recorded "Until It's Time For You To Go," it was just amazing. It was as if Santa Claus had said yes to coming to your birthday"

"Bill was about 16 when he drove from Blanco, Texas, to see Elvis Presley play at the then Municipal Auditorium. And when he found out the show was sold out, he climbed a tree to try to get into a window. He saw Elvis there in the window so Elvis motioned to him and asked him, 'What are you doing up there in the tree?' And Bill Wittliff explained , and Elvis Presley tore out a paper towel and wrote to the ticket taker to let these three boys in. They're friends of mine. We have that piece of paper on display at the Wittliff Collection."

"I was publishing a book with the title "The case against Muhammed", dealing with the founder of Islam, from a critical point of view, and many people were asking me "why do you do that? And my answer was always "because you are asking me". Because you wouldn't if the book had been called "The Case against Elvis Presley". You would accept any criticism of any historical figure, you will consider it as freedom of art, of research, of opinion, but in the case of Muhammed, you say "The Prophet is the Muslim's world last stone of identity, so why do you attack HIM, let him in peace". And I then always answer my Muslim friends, that maybe he became the last stone of their identity because they left him in peace, alone, for fourteen hundred years."

"Often overlooked, probably because of his immense popularity and mega-star status, Elvis was an extremely generous and compassionate human. I remember an appearance by Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show on a Sunday night while my grandmother was babysitting me. Sitting in a rocking chair and looking over the top of her glasses while she was knitting she uttered, “That boy is going places”. I was 7 or 8, she was 60 something and that moment is etched indelibly in my mind. Hey Nana, you were right."

"Shortly after midnight, arriving at San Antonio International airport on Hugh Hefner ‘Playboy’ DC-9 and wearing a long coat with white fur trim, he was greeted by fans before his manager, Col. Tom Parker, took him away in a black limousine to an unknown hotel destination. Fans, when interviewed, felt that if he looked that good when he traveled, that they could only imagine what he will look like on stage. He didn't disappoint. During the concert, a lady who was bitten in a fight over a scarf he threw into the crowd was later taken to the hospital where she was given a tetanus shot from a physician who thought the whole thing was humorous, particularly as the lady said her attacker could be identified by a bald spot on her head, which she had, in turn inflicted, on her...."

"I suppose you'd had to call him a lyric baritone, although with exceptional high notes and unexpectedly rich low ones. But what is more important about Elvis Presley is not his vocal range, nor how high or low it extends, but where its center of gravity is. By that measure, Elvis was all at once a tenor, a baritone and a bass, the most unusual voice I've ever heard."

"I found him to be a gentleman. Elvis won everyone over. It’s true that Elvis was glowing. He also said that he wasn’t worried about the rest of his career, that he would like to focus on movies and that he was glad that he had his folks come over to Germany to be close to him. He seemed relaxed and his behavior seemed to surprise those who were covering his stay."

"And to think I only wanted to imitate Elvis"

"He was the greatest. In fact, he was the most charismatic individual I have ever seen both off and on the screen, he was the kind of person who could not walk into a room and not stop whatever was happening in that room. Every person, man or woman would turn to look at him, he was that magical, There are no words in the vocabulary, unless it is that he had magic."

"At the start, I listened to my older brother's collection of Paul Anka and Elvis Presley records. When the Beatles arrived, at home it became a fight between my brother, who loved Elvis and I, who loved the Beatles.. but we both stayed the course...."

"What Presley accomplished was a fusion of modes, not theft"

"I just wanted to be like my dad. He was absolutely charming, adorable and irresistible. I looked at him the way other people looked at him, like if he was Elvis. I was like: ‘Man I want what he’s got!’ I didn't realize I was born with it."

"He liked to do the bumps and grinds as I did them, and that was basically what he used in his routine from 1957. Eventually, he proposed to me, but I told him if anyone knew about us it would cost him his career."

"On stage, any chance I get to put the teeth in and bite people, I will take. “Dance of the vampires" is great if only because it lets itself to be really, really silly. Any character I play has at least one if not three animal images that I use. And for the role of Count von Krolock, I said he's part panther, part eagle, and part Elvis Presley. And Elvis Presley — he's sexy as hell.”"

"But my generation did not ONLY love America because she defended freedom. We also loved America because for us she embodied what was most audacious about the human enterprise, because America for us embodied the spirit of conquest. We loved America, because for us, America was a new frontier that was continuously being rolled back, a constantly renewed challenge to the inventiveness of the human spirit. My generation, without even coming to America, shared all of your dreams. In our imaginations, our imaginations were fueled by Hollywood, by the great conquest of the western territories, by Elvis Presley, and you probably haven't heard his name quoted often here -- but for my generation, he is universal."

"There's more chance of Elvis Presley being Chancellor of the Exchequer than John McDonnell. I've never come across such financial illiteracy.""

"While touring Memphis, I was in the dressing room and my knee went and I crawled into a ball and couldn’t get up. I was carried off by a big security guy called Michael who’d once played for the Miami Dolphins. I heard he had an important boss but he didn’t tell me who his boss was. But the next day his boss called me. It was Elvis Presley. He came on the phone singing "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing", down the line. ‘I love that song, man. I hear Michael has been looking after you and that you’re a great guy. And you need to come over to the house’. he said. I was stunned, and got ready to go to spend a few days with Elvis and his girlfriend Ginger. But the next morning I heard on the radio Elvis had been taken to hospital and died. Years later, I began to think I must have dreamt the whole thing. But I met Ginger at a dinner in London, and she said ‘Elvis had been so excited at the idea of spending a few days with you.’ I had tears in my eyes when she said that.”"

"Very proud that my father will receive the Medal of Freedom. That he’s getting it with Elvis is icing on the cake."

"i) I didn’t like Elvis before I went to work with him in the summer of 1969. I mean, I didn’t know him. I just didn’t like his music. I was into black music mostly and jazz so when I went to work for him on the first rehearsal I told my ex-wife, I don’t think I’m going to do this gig, but I’m going to go down and check it out, see what’s going on.’ I came home that night and said, you gotta come down and hear this guy tomorrow night.’ She said, you’re kidding.’I said, no, you got to come down and hear him.’ She came down the next night to the rehearsal and she walked away a fan. It was that immediate. When I walked in and I heard him I said, Oh, oh, I believe that I've been missing something. ii) In some ways Elvis was Conservative and in other ways he was very Liberal. He wasn't someone that was following some political line, you know he'd figure out for himself what he thought was right"

"He is the king of the Democratic liars. If there was a Hall of Fame for liars, like, let's say, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he would be Elvis."

"It just murdered...."

"The spirit of Elvis Presley, I feel it.”"

"He once rode a freight elevator to avoid fans but just as the elevator doors opened, workers were wheeling a deceased guest out on a gurney. “I hope I don’t leave that way,” Elvis quipped."

"Our country faced a similar challenge in the 1950s, when there was widespread apprehension about the safety of the polio vaccine. But when Elvis Presley posed backstage being given the shot before an appearance on the highly rated Ed Sullivan Show, the photo ricocheted across the nation and the world and triggered a rapid increase in vaccination rates."

"So there were portraits of me everywhere, the finest clothes, 150 extras all watching me play this poker game. It just really informed me about who Koumba Diabaté, the diplomat I was playing in the series, really is. So I quickly was able to step into his shoes. But the opulence was ridiculous. We did not decorate those hotel rooms. That’s how the suites are. And it was so fun to shoot there, because you felt Mr. Diabaté’s fascination with Elvis Presley, because where we shot the poker scene was Elvis’s actual bedroom when he stayed there for eight years when it was called The International Hotel. So it was just like living my fantasy within my fantasy. It was so fun to to experience and to feel that energy of how old this place has been, how much history it has, and how much opulence you’re surrounded by. I didn’t have to act because it was literally all there."

"Iconic celebrities never die because they are, in fact, a booming licensing business. Albert Einstein t-shirts. Elvis Presley guitar straps. Marilyn Monroe finger puppets. (These are all real.) If Samuel Jackson can wisecrack his way through Captain Marvel, then a hologram Tom Petty could perform a concert on behalf of a spirits brands at thousands of bars – at the same time. Muhammad Ali could teach your Orange theory boxing class. Julia Child would be in your kitchen with you to co-cook a Thanksgiving turkey on behalf of Butterball. Gone are the days when a celebrity can only be in one place at one time."

"Andy, you have to do me a favor. I have this crazy idea. You know, you always do the paintings of stars ( like Elvis and MM) ? Well, when Maria (Shriver Kennedy) marries me, she will be a star, so you’ll be painting a star."

"I' the King!"

"Elvis, to me, is a symbol of tremendous promise and that kind of American hopefulness, where you can come from nowhere and have nothing and build yourself up and chase that American dream."

"There comes a point when the voice starts to wash over you. You get inside of it, start to really hear what he's doing, and you realise his singing has this extraordinary, effortless quality to it. Sometimes it's like listening to a stream of honey. It's a very smooth ride, the voice of Elvis Presley. I don't think you focus on the words when he's singing. I think he's doing what bel canto singers do – you don't listen to the words, "just" to the beauty of his voice-. When I say "just", that makes it sound as if he's denying you something else but, actually, that's quite enough."

"He had a photographic mind, came prepared every day. I would have to say that if you, Carole, if you had ever have to do a scene with him, you be....... somewhat taken back, that's how his sex appeal hit you. His eyes, especially, so seductive..."

"We went backstage and he told me he used to play me on the jukebox when he was in the Army in Germany. He admired the high tenor male voice – he was a baritone. I was and remain a huge fan of his. He was a phenomenon."

"Well for one thing, he never got to sleep with her in his cover, actually he danced with her. My husband Ewan used to say that it was like Elvis being Romeo down on the ground calling up to Juliet, at the top of the Post Office Tower LOL."

"Little Richard, he was the first one that really got to me. He and, of course, Elvis Presley."

"Lou Reed, Elvis Presley and Kurt Cobain."

"So when the city of Albany came to the conclusion that the house two doors down from my house was structurally terminal after years of neglect, they had to dump a ramp of dirt to allow the excavator to make the climb. It was a thing to behold: The two-track beast would tear away a portion of the front of the house — first the porch, which had been replaced almost a decade ago after it had degraded to a dangerous sag — and then plant its claw deep in the wreckage and haul itself a few feet higher, like a mountaineer with a pickax. By the time it reached the summit, the house had been reduced to a cross-section: see the bedroom, see the attic, see the bathroom where for decades its former residents shaved and showered through the Depression, World War II, the entire life of Elvis Presley and the demise of Skylab."

"He is the Elvis of Racing"

"Halfway through the show, he asked that the house lights be turned up. After that was done he stated that he had told them not to sell the seats to his back and, since they had, he turned around and did the last half facing those of us that had only seen his back for the first. He was a great singer and showman."

"For any strategy to work, people first have to perceive vaccination as a normal part of life. That is why public health officials, nonprofit groups and major brands are collaborating on nationwide public service campaigns and partnering with celebrities to make vaccine more visible. The model for the celebrity shot dates to 1956, when few teenagers were getting the year-old polio vaccine. Two critical things happened that fall to reverse the trend. First, 21-year-old Elvis Presley got the shot in front of cameras before “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Second, the March of Dimes launched a wildly successful peer-to-peer campaign among teen social groups. In short, it leveraged the cool kids, but it may not have gotten the cool kids without the King""

"Elvis would quote Peter Sellers’ lines from "Pink Panther" movies on tour. Things would be going crazy, and he would look at somebody and go, ‘Do you have rhoom?’ " in Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau accent. Or, "Does your dog bite?". Sellers, in turn, was a fan of Elvis, even playing in an Elvis-singing role in his last movie. "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu""

"The book, by contrast to "White Rage", offers an extended view, spanning from pre-colonial plots to relocate Britain's human rubbish, to Thomas Jefferson's notion of “whiteness as an automatic badge of superiority,” to modern use of adjectives like “redneck,” “cracker” and “country boy,” such as in the specific case of Elvis Presley. Isenberg's greatest historical and sociological intervention is not just the idea that divide and stratification exist between races, or that such divisions habit within them, but that it has always been this way. American democracy has never accorded all the people a meaningful voice. The masses have been given symbols instead."

"He valued his fans and he treated them with respect. If anybody had a reason to be arrogant it would be him, but it's a great lesson for other musicians and people in general and that is the better you get, the more humble you should be. His music resonated with everyone and that's what made him so special, like Elvis Presley or Mozart""

"They have turned Soweto into a Disneyland for Nelson Mandela. They have tried to make him like Elvis Presley. Now with his death, so many foreigners will be going there, then they will say they have seen the real South Africa. Winnie will be there of course "showing off" how close she is to the poor of this country.....”"

"I don't think there is a musician today that hasn't been affected by Elvis' music. His definitive years – 1954–57 – can only be described as rock's cornerstone. He was the original cool ii) That was the standard in my house, he's the only rock 'n' roll guy that dabbled in Christmas"

"It all started when an elderly American woman once asked me: "Do people in South Africa know Elvis?" "Of course we South Africans know Elvis!" I replied. Or do we, really? So, I went on to write a paper and, using a historiographic approach, I attempted to explore how his image was first imported into South Africa, especially during the Apartheid era when there was no television, and media censorship was a fact of daily life. Additionally, I tried to reflect on the impact of the media – then and now – in creating images, fantasies and illusions in constituting the subjectivity of the Elvis of real life and the Elvis of sound, stage and celluloid in the South African musical imaginary."

"Oh yeah, big timeǃǃ"

"An economist called Elvis Presley, who's unfortunately deceased now but made a significant impact on economic thought, in one of his master treatises said: 'A little less conversation, a little more action, please. A little less fight and a little more spark..."

"So Brian, who I was producing then, and I went up to Las Vegas, and we're sitting there watching him and Elvis sings "Runaway", then says that he liked to introduce me to the audience. So, the lights go all over trying to find me, and they can't, until Brian, who is a shy guy gets up and says, "Heeeeeeeeeee's over heeeeeeeeeeeere", and points to me, next to him, in front of the thousands there. So I took a bow. Later we went backstage with him, for two hours and let me tell you, I have never seen a better looking guy in my life."

"I met him in New York during his 2nd appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1956. I was just out of the William Morris Agency´s mailroom and still a very junior agent. That night, they held a press conference right before he went on so I went up to him and said, “Elvis, they’re ready for you.”. He said, “Yes sir. I’ll be right there, sir.” I was 24 and he was 21, and I said, “Sir! I’m from the Bronx. You’re the first person in the world to call me sir.” He was the sweetest guy. To this day, I cherish the fact that Elvis Presley was the first person ever to call me sir."

"While many people assume it must have been a difficult slog for an Arab like me to gain acceptance in the Hollywood of the 1960s, I beg to differ. They treated me like a God. I had a beautiful house in Bel-Air, under me was this singer, what was his name, tall super nice guy, he was a very popular singer. I could see his swimming pool. Now I can't remember names of anybody, it's extraordinary. Wait, it was Elvis Presley! So I used to look and see if he had girls in the pool. LOL. And then he died young. I was in the Bel Air house when he died in Memphis, and suddenly the house under me was always empty....’"

"i) I spoke to over 140 songwriters whose work Presley recorded, and most remarked about his uncanny ability to capture the essence and make it his own; like a musical geneticist, he drew from every strand of DNA in a songwriter's work, which ultimately helped shape his own distinctive personal interpretation; just listen to the wide stylistic swath of genre-hopping material he recorded during his career – from Junior Parker's amphetamine-paced rockabilly classic "Mystery Train" and the poppin-perfect panache of Otis Blackwell's "All shook up", to the down and dirty blues swagger of "Reconsider baby" and the operatic grandeur of "It's now or never"-; and then there were more controversial and socially conscious anthems ("If I can dream" and "In the ghetto"), and introspective 70's fare like "Separate ways" and "Always on my my mind"; right away, you can hear the breath of a master stylist who breathed new life into every song he cut" ii) Growing up, Elvis Presley's quasi-gospel ballad "Crying in the Chapel" was the first secular recording allowed inside the Pointer Sisters' strict Church of God in Christ home in West Oakland, California. Ruth, Anita, Bonnie, and June were only allowed to listen to the radio on Sundays. On top of that, it had to be gospel stations. Thank God their mom fancied that song. In an extensive 2006 interview one of the sisters, Anita, reflected on the fact that it was so unbelievable that someone like Elvis could relate to the story in their song 'Fairytale' and want to record it. She thought Elvis did it beautifully and very pleased with his version, capturing the emotion in the song as he did. Ruth Pointer, also spoke positively of Elvis's final album 'Moody Blue' and defended him against charges of any cultural appropriation"

"He is a huge fan of Elvis Presley, even naming his own thirty bedroom mansion "Graceland" after Elvis's Memphis home"

"The Owensboro Police Department quickly responded to my accident in the Meijer parking lot on Sunday, where my dog Elvis, a purebred, had apparently put my truck into drive and hit another parked car. I posted a video on Facebook, explaining how Elvis had shifted the car into drive while trying to get to some bacon grease on the truck's dashboard. Alas, I had left the truck running and forgot to put the emergency brake on. which explained how the truck then rolled up at least four parking spaces, hitting a car parked nearby. Police said there were no charges, so Elvis and I got off scot-free."

"I loved him. There were two icons who changed our life in the 1950's, James Dean and Elvis. He was the first singer who was loved by both girls and guys. He brought us together, boys and girls, a revolutionary, had a profound effect on all of us, culturally, musically emotionally, spiritually, still miss him..."

"I used to watch the way he treated so many people with kindness and respect, the way he used to be so grateful to his fans. He used to say, "Shari, when I wait backstage to go on and I hear all that screaming and I know it's for me, well, sometimes I feel as if my head is going to get real big with all that kind of fuss and stuff. Then I think that my dad drove a truck and that but for the grace of God I'd be drivin' one too. You have to have humility, Shari," he would tell me. "You can never forget who put you where you are and how many people would like to change places with you"."

"I think when I came out of the womb – I've been saying this but I mean it, you're born knowing who Elvis is. The name Elvis is just part of the fabric of humanity. He just is this thing that exists in the air, and contributed obviously so much to music. But I think he is the definition of what's cool.""

"Elvis Presley connects Tupelo, MS to the whole world, the opportunities for cultural and educational exchanges abounding. When I went to Germany, I only talked to two types of people there, those that have been to Tupelo and those that want to come to Tupelo. After learning more about the area, a German tour company decided to turn a day-trip detour from Memphis into an overnighter in the All-America City. Looking to the future, I hope to see continued expansion of the Germany tourist market. City officials there have also agreed to pursue a municipal friendship. I think my there trip certainly will justify the financial costs and will pay dividends for years to come."

"We never saw energy like that coming off a stage before and meeting Elvis afterwards I found him to be a friendly, happy guy. Nice to everyone"."

"At the time, that was in 1972, I thought he was too old for me, but there was this chemistry between us. I felt a lot for him. I got to see him perform in Las Vegas — the greatest performer ever. I'm still really sad we lost him. I wish I could have been a closer friend to help save him. He was truly a kind and gentle man who never truly recovered from the death of his mother."

"He was the first person to truly believe in me as a musician and gifted me with my first tour bus. For the album I am doing “The Day Elvis Died” and “I Want to Live Like Elvis". He gave me words to live by as an artist and to this day, I haven't forgotten them. He told me that if anyone forgets where they came from they're never going to get to where they want to go. He also told me that it was the people who make you who you are, so if you stay true to them, they'll stay with you."

"Graham never forgot his home state of North Carolina or the South, rivaling Coca-Cola and Elvis Presley as the region's top export."

"We went in to scout the Hadooshi farm. We were gathering intelligence; there were quite a lot of buildings and compounds across the whole farm. We could see they were antsy. We went up to the gate, breached it. We caught them off guard. This one woman, she was just mean. Every time we walked through the garden, she went nuts. We noticed the garden was freshly dug. We started moving the dirt around, and we pulled up a big square riveted container. When we came across birth certificates, marriage licenses, we knew it was significant. It was like looking for (and finding) Elvis."

"We all automatically wanted to dress like Elvis, look like Elvis, swagger, strut, and sneer like Elvis – and every snide remark from Aunt Mimi, our teachers, or the newspapers only served to reinforce our new idol's grip"

"“Long Live the King.” A phrase that the founding fathers never wanted the American people to hear again. Recently, the White House’s official Instagram posted an illustration and quote that portrays President Donald Trump as the “King Of America”. Not only is this blatantly un-American, but it is also untrue. There is only one king in America: Elvis Presley."

"Many communities have a “this celebrity slept here” story. As a mountain resort, Idyllwild residents can share many but perhaps the most told is the time Elvis Presley spent three weeks there in 1961 to film “Kid Galahad. Visitors, starting in 2018, can now tour "The Hidden Lodge", built in 1947, one of five restored homes on the tour is one of many Idyllwild locations in “Kid Galahad. It’s the first time it’s been open to the public and it’s a lovely, lovely place. It was something the owners couldn’t pass up. The porch where Presley sang “This is Living” in the film is still intact. People will walk up, sit on the railing and strum their hand like they have a guitar. The home is an homage to Presley without going over the top. In fact, the tour is the Idyllwild Area Historical Society's lone fundraiser and usually draws hundreds of visitors.."

"Our company's breakthrough came in 1933, when one of our microphones was used by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This marked the beginning of our association with political, musical, and cultural milestones. A lustrum later, we revolutionized microphone design with the creation of the Model 55 Unidyne, the world’s first single-element dynamic cardioid microphone. Its iconic design would go on to be associated with countless musical legends —think Elvis Presley crooning into its unmistakable grille..."

"I found him sensitive and very good. He felt he could have done better things. His advisors were very much against doing this kind of straight role and they tried to get him to sing throughout the picture. Obviously, they didn't want him to get off the winning horse. But when I was able to calm him down, I thought he gave a beautiful performance..."

"My uncle Bob was an Indiana hillbilly. He was the kind of guy who had a clear plastic suicide knob on the wheel of his two-tone Chevy, that featured a photo of a lady in a naughty cheesecake pose. Uncle Bob knew his Rock and Roll and all his nephews were all baptized in the church of Elvis. That early intervention saved me. Pat Boone may get to a higher place, but he should know before he goes that the Holy Ghost will have Elvis playing on heaven's record player"

"He was the atomic bomb. Period."

"This, I think, is as close to the "real" Elvis as we were ever permitted to glimpse during his lifetime, a funny, self-deprecatory star who loved to hack around with his guys, but who had no trouble reeling them back in when they started having a little too much fun. We, at home, watched and understood how lovable so many people thought he was. The show, when it aired, became one of the top-rated of 1968. Most of the TV critics of the time didn't get it, certainly not the way the show's producer and audience did, the critics being, frankly, rather bad stuck-in-the-mud old fogies and tired, bitter conscripts from elsewhere in the newsroom who were about to be superseded in the early '70's by a new generation of TV critics who had not only grown up with Elvis, but with TV itself"

"The first time I heard his music, back in ’54 or ’55, I was in a car and I heard the announcer say, “Here’s a guy who, when he appears on stage in the South, the girls scream and rush the stage”. Then he played ‘That’s all right, mama’. I thought his name was about the weirdest I'd ever heard. I thought for sure he was a Black guy. Later on I grew my hair like him, imitated his stage act – once I went all over New York looking for a lavender shirt like the one he wore on one of his albums. I felt wonderful when he sang ‘Bridge over troubled water’, even though it was a touch on the dramatic side – but so was the song. It was unbelievable,and I thought to myself, how the hell can I compete with that?"

"But it wasn’t until 1958, when Elvis Presley teamed the item with brilliantine and attitude in the movie "King Creole" that the jacket crossed over to Main Street and became a much-copied American staple. Elvis always floated between Ivy League style and serious fashion and the Baeacuta G9 came in some great colors. When Elvis wore it was called the "Jivey Ivy" , which was Ivy League with a twist. After that almost every clothing company in the US copied it."

"He is a huge Elvis fan, his favourite songs being ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘Suspicious Minds, and he can move like Elvis"

"By 1979, they were so prolific that Freddy was able to lounge in the bath in the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich, pick up a guitar – not his usual instrument – and bash out this globally successful tribute to Elvis Presley in 10 minutes. We are not worthy."

"He rarely over-sang when recording, delivering a vocal to suit the song. So, he can loudly accuse in "Hound Dog" (1956), rasp and rage for "Jailhouse Rock" (1957), bare his soul and beg on "Any Day Now"(1969) and sound quietly, sadly, worldly-wise on "Funny How Time Slips Away". (1970). This gift may explain why his music endures so powerfully and why his performances remain so easy to hear."

"Elvis' songs can be heard everywhere worldwide, which is perhaps why everyone is familiar with his voice. When you hear a deep tuneful voice with a Southern drawl in a rock 'n' roll song, it can't be anyone but Elvis (in spite of that voice actually being that of someone else "successfully" mimicking him)."

"Remembering the legend and the super energetic actor who carved an extraordinary niche for himself, especially for his grooving dancing style. He was ahead of his times in everything and was the first among contemporaries to have mastered the internet. He was truly deserving of the title 'Elvis Presley of India'"

"At the risk of being sad for two seconds, I drink a toast to a wonderful fellow who left yesterday and did much for American Music. I knew him for maybe 12 or 14 years and we know, what he did in his career, but I knew him as a man, a gentle, good, fine man, gracious and generous in every sense of the word. Things which people never heard about him helping organizations, and children's hospitals but I knew all about that. He was some kind of cat and I hope God's good to him. ii) I am just a singer. Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture. Life just wouldn't have been the same without him. There have been many accolades uttered about his talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend."

"My heart melted when I saw him in person but when he and my dad met for the taping, they were both nervous..."

"You were either brought up on the Beatles or Elvis. I was raised on Elvis, and every song he sang, every film he was in and every move he made is part of my DNA."

"During that last show in Indianapolis, he was on stage for an hour and a half. He included his own hits, pertinent covers and classic rock ’n’ roll, and there was a crescendo of gospel which was always a showstopper. It was a special show. He sang his heart out. Having only seen Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in previous years in front of an audience of 2,200 people the atmosphere was equally electrifying in front of 18,000, and the whole audience erupted when he announced that amongst them were 250 Brits."

"Elvis Presley has a very definite form of dance rhythm and this may well be what creates the hysteria."

"After the show, we were headed out and about 20 feet in front of us, there were Elvis and his crew heading out also. Somebody right behind him yelled...faggot.. Elvis turned around and punched him in the face. Now that was funny..I was really glad I saw him do that. I would have probably done the same thing."

"Most singers have their idols. I remember Elvis Presley when I was about sixteen, I always said I wanted to do 'Love Me Tender.'"

"It's like Ron Howard trying to be the Fonz. It's hard for an English rap artist to have that kind of a cool "Fonzie" effect to Americans and a wide-variety audience. So either you have to go a comical route or something, a Pee Wee Herman-route. I don't know, something! You've got to come with something other than trying to be Elvis Presley."

"Each singer (of the so-called folk variety), is recognized as much from its characteristic sound, as from what they actually sing or play, and they manipulate tone colour with a virtuosity that owes nothing to either the classical, or the Tin Pan Alley tradition; one thinks, for example, of the voice of Elvis Presley, an expressive vehicle, shifting from high to low tones, groaning, slurring, and producing breathless changes of rhythm; to many listeners, the voice may have seemed crude, but its folk immediately resided in its crudeness."

"I was in Holland and our dressing room was next door to the one being used by the supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets. Anyways, I went to the toilet and who walks in but Alex Turner? He is a hero of mine and, to me, he looked like Elvis Presley..."

"The week I started working at Federal Express was probably one of the most significant times in recent history in Memphis due to the death of the Elvis Presley. On the day after his death, we had to set up the sorting tables, yes, tables not belts since we were still doing manual sorting as we waited on the first automated sort belts to be installed. We were all working side by side for about 30 minutes and as we were all ready to leave, someone reached out to shake my hand. As he shook it, he introduced himself as Fred Smith and I then countered with "Nice to meet you, Fred and I’m Elvis Presley". I did that because all I knew about Federal Express at that time was that the founder was an enterpreneur named Fred Smith. The man turned to me and said "No, really I’m Fred Smith" and I said "No, really I’m Elvis Presley". As he walked away he turned and looked back with a slight smirk on his face and a little chuckle. A few minutes later, Mike Ducker, my first boss slapped me upside the head as he laughed at my early introduction to one Fred Smith."

"What's better than Jaden Smith rapping about Elvis Presley and driving around with Harry Potter in the most surreal of ways? Well, Jaden Smith rapping about Elvis Presley and driving around with Harry Potter in the most surreal of ways and with only other voices as his accompaniment."

"The medium of TV and the birth of Elvis came at exactly the same time. Before, it didn't matter as much what you looked like, with radio or records. With Elvis, it was the whole package."

"I worked in a credit store and he came in to open an account. I asked his name and he wouldn't give it to me if I didn't give him mine first. LOLː Same with the phone, the address. LOL. Anyways, that's how I met him, and then he introduced me to his first cousin Gene, and it all started from there. Years later he and all his entourage were at a Cadillac dealership in downtown Memphis. It was Xmas. He gave each and every one of them a Caddy and, as he was waiting for a special Caddy he had ordered he saw an African American lady who was waiting for her husband to pick her up. So finally he shows up, with a cranky Concord. It was then that Elvis asked her how a lady of her age was s still working. And the lady said that was how all the bills would be paid, rent, etc. So, when his car finally arrived there, he gives her the car he had ordered. With all the commotion, everyone had left, the lady left, left the Concord there, and Elvis was standing in the middle of Beale Street, alone, in the middle of the night. He saw a light in a nearby store, so he asked the African American who was there cleaning to give him a ride home, as all his friends had left, and so had the African American lady, he explained. Willie, that was his name, who didn't know who Elvis was at first, told him that if he waited, he would take him to Graceland but warned him his car did not have seats in the back and that the one in the passenger side, up front, was broken, so Elvis told him he will sit anywhere to get home. Once there he asked him for his address and work number, as he didn't have a home phone. The next day Willie was invited to Graceland and when he came in, he drove there with a brand new car..."

"A lot of Presley's good stuff was overlooked. Like the NME viewpoint that he died when he came out of the army. I think the opposite, his best stuff came after the army. Look, Elvis was the King right? To me, Elvis IS King 'cos he sustained it"

"i)The Houston Rodeo people didn't want us to come. There was a message sent to leave the black girls, they didn't need the black girls. And so Elvis responded with, 'Well if they don't come, I don't come'. But he was really upset about it. There was one person in particular who had sent the message. So when we got there, we were greeted by this little blonde in a convertible and she had to drive us around and she was his daughter. So Elvis always made sure he got even. I'm sure he said, 'And I want your daughter to drive them'. But, when it was happening we didn't know. We learned that later ii) When in true form, he was fabulous, his voice and vocal pitch a lot more remarkable than it ever came off on record; in fact, Elvis was a much better singer than could ever be captured; you know, some singers' voices are just too big, and Elvis' was like that."

"To me, Bob Dylan always represented rock'n'roll – I never thought of him as a folk singer or poet or nothing. I just thought he was the sexiest person since Elvis Presley"

"It was at age 13, in 1977, when I would discover my real passion while watching the live TV coverage of Elvis Presley's funeral. I liked the immediacy of it all, and I knew right then I wanted to do that someday..."

"They've got signs of Elvis. They got billboards of Elvis and Graceland. There should be billboards of Ja Morant. Elvis is dead… It's over. God rest his soul.”"

"Elvis Presley came to Weeki Wachee. He could have gone anywhere, but he came here. He was so good looking and he was this total, ultimate Southern gentleman. He had each one of us come up and he presented to us his latest record. He signed mine 'Warmest wishes, to Vicki. Elvis Presley". I always tell the audience before each show that I did swim, as a mermaid, for Elvis Presley and that he was so cute! But so was I in 1961!""

"Older than Red State versus Blue State, older than the Montagues versus the Capulets, humankind’s primal combat is the age-old conflict between the Early Birds and the Night Owls. Early Birds are those who for some reason think a sunrise is one of life’s great experiences. At their helm is Benjamin Franklin, who famously said, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”. Night Owls are those who believe the pleasure of staying up late is exceeded only by that of sleeping in the next morning—or the next afternoon, if it comes to that. Their hero is Elvis Presley, who famously said, “The sun’s down and the moon’s pretty; it’s time to ramble.”"

"He was causing riots wherever he went. On May 5, 1955, he was chased at intermission and across the field by a pack of women at Ladd Stadium in Mobile, right after he finished singing, which had been set to start before intermission...."

"Chris Richards should look up the accomplishments of Elvis Presley. Presley did more to further black music than any artist on the planet. He made it acceptable and paved the way. Almost all rock historians agree. Richard's article quoted an obscure obscenity from one racist musician but did not include even one of hundreds of positive quotes from his rivals of the day, who loved Presley and his uniting spirit."

"In some ways, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's) can already be called a success due to its democratic accountability and the active involvement of civil society, but I would like to quote the famous philosopher Elvis Presley, in one of whose timeless hits he asked for “A little less conversation, a little more action -please”. So let's listen to Elvis – and act now!"

"If one goes to the Licensing Convention in Las Vegas, the three most iconic images of the 20th century are Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali."

"Imagine growing up in post-war Britain. Ration coupons. Rain-slick streets. Bombed-out terraces of dingy brick. And then, shimmering on the horizon, the prospect of salvation: American popular culture. Who needs spirit-sapping austerity when Elvis Presley can cheer you up?"

"As with Marilyn, Liz and Marlon, Warhol instinctively understood the Elvis brand as an industrialized construct and radically revealed it as a precisely composed non-reality. Of course Elvis offered Warhol the biggest brand of all, and he accentuates this by choosing a manifestly contrived version of Elvis-the-film-star, rather than the raw genius of Elvis as performing Rock n' Roll pioneer."

"Don't get too hot and bothered. We have heard some expressions of annoyance among the older set over the current teenage rage, a young hillbilly entertainer named Elvis Presley. We were about to identify Mr. Presley more explicitly as a singer, but out of deference to sensitive feelings we chose the less controversial noun. Elvis puts on the most active act on TV, contorting his face and body as though in great pain, whomping the daylights out of his defenceless guitar, and uttering unintelligible shrieks and groans. The latter manifestations, preserved on phonograph records, are selling like mad. A good many parents seem fearful for the future of American youth if it can see merit in Mr. Presley's aggravated assaults on the musical idiom. We would remind such worriers of their own youth. Don't they recall their parents threatening to smash the loud speaker of the battery radio if Rudy Vallee megaphoned the 'Maine Stein Song' through it once again? Or fretting over juvenile appreciation for Cab Calloway's scat lyrics? But somehow the youngsters of yesterday grew up to be the sensible citizens of today, and now Rudy's crooning and Cab's hi-de-hi sound sort of pleasantly old-fashioned. So brace up, parents of '56. In another 20 years Elvis Presley really won't seem so bad, and your grown-up teenagers will be biting their nails over the entertainment sensation of '76.""

"So you went into this movie really tuned..."

"I’m from the Southern Midwest. My mom was an Elvis memorabilia collector. We were raised on Elvis"

"On 25 October 1760, the then 76 year old King George II of Great Britain died suddenly after visiting the toilet. His physician, Dr. Frank Nicholls, immediately performed a rare autopsy and found that he had suffered a ruptured thoracic aortic aneurysm – a ballooning of the body’s main artery. Whether it’s sudden cardiac death, fainting and falls or microbial exposure, the toilet is not always the sanctuary we imagine. It’s a space where anatomy, privacy and risk intersect – often unnoticed until something goes terribly wrong. On August 16, 1977, Elvis Presley, aged just 42, was found collapsed on the bathroom floor of his Memphis, TN home. Though some in the media speculated about a drug overdose, the post-mortem narrative revealed a more complex and tragic medical picture as he had suffered from chronic constipation, possibly exacerbated by a high-fat, low-fibre diet, prolonged opiate use and a 'megacolon' – a pathologically enlarged colon. On the morning of his death, he was reportedly straining forcefully. A wrong manoeuvre may have triggered a fatal arrhythmia in a heart already compromised by years of prescription drug abuse and poor health."

"I think Elvis is the sexiest man to ever walk the earth. I love him."

"The budget is $269 million and Montpetit thinks it will finish under budget. We’re in the middle of a resurgence in the capital, and called the old train station part of a cultural landscape, a national landscape that once saw soldiers leave for war and return years later and one that welcomed Winston Churchill, the Emperor of Japan, and Elvis Presley."

"He's a great singer. Gosh, Elvis is so great. You have no idea how great he is, really, you don't. You have absolutely no comprehension—it's absolutely impossible. I can't tell you why he's so great, but he is. He's sensational. He can do anything with his voice. Elvis can make some masterful records and can do anything. He can sing any way you want him to..."

"The “Hamilton” fiasco, with members of the hit Broadway show berating Vice President-elect Mike Pence from the stage, brought to mind another New York event from 44 years ago, when entertainers – at least some of them – had a vastly different idea of their place in American culture. On June 9, 1972, Elvis Presley, about to perform a series of sold-out concerts at Madison Square Garden, held a press conference. It being 1972, it was inevitable that he would be asked about what was then a new phenomenon: the politicization of the arts. One questioner asked him, “Mr. Presley, as you’ve mentioned your time in the service, what is your opinion of war protesters and would you today refuse to be drafted? ”Elvis answered: “Honey, I’d just sooner keep my own personal views about that to myself cause I’m just an entertainer and I’d rather not say. Asked next “Do you think other entertainers should also keep their personal views to themselves, he answered: “No, I can’t even say that!” Elvis was right. The cast of “Hamilton,” and the legions of their virtue-signaling followers are wrong. Elvis, unlike them, grasped that audiences might enjoy “Heartbreak Hotel” or “Suspicious Minds,” or “Hamilton” or any other work of art of any genre, without necessarily subscribing to, or caring about, or even knowing, the political views of the artist. . The performing arts are growing increasingly politicized, and that is why it is harder and harder to find apolitical entertainers like Elvis. It will take performers of courage to remember that no one own the culture, and to regain the spirit of Elvis and go back to being simply entertainers. Until those performers emerge, the stage and screen will find their audiences steadily diminishing, and fewer and fewer political enemies in the audience to lecture. If the “Hamilton” cast doesn't want them around, there are plenty of Elvis records to play to while away the evening."

"It remains a camp and cult classic and was one of my favorite films during my formative years."

"Even as a young man, that's what Presley sounded, like a man. I wasn't of a culture nor a region that found Presley appealing, and I've never seen a Presley movie through but, a few years ago when in a tribute to him various modern singers covered some of his originals, followed, or enclosed by, his versions of the same songs, I was struck by how much fuller, deeper, and richer his were."

"I was sitting at a writing desk in a hotel lobby writing a letter, and he just came up to me and started talkin How could you not know who he was even then?. I was friendly and told him I loved his record, Heartbreak Hotel. Then he took me to the gift shop to show me a magazine. This says I'm a hillbilly. I'm not, am I?' he said, 'No, you're a singer.' And after that I was with him and the guys all the time. There wasn't a crowd then, just a few guys. Back then, Elvis was surrounded by the first wave of what would become known as the Memphis Mafia. I was the only woman in the group. Girls come and go but sisters stay forever. This sister lasted forever. We were friends till the day he died. We were like kids in 1956 In the afternoons in Las Vegas we would ride bumper cars at an amusement park and went out for adventures where we could escape the crowds. He loved the fact that I had a light blue Cadillac, and he bought the same car for his mother in pink. One day we drove my car out into the desert, and his cousin came with us. Elvis drove that car as fast as it could go, and I was in the front seat whooping and screaming and laughing. His cousin was on the floor in the back he was so scared. But I'd been a stunt player in the movies, and Elvis couldn't go fast enough to scare me. When they visited Graceland, we stayed up all night listening to Elvis singing and playing the piano. He liked to sing hymns. I didn't know any hymns, but I do now. He introduced me to Amazing Grace." in Los Angeles, where Elvis made movies, I remember going out on a Sunday with him and his friend, actor Nick Adams. Elvis decided to stop in a sports store and buy us bows and arrows. It was just whimsy. We went up to Mulholland Drive and were shooting bows and arrows, and nobody saw us. When his mother, Gladys, died in 1958, Judy came to the funeral. I've never seen anyone as sad as Elvis was. He grieved. He cried continuously. We were in the front hall at Graceland, and he stood there hugging me for a half-hour. He was crying and crying and crying. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. In later years, I attended his Las Vegas concerts, and he would stop the show to introduce me to the audience. I had married by then and so had he. By the time drugs invaded his life, I was less involved I never think of him as he was the last year or year and a half," I think of him as so vibrant and beautiful and funny. When he died, a whole part of my life changed, and I died a little.""

"I'd seen Elvis seated on first class as I entered the plane, so when he came to the coach section before the plane landed and went up and down the aisle signing autographs to all of us there I said “Hey, would you sign this for my girlfriend Allison, you know, Steve Binder manages me,” and he said, “Yes, Yes, I love Steve, Steve’s great,” It didn't then mean much to me (1972), but it was all pretty cool and he was a very sweet guy. In fact, I wasn't a big Elvis fan at the time, but I am now."

"And nobody can bring it all back like Elvis did. And that is why there are sightings, and visits to his home, and why now there is even a stamp. Finally, Elvis can be licked but he can not ever be beaten"

"i) FUN ... it is waiting for you, Mr. and Mrs. Everyday American, and guess what? It is your birthright,” writes Springsteen of that galvanic Elvis moment. Springsteen’s familiar stage voice, his corny carny barker way with action verbs, leaps from the page in assessing what Elvis promised: “The life-blessing, wall-destroying, heart-changing, mind-opening bliss of a freer, more liberated existence. ii) Somewhere in between the mundane variety acts on a routine Sunday night in the year of our Lord 1956, THE REVOLUTION HAS BEEN TELEVISED iii) There have been a lotta tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king. iv)it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, and somehow we all dreamed it. ii) When I heard it, it just shot straight through to my brain. And I realized, suddenly, that there was more to life than what I'd been living. I was then in pursuit of something and there'd been a vision laid out before me. You were dealing with the pure thrust, the pure energy of the music itself. I was so very young but it still hit me like a thunderbolt."

"The way that I would entertain my family was via impersonations, and I had this very strange combination of who I would do: Yasser Arafat and Elvis Presley. That's just who I impersonated as a seven-year-old. My family was like, ‘Oh, these are good,’ and they would all laugh. I think it made them think I would be an actor."

"Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds and Cant help falling in love........."

"I asked him if he wanted me to pull up. He said, 'No.' I said, 'Are you sure? I could leave a welt.' He replied, 'That's OK.' So I belted him. That slap you hear in the film was not put in afterward – that was the slap.""

"Evis called and said that he liked to screen "Rocky", and that he was going to rent a theater in Memphis so that we could watch the film together. And I didn't go. I was shy, believe it or not. And I remember, when he died in 1977, I was doing "F.I.S.T". So now I try to instill in my children: Grab something when it's offered."

"Elvis Presley was my rock ’n’ roll favorite, bigger than life to me. No one had seen somebody that looked like that or moved like that, not in staid, suburban, white society"

"If Elvis were playing through a stack of amplifiers, he would be called a heavy metal singer today. The problem is some of the kids who grew up loving everything he stood for, are now journalists who have become what they feared most, parents. No one name says more than his, ELVIS. It roars while others whisper."

"It's because you reminded me so much of Robert. He was gorgeous, and so are you..."

"I credit my sister Cleedy and my father for the Staple Singers, because Pops would have her singing in a minor. Her soprano was different from anybody else's. And Pops had on his guitar a tremolo. He went to the music store one day, and he came back with this tremolo. I was too young to know who he was, but Elvis Presley told me one time, “I like the way your father plays guitar. He plays a nervous guitar.” I said, “Nervous?! That’s the first time I heard that.” But that was a good name for it. Nervous. Our sound was so unique. What helped Elvis was that when he did interviews, he would tell that he got it from blacks'"

"My mom brought me home from the hospital after my birth with the radio off. This, she told me, was so when we got home and she danced me around to Elvis Presley's “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” it was the first musician I would ever hear."

"Return to sender..."

"If I fly in, can you arrange seating arrangements at one of his shows?"

"I didn't know him personally, but I was a fan of his, loved his music, energy and his voice: he had that fast vibrato that was so nice. At that time you weren't allowed to express yourself in those ways, so they showed him from the waist up, not the waist down. I mean, he was a little sexy guy! I was a little kid, but I asked 'Why won't they show all of him?' He would wiggle all the way down, and the girls would be screaming, and when I saw him on TV, I would be screaming too! And I loved the way his hair would shake when he got so emotional, you know? So when I got the chance to do his music, I welcomed it. (The racist controversy) never troubled me, because he wrote me a note. it was at the time I was divorcing Clarence Carter, and my stuff ended up all over the place, so I don't know what happened to the note, Back then I didn't think anything of it – I thought he would live forever but he told me he really, really, really loved my version of 'In The Ghetto". I have no idea where it is after all this time. Back then I didn't think anything of it – I thought he would live forever.”"

"I think the chances of that are roughly the same of Elvis Presley walking in here right now."

"Elvis was my first massive record obsession. I didn’t quite move like him, but I use to dress up as him sometimes as a kid"

"Finally, he wove into ‘Hound Dog’ and bounced off the stage, carrying the mike with him. There, on the 50-yard-line, he sank to his knees, rose, wove, bumped, ground and sank again, time after time. The girls screamed themselves silly. If that may have been obscene, but it was in the same way the climax of a revival meeting is obscene. Elvis worked himself over to the grass alongside the stage, sank almost out of sight and suddenly slipped into the waiting Cadillac. A motorcycle cop roared out in front, the car drove off and quickly the bowl's overhead lights were turned on. The shrieks became groans of disappointment. But the ball was over, the spell was broken. Noisily, the fans began filing out of the stadium, spent."

"My father, Herbert Stein was at the time Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and worked at the White House, often took me for lunch there where top dogs were allowed to have delicious meals, served by Navy Mess NCOs. We saw many famous people there, but one day, roughly three years before I myself started working there, he leaned towards me confidentially and said, “If you saw Elvis Presley in person, would you recognize him?” “I think so,” said I. “Well, look behind you.” I swiveled my hairy head around, and to my total shock, there was Elvis Presley eating with President Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff, Bob Haldeman a much feared but extremely pleasant and smart man. I got up, made my excuses to Mr. Haldeman, and said to Elvis, “Sir, everyone in the world is your fan, but I am your biggest fan.” In a voice and with a phrase that is incredibly famous, he simply said, “Thank yew ver’ much.” I was dazed. But I did not forget. And if you were to ask me to cite a lesson from it, it would be a line from a great Joan Didion novel called "Play It As It Lays: “You can’t win if you’re not at the table.” “Connections are golden.” Well worth remembering."

"Actually, he was an easy-going guy. No putting on airs, like he was some big star. An ordinary person, very polite, very obliging, a wonderful man, when I look back on it. It's a shame he had to go so soon.”"

"Elvis is like a bull in the ring. He belongs to the crowd—and they refuse to let him go."

"An oldies station was on the radio and it was playing that old Elvis song, 'I Want You, I Need you, I love you" so I just started singing my own song but it was 'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.' I remember going home and I tried so hard but the best I could do was: 'I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you, don't be sad, 'cause two out of three ain't bad' So it was still a twist but it was my closest to a simple song, and one Elvis could have done."

"Certainly the most famous performer to be attached to a tongues-speaking fellowship was Elvis Presley; shortly after the Presleys arrived in Memphis, from Tupelo, a First Assembly of God bus swung through their rundown neighborhood, so they climbed aboard and became regulars of Pastor James Hamill's congregation; Hamill remembers Elvis attended Sunday school and was exposed there to the best in Pentecostal music; in 1957, after he achieved international acclaim, Presley said 'We used to go to these religious sing-ins all the time, and there were these perfectly fine singers nobody responded to, but there were also these other singers who cut up all over the place, jumping on the piano, moving every which way, and all of which the audience liked, so I guess I learned from them'; uninhibited Pentecostalism gave young Elvis ideas about music and performance and, from then on, he was sometimes called the "Evangelist" by his inner circle of friends."

"When Elvis Presley rolled up his sleeve in October 1956 and was photographed receiving the new polio vaccine hours before his appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, he became a massive force for the wonders of public health. Before Elvis got his shot, the number of teenagers to get the vaccine was 0.6%. After the show, the rates went up to 80%."

"The Warriors had cut the lead to as little as two points in the third quarter, the inevitable onslaught stemming from a groin injury that took LeBron James out of the game for good. But then it was Stephenson of all people, former LeBron archival known for blowing in his ear as much as for his questionable shot selection, hitting a momentum-regaining 3-pointer as the third quarter buzzer sounded. True to form, he followed up the huge shot with his trademark guitar-playing celebration -- though this one had some extra hip gyration that would have made Elvis Presley stand up and applaud."

"I'll never forget it. We were in the rehearsal hall, and all of a sudden, we heard this commotion coming down the hall and there was this entourage of people coming into the room, When Elvis walked into the room, my mouth dropped. I'm like, Wow, I now understand why this guy is the biggest star in the world. He had magnetism. He filled the room. He really did. And to be able to sing with him for about a year and a-half of my life was an amazing experience. He was just a great singer. When you listen to Elvis' records, back in the day when he recorded, everything was recorded analog. There were really no computers to tune your voice or anything. He just had a natural talent. And he recorded in a recording studio just like he sang on stage. He held a microphone in his hand. He walked around the recording studio, and it was like he was doing a live performance. And he hardly ever shaded a pitch. He was just so talented, he really was.”"

"Elvis Presley, Hugh Hefner, Frank Sinatra – maybe not the kind of men you'd expect to embrace environmentally-friendly technology even if they were around to see it. However they were all diehard Cadillac guys, and we have to think that if anyone can convince its set-in-their-ways customers to go electric, it's Detroit's most famous luxury brand."

"Back in 2002, Eminem rapped about “little hellions, kids feeling rebellious — embarrassed their parents still listen to Elvis.” Plenty of those little hellions rebelled against their parents (and the carefree ignorance of the pre-9/11 world) and grew up into today's hipsters."

"Elvis was big for me, even from a very young age; That was the music that was around my house; I love that stuff, great songs and, as a singer, he was 'The Great' rock and roll singer."

"One word to describe him̜? Sexy"

"Alas, this turned out to be his only time on UK soil..."

"I believe we need to restore confidence in Illinois. We deserve a state government that you can trust. It has been my mission as your state representative to support, sponsor, and vote for common sense solutions that provide for balanced budgets, to resist tax increases without a commitment to responsible spending, and to secure jobs for working families. I believe doing so will help you have more faith in our state government. I agree with Elvis Presley. “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”"

"As soon as we were done with the first shot, he said, ‘You wanna talk?’ I was shocked. He pulled up two chairs together, we sat down, he took my hand and then he began to tell me about his mother. He talked about how much he missed her, how when he was in the Army, they wouldn't let him go see her when she was dying. It wasn't like he was flirting, he was just being very sweet and could not have been nicer."

"i) I mean, they treat me like I'm Elvis there, they really do. ii) Elvis was the king. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps. iii)Bloody Elvis, beating me to the top from the grave.iv) He had it all, But I am not doing too bad myself LOL"

"The third day started with a biscuit breakfast on the bus as we headed set course toward Tupelo to visit Elvis Presley's birthplace. I had given our group a loose itinerary, but what the group didn't know is that I had arranged for an Elvis tribute artist to stand on the side of the road five miles out of Oxford with his thumb out, hitchhiking. We picked him up, Jack Curtis was his name, and he performed a concert of Elvis' classics, up and down the aisle of the bus, all of the way in to Tupelo. We got out to tour the Elvis Presley birthplace and my guests said, “I don’t know how you’re going to top this.”...."

"More than 30 years ago, the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) Fraternity joined the fight against childhood cancer when Danny Thomas, founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and fraternity member from the Gamma-Nu chapter at the University of Toledo, asked his fraternity to help him with his cause. Before Thomas could make his dream of building St. Jude a reality, he garnered the help of, inter-alia, Rock 'n' roll legend and fellow Tau Kappa Epsilon member Elvis Presley, who instantly became one of Danny's supporters by lending his talents to help raise funds for cancer-stricken children."

"The most important entertainer in the 20th Century, certainly, and the only people that could even challenge him were the Beatles, but they weren̪'t single performers, so it̪s Elvis Presley."

"We played Anaheim, CA in 1973. I was told to fix a problem with an unauthorized limo trying to get in the back entrance, so I tapped on the chauffeur's window but he said I should talk to the lady in the back. I knock, and there she was, . I was 22 but I had to tell her to walk through the entrance. Same thing in 1974, this time in Philadelphia, PA, but for once the unauthorized limo was carrying someone Elvis already knew, so he got to stay. It was ."

"I was always a fan of Elvis as I was growing up. When I saw him in Vegas, with Phil Spector and his wife, in 1971, he was just awesome, had tremendous energy, charisma, such a handsome man, and a great voice, so actually there was nothing not to like about him. And then, after meeting him backstage, you realize that you are in the presence of someone so gifted, and that it's humbling, really."

"Elvis Presley is a means of seduction, a tool of US imperialism, to make the Communist youth lose its values in the midst of a possible atomic war."

"It as a real hoot to meet him. After he toured the plane he introduced himself, like 'Well, Ron, I guess you know who I am.' I said 'Yes sir, Mr. Presley.' And then he said 'Oh no, it's not sir or mister. Just call me Elvis."

"I never understood his records at first, and then many years later, I thought, "God this guy is good". He had that wonderful sexuality about him, and energy, he was a star, you know, he was bigger than life. Anyways, because I'd met him a couple of times, singing with him was kind of easy, it felt like our spirits were kind of touching..."

"For international visitors, Amtrak is a very common and comfortable means of transportation. To eliminate that, because we're such a strong destination, namely with Elvis Presley home Graceland, Beale Street and Memphis music history being such big draws for international tourists, would be a big, big loss, as lots of people have taken Amtrak train and it has given even more people the opportunity to visit and fall in love with our city."

"Multiple scholars have probed the Elvis cult's Celtic, Gnostic, Hindi, and vodun derivations; have contemplated Graceland's status as "sacred space"; and considered how and why some insist that Elvis, like Jesus, defeated death. Less charitable writers cynically attribute the entire phenomenon to the highly successful mass-marketing techniques of his estate and to the susceptibility of an apparently passive public bent on real-world escapism through, especially, the "transformative" ideology of consumerism."

"I was with Elvis for a few months. He was so physically beautiful, I thought I couldn't breathe. So one night he said, do you want me to sing something to you? So he played his "Spanish Eyes" song and sang it to me, seven times, back to back, as I requested he did. He was kind to his friends, to his family, to strangers, talented, thoughtful, funny. This girl came to a party in his house and I noticed she had two prosthetic legs. So I asked who she was and he said it was someone he didn't know really, but invited to his parties every fortnight so that she could feel wanted, loved....."

"The immediate feeling you have is of the entirety of his life. You feel a young man full of potential. On seeing this 13 acres, you realize that he was at a point in his life that because of creativity, he was able to buy it. You feel all the happy times and all the people that have come and gone, dignitaries and musicians. I just wished that the walls could have talked. But in actual fact, the real treat was the private tour of the mansion, which the good folks of Graceland gave to the General Hospital crew. One of the special features is Elvis' white piano and I wish I could have played it, but we weren't allowed on that side of the velvet ropes. It's a big, white Steinway with actual ivory keys. It certainly has a history and you could just imagine Elvis himself playing there."

"The general idea is that Mississippi claims to be the birthplace of America's music and can pretty well back it up. The spiritual home of rock in roll in our state to me is Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo. The B.B. King Museum and Interpretive Center over in Indianola, up in the Delta, that's where the blues live. The Grammys put in a museum at Delta State University, so that's the north part of the state. And the central part, kind of in the land of Jimmie Rodgers, is going to be Marty Stuart's Congress of Country Music Hall. That's where my collection, that's where the spiritual home of country music will live, as far as I'm concerned."

"The Melbourne General Cemetery has been operational since 1852 and houses prestigious monuments to Malcolm Fraser, Sir Robert Menzies and Burke and Wills. For 100 years, the 36-tonne Burke and Wills monument was the most visited spot in the cemetery – until 1970 when the Elvis Presley memorial was erected. It is located in such a prominent area of the cemetery that you would have to deliberately avoid it to miss it. During peak hour, as cyclists whiz by on the path, an elderly couple passes it while walking their fluffy dogs. It's a deeply unusual monument to find in the historic grounds, particularly when considering that Elvis never even visited Australia. But then, the 1970s were a strange time for the cemetery. For a while, it was the world's first memorial erected after his death and the only official monument outside the US. In fact, it came about in a whir of circumstances, including a mystery donor"

"Though he is widely considered one of the biggest cultural icons of the 20th century, many may not know that Elvis stuttered. In a 2007 interview, his Tupelo childhood friend Mary Magdalene Morgan recalled how Elvis would stutter in elementary school, always seeming nervous, never completely sitting still, stammering, but not to the point you couldn't understand him. When he was 13 years old, his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he would listen to a variety of musicians and singers on the now famous Beale Street. Influenced by country, gospel, and blues among other styles, Elvis recorded his first songs with Sun Record but it took multiple recordings and several rejections before one of Elvis' songs hit the radio waves in mid July of 1954. In an interview in August of 1956, Elvis talked about his stuttering: ʽWhenever I get excited, I stutter a little bit. I have a hard time saying ‘when’ or ‘where’ or any words that start with ‘w’ or ‘i.’ In fact, evidence of his stuttering as an adult can be heard on recordings from the Louisiana Hayride at the start of his career. On one of these, he can be heard stuttering when he talks to the audience in between songs. After he stutters, he stops himself, pauses and then begins again, changing the words slightly. Today, almost forty after his death he is still the best-selling solo artist in the history of recorded music. He had a dream to become a successful performer and entertainer, and he didn't let his stuttering stand in his way. People struggling with stammering issues can find inspiration in knowing that they share something deeply personal with the most successful singer of all time."

"Elvis was one of a kind. He bought me my first car and that's how I attended my first Hollywood premiere. Elvis said, 'Kid if you're going to go to something like your first Premiere you deserve to attend in the right Style'. And he made sure that I did""

"Growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1960s, there was no such thing as being star-struck — my neighbors were movie stars. Going shopping one day, after coffee crunch cake at Blum's, I found myself in front of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel staring at a man so beautiful and charismatic that I was magnetically drawn to him as if by a tractor beam. As I approached, he was swarmed by large burly men in Hawaiian shirts. ‘Let her through,’ he said. As if in a dream, I found myself in the magnificent presence of Elvis Presley! He signed my hand and a $5 bill. He spoke to me kindly and gently in soft Southern tones. The autographed bill? I spent it in my college tuition when I ran out of money"

"In 1956, even the youngest of his fans knew that the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was unquestionably the whole package; and, obviously, his great three octave tenor voice, with a lower register close to bass, seemed to vibrate on the inner scale of every teenager in America; they loved the high tenor, but when he "got down" with that lower register, fans exploded; Elvis translated this into his moves on stage, so it was a 10.0 assault on the senses."

"I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy, and wherever you go, Elvis, we want to say we've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you."

"So who got covered on LIFE? Thirty-six covers from the first 64 years portrayed one or more of the Kennedy family. John F. Kennedy was on 25 covers, while Jackie edged him out to appear on 26 and earn the number one spot. Robert F. Kennedy appeared on five covers while Edward Kennedy was on nine. Rose Kennedy even made a solo appearance on one cover. Richard Nixon ranked third behind JFK and Jackie in number of appearances by a single individual with 15. Ronald Reagan had 11. But Marilyn Monroe beat him with 13 cover appearances, while Elizabeth Taylor was close behind at nine. Barbra Streisand made four cover appearances. Nikita Krushchev appeared on more covers (9) than Winston Churchill (7), Dwight D. Eisenhower (7), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (5) or Bill Clinton (4). The Reverends Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. each made it onto two covers, while various popes appeared on eight covers between 1936–2000. (Those) never appearing on a LIFE cover included Elvis Presley, Monhandas K. Gandhi and Mother Teresa."

"It was a bit like the Elvis Presley excitement, something new, completely revolutionary,"

"When Elvis' daddy had a heart attack, Elvis wanted him to have a private room. That was not the problem, but before getting there, rules made it impossible for him to have a private intensive care room, despite the unit was totally empty. So Elvis spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and booked the entire intensive care unit..."

"I approve of his moves last night at the Pan Pacific (October 29, 1957), and saw nothing wrong with them but unfortunately neither my wife nor I could hear a single word out of his mouth because of all the screaming. But he is everything he is reported to be."

"I may be the only person who knows Colin Powell and Elvis Presley..."

"They listened to music all the way over. And one of them kind of likes Elvis Presley"

"We didn't care as much for Elvis and his music - but once we met him - our mouths completely dropped. We could not believe a man was allowed to be this beautiful. We almost lost our job with Elvis because we focused so much on what he looked like that we forgot the lyrics to our songs. He was without doubt the most beautiful man that ever lived. And what's more beautiful: he didn't know it. - Good Lord he was beautiful!"

"It blew my brain apart. It was like Star Wars combined with Elvis Presley and these crazy, sped-up electro beats that I'd known since I was 11 years old.”"

"Some of Symms' most popular images came from a newspaper assignment covering the June 27, 1956 performance of a young Elvis Presley before 6,000 screaming fans jammed into Augusta's Bell Auditorium. When Presley arrived, he found Symms in an alley awaiting him with a 4X5 Crown Graphic camera. Most remember hearing Presley sing several hits including "Hound Dog", which he would record a month later, but it was Symms' photos which preserved their memories of the performance and continued to sell reprints over the next half-century."

"White teenagers embraced rock and roll, when the civil-rights struggle cultivated an awareness of African-American culture. Youths such as Elvis Presley listened to late night, rhythm-and-blues radio shows that challenged and broke down racial barriers. During the Sixties, white teens readily accepted African-American performers such as the Ronettes, the Temptations, and the Supremes who had been carefully groomed for success in a mainstream market. At the same time in Britain, teenagers such as the Rolling Stones became obsessed with Chicago blues and brought their version of the blues back to adoring fans in America. Later in the decade, white youth bought soul records and revered Jimi Hendrix as the ultimate guitar hero. By the Eighties, young white suburbanites wore baggy pants and chanted the lyrics of inner-city rappers. In the new century, American teens danced at massive festivals to the African-American sounds of house music and techno."

"He had it all going on: Punk, Algerian chaabi music, Rai, techno, and he drew inspiration from the music of North Africa, New Orleans jazz, The Clash, the delta blues and Elvis Presley."

"In 1957, I worked with Elvis a bit on ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ and got to know him as well as anybody in Los Angeles at the time. Anyways, that same year I had a beach house that I sublet to him while I was doing ‘Peyton Place.’ He needed it as a getaway, and basically wrote me a check for that month's rent. I wish I had kept the check, that would be worth more than the money I got LOL."

"Presley makes no secret of his respect for the negroes, nor of their influence on his singing. Furthermore, he does not shun them, either in public or private"

"No person should be allowed to be so great looking and with so much talent. LOL. He's standing on a stage all by himself, like a person in a boxing arena Now the swagger and the swooning are awesome, but the interesting thing about him is how he gets the emotion into the song. And it all sounds so authentic because he believes in what he sings."

"Warhol was in the process of shifting from commercial illustrator to artist, and I both witnessed and experienced firsthand his tactics, his method of incision into the art world He used contemporary icons (Elvis and MM),as motifs in his works"

"That's it for now from us, at the first ever Presidential summit in Graceland, so thank you, thank you very much."

"i) To me this album is the purest expression of Elvis there was. In fact, when I was young, I used to think Elvis was the voice of truth. I don't know what that means, but his voice, shit man, it sounded so fucking pure. The hillbilly cat never let you down. ii) You’re either an Elvis man or a Beatles man, and I’m an Elvis man."

"I walked into the lobby of the International Hotel in Las Vegas with Tom Jones, which was like walking in with the Good Lord himself, and next minute we were in Elvis Presley's dressing room. As I stared at him, stunned, one of Elvis's assistants said to me, ‘Sir, will you give this drink to Elvis?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ took the drink and stood there gaping, like a stagestruck schoolgirl. Couldn't move a muscle. Tom nudged me and said, ‘Give ’im the drink for God’s sake. I struggled to speak to Elvis because I was so overwhelmed and amazed to be in the presence of such a great singer. Next night, it was Elvis who came to Tom’s room. I was in heaven..."

"The reasons for honouring Elvis are not sentimental but political. I don't own a single Elvis album but he was a champion for those amongst our people who turned against our country's Soviet-backed Government in October 1956. And although the revolution was quashed, Presley saluted the uprising in January 1957 during his last appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and performed "Peace in the Valley", a gospel standard, as a tribute to our plight. At his request, Sullivan solicited the TV audience to donate towards our relief efforts, raising US$6 million (the equivalent of US$ 49 million in 2012 dollars), or about 26 million Swiss francs."

"Before Elvis, white America was shackled by crippling conservatism. Then, four years into the 1950s, a singer from Tupelo, Mississippi, had what record producer Sam Phillips was looking for, a “white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel”, language that makes us cringe now — but at the time, Elvis' "sound" and "feel" did more to break down color barriers in popular music than any white singer ever had. Elvis' low, trembling transmission to teenage America was emancipation in the form of rockabilly, gospel, schlocky love songs, Christmas standards and muddy blues. In the ’60s, his voice was muted by forgettable films, but in 1968, wearing a leather jumpsuit, he reminded America that the suffering in his voice was sex in a sexless society — a pink Cadillac crashing into daddy’s station wagon. —"

"When I’m here, I’m not James Taylor the entertainer, I’m James Taylor the Elvis fan,’"

"If you’ve made art after 1954, then the chances are you’ve been influenced by Elvis Presley"

"I was in California, saw "Jailhouse Rock" and changed my name to Vince Taylor, the former from the first name of the character played by Elvis in "Jailhouse Rock"."

"Back in 1956, Elvis Presley recorded his massive hit “Don’t Be Cruel.” With all due respect to the King, this great song has many virtues but providing a guide to policy isn’t one of them. Yet it appears to be dictating Democrats’ current approach to the red-hot immigration issue despite its profound inadequacy in the policy realm. Consider that Democrats have been unremittingly hostile to Trump’s immigration policy since he began his second term, despite its undisputed success in completely shutting down the southern border to illegal immigration. Instead, Democrats have focused relentlessly on the question of interior enforcement—that is, the activities of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) aimed at detaining and deporting illegal immigrants currently living within the United States. The general approach has been to portray all ICE actions as essentially illegitimate, arbitrary and, well, cruel.Conspicuously lacking has been any recognition that, in fact, interior enforcement against illegal immigration is an entirely legitimate law enforcement operation and that ICE is the government agency charged with these legitimate activities. Therefore, what ICE does is presumptively legitimate not illegitimate. Obviously, the current Democratic vogue for treating all ICE activities as illegitimate and susceptibility to dumb maximalist slogans like “Abolish ICE” points them in precisely the wrong direction for dealing with the thorny and complex realities of the immigration issue. They’re just setting themselves up for future failure. In short, it’s time to stop coddling the “In This House, We Believe” crowd and adopt a serious, grown-up approach to immigration and immigrants. “Don’t Be Cruel” isn’t gonna cut it."

"Elvis Presley. I don't do impersonations, but Elvis is the most impersonated performer in the world. Just the more I've read about him, the more he's someone I've wanted to get into. I want to do the "Walk the Line" version of Elvis. Like Joaquin Phoenix doesn't look like Johnny Cash but I still felt like I was watching Johnny Cash in that movie."

"I strongly believe he knew he was ill, but didn't know why. In retrospect, his was a classic case of cumulative head trauma, followed by an autoimmune inflammatory disorder. None of this was known or even recognized in his day and I'm confident he would have been pleased to know that the knowledge that now exists about his predicament will in future help others, as he was a kind and generous person"

"Elvis was very classically orientated with his voice, and diction, and very sincere and wanting to get everything perfect."

"As a child, I’d stand on a table and sing Elvis at the drop of a hat."

"Elvis Presley transcended his being called the King of Rock and Roll, even the music he made famous, in favour of his later becoming one of the XX Century's greatest cultural icons. But it is his versatile voice and his unusual delivery of numerous musical idioms, as well as the attraction he held, physically, and sexually, that led him to his being the greatest solo artist in the history of popular music."

"He performed at the auditorium in 1955 and 1956. For the first appearance, Elvis was paid $150. He grossed $9,000 when he returned a year later."

"I couldnt believe I was singing with Elvis. My nerves were a wreck..."

"At one point, the Chargers and Raiders planned to share a stadium in Carson. Instead, the Chargers got Los Angeles, and the Raiders are headed to Las Vegas in the next few years. So, prior to this Sunday's game between the Raiders and Chargers in Carson, the Chargers trolled their rivals by playing Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" as the Raiders took the field at StubHub Center."

"I love Elvis because he was my generation, but then again, he's everyone's generation and will always be"

"For some people, they are just cars from the past. But classic cars represent an important market segment for investors. With their rising by more than 500 per cent in the past decade, the 2016 Motorworld Classics Fair in Berlin is a good chance for anyone interested in that kind of investment. A perfect example is a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado showcased here. It is not a very rare car, nor is it in a good state, but it was once owned by Elvis Presley, which bumps up the price tag to about half a million euros."

"He didn't buy it for himself, he never used it, it was from the start an act of charity, and I certainly hope that once we auction it, it will one day be enshrined, as it has been the witness of history for almost two decades, especially during Pres. FDR's time."

"Just last month, nurse Lindsay readily agreed to the request of 9-year-old Desiree Mohammadi, daughter of a Queens pediatrician, and held her small hand as a pediatric nurse administered a Covid jab. Afterward, Desiree sent her idol a grateful thank-you letter. The photos and video of the nurse who was the first person in the US to be vaccinated for Covid-19 will be in textbooks soon, but she is already inspiring children to seek a better understanding of both science and nursing .But perhaps the most significant reason that Dr. Lindsay is our Nurse of the Year is this: as Elvis did with the polio vaccine, she set an example that is saving lives""

"People think that we're crazy because we do six nights a week, and then you see how much Elvis put into every show, for which he created this larger than life style, and he pulled it off."

"I remenber when I took Elvis by the hand and slowly pulled him on stage. And I said 'Ladies and gentlemen ..... Elvis Presley!! And he did that willow with that leg two or three times and it was over and the show was really over and the people, these were black people, they stormed that place trying to get to Elvis. And never, never in your life have you seen such a surge of black faces all converging upon a stage at the same time. I know of only two people that would have that type of magnetism that would just, they could just pull people to them, the kind of magnetism to just draw crowds in instantly effect them. [Elvis being one], the only other was Martin Luther King. The fact is people like music and if it's good it makes no difference who's doing it, black, blue, green even plaid if it's like that. And I love good music and Elvis was doing blues, rhythm and blues because that was his beginning."

"Ladies and gentlemen, the McDonnell Douglas aircraft have left the air. Yeah, they were as iconic as Elvis Presley."

"There is nothing that could force Donald Trump to release his tax returns, but precedent and Hillary Clinton's willingness to release hers would have nudged most other presidential hopefuls into taking the action. All this reminds me of the fact that accountants for Elvis Presley begged him at times to take advantage of the legal loopholes available to him. It would have saved him millions. He demurred on the basis that the patriotic thing to do was to pay for the privilege of his success."

"What makes USA the most aspirational destination to Indians is probably our own pop culture. Out of 1.3 billion Indians, there are 700 million young people who are under the age of 35. By 2020, the median age is going to be 29 years and when I think about a younger demographic, everything in the United States is appealing to them. Pop, short for popular music originated in neighborhoods across the US, when people of various ethnicities came together and merged their musical talents transcends geographical borders, races, and even traditional music styles. It is the music of today. Traditional guitars or electric ones, playing of pop music is not restricted to instruments either. Elvis Presley, in fact, is one of the first stars associated with the popularity of pop music. He fused country music with black rhythm and blues and came up with rock-and-roll."

"My daughter, who is 11, saw the movie and then asked me "Mommy who is thaaaaat man",and hey, Elvis was spiritual and you juist nailed it."

"One day in the 70s, I talked Elvis into going with me to the local McDonald's restaurant near Graceland. I was sick and tired of us never going out together. So I made a bet with him — I said no one would recognize him and he could relax a little. Elvis said he not only would be recognized but mobbed as well. We walked in the McDonald's, approached the counter, and put in our orders. Elvis ate his meal in wonder at the situation but really enjoyed his quiet night out. So far, so good. Then a man walked up to our table, looked at Elvis, and said he hated how men tried to look like Elvis Presley. He said there was only one Elvis and the others should give up. Shocked at the man's assumption that he was as impersonator, Elvis informed the stranger that he was indeed Elvis. The man would not believe him, and said he pitied him for thinking he was. Elvis tried again but could not convince the man. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole situation and had an inspired idea. I turned to Elvis and said, “Okay, Bob, enough is enough. Stop playing". Elvis told me to confirm who he was and I replied, “Will you cut the crap, Bob.” My ruse worked. The man left their table. Elvis was totally dumbfounded by what had happened, but he and I had a good laugh. Anyways, I was always a fan, but I didn't think he would transcend time and space and become the iconic, almost religion he is now."

"As the lad himself might say, cut my legs off and call me Shorty! Elvis Presley can act. Acting is his assignment in this shrewdly upholstered showcase, and he does it."

"Just as the producer's job is to achieve the best recording possible – the kind of perfection that so grabs listeners like - so the editor should push the writer beyond the bounds of what he thinks he can achieve. It's hard to escape the feeling that there's a better book here waiting to get out. Essentially, this is a memoir consisting of 10 essays each of which attempting to examine a fairly arbitrary category of music. “Boys and Girls and Girl Groups”; “Vulnerability”; “The Spectacle of Anguish” etc. The opener looks at “The Horsemen in the Box” - Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley – who he feels would have represented the end of pop music history had the Cuban Missile Crisis not turned out so well."

"Elvis is inside of me"

"I'm from Tupelo, where Elvis was born. When he would do a gospel album, he would always pick the great gospel quartets of the day to sing on his records. That's what I want to do.""

"They're talking ‘bout the hood, talkin’ ‘bout where we all come from. My mother always listened to Presley' song when I was young. It talk about the things she went through, you know. She had a bunch of kids, like 9 kids, you know what I’m sayin’. That's how you get somebody to listen to your song, you talk about what they know about and what they want to hear.”"

"To make things even harder, public-health communicators no longer have the benefit of public figures such as Elvis Presley, who once gave a lift to a national immunization campaign with a single photograph of a rolled-up sleeve. These days, even our most mass-appeal celebrities are not nearly as appealing. Each of them has done something to annoy some chunk of the population, and I’m even talking about Bruce Springsteen right now, and I’m even talking about Hilary Duff."

"Elvis spiritual crisis started in 1964, led him to meditate with Larry Geller, his then recent hairstylist. Elvis was always a dedicated Christian, with the book "The Prophet" being an inspiration as far as incarnation and following the death of his mother. His family and most of his friends rejected this spiritual quest. He was insulated form the world, so it must have been very frustrated that very few in his circle agreed with this part of his life. He was always very generous, from his infancy, but in time became more and more so, to the point of being extremely magnanimous. In 1965, he started becoming more involved with his spirituality, with yoga, and healing."

"I had taken my song "Dreamy Eyes" to George Klein, Memphis DJ and Elvis friend and said to George: "I can really hear Elvis singing this song," because I felt Priscilla had the prettiest eyes I'd ever seen. About eight months later I got a call that Elvis had recorded one of my songs, and I assumed that it was "Dreamy Eyes," but it turned out to be "It Keeps Right On a Hurtin." When Elvis was in Germany getting ready to work, he was listening to Country Music and heard my song, and he wanted to record it. That's the way Elvis picked his music, when he heard something that he liked, he recorded it. Elvis put his song in one of his albums "From Elvis In Memphis", and I couldn't have been more thrilled and proud, because Elvis was my idol."

"Are you kiddin̠g? I am not gonna do an Elvis song, not at the White House̜. No one can outsing the King."

"i) A double voice that alternates between a high quaver, reminiscent of Johnnie Ray at his fiercest, and a rich basso that might be smooth if it were not for its spasmodic delivery. 'Heartbreak Hotel', yelps the high voice, is where he's going to get away from it all. Answers the basso: 'he'll be sorry ii) Without preamble, the three-piece band cuts loose. In the spotlight, the lanky singer flails furious rhythms on his guitar, every now and then breaking a string; in a pivoting stance, his hips swing sensuously from side to side and his entire body takes on a frantic quiver, as if he had swallowed a jackhammer; his loud baritone goes raw and whining in the high notes, but down low it is rich and round. As he throws himself into one of his specialties— "Blue Suede Shoes" or "Long Tall Sally", his throat seems full of desperate aspirates or hiccuping glottis strokes, but his movements suggest, in a word, sex."

"Elvis Presley, the 21-year-old bobby-soxers' delight, shot the Ed Sullivan Show's rating up to 43.7—highest in two years. Actor Charles Laughton, his glib tongue in his dumpling cheek, introduced Elvis with: "Ed insisted I give a high tone to the proceedings," then, to the frenzied shrieks of the teenagers, let Hillbilly Presley take over. Crooner Presley, sideburns dripping with sweat and goose grease, mumbled through three songs, gave his guitar a thorough clouting, contorted his mouth suggestively and his pelvis more so. When it was over, parents and critics, as usual, did a lot of futile grumbling at the vulgarity of this strange new phenomenon that must somehow be reckoned with."

"Elvis Presley was also known for his work on the big screen. The “Heartbreak Hotel” singer made his debut in 1956's Civil War film “Love Me Tender“. It was a stunning one, and it helped propel him to the top ten of the box office for a decade in movies like "Jailhouse Rock“ and “King Creole" Eventually, he would return to music entirely after Hollywood stopped giving him challenging film roles but by then, he'd proven that he could tackle everything.""

"I've got a cutout of Elvis Presley outside my door so people at the US Capitol can find my office. Right now, he's wearing a big pennant that says ‘Go Golden Knights,"

"What's the difference between Elvis and a smart politician? Elvis has been sighted."

"Elvis Presley. I'm not sure if he's "of the "moment" but now and then there is a new release of his music."

"While Elvis was primarily perceived as a baritone and most of the tessitura of his songs was on that key, he was, in my opinion, a tenor. Technically, he never properly worked to smooth his passagio and bring more weight up to the top of his voice. However, one has only to look and listen to much of what Elvis sang, and recorded – especially from about 1974 onward – to realize that, had he gone in an entirely different direction musically, he could very well have sung opera. Although in bad physical condition toward the end of his life, the in concert recordings from his last tour reveal, rather hauntingly, what might have been. Listen especially to the way he sang the Timi Yuro classic "Hurt." Vocally, he was incredibly exciting."

"I was shocked to hear that a man of integrity like Hal Wallis had referred to Presley as a great dramatic actor. It just shows how far a man will go for the almighty dollar. —"

"I think Elvis Presley will never be solved."

"Listening to these songs today, their most remarkable feature is Presley's voice itself. He takes the Platters' Tony Williams's techniques, and any other predecessor's, to new, uncharted pinnacles. For a singer who was only just encountering widespread popularity, his singing resonates with amazing fortitude and confidence, especially on "Heartbreak Hotel," (1956), where Presley alternately shouts words with full lungs, then gulps the following back, as if under water but without missing a beat. In "Loving you" (1957), Presley's baritone on this, the ultimate slow dance number, is almost too powerful, virtually rumbling the floor..."

"i) Making their second appearance at Worthy Farm, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey delighted the crowds as the sun set on the final day of Glastonbury 2015 by performing a number of hits from across their career. They also referenced Kanye West's claim during his own headline slot the night before that he was "the greatest living rockstar on the planet", with Townsend and then Roger Daltrey saying, "We're gonna send you home now with a rebellious 'who's the biggest fucking rockstar in the world? 'It must be Elvis Presley. ii) We have to focus on his early work, and just one or two of his movies, and elements of his TV shows, to keep his memory pure. People now know that Elvis could play a mean rhythm guitar himself, and needed no other musicians to perform a great song. But Elvis was not just a rock star, he was an all-round entertainer."

"My first political act was to get kicked out of class for arguing with a teacher for criticizing Elvis"

"Before I made my first record, we had a three night tour of an Army base in Freidberg, Germany. I was told: “Jackie, there’s someone I’d like you to meet". So I walked in through the front door of a house in Bad Neuheim, off-base, to find Elvis himself smiling at me. I nearly fainted! We sang together, talked plenty, and I kinda fell in love with him..."

"I mean Elvis made us move, instead of standing mute he raised our voice. And when we heard ourselves something was changing, you know, like for the first time we made a collective decision about choices, America hurriedly made Pat Boone a general, in the army they wanted us to join, But most of us held fast to Elvis and the commandants around him Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent, you know, like a different Civil War all over again. Man, like he woke us up, and now they're trying to put us back to sleep. So we'll see how it goes, Anyway, look at the record, man, Rock ’n’ roll is based on revolutions, going way past 33⅓, you gotta understand, man, he was America's baby Boom Ché. I oughta know man, I was in his army"

"Well I am so glad to be in Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley. I shouldn't say this, because they are going to say I am conceited, but other than the blond hair when I was growing up they all said I looked like Elvis. I always felt that it was a great compliment. And we just gave him the Medal of Freedom in the White House. We love Elvis don̪'t we̞?"

"It was the very first day on set and I was so nervous. Everyone was having lunch and I really didn't feel like eating because I was that nervous. So I decided to go take a nap and if I was needed on set, they would call me. I went to my trailer and the air conditioner wasn't working. I was just hysterical -- really hysterical. I thought, ‘Oh no, this isn’t happening.’ You could only imagine how hot it was. And there was no one around because everyone was having lunch. There must be an air conditioner there. I thought. All of a sudden, there was a hand stopping me. I immediately apologized without even looking up. And I was told, ‘That’s Elvis’ dressing room. You can't just go in. I'm going to have to ask if you're allowed." At that moment, I didn’t see Presley, but I was given the green light to hang out in his room. Upon entering, I immediately felt the relief of a running air conditioner and collapsed on a nearby couch. When I opened my eyes after a restful sleep, I saw Presley’s face closely staring right back at me. He was putting a cold compress on my face. He thought I must have passed out or something, He was absolutely beautiful. I mean, people with great voices are attractive to me, but this was something else. I didn’t even know what to say because I was so shocked. And then he went, ‘Don’t worry about it. I just want you to feel good. Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat? Are you thirsty?’ I couldn't even talk!” I was overwhelmed by everything I was experiencing. He smelled like baby powder and milk. But he just kept insisting if I needed or wanted anything. Elvis also had told me I could stay for as long as I liked and not to worry about it. After he left, I eventually got up and stepped outside where I saw Presley surrounded by his entourage. At the time, he was fascinated by martial arts and when I told him I knew Bruce Lee, then that was another reason we bonded easily. He was a Southern Baptist and my family was very Christian, so we had already connected from that alone. He was very spiritual. I remember the last time we spoke, we were hanging out in his trailer. He just looked at me and said, ‘Keep that light burning baby.’ And that was it. I guess he lost his light. Couldn't find his way home, you know? I truly feel he just worked himself to death. It was very tragic.”"

"Even Plato, I think, said that you need to be trained in government, to exercise it, to practice it. But the American public is now satisfying itself with being interested in entertainers. I was at a seminar a few weeks ago down at the Smithsonian. They held a conference on the subject of the hero. And I guess I should have realized that this was what it was about, that the level would not be exactly my idea of a hero. And it certainly was not. It was quite weird, what they considered heroes. The real hero of the discussion was this little girl who’d fallen down a well, and everybody was rescuing her. I mean, after all, she didn’t do anything to make herself a hero. She was just in the news. And another hero they discussed was Elvis Presley"

"It really puts perspective on things, though, doesn't it?"

"Even as we focus on perhaps the final election of the 2018 season in North Carolina's 9th District, pundits and scholars are already debating whether or not there was a “blue wave” during the 2018 election, or if it was an Elvis Presley-like “Blue Christmas” for the Democrats, a missed opportunity for the party."

"Well, this was during the time that Elvis Presley was driving a gravel truck and we were playing on 11th Street and they didn't allow whites there. It was a whole black street. And at that time I didn't know who Elvis was, whether he was a musician, he was just a guy that I liked. He liked music, so I liked him because he liked music. I'm assuming that was it and we had some form of rapport together. So I would slip him into the back of the club, the piano sitting like this and the back door was sitting there and I would sit him and have him behind the piano, because in those days I would stand up to play the piano, and I'd play the piano backwards and just clowning with the piano. But I never knew that this guy was even an entertainer. But meantime, I'm just assuming a year or so, I hear this "Blue Suede Shoes" but I never put this with this guy at all. I don't even connect the two. And many years later, in Las Vegas, I was playing the lounge room at the International Hotel, and Elvis was in the main room, but you know I never was interested in other acts, you know, I always was interested, like if I get to know you, OK, but for me to go over there, Red Foxx was in the lounge also at that time. And one night, I won some thousand dollars, and I was coming down through the back, had all this big old rack of chips and stuff and this white guy says, "Hey you don't remember me?" And I said no. So that's when he [Elvis] told me that he was the one that used to come to West Memphis and hide behind the piano, in this black club. You know, it was amazing, you know?"

"The pace could be brutal between touring and schedules, but Vegas was best. The Turners' annual stays at the International, later the Hilton, allowed them to bring the kids along, sometimes taking all four of them to the big room to catch Elvis' extravaganza and he would have the whole family stand for a round of applause."

"So I picked up the two Guralnick biographies and started reading them, and as you do if you're reading books about music, you start listening to the tracks as you're going along. Before I'd finished the first book I became a diehard Elvis fan, and by the time I'd finished the second one I had an Elvis tattoo. He might not have written his own songs, but he was the master producer and engineer of his generation. It's also popular opinion to say that the original Hound Dog is better, but no it fucking isn't. That's just bollocks. Elvis' version of that song is lightyears ahead, and if you listen to the two of them back-to-back you can hear what he was doing. This was obviously the ‘50s so it was all cut live, and he’d stand in the middle of the room with all the musicians around him and they’d do 60 takes in a row. He’d be like, ‘Bar three, verse two; drop that F sharp to an E. Now let’s do it again.’ He was in full control of his vision. It's taken me until my mid-30s to realise it, and when I was younger I didn't really get it."

"You want me to describe Elvis? Wow!!"

"But even the power of organized religion paled beside the personal changes I felt come over me in the mid-1950s when I heard Elvis Presley's "Mystery Train" on the radio for the first time. Determined to get a berth of my own on the fast-moving train of rock 'n' roll, I quickly made my way up to Memphis and the legendary Sun Studios. There, I talked producer Sam Phillips into giving me a shot at making some records of his own."

"This is the best way to hear Elvis the Superstar, with "Hound Dog," (1956),"All Shook Up,(1957), "Are You Lonesome Tonight" (1960), and the ever zany "Suspicious Minds" (1969), still sounding fresh and immediate —impressive given how many times most the world has heard them —, and showing off the diversity of Elvis' singing, from the purity of his gospel falsetto to his rock and roll purr."

"I'd really love to bump Elvis"

"Blue laws began in Texas in 1863 and were still being passed in 1961. Many states prohibited the selling of alcoholic beverages on and off premises in one form or another on Sundays, or at restricted times. Also, blue laws of Texas did not prohibit most businesses being open on Sundays, but all of the restrictions made it impractical to open. Can anyone imagine when some Sunday shopping was a crime? If this blue law was still in effect today, we would all go to jail and cause a Jailhouse Rock with an 8.6 magnitude on the musical Richter scale like Elvis did back in his heyday."

"I was 11 when he died, but I remember that. He gave Ali that robe. Everybody loved him. He was a beautiful person in real life."

"It has something for everyone, except perhaps Irving Berlin, who attempted to get Elvis's recording of "White Christmas" banned from radio play, deeming it "vulgar and disrespectful". And it was, which is part of the reason why the drastically rearranged tune is so memorable, as the then-young singer masticated the contemporary classic, adding his idiosyncratic dynamics and trills (the so-called educated yodels of one's vocal chords); equally irreverent and just as riveting is the King's gritty take on Leiber and Stoller's "Santa Claus Is Back in Town", one of the most sexually suggestive holiday tunes ever, and his rollicking "Here Comes Santa Claus". And who can forget the song that changed the hue of Yuletide, "Blue Christmas", or his wistful, definitive version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas", which cemented his reputation as pop's top dreamboat. Along with Phil Spector's "Christmas Gift for You", this is arguably the finest Rock & Roll Christmas album of all-time, a seasonal yet essential recording belonging under any Christmas tree."

"Elvis was one of the prime architects of rock and roll music. As such, he influenced several generations both musically and socially. The urgency in Presley's voice is just one part of the equation, and the ease with which he swings tells the rest of the story. Equal parts balladeer and rockabilly king, Elvis played both sides of the fence. He was both tender-love-man and hard-hitting rebel. As this collection proves, his genius was in the way he made it work."

"It is not enough to reject the capitalist decadence with words, to speak out against the ecstatic singing of someone like Elvis Presley. We have to offer something better..."

"The course examines the history of rock music, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955), to the end of the 1960s. It covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. The course will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed."

"I was an officer in the Japanese Imperial Armny during WW II anfd I want to apologize to Mr. Presley for us fighting you guys. Because I am really sorry about that and given he studied karate under who was indeed a chanpion in my country, I want to gift this samurai sword to him, as a token of appreciatio. ** 's recounting of the time he brought Elvis a samurai sword all the way from Japan, as handed to, and then told by Dick Grob, head of Security at Graceland. Elvis was getting ready to bed, then came down to meet hi, but the veteran had had already left."

"Elvis Presley, for example, became a key supporter of Father Don Mowery's work, having grown up in Lauderdale Courts, one of the many Memphis housing projects well served by Youth Service during this period. Interestingly, Elvis' donations always came with a catch, namely that they never be put into the general-operating fund, but instead set aside for “special projects.” By 1985, Memphis-style programs were operating in dozens of cities all across America, father Mowery's concept generally considered the most innovative social-service effort developed between the military and civilian sectors in the late-twentieth century. And although no one knew at that time how much of an impact Elvis' contributions would have on the future of the organization, much of the funding for this national expansion came precisely from that “special projects” fund that Elvis Presley had supported in the 1960s."

"Society is always on the lookout for a cultural target for finger pointing when the establishment has issues, especially generationally with its youth. In the '50s, comic books became the easiest target to blame for the post-World War II rise of juvenile delinquency in America because certainly, society never believes anything is the fault of the establishment, itself, nor its parents, teachers, clergyman, politicians, etc. So in the early '50s, comic books were mounted on the cultural crucifix. To this day, I believe that the comic books as we know them would not have survived that attack had it not been for the emergence of Elvis Presley. Quickly, the finger turned and pointed at him, instead. Of course, this was followed by 45 RPM record burnings in cities across our nation. Over the decades, that witch-hunt of blame has moved from comic books to Elvis Presley to Saturday morning cartoons to rap to hip-hop to video games, because, again, nothing is ever the fault of society, itself...."

"I know he didn't write songs but, to me, Elvis Presley was the complete artist. His voice, his song choice, his energy and attitude, his perfect hair and clothes: it felt like he'd been sent from another planet. It was incomprehensible to me that this was a man who made mistakes, or who felt sadness or loneliness. I recently visited his childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi and it was in stark contrast to the life I'd imagined. To a child, he seemed invincible – and he made me feel it too. To watch Elvis and to listen to his songs was pure escapism and aspiration. "Blue Suede Shoes" was my first love. From as early as I can remember, I knew that if I could channel some of that raw power I saw in him, life would be better for it. I guess, like all of us, he was flawed as a man, but he was the perfect entertainer.""

"UK singer, songwriter and guitarist Justin Young, frontman for , choosing his favorite musician of all time in an article published in the Guardian and entitled "Elvis Presley's power, Tina Turner's legs: musicians pick their biggest influences", as published on March 1, 2018."

"That's what rock'n'roll, born of blues and country music, channeled through charming, southern Christian men like Little Richard and Elvis Presley, has always done for us."

"Elvis Presley? He is the greatest rock & roller."

"I was really happy about his success, because acceptance wasn't really too great in those days unless you were a schooled singer, so it opened up a whole new thing for young performers who had not studied voice but just had feel. It made me a little sad to think that here was a man who came along and probably made one of the greatest contributions to rock n roll music ever, and people would come in and criticise his shows, (In fact), for someone to have given that much joy to that many people, he shouldn't of had to do anything but walk out on that stage and just stand there. And I sometimes wonder if people in that sense are sadistic and wait to see you fall or hope to see you fall."

"It is an honor for me to be with you, here where the most celebrated people have made history. In this iconic arena, think of this, here, where I stand, is where the King, Elvis Presley played for 80,000 screaming fans"

"The only time I met him was in Las Vegas, at night, but what a time that was!!!"

"Elvis sang black music because he loved it and he helped popularize it. His first single was one side Blues, one side Hillbilly and the combination defined Rock and Roll forever."

"Oh I Go, I was going to die, join the 27 club, I had more pressure than anybody to record a song, even Elvis.."

"When I was a very little girl, my aunt told me never to listen to Elvis Presley’s music. She asserted (forcefully, I might add) how Elvis (supposedly) said, “The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.” My aunt also declared he stole black music, so, I now ask myself, why would an African American woman defend a white man she was raised to hate? I decided on a full study and complete unmasking of falsely reported news surrounding the life and career of Elvis Presley. The truth about the invented slur lies in white liberals owning media outlets like , magazine where they could make money exploiting statements and falsifying others because so many whites during the era openly made stupid remarks against black people. So when a black radio station decided to play Elvis' music and black people started acknowledging that they listened to and bought Elvis' records, white liberals went into panic mode and the slur was invented."

"Pope Francis sends me his personal CDs, classical but also tango, Elvis and Piaf..."

"There was a time when the B-side might save you. You put all that effort into making records and then not to give people an A-side and a B-side, I loved that. I used to go into someplace in Fargo and put the nickel in the jukebox, listen to Elvis on the jukebox for 4 days and then flip the record over. A lot of my stuff was B-sides and I was glad to have them. They paid the same as the A-side."

"I listen to Elvis Presley, Chainsmokers, Miranda Lambert, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift and Royal Blood."

"- My earliest connection with Elvis was that my substitute English teacher at Paxton High was , who seven months later would go on to write "Heartbreak Hotel". Mae was also a show promoter and in the late spring of 1955 she brought the Show to the Gator Bowl Baseball Stadium and that was how I met Elvis. Before the start of the show, I got backstage, talked to him for a long time and then I finally introduced myself to him. He then said "Well I'm Elvis Presley" and I thought 'Wow, that's a strange name' as I had never even heard his name before that. I was there actually to see Snow who headlined and so forth, but as soon as he hit the stage I knew who he was! I'd been thinking that he was just a guitar player but when he went out on stage they came out of the bleachers, pushed so hard you just couldn't hold them back. There just wasn't enough protection as this was a Country show. Elvis was bottom of the bill that day and he hadn't even had a major hit yet, so you wonder what Snow must have thought of the reaction. That day, on May 13, 1955, was the first time I had ever seen a show with so much screaming and fan input. I'd never seen anything like that. It was unbelievable."

"Especially in the South, they speak about Elvis and Jesus in the same breath."

"The one thing that I envy is Bill Belew having the job of dressing Elvis Presley. That job I would've liked'."

"Well, 'Viva Las Vegas,' Is was fun for Sergio and I to don special race suits for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, as we drew inspiration from Elvis, iconic gold belts and all."

"Not only are we thrilled to take viewers into one of America's most beloved private residences, home of the late, great Elvis Presley, we are also thrilled to put the soundtrack of his legendary career behind our romantic holiday movie."

"I was born in Greenville but raised in Farmville and went to Farmville High School, class of 1985. I always loved music and I was drawn to it. My mother had a 1964 RCA console … a big piece of furniture, and my teething marks were on that console because I was pulling up to it immediately. So from a very early age, I was drawn to music and entertainment. "He spent so much of his money on Elvis records", said his mother, that his death in 1977 probably cost the record companies thousands of dollars because I was such a huge Elvis fan and bought everything" ."

"While I was recuperating at Veterans' Hospital in Portsmouth, VA, I went to nearby Norfolk, where I first saw an up and coming singer named Elvis Presley perform at Hank Snow's All Star Jamboree. This experience changed my life. Seeing him on television, as well, I practically launched out of the hospital bed and onto the stage..."

"After seeing "Jailhouse Rock", where Elvis gets out of jail and makes his own records, takes them to the radio stations himself to finally put his records in the stores, I then made records and put them in stores."

"Yes, I believe I am an Elvis, the Elvis of Vallenato"

"Wide raging voices̠ː Singers with extensions from B1 to A5. Elvis Presley's B1 may be heard on the song "Such a Night" and on "Mystery Train" an A5 is reached towards the end. Later in his career, he developed a rich baritone voice which still mastered the higher register with immense power, such as on "American Trilogy", "Unchained Melody" or the joking "Little Darlin""

"I asked him how he felt about Estes Kefauver and Adlai Stevenson from the Democratic National Convention, and about the Andrea Doria disaster, the Empire waistline in the world of fashion, and Pablo Casals, the world's greatest cellist. His answer was that he would rather keep his views to himself because he did not want to be labeled, so I left him alone. Later I found out that Elvis always enjoyed telling the story of how he managed to outsmart me and every other reporter by answering questions without really answering them."

"Long before the plans for an actual rock museum in Cleveland were hatched, a group headed by Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner and Atlantic Records' Ahmet Ertegun started off the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with two induction ceremonies-cum-concerts, in 1986 and 1987, bringing in a total of 25 blues-and-rock groundbreakers primarily from the ‘50s, including Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. Presley is in fact rock’s greatest presence, shaking a country with a single-handed nuclear reaction of country, gospel, and the blues. Along with the Beatles, he is the epitome of pop stardom as well."

"Any young man who calls his mother “baby” and speaks baby-talk with her must love her tenderly. But Elvis Presley didn't just love his mother – he worshiped her. In return, she inspired him to create a sound that would change popular music forever. It was Gladys who gave her son his first guitar for his 11th birthday, even though Elvis had preferred a bicycle. And it was his love for Gladys that prompted him to record his first song, My Happiness as a special birthday gift for her. The spiritual bond between mother and son had existed from the minute Elvis was born. On 8 January 1935 the then 22-year-old Gladys suffered a hemorrhage and barely survived giving birth to a set of twins. The first one, Jesse Garon, was stillborn, which led Gladys to believe that the surviving twin, Elvis Aaron, had inherited Jesse's soul. Elvis, she believed, was “the One”. Throughout his childhood she instilled in him how special he was. So when the studio receptionist at Sun Records asked Elvis what kind of singer he was, the 18-year-old answered, “I don’t sound like nobody.” The belief in her only son's special calling, whatever that would turn out to be, made Gladys very protective of Elvis. Over the objections of her husband, Vernon, she made sure he never spent a night away from home until he was 17. Once Elvis's musical career took off in a big way in 1956 things went south for his muse. Then, in 1958, when Elvis was drafted into the Army, she succumbed to a heart attack. After her death Elvis remained an incredibly successful artist. In 1977, at the age of 42, he died from an overdose of medications at Graceland. The date was 16 August – the very same day he had buried his beloved mother 19 years earlier and inconsolably wept, “Oh, God, everything I have is gone.”"

"He is the Elvis of Sea ice Science"

"It was my mother's Elvis concerts from the 70's on VHS tapes that first drew me to the sheer thrill of an all-you-can-eat live performance. I just had this fascination for him. I was going to the Punters Club in Fitzroy but a lot of the bands I was watching were staring at their shoes, I mean shoe gaze was massive. Then I'd go home to my mother's Elvis' tapes and nobody was owning a spotlight like that, nobody. I wanted to start a band that was putting on show. I wanted to reward people for leaving their living rooms if they were going to come out to watch a band, let's give them something visual as well as a band that sounds good."

"I think about Elvis all the time."

"I loved everything about him.I grew up with singers, dancers and comics. At 15, I discovered Elvis Presley. A girl whom I wanted to take to the prom showed me a magazine clipping of her "boyfriend." It was Elvis. This guy looked like a Greek god, and then I saw him on television. I loved everything about him, so I became a fan. I always wanted to stand in the same place he stood the night he caused all the commotion at the Ed Sullivan Theatre. May I?"

"In fact, I first provided clothing for her during her first pregnancy in 1981, and continued to do so until her death in 1997. One such outfit, which Diana herself called her ‘Elvis Dress’, was worn by her both to the British Fashion Awards in October 1989 and then on an official visit to Hong Kong. The year of her passing away, the dress was bought for £81,203 at a benefit auction by The Franklin Mint, a company which produces memorabilia such as a portrait doll featuring her wearing this dress, thus making it one of the best-known of Diana's many outfits, and the second highest prized. The Mint returned the dress to the Diana Estate a few years later."

"I had a 45 rpm record player, one of those that accommodated little records with big holes in the middle and with the capacity to hold, what, 10 or so records, to drop down one at a time, until all 10 had played. But that's too general for what I've been thinking about. Specifically, it's one of the songs, really the only song I can say with certainty that I played, over and over and over again. “Lavender Blue” by Sammy Turner. And it, and others, made me know I loved music — most all kinds excusing jazz and opera. And then, it was Elvis. Controversial Elvis Presley. Would my folks let me listen to his music or watch him on our little black and white television? Then, before we knew it, Elvis was too big to be avoided or ignored. You had to watch him..."

"i) One day we are in a recording session, here at RCA B, and he was talking to one of the clean up guys. Then three RCA people from New York, with suits and they walked up to Elvis, but he paid no attention to them. The clean up guy stopped talking, but Elvis said "Go ahead, Sir". When he finished, the clean up guy shook his hand and thanked Elvis for talking to him. Then Elvis approached the guys from New York and said "Gentlemen, if you see me talking to somebody, don't interrupt me, don't even walk up to me, I know when it{s your turn and I will walk up to you. And that was the end of it. ii) The best I have ever seen him look was in 1967, at the Circle G Ranch. His hair was black to blonde like it was naturally, the colour of a fawn. Just as shiny as could be. He had a suit and shoes the same color of his hair, so he walked in and we were stunned. He had been out riding his horses, was tanned and his eyes shunned like diamonds. We couldn't believe it. We just stood there and looked at him. Finally, he said "Shall we dance?""

"In constructing his own public image during the early 1950s, Elvis unconsciously appropriated, synthesised and ultimately capitalised upon images from a series of contemporary cultural icons. These ranged from Captain Marvel and Dean Martin to Jackie Wilson. ‘Cultural production’, states Madow, ‘is always (and necessarily) a matter of reworking, recombining, and redeploying already existing symbolic forms, sounds, narratives, and images’. To this effect – on the current standing of US publicity rights law – one could actually begin to question Elvis's right to call the Elvis image his own in the first place; however, few would deny that the Elvis whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts. The overall effect of his efforts was to create a unique image which had a fresh and vital meaning in post-war society. If there did not exist any rights of control over power of the creation of cultural symbols then there would be little financial incentive for individuals to spend the time, energy and resources to develop their ‘talents and produce works which ultimately benefit society as a whole Elvis signs and their multiple meanings are so strong that Elvis has, in effect, mediated his own celebrity culture beyond the grave."

"We have to still care about Elvis because if we don't, then we don't like music. He was the big bang, the sun around which all the other planets circled ever since and when he went down, we lost the first and the best."

"Basically, Elvis Presley was doing self-defense techniques because he couldn't spar, it was simply too dangerous. He had to preserve his voice, so contact to the face or neck was out. He also didn't want to risk breaking any bones, so he'd just train on and demonstrate self-defense moves like taking full-power shots to the stomach. He was a fine athlete, not a fighter, but that doesn't mean he wasn't able to fight, though. His technique —his side kick and his punches— looked as good as anybody else's. He wanted to do karate because he'd learned a bit of it in the Army and really liked it. The best part of working with him was beating up all of his people, like Red and Sonny West, Jerry Shilling and all the others. I just relegated them to pulp."

"Well, now wait. You say he has no talent and yet I think that you'll agree that he has been taken into the bosom of America in a certain sense and has been very well paid for it..."

"With the way he was marketed, he didn't even need to be able to sing the way he could. But Elvis had talent, plain and simple. The guy had a thousandth-octave range, and a variety in his vocal styles and approach, he could make more vocal tones, with just his voice, than a guitar player with 50 pedals and gadgets. If you never even saw the guy, you could plain feel, not just hear, the emotion and passion in his voice, and you are immediately taken in, one hundred percent. On the merit of vocals alone, he had more talent in the barbecue stuck in his teeth than the singers who sell millions of records do today."

"A Presley motion picture is the only sure thing in Hollywood.”"

"This is something I've always wanted to do: Take an evening, invite an audience and just be me. What you can expect is me playing music, answering almost all questions anyone would ask (except the ones that may incriminate me), a big screen power point presentation put together and narrated by me, guitar shop talk, slide guitar 101, true stories of road craziness, playing more music and I’m particularly excited to talk about my Elvis experiences —what he meant to me and what I meant to him. We’ll conclude with a Town Hall Meeting, including a strategy and platform discussion for my candidacy to run for President of the United States in 2020 and sing ‘God Bless America’ or something else (Elvis would want that).""

"Is it true Elvis took you often to tour the morgue? Why̞?"

"This era of biracial musical creation and consumption has been largely erased from popular memory. It lies buried beneath simplistic parables of white expropriation and exploitation of black culture in which Elvis Presley has become emblematic of centuries of uncompensated and unacknowledged white appropriation of black cultural ingenuity and labour. There is enormous moral power to this perspective and, to be sure, plenty of evidence of just such exploitation and theft. Nonetheless, it still makes for unpersuasive history and fails to help us to understand the significance of Elvis and the whole biracial rock-and-roll phenomenon that intersected with the dawn of the modern civil rights movement."

"Arguably the finest recording found in all the Sun sessions, "Trying To Get To You"(1955), is a song that Presley made his own due to his hugely committed vocal, and the simple carefree abandon with which he performs it; at first, it feels like a classic country song with simple, elegant lyrics; but it is at the bridge – where Elvis really lets fly –, that the song is transformed from a lovely country lament, into deep blues; although the 1955 version is magnificent, Elvis manages to better it on his "1968 Comeback Special", in which he sings the song with so much intensity, it prompted critic Greil Marcus to exclaim "this is probably the finest rock and roll ever recorded."

"i) I liked Dylan, the way he created a brilliant new style. I even gave him one of my silver "Double Elvis" paintings. Later on, though, I heard rumors that he had used it as a dart board up in the country. When I'd ask, ‘Why did he do that?’ I'd invariably get hearsay answers like ‘Listen to Like a Rolling Stone — I think you’re the ‘diplomat on the chrome horse, man.’. I didn't know exactly what they meant by that — I never listened much to the words of songs — but I got the tenor of what people were saying — that Dylan didn't like me ii) For forty-five minutes nonstop Ali raged on about prostitution on the steps of the White House, gravity, meteorites, jumping out of the window, Israel, Egypt, Zaire, South Africa, drugs, broken skulls, delusions, angel food cake, yellow hair, judgment day, Muslim morality, Jesus, boxing, Sweden, the Koran, friendship, and Elvis, relating it all to the central point that ‘man must obey the laws of God or perish!’”"

"Elvis Presley existed not only as a flesh-and-blood person but also as millions of pictures on album covers and movie screens, in newspapers and magazines. He was infinitely reproducible. Similarly, through use of the silkscreen printing process, Warhol could produce as many Elvis paintings as he pleased."

"When we first met, I was like, 'OK, Pam, don't act a fool, but I was trying to keep my composure, because this was fricking Prince. It's like Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson. It doesn't get any higher than that.""

"As a single woman, I could always spot a handsome man. Elvis Presley was one of the prettiest, yes, prettiest and nicest people I ever known. Pictures and videos of him really did not do him justice. In 1969, when I opened at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas and he had opened at the International, I once went to see my aunt Cissy Houston (a member of Elvis' vocal backing group, the Sweet Inspirations), during one of their sound checks. Elvis was there and Cissy introduced me to him. He let me know he was a a fan of my recordings then had all the Vegas record stores place a photo of him inside of my albums. This he announced from the stage and added that anyone who bought any of my albums would find an autographed photo of him inside of it. That week I think I sold more albums in Las Vegas than I ever had. I will never forget this act of kindness. We lost an icon when he made his transition."

"There would be no current popular music without Elvis. He not only synthesized everything that had come before him in a really unique way, but he influenced everybody who came after — so you can have Blake Shelton and Adam Lambert influenced by the same cat."

"I've just worked with this guy ( in reference to Austin Butler) on stage and I've never seen a work ethic like it."

"i) Elvis Presley got the polio vaccine backstage on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, then publicized it on radio, and vulnerable teenagers flocked to follow. Today’s stars should, too. Another tool: incentives. President on Wednesday called on employers to give paid time off for vaccination; how about other inducements, such as bonuses?"

"Elvis' range was about two and a quarter octaves, as measured by musical notation, but his voice had an emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts, grunts, grumbles and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness and surrender, to fear. His voice can not be measured in octaves, but in decibels; even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate whispers that are hardly audible at all."

"I better watch out. I believe whitey's picking up on the things that I'm doing"

"In my seventeen years as doorman to the top hotel in Hollywood, the biggest star that ever stayed there was Elvis Presley. He was indeed one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. If I introduced any person to him, he would show the utmost courtesy and respect that they ever encountered. Sometimes, over the long years I felt that God had put him on this earth for a very special reason. When you use the phrase "a very special person", that was Elvis Presley, in my opinion."

"Whereas Ottawa has the unique distinction of being just one of three cities outside of the United States where Elvis Presley had a live performance, April 3 shall henceforth be known as Elvis Presley day in the capital."

"Keith Richards taught me rock and roll. We’d have nothing to do all day and we’d play these records over and over again. I learned to love Muddy Waters. Keith turned me on to how good Elvis Presley was, and I’d always hated Elvis up ’til then."

"Elvis Presley. That lit the fuse for me."

"Everything is collectible, it seems, even human hair. Outbidding an international field of collectors, an unnamed Londoner paid $13,000 last week to purchase a lock of Napoleon's hair, reportedly snipped a day after the Emperor's death in 1821. For those in the know, that's a relative bargain, particularly in view of what collectors have spent on strands from another famous head, namely that of Elvis Presley, whose small jar of hair sold for $115,000 in 2002. (In fact), Presley's barber had reportedly saved his hair in a bread bag. "I have no idea what [the collector] intends to do with it," said a representative from the Chicago company, MastroNet, that held the internet auction."

"It was seeing Elvis Presley on The Milton Berle Show, before Ed Sullivan. I already was pretty musical and seeing Elvis and his band, particularly his drummer, D.J. Fontana, just kind of grabbed me. Then, of course, four or five months later, he was on The Ed Sullivan Show and everything just... well, that was the Big Bang."

"I went to see Col. Parker with the million dollars he'd asked me to put up, which I got in two days, from an investor since I didn't have a cent to my name, so that is when he introduced me to Elvis, as his promoter. And Elvis, who was actually two years older than me just said "Thank you very much, Sir". Anyways, by the time the two week tour wound up, in San Diego, I was a millionaire, too (LOL)."

"Is it 2018 and the subject is the Long Range Stand-Off Weapon (LRSO)? No, it's 1956 and the subject is the AGM-28 cruise missile. Choosing the same solution (for the same aircraft!) decades apart seems like eye-roll material, but modern drone makers can draw much inspiration from the older missile. By the mid 1950s Soviet air defenses could shoot down American bombers well before they got within bombing range of important targets, so in 1956 the Strategic Air Command (SAC) asked for a supersonic cruise missile big enough to carry an H-bomb several hundred miles, and small enough for a B-52 to carry along with its bomb load. The missile's onboard inertial navigation system let it place its 1.45-megaton W-28 warhead within two miles of its target at six-hundred-miles range. It ran like a scalded dog and took its name from the Elvis Presley tune—the "Hound Dog". Peak deployment spanned the 1960s into the middle 1970s, with up to 29 bomber wings carrying them on patrol. But as early as 1966 Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sought to retire them, so they went to the kennels in 1975 for dead storage, and the last one (save for a few museum displays) was scrapped about a year after Elvis himself died. They lingered long enough for their whiz-bang terrain-matching guidance system to become perfected and miniaturized in America's modern cruise missile weapons as deployed in the late 1970s and 1980s. Future drone motherships are certain to adopt and adapt its close bond with its owner— the fuel, thrust, electrical and data hosted by the motherships will be essential to swarms. The Hound Dogs will shed their fleas, indeed."

"Elvis was probably the most important thing in music, maybe ever"

"No one had any expectations, he being was such a strange, quiet fellow — so completely foreign, but he sang and read a scene from The Rainmaker and answered questions asked from off-screen — and it was phenomenal. It was amazing to be there, one of those life-changing experiences.""

"When you picture past presidents of the United States, whom do you see? Perhaps you envision John F. Kennedy as a doting father playing with his children in the West Wing. Maybe you remember Richard Nixon as the smiling yet stiff leader who posed hand-in-hand with Elvis Presley in the Oval Office."

"I put Elvis Presley up there with Jolson and Sinatra, and I'll go one step further: Elvis was the greatest pop entertainer of the 20th century. Like Al Jolson, he gave his all when performing: He sang from his heart, his body, the very essence of his total being, when sharing what he felt.""

"We faced unique challenges filming during the pandemic, particularly recreating a performer whose signature move is to get down from the stage in the audience and kiss just about every member of the audience you can find. There was something about making a film in this kind of perfect isolation and perfect focus that I think produced an extraordinary result.."

"He played the San Diego Arena in the spring, and my family lived in nearby La Jolla, so I went to the concert. "Heartbreak Hotel" was already a radio hit, and I couldn't get enough of it. Hearing that song was a real turning point for me as a teenager. When I saw him in action, he was mesmerizing, dressed as he was in a pair of loose trousers, loafers, a shirt and open jacket. When he moved, he was smoldering, his hair falling over his eyes, his tone sensual. His delivery on "Heartbreak Hotel" was also in a minor key, which always triggered a reaction in me. But it was when he slipped in those low-register Elvis-isms— you know, the huh-huh thing— it came from his body, not from his head. He had that emotional intensity that was impossible to resist."

"He a had a magic combination of looks and voice, and you can't discount how good looking he was as a young man and he was the guy who really brought black music into the vocabulary."

"He was almost at the point where he was being recognized as a national star, but not quite. I'll give you an example. Once, in a railroad station in Chattanooga, TN, we were waiting to change trains. Elvis went over to a magazine rack and picked up a movie magazine. He found a photo of himself inside and says to me 'Al, can I have a pen?' I gave him one and he scribbled his name inside the magazine. Then he goes over to the two girls working at the rack. He had the spread open to his picture, showing it to them. He's also looking back at me with a huge Cheshire Cat grin. Their reaction was 'That'll be 35 cents sir'. Then Elvis said to them 'No, this is for you. I'm Elvis Presley'. In the meantime, I'm capturing pictures of all of this, which is really what I wanted."

"Can I talk to Elvis? said the caller. “This is Jimmy Carter”. Indeed it was the then President-elect calling from Atlanta, where he'd seen him the day before, to ask Elvis to be a youth spokesman. A few hours later, with the temperature near zero and the wind gusting to 30 mph, Elvis rousted his entourage and ordered everyone to the airport for the flight home. They got on the Lisa Marie, but the pilot couldn't get it started right away, so they all huddled together in blankets waiting for the plane to start and heat up. And then they get word of a bomb threat, so they had to sign papers authorizing it to take off anyway. As the plane rolled down the runway at Pittsburgh airport, we all just sat there in silence looking at each other and wondering if this was going to be it. Had that been “it,” Elvis would have gone out on a high note."

"It's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other, to keep competing with each other. It's a really great competition. I see here artists like Beyonce and Alicia Keys and Rihanna and Chris Brown and Chris Martin, all in the same room, and we're going to push this music to the point where it was like in the 1960s and '70s, when the talk was about Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles. We (all) will be the new Beatles. We (all) will be the new Hendrix; (in fact) in any other industry, they'll tell you that you're supposed to do better than those in the past, so when you say, 'I want to be Elvis,' they say, 'What's wrong with you?' Well, I wanna be Elvis."

"I once met a young man from Mexico who asked me why Elvis didn't like Mexican people because he'd heard the rumours that he had criticized his countrymen. I told him it was all lies and that Elvis loved Mexicans. He told me that Elvis was supposed to have said Mexicans were greasy haired people. I told him to remember that Elvis was the one who put stuff in his hair to make it greasy and he even died it black too. There were many reports about things Elvis was supposed to have said that he never did, in fact he was upset that he wasn't allowed to go into Mexico because of riots. On the set of Fun In Acapulco, Elvis got upset with the director,(Richard Thorpe, who had already directed him in "Jailhouse Rock") because he got onto a couple of the actors because they spoke broken English and even yelled, “Jesus Christ, can’t you get the lines right?”. Elvis took him aside and said, 'Sir, those people were hired by the producer and he knew how they spoke and also knew their language, but he wanted them and they're doing the best they can. Rehearse with them more or whatever but please don't be doing that. I don't like you doing that to them' and the director stopped it."

"We had crew cuts, wore tee-shirts and blue jeans, Elvis had the long duck-tail, the long sideburns and he wore the loud clothes, and naturally he was a target for all the bullies. One day luckily I walked into the boys' bathroom at Humes High School and 3 guys were going to cut his hair just, you know, to make themselves look big or make them feel big or whatever, and I intervened and stopped it. And I guess that stuck because a couple of years later after Elvis had his first record he came over and asked me if I would like to go with him, I think it was Grenada, Mississippi or somewhere, and I went and I was with him from then on, except for a couple of years in the Marine Corps."

"Warhol was fascinated by popular and celebrity culture, and Elvis undeniably represented the ultimate subject for the artist, even more than his iconic explorations of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor (As a result),there is an enormous number of works dedicated to Elvis realised by Warhol between 1962 and 1963."

"Jimi is a huge Elvis fan, so we always start off by listening to 'Elvis’ Christmas Album'"

"With his blue eyes he should photograph well with black hair."

"We all know, of course, that Elvis was a philanthropist and humanitarian. The stories of his generosity are legendary. Yet here is a tidbit that I believe is a monumental testament to his true nature, one that most people have never heard. On Christmas Eves when most of us spend that entire special evening with our families, Elvis would leave the house and go to the local jail. He visited every prisoner no matter their race, gender, creed and the severity of the alleged crime and talked with every single one. I was told by the officers he would ask each one why they were there and how he could help them. And help them he did in any way he could. He took notes, planned what he would do for each and every one he could possibly do something for. Of course in most of our religions and particularly Christianity, we are taught that Jesus told us to comfort those in need, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, shelter the homeless etc. "I was in prison and ye visited me" is one that I venture to guess not many of us, even though we call ourselves Christian believers, would ever do. Elvis Presley not only believed what he was taught, but physically acted on those teachings. Most of us (including me) somehow decide this one instruction is just easy to ignore and/or better left "out" of our good deeds. Still, he kept contacting their families to see if they needed financial assistance. Were their children alright? Their husbands or wives̞? And he made certain they would be helped once they served their time and that they had proper representation in the court by a decent attorney. How many of us would do this at any time, let alone on Christmas Eves?"

"Believe me, Benny just had this incredible electricity about him. He was the Elvis Presley of Cleveland."

"The voice is so melodious, and – of course, by accident, this glorious voice and musical sensibility was combined with this beautiful, sexual man and this very unconscious – or unselfconscious stage movements. Presley's registration, the breadth of his tone, listening to some of his records, you'd think you were listening to an opera singer. But...it's an opera singer with a deep connection to the blues, which leads me to the role of the great enunciator, because he delivered us the greatest cultural boon. Nobody ever did more for the American people. He gave them the great present of black music transmitted through his own sensibility, his own sensitivity. Of course Elvis was a different kind of white purveyor of black music because it was naturally black and it was real and he was a conduit. And America was really changed. I'm talking about American music and our culture in general. We owe far more to Elvis Presley than all the British groups put together.""

"If Rock and Roll were a religion, Elvis was its most prolific disciple, responsible for more converts than anyone before or after him; if it had been country, Elvis was a Founding Father and his lyrics were the documents of freedom that helped to birth the nation; if it were a sickness, Elvis-itis would be the most potent and contagious virus known to man, infecting victims who just looked at his image, heard his voice or saw him perform in person or through a recording. But since Rock and Roll is music, we’ve all decided the world over to just call Elvis…the King."

"The Star Wars movies belong in the same category as Elvis Presley movies: They’re popular yet are all but unwatchable — except that the Presley pictures evince a human touch"."

"I'd heard that song many times. But that night in jail was the first time I really heard it. It was more important to me than any song I'd ever heard in my life. When he hit that hook in the song, "It's now or never," it was like someone grabbed me by my shirt, looked at me and said, "You asshole. You see where you're sitting, Barry? You're sitting in jail, and you can't stand it. You've got to change your life. It's your decision. It's now, or it's never." That's the way I read it. And when I got out, I told myself, Never again.""

"In 1968, a “drive-by” wasn't a shooting, it was popping into the salon for a fast touch up. Elvis Presley came to my salon just to say hello sometimes. When he'd show up, the ladies leaped out of their shampoo pools, they wanted his attention so badly."

"My father George C. White had gone to Yale for a year before he went to art school and I just wanted to go to Yale too. They allowed only three people a year in those days to major in theater and you had to audition and if you were accepted into the program, then you got a year's credit toward your master's degree. After college I joined the Army where, by chance, I met Elvis Presley, He was in the third army division, I was in the fourth but I ended up doing a show with him up on the Czech border in 1958. Because we were all freezing to death, we cooked up this show and Elvis said, ‘You’re in the theater, aren’t you, George?’ and I said I was, and he said, ‘Why don’t we put on a show and we can get out of guard duty? LOL. And we did."

"An 18-year-old Elvis Presley walked through the doors of the Memphis Recording Service at 708 Union Ave. in the summer of 1953. He carried a beat-up guitar that he'd had since the age of 11 and enough money to make a $3.98 record of his own voice. He sang two '30s ballads -- "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" -- hoping to catch the attention of Sam Phillips, who had started his own label, Sun. When he was done, Marion Keisker, who helped run the place with Phillips, typed his name on the back of a label for Sun act The Prisonaires, and Presley left with his acetate. For more than six decades, that record of Elvis singing "My Happiness" was kept by the family of the high-school friend Presley left it with, Ed Leek. As part of an auction, it was valued at approximately $100,000. It sold to an unknown Internet bidder for $300,000..."

"Elvis' producer Felton Jervis was a good friend of mine. All of a sudden I released ‘Polk Salad Annie ’ and it was a big hit single and then Felton called and invited my wife & me out to Las Vegas to see Elvis perform it. He did a good version of it, which of course he recorded for the live album. We hung out with Elvis for two or three days and just sat back in the dressing room and talked. We played a little guitar together – he really liked music. Elvis said, “Man, I feel like I wrote that song”. I said “You know, the way you do it on stage, it feels like you wrote it”. Then, in 1974, I was living in Memphis and it was about 4 o'clock in the morning when my phone rings. This German voice says “Mr. White, we are down at Stax records do you have any more songs? We need to do some songs.” I said “Well, who in the hell is this, why you calling me at this time?” He explained that he was Freddy Bienstock, Elvis' publisher. I asked if Felton was down there and he said he was. So I got up & ran into my studio and ran off a copy of ‘For Ol’ Times Sake' & ‘I’ve Got A Thing About You Baby’ and one other and went down the studio. I drove all the way to downtown Memphis and was met in this low, dark alleyway by two shady men in hats & coats. They said in this thick German accent “Did you bring zee tapes?” and I was ushered into this little bitty room! It was so strange & freaky. A real seedy part of town and these guys in their 50s or 60s and they had a little reel-to-reel in this dark cubby hole. They sit me down on a chair & they played two bars of ‘For Ol’ Times Sake' and ‘I Got A Thing’ and they played the third song. They said “We like the first two. Now you can go!” I said, “Hey man, I’ve driven this far, where’s Felton?” They said, “You don’t need Felton. We like these songs. You can go!” But at this point luckily Felton walked in and took me into the studio with me & him and Elvis, so it was cool then. Wow!"

"Virtually everything we hear on recordings and see on video and the concert stage can be traced to two icons: Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly."

"He defined American culture to billions of adoring fans around the world. Elvis fused gospel, country, and rhythm and blues to create a sound all his own, selling more than a billion records. Elvis also served nearly 2 years in the United States Army, humbly accepting the call to serve despite his fame. He later starred in 31 films, drew record-breaking audiences to his shows, sent television ratings soaring, and earned 14 GRAMMY Award nominations. He ultimately won 3 GRAMMY Awards for his gospel music. Elvis Presley remains an enduring American icon 4 decades after his death."

"As he concluded one of his dynamic and frenzied concerts an attempt was made to honor him by giving him an ornate crown. Uncharacteristically and courteously, Elvis stopped and said, “ I am not the King. There’s only one King, and that’s Jesus Christ."

"Go ahead, moan all you like about Elvis. (But) this is still the single greatest rock & roll Christmas record ever made. Elvis' slurred, dirty, wailing delivery and Scotty Moore, Bill Black and DJ Fontana's walloping primitivo accompaniment put this over with a licentious zeal that never wears out its welcome. Although he favored gospel above all else, Elvis genuinely excelled as a blues singer (there simply ain't another white cat who can pull ‘em off as convincingly) and this wildly unlikely collision of atmosphere and theme rates as a minor, and altogether irresistible, masterpiece —"

"Around the world the only three words that need no translation to convey their meaning are ̊"Jesus, Coke and Elvis""

"We were booked to fly home the next day, but that night after the last show we got a telephone call from Colonel Tom Parker saying that Elvis would like to meet us on a film set at 2pm the next day. When we arrived Col. Parker met us and told us that Elvis had just gone out for a ride. Just then we heard what at first sounded like thunder coming from down the beach a long way off. As the sound got louder, we could see about 13 motorbikes side-by-side coming towards us. Elvis was in the centre of the riders as they roared onto the film set. What an entrance! I was spellbound! All together we had about two hours with Elvis. I told him that when I saw the first clip of him in "Jailhouse Rock", that's what got me into rock ‘n’ roll. We also talked about our tour of America. What a guy. A real gent. It was wonderful. A brilliant day."

"It made me feel great to be with him. He fit in so easy. Driver, loader, gunner, and tank commander you had to learn all four positions. Seeing him operate a tank was normal. His parents, visited often and especially his mother was a great source of comfort to us young draftees, always telling us to take care of each other, like we were her children. When she passed away, he said he'd give everything he had to get her back, but he knew he couldn't do that. He showed me all the telegrams he got from celebrities, three books filled with them. Once in Germany we served in the 1st Battalion, 32nd Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Division. Despite his fame, Elvis was always just one of the guys. In fact, he inspired the other men to be better, stronger soldiers. When things got tough you could be out at night, it's cold and raining and you're on guard duty, and he was out there, too. If he could do it, that made me feel like, OK, I can do this!" After serving two years, we both came home and I went to work for a flooring company, drove a dump truck and eventually became a building engineer for Memphis City Schools. With my wife we raised two daughters and they knew how proud I was to have serve alongside Elvis. One of my daughters laminated the famous photos of Elvis being inducted, with me right there behind him. I carry them everywhere, showing them even to strangers because I want everyone to know how good a person Elvis was. And I do smile when telling the story of the time I was drafted into the military with the most famous person on the planet. The years I spent with Elvis clearly had a lasting impact with me. He stuck with it, did his job as well as I did mine, and I appreciated that. It was great..."

"What drew me to him was that his music was subversive. When the Beatles came around, grown-ups saw them as four mop tops, and didn’t take it very seriously. But when he came on the scene, it was different, the adults really didn’t like his stage performances and dancing. I soon asked for a guitar and got one for Christmas. It wasn’t an expensive guitar. A few years later my mom, who was a single mother, got me a nicer guitar when she saw I was very serious about it. It was a Harmony."

"My dad's head went into a fantasy, this idea of everything being better in America. Of course for his generation, that was very true. Everyone was going to drive in movies and drinking milkshakes and having hamburgers in America. We weren't doing things like that in the UK. I think a lot of that got caught up in the lyrics – all the kids in America are having a better, more interesting, more dangerous time than we were here. When Elvis and rock'n'roll was imported over from America, it was to a generation of kids whose parents had dealt with the war, and rationing, and they'd all been brought up in pretty poor conditions. So it was a great thing for the kids to dream about again. They dared to have an identity, for starters. They dared to dream through these great records imported from America. That's where the great love affair started for my father – as soon as he heard Elvis Presley record."

"Elvis was the blueprnt, he and ice cream blew my mind"

"When he joined the U. S. Army in March of 1958, the Navy, the Air Force and the Pentagon were left disappointed. All the armed services had put considerable effort into being his choice. The Navy had gone so far as proposing a special “Elvis Presley company,” which would be drawn from Presley's buddies, and others from Memphis. If that wasn't enough, Elvis would also be assigned quarters entirely for his own use. The Army, also eager to win his favor, suggested he might be flown globally from base to base in order to boost the morale of the troops. The Pentagon, for its part, floated the idea of Elvis immediately joining the Special Services, thus sidestepping the need for regular training. But regular training was precisely what Presley wanted. He joined the army, but turned down all offers of special treatment. Private Presley he was, and was paid $78 a month. His last day of active duty was March 5, 1960."

"I was into black dudes like Ray Charles, Little Richard and Wilson Pickett, so when Elvis came to see our band it wasn’t a big deal for me, he wasn’t then, in my view, the big legend he turned out to be later on. Presley came to stay in the Paradise Island hotel that we were working the lounge in, We were doing three or four shows a night and his wife, Priscilla, would come down to look at the band with her entourage, three or four women that she used to hang around with. ‘I have to get Elvis down to hear you guys’ she said. Lo and behold, one night we get the word that he’s coming in. I’m being disparaging here, but I wasn’t excited about that. Now, if they said Ray Charles is coming in, that would have been a different vibe altogether. Elvis arrived and sat about two tables away from the front. There was a guy in my band who started impersonating Elvis, and Presley was killing himself laughing. The rest of the guys in the band hung around afterwards to say hello to him, but I had something to do. I wasn’t being disrespectful, I just had something else to do and I wasn’t that much interested in him. I was coming in, the next afternoon, to set my guitar up for the evening and as I walked through the lobby he was there with the Memphis Mafia guys. He spotted me, waved and walked over and he started complimenting me on my singing. I swear to God I said to him, ‘I’m giving singing lessons up in room 4670, if you want to drop up.’ We ended up having a great laugh and a great conversation. He was a really, really nice dude, a very handsome lookin’ dude."

"I was 17, so I go to Hollywood for a few days, staying with , whose husband was then choreographer for Elvis in "King Creole". So I watched the shooting one day, then Elvis came over and started talking to me, invited me to dinner, at his hotel, the Beverly Wilshire. So after dinner we end up in his bedroom. And when he found out I was a virgin, he just picked up his guitar and sat on his bed and sang to me for about two hours. He was gorgeous in those days. I couldn't wait to tell all my girlfriends."

"Overnight, or over a bite, you might say, the hand that's been punching out copy for the unconcerned becomes celebrated as the hand that was bitten by Elvis Presley. As a newspaper woman gnawed by the nation's top hound dog singer, I've been advised variously to sue for assault, take a rabies shot, inquire whether he brushes after every meal, or offer my paw to the museum. Yep, folks have really showed concern."

"Those who would wall off cultures from “outsiders” are would-be wardens."

"One evening Elvis Presley came backstage to see my show at Caesars Palace. I was in my dressing room with a few friends and well-wishers when Elvis arrived with his entourage. It was the first time I'd met him, and we got on very well; he was very gracious and polite, We talked about music and a few other things. After a while Elvis asked me to come over to his hotel, where he had some music he wanted to play for me. It was about 2:30 in the morning when we got back to Elvis's hotel, but as he opened the door of his suite, a wall of noise hit us. There must have been a hundred people in there. Elvis ignored them and led me through to a quieter room and started playing some of his favorite music: gospel About four in the morning I got up to go, but Elvis said, "Wait, I want to give you something." He went into the bedroom and came back with six or eight Navaho Indian belts with silver and turquoise buckles. "Pick one," he said. "I want you to have one." So I chose one, thanked him, and then headed back to my hotel. I still have the Navaho belt he gave me. I felt about it the way I did about those things my kids sometimes give me: You keep and proudly display them not because of what they are but because of who has given them to you."

"I was in a large parking lot, on one side hosting a telethon I was involved in and the Monroe Civic Center, where Elvis was playing, on the other. He knew there was going to be a child in a wheelchair waiting for him, so he stopped on his way to his limo, totally tired, after the concert, but got oh his knees and placed a scarf around his neck. I felt like crying. Then he looked at me, I was 24, hugged me and told me a few stories one of them about how a co worker had encouraged him to record."

"The first line of the record is sung without accompaniment, punctuated at the end by two beats, two chords on the piano. Exquisite. And this pattern is repeated through the verse, a Capella singing, piano crash, more a Capella singing; and then Elvis sings the chorus backed only by the beautiful, lonesome sound of a walking electric bass. The risk —only a great voice can hang out there that naked — is impressive and the payoff is phenomenal. None of which would matter, I suppose, if it weren't that the voice that this perfect and daring bit of accompaniment supports is nothing short of awesome; spirit is walking throughout this recording, just put it on the phonograph, and the room fills with ozone. Darkness and gloom drip joyfully from every rafter. This "Heartbreak Hotel" voice is an instant old friend; it intimately and unforgettably announces the arrival of something big."

"He inspired me to become a performer, he is a legend. And what do I before I enter a stage? Everytime? Well, I take an Espresso and I pray to Elvis.""

"That there is a seat in the front in the concert of and Elvis Presley."

"He was so ahead of his time, and that's why he brought so many people together, with his music without it having it any racial barriers."

"Eminem is regarded as one of the most important artists in the history of the hip hop genre even though his albums haven't been as genre-defining as so many of his peers, and his music is only tangentially influential when compared to a Rakim, 2Pac, Jay-Z or Kanye. He's mostly important for providing white fans a credible entry point into the genre. And we're supposed to be okay with that. We're not supposed to view Eminem and Elvis Presley as comparable. We're supposed to see Em as authentic and Elvis as a vulture. But Elvis raved about Black artists from Jackie Wilson to Mahalia Jackson, topped the R&B charts (and country charts) regularly, made headlines for facing Black audiences in Memphis when festivals were still racially segregated, chummed around with Ike Turner and B.B. King, and James Brown called him his “brother.” You don't really see a divide between Elvis and Black audiences until the “shine my shoes” rumor starts circulating in 1957. But that quote was always just a rumor. I also found it interesting that Elvis was vilified for a bullshit quote while people like Eric Clapton got zero flak for a very real one. B.B. King talked about this repeatedly, but the lie is louder,"

"Elvis was the ideal in 'Orpheus Descending', and we were optimistic up to a point that he might make his first appearance on the stage, and then we hoped he would appear in a film. That was a madly delirious episode, because time, for the most famous people, simply has no meaning. People and things arrive at the slightest expression of desire or interest, and they disappear just as quickly. All questions are answered; every need fulfilled. He was elaborately polite with me: I think he saw me as some elder Southern gentleman who might give his father a loan at the bank downtown, but we soon saw that the discipline of a stage performance was beyond him. It was--and it is--frightfully boring for most people to show up and replicate and expand within a refined role. Still, I met him. I was in the presence. Diamonds and lard. There's your title."

"I am not a part of that. To Louisville, I am f-ing Elvis Presley. So why would I pay anybody for anything?"

"I'll be back in an hour"

"I met Elvis Presley at the "Dick Clark Show" at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, a place where a great musical extravaganza with some of the greatest artists of the day would always appear. So, we were sitting in the audience and Jackie Wilson had just finished his set and then Dick Clark came out, but before he introduced the next act he wanted to announce someone special had arrived, "Ladies and Gentlemen" The lights went down and all of a sudden spotlights went to the back of the room. I looked around and it was Elvis, He was looking cool and wearing shades, snatched them off as if saying, "Hello Everybody!, then came walking down the aisle to his table and when he saw Louise, he stopped and said "Hi Louise. Hi Nikki" and they started talking. I stood up and he said "Hi." I said "Hi, I'm Pepe. It's nice to meet you." I shook his hand. He said something else to Louise, and then said "See you later" and went to his table. By the time I was in Las Vegas, I had already met tons of celebrities, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells, Dionne Warwick and Wayne Newton. I also met Ike and Tina Turner. I drank champagne with Adam Clayton Powell and I met Redd Foxx. But, when I saw Elvis, I said, now that man's a star. It was a different kind of thing.""

"I was amazed by how sexy, totally alert he was and by his playfulness. And as he sang “In the Ghetto", I saw it as representing a white Southern boy’s feeling for black music, with all that that implied. He knew better than to try to be nineteen again, because he knew he had quite enough to offer at thirty-three."

"America loves a phoenix, and we sure got one when Elvis dusted off the ashes of his mid-‘60s movie career and put on black leather for the greatest of all network TV music specials. Thom Zimny has done a video re-edit on some of the performances and it’s more fun to watch all this material after reading the collection’s written oral history of how many ways the special could have gone wrong yet somehow, for once, went so beautifully right. And what joy it is to re-experience Elvis caught even fleetingly in hip-swiveling flight."

"I was with in the Paramount Studios Commissary (in early 1958), where we were going to have lunch and suddenly she was on her feet as he had spied Elvis walking through. I don't think she had ever met him, but Italian enthusiasm cannot be denied. In a minute she was sitting on his lap, tousling his hair. The skirmish was over as quickly as it begun as she was only saying how much she liked his music. He was also aware that I was taking their pictures, so what could he do? What could any man do? Surrender..."

"I sold it as *the fantanyl that killed Elvis".."

"I was frightened by Elvis, I think because I was 10, but my sister Nancy loved him.."

"I was recording with at RCA Victor Records in 1975, so we were working on the song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" when suddenly Terry said, “Hey, Elvis is in the next studio recording.” That was a big surprise to hear he was in the studio next to me. So I walked into the studio and said, “Hi, I’m Brian Wilson” and he goes, “Hello Duke.” I don't know why he called me Duke. I said, “Would you like to hear what I’m doing in the studio?” and he said yes. So we walked over to my studio and listened to what I was doing and then said he had to leave. It was a thrill to meet him. I liked Elvis Presley's songs, but never saw him live. I thought he was a very underrated singer, more of a star. He was really known more for his fame than his voice. I think he deserved more credit for his voice."

"There was a time when in some circles, people may not have thought it cool to say they were an Elvis fan, but I am, I loved him.""

"A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man’s music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.”"

"It is probable that he will eventually settle into the mainstream of popular singers. When he does he may well build a reputation as one of the most remarkable of white blues singers, possibly the first to invade successfully the field of country blues."

"Elvis Presley would jump to my mind first if I could bring home someone from the past, to have dinner with..."

"Elvis Presley jerked his torturous way across the stage of the Municipal Auditorium on Sunday, sang eight or ten songs, thumped on a guitar, fell to the floor, knocked over microphones and set off a din of teenage squealing. At the evening performance he contorted his body in such a manner as to cause whole platoons to rush to the edge of the stage. In fact, he flings his limbs about and quivers in such a way as to make one think he might have a trick knee or hip, possibly from an old war injury...but this is not the case. This is just Elvis Presley...."

"Big romance betwen Elvis and Mimi Roman"

"I was such a great fan of his, I saw all his movies, and always thought I would one day meet him. But I never did, so this is full circle for me."

"I objected to 's casting, because it made the project "an Elvis film.""

"I knew him when he was quite young, in 1956, when he was dating Natalie Wood, and they would very inconspicuously wear white clothes and, if they went to the movies, everyone would be looking at them, and not the film. LOL. In my house, I have a couch where they would make up, and to this day, when I tell visitors about it, they can̪t believe it. It is the same couch."

"Boris Yeltsin was best known for his role as the President of Russia, but he also had another unique claim to fame: Moscow's biggest Elvis Presley fan. According to sources, Yeltsin was a huge fan of Presley and would often listen to his recording of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” during times of stress, such as in August, 1991, when he prevented a coup by standing on top of a tank. But while Yeltsin loved Presley, he hated staples with an equal amount of passion, as reflected in a memo from a Yeltsin aide demanding that no one use staples on any papers given to their fearless leader, as "this practice holds up the President’s very decisions.”"

"I've done everything for Elvis that I possibly can to keep the legend going. That operation -which provided me with pouty lips, a jaunty chin and a more Presleyesque nose was just the beginning..."

"In early 1957, I flew to Hollywood to finally meet him. It was late in the day, and he had already recorded quite a few songs so, during a break in the session, I noticed him sitting alone in the corner, adlibbing some blues on the guitar. I wandered over to the piano next to him, sat down and joined in. He didn't look up, kept on playing and even changed keys on me, but I followed along. Then he looked up with that smile he was famous for, and asked who I was and what I was doing in the studio? I told him I had composed one of the songs he was about to record called 'Got A Lot O' Livin' To Do'. He immediately called out to his musicians and they recorded it on the spot. I never imagined the impact he was about to make on the world. Anyways, a couple of months later, I went to see one of the two Elvis shows he gave in Philly and the place was mobbed, girls with their feet dangling down from the balconies, everybody going crazy. I sat there and said 'This is a phenomenon! As a matter of fact while I was sitting there, a tomato went hurling through the air -Elvis was already on stage, and it hit and broke the strap on his guitar-. He stopped the show and said 'Hey, wait a minute! If somebody's got a problem up there, why don't you just come down here and we'll work it out'. Whoever threw it, wouldn't come down from the balcony, but the person sure got bood...."

"As many have observed, Palin’s rise was an important waypoint on the journey that brought America to the Trump era, and tribute acts like Greene and Cawthorn. By today’s standards, the “going rogue” brand pushed by the no-nonsense hockey mom from Walisa seems positively wholesome. And to revisit the outrage it generated feels a bit like watching those clips of Fifties prudes panicked about the damage Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips might be doing to teenage girls’ minds."

"The quote, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” comes from a 1968 brochure for an Andy Warhol art exhibit in Sweden. In today’s social-media-obsessed culture, 15 minutes has been shaved to 15 seconds, the posting time for a TikTok video. Elvis Presley earned every minute of the fame and adulation showered upon him. He began his music career in the epicenter of the creative cauldron for indigenous American music: Memphis and his genius rested with his capacity to absorb and synthesize the blues, gospel, country and bluegrass music he heard growing up in nearby Tupelo, Mississippi. One way to evaluate the power of fame is to consider how long it lasts. Elvis has been dead for 45 years but it’s like he never died. After Santa Claus, I can’t think of another individual who has as many imitators. Graceland, Elvis’s cherished home in Memphis (3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard), is modest by today’s McMansion standards. Here on an almost 14-acre estate visited by 650,000 tourists annually rests Elvis’ vast collection of clothing, cars, motorcycles and airplanes. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, the first site related to rock music to ever be given that honor.I saw it as an example of the American dream writ large, a classic Horacio Alger story, a stunning symbol of what it’s like to be born dirt poor and end up filthy rich. Elvis was a man blessed with dazzling gifts and cursed with debilitating addictions. Unlike unbelievably wealthy men of today such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos playing with their rocket ship boy toys, Elvis provided so much pleasure to so many, for so long that he earned the right to enjoy his baubles, bangles and beads."

"He was a mild tempered, quiet, nice guy who treated everyone the same. I once overheard one of Elvis' friends at the time ask Elvis 'Why do you call him 'mister' -- he's just a black barbecue guy?' Elvis looked at him and said 'He's a man'. 'That', Withers says, 'Was the humility in his temperament'. 'Elvis was a great man and did more for civil rights than people know."

"Once when we'd been in the field for two months, the Company Commander asked us all to clean up. Elvis didn't quite make it into the barracks without being spotted by some cleaning women. They followed him upstairs right into the shower-room and a bunch of guys from privates all the way up to the Colonels joined the parade too. Right when he was taking a shower, people were shoving pieces of paper under the water for him to sign. He was laughing about it but he never could get away from people.."

"That boy made his pull from the blues, and if he stopped, he stopped, but he made his pull from there.."

"They said no, and that I just couldn’t wear a disguise. So, I talked with my son and his girlfriend and got them to order me an Elvis costume to wear as I picked up my million million dolllar prize."

"It was like an EARTHQUAKE!!! In my neighborhood the whole place was shakin' when he came on. And I said how can a person possess that kind of power that it even comes off the tv and grabs me in this ghetto neighborhood? Back in those days if it was a white artist doing some of our music many would say "Well, they don't like our blacks so we don't like their singers either. They're nothing but copy-cats anyway.' But with Elvis we ALL were going crazy over him. And I said 'Man, this cat's really got something!""

"That September, Presley would make his legendary inaugural appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," singing a sultry version of "Hound Dog" with his swinging hips in all their vulgar, gyrating splendor. During a later appearance in January 1957, the variety show would famously edit the King from the waist down in order to protect impressionable young television viewers from his brazen sexuality. But then, it was far too late. America had a full-on dose of Elvismania, and there was nary a cure in sight."

"In essence, because at that time the backward mental capability that many people had of judging a person because of their skin color, and it does still exist, but back then it was even worse, BUT because he actually was a Caucasian brother, Elvis was able to do away with all that thinking towards music."

"He really enjoyed doing the sessions and worked harder than he had done in years.."

"Every morning when I woke up and looked out the window, there were at least two hundred kids lined up on the sidewalk outside, staring at the house. Some of them would stay there all day long, just trying to get a glimpse of him. And when he would go out, he was very sweet to them. A lot of people I know would get angry, or impatient -- but Elvis was very nice to them, spent as much time with them as he could."

"X-ray records felt like the real thing to (Soviet) rock-starved kids. When doing national service in Berlin, I came across a couple of bedraggled teenage Soviet soldiers who had just climbed over the fence. "Why did you want to take this risk?" I asked them, as they could so easily have been shot. ‘Because our officer won’t let us listen to Elvis Presley,’ one of them answered."

"You didn't make it before we came along, and if I wanted to back somebody, I would have picked somebody who can sing, like Elvis Presley."

"During the Louisiana Hayride in the mid-50s, my grandmother was in line to get a hamburger and Elvis Presley moseyed on up to her, small talked a bit and asked her out on a date. Being she was already with my grandpa, she declined, but for more than 60 years, she never let him forget it..."

"There are some artists that appear to be a clear step ahead when it comes to intellectual property protection, Elvis Presley and 50 Cent being leagues ahead when it comes to portfolio size amongst the top ten artists which were made part of the study"

"Elvis Presley, in the midst of his 1968 comeback special, admitted “I’ve got to do this sooner or later, I may as well do it now, baby”. He then launched into Hound Dog ( via Heartbreak Hotel), which was what everyone wanted. I can't help keep thinking that Theresa May should have taken inspiration from this.She had to confront her ERG Leaver wing at some point, why not sooner (baby)? What could May have won, if she'd confronted her strong Leavers back far ago in 2016? What if she'd challenged them to a showdown not in Christmas 2018 but the summer or autumn, say, of 2016?"

"I remember on New Year’s Day of 2021 feeling, along with the ongoing uncertainty and lack of clear knowledge about the virus, a sense of hope. I also had no idea that a fair number of people would decide not to get vaccinated. I usually try not to judge people, but I grew up in a time when polio was at least as frightening as COVID has been the last couple of years. I remember a newspaper photo of Elvis Presley receiving his polio shot, an event that sent the vaccination rate into orbit all across the country. Elvis, for those who don’t remember, had just played the Ed Sullivan show and had something like a third of the entire nation watching. I’m pretty sure I was 12 when I saw the photo of Elvis getting his polio shot. I got my shot not so very long after that. Nobody took a picture of my shot, but having protection against polio sure gave my mom one fewer thing to fret over. I’m not much good at New Year’s resolutions. I decided in the coming year to simply try to stay safe and do everything I can to avoid putting anyone else at risk. That’s a resolution I think I can keep."

"Go into any Thai restaurant the world over and there will very likely be portraits and photos of King Bhumibol gazing down at diners with his benevolent smile, but one of the more common actually features him with Elvis Presley. The meeting came when lifelong music fan Bhumibol and his wife, Queen Sirikit, visited Hollywood’s Paramount Studios in 1960, while Elvis was filming G.I Blues. The king had been a fan of Presley for several years and was by then an accomplished saxophonist who later performed alongside jazz legend Lionel Hampton. In 1987, the late Hampton told the Thai magazine Sawasdee: “He is simply the coolest king in the land.”"

"The Frank Lloyd Wright fans!! Undoubtedly. Why? Because they're on the side of Nature and the others are on the side of an artificiality that is doomed."

"My father wanted me to be like him, an Orthodox Jew. When I said I didn’t want to be, he said, ‘just don’t tell your children.’ I said, ‘you want me to pretend to be somebody I’m not?’ He said, ‘that’s exactly what I’m saying.’. Anyways, he was Elvis' proctologist, so on the day I was supposed to meet him, I got into trouble and he didn't allow me to. When Elvis died, my dad remembered him as a respectful Christian who helped Jews on the Sabbath...."

"The peak of peak attention can be assigned and exact date: September 9, 1956, when Elvis Presley made his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, at CBS. Its 82.6 percent share of viewers, out of a population roughly half of today' s, has never been equaled or bettered"

"He is rock's greatest presence, shaking a country with a single-handed nuclear reaction of country, gospel, and the blues."

"Elvis was the kind of guy never looked past you, he looked right at you, was the warmest, most twinkling. He made you feel comfortable and at ease, which was amazing. He did not have any of that stuff where 'it's all about me'. He was a perfect gentleman. And he made you feel comfortable right away, at least he did with me. I'd go further and say that Elvis was clearly a guy with a rural or country attitude about life. He had that simple kinda point of view that said you stand up, you're polite to people. In spite of the money and the Cadillacs and all that, it was he and his pals, he never changed. And you could see that the minute he said hello to you. He was not a guy that would talk to you and look over your shoulder to see who else was in the room. Elvis Presley had a genuineness that was very noticeable and quite impressive the first time I met him. And Elaine and I went home really liking him and thinking 'what a terrific guy'. And everytime I saw him after that, he remembered everything, was always gracious and complimentary to people. It wasn't easy to get to see him, I mean, he had a very limited circle of friends. But when you did get in his company it was a real pleasure."

"In examining how rock, soul and R&B grew from the roots of gospel, our program on the Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul shall highlight such highly influential artists as who transitioned from gospel to secular music and her early rock stylings and Elvis Presley, who helped expose white audiences to gospel music. Examples of some of the most beloved contemporary pop music of the last 60 years from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, and Ray Charles illustrate gospel music's influence. Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul also features exclusive live performances recorded by WXPN within the last year from gospel groups The Fairfield Four, The McCrary Sisters, and The Dixie Hummingbirds."

"Elvis Presley Atomic Player B612 has a weight of just 130 grams, plays music from tablets, phones and virtual service: Apple Music, QQ Music. It has a radio as well. The device is made of aluminum, with a supply battery which can be used remotely for seven hours. The energy accumulator takes place via MicroUSB. Demand for the device has grown increasingly...."

"After marvelling at the large portions of food, thick steaks and TVs in our various Canadian hotel rooms, we actually spend much of our time watching cartoons. In fact, spent my $100 advance, meant to last me for three weeks, right away, mostly on new skates, some bubble gum and the latest Elvis Presley album."

"We put all the photos we received into albums. I remember we got fan letters from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Cuba and from the Soviet Union. We got them from all over the world and I used to collect the stamps for my son. Elvis really loved reading the fan mail and seeing the albums, especially the girls. We got post cards from everywhere. We would save him a lot of letters if they were funny and thought he would enjoy them and he surely did."

"My mother took me to see "Jailhouse Rock" when I was three. She loved Elvis. I guess I thought, like John Lennon, that that looked like a pretty good job. I bought my first Elvis record at seven. I got an old tennis racket and I'd go around the house playing it like a guitar, playing Elvis songs. I'd turn my collar up and do the lip sneer, the whole thing. I was a little boy being Elvis! I knew I was a little girl, but I was being myself. I never understood the gender difference, frankly. It never stopped me: I never thought, 'I'm a little girl, I can't do this.'"

"I was always mesmerized by strong, pure, beautiful voices, (and) Elvis' voice, the emotion in it, was unbelievable; I'd never heard anything like it, and I was listening to my parents' records, like "Heartbreak Hotel" and all the ’50 s stuff, the real raw Elvis...and that's how I gravitated into Patsy Cline, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris."

"Elvis was my first piece of vinyl. It was also a gift when I was only 7 years old. Some things are just too amazing not to share with you all. Thank you Priscilla and thank you BAM I love you bro. I’ll cherish this forever and I love y’all!!”"

"I first heard him in 1959, when I was 27. My favourite song of his is “Are You Lonesome Tonight, a 1961 song in which I found solace, by playing it over, and over, and over again during the weeks preceding and following the aborted 1991 coup against ."

"He was rock and roll's biggest star, and he also tested the boundaries of how an entertainer should behave on stage. Elvis had the whole package: the looks, voice, charisma--he had it all. I see so many videos on YouTube showing younger Elvis fans reacting to Elvis' music in a positive way. So, it shows you that Elvis' legacy and appeal continue to endure."

"Elvis had a brilliant ability to control the attack and ending of each note. If we listen the 1954 Sun Records recording of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" we can hear Elvis using a technique known as “glottal onset and offset” – in which the vocal folds in the larynx are closed at the start of a note and closed with extra emphasis at the end of the note – to achieve clarity of attack and an amazing rhythmic bounce in his vocal performance. That ability to drive the rhythm is also present in the 1963 hit "Viva Las Vegas" in which Elvis effortlessly accents the melody to give a rhythmic shape to each phrase."

"When the question was asked, in March of 2018, “Who do you think is the greatest rock star of all time?” it yielded these results: Elvis Presley 36%, Michael Jackson 21%, John Lennon 9%, Jimi Hendrix 7%, Mick Jagger, 5% Bruce Springsteen 4%, Others 5%, Not sure 13%."

"I asked him what did Dr. King think of the celebrity participation in the movement. He said that Dr King welcomed it because it helped give the movement more attention. Then he added a bonus by including stories of two of my other favorite singers who tragically, like Dr. King, died young themselves. I was astonished when the name Elvis Presley came up. Contrary to what some people believe, I never thought Elvis was racist. I knew that Elvis grew up poor and was heavily influenced by Black musicians. I even heard stories from other people that Elvis admired Dr. King. What I didn't know was that Elvis and Dr. King talked occasionally on the phone. Elvis even contributed money through various channels that filtered to the civil rights movement. Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, confirmed this as well. When Dr. King was killed in Memphis, Elvis was said to not just have been upset about Dr. King's death, but he was even more hurt that it happened in his hometown and just a stone's throw away from his Graceland estate. Elvis even inquired about attending Dr. King's funeral in Atlanta, but was talked out of it by others citing that he may be a distraction; it would delay filming and increase budget costs (and other security concerns because nobody could be certain that a riot may break out at the funeral at the time. Instead Elvis watched the funeral from his on-location trailer. According to his co-star at the time Celeste Yarnell who watched the proceeding with Elvis in his trailer, Elvis "felt a tremendous brotherhood with the black community because he grew up poor and he knew what it was like to live in poverty.He was also proud that many blacks embraced him as one of their own."

"I'm like Elvis Presley out here. I’m Swaggy Presley."

"i) Both "Elvis" and "Priscilla" present a vision of Elvis Presley framed by a third party, rather than one viewed directly, with the luxury of omniscience, by the person behind the camera. In "Elvis", Baz Luhrmann shapes Elvis’ story through the eyes of Parker, the man who helped make him and did more than his share to break him. And in "Priscilla", Elvis, for once, isn’t the center of attention; it’s Priscilla’s experience that matters. The suggestion of both movies is that Elvis Presley, like an eclipse of the sun, is too dazzling, too potentially disorienting, to be viewed without a filter...ii) Elvis Presley has been gone for 48 years now, but he hasn’t really died. The second half of the 20th century took shape around his almost mystical youthful charisma, and later around his ghost. Peter Guralnick has already given us the definitive Elvis biography with his two-volume classic, "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love" published in the ’90s but now his "The Colonel and the King: " is a sympathetic, surprising, and assiduously researched book—a coda to that essential work."

"He was the son of Afghanistan’s former prime minister, a prolific recording artist and a music idol for the masses. His music drew from Persian poetry as well as Indian classical styles, and it increasingly revealed a political edge, criticising the Soviet-backed Marxist regime who had seized power in Afghanistan following a 1978 military coup. There is some dream-like footage online of a 1970s gig at Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, showing an energetic figure leading a multi-instrumental band. The performer’s hip looks (dark quiff and sideburns; loosened tie) and rollicking, psych-roots grooves reflect the ‘Afghan Elvis’ nickname he earned."

"Some of those we have lost in 2019ː Elvis Presley (singer, actor, 84), perpetrator of the finest prank in history and of two of the best comeback concerts ever seen..."

"This is the mysterious part about music, the people who mean it, like Elvis, are generally the ones who are processing some kind of loss, and we connect to it."

"Elvis has just left the building, Those are his footprints, right there, Elvis has just left the building, To climb up that heavenly stair"

"Can't you just imagine digging up the King? Begging him to sing?."

"He is the Elvis of cultural theory"

"Elvis' 1969 opening night in Las Vegas was his first time back on a live stage in more than eight years, playing the biggest showroom in the biggest hotel and drawing more people for his four-week engagement than any other show in Las Vegas history. His performance got rave reviews, “Suspicious Minds” gave him his first number-one hit in seven years, and Elvis became Vegas's biggest star. Over the next seven years, he performed more than 650 shows there, and sold out every one. Las Vegas was changed too. The intimate night-club-style shows of the Rat Pack, who made Vegas the nation's premier live-entertainment center in the 1950s and ‘60s, catered largely to well-heeled older gamblers. Elvis brought a new kind of experience: an over-the-top, rock-concert-like extravaganza, setting a new bar for Las Vegas performers, with the biggest salary, the biggest musical production, and the biggest promotion campaign the city had ever seen. In doing so, he opened the door to a new generation of pop/rock performers, and brought a new audience to Las Vegas—a mass audience from Middle America that the city depends on for its success to this day."

"What was the Strip like back then, or what was it like to see Elvis Presley....."

"I knew him when he was a kid. He used to play the guitar and go around with quartets and to Negro ‘sanctified’ meetings. He lived near the colored section, and people around here say he's one of the nicest boys they ever knew. He just doesn't impress me as the type of person who would say a thing like that."

"Jerry and I were big Elvis fans and the name held some fascination. We were also looking for someone who had never performed comedy, who could recite the most hilarious piece of dialogue without thinking the lines were MEANT to be funny. We saw a certain naïveté and inexperience in Priscilla Presley that we knew would work for what we had planned."

"No, many thanks but I am just a tourist here and prefer no photos are taken."

"I shall always regret not having seen Elvis Presley live..."

"Our childhood housekeeper kept us supplied with a handwritten list of records. And when our mom would go out shopping and say, “Kids, can I get you something?,” we'd say, “You going by the record store? Here’s the list.” And sure enough, it was Jimmy Reed. It was Larry Williams. It was Ray Charles. All the good stuff. My sister and I played the sides off of those records. We'd turn those 45 rpm singles white. And I remember my mom taking us to see Elvis Presley and that kind of did it ... we had the music bug. And then my father took me down to a recording session at ACA, that was Bill Holford's place. And he put me in a chair and he said, “I’ll be in the office if you need me. Stick around because there are some musicians gonna make a recording session.” And I was kind of enjoying it, and who should walk in but B.B. King and his band. So between seeing Elvis and watching B.B. King record, it was carved in stone."

"Do you know how hard it is to fake your own death? Only one man has pulled it off — Elvis."

"Gather 'round, cats, and I'll tell you a story, about how to become an All American Boy."

"Elvis are you out there somewhere Looking like a happy man? In the snow with Rosebud And King of the Mountain."

"I'd like to wake up in the morning and hear on CNN that Elvis lives again"

"Little hellions, kids feelin' rebellious, Embarrassed their parents still listen to Elvis."

"And as Charles de Gaulle made it into power, promising the colonial population in Algeria "the 1,001 nights", and even as the Bastille seemed like it was never, ever to be taken again yet, in spite of it all, the voice of Elvis kept singing "Good Rockin tonight""

"Et Charles de Gaulle prenait le pouvoir, promettant les milles-et-une-nuits au pieds-noirs, et la Bastille en a tellement vu, qu'on ne l'y reprendra jamais, jamais plus, et la voix d'Elvis chante "Good rocking tonight""

"Elvis is GOD!"

"So you were an artist. Big deal! Elvis was an artist. But that didn't stop him from volunteering for the military in time of service. And that's why he's The King, and you're a schmuck."

"Elvis is everywhere. Elvis is everything. Elvis is everybody. Elvis is still the King."

"In Jailhouse Rock, he was everything rockabilly's about. Nah, nah, I mean, he is rockabilly: mean, surly, nasty, rude. In that movie, he couldn't give a fuck about nothin' except rockin' and rollin', livin' fast, dying young, and leaving a good-lookin' corpse, y'know?"

"Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem."

"Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind."

"There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt."

"I am a writer an a singer of the words I write I am no speaker nor any politician an my songs speak for me because I write them in the confinement of my own mind an have t cope with no one except my own self."

"do Not create anything, it will be misinterpreted. it will not change. it will follow you the rest of your life."

"a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet"

"He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story."

"You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist."

"I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs."

"I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know there are some people terrified of the bomb, but there are others terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine. Experience teaches that silence terrifies the most."

"Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be. Bob Dylan: Um...how many? Reporter: Yes. How many? Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136. Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136? Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142."

"Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about. Playboy: And what's that? Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve."

"Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges."

"I don't believe you! You're a liar! ... Play it fucking loud!"

"Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb."

"God, I'm glad I'm not me."

"You have to be let alone to really accomplish anything."

"I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don't believe that any more. There's myself and there's my song, which I hope is everybody's song."

"My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record."

"Greed and lust I can understand, but I can't understand the values of definition and confinement. Definition destroys. Besides, there's nothing definite in this world."

"Ron Rosenbaum: Why are you doing what you're doing? Bob Dylan: [Pause] Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm good at it. Ron Rosenbaum: How would you describe "it"? Bob Dylan: I'm an artist. I try to create art."

"I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet."

"Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?"

"I kinda live where I find myself."

"I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do."

"I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a certain point where I couldn't sing anything. So I had to write what I wanted to sing 'cos nobody else was writing what I wanted to sing."

"At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable. Lord Byron. I don't know. Lately if I read poems, it's like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare's sonnets I can hear a melody because it's all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, 'What kind of song would this be?'"

"Chaos is a friend of mine."

"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom."

"If the songs are dreamed, it's like my voice is coming out of their dream."

"I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet."

"When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' I thank God for Elvis."

"The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much."

"It's not to anybody's best interest to think about how they will be perceived tomorrow. It hurts you in the long run."

"My sense of rhyme used to be more involved in my songwriting than it is... Still staying in the unconscious frame of mind, you can pull yourself out and throw up two rhymes first and work it back. You get the rhymes first and work it back and then see if you can make it make sense in another kind of way. You can still stay in the unconscious frame of mind to pull it off, which is the state of mind you have to be in anyway."

"People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas."

"That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian."

"Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else."

"I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time. It doesn't even matter to me."

"I'm inconsistent, even to myself."

"Bob Dylan: The media is all-pervasive. What can a writer think of to write that you don't see every day in a newspaper or on television? Interviewer: ...Do you think that TV and the media have killed poetry and literature? Bob Dylan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. ... What's a writer to do if every idea is exposed in the media before he can get to it or let it evolve? What's a writer gonna write about? ... We're living in a science-fiction world. We're living in a world that Disney has conquered. Disney's science fiction. Theme parks, trendy streets, it's all science fiction. So I would say, if a writer has got something to say, he'll have to do it in that– Interviewer: Outside of the real world? Bob Dylan: There is a real world. Science fiction has become the real world. Whether we realize it or not, it has."

"We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them."

"I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere... set out to find... this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know?"

"I didn't go to classes. I just didn't feel like it."

"An artist has gotta be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming."

"You don't need my autograph. If you needed it, I'd give it to you."

"You can't be wise and in love at the same time."

"I had no answers to any of those questions any more than any other performer did, really. But, you know, that didn't stop the press or people or whoever they were from asking these questions. They, for some reason the press thought that performers had the answers to all these problems in the society and you know, like what can... What can you say to something like that? I mean, it's just kind of absurd."

"I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's."

"Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language."

"I think it's the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I'm more of an adventurous type than a relationship type."

"It's not a character like in a book or a movie. He's not a bus driver. He doesn't drive a forklift. He's not a serial killer. It's me who's singing that, plain and simple. We shouldn't confuse singers and performers with actors. Actors will say, “My character this, and my character that.” Like beating a dead horse. Who cares about the character? Just get up and act. You don't have to explain it to me."

"It's peculiar and unnerving in a way to see so many young people walking around with cellphones and iPods in their ears and so wrapped up in media and video games. It robs them of their self-identity. It's a shame to see them so tuned out to real life. Of course they are free to do that, as if that's got anything to do with freedom. The cost of liberty is high, and young people should understand that before they start spending their life with all those gadgets."

"The people in my songs are all me."

"A man is successful if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between does what he likes."

"It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity."

"I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else."

"Morality has nothing in common with politics."

"What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening—all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke."

"Opportunities may come along for you to convert something—something that exists into something that didn't yet."

"America was changing. I had a feeling of destiny and I was riding the changes... My consciousness was beginning to change, too, change and stretch."

"I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses."

"I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of."

"I'm a '60s troubadour, a folk-rock relic, a wordsmith from bygone days, a fictitious head of state from a place nobody knows. I'm in the bottomless pit of cultural oblivion."

"Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true. Then again, at the same time, you're thinking that the only truth on earth is that there is no truth on it. Whatever you are saying, you're saying in a ricky-tick way. There's never time to reflect. You stitched and pressed and packed and drove, is what you did."

"I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know if I was stoned or straight... All these songs together, one after another made my head spin. It made me want to gasp. It was like the land parted."

"[Ref Rimbaud line 'Je est un autre,]' “which translates into ‘I is someone else.’ When I read those words the bells went off. It made perfect sense. I wished someone would have mentioned that to me earlier.”"

"The road out would be treacherous, and I didn’t know where it would lead but I followed it anyway. It was a strange world ahead that would unfold, a thunderhead of a world with jagged lightning edges. Many got it wrong and never did get it right. I went straight into it. It was wide open. One thing for sure, not only was it not run by God, but it wasn’t run by the devil either."

"If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon."

"I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?" I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?""

"As a performer I've played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried."

"Like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years. Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer."

"You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here."

"A lot of people don't have much food on their table But they got a lot of forks and knives And they gotta cut something"

"I'm out here a thousand miles from my home Walkin' a road other men have gone down I'm seein' your world of people and things Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings"

"Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song, 'Bout a funny ol' world that's a-comin' along Seems sick an' it's hungry, it's tired an' it's torn It looks like it's a-dyin' an' it's hardly been born"

"Here's to Cisco an' Sonny an' Lead Belly too An' to all the good people that traveled with you Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men That come with the dust and are gone with the wind"

"How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?"

"Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?"

"How many times can a man turn his head pretending he just doesn't see?"

"How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?"

"Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?"

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

"So if you're travelin' in the north country fair, Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline, Remember me to one who lives there. She once was a true love of mine."

"But I see through your eyes"

"All the money you made will never buy back your soul."

"You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins."

"There is one thing I know though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would not forgive what you do"

"And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead"

"Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? And where have you been, my darling young one?"

"I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it."

"I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken."

"I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world."

"I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'."

"I met a white man who walked a black dog."

"And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it."

"But I'll know my song well before I start singin'."

"It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall."

"It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe If you don't know by now"

"I once loved a woman, a child I am told I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul."

"I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road, babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell But goodbye's too good a word, babe So I'll just say fare thee well"

"I ain't saying you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right."

"I got into the driver's seat and drove down 42nd Street in my Cadillac. Good car to drive after a war."

"Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time, But all the people can't be all right all the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. I said that."

"Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown. And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'."

"Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who that it's naming.’ For the loser now will be later to win"

"Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly agin'."

"Come Congressmen, Senators, please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall For he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it's ragin’."

"You prayed to the Lord above Oh please send you a friend Your empty pockets tell yuh That you ain't a-got no friend"

"There's seven people dead On a South Dakota farm Somewhere in the distance There's seven new people born"

"If there's anyone who knows, is there anyone who cares?"

"You never ask questions When God's on your side"

"You don't count the dead When God's on your side"

"But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side"

"The words fill my head, and fall to the floor, that if God's on our side, he'll stop the next war."

"Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend Be it mine right or wrongfully I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends To tie up the time most forcefully"

"But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick It can pierce through dust no matter how thick"

"Oh, but if I had the stars from the darkest night And the diamonds from the deepest ocean I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'."

"Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way, I'm sure your mind is roamin'. I'm sure your heart is not with me, But with the country to where you're goin'."

"William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll With a cane that he twirled around his Diamond ring finger At a Baltimore hotel society gath‘rin‘ And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him As they rode him in custody down to the station And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him And high office relations in the politics of Maryland Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was snarling In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage And never sat once at the head of the table And didn‘t even talk to the people at the table Who just cleande up all the food from the table And emptied the ashtrays in a whole other level Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane That sailed through the air and came down through the room Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears."

"In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gravel To show that all‘s equal and that the courts are on the level And the strings in the books ain‘t pulled and persuaded And that even the nobles get properly handled Once that the cops have chased after and caught ´em And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom Stared at the person who killed for no reason Who just happened to be feelin‘ that way without warnin‘ And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Bury the rag deep in your face For now‘s the time for your tears."

"All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you."

"I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me, or be like me."

"Far between sundown's finish an' midnight's broken toll, We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing. As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds, Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing. Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight, Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight, An' for each an' ev'ry underdog soldier in the night, An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

"Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail, The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder, That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind, Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind, An' the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing."

"It ain't no use a-talking to me It's just the same as talking to you"

"I'm a poet, and I know it."

"Everything passes Everything changes Just do what you think you should do And someday maybe Who knows, baby I'll come and be cryin' to you"

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

"Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth "Rip down all hate," I screamed Lies that life is black and white Spoke from my skull."

"In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow."

"I had to say something to strike him very weird so I yelled out "I like Fidel Castro and his beard.""

"All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight. I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight. My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night Leaving all of love's ashes behind me. The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet. The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet. I think of her often and hope whoever she's met Will be fully aware of how precious she is. Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me, "How good, how good does it feel to be free?" And I answer them most mysteriously, "Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?""

"Go away from my window, Leave at your own chosen speed, I'm not the one you want, babe, I'm not the one you need. You say you're looking for someone, Who's never weak but always strong, To protect you and defend you, Whether you are right or wrong, Someone to open each and every door, But it ain't me, babe, No, no, no, it ain't me, babe, It ain't me you're looking for, babe."

"Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking about the government The man in the trenchcoat Badge out, laid off Says he's got a bad cough Wants to get it paid off Look out kid It's somethin' you did God knows when But you're doin' it again"

"You don't need a weather man To know which way the wind blows"

"Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail"

"Don't follow leaders Watch the parkin' meters"

"Twenty years of schoolin' And they put you on the day shift"

"The pump don't work 'Cause the vandals took the handles"

"She's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back."

"She could take the dark out the nighttime and paint the daytime black."

"You will start out standing, proud to steal her anything she sees, but you will wind up peeking through her keyhole down upon your knees."

"Well, I try my best To be just like I am But everybody wants you To be just like them"

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more."

"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."

"She knows too much to argue or to judge."

"In the dime stores and bus stations, People talk of situations, Read books repeat quotations, Draw conclusions on the wall."

"Don't ask me nothin' about nothin'. I just might tell you the truth."

"I said, "You know they refused Jesus, too" He said, "You're not Him""

"The ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming."

"And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme..."

"It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run"

"Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time..."

"Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free."

"With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, let me forget about today until tomorrow."

"Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle-jangle morning, I'll come following you."

"All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow."

"And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden."

"Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides."

"Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying"

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

"Others say, don't hate nothing at all except hatred"

"Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Make everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It's easy to see without looking too far That not much is really sacred"

"Even the President of the United States Sometimes must have to stand naked"

"It is not he or she or them or it That you belong to."

"While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir"

"Money doesn't talk, it swears"

"You must leave, now take what you need, You think will last But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast Yonder stands your orphan with his gun Crying like a fire in the sun."

"The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense."

"Your lover who just walked out the door, has taken all his blankets from your floor."

"Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you. Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you. Strike another match, go! Start anew And it's all over now, Baby Blue."

"You got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down, you just stood there grinning."

"Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with one that tries to hide what he don't know to begin with."

"I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you."

"How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?"

"Once upon a time you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you. People call, say beware doll, you're bound to fall, you thought they were all, kiddin you."

"You used to laugh about Everybody that was hangin' out Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud About having to be scrounging for your next meal"

"You never turned around to see the frowns, on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did, tricks for you."

"Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made"

"Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose. You're invisible now. You've got no secrets to conceal."

"The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course."

"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken."

"Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride, you will not die, it's not poison"

"The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown At Delilah's who sitting worthlessly alone But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter"

"And the National Bank at a profit sells road maps for the soul To the old folks home and the college"

"Well I ride on a mail train baby, can't buy a thrill."

"Don't the moon look good, mama, shinin' through the trees? Don't the brakeman look good, mama, flaggin' down the double E? Don't the sun look good goin' down over the sea?"

"And you say, Oh my God, am I here all alone?"

"You've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks. With great lawyers you've discussed lepers and crooks."

"You go watch the geek, who immediately walks up to you when he hears you speak, and says, how does it feel to be such a freak?, and you say, impossible as he hands you a bone."

"And something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?"

"Here's your throat back, thanks for the loan."

"You put your eyes in your pockets and your nose on the ground."

"They already expect you to just give a check to tax-deductible charity organization."

"Oh God said to Abraham, Kill me a son. Abe says, Man, you must be puttin' me on. God say, No. Abe say, What? God say, You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin' you better run. Well Abe says, Where do you want this killin' done? God says, Out on Highway 61."

"The cops don't need you, and, man, they expect the same."

"I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff."

"They're selling postcards of the hanging"

"Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the door knob broke) When you asked how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they're quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now I can't read too good Don't send me no more letters no Not unless you mail them From Desolation Row"

"Now at midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone That knows more than they do"

"The Titanic sails at dawn"

"And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers..."

"Ron Rosenbaum: When you hear your songs in your mind, it's not just you strumming alone, you mean?"

"Dylan: Well, no, it is to begin with. But then I always hear other instruments, how they should sound. The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up. That's my particular sound. I haven't been able to succeed in getting it all the time. Mostly, I've been driving at a combination of guitar, harmonica and organ, but now I find myself going into territory that has more percussion in it and [pause] rhythms of the soul."

"But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned!"

"Somebody got lucky, but it was an accident."

"Oh Mama, can this really be the end? To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again?"

"And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice."

"The one was Texas medicine, the other was just a railroad gin. And, like a fool, I mixed them; and it strangled up my mind."

"Your debutante just knows what you need, but I know what you want."

"You see, you're just like me. I hope you're satisfied."

"Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?"

"We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it."

"He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all"

"Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial. Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles"

"The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face."

"Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him."

"But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel."

"She is good to me And there's nothing she doesn't see She knows where I'd like to be But it doesn't matter"

"Well, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Yes, I see you got your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat Well, you must tell me, baby How your head feels under somethin' like that Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat"

"I asked the doctor if I could see you It's bad for your health, he said Well, I disobeyed his orders, I came to see you but I found him there instead Well, I don't mind him cheating on me but I sure wish he'd take that off his head Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat"

"She takes just like a woman, yes she does She makes love just like a woman, yes she does And she aches just like a woman But she breaks just like a little girl."

"You say you love me and you're thinking of me, but you know you might be wrong."

"But to live outside the law, you must be honest."

"And now here I stand, looking at your yellow railroad, in the ruins of your balcony"

"Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?"

"With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace, And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace, And your basement clothes and your hollow face, Who among them can think he could outguess you?"

""There must be some way out of here," said the Joker to the Thief"

"All along the watchtower, princes kept the view While all the women came and went, barefoot servants too Outside in the distance, a wild cat did growl Two riders were approaching. The wind began to howl."

"I put my fingers against the glass, and bowed my head and cried"

"Nothing is revealed"

"Lay, lady, lay. Lay across my big, brass bed."

"Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine."

"His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, and you're the best thing that he's ever seen."

"Throw my ticket out the window, Throw my suitcase out there too, Throw my troubles out the door, I don't need them anymore, 'Cause tonight I'll be staying here with you."

"Ev'rybody's in despair, Ev'ry girl and boy But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy."

"Come all without, come all within, You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn."

"Time passes slowly up here in the mountains"

"Some day everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece."

"May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young."

"May your hands always be busy. May your feet always be swift. May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung. May you stay forever young."

"Early one mornin' the sun was shinin', I was layin' in bed Wond'rin'if she'd changed at all If her hair was still red."

"Tangled up in blue..."

"Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through..."

"I helped her out of a jam, I guess, but I used a little too much force..."

"And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burnin' coal. Pourin' off of every page, like it was written in my soul from me to you..."

"The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew..."

"All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now..."

"Don't know how it all got started, I don't know what they do with their lives..."

"We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view..."

"But all the while I was alone The past was close behind, I seen a lot of women But she never escaped my mind,"

"I lived with them on Montague Street In a basement down the stairs There was music in the cafes at night And revolution in the air."

"You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe."

"I can't help it if I'm lucky."

"Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars."

"I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned slowly into autumn."

"Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats, blowing through the letters that we wrote. Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves, We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves."

"It was gravity which pulled us in and destiny which broke us apart"

"You tamed the lion in my cage but it just wasn't enough to change my heart"

"Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstacy, I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory and all your ragin' glory"

"You'll never know the hurt I suffer, nor the pain I rise above, and I'll never know the same about you..."

"I kiss good-bye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me."

"I'm going out of my mind, oh, oh; with a pain that stops and starts; like a corkscrew to my heart; Ever since we've been apart"

"A change in the weather is known to be extreme; but what's the sense in changing horses in mid-stream?"

"Time is a jetplane — it moves too fast. Oh but what a shame that all we've shared can't last..."

"Love is so simple, to quote a phrase; you've known it all the time, I'm learnin' it these days."

"I know where I can find you — in somebody's room. It's the price I have to pay, you're a big girl all the way."

"Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs, Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair. Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide, A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside. Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts."

"'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud. I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form, 'Come in,' she said, 'I'll give you shelter from the storm.'"

"Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine."

"Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm..."

"I always have respected her for doin' what she did and gettin' free"

"Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow She might think that I've forgotten her don't tell her it isn't so."

"Sundown yellow moon I replay the past I know every scene by heart they all went by so fast"

"If she's passing back this way I'm not that hard to find Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time."

"Well, it's sugar for sugar And salt for salt If you go down in the flood It's gonna be your own fault"

"Take care of all your memories. said my friend Mick, For you cannot relive them."

"If your mem'ry serves you well, we were gonna meet again and wait, so I think I'll just unpack my bags and sit before it gets too late. No man alive will come to you with another tale to tell, but you know that we shall meet again, if your mem'ry serves you well."

"If your memory serves you well, I was gonna confiscate your lace and wrap it up in a sailor's knot and hide it in your case. And if I knew for sure that it was yours, it was oh so hard to tell, and you know that we shall meet again, if your memory serves you well."

"If your memory serves you well, I remember you're the one who called out me to call out them to get your business done. And after every plan has failed, and there was nothing left to tell, well you knew that we shall meet again if your memory serves you well."

"Wheels on fire, rolling down the road, best notify my next of kin, this wheel shall explode!"

"Here comes the story of The Hurricane, the man the authorities came to blame for something that he never done. Put in a prison cell, but one time he coulda been the champion of the world."

"Meanwhile, far away in another part of town, Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin’ around. Number one contender for the middleweight crown, Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down. When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road, Just like the time before and the time before that. In Paterson that’s just the way things go: If you’re black you might as well not show up on the street ’Less you wanna draw the heat."

"Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land, where justice is a game."

"There's lots of pretty girls in Mozambique."

"Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow, Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore, You may not see me tomorrow."

"Gentlemen, he said I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes I've moved your mountains and marked your cards But Eden is burning either get ready for elimination Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards Peace will come with tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire But will offer no reward when her false idols fall And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating Between the King and the Queen of Swords"

"Señor, señor, can you tell me where we’re heading? Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?"

"Do you love me, or are you just extending good will?"

"I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings, and I've never been too impressed"

"It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

"You may call me Bobby; you may call me Zimmy..."

"Now there's spiritual warfare, flesh and blood breaking down. You either got faith or you got unbelief, and there ain't no neutral ground."

"The enemy is subtle. How be it we're deceived? When the truth's in our hearts and we still don't believe."

"My so-called friends have fallen under a spell: they look me squarely in the eye and say, "Well; all is well.""

"We are covered in blood, girl. You know both our forefathers were slaves. Let us hope they've found mercy in their bone-filled graves."

"They'd like to drive me from this town; they don't want me around, 'cause I believe in you."

"I believe in you even on the morning after."

"Have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down all the earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon?"

"All that foreign oil controlling American soil. Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed: sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings, deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris."

"In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave."

"Man's ego's inflated, his laws are outdated. They don't apply no more. You can't rely no more to be standing around waiting."

"Fools glorify themselves, trying to manipulate Satan."

"The enemy I see wears a cloak of decency."

"People starving and thirsting; grain elevators are bursting. You know, it costs more to store the food than it do to give it."

"They talk about a life of brotherly love? Show me someone who knows how to live it."

"It sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets."

"(Alternate version.) A brave man will kill you with a sword, a coward with a kiss."

"Don't wanna judge nobody — don't wanna be judged."

"You got some big dreams, baby, but in order to dream you gotta still be asleep."

"Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts; Karl Marx has got you by the throat, and Henry Kissinger's got you tied up into knots."

"You got innocent men in jail, your insane asylums are filled."

"Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires."

"They tell you "Time is money," as if your life was worth its weight in gold."

"When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?"

"Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through."

"In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand"

"I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand"

"Freedom just around the corner for you, but with truth so far off, what good will it do?"

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, both of their futures so full of dread."

"Shedding off one more layer of skin, keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within."

"You go to Sodom and Gomorrah, but what do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister."

"You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name."

"The book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers."

"The rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame; preacherman seeks the same. Who'll get there first is uncertain."

"A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet. He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat, take the motherless children off the street and place them at the feet of a harlot."

"A woman like you should be at home. That's where you belong, taking care of somebody nice who don't know how to do you wrong."

"Just how much abuse will you be able to take? Well, there's no way to tell by the first kiss."

"They say in your father's house there's many mansions; each one of 'em got a fireproof floor."

"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings."

"Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king."

"There's only one step down from here, baby. It's called the Land of Permanent Bliss."

"Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace."

"Nobody sees through him — no, not even the chief of police."

"He could be standing next to you, the person that you notice least."

"He's following a star, the same one that the three men followed east."

"Some one else is speaking with my mouth, but I'm listening only to my heart."

"Took a stranger to teach me to look into justice's beautiful face, and to see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

"A lot of people complaining that there is no work. I say, "Why you say that for?" When nothin' you got is US-made — they don't make nothin' here no more."

"Capitalism is above the law; it's said it don't count 'less it sells."

"It's sundown on the union that was made in the USA. Sure was a good idea till greed got in the way."

"Democracy don't rule the world; you'd better get that in your head. This world is ruled by violence."

"Yesterday's just a memory; tomorrow's never what it's supposed to be."

"Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth, he can do with it as he please. And if things don't change soon, he will."

"For man has invented his doom; first step was touching the moon."

"Man is opposed to fair play: he wants it all, and he wants it his way."

"What looks large from a distance, close up ain't never that big."

"I live in another world, where life and death are memorized."

"I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise, whom Nature's beast fears as they come."

"Time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies."

"All I see are dark eyes."

"If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself."

"I've been deceived by the clown inside of me. I thought that he was righteous but he's vain."

"My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost. He's always off somewhere when I need him most."

"Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it."

"I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity."

"If I thought about it, I never would have done it, I guess I would have let it slide."

"The old Rounder in the iron mask slipped me the master key, somebody had to unlock your heart, he said it was up to me."

"It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be."

"When you bite off more than you can chew, you pay the penalty, somebody's got to tell the tale, I guess it must be up to me."

"Somebody's got to cry some tears, I guess it must be up to me."

"Forgive me, baby, for what I didn't do."

"[Recounting a scene in The Gunfighter] Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square — I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death."

"I can't believe we've lived so long and are still so far apart."

"I know she ain't you, but she's here, and she's got that dark rhythm in her soul."

"She said, "Welcome to the land of the living dead," but you could tell she was so brokenhearted — she said, "Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.""

"We're going all the way, till the wheels fall off and burn, till the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasins die."

"I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran."

"When I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears, it was the best damn thing I saw anybody do."

"I've always been the kind of person who doesn't like to trespass, but sometimes you just find yourself over the line."

"I feel pretty good, but that ain't saying much — I could feel a whole lot better, if you were just here by my side to show me how."

"The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter was that his name wasn't Henry Porter."

"Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than those who are most content."

"You always said people don't do what they believe in; they just do what's most convenient, then they repent."

"Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash To an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan Who for reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man"

"Jan had told him many times "it was you to me who taught: in Jersey anything's legal as long as you don't get caught""

"We live in a political world Where peace is not welcome at all It's turned away from the door to wander some more Or put up against the wall."

"Ring them bells Sweet Martha For the poor man's son Ring them bells so the world will know That God is one Oh, the shepherd is asleep Where the willows weep And the mountains are filled with lost sheep."

"There are no mistakes in life, some people say And it's true, sometimes you can see it that way People don't live or die, people just float She went with the man in the long black coat."

"There’s smoke on the water, it’s been there since June Tree trunks uprooted, 'neath the high crescent moon Feel the pulse and vibration and the rumbling force Somebody is out there beating on a dead horse"

"Seen a shooting star tonight, and I thought of you."

"They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down."

"Your mind is your temple, keep it beautiful and free. Don't let an egg get laid in it by something you can't see."

"Let me die in my footsteps before I go under the ground."

"I'd throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea, for they are mistakes of a past history."

"The whole world's a bottle, And life's but a dram, When the bottle gets empty, It sure ain't worth a damn."

"When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?"

"Well, God is in His heaven And we all want what's his But power and greed and corruptible seed Seem to be all that there is I'm gazing out the window Of the St. James Hotel And I know no one can sing the blues Like Blind Willie McTell"

"Drinkin' man listens to the voice he hears, In a crowded room full of covered up mirrors, Lookin' into the lost forgotten years For dignity"

"I'm sick of love, and I'm in the thick of it."

"Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one."

"Behind every beautiful thing there's been some kind of pain"

"I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from."

"I been down on the bottom of a whirlpool of lies"

"Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

"I could hold you for a million years"

"When you think that you’ve lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more."

"She says, you don’t read women authors do you?... I said, You’re way wrong. She says, Which ones have you read then? I say, I read Erica Jong!"

"Insanity is crashing up against my soul."

"Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet... Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street."

"People are crazy and times are strange I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range, I used to care, but things have changed."

"You can hurt someone and not even know it"

"I been walkin forty miles of bad road. If the Bible is right the world will explode. I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can"

"My clothes are wet, tight on my skin. Not as tight as the corner that I've painted myself in."

"You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way."

"I'm walking through the leaves falling from the trees, Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees."

"So many things that we never will undo I know you're sorry, I'm sorry too."

"I'm drownin' in the poison, got not future got no past."

"But my heart is not weary; it's light and it's free I've got nothing but affection for those who've sailed with me."

"Everybody movin', if they ain't already there. Everyboy got to move somewhere."

"Things should start to get interesting right about now."

"Politician's got on his jogging shoes, he must be running for office, got no time to lose"

"I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time."

"The future for me is already a thing of the past."

"I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more."

"Funny how the things you have the hardest time parting with are the things you need the least."

"I'm gonna spare the defeated—I'm gonna speak to the crowd I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the crowd I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered I'm gonna tame the proud"

"Down over the window Comes the dazzling sunlit rays Through the back alleys, through the blinds Another one of them endless days"

"My old man he's like some feudal lord, got more lives than a cat."

"Jump into the wagon, love, throw your panties overboard."

"I can write you poems, make a strong man lose his mind."

"As great as you are, man, you’ll never be greater than yourself."

"Don’t reach out for me, she said. Can’t you see I’m drowning too?"

"Last night across the alley there was a pounding on the wall It must have been Don Pascuale making a two a.m. booty call"

"Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need."

"Feel like my soul is beginning to expand. Look into my heart and you will sort of understand."

"The world of research has gone berserk. Too much paperwork."

"Some people never work a day in their lives, don't know what work even means."

"If I catch my opponents ever sleepin', I'll just slaughter 'em where they lie."

"I'm listening to Billy Joe Shaver And I'm reading James Joyce Some people they tell me I've got the blood of the land in my voice"

"The door has closed for evermore, If indeed there ever was a door."

"Just give to me my gravestone With it clearly carved upon: "I'm a long time a-comin' An' I'll be a long time gone""

"She left one too many a boy behind He committed suicide"

"It's soon after midnight, and I got a date with a fairy queen"

"Another politician pumpin' out the piss."

"He bent in the middle like a twisted pin"

"Long before the First Crusade, way back before England or America was made."

"Mr. Freud with his dreams, Mr. Marx with his ax."

"Who cleared the path for Presley to sing Who carved out the path for Martin Luther King"

"I lit the torch, I looked to the east, and I crossed the Rubicon."

"I’m so deep in love that I can hardly see."

"Well, it might not be the thing to do, but I’m sticking with you through and through."

"Bob Dylan's enormous influence on mid-'60s rock not only led directly to the birth of folk rock but also inspired the psychedelic rockers who followed."

"He might rarely pick up a six-string these days, but back in the day, Dylan started a folk revolution with nothing but a beat-up old acoustic and a suitcase full of songs. Dylan made it look so easy that a legion of earnest young strummers picked up the guitar. They discovered the truth when they started trying to play like him, though. Elaborate fingerpicking, open tunings, ear-catching runs and an impeccable sense of rhythm were the foundation that the Dylan legend was built on. He sourced his skills from legends of folk and blues, and combined them into something bitingly original. Hands down the best singer-songwriter ever to do it."

"It took Bob Dylan to break the ice between the [country and rock music] camps. [...] While it would be a stretch to call Blonde on Blonde a country-rock record, the fact that Dylan, arguably the most important person in rock at the time, cut an album in the home of country music soon brought an influx of other musicians to Nashville. As Charlie McCoy, the multi-instrumentalist who starred on Blonde told Nashville Scene in 2011, “That's when the floodgates opened.""

"The Nobel Prize for Literature is yet another step towards immortality for Bob Dylan. The rebellious, reclusive, unpredictable artist/composer is exactly where the Nobel Prize for Literature needs to be. His gift with words is unsurpassable. Out of my repertoire spanning 60 years, no songs have been more moving and worthy in their depth, darkness, fury, mystery, beauty and humour than Bob's. None has been more of a pleasure to sing. None will come again."

"A voice like sand and glue."

"To me, [giving the Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan] is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain."

"I relied on Bob Dylan as a seer who literally channeled the mood of the revolution. His John Wesley Harding album, named for a famous outlaw, had thrilled me the year before, especially "All Along the Watchtower," which seemed to me a coda for revolution. Some of the women in our group and many in the new women's movement had turned against Dylan and other artists for their misogyny, and I couldn't deny its presence in many lyrics."

"In the mid-'60s one of my cousins gave me a record by Bob Dylan and it was a mind-blowing experience. I loved the beat of it, the folk concerns, the pulse of the people in Dylan's music."

"Dylan is to me the perfect symbol of the anti-artist in our society. He is against everything—the last resort of someone who doesn't really want to change the world. ... I think his poetry is punk. It's derivative and terribly old hat. ... Dylan songs accept the world as it is."

"Bob Dylan took a lot of air out of the room when it came to songwriters. Everybody had a tough row to hoe distinguishing themselves once Bob invented our job."

"I saw Bob Dylan a couple of weeks ago (this being, what, December 1994?) and he was saying… “Who owns all the money? Who owns the media?”. As he travels around the world, he notices that all the media change their story every week, and someone is directing that. And “Who owns all the money?”, he was saying. And it was like he knew that he had a great deal of power, to influence people’s psyches, or minds, or thinking, or psychology, or opinion-ation, and yet his power was miniscule, compared to the power of the moguls of the media. And in America it’s only 22 people who run… who own… 80 percent of the mass-media, so that the… it would be very difficult for a poem… for a poet… to overcome that barrage of bullshit. On the other hand, poetry is the only place where you get an individual person telling his subjective truth, what he really thinks, as distinct from what he wants people to think he thinks (like a politician or someone preparing an editorial in a dignified newspaper). So if you need the historical truth of what people think inside, you have to follow Shelley (and his admonition is that poets are the “unacknowledged legislators of the race”) — or what William Carlos Williams said more acutely was, “The government is of words”. After all, the people making political speeches, they’re writing prose, if not poetry, and they are trying to get a little flowery language in there, but the language is shifty, and the language is manipulative, and people who are advertising, or even doing ordinary mass-media, are still inhibited and can’t say what they really think, but the poet can say what he really thinks, authentically, and that’s the advantage, and it’s longer-lasting than the immediate radio-broadcast or television-broadcast, because a poem is like a radio that can broadcast continually, for thousands of years. And so, in the long run, it may have an ameliorating effect on the spirit."

"What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru. ... After all, he's not a great harmonica player, and he's not a great guitar player, and he's not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru."

"The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he's no longer where he was. He's like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you'll surely get burned. Dylan's life of change and constant disappearances and constant transformations makes you yearn to hold him, and to nail him down. And that's why his fan base is so obsessive, so desirous of finding the truth and the absolutes and the answers to him — things that Dylan will never provide and will only frustrate. ... Dylan is difficult and mysterious and evasive and frustrating, and it only makes you identify with him all the more as he skirts identity."

"Slight, wiry, his blond, curly hair worn long, Bob Dylan never wears a tie and never lets anyone else make decisions for him. His unshakable independence courses through his songs—some of them wryly irreverent, others harshly critical of what he regards as hypocrisy and cruelty. His voice is acrid but curiously compelling, and he has become the most influential folksinger among today's teenagers—as well as among older dissenters. [...] Now 24, he is less the angry preacher of causes than he was two years ago. His songs have become more warmly personal and more deftly witty. He is cactus on the outside and romantic revolutionary within. He has no ideology except that of inner freedom. He is his own man."

"He had a lovely voice, but he was also, I think, a great poet. And he was the background music to a lot of people of my age. I don't take a lot of stock in generational thought, as you know. I think generational solidarity is the lowest form of solidarity there is. But I think that for every decade or so, every generational set, there is a special voice. And certainly for my lot, it was him."

"My hero was and still is Bob Dylan."

"I defy you to say what he'll be doing six months from now. He's just driven by pure art. You know, his son said to me..."There is no doubt that if my dad had never made it, if he was sitting on the side of the sidewalk with his guitar and a hat out in front of him, he would be doing precisely doing the same songs. His whole career would be exactly the same." Now, there is certainly hyperbole in that, but it's kind of, sort of true... If we have anybody who's Shakespeare in our time, it's Dylan, and he just speaks to me more and more, and he once said in an interview that the purpose of art was to inspire, and when you see a Dylan show...You would think he's so good, you know—if you go see a jazz cat who's so good playing bass, you can leave that show going, "Why even pick up a bass again?" But for some reason—and I'm not the only one that feels this—at the end of the Dylan show, art just seems so good. I want to go write a play, or write a novel. I'll stay up all night and write a song. And you don't care that it's not as good. The other thing that I love about Dylan is he is a freak, not a cheerleader... Dylan just stands there and says, "I am speaking for me. Maybe some of this is true for you to. I don't know. But I'm digging so deep." All of his mining, you know, is going towards his heart and deeper into his brain. He makes no attempt, that I can tell, to say, "Oh yeah, this is gonna kill 'em. This is what they'll like." And that's where universality has to live. You can't be universal if you're trying to please other people. You can only be universal if you have so clearly who you are, and Dylan has no idea who he is, but he's still searching and he's sharing that process with us."

"The conversation was flat. Suddenly, however, Dylan leapt to his feet and started berating me. He said, for example, something like, 'You'll never understand it; it happens so fast it'll go right past you,' and more of the same. I was startled, yes, but kept on trying to ask sensible, interesting questions; the attack persisted. I shrugged and left. The whole episode was entirely unprovoked... That evening, I went to the concert. My opinion then and now was that the music was unpleasant, the lyrics inflated, and Dylan a self-indulgent whining show-off."

"Musically, Dylan's not very gifted; he's borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He's got a lot of borrowed things. He's not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs ... it's a mask of sorts."

"He's one of the great artists of the century."

"I can still picture Bob Dylan, with just a bassist, a piano player, and his guitar, tenderly reworking "The Times They Are a-Changin'." When finished, he stepped off the stage, shook my hand, gave a little grin and bow in front of me and Michelle, and vanished without a word."

""The stage is the only place where I'm happy." But this has its own sadnesses, like so much love. He is the one person who has to be at a Dylan concert and the one person who can't go to a Dylan concert."

"A day doesn't go by when I don't listen to Dylan or at least think about him and his art. I just think we're terrifically lucky to be alive at a time when he is."

"Five years ago [Dylan] played a concert here at the university and I had no hand in arranging it; I was told about it rather late and could have killed the organizers. Shortly before the concert I received word to come backstage, so my wife and I went half an hour before the show. And Dylan said: "Mr Ricks, we meet at last." My reply was: "Have you read any good books lately?" [...] and he said: "Richard III". [...] Dylan wasn't at all surprised by my question and he really did want to talk about Richard III."

"Dylan creates a mythic atmosphere out of the land around us. The land we walk on every day and never see until someone shows it to us."

"Dylan has invented himself. He's made himself up from scratch. That is, from the things he had around him and inside him. Dylan is an invention of his own mind. The point isn't to figure him out but to take him in. He gets into you anyway, so why not just take him in? He's not the first one to have invented himself, but he's the first one to have invented Dylan..."

"Dylan was a revolutionary. Bob freed your mind the way Elvis freed your body. ... To this day, wherever great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan."

"since I've been working in the theatre and listening over to some of his music and to his lyrics, I am getting quite a respect for him as a poet. I'm not happy about a lot of diffused, little cheating lines, second rate realism, that he sometimes offered. But in the same context, where the music is in a thriving rock culture, he's in that soft rock or whatever culture. Then he is a poet working within the same conditions that a Third World poet is working in because he is close to music and he's closer to the beat of the thing."

"Dylan's heart rests in his vocation. He is a white bluesman par excellence. His voice is born out of that vocation, informed by a vision rooted in reaching and teaching as many people as possible."

"Dylan is free now to work on his own terms. It would be foolish to predict what he will do next. But hopefully he will remain a mediator, using the language of pop to transcend it. If the gap between past and present continues to widen, such mediation may be crucial. In a communications crisis, the true prophets are the translators."

"I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master. If I'd like to be anyone, it's him. And he's a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years. He's great. He's the one I look to. I'm always interested in what he's doing now, or did last, or did a long time ago that I didn't find out about. The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely. Like me, he waits around and keeps going, and he knows that he doesn't have the muse all the time, but he knows that it'll come back and it'll visit him and he'll have his moment."

"There was a new popular music of protest. Pete Seeger had been singing protest songs since the forties, but now he came into his own, his audiences much larger. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, singing not only protest songs, but songs reflecting the new abandon, the new culture, became popular idols. A middle-aged woman on the West Coast, Malvina Reynolds, wrote and sang songs that fit her socialist thinking and her libertarian spirit, as well as her critique of the modern commercial culture."

"You don't know someone's changing the world until the world's been changed."

"On a personal level, Freaking Out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress, and social etiquette in order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and the social structure as a whole."

"If your children ever find out how lame you really are, they’ll murder you in your sleep."

"Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. This song has no message. Rise for the flag salute."

"The things that were happening in 1955 were cosmic … in terms of music history."

"Scientology, how about that? You hold on to the tin cans and then this guy asks you a bunch of questions, and if you pay enough money you get to join the master race. How's that for a religion?"

"I consider that the building materials are exactly the same as what anybody else makes the thing out of. It's just the way they look at those materials is perhaps a narrower perspective. Time and those waves are at the disposal of anyone who wants to use them."

"Classical musicians go to the conservatories, rock´n roll musicians go to the garages."

"I think it's really tragic when people get serious about stuff. It's such an absurdity to take anything really seriously … I make an honest attempt not to take anything seriously: I worked that attitude out about the time I was eighteen, I mean, what does it all mean when you get right down to it, what's the story here? Being alive is so weird."

"I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization — you can't just swallow it whole."

"Being interviewed is one of the most abnormal things that you can do to somebody else. It's two steps removed from the Inquisition."

"I don't give a fuck if they remember me at all."

"Every socialistic type of government… produces bad art, produces social inertia, produces really unhappy people, and it's more repressive than any other kind of government."

"I'm probably more famous for sitting on the toilet than for anything else that I do."

"I'll tell you what classical music is, for those of you who don't know. Classical music is this music that was written by a bunch of dead people a long time ago. And it's formula music, the same as top forty music is formula music. In order to have a piece be classical, it has to conform to academic standards that were the current norms of that day and age … I think that people are entitled to be amused, and entertained. If they see deviations from this classical norm, it's probably good for their mental health."

"Their stupidity does not amaze me, its when they're smart that amazes me. It's baffling whenever you find someone who's smart — incredible. Soon you'll have zoos for such things."

"A wise man once said, "never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment.""

"When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else."

"I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right."

"The rock and roll business is pretty absurd, but the world of serious music is much worse."

"I have four children, and I want them to grow up in a country that has a working First Amendment."

"The most important thing to do in your life is to not interfere with somebody else's life."

"The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property."

"Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!"

"The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions."

"The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house."

"Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read."

"Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra, as opposed to the Bible? Who wins?"

"Tobacco is my favorite vegetable."

"My solos are speech-influenced rhythmically; and harmonically, they're either pentatonic, or poly-scale oriented. And there's the mixolydian mode that I also use a lot...But I'm more interested in melodic things I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot."

"To me, absurdity is the only reality."

"Well I think that progress is not possible without deviation. And I think that it's important that people be aware of some of the creative ways in which some of their fellow men are deviating from the norm, because in some instances they might find these deviations inspiring and might suggest further deviations which might cause progress, you never know."

"It's time for a revolution, but probably not in the terms that people imagine it. The word seems to conjure up images of— sort of a modern day version of peasants going into the street with their pitch forks to go after the bad guy who lives in a big house someplace on a hill and we're gonna get that son-of-a-bitch and we'll take all the stuff away from him and we'll give it to the workers, you know. And that's not the kind of revolution I had in mind. ... Well, I thought that it might be nice if it was handled a little bit more modern and efficient way, without people getting slaughtered in the street. It's a matter of infiltration."

"So many books, so little time."

"So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin' Hopin' for the best Even think I'll go to prayin' Every time I hear 'em sayin' That there's no way to delay That trouble comin' every day No way to delay That trouble comin' every day"

"Hey, you know something people? I'm not black, But there's a whole lots a times I wish I could say I'm not white."

"And it's the same across the nation Black and white discrimination Yellin' "You can't understand me!" 'N all that other jazz they hand me In the papers and TV and All that mass stupidity That seems to grow more every day Each time you hear some nitwit say He wants to go and do you in Because the color of your skin Just don't appeal to him (No matter if it's black or white) Because he's out for blood tonight."

"I may be vile and pernicious But you can't look away I make you think I'm delicious With the stuff that I say I'm the best you can get Have you guessed me yet? I'm the slime oozin' out From your TV set."

"Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow."

"Look here brother, who you jivin' with that cosmik debris?"

"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny."

"Frank Zappa: I would say the illusion [of freedom] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move all the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."

"You're an asshole! You're an asshole! That's right! You're an asshole! You're an asshole! Yes yes!"

"Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best…"

"You know, people are basically shitty. It’s when they prove it over and over again that it gets obnoxious."

"We live in a very special time right now. At no other time in history has there been such mass disillusionment in terms of reliance on governing functions. Most people don’t want to come to terms with that. It’s been proven over and over again that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, but most people don’t like to look at naked emperors. In the process of turning around to avert their eyes, they saw the discotheques and a few other things and latched onto them."

"There’s no reason to assume that my idea of what‘s better would really be better. I resent it when other people try to inflict their ideas of betterness on me. I don’t think they know. And I can’t see any authority on the horizon that’s got any answers that seem worthwhile. Most of the things that are suggested are probably detrimental to your mental health."

"Organized religions by their very natures are misleading. The bottom line is always money. What that’s got to do with your spiritual well-being still eludes me. It’s always the bucks, no matter how they disguise it. If you need that sort of assistance to keep yourself together, you may be paying a higher rate to a fake religion than you would to a psychotherapist. Which is not to say that a psychotherapist is going to give you any better value per dollar either. lf you’re going to deal with reality, you’re going to have to make one big discovery: Reality is something that belongs to you as an individual. If you wanna grow up, which most people don’t, the thing to do is take responsibility for your own reality and deal with it on your own terms. Don’t expect that because you pay some money to somebody else or take a pledge or join a club or run down the street or wear a special bunch of clothes or play a certain sport or even drink Perrier water, it’s going to take care of everything for you. Because it all comes from inside. As a matter of fact, that’s where it stays."

"Certification from one source or another seems to be the most important thing to people all over the world. A piece of paper from a school that says you’re smart, a pat on the head from your parents that says you’re good or some reinforcement from your peers that makes you think what you’re doing is worthwhile. People are just waiting around to get certified."

"The lifestyle that I have is probably neither desirable nor useful to most people. Most people are probably better off getting the certification they desire and spindling their lives away the way they’re doing. I don’t think they’d enjoy living any other way. There are millions of people who acquire all sorts of wonderful feelings from watching a football game and drinking a bottle of beer. It makes them really happy. Doesn’t do shit for me. But for them it’s life itself. As long as they can believe in the beer and the football, then they’ve really got something. And it’s probably more useful to them than religion. So why take it away? Why tell them what’s really going on? Let ’em be happy."

"If a person wants to write music and lyrics, he has a perfect right to express his views on a certain subject. I would feel wrong if I were to express anything that I didn’t believe in. I write what I like to write. Those who like to listen to it, listen to it. And the ones who don’t, watch football and drink beer, jog, go to discos and so forth. I never claimed to be a man for all seasons."

"Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it."

"So much gets lost in the translation. Even if you sat there listening to it with a microscope, there’s no way you’re gonna find out what it means."

"People have preposterous ideas about what those songs are about and what the music means. They start spouting all this shit that’s so far off the mark, it’s revolting. But if that’s how they derive pleasure, who am I to deprive them of it? Let ’em enjoy it. It’s there for their edification. But total comprehension is out of the question."

"I can’t talk to you about music because you don’t know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can’t talk to you about music. There’s not enough information in common that I could say to you so you’d be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don’t give a fuck about music anyway."

"The cool-person syndrome is peculiarly American. Part of that has to do with the way the educational business is run in the U.S. It’s not based on how much you can teach your child: it’s based on how much money the suppliers of basic materials can make off your child. Somewhere along the line most people pick up the desire to be a cool person, which is just another way to make them buy things. Once you’ve decided that you need to be a cool person, it makes you a possible victim of anyone whose products are the equivalent of bottled smoke. Somebody tells you to buy this particularly useless item and you’ll be a cool person. No matter how stupid it seems, you have to buy it. Pet Rocks. Pringle’s potato chips. whatever it is — the newest, the latest. Since the cool-person thing is something you learn in school, and since the school business is pretty suspicious and definitely tied up with the government, it makes you wonder whether or not the desire to be cool is part of a government plot to make you buy stupid things."

"The U.S. is a mere pup tent of a civilization. We’ve got two hundred years of stupidity behind us and we think we’re right up there with everyone else who’s been doing it for thousands of years."

"The richest people in the world aren’t particularly smart or happy. And the happiest people in the world aren’t particularly smart or rich.… That leaves me making music. But we can’t talk about that."

"Everything on this planet has something to do with music. Music functions in the realm of sculptured air. Polluted as our atmosphere might be, air is the thing that makes music work. Since all other things that occur in the sound domain are transmitted to the ear through that swirling mass, depending on how wide you want to make your definition, you could perceive quite a bit of human experience in terms of music."

"I think the music of the Fifties is really good. I suspect it’s much better musically than much of what’s available now. Not in terms of production, but in terms of content. One good believable song about some guy’s girlfriend and how they broke up — a sincere one — is better than twenty albums of English rock that’s ever been produced."

"Most people don’t think I’m rational. They’re too busy featuring their hurt. They find it irrational not to feature your hurt. That’s how fucked up they are."

"There isn’t anything weird about my music. Weird is a skeleton in the closet, wearing a rubber mask with warts all over its nose, and all that kind of shit. That’s not what I do. The thing that makes my music unusual is that people only hear one kind of music all the time over the radio. It’s wallpaper to their lives. Audile wallpaper. There’s one acceptable beat and there are three acceptable chord progressions. There are five acceptable words: baby, love, tears, yat yat. Just because I don’t deal in those terms doesn’t mean I’m weird. So tell these people: I ain’t weird; I’m rational. I’m a person who can choose to write stuff like that, or choose to write stuff that includes all the notes on the piano played at once, followed by a cement truck driving over the piano, followed by a small atomic explosion. Nothing weird about that as long as you do it in a meaningful way."

"Music is the only religion that delivers the goods. All music is good. It fulfills a social function. It's like wallpaper to your lifestyle. It defines what you are."

"I love the guitar, always have. I can relate to it a lot better than a saxophone."

"I don't do drugs, nor have I ever believed in them. Am I a creative person? Then why do people think in order to be creative one must do drugs? Actually, I think people take them as an excuse to screw up in public, y'know, spill things or get silly. Drugs have slowed down civilization because we have to wait for people to get off their high before we can resume. They are the millstone around society's neck."

"I have an important message to deliver to all the cute people all over the world. If you're out there and you're cute, maybe you're beautiful. I just want to tell you somethin' — there's more of us UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS than you are, hey-y, so watch out."

"Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die."

"Whoever we are, wherever we're from We shoulda noticed by now, our behavior is dumb.And if our chances expect to improve. It's gonna take a lot more, than trying to remove the other race.Or the other whatever, from the face of the planet altogether."

"You can't run a country by a book of religion. Not by a heap or a lump or a smidgen. Of foolish rules of ancient date. Designed to make you all feel great. While you fold, spindle and mutilate.Those unbelievers from a neighboring state."

"TO ARMS! TO ARMS! Hooray! That's great! Two legs ain't bad unless there's a crate. They ship the parts to mama for souvenirs: two ears -- Get Down!"

"The Good Book says: "It's gotta be that way!" But their book says: "REVENGE THE CRUSADES!!!!... After all, he wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we're dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side."

"Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."

"There are three things that smell of fish. One of them is fish. The other two are growing on you!"

"You say your life's a bum deal 'n yer up against the wall. Well, people, you ain't even got no deal at all. 'Cause what they do in Washington. They just takes care of Number One. An' Number One ain't you. You ain't even Number Two!"

"Shes a valley girl In a clothing store Okay, fine... Fer sure, fer sure."

"On Ventura, there she goes She just bought some bitch'n clothes Tosses her head n flips her hair She got a whole bunch of nothin in there"

"I think that if you use the so-called "strong words" you'll get your point across faster and you can save a lot of beating around the bush. Why are people afraid of words? Sometimes the dumbest thing that gets said makes the point for you."

"I'm a conservative, and you might not like that, but I am, and the fact of the matter is, this bill that they're talking about in Maryland is stupid."

"Do you think you are protecting somebody by taking away seven words?"

"Tell you what — Kiss my ass! How do you like that…?"

"Why should I smile when I'm sitting here with you?"

"The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe … I really think that. … When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very, very right wing, almost toward Attila the Hun..."

"I've smoked ten marijuana cigarettes in my life, and probably the last time I had one near my face was twelve, fifteen years ago. And the reason I did was because, since I do smoke, people would say, "Here, smoke this, you'll get high." So I smoked it, and it gave me a sore throat and made me sleepy. And I must either presume that that's what high means, or something was wrong. But I've never had a positive result from smoking marijuana. It just wasn't my cup of tea. And I never used LSD, never used cocaine, never used heroin or any of that other stuff."

"For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973."

"The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball...I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon."

"A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians."

"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice — there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."

"If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT."

"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."

"We're not talking light-hearted foolishness here — when we go for stupid we go for BIG STUPID — like people who shoot at you on the freeway, or the Rambos and Rambo-ettes who blow people away in shopping malls and fast-food restaurants with automatic weapons."

"My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can. Children are naive — they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble."

"Gail has said in interviews that one of the things that makes our relationship work is the fact that we hardly ever get to talk to each other."

"The creation and destruction of harmonic and 'statistical' tensions is essential to the maintenance of compositional drama. Any composition (or improvisation) which remains consistent and 'regular' throughout is, for me, equivalent to watching a movie with only "good guys" in it, or eating cottage cheese."

"A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole."

"The Ultimate Rule ought to be: 'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchin'; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty. The more your musical experience, the easier it is to define for yourself what you like and what you don't like. American radio listeners, raised on a diet of _____ (fill in the blank), have experienced a musical universe so small they cannot begin to know what they like."

"There is no hell. There is only France."

"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it."

"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we'd all love one another."

"The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced."

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."

"Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world, you see which has people in it who believe a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence."

"The '60s was really stupid … It was a type of merchandising, Americans had this hideous weakness, they had this desire to be OK, fun guys and gals, and they haven't come to terms with the reality of the situation: we were not created equal. Some people can do carpentry, some people can do mathematics, some people are brain surgeons and some people are winos and that's the way it is, and we're not all the same. This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid. The '60s was merchandised to the public at large... My pet theory about the '60s is that there is a sinister plot behind it... The lessons learnt in the '60s about merchandising stupidity to the American public on a large scale have been used over and over again since that time."

"Politics is the entertainment division of the Military Industrial Complex."

"In the fight between you and the world, back the world."

"The Shaggs: better than The Beatles"

"People close to Zappa told me there was a good chance he could be diagnosed as manic-depressive if "they" ever got a chance to look at him. There was no way I could know if he'd have the patience to give me one minute or one hour. Expect anything, they said. Radical mood swing is the core of Zappa’s personality — and no doubt the core of his creativity as well. When I knocked on Frank’s door, he opened it with the slightest possible shred of acknowledgment. No handshake. I knew immediately where his mood swing was at the moment – several fathoms below sea level. That long black cloud was down and was there to stay for the duration of our first interview. His disdain for the ‘interrogation,’ as he called it, remained obvious. On our next encounter, the cloud disappeared and Zappa lightened up, rapping casually with fans who wandered in, and generally enjoying himself. Surprisingly, the results of both sessions were somehow consistent: Laced in with Zappa’s unrelenting cynicism, the hilarity was always there — regardless of what mood he was in. The only difference seemed to be whether or not he was laughing."

"There are no bridges in folk songs because the peasants died building them."

"Our purpose is to educate as well as to entertain. Painless preaching is as good a term as any for what we do. If you're going to come away from a party singing the lyrics of a song, it is better that you sing of self-pride like 'We're a Winner' instead of 'Do the Boo-ga-loo!'"

"He don't love you like I love you If he did, he wouldn't break your heart He don't love you like I love you He's try-in' to tear us apart."

"People get ready there's a train comin'; You don't need no baggage, just get on board. All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'; You don't need no ticket, just thank the lord."

"He says don't worry, worry, worry, worry.But they don't know, There can be no show. And if there's a hell below, We're all gonna go, go, go, go, go."

"Hush now child and don't you cry; Your folks might understand you by and by. Move on up towards your destination; You may find from time to time, Complications."

"We'll all turn black So who's to know? As a matter of fact, Color, creed and breed must go. There will be no light, So there can be no sight. And you'll judge your fellow man; Understand bout what is right. A million music, a million sound There's neutral thoughts For the underground."

"Let's do it in the mornin' Sweet breeze in the summer time. Feeling your sweet face All laid up next to mine. Sweet love in the midnight; Good sleep, come mornin' light. No worries 'bout nothin'; Just gettin' good, just gettin' good Just gettin' good love."

"Oh, many say that I'm too young To let you know just where I come from. Oh, but you will see that it's just a matter of time My love will surely make you mine.Ooh, living in a world of ghetto life, Everyone around seems so uptight. Nothing's wrong. It's alright with my man, my man."

"I'm giving him something he can feel. Oh, ho, to let him know my love is real.Hey, hey, hey...I'm giving him something he can feel. Yes, I am, babe To let you know my love is real."

"Wakin' up to find yourself creamin' Check your fears and hope that you're dreamin' A little space is all that I need If these suckers just allow me to breathe Snake pits and Lucifer's burns Can't take the strength I've earned and learned Stepped in depth of the same livin' hell Ain't too proud to die here as well.Do Do Wap is strong in here; Do Do Wap is strong in here, hey! hey!"

"I was someone more Because I was no one poor. To find that I too was down on my knees. I'm just homeless."

"Now is always the right time With something positive in your mind. Whenever someone pulls you down, Just get back up and hold your ground. ... Summer, winter, fall just go Through the rain and through the snow. Just get on back to living again...right on."

"It's hard to understand; There was love in this man. I'm sure all would agree That his misery Was his woman and things. Now Freddie's dead; That's what I said.Everybody's misused him; Ripped him off and abused him. Another junkie playin'; Pushin' dope for the man. A terrible blow, but that's how it go. Freddie's on the corner now. If you wanna be a junkie, wow; Remember, Freddie's dead."

"Why can't we brothers Protect one another? No one's serious, And it makes me furious. Don't be misled, Just think of Fred."

"Oooh, Superfly You're gonna make your fortune by and by. But if you lose, don't ask no questions why. The only game you know is Do or Die. Ah-ha-ha."

"And the war rages on in a land called somewhere And Generals order their men to kill And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten While a little cloud weeps on the side of a hill."

"I like them all. … They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. … I have no favorite songs."

"I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. "Mother and Child Reunion" for example, is not a song that you would have normally thought that Simon and Garfunkel would have done. It's possible that they might have. But it wouldn't have been the same, and I don't know if I would have been so inclined in that direction. So for me it was a chance to break out and gamble a little bit … The breakup had to do with a natural drifting apart as we got older and the separate lives that were more individual. We weren't so consumed with recording and performing. We had other activities … there was no great pressure to stay together other than money, which exerted very little influence upon us. … We didn't need the money."

"There was always some kind of strain, but it was workable. The bigger you get, the more of a strain it is, because in your everyday life, you're less used to compromising. As you get bigger, you have your own way. But in a partnership you always have to compromise. … When you get into a partnership, you're not the boss. There's no boss. That makes it hard."

"Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right."

"I didn't want to repeat the same notes in the second verse that I used in the first, so I wrote out all the notes of the song and all the notes that were missing in the scale, given that there are twelve notes from octave to octave. All those notes that weren't in the scale were the ones I wanted in for the next verse. The listener isn't aware that they are new notes, but the sound is pleasing to the ear. I change the key, and somehow it's fresh because you haven't heard those notes before."

"Well its great to do a neighborhood concert. I hope everyone can hear us. I hope that the sound is good. I hope we are blasting Central Park West and Fifth avenue pretty much away. I just want to thank the police department and the fire department and the parks commissioner, and Ed Koch [Audience boos] — and particularly, you know, people that never get recognized for doing good things for the city, a group of people that have donated half of the proceeds that they're making tonight — the guys who are selling loose joints are giving the city half of their income tonight."

"I am editing myself as we go along"

"I have gone through different phases in my music writing. There was a time when I used a little exercise — incorporating all of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale — to get me going. I used this technique for a while, but I don't any longer because I am going back to simpler melodies. Originally I moved away from the simple songs because I thought they were too simple."

"I write from instinct, from inexplicable sparkle. I don't know why I'm writing what I'm writing. Usually, I sit and I let my hands wander on my guitar. And I sing anything. I play anything. And I wait till I come across a pleasing accident. Then I start to develop it. Once you take a piece of musical information, there are certain implications that it automatically contains — the implication of that phrase elongated, contracted, or inverted or in another time signature. So you start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes."

"[Rock 'n' roll] really is not given to thinking — and resents thinking. Which I believe is the big error of rock 'n' roll. It's always aspired to be the music of the working class. And it's never been looked upon as a vocabulary for art and artistic thinking... We have to be able to expand the vocabulary to express more complex thoughts."

"This is near enough true bliss."

"Slip slidin' away Slip slidin' away. You know the nearer your destination The more you're slip slidin' away."

"God only knows God makes his plan The information's unavailable To the mortal man. We work our jobs Collect our pay Believe we're gliding down the highway When in fact we're slip slidin' away."

"Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence."

"And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand people maybe more People talking without speaking People hearing without listening People writing songs that voices never shared No one dared Disturb the sound of silence."

""Fools," said I, "you do not know Silence like a cancer grows Hear my words that I might teach you Take my arms that I might reach you" But my words like silent raindrops fell And echoed in the wells of silence."

"And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said "The words of the prophets Are written on the subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sound of silence""

"A winter's day In a deep and dark December; I am alone, Gazing from my window to the streets below On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow. I am a rock, I am an island."

"I’ve built walls, A fortress deep and mighty, That none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain. It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain."

"I am shielded in my armor Hiding in my room safe within my womb I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock. I am an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries."

"I'm sitting in the railway station. Got a ticket to my destination. On a tour of one-night stands my suitcase and guitar in hand. And ev'ry stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one-man band."

"Home where my thought's escaping, Home where my music's playing, Home where my love lies waiting Silently for me."

"Tonight I'll sing my songs again, I'll play the game and pretend. But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me."

"Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last. Just kicking down the cobblestones. Looking for fun and Feelin' Groovy."

"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together. I've got some real estate here in my bag. So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner's pies, And we walked off to look for America"

"Laughing on the bus, playing games with the faces, She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy, I said, 'Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera.'"

"Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you."

"And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know. Whoa, whoa, whoa God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson, Heaven holds a place for those who pray. Hey hey hey, hey hey hey."

"Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns it's lonely eyes to you Ooo ooo ooo. What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson? "Joltin' Joe has left and gone away." Hey hey hey, hey hey hey."