Elvis Presley

"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!!"