Gospel Singers

"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 I never realized that I was so far out of date until I saw this artist on a CBC television production.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..."

"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"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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..."

"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,”"

"It felt like we were watching Elvis"

"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..."

"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'."

"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."

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

"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."

"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) 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."

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

"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 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."

"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."

"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'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.—"

"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?"

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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..."

"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 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 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"

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

"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."

"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."

"He's Elvis and the Beatles combined"

"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."

"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”."

"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."

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

"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."

"You need more glitz in your act"

"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.”"

"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."

"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."

"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."