Gospel Singers

"Red, maybe, but Reed was no Elvis"

"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..."

"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."

"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,”"

"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."

"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"

"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.”"

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"You lucky bastard..."

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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."

"Ị've always been obsessed with 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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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 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'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..."

"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..."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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..."

"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."

"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..."

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

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."