"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.”"