All Quotes

"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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"“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"

"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."