All Quotes

"Not only did blacks know Presley, he also knew blacks. “I always wanted to sing like Billy Kenny of the Ink Spots. I like that high, smooth style. I never sang like this in my life until I made that first record—That’s Alright, Mama. I remembered that song because I heard Arthur (Big Boy) Crudup sing it and I thought I would like to try it. Presley was making more money singing rhythm and blues than black performers of the day, with Elvis’s nearest competitor, Fats Domino, expecting to earn $700,000 in 1957. (In fact) Otis Blackwell, writer of two huge Presley hits “Don’t Be Cruel” and “All Shook Up.” confirmed, “I got a good deal. I made money and I am happy.-"

"Elvis Presley had also one Grammmy (single), for a spiritual, Now if Elvis had one, what can I say...LOL"

"Elvis was technically fearless and instinctive in his use of technique. In his early material in particular it is as if his voice is finding and creating the lyrics as he is singing them."

"In "T.R.O.U.B.L.E", (1975), his baritone was still as solid as ever, with its humorously cavernous bottom and its nasal vibrato on top. When he is putting out, reaching for the top notes and shaping phrases with the same easy individuality that has always marked his best work, he is still the King."

"It's like if you're playing Elvis Presley and you've only got whatever amount of scenes in the movie, you're not gonna work any less hard on the part because you've got less material. You're gonna be like, 'I'm playing Elvis Presley!"

"Well, here we go again. Like Elvis in 1968 we eagerly await for the Tiger Woods Comeback Special. We've been here before, of course. Only last month, the former world's No 1 who is now 898th, called off his return at the PGA Tour's Safeway Open just three days before the start of the event..."

"Just about everywhere we played, it happened. Sometimes it would be more people than other times, depending on the size of the crowds, but after that first time, when there was a riot, Elvis did not invite the girls backstage anymore. I think he learned that it was not a good idea."

"Looking at the last century of US history, no other individual can fairly be said to have changed US culture so much while receiving so little recognition for having done so: the gap between what Elvis actually accomplished and the degree to which we understood those accomplishments is far wider for him than it is for any other figure."

"When things are happening you don't appreciate them as much as later, like when Elvis Presley made his comeback special, I was in the recording studio and this was an historical milestone. Photography takes you there."

"I must confess that when Fidel spoke despectively about “elvispreslians”, I felt a conflict within me because since I was a kid, I loved both Elvis and his songs. I felt that more than the music itself, Fidel wanted to criticize the old youth in Cuba, those that did not think like he did. It was a truly awkward moment for me, but I was able to get over it, perhaps because my political hierarchies were always more mature than my musical ones..."

"I'm not a singer, and I'm not from the United States. But I randomly listened to country music growing up in England. My dad would play old songs and I was obsessed with Elvis Presley to a point where my family, if it was Christmas or something like that, they'd always get me an Elvis LP. My auntie—who's a Scottish jazz singer— was massively supportive of me liking Elvis. So when this movie came up, I was like, ‘This is the closest I’ll ever get to playing Elvis Presley.’"

"The next frontier for immersive storytelling may be your headphones, thanks to a new spatial audio platform that Vrai Pictures is set to unveil at SXSW next month. Traverse, as the platform is called, allows users to map their surroundings with the help of mobile augmented reality (AR) technology, and then explore immersive audio experiences in their own living rooms. One of the first experiences to be powered by the new platform is called “From Elvis in Memphis.” It allows users to experience his music by walking through a physical space, with Traverse's app making it spatially sound like they're in the studio with Elvis himself. In the middle of a performance, you can walk right up to him. You can also walk up to any of the other band members. The music suddenly shows a dimensionality that was always there but couldn't be experienced. It just needed the creative insight, the right platform, the tools, and the technology to be realized."

"Woooooo, oh my God, he's so good"

"In 1991, Graceland gained a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, keeping Elvis Presley ahead of his time even in death. The National Park Service now honors the place Elvis called home from 1957 to 1977 when he died. It's very, very rare that a site is placed on the register when its the home of a famous person whose achievements are less than 50 years old, said George Berklacey, chief spokesman for the National Park Service. But the keeper of the national register, Jerry Rogers, felt Graceland and Presley were “an exceptional significance,” Berklacey said."

"So I went to his show and he introduced me as his friend. I went for about eight nights in a row just to hear him introduce me that way. And I found a little way to get backstage before the normal people got backstage and I went back there and he always treated me with such respect. I loved that about him. I remember one night backstage when he said, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go play a little blackjack. Why don’t you come with me?’ And he said, ‘You know, I would give anything in the world to go out there with you’. But he thought he would get hurt, and the more I think about it, he couldn't have sat at the table like I did. I judge people by how well they treat me. That's what I loved about him. He made me feel so comfortable and I didn't really know him..."

"About five or six years ago, I met the guys who bought the so called Graceland West in Palm Springs, CA. RCA Records had acoustically treated the residence and Elvis recorded a few records there. I asked the owners if we could record there, and they agreed to it. We came prepared with songs, set up shop and had most of the “Here to Eternity” record done that first week, but the finality was premature. As a kid, I always dreamed of doing a double-album and that just sort of happened. Stepping into Elvis’ one-time California escape, I felt his influence throughout the album-making process. Shawn Grove and I slept in the home for the majority of sessions. It was all very magical, because we all grew up on Elvis, being from the South and all, and he’s still all godlike down here. As far as I can tell, I’m the first man to sleep in his bedroom since Elvis himself. We recorded in the bathroom, the kitchen, out by the pool. Then Lisa Marie’s bedroom became the production control room. As fate would have it, our stay in Palm Springs coincided wih her own untimely death on January 12, 2023. The night she passed, the ceiling in her bedroom fell..."

"Elvis Presley press-agented as a singer and entertainer, played to two groups of teenagers numbering several thousand at the city auditorium here, Monday, May 14. As newspaper man, parent, and former member of Army Intelligence Service, I feel an obligation to pass on to you my conviction that Presley is a definite danger to the security of the United States."

"Oh good, they didn’t send me the photograph of me and Elvis to sign.I get three or four fan letters a week and they all send me that picture of me and Elvis to autograph. I just hate that picture. I hate that dress I’m wearing and the bag I’m carrying. I just wish there were one other picture out there. It was taken in November of 1955, at the Country Music Comvention, in Nashville. He knew who I was, but I didn’t know who he was. I looked to get away from him and he kept following me.LOL. He had that charisma. Some people are just destined for fame. Later, while in NY, one of the movies we saw together was "Helen of Troy". I looked at Elvis, and I thought: he’s better looking than the guy on the screen. He had a magnificent profile, like a Roman coin. At the time, Elvis felt all the tumult about him was very amusing and in fact never really quite understood it, at that age. When I rode with him to Idlewild aiport after the Ed Sullivan Show, these girls were running after the limo and I realised that that was probably the last time I was going to see him. And it was. I once played Memphis and the phone number that he had given me was no longer in service. When he died, I remember just feeling so badly. Later, I realised that he was trapped."

"Calistoga up the road was significantly affected by the fire along with other regions like Atlas Peak and Mt. Vreeder, but on the latter there were properties like the reservation-only "Outpost Wines" — known especially for its juicy Zinfandels — that survived. Thankfully the fire didn't affect the recent opening of "The Ink House" on the way to Rutherford, an 1800s house where Elvis Presley once slept and was reimagined as a hyper-luxurious B&B with butler-style service, not to mention plentiful Castellucci wine by the same family and a Bentley house car for dropoffs and pickups."

"Wise men say, only fools fall in love"

"Some people adore goats, some people believe the earth is flat, some even believe Elvis Presley is still alive. Simon Busuttil can believe whatever he wants but when the rest of the country hears these things, they laugh."

"Just above the lobby, the “Impact of the Bible” floor highlights how Scriptures have influenced cultures across the globe — from education and literature and art and architecture to a King James Bible owned by Elvis Presley which is just steps away from mannequins adorned with dresses by fashion designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, who have featured icons of the Virgin Mary in their brand."

"In 1959 (during his time in the Army), he came under the weather and military doctors diagnosed tonsillitis and suggested that the vocalist, then the biggest performer in the universe, have his tonsils removed. Presley, already more trustworthy than most modern performers in his pleasant acceptance of military duty, agreed. The problem was that no doctor nearby wanted to risk operating on the star, fearing that malpractice would leave him without his golden voice and either a lawsuit or an an angry fan could ruin any medical career and/or life. They gave him penicillin instead and fortunately everything worked out."

"Love me tender. love me true...."

"Few people in my village have the slightest clue about life in America. To them we might as well be the center of the universe. I'm one of few lucky or unlucky ones (depending on how you look at it) who happened to, miraculously, have had the opportunity to live in both worlds. It goes without saying that I can also speak with confidence that my level of confusion is unparalleled. Once, I had confused Elvis Presley for Yuri Gagarin. In fact, there are people in Kokoland who still believe so. What difference will that make, anyway, when folks still believe that the Earth is flat?"

"The Postal Service is being wasteful in spending nearly US$300,000 to promote its Elvis Presley stamp. To break even, they would have to sell more than one million stamps to collectors who do not then use them."

"The first time he was booked at the International, in July of 1969, some of us had our doubts. I mean, we opened July Fourth with Barbra Streisand, who'd just won an Oscar, had three pictures going. She was one of the hottest entertainment properties in the world. We knew we had something. Elvis [who was the second performer at the new hotel] was an unknown stage property who hadn't appeared live anywhere in eight years. We knew he'd be something of a draw, but my God! Elvis was a blockbuster, turning out to be an even bigger draw in subsequent runs at the International. I'm not sure how this figure was verified, but it has been reported the Maitre d' and head waiters split $10,000 in tips per night when he performed the following February."

"When a polio vaccine became available in the United States in the 1950s, the March of Dimes, an organization that had been affiliated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, made a major advertising push, with posters featuring young children who were most at risk of being infected. To boost public interest in the vaccine, Elvis Presley got vaccinated backstage at “The Ed Sullivan Show and it was seen as a patriotic thing,"

"My biggest influence because of his charisma and sheer, pure talent was Elvis Presley. He still influences me today, actually, and with the help of the internet I can watch videos of him performing live anytime I want."

"As Kazuya Kosaka and other young country musicians earned wider popularity, they learned that new artists in the US, like Elvis Presley, were sweeping away American audiences. In the series “the Legacy of Western Singer" in Music Life in 1956, music writer Takatada Ihara introduced “the one-of-a-kind singer Elvis Presley who has emerged like a comet out of the blue.” Presley’s look and sound were novel among country musicians in Japan so Kosaka and fellow country artists began recording Presley’s repertoires with Japanese lyrics as new style of country & western. Taking off his cowboy outfits and changing into Presley-type suits and jackets, Kosaka released “Heartbreak Hotel” in Japanese from Japanese Columbia. Previously known as the “Japanese Lefty (Frizzell),” Kosaka now became known as the “Japanese Presley. By the late 1950s, the country & western in the mainstream Japanese popular music sounded like Elvis Presley, if not rock ‘n’ roll. Since the emergence of Elvis Presley, these writers and fans celebrated country & western musicians in Japan began playing a “new style” of music more driven by the rhythm and some sung in Japanese. Some writers called this recent western music as “western with youthfulness and taste..."

"My biggest musical influences are Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin"

"Basically, I tried to mimic my big brothers in a sense. It was the days of peg pants, like today. Usually, when you inherit clothes from your bigger brother, the pants were longer anyway, so there was plenty of room to roll them up. So, yeah, I mimicked Elvis Presley, with his collar up and his slicked-back hair. He was cool, so we dressed as kids similar to what our big brothers did and the stars that we had seen. And I started (dressing) as Elvis (did) because, of course, he was special. My dad was with me one time in Vegas and we were allowed to go backstage where I introduced Elvis to my father. He took my dad and sat down on the couch and they sat there for about 30 minutes just talking and that. Boy, I tell you what, that was something. I'm standing there and Elvis is spending time with my dad. That day, I didn't tell him I dressed like him. He was wonderful. What a gentleman. He was close to the height of his career — one of the heights. I mean, he was always the smart one and the only person I was really thrilled by, and always appreciated his taking time out to talk to my dad, and I do to this day. ."

"I used to work in a record shop and one afternoon I heard them playing "Blue Moon" through the speakers. I'll always remember it coming through the fog. Later, I used to stand in the front room with a plywood guitar shaking my ass like Elvis. He was a genius."

"They kicked off the evening at the Commander in Chief Ball, swaying to the song American Trilogy by Elvis."

"There was something about Presley's voice. He had a wide vocal range: he could go up and down and stay in-between, with equal ease. There was also a powerful sensuality to his voice. You would know that if you had listened to ‘It’s Now Or Never.’ Besides he had great musicians backing him up."

"I love Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, even Marilyn Monroe. They had an iconic sense of style. I hope we don't lose that."

"In the aftermath of Elvis Presley Estate litigation flurry, the Tennessee General Assembly enacted the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984, providing clear statutory language ensuring personality rights are not extinguished at death and their descendibility to others. Additionally, the Tennessee Court of Appeals confirmed the descendibility of personality rights under common law in another case brought by the state against the “Elvis Presley International Memorial Foundation” for their unlicensed use of Elvis's name. The foundation argued there was “no descendible right of publicity in Tennessee and that Elvis Presley's name and image entered into the public domain when he died. The court made a clear distinction between the right to privacy and right to publicity, highlighting the economic value of a celebrity’s image, and in reviewing the Sixth Circuit's previous opinion on the matter, found their prior decision was made “without considering Tennessee law. Instead, the court recognized Tennessee has an “expansive view of property” and concluded a celebrity's right of publicity is a “species of intangible personal property” protected in Tennessee. Specifically, the court found descendability of personality rights promotes "an expectation that the investment in valuable capital assets will benefit one's heirs after death, the protection of contract rights, the discouragement of consumer deception, and the policy against unfair competition.Thus, the court held "Elvis Presley's right of publicity survived his death and remains enforceable by his estate and those holding licenses from the estate."

"Elvis Presley once said that a man is one thing and an image is another. I didn't really know what Elvis meant by saying that until I was invited to visit the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. As I approached it, I saw this statue of Joe DiMaggio in his Yankee uniform with his arm around a little boy. It was the most sensitive looking work of art that I have ever seen."

"Imagine Elvis Presley watching our show. He repeated episodes I'd even forgotten about, even remembering them word for word. And he gave me some great tips about things to do on my tour. You'll never know how much tonight has meant to me..I touched his Gold jacket..."

"Elvis came out when I was a disc jockey, and I was playing country music. He came out and he was doing rock and roll, or blues, or whatever they called it back then so I played Presley’s tracks on my station all the time.SpI got a little criticism for it, from some of the old dye in the wool puritan country fans, but I thought he was great. Presley recorded one of my songs, “Funny How Time Slips Away and he even used to send me a Christmas card every year. But I never met him"

"Of course, the Elvis connection is not lost on me. Nevertheless, I was a little young to appreciate Elvis. He was a bit beyond me.”"

"It was huge. I was terrified, I remember that I had my little white lace dress. It was very scary, invited as I was to see Elvis's show and to meet him afterwards and even more intimidating, if incredibly flattering, as he was covering one of my early country hits – If You Love Me, Let Me Know. I went with Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber backstage and Elvis was supposed to come and meet us. But something happened, he had an emergency and he had to leave. It was one of those 'Almost!' moments..."

"Around 3,000 years ago, David became King of Israel, and he named Jerusalem the capital. Now your father echoes his great deed by again recognizing that Jerusalem is our capital, for now and forever. Your father and I are so much alike, we both love Israel, have Jewish grandchildren and similar futures ahead of us. In fact, the great King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley, could have been speaking about Donald and I when he sang ‘Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock. Everybody in the whole cell block. We’ll be dancin’ to the Jailhouse Rock'."

"It was an ordeal of sorts for many of us —the compulsory monthly haircut at our boarding school in Tiruchy in the 1950s-. Few liked to have their painstakingly grown locks trimmed, let alone sheared off—and for a good reason. Elvis Presley was our much-loved idol then and most of us tried to emulate his puffed hairstyle— something the spoilsport warden frowned upon. He opined that a crew-cut suited us, and Tiruchy's sultry weather, better. So, fearing that we might be ‘scalped’, we drew upon all our reserves of charm to persuade Dasan, the surly school barber, to minimise his snipping and shearing so that we didn't look like skinheads! He grudgingly obliged us. We boys used to fervently hope that he wouldn't turn up to trim down our nicely burgeoning Elvis hairdos, but he always did, clad in a white shirt and dhoti carrying a rexine bag containing the tools of his trade..."

"About 125 persons were lined up at the showroom reservation counter early Monday, normally a slow day. Last Saturday some 500 persons were there at 10 am in hopes of getting reservations during the busy weekend. Many were turned away. Officials at the International Hotel said weekends were sold out and that bookings during the week were "tight" for Presley's first appearance before a live audience in eight years. Some Presley fans came all the way from Europe to see the show. The hotel received a letter from a woman in France with a 100 franc note enclosed as a deposit for 10 shows. The woman wanted reservations for both the dinner and midnight shows for five straight days. So far we have yet to have an empty seat in the house. He is the hottest thing that has hit Las Vegas," said Bruce Banke, an executive of the hotel. It was his first stage appearance in eight years and his only return engagement to Las Vegas in 13 years. Presley in the flesh has lost nothing. It was still all there. Gyrating legs, wide stance, a bobbing head with tossed black hair, rotating guitar, knee bends and the pounding rhythm of such tunes as "Blue Suede Shoes", "Hound Dog", "Jailhouse Rock," "Heartbreak Hotel" and one of his newest recordings "In The Ghetto" He was contracted to appear here for an undisclosed salary. Reportedly, Presley is being paid as much as Barbra Streisand who opened the resort in early July for a reported $1 million during a three-year period. Actor George Hamilton was among the first nighters along with businessmen of the Howard Hughes organization. A plane load of admirers flew in from Atlanta, and members of the news media converged here from the East Coast and Europe. Temperatures outside the International Hotel neared 110 degrees the night Presley opened inside the 2,200 seat showroom – after viewing an hour of Presley's gyrations – blood pressure were on the rise. Presley received a long standing ovation. It was one of the the rare occasions when a Las Vegas standing salute was sincere rather than rigged with a few cronies of an entertainer planted down front to stamp and scream approval."

"At first I would see a kid who used to come over to the Plantation Inn Club when we were over there. That kid was Elvis Presley. He would show up every Wednesday and Friday night to see me do Calvin's Boogie and Junior's Jive. I feel that Elvis' later success actually broke the ice for civil rights, because that was the issue during that time, the fact he sent the black idiom all over the world in his music."

"i) I played a rock and roll star in the fifties... Who was that big guy then, Elvis, yeah, Elvis, well we did a movie in England at that same time ii) I knew I could never sing like him, but just did my best."

"The recent news about robocalls takes me back to last November. I was coming in the back door loaded down with stuff for Thanksgiving. The phone was ringing, but I told myself, “Let it ring, don’t answer it. Don’t do it — you are going to drop something, you know it." “Ignore the phone call,” I said aloud to no one, yet I knew I wouldn't ignore the call. So I put down the bags — really dropped the bags — and rushed to the phone. As I put away bags of squashed lettuce and more — thank goodness, no eggs that day. “Return to Sender.” an old Elvis Presley song came to my head. In my mind's eye I saw a tall, handsome man standing in front of me singing that song. I picked up the phone to look at it — and like a light bulb, an idea came to me. A button. That's what we need: a button, I said in my head. When the calls come in and you know it's not for you — it's not for anyone human — you could press the "star" button twice, maybe, and the call goes back. Every single time. So here's my question for the technicians and scientists out there: Why can't we return robocalls to the people who send them? We should be able to. In fact, we would all be so thankful to the technicians and scientists of the world for developing such a technology. And they don't even need a new name for it. “Return to Sender” would do. I'm sure Elvis wouldn't mind."

"Dressed in a chic black tunic and bell bottoms, Elvis Presley stepped onstage last week at the International Hotel in Las Vegas and launched into the driving beat of "Blue Suede Shoes." The audience of 2,200, most of them over 30, roared and squealed in nostalgic appreciation. In spite of his updated look, Elvis hadn't changed at all in the nearly nine years since his last personal appearance. Oozing the sullen sexuality that threw the America into a state of shock in the 50's, he groaned and swiveled through a medley of "Jailhouse Rock," "Don't Be Cruel," "Heartbreak Hotel," "All Shook Up" and "Hound Dog". It was hard to believe he was 34 and no longer 19 years old. In fact, there are several unbelievable things about Elvis, but the most incredible is his staying power in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars, Presley shot to the top in 1956 with "Heartbreak Hotel" and has stayed in the uppermost tax bracket ever since. When, during a news conference after the opening, a British entrepreneur offered Elvis a million pounds sterling for one appearance in London, it was Parker who answered: "Bring me a deposit tomorrow. Elvis arrived in Las Vegas a week before the show and immediately began rehearsing five hours a day-losing 10 pounds in the process. Only celebrities and big spenders were there opening night to hear Presley sing a lot of oldies and one new song, with a new message aimed at the black rock market. "In The Ghetto" chronicles the evils of poverty in a Chicago slum and could signal the birth of a social conscience for Presley. Another recent record release, "If I Can Dream," proclaims brotherhood according to the gospel of Martin Luther King, but did not appear on the Vegas program. When asked if these songs marked a new direction he might take, Elvis answered, "I go by the material. When I got 'In The Ghetto,' I couldn't turn it down."

"I have seen spectacular performers, Buffalo Bill, Enrico Caruso, John Philip Souza, Billy Sunday, Al Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne and Liberace but I have never witnessed a storm of excitement like the one generated by Elvis Presley."