All Quotes

"I didn't think much of him when I first met him in Las Vegas in April of 1956 before he was a movie star. After working with him in Jailhouse Rock, I saw a complete different side to his character and then I enjoyed working with him."

"As with the first time we stepped into this amazing world — it is the extraordinary intimacy of Elvis's vocal performances that is truly breathtaking, the exquisite and effortless way he takes us on an emotional journey with him, through delicate sensitivity to power and grace all within a magical 3-minute song. You can't imagine how often we heard these songs during the course of this project but I can honestly tell you that every single time Don Reedman and I played each song it really did feel as if we were listening to a private performance held just for us in our own home. Our home is the Abbey Road studio and we were listening to the greatest artist that ever lived."

"Back in the early days of Storage Wars, Dave Hester happily filled the role of resident baddie, driving folks crazy with his belligerent swagger, always looking to pick a fight or drive up the price of a unit that someone else wanted, even if his only objective was to stick in their craw and get them to lose their cool. But in spite of the rascally overtones, Hester was still a savvy player who did well during his time on the program. The best example of his success came all the way back in the first season, when Hester bought a storage unit that was loaded with newspapers. At first it seemed that all Hester had done was purchase a load of outdated periodicals. But then he discovered that the stash was all from the same day: August 17, 1977. Sound familiar? That's the day after Elvis Presley died. The unit ended up being a gold mine, with the plethora of papers all sporting the King of Rock and Roll's face adding up to a staggering $90,000."

"But the last side, recorded during rehearsals for his 1968 television special, is another treat, as fine and tough and overflowing with heart and soul as any of his 50's recordings. Playing an electric guitar, rather than his customary acoustic model, he traded fluid rhythm and lead parts with Scotty Moore, their interplay almost telepathic. And with his original drummer, D. J. Fontana, stoking the fires, this music moved, from the ferocious version of Rufus Thomas's Sun Records label blues "Tiger Man" to Jimmy Reed blues shuffles, to smoldering New Orleans triplet-style blues-ballads like "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "One Night". This is rock and roll as good as it gets."

"I remember that all my music listening had to be from the single family wireless receiver, which was built like a piece of furniture and took up an entire corner of the front room. It was from this Ekco set that I first heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel". It was a musical epiphany for me. His moody syncopated delivery was astonishing, daring, disrespectful. My father came in while I was listening and he asked, "Something wrong with the set?". He was going to check the valves at the back but I told him that it was Elvis Presley and that he was meant to sound like that."

"Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Elvis Presley has received more than 43,551,804 page views. His biography is available in 160 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 154 in 2019). Elvis Presley is the most popular singer, the 13th most popular biography from United States (up from 15th in 2019) and the most popular American Singer."

"Drinking with my mom, she wanted to know what my jump suits were so i showed her Elvis Pardi!"

"When he turned it on, Elvis sang with the spiritual fervour of one who spoke in tongues, not so much communicating with the listener, as communing. Our continuing fascination with Elvis is a testament to both his charisma and his voice. The details are secondary. To paraphrase the literary critic and poet Al Alvarez, all that matters is that you hear the voice. When this happens, Elvis Presley doesn't just hold a mirror up to nature, he creates an eternal moment, leaving the sound of his voice on the airwaves as distinctly as Leonardo Da Vinci forever fixed the Mona Lisa smile in time."

"JFK, Elvis, Ronald Reagan, John Candy and Donald Trump"

"I've had the luckiest and greatest life you can imagine, like when Elvis Presley turned to me and introduced me to Johnny Cash. Before I knew it, I was standing in between the two legends."

"Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were born two months apart in 1946 into a revolutionary culture that soon would embrace a hip-swiveling crooner named Elvis Presley and Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Basically, everything you need to know about them can be found in these two mid-century icons. A fellow Southerner, Clinton saw himself as Elvis. Even now, his face sometimes betrays Elvis's smoldering glance with the slightly curled lip. Trump, a New York City boy, was Hefner. He collected all the toys of the Playboy lifestyle — boats, planes, cars — the best of everything a guilt-mongering rich boy would seek to glam up his sex appeal. Mar-a-Lago was his Playboy Mansion. All three of his wives have been bunny quality, and Trump Tower isn't just a tall building."

"Come to think of it, Elvis, having black females as background singers might be bad going into southern regional areas, such as Texas.."

"When I was in the Army, I had several buddies get tattoos but I never did. I always told myself if I ever got one it would have to be significant. Well this tattoo is very significant to me in a lot of ways.The “57″ represents my time serving as Missouri’s 57th Governor. Then, as a lifelong Chiefs fan, serving as the 57th Governor when the Chiefs won the 57th Super Bowl was a welcomed bonus, and the lightning bolt is a tribute to my love of Elvis Presley and his motto of “taking care of business in a flash.”"

"The news I could bring is that I met up with The King"

"I don't know of anybody that doesn't like Elvis or heard anybody say, ‘Oh, I don’t like his singing.’ Everybody loved Elvis, and I just think that's incredible. He was so different in every way — his voice, his style, the way he moved, the way he looked. He just had this charm and charisma and a lot of sex appeal. Elvis loved my song I Will Always Love You.'. In fact, I talked to Priscilla Presley not very long ago and she said to me, 'You know, Elvis sang that song to me when we walked down the courthouse steps when we got divorced. He was singing to me I Will Always Love You.'""

"He was remembered as an ambassador who had a hand in the Redbirds moving from Louisville to Memphis, the building of AutoZone Park, and by extension, the Grizzlies' move from Vancouver to Memphis. He made Memphis sports what it is. He's the guy. What Elvis Presley did, that's what he did."

"I love Elvis, the whole Elvis story, who he is, where he came from. I mean, I've been to his (childhood) house in Tupelo, I've been to his teenage residence in Memphis, that (Lauderdale Courts) public housing apartment. I mean, he was so frickin' cool."

"Based on Pro-Ject's T2 record player, it boasts a dimmable LED Elvis log. This edition continues that T-2 philosophy perfectly, combining authentic performance with a design that celebrates one of music's greatest icons."

"Whether one is an Elvis fan or not there is no doubting that no church in Grimsby or any other town, possibly, has ever seen anything like it before, the most moving and joyful service I have ever officiated at. Some people used to think rock and roll was the devil's music but Elvis was a devout Christian."

"Designer Peter Blake worked with The Beatles to stage the cover of the "Sgt. Pepper's" album, which was filled with life-size cardboard likenesses of famous figures including Mae West, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Edgar Allen Poe, Fred Astaire, Sonny Liston, Dylan Thomas, Laurel and Hardy and Karl Marx. John Lennon even requested the inclusion of Hitler and Jesus in the artwork, but he was turned down. (As to) Elvis, he did not appear on the album cover because it was felt by the Beatles he was too big an icon to be included."

"I went in, in 1957, and was soon stationed in Germany with Elvis Presley and Gary Crosby – Bing Crosby's son. We were there so I said why don't we start a band, so we didn't have to do any hard work in the service. We tried to get Elvis to join us and I used to see him every day but he wanted to get away from music for a while, while he was in the service. So me and Gary Crosby, we started it and called ourselves the Jazz Blues Symphony Band. As to hearing people talk about Elvis having racial tendencies, that was a lie...."

"I love his voice"

"Living with my parents in Rapid City, S.D, I was 14 or 15, and Elvis Presley coming to town. This was a month or two before he died. I witnessed women throwing everything onstage -- everything that goes with an Elvis show. It was fascinating.""

"By the early 1960s, only half of the total goal of $500,000 had been raised, so journalists from Hawaii reached out to newspapers across the country for support. Elvis Presley was inspired, and decided to put on a show in remembrance of the men aboard the Arizona and veterans as a whole. There were 4000 available seats for the show, 100 VIP ringside seat tickets which sold for $100 apiece. Using values adjusted for inflation, a VIP ticket cost nearly $800, in 2016 dollars. All of the profits were to be used for the construction of the USS Arizona Memorial. Over 3000 people greeted Elvis upon his arrival at Honolulu International Airport. The concert alone raised $52,000, which was 17% of the total goal for the memorial. While it wasn't enough to completely fund the construction, the performance spread awareness about the fundraiser with an additional $10,000 being personally donated by Elvis and Colonel Parker. Today, people visiting the Arizona Memorial can see the plaque that thanks Elvis and his fans for their contributions to the monument, which was dedicated and built over the next year. The Arizona Memorial today is a symbol of the men aboard the USS Arizona who now stand eternal watch. Attracting over a million visitors annually, the Arizona Memorial makes for an exciting morning of activities...."

"I predict that Elvis Presley's star will fall as quickly as it rose..."

"Our last Mississippi destination was a major reason for my trip South. I told Bob I wanted to see the boyhood home of Elvis Presley in the small town of Tupelo, the singer’s Bethlehem. The humble birthplace had been preserved. Then as now there stands a two-room shotgun shack without indoor plumbing or running water. Bob and I were told by our guide that Jackson Browne and actress Patricia Neal had been quite recently to Elvis’s Tupelo home. “We get people from Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain. Some are fans, some aren’t who are on a tour package. On an icy day we’ll still have 10 or 20 diehards who push through and make it. In summer 1987 I came out of the ladies’ room and I did a double-take,” said our guide. Elvis the Pelvis was standing in the gift shop. “Except for his Australian accent, I couldn’t tell the difference.” And another story. “We had a guy once who came in with black shoes covered with white polish and wearing lots of jewelry. He said, ‘I’m Elvis. Do you have any mail for me?. Anyways, Bob was, though much agonized, portraying a straight man. He never indicated otherwise during our trip through Mississippi. It was years later that, choking, he came out to me: “What would you think if I told you I was gay?” “I wouldn’t think anything,” I answered. “Who cares?” It took more years for him to totally believe me. My final visit with Bob was in Iowa where he’d taught, where he was dying of cancer but surrounded, happily, with cute young men. I well remember you, my fellow Mississippian."

"Maybe you've heard or seen of him, a country star whose striking accessories -- not to mention his acrobatic voice, are evocative of Elvis."

"I played trombone for Elvis in 1972, on many of his tours that year. In a technical sense – air, attack, tone, key and rhythm, yes he was very very good. He had great gut instincts, tremendous talent and abilities and was not shy about saying what he wanted or when he thought that something was wrong or could be done better. But more important than that is the fact he was an entertainer. He understood his role and knew how to move an audience. His phrasing an expression showed talent that was natural"

"In America, Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King have wonderful memorial museums..."

"It was the era of Elvis Presley..... It was my youth"

"Roald Dahl and Stephen King are my Elvis Presley and my Beatles'"

"I was in love with Elvis Presley and I wanted him to be in "A star is born" so Barbra and I flew up to Vegas and we met with him. Parker didnt agree. Later, after the movie was shown, Priscilla Presley called me and said he wanted to see it on opening day, which he did, and that he cried that he didn't do it..."

"He phoned me and asked me if I would mind if he recorded 'The Wonder of You.' I said, 'You don't have to ask permission; you're Elvis Presley.' He said, 'Yes, I do. You're Ray Peterson."

"He was in Miss Scriverner's home room with me. She was always bragging about how he would make it big one day. When he won the talent show singing “Old Shep”, she went on and on about it for days. Little did we all know that what she predicted for Elvis would come true in such a huge way."

"In the 1962 film "Kid Galahad", Presley portrayed a young man just out of the Army, training to be a prizefighter. He was helped on set by boxing trainer Al Silvani and former welterweight champion “Mushy” Callahan. Since the film's release, the location has drawn Presley fans from around the globe. Real estate broker Robin Oates was one of 50 Idyllwild Elementary School students who were extras. He remembers meeting Presley at age 11 and recalls that it was a “big thrill, pulling three or four kids out of our school and have us for the day. We’d go into one of the local restaurants that the film crew rented. Elvis and others from the film crew would throw a football in the street nearby during breaks. One time, several of us were told to stand in a certain area. Then, he appeared out of nowhere and gave us each an autograph. At night, fans would hang out in front of the house where he was staying. In 2016, 54 years after the movie was shot there, visitors continue to come on tour say, from the UK, to see the lodge. Bob Smith, volunteer archivist with Idyllwild Area Historical Society, escorted them. “It was a pilgrimage,” says Smith, with a smile."

"Although I played no role in those sessions, I was called on for another service. Chips said, ‘Dan, bring your camera down.’ So I took shots of Elvis and the musicians. People are amazed I didn’t say anything to him but what would I have said? ‘Hey, you’re as pilled up as me?"

"The moment the MC mentioned that Elvis had left the building, Ann Marie Royer, my then girlfriend who was a nurse from St Vincent's Hospital in Worcester, MA, insisted that we stay, as it occurred to her that Elvis, who she had not been a fan of before the concert, had to come back for an encore. He had to, she said. It didn't matter how many times I told her he wasn't coming back, but since I was actually driving her car, I reluctantly, albeit diplomatically, agreed we stay until she finally gave in and that was the moment she realized we were the last two people still in the building, out of the 16,200 who had seen Elvis' show at the Boston Garden on the night of November 10, 1971. She had become a fan, at least for a wwhile..."

"It was precisely the creation of my chocolat Eiffel Tower, when I was 21, that led me first to Paris, then to Frankfort, in Germany. There I met Catalina Liz, a Spaniard in whose cafeteria I worked, and which was visited several times by Elvis Presley, then with the US Army. He loved my pastries, really."

"This boy had everything. He had the looks, the moves, the manager, and the talent. And he didn't look like Mr. Ed like a lot of the rest of us did. In the way he looked, way he talked, way he acted – he really was different. We have sadly lost the most popular man to have ever walked on this earth since Christ. But even back then, when people would laugh at his sideburns and his pink coat and call him 'sissy' -- he had a pretty hard road to go. In some areas motorcycle gangs would come to the shows. They would come to get Elvis, but he never worried about it. He went right out and did his thing and before the show was over, they were standing in line to get his autograph too. God intended for Elvis Presley to do what he allowed him to do. That's why he made him so good looking. I used to get close to him, tried to find a fault so I could go out and tell the world that he had a big mole back here, but, nah, he had no mole back there. Rock and roll is where it is today because the front door of this studio was opened and that kid walked in here and moved an awesome mountain that sat in the way for people like me who might never have gotten anywhere. And he was my friend.."

"I felt there was a man there who truly cared about people. But his life was on a level that my life was not on. I felt like Phillip Dunne [director] fawned all over Elvis. Elvis' attitude was – I saw Elvis looking around that set and summing up people faster than anyone else could have, and I felt that after a short period of time he was disappointed in Phillip Dunne, but he was too polite and well behaved to say anything. He tried very hard to make this film better than his other movies, and you saw him trying and asking questions. And I just believe the sad thing is that [the director] did not have the ability to help Elvis through it. I remember one scene; we were sitting in the truck, and we were supposed to be driving home from a dance or going to a dance, and in the script he was supposed to break into song, turn on the radio and start singing. And to me it was like "yuk," I was very young and I thought, " my sisters are going to tease me, this is so embarrassing and tasteless." You see, I was a snob, too. But – and this was the nicest thing – while we were rehearsing, finally the director walked away, and Elvis looks at me and says, "God, this is so embarrassing. Nobody would ever do this in real life. Why are they making me do this? He never used his star power – never. Maybe he should have. Maybe he did it on some level, but he sure didn't do it on the set. I felt like he was younger than me, this very humble person who would make statements that he believed in. All I know is that there was a person there with a refined heart and soul, and I say refined on any level you want to look at it. When you meet someone like that, you know they're there,The essence of Elvis was a fine person as I've ever met."

"Elvis Presley released hundreds of records throughout a career that spanned slightly more than two decades. He also starred in thirty-one feature films and two documentaries. He was photographed throughout his career, and images of him on film are part of the American visual experience. However, he only sat for one portrait painter, Ralph Wolfe Cowan"

"I don't like that. I mean, I could understand if I was Elvis Presley."

"You couldn't take your eyes off of him.""

"The day I met him is permanently etched in my brain for several reasons. You see, it was November 19, 1970 - my birthday. So I was feeling in a jovial, festive mood and I told my wife I was going to give myself a present that day. I was going to goof off for the entire day..I left her in charge of the limo I used, and my parting words to her were "Unless it's a dire emergency I don't want to hear from anyone.." A few hours later the beeper sounded ..'You're working tonight for someone you won't turn down....Elvis Presley." I rushed back to town, put on my chauffeur's uniform and headed for LAX. He came off the plane and my instantaneous thought was that he was the most charming and gracious person. We hadn't travelled many miles on my limo when Elvis, with his marvellous sense of humour, hearing my British accent decided to call me Sir Gerald. And from that moment on, for all the years I drove two pf his Mercedes 600 and his last Rolls Royce, I was always Sir Gerald to him"

"I'd never thought much about rock 'n' roll until that moment, when I both caught the Elvis fever and kicked off my love of music. And I never got rid of it. There was a huge crowd, the biggest crowd I've ever seen in the streets of Ocala and then, I swear to God, a line of white Cadillacs pulled in, and I was standing up on a box to see over everyone's head, because a big roar started up when the cars pulled in. Guys in mohair suits began bounding out of each car. Is that Elvis?, I muttered every time. He finally stepped out radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I'd ever seen in my life. At 50 yards, we were stunned by what this guy looked like, and then he came walking right towards uncle Earl, aunt Ellen and little old me!!! I still don't know, to this day, what he said to us, because I was just too dumbfounded. And then he went into his trailer. The day after, I learned all of those early Elvis songs and having that kind of background in rock 'n' roll, of where it had come from, has served me to this day. It became an invaluable thing to have. So for that, I thank him."

"Fany was his country's most famous and finest guitarist. In 1946, he moved to the Republic of South Africa as a migrant miner, recorded with Miriam Makeba, his guitar work not matched there either. Known as the Elvis Presley of the Marrabenta style he is credited with expanding on it with modern influences from Johannesburg."

"His face darkened into a frown, but he managed to finish 'All Shook Up'. Then with his eyes flashing, he pointed to Scotty Moore and addressed the crowd. "He got egg on his guitar, Whoever threw that will never make the Yankeesǃǃ" After a moment's pause, which did not cool his ire, he again faced the crowd 'Most of you people came here to enjoy the show, the guy who threw the egg will never make it. I mean it, Jack, we're just trying to put on a nice show'. The guilty were William Quinn 20, from New York,William B Oates, 21 of Brooklyn, James Stark, 20 of Greenport, New York and John Eidt, 20 of New York City, and they spent the night in jail."

"So often in the careers of great men and women of history, there came a point in time where they were told their talents were not sufficient to realize their dreams. In the case of Elvis Presley, these words came early and often. But by the end of the 1950'a he was a musical phenomenon who electrified millions of attendees at his live performances. Until his untimely death in 1977, Elvis had an indisputable role in creating the modern American musical landscape and the development of a unique youth culture. Elvis' importance to the inception of rock and roll, and contemporary music as a whole, cannot be overstated, his image transcending the categories of the music he played and the movies he starred in to become a cornerstone of modern pop culture. Depicted in every material form imaginable, his estate at Graceland remains a pilgrimage site for fans of his music. In February of 1961, at a charity luncheon and concert arranged by the record company with the Governor of Tennessee present, RCA Records presented him with a plaque commemorating the 75 million records he had sold worldwide, the first artist in history to reach this impressive milestone. Accompanying this plaque, RCA Records also gifted Elvis with an 18-karat white gold and diamond Omega wristwatch, purchased by them at Tiffany & Co. The concert itself was an immense success, raising $51,612 (close to a half a million in 2018 dollars) for various charities. Sometime in 1962, the watch was exchanged by Presley to the current owner's uncle after the latter had expressed his admiration for the timepiece during a chance meeting inside a lounge at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. We are proud and thrilled to present, for auction, what once belonged to the man who simply said, in response to questions regarding his popularity, "All I do is sing and dance a little." It is, without a doubt, a superb vintage timepiece with one of the most fascinating provenances to ever appear on the world auction market."

"Get yasself a wheelbarrow load of mad hogs, run ’em through the front door, and tell ’em Phillips sentcha. This is Red Hot and Blue comin’ atcha from the magazine floor of the Hotel Chisca. And now we got somethin' new gonna cut lost, DEE-GAWWWW! cut LOOSE! Good people, this is Elvis Presley"

"Elvis? He was great, a real natural guy..."