All Quotes

"Society, Lord Byron predicted, will eventually narrow into two tribes, “the Bores and Bored.” If so, maybe Elvis should shoulder some blame. The illusion of consensus found in the title of his 1959 collection “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong” — a “customer is always right” moment for pop music — suggests a broad democratic crowd, immune to second-guessing. But not even Elvis would have believed that. Today, the title has been parodied so much — self-deprecatingly (Blues Traveler's “1,000,000 People Can’t Be Wrong”), hubristically (“100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong”) — that whatever truth it once contained in Elvis- case is buried beneath geological layers of cynicism."

"He was a phenomenon unlike any other, like a lighting bolt. I was hearttbroken when I heard about his death. He meant a lot to all of us..."

"I am working on several, actually. I've just delivered scripts on George Washington, John Lennon and Yoko Ono and I am also looking at making something on Elvis Presley."

"I'd been to Graceland (twice) but never to his birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi, until today"

"My earliest memory of music was Elvis Presley when I was four and a half years old. I then reached into my parents album collection, which is very extensive, and pulled out a record of his. From that moment on, in 1992, I really took to the music industry,"

"Throughout the hearing, Mattis was treated to bipartisan praise with Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain announcing at the start that he couldn't be happier that Mattis had been nominated. "I think you're going going to be an extraordinary defense secretary,", Senator Ted Cruz then told Mattis, including a story about how excited his chief of staff, a former Marine, had been when Mattis visited Cruz's office. "If Elvis Presley had walked into the office, he wouldn't have been more thrilled than to see you walk in, General.""

"There are some things — football, particle physics, heavy metal, and constitutional law among them — that I love, but don't love nearly as much as I love the way people love them. Give me a choice between watching the Super Bowl and watching people talk about the Super Bowl for two hours, and I'll always pick the latter: Listen to someone explain their passion, and eventually, they'll show you their soul. But at the very top of this list of loves, there can only be one man, Elvis Presley. I love him, I think to myself as I leave Graceland, as much as I can love a human being I have never truly known. But, maybe more than anything else about him, I love him for the fact that both his presence and his absence created a space for people to come together and try to comprehend the capacity for destruction and redemption, the sheer power, of their love. I love the potential for intimacy and revelation such a space allows. I love that it has lingered long enough for me to find it...."

"Recently, I was watching a tribute to Elvis Presley, and the host mentioned how much Elvis loved singing gospel music. However, his record producers were not interested in him making a gospel album. They thought it would be a waste of time and would not be profitable. But Presley proved them wrong. Elvis released his first gospel album “How Great Thou Art” in 1967. It was a very personal album for him, and ended up winning him his first Grammy Award. Later, he won two more Grammies, each were for gospel music."

"I think many hugely successful people have slight imposter syndrome or a great deal of imposter syndrome. When you think of Elvis’ background, he came really from very simple, impoverished origins. He was the first person to graduate from high school in his family. So you have this guy who has a vision for himself, who meets this extraordinary merchandiser, entrepreneur, manager. And in the space of a couple of years, Elvis becomes one of the most famous people on the planet. I think that there was some kind of marriage made in that alchemy, where Elvis would’ve thought to himself, would I be Elvis without the Colonel? And the Colonel certainly believed that he was 50% of that Elvis-Colonel alchemy, because that’s how much of Elvis’ money that he took."

"I remembered meeting Elvis and he was the one who told me my dad was the king of cool. I'll never forget that."

"I never sang to people. I sang for them, so in 1956, I told that to Elvis Presley. After that he sang not to but for the audience. A subtle difference."

"After Ann Margret's show, which I had opened for, Elvis came up to see her, they were friends, so there were in a suite and I see this beautiful woman, Priscilla, his wife, coming in, and then I see Elvis, he looks wow, lean, great, so he walks by me, sees me, and says.... "Son you have an oblique sense of humor...."

"I idolized Elvis. I sent him so many songs and I never heard word one. Then one day in 1976 I was pitching songs and this famous publisher sat down next to me and says, ‘Layng, do you have a song for Elvis?” There were three I thought might work. Interestingly, the one I was least excited about, the one I almost didn't bother to send in, was the one Elvis chose. The song was "Way Down." Someone in the music industry called me i 1977 to tell me "Way Down" was climbing the charts. I was so excited. Two days later, I got another call, this time from my attorney. She said, "Layng, are you near a television? Elvis Presley is dead. How did this happen?. He listened to my demo of me singing It was just the most impossible thing I've ever heard of. And it still is, that my song would be the last he released as a single."

"He came in, and they I.D. him. LOL. And he actually left his license at the front while he went in and hung out for a while. I think Rodney still has it."

"I remember exactly where I was when I heard that Elvis had died. We were driving over the moors to Sheffield when the news came on the radio. Four-year-old me leant over from the back seat (no seatbelts in those non-risk averse 70s) and poked my head between mum and dad as we listened in silence and shock. I was very young, but I still understood this immense loss. The most beautiful man, with the most beautiful voice, was no more, and I would never get the chance to see him when I was old enough to buy my ticket to America…...."

"I seldom do, unless I stub my toe."

"Elvis was sort of the first impact on me – his charisma, his performing prowess..."

"If there is one small glimmer of good news, it is that decent, thoughtful and sane voters slightly outnumber the bigots and lunatics. I want to live in an America where that victory is not only mathematical, but political — the America of Walt Whitman's imagination, Elvis Presley's voice and Martin Luther King's oratory."

"Two months ago scarcely anyone but economists had even heard of mechanism design. Suddenly, it has notoriety worthy of an Elvis Presley ( a man who) somehow manages to attract a huge public following without even trying. Indeed, he can't very well try since he's been dead for 30 years. Yet, isn't it remarkable that, for one week a year, that kind of attention is focused not just on economics, but on physics, chemistry, medicine, and literature. And for that astounding accomplishment, I'd like to express my warmest appreciation to the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel awarding bodies."

"He was an instinctive actor, quite bright, very intelligent, not a punk. In fact, he was very elegant, sedate, refined, and sophisticated."

"Presley's vocal range was exceptional – amazingly so for an untrained singer. It ranged from Low F in the bass register to top B Flat and B in the tenor range. This is over two octaves, when most singers can only manage just over one octave. Quite apart from the range of Presley's voice (and this range remained with him throughout his life, a fact proved by his recordings) the equally surprising thing was that its quality and distinctive timbre remained constant throughout this range. This is also exceptional and quite the most conclusive proof – if any were needed – that Elvis Presley possessed a natural gift for singing which was completely and utterly rare. For if it were not – where are all the other Elvis Presleys?"

"I wasn't a big fan of him as I only knew him from the Dorsey and Sullivan Shows. But then he won me over when I spent the entire day of the concerts with him, in his dressing room, where he took a lot of his time talking to me and asking me questions about Jazz music and my musical influences. From his part, he said he loved gospel music and the blues the most. I found him to be an earthy kid, a first class gentleman and an exceptional family person."

"I found that I could do Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock", and that's the great thing, you could pick it up and in a few hours, you could get to something that make you feel good. (Years later), Freddy wrote "Crazy little thing called love" as a tribute to Elvis, of whom he was very fond of."

"The record industry is fully aware that premature death sells records. After Chester Bennington, the 41-year-old lead singer of the group Linkin Park took his own life, there was a 7,000% surge in the group's music plays. When rock 'n' roll legend Chuck Berry died aged 90, his music sales went through the roof, even though he hadn't released a new album in nearly 40 years. Prince was the top-selling artist of 2016, according to Billboard, outselling every other artist, living or dead, with a total of 7.7 million that year. While in even more notable moments of music history, John Lennon's musical comeback album went on to sell seven million copies in the following six months. But it was Elvis Presley who eclipsed them all. If there was Elvis product in stores following his death, they all got picked clean". In fact, Presley catalogue sales reportedly totalled 200 million copies worldwide in the four months after his passing."

"Toyota, the Japanese automaker, said yesterday that it would invest $1.3 billion to build its eighth North American assembly plant just outside Tupelo, in northeastern Mississippi. The plant will build the Toyota Highlander, a crossover vehicle, and will employ 2,000 workers. Production is expected to begin in 2010, and reach 150,000 vehicles each year. The decision brings Toyota to an area best known for being the birthplace of Elvis Presley."

"A rise in the number of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases has highlighted the growing trend for parents not to have their child vaccinated. Could the activities of a group of teenagers against polio in 1950s America inspire a fresh look at the effectiveness of pro-vaccine public health information campaigns? Well, today, thanks to a 50 year global effort to eradicate polio, only two countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) remain polio-endemic. It was a very different situation when the Salk vaccine was licensed in 1955. Even in 1957, as many as 30% of people still had no inoculations, and a third of all new cases were in teens, its use threatened in the USA by ‘vaccine hesitancy" And then young people themselves – and Elvis Presley – became the answer to the problem, in what might be the first, largest and most successful case of teen health activism of the time. The fight waged against vaccine noncompliance in 1950s America, he suggests, could provide important lessons for the world today."

"Best wishes"

"In our survey the option that most people liked was 'Well-known popular music from any period'. This was closely followed by 'Well-known classical music' and 'Well-known music from the last year'. What do these categories actually mean when it comes to artists? Maybe think of the top 3 as Elvis Presley, Luciano Pavarotti and Katy Perry."

"I remember him being tall, slender and so beautiful. I mean, what a beautiful man. And he had this beautiful voice. He was a spiritual guy, and he loved to read anything about being spiritual. He wasn’t so much religious, but spiritual. And I, too, was fascinated by those things. So we bonded over that. We used to exchange books on the set, and it was great fun. We would have conversations all the time about being spiritual. It was a good relationship, very solid. I knew he really wanted to be taken seriously as an actor. He was almost too beautiful to be thought of as serious. It must be very awful to be at the very top like that because nobody could possibly relate to what it’s like to be there and expect you to stay there. He of course embraced it beautifully. But I think he was also pretty lonely and wanted more for himself. He was, of course, very special. But I don’t think he saw himself that way. There was a sadness about him. It just makes you wonder what could have been. I loved Elvis."

"Music, like marketing, is one of those areas of film making that often get overlooked by producer/directors. I know of one who had a budget of USD $1,000,000 and never thought about spending any of that money on music. While this would be problematic for any type of movie, it was particularly bad in that the movie was a biopic about Elvis Presley. After three years, he moved on to other failed projects, but his investor, knowing that he'd poured a lot of money into a movie that can't even be released, eventually broke down and paid Presley's estate significant more money to acquire at least some music royalties for the movie. Since he didn't want to overspend, he ended up purchasing the rights to just one hit song and one “deep cut.” And the producer's brother ended up composing most of the Elvis-esque music for the film..."

"As a jazz educated singer I had reservations about entering the Elvis world. There can be a lot of judgement about his music and the image that has been created of him over many years. But I found myself completely falling in love with his songs. Each night on stage I would discover another lyric, another chord change, another nuance that thrilled and moved me all at once. Studying the Elvis songbook, I found breathtaking recordings of the same songs by other artists. I was literally stopped in my tracks. These musical masterpieces were being revealed to me and I had Elvis to thank for it"

"John Lennon said that before Elvis there was nothing. After Elvis, nothing was the same. Perry Como is said to have said that Elvis was a threat to the moral health of the nation. What brighter endorsement could you wish for? Dial him up singing ‘Lonesome Tonight’ and marvel at the shambling majesty even as you ache for what's lost. Another thing about Elvis was that he was the most beautiful man in the world. To be as beautiful as that and also as bad was an alluring combination, love potion and lethal poison. When Pope Paul VI died within a year of Elvis, many of us shrugged. There'd be another Pope along in a minute. But there'd never ever be another Elvis. Dissing the dead Pope while singing hosannas to Elvis's immortality was the pitch-perfect response...-"

"i) Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention, so we didn't put him on the list because he was more than merely an artist, he was Elvis. ii). I'm primitive on music. I don't want to learn it, it's too serious, too like homework. And nothing about my childhood inspired me with a love of classical music. My dad was a bit of a jazzer so if a symphony came on the radio he would immediately turn it off. School was no better, you would have just had to play one Elvis record and we would have been hooked. We'd have turned up in droves to that lesson. (In fact) I've got so many vivid memories of being a kid in Liverpool. Like everyone I suppose, I have millions of memories of those days. I remember John and I going up to the airport on our bikes to watch the planes. It makes me smile to think that they named the airport after him. So then I think back to getting the bus with George, going to school. And then the memories go beyond that, to getting the bus to "The Cavern" or the "Grosvenor Ballroom". And then the memories go beyond that and beyond that, and I have to remember that I was one of the guys that all that was happening to. You have to pinch yourself and say ‘did that REALLY happen?’. Did I REALLY meet Elvis?”"

"When I took him to my Frankfurt home for lunch, my wife offered to make him a hamburger, but he wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asked for another one.."

"He was a precious gift from God we cherished and loved dearly. He had a God-given talent that he shared with the world and without a doubt, he became most widely acclaimed, capturing the hearts of young and old alike. He was admired not only as an entertainer, but as the great humanitarian that he was for his generosity, and his kind feelings for his fellow man. He revolutionized the field of music and received its highest awards and became a living legend in his own time, earning the respect and love of millions. God saw that he needed some rest and called him home to be with HIM. We miss you, son and daddy. I thank GOD that HE gave us you as our son. Elvis Aaron Presley January 8, 1935-August 16, 1977. Son of Vernon Elvis Presley and Gladys Love Presley and father of Lisa Marie Presley"

"He is such a big Elvis Presley fan that he has been known to dress up as Elvis, complete with white silk jumpsuit and black puffed-up wig. At the Parkes Elvis Festival, he had no qualms about being photographed with fellow Elvis fans and then Labor opponent Sam Dastyari"

"Elvis Presley. It's a big, all-American icon with a sense of duty..."

"In 1954, R&B̪ writer Charles Singleton and I wrote "Trying to Get to You," which was first recorded by The Eagles, a black vocal group. Elvis Presley heard their version in a store in Memphis, and he decided to record the song. Elvis did it like The Eagles. Amazing how he did that. He wasn't a big star at that point, and we thought that he couldn't sing. We just didn't understand, yet, were grateful to him. Thank God for Elvis."

"Dylan heard the news while he was at his farm in Minnesota, with his children. I was playing with the kids and planning a birthday party for Samuel Dylan's 9th birthday. Dylan was writing songs for his next album, which turned out to be Street Legal. When Dylan told me that Presley had died, and I said I was not a fan, he didn't talk to me for a week. He really took it bad, was really grieving and said that if it wasn't for Elvis he never would have gotten started. He opened the door, Dylan told me, then went over his whole life, his whole childhood and didn't talk to anyone for a week."

"Growing up, I could sing every Elvis song. In first or second grade, I'd wrap a scarf around my neck, put a big hibiscus flower in my shirt pocket, and perform Live From Hawaii. He came through Monroe, Louisiana, on one of his last tours, and my mom was going to take me, but I got mumps. When she was getting ready for the show, I was lying on the floor kicking and screaming because I couldn't go. In fact, every artist puts a bit of the King into every performance. We're all just trying to be Elvis, aren't we?"

"Swipe to see me attempting a classic Elvis move after the film, and my beautiful, most elegant lady, my number 1 supporter from day 1, screaming like Elvis’ fans in the movie! Wow! What a great movie about a great man and a great crew and story! Thank you and God bless Elvis Presley and his entire family and team ❤️ this is a must watch!"

"No, we all started with rock ’n’ roll, Elvis Presley and the whole Sun Records gang. In my case, while riding my bike in '56, I heard “Heartbreak Hotel" and Ii was then that I wanted to play the guitar."

"The headline news of "Platinum", which can be appreciated by fans, scholars, critics and religious fanatics alike, is the inclusion of a newly discovered 1954 demo of the unsigned Elvis singing a lilting wisp of a pop song called "I'll Never Stand in Your Way". His unsophisticated performance is mesmerizing; clearly indebted to the style of the "Ink Spots", Elvis' airy tenor floats delicately above his own guitar accompaniment, aching and somewhat pinched in its feeling; you sense the singer itching to cut loose, to really swing the lyric, open it up; it is in those moments, when the pentimento of the blues vocalist reveals itself, that the melding of styles that soon would change the course of popular music is on fleeting display; it's rare when a single song can be said to make a pricey box-set worthwhile, but this particular "Rosetta stone" of a rare cut, does precisely that. Big time."

"Man, he was a bada—! Love Elvis, I remember the day he died, riding go-carts at my grandmothers house in west Monroe Louisiana 42 years ago.""

"Surely there has not been such a pelvis since Elvis Presley was in his prime."

"I was lucky enough to see Elvis Presley's opening concert at Madison Square Garden on June 9, 1972. Usually, you are not allowed to bring a camera to a concert. But the audience and the entire event were so wild that no one paid any attention to me. Over the years I watched the footage again and again. Then the Viennale called and I immediately thought of my Elvis material. The only problem was that I didn't know what kind of musical soundtrack to use. I tried everything and was close to giving up when I happened to hear a Viennese waltz on the radio. That was it! What could be better than Elvis and Strauss?"

"When Elvis died 40 years ago next Wednesday, it was like the death of John F. Kennedy 14 years earlier; both men had been such a part of American lives that—for those alive today who remember the events— where they were when they heard the news became almost as important as the news itself. In a way, it made each a part of the story. O was never in the same room with JFK, but I was with the early Elvis. I spent one long Elvis afternoon, during which I watched him perform, then conversed with him and, finally, interacted with him as a part of a group. During much of it, I observed a sweet, unsophisticated young man at close hand. He was exactly what I had expected and yet not at all so.As a writer in the New York bureau of TV Guide magazine, I was invited to attend a press conference, before which I could talk with Elvis and observe him rehearse for his second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show as well as receive his first polio shot. The afternoon rehearsal was in progress when I took my seat, but the theater was black and strangely silent. Suddenly—shockingly—the stage exploded into red light, dark music and that singular, riveting presence. I don’t even remember the song, though I think it was “Hound Dog.” What I do remember—vividly–is the power of this young performer, the charisma of the man—the mouth, alternatingly pouting, leering, grinning, the sensual modeling of the facial contours and the eyes—those erotic eyes with their kohl-like shadows, promising, threatening. And, of course, the notorious pelvic thrusts. After the rehearsal's end, I joined numerous members of the press to watch the administering of the polio shot, memorable primarily because at the time, and as he later confided to me, Elvis hasd a wholesome fear of needles. It was a scary experience for Elvis, but, as always, he managed a smile for the camera..."

"What made the young Elvis an agent provocateur? The leading lunatic theory is that he was a space alien. The more prevailing opinion is that he was a product of the magic medium of his place and time: radio. So let us now praise that great, subversive force in American culture. Radio helped Elvis develop his interest in and affection for the music of black culture. In that pre–rock ’n’ roll era, America was an apartheid nation and in much of the country, black and white didn’t mix. They attended separate schools (with the approval of the U.S. Supreme Court) and they didn’t shop together, worship together or live in the same neighborhoods. Segregation was relatively easy to enforce. It was the law. Elvis was the visible embodiment of a musical revolution. He was an interpretive, not a creative artist. Many musical innovators experimented with blending musical styles, but they all lacked the charisma, the charm, the look…the everything that Elvis had and that he represented. He was a catalyst; his was the face that launched a thousand hips."

"Honestly, the most unique thing I may have found was the Elvis Presley cardboard cutout that we now have...."

"I would kiss them both on the mouth."