All Quotes

"He touched their lives...."

"To the extent that the cultural-appropriation police are urging their targets to respect others who are different, they are saying something that everyone needs to hear. But beyond that, they can plunge into doomed tangles. American popular culture is a mishmash of influences: British Isles, Eastern European, West African, and who knows what else. Cole Porter committed no wrong by borrowing from Jewish music and Elvis Presley enriched the world when he fused country-and-western with rhythm-and-blues."

"Sakuraba is just magic, proving to the world that the Gracies could be beat. He walked into that arena like if he was Elvis and he was the man who did it."

"Fifty-six years ago last April, in a studio on Fifth Av in Nashville, a 25-year-old Elvis Presley spit out another platinum-selling record. “It’s Now or Never” hit the airwaves one day after the 4th of July, and topped the charts for weeks. It sold over 20 million records worldwide and became one of his most successful releases. Studios up and down Nashville's famed “Music Row” have cradled the genius of America's music masters for generations. For Elvis Presley and many others, that six-block span has been a place where dreams really can come true. But today, in a global internet economy rife with piracy and wanton copyright violations, the future of America's music industry is threatened. For many musicians, songwriters, and the more than 56,000 Nashville workers whose jobs depend on the resilience of America's music industry, the time to fight back against those threats truly is “Now or Never.”"

"At one point, Elvis used to have football games in his front yard in LA. Glen Campbell and I were on Rick Nelson's team and we would play against his. At first, it was supposed to be flag football but people wound up with black eyes and things like that. It got pretty rough, but I think that's where Glen might have hooked up early with Elvis. Then, it was when Glen and I played "The Crossbow", that Elvis would visit whenever he was in Albuquerque. They even had a little balcony to keep Elvis' group out of the crowd down below..."

"They mention me and they mention Elvis, not the same... RELAX. Not more slaps than Presley..Elvis super legendary."

"Was Elvis up to the challenge? He was. The resulting Elvis special, which aired on December 3, 1968 on NBC, became the top rated show of the season and NBC's biggest success of the year. But the key moment came on the night of June 4, when Elvis was at the Binder/Howe offices. A television set broadcasting Senator Robert Kennedy’s speech at L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel played in the background; the presidential hopeful had just won California’s state primary. Minutes later, Kennedy was shot (he died 26 hours later on June 6) and the assassination provoked a cathartic reaction in Elvis. From the moment that was on, for the rest of the night, we sat in that room and Elvis started to tell us his life story..."

"After Trump-Clinton, the Vice-Presidential Debate Isn’t Exactly ‘the Return of Elvis’"

"Decades ago, during the polio epidemic, people were hesitant to get the vaccine, which became available in 1955. Public sentiment turned in 1956, after the biggest influencer of that era, Elvis Presley, got the shot backstage before he made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Immunization levels among teens at the time rose from 0.6% to 80%."

"Yuri was a celebrity, a hero of the USSR, the first man in space. For the Kremlin, he defined the Soviet spirit. Born poor, then becoming one of the world's most celebrated. He was the Elvis of the Soviet Union."

"I identify myself with Elvis, especially the last ten or fifteen years of his career. He never wrote a song in his life but if he hadn't sung them, they would mean nothing."

"In the early going at the Charlotte Coliseum, there were scattered notes here and there that made you wonder if finally he was gonna do it but, always, he would pull up short, rely on the grins, the charisma and the legend, until finally a little before 10:45, he came to the gospel classic, "How Great Thou Art"-. And that was it. As he came to the part where he belts out the title, he sounded like Mario Lanza with soul, cutting loose a series of high notes that would tingle the spine of even the diehard skeptic; but crescendo came on a song called "Hurt"; it's an old song that Elvis didn't record until a couple of years ago, and the key ingredient is its range, an awesome collection of notes that could leave a normal set of vocal chords in shreds; he finished in what seemed his most potent style, but wasn't satisfied, and mumbled to the band, "Let's do that last part again."; he did, and if there was anyone among the packed-house crowd who had thought Elvis was a fluke, they no doubt came away converted."

"My father had very specific tastes, and that's what we listened to, namely Chopin, Bach, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and David Bowie. I think that's it."

"I jumped out of my 1975 Firebird and rushed to get photos of him. So, that's when he turned to me and said "Who are you with cat?"

"There is only Elvis and me, and I couldn't say which one of us is the best."

"Only through his very early stuff, I liked the rawness of Mystery Train and the recordings at SUN. His power as a performer, was incredible. ."

"In May of 1959, at the Midnight premiere of "King Creole", in Mexico City, more than 500 teenager broke into the cinema, overtook various side balconies and threw seats and even burning papers to those in attendance at the floor below. A huge fight erupted. As many girls tried to leave the cinema, they were stripped of their clothings and harrassed by the rioters. Police arrived at about 1 am in the morning but incredibly, there were many injured but no arrests."

"Elvis Presley brought down the house and all the attendance records of the Houston Live Stock Show and Rodeo came tumbling down on the shoulders of his white shirt Saturday night at the Astrodome. The largest crowd ever to attend a rodeo performance to Houston – 43,614 screaming fans – were present Saturday night for the rodeo and Elvis' fourth of six performances. Hours earlier, he had drawn the largest matinee crowd – 34,443 Saturday and his two performance total exceeded by former records by the two-performance total attracted by Roy Rogers and Dale Evans two years ago. In fact, the four performances in which Presley, his band and vocal group have have appeared thus have drawn a total of 131,064 people to the Astrodome. It is by far the greatest start that the Houston event has made since it moved to the Dome in 1966. Presley who has never been known as a talker on stage, probably expressed it perfectly Saturday night when he commented: "You have been a fantastic audience," he said prior to introducing his associate in the 45-minute show. Police are stationed around the arena to keep the audience away from Elvis but Saturday afternoon, a fan sneaked in through the rodeo chutes and was within a few feet of the star when he was apprehended by police..."

"Oh thank you Sir, you've made my day..."

"I have a great respect for him and I have to say that "Viva Las Vegas" was the very first job I ever had, so he was the first person I worked with in a movie. It really was a big influence on me. Maybe it was me that made it up, but I thought, he's a person, I'm a person. If he can do it, I can do it. And he made you feel like that, too. You know, he made you be an equal. And, of course, it wasn't true, but as I said I lived in a big fantasy world and still do, but he made you feel like you were the same. And I think that really was an incredible catalyst for me. I mean, you're working with Elvis Presley and he thinks that you guys are alike so maybe, if he can do it, you can do it. So then something like that, it's a subliminal subconscious incredible influence he had on me."

"I was appearing at the Sands and a friend of mine, a fellow comedian working with Elvis, told him I'm a black belt. So I got a call from one of Elvis' buddies. He traveled with this massive entourage. So this pal tells me, "Would you be interested in doing Elvis Presley the honor of sparring with him?" I said, "Sure, I’ll give the kid a break." *Laughs*. He rented a hall and arrived with this huge group of people. We looked at each other and he calls me "sensei," which means "teacher." I said, "Oh Elvis, you don’t have to call me that because we’re of equal rank." And he says, "OK, sensei." Then he goes, "Do me a favor, please. Don’t hit me in the face because I have a show to do tonight." And I said, "Well, don’t hit me in my face because I, too, have a show tonight." He responds, "Sensei, if I hit you in the face, it would be an improvement." I said, "I’m going to kill you. You know that, right?" Then we spar. But he was wonderful. He was very, very good in fact. I've sparred with a lot of people and not many were as good as he was. But when we weren't sparring, he was a gentleman at all times."

"I am an angry man, so angry I burn myself and I heat up the air around me. This is the nuclear fuel I use to make my music. In a world so full of pain and madness we need to be better than ever, to evolve not devolve, to become masters of our fate and stop listening to the snake talkers who would steal our last breath. It's time to go Elvis and shoot the cursed TV."

"Elvis let you know that he cared about you, that he noticed you. He made you feel good. No other entertainment stars ever took the same effort Elvis did, to be honest. They didn't. He took that extra step. Elvis took good care of us, man, I swear to God. Bonuses at the end of tours, also (on top of the regular paycheck). I mean nobody treats musicians and the people that were with him the way Elvis did. Nobody.""

"Elvis, and that was it"

"The Elvis tattoo on my chest? I started listening to 'Jailhouse Rock' and loved it."

"I started my first job in 1977 at the age of 14 as a carhop at an A&W Root Beer restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. The day I was hired, I was promoted to lead carhop when a radio DJ interrupted the music and broke the news that Elvis had died. The lead carhop took off her money belt and announced ‘I must go to Memphis.’ She drove off in her Ford Pinto and was never heard from again. The money I saved that year definitely helped pay for tuition and college expenses and it was a super fun job and a great experience. I learned the value of a dollar and how to make a seriously delicious root beer float – all thanks to Elvis Presley."

"First of all, I admire Elvis, not just as a singer but as a creator of a style, a personality. What he has achieved is worth of respect. Regarding the rivalry between Rock ´n Roll and Bolero, there are enough fans for both styles."

"One time, Elvis was in town and invited folks to his suite for a party. His idea of a party? Eating food and having his backup singers belt out gospel songs..."

"What makes Elvis such a phenomenon well after his death ? This question is best answered by resorting to a more socio-anthropological approach concerned with Elvis’ significance within a wider cultural ensemble.It seems to me one key to understanding Elvis is to first recognize that his figure is paradigmatic of an important cultural shift that occurred in America in the post-War days and the advent of consumerism, as philosopher Charles Taylor has abundantly argued. Acknowledging this makes the heuristics of comparisons with Christian apostleship analytically ill-fated. Second, Elvis can probably best be understood in relation to the ‘civil religion’ of the United States of America as developed since the second half of the twentieth century. Elvis arose in the glory days of America, with the birth of rock’n’roll and the feeling of the becoming of a new golden era — an era of which Elvis fans today are probably somewhat nostalgic.Elvis is intimately tied with a certain feeling and idea of ‘America’.Elvis is a mythical figure in the pantheon delimiting the American Dream : he is a model, and Elvis fans confess finding his life a source of moral lessons: ‘work hard, use your talent, follow your star and be a star’. Furthermore, Elvis confirms the individualist Self-Made Man myth of American Capitalism: “even a boy raised in poverty in Mississippi could make it big” . Elvis is a perfect deity for post-radical transcendence culture: as all stars, he is both unreachable in stardom yet an ordinary guy. This duality without seizing what is at stake, is precisely the reason given by impersonators for what they do (p. 183). These are just a few hints, but it seems to me undeniable that the Elvis phenomenon is potentially rich for religious studies investigation. Rather, Reece’s conclusion is that there is religiosity in Elvis, but that Elvis is not likely to spawn religious movements. (However), Elvis, through this special connection to consumer society’s air du temps and mythological foundations, provided one of the most vivid and enduring templates for rock-star mythology for the past half-century, and probably for decades to come."

"The thing is, I've always wanted to be a star. I've always wanted to be an Elvis Presley or a Tupac – like, a huge icon."

"The inspiration for my career came from Elvis Presley. I heard him singing ‘My Way" and that somehow gave me the strength to start a painting business. I knew it was time, as they say, to take the bull by the horns, create my own job. Almost fifty years later, I am still painting, still doing it my way."

"What thrills is that people are still getting upset by a bunch of herberts larging it and carrying on.That’s exactly what rock ‘n’ roll is there to do: Elvis, Little Richard, the Sex Pistols Kneecap. Music is meant to shake things up"

"Well, it started when I saw him was as a little kid at a 1957 concert at LA's Pan Pacific Auditorium concert. 'Then, I became a hairdresser, so the first time I cut his hair, which was in 1964, it took about me 45 minutes to finish it and the whole time Elvis didn't say a word, but his eyes would follow every move I made. I was then already working with people like Warren Beatty & Paul Newman and the most handsome guys of the movies, but I can tell you Elvis eclipsed them all. He had the face, the voice, the career, the fans, the fame, the money and he had.... the hair, which was unbelievable to work on. He insisted that I trim his animated and eccentric moustache."

"Singer Lloyd "Lonzo" George (of the "Lonzo and Oscar" C&W duo), was visiting his relatives, so his teenage nephew, Jim, invited all his friends to his house to meet his famous uncle. But there was one quiet 15-year-old boy whom Jim's parents would not allow to come inside their house. He was poor so they called him “white trash” and treated as if he was from a lower class. When Jim told Uncle "Lonzo" that the boy outside had a guitar but didn't know how to tune it, he gladly offered to show him how. Since he not allowed inside the house, they arranged to meet outside. It was obvious to "Lonzo" that the boy was embarrassed and felt out of place in a rich neighborhood. The boy's guitar was old, cheap, and hung around his neck with just a piece of string. After "Lonzo" showed the shy teenager how to tune his guitar, he offered to teach him some songs. The boy was so surprised and happy that Lonzo spent two whole hours playing and singing with him that he started feeling confident in his own ability to play and sing. "Lonzo" never met that boy again, at least not face to face. That boy was Elvis Presley."

"I was making 'The Rat Race' at Paramount and he was also on the lot, shooting "G.I. Blues". So I happened to be walking by a trailer when its door opens, I look up, and there he was, so he grabs me, pulls me in and he says, 'Mr Curtis, I want you to know what a fan I am. I used to watch your movies in Tennessee'. And I said, 'Please, don't call me Mr Curtis'. And this handsome kid looks at me and says, 'So what do you want me to call you?' And I said, 'Just call me Tony'. And I said, 'So what do I call you?' And he said, 'Mr Presley'. Bam, was he funny. We had a great time together."

"His was the one voice I wish to have had, of all those emanating from singers in the popular music field."

"When I was asked to direct Elvis and after a few conversations with him, I began to sit up and take notice. This is a lovely boy, and he's going to be a wonderful actor. When I told him that he would sing three ballads without one single movement, I didn't get the answer you'd expect. Instead, he merely nodded and said simply, 'You're the boss, Mr. Curtiz.'I found him an amazingly restless, ever-searching young man, pliable, absorbing with a bounce like a rubber ball. In my manner of thinking, he possesses much the same qualities which Gary Cooper and John Wayne showed when they first started in pictures --with one notable exception, namely that they capitalized and still capitalize on an element of awkwardness, while Elvis is agile and resilient with a smoothness that you'd expect in a veteran. I guarantee that he'll amaze everyone. He shows a formidable talent. What's more, he'll get the respect he so dearly desires."

""Younger Now", my new album, was inspired by my love of Elvis Presley and the fantasies I had about him. I used to rewind one of his movies, Blue Hawaii, just to hear him say my name. I would do this over and over and over again because he would say 'I love you, Miley' and I would fantasize HIM telling ME that he loved ME."

"My fans always remember and recognise me for "Disco Dancer", making the song and me inseparable. This song is also special because its various movements and dance steps are inspired by the great singer and performer Elvis Presley. I feel my pelvic thrust "Disco Dancer" was just a bad copy of Presley's signature move and for me, he will always be the King of dance.”"

"Elvis Presley's incendiary vocal performance of "Baby, let's play house"(1955), hails from rockabilly's formative era, when the rules hadn't yet been cast in stone, and Elvis was still experimenting in overdrive, searching for the compelling sound that would catapult him to icon status in little over a year. Presley's slapback, echo laden hiccuping – briefly rendered "a cappella" before the snarling low end guitar of Scotty Moore enters –, segues into an irresistibly lascivious declaration of lust, and a not-so-subtle hint of violence. Both of Scotty Moore's immaculately conceived, and executed solos were monstrously influential to the rockabilly idiom, copied by countless Southern axe-wielding teens. And Bill Black slaps his thundering upright bass so percussively, that no drummer was necessary."

"Millennials, those born in between 1980 and 2000, get blamed for ruining all kinds of things, from iconic brands, to the economy. That generation is portrayed by the media as being stubborn, lazy, entitled, whiny, and oh yeah, capable of wiping out entire industries with just the flick of a mason jar. But what the baby boomers seem to forget is that every older generation casts aspersions on the young folks, shaking their heads at how things change and reminiscing over the “good old days.” There was a time when Elvis Presley's gyrations were considered the height of vulgarity. Now we have HBO."

"From a shy young boy to global superstar, the icon of the 20th century that was Elvis Presley is still as enigmatic today as when he was alive. One of the most celebrated and influential popular musicians of all time, his gift and talent, flaws and failings are as enchanting now as they were when he first snarled his lips"

"Growing up with the Beatles, then Bowie, I used to think Elvis Presley was an old-fashioned crooner, someone your auntie liked, a hillbilly rocker with greasy hair who starred in cheesy films. I had no idea that before Elvis, blues music was played by black people, country [music] by their white neighbours, and gospel by both, but never together. I was blind to the fact that, before Elvis, radio stations and record labels, like everything in the south, were divided by colour. It was Elvis who, guided by the effervescent record producer Sam Phillips, as if by magic, merged the blues, country and gospel and created the soundtrack to the modern world. He didn't "steal" black music. He absorbed it from an early age, growing up in poor neighbourhoods in Tupelo, MS, then Memphis TN. He lived and breathed rhythm and blues. He had soul."

"You cut the hair of the greatest singer and now you can say you cut the moustache of the greatest artist. Incidentally he came to my place in 1972, in NYC, we had a great time and as we bid our goodbyes, I told him how I loved the shirt he was wearing. So he took it off, slowly, and handed it to me. When he left the building he was naked from the waist up. LOL. Anyways I then used it to paint that week, and for sentimental reasons, I never failed to put it on again, whenever I painted""

"I eventually went to Woodstock, the Monterey Festival, Altamont and did the Manson story for Rolling Stone so to cover Elvis' first live show in many years was a must see for me. Elvis was still a huge idol. We saw him as a god. It was a quasi-religious experience. It was one of those wonderful symbiotic events where the audience and the star are both creating a combined energy field. Elvis was getting off on it. It was like some sort of a strange play starring this kid from Tupelo, Mississippi who was made King. That show was a really ecstatic event for me to witness. Much of the audience was the same age as him but Elvis seemed ageless, almost like a folk hero."

"When I saw Elvis on Ed Sullivan, I knew he was having more fun than any other human being up there, actually he was having cosmic fun, and I wanted to do it, too. I didn't want to be no rock star, when I was young I didn't even know what that was. I just wanted his job, whatever it was."

"It was just before Christmas 1962 and as I was driving from El Paso to the East Coast, I began forming the idea that would become this song; not very long afterwards my long-time friend Bob Johnston invited me to Nashville, and we finished this one together; Bob did a demo on it and when Elvis came to town, he picked it up and held it for almost a year in what was then called his portfolio; so, anyway, he recorded it and it was by far the biggest thing that had ever happened to me in my life."

"I say emotional because you don’t just drive a Corvette. It drives you—and not in a chauffeur kind of way, either. I’m talking about the nameplate and everything that it stands for. The impact it had on pop culture, car culture, and the entire American culture. I struggle to think of a car that has had more songs written about it, nor can I think of one that has shaped so many dreams. To say the Corvette is just a great car is like saying Elvis was just a great singer. They are far more than that. They are the original American Idols."

"I just loved Elvis. We had a couple of pictures together from 1969, so I put the first near the bar, at my club. But they kept stealing it, in fact it and the other, as well as numerous copies, disappeared twice a week for a period of thirty years. They had to be replaced hundreds of times. Anyways, one day, a cute girl walked up to me, and then asked me whether she could take a picture, so I got all excited and just as she got real next to me to have our picture taken, she just took the Elvis picture, left the club and said "Thanks Rodney, you're as doll". What was also hilarious was when my wife discovered that Elvis had a handkerchief that was apparently stained with his sweat and it went for a lot of money. So I had a 'eureka' moment. I sweat more than anybody, so my sweat has to be as good as Elvis' sweat, right? So my wife went right to work, ordering hundreds of perfume-sample bottles and setting about farming my perspiration. She was the 'sweat collector, taking a sponge and spoon and collect my sweat -- about an inch at a time.. She thought we could water it down but I said, 'No, that wouldn't be right.' " Ultimately, the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, where I performed a lot in my later years, put the brakes on the operation: "They said, no, we couldn't offer that sweat. An insurance issue. I was crestfallen." My wife still keeps the cloudy fluid in a Tupperware container, which she'll transfer to a crystal decanter for special occasions. "It means a lot to her, she knows how hard I worked to make people laugh.""

"Elvis did a jab, then another jab, a right cross, then a hook out, followed by a right cross and a left hook. It was one more than we had designed for the routine. In fact I was already slipping out my mouthpiece that protected my teeth when he landed that additional, unexpected punch. Boom!!! Elvis had cut my mouth, which bled a little bit. But he was so apologetic for accidentally hitting me. He was such a gentleman. A nice man. A wonderful human being"