All Quotes

"And the singer explodes, no longer laying back, now letting it fly. It is a raw, ragged sound, but the singer is so far into the moment that he doesn't care, and neither does anyone else. "When I read your lovin' letter, my heart began to sink," he roars with ache and ardor in his voice. "There's a million miles between us, but they didn't mean a thing." This glorious minute of "Trying to Get to You" is from Elvis Presley's 1968 television comeback special, one of 77 previously unreleased performances collected on a new four-CD box set, "Platinum: A Life in Music" (RCA). It affirms that 20 years after his death on Aug. 16, 1977, after countless books, albums, tabloid stories, imitators and Graceland tours have wrung seemingly every drop of mystery from his legacy, there remains plenty to learn about Presley. Or, perhaps more precisely, relearn. For in the last 20 years, the essential truth about Presley has been lost. But the truth of his 23 years of public music making is this: He was the most quintessentially American of singers, an artist who drew no boundaries between Saturday night blues and Sunday morning gospel, middle-of-the-road schmaltz and dirt-road hillbilly country. And he could swing a tune like nobody's business. More than anything else, those two factors--his openness to just about any kind of music and his ability to personalize that music with his unique feel for rhythm--are why Presley mattered, and still matters."

"I don’t know if it was the algorithm … or the Elvis movie coming out, but I just became inundated with Elvis stuff [on my streaming feeds) so I started thinking a lot about Elvis and I was like, I’m going to try to collect some songs that I’d written, and some covers that I would want to pitch to Elvis. So the songs that I wrote, I was writing like an Elvis impersonation."

"Having had the opportunity to work with these recordings, I am now more convinced than ever that Elvis Presley was the most passionate vocalist this world has known."

"I remember exactly where I was when I heard Elvis had died. I was 10 years old, in the back of my mum’s car, as she waited to get the fanbelt replaced. I’m not sure I’d even heard of Elvis, and I don’t think my mum had mentioned his name before or since, but I recall being in no doubt that something momentous had happened. I had the urge to tell Priscilla all this but that would have been ludicrous, so I didn’t."

"Recorded at the Beatles' old Abbey Road Studios, it offers one more chance to enjoy Presley's voice in a different context, deliciously backed by a world-class orchestra geared toward the nuances of his delivery. It's a new twist on a very familiar, and treasured, body of work. This one is a tried and true concept, basically a variation on last year's quite successful posthumous pairing of Presley with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but the fact that it's been done once before doesn't diminish the pleasure. There are few surprises, but it's a reminder of Presley's range and vocal dexterity. The orchestral style suits Elvis well: taken out of the rock and roll context, there is no need for his swagger or his snarl, as the orchestra is restrained and understated, allowing Presley's vocals alone to carry the day. The orchestral format also gives rise to "live" concerts with Elvis singing on screen while the Royal Philharmonic performs. A series of six British shows in major arenas this fall is expected to draw thousands of the faithful — the number doesn't seem to be dwindling, even 39 years after his death in a country, the UK, where he never performed."

"Personally, I resent the ‘shouldn’t do that’ attitude of many guardians and reformers who want to straighten out the younger generation. I am young and don't doubt that I need a great deal of correcting, but when we stop listening to Elvis, stop reading comics, stop doing this, and stop doing that, what are we going to do then? In short, what have you older folks provided for us in the way of wholesome entertainment? Until you older folks can provide something in this line, I would appreciate it if you leave our literature, music, and Elvis alone."

"One year I met President Eisenhower, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and thought I had met all the important people in the world.,."

"We haven't been the same since Elvis. He defined an era, he was America, the fresh young outsider who shook up the system, the shining star with clay feet and the dissipated innocent who could not understand what he had become. That is the stuff of legends."

"i) Then, in mid 1968 he taped a television special in a black leather suit, in front of a select live audience, opening with "Guitar Man" and closing with a mild social-conscience song, "If I Can Dream". But it wasn't until Greil Marcus brought out the recording of that performance for me, almost three years later, that I realized how significant it had been. Marcus has spent as much time listening as anyone who is liable to be objective, and he believes Elvis may have made the best music of his life that crucial comeback night. It's so easy to forget that Elvis was, or is, a great singer. Any account of his impact that omits that fundamental fact amounts to a dismissal. ii) Elvis made a great many major recordings, and no matter what jaded undergraduates think, few rock and rollers of any era have moved with such salacious insouciance. But it's my best guess that rocking or romantic, young or old, thin or fat, innocent or decadent, inspired or automatic, Elvis touches the millions he touches most deeply with that ineffable chestnut, the grain of his voice; from the pure possibility of "Mystery Train" and "Love Me Tender", to the schlock passion of "In the Ghetto", no singer has ever duplicated his aura of unguarded self-acceptance. The very refusal of sophistication that renders him unlistenable to Sinatraphiles is what his faithful love most about him. (In fact), listeners with looser standards in cultural articulation have a clearer pipeline to the meanings that voice might hold."

"It's called 'Love Song of the Year' and it's on the 'Promised Land' album, When I met Elvis, he leaned over and said, "How do you like what I did with your song?".Not one single artist who used my songs ever did something like that, but Elvis did."

"Elvis Presley is widely regarded as the most significant global cultural icon of the 20th century."

"Elvis was a brilliant artist. As a musicologist — and I consider myself one — there was always a great deal of respect for Elvis, especially during his Sun sessions. As a black people, we all knew that. (In fact), Eminem is the new Elvis because, number one, he had the respect for black music that Elvis had."

"I came late to the Elvis party. I never grabbed on to his shooting star in the ascendancy of his career. I was more into groups. And then a strange thing happened. Either Elvis changed or I did. Almost two decades ago, I began my oldies show on Thursday nights on WSRK in Oneonta and this is where I had the epiphany that Elvis Presley possessed one of the best male singing voices to ever climb the charts. Deep, passionate, powerful, no frills, no twang, no screaming. Classic. In the 1950s, nobody knew what he was. Still, it is the voice. I'm in awe of it and am a little embarrassed that I jumped on the bandwagon so late. But now that I am on it, I'm in the front seat, cheering all the way. Elvis is the King, let nobody doubt it. And if you are still a parade straggler, take my suggestion. Find yourself a copy of “An American Trilogy” (1972). It was recorded live before a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden. This is Elvis' magnum opus. As he slides from “Dixie” to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” you will be swept away. The orchestra provides the fanfare, the urban sounds of the background singers will mesmerize you and Elvis' vocals will lift you up. This one performance can actually be transformative. It is powerful yet sensitive, subtle yet bombastic. I don't know how, but it all works. And his voice was never better than on this song. “American Trilogy” is a Master Class. By a truly great artist."

"From 1952 to 1980, we called it the industrialization generation. From 1980 to 2000, it was the democratization generation. Post-2000 we call it the millennial generation. I came of age in the 1980s and I have been very much influenced by American culture. In fact, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley were the biggest stars for the Korean people."

"When we visited Blenheim Palace, as Oxford University's Class of 1979 for post graduate diplomatc studies, the man who acted as Cicerone for us was Oxonian Godfrey Davis. As we got closer to the end of the tour, we approched a cardboard removable visual timeline where the largest photo was that of Sgt Elvis Presley. Questioned as to why was this so, Davis explained Sir Winston had come to like Elvis as a result of listening to "Its now ot never" and "Surrender..."

"Elvis Presley has had an unprecedented and lasting global impact on music and pop culture and I, along with the Universal Music Publishing Group teams around the world, couldn’t be more excited and honoured to work with the in making sure that Elvis’ iconic legacy endures for generations to come."

"Who the hell's limousine is that?” That was Elvis Presley’s reaction to the sight of a long, black limo parked in front of the General Cinema in Memphis–one of Elvis’s favorite spots for personal midnight movie screenings. The limo happened to belong to me. In fact I had made a pilgrimage to meet him, at the special request of Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis’s entourage. “I think it’s probably Eric’s!, Schilling later told me how he answered Elvis question. Now, inside the theatre, the chance for a great summit meeting seemed to diminish when Elvis walked in and saw me and Pattie Harrison (George’s ex), sitting about 12th row center--right in Elvis’s seats. There was some tension, until Schilling made the introductions, and right away I made it really clear how much respect I had for him. Seeing that, he relaxed and turned into a charming host, and we fell into a really nice, friendly conversation."

"It’s rare when an artist’s talent can touch an entire generation of people. It’s even rarer when that same influence affects several generations. Elvis made an imprint on the world of pop music unequaled by any other single performer.”"

"I was lucky to be 12 years old when rock ‘n’ roll really busted out. I saw Elvis in Tulsa at the Fairground on his first big tour and all the girls screaming. I couldn't hear for days after that. He came out and did a half an hour without stopping. It was just amazing"

"I met him in 1969 with Karen Carpenter, neither of us had ever met him before, so we went so see him perform at a show in Las Vegas. He was on great form and then we were invited back to his dressing room and, well, he was flirting with us. In the end I got us out of there and that really amused Elvis and when I saw him again after that we both had a good laugh about it."

"Taking ownership in the wrong way (Michael Bolton trying to out-soul Percy Sledge in “When a Man Loves a Woman”) can lead to accusations of cultural appropriation — a nice euphemism for stealing. It's complicated. Pat Boone did sound like he was ripping off Little Richard with “Tutti Frutti.” But Elvis, to me (and to James Brown), sounded like he was delivering the goods"."

"If I had to make a list of the most dependable things in my life, it would be a pretty short list. I’ve lost a ton of faith in humanity over the years, my favorite TV shows keep getting cancelled, and I’m pretty sure my smartphone is plotting against me. But there are two things that have never, ever let me down: Elvis Presley and barbecue. So here’s to them – two constants that have carried me through life’s most challenging periods. They may not solve all my problems, but they sure make them easier to swallow. And in a world where nothing seems certain anymore, I’ll take all the reliability I can get."

"On his live versions of songs like "How Great Thou Art"(1975),"Unchained Melody"(1976) and "Hurt" (1977), you will be able to hear how high he can go; but, it is essentially on "What Now My Love" (sang live at his "Aloha from Hawaii" global telecast, which reached 1 billion viewers when first aired in 1973), where he goes up three octaves at the end of the song, that you can really hear his true vocal power."

"The first time I heard Elvis was via the western movie "Love Me Tender" in 1956 or ’57. I was a cowboy nut. "Love Me Tender" was also the first time I came up against female hysteria. I haven’t got a homosexual bone in my body but that is the most handsome man that ever lived, without a doubt. You can’t take your eyes off him. Also, to have a voice like that. Incredible. Charisma ain’t a big enough word for it. I get asked if punk was a rejection of Elvis and his style of rock ’n’ roll. But people who have a go at Elvis just miss the point. Elvis would shoot at the TV, and if something was on that he didn’t like the look of, it was the Colt 45. Elvis out‑punked everything. He wrote the book on punk. I never saw punk rock as being a rebellion against Elvis Presley, otherwise I wouldn’t have done gigs with bands like "The Clash" and "the Sex Pistols".I’ve never been to Graceland, but before the pandemic my plan was to honour this. I had a full tour sheet stretching into next year and I thought, “As soon as we get these gigs out of the way, me and my wife are going to go on the holiday of a lifetime.” I was going to get an open-ended rail ticket from Grand Central Station in New York finishing at Graceland. Every August, on the anniversary of Elvis’s death, I write something about him. So I’ve got books and books and books of poetry and stuff around Elvis… The man who didn’t love Elvis is not as other men. He is condemned to miss the point time and time again.” Elvis, he’s the king of the world.”. And which song do I want to bne played at my funeral? Elvis' Peace in the valley-."

""It's Now Or Never" from "O Sole Mio", "Surrender" from Torna A Sorrento", "Tonight Is So Right For Love" from "Bacarolle and The Tales of Hoffman", "Today, Tomorrow And Forever", from "Liebestraume no. 3 in A flat", "Can't Help Falling In Love" from "Plaisir d'Amour", "Sleepy Heads" from "Guten Abend, Gut Nacht", "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Johann Strauss II, and "Tonight's all Right For Love", from Strauss "Tales from the Vienna Woods"."

"He was a fantastic Monty Pythom fan. He would watch us, while seated in bed with his wife,and do our sketches while simultaneously having to learn all the dialogue."

"Very early in his rise to music fame, Elvis once visited the Tennessee Governor's mansion after his manager called ( my father) Governor Frank Clement and said he wanted him to meet Elvis. He told him to bring him out and also invited a group of African American state prison musicians called The Prisonaires. Everyone eventually retired to an upstairs room, where Elvis and the Prisonaires took turns performing numbers. Elvis got so carried away that he stayed until 3 am.He seemed shy, and so soft-spoken."

"In fact, Dylan's most recent Broward Center concert came just one month after the Nobel announcement, and despite all the public confusion and pearls-clutching over his win, the then 75-year-old artist appeared to be in high spirits, even striking Elvis Presley-inspired poses while leaning on his microphone stand and breaking into bowlegged, broncobuster shuffles during songs that otherwise would seem to reject them.."

"You know, Bush is always comparing me to Elvis in sort of unflattering ways. I don't think Bush would have liked Elvis very much, and that's just another thing that's wrong with him. He was the first and the best, and is my favorite of all time."

"No element of the South's culture has had more influence on the culture of the U.S. and other nations than its music. While the ballads and fiddle tunes brought by British settlers provided the foundation for what would become country music, the work songs and field hollers that were a vital part of the slaves' African heritage formed the basis of the blues. These musical forms did not always respect the South's racial divisions. There was more interaction than many realized as both the blues and country music grew more commercialized and, as members of both races left the farm in droves, more urbanized as well. When local radio stations and recording studios in cities like Memphis and New Orleans began to feature the work of both black and white performers after World War II, the closer contact and familiarity bred the revolutionary new sound that would become "rock 'n roll." Elvis Presley quickly won an enormous youthful following as a white singer who sounded "black," but if he succeeded by borrowing heavily from black stylings, he also helped to open the door to white audiences much wider for a host of black performers ranging from Little Richard to Chuck Berry."

"The "Shrine" Auditorium in Los Angeles, was his first California stop, then Long Beach. He's the cat man..."

"You won't find many books that range from Elvis to Helen Keller to Sir Isaac Newton that can change your life. This one also could""

"Sometime in the mid seventies, Elvis befriended a young black woman who was having trouble purchasing a car, struggling as a student in college at the time, so he went into the dealership got the car, then asked her to report to him the next day saying she would get a steady job answering the phones at Graceland (where most of her time was spent doing very little), thereby allowing for her to both have a place to study and focus on her school work and grades. She was ONLY required to report him every quarter showing him her grades. So not only did he buy a car for her, but he purposely *created* a job for her, where she could receive a steady paycheck while studying."

"Elvis is the greatest blues singer in the world today."

"In the mid fifties, Presley initiated a new phase in the popularizing of African American vocal techniques, combining them with influences from country music to create a unique style full of hiccups, between the beat accents, and striking register shifts, from chest voice baritone to falsetto. First, when writing about the echo effect in his early SUN recordings, Richard Middleton, in his "Studying Popular Music", says the effect is largely used to intensify star presence, in fact, Presley becomes larger than life. Conversely, as Henry Pleasants noted in his book "The great american Popular singers¨¨, Presley was said to dominate a vocal style appropriate to different generic contexts, thereby developing a vocal multiplicity, a sound for country, a sound for gospel, a sound for ballads and a sound for R&B."

"The first thing you think of is his cool charisma, his electric personality, the larger than life thing that all those figures embody. But there’s also that little wide-eyed, innocent, naive country boy that is as much a part of it as anything. Elvis embodied both of those."

"Born in Tupelo, Miss., he was an only child whose parents scraped along on odd jobs until the family moved to Memphis when Elvis was 13. He was fanatically and unabashedly devoted to his mother. He was buried near her after the kind of awful, agonized public wake that attended the passing of Rudolph Valentino and Judy Garland. Eighty thousand fans jammed the street outside his Memphis mansion, Graceland, hoping for a view of the body; 30,000 were admitted to the house. Dozens swooned, cried, keened and passed out from the heat outside the mansion gates. Two people were killed when a drunken driver plowed into the crowd. After the funeral at Graceland, a cortege of 16 white Cadillacs led a slow procession down Elvis Presley Boulevard to the cemetery. There the lawn was banked with some 2,200 floral tributes — an imperial crown of golden mums, hortisculptured hound-dogs and guitars, sunflowers in wine bottles. Memphis ran out of flowers; reinforcements were sent in from California and Colorado. From out of the barrage of funeral images, one reaches for a single last memory.searches for an epitaph. Go back to one of his SUN Records, and there is one that seems particularly appropriate. "Well", Elvis starts off, in a raw drawl then rushes into the verse "I heard the news, there's good rocking tonight" Now there is, for everyone. Elvis saw to that. ."

"The healing power of music isn't just anecdotal and Music & Memory, a nonprofit organization that uses personalized music playlists to help improve the lives of those suffering from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, is dedicated to helping patients through the power of song. Along with enabling patients to find renewed meaning and connection by giving them access to music, the organization's work has been effective at reducing the use of anti-psychotic medications and helping manage the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, according to a Brown University study. To celebrate the organization's fundraising efforts to provide music and joy to patients nationwide, I wish to share a playlist featuring several of the most popular songs from Music & Memory's facilities around the world, including nostalgic favorites from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to The Supremes. The latter's "Stop! In the Name of Love" tends to be one that people remember from high school and that makes them happy, according to the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Frank Sinatra's "Theme From New York, New York" is being requested by almost every nursing home in Delaware, bringing joy to many and improving mood and behaviors. Also, as reported bu the states of Wisconsin and Texas, Elvis' "Hound Dog" inspires movement in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities."

"I was relieved that all the stuff we'd been feeling for so long found expression in Presley and in rock in general. I was playing his records all the time to friends when they'd come over. I'd say, 'This guy is a great singer' – and they thought this was some kind of inverse snobbery, but it wasn't. Presley had that special kind of voice which makes your heart go out to a singer. I was a huge fan of Elvis. In fact, I was in town until today and bought a compilation LP of the man. Soon you will hear me sing “Don’t” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight” – but not at the plate. My voice is too deep, with 20,000 cigarettes leading my tone of voice three to four notches down too far."

"Of course, the main harbinger of the homer era was probably Ruth himself. After “Heartbreak Hotel,” no one wanted to be Perry Como. They wanted to be Elvis Presley. After 1920, no one wanted to be Ty Cobb. They wanted to be Babe Ruth. The old game had been about precision, strategy, incremental progress. The new game was about power, the single blast that busts open the piñata."

"He treats the song as a private meditation, full of pain and the yearning to believe. Though the lyrics speak of hope, Elvis turns them into a cry, as if reaching for one last sliver of light in engulfing darkness. 'I am alone', he seems to be saying. But maybe, just maybe, we can find someone or something to cling to. In his case, it's God. But each of us, hearing him, reaches for our own salvation; if great art needs nakedness (then), those few minutes of Elvis alone at the piano amount to the most naked performance I've ever witnessed."

"Forty one years ago this week, as the BBC's correspondent in Washington DC, I was filming an interview with a lawyer about political corruption when his secretary burst in. 'Oh my God,' she cried, putting her hands to her face. 'Elvis Presley's dead!' Without a word, my cameraman and I packed up and headed to Washington's National Airport. When we landed in Memphis, it was late. Early on the next morning, we were outside Graceland when I was suddenly aware of a very big man next to me. 'Mr Cole,' he said, very firmly, 'I am the Deputy Sheriff of Memphis. I am commanded by the Presley family to invite you to visit with the deceased. He then took me by the elbow eventually ushering me through the doors to a scene I shall never forget. In the hall, a coffin had been placed on trestles. Behind it, in a sombre arc, stood members of the Presley family, including Elvis's ex-wife Priscilla, daughter Lisa Marie, and his father Vernon. One by one, I shook hands with them, extending my arm across the coffin where the greatest singer of the 20th century lay dead at the age of 42. Twenty years later, in 1997, I was telephoned by a BBC producer. He said he was making a programme about cults. He said they looked through all the newspaper, radio and television coverage when Elvis died and were sure that I had been the first person to report that some people were refusing to believe that he was dead. What he didn't ask was how I could know for sure that it was Elvis in the coffin. And of course, I couldn't as I had never seen him in the flesh before that morning. So, when you next read about Elvis Presley being spotted, aged 83, down at the chip shop or on the Moon, you now know who to blame: Me."

"You see through the eyes of Queen Victoria how she saw the world. When she was young, she drew ballerinas, opera scenes, melodrama, but when she was older she drew landscapes, children, very domestic, simple things. Also tremendously helpful to me were my own own two personal encounters with Queen Elizabeth II, who in 2015 succeeded her great-great grandmother Victoria, as the longest-reigning British monarch. Our first meeting was at the premiere of Dr. Who, at which time the she told me that to travel through time and space must be fun. I next saw her at a polo match. What was most interesting and helpful was how people responded to her. The Queen's presence, as opposed say, that of Elvis Presley, was a hushed silence followed by calm..."

"This sound is like burnished gold, it shines. In Elvis's voice the ants will hear manifest destiny."

"I accidentally met Elvis in 1967 in Palm Springs, California. I was 15 years old, and had just finished marching in a parade with the high school drill team and band.All of a sudden, one of my pals shrieked, "There's Elvis Presley!" I looked across the street and there he was. My girlfriends and I ran across four lanes of traffic to see him up close. He looked tan, healthy, trim, was very cordial, charming even, to the people who had gathered in the crowd, signing things they handed to him. After several minutes, he thanked everyone and said he needed to go inside to see his dentist, I, being an overly excitable 15-year-old, yelled from the outskirts of the crowd, "Please, Elvis, just one more signature!"He looked over the heads in the crowd, smiled at me, and said, "Okay, just one more."And he let me through and I stood there, looking up at Elvis Presley.Gobsmacked doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. He asked me what I wanted him to sign and I realized I had nothing. So I said, "Sign my back. I meant the back of my shirt, but he lifted my hair and placed the pen on the back of my neck and started writing. "Sign the back of my shirt." I said. I could feel the pressure of his pen on my back and as he wrote he spelled out, "T-h-e b-a-c-k o-f m-y s-h-i-r-t" as though he were signing my exact words.I turned around and said, "Is that what you wrote?" And he gave me that curled-lip grin and said, "No, honey, I wrote my name." And he went inside the dentist's office..."

"Run by controversial ex-Lotus boss, Dany Bahar, and based on the Lamborghini Huracan, the Project Panther is designed to be a modern interpretation of the DeTomaso Pantera. Produced between 1971 and 1992, the Pantera was initially powered by a Ford V8 engine making around 250kW of power, before later models pushed that figure closer to 265kW. But the car isn't famous for its engine, nor its rakish good looks. Instead, it's best known as the car Elvis Presley shot. He bought a Pantera for then-girlfriend Linda Thompson. After a fight, he tried to leave in a blaze of V8-powered burnout smoke but the car refused to start. So rather than giving it the last laugh, Presley whipped out his revolver and fired three shots, leaving two holes in the steering wheel and one in the floor. As far as we can tell, there are no bullet holes in Bahar's modern re-interpretation...."

"Thomas A Dorsey's "Peace in the Valley" became one of the most popular songs during WWII. When the war was over, it might have been forgotten altogether if it wasnt for a single performance on January 6, 1957, when Elvis Presley dedicated it to the 250,000 Hungarian refugees fleeing a Soviet Invasion. Thanks to that performance more than US$6m. were raised."

"I've come up under people that were before me that inspired me: Elvis Presley, Little Richard, you name it from back in the day, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone. All these cats had not only music, but they had expressions in what they wore.""

"Elvis Presley did more to change the course of popular music and youth culture than any other entertainer in the twentieth century, beginning with his meeting Sam Phillips in 1954, at the Sun Records label, in Memphis. In 1956, for Presley's first single at RCA, producer Steve Sholes was adamant that Phillips' sonic treatments be adhered to, as closely as possible. So, in attempting to recreate the Sun echo sound, Sholes relied on the ambiance of RCA's then-cavernous recording studio in Nashville, rather than the tape-delay method; the major problem facing Sholes was Presley's tendency to get carried away with the music and wander away from the microphone; so, rather than spoil the singer's fun, Sholes decided to position three microphones around Presley to capture his quivering voice, no matter where he strayed; the results were breathtaking."

"Elvis was danger, and passion and sex, and he broke all those barriers."