Guitarists From The United States

"I thought Janet Leigh, who played my part in the movie, was beautiful and that Kay Medford should have done the mother. Maureen Stapleton is a brilliant actress, but she’s not funny and Kay was funny. Somebody else should have played the Elvis Presley part. That’s my opinion, but who the hell am I?"

"I never quite “got” Elvis until after his death, but now I fully understand people's fascination with him. That man could really sing. He reinvented himself more times than David Bowie and I remember dancing to this song with the most beautiful woman in the world."

"On my radio show, I recall hearing Elvis Presley's “Heartbreak Hotel” playing on my Aunt Babe's radio. It was my most impactful musical memory. That happened when I was six and it just slayed me. Nothing would ever be the same."

"For me, he was always "Saint Elvis", so when I had the chance to sing in Las Vegas at a luxury hotel and as back up to the Smothers' Brothers act, I immediately rushed to the Hilton, where he was appearing. Just his entrance was out of this world, indescribable and peerless, and, as singer he always pushed the envelop, an amazing performer all the way to the end"."

"A Graceland expansion would mean economic growth. Representatives with Elvis Presley Enterprises told the council that this decision would be a big deal for the city, with local impact over the next 30 years expected to be $9.3 billion dollars."

"Although many people have a hard time defining charisma, they believe they know it when they see it. Most will agree that certain historical leaders, say like Presidents Kennedy, FDR, Ronald Reagan and leaders of social movements, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, as well and celebrities like Elvis Presley all had charisma. But when it comes to the specific political leader that people support, charisma may be in the eye of the beholder. Charismatic leadership, as theorized by sociologist, Max Weber, was primarily in the relationship between leader and followers. According to Weber, certain followers are drawn to a particular leader and imbue that individual with charisma. An emotional bond forms between leaders and followers, and as long as the followers are happy with their chosen, charismatic leader, all is well. One thing is certain, however. In order to be considered charismatic an individual has to have the ability to connect with and “captivate” followers. So what is the common element that underlies charisma potential? It seems to be the ability to communicate emotionally to others – to be able to inspire them with emotions communicated nonverbally."

"My orchestra shall always aim to create a vibrant atmosphere bringing Sostakovich, Ravel, Elvis and Sinatra together."

"Elvis was huge in the fifties, had his troubles in the sixties, but he came roaring back in the seventies, when he was huge all over again. He took over Vegas and made the town his own. When he was playing the Hilton, everyone was happy because business trickled down from this show to everywhere else. I'd only met him in passing, but people kept saying he was a big fan of mine. I was flattered but never really believed it. Then one night, when I'm on stage at the Sahara, there he is, with his girlfriend, Linda Thompson, and they are heading for the stage. The audience goes nuts, and all I can say is "Elvis it's great to see you. Looks like you got enough gold around your neck to sink the Titanic. "He laughs and his eyes tell me he's feeling no pain. "Mr. Rickles" he says, "I have a poem I'd like to read in your honor". And I said "Thank you, Elvis. I really appreciate it. Please do". The poem is flowery and no one knows what it's about, so when he's through I say: "Elvis, we love you. You're a genius and a gentleman for gracing my stage. Now, do me a favor, take your chain, belt and cape and go home.""

"As I tell my kids now, ‘No, I didn’t know Abraham Lincoln.’ But Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr, I had a chance to meet, and know. But I missed Elvis and I regret that. I was too young when he died."

"Good records just get better with age. But the one that really turned me on, like an explosion one night, listening to Radio Luxembourg on my little radio when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, was “Heartbreak Hotel”. That was the stunner. I'd never heard it before, or anything like it. I'd never heard of Elvis before. It was almost as if I'd been waiting for it to happen. I'm supposed to be asleep; I'm supposed to be going to school in the morning Then, “Since my baby left me” – it was just the sound. It was the last trigger. That was the first rock and roll I heard. It was a totally different way of delivering a song, a totally different sound, stripped down, burnt, no bullshit, no violins and ladies' choruses and schmaltz, totally different. It was bare, right to the roots that you had a feeling were there but hadn't yet heard. I've got to take my hat off to Elvis for that. The silence is your canvas, that's your frame, that's what you work on; don't try and deafen it out. That's what “Heartbreak Hotel” did to me. It was the first time I'd heard something so stark. Then I had to go back to what this cat had done before. Luckily I caught his name. The Radio Luxembourg signal came back in. “That was Elvis Presley, with ‘Heartbreak Hotel.'” sh*t!"

"I owe Elvis Presley my career and the entire music business owes him its lifeline..."

"I want to thank Jim Carrey, one of my biggest fans, then Will Smith, my Mama, Elvis Presley, J. Cruz, Cece, Power 106, my girl, my kids and Eddie Murphy.""

"As far as rock, he was the boss..."

"On board I sing a song that Andrew Lloyd Webber and I wrote for Elvis, “It’s Easy for You.” We have a little Elvis interlude. When I was a spotty 15-year-old, Elvis was my hero, and I never dreamt that many years later, he would sing a song that we wrote. When he was in Vegas, we met his music publisher, Freddy Bienstock, and he said, "Oh, Elvis’s always looking for good songs.” This was after Elvis had broken up with Priscilla Presley, and we wrote “It’s Easy for You,” about leaving a wife and child for another woman. In 1977 it came out: It was the last track on the last album he recorded before he died. It's the one song many people haven't heard, but one I think they enjoy very much in the shows."

"When I was a child of 5 or 6, I loved my little record player, but, other than children's storytelling albums, I owned only two albums — both gospel: Johnny Cash's “The Holy Land" and Elvis Presley's Gospel."

"The 146.5 million cumulative RIAA Album Awards, spanning 101 separate Gold (or higher) albums, makes Elvis the earner of the most Gold and Platinum Album Awards of any artist in the history of the RIAA"

"Elvis Presley was a legend, even in my homeland of Korea. When I received a phone call from a man who identified himself as Elvis Presley and told me that he was interested in continuing his studies in the martial arts under my direction, it occurred to me that this was most probably someone's idea of a joke; however, several hours later, I found myself seated behind my desk with him, seated across from me. Elvis then told me that it was at Master Ed Parker's suggestion that he contacted me. I was more than flattered, I was overwhelmed. He then insisted on training in regular classes with other students. He quickly realized that students were watching him rather than paying attention in the class so he asked me to arrange a demonstration which would allow the students to view his technique and see that he was attending class as a martial artist, not as an entertainer. I selected a day when a promotion (rank advancement) test was already scheduled and combined the two events. I selected this day because Elvis particularly enjoyed working with children and the student to be tested was a boy. Elvis was very humble. As a student of the martial arts, he was physically strong, his technique was excellent, one of the best. He was a master entertainer and a master showman, but he was also a Master human being. In many ways, Elvis taught me more than I taught him."

"I got to meet Elvis, an adorable, sweet Southern boy as charming as he could be. No wonder all the girls fell all over him.He was as wonderful in person as he was on the screen. He didn't want to make some of those films at all, but you know, you have to do what you have to do and now Elvis is gone, we're lucky we have what he did do."

"One day, when I was very very young, We ended up playing poker. During the game he casually asked one of his entourage about the new Chrysler car that was released that day and then handed him a wad of cash and said, ‘ Go get one.’ ‘ Any special colour?’ ‘ Nah, I don’t care’ he said ii) Had he done "A star is born" he would have been incredible, like Streisand wanted him to""

"Many of them had camped out overnight, and on the morning of June 7 they filed through the estate's famous iron gates. That day, 3,000 Elvis Presley fans paid $5 to be the first to visit Graceland, the mansion where he had lived and found dead in 1977 at the age of 42. Moving through the gaudy Southern mansion, as Reuters described it, fans saw the trophy building, with its gold records and costumes, the living room's stained-glass peacocks, and the meditation gardens, where Elvis was buried. Paul Simon made a pilgrimage to Graceland in song, and Bruce Springsteen actually leaped over the wall in 1976. But in 1957, it was just a nice, colonnaded mansion in the Memphis suburbs that Elvis, then 22, bought for his parents for $102,500. Today 600,000 people a year visit Graceland, and it lives on in dreams."

"Take a track like "One Sided Love Affair"(1956), and really examine every nuance of his voice, every caress, every tease and every growl that he lets loose for the song's duration, and you`ll you come to understand that the reason Presley's voice has been so often imitated is because it was unique and, furthermore, fuckin' great; no phony piano intro, not even a puerile lyric could have ever stopped him from turning this song into a real classic; imagine, then, how great it is when Elvis gets to sing material that is up to his standards — like on the Sun Records label song "Tryin' To Get You" (1955) - , probably the bluesiest song on this record, where Presley shows a sense of determination, not just a combination of nobleness and sex, but an expression of guts as well; quite simply, this is a guy who knows what he wants, and knows he's gonna get it, and his confidence – never arrogance –, is so contagious that by the end of the song, you believe it too."

"In the mid-60s, when Elvis was making those godawful movies and my friends and I were buying albums by the Stones and the Yardbirds, a mate and I would always go to see Elvis on the big screen; we knew the formula and always used to laugh about them afterwards, but what I also remember is what used to happen in the cinema: not long after the opening credits the audience would start talking and laughing through the dialogue – but the second Elvis sang everyone would stop and listen; Elvis' voice had that effect, even when he was considered as a joke by a generation grown up on tougher music and rock musicians who seemed much more rebellious, dangerous and innovative; so, for me, it has always been about the music and even when he was all but lost to us, in those final years, you can still hear that raw passion flare up; and I defy anyone, knowing that he had just separated from his wife and was heartbroken, to listen to "Always on my Mind" and "Fool", and not be moved; you can hear a man whose heart is breaking; listening to the best of his music, whether it be raw rock'n'roll or those genuinely heart aching ballads, confirms for me that Elvis has never left the building."

"Then, like Alice through the looking glass, I stepped through a door still bearing a desiccated Christmas wreath, and that's when everything got awesome. Graceland's formal rooms are all white carpet and gold trimmings and mirrors. With its hide-covered furniture and lamps hanging from chains and vines draping a stone wall, the Jungle Room did not disappoint, but downstairs was the real action: a room with three televisions embedded in the walls, a sectional sofa with sequin-bedecked pillows, a mirror-topped coffee table bearing a bizarre porcelain creature of indeterminate origin gazing toward the door, and a billiards room with walls and ceiling entirely upholstered in pleated floral fabric that might have been fashioned by a seamstress on mushrooms. Somehow it felt like more than checking off an item on a bucket list. Maybe it had something to do with a dawning sense that I was moving past the delayed gratifications of motherhood, past the time of putting off what I wanted to do. Or maybe it had something to do with coming full circle, of making a vow just as our marriage was beginning and finally seeing it through just as we were on the verge of being alone again. Mirror after mirror, there I was, right in the heart of Graceland: smiling and smiling and smiling. Unquote"

"I am a big fan of Elvis music. He shaped the future of rock and roll and I would take my daughter and my mum who is 85 and lots more family and friends to Graceland. It would be a great trip"

"A decision to get vaccinated isn’t made by each of us, individually, looking at available information and making a choice for ourselves. In other words, it’s not necessarily about the evidence. It’s about something bigger. People tend to respond to community norms. If we think about it, it’s somewhat logical. We tend to look to people who we think are either similar to us or who share our beliefs. There have been previous public health campaigns, for instance, that provided information from breast cancer to polio. In fact, in a more unified era, giving Elvis Presley his polio vaccine during a staged photo op attempted the same feat."

"He did have talent, that excitement. We knew the effect he had on future singers and players. I ran out and bought a guitar after I saw him."

"The first time I met him I was blown away, I just looked at him and said, 'damn, you about the best looking thing I ever did see, kinda wish I was a girl right now, Elvis."

"In 1968, he moved into Las Vegas quickly. He bought a piece of land across from the Flamingo Hotel. It was 80 acreHe was originally the landlord for that property, and he made millions on that deal. He then shortly thereafter bought an off-strip property, the first one that had ever been done.That’s where the International Hotel was built. It was a very, very expensive property at the time, it was off-strip. The first two people to appear in the show room there were Barbara Streisand and Elvis Presley and that was the beginning of Kirk Kerkorian’s ascension as the largest power broker in Las Vegas."

"In 1958 at the age of 17 Otis started his professional singing career, briefly touring with the “Pat Tea Cake” band before forming his own band, “The Pinetoppers” in 1959, with well known Macon guitarist Johnny Jenkins. The Pinetoppers performed Elvis songs and country music songs in the Macon area. They also toured on the “Chitlin’ circuit," a network of black nightclubs throughout the Southeast and the white frat house circuit across the Deep South."

"There's something a little unsettling, a little frightening, about the best and earliest music recorded by Elvis Presley. I'm thinking about the magical and mystical Sun Records recordings from 1954 and 1955, about the obviously haunting "Blue Moon" and about the lonely, lonely "Tomorrow Night", but I'm also thinking about the more upbeat "Mystery Train" whose haunted history reaches back to Junior Parker, the Carter Family, and deep into the haunted places of American music, both black and white. The music is spare, almost hollow. Elvis's voice is at once both youthful and ancient, exuberant and lost, its echo like a shadow cast upon the ages."

"Channeling our inner Elvis with some help from the best in the business. What a night ."

"I'd already discovered black music with Big Jay McNeely at the Blue Sax in North Hollywood and made the blues-jazz connections, so I wanted to experience this Elvis thing. He was a support act to Freddy Martin at the Frontier, a fancy supper club that we couldn't afford. So I persuaded the guys to pool cash and we came up with $10, then charmed a waitress to let us dine on rolls while we watched the show. From the moment Presley started with “Hound Dog”, I was a convert. It was electrifying, a validation, to see these stuffed-shirt socialites who'd come to see Freddy Martin clamp up in reverence. I thought, Hey, a kid with nothing, from nowheresville, can do this!”"

"In 2023, I was singing Elvis Presley songs at a Bury Market pub. Now, two years later, I’m on one of the biggest stages in the world singing my own songs'"

"Because in a team full of rock stars, he is Elvis Presley."

"One Friday night, Tapp and the "Hee Haw" honchos were flying to Hollywood, with the flight stopping in Memphis. So they were sitting in first class, taking up almost all the seats and on came Elvis Presley with his entourage including Col. Parker, with Tapp now sitting beside Presley. He sat across from them, kept looking and finally said, ‘Why do I know you? Is it from on a show?” Presley told Tapp. Yes, Tapp said, It is ""Hee Haw". “You hear that?? They’re from Hee Haw!!!!” the King told his court. “We stop our show everyday until Hee Haw’s over, then we proceed,” Presley said. “It was quite a compliment,” Tapp said, smiling."

"He epitomized America and for that we shall eternally be grateful. There will never be anyone else like him, so lets just rejoice with his music."

"Historically famous as the birthplace of Elvis, the small northeastern Mississippi city of Tupelo is now also known as an amazing place to live. Forming a triangle with Memphis and Nashville, Tupelo shares a lot of similarities with the two booming cities – including an incredible musical scene, culinary hot spots, and rich history – but unlike its two unchecked growth neighbors to the north, Tupelo has retained all of its character, charm, and, happily, low prices."

"My mom ans her sisters sang in churches and in 1956 there was an Elvis tour in Arkansas and he asked them to sing back-up for him. Unreal....."

"I’m inclined to sympathize with Presley in the controversy he’s stirred up. He’s accused of inciting juvenile delinquents. That’s ridiculous. You can’t tie a delinquent kid to a hit record by Presley. Charges against him are unfounded, unfair, and bigoted. People resent his success. He’ll be around a lot longer than most of them think. And his records have stimulated a controversy that’s helped the whole record industry—we have Elvis to thank.”"

"When I think about my family, I listen to André Rieu, a violinist and conductor who is very popular in Europe ( but), when I think about living like it’s my last day on earth, I listen to Elvis Presley"

"We don’t mail Elvis a Social Security check, no matter how many people think he is alive."

"i) In the early 1950's I DJ'ed in a radio program called "Hillbilly Bandwagon". This was before country music was called country music. So, one day, a guy walks in by the name of Elvis Presley. This was before he was really famous, age 19, I guess. He had come to plug his records at our station, so I had a brief conversation with him. Of course, I was always very proud to have met him, but my wife when I told the story too often, she finally looked at me, smiled as only a wife can smile, and said "I can beat that, HOG...."", That is how she calls me when she is going to tell me something awesome, and that was when I found out my wife had dated Elvis when she was 16 years old. And now she never ceases to remind me, you know, that if things had gone differently, Elvis Presley would be alive today and anchoring the CBS News ii) Fidel Castro could have been Cuba's Elvis."

"I've always said I wish my life could be like an Elvis movie, say "Roustabout and "King Creole. And that if "Cold Case" came back today, and we could could reunite, that we somehow were able to discover that Elvis is still alive."

"I would have loved to sing a duet with my childhood idols, Elvis and Piaf. And I will soon, thanks to new technology"

"Musicians like Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston were strongly rooted in gospel music and in the same vein, many musicians of Christian faith begin their musical journey young. In fact, lessons and performances take place in and around the church."

"A singer, at work, is usually thinking only about making it through the song without flubbing it. Look what's involved: breathing plausibly, remembering the lyrics, nailing the high notes, staying with your band or chorus, maintaining a soulful facial expression and looking good. You might also be whacking a guitar. And -- because Presley did -- you also have to move, oscillate, arm-wrestle with the microphone, throttle it, skid across the stage on your knees, fling your head back and spread your arms; and then you want to salt it with what you possess of art...he flings his voice up beyond the grip of gravity, and then surrenders, like a skater in a leap."

"I had done some soundtrack things earlier in the sixties with him. I never felt Elvis was a man out of time. What you have to understand is that his music never died. You know, at the time, a lot of people were saying he didn’t have a hit record for a couple of years; his career is over. I never thought that at all. It never would enter my mind. Because I know, from the first time I saw him on Ed Sullivan to the days I got to work with him, that this guy could go on forever. The only guy who will stop this guy from going on is himself. That night in 1968 I got the Elvis call. I remember one thing, it was on a Saturday and we all were making a fortune. Double scale. Golden time. Big time. I know this was a little different for Elvis working with us. Sometimes he sang live with us and sometimes he overdubbed. As a matter of fact he sat down at the piano with me a few times for me to straighten out the part he had to sing on ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ We were on the incidental and interstitial music that was all over the soundtrack. What’s more important than hearing Elvis in headphones is that I got to hear him as a human being, having chats, going back and forth. He had a musicality to him. Look, Elvis has innate musical skills. I guess we were all taking Elvis into a different world. It was a completely different thing for him from the A band, or the Memphis band. Just having the Blossoms on the sessions. Elvis loved the Blossoms. He knew Darlene Love and he was now playing with the Wrecking Crew. Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Mike Deasy, Tommy Morgan, Chuck Berghoffer, Frank De Vito, vocal contractor BJ Baker and yoursutruly."

"Even as a child, I studied him. I watched videos, I read books, I found every song I could possibly find. One of my favorites was a collection of early Sun Records recordings that included outtakes, and I would just listen over and over to the sound of this young, uncertain, shy Elvis continually and frustratingly f*** up the same song over and over again. And Sam Phillips saying ‘don’t get so damn close to the mic, Elvis.’ Just getting to hear that, and getting to hear his voice crack, and something about the nervous laughter of the King himself — I don’t know, it just made me feel like it was OK for me to not be perfect. I loved Elvis so much that I convinced myself that I had a spiritual connection to him. I really thought that when leaned over to buckle my…second daughter into her car seat and I sang ‘Blue Moon’ …and she smiled at me for the very first time. Then I knew I did have a spiritual connection. Even a couple weeks before that, even being invited to this, my oldest daughter, completely unprompted, said ‘I think I have a spiritual connection to Elvis.’ I had never told her — or anyone — that I felt the same for much of my life. So, something about the Ramseys and the Presleys, we got a direct line!”"

"My favourite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are!"

"I grew up playing sports and listening to Elvis Presley, whose music I favored; in fact, when an opera singer came on the "Ed Sullivan Show", I'd think 'Turn this off,'""