Guitarists From The United States

"Representing Elvis is something only dreams are made of..."

"The 2019 arrival of a new BMW 3 Series as an event that resets the parameters of the executive car class, because every time a new one comes along, it usually succeeds in smashing its key rivals and becoming the car to beat. It is as momentous in the motoring world as the Apollo moon landings or the death of Elvis."

"They did a survey not too long ago about how many people believe Elvis is really dead. And if I remember correctly, it was around 20 percent thought it was some government plot, that Elvis was still alive somewhere, and the government was served well by promoting the idea that he died when he was still alive. And I like Elvis. But I’m pretty sure he’s dead"

"We have a mutual friend who uses the phrase "That’s skinny Elvis", all day long when describing something cool"

"As a musician, I was inspired by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Beethoven and Chopin and so I will always be the same Michele, but with different moods. We are going to have a lot of rough and strong things but a lot of emotion, too. As far as the lyrics are concerned, it will be more mature."

"He is the best ever, the most original, started the ball rolling for us and deserves the recognition."

"It probably will require a hurricane to de-contaminate this area properly after hix appearance here. I know hundreds, and there must be thousands, who deplore the type of music that is being fed to the younger elements of our community. Let us hope that those who feel as do will make themselves heard so that something may be done to curb the mouthings of that avaricious maniac."

"Just pretend everyone in the audience is sitting there in their underwear."

"I never met a more polite kid in my life."

"Elvis, yes! Elvis was my man. You know, I used to go up and view his shows."

"i) My delight in dating Elvis hinged entirely on one fact. I knew that no one could possibly make Marlon Brando more jealous. I wanted to get even, Brando had done me wrong, so I went from one kind of king to another. I dated Elvis, who was absolutely gorgeous and had a perfect kind of face, but he was not interesting to me. When Brando saw a photo of us two, in the papers, he was furious, he threw chairs, It was wonderful. ii) When he took the polio vaccine, he was wonderful, a fabulous and important advocacy which should continue to work with today's celebrities vis a vis the COVID 19 pandemia."

"I want to be like Marlon Brando, dress like James Dean, and sing Like Elvis Presley,""

"Sam Phillips used what we call 'slapback' or 'tape delay', which lent an otherworldly patina to Presley's voice. And I don't know if Sam was really conscious of it at the time, but if you listen to old pop and country records back then, the voice was always so much farther out from the music; Sam kept Elvis' voice close to the music, so, in essence, Elvis' voice became another instrument."

"Dot continued to travel between Britain and America when I was out there, in between her tours and engagements. In Los Angeles, she once appeared at the 'Moulin Rouge' club in Hollywood, one of her biggest fans being a young Elvis Presley, who attended most of her performances and repeatedly asked her to sing 'This Is My Mother's Day!' He came backstage and, being very nervous, introduced himself to me – as though I didn't know who he was.'Hello, I'm Roger,' I said.'How are you, sir?' he asked.'Lovely to meet you, sir.' He insisted on calling me 'sir' throughout our chat, and acted as though he was in awe of me. Him! In awe of me! Elvis then told Dot how much he admired her and hoped he might have just a little of the success she had achieved. If only he knew. If only I knew!"

"I thought anyone who had been the center of all that insanity for so long would have some of it rub off on him. But, after working in "Change of Habit" with him, I realized I'd never worked with a more gentlemanly, kinder man. He was gorgeous."

"He was pioneer of doing a little bit of everything, a triple threat, so yes I am following on his footsteps."

"He was a nice young man. There was no problem with him at all. I worked as his drill sergeant for about a month after Elvis was drafted into the service. During his time at Fort Hood Elvis was treated like all other soldiers, and not as THE rock 'n' roll superstar he then was. He wanted to be a tanker, taking armored training. I think it was great to be exposed to a person like that."

"It hosted presidents and one king — Elvis Presley in 1955,”."

"Elvis gave us a second career'. In his beginnings, he told us he had always enjoyed singing `Precious Lord Take My Hand." That was one of his favorite songs"

"To me Elvis Presley's best records came after he got out of the Army. I mean, just his delivery. “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” and “Surrender” and “Little Sister,” “His Latest Flame,” “She’s Not You,” even some of the early movie songs like “Follow That Dream” and “King Of The Whole Wide World” that I list among my all-time favorites. But, rock ‘n’ roll purists think that after 1957 there isn't anything any good. I think this is so far off base it's laughable."

"Frankly speaking, I don't know much about rock and roll music and I enjoyed some when I was in high school and college. But I stopped listening after Elvis Presley..."

"He's all for love and who else can give you this? Elvis Presley for President!"

"I never met him until I was in a rehearsal, in 1969, and he just walked up one time – I'd worked with him with the Sweets for 6 months I think – and he said, "Hey Stump – how you doin?" and shook my hand. I was shocked, because I didn't know that the man knew my name & stuff. You know, Rick Nelson was really good looking but he couldn't touch EP. I mean that man Elvis was something else! When I first saw him – I'm not gay at all – I thought man – this man is really cool neat cat, man! Anyways, i was with him in August of 1974 when he, Jerry and Red painted a female figure drawn into a mural located in the west wall of the Showroom Internationale, as if she was black. They waited until 3 am, got some ladders and black paint, and Elvis did the painting."

"Elvis had an open time period, and I think Colonel Parker remembered all the fan mail that kids wrote from Hawaii. So to fill that one date that they needed, they decided to come, and that's why he came to in November of 1957"

"I never saw him off the set, but twice, and yet I considered him one of the best friends. A real southern gentleman he was. One of the nicest persons I have ever met in my entire life."

"Actually my dad saw Elvis before he was well known. In mid November of 1954, he and mom were down in New Orleans staying with Frank and Isabell Monteleone, who owned the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter in New Orleans. On the weekend, they went to their place in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The Monteleones said, “There’s a little club about a half hour from here. They’ve got this singer there, and we ought to go up and see him.” Then, after seeing him and when my dad was preparing his original written story of "Thunder Road", he wanted Elvis to play his younger brother Robin Doolin. In 1957, my parents as usual had a Christmas party, and they invited Elvis to discuss the matter. My mom served us some delicious roast beef and I remember at the end of the party and after everybody had left, my dad and Elvis were at the piano taking turns playing and singing songs. My dad loved jazz and knew a lot of Southern jazz songs. Dad would be like, “Do you know this one?” I sat there half the night listening to them. At 13 years old, I knew who Elvis Presley was. It was something. Elvis wanted to play the part, but his manager Colonel Parker claimed that Elvis had too many obligations to fulfill and too many film contracts already pending to take on my dad's project. But I think the real problem was that Parker was unhappy that someone had gotten straight to Elvis without going through him..."

"I listened to some absolute dross when I was young... we weren’t all lucky enough to grow up to Elvis"

"My parents brought home Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" and I would sit there, on my stomach, with my face right at this little record player, playing that song over and over and over. I didn't know what Elvis looked like, what any of this was about, all I knew was there was some kind of groove and energy coming off it. That is when I lost interest in playing Kick the Can or Red Rover with the neighbourhood kids and with a gift of his first guitar, I became a bit of a withdrawn kid who loved being at home strumming my guitar.”"

"You see, pop music was something else in that time, dancing to Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, and the Everly Brothers. However, this was before the landscape went through a dumb vanilla period that allowed folks like me to flourish – by which point, I bought an instrument and started to sing"

"Lesson #1 is that rock music is in the fighting spirit, not in the amperage of the guitars; indeed, some of the toughest rocking has come from all, or mostly acoustic bands; Elvis presented a primer lesson from the famous Sun sessions, with a simple blues song through the most famous faux false start in rock history; he and the boys start out all slow and bluesy, before stopping the band cold and calling it out like the hippest beat poet: 'Hold it fellas. That don't... move me. Let's get real, real gone for a change'. Then they did, let it loose, turned every bit of intensity in their beings into a jumping arrangement, much faster and more rhythmically nuanced a performance than the opening. Much of the intensity is in the fast and furious, but precisely laid out detail work; there is a strong sense of spontaneity and discovery, but what ultimately makes this a hall-of-fame performance is the vocal performance; Elvis doing tricks, making sudden octave wide jumps. "If you see my milkcow..." There is a charismatic determination of spirit that Nietzsche would no doubt have recognized as the will to power; when the King got through with it, it was no longer anything to do with a high calcium drink, but about the singer's assertion of his place in the universe."

"At his big New Year's Eve party, I got to sit and talk with him and it was just great. He was the voice of my generation and I had a million questions to ask him, but all he wanted was to talk about that session of 'Kentucky Rain,'. "More thunder on the piano, Milsap,' he had said when we recorded it. I then asked him if he would like to get up and sing and added that we knew all his songs. 'No, I want to sit here with my friends and not have to worry about singing". He knew we did know how to play his songs, and all, but he didn't want to get up and sing and that was fine with me. It was his party."

"Elvis loved karate and his moves on stage, in the 70s, were karate inspired. One day in 1971 he went to see my show, then invited me to go see his at the International, so on the way there, at the elevator, I found myself in the company of Alice Cooper, Chubby Checker and the most popular porn star at that time, Linda Lovelace, all of whom were also invited by Elvis. So there we were in the biggest suite in Las Vegas, waiting for him to greet us when he finally came out, but dressed in a karate gi. He did a couple of moves until, out of nowhere, another man jumped in front of us, like the butler in the Pink Panther movie who comes our of the closet and attacks his master and I said.. Gee, that's great!!!"

"And he came from East Tupelo, jumping at all of us, a carnal, metallic hero shamelessly imitated, a glorious founder. Even today it seems like I remember everything about him, especially how he defined the myth and monument of the culture of contemporary expressionism. He invented everything and led a ship which we could all board, and led many to sing everything when all we would have done without him is sing boleros. He was rock and roll, is today and shall always be tomorrow. God bless Elvis Presley."

"Rock and roll is that center place between country and blues and R&B and gospel. When I think of rock and roll, the first person I think of is Elvis Presley. And yeah, he did ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ but he also did those crazy tender ballads. To me, that's still rock and roll.”"

"But she got her own back because when she got a little bit older, she dated Elvis Presley, who I was madly in love with, of course, as was everybody at the time. So I think that kind of compensated for it being the "back of a head" in the film."

"My sister could sing opera if she wanted, and we used to sing duets together like the Ponselle Sisters, and I also enjoy classic Bette Midler, Barbara Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland. Of today's voices, Madonna, Mary J. Blige -- people who know how to communicate--. And I love Elvis Presley. Quite a nice mix!"."

"And I got cast in "Sun Records" when I was 17, still in high school, and through an open call audition, me and my mum drove up and I had to kind of fight my way in there. I was too young to really audition but fought my way still. And then I got a call two weeks later that I had the part. And since I had applied to college, I kind of just said, 'Hey, I'm going to treat this as my college experience'. And I went and did that movie.It definitely changed my life."

"In the eleventh grade Elvis and I were in Miss Thompson's Civics class. He was a class clown and in the middle of our mid-term exams with everyone concentrating on the test, he called from the back of the room in a loud voice “Miss Thompson, Miss Thompson,” “What Elvis?” she answered. Then he asked “Why did the chicken cross the road?” The whole class broke up laughing except, of course, Miss Thompson. She quickly replied “See me after class, Elvis""

"Our culture includes Elvis Presley, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash, Jackie Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Douglas Macarthur, Milton Friedman, Edgar Allen Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Edison and again, for emphasis, Elvis Presley....."

"My dad was riding down Sunset Boulevard on his motorcycle when suddenly, a limo pulled up next to him. The driver rolls down his window and says, 'Sir, I have Elvis Presley in the car and he'd like to meet you. After they had spent some time together, dad began to exit the limo when Presley stopped him with a surprise request: his autograph!!!"

"After about an hour a few of the guys walked out of the huge room and the others kept talking to me. And I'm assuming now when I think back that the ones that left went to Elvis and probably told him that I was OK. So as I was talking to the other guys, literally without turning my head or looking to any side, that was when I felt this huge, huge presence. It's completely unexplainable and I felt this energy and I turned to my right and I looked and there standing in the doorway was Elvis Presley. And he was not the Elvis that you would imagine. He had on a simple blue sweatsuit with white stripes down the side of the arms and a little white tennis hat on. He just looked like a guy that was lounging in his house, relaxing with his buddies. And that's the Elvis that I met, no jeans, no T-shirt, no sweater, not one of his big blouse shirts or anything like that- just very normal. I stayed that night until 7 o'clock the next morning. He put on a karate exhibit for me with Sonny and Red West and he had the guys call The Bodhi Tree -and they got me all the spiritual books and brought them over in the middle of the night from the store because he realized I was very spiritual and that we would have that in common."

"I got the job as Sgt. Presley’s escort, probably because I was a professional musician before the Second World War. He was an extremely pleasant, sincere young man who took the time and trouble to speak to everyone he met. The lucky fans who were in the right place at the right time were left with great, lasting memories. While Elvis was only at Prestwick Airport for 90 minutes, his influence on the people that were there lasted a lifetime."

"Elvis was coming down on the left side of the driveway and I jumped out of our jeep. His uncle Vester saw me and said, "Where you going? I was determined to meet Elvis, so he drove me over to him and introduced me. And Elvis said: “How you doing, son?”. Elvis called me son and I’ll never forget it"

"But it was on the gospel numbers, such as the stunning "How great thou art", (1977) that Presley showed the awesome power of his voice. The fact that he has one of the greatest voices in popular music has been obscured by the mystique that has surrounded him."

"People usually mention Freddy Mercury as a lyric singer, but among the baritones, Elvis was the only singer who had the talennt and registry to do that. I own all of his records, he wass terrific."

"Enchanted as I was by the story my mother, an aspiring singer, telling me of meeting Elvis in the early days of his career after witnessing him bring down the house at a live broadcast of "Louisiana Hayride", it became apparent that Elvis was polite, courteous and unassuming, addressed her as "ma'am," shook her hand and thanked her for enjoying the show. I am elated as his now regained role as an unparalleled musician and cultural innovator."

"I wrestled in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa, North America and Mexico. My name, it was like Elvis..."

"He never understood the artistic claims that were made for him, probably thought very little of the nature of his appeal, or his music; yet, as author Greil Marcus points out in "Mystery Train", it is possible to see (all that) as a positive factor; Presley viewed "rock and roll" as for the body, not the mind, so he recorded and performed accordingly; and, if much of his rock music sounds superficial, it was thanks to his undoubted vocal talent and extraordinary charisma that, at least, it was all gloriously superficial and celebratory; he knew better than to take it seriously and, in doing so, he became the consummate rock figure, one that defined its spirit by delighting in its very limitations."

"As I left Princess Diana's funeral service, I was so suddenly struck by the extent of it all that I bottled up all the way home. I was so upset because I really did like Diana, having met with her numerous times. And I always had a laugh with her and really admired her. Most of all, I thought she was so great not to be consumed by everything that had happened to her and to keep giving and giving and giving. I thought she was a really great person – the Elvis of compassion-"

"i) I'm going to be like him one day............ ii) I like to live life. I certainly work hard for it, and I want to have a good time. Don't deny me that. It might not come again and I want to enjoy myself a little. I liked to sing, I don't know, call it natural gift or whatever, you know, I'm not afraid to say it. It's just I like to sing and then I suddenly realized that I could actually write songs and then make my own music rather than before I would, you know, sort of copy Elvis Presley. iv) Why people like David Bowie and Elvis Presley have been so successful? Because they give their audiences champagne for breakfast? No, because they're what the people want."