Elvis Presley

"Elvis Presley's talent brightened millions of lives. He widened the horizons of my world certainly. The first record I ever owned was a 78 rpm of "Hound Dog" backed by "Don't Be Cruel" and when I listened to those tunes I felt about ten feet tall and I grinned so hard that I felt like the corners of my mouth would meet in the back and the tip of my head would simply topple off. All I know about R&R is that it makes people feel good. Elvis Presley more than made me feel good, he enriched my life and made it better."

"In 1970, once Ray had seen Elvis in Las Vegas, now that was what you could call flash, he would say, that was the start of a huge rift between him and the rest of Kinks. Now it was going to be Ray's dressing room, his bottle of champagne, his limo. He obviously had got it in his mind that he was going to be like Elvis and that the rest of us were HIS band."

"I was ushering here in Los Angeles at the "Vogue Theater", that's how I supported myself before I started acting, and about ten o'clock one night a Mercedes Benz 600 Limo bigger than this room, with Elvis in it, pulled up. And I guess at one point in his life Elvis must have made a deal with God, that God would let him be Elvis if Elvis promised he never let anyone forget seeing him. And I say this because when he got out of the Mercedes he was decked out in such a way that, you know, Priscilla Presley is a beautiful woman, right? And she was standing next to him, right? Well, I never saw her. I didn't see anybody and there were 24 people with him. As I was telling you earlier, I was in show business since I was a kid and I was never thrown by any celebrity, but when I saw him walking towards me, I went limp. I froze. And all I could say was "It's the King, It's the King, It's the King, the King's here". And he said, "Thank you very much...""

"Elvis Presley is my favorite singer and my favorite film is "Elvis On Tour"."

"I always have to go back to the way Elvis Presley or James Brown would have held themselves. And Elvis could just sort of stand there and just be very casual and very cool. And James Brown was so acrobatic. And such a showman. Of course, Elvis’ influence on the band extends beyond our live performances. I wanted to outdo my bandmate’s outfits, so I decided to draw inspiration from Elvis' 1970s wardrobe, as well as Elizabeth Taylor’s looks in the film Cleopatra. I would would draw outfits with colored pencils and work with fashion designer Amber Doyle to bring them to life. Some of my outfits are pretty similar to the white jumpsuits Elvis wore during the last leg of his career. In addition, our band has covered the classic early rock ‘n’ roll tune “That’s All Right.” Countless rock ‘n’ roll bands wouldn’t be the same without Elvis’ influence and our band is no exception."

"Today, the price tag for the car and restoration is around NOK 180 million (USD 18 million).."

"This mission, or the extension of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) will let implement such provisions of the Minsk agreement as the disarmament of illegal armed groups, the formation, monitoring and verification of the withdrawal of Russian troops and military hardware, ensure distribution of humanitarian aid, ensure proper conditions for local elections under the OSCE standards. I urge the Security Council once again to take the lead in establishing such a mission. Just two weeks ago, we exchanged a Russian major for one of our hostages. Of course, the Russian side can also claim that Elvis is alive, but no amount of lies will change the facts.""

"My favorite aspect of Presley's career was whatever day it was when he recorded “Suspicious Minds"."

"My first association is Elvis. I was so shocked when I read that he was 42 when he died. That's so young. How can I be older than Elvis when he died? He was the only American that everyone knew in our culture. My father loved him, and it's what we grew up with. He was this godlike creature. The day he died, I was nine. I remember taking the bus to school and someone said ‘Elvis is dead’. And everyone kept saying it: ‘Elvis is dead, Elvis is dead, Elvis is dead’. We didn't cry, because we were too young, but it made such an impression. I can't think of anyone with that kind of influence now."

"I'm in awe of people who've accomplished wonderful things and succeed. It was really something when I met Walter Payton. He was just the most humble person that I had ever met and I just met Beyoncé and I really have a lot of respect and admiration for her and the success that she's had. And when I ran across Elvis Presley""

"i) Watching Elvis perform on the Ed Sullivan Show with my father, I saw how he looked at me, with real horror, that I liked it. Elvis Presley was a beautiful young person whose recordings were just colossally great. But basically the best stuff he ever did was on the Sun record label. ii) In many respects, thinking about it, the movies were a bigger draw to American rockers when they were kids because Elvis wanted to be James Dean and Marlon Brando. I remember being surprised when I heard that Elvis wanted to be a movie star, and that was kind of disappointing because, to me, he was the total rockstar.”"

"I'm working with a studio in the US from January. So maybe mid-year there might be something."

"Last night, at the House of Commons, there was no quorum. Out of our 259 members only 37 were present. The missing ones went with their kids to see Elvis."

"In 1955 I saw Elvis in Amarillo, TX and he told me "Man, if you've got a band and some good songs, get into a recording studio cause something is fixing to happen."

"It's not that President Trump can't win a “war” with Steve Bannon. He can, but if the president is Elvis to Bannon's Ozzy Osborne, well, Ozzy still has his fans."

"i) Yes, I really love Elvis He is the best and a class by himself when he sings rock or ballads or any type of songs. I never get tired of listening no matter how many times I hear him over more than 40 years in my life. Above all, I like his songs, say, ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You’ and ‘Hawaiian Wedding Song’. I almost forgot to say this: my birthday is January 8, the same day of Elvis. ii) Love me tender, love me true..."

"At a time when men of color and white men could not drink out of the same water fountain, my great friend the late Otis Blackwell and Elvis were rocking the world. Now, I'm trying to bring us some new music from Otis, made today in today's feel, but sort of "old school meets new". It's gonna be another 'All Shook Up,' another 'Return To Sender,' I am thanking anyone and everyone right now, because we are going to be a team and do this, and do this together. It was never about color, it wasn't about status, it was about the music."

"My Hulk/Elvis series draws a parallel between Presley's status to that of the Hulk, representing celebrity and pop cult"

"Do what you can to ensure your baby enters the world in the month of January. That's apparently when the brightest and best are most likely to surface, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Social Sciences. Luminaries like Jeff Bezos, legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, NHL great Wayne Gretzky, and such celebrities as David Bowie, Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley were all born in January."

"Elmer nodded hello — we were the only ones at the cemetery — and he took that as an invitation to shuffle over, his generous smile emphasizing how glad he was to meet me. After some small talk, I was anxious to be alone so I could have a silent conversation with my grandmother and he obliged, walking away. This second encounter at the cemetery seemed uncanny. Sorry that I'd brushed him off the first time, I engaged the conversation, learning about his wife, who had passed in 1985. When he jumped to describing how he liked making cheesecake topped with strawberries, his blue eyes brightened. I found him charming. As I left, I told him I'd look forward to running into him again sometime. On my next visit to the cemetery, I was startled: on my grandmother's headstone hung a clear plastic baggie, attached with duct tape, holding a note. In sloppy cursive, above a phone number, it read: “I’m getting things to make cheesecake for you. Call me. Elmer.” Although I had never met an elderly man in the cemetery to receive a homemade cheesecake, I didn't hesitate. His generosity toward my family and me quickly progressed. He volunteered to plant flowers at my grandmother's grave to replace my artificial flowers. He started leaving surprise deliveries on our front porch every week: pumpkins for the kids, treats for our dog, birdseed and Elvis Presley commemorative coins. Gradually, he scaled back on both deliveries and expectations. Some people we pull into our orbit and others, like Elmer, make a surprise landing with flares. For five years, he and I remained friends. A year ago, at 87, he passed away..."

"In a sudden gesture of respect in Las Vegas, Elvis Presley had taken the robe off his back and given it to Ali..."

"When I turned 14, in 1989, I moved to Moscow and discovered the life of underground bohemia, it was the Perestroika years and I became involved with a counterculture circle of Soviet hipsters. We called ourselves “Stilyagi", were all (finally) allowed to listen to Elvis Presley and went to Viktor Tsoi’s concerts."

"Beyond the ambiance, it really is all about the wine, the so-called "one-off" reds, whites and rosés all bottled with artistic labels sold at the winery, online, and as part of Tank Garage's wine club. The production facility doesn't host customers but they do have a special guest in there: Elvis!! They have installed a 40-foot mural of Elvis Presley overlooking the cellar and they often ask themselves while putting together the blends, 'What would Elvis do?"

"On October 28th, 1956. Elvis Presley, who, just a month earlier, had set the world record for most viewed telecast in TV history, takes the stage of the Ed Sullivan Show for the second time. He gyrates through “Don’t Be Cruel,” shakes out “Hound Dog” thus cementing himself in the collective memory of an entire generation one shake, rattle and roll at a time. On October 29th, 1956 the L.A Times columnist Dick Williams writes, “Sexhibitionist Elvis Presley has come at last in person to a visibly palpitating, adolescent female Los Angeles to give all the little girls’ libidos the jolt of their lives.” And while Elvis’ three performances on Ed Sullivan are all well-situated in the pantheon of American music history, Williams thought little of it, concluding, “If any further proof were needed that what Elvis offers is not basically music but a sex show, it was provided last night.” Presley, sober and Christian, saw his act as art. To Williams it was pornography. Elvis was dancing to his own music, consumed with passion. Williams wasn't even listening."

"Love songs are like a fairy tale, but a musical form. Any love songs that are old school, but have a nostalgic feeling to them, I love. My favorite is Elvis ' Can't Help Falling in Love. It's such a romantic song, Whenever you listen to it, it gives you that warm feeling inside, very comforting, that you could find somebody that loves you that much one day."

"It's almost like seeing Elvis."

"When I was first becoming a songwriter, I never would have dreamed that Elvis would sing not just one of my songs but three of them and with so much soul. I feel a lot of gratitude for that."

"It was King Creole, the title of an Elvis movie from 1958, morphing with a south London accent into “King Krule"."

"Thanks to Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley, Aug. 16 forever will be known, to quote a song from my youth, as the day the music died. We don't agree about much as a country and a people now. We find some of the silliest reasons imaginable to turn disagreements into arguments, arguments into fights, fights into brawls and brawls into wars. But most of us did agree about Elvis. And Aretha. More important, we agreed that we wanted to live in a country where stories like theirs were possible. We wanted an America in which the son of an ex-convict Southern sharecropper and day laborer could vault from working as a truck driver to becoming a king. And we wanted a land in which a black, teenage, unwed mother could leap from being in the choir in her father's church to becoming a queen. Elvis and Aretha became royalty the same way – through hard work, by breaking down barriers and by being talented. So talented. Perhaps it was a coincidence that they both died on Aug. 16. Maybe it was a quirk of fate. Possibly a message from the universe. All I know is that, for a lot of us, that date will be the day the music died, the anniversary of when the King and the Queen left us. Long may they reign."

"I was born in the fifties so it's part of my fabric. These were some of the things I had in common with Lemmy, from Motörhead although Lemmy was ten years older and I think he was quite shocked to hear about some of the the music that I listened to because he was going, “How did you know about that?” And the reason that I knew is because I had an older brother and sister. So by the time I was two or three years old, I'm hearing this stuff on their record player and on the radio. My first conscious song that I can remember is “All Shook Up,” by Elvis Presley. I loved that song, really loved that song, and that's my first recollection of music and I just don't know why. It was like I was just attracted to it and I can recall that."

"I started my DJ career nearly 75 years ago in San Francisco, and am still playing the oldies but goodies. In fact I’ve loved radio all my life and I still do, even if things have changed radically since I lured Elvis and Natalie Wood to Scrivner’s drive-in at the corner of Sunset and Cahuenga."

"He was as poor, or more poor than we were and lived around the corner from me. He had an old beat-up guitar and was pretty good with it, even back then. We also played sandlot football and he played with us Negroes all the time. In fact, I clearly recall seeing Elvis and BB King on a street corner playing together during their hungry days. And (all of ) that was before the world knew there was an Elvis Presley."

"Do you think I'm at that level? It's within sight. Well, then, that's more terrifying that you think that.""

"My childhood hero was Elvis Presley and I wanted to emulate his look"

"Number one for me and no one else comes close; ignore for a second that Presley was the most beautiful human being of all time and that he was easily the most electric performer ever; in his prime, he could sing anything (rock, opera, metal, soul, blues, country – no problem); all the wonks will tell you he did his best work at Sun Records, but for me his immense '50s RCA output is so explosive that it puts everyone else to shame; it’s not just that Elvis had an amazing instrument, no one ever had so much fun putting it to use; whirling back and forth from low to high, from raspy to angelically pretty, the only singer ever that could take any song and transform it into something that sounded like it came from somewhere else, a galaxy or two away."

"Elvis was a shy likeable youngster who told me he'd be happy to do half as well for himself as I had done in my career."

"Perhaps the only other voice to touch me (Luciano Pavarotti's voice being the first), was the voice of Elvis Presley; to watch him perform as I did along with Carl (Palmer), and Keith (Emerson), both in 1971 and again later in 1976 was an absolutely awesome and breathtaking experience; like Pavarotti, Presley had the power to reduce most people to tears very quickly and indeed to move them to think very carefully about their inner spiritual beliefs; as far as singing is concerned, the human voice is a matter of the expression of passion in the understanding of the human condition and, upon seeing both of them perform, I very quickly came to realise that they were each capable of expressing more feeling, with their voices, than I had ever thought possible."

"They come here because they want and if they're still shopping at closing time, we don't make them leave. We accommodate our guests. They have driven so many miles and they want to see where it all began. Through the long years, I have learned it's usually best to treat celebrities visiting as regular people. When Steven Tyler and Joe Perry were here, they were in ball caps and we just let them look around. was happy to have his photograph taken, while Facebook founder preferred no photos. was practically unrecognizable in a cap and blue jeans."

"Elvis had an impact on everyone. Elvis and The Beatles. Both of those artists are the reason most of us are musicians, those of us that come along in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I can’t remember if I heard him first, or if I saw his performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show” first. But I had all of his 45s as a kid in the 1950s — “Hound Dog,” Heartbreak Hotel" — all of them."

"My wife and I passed him in the hallway and were impressed by how good he looked, the handsomest guy we ever saw. Minutes later, he went into Barbra Streisand's dressing room. Years later she revealed in an unpublished interview the extraordinary scene that followed. She was alone, sitting at her dressing table when Elvis, whom she had never met, entered. After Elvis closed the door behind him, he said simply, "Hi," and an awkward silence followed. Suddenly he reached over and picked up a bottle of red nail polish from the vanity table. Without a word, he fell to one knee, took Barbra's hand in his and began, slowly and painstakingly, to apply the bright crimson varnish to Barbra's tapering fingernails. The intimacy of the gesture, the supplication of it, stunned Barbra, who stared in fascination as Elvis worked, and when he finished, she mumbled "Thank you.""

"There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home... He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect from rock 'n' roll singers. While he sings in a lower voice than ever -and what I liked about the early records was that beautifully vulnerable high voice-, he opened his Boston concert (1971) with "That's Alright Mama" (1954), singing it with enough verve to scare the unsuspecting. It was his very first record, and although it doesn't sound quite the same as when he did it 17 years ago at the Sun studios in Memphis, I was moved by the fact that he was doing it at all. It was a tour de force of theatrics, professionalism, and, happily, music. (In fact), he sings so well, the audience hesitates to press him for more, his purpose being to please himself by pleasing them, never to please them by pleasing himself."

"The music of Elvis inspired me and my son Imanol from a very early age and he is so good at interpreting his songs that the public doesnt really know whether they are going to applaud him or Elvis"

"My roots are deep regardless. I was truly blessed because it's such a rich area for music — a lot of the traditional music, of course, with both Cajun and zydeco, but all the generations that have come up, especially the younger groups, have one foot in the past and one very much in future, and they're doing their own thing with it. In fact, all music was special to me. It was just magical. I was very much hooked by music from Day 1. Elvis Presley was the reigning king coming up when I was still living in Jackson, MS. And then moving here to LA, in addition to whatever was on the radio, there was always, like, a new business opening up, and they'd have Cajun bands play. They also had their own TV shows on Saturdays, and I'd watch those. I was definitely snakebit. Especially with the guitar, obviously."

"His chest and his heart were OK, and he had a fever caused by a significant ear infection, but it never entered my mind that he would shortly die. He was very, very cordial, that is what I remember the most about him."

"He was a wonderful person, and a lovely man to kiss. During the movie shoot, we did it (kiss) in the morning, in the afternoon and at night. He is a wonderful person, you can't define him in one line"

"He had total love in his eyes when he performed. He was the total androgynous beauty. I would practice Elvis in front of the mirror when I was twelve or thirteen years old.""

"I walked up to him, and I just stared at him, on a train, bound to New Jersey, from Texas, as we were on our way to Germany."

"Author Johnny Lang, recalling the first time he reall talked to Elvis.as resported on Fox News' August 15, 2023 edition"

"We were out to dinner one night, with my husband and brother in law, and someone at the bar said he had just passed away, and it really, really, really ruined my night, everything. He was the biggest star that has ever been in the world."

"In 1956, I bought my Elvis records at Duvan Music in downtown Sioux City. They had a booth there where you could sit and listen to the record before you bought it. I had 'em all. So did every kid at Central High. So my friend and I bought tickets for the May 23 Elvis concert, the cheapest ones. It was a mob. It took a half-hour for us to squeeze and wedge our way to the stage. It may have been warm in there, I don't know but all I remember is the electricity. He came out there with a saunter like he knew what he was doing, singing 'Mystery Train' first and all you could hear was the first words 'Train a ride'. After that, it was just bedlam, and screaming, along with Elvis and his two musicians. And he was so cool, rebellion in the flesh. I mean who grows his hair long like that? And shakes his butt? We loved him. I played harmonica at the time, was almost 17 and he was only 21, not much difference. I just stood there with my mouth open thinking, my God, this guy has picked up on something. He had charisma, the crowd in the palm of his hand. His musical ability had a lot to do with it, he wasn't just a pretty face. I used to listen to the blues on black radio stations at night and I said, 'This guy's a black musician in a white man's body. Elvis had a real strong sense of gospel and was just fascinated with gospel groups."