American Country Singers

"It was a question that would occupy biographers, novelists and the public to the end of the century and beyond. It would spawn theories of conspiracies and cover-ups that would range from Hollywood to Washington. The imagery of Marilyn Monroe would survive to be reinvented and recycled in ways none of us could have imagined in 1962. Yet after 15 years, we might have learned something about that process when the news of Elvis Presley arrived in August 16 1977. I was on vacation that month. If the death of Marilyn seemed sensational, it was sedate compared to Presley's passing, which became a story of crowd control. Now, a good obituary invokes nostalgia in some, curiosity in others and no one could manage both better than my colleague Charles Kuralt, but he couldn't peer into the future and see all the peculiar ways in which Presley mania would persist. Almost two months later to that day, the top story on the CBS Evening News was the death of Bing Crosby. Now, he, Sinatra, Reagan, Churchill and others whose obituaries have been written all lived long enough to see their debts to fame settled.Monroe and Presley did not. They were given the riches, but they were cut off before their time. I don't know if they were unhappy, but for their public, it was easy to imagine their youth and self-destruction as a kind of romantic, self-inflicted martyrdom. To many, that aura is at least as fascinating as the person, or the work, but it only materializes after the obituaries have been filed, as life goes on, even in death."

"It’s difficult to imagine the feeling in this city that has existed in the last few months since he’s actually been here. The impact he has had has gone beyond football, beyond that of Manchester and the Premier League – it’s absolutely incredible. What he did on Wednesday night is exactly what he’s here to do which is to bring magic to the stadium. It’s almost like Elvis Presley is in Manchester, he’s like a god."

"I met Elvis only once and I figure him for a pretty nice guy. And as to music, I really dig his stuff."

"But let's not be to harsh on Mr.Presley. Doubtless he is doing the best he can. But when the american public shell more than a million dollars in one year to see him, well, let us leave it at that, but maybe this is the Elvis Presley Century.,"

"Of course everyone is influenced by hearing or seeing the music of the era being performed by the people that made it famous. Take for example Elvis Presley — I think at first glance you see this rock ‘n’ roll god who gets every girl, and then you hear such a beautiful melody and vocal and it completely changes the way you view music. It broadens your mind. Growing up listening to him, I think everything right from the phrasing, the presence on stage has influenced me in some way."

"He was was very funny and had charisma that was bigger than life. I enjoyed our friendship."

"With all the Led Zeppelin comparisons and stuff – it was very much a hybrid of 1957's 'Jailhouse Rock' by Elvis Presley and the middle piece was inspired by a Jeff Beck Group song called 'Rice Pudding.'"

"He stood for rock 'n' roll at a time when rock 'n' roll was rebellion, but I think he stood for so many more things than that. He was a southern kid, came from very humble roots, became very popular and very rich and very famous. In this country, that's the American Dream. And that's the Elvis story. What was interesting is that at the outset, Elvis came in through the Country and Western world, signed by RCA in Nashville, not in New York, then went to Pop and soon started to have hits on all three charts, including the R&B chart, and was landing hits everywhere, a fact that totally surprised the music industry. But they were surely delighted to make the money.."

"Max is pretty assertive, isn't he, when it comes to pointing out any deficiencies, not only in himself, but in the team; that is part of his make-up. (In fact), this is like the greatest comeback since Elvis' 1968 TV special, just unbelievable. He's come out swinging, and he's actually changed the perceptions of a lot of people who weren't his fans and now have to acknowledge just how strong and consistent he's been."

"i) When my pop music pals were singing in the mirror pretending to be Elvis Presley, I was pretending to conduct his band. ii) I was once sitting in my youth in a terrace house listening to him singing "Hound Dog" so did I ever think in a million years that The King would one day sing something I had written? No. Sometimes I have to pinch myself about that. I still get tingles when some DJ with excellent taste plays Elvis singing "My Boy" and I remember when I sat down and wrote those lyrics"

"Such was his star power, that I would compare him with Elvis Presley"

"Now Ali is in ring center, dancing around in that robe Elvis Presley gave him at his last fight in Las Vegas, some 6 weeks ago prior to his fight against British Champion Joe Bugner."

"Well, I mention this in very close proximity to because they are completely worlds apart. But if you listen to "Elv1s 30 # 1 hits" you realise what an amazing setup he had. The songs are all absolutely genius. That record is completely on another planet to what Captain Beefheart was then doing, but I prize these two equally, and they’ve both influenced me. The thing is with Elvis, he was there, and he’d been established, so the whole time through my teen years, until when he died in 1977, he had been a constant feature. The wallpaper in my life, so he was always there, but I didn’t really see it until now. Same with {{w|Groucho Marx} } and he died in the same week. Suddenly, the two were gone. It was like someone had come in and had started stripping the walls. So, that rocked me… and then I wrote "No More Heroes’ the following week"

"The Danish gave birth to not only Lego. Legends are also top billing in that part of Europe and most deal with Vikings and Norsemen pillaging and plundering — visiting neighbours not in a nice way —. But this boutique nation also houses a big tribute to Elvis Presley. Now, one probably knows about the mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbour and may be surprised to discover how small it is. And yet another may likewise be aware of Hans Christian Andersen, a Dane whose fairy stories, including , have delighted young readers and listeners all over the world. Presley's life was another sort of fairytale, all the more so for being cut short. And the legend came in tangible form to a Danish town, thanks to a fan who, as an eight-year-old boy, had heard "Burning love". On that day in 1973 Henrik Knudsen could not, as the song went, have been lifted any higher so by the time Elvis died in 1977, he was absolutely hooked. In school, his English teacher, who was from East Germany, told him his music was banned in her country. Forbidden? Music? Very interesting. So he got books from the library and found out all he could. For Henrik, the flame of love lasted into adulthood. In 1990 he founded The Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Denmark and within three years he had gathered truck-fulls of Presleyana to open an exhibition. From there the only way was over the top and into a sizeable building in the town of Randers, about an hour's drive north of Aarhus, Denmark's second city. And then Graceland Randers was born..."

"We are startled, on the amazing "Blue Moon,"(1954), by his trick of shifting, in a heartbeat, from saloon baritone to pants-too-tight wailing and by his near Hawaiian avoiding of consonants ("Ya-hoo A-know Ah can be fou'/ Sittin' home all alo'"), from "Don't Be Cruel" (1956), a song that comes close to redefining the art of the pop vocal; So, what's left? A terrific crooner who was closer, in intonation, vocal virtuosity and care for a song's mood, to Bing Crosby, than to any top singer of the rock era. Toward the end, he still had it as a Gospel balladeer, the choir-soloist power of the hymn "He Touched Me" (1971) — his voice breaking poignantly at the end of the hymn, as if he had just seen Jesus — still thrills and haunts. So does his desire to please an audience of kids and grandmas, instead of comfortably occupying a niche, as almost every pop star has done since."

"Elvis is the SUN, the progenitor of rock. So it's Elvis, Dylan and Cobain.."

"One day at the MGM lot a round Italian looking guy came into the set. He said something like “I’m one of Elvis’ guys, we are shooting at stage 16 and since Elvis saw “Synanon” and loved it he would like to invite you to lunch.” What did I say? Hell yes! Before I knew it I was in Elvis’ dressing room eating a catered lunch."

"SUN Records founder Sam Phillips was surprised that the then 19 year old Elvis Presley knew bluesmen like Arthur Crudup -- but he had spent his last 6 years immersing himself in the blues and Beale Street, where the music and culture of the black Mississippi Delta had settled. Presley was so "blue" -- and his speech so Deep Southern -- that radio announcers took pains to assure listeners in the still-segregated South that the young singer was white. If you go to Sun Studio today is like to travel in time. At 706 Union Ave., it's still 1954. "You are walking on holy ground," the guide tells visitors..."

"Often I err on the side of being too collaborative. I re-edited "The Outsiders" because Warner Brothers felt it was long, and that was a mistake. My father had also written a soaring, romantic score for it. I wondered if it was the right choice, but I couldn’t say that to him. By the time I recut the movie in 2005 he had passed away, and I balanced the schmaltzy music with more of what the Greasers would have listened to: early Elvis Presley...."

"Since 1962, and the first appearance of Elvis, as silkscreened by Warhol, the face of America changed. The most insistent question posed by the ElvisWarhol series concerns the nature of their specifically charged content, and the viewing of Warhol's imagery not as signs, but as icons dealing with a larger content of culture in America. To a large group of Americans, Presley has long been a folk hero, yet his musical impact has overshadowed his sociological significance. Presley's importance is not simply as a popular entertainer but as a bearer of new verities."

"Music has been very much democratized and that's good news and bad news. The threshold has gone down. Anyone can make music at home with a laptop. All you need is something to say. In older times you had to practice on an instrument and be good on an instrument to be able to make music, and then you had to go to the man to get a recording budget and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now, it's completely democratic. Every darn fool can make music and I like that. It's like campfire music. Its purpose for humanity is not that it's specialists like me who get to sit on my throne on high and make the music and you just got to sit there and take it. The real purpose of music is for all of us to do it ourselves. The problem is being as big as Elvis Presley or The Beatles. I'm happy though because I like all that new competition. It's good that it is democratized, but not so great for being a rockstar...."

"After the success of "Crazy Heart", I was offered several musical projects, including a film about Elvis, but chose not to pursue it at the time because I didn't want to be confined to just one genre. A modern approach to a musical biopic, which I might have applied to a project like an Elvis film, would likely move away from a traditional linear timeline and instead focus on specific eras or psychological conflicts to explore his internal struggles...."

"She was involved in everything we did at the Junior Shop, our ladies' wear store. I remember her working very hard, but one thing that always really stood out for me was when someone would come in needing a dress for a family member who had passed away. She would always say, ‘just take it. Even when some of those people insisted on paying anyway, she would tear up the check right after they walked out the door. She used to have us call the radio station to request Elvis Presley singing ‘How Great Thou Art’ all the time. As her health increasingly declined, I knew there was one last thing I could do for her, so I had it playing when she died."

"Elvis Presley all the way. He was my hero when I was seven and remains so to this day"

"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."

"i) He was wearing giraffe skin pants and Aladdin shoes and a pair of socks that Elvis gave him ii) Rock has always had religion. After all, it started as gospel music. Elvis Presley knew every gospel song ever made. I'm not an alarmist or nihilist, but the world gets more dangerous every day. I think our natural survival instinct makes us question where we stand with God even if some claim atheism.”"

"Well, I love Elvis Presley."

"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."

"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."

"In Las Vegas, he was a different Elvis, putting on the blitz, the neon signs dared him. In a sense, he codified, encapsulated, permeated, embodied Americana. It was so real in its total artificiality, as Elvis brought it all together and made it work."

"I met Elvis on a football field. I was trying to get to him and I finally sent him to the floor. That's how we became friends. I like Elvis a lot, he is a legend who just died too young."

"Prince had great respect for Elvis, the Bar Keys, Al Green and the influence on the music world from the Memphis' sound."

"About two days after Elvis's 1969 Vegas shows, I was back in New York and went into Albert Grossman's office because I was trying to see Bob Dylan and he managed him. He said that he was in Woodstock. For some reason he suddenly put me on the phone with Dylan and I didn't know what to say to him because I hadn't planned to interview him. I told him I'd just been to see Elvis. From that moment instead of me being a Bob Dylan fan we were both Elvis fans. Dylan asked me precisely, "What did he do? Did he do the Sun stuff? Did he do 'That's All Right, Mama'? Did he do 'Mystery Train'? Who's in the band?" Dylan read the New York Times review but he wanted to know what I thought of it. All these questions. Two days later I'm back in England and I'm on the phone with John Lennon and I get exactly the same questions from him about Elvis. Lennon asked, "How was the show? Did he do any of the Sun numbers? Did he play 'Mystery Train'?" It showed me more than anything that rock stars are basically fans."

"The black leather concert from Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special"

"The generosity and public spirited zeal with which you donate your services to the Arizona Memorial Fund are appreciated by all of us in the Navy."

"All the Christians felt Elvis was a sin, so my sister Sarah and I loved Elvis, We obtained an Elvis record, sneaked it into dad's study to listen to it, BUT NOT BEFORE placing a towel across the bottom of the door to muffle the sound. I then obtained an autograph from him while I visited Memphis, which remains one of my treasured possessions."

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

"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."

"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.""

"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."

"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...."

"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..."

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

"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..."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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. ."