American Country Singers

"I was 17, so I go to Hollywood for a few days, staying with , whose husband was then choreographer for Elvis in "King Creole". So I watched the shooting one day, then Elvis came over and started talking to me, invited me to dinner, at his hotel, the Beverly Wilshire. So after dinner we end up in his bedroom. And when he found out I was a virgin, he just picked up his guitar and sat on his bed and sang to me for about two hours. He was gorgeous in those days. I couldn't wait to tell all my girlfriends."

"Overnight, or over a bite, you might say, the hand that's been punching out copy for the unconcerned becomes celebrated as the hand that was bitten by Elvis Presley. As a newspaper woman gnawed by the nation's top hound dog singer, I've been advised variously to sue for assault, take a rabies shot, inquire whether he brushes after every meal, or offer my paw to the museum. Yep, folks have really showed concern."

"It was like an EARTHQUAKE!!! In my neighborhood the whole place was shakin' when he came on. And I said how can a person possess that kind of power that it even comes off the tv and grabs me in this ghetto neighborhood? Back in those days if it was a white artist doing some of our music many would say "Well, they don't like our blacks so we don't like their singers either. They're nothing but copy-cats anyway.' But with Elvis we ALL were going crazy over him. And I said 'Man, this cat's really got something!""

"Elvis Presley jerked his torturous way across the stage of the Municipal Auditorium on Sunday, sang eight or ten songs, thumped on a guitar, fell to the floor, knocked over microphones and set off a din of teenage squealing. At the evening performance he contorted his body in such a manner as to cause whole platoons to rush to the edge of the stage. In fact, he flings his limbs about and quivers in such a way as to make one think he might have a trick knee or hip, possibly from an old war injury...but this is not the case. This is just Elvis Presley...."

"He was so ahead of his time, and that's why he brought so many people together, with his music without it having it any racial barriers."

"Those who would wall off cultures from “outsiders” are would-be wardens."

"I was frightened by Elvis, I think because I was 10, but my sister Nancy loved him.."

"Boris Yeltsin was best known for his role as the President of Russia, but he also had another unique claim to fame: Moscow's biggest Elvis Presley fan. According to sources, Yeltsin was a huge fan of Presley and would often listen to his recording of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” during times of stress, such as in August, 1991, when he prevented a coup by standing on top of a tank. But while Yeltsin loved Presley, he hated staples with an equal amount of passion, as reflected in a memo from a Yeltsin aide demanding that no one use staples on any papers given to their fearless leader, as "this practice holds up the President’s very decisions.”"

"Jerry and I were big Elvis fans and the name held some fascination. We were also looking for someone who had never performed comedy, who could recite the most hilarious piece of dialogue without thinking the lines were MEANT to be funny. We saw a certain naïveté and inexperience in Priscilla Presley that we knew would work for what we had planned."

"We were booked to fly home the next day, but that night after the last show we got a telephone call from Colonel Tom Parker saying that Elvis would like to meet us on a film set at 2pm the next day. When we arrived Col. Parker met us and told us that Elvis had just gone out for a ride. Just then we heard what at first sounded like thunder coming from down the beach a long way off. As the sound got louder, we could see about 13 motorbikes side-by-side coming towards us. Elvis was in the centre of the riders as they roared onto the film set. What an entrance! I was spellbound! All together we had about two hours with Elvis. I told him that when I saw the first clip of him in "Jailhouse Rock", that's what got me into rock ‘n’ roll. We also talked about our tour of America. What a guy. A real gent. It was wonderful. A brilliant day."

"It made me feel great to be with him. He fit in so easy. Driver, loader, gunner, and tank commander you had to learn all four positions. Seeing him operate a tank was normal. His parents, visited often and especially his mother was a great source of comfort to us young draftees, always telling us to take care of each other, like we were her children. When she passed away, he said he'd give everything he had to get her back, but he knew he couldn't do that. He showed me all the telegrams he got from celebrities, three books filled with them. Once in Germany we served in the 1st Battalion, 32nd Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Division. Despite his fame, Elvis was always just one of the guys. In fact, he inspired the other men to be better, stronger soldiers. When things got tough you could be out at night, it's cold and raining and you're on guard duty, and he was out there, too. If he could do it, that made me feel like, OK, I can do this!" After serving two years, we both came home and I went to work for a flooring company, drove a dump truck and eventually became a building engineer for Memphis City Schools. With my wife we raised two daughters and they knew how proud I was to have serve alongside Elvis. One of my daughters laminated the famous photos of Elvis being inducted, with me right there behind him. I carry them everywhere, showing them even to strangers because I want everyone to know how good a person Elvis was. And I do smile when telling the story of the time I was drafted into the military with the most famous person on the planet. The years I spent with Elvis clearly had a lasting impact with me. He stuck with it, did his job as well as I did mine, and I appreciated that. It was great..."

"The quote, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” comes from a 1968 brochure for an Andy Warhol art exhibit in Sweden. In today’s social-media-obsessed culture, 15 minutes has been shaved to 15 seconds, the posting time for a TikTok video. Elvis Presley earned every minute of the fame and adulation showered upon him. He began his music career in the epicenter of the creative cauldron for indigenous American music: Memphis and his genius rested with his capacity to absorb and synthesize the blues, gospel, country and bluegrass music he heard growing up in nearby Tupelo, Mississippi. One way to evaluate the power of fame is to consider how long it lasts. Elvis has been dead for 45 years but it’s like he never died. After Santa Claus, I can’t think of another individual who has as many imitators. Graceland, Elvis’s cherished home in Memphis (3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard), is modest by today’s McMansion standards. Here on an almost 14-acre estate visited by 650,000 tourists annually rests Elvis’ vast collection of clothing, cars, motorcycles and airplanes. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, the first site related to rock music to ever be given that honor.I saw it as an example of the American dream writ large, a classic Horacio Alger story, a stunning symbol of what it’s like to be born dirt poor and end up filthy rich. Elvis was a man blessed with dazzling gifts and cursed with debilitating addictions. Unlike unbelievably wealthy men of today such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos playing with their rocket ship boy toys, Elvis provided so much pleasure to so many, for so long that he earned the right to enjoy his baubles, bangles and beads."

"What drew me to him was that his music was subversive. When the Beatles came around, grown-ups saw them as four mop tops, and didn’t take it very seriously. But when he came on the scene, it was different, the adults really didn’t like his stage performances and dancing. I soon asked for a guitar and got one for Christmas. It wasn’t an expensive guitar. A few years later my mom, who was a single mother, got me a nicer guitar when she saw I was very serious about it. It was a Harmony."

"Around the world the only three words that need no translation to convey their meaning are ̊"Jesus, Coke and Elvis""

"That September, Presley would make his legendary inaugural appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," singing a sultry version of "Hound Dog" with his swinging hips in all their vulgar, gyrating splendor. During a later appearance in January 1957, the variety show would famously edit the King from the waist down in order to protect impressionable young television viewers from his brazen sexuality. But then, it was far too late. America had a full-on dose of Elvismania, and there was nary a cure in sight."

"In essence, because at that time the backward mental capability that many people had of judging a person because of their skin color, and it does still exist, but back then it was even worse, BUT because he actually was a Caucasian brother, Elvis was able to do away with all that thinking towards music."

"He defined American culture to billions of adoring fans around the world. Elvis fused gospel, country, and rhythm and blues to create a sound all his own, selling more than a billion records. Elvis also served nearly 2 years in the United States Army, humbly accepting the call to serve despite his fame. He later starred in 31 films, drew record-breaking audiences to his shows, sent television ratings soaring, and earned 14 GRAMMY Award nominations. He ultimately won 3 GRAMMY Awards for his gospel music. Elvis Presley remains an enduring American icon 4 decades after his death."

"As he concluded one of his dynamic and frenzied concerts an attempt was made to honor him by giving him an ornate crown. Uncharacteristically and courteously, Elvis stopped and said, “ I am not the King. There’s only one King, and that’s Jesus Christ."

"Go ahead, moan all you like about Elvis. (But) this is still the single greatest rock & roll Christmas record ever made. Elvis' slurred, dirty, wailing delivery and Scotty Moore, Bill Black and DJ Fontana's walloping primitivo accompaniment put this over with a licentious zeal that never wears out its welcome. Although he favored gospel above all else, Elvis genuinely excelled as a blues singer (there simply ain't another white cat who can pull ‘em off as convincingly) and this wildly unlikely collision of atmosphere and theme rates as a minor, and altogether irresistible, masterpiece —"

"You didn't make it before we came along, and if I wanted to back somebody, I would have picked somebody who can sing, like Elvis Presley."

"Virtually everything we hear on recordings and see on video and the concert stage can be traced to two icons: Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly."

"My dad's head went into a fantasy, this idea of everything being better in America. Of course for his generation, that was very true. Everyone was going to drive in movies and drinking milkshakes and having hamburgers in America. We weren't doing things like that in the UK. I think a lot of that got caught up in the lyrics – all the kids in America are having a better, more interesting, more dangerous time than we were here. When Elvis and rock'n'roll was imported over from America, it was to a generation of kids whose parents had dealt with the war, and rationing, and they'd all been brought up in pretty poor conditions. So it was a great thing for the kids to dream about again. They dared to have an identity, for starters. They dared to dream through these great records imported from America. That's where the great love affair started for my father – as soon as he heard Elvis Presley record."

"In 1968, a “drive-by” wasn't a shooting, it was popping into the salon for a fast touch up. Elvis Presley came to my salon just to say hello sometimes. When he'd show up, the ladies leaped out of their shampoo pools, they wanted his attention so badly."

"Go into any Thai restaurant the world over and there will very likely be portraits and photos of King Bhumibol gazing down at diners with his benevolent smile, but one of the more common actually features him with Elvis Presley. The meeting came when lifelong music fan Bhumibol and his wife, Queen Sirikit, visited Hollywood’s Paramount Studios in 1960, while Elvis was filming G.I Blues. The king had been a fan of Presley for several years and was by then an accomplished saxophonist who later performed alongside jazz legend Lionel Hampton. In 1987, the late Hampton told the Thai magazine Sawasdee: “He is simply the coolest king in the land.”"

"My father George C. White had gone to Yale for a year before he went to art school and I just wanted to go to Yale too. They allowed only three people a year in those days to major in theater and you had to audition and if you were accepted into the program, then you got a year's credit toward your master's degree. After college I joined the Army where, by chance, I met Elvis Presley, He was in the third army division, I was in the fourth but I ended up doing a show with him up on the Czech border in 1958. Because we were all freezing to death, we cooked up this show and Elvis said, ‘You’re in the theater, aren’t you, George?’ and I said I was, and he said, ‘Why don’t we put on a show and we can get out of guard duty? LOL. And we did."

"An 18-year-old Elvis Presley walked through the doors of the Memphis Recording Service at 708 Union Ave. in the summer of 1953. He carried a beat-up guitar that he'd had since the age of 11 and enough money to make a $3.98 record of his own voice. He sang two '30s ballads -- "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" -- hoping to catch the attention of Sam Phillips, who had started his own label, Sun. When he was done, Marion Keisker, who helped run the place with Phillips, typed his name on the back of a label for Sun act The Prisonaires, and Presley left with his acetate. For more than six decades, that record of Elvis singing "My Happiness" was kept by the family of the high-school friend Presley left it with, Ed Leek. As part of an auction, it was valued at approximately $100,000. It sold to an unknown Internet bidder for $300,000..."

"I'd heard that song many times. But that night in jail was the first time I really heard it. It was more important to me than any song I'd ever heard in my life. When he hit that hook in the song, "It's now or never," it was like someone grabbed me by my shirt, looked at me and said, "You asshole. You see where you're sitting, Barry? You're sitting in jail, and you can't stand it. You've got to change your life. It's your decision. It's now, or it's never." That's the way I read it. And when I got out, I told myself, Never again.""

"He is rock's greatest presence, shaking a country with a single-handed nuclear reaction of country, gospel, and the blues."

"The voice is so melodious, and – of course, by accident, this glorious voice and musical sensibility was combined with this beautiful, sexual man and this very unconscious – or unselfconscious stage movements. Presley's registration, the breadth of his tone, listening to some of his records, you'd think you were listening to an opera singer. But...it's an opera singer with a deep connection to the blues, which leads me to the role of the great enunciator, because he delivered us the greatest cultural boon. Nobody ever did more for the American people. He gave them the great present of black music transmitted through his own sensibility, his own sensitivity. Of course Elvis was a different kind of white purveyor of black music because it was naturally black and it was real and he was a conduit. And America was really changed. I'm talking about American music and our culture in general. We owe far more to Elvis Presley than all the British groups put together.""

"Believe me, Benny just had this incredible electricity about him. He was the Elvis Presley of Cleveland."

"We put all the photos we received into albums. I remember we got fan letters from Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Cuba and from the Soviet Union. We got them from all over the world and I used to collect the stamps for my son. Elvis really loved reading the fan mail and seeing the albums, especially the girls. We got post cards from everywhere. We would save him a lot of letters if they were funny and thought he would enjoy them and he surely did."

"My mother took me to see "Jailhouse Rock" when I was three. She loved Elvis. I guess I thought, like John Lennon, that that looked like a pretty good job. I bought my first Elvis record at seven. I got an old tennis racket and I'd go around the house playing it like a guitar, playing Elvis songs. I'd turn my collar up and do the lip sneer, the whole thing. I was a little boy being Elvis! I knew I was a little girl, but I was being myself. I never understood the gender difference, frankly. It never stopped me: I never thought, 'I'm a little girl, I can't do this.'"

"If Rock and Roll were a religion, Elvis was its most prolific disciple, responsible for more converts than anyone before or after him; if it had been country, Elvis was a Founding Father and his lyrics were the documents of freedom that helped to birth the nation; if it were a sickness, Elvis-itis would be the most potent and contagious virus known to man, infecting victims who just looked at his image, heard his voice or saw him perform in person or through a recording. But since Rock and Roll is music, we’ve all decided the world over to just call Elvis…the King."

"Elvis' producer Felton Jervis was a good friend of mine. All of a sudden I released ‘Polk Salad Annie ’ and it was a big hit single and then Felton called and invited my wife & me out to Las Vegas to see Elvis perform it. He did a good version of it, which of course he recorded for the live album. We hung out with Elvis for two or three days and just sat back in the dressing room and talked. We played a little guitar together – he really liked music. Elvis said, “Man, I feel like I wrote that song”. I said “You know, the way you do it on stage, it feels like you wrote it”. Then, in 1974, I was living in Memphis and it was about 4 o'clock in the morning when my phone rings. This German voice says “Mr. White, we are down at Stax records do you have any more songs? We need to do some songs.” I said “Well, who in the hell is this, why you calling me at this time?” He explained that he was Freddy Bienstock, Elvis' publisher. I asked if Felton was down there and he said he was. So I got up & ran into my studio and ran off a copy of ‘For Ol’ Times Sake' & ‘I’ve Got A Thing About You Baby’ and one other and went down the studio. I drove all the way to downtown Memphis and was met in this low, dark alleyway by two shady men in hats & coats. They said in this thick German accent “Did you bring zee tapes?” and I was ushered into this little bitty room! It was so strange & freaky. A real seedy part of town and these guys in their 50s or 60s and they had a little reel-to-reel in this dark cubby hole. They sit me down on a chair & they played two bars of ‘For Ol’ Times Sake' and ‘I Got A Thing’ and they played the third song. They said “We like the first two. Now you can go!” I said, “Hey man, I’ve driven this far, where’s Felton?” They said, “You don’t need Felton. We like these songs. You can go!” But at this point luckily Felton walked in and took me into the studio with me & him and Elvis, so it was cool then. Wow!"

"The Star Wars movies belong in the same category as Elvis Presley movies: They’re popular yet are all but unwatchable — except that the Presley pictures evince a human touch"."

"He was rock and roll's biggest star, and he also tested the boundaries of how an entertainer should behave on stage. Elvis had the whole package: the looks, voice, charisma--he had it all. I see so many videos on YouTube showing younger Elvis fans reacting to Elvis' music in a positive way. So, it shows you that Elvis' legacy and appeal continue to endure."

"Elvis was the blueprnt, he and ice cream blew my mind"

"We had crew cuts, wore tee-shirts and blue jeans, Elvis had the long duck-tail, the long sideburns and he wore the loud clothes, and naturally he was a target for all the bullies. One day luckily I walked into the boys' bathroom at Humes High School and 3 guys were going to cut his hair just, you know, to make themselves look big or make them feel big or whatever, and I intervened and stopped it. And I guess that stuck because a couple of years later after Elvis had his first record he came over and asked me if I would like to go with him, I think it was Grenada, Mississippi or somewhere, and I went and I was with him from then on, except for a couple of years in the Marine Corps."

"Warhol was fascinated by popular and celebrity culture, and Elvis undeniably represented the ultimate subject for the artist, even more than his iconic explorations of Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor (As a result),there is an enormous number of works dedicated to Elvis realised by Warhol between 1962 and 1963."

"i) Both "Elvis" and "Priscilla" present a vision of Elvis Presley framed by a third party, rather than one viewed directly, with the luxury of omniscience, by the person behind the camera. In "Elvis", Baz Luhrmann shapes Elvis’ story through the eyes of Parker, the man who helped make him and did more than his share to break him. And in "Priscilla", Elvis, for once, isn’t the center of attention; it’s Priscilla’s experience that matters. The suggestion of both movies is that Elvis Presley, like an eclipse of the sun, is too dazzling, too potentially disorienting, to be viewed without a filter...ii) Elvis Presley has been gone for 48 years now, but he hasn’t really died. The second half of the 20th century took shape around his almost mystical youthful charisma, and later around his ghost. Peter Guralnick has already given us the definitive Elvis biography with his two-volume classic, "Last Train to Memphis" and "Careless Love" published in the ’90s but now his "The Colonel and the King: " is a sympathetic, surprising, and assiduously researched book—a coda to that essential work."

"Jimi is a huge Elvis fan, so we always start off by listening to 'Elvis’ Christmas Album'"

"I once met a young man from Mexico who asked me why Elvis didn't like Mexican people because he'd heard the rumours that he had criticized his countrymen. I told him it was all lies and that Elvis loved Mexicans. He told me that Elvis was supposed to have said Mexicans were greasy haired people. I told him to remember that Elvis was the one who put stuff in his hair to make it greasy and he even died it black too. There were many reports about things Elvis was supposed to have said that he never did, in fact he was upset that he wasn't allowed to go into Mexico because of riots. On the set of Fun In Acapulco, Elvis got upset with the director,(Richard Thorpe, who had already directed him in "Jailhouse Rock") because he got onto a couple of the actors because they spoke broken English and even yelled, “Jesus Christ, can’t you get the lines right?”. Elvis took him aside and said, 'Sir, those people were hired by the producer and he knew how they spoke and also knew their language, but he wanted them and they're doing the best they can. Rehearse with them more or whatever but please don't be doing that. I don't like you doing that to them' and the director stopped it."

"He was almost at the point where he was being recognized as a national star, but not quite. I'll give you an example. Once, in a railroad station in Chattanooga, TN, we were waiting to change trains. Elvis went over to a magazine rack and picked up a movie magazine. He found a photo of himself inside and says to me 'Al, can I have a pen?' I gave him one and he scribbled his name inside the magazine. Then he goes over to the two girls working at the rack. He had the spread open to his picture, showing it to them. He's also looking back at me with a huge Cheshire Cat grin. Their reaction was 'That'll be 35 cents sir'. Then Elvis said to them 'No, this is for you. I'm Elvis Presley'. In the meantime, I'm capturing pictures of all of this, which is really what I wanted."

"Elvis has just left the building, Those are his footprints, right there, Elvis has just left the building, To climb up that heavenly stair"

"Can I talk to Elvis? said the caller. “This is Jimmy Carter”. Indeed it was the then President-elect calling from Atlanta, where he'd seen him the day before, to ask Elvis to be a youth spokesman. A few hours later, with the temperature near zero and the wind gusting to 30 mph, Elvis rousted his entourage and ordered everyone to the airport for the flight home. They got on the Lisa Marie, but the pilot couldn't get it started right away, so they all huddled together in blankets waiting for the plane to start and heat up. And then they get word of a bomb threat, so they had to sign papers authorizing it to take off anyway. As the plane rolled down the runway at Pittsburgh airport, we all just sat there in silence looking at each other and wondering if this was going to be it. Had that been “it,” Elvis would have gone out on a high note."

"It's our responsibility as musicians to keep pushing each other, to keep competing with each other. It's a really great competition. I see here artists like Beyonce and Alicia Keys and Rihanna and Chris Brown and Chris Martin, all in the same room, and we're going to push this music to the point where it was like in the 1960s and '70s, when the talk was about Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix, and the Beatles. We (all) will be the new Beatles. We (all) will be the new Hendrix; (in fact) in any other industry, they'll tell you that you're supposed to do better than those in the past, so when you say, 'I want to be Elvis,' they say, 'What's wrong with you?' Well, I wanna be Elvis."

"He a had a magic combination of looks and voice, and you can't discount how good looking he was as a young man and he was the guy who really brought black music into the vocabulary."

"With his blue eyes he should photograph well with black hair."

"When you picture past presidents of the United States, whom do you see? Perhaps you envision John F. Kennedy as a doting father playing with his children in the West Wing. Maybe you remember Richard Nixon as the smiling yet stiff leader who posed hand-in-hand with Elvis Presley in the Oval Office."

"I put Elvis Presley up there with Jolson and Sinatra, and I'll go one step further: Elvis was the greatest pop entertainer of the 20th century. Like Al Jolson, he gave his all when performing: He sang from his heart, his body, the very essence of his total being, when sharing what he felt.""