American Country Singers

"They wanted to kill rock ever since Elvis Presley went into the Army, but the rock chain kept on going, until today."

"As Elvis noted, 'A little less conversation, a little more action, please.'"

"It's hard to pick one, because I love Celia Cruz’s depth, Elvis Presley’s vibrato, Ray Charles’ texture, and Amy Winehouse’ melancholy flow;"

"Pat, then 13 as I was, got the tickets through her mom’s boyfriend who was a captain or something with the St. Louis Police Department. After the show, he asked us if we wanted to go backstage and meet Elvis, Once there, I noticed everyone was trying to get his attention, wanting him to sign things and take his picture, and he would say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ to everyone. No matter how crazy it got, he was unfailingly polite. I like that he didn't at all act like a big shot. The photo with us, once it hit the papers, obviously, was a big hit at my school. People would bring it up to me all the time. When the picture was taken, I happened to have my eyes closed, so all my friends would tease me. They'd say, "You’re in love with Elvis, your eyes are closed" LOL. After graduating from Roosevelt High in 1960, I got a bachelor's degree from Mizzou in 1964, the same year I competed in the Miss Missouri pageant. Though neither of us, Pat and I, were able to follow his entire career, it was all really sad what happened to him. But I just remember how nice he was to us."

"I got a letter from Elvis in 1961, I was 16, and the letter said, “I just want you to know I put "Halfway to Paradise" in my jukebox.” When I finally met him in the ‘70s, I was headlining the Hilton in Las Vegas and was actually following him a week later. I sat with him in his dressing room and then I said, “Let me ask you a question. Do you remember writing a letter to me, saying that you liked "Halfway to Paradise?” And he calls Priscilla into the room, and he said, “Tell Tony what my favourite song is.” And sure enough, it was "Halfway to Paradise","

"In late 1956, at a Buenos Aires railway station where I ended up sleeping my first night after arriving from the provinces, that is when I heard his voice, which caused me shock, fear, but it also generated an artistic purpose on me. It changed my life. ii) Years later, I noticed Peter Rock was the best Latin American Elvis, until I saw Sandro"

"It was at the Forum in LA., in 1974. We were so far up in the nose bleeds it seemed longer to get to our seats than it did for Elvis to do his set. It was an education that gig, It was the first time I had seen merchandising sold so professionally at a venue. He must have been the richest bloke on the planet,."

"I remember watching this guy walk through the door as a regular human being, and the night before he was a master of the stage. That magic that aura, that whatever, he left it on the stage, because when he was with you he was a someone you could talk to, in other words, a very, very nice person."

"I’m telling you, he’s like Elvis. Everyone screams just getting a glimpse of him."

"Me, as a fan of music, I wasn't real sure at first — I wanted to see how it is — but this is something groundbreaking. For me, I would love to see a David Bowie [hologram performance], or I would love to see... maybe not a whole night, but AC/DC with... four songs with Bon Scott. Especially, people I've never seen — Elvis, I'd love to see an Elvis one"

"People talk of his range and power, his ability and ease in hitting the high notes. But the real difference between Elvis and other singers was that he could sing majestically in any style, be it rock, country, or R&B – because he had soul. He sang from the heart. And that is what made him the greatest singer in the history of popular music."

"It was in Vegas in '73 and it was really something to see. They really didn't know what to do with each other. Obviously Elvis was enthralled to be in Ali's presence, but so was Ali, he loved Elvis. Elvis came in to Ali's hotel room with the robe, 'The People's Champ' written on the back in jewels. Ali sees Elvis coming in and says, 'Hey, that's Elvis, man. He looks pretty good!' And both of them looked at each other like good-looking women would look at each other to appraise how they look. At that time, Ali was at the height of his good looks, so this was probably the best-looking black guy and the best-looking white guy on the planet in that room, and they were looking at each other like roosters. 'You look good, Ali.' 'Yeah, you're looking good, Elvis'. So here they are and they really wanted to be friends with, and respected each other and the love was there, but they couldn't quite get as close as they would have liked. But the robe Elvis presented to Ali that night was the only one he ever kept.."

"i) I am doing probably what they were doing up there, which is try to emulate the music I heard coming from America in some shape or form. It's defining coming from America, rock 'n' roll, rockabilly if you like, like in the modes of what (Elvis) Presley was doing and inspiring so many people like Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, all of them. And then accessing the blues and wanting as much to be sort of B.B. King, do you know what I mean? It was this sort of growth, really, of this voracious appetite I had for all things six strings, really. I can see how it manifests across the board. ii) We got to meet Elvis on May 11, 1974. He'd been the one who'd done so much for so many, setting everyone alight and flighting right under the radar with all of this black music, doing numbers by country blues artists like Arthur Crudup and Sleepy John Estes. It was unbelievable. He was one of us. And think about it! He started in 1954 – that was more than ten years before we arrived. It's miraculous that he made it through! He had the hand of God over him, he really did. He was the one that brought it all together. He brought blues and race music to the white culture. Rewinding to 1974, we were invited to see him play and then invited back to a party afterward. We went up to his suite. There was just a few other people. I can tell you we were really nervous when he came in the door. He really moved as naturally cool in real life as he did on film. That wasn't an act, that's just how he really was! It was real cool to us. It was a little awkward at first because his music meant so much to us but then somebody said 'You know that hot rod you drove in the movie 'Loving You'? And that was that everybody just drove into the conversation relaxed and had fun. He was wonderful a fantastic man!!! On this day in 1998, I played at Tupelo, where Elvis was born and raised, when there were no local attractions apart from the cotton fields or getting to Memphis. When Elvis grew up it must have been pretty bleak but the white and black picked the cotton side by side and the local indigenous music provided the soundtrack to this tough environment and it took the visionary genius of Elvis to blend those musical sources and change the world."

"I just obeyed my parents' objections to my continuing to see Elvis, who was two years younger than I was and even asked me to marry him, so I remained with Howard Hughes, whom I had loved for two years inspite of never being alone with him."

"There is perhaps no other person in human history who has been imitated and idolised as much as Elvis. In the face of his omnipresence, how can a performer who is met with the task of portraying Elvis make it feel real? After all, even footage of the actual man can feel uncanny, as if he, too, is yet another impersonator playing up the tropes."

"It was during filming that I remember a particularly special day. Elvis and the assistant directors gathered the whole cast & crew together on set for an important announcement. Elvis was beaming. I remember the anticipation of what he would say, and he stood up on a couple of apple boxes and shared with us all the news that his wife Priscilla was expecting. His famous smile and the glint in his eyes expressed such happiness! Everyone applauded and yelped ‘congratulations!’ Then, Elvis looked over at me among the crowd, pointed, and said, “And I want a little girl just like you!” It was an unbelievably happy moment – I ran over and hugged him..."

"I didn't think much of him when I first met him in Las Vegas in April of 1956 before he was a movie star. After working with him in Jailhouse Rock, I saw a complete different side to his character and then I enjoyed working with him."

"Back in the early days of Storage Wars, Dave Hester happily filled the role of resident baddie, driving folks crazy with his belligerent swagger, always looking to pick a fight or drive up the price of a unit that someone else wanted, even if his only objective was to stick in their craw and get them to lose their cool. But in spite of the rascally overtones, Hester was still a savvy player who did well during his time on the program. The best example of his success came all the way back in the first season, when Hester bought a storage unit that was loaded with newspapers. At first it seemed that all Hester had done was purchase a load of outdated periodicals. But then he discovered that the stash was all from the same day: August 17, 1977. Sound familiar? That's the day after Elvis Presley died. The unit ended up being a gold mine, with the plethora of papers all sporting the King of Rock and Roll's face adding up to a staggering $90,000."

"But the last side, recorded during rehearsals for his 1968 television special, is another treat, as fine and tough and overflowing with heart and soul as any of his 50's recordings. Playing an electric guitar, rather than his customary acoustic model, he traded fluid rhythm and lead parts with Scotty Moore, their interplay almost telepathic. And with his original drummer, D. J. Fontana, stoking the fires, this music moved, from the ferocious version of Rufus Thomas's Sun Records label blues "Tiger Man" to Jimmy Reed blues shuffles, to smoldering New Orleans triplet-style blues-ballads like "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "One Night". This is rock and roll as good as it gets."

"I remember that all my music listening had to be from the single family wireless receiver, which was built like a piece of furniture and took up an entire corner of the front room. It was from this Ekco set that I first heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel". It was a musical epiphany for me. His moody syncopated delivery was astonishing, daring, disrespectful. My father came in while I was listening and he asked, "Something wrong with the set?". He was going to check the valves at the back but I told him that it was Elvis Presley and that he was meant to sound like that."

"Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Elvis Presley has received more than 43,551,804 page views. His biography is available in 160 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 154 in 2019). Elvis Presley is the most popular singer, the 13th most popular biography from United States (up from 15th in 2019) and the most popular American Singer."

"Drinking with my mom, she wanted to know what my jump suits were so i showed her Elvis Pardi!"

"When he turned it on, Elvis sang with the spiritual fervour of one who spoke in tongues, not so much communicating with the listener, as communing. Our continuing fascination with Elvis is a testament to both his charisma and his voice. The details are secondary. To paraphrase the literary critic and poet Al Alvarez, all that matters is that you hear the voice. When this happens, Elvis Presley doesn't just hold a mirror up to nature, he creates an eternal moment, leaving the sound of his voice on the airwaves as distinctly as Leonardo Da Vinci forever fixed the Mona Lisa smile in time."

"JFK, Elvis, Ronald Reagan, John Candy and Donald Trump"

"I've had the luckiest and greatest life you can imagine, like when Elvis Presley turned to me and introduced me to Johnny Cash. Before I knew it, I was standing in between the two legends."

"Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were born two months apart in 1946 into a revolutionary culture that soon would embrace a hip-swiveling crooner named Elvis Presley and Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. Basically, everything you need to know about them can be found in these two mid-century icons. A fellow Southerner, Clinton saw himself as Elvis. Even now, his face sometimes betrays Elvis's smoldering glance with the slightly curled lip. Trump, a New York City boy, was Hefner. He collected all the toys of the Playboy lifestyle — boats, planes, cars — the best of everything a guilt-mongering rich boy would seek to glam up his sex appeal. Mar-a-Lago was his Playboy Mansion. All three of his wives have been bunny quality, and Trump Tower isn't just a tall building."

"Come to think of it, Elvis, having black females as background singers might be bad going into southern regional areas, such as Texas.."

"When I was in the Army, I had several buddies get tattoos but I never did. I always told myself if I ever got one it would have to be significant. Well this tattoo is very significant to me in a lot of ways.The “57″ represents my time serving as Missouri’s 57th Governor. Then, as a lifelong Chiefs fan, serving as the 57th Governor when the Chiefs won the 57th Super Bowl was a welcomed bonus, and the lightning bolt is a tribute to my love of Elvis Presley and his motto of “taking care of business in a flash.”"

"The news I could bring is that I met up with The King"

"I don't know of anybody that doesn't like Elvis or heard anybody say, ‘Oh, I don’t like his singing.’ Everybody loved Elvis, and I just think that's incredible. He was so different in every way — his voice, his style, the way he moved, the way he looked. He just had this charm and charisma and a lot of sex appeal. Elvis loved my song I Will Always Love You.'. In fact, I talked to Priscilla Presley not very long ago and she said to me, 'You know, Elvis sang that song to me when we walked down the courthouse steps when we got divorced. He was singing to me I Will Always Love You.'""

"He was remembered as an ambassador who had a hand in the Redbirds moving from Louisville to Memphis, the building of AutoZone Park, and by extension, the Grizzlies' move from Vancouver to Memphis. He made Memphis sports what it is. He's the guy. What Elvis Presley did, that's what he did."

"As with the first time we stepped into this amazing world — it is the extraordinary intimacy of Elvis's vocal performances that is truly breathtaking, the exquisite and effortless way he takes us on an emotional journey with him, through delicate sensitivity to power and grace all within a magical 3-minute song. You can't imagine how often we heard these songs during the course of this project but I can honestly tell you that every single time Don Reedman and I played each song it really did feel as if we were listening to a private performance held just for us in our own home. Our home is the Abbey Road studio and we were listening to the greatest artist that ever lived."

"I love Elvis, the whole Elvis story, who he is, where he came from. I mean, I've been to his (childhood) house in Tupelo, I've been to his teenage residence in Memphis, that (Lauderdale Courts) public housing apartment. I mean, he was so frickin' cool."

"Whether one is an Elvis fan or not there is no doubting that no church in Grimsby or any other town, possibly, has ever seen anything like it before, the most moving and joyful service I have ever officiated at. Some people used to think rock and roll was the devil's music but Elvis was a devout Christian."

"Designer Peter Blake worked with The Beatles to stage the cover of the "Sgt. Pepper's" album, which was filled with life-size cardboard likenesses of famous figures including Mae West, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Edgar Allen Poe, Fred Astaire, Sonny Liston, Dylan Thomas, Laurel and Hardy and Karl Marx. John Lennon even requested the inclusion of Hitler and Jesus in the artwork, but he was turned down. (As to) Elvis, he did not appear on the album cover because it was felt by the Beatles he was too big an icon to be included."

"I went in, in 1957, and was soon stationed in Germany with Elvis Presley and Gary Crosby – Bing Crosby's son. We were there so I said why don't we start a band, so we didn't have to do any hard work in the service. We tried to get Elvis to join us and I used to see him every day but he wanted to get away from music for a while, while he was in the service. So me and Gary Crosby, we started it and called ourselves the Jazz Blues Symphony Band. As to hearing people talk about Elvis having racial tendencies, that was a lie...."

"I love his voice"

"Living with my parents in Rapid City, S.D, I was 14 or 15, and Elvis Presley coming to town. This was a month or two before he died. I witnessed women throwing everything onstage -- everything that goes with an Elvis show. It was fascinating.""

"By the early 1960s, only half of the total goal of $500,000 had been raised, so journalists from Hawaii reached out to newspapers across the country for support. Elvis Presley was inspired, and decided to put on a show in remembrance of the men aboard the Arizona and veterans as a whole. There were 4000 available seats for the show, 100 VIP ringside seat tickets which sold for $100 apiece. Using values adjusted for inflation, a VIP ticket cost nearly $800, in 2016 dollars. All of the profits were to be used for the construction of the USS Arizona Memorial. Over 3000 people greeted Elvis upon his arrival at Honolulu International Airport. The concert alone raised $52,000, which was 17% of the total goal for the memorial. While it wasn't enough to completely fund the construction, the performance spread awareness about the fundraiser with an additional $10,000 being personally donated by Elvis and Colonel Parker. Today, people visiting the Arizona Memorial can see the plaque that thanks Elvis and his fans for their contributions to the monument, which was dedicated and built over the next year. The Arizona Memorial today is a symbol of the men aboard the USS Arizona who now stand eternal watch. Attracting over a million visitors annually, the Arizona Memorial makes for an exciting morning of activities...."

"I predict that Elvis Presley's star will fall as quickly as it rose..."

"Our last Mississippi destination was a major reason for my trip South. I told Bob I wanted to see the boyhood home of Elvis Presley in the small town of Tupelo, the singer’s Bethlehem. The humble birthplace had been preserved. Then as now there stands a two-room shotgun shack without indoor plumbing or running water. Bob and I were told by our guide that Jackson Browne and actress Patricia Neal had been quite recently to Elvis’s Tupelo home. “We get people from Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain. Some are fans, some aren’t who are on a tour package. On an icy day we’ll still have 10 or 20 diehards who push through and make it. In summer 1987 I came out of the ladies’ room and I did a double-take,” said our guide. Elvis the Pelvis was standing in the gift shop. “Except for his Australian accent, I couldn’t tell the difference.” And another story. “We had a guy once who came in with black shoes covered with white polish and wearing lots of jewelry. He said, ‘I’m Elvis. Do you have any mail for me?. Anyways, Bob was, though much agonized, portraying a straight man. He never indicated otherwise during our trip through Mississippi. It was years later that, choking, he came out to me: “What would you think if I told you I was gay?” “I wouldn’t think anything,” I answered. “Who cares?” It took more years for him to totally believe me. My final visit with Bob was in Iowa where he’d taught, where he was dying of cancer but surrounded, happily, with cute young men. I well remember you, my fellow Mississippian."

"Maybe you've heard or seen of him, a country star whose striking accessories -- not to mention his acrobatic voice, are evocative of Elvis."

"I played trombone for Elvis in 1972, on many of his tours that year. In a technical sense – air, attack, tone, key and rhythm, yes he was very very good. He had great gut instincts, tremendous talent and abilities and was not shy about saying what he wanted or when he thought that something was wrong or could be done better. But more important than that is the fact he was an entertainer. He understood his role and knew how to move an audience. His phrasing an expression showed talent that was natural"

"In America, Elvis Presley and Martin Luther King have wonderful memorial museums..."

"It was the era of Elvis Presley..... It was my youth"

"Roald Dahl and Stephen King are my Elvis Presley and my Beatles'"

"In the 1962 film "Kid Galahad", Presley portrayed a young man just out of the Army, training to be a prizefighter. He was helped on set by boxing trainer Al Silvani and former welterweight champion “Mushy” Callahan. Since the film's release, the location has drawn Presley fans from around the globe. Real estate broker Robin Oates was one of 50 Idyllwild Elementary School students who were extras. He remembers meeting Presley at age 11 and recalls that it was a “big thrill, pulling three or four kids out of our school and have us for the day. We’d go into one of the local restaurants that the film crew rented. Elvis and others from the film crew would throw a football in the street nearby during breaks. One time, several of us were told to stand in a certain area. Then, he appeared out of nowhere and gave us each an autograph. At night, fans would hang out in front of the house where he was staying. In 2016, 54 years after the movie was shot there, visitors continue to come on tour say, from the UK, to see the lodge. Bob Smith, volunteer archivist with Idyllwild Area Historical Society, escorted them. “It was a pilgrimage,” says Smith, with a smile."

"Although I played no role in those sessions, I was called on for another service. Chips said, ‘Dan, bring your camera down.’ So I took shots of Elvis and the musicians. People are amazed I didn’t say anything to him but what would I have said? ‘Hey, you’re as pilled up as me?"

"The moment the MC mentioned that Elvis had left the building, Ann Marie Royer, my then girlfriend who was a nurse from St Vincent's Hospital in Worcester, MA, insisted that we stay, as it occurred to her that Elvis, who she had not been a fan of before the concert, had to come back for an encore. He had to, she said. It didn't matter how many times I told her he wasn't coming back, but since I was actually driving her car, I reluctantly, albeit diplomatically, agreed we stay until she finally gave in and that was the moment she realized we were the last two people still in the building, out of the 16,200 who had seen Elvis' show at the Boston Garden on the night of November 10, 1971. She had become a fan, at least for a wwhile..."

"It was precisely the creation of my chocolat Eiffel Tower, when I was 21, that led me first to Paris, then to Frankfort, in Germany. There I met Catalina Liz, a Spaniard in whose cafeteria I worked, and which was visited several times by Elvis Presley, then with the US Army. He loved my pastries, really."