American Country Singers

"While His Holiness' collection is mostly made up of Classical music, it also includes an old album of Édith Piaf’s greatest hits; Argentine tango tunes, especially by Astor Piazzolla and a 25-disc collection of Elvis Presley’s Gospel songs-"

"When Elvis heard me sing this song in Las Vegas in late August of 1958, he became so emotional that he had to leave the show. The next day, he sent me two dozen yellow roses with a note explaining that he had just lost his mother and hearing me sing 'Mama' was more that he could bear"

"A few months after I released my version of "Crying in the Chapel", RCA released Elvis' version and sales of mine crushed. By sheer chance, I had a encounter with him in California, a few years later. so I confronted him over the issue and told him his version had cost me a lot of money. After explaining that he had not been aware that his song was going to be released, he just quietly got out his checkbook and wrote me a check. I was still upset so I didn't look at it until several months later when Christmas was approaching and money in my family was tight. Worse, my mother had already scraped together what little money she had so she could buy presents for our family at that time. Except she didn't really buy the presents because she only had enough money to put them away in layaway. Anyways, I unfolded the check and let me tell you, I had never seen that many zeros on a check before. It was for US$10,000 (the equivalent of US$80,000 in 2017 dollars). I then took just US$50 dollars for myself, and sent the rest to my mother. And they never had a better Christmas."

"I remember seeing David playing in a local band before I even went to the school since my dad was David's art teacher. I remember seeing this band play on the school steps and this thing with hair sticking straight up and playing the saxophone doing Elvis Presley songs. I looked at my dad and said, “Dad, who is that?” He said, “Oh, that’s Jones.” I said, “I want to be him""

"It was the best thing that ever happened ... to me I mean."

"I started singing in 1967. My brother had a song book which contained songs of Elvis Presley so we used to share the songs and I would imitate a lot of English songs. This helped me when I went to Victoria Falls Casino Hotel where I would sing and entertain whites in the early 1970s. I joined The Four Brothers in 1983 and that is when we recorded ‘Zvinonaka Zvinodhura’ and the following year, we did the ‘Tosangana Ikoko’ album which had eight tracks."

"Art didn't quite hear what all the fuss was about (he even asked, “What kind of a name is that?”), but he went with an offer for the contract. He then called me a few days later saying there's no way he's pay what Sam Phillips wanted — $50,000. His highest offer was $35,000, so I said, ‘Art, you can give him $500,000, it won’t matter, you’ll make it back on the first record" Then “He said, ‘You’re insane.’ I said, ‘Possibly, never had to debate that, but I know what I’m telling you.'” Art never went above $35,000, Elvis' contract went to RCA for $40,000, and the rest is history."

"I felt like I was meeting Elvis Presley or the president."

"It was scientist Isaac Newton who told us in his "Three Laws Of Motion" that each action has an equal and opposite reaction. One could say the same about the behaviour of human societies. Glance at history and you will see what I mean. The Regency period, with an example of a randy slob who later became George IV, was a time of loose morals and widespread immorality. Then came the Victorian era. This we are told was a time of rigid prudishness. That lasted for more than a hundred years. I recall it as a provincial shopkeeper's son in the 1940s. Back then, respectability was all. When did British society revert to its natural preference for randiness? There were three impulses. One was the arrival of The Pill. ­Another was the arrival of marijuana. And yet another was the arrival in the mid-1950s of pop music. I recall the utter horror of the older generation and the forecasts of the end of civilisation and teenage girls swooning at the wildly gyrating hips of Elvis Presley. The pop fraternity was king and the pop stars “screwed around”. In short I wish the sudden legion of moralists (where have they been all these years of Playboy and Penthouse?) would put two short words on their bucket list of chores to accomplish before they drop off the perch. A simple resolution: Grow Up."

"On Wednesday August 22 1956, Colonel Parker called me to report to the bungalow where Elvis was rehearsing 'Love Me Tender' with Ken Darby, the film's music director. They also had to choose some hoedown numbers to be featured in the picture. As we were ready to leave, there was a change in tempo and Elvis sang, "We're gonna move" a lively spiritual. As he stood standing next to the grand piano with Mr. Darby playing – with his head back and thick dark hair tumbling over his eyes, Elvis was oblivious to those around him. When we all left the bungalow, (I noticed) he walked in front."

"During this trip, Dean Nichopoulos was injured on the slopes, requiring a visit to the local hospital. Upon realizing, from a look at his insurance card, that he must have been related to Elvis Presley's doctor, the nurse mockingly asked, “So where is Elvis?” without realizing that the ski mask-clad who was standing right in front of her was precisely Elvis. When she pointedly asked of him, “And who are you?” he calmly replied, “The Lone Ranger.” The nurse, having none of what she thought were just shenanigans, simply went about her business. Because of safety reasons, Elvis appeared on the slopes only in the evenings and in a rented skimobile, with his nighttime adventures prompting a then 19 year old college student by the name of Susan Ford to complain to the US Secret Service and the local police of local violations by Elvis."

"Elvis Presley was a masterful vocal artist. I really do appreciate what Elvis was able to do."

"After the Second World War's boosts, top tax rates wouldn’t dip below 90% until 1964, when they plunged to 77%, remaining in that range until 1982, when they dropped to 50%. In comparison, for the tax 2013, the top tax bracket is 39.6%, kicking in at $400,000. Elvis remained in the spotlight since 1956 until his death, and he continued to tour despite health problems related to his lifestyle. Even when he didn’t tour, he made money, as was the case in the early 60′s, when despite having no personal appearances, he earned $5 million a year ($40,000,000 in today’s dollars). By 1973, he was still raking in money and, as if to give credit to his manager's assertion ("I consider it my patriotic duty to keep Elvis up in the 90 percent tax bracket", was Col. Parker's motto), he was allegedly the top taxpayer in the country."

"It’s big, full of color and pattern and imbued with the outsized personality of its most famous owner. Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis, Tennessee, is the second-most visited house museum in the U.S., with over 600,000 visitors a year. Only the White House sees more tourists."

"He was a cultural icon and his legacy spilled over into the culinary world."

"The public's imagination was caught by Elvis through two things: his unique ability to synthesize all American music styles and his fantastic interpretive qualities as a vocalist; that he managed to keep the public's attention after the music began to suffer, is due to his remarkable charisma, an unparalleled force that was stronger than any ten other men in his peer group; (while) it's the charisma that allowed him to get away with covering substandard songs like "A Little Less Conversation," (1968), it's his musical ability alone that elevated it to a status it didn't deserve, creating something so endearing that the simplest of remix jobs could make it sound contemporary, a quarter-century after his death; he may always be a punchline to some people, but the continuing evolution of our fascination with the King has to do with his ability to reinvent himself every time he's heard; even, apparently, from beyond."

"Alas, no paths crossed with Elvis. Shucks"

"I remembers watching the Elvis special when it aired in December 1968, just as my band was beginning to erupt as a major force in rock & roll. In fact, we released our first Top 40 hit, “Suzie Q,” that same year. Many people my age, especially after the Beatles, had kind of pushed Elvis aside a little bit. And that was the neat thing about the special — there was Elvis, your long lost friend, looking really good and sounding good. It was great to have him back."

"Mickey Mantle's mystique is unquantifiable. He's like Clint Eastwood and Elvis Presley. There's something there. An aura. The manliness of all three of them. Each of them is a classic in their field."

"From his eerie 1954 reading of “Blue Moon” up to 1976's “Hurt,” Elvis established himself as a pre-eminent ballad singer, something a lot of people forget in the flurry to hail his anarchic rock material. “It Hurts Me” from 1963 isn't the first great ballad of his career, but it's one of the finest. Recorded in Nashville at the same session which yielded his supple version of Chuck Berry's “Memphis, Tennessee,” “It Hurts Me” fuses Elvis' love for gospel melisma with the heartache of a lover forced to stand on the sidelines of a romance. He approaches the song — a forbearer of the Four Seasons' “Silence Is Golden” — at first delicately, as if he's afraid any force would snap the song's tension. By the second bar, the song is all tension, with the pain of watching the right woman with the wrong man becoming too much to bear. When the roaring finale comes sweeping through, its two minutes and some-odd seconds seem to have encompassed a lifetime of anguish."

"As a youngster I discovered what I could do almost by accident. I grew up in Lima, where my father was a folk singer and my mother managed a pub that presented live music. So, as a teenager, I would sometimes sing a variety of popular songs from Elvis Presley onwards. I was drawn to music from the start so I started guitar lessons at 11 and began to learn music theory at about 14. Then I started to write my own songs but always this was pop-oriented. It was only when I entered the National Music Conservatory at age 17, that I started to discover classical music. In fact, I came late to classical music, preferring instead pop music and Elvis Presley."

"I learned music listening to Elvis' records. His measurable effect on culture and music was even greater in England than in the States.""

"No, because Vince is Elvis Presley. Elvis never did Johnny Carson even once. I get asked more about what kind of guy Vince McMahon is than anybody else in the wrestling business."

"Elvis....Elvis Presley.............. Im all shook up"

"After Elvis goes through basic training, he should do entertaining. That's what I did did five years ago — and it was the greatest experience of my life. I don't know what he's got. Certainly, he's no singer; even he must admit that. Maybe it's the beat. All the rock 'n' roll singers have it, and the beat seems to be important in today's market. And frankly, I don't think Elvis is right in the way he plays on the emotions of the young girls."

"Nobody ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and all I wanted to be was Elvis Presley. But listening to Elvis was not allowed."

"I want him to have an earring hanging from his tongue. He is the REAL love of my life. When I am with him, and I walk with him, is like being with Elvis Presley."

"Not wanting to spoil anyone's party, but in the context of the Grand Bear market of that time, and it certainly was a Very Grand Global Bear Market, the demise of Lehman Brothers was by no means the most important event, and it happened quite late on the timeline as well. Today, books have been written and the event features in a number of documentaries, while the question "Where were you when Lehman went bankrupt?" sits right up there with 9/11, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the death of Elvis Presley."

"People say “If Elvis had been a more astute businessman or taken more interest in the workings of his career, he would have been a much bigger star.” But God Almighty, he made more money than anybody I know of. And next to Jesus and Coca-Cola, nothing’s any better known than Elvis Presley..."

"It's like people saying Elvis Presley was only famous because he was white. He had, y'know, the rhythm of James Brown but he had his own thing. He was Elvis, he wasn't just a white man. Things like that are going to be picked up between black people and white people and anybody, it doesn't mean a person is or isn't great because they're influenced by something associated with another race. It doesn't matter. Anyway, that period was different, like when he was there, they were stopping everything, and he had the moment for real. While I'm here, its not all about 50 Cent, but it was all about Elvis.”"

"Priscilla was a bride in a sort of fallow land. Elvis took her to Graceland when still a teenager, put her in "pause", then married her once she became a woman.."

"At that moment, Ali seemed to me to be not so much a measuring stick against other great heavyweights such as Louis, Jack Dempsey and Rocky Marciano, as of Elvis Presley. Elvis was the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, The Greatest in his own sphere, a man who was both drawn to and repelled by the limelight he so easily attracted. And I wondered if the golden cage of fame, sought by many, attained by few, was all it was cracked up to be when Muhammad Ali embarked on his quest to put himself on a pedestal unknown to any boxer. In 1993, the United States Postal Service conducted a nationwide poll to determine which version of Elvis Presley should appear on a commemorative stamp. One version was of the 1956 lean and hip-swiveling Elvis; the other was the 1970s sequin-jump-suited and noticeably plumper Las Vegas model. The vote was, of course, a landslide for the young Elvis. Were a similar vote be put to the American public for an Ali stamp, one being the young, sleek and impossibly gifted boxer who did things no heavyweight had done before or since, or the older, retired Ali who was cited for his humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society, the outcome would be as preordained as had been the one for Elvis. That class of humanitarians and philanthropists might be in short supply, but they still are more plentiful than individuals who can perform feats of athletic excellence that can make mere mortals gasp in amazement."

"It's been more than five decades, but there's still such freshness to the recording, such unexpectedness bursting through the familiarity. Scotty Moore and Bill Black, on guitar and upright bass, hang on for all they're worth, trying to keep up with this crazy kid as Elvis's voice – urgent, insinuating – floats out over the beat, a croon that joins joy and nerves and arrogance (already you can hear his sneer), and that voice turns almost spectral as it slides into its upper register whenever it comes to allll ri-iiiiii-ght. (Forget “E pluribus unum’’ or “In God we trust.’’ The words that should appear on our currency are “That’s all right. What I was hearing transcended beauty..."

"I have enjoyed a lot of songs of various genres in my life but Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and John Denver are my favorite American male singers."

"Well I did a couple of movies with Elvis, he was really fun to work with, a really nice guy"

"John and Paul hit it off very quickly. There was something both of them had that just locked together. Perhaps it was a crazy kind of attitude towards life, a contemptuous mockery that later became the trademark of the four Beatles, or perhaps it was just a teenage friendship that stuck. As far as John was concerned, Paul was not only a good guitarist – as good as John himself – but he also resembled their mutual idol, Elvis.”"

"Teenagers dominated the mid-20th century, the term being invented only in the 1930s, and no one gave them more visibility than Elvis Presley, who began his own career at 18, embodying the teen desire for liberation from their parents' culture and mirroring their more open sexuality, as he gave youth everywhere in the world music to call their own."

"Elvis Presley shared the soul of black music's best performers. He was a reflection of our life experience"."

"I was fortunate enough to auction Elvis Presley's jet, which was kind of cool"

"Elvis Presley would probably have to be my biggest musical influence. After all, he was from the same region as I am and it inspired me to continue my music career into college, even though my major is architecture."

"Had he not kissed, he'd be our Jesus."

"Then candidate Joe Biden, didn't even run for President in 2020. The press ran for him against Donald Trump. In fact, there were more Elvis sightings in the summer of 2020 than Biden's sightings"

"The moment I first saw him, the presence he had, wow, he was so beautiful, and had such a charisma that no one could even utter a word. Anyways, a couple of days later, at the MGM Commissary, which was a gigantic place, you know, full of stars, directors, I was seated in a table, my back was facing the door, and then everybody started to get up, and they were all rushing outside, so I turned around and you know, when you are trying to look through a glass, with the sun behind you, so you kind of cover your face, and it was Elvis, outside, looking for me, inside, so there he was, at one of the lowest times in his career, and all 700 people, many celebrities themselves, rush and try to meet him. He almost didn't have a chance to survive THAT kind of celebrity..."

"I remember when I first saw Elvis, I had been playing guitar since I was 8, so then I saw him I said, WOW, finally people are gonna know what a guitar is. (After him) it was cool to have a guitar around your neck, when before, it wasn't""

"In 1956, cast me as a bullfighter in the film adaptation of 's "The Sun Also Rises", with most of the cast as well as Hemingway himself opposing me. But when Zanuck saw me learning the trade in Mexico, he said “The kid stays in the picture. And anybody who doesn’t like it can quit.” By 1957, when the film opened, I was receiving more mail than anyone else at Twentieth Century Fox, apart from Elvis Presley."

"I really am a big Elvis fan – at six foot three I’m one of the biggest. In all the excitement about accompanying the Beatles to their meeting with Elvis, I sent my suit to the cleaners to prepare for the big meeting. However, the cleaners had sewn up my pockets where I kept a bunch of guitar picks that I always had on hand for the boys. So, inevitably when Elvis asked for a guitar pick that night, I went into a panic. I couldn’t access the picks in my sewn-up pockets, so I frantically ran into the kitchen and smashed up a bunch of plastic spoons to create makeshift picks. I’d have loved to have given Elvis a pick, have him play it, then got it back and had it framed."

"I guess I should have set a price before I set foot in the boat, but I felt pretty ritzy later that day as we stepped into our gondola. "How much to sing "O Sole Mio?" I asked. I had been taken with the song and Venice since seeing it in movies. If there was one piece of music associated with Venice and its canals, it was this. I knew that Pavarotti had recorded it. So had Caruso. And Mario Lanza. And Elvis Presley, recently released from the Army, had a version written for him called "It's Now Or Never." Without missing a beat the gondolieri told me, "Sixty dollars, U.S." He put his oar in the water and we splashed off. He was a pretty good singer, actually, and I imagined that we were in an old MGM Technicolor musical. My wife Roz was smiling and I was thinking, Yeah, this is a magical moment. I thought about imagining this moment from the time I was growing up in Brooklyn, and that I probably never would have wanted anything better. When we had gotten married all those years before, taking a gondola on a Venice canal, listening to "O Sole Mio" and "It's now or never", it wasn't something I even dared consider. It would have been a fantasy. Now, I was living that fantasy as we held hands and he wound up with a full-throated last note. When the sail ended, I peeled off three twenty-dollar bills, and thanked him. We walked away, humming."

"It had been expected for a half a million dollars to be raised from the music festival which included appearances by Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, the Staple Singers, the Dells and others, including the Rolling Stones. With the money raised, plans had been made to use part of it for some work to be done on the Robert F. Kennedy Park and Playground in Fayette. More than 47 years later, the then Mayor Charles Evers finally revealed that Presley, who along with the Stones did not participate in the festival, had wanted to come and perform there, especially because of his being a huge follower of B.B. King. Evers said he and his brother, Medgar, fought for change because they knew Mississippi would be the greatest state in the nation if that change took place. With the nomination of Evelyn Gandy, James Hardy, Aaron Henry, Ida B. Wells and Elvis he now believes Mississippi is one of the greatest states to live in..."

"By virtue of Elvis Presley being Mississippi's most beloved son."

"Well, Jesus and I are Capricorns, and Elvis Presley was born on the same day as me. I read an article the other day about only children and about they being more successful because they never have to compete for love,"