Singer on Elvis Presley

“While others might have voices the equal of Presley's, he had that certain something that everyone searches for all during their lifetime...”

“When I met him, I had a very small role in his movie, “Live A Little, Love A Little,” but he was very kind to me. He didn't mind when I had to do 5 or 6 takes of a very simple scene. I guess I had expected him to be kind of wild and boisterous, but that was not the case. He ran lines with me, worked out a realistic way I was to knock him down in one scene, was friendly every day, liked jokes and told some good ones. I was smoking a Dutch cigar one day and, when he asked about them, I gave a few to Elvis. The next day, there was a whole pack of those cigars on my chair on the set. We talked about karate and he showed me some moves – even had the prop man set up a brick for him to break. He liked my square-toed boots and asked me where I got them – I heard he bought a half-dozen pair like them in all available colors. We also talked about things we did back home in Mississippi, like squirrel hunting. His boys were around him all the time – I talked a lot with Charlie Hodge. It was a memorable time. I never had any contact with him after that. I could not help but be impressed with how down-to-earth and laid back he was.”

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

“He never lost that Southern, genteel, gentlemanly persona. Of course, that came from his mother. I loved that about him. He was that way to the end”

“Growing up during the pre-rock ‘n’ roll era, I fell on the ground when I heard “Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956. I thought, ‘Man this is happening. Years later I met him while rehearsing for his ’68 Comeback Special. Our road manager was Jerry Williams, a promoter who knew Elvis so one June evening Jerry asked us to go down and see him. When we arrived between 9:30 and 10 o’clock that night, Elvis decided to take a break. He came out right on Sunset Boulevard, standing on the sidewalk leaning against the building. Jerry exclaimed, “You can’t stay out there!” And this is Elvis Presley, right? He looks like Elvis Presley. Elvis replied, “Look, nobody is gonna believe it’s really me”. It was the truth. We're just rapping back and forth. People came by, and they'd do a double take—‘Nah it can’t be Elvis’—and they'd walk on. Nobody will ever be like him. I would have given anything to have seen him at the Overton Park Shell [renamed the Levitt Shell] in Memphis when he was about 20 years old. Elvis rocked harder than almost anybody. If he's in heaven right now—and I'm sure he is—he's probably smiling as he looks down and says, “Look how many people are trying to do what I did”.”

“He was in the big room at Western Recorders, and had his cape on at the time (laughs). He was preparing to go back out on tour and he was asking us, “Well, what’s it like?” He was a really kind gentleman, couldn't have been nicer and definitely knew who The Beach Boys were. We saw him play live in Vegas at The Hilton and he was darn good. I mean, what a voice...”

“This cat came out in red pants and a green coat and a pink shirt and socks, and he had this sneer on his face. He stood behind the mic for five minutes, I'll bet, before he made a move. Then he hit his guitar, a lick, and he broke two strings.So there he was, these two strings dangling, and he hasn't done anything except break the strings yet, and these high school girls were screaming and fainting and running up to the stage. Then he started to move his hips real slow, like he had a thing for his guitar.For the next nine days, he played one-nighters around Kilgore, and after school every day, me and my girl would get in the car and go wherever he was playing that night, in Gladewater, Alpine, Gonzales, and Lubbock, were other country singers witnessed the spectacle and heeded his call – Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings. That was the last time I tried to sing like Webb Pierce or Lefty Frizzell.”

“I remembered meeting Elvis and he was the one who told me my dad was the king of cool. I'll never forget that.”

“I never sang to people. I sang for them, so in 1956, I told that to Elvis Presley. After that he sang not to but for the audience. A subtle difference.”

“When I was a kid, we moved from Canada to the US, first to Pasadena, then to Palm Springs. This guy who lived across the street was the PS's airport manager and he really liked us, so he’d tip us off when famous people were flying in. One day, he told us Elvis Presley was flying in at 3 p.m. and if we showed up we could meet him. He let us ride with our bikes on the tarmac and then, this private plane landed, the steps came down and... there was Elvis. We ran towards him and he picked me up and swung me around, hugged my sister, signed autographs, and talked to us. Finally, one of his guys told him they had to go, but as they drove off, he rolled down his window and waved goodbye to us all the way down the road. He was so nice, really cool and it was so great to meet him and shake his hand..”

“He was the greatest. In fact, he was the most charismatic individual I have ever seen both off and on the screen, he was the kind of person who could not walk into a room and not stop whatever was happening in that room. Every person, man or woman would turn to look at him, he was that magical, There are no words in the vocabulary, unless it is that he had magic.”

“- My earliest connection with Elvis was that my substitute English teacher at Paxton High was Mae Axton, who seven months later would go on to write "Heartbreak Hotel". Mae was also a show promoter and in the late spring of 1955 she brought the Hank Snow Show to the Gator Bowl Baseball Stadium and that was how I met Elvis. Before the start of the show, I got backstage, talked to him for a long time and then I finally introduced myself to him. He then said "Well I'm Elvis Presley" and I thought 'Wow, that's a strange name' as I had never even heard his name before that. I was there actually to see Snow who headlined and so forth, but as soon as he hit the stage I knew who he was! I'd been thinking that he was just a guitar player but when he went out on stage they came out of the bleachers, pushed so hard you just couldn't hold them back. There just wasn't enough protection as this was a Country show. Elvis was bottom of the bill that day and he hadn't even had a major hit yet, so you wonder what Snow must have thought of the reaction. That day, on May 13, 1955, was the first time I had ever seen a show with so much screaming and fan input. I'd never seen anything like that. It was unbelievable.”

“While I was recuperating at Veterans' Hospital in Portsmouth, VA, I went to nearby Norfolk, where I first saw an up and coming singer named Elvis Presley perform at Hank Snow's All Star Jamboree. This experience changed my life. Seeing him on television, as well, I practically launched out of the hospital bed and onto the stage...”

“After seeing "Jailhouse Rock", where Elvis gets out of jail and makes his own records, takes them to the radio stations himself to finally put his records in the stores, I then made records and put them in stores.”

“i) One day we are in a recording session, here at RCA B, and he was talking to one of the clean up guys. Then three RCA people from New York, with suits and they walked up to Elvis, but he paid no attention to them. The clean up guy stopped talking, but Elvis said "Go ahead, Sir". When he finished, the clean up guy shook his hand and thanked Elvis for talking to him. Then Elvis approached the guys from New York and said "Gentlemen, if you see me talking to somebody, don't interrupt me, don't even walk up to me, I know when it{s your turn and I will walk up to you. And that was the end of it. ii) The best I have ever seen him look was in 1967, at the Circle G Ranch. His hair was black to blonde like it was naturally, the colour of a fawn. Just as shiny as could be. He had a suit and shoes the same color of his hair, so he walked in and we were stunned. He had been out riding his horses, was tanned and his eyes shunned like diamonds. We couldn't believe it. We just stood there and looked at him. Finally, he said "Shall we dance?"”