When I was a little kid, I was very impressed with Elvis.
Elvis is not so difficult as Johnny Cash because his voice is so distinctive. If you try to copy Johnny Cash, it’s just going to sound dumb.
Black people created rock music, it’s a fact. Black people created bluegrass and rock and roll way before Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
To me, John Lennon and Elvis Presley were punks, because they made music that evoked those emotions in people.
See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn’t dead, Elvis isn’t dead. Otherwise you don’t have a hero. You can’t kill a hero. That’s why I never let him get older.
I was an avid collector of Elvis’ early stuff; for a young singer, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It’s the same as being in school – you learn by copying the maestro.
When I met Elvis, we didn’t really have a conversation. I was introduced by my uncle, and he sort of grunted my way. What stays with me is the whole scene. I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look – he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing.
Elvis Presley’s music never meant anything to me. Mambo was the music I loved – it spoke to me.
Imitation is flattery. There was once a survey of who was the most imitated celebrity in Latin American countries, especially in Brazil and Argentina, and I was in third place after Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
What I like about Elvis is the same thing I like about James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. These guys, back in the day, there was no smoke and mirrors. It was just raw talent. They would step out onstage and command an audience. Talk about awesome.
I romanticize. I live with the ghosts of Elvis and Frank Sinatra. It seems so glamorous. They were American men who don’t exist anymore. But there are ugly things about them, too.
I don’t know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that’s on a t-shirt, I probably won’t know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don’t know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.
A formidable game of ‘Name That Influence’ could be based on the music of the seductive rock duo Girls: The band’s first single, ‘Hellhole Ratrace,’ would barely reach its opening words before screams of ‘Elvis Costello!’ and ‘Wreckless Eric!’ drown out the music.
The album is a definite departure. I haven’t written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one.
You don’t necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.
There was a misconception about me when I started off because I had my hair greased up and I have some vague resemblance to the hillbilly gene pool that Elvis came from. People would say, ‘You want to be Elvis’ and I would say, ‘No’.
Elvis Presley’s music said, ‘Free your body.’ The Beatles said, ‘Free your mind.’
I’m just glad to be feeling better. I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon.
Ice Cube went straight outta Compton to hearing, ‘Are we there yet?’ Eddie Murphy blew up striding across the stage in a red leather ensemble that would have made Elvis Presley chuckle, yet is probably best known to anyone born in the 21st century as the overly chatty donkey from ‘Shrek.’
Elvis said, Miss Minnie, do you think it would be out of order if I go up and speak to General Stewart? I’ve always been such a fan of his. So Elvis went up to speak to the Stewarts.
What happens with ‘Mad Men,’ it’s like an Elvis Costello album; I’ll watch it, and then I immediately have to watch it again. AMC will play it back-to-back. I have a tendency to yell at it when my wife’s not around because if she catches me yelling at ‘Mad Men,’ then it gets weird.
When I was a kid, I used to look in the mirror and pretend I was Elvis.
Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down ‘Hound Dog’ and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That’s the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.
Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands.
One of the few times I saw my mother cry was when Lennon died, and the other time was when Elvis died.
I remember hearing people like Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac, and Elvis. My parents were big fans of them, and they were the early seeds. My brother was more into Slipknot, and I still listen to them, too, but it wasn’t until I listened to Paolo Nutini that it really clicked.
Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had enormous talent, and Elvis was the major contributor to an entirely new genre of music. Sometimes their exploits were distasteful to people, but they left behind an enormous body of work that endures.
I can always remember that experience in Hawaii pleasantly on account of Elvis.
It’s pretty amazing to me that my first hit record was an Elvis Presley record.
The best came from my martial arts teacher, who also taught Elvis. He said, ‘Your ego will get you killed.’
My dad sat me in front of the TV, and instead of putting on Nick Jr. or something, he put me in front of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and all the Elvis movies.
Elvis stole his sideburns from me.
I saw a picture of Elvis in blue lame, and thought that if I could recreate that suit and walk down the King’s Road in it, someone might pick me up and take me off on a crazy adventure.
I’ve been a fan of Elvis since I was 11, so for me, it was a real thrill to make an album of all my favorite Elvis songs.
My father is the reason I’m a wrestler today. He was trained by Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart, and competed under the names Billy the Kid and Elvis Wesley on the Florida Independent scene.
I go back to, like, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Elvis. I listen to everything.
Music ignited a fiery, pent-up passion inside Elvis and inside me. It was an odd, embarrassing, funny, inspiring, and wonderful sensation.
I’m remembered as a model who dated a rock star or 10, among them Steven Tyler, Todd Rundgren, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Jimmy Page, and Rod Stewart.
I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He’s the biggest. He’s like an Elvis in this business, but no, he’s never been the rebel.
I think Elvis would be alive today, probably, if he had been allowed to mix and mingle with his fans. I think it was a great cross for him to bear that he couldn’t get out and be with his fans.
As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D’Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.
I was madly in love with Elvis Presley. Dad wasn’t into it at all, at least not for himself as a performer. He used to say, ‘Mr. Cole does not rock n’ roll.’
George Klein says that Elvis had five real friends outside of his circle, and I was blessed to be one of them. I spent a lot of time with Elvis in Vegas and at Graceland.
You’re never going to see the fat Elvis in me. People I admired like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and John Belushi all died at 27. I’ve got jeans older than that.
By the time I was 25 or 26, I would have earned a million, but if you looked in the bank account, it’s not there because I’ve spent it. That’s what it’s there for. I don’t want to be the richest bloke in the graveyard. Look at Elvis.
Never trust a man who doesn’t like Elvis.
Elvis transcends his talent to the point of dispensing with it altogether.
I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I’d written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.
In 20 years I had sold more records for RCA than any artist except Elvis Presley.
Frankly speaking, I don’t know much about rock music. But I enjoyed some when I was in college or high school. But I stopped listening after Elvis Presley!
Elvis couldn’t leave the hotel except under heavy guard. It was incredible how they went wild over him.
Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn’t mean that artists from the rock n’ roll/folk-roots culture – of which he was not really a part – shouldn’t get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.
Had I been pushed like Colonel Parker pushed Elvis, had I been a white boy like Elvis, sure, it would have been different.
Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the audience of Elvis, and you have Umm Kulthum.
I had Elvis’ number in my book and I never called it.
Elvis was, at least the times I was around him, Elvis was a practical joker. He was always, had some little mischievous something going.
