The Day Elvis Presley Died 816 and Beyond Documentary Interview Footage 2018

I was radio TV in Memphis but I was freelancing for a theme park called Liberty land and I got a call the radio station costed GK uh just got a bulletin for the United Press and Elvis has passed away and I said oh I don't believe that you know a couple weeks ago that happened he was in a hospital and you got a bulletin and it wasn't for real he said well can you check it out well no sooner that I hung that phone up had five more calls there they were all for me and everyone that was asking about that so I took one of the phones off the hook and I called Grayson and I got mr. Presley's girlfriend sandy on the phone I said sandy this is George Klein is it true about Elvis she said yes and you need to get here as fast as you can and man I was I was in a state of shock right there I couldn't walk couldn't say anything couldn't talk so went out and jumped in my car and drove 100 miles an hour to Graceland walked in and mr. Presley was there and there's turmoil in the oil room off the kitchen everybody was crying and hugging each other just didn't believe it and mr. Presley said George we lost him and I said meant to help mr. Presley I said job you know maybe it's a mistake maybe they pulled him through by the grace of God he says about that time dr. Nick walk in the doctor he said we all gather around me we gather around dr. date you said ladies and gentlemen hate to tell you that Elvis Presley passed away this afternoon yes I do I was hitting home it was just unbelievable now this is a true story when I was a little boy I was afraid to go to sleep in my bed by myself don't know what I was scared of I think maybe the devil or ghost or whatever but I was also afraid that the world was going to end and but then I would say what the world came in because the Elvis Presley is alive and he's not going to die so I could go to sleep with that thought every night and when he died it was rough I was actually working in construction and we had a radio loan at the construction site and the radio announcer came on and he said ladies and gentlemen I have some of the saddest news I've ever got to deliver said mr. Elvis Presley is dead I hollered out at a buddy of mine I'm like Billy did you hear that I said Elvis who died he's like man you must have heard that wrong you know I'm telling you they said Elvis died so I remember it very well Holman walked in the door my mother was crying and I asked her what was wrong when she said Elvis died I do I was at my grandmother's house and I remember my mom walking into the front door and when she walked into the living room she fell in the floor crying and I'm like four so I'm seeing my mom crying I'm like oh my gosh and I start crying on my mom she tells me Elvis dad now publishes somebody our family and um and I was wanting to go to the funeral with her and everything yeah I remembered it so yesterday was my grandmother had passed away about two weeks prior to that and she had gave me a little monkey to hang on the mirror of my first car and I was out Believe It or Not sitting in my car listening to Elvis on the on the 8-track tape and I was reminiscing about her and then my brother had come to the door and then my mom and Kafala d-mint and she told him says Tim what your brother's fixing takes the truth and he said many Elvis just died so I grabbed a tape recorder bleeding FBC arse back in those days and I read the cassette tape recorder and when the house started taping all the news broadcast and all the specials and I still got them all to this day I was wearing Elvis shirt I had just got through talking about it and an Elvis shirt on I was in my dad's store in Moscow Mills Missouri I just got through talking about him to a lady who had matter of fact on March 22nd 1976 had ran up on a stage in and she got on the stage and of course his bodyguards took him off took her off we were just talking about that and I heard it on the radio and I sweep in my dad's store and hit me like a knife and I can remember just like like it was yesterday but we were on our way to take a trip to opera man I must admit at that time probably much more Elvis fan that I am now and do the fact that I did work alone et a former years but at that time it was no we've lost a great person did I go out and born somewhere honestly no but I knew we had lost great talent and I do not realize at that time not maybe being a fan of some of the people I've met since I've been the oldest week all the things that he had done and I'm in reserves and your stories it's probably the thing that impressed me the most about Elvis was his love and giving nature when I realized that he'd gave this money to charities someone would mention well you know it's going to be a good tax break ever since I don't think so wouldn't be a guilt if I didn't have I didn't pay taxes so just is love and want us to share that love that's what I see in continue maybe you don't even know if you're welcome to start talking to him because I know what we're all here for so it's pretty easy to see show you English those servers odors as I was working and I came home at 2:14 the West Pune in Spokane Washington which is no longer there but I walked into the house and and my wife Gwen told me that Elvis had passed away it was a shock I was many years ago on a small island off the UK on holiday and I woke up hit the radio on and in the news broke out I was between Detroit and Memphis driving or riding couldn't believe it when I heard it on the radio you know why I'm getting old so I don't remember I really don't remember where I was at I know my mom cried a river of tears when when he passed away and I was very choked up too just like everybody else was well just like everybody else we just couldn't believe that such a young age that man was gone and guys always kidded me about Elvis sitting they said did you hear Elvis died and I said no and so I went next door to 7-eleven found a TV and there in the ladies where they were crying and everything massed mices is it true and they said yes so I was out it was really depressing that was one of my biggest regrets of my life I never in those heels okay August in England before 16th of August 77 Elvis was still huge from a British point of view is he was making a comeback to rock and roll music at songs like way down moody blue for the hi cetera so his career as far as the Brits were comments concerned you know he was really turning around and going back to his rock'n'roll roots again and you know if these songs at that time we're hitting the chest but they weren't quite getting as high as they should be they're still getting the top turn but they'd only saw breach number nine number seven is something line up and then that fateful day on August 16 1977 it changed everything within a week way down was number one in the charts again the estate at the top of the charts for six weeks solid every album in the top twenty was almost Elvis Presley the week following his death everybody just rushed out and they they bought every album every t-shirt every cassette tape every picture of Elvis every bit of memorabilia pretty much and so there wasn't necessarily music of could have been books at such a book if it had Elvis his picture on it or Elvis his name on it they boy we're going back to the music certainly at one point every song in the top 20 sorry every album that's all twenty was an Elvis album at least for a week I was sixteen years old we were probably getting where I was probably getting ready in fact I'm sure I was I was getting ready for football practice or something like that eBay it would have been that time of year and I just remember coming home and that's all you saw on the news all your on the radio the deal was a sad day I was working at the grocery store friend of mine who was off that day came in the back door and he was kind of really kind of pasty white and he said he said Brian he said he said Elvis died and I said yeah right you know like it like he was trying he knew as a fan and I thought he was trying to play some kind of sick joke and and he said no I mean it and I remember just sitting down you know back there in the back room and just thinking like somebody punched me in the gut you know and then just just within minutes my dad phone rang and my dad called me he had heard it at work and when I when I heard it from my dad I knew it was the real deal and of course after that everybody that was coming in was talking about Elvis dying it was you know it's let's face it that's he was huge news you know everybody was upset when I heard that was the past I was on my way home in 77 I was a freshman in high school and on my way back home I just remember getting home and finding my mom I'm very upset about it of course like a lot of the mom so ordered starts that is where you first get your exposure she was a big fan it upset her and and upset a lot of people that it made me feel feel pretty bad as well but I remember not believe in anyway I've already surpassed him there could be there could be anyone that can go at any time and you never know when your time's good by the time I heard it was somewhere around three or four o'clock in the afternoon and they did now so the radio that was in a store I caught I mean when I heard it I walked outside it was I didn't have a cell phone what the Weber cell phones back then but I called there was a little payphone right there next to the store I called now and one of the secretaries answered it and I said this is Billy is it true what I heard and I said yes and they said you need to get here as fast you can and so I dropped the phone and just stood by the car I cried for a little bit and then I got in the car and headed to question when I got there both my brothers were standing in the backyard and I walked up to them I started talking with him and then at least Marie pulled up and well enough we went to ride in a golf cart it's no no not right now obviously it was shocking to a lot of people but I think it just became a reality for everybody that you know he he embodied youth and he embodied Fame and people began to understand the trappings of that type of lifestyle you know again you know people grew up with him he represented a lot of different eras and I think it just really you know people people thought if it can happen to him it's going to happen to me someday you know so you know it's just like when you walk to Graceland you see his jumpsuits and we don't realize that you know he he was 6 1 or 6 2 and you know walked on two legs like the rest of us actually was swimming in swimming though and remember they are very vividly I was uh except that he just jumped into the water and I remember my mom coming down and uh she and her sisters they came and told me she said that Elvis too died and being that I didn't really know what that meant I knew something bad like tip other face if something really bad happens and in termite life that but I was in the kitchen washing dishes and they come I have a radio they're gonna come across the news that someone had said that like an ambulance had first came up to Graceland first a lot of people didn't think too much about as I passed histogram of the Aryan Delta and then in a few minutes later it said that there was a problem with Elvis it was just like it was breathtaking this year in the house and you hear the same thing on the guy you know but what could it be and then we found out in his element several of us went right down to the gate and of course we got through the eighth just right at the gate I was just a little little tyke so I just kind of grew up not really paying attention to that aspect I was just appreciating him so he was and you know just that whole thing you know so I really didn't take effect until it's like now come on to the vigil and seeing her the impact they had on so many millions of people it's just amazing I had always passed away was on the vacation in Scotland the very next morning we were down on my breath remotely they do what they all tell see you guys know Elvis passed away because the merdeen Scottish accent I thought she said I just went in toast marmalade on the table of the time and I thought she said Elvis Presley bread and I just looked at her phone doesn't look any different some able to then the new song clean our chest we said Elvis Presley is best [Music] I was playing baseball hit a baseball field when I heard his die all the way to play ball okay in 1977 the damn hood it was passed away I was just had went to trace Google over that morning and around I guess what trace go from 8 to 5 and I guess it was around 3:45 maybe a four wheeler for some bad choice food came up and told me that Elvis passed away and I'm kind of shocked for a minute sit there he just kind of clicked with Falls after that I told a friend of mine check that a trace girl about I guess bout 30 minutes early and I'm telling him we picked him up and went on the Memphis and got there about almost about 6 I guess the little bastard said got that to the game that was about 15 20 people dead when I got there and we started talking to them then we went got a room when we came back and I guess around 7 8 o'clock right before still get dark man there's so many picture dad you just just cook walk up down the side I was on the road I was actually doing shows you know we played little bars and we played conventions things like that were was more than just an hour thing I always did a lot of other stuff also and then this was the highlight you know this was the Saturday night last show go home afterwards then we do that so we led up all week do other things then that was the big thing we were on the road I was in Indiana traveling when I heard the news and of course I had actually been singing some of the oldest beforehand but I dated 1974 February 14th because it was close him as a good-sized show that I was doing as my beginning date and all that time all I wanted to do was meet the guy and which I never got to do I saw the show in 71 and I saw his show in 1977 in Indianapolis which was the last one and it was kind of ironic that even though I didn't get to meet him shake his hand I'm actually from Indiana so from the Ohio River area south and it was kind of you know I guess maybe was meant to be that I was able to be there on the last show so that's kind of how it you know kind of got started I was in call the Rising Sun and Hazel girl is about 29 [Music] Zuma's determine our specialist affluence on Radio Caroline all mine man I know how it affected me you know I mean I there's just so many different aspects of it I mean I just wish you would I wish he was still here you know I mean he is in a sense and spirit but you know I'm just thankful that you know I got to see him and help change my life up saved my life and I will never forget it and I will die I'll go to my grave you know respecting that man and thinking that man for what you know thinking God most of all forgiving that man to us and helping us you know because some people out here that don't understand Elvis you know they think it's kind of weird you said him you tell these stories is when they don't get it you know well I know they don't but I get it and millions of others get it and I think it's a great thing and I think it'll never die I was living in North Little Rock at the time and I was at a swimming pool and I had just go balls in that moment I heard he had passed away and I hit the water too late to hear any of the rest of us I'm electrician and I was on my way home to work I was really hot that day and I was trying to know [Music] matter of fact I was reading a book about illness and you know I was sitting at work and every day during the last time I've read everybody's making comments about it then I was driving home that day and actually I works for the Decatur Helen review newspaper I worked there for two years three months it was about 1:30 or so and they started getting there's the old pee pee news typewriters teletypes back to name days and one of the editors came over and said Fred said we're getting something over the the teletype you better come look at from a peep so I got it from my desk I was in sales advertising sales I walked over to the AP and I started reading I says nah this can't be right I said I would have gotten phone call or something and then later on it kept coming in they start sending the photos over the AP news wire they that's how everything was done back name dates and sure enough it was true and I just got up and left work I think I got paid for them and I told them also in my contract that I get off on me I don't work on Elvis Presley's birthday that's a holiday for me but anyway and everybody understood that I was a fan they knew I was a collector Decatur Illinois kind of depressed area for Elvis so they always turned to me when Dad a question about Ellis and working in a newspaper you got the news pretty fast you know that was a my first time I'll never forget it I just went home and my kids knew what happened and that that's what happened I've remembered vaguely night August 16 1977 I was probably about three or four years old and I remember TV commercials went to a news flash seeing that they had some sad news for a world and they loved us personally had passed away and that's all I remember I think with us living in the UK we were totally shot when Elvis died we didn't see it coming at all I think in the USA a lot of people did secretly because the cinnamon concert has seen what shape he was in at the time but we just seen pictures and the only pictures that they were relating to was in the UK were pictures sort of pre 1975 and not was the album something released at the time it was always a slimmer Elvis you know and we we were just in or and the guy and when he died I think everybody in the UK was toasting somewhere another we didn't expect at all my mom at her friend's house [Applause] I just heard on the radio but I know where I was yeah I was at my mom's friends I forget her name but I was working at my family business we had a wholesale retail business of fruit and vegetables business and I was working and I heard that he had passed away I saw Elvis alive about three days before he passed away I came up to Graceland division we're always talking about of personal matters we went up in his bedroom and had a great talk and he told me he was getting ready to go on to what I was doing four days later he passed now they really feel about the whole fine to have nice to people that's what I find like I said at us you know you were standing by the gate and by the wall closed today the only spot but when somebody wanted to come up and sign the walls they kind of moved backwards people could come up and do that everybody was so nice just like a family I was sitting in a chair watching TV watching I forget what I was watching but the news is special bulletin came I stood up I remembered very well like most people do where were you when Elvis died I had just registered for high school my mother and I had moved from another part of Memphis it was just she and I back then mom was a single parent and working all the time trying to make a living and she was at work that day and it was a Tuesday because you had to register on August 15th and 16th that Monday and Tuesday and I think it was a through J last names on Monday and K through Tuesday and that was me and I had walked over to my new school Central High School which is the north end of Elvis Presley Boulevard called Bellevue I just walked over there and it was a half a day just to get your registration for classes and walk around and see where all the classes were and big monolithic structure I've never seen a school like that four stories and and found my way around and I had wandered home maybe by 12 or so and I've been laying on the couch eating snacks and watching reruns of Gilligan's Island stuff like that you know and I guess it was 2:00 or 3:00 that afternoon when a local television reporter on Channel five here in Memphis I remember the man's name his name is dick Holley broke in with a special bulletin and the first announcement was that Elvis had been rushed to Baptist Hospital and the early reports were that he was suffering from a respiratory problem and when they found out more they would break into programming to let us know what was and it was one of the special bulletin break ins very brief and so I called my mother at work and she was had a lot of friends some of her girlfriends she ran around with were nurses at Baptist and they at all of course met Elvis at one time or another mother just loved him so much so I called my mom at work they took awhile to get her on the phone and she came to phone and I said mama they just had to rush the Elvis to the hospital we had tickets for a concert he was doing in Memphis in a week or so thereafter at the mid-south Coliseum else was to appear and so we had our tickets and I remember mother not talking that way I wonder I hope it doesn't you know doing it I hope he's better by the end so we could sing yet and while I was on the phone with her they I saw the special bulletin chromakey come across the television again special bulletin from Action News five and I saw mr. dick Holley before they ever got to him he was taking his glasses off and dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief oh no before you ever open his mouth I had body language told what he was about to say and my mother came home immediately from work and by 5:00 p.m. we were at the gates of Graceland the road was still open the highway was still going and I was present Boulevard was happening at five o'clock there was maybe 50 100 people there and we stayed till 2:00 or 3:00 that morning the 17th before going home and having a few hours of sleep we returned the next day all day all night we were there when those poor girls got hit by that drunk driver in front of Graceland right there you know just a matter of yards away and then we returned of course the third day and it stood on the side of the road like everybody else for the funeral my mother and I actually got to see Elvis lying in state we were some of the few we now know a few people to say 20 something thousand I think now they got to go up and see Elvis lying in state mother had made some friends at the gate over the course of a couple of days true Elvis fans couldn't leave their apartment and I remember mother and I having to fall into a single-file line walking up the driveway Elsa's Uncle Fester and cousin Harold Lloyd had a s quarters it's kind of the hill and we were probably some of the first 100 people in the door but as we filed in we had to make a single-file line people passing in and coming out the front door and we went through it as she turned to the right in the living room there in that doorway they had a like a velvet rope like it uh like in a movie theater and they had a Memphis police officer on one side and at a Shelby County police officer on the other side and Elvis lining state well into the living room in that big beautiful casket and flowers everywhere the whole place was overrun and you could actually hear family members emotionally expressing ourselves and crying and stuff throughout the lower floor there in the house people moving in and out but as we came out back onto the Elvis's front porch and the single-file line trying to get a little organized out there say 50 people back just off the steps mother saw the ladies that she had befriended they had fallen in the line behind us and I remember to this day it was like it started right then they were saying it wasn't him wasn't it's not real it can't be true it's all a big fake that's not him what he look like what was it it was a him we were speaking with her or with the ladies as we walked along and fell into line again with them and went through a second time and I remember standing on my tippy-toes trying to look over there I remember that time looking a little closer and he said so young their line and state it was overwhelming even for a 15 year old little knucklehead like me long hair listening to Led Zeppelin and stuff every day but that was my hero and it was very very profound and emotional for me too right there and that's what I remember most about $70 I was in a medical center I was in the lab working and I was painting the lab whether or not I'd I remember people started calling me that day and I couldn't believe it to turn the radio on and said he had passed away it was sad and I'm never driving home that day I was in traffic bumper-to-bumper and every radio station was playing Elvis music and I was just looking over and everybody was crying women men were just you could see they were just like losing real close family members really sad where was I I was at Graceland eight hours before he passed away I'd been through some difficulties with drug rehab it was a pretty well teenage kid and I was there Graceland that now relate to him my a young girl who was a member of Bellevue Baptist Church had been praying for me for a long time because you know I you know my life is a mess and she talked with me and I think dira said thanks for praying for me and all us and and I went upstairs I told Elvis about it and he looked at me and he said Ricky those are the people that care that talk to you now that surprises some people the spiritual side but as a minister that's one of the most important things as I convey to people is that Elvis had a great appreciation and love for the war and that we had that conversation I went downstairs you know probably got hired took pills or something and I got up my brother David came in I said we're supposed to get him up at 3 o'clock I ran to grows aunties restaurant near Memphis and before the food even got there I said I've got to get back to Graceland I've got to get back I didn't know what it was I've never had anything like that happen before never had a premonition never anything and so I just stood up with the money on the table and left and then when I went through the gates I saw that big ambulance and then that's when I walked in and the stretcher was coming down and and that's when Lisa Marie said Ricky my daddy's dead and I said nuts tough funny over just with your dad you know you shouldn't kid around like that Lisa and she says Ricky I'm not I'm not kidding you daddy's really dead so I was there at Graceland wouldn't happened and the guilt you know that I felt you know what if I'd have checked on him one more time was it was incredible I mean he had told me he said Rick don't bother me if I need you I'll call you which was code to me he was going to spend some intimate time with ginger and contrary to what people say in Christmas Eve of 76 I was there when he gave her the engagement ring he was very serious about her a lot of people wanted to debate that but I was there when he did it but I thought he was gonna spend some time with ginger and didn't want to be interrupted is going to be intimacy so that's why I didn't bothering but it lingered for a long time it took me a long time to get over what if I just went up one more time and to check on him but I didn't so it took quite a while to get over that I know exactly where I was because August 16th is my birthday today over passed away is my 19th birthday so I was in boot camp United States Marine Corps in San Diego California the day Elvis passed away on my 19th birthday so I know exactly where I was and what I was doing and like most people you ask who around that time knew where they were what they were doing when they heard no no actually I remember that day very well I was ten years old and my father had taken a vacation day to spend the day with us we went down to seven caves in Cincinnati and then we came back we're playing putt-putt we were on our way home from that when we heard it on the car or on the radio in the car on the way home I was at home it was in the summer and started school yet and I remember the phone rang and it was my wives excuse me my mother's sister call said you got to turn on the radio you won't believe that Elvis died and we really went and turn on the TV and we just couldn't believe it but somebody like Elvis was dead you know we thought that Elvis was not a real guy so how could he be dead he's like for 18 years old well yeah it's pretty emotional when I thought about that show last night was I have to kind of hold myself because it was on my birthday July the 5th 1976 and we had just finished a tour and the last date on that tour was at the mid-south Coliseum here in Memphis he did a great show we went back out to the house and that white long Lincoln limousine we went in the front door and he's going up the steps got the towel around his neck the jumpsuit was still on us his sunglasses and he always when he came home from tour when it ended he always would just relax for three or four days stay upstairs and read and relax and kind of wound down you know from the tour and so I said well boss I'll see you in a few days he said yeah I'll get some rest he said happy birthday Sonny and so as it thinks I said you were gonna want some of that cake that Judy baked my wife baked he loved her cakes and pies he said oh yeah Melinda's gonna bring me up some he was referring to Linda Thompson his girlfriend at the time and I said okay he said I said well just take care of said okay see you that was the the last time I spoke to him I saw him alive okay when I found out that Elvis died I Suz I heard I had to tell my sister I went home told her and I had to get the money for us to make the trip we made the trip he was almost Memphis and she went around go home and I wouldn't let her go I said no we kind of started going all the way so when we got to Memphis batteries was dead on the camera and we went down got the batteries to replace them cameras like take pictures and when we got back from parked on the opposite side of the road and that's when I met the girls when I got outside of the car I stands back at the car and I meant the two girls that have been killed and they walked right up to me and just started talking to me as if they don't know me and we carried a conversation and turn around and they went on their ways and then I see them as I walked out to go across the boulevard take pictures and I walked up met them with the police officer we started talking and from there things just happened how about how about were you injured I had head trauma I had a right craniotomy which was brain surgery my pelvis was broken in four spots my muscles torpid my right thigh it's on the lake skiing be honestly Lake Ferguson in Greenville Mississippi and some France full ago said Elvis had died and I was like give me to my house man and it's like when President Kennedy got assassinated you remember where you were at the day that he in front of my home my parents house where I live at the time changing the carburetor on my 68 Cadillac convertible and just gotten off of work it was a very very hot day news flash people the television and then the phone started ringing off the hook I was in the kitchen with my mother and it came on the TV and actually I was unloading the dishwasher and I've heard it on the news and my mother stopped doing what she's doing she's cooking dinner and she stopped doing what she was doing and she said oh my god and it was you know I'll never forget it it's one of those things you never forget what you're doing and you know the little menial thing of emptying a dishwasher is stuck in my mind forever I remember her well first of all I was one of the ones that were in the line chandelier I was at home playing at house and I didn't think I was like it was just I was stunned my kids were stars and it was just like everything stood still and she couldn't go about your daily activities were caused by this news I do course it was August and I was 16 years old now sitting for Steph I used to leave my door open living a little living little house kind of Shack in Texas and I was just sitting there and heard radio people talking on radio said the king of rock and roll is dead rock'n'roll is dead they really didn't play Elvis songs at that time the particular time I know king of rock'n'roll King Rock going back then I guess I really didn't think he wasn't I mean to me I didn't know the scale of Elvis Presley so when when I can listen to I thought me was Chuck Berry jumper check or somebody I don't know strength right anyway when I heard the Elvis then was outlets to passed away man really hit me it was oh sit on my front porch step I was at work and I heard it over the radio right before I came home from work about 12 I think you remember that day very well I did she'll do yeah what were you doing when you hurt well when we got it was about it was fairly early morning I was laying in my bedroom father came through and told me died I just couldn't explain hard to believe I was sitting on the machine on the freezer they had the ice cream in it because I was working a restaurant at the time and the radio was right next to me when they announced that that's what I was doing right at the time I was on a little bit of a break I was seven years old do you remember at all I remember that day just like everyone my mother actually came in my room I was actually in the bed asleep again and told me about it I remember that day I remember being in bed I had we had bunk I had bunk beds and I was sleeping on the bottom bunk and my mother came in the room said it was said that seven years old I do I was in kindergarten I remember it was 1977 I think and I remember a little bit about it on the news I knew somebody really famous passed away wasn't sure who it was I remember mom saying something about it in a state they talked about in the school and it's been it's been a while and I vaguely remember like me remember my father had had open-heart surgery he was in farming him and I was staying with my brother who had two smaller children and I was watching the children for him when he met his wife or doing something and I was sitting on the couch watching TV and the children were in the floor color and color was when the news came out and I just couldn't believe it it was just so unbelievable it's just like shocked well I was working in our electronics store record store and a friend of mine called me and told me we had televisions going all over the place and all of a sudden it came on the air and we had about 15 or 20 televisions on it was just shocked me and of course we just kind of stunned and didn't know what to what to do it was kind of like Elvis is not supposed to die and it just took a long time for it to sink in had to go home that night before it really sunk and it was just more than you could you know take for a while I was I had I was doing working a summer job for the whole town I was looking at a small town hall level Plains Alabama and I worked for the city when I was I was like what 16 at that time and it was a it was a slow day so they let us off a little early so what I used to do I would go home and I get home from school I'd go back in my room with my record player on and I would play disc jockey that's how I try to finally got into the radio business but I used to I wanted to be in the radio business I did I get back there pretend I'm a DJ and I have all my records and offer some back they were mad or close all of a sudden my brother and my mother I think my sister was there they come up open the door said drome drome said I just said on the news it almost died I look at him as like first the first response is like you're crazy you know that's it I'm not like I thought they were just joking and then I saw my mom's face and she was serious that's a that may be something to it so I turned over at the radio station I always listened to and the guy that I became friends with later and worked with in radio later was on the air and they were playing an Elvis song I thought oh no this is not a good sign so when the song ended he came on and said there's the there's Elvis Presley and I think it was already lonesome tonight he said by the way food is now pending in the news out of Memphis Tennessee that Elvis Presley died today at the age of 42 and I'm thinking oh I did it just it just tore me to pieces I mean I remember I cried for today's and I thought hey this just can't be how can he die you know that that was the thing that was running through my head you know this was a superstar this is the guy that I idolized now and then how in the world can that happen and it was it was tough and that's and now remember the song I was playing also I was on when I was playing DJ in the road I was playing Ronnie Milsaps it was almost like a song and every time I hear that song today I mean I loved the song but it it takes me back to August 16th I was in on North Carolina with my best friend's mom who passed away we went out there visit at that time I wasn't really a heavy fan at the time but yeah he did affect me I was digging a footer with my cousin in Orlando Florida and we had music on the radio and we were digging a footer and I heard Elvis had passed away and I'll never forget I was at school school assembly standing in line just before school commenced and I think it was the principal who came across and made announcement that Elvis Presley had passed away this morning I didn't believe it I thought it was they got it wrong it wasn't until I actually got home and my mother said did you hear of his passed away and then I cried to be honest and my father was still at work and he brought home the newspaper from that day and then had all the articles at least if that's the news was it was all over the news and that sort of made it real to me at that point I was at work I was working at Jack's and Centerpoint Alabama never forget because came radio TVs and everybody at work just cry I mean that's all anybody could do is cry and I just really could not believe he passed away I was driving the cabinet company and I heard on the radio and I'm going back to the shop people run up to me they were running up to me and asking me did you hear I was dying I didn't believe it I thought man so when I got home it was true because my brother was home from the Navy and he recorded the whole thing on the radio so they know I know that I was just getting home school and I thought I was in trouble because my mama was crying now do you know what I done and then I found out a little later not that I really knew who Elvis Presley was other than a man dancing this home my way I thought the last song you ever wrote Elvis's death made Elvis a bigger star than it was in life yes it gave him a boost for his career Leslie as I said Elvis was always having hits in the UK but the rest of the world you know Elvis could have been as a husband kind of guy he saw this day now make room for somebody else all over faithful finals stayed with Elvis such as myself and we knew that Elvis his popularity would just go wrong and I remember saying at the time I was 15 years of age with all this press across the way and I cry my eyes out all day and I remember at the time saying this guy's music is just going to get bigger and bigger because they're not gonna let him die and they didn't I was in my neighbor's backyard playing on the swing set getting beat up by my my little that's a girl there was a neighbor and my mom came out and tell me that the Elvis was dead and I ran home and we all couldn't believe and we all cried together oh yeah I was 14 years old and friend of my I'm in front of my father's come running down the driveway where my parents cottage and he he comes running down five of you almost died I was kind of like kid Kim Elvis didn't die you're joking with me no no no turn the radio on turn TV on you know so it was I mean it was just a shock you know we all rushed the TV set and you know crying and all that kind of stuff cuz you know Elvis doesn't die 33 years ago August 16th I wasn't working for Elvis I was working at the airport but I was going to help him get ready to leave so I was on the way to Graceland but I stopped at a convenience store to get me a coke and when I was in there it came on the radio and I heard it and I knew the guy that was the clerk there and a jet because I just I froze I mean I couldn't believe what I heard and he you know he just said my name two or three times pretty loud and I kind of came to and he said Billy you need to call Graceland so I walked out to the car and a phone booth and called Graceland and I don't miss probably one of the secretaries cuz there's a lady's voice and she was crying all I remember saying is is it true what I heard she said yes you need to get up here as fast as you can as soon as she said yes I just dropped the phone I turned around walked outside I mean walked out of the phone booth and my world right then and just come to an end and I was bark into a song my mother said well you must've misunderstood it and then after the song without the wind that came back consider confirmed that he had passed away and you can see now I'm sure you know it just upset me go back to save me at my home and likely a bingo break in New York I think I was in my living room back in Perth Western Australia Ellis ten years old and it came on the radio grant was announced I was at her ski the assignment and I was producer stops and I heard it on the radio well I was in London and I was am I actually came back to my record fair that evening I had a lot of Elvis stuff with me and all of the piece and they came on the nude the English news day year ITN would Reginald Bob Cousy said the news to Elvis is dead he said first of all he's he's ill or he may have a heart attack he said no more but then it was a news flash and he said he was dead so I'm in doubt you record shop where I was and I bought off every Elvis thing and he didn't even know he was dead and he was the first manager with fins is he a guy called Teddy Carroll he the shop called rock on in London in Camden Town and I bought a lot as I walked on the Royce's all by the way Elvis's died last night he stood the I said I might die as well even believe me but I left foot of that till he would open board the paper and he said you bought all my stuff I could have made money well I said I paid the price you were asking for I already told he was dead you didn't believe me I was coming back to work from a doctor's appointment where I hurt myself and pulled into the parking lot said to him I picked up struck and they announced the news and your heart went through you know just like that so it was pretty amazing Elvis's death affect the world and a great deal there was Statham more and everything else folks around the country lower their flags and everything it was a very hard thing for a lot of our fans that he had finally passed away I was in the swimming pool where she was August of course I was hot I was in my cousin and his house women and my mother and my aunt came out of the house and I noticed that they were talking and they looked very sad and got out of the pool and I said I thought one of our family members had passed away or something because they were had looked like they'd been crying and I walked him I said what's wrong and they said Elvis just died and I thought I mean at that time had been young boy I thought I knew who he was but I thought man that's right the ended at a young age I thought a legend has just died and they even knew what a legend wasn't I thought a legend has just died so you know I said a family member earlier really Elvis to a lot of people you felt like Elvis was a family member to you because you were raised on Elvis kind of felt like he was a cousin of your or whatever but it was it was a sad day but through things like this continue to keep his memory alive keep his music alive and I listen Elvis every single day it's not day goes by nothing listen Elvis and just enjoys me I'm a fan first 1977 when I was in my mother's brand-new Trans Am outside playing in the car when she come running out descended Elvis then I think for the next year I think we had a pretty much a memorial every week or else again my mother was sort of helping her feet she went to over 82 Elvis shows 1973 took me to my first show in Atlanta Georgia at Omni international and at that particular show my mother received and help us microphone offstage and that's like I say I wasn't I wasn't a real Elvis fan at that time I remember doing it I was I was just I was in high school and I remember right after he passed away and all the stuff on on television and stuff and so I can't tell you that you know where I was the day he died or anything I because it didn't stick in my head but to a lot of people it's like all right JFK and RFK getting shot and an Elvis you know it's they know exactly where they were what they were doing you know my manager she spent you know two weeks just in tears stop going to work it was like it was like life it ended for for all these Elvis minutes like there oh my god so if we can bring a little bit of him back in paying tribute to them and then if we can be just like a dim reflection of them then we're doing a good job because he was just an incredible incredible performer I sure do I was sitting in my living room that was actually just being built my mom and dad were adding on to the house and I was sitting in that living room it was just a wood floor with no drywall or nothing just the studs and I was sitting there watching the TV and I just got home from school announcement came over and I remember running around the house crying screaming no no but it was true getting up ready for work but 6:00 a.m. in the morning and put the video on and put my whirlybird sister Mona I was attracted reiver on them days wonderful all the commotion was because this same guy kept coming on and on and on and the radio and they were talking about as I said I thought it was a movie star you know I know these songs are being never helped these songs before just you know listen to him all Neos driving the tractor lose the whole Dave is only amazing yes I know my wife will say the same thing but we were in my grandmother's kitchen and we heard that Elvis had passed away and we couldn't believe the that God had taken someone who knows powerful on the face of the earth away from us but I just know growing up that everybody remembers where they were on certain days like 9/11 you know everybody knows where they were at well if you asked him where that was that when they almost died they know so it's pretty amazing I don't think he'll ever die because his memory woodlawn owns a boutique in Metairie Louisiana and one of my employees called me and told me that she had heard Elvis had passed away and I said can't be true and I said they're always saying rumors like that and she said no it's true and unfortunately I called Graceland I was not able to get an answer I called the guardhouse I called Vernon's house I called friends until I finally got somebody and found that it was true okay actually I was working on cash registers I was a mechanic love my life but I got out the business for a while I was working on cash registers and I was driving up and down the road and going to a stop to look on the cash register and I heard and I didn't believe actually I still don't but it took a long time to sink in and until its actual funeral I actually seen a funeral procession it didn't really sink it that's what I was I was you know we already know the news everybody was just devastated because he was hurt he was when Elvis passed away during this nice it was a nice August day it made me more mourning to know what what he was about and so I wanted to look more into who this guy was Elvis Presley you know I just didn't know really who he was it was hot and it's much highly this man probably in the mid 90s 95 99 something like that well those drank water went across the street stating the little shops and stuff too because a lot of you know we kind of just rotate that guy you met some friends like and let you go eight you stay there you come back and stay those five they went that it was it was real nice people real nice laughs what really impressed me doing all the time of that about everybody was signing up the names around the walls and stuff I know he had people that wanted to get that other people standing by the gang you move out by the wall would move out of the way and come up behind the gate around the wall but fun tape accountably oh I was actually driving in a car and I heard it on the radio but I didn't think that you know how the the pranks were back with the Beatles saying that Paul McCartney died so I I didn't think too much of it until they broadcasted it on the news on TV so I heard on the radio but I just I didn't take it seriously so I thought it just you know of the velocity Steinman know Carrie was so frustrating because I wait to be here so much and I'm sure everybody else did as well because we were so far away the only thing that we could rely on other time was the TV or the radio I mean the radio was playing Elvis his music 24/7 for you know four weeks after we'd go out and buy every single newspaper that we can watch every single news bulletin on the TV what is all the saying you know it was very very frustrating that we couldn't be here and it made it worse it really did there was just no end to the grief at the time I never thought that I never once thought he was going to die I realized that he'd gained some weight I've seen pictures I never did see him in concert which is one of my big regrets but I used to you know whenever there was something in the magazine or the newspaper so I always followed that hi yeah never once dreamed that I never even thought about Elvis dying you know some people you just don't think they're ever gonna leave you know so no that never entered my mind sort of such a shock I was in the backyard my mom's house almost 11 there and she said Elvis died and I just like let it go but if anyone think about it [Music] mommy not until 25th anniversary of my present here so again yeah it was a total surprise to me because like I said I saw him on the 14th and he was up and a good in great spirits looking forward for the tour and I mean I heard it on a radio I was going to Graceland to help them because of that was August 16th and that's what I did on the 16 or whenever they left I would go there and help them pack up load the luggage and stuff up in trucks and take it to the airport I was under photography business at that time I was living in Denver Colorado and I went to a customer's house and do a family picture and when I walked in the door the lady said I just I just like everybody else I was in shock I told her this the worst thing she could have told me at that time because I had to make them laugh in the most pictures and I wasn't in a laughing mood ever ever Elvis had passed away my son Kevin came up to tell me that he had just heard on television of course I was saying like everyone else sad and disappointed that such a thing that happened I thought about well it was really very sad because you know there was my child there telling me and he was maybe five years older than the piece of Maria and I just and all these thoughts went through my mind but mainly I thought illness will never see his child grow up and God willing I will see my and it still makes me sad as you can see - thank you we're not in control so we we live not as we wish for this we must yells at work and I got a call from my mother she called work because she knew I was in shock I mean you know and I even left work and went to his aunt's house Lorraine Smith and we hung out there at law you know everybody's pretty sad a lot of different ways there there's positive effects and there's the negative effects of course we lost one of the greatest men in music but we've got all this and to me that's a big deal that he had this much of an impact that's insane to think about Elvis's death changed music quite dramatically by the time that Elvis died there was a thing about punk rock being the next big thing to rock and roll well punk rock was big even though it wasn't my my taste in music lasted a couple of years and it disappeared same with disco music it lasted a couple of years it disappeared same with soul music soul music still popular as ever was what is it's in the back listen you don't read about it in the press and if you're a fan of soul music or Motown music great you know there's lots of clubs you can go to well there's not a single day goes by whether it's in the UK or whether it's in the USA I know this song displayed on the radio played in somebody's car playing in somebody's home or anywhere that you can play overseas music it's being played continuously around open you know to today and beyond they always will be and Elvis music yeah I think it's getting bigger and bigger I know for father epe are looking for new ways to promote Elvis to the kids she's my to do the remixes sometimes it's a good thing sometimes it's not so good thing because it's messing about with classics but we all have our opinions but if we can get Elvis Presley to the masses and so the media in a good way without wanna say that you know we're going back to his music because that's why we're an Elvis fan at the end of the day for this fabulous music that he left us and that's what we've got gets on the Nazi you see not the other jeongsu image because of there's only one guy you look good in a jumpsuit as far as I'm concerned and anybody who knows me those are the feelings about this hair very very strong and the only guy who looks good in a jumpsuit to me was Elvis Presley well I think it affects it more than we realize because it's I mean look at it thirty five years later and fifty fifty sixty thousand people they say gonna be out here tonight probably [Music] devilís I got home him home I've got a friend at work and the wife called me up and at the time I didn't have a money she was my next wife at that time brother and she called me up and told me and I told her I said I didn't have money she gave me the money to come down so did you get to go in no not the first time there was too many people here or not it was I mean it was paying on I mean it was a mom it was just a a disc controlled mom that was about it I know where I was I was living in my house on Hopkins Road and I was wallpaper in my kitchen and I was cutting out the wall receptacle at the time that I heard it I think it rocked the world of music it almost made them bigger larger than life you know if there's anything good to take from it then he went while he was in his prime and we can all remember oh that's such a magnificent entertainer walking in the door of my apartment night way apartment my tickets had just come two weeks before they were laying on the table which I still have postmarked mid-south Coliseum and I turned the radio on it was him of course obviously it was all over the news the newspapers everything else I guess you know you could ask most anybody that was around in those days what they were doing and one of the kind of like President Kennedy you know everybody just remembered right right where they were and everything that was going on when that happened and all there is I mean the music with the movies is painted everybody I think everybody remembers where they were when the day you died we just affected I think just the way we do everything sparse little music stuff we're just really start us at the and then he died he was a playing racquetball down in a committee the other human village miss his cousin he came up to the house I was in the kitchen and he wanted some water some water but he told Billy smiston even though I'm says he needs some risk miss Christmas they will I see you boss later on because he was planning on leaving and out he went upstairs I totally made you take some water dead to him so he was upstairs in his office at the time he was reading the first it was something like a religious book so later he did not calm down for anything I asked me one time he said no he just wanted to get some rest so doing that time sometimes when she's bad at the time and he's sitting his bathroom and you read this book the sheath upright he was given everything but she didn't cower down to me - ten minutes - two so as you think this taking a page would be like man you know they tried to survive him but he was too late I went up there one Ginny house for me I went up there my daddy in the bathroom and I write that down today I called oh the body God he went up there he'll come back down treating you so we call Joey it's preceded him [Music] the house [Music] I've never seen anything like that in my life it's it's like the whole world lost somebody they were really really close to I still missing today had I tried to find music and songs that you know they played through serious radio that we didn't ever heard was kind of cool to hear something I've never heard before and I can't explain it's just it's a loss that you said was always in the field almost like it was like part of you lost your best friend everybody's best friend it was he was part of the history part of society was like you losing the President or like John F Kennedy dying or it was in that in that scale I mean God gives a special gifts every now and then somebody comes along Elvis is one of those special gifts and when he left it was like part of our soul left was this airport waiting to go on tour and I noticed the plane from Los Angeles with the Los Angeles musicians simply did a touchdown and took back off Alyssa Felton Jarvis is the head of the tour got off the phone and said due to another date on the tour admitted cancer the colonel didn't even tell us yeah and he was gone so I heard about it on the radio on the way home from the airport Oh back then no it was it was on the radio quite often and then the the main just shows back then you know with a David Brinkley and those kind of guys that was on for the evenings like that and you know it was carrying on for quite a while actually even up in my area New Hampshire it went off for at least a good week and then of course later on in the year they released the that last concert that wasn't gonna be televised it was made for television again when they weren't gonna televise it but after he died they ended up putting it on the air CBS I was in the I was in the Army I was in Northern Ireland getting bombed by our own so I thought I still have time to have a little cry you know somebody asked me that yesterday and I told him you know I was I was 22 year old I was at my house sitting on a couch watching bonanza [Music] special bulletin come across and said the king of rock'n roll Elvis Presley had and it was just a big shock day I heard Elvis died and I was employed at a cottonseed oil mill there's no work the swing shift I was at home asleep and I just gotten off the night shift it was about 3:30 in the afternoon a good days master being up all night it was it was very shocking here it was sad but it was it wasn't so much a surprise because he to a point where we were very concerned about him having been around I was it was like today that the King Elvis Presley died is like me when Buddy Holly died that was the day the music I compared it like that because he was a king of rock and roll there's other bands that would tell you they wouldn't be who they are on TV records out and it hadn't been over for us boys we got to go through the house rifle they had the funeral around 1:30 1:45 something like that and they let the first 200 papers that was at the gate they kind of fouling around and let us go up and let's go in the front door have a bunch of that was there I guess they were seen and Margaret them from third grade Wayne though they were several of the big things that came you know I guess they had them maybe in the jungle room or something else but they let us come through the front door walk and a foul around hitting the head it kind of blocked off every guard here and the guard there on the other side of Elvis's coffin they let us go food and the only thing you could do they told you do not touch anything just go through look pay you was fast and then go out the side door at the time the side door that was by the swimming pool swim you know swimmer played right here and at that time they didn't have them no more more guard like they do now that and they just filed food got the look and got to watch the side door and then back down the road they had a poker game I my son's birthday it's the 15th of August and we were coming back from the lake on that day becoming actually his it was the 16th because we were coming that we had his birthday at the lake a day late so I was coming back to Huntsville and I was on the highway and I heard the Sun they were doing they were about to play a song and they said and this is by the late Elvis Presley and and I just I just could I didn't know what to do so I pulled over at a service station and just sit there and start going through the the radio channels and and I heard another that Elvis had died it like 2:35 he was announced they had it and and I went home and cried and watch TV and cried and watch TV is that all you got so many people coming down to see you still to today there's never been effective like and I think it just changed the way people express themselves and everyone online when Elvis Presley passed away on August 16 1977 now a part of me passed away as well as I'm sure it to hit any Elvis fun I I was brokenhearted even so they stayed 34 years later it still leaves me with sadness when I think about that day it's as if it was yesterday time has flown by you know Maya and I really felt all the time that I member of my family had passed away the only other time I felt like that was 11 years later in October 1988 one my own father passed away again I was devastated my dad was my best friend and you could say Elvis's music was my over best friend and the two were very closely linked together and I hours it was the end of a world twice it happened to me and that was when Elvis died and I'm one my dad died and he said feeling I never leaves you I'm gonna share my train [Music] and I was due on a breakfast shift making a hotel the North Island of New Zealand and somebody came into me at lunchtime it said I'll by the way your mate died this morning I said what mate who you're talking about they said Elvis and of course I was stuck in the kitchen for the next three hours before I could get to a television to prove that it was wrong and then when I saw the news item on television that afternoon you can basically say that a 90 percent of my will died with me you wait so long for somebody to come into your life that you build yourself around Swissy music personality trying to emulate and then he's taken away from you 42 is not a very old age I don't believe because my dad was only 42 back at the time and that's what I basically thought about how could Elvis be dead everybody thought that Elvis was no live forever that's the way it was and all right got my Elvis collection and I'll lock myself in room in my room the hotel and now I guess I was like oh you know something all grown up woman I cried for about two three days in my room to just played Elvis rigel's and drink beer and when I came out thinking that was just a bad night better hope it was true Elvis was dead I had always listen to my Elvis 8tracks you know dates me right there but I just listened seemed to listen to him more and more and more and I just let him roll over and over and over and I was learning the words to the songs you know just by osmosis I was just sucking it up and I started singing with the eight-track player and found out that I could sound like him and I think had it not been for all of that happening I wouldn't be doing all this stuff that I do down here in Memphis now and so yeah I think it made it made a big impact on my life you know I think about Elvis every day and it's and I think a lot of people do it it's like it was like losing a friend or something like that I mean it was not like here's this entertainer that nobody know we don't know him personally but we're just you know stuck on him and can't think of anything else but it's not like that it's like it was like losing a friend and who has made a big big impact on your life and you just you know you just think about them all the time you can't help it you know because you loved them so much I don't think anybody has ever impacted music in the world like Elvis Presley did I don't think he'll ever be another Elvis Presley you can count them on one hand he Elvis Presley Frank Sinatra Johnny Cash and there's a few others I'm missing but where I was at I was in Wichita Kansas I was teaching guitar lessons at Caliban music and I walked in to teach my lesson I was about 18 years old I guess maybe I don't know maybe 19 and a 12 year old student I was teaching said mr. Rader have you heard that Elvis died and I said oh yeah right yes if you heard on the written on the news Elvis died of course back then there was no internet you just had to come out on the radio or TV you know and I couldn't believe it and I think anybody anybody that has lived that era they will know where they were when Elvis Presley died and if they live when President Kennedy was shot they can tell you where they were when President Kennedy was shot as well I was 16 years old and I had came home from high school high school already began back on August the 16th and I was in my downstairs and I was so upset I was crying I didn't I didn't know what to think about that the whole king of rock and roll had passed away and I was wishing I couldn't drive I could see but I couldn't drive but I was wishing that I could come to Graceland and be a part of the growth that came here that those next few days I xxx you'll you'll appreciate this I know because I believe eight one six is a big number with you which is August 16 77 and we returned but to Wichita Kansas after our honeymoon to the news that Elvis Presley passed away I remember hearing it on the radio I'll never forget it I had was out applying for jobs because there I was married and didn't have a job in that time and in that town you could go get a job like that one got a job that I knew was gonna last for six months because I knew when we were leaving it was predetermined we'd already said a bit of a calendar in place and so those are special moments in life when you remember something like Elvis Presley he had to end by the way it was a great influence on my life gospel quartets that music that we were so involved in through my high school years big influence I was at home I had just gotten up because I had been with him about 5:30 in the morning he said we were talking about law get some sleep because we start on tour tomorrow and you're gonna be busy yeah sure I was uh I was at home turn on the TV I heard news media saying that Elvis president's passing away obviously I did not want to believe it so I flip the channel same day for live channels they all had the same thing finally realized that it was true I cried my eyes off for a week shut the world off for a week my momma consoled me told me that you know I would be okay and I was mad at all of us for leaving me I was selfish I was mad at all this but then I kind of understood that the man was human and Here I am I forgave him and I loved was passed away I was in my car this is the 38 please just a disbelief to send ten or fifteen and tears I was I was driving from my mother's house to my house and I heard on the radio they started talking about their Presley's death and I just you know I wasn't real sure I thought maybe you know maybe you know Vernon had died or somebody in the family had died somehow I had this you know had this bad you know feeling that you know it might be Elvis and and when I you know when I got home I mean they said on the radio Elvis but I uh I still had maybe you know just just some like disbelief about it until I got home and it was all in the news and you know I cried like a baby man I was I was devastated so that's that's when that you know I actually didn't I didn't work for a couple of weeks and you know some friends of ours said you know the best thing you can do this is you know keep doing his song because there really were there weren't any you know VTA's around back then you know I was doing Elvis before he died so I said well I'll do it for a while I've talked to my band and so let's try for a little while and I said we'll try it for a few months and I said well maybe we'll try it for a couple years five years and now it's been you know I've been doing it I was uh I was nine years old believe I was in the backyard playing playing in the dirt imagine that and I went inside the house and my parents were discussing hey how was died dang if I know I can't remember that I should remember that I should have remembered about John Kennedy too and I don't remember where it was then I'm not very good at remembering things I was in Nashville of 1616 Avenue South you hear it on the radio I just came out with a record called kitchen boy kings going but you know what I do have next to my TV I got a sticker bumper sticker says I miss Elvis and somebody sent me an Elvis Christmas card with his face on there and wearing a Santa hat I cut it out and I got bits to prepare to we have a quarter in you know music rolls so Elvis lives in our home and we have good floor in and in a music room as well for inspiration you know we want to get some move that's it you look at nellis and he's got it was I got but I got a thing to tato read down Beale Street made me an Otis Redding shrine so I got that over in the corner - oh my god that was I was at work actually I was working in it at a electronics company and they had the radio plan and I heard that and I mean like started crying actually well there was a thing a Sonny knows that says before Elvis there was nothing and overs brought along rock and roll and everything else now Elvis it's not so much his death that changed the world it was his living okay because he started things like jumpsuit and the different types of music and so forth and this is what changed music throughout history so far and his death just means to gather more fans just like with the epa's we're a family were all brothers in this business and our first primary concern is Elvis's vehicle I mean the store to pick up some of my clothes my childhood friend that I grew up with just happen to run it by me and I thought he was like I'm told that's not that's not a very funny and just as he was telling that it came on the radio too and I guess I really just like everybody else just told me shelters for weeks months years to this day in us tragedy big girls about one of the biggest losses it's never gone away I mean as far as the press coverage right at the time I think it went on pretty pretty solid for Oh week or two maybe oh yes cute em about the press coverage yeah it was I think it went on pretty solid for a week or two there you know I mean it was on the evening news every time you turned around it was in the paper every day that seemed like there was a new article about of course you know the first the day after almost died was when you got the first press coverage in the in the print and then the the 18th then there was the I think was the day of the funeral and so you got that coverage and then this person then that person came out of the woods with an Elvis story and it was there was a lot I mean it just went on and on and on but as we know now even though the every day coverage stopped in the general media he still Elvis is still big news I mean they still they still will show up out here on the grounds of Graceland you know during Elvis week to film things you know it's because Elvis has just never stopped being in the forefront of so many people's thoughts and and feelings you know and I don't think he'll ever go away and I don't want you when we were in the UK and a news flash came on the TV we have a news program it's called News at Ten they've even said this day we still have a news at turn and a guy called Reginald Bowles and kept on ITV in England announced that Elvis Presley had died and then a few minutes later he came back and said oh sorry we've made a mistake he's just sick he hasn't died at all so there was a soft sigh of relief and then a few minutes later again oh no I'm sorry Elvis is dead so we were up one minute we were down the next we were back up again and we were down and we stayed there well you know ever because this is the is the map the greatest entertainer ever was and the way he affected society and in the world you know people felt a loss to humanity I was at home and everybody just blew up they couldn't believe it you see those crowds outside the crowd was outside and people you know I think that was a time when two of the girls I think well I think it was too bad kids I warned got killed and one she was saved because she was she was trying to get down here cuz she had heard that Elvis had pain I think that kind of upset a lot of people but you want to think about it God got him with him and he's in God hand it's something we all got to do I wasn't working [Music] on August the 16th 1977 at 2:22 in the afternoon driving down the interstate in Nashville turned the radio on in my 77 Camaro and this DJ goes it's official Elvis Presley is passed away so 15 miles down the road God's truth I had all of this written on me being a songwriter I went like this I was barely six years old when I first heard him sing and from that moment on I knew it'd be a lifetime thing I had no earthly idea that I was writing my life 6 million records now and that's how I got started I was playing golf in Nashville Tennessee 1977 and somebody wrote up and said Elvis just died well I started crying without him I wouldn't be here today well I think that it was profound because if you look at how they reacted it really struck me because it was for about two or three weeks you know it was Elvis on the news all the time and there were Elvis specials and you know Elvis in concert on TV his last concert and I think that basically it left a void a huge huge void because you know what would what would get more hit when he had been able to contribute if you know he had lived for the next 30 to 40 years I think it would have been even more significant because Elvis always managed to evolve with that with time and what was going on in music and if you look at what they have done with some of his recordings where they've gone back and they've added in new instrumentation and tracks he's shown that he's better than anybody that's out there today he's always been cutting edge I was actually he had a Arabian mayor my wife and I was showing and raising Arabian horses and I had an Arabian mare on a halter that I was taking her to see if she was ready for breeding in season as they say with the stallion that a doctor friend of mine owned and he came out of the house and told me came out of house hollard sunny have you heard and I just knew without him saying no that's it Elvis died he said yeah in that something and I just fell apart I let go of the reins of the halter wrote that was many isa started bawling like a baby saying wow that he didn't deserve this oh my god why he did not deserve this and he took the horse and took care of it my wife and I have I walked over to his fencing fencing I walked over and just always said and hauled off and hit the fence and broke that plank and then I left I said I gotta go honey come on so we left and went home phone was ringing off to the family was calling friends were calling I couldn't talk to anybody Judy my wife took all the calls I said I just couldn't talk and then read my cousin his wife Pat showed up at our door and we just fell into each others arms crying like babies you know he's gone he's gone can't believe they spend a little time about an hour and a half or so two and then they went on back home so that was extremely hard Jamie Harvey has been sincere you know what else his death affected my life it's difficult to say because I was always a rock'n'roll great right from being a young Elvis to me he was the king he still is but Ward's it was also other people I would and all this was the original rocker but there were others came up cuz I was a big fan of Buddy Holly he generally Eddie Condon and Elvis to me was more my sister's life so like Elvis is early struggle and when he went to ballads like a lot about the UK shot into violence that wasn't rock'n'roll and demure ears as we came back were invited to change of Memphis and then I realized what Elvis state is about when he passed away it's like something you took a piece of you yeah and then coming back here to another person who the hell this week I Drive a truck and I heard it in the truck at the time I was bummed out I was sick I couldn't believe it my friends would always make fun of me because they were into the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and stuff and I was this greaser which slicked hair and the rolled-up t-shirts like you know grease and they would always make so hey tali Elvis is dead you know yeah you know like take a walk and then one day when he did die none of those guys teased me none of them they all felt bad that Elvis died I think the world went into mourning it's actually probably the biggest event that you can put in history as far as you know everybody knows where they were when Elvis died Elvis Elvis is death and 9/11 it's probably two biggest main events that people can remember but I wrote long how it affected a music industry I mean I know how Elvis affected the music industry I don't know how his death affected it usually when somebody that famous dies they get more famous after their death as I was did usually takes a death to really get people to pay attention to their life Elvis Elvis was the king it was it was they started he affected a lot of people in the music industry as far as I'm losing the words I don't have okay very yeah big impact let me say that there are something about Elvis who touched everybody most everybody here and it's just like a lot of these kids that are in wheelchairs and stuff for some reason you can you can play any kind of music or film that Elvis is what touches there's just something about the spiritual stock has assaulted several private hands I just got up my daddy told me Elvis died it's cool it's cool it's give me a yeah it hurts me a lot I go home I go over it's cool to go home to almost it's pretty cool to do so what is what my mother has no the connection of the emotion I ain't seen him three weeks earlier we lived over off a southern Avenue my name I wife and children and I heard it off the television and when I heard it I just went out the back door sat down on the steps and crash I just been wishing threeways hurry up I was driving home from work it was on the radio and actually had to just pull over to stop cuz I wasn't sure who the Frankfurt joke the lawyer that went the more I understood it was really really hard it's been several years ago I just come home actually I was at college orientation at UCF in Orlando on the 15 I stayed over that night and I came home my mother we're watching Merv Griffin or something and the news flash came up Memphis Tennessee Elvis Presley has died now I remember that well the last time I saw her alive was that the University of Maryland Coldfield house when he did a concert there but I did not talk to it it was a bad day for him I think I've heard people say that that was probably the worst that ever seen and and I think he was just not well and I don't remember when it was but seventy four five six right in there somewhere but the last time I was really with him was it gracefully after he came back from the Army and it was just a gathering of friends he was seeing Anita would then I just stayed and talked and visit to Tendo and then we left and the way he said goodbye he was not real happy you know his mother was gone I think you have a lot of worries on his mind and please well you know he wasn't the kid I knew before when I left he came after the car hugged and kissed my mother and then he hugged and kissed me we left mother just looked at me and smiled and she said I think that was good anyway I didn't see me anymore after I was going to college and working and I didn't have any playtime you know that's a good question because you're not asked my mother that's question because you know I was certainly assumed when he passed away and you know he she said that I was sure in a movie with my father so you know I get to her adoptive words when I'm back from the movie so yeah don't remember adapt well but you know still it's it's part of well I thought those lead-up to this event that we come to now this Elvis Week would something like that have come about had Elvis not passed away and people felt so strongly about him I don't think so I think first of all I think Elvis would have maybe been embarrassed to have a whole week named after him I know he was used to the adulation and stuff like that but but I think it might have embarrassed him to to be you know loved in that degree but you know his death has affected so many books have come out and and well a lot of the CDs and stuff that have come out on Elvis they've gone back into the archives and they've pulled out alternate takes and outtakes things that that were never meant to be heard by the general public but people are hungry for it and so they dragged these things I mean these are things sometimes Elvis is cussing on them or this is that whatever you know and I don't think he would have ever wanted most of his fans to hear that he never thought they would but people are just hungry for that for anything Delmas and I think that part of how it affected the world I mean you know problems still go on and Wars still go on but so does Elvis Elvis still goes on and and people will always love them and I will and I know scores of people who will and I know there's tens of thousands millions all over the world you know you could look around down here up to ten and just see people just everywhere and everybody's there for the same reason it's just because they love Elvis well you know Elvis passed some way out so he took away the greatest Entertainer in human history coming there's a net there's never been anybody like him and I don't think there will be again you know he's got a legacy that you know obviously lives on I mean here we are about 37 years later and it's just incredible to see he's been 34 years later incredible to see how you know how his how he lives gone through his fans and I give give my right arm to have have 10% of the Elvis fans around the world I'd be really lucky man the world stopped just completely stopped that day I mean to this day when you watch footage of is just unbelievable just how much of the faith didn't steal the fakes the world today I mean his music will never die I think when the guy passed away it just affected the whole world though not just music or people who loved country or music or rock and roll music oh the guys shook the world when he died and this is the result of this weekend and every year there's the fact that Elvis graced us with his presence and you know he came onto the planet and he left it was such a huge impression of the whole music industry you know I could have believed this I am a nurse and I was working at Baptist Hospital in 1977 I was a scrub I was scrubbing on a case in the oor at Baptist Hospital and one of the nurses said Kathleen they think they brought it I mean they they say they brought in Elvis and he's dead downstairs in the emergency room and we know you love him so I got one of the residents and he took me down to the emergency room reluctantly here I was 19 years old right out of will no it was was 20 see I was going to nursing school I was no I was 20 22 and I told a resident that if he didn't get on his white coat and go down to the emergency room and take me with him that I was gonna make his life bad but we went down there and Elvis was there and it was a very sad car well the resident got I mean here I was trying to be a you know when you're young you're kind of fearless and tough talking and so the resident took me right up to the stretcher where they were working on Elvis he said you touch him and I said he says I don't want you to come back there I'm not coming back down here again you you know he's dead and it was just I remember just walking away he just kind of crying and thinking why did I do something so stupid like that and you know gosh part of the family is gone you know part of my my adolescence is gone it really is amazing you know looking back I don't know why did anything like that I wouldn't have done that you know but I guess because I was so young and so spur you know how kid that kids are they just kind of impulsive and but it was very sad it was like witnessing your brother you know passing away well there was a guy I don't know the exact circumstances but you know people were just piled on into the street trying to get close to the gates and the walls and stuff like that because there just were they literally came to Memphis in droves they just dropped it was like they dropped whatever else they were doing and they came to Memphis well this guy somehow other lost control of his car and the car went into the crowd and and these two girls were killed and it was a you know terrible terrible thing but like I don't remember the exact circumstances of what was wrong with why the guy did that but you know every single newspaper in the UK carried the news that Elvis had died there wasn't a single newspaper that didn't mention him but he was on every front page he was on every TV station everybody just changed their program schedules to feature Elvis and when everybody just came into Memphis from all four corners of the world believe me that done that week all roseola to Memphis and we heard in the UK that two young girls have been tragically killed by it driver and we just felt for them we really did as we felt for Elvis something at the end of the day they were there because they wait to be there for Elvis just like we all did and even to this day I still feel sorry for those girls that was on the evening of August 2 17th that whizzed a mother died and my sister Debbie had been there all day again on that second day and it was towards evening I remember it was brutal hot man it was hot and it wasn't like nowadays where everybody walks around with their water bottles and you know camel bags and people right there just dropping like flies in 77 nobody had to drink nobody had nothing it wasn't there wasn't a breeze to be bought for 200 miles around Memphis Tennessee it was thick it was hot it was humid it was August and I had to get out of that crowd I'd been at the gates ever my mother and sister and the ladies I mentioned earlier their friends and next door to graceless a church it's now the Elvis Presley Enterprises corporate offices but I remember that church being there it was a nice little grassy knoll with some shade trees at the top on the north side of Elvis's rock wall and I had found my way out of the crowd and walked up the hill and sat under a oak tree still there every time I Drive by sit I sit there in the root system and that little Oh on top of that little hill and pulled out a cigarette the Oklahoma say smoking cigarette up there I've been there probably for 30-40 minutes maybe an hour but it was some shade and it was cooler the grass around and stuff not in that thick crowd anymore but sitting there under that tree on the church's front lawn I was distracted looking at something else and I heard a thud and I looked and in that sea of heads which I was just above enough to look over the crowd I didn't see what happened but something caught my eye from above something had dropped from the sky there were news helicopters yeah probably some small air print airplanes and everything at that time but something had been dropped from one of those aircraft is all I could think because what I saw was it looked like a bag of laundry or something fell from the sky and landed in the crowd and I remember looking up at the area looking for the helicopter that might have come from there were a lot of them in the sky and found out later you know that it it had been God bless her soul one of those girls hit by that car and knocked into the air and when I was looking away and when I looked back bless her soul she was falling back down and I thought it originated from above whenever he's gathered outside Christ I know they heard the news at some driver went out of control and hit a couple people there there were some girls that got hit by a car at the gate that were standing you know waiting - it was just mass hysteria all these fans of stuff and in a drunk driver ran up in the I killed a couple girls I remember that - we met them September 9 to 5 that night we talked for a while that was paper pitching tents doing different things best sleeping on the sidewalk and I it was the next night never the drunk driver came down food and hit some people we talked to him about 15 minutes what was happening and amazing friends of mine left went across the street at the time they used to not being embracing them plasma and stuff up so that used to be just a little shop since there was a barbecue shop right across the street and I love cheese shop they had a jam bar and and that jam box had all over there was a song and we were sitting there and eating and about I guess about five ten minutes later was a great big old fast and once we got food we've seen all the Hamlet's and stuff coming things we went back to prostrate and we heard about everybody to happen I won't cut the month later it's like as this waking up for you to sleep on my hey oh my god yeah no I got close to his daddy he come to hospital one month from the day of Elvis's fear from Elvis death excuse me he was there on September 16th with me those very nice has been evening it affects me along like everything every day stuff Elvis man he came out on the scene of 55 he did the 50s he didn't run sixteen [Music] was crowned king really clown king in like 73 it was just crazy you know and he lived his whole entire life for us to give it the people all this pressing because that's what they wanted I didn't even pass away at such an early age and it kind of brings you down to like you know as great as great as he was I believe in mr. Angel Jaime if he was a human being yeah but he was more I believe into something more but he's still with you know he's still left us you know it and it just kind of brings it back down so you know as great as everything is you better soak it up better soak it up and enjoy every second because you never know what was coming over never no house just out of college [Applause] you know I was at work and people are starting to talk about Elvis passing away inside you're kidding right I meant that but that's pretty much match everybody's got your kid well I'd say that fit wasn't raised like holy cow that's crazy that goes is death had a big impact on the world it was quite a shock you know well you know that's the world of music you know been the same sense not only for the fact that you know he left us but in fact that he left wide footprint in the world music pretty medicine has such an impact on everything then we still remember him down as you can see so I think that's how hasn't been really yes we did yeah it was it was covered on all the new stations run out when Elvis passed away no but you know you turn every channel over and it was covered 24/7 you've got remember in those days the UK only had four TV channels and it was heavy heavy coverage and anybody who's anybody as far as broad customers concerned flew to Memphis and they just covered the whole thing and we as British Elvis funds you know felt immensely though I think there were 16 white limousines and went down to the Forest Hill Cemetery which is about all about seven or eight miles north of Graceland oh yeah north of Graceland and they were lined up and down the highways two or three deep people listening on transistor radios to the news and watching us and they were waving and blowing kisses at all it was a very very moving situation for me yeah the day of the funeral out would have been 1830 August 7 to 7 we've been down there like I said for the last two days not much time away my mother you couldn't drag her away like I said I was a long-haired little teenage boy a couple days of that and I was just about burned out on it to be honest with mother and sister there's no way you can keep them away they come up out of the bed grabbing the car keys and let's go back down there of course I remember that first day first evening we parked there almost directly across the street no little open lot the second day we were quite a ways down north of there and another open feel like we're the Shoney's used to be but that third day we were all the way down at Winchester and Elvis Presley Boulevard where the bank is now it was an open field nothing really developed around there too much not like it is now but on that day of the funeral there were millions of people there press press coverage and helicopters and stuff all in the sky and it felt like we walked a mile to get up as close as we could but the crowd was so thick and so packed that you couldn't advance very much further towards Graceland we didn't actually get up to the house but we were there about I don't know maybe within 50 100 yards north of Graceland stood on the sidewalk it was ten people deep as procession went by all those white limousines and hearses Cadillacs I remember that seeing all those I remember my mother just breaking down the three days of taking a toll on her and she kind of passed out while the procession was going by they were taking Elvis to his final resting place at Forest Hills Cemetery and I just remember I was proud for Elvis for that incredible turnout it was a bigger crowd than there probably any concert he'd ever got to do it was a bigger crowd than then maybe a you know been to any concert of anybody I'd say the million people must have been out there and that's not an over an exaggeration that's exactly what a million people would look like on both sides of a street and even today it says a million people oh yeah long long time ago and thought about it in years but I remember Mother's going down she wiped her out and my sister not kind of Fanning her taking time with my mother I guess a place like I said stars most of them if you got there early that afternoon but most of the started coming in white they camped out there around with the walls and stuff from can't actually remember what night it was I think a wing I was on 4th 8th and then he buried on the 16th so we stayed after late late afternoon until sometime early on the Friday zone the Friday would lay out late Friday evening so that was people camping and doing stuff until after receiving now whenever they had the funeral they after we got to going through the day and a few happened every pound I guess we 550 minutes almost died before they took him from Graceland for self cemetery now when you left Graceland going to for self cemetery the road in Graceland Forest Hill Cemetery was packed from the gates of Graceland all the way down through this side to the before they buried a man all the way back up grace man on the other side so it was I ain't no telling I mean no way for context it was it was fun Elvis's death shook the foundation it shook it like it's like you know you don't know what you got till it's gone timeframe and then it's like a almost gone psyche offices down hey you know he's gonna eat today it's not even real you know it doesn't even seem real look at all this that's happening I affected the world and everything because he said it and then when he left with her he left with it and he's gonna be clown forever forever easier they found it effect of the world so many ways assignment funny down down to them found everything [Music] Mandel this week down to everything it affects everything shoot who knows man lived how how different everything would be the anniversaries the get-togethers the the family reunion of Elvis fans here and at the next place in the next place you know and it brings you closer to the band because we miss him so much and you can feel the spirit of you know he may be gone he ain't me the death of Elvis Presley affect the world this is for sure but the most important thing is what his life bid to the world he give give the gold letters to the name of rock and roll and and for sheree we learn to the white people what was the black music and this changed the world not his death especially but the way he lives well it was a terrible moment in history it's a moment that I'm sure almost every American who was in middle age at that time or a young person they knew exactly where they weren't what they were doing when they heard the news that Elvis Presley died it was a tragic moment because I lost a great friend the fans lost a great talent and the world lost a great person you

Channel: outlawfilms

Views: 25,316

Rating: 4.6870747 out of 5

Keywords: Elvis Presley, Elvis Tribute Artist, fill, Elvis Impersonator, 816, Elvis Week, TCB, Taking Care Of Business, Memphis Tennessee, Elvis fan, Graceland Crossing, video

Id: _6fenWa5ffo

Length: 129min 44sec (7784 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2018