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Elvis--the King lives!


sleepy

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Just some thoughts--

You've got to be of a certain age to remember anything Elvis.

My mom was working at KWAM radio in Memphis as an accounts manager when he died, in 1978. She also answered the phone. When Elvis died, she got calls from Australia, South Africa, the Soviet Union, you name it.

When he died, I was staying at a motel in Destin FL, didn't know what was up until I was driving around and it dawned on me that every single radio station in the nation on the dial was playing "I can't help falling in Love with You".

Anyhoo, when my mom retired Elvis' cousin gave her a big sendoff.

That's my Elvis story. Any others?

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I remember his death, but I was a teenager and didn't listen to his music so it didn't really impress me at the time. I remember my mother talking about him coming to Charlotte for a concert in the 50s and my grandmother forbid her to go see him because he was a bad influence. She snuck out and went anyway. haha

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I remember his death, but I was a teenager and didn't listen to his music so it didn't really impress me at the time. I remember my mother talking about him coming to Charlotte for a concert in the 50s and my grandmother forbid her to go see him because he was a bad influence. She snuck out and went anyway. haha

I was 26 when he died, and he was basically a has-been when I became interested in popular music in the 60's, and his music wasn't much that I was ever interested in, although by the time of his death, I appreciated his 50's stuff.

Having said that, I recognized that it was something really culturally significant when he died. (based on his work in the 50's). In any event, it was iconic when he died.

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My mom was working at KWAM radio in Memphis as an accounts manager when he died, in 1978.

Actually, he died in 1977. I was 3 when he died, so don't remember it well. I do remember coming through Memphis a year later on the 1st anniversary of his death en route to Houston and encountering the traffic for the first yearly pilgrimage that has been celebrated ever since.

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  • 2 months later...

Not my memory, but the first school that my mother taught at was Prospect Elementary. She taught a 5th/6th grade split. One of the students that she had in her class was Elvis's first cousin. The child was telling everyone in the class that Elvis was his cousin and they wouldn't believe him. He told them that he would show them and have Elvis come to visit the school. Will, Elvis pulled up to the school on a motor cycle during my mother's class recess and came walking across the grounds to sign autographs for the kids. Needless to say, my mother as the good teacher told him that he would have to leave the grounds or go to the office to be officially signed in as a visitor. What can I say, my mother chased Elvis away. :yahoo:

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I was in Chicago and remember going to the lobby for a paper and the headline stated the fact that he'd died. Other than singing "I ain't nuthin' but a hound dog" when I was a kid, I didn't follow his career or music with any extraordinary interest.

The day was memorable because there were crying women in the hotel lobby.

My only other memories were fleeting. I would see the limos come and go from Col. Tom Parker's office in Madision and it seemed understood that Elvis was probably in them. No biggie for us. They had patio gatherings in the back, but it didn't occur to us to crash them. We had better things to do like cruise Shoney's.

One night years later I was at the long-defunct Rock 'n' Roll Hotel (where the Boundry is now at State St.). After an early morning hot-tubbing event (I know, TMI), I had to get a ride home because I wasn't quite sure where my car was (good thing). The guy piled me into the Benz, we talked, I asked what he did and he said he was a songwriter...yeah, well, isn't everybody? He had written songs for Elvis, the most well-known to me was "Suspicious Minds." I thought that was cool.

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Reading these posts makes me think, would we even be talking about Elvis if he hadn't died young and unexpectedly? I have never been a big elvis fan, but it sounds like most people didn't care for his later works, and so he probably would have eventually killed his own legacy (no graceland, no skydiving elvis, etc...). His death probably helped his career more than anything else could have!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I saw Elvis in concert in Asheville, NC in 1975. I remember the concert tickets sold out in only twenty minutes after they went on sale. Back in those days before the internet, etc. this was unheard of. I was very disappointed that I didn't get any tickets. Word got to Elvis and his handlers about the incredibly fast sellout, and, lo and behold, they immediately added two more concert dates the very next two days. Incredible! The tickets for both of those shows sold out in about two hours, and I was the proud owner of two of them.

The crowd at the concert was absolutely electric. Women were screaming their lungs out, and some even fainted at the site of Elvis. He gave a great show that I'll never forget.

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Reading these posts makes me think, would we even be talking about Elvis if he hadn't died young and unexpectedly? I have never been a big elvis fan, but it sounds like most people didn't care for his later works, and so he probably would have eventually killed his own legacy (no graceland, no skydiving elvis, etc...). His death probably helped his career more than anything else could have!

More so than that, the nature of modern media and Hollywood would've destroyed him mercilessly. He couldn't stand up to 60s and 70s Hollywood's greed and desire to exploit his music in the movie realm, even though he wanted to become a genuine actor. Just an overall good, genuine guy whom people would've continued to exploit because of his generosity and self-defeatist behaviors.

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