WHY ELVIS HAS NEVER LEFT THE BUILDING …

HOW A CHEAP GUITAR, A SPLASH OF BRUT AND SOME STOLEN ‘SHAPES’ CREATED THE KING

Where were you when Elvis finally left this world behind?

I was a music journalist manning the newsdesk of a tawdry little city newspaper in the UK when the ticker-tape started in the background.

THE KING

IS DEAD

I was in my early twenties and I was devastated … yep, by 1977 Elvis was a fat old man dressed like Liberace and full of drugs and self-doubt and the music scene was changing fast and I loved Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and the rising of the punk era.

But the death of Elvis left me in shock. So, as was my way back then, I went on a pub crawl…

Sequins of sadness were everywhere.

And since that day Elvis has NEVER left the building for me… where were you when you heard the news?

SOME ELVIS FACTS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW:

Elvis’s first guitar cost less than $8 from his hometown’s Tupelo Hardware Company. He got it for it his 11th birthday.

As a teenager Elvis loved the gospel group The Statesmen. His dance moves were based on James ‘Big Chief’ Wetherington (The Statesmen’s bass singer),

Elvis’s first recording – at Sun Records – was self-funded in 1953. He cut My Happiness and That’s When Your Heartaches Begin on acetate.

 In 1954 Elvis auditioned for a place in gospel quartet The Songfellows. The band rejected him.

Sam Phillips’s first session with Elvis later that year produced a cover of Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right Mama. Memphis radio DJ Dewey Phillips played it repeatedly for two hours.

Sun received an 6,000 pre-orders.

Elvis’s television debut was on Louisiana Hayride on 5 March 1955.

Elvis made the best-selling single of both the 1950s (Hound Dog/Don’t Be Cruel (1956)) and the 1960s (It’s Now Or Never (1960)).

During his two-year stint as a Private in the US Army, Elvis donated all his pay to charity.

On May 18 2006, Uri Geller bought Elvis’s ranch-style Memphis home on eBay for $905,100.

Elvis’s favourite aftershave was apparently Brut…

73 things you (probably) didn’t know about Elvis Presley | MusicRadar

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