EXPERIENCE ELVIS

I have often been asked "what's it like to see Elvis in concert?" I've never been able to put in words what that experience was like for me in 1974. So, here's some insight to what it's like to "Experience Elvis."


Patsy Hammontree from 'Elvis: Images & Fancies': "The Elvis following is often inappropriately referred to as a cult. Concisely speaking, a cult is a group comprised of disaffected persons unified in their values who look to a leader for guidance, or remain nostalgically attached to a lost leader....But Elvis Presley neither proselytized nor persuaded, and there is a considerable variety in the social and moral values of his followers. In fact, it is not easy to find an appropriate label for these millions who express degrees of interest in Elvis...He gave meaning to their lives in numerous ways, no matter what ages they were. They form a group so vast, diverse and dedicated that no concept has the magnitude to encompass them."


Alan Wiess, who wrote the screenplays for several of Elvis' motion pictures remembers his first meeting with Elvis in 1956. It was during the 21 year old star's screen test for producer, Hal Wallis: "The transformation was incredible. We knew instantly that we were in the presence of a phenomenon, electricity bounced off the walls of the sound stage. One felt it as an awesome thing - like an earthquake in progress, only without the implicit threat. Watching this insecure country boy, who apologized when he asked for a rehearsal as though he had done something wrong, turn into absolute dynamite when he stepped in the bright lights...he believed in it, and he made you believe it, no matter how 'sophisticated' your musical tastes were. I had not been a fan until that point, but to deny his talent would have been as foolish as it was impossible. He was a force, and to fail to recognize it would be the same as sticking a finger into a live socket and denying the existence of electricity."


From the book 'Meet Elvis Presley (1971), by Favius Freedman: "'Elvis never was a Casanova type, or libertine,' said actress Natalie Wood. Miss Wood was a popular starlet when she and Elvis first met and began dating. She was invited to meet his folks in Memphis. 'He was more like a pleasant high school date who had strong religious, almost mystical beliefs,' she added. Elvis always talked about a supernatural power that plucked him out of nowhere and made him what he was.'"


Elvis' record producer, Felton Jarvis gave this insight into Elvis' mesmeric quality in 1973: "Elvis is kinda shy, reserved, but confident...most people's reactions to him are incredible. You can have twenty people in a room, all of them looking one way and Elvis can walk in behind you and you'll feel him. You'll feel his presence. You'll turn around cause you know something's behind you. Nobody can explain it; there is no explanation. But I've seen it with my own eyes....I've heard musicians (who have never before worked with Elvis) say, 'Man, I don't care about Elvis Presley - it don't shake me up to play on his sessions'. And then they get on the session and they just go to pieces; just completely go to pieces when he walks in the room. And then after he leaves, they'll say, 'Now I see why he's Elvis Presley, man I ain't never been around a guy like that'."


While Elvis' voice and music is masterful and magnetizing on record, his live performances were spiritually inspired. As one reporter wrote in a review of an Elvis concert: "Reviews of his concerts, by usually credible writers, sometimes resemble Biblical accounts of Heavenly miracles." From a magazine on Elvis released in November of 1975, the male author, discussing Elvis' appearance in January of that same year: "When he came on stage and began to burn, there was still no one who could match him in energy, or in sheer magnetic power....All that counted was the moment when he caught fire, when something suddenly stirred him and he really started working. Then he was superhuman. Twenty years on, he was still, quite simply, the King. His popularity had never stood higher; his followers had never been more devoted. When he went on tour, many hundreds of disciples would journey with him, as if on a pilgrimage, tracking him through city after city, never missing a single show. And when he appeared it was no longer just a performance. To those who lived him, it had long since become a litany, a near-religious observance. Nothing less than an act of sacrament."


Sean Shaver, a man who felt it was his historical duty to follow Elvis' concert trail, city by city, photographing the master in performance of his magical, musical art, reaches for an accurate description of an Elvis' performance in his book 'Elvis, Photographing The King': "...no one who was in those audiences could ever forget the feeling, the electric energy which flowed back and forth. There's no way you can explain this, there's no way you can say it. If you were there, you know what I am talking about, if you were not there, you probably think I'm exaggerating..."


Another reviewer does not attempt description, he merely accepts: "All that is really important is that he came on the stage and something wonderful happened. There was no controlling it, no defining it, but you felt it and the magic was uniquely and unmistakably his alone."


In a 1975 review of an Elvis concert, a mystical accounting was the only language possible in giving an accurate revelation of the event: "Something entirely his, driven by two decades of history and myth, all live-in-person, is transformed into an energy that is ecstatic - that is, to use the world in its old sense, illuminating. The over-stated grandeur is suddenly authentic, and Elvis brings a thrill different and far beyond anything else in our culture...It might be the time when he sings 'How Great Thou Art'...it might be at the very end of the night, when he closes his show with 'Can't Help Falling In Love With You' and his song takes on a glow that might make you feel his capacity for affection is all but superhuman. Whatever it is, it will be music that excludes no one, and still passes on something valuable to everyone who is there...One might think that the great moments Elvis still finds are his refusal of all he can have without struggling. Elvis proves then that the myth of supremacy for which his audience will settle cannot contain him; he is, these moments show, far greater than that."


From Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys - "His voice was a total miracle."


One woman's experience was typical of his metaphysical impact on ordinary people: "How lucky I have been. To come face to face with Elvis is an experience my words could never describe. The warmth and love I felt from Elvis as he took my hand (from the stage) is something I wish I could share with all of you. Of course I have always known Elvis is beautiful, but the beauty I saw inside the man, behind those eyes, was incredible."


He inspired people through some form of internal revelation, deep within their own spaces. Another woman writes: "The love within that beautiful and wonderful human being has reached through my heart and into my inner soul and touched a chord that makes me know beyond a doubt that I can truly be and do the great things that I have dreamed of being and doing."


Elvis' illumination of others did not begin and end with his audiences, as is profoundly emphasized in this 1973 concert review: "And not only did the fans hold their hero (Elvis) in awe, so did his musicians and his crew, who gave off vibrations that reflected they were in the presence of greatness. At one point, as Elvis went to the right of the stage, a sound man, who was squatting down below, looked up at him as if he were catching the first glimpse at Shangri-La."


Gordon Stoker, backup singer for Elvis in the 1950's & 1960's: "There's no way to describe the excitement of being on stage with Elvis Presley. The joy of seeing him, working with him...I've always thought that was one of his secrets of success, that he looked different to anyone I've ever seen in my life. He had a period in his life from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies when his was the best looking face I've ever looked into. He was - beautiful!"


Kathy Westmoreland, backup singer for Elvis in the 1970's: "He taught me the joy of singing. He saw the unity of feeling and singing, like it was all one thing. I remember his smile and the good feelings that everyone had just being around him because he was just so full of life. He was more alive than anybody I've ever known...he was more of everything than anyone I've ever known. He lived his faith."


Author Dave Marsh is not hesitant in his assessment of Elvis and his music's transformative wave, and the longevity of that transformation on the cultural psyche: "Unless you understand that Elvis was, more than anything, a spiritual leader of our generation - there is really no way to assess his importance, much less the meaning of the music he created...Uniting opposites, of course, is the essence of religion...he obliterated distinctions between musical forms, between races (for a moment at least)."


Elvis' Aunt Lorene Pritchett: "He was a bundle of energy, and had a ball of light that rolled inside of him and came out in a thundering laugh, and made everyone laugh around him; a man who could look past your eyes and into the depths of your soul, and feel your hurt...to our family he was a gift. He was a giver to the point of exhausting himself....the thing that hurt him the most in his giving was that he pushed himself to the breaking point. He felt so responsible for so many people around the world."


Linda Thompson, Elvis' girlfriend of five years: "He had the most riveting presence of any human being I've very encountered....His quest in life was to become a better human being; a more aware human being about spiritual matters....For years and years he read books about God....Once Elvis Presley touched your life, you were never the same again. It is that way with me. It was that way with everyone who knew him. All of us who loved him are so deeply hurt (by his death), but we think of how fortunate we were to have known him, to have shared so much of his life with him....He cared for people, he loved them. No one will ever replace him, not for me, not for anybody who knew him, not for the entire world."


Ginger Alden was Elvis' girlfriend in 1977, for the last several months of his life. She remembers him: "He had a smile that gave you the feeling everything was all right....I was very lucky and honored that I shared his life, and I'll never forget him. It's impossible....He had a certain kind of love, a deep love, that I have never noticed in anyone else on earth....Elvis' beliefs have left a strong impression on me. He was into meditation and I meditate every day now. Through it I can really feel his presence. We used to meditate together, holding hands, clearing our minds and giving them to God first....He was a leader among men. He knew where he was going in life and he had a positive purpose: to make others happy. He wanted to entertain, yet he was always ready to meet his God. He gave of himself to the world...."


Ann Margaret: "He had a tremendous impact on my life. I not only admired and respected Elvis, I loved him."


Joan Buchanan West wrote of her first meeting with a nineteen-year-old Elvis in 1953, at the home of a mutual friend: "The last one through the door caught my eye and took my breath. He was different in every way. He was quiet, but not sullen; outgoing, but shy; friendly, but bashful....It was truly impossible to take your eyes off him. There was a mystical magnetism about him. Now this same magnetism surrounds Graceland, constantly pulling you to it. It was not anything that he did or said, but simply his presence. He was truly beautiful. At the time, he was blonde....and very slender. He had navy blue transparent eyes....and a smile that could melt the most hardened heart. I found myself watching his every movement and not really paying much attention to what he had to say. I found it impossible to listen and look at the same time. (And through all the following years I still had this problem.) He was extremely courteous and kind. "He had all the attributes as a teenager that he had when he became a world-famous personality. Elvis never really changed....He never forgot you, no matter how many years might come and go until you would see him again. "I can remember very distinctly how empty and void the house and even the air felt after he left (that day in 1953). It was as though everything beautiful had been put away never to be brought out again. I remember thinking that I may never see him again and even then it brought a heavy cloak of loneliness over my heart that would only be lifted through the years whenever I saw him. My two oldest sons, who were three and two at the time, stood in absolute awe of the 'Beautiful Stranger'. He picked them up and played with them and to this day, they still remember their first encounter with 'God's Brightest Star.'"


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