Give Us This Day, November 4, Our Daily Elvis
Posted: November 4th, 2025, 10:50 am
1954
Elvis signing with Scotty and Bill, cosigned with Parents
1957
The top six singles on the Billboard Pop and R&B charts were exactly the same: Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” was #1, then “Wake Up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me,” “Silhouettes” by the Rays, Ricky Nelson’s “Be-Bop Baby,” and “Honeycomb” by Jimmie Rodgers.
Elvis got a “Triple Crown” by Billboard again. This time, single “Jailhouse Rock” completed three consecutive atop the pop music “best Sellers In Stores” chart. Also today, RCA Victor ran a full-page ad for EP “Jailhouse Rock” (Picture: With Judy Tyler, Bob Neal and Dewey Phillips)
a clip from a tv show promoting Jailhouse Rock: follow the link to view
(as if he did not act in Love Me Tender and Loving You?"
1960
Elvis was in Memphis.
1961
Elvis’s 10th movie, Kid Galahad, production in Idyllwild, California.
1962
“Right now I’d like to get married, but the older I get, the more choosy I become. To me right now the most desirable characteristics in a girl are a sense of humor, understanding and loyalty. I’ve dated quite a few girls, and women with those qualities are mighty hard to find, especially understanding.” — Elvis quote in Parade magazine.
It Happened at the World’s Fair Production.
1964
The Beatles finished recording the album Beatles for Sale.
The Hank Williams biopic “Your Cheatin’ Heart” had its world premiere in Montgomery, Alabama. The movie starred George Hamilton as Williams, with Susan Oliver, Red Buttons, Arthur O’Connell, Rex Ingram, and featured, off-camera, 15-year-old Hank Williams, Jr., who dubbed in his father’s singing voice. Williams widow refused an earlier movie starring Elvis Presley.
Tickle Me Production
1967
Elvis Presley’s single “Big Boss Man” hit #38 in the U.S.Jerry Reed’s 1960 “Big Boss Man” backed with an Eddie Arnold’s 1955 “You don’t know me” from the Clambake Soundtrack.
Elvis in Arizona for Stay Away, Joe
1968
Trouble with Girls production
1970
Elvis ordered some gold handles for his new Colt and Berretta pistols at Schwartz and Ableser jewelers.
1974
Jerry Schilling was now installed as executive producer of the karate film.
Most likely it was in this week that Elvis bought a house for Jerry Schilling, while Jerry was in Las Vegas. At one time Elvis told Jerry the reason: “Jerry, you know why I bought you this home? I know I drove all those other guys crazy buying you this house, but your mother died when you were a year old, and you never had a home, and I wanted to be the one to give it to you.”
1989
Elton John scored his 50th UK chart hit when ‘Sacrifice’, entered the charts. Only Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley had also achieved this feat. Sacrifice was initially released as a single in 1989, but stalled at No.55 in the UK and at No.18 in the US. English DJ, Steve Wright, began playing the song on BBC Radio 1 and the song was then re-released as a double A-side single, along with ‘Healing Hands’.
2003
The Elvis Presley album “Christmas Peace” was released. The album contained 40 songs. A 15 track version was given away in the UK Daily Mail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... unday.html
It's a superb early Christmas gift from The Mail on Sunday!
Free Elvis Christmas album: Get a CD with 15 festive tracks by The King himself free in The Mail on Sunday this weekend!
This weekend, Sunday November 28, we’re giving away a CD featuring 15 of Elvis Presley’s greatest Christmas songs FREE inside every paper.
The tracks on Christmas Peace, including White Christmas and Silent Night, are taken from the two albums of festive music recorded by the King – and there’s also a holiday single he released in 1966.
The first of those two albums, Elvis’s Christmas Album, topped the US charts on its release in 1957 – and made No 2 in the UK – rounding off an incredible two years since he exploded on to the scene internationally with Heartbreak Hotel and Blue Suede Shoes.
It was made up of eight festive numbers – all featuring on Christmas Peace – and a handful of gospel tunes.
Elvis, then 22, was just emerging from the hip-swivelling notoriety that had characterised his early years. And hard as it might now be to believe, his first Christmas record only added to
his notoriety.
Earlier in 1957, Frank Sinatra had attacked the new breed of rock ’n’ rollers as ‘cretinous goons’ and ‘sideburned delinquents’.
And confronted with The King’s version of White Christmas, the song’s horrified author Irving Berlin launched a largely unsuccessful campaign to stop radio stations from playing it.
Listening now to Elvis’s gentle account of the song, delicately played by his regular band with the accompaniment of backing singers The Jordanaires, it is difficult to comprehend the great songwriter’s fury.
At the time, Elvis had just moved into his Graceland home in Memphis, and he loved the festive period. One photo that year captured the smiling star surrounded by piles of presents, under the watchful gaze of a large stuffed panda.
Out on his enormous front lawn, he had erected a giant Santa, with sleigh and reindeer and a huge neon sign conveying Elvis’s Christmas wishes to the world.
By the time he recorded his next Christmas album in 1971, entitled Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas – the best of which is also included on Christmas Peace – his days of outraging public morals were far behind him, though his love of the festive season was undiminished.
Santa and his reindeers were once again on the front lawn of Graceland, along with a life-size nativity scene acquired in the Sixties. They are all still erected every Christmas – enduring like the music Elvis recorded to celebrate his favourite time of year.
Here is the complete listing for the Christmas Peace CD:
White Christmas
In 1957, new Elvis songs generated an automatic reaction of shock and outrage among the older generation, and this cover of Bing Crosby’s greatest hit was one of his most controversial. Composer Irving Berlin called Presley’s version ‘a profane parody’ of the original.
Listen to a sample from White Christmas and Here Comes Santa Claus below:
Here Comes Santa Claus
For a young rebel, Elvis had quite traditional tastes, and this jaunty tune was another Forties classic, written by ‘The Singing Cowboy’, Gene Autry.
Blue Christmas
Elvis’s version of this 1948 country lament added rock ’n’ roll touches while enshrining the song as a Christmas standard.
Santa Claus Is Back In Town
This erupts into a storming, somewhat lascivious blues number and
was Elvis’s choice to open his first festive record.
Silent Night
Elvis is one of more than 300 artists to have recorded a version of this. Bing Crosby, the Christmas specialist, got there first, of course.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Another adaptation of an old Bing Crosby hit which was the most popular request among serving American soldiers during the Second World War. Within months of releasing his own version, Elvis would be drafted.
O Come All Ye Faithful
A grand interpretation with crashing drums, orchestra and choir, this opened Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas, his second Christmas album.
Santa Bring My Baby Back
One of two songs commissioned for Elvis’s Christmas Album, this swinging number was penned by two
Presley writers, Schroeder and Demetrius. Schroeder later wrote It’s Now Or Never.
O Little Town Of Bethlehem
Back in reflective mood, The King croons his way through this timeless carol in its less familiar US version.
The First Noel
Elvis captures the sound of a church recital with this take on a devotional favourite, adorned with organ, piano and choir.
Winter Wonderland
Back to his country and rock ’n’ roll roots, Winter Wonderland was 37 years old by the time Elvis recorded it.
Listen to a sample of Silent Night, simply CLICK on the picture below right:
If Every day Was Like Christmas
Red West, one of Presley’s Memphis Mafia entourage, wrote this for his old high school friend. It was recorded in Nashville in 1966 and released as a single.
On A Snowy Christmas Night
Sentimental ballad recorded, like the rest of The Wonderful World Of Christmas, in May 1971.
The Wonderful World Of Christmas
Christmas was indeed a wonderful world for Elvis, who would shower family and friends with presents. His gifts for wife Priscilla included a horse, a pearl and diamond ring, and a toy poodle she named Honey.
It Won’t Seem Like Christmas (Without You)
A song of regretful absence closes Christmas Peace. Elvis spent many Christmases away from home, but 1971 found him at Graceland, though trouble was looming. He and Priscilla would split in February, 1972.
The Mail on Sunday’s giveaway ties in with the release of Viva ELVIS, a new album in which the king of rock ’n’ roll meets the greatest show on Earth.
The album is inspired by the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show of the same name, in which Elvis’s vocals are given a 21st Century makeover set to a variety of musical styles. It includes Suspicious Minds, Blue Suede Shoes and Love Me Tender. Cirque du Soleil’s Viva ELVIS show – a mix of dance, acrobatics and live music – opened earlier this year. www.vivaelvis.com
2013
Rihanna joined The Beatles and Elvis Presley as one of just three acts to top the UK singles chart seven times over seven years. The singer made the No.1 spot, as the featured artist on Eminem’s new track ‘The Monster’.
The Nations’ Favorite was a UK tv series and the Elvis series spawn a cd release that peaked at #5 in the UK and certified BPI: Platinum
2025
Joanna Lumley "Elvis And Me" Documentary 2015
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documenta ... a-presley/
Joanna Lumley on finding Elvis in Memphis - and meeting Priscilla Presley
In a new ITV documentary, the actress and lifelong devotee goes on a pilgrimage to the King's Mississippi birthplace and Graceland
Joanna Lumley believes you either get Elvis or you don’t. She still remembers the day that she got him.
“I was 10 and staying with my aunt in Kent when Blue Suede Shoes came out," she recalls reverently. "We played it on a gramophone and I became besotted
"I’d never heard anything like that and what a magic voice he had. Back then I hadn’t seen a film of Elvis in action because I didn’t have a television. But I remember seeing a photograph with his slick of hair and just falling in love.”
In Elvis and Me, which is repeated tonight on ITV, Lumley finally went on a pilgrimage – "as if he were a saint" – to Memphis, the Tennessee city where teenage Elvis laid down his first tracks. But unlike the many millions of fans who have gone before, Lumley had Priscilla Presley as her tour guide of the world's most famous rock' n' roll residence, Graceland.
So what did she make of Elvis’s ex-wife? “I just loved her – the lucky lady who'd married Elvis. Think of Linda McCartney and multiply it by a million.
"I was so curious about what she’d be like and she seemed like a porcelain doll: so beautiful and radiant, with her black hair and lovely dress. What focus there was on her must have been intense. [She was] the envy of others, then it all went wrong."
As Lumley learns, it was a "bizarre" marriage from the off because the young couple were rarely alone together.
“It’s impertinent to guess at anyone’s marriage but it seems he was a very jealous man," muses Lumley. "She was his treasure. She showed me the place at the dining table where they sat and whoever was in favour next to them. It was like royalty holding court.”
The King would have turned 80 this year had he lived. Lumley's tribute is clearly a labour of love, focusing on Elvis' impoverished childhood and meteoric rise to fame rather than his famously troubled latter years.
“I’m not interested in the last two years of his life when he over-ate and was hooked on prescription pills, and he looked ill, sad and revolting. Those times weren’t really Elvis. People didn’t really know what he was going through.”
She recalls learning of Elvis' death in August 1977, aged just 42, as vividly as that gramophone rendition of Blue Suede Shoes. By that time, she was a successful actress shooting The Avengers in Canada.
“The Canadian press were awful, basically wondering what the fuss was about, seeing it just as a ‘fat singer’ that had died. Where as I and the rest of the world were truly devastated. The Canadians didn’t understand. There was very little respect for Elvis back then and that appalled me – how could he be dissed when he died? But millions of us did respect him and it was heartbreaking – the King was dead and it was awful.”
He lives on thanks to Lumley's comic alter ego in Absolutely Fabulous: hard-drinking hedonist Patsy.
“Patsy – like me – adores Elvis! He’s always been her man. I observed that Elvis never gave a big smiley grin, just a small one with raised lip on the side, so that’s what I gave Patsy because it was just so cool. Plus, she lowers her voice like Elvis when she’s happy, too. I love it. He had a passion for Palomino horses, with a golden mane… just like Patsy!”
Below, Joanna Lumley takes us on her Elvis tour...
Tupelo, Mississippi
"I didn’t know how poor he was when he was young. You never imagine such poverty in America. But when I saw the place he was born in Tupelo Mississippi... the shack there. Yes, it’s been smartened up but it’s basically a shack. It’s just desperately small. It’s now a kind of shrine.
"You can’t film inside but I went in. There was one room which had an iron bed where Elvis and his parents slept together. There was no heating, no running water, no lighting, no inside lavatory. Just a stove and a desperately little tin table. Elvis’ dad Vernon built it two months before his wife gave birth."
Graceland, Memphis
"After the White House, Graceland is probably considered the most important house in America. Going around it with Priscilla and hearing her stories, I really got got a sense of what it must have been like back then. It was quite an open house and many of the so-called ‘Memphis Mafia’ would dine with them. It was bloody weird to see it.
Joanna Lumley visits Graceland
"You’ve got to remember it was the place where he died, so [it was] terribly touching, too. I’d researched Graceland a lot, but there’s nothing like actually being there – like seeing the piano he actually played on it and hearing stories about what happened in each room from someone as close to him as Priscilla.
"Priscilla is absolutely devoted to keeping Graceland exactly as Elvis would have known it and loved it. And the peace garden they’ve made where Elvis and his parents are buried is astonishing and moving."
Sun Studio, Memphis
Lumley's favourite place? Sun Studio, where Elvis made his first record, That’s All Right, Mama in 1954. "The thought of him politely going in there and putting down his $4 and saying to the woman at the desk that he didn’t sound like anyone else... And he was right!"
Lansky's, Memphis
No Elvis pilgrimage would be complete without a suitcase of memorabilia – "every little bit of stuff I could come back with I did, books, matches, clothes, you name it – and a shopping trip to Lansky's, the stylish Memphis clothes shop he patronised. "I bought a lovely green Elvis jumper for Jamie, my completely grown-up son who’s been well-schooled in Elvis obsession because I’ve trained him."
"Priscilla apparently suggested those big bling jumpsuits he wore in the 1970s because of all his gyrations. If he’d worn a shirt and trousers they’d have become separated and he’d have looked a mess. We all look back at those suits now and giggle, but in the 1970s it was the height of cool!"
2016
The Fan Appreciation Weekend November 4-6, 2016, at The Guest House @ Graceland.
2017
full post
https://ourdailyelvis.wordpress.com/201 ... ovember-4/
Elvis signing with Scotty and Bill, cosigned with Parents
1957
The top six singles on the Billboard Pop and R&B charts were exactly the same: Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” was #1, then “Wake Up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers, Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me,” “Silhouettes” by the Rays, Ricky Nelson’s “Be-Bop Baby,” and “Honeycomb” by Jimmie Rodgers.
Elvis got a “Triple Crown” by Billboard again. This time, single “Jailhouse Rock” completed three consecutive atop the pop music “best Sellers In Stores” chart. Also today, RCA Victor ran a full-page ad for EP “Jailhouse Rock” (Picture: With Judy Tyler, Bob Neal and Dewey Phillips)
a clip from a tv show promoting Jailhouse Rock: follow the link to view
(as if he did not act in Love Me Tender and Loving You?"
1960
Elvis was in Memphis.
1961
Elvis’s 10th movie, Kid Galahad, production in Idyllwild, California.
1962
“Right now I’d like to get married, but the older I get, the more choosy I become. To me right now the most desirable characteristics in a girl are a sense of humor, understanding and loyalty. I’ve dated quite a few girls, and women with those qualities are mighty hard to find, especially understanding.” — Elvis quote in Parade magazine.
It Happened at the World’s Fair Production.
1964
The Beatles finished recording the album Beatles for Sale.
The Hank Williams biopic “Your Cheatin’ Heart” had its world premiere in Montgomery, Alabama. The movie starred George Hamilton as Williams, with Susan Oliver, Red Buttons, Arthur O’Connell, Rex Ingram, and featured, off-camera, 15-year-old Hank Williams, Jr., who dubbed in his father’s singing voice. Williams widow refused an earlier movie starring Elvis Presley.
Tickle Me Production
1967
Elvis Presley’s single “Big Boss Man” hit #38 in the U.S.Jerry Reed’s 1960 “Big Boss Man” backed with an Eddie Arnold’s 1955 “You don’t know me” from the Clambake Soundtrack.
Elvis in Arizona for Stay Away, Joe
1968
Trouble with Girls production
1970
Elvis ordered some gold handles for his new Colt and Berretta pistols at Schwartz and Ableser jewelers.
1974
Jerry Schilling was now installed as executive producer of the karate film.
Most likely it was in this week that Elvis bought a house for Jerry Schilling, while Jerry was in Las Vegas. At one time Elvis told Jerry the reason: “Jerry, you know why I bought you this home? I know I drove all those other guys crazy buying you this house, but your mother died when you were a year old, and you never had a home, and I wanted to be the one to give it to you.”
1989
Elton John scored his 50th UK chart hit when ‘Sacrifice’, entered the charts. Only Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley had also achieved this feat. Sacrifice was initially released as a single in 1989, but stalled at No.55 in the UK and at No.18 in the US. English DJ, Steve Wright, began playing the song on BBC Radio 1 and the song was then re-released as a double A-side single, along with ‘Healing Hands’.
2003
The Elvis Presley album “Christmas Peace” was released. The album contained 40 songs. A 15 track version was given away in the UK Daily Mail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... unday.html
It's a superb early Christmas gift from The Mail on Sunday!
Free Elvis Christmas album: Get a CD with 15 festive tracks by The King himself free in The Mail on Sunday this weekend!
This weekend, Sunday November 28, we’re giving away a CD featuring 15 of Elvis Presley’s greatest Christmas songs FREE inside every paper.
The tracks on Christmas Peace, including White Christmas and Silent Night, are taken from the two albums of festive music recorded by the King – and there’s also a holiday single he released in 1966.
The first of those two albums, Elvis’s Christmas Album, topped the US charts on its release in 1957 – and made No 2 in the UK – rounding off an incredible two years since he exploded on to the scene internationally with Heartbreak Hotel and Blue Suede Shoes.
It was made up of eight festive numbers – all featuring on Christmas Peace – and a handful of gospel tunes.
Elvis, then 22, was just emerging from the hip-swivelling notoriety that had characterised his early years. And hard as it might now be to believe, his first Christmas record only added to
his notoriety.
Earlier in 1957, Frank Sinatra had attacked the new breed of rock ’n’ rollers as ‘cretinous goons’ and ‘sideburned delinquents’.
And confronted with The King’s version of White Christmas, the song’s horrified author Irving Berlin launched a largely unsuccessful campaign to stop radio stations from playing it.
Listening now to Elvis’s gentle account of the song, delicately played by his regular band with the accompaniment of backing singers The Jordanaires, it is difficult to comprehend the great songwriter’s fury.
At the time, Elvis had just moved into his Graceland home in Memphis, and he loved the festive period. One photo that year captured the smiling star surrounded by piles of presents, under the watchful gaze of a large stuffed panda.
Out on his enormous front lawn, he had erected a giant Santa, with sleigh and reindeer and a huge neon sign conveying Elvis’s Christmas wishes to the world.
By the time he recorded his next Christmas album in 1971, entitled Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas – the best of which is also included on Christmas Peace – his days of outraging public morals were far behind him, though his love of the festive season was undiminished.
Santa and his reindeers were once again on the front lawn of Graceland, along with a life-size nativity scene acquired in the Sixties. They are all still erected every Christmas – enduring like the music Elvis recorded to celebrate his favourite time of year.
Here is the complete listing for the Christmas Peace CD:
White Christmas
In 1957, new Elvis songs generated an automatic reaction of shock and outrage among the older generation, and this cover of Bing Crosby’s greatest hit was one of his most controversial. Composer Irving Berlin called Presley’s version ‘a profane parody’ of the original.
Listen to a sample from White Christmas and Here Comes Santa Claus below:
Here Comes Santa Claus
For a young rebel, Elvis had quite traditional tastes, and this jaunty tune was another Forties classic, written by ‘The Singing Cowboy’, Gene Autry.
Blue Christmas
Elvis’s version of this 1948 country lament added rock ’n’ roll touches while enshrining the song as a Christmas standard.
Santa Claus Is Back In Town
This erupts into a storming, somewhat lascivious blues number and
was Elvis’s choice to open his first festive record.
Silent Night
Elvis is one of more than 300 artists to have recorded a version of this. Bing Crosby, the Christmas specialist, got there first, of course.
I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Another adaptation of an old Bing Crosby hit which was the most popular request among serving American soldiers during the Second World War. Within months of releasing his own version, Elvis would be drafted.
O Come All Ye Faithful
A grand interpretation with crashing drums, orchestra and choir, this opened Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas, his second Christmas album.
Santa Bring My Baby Back
One of two songs commissioned for Elvis’s Christmas Album, this swinging number was penned by two
Presley writers, Schroeder and Demetrius. Schroeder later wrote It’s Now Or Never.
O Little Town Of Bethlehem
Back in reflective mood, The King croons his way through this timeless carol in its less familiar US version.
The First Noel
Elvis captures the sound of a church recital with this take on a devotional favourite, adorned with organ, piano and choir.
Winter Wonderland
Back to his country and rock ’n’ roll roots, Winter Wonderland was 37 years old by the time Elvis recorded it.
Listen to a sample of Silent Night, simply CLICK on the picture below right:
If Every day Was Like Christmas
Red West, one of Presley’s Memphis Mafia entourage, wrote this for his old high school friend. It was recorded in Nashville in 1966 and released as a single.
On A Snowy Christmas Night
Sentimental ballad recorded, like the rest of The Wonderful World Of Christmas, in May 1971.
The Wonderful World Of Christmas
Christmas was indeed a wonderful world for Elvis, who would shower family and friends with presents. His gifts for wife Priscilla included a horse, a pearl and diamond ring, and a toy poodle she named Honey.
It Won’t Seem Like Christmas (Without You)
A song of regretful absence closes Christmas Peace. Elvis spent many Christmases away from home, but 1971 found him at Graceland, though trouble was looming. He and Priscilla would split in February, 1972.
The Mail on Sunday’s giveaway ties in with the release of Viva ELVIS, a new album in which the king of rock ’n’ roll meets the greatest show on Earth.
The album is inspired by the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show of the same name, in which Elvis’s vocals are given a 21st Century makeover set to a variety of musical styles. It includes Suspicious Minds, Blue Suede Shoes and Love Me Tender. Cirque du Soleil’s Viva ELVIS show – a mix of dance, acrobatics and live music – opened earlier this year. www.vivaelvis.com
2013
Rihanna joined The Beatles and Elvis Presley as one of just three acts to top the UK singles chart seven times over seven years. The singer made the No.1 spot, as the featured artist on Eminem’s new track ‘The Monster’.
The Nations’ Favorite was a UK tv series and the Elvis series spawn a cd release that peaked at #5 in the UK and certified BPI: Platinum
2025
Joanna Lumley "Elvis And Me" Documentary 2015
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documenta ... a-presley/
Joanna Lumley on finding Elvis in Memphis - and meeting Priscilla Presley
In a new ITV documentary, the actress and lifelong devotee goes on a pilgrimage to the King's Mississippi birthplace and Graceland
Joanna Lumley believes you either get Elvis or you don’t. She still remembers the day that she got him.
“I was 10 and staying with my aunt in Kent when Blue Suede Shoes came out," she recalls reverently. "We played it on a gramophone and I became besotted
"I’d never heard anything like that and what a magic voice he had. Back then I hadn’t seen a film of Elvis in action because I didn’t have a television. But I remember seeing a photograph with his slick of hair and just falling in love.”
In Elvis and Me, which is repeated tonight on ITV, Lumley finally went on a pilgrimage – "as if he were a saint" – to Memphis, the Tennessee city where teenage Elvis laid down his first tracks. But unlike the many millions of fans who have gone before, Lumley had Priscilla Presley as her tour guide of the world's most famous rock' n' roll residence, Graceland.
So what did she make of Elvis’s ex-wife? “I just loved her – the lucky lady who'd married Elvis. Think of Linda McCartney and multiply it by a million.
"I was so curious about what she’d be like and she seemed like a porcelain doll: so beautiful and radiant, with her black hair and lovely dress. What focus there was on her must have been intense. [She was] the envy of others, then it all went wrong."
As Lumley learns, it was a "bizarre" marriage from the off because the young couple were rarely alone together.
“It’s impertinent to guess at anyone’s marriage but it seems he was a very jealous man," muses Lumley. "She was his treasure. She showed me the place at the dining table where they sat and whoever was in favour next to them. It was like royalty holding court.”
The King would have turned 80 this year had he lived. Lumley's tribute is clearly a labour of love, focusing on Elvis' impoverished childhood and meteoric rise to fame rather than his famously troubled latter years.
“I’m not interested in the last two years of his life when he over-ate and was hooked on prescription pills, and he looked ill, sad and revolting. Those times weren’t really Elvis. People didn’t really know what he was going through.”
She recalls learning of Elvis' death in August 1977, aged just 42, as vividly as that gramophone rendition of Blue Suede Shoes. By that time, she was a successful actress shooting The Avengers in Canada.
“The Canadian press were awful, basically wondering what the fuss was about, seeing it just as a ‘fat singer’ that had died. Where as I and the rest of the world were truly devastated. The Canadians didn’t understand. There was very little respect for Elvis back then and that appalled me – how could he be dissed when he died? But millions of us did respect him and it was heartbreaking – the King was dead and it was awful.”
He lives on thanks to Lumley's comic alter ego in Absolutely Fabulous: hard-drinking hedonist Patsy.
“Patsy – like me – adores Elvis! He’s always been her man. I observed that Elvis never gave a big smiley grin, just a small one with raised lip on the side, so that’s what I gave Patsy because it was just so cool. Plus, she lowers her voice like Elvis when she’s happy, too. I love it. He had a passion for Palomino horses, with a golden mane… just like Patsy!”
Below, Joanna Lumley takes us on her Elvis tour...
Tupelo, Mississippi
"I didn’t know how poor he was when he was young. You never imagine such poverty in America. But when I saw the place he was born in Tupelo Mississippi... the shack there. Yes, it’s been smartened up but it’s basically a shack. It’s just desperately small. It’s now a kind of shrine.
"You can’t film inside but I went in. There was one room which had an iron bed where Elvis and his parents slept together. There was no heating, no running water, no lighting, no inside lavatory. Just a stove and a desperately little tin table. Elvis’ dad Vernon built it two months before his wife gave birth."
Graceland, Memphis
"After the White House, Graceland is probably considered the most important house in America. Going around it with Priscilla and hearing her stories, I really got got a sense of what it must have been like back then. It was quite an open house and many of the so-called ‘Memphis Mafia’ would dine with them. It was bloody weird to see it.
Joanna Lumley visits Graceland
"You’ve got to remember it was the place where he died, so [it was] terribly touching, too. I’d researched Graceland a lot, but there’s nothing like actually being there – like seeing the piano he actually played on it and hearing stories about what happened in each room from someone as close to him as Priscilla.
"Priscilla is absolutely devoted to keeping Graceland exactly as Elvis would have known it and loved it. And the peace garden they’ve made where Elvis and his parents are buried is astonishing and moving."
Sun Studio, Memphis
Lumley's favourite place? Sun Studio, where Elvis made his first record, That’s All Right, Mama in 1954. "The thought of him politely going in there and putting down his $4 and saying to the woman at the desk that he didn’t sound like anyone else... And he was right!"
Lansky's, Memphis
No Elvis pilgrimage would be complete without a suitcase of memorabilia – "every little bit of stuff I could come back with I did, books, matches, clothes, you name it – and a shopping trip to Lansky's, the stylish Memphis clothes shop he patronised. "I bought a lovely green Elvis jumper for Jamie, my completely grown-up son who’s been well-schooled in Elvis obsession because I’ve trained him."
"Priscilla apparently suggested those big bling jumpsuits he wore in the 1970s because of all his gyrations. If he’d worn a shirt and trousers they’d have become separated and he’d have looked a mess. We all look back at those suits now and giggle, but in the 1970s it was the height of cool!"
2016
The Fan Appreciation Weekend November 4-6, 2016, at The Guest House @ Graceland.
2017
full post
https://ourdailyelvis.wordpress.com/201 ... ovember-4/