Story About When Elvis Met Chuck Berry

“‘Maybellene’ was my effort to sing country-western, which I had always liked,” Berry noted in his autobiography

The year is 1974. The time 2.30 a.m. My colleague is sitting with a friend watching a lounge show at The Las Vegas Hilton. A lounge show, he explained to me, is a show in a smaller showroom where you can sit and drink and watch an act.

Anyway, this time they are watching Chuck Berry. Suddenly they hear something happening behind their backs, and turn around. There, two guards have suddenly materialised, and in walks Sammy Davis Jr together with Elvis Presley. And they have a couple of girls with them, too.

Sammy Davis Jr and Elvis are then being lead to a booth at the front of the stage and sit down. At the same time, more and more people in the audience realise who are now with them. So does Chuck Berry who abruptly stops singing and playing.

In that moment, Elvis waves at Chuck Berry, and Chuck Berry waves back. “Hello Elvis. Long time ago,” says Chuck Berry and leaps into the familiar intro of “Memphis, Tennessee”.

Source: http://www.elvistodayblog.com/2007/08/when-elvis-met-chuck-berry-in-las-vegas.html

In was in one of the latter that the only known encounter between Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley took place in 1972. Musician Billy Peek, who was working with Berry at the time, recalls suddenly seeing Elvis in the wings watching Chuck’s show at the Hilton:

“He was dressed to the nines, he had the cape, he had the whole nine yards. He was with his wife at the time, Priscilla Presley; then he comes back the following night with his wife and he’s got Sammy Davis, Jr., with him. So he came two nights to watch Chuck Berry play. It was a pretty big nod to Chuck. I mean you could tell he was enjoying it. Chuck was trying to get him to come up and sing one, but he wouldn’t do it. But that was one of the big highlights at the time.”

Source: http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-chuck-berry.html

Share your memories of watching Chuck Berry play a 3 a.m. show in Vegas with Elvis.

Jerry Schilling: Elvis and Priscilla and myself and my wife, Sandy, went to see Sammy Davis Jr. This was back in the ’70s. We went to see Sammy, and then we went backstage and hung out with Sammy and his wife, Altovise. Sammy and Elvis were kind of magic together. Sammy had that great personality, and he kept Elvis laughing. It was after the late show, and Elvis said, ‘Would you guys like to come over to our hotel up to the suite?’ We all go in the car and go back to The Hilton, and as we’re walking through the lobby going to the elevators, we heard a very a familiar Chuck Berry intro. And Sammy and Elvis just looked at each other and with a smile, we all just turned around without anything being said, and we headed for the lounge.

There was one table of people, maybe two. The whole lounge was about empty. We went down to a booth in front, and Elvis was a fun guy. He would holler out a tune. Chuck saw that it was Elvis and said, ‘Hey Elvis, remember when we were battling for #1, and you had this song, and I had the other song?’ The real payoff was when Elvis said, ‘Do ‘Promised Land!’ And he’s sitting with Sammy Davis Jr., and they’re singing the lines along with Chuck about a poor boy wanting to go clean through Mississippi.

source: http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/sammy-davis-jr.shtml