“A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my favorite part of the business – live concerts.”
-Elvis at a press conference prior to his 1973 television special, “Elvis – Aloha from Hawaii, via Satellite”.
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“…the image is one thing and the human being is another…it’s very hard to live up to an image.”
-From the press conference prior to his record-breaking Madison Square Garden shows in New York City, 1972.
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During a Vegas show in December ’76, he begins to intoduce the members of his group. He says something along the lines of, “You know, they say a man is judged by the company he keeps. Look at these freaks.”
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“Man, I was tame compared to what they do now. Are you kidding? I didn’t do anything but just jiggle.”
-From the press conference prior to his record-breaking Madison Square Garden shows in New York City, 1972.
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“The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn’t know what all the yelling was about. I didn’t realize that my body was moving. It’s a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said ‘What’d I do? What’d I do?’ And he said “Whatever it is, go back and do it again’.”
-From a 1972 taped interview used in MGM’s documentary “Elvis on Tour”.
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” I went to Hollywood. My next move was to Hollywood. that’s how it work’s. You get a record and then you get on television and then take you to Hollywood to make a picture. So I did Love Me Tender, then I did Loving You. I wasn’t ready for that town and they weren’t ready for me”.
After the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956
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Elvis seems to be genuinely shocked by microphone feedback and asks, “What was that?” He then starts negotiating with a woman in the audience about flowers. “What is that honey? An orchid? You want the blue one?” He gives another woman a scarf for her birthday. “Here’s the towel,” he says, “Here’s the scarf, here’s the kiss.” Crowd goes wild.[/b]
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“When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times…I learned very early in life that: ‘Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain’t got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend – without a song.’ So I keep singing a song. Goodnight. Thank you.”
-From his acceptance speech for the 1970 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation Award. Given at a ceremony on January 16,
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“People laughed about me in 1956, and some still do, I guess”.
And another one when one lady screamed in the audience as a song title wish for Elvis to sing “it hurts me”….elvis replied “it does? Well , then stop doing it”.
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During the Stax sessions in ’73, he says that he can’t hear Charlie in his headphones. When asked if he wanted it turned up, Elvis replies, “Hell no! Have you ever had a wino singing in your ear?”
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“I want to sing a lot of songs and walk around and sweat,” he says, which makes the audience lose their minds. He seems to be in Kansas City, because he says he’s from “Memphis, Missouri,” and then repeats the joke, but tells them it’s “Memphis, Kansas.”
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“The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin’ now, man for more years than I know. They played it like that in the shanties and in their jukee joints, and nobody paid it no mind ’til I goosed it up. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel like old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.”
On “inventing” rock ‘n’ roll: “I explored it. It existed long before I did. It was called rhythm and blues. I just tried a new interpretation.”
After observing the Osmonds with their fans in Las Vegas: “If I could do it all over again, I would do it just like you guys are doing and I would meet every fan and sign every autograph requested!”
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“I don’t like being called “Elvis the Pelvis”, I think it’s silly”.
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Elvis says, “I’d like you to listen to our bass singer. He goes down to an E, below low flat, whatever that is. Low Flat, I ain’t never heard of that. You ever heard of that, Ronnie?” We don’t hear his bass singer.
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I’m never going to sing another song I don’t believe in. I’m never going to make another picture I don’t believe in”.
_After hearing Walter Earl Brown’s If I Can Dream, the song inspired on Martin Luther King Jr. that would close Elvis’ comeback show in 1968, and the phrase was remarked to its producer, Steve Binder.
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“Then i made some movies, you know G.I. Blues and Blue Hawaii and several pictures that did very well for me. But as the years went by, I really missed the people, the audience contact. I was really gettin’ bugged. I was doing so many movies and couldn’t really do what I could do. They’d say, ‘Action!’ and I’d go, ‘Whop, whop, ump'”
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“It’s a black diamond. It doesn’t do anything, it’s just there. Kinda like Charlie.”
– Las Vegas, December 1976.
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“I don’t sound like nobody.”
“I will pull your Goddam tongue out by the roots!”
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“I’d like to walk around for a second, get my breath back,” Elvis says. He then talks with four women, raising his voice to imitate them
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“We do two shows a night for five weeks. A lotta times we’ll go upstairs and sing until daylight – gospel songs. We grew up with it…It more or less puts your mind at ease. It does mine.”
-Talking about the informal jam sessions he and the band and entourage enjoy each night during the lengthy Vegas engagements. These happen upstairs in Elvis’ suite at the Las Vegas Hilton as they all try to “wind down” from the excitement and energy of the live shows. Quote is from a 1972 taped interview used in MGM’s documentary “Elvis on Tour”.
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” You aint nothin butta ……. the beast in me” ?
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There’s also a very cool moment in 1956, I forgot which interview, it’s on ‘Young Man with the Big Beat’. The interviewer says something like: “so this singing style you have, ehm, do you call that singing? Elvis: “Do I call that singing?” (silence 
) “well I sold a million records, so somebody calls it singing.”
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“I’m planning a lot of changes” … “You can’t go on doing the same thing year after year.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything professional, except make movies and cut albums… Before long I’m going to make some personal appearance tours… I want to see some places I’ve never seen before. I miss the personal contact with audiences.”
Elvis said _after his wildly successful and critically acclaimed 1968 NBC television special.
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