Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley was mostly of Scottish ancestry. An Andrew Presley II is known to have emigrated from Lomnay, Aberdeenshire, Scotland to North Carolina, USA in 1745. His father, Vernon (April 10, 1916, Fulton, Mississippi, June 26, 1979) was an impoverished truck driver. Gladys Love Smith (April 25, 1912, Pontotoc County, Mississippi, August 14, 1958) was a sewing machine operator - not much is known about her early life. The two married on June 17, 1933 by the Circuit Clerk of Pontotoc County Mississippi.

Elvis Presley was born in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi. He was the second of identical twins - his brother was stillborn and given the names Jesse Garon. He grew up as an only child and was, everyone agreed, unusually close to his mother. The family lived just above the poverty line in East Tupelo and attended the Assembly of God church.

At school, he was teased by his fellow classmates who threw "things at him - rotten fruit and stuff - because he was different, because he was quiet and he stuttered and he was a mama's boy.

Aged ten, he made his first public performance in a singing contest at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. Dressed as a cowboy, the young Elvis stood on a chair to reach the microphone and sang Red Foley's "Old Shep". He came in second.

In 1946, Presley was taken to Tupelo Hardware and bought a guitar - a $7.90 birthday present (He had wanted a rifle). Three years later, the Presleys moved to Lauderdale Courts public housing development in one of Memphis, Tennessee's poorer sections. He practiced guitar playing in the basement laundry room and also played in a five-piece band with other tenants. Another resident, Johnny Burnette, recalled: "Wherever Elvis went he'd have his guitar slung across his back... He used to go down to the fire station and sing to the boys there... He would go in to one of the cafes or bars... Then some folks would say: "Let's hear you sing, boy".

My Mom and Dad told me that in Memphis, many Drugstores would have a coffee shop or small Cafe inside of them. The Owners of the Drugstores would let Elvis sing if he would sweep the floor, after he got through singing. Elvis would do it because he loved to sing and he would sing at every chance he would get.

Presley attended L. C. Humes High school and occasionally worked evenings to boost the family income. He began to grow his sideburns longer, and dressed in the wild, flashy clothes of Lansky Brothers on Beale Street. Presley stood out, especially in the conservative Deep South of the 1950s and he was mocked and bullied for it. He enrolled in the school's ROTC and Christmas, 1952 saw Presley perform in the "Annual Minstrel Show" sponsored by the Humes High Band.[Presley received most applause - he sang "Cold Cold Icy Fingers" and gave an encore of "Till I Waltz Again With You".

After graduation, Presley was still a rather shy person, a "kid who had spent scarcely a night away from home. His third job was with the Crown Electric Company, as a truck driver. He began wearing his hair longer with a 'ducktail' - the style of truck drivers at that time.

Initial influences came exclusively through his family's attendance at the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal Holiness church. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that: Gospel pervaded Elvis character and was a defining and enduring influence all of his days.

The young Presley listened a lot to local radio; his first musical hero was Mississippi Slim, a hillbilly singer with a radio show on Tupelo's WELO. Presley performed occasionally on Slim's Saturday morning show, Singin' and Pickin' Hillbilly. "He was crazy about music... That's all he talked about," recalled his sixth grade friend, James Ausborn, Slim's younger brother. "I think gospel sort of [inspired] him to be in music, but then my brother helped carry it on. Before he was a teenager, music was already Presley's "consuming passion". J. R. Snow, son of 1940s country superstar Hank Snow, later recalled that Presley knew all of Hank Snow's songs, "even the most obscure."

The family's move to Memphis expanded Presley's musical horizons. He became a regular at record stores that had jukeboxes and listening booths - playing old records and new releases for hours. He began to attend services at the East Trigg Baptist Church. Memphis Symphony Orchestra concerts at Overton Park were another Presley favorite, along with the Metropolitan Opera. His small record collection included Mario Lanza and Dean Martin. Presley later said: "I just loved music. Music period.

Presley went to blues and hillbilly venues and was an audience member at the all-night white - and black - gospel sings downtown. He "spent much of his spare time hanging around the black section of town, especially on Beale Street, where bluesmen like Furry Lewis and B.B. King performed". King says that he "knew Elvis before he was popular. He used to come around and be around us a lot... on Beale Street".

Main article: Elvis Presley's Sun recordings
Presley was curious to hear what his recorded voice was like and what others would think of it. On July 18, 1953, he went to the Memphis Recording Service at the Sun Record Company (now commonly known as Sun Studios). He paid $3.98 to record the first of two double-sided 'demo' acetates - "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin". Presley reportedly gave the acetate to his mother as a much-belated extra birthday present, though the Presleys didn't own a record player at the time. Returning to Sun Studios on January 4, 1954, he recorded a second acetate, "I'll Never Stand in Your Way"/"It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You".

Sun Records founder Sam Phillips had already cut the first records by blues artists such as Howlin' Wolf and Junior Parker. He thought a combination of black blues and boogie-woogie music might become very popular among white people - if presented in the right way. In the spring Presley auditioned for an amateur gospel quartet, the Songfellows, and a professional band. Both groups turned him down.

Phillips had acquired a demo record - "Without Love (There Is Nothing)". Unable to identify the demo's vocalist, his assistant Marion Keisker reminded him about the young truck driver and she called him on June 26, 1954. Presley was not able to do justice to the song (though he would record it years later). Phillips did ask the young singer to play some of the many other songs he knew, and Presley was soon teamed up with local Western swing musicians Scotty Moore (electric guitar) and Bill Black (slap bass). The three began rehearsing, and during a break at the studios on July 5, 1954, Presley began "acting the fool" with Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)", a blues song. When the other two musicians joined in, Phillips got them to restart and began recording. This was the bright, upbeat sound he had been looking out for. The group recorded four songs during that session, including Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky, a bluegrass waltz. After an early take, Phillips can be heard on tape saying: "Fine, man. Hell, that's different - that's a pop song now, just about".

To gauge professional and public reaction, Phillips took several acetates of the session to DJ Dewey Phillips at Memphis radio station WHBQ (The Red, Hot And Blue show). "That's All Right" subsequently received its first play. A week later, Sun had received some 6000 advanced orders for "That's All Right"/"Blue Moon of Kentucky", which was released on July 19, 1954. From August 18 through December 8, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" was consistently higher in the charts, then both sides began to chart - from Richmond, Virginia to Houston, Texas.
I had two distant relative who recorded at Sun Records. My Dad and Elvis were distant cousins. My Mom and Charlie Rich were also distant cousins. When Charlie Rich grew his hair long and moved to Nashville, everyone was shocked and ready to disown him. When he became famous every-ones attitude changed.

Moore and Black left their band, the Starlight Wranglers, to work full-time with Presley. He began regular live performances in Memphis by promoting his first Sun single. They played at the Bon Air, a club used by hard-drinking lovers of hillbilly music. Johnny Cash later recalled Presley playing during breaks at the Eagle's Nest club.

At the Overton Park Shell (July 30), Presley, Moore, and Black were billed as the Blue Moon Boys, with Slim Whitman headlining. Presley was apparently so nervous during this show that his legs shook uncontrollably. His wide-legged pants emphasized his leg movements, apparently causing the young women in the audience to go 'crazy'. Presley is said to have had little understanding about what caused the fans to scream, but he would consciously incorporate similar movements into future shows. DJ and promoter Bob Neal, who had been approached by Sam Phillips to get Presley on the Overton Park bill, was now the trio's manager (taking over from Scotty Moore).

Presley appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, on October 2. Hank Snow introduced Presley on stage. He performed "Blue Moon of Kentucky" but received only a polite response. Afterwards, Jim Denny, the Opry manager, is said to have told the singer: "Boy, you'd better keep driving that truck."

Tillman Franks booked Presley's first appearance on Louisiana Hayride (October 16, 1954). Before making the booking, Franks - never having seen Presley - referred to him as "that new black singer with the funny name". During the first set, the reaction was muted, but the second show had a younger audience and Franks advised Presley to "Let it all go!" House drummer D.J. Fontana, who had worked in strip clubs, was able to use beats to accentuate Presley's movements and - along with Bill Black's usual enthusiastic stage antics - the crowd was more responsive.

According to one source: "Audiences had never before heard music like Presley played, and they had never before seen anyone who performed like Presley either. The shy, polite, mumbling boy gained self-confidence with every appearance, which soon led to a transformation on stage. People watching the show were astounded and shocked, both by the ferocity of his performance, and the crowd's reaction to it... Roy Orbison saw Presley for the first time in Odessa, Texas: 'His energy was incredible, his instinct was just amazing...I just didn't know what to make of it. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it.' 'He's the new rage,' said a Louisiana radio executive... 'Sings hillbilly in R&B time. Can you figure that out. He wears pink pants and a black coat. Sam Phillips said Presley "put every ounce of emotion... into every song, almost as if he was incapable of holding back. When he collapsed after a concert in Florida, the emergency room doctor warned the singer to slow down because he worked as hard in twenty minutes as the average laborer did in eight hours.

Presley's sound was proving hard to categorize - he had been billed or labeled in the media as "The King of Western Bop", "The Hillbilly Cat," and "The Memphis Flash". On August 15, 1955, he was signed to a one-year contract with "Hank Snow Attractions", a company owned by Hank Snow and "Colonel" Tom Parker. Parker became Presley's manager thereafter.

By August, 1955, Sun Studios had released ten sides credited to "Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill", all typical of the developing Presley style.

Several major record labels had shown interest in signing Presley. On November 21, 1955, Parker and Phillips negotiated a deal with RCA Victor Records to acquire Presley's Sun contract for an unprecedented $35,000.

To increase the singer's exposure, Parker finally brought Presley to television (In March 1955, Presley had failed a TV audition - for Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts). He had the singer booked for six of the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show (CBS), beginning January 28, 1956, when he was introduced by Cleveland DJ Bill Randle. Jackie Gleason, the show's producer, was so disturbed by Presley's performance he later apologized for putting on "a porno act[54] Parker also obtained a lucrative deal with Milton Berle (NBC) for two appearances.

On January 27, Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released. By April it would reach number one in the U.S. and sell a million copies. On March 23, RCA released the first Presley album: Elvis Presley. As with the Sun recordings, the majority of the tracks were songs by or from country artists.

From April 23, he had a two-week booking at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel, Las Vegas - billed as "the Atomic Powered Singer". His performances were not well received, by critics or guests (it was an older, more conservative audience). However, Presley, Scotty and Bill saw Freddie Bell and the Bellboys live in Vegas, and liked their version of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog". By May 16, Presley had added the song to his own act.

After an April 3 appearance, Presley returned to the Milton Berle Show on June 5 and performed "Hound Dog" (without a guitar). After singing it uptempo, he then performed a slower version, using the microphone stand as a support. His exaggerated, straight-legged shuffle stirred the audience - as did his vigorous leg shaking and hip thrusts in time to the beat. Presley's "gyrations" created a storm of controversy: the next day's press used such words as "vulgar" and "obscene" because of the strong sexual content perceived by some. He was obliged to explain himself on a local New York City TV show, Hy Gardner Calling: "Rock and roll music, if you like it, and you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I have to move around. I can't stand still. I've tried it, and I can't do it".

The Milton Berle appearances drew such huge ratings that Steve Allen (NBC), not a fan of rock and roll, booked him for one appearance. Allen announced: "... We want to do a show the whole family can watch and enjoy. And that's what we always do." After Allen introduced "the new Elvis" (in white bow tie and black tails), he remarked: "You are certainly being a good sport about the whole thing." Presley then sang "Hound Dog" to a top hat and bow tie-wearing bassett hound perched on a pedestal. The day after (July 2), Presley, Scotty, and Bill recorded the single "Hound Dog"; they did thirty takes before Elvis was satisfied. Scotty Moore later said they were "all angry about their treatment the previous night". Presley often referred to the Allen show as the most ridiculous performance of his career. Nevertheless, Allen had for the first time beaten The Ed Sullivan Show in the Sunday night ratings, prompting a previously critical Sullivan (CBS) to book Presley for three appearances for an unprecedented $50,000.

Although country vocalists The Jordanaires accompanied Presley on the Steve Allen show, their first recording session with him was July 2, for the recording of "Any Way You Want Me". The Jordanaires would work with the singer through the 1960s.

Presley's first Ed Sullivan appearance (September 9, 1956) was seen by an estimated 55-60 million viewers. During the second, Presley only had to shake his legs to get screams from the audience, which a bemused Sullivan didn't notice him doing when stood next to the singer. On the third show, the family-minded Sullivan censored Presley's "gyrations": he was shown only above the waist. Despite this, Sullivan still declared at the end: "This is a real decent, fine boy. We've never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we've had with you... you're thoroughly all right."
On November 16, Presley's first movie was released - Love Me Tender. It was panned by the critics, but did well at the box office.

Sam Phillips had anticipated problems promoting Presley's Sun singles. He recalled: "The white disc-jockies wouldn't touch what they regarded as Negroes' music and the Negro disc-jockies didn't want anything to do with a record made by a white man. Ironically, hillbilly singer Mississippi Slim, one of Presley's heroes, was one of the singer's fiercest critics. Phillips felt Dewey Phillips - a white DJ who did play 'black' music - would promote the new material, but there was disbelief amongst listeners. Presley was interviewed several times on air by the DJ and was pointedly asked which school he had attended to convince listeners that he was white.

Regarding Presley's hybrid style of music, others have observed: "Racists attacked rock and roll because of the mingling of black and white people it implied and achieved, and because of what they saw as black music's power to corrupt through vulgar and animalistic rhythms... The popularity of Elvis Presley was similarly founded on his transgressive position with respect to racial and sexual boundaries... White cover versions of hits by black musicians ... often outsold the originals; it seems that many Americans wanted black music without the black people in it. To some, Presley had undoubtedly "derived his style from the Negro rhythm-and-blues performers of the late 1940s. But some black entertainers, like Jackie Wilson claimed: "A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis.

By the spring of 1956, Presley was becoming popular nationwide and teenagers flocked to his concerts. Scotty Moore recalled: "He'd start out, 'You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog,' and they'd just go to pieces. They'd always react the same way. There'd be a riot every time. Bob Neal wrote: "It was almost frightening, the reaction... from teenage boys. So many of them, through some sort of jealousy, would practically hate him." In Lubbock, Texas, a teenage gang fire-bombed Presley's car. Some performers became resentful (or resigned to the fact) that Presley going on stage before them would 'kill' their own act; he thus rose quickly to top billing. At the 1956 Mississippi-Alabama Fair concert, a hundred National Guardsmen were on hand to prevent crowd trouble.

Presley was considered by some to be a threat to the moral wellbeing of young women, because "Elvis Presley didn't just represent a new type of music; he represented sexual liberation. In 1956, a critic for the New York Daily News wrote that popular music "has reached its lowest depths in the 'grunt and groin' antics of one Elvis Presley" and the Roman Catholic Church denounced him in its weekly magazine, America. Even Frank Sinatra opined: Presley's kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac. It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.

The singer himself seemed bemused by the critics' severity: I don't see how they think my act can contribute to juvenile delinquency. if there's anything I've tried to do, I've tried to live a straight, clean life and not set any kind of a bad example. You cannot please everyone.

In August, 1956, a Florida judge called Presley a savage and threatened to arrest him if he shook his body while performing in Jacksonville. The judge declared that Presley's music was undermining the youth of America. Throughout the performance (which was filmed by police), he kept still as ordered, except for wiggling a finger in mockery at the ruling. (Presley himself recalls this incident during the '68 Comeback Special).

Presley bought his mother a house in Memphis, but he lived there briefly. With increased concerns over security, Presley bought "Graceland" in 1957, a mansion with several acres of land. This was his primary residence until his death.

Presley's record sales would become enormous throughout the late 1950s, with hits like All Shook Up, Teddy Bear and I Need Your Love Tonight, but many critics were not impressed. Very few authoritative voices sang his praises. In response, it has been claimed that while "Elvis's success as a singer and movie star dramatically increased his economic capital, his cultural capital never expanded enough for him to transcend the stigma of his background as a truck driver from the rural South... No matter how successful Elvis became... he remained fundamentally disreputable in the minds of many Americans... He was the sharecropper's son in the big house, and it always showed.

*(On May 14, 1992, I received a VIP tour of Graceland as a Special Guest. No one is allowed upstairs. Elvis's room is in the same condition as the day he died. They clean it and then they leave. Graceland Security stands by until the cleaning crew is finished).

On December 20, 1957, Presley received his army draft notice. Hal Wallis and Paramount Pictures had already spent $350,000 on Presley's latest film King Creole and they feared the consequences of suspending or canceling the project. The Memphis Draft Board granted Wallis and Parker a deferment so the movie could be finished. On March 24, 1958, he was finally inducted and completed basic training at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, before being posted to Friedberg, Germany.

Presley joined the 1st Battalion, 32nd Armor. He had chosen not to receive any special treatment and was respected for not joining 'Special Services', which would have allowed him to avoid certain duties and maintain his public profile. His service still received massive media coverage, with much speculation echoing Presley's own concerns about his enforced absence doing irreparable damage to his career. However, early in 1958, RCA producer Steve Sholes and Hill and Range "song searcher" Freddy Bienstock had both pushed for recording sessions and strong song material, the aim being to release regular hit singles during Presley's two-year hiatus. The hit singles - and six albums - duly followed.

In Germany, Presley apparently began taking pills. A sergeant had introduced him to amphetamines when they were on maneuvers at Grafenwöhr... it seemed like half the guys in the company were taking them. Friends around Presley also began taking them, if only to keep up with Elvis, who was practically evangelical about their benefits.

As Presley's fame grew, his mother began to gain weight and drink excessively. She had wanted her son to succeed, but not so that he would be apart from her. The hysteria of the crowd frightened her. Doctors diagnosed hepatitis. Her condition worsened and Presley was granted emergency leave in August of 1958. Shortly after his return to Fort Chaffee, his mother died, aged forty-six. Presley was distraught, "crying hysterically" and eyewitnesses say he was "grieving almost constantly" for days. Her favorite gospel group, The Blackwood Brothers, sang at her funeral.

Presley returned to the U.S. on March 2, 1960, and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant (E-5) on March 5.

Presley is said to have admired Marlon Brando, James Dean and Tony Curtis; he returned from the army eager to continue acting. Jailhouse Rock (1957) and King Creole (1958) are regarded as the best of his pre-army films.

His manager, with an eye on long-term earnings, negotiated a multi-picture seven-year contract with Hal Wallis. The contract gave Presley a fee for each role and a percentage of any profits. The films were usually musicals and marked the beginning of his transition from rock and roll rebel to all-round family entertainer. The singer withdrew from concerts and television appearances, except for a 1960 Frank Sinatra Timex Show and two charity concerts (in Memphis and Pearl Harbor, 1961). Although Presley was praised by directors, like Michael Curtiz, as polite and hardworking, he was definitely not the most talented actor around.

The Presley vehicles, and the AIP beach movies (mainly made for an early sixties teenage audience) were generally viewed by critics as a "pantheon of bad taste". The scripts of his movies "were all the same, the songs progressively worse. Others noted that the songs seemed to be "written on order by men who never really understood Elvis or rock and roll."

Presley movies were nevertheless popular and he "became a film genre of his own." Elvis on celluloid was the only chance to see him in the absence of live appearances, especially outside of the U.S. His Blue Hawaii even boosted the new state's tourism. Some of his most enduring and popular songs came from those [kind of] movies. His films during the 1960s "had grossed about $130 million, and he had sold a hundred million records, which had made $150 million.

By 1967, Parker's management contract gave him 50% of Presley's earnings. Over the years, much has been written about Parker's business practices, his dubious origins, gambling addictions and how these may have directly affected Presley's career. Marty Lacker, a lifelong friend and a member of the so-called Memphis Mafia, regarded Parker as a "hustler and scam artist" who abused Presley's reliance on him. However, Priscilla Presley noted that Elvis detested the business side of his career. He would sign a contract without even reading it. Lacker did acknowledge that Parker was a master promoter.

Priscilla (née Beaulieu) had stayed with Presley during the 1960s (they had first met in Germany). They married on May 1, 1967 in Las Vegas. A daughter, Lisa Marie, was born exactly nine months later.

Presley was one of the highest paid actors during the sixties, but times were changing. "[The] Elvis Presley film was becoming passé. Young people were tuning in, dropping out and doing acid. [Other] musical acts... were dominating the airwaves. Elvis Presley was not considered as cool as he once was. Priscilla recalled: "He blamed his fading popularity on his humdrum movies" and "... loathed their stock plots and short shooting schedules." She also noted: "He could have demanded better, more substantial scripts, but he didn't.

(I saw Lisa Marie Presley in concert in Orlando at the House of Blues, Wed April 27, 2005, I saw Elvis Presley in concert in Memphis Tenn, in 1977, his Last Concert in Memphis. We had 19 tickets to the concert in Memphis before Elvis passed away).

Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special

Elvis Presley in his '68 Comeback SpecialChart statistics for mid-1968 show that Presley's recording career was floundering - only die-hard fans were buying his soundtrack recordings. He had apparently become deeply dissatisfied with the direction his career had taken, especially a movie schedule that all but eliminated creative recording and live concerts. This led to an NBC TV show, later dubbed the '68 Comeback Special, aired December 3, 1968. Although the show featured production numbers not dissimilar to those in his movies, it also featured live sessions that saw him return to his more uninhibited rock and roll roots. Presley was extremely nervous about recording live, but Rolling Stone called it "a performance of emotional grandeur and historical resonance. Its success was helped by director and co-producer, Steve Binder, who worked hard to reassure the singer and to produce a show that was not just an hour of Christmas songs, as Presley's manager had originally planned.

1969 saw Presley making record-breaking appearances in Las Vegas. At a press conference after his first opening in Vegas, when a reporter referred to him as "The King", Presley pointed to Fats Domino, standing at the back of the room. "No," he said, "that's the real king of rock and roll. He later toured across the U.S. and had a stream of sold-out shows, performing 1,145 concerts between 1969 to 1977, with many setting venue attendance records. He also had hits in the singles charts of many countries. However, Presley's song repertoire showed he was becoming distant from any current trends within pop and rock music. This was much criticized by critics and rock musicians.

MGM filmed him in Las Vegas for a 1970 documentary: Elvis: That's The Way It Is. As he toured, more gold record awards followed. MGM filmed other shows for Elvis On Tour, which won a Golden Globe for Best Documentary, 1972. A fourteen-date tour started with an unprecedented four consecutive sold-out shows at Madison Square Gardens, New York. After the tour, Presley released the 1972 single "Burning Love" - his last top ten hit on the U.S. pop charts.

Elvis Presley, 1973 Aloha From Hawaii television broadcastIn 1973, Presley had two January shows in Hawaii. The second was broadcast live around the world. The "Aloha from Hawaii" concert was the first to be broadcast via satellite and reached at least a billion viewers. The show's album went to number one and spent a year in the charts.

Off stage, Presley and his wife Priscilla had continuing marriage difficulties (documented in Elvis and Me and by Peter Guralnick). They separated on February 23, 1972, agreeing to share custody of their daughter. Divorcing in 1973, Presley became increasingly isolated and overweight, with prescription drugs taking their toll on his health, mood and his stage act.[110] Despite this, Presley was still capable of critically acclaimed performances; his "thundering" version of "How Great Thou Art" won him a Grammy award in 1974. He continued to play to sell-out crowds and release hit records. A 1975 tour ended with a concert in Michigan, attended by over 62,000 fans.

Presley became even more obese and struggled to lose weight. He would diet excessively and then binge eat. He no longer had the motivation to loose his extra poundage... he became self-conscious of his appearance, his self-confidence before the audience declined. Headlines such as 'Elvis Battles Middle Age' and 'Time Makes Listless Machine of Elvis' were not uncommon. Almost throughout the 1970s, RCA had been increasingly concerned about making money from Elvis Presley material: they often had to rely on live recordings because of problems getting him to attend studio sessions. RCA's mobile studio was occasionally dispatched to Graceland" in the hope of capturing an inspired vocal performance. Once in a studio, his interest was sometimes lacking and he was easily distracted. Much of this behavior has been linked to the enduring problems of his health and pill taking.

Presley's decline continued. A journalist recalled: Elvis Presley had become a grotesque caricature of his sleek, energetic former self... he was barely able to pull himself through his abbreviated concerts. In Alexandria, Louisiana, a local journalist complained that the star was on stage for less than an hour and "was impossible to understand. In Baton Rouge, Presley didn't go on stage at all. He was unable to get out of his hotel bed and the rest of the tour was cancelled.

Fans, too, Guralnick relates, "were becoming increasingly voluble about their disappointment, but it all seemed to go right past Elvis, whose world was now confined almost entirely to his room and his [spiritualism] books." In Knoxville, Tennessee (May 20), "there was no longer any pretense of keeping up appearances... The idea was simply to get Elvis out onstage and keep him upright for the hour he was scheduled to perform. Thereafter, Presley struggled through every show. Despite his obvious problems, appearances in Omaha, Nebraska and Rapid City, South Dakota were recorded for an upcoming album and a CBS-TV special: Elvis In Concert.

Rick Stanley (step-brother) recalls that Presley was almost bedridden during his last year. "We'd fly into a city and he'd go right into bed as soon as we got there. We'd have to get him up to do the show." In Rapid City, "he was so nervous on stage that he could hardly talk... He was undoubtedly painfully aware of how he looked, and he knew that in his condition, he could not perform any significant movement. He looked, moved, and gestured like an overweight old man with crippling arthritis. A cousin, Billy Smith, recalled how Presley would sit in his room and chat, recounting his favourite Monty Python sketches and past japes, but "mostly there was a grim obsessiveness... a paranoia about people, germs... future events, that put Billy in mind on more than one occasion of Howard Hughes.

A book was published - the first exposé to detail Presley's years of drug misuse. Written with input from three of Presley's bodyguards (members of the "Memphis Mafia"), the authors claimed it was a last-ditch attempt to save his life. The singer "was devastated by the book. Here were his close friends who had written serious stuff that would affect his life. He felt betrayed.

Presley's final performance was in Indianapolis at the Market Square Arena, (June 26). August 17, 1977, was to be the start of another tour. However, at Graceland the day before, Presley was found on the floor of his bathroom by fiancée, Ginger Alden. According to the medical investigator, Presley had stumbled or crawled several feet before he died. He was officially pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. at the Baptist Memorial Hospital.

His funeral was a national media event. Hundreds of thousands of fans, the press and celebrities lined the streets hoping to see the open casket in Graceland or to witness the funeral. U.S. President Jimmy Carter issued a statement.

Presley was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, Memphis, next to his mother. After an attempt to steal the body, his - and his mother's - remains were reburied at Graceland in the Meditation Gardens.

Towards the end of his life, Presley had many health problems, some of them chronic. Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call.

Presley first took drugs in the army, taking amphetamines to stay awake on late shifts, though there are claims that pills of some form were first given to him by Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips. In Elvis and Me, his ex-wife Priscilla writes that by 1962, Presley was taking placidyls to combat severe insomnia in ever increasing doses and later took Dexedrine to counter the sleeping pills' after effects. Over time, she saw "problems in Elvis' life, all magnified by taking prescribed drugs."

According to Guralnick, "drug use was heavily implicated in this unanticipated death of a middle-aged man with no known history of heart disease...no one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills...to which he was known to have had a mild allergy...There was little disagreement in fact between the two principal laboratory reports and analyses filed two months later, with each stating a strong belief that the primary cause of death was polypharmacy, and the BioScience Laboratories report...indicating the detection of fourteen drugs in Elvis' system, ten in significant quantity.

The judgement of some in the medical profession has also been called into question. Although Presley's physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, was exonerated in Presley's death, In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had written 199 prescriptions totalling more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis' name. On January 20 1980, the board found him guilty of overprescription, but decided that he was not unethical. His license was suspendend and he was given three years' probation. In July 1995, his license was permanently revoked after the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners found that he had improperly dispensed drugs to a number of his patients.

However in 1994, the autopsy into the death of Presley was re-opened. Coroner Dr Joseph Davis declared: "There is nothing in any of the data that supports a death from drugs. In fact, everything points to a sudden, violent heart attack.

Presley's autopsy results will not be in the public domain until 2027.