Whats Elvis' Real Stand On The Fab Four?

Elvis Presley,photo:elvis.com

Elvis Presley is the ultimate icon of rock music.Without him,rock n' roll and its subsidiaries would not exist.Well,let it be known here and now,without Elvis,the Beatles themselves wouldn't have existed.John Lennon was famous for saying that before Elvis there was nothing-pointing out to the first time he ever heard "Heartbreak Hotel" in which the song  woke up his creative instincts and became the musician we still admire today.

How many bands have been influenced by Elvis,or at least touched by his music? Aside from the Beatles,Herman's Hermits and Led Zeppelin were both famous for meeting the KING.Jimmy Page was quoted on saying how much he loved Elvis' music and on how he was thrilled when he met him,even describing him as a "wonderful person".The Monkees and David Bowie were also noted for meeting the king of rock,with the Thin White Duke(Bowie) relating the story of how he was miffed by Elvis' presence.Other rock stars such as AC/DC guitarist Angus Young has always referred to the old rockabilly genre of the 1950s as the real rock music,citing both Elvis and Little Richard as his major influences.

Both the Beatles and Elvis Presley never co-existed like some other people might have thought.The Beatles were still high school kids by the time Elvis was selling records by millions and whooping it up onstage with the girls dropping dead on his feet in 1956.Though John Lennon himself,at age 16,had already formed a skiffle group at school which was then called The Quarry Men,their name was taken from their alma mater Quarry Bank High School.The group had various personnel and name changes that soon led to the formation of the Beatles though John Lennon met his future songwriting partner Paul McCartney also on this skiffle group about a year after it was formed.

By the time Beatlemania had reached the States,Elvis by then was already way past the music scene and was very busy making movies in Hollywood.Some music experts say that Elvis' career has waned by the time he joined the army and took a break from the music business from 1958 to 1960.So its up to Colonel Tom Parker to come up with the ideas on how he will bring Elvis' career back into the limelight.Though it sure wasn't healthy to transform him from a singer to an all around family entertainer.He was noted for making three movies in a year and that must be very exhausting and this was also the period when Elvis got hooked on drugs.

John Lennon(center) then age 16,fronting the Quarry Men 1956

Its is common knowledge that Elvis faded away from the charts when the Beatles took the US by storm.Though Elvis himself has a record breaking performance on the charts as being the solo artist whose had the most number one songs on Billboard.Come to think of it,its quite silly to compare these giants of rock music to each other,though the Beatles were citing Elvis as their major influence,they never really sounded like Elvis.One would point the fact that when the Beatles first came to America,somebody from the press called them "a bunch of British Elvis Presleys",well even the KING himself wasn't impressed by that name call.How can you compare a solo artist to a group after all?

It was during the Beatles' 1965 US tour when the fab four and the King finally met.They gathered at Elvis' mansion in Los Angeles while the King took a break from filming and the fabs themselves was on the last leg of their tour.The first thirty minutes of this famous meeting didn't actually went so well that Elvis had to break the ice with "If you guys are just gonna stare at me all night,I'm going to bed."

Perhaps John,Paul,George and Ringo were so overwhelmed on meeting their idol that they were actually speechless at first.It was John Lennon who actually had the guts of asking the King on why does he sing those gospel ballads[referring to the songs he was singing in his movies] and what happened to good  'ol rock n' roll.It was noted that Elvis has lost control of the material he was singing in the studio,a thing that he might've regretted,as Tom Parker took full control of his career and estate post-army,holding it in a tight grip.

A jamming session took place between the Beatles and Elvis that was rumored to have been recorded by one of  Presley's bodyguards--though no photos or videos were taken to the insistence of Parker.Presley was seen to be playing the bass and Paul McCartney was even delighted to show him a few riffs.In the end,Parker gave the lads a couple of gifts as they left the mansion,with the four of them just couldn't stop talking about Elvis even when they were already in the limo.

George Harrison,1960

(photo left:George Harrison during the Beatles' early days as a bar band,1960.Presley's influence is evident in the early days:leather boots,jackets and greasy hairstyle.The band changed their attire under the direction of Brian Epstein)


So the King and the fab four both went on their own separate ways.The Beatles changed forever the way rock music is presented and the way the audiences would listen.They opened the doors to other British groups and had set the standard for a modern day rock band.Local heroes such as the Beach Boys,the Doors and Jefferson Airplane answered back to the British Invasion of the 1960s.Unknown to everyone,modern rock has already started in the 60s with the advent of the Beatles and other rock groups that followed.Everyone was experimenting,trying new things and with modern rock,drug use has been common especially with the youth.

Meanwhile,Elvis continued to make films throughout the sixties and seem to have disappeared in the music biz.Record sales were reportedly down with the heavy competition of rock groups on both sides of the Atlantic.It was during this period that Elvis stood back and observed how rock music evolve right before his eyes.In 1968,he returned from retirement and made a successful comeback along with a tv special bearing his own name.The King was obviously overwhelmed on how fast rock music has changed.On one occasion he famously said on his show "Music has changed a lot,I would like to congratulate both the Beatles and the Byrds".

Elvis on Elvis Comeback Special,1968

Elvis covered a couple of Beatles songs himself.One particular track that was awesomely covered by him was "Something".This song,written by George Harrison was performed live in Hawaii in 1973 and was aired via satellite in 40 countries around the world.

With the heavy competition between rock n' roll bands in the late sixties,Elvis still managed to return to the top of the charts with "Suspicious Minds" in 1969.The song definitely put Elvis' career up and going but it was also his last number one song in the US.Several tracks posthumously hit number one overseas particularly in the UK.

Elvis with President Nixon,1970

All seemed went so pretty well until Elvis was presented with a Narcotics badge by President Nixon in 1970 wherein he had put the Beatles on top of his dopers list and accused the band of Anti-Americanism.Presley even went far by writing to the immigration and recommended to ban them from entering the US. The Beatles were reportedly shocked-to no one's surprise,with interviews handled by Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney saying that they felt kinda betrayed and that they really wanted to co-exist with him- sadly,a thing that never happened.No one ever knew what Presley was thinking at that moment,and a fit of jealousy is highly unlikely.

Well the King himself is no stranger to drugs.After trying several hard stuff in the sixties,he turned to pills and he uses them all the time.He use pills to stay awake,to eat,and to sleep.His stepbrother David Stanley is a witness to his drug taking and was even held at gunpoint by the King himself when he tried to advise him to stay away from pills.

It was said that he gave his doctors expensive gifts such as cadillacs just to get the prescription drugs he wanted.In fact,one of his doctors was even sent to prison for doing such malpractice. These drugs eventually led to his death on August 16,1977 of cardiac arrhythmia.About a year before he died,Elvis was obviously bloated and a medical assessment of his liver showed signs of abnormality.

 Rock music seemed to have died in 1977 with the former Beatles expressing their sadness when they heard that Elvis Presley had died.One such reaction came from former Beatle John Lennon who,himself took a break from the music biz and was raising his son Sean in New York."The King is dead.But rock n' roll will never die.Long live the King" said Lennon.His former songwriting partner Paul McCartney expressed his own eulogy as well,"I doubt very much if the Beatles would have happen if it weren't for Elvis".

In the recent years the former Beatles still expressed their admiration for Elvis,with the then three surviving members expressing their thoughts at their 2000 tell-all best seller book The Beatles Anthology.When George Harrison passed away in 2001,his former bandmate Paul McCartney continued to keep the band's flame alive along with former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.The remaining two went on with touring,releasing new solo albums and continued to mesmerize crowds and new generations of Beatles fans.






On one interview with Reader's Digest in 2005,while promoting his album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard,McCartney told the story of how Elvis' song "All Shook Up" has mended his headache.On May 2013,Paul paid a visit to Graceland and had put a guitar pick on Elvis' grave so that "he can play in heaven".This was during the Memphis leg of his 2013 Out There Tour,then the story of the Beatles meeting with the King suddenly was commemorated by such big event that one of the Beatles' entourage even bothered to make picks out of plastic spoons for Elvis.But Paul gave him a new one that he had put on his grave.

Paul McCartney at Elvis' grave,2013

Elvis covered a couple of Beatles songs during his comeback phase in the late sixties and the surviving Beatles could never be thankful enough for him for their own music career.It was,after all, a mutual admiration.


(c) Keith Vernon Adagio