Monday, July 5, 2010

Hearing Elvis sing.....

My garden sings on its own these hot summer days, neighbors are partying and fireworks are better here than downtown. When I spoke of hearing Elvis singing out there, it turned out to be another bad party impersonator two doors down from me.

I actually did see Elvis once, when I worked in downtown Memphis. He was very young and so was I. I didn't really know who he was, he was kinda scraggly lookin', but the girls I worked with pointed him out to me. They were following him around on the weekends, hearing his music.

He was going into the Ellis Auditorium, where I waited for the bus every day. I never saw him after that or since then, although many claim that they have.

This made me think of Johnny Carson's famous quote, if life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead. I think to be kinder, we should change that last word to "unemployed".

Anyway, Elvis will always sing to me, an old hymn or a hound-dog song, whatever he picks out. Happy July 5th. I hope you have today off from work.

3 comments:

OneBigHappy said...

That is just absolutely too cool for words. We are big Elvis fans at my house. (And by "we" I mean my youngest daughter and myself.) And I think one of the reasons for me is what you pointed out. He was scraggly. That's how he started out. The Sun session recordings he did in Memphis, too me, are the best things he ever did, even though they are very scraggly compared to things he did later. -- thanks for sharing this story.

Laura Lynn said...

I love Elvis. We went to Memphis last year on our way to Texas just so I could see Graceland.
That is so cool that you saw him!

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

I always have a great day off from work anymore...and I do love Elvis. He'll remain a favorite for me. I agree about the impersonators. Your flowers are beautiful, I can hear the singing.