Where were you on August 16,1977.....

[~sudsshane]

when the King of Rock n Roll, Elvis Presley died?

I was outside with my brother riding around on my "Big Wheel"..My mother came outside crying and was talking to our neighbor. My 8 year old mind couldn't understand why they were so upset. Little did I realize a legend passed on that day.

 

[hoover1060]

Playing outside

with my sister and some of the other kids from the neighborhood.
I remember the lady that lived behind us became a grandmother that day for the first time.
Us kids had been out riding bikes and such for most of the afternoon, then congregating in out garage. The lady next door came over and announced her new grandchild, and my mom who'd been cooking dinner came out our back door and said that there was an announcement on the radio that Elvis had died. I'd never really cared all that much for Elvis, but I do remember feeling sorry for him after the details of his death emerged.
Not much dignity for a man who'd brought so much pleasure to so many...

 

[frigilux]

I had just moved to Fargo, ND to attend college and was playing in a band. We had a gig at the Sunset Lounge in Moorhead, MN (the Twin Cities of the north) that week.

Elvis's death didn't hit me as hard as the death of Marc Bolan (from T.Rex), which came exactly a month later. In fact, Bolan, who was writing a column for Melody Maker at the time, commented "I'm so glad I didn't die on the same day as Elvis or I wouldn't have made the headlines!" Yikes.

My sister and I visited Graceland in the early '90s. We had just come from touring the Biltmore mansion, so Elvis's house seemed pretty quaint by comparison. The yellow Naugahyde on the walls in his rumpus room was quite a sight. Someone was still living upstairs at the time, so we weren't allowed to go up to see the famous Bathroom Of Death.

 

[rp2813]

I was working in the accounting office for the film lab at MGM studios in Culver City. A girl in the office had a radio that was always tuned to the soulful station KJLH (Kindness, Joy, Love & Happiness) out of Compton. A news bulletin came over reporting the death of Elvis. As I recall there wasn't much of a reaction in the office. I was not an Elvis fan, never have been, so while I felt a little older, I was not devastated.

In later years I've come to appreciate the tacky side of the whole Elvis phenomenon and I do have a couple of his earlier 45's in my '60 wall-mount Rock-Ola jukebox. I guess I should fire it up today and play those. I do likewise for other artists like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin when I remember to observe them as well.

 

[whirlcool]

Just this morning on ABC

I think it was Diane Sawyer visiting Graceland and interviewing Lisa Marie. Gosh, SHE has an 18 year old daughter now. How time does fly.
Anyway, Diane was talking about Graceland, and they were discussing the upstairs that is closed to the public. She said it still looks like the day her father died, but nobody lives up there anymore. Diane asked if she ever stays overnight in the house and Lisa Marie said no, she doesn't and that she'd the only one who ever goes up there anymore. So it is kinda like her own personal museum of her father. Besides she said, it's so dusty up there and she is allergic to dust. She also mentioned that the tourists come in the house quite early in the morning too.
She also turned on the light in the master suite as a tribute to her father for this anniversary. That light hasn't been on in years.

 

[pulsator]

I wasn't around quite yet, but mom says she was 17 and working at the Turquoise Treasure Chest, a gift shop, her boss came out of her office in tears!

 

[63getelevision]

I do not remember a thing about it except that all of a sudden, he was dead. I do remember a very good Elvis impersonator I saw in Melbourne, FL. in '77. She was gay, and a dynamite performer. Elvis was still here, and I hate to think how the death may have affected her.

 

[goatfarmer]

I was 17 years old, and me and my friend had spent the day at Cedar Point, in Sandusky, OH. We were on our way back, driving in a beautiful sunny day, on the Ohio Turnpike. But we were listening to a radio station from Toledo, about 20 miles away, and they were on emergency power, because they were in the middle of a thunderstorm, and a tornado had touched down!

In between reports about the tornado, they kept mentioning that Elvis had died. We couldn't believe it, but later found out it was true. 30 years ago.....

kennyGF

 

[washabear]

I was just out of high school that summer, and I do remember that I was on a date the night before the news was announced. To an 18-year-old in 1977, Elvis seemed like something from another era (funny how short the eras were back then), and the news of his death did not have much of an effect on me. I remember having a much greater reaction to the death of Anissa Jones, which occurred in the same month the year before.

 

[gyrafoam]

Having lunch at the Magic Pan restaurant at Lenox Square and a friend who worked there came over and told us. We "were all shook up".

 

[jmirawm]

really do not remember......

the announcement......I was 15 going on 16. I do remember that year for my birthday (october) and for christmas - ALL I got it seemed like from everyone was elvis albums and eight tracks. hmmmmm. Not really all that much of an elvis fan.

 

[washertalk]

Well, let's see I was 10 years old so ...
I mustav been in juvile detention. People get so upset about accidentally starting the neighbors house on fire. Really.
There there was that whole egging the principals car thing. ...jist, kid fun stuff.(shrugging shoulders)
and I tried to tell them I didn't spray paint tomb stones at the local grave yard but they said finding matching over-spray on my fingers was some how an indicator that I did it. sigh.

Oh, well they never found out about putting 5 pet mice in old mrs. Matzners broken basement window. well, it was broke after I threw a rock through it. And that whole thing about her having a massive fear of rodents and a bad heart. Like I was to blame that the ambulance came the next day and we never saw her again. (shaking head)

(O.K.- I should write childrens books)

I wasn't an elvis fan. though my idiot 6th grade male teacher was. God, talk about self centered ego maniac. I swear all I remember about 6th grade was his pathetic stories about putting barn boards all over his family room walls and how sad he was when elvis died a few years earlier. blah, blah, blah.

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Great Thread!
I was at a piano lesson, and my mom came flying in the door and announced what happend. My mom and piano teacher went into another part of the house, and was there for like an hour watching the news.
I do remember it made me sad. I now think of how YOUNG he was. When I was 11, I though, "well, he had a nice long life".
Brent

 

[washertalk]

was this a significant, life changing event for you at the time Shane?
Being almost 9 years of age and all, at the time?

 

[retroguy]

I was very young....

But IIRC my aunt was taking me to my very FIRST drive in movie! It was "Freaky Friday." And on the way the radio mentioned Elvis death. I remember nothing they said on the radio, just that when we got to the drive in, the radio stayed on well into the movie, my aunt having to hear the news from more than one source before believing.

 

[decodriveboy]

I was

still in the womb! LOL

 

[kenmore58]

I was driving to a friend's house in my 1975 Plymouth Valiant Custom (4-door) when I heard of Elvis Presley's death on the radio. I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Ron

 

[dalangdon]

I remember that it was very hot in Council Bluffs, and it was the summer we didn't have air conditioning. A friend and I were in the living room watching TV when my sister came running in, screaming about how "The king is dead!" (My sister is now, and always has been, a drama queen)

I was between the sixth and seventh grade at the time, and Elvis meant very little to me. He was the fat guy with the TV specials and the glitzy costumes. Sort of like Liberace.

I've since come to appreciate Elvis Presley: his movies, his music, and his nice personality. Another great talent who was used and abused by Hollywood.

 

[andrewinorlando]

Watching the story on Eyewitness News in NY, of course!

 

[polkanut]

We were staying overnight in some po-dunk town in the middle of nowhere Illinois on our way to see my Dad's sister who was living in Tamms, IL at the time. I had just turned 8 the day before and couldn't have cared less at the time.

 

[sudsmaster]

I was probably working in a lab at UCSF, and didn't hear about it until I watched the news on TV or listened to it on the radio.

I can't say it had much of an effect - to me at that time Elvis was ancient history, eclipsed by the Beatles and later forms of rock 'n roll. And of course disco was making a big impact in '77, and Elvis wasn't exactly a disco king, even though his size occassionally approached that of Barry White.

But, later on, about five years later, I grew to appreciate some of his early stuff, like "Jail House Rock". Good dance tunes, added variety to dance mix tapes.

I guess when I was a kid when Elvis first became popular, I couldn't for the life of me understand what women saw in him. He seemed like a conceited bore to me. But I guess he had that swagger and that shake that outraged their parents ;-). In truth he was just a country boy who had talent, was exploited, made some serious mistakes, and died a legend.

 

[nurdlinger]

I was driving home from an evening Computer Science grad school course at University of Missouri -- St. Louis. It was hot, humid, and misting rain so everything glistened in the street lights. I had never been a big fan of Elvis, I was too young when he first hit in the swivel-hips days, and by the time I was listening to pop music he was doing other things. So his passing was not a big deal for me, but I have that vivid sense memory of when I heard the news over the radio.

 

[dixieland]

Greetings from Graceland.

This is a big week in Memphis. The world comes to our city and we welcome them with open arms.

Keep the attendees in your thoughts as we're having record heat this week and one of the Elvis fans has already died because of the 5+ days of 100+ degree weather. Others have been sent to area hospitals for heat stroke, etc...

 

[~sudsshane]

Watching the story on Eyewitness News in NY, of course!

Grimsby and Beutel, but of course!

 

[~sudsshane]

was this a significant, life changing event for you at the t

I wouldn't say it was a life changing event, but never having dealt with death before at that time, it did bother me a little.
What affected me more was the Son of Sam's reign of terror on NYC during the Summer of '77.
Even though I was on Long Island, I was terrified of him and slept on the floor in my mother's bedroom every night until he was captured.
Still to this day when I see pictures of David Berkowitz, (Son of Sam) it gives me the creepies.

 

[sudsmaster]

In San Francisco we had the Zodiac killer, but by the time he appeared on the scene I was about 80 miles east attending college. Never really felt personally threatened by any of the serial killers of the 70's, but the guy who kidnapped that girl and then cut her arms off - he makes me shudder a bit. I understand that years later in prison he wanted to meet with her to apologize, but she refused. Good for her!

 

[mayken4now]

I was 16, and leaving our family home thru the front door to go ride dirt bikes when I heard mom loose it.

Steve

 

[jasonl]

I was 6

While I don't remember the announcement that Elvis had faked his death, I remember seeing the mock funeral through the streets of Memphis.

And then almost every TV station (all 4 of them) played something about Elvis.

I remember getting "The King Is Gone" by Ronnie McDowell on a 45. He was the only other person that knows how to correctly imitate Elvis IMHO.

 

[jasonl]

A little tidbit about Lisa Marie

She recorded a cover of the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry". I have it on mp3.

 

[tomturbomatic]

WOW! You people are so young. I was in my second year of working in the DC area. Two of my favorite aunts had come into town and my mom, who was visiting me, moved across the street to the Holiday Inn in Silver Spring while they were here. I don't remember a big deal being made of his death, except in the media. A friend in Lilburn, GA told me about the effect Elvis' death had in the goings on at the beauty shop his mother used. The first thing was that the air conditioning was broken so it was hotter than the hinges of hell in the place and the owner was moving about 90 miles an hour fixing hair and preaching at about the same speed that nobody ever knew when their time was going to come so they all better get right with God while they still could. He absorbed all of this just going in to pick up his mom. It was the most graphic post Elvis experience I heard.

I was 11 when I bought It's Now or Never which was big on WQXI which we listened to our transistor radios. I remember most of his songs.

I worked at a department store where the Ticketron (sp?) was right around the corner from our section. Elvis had a couple of concerts in Atlanta and the day the tickets went on sale there was a line through the store. The people lining up for tickets were his age and younger and it was easy to see that going to an Elvis concert made them feel like teenagers once more.

On Larry King the other night, he toured the house with Priscilla, I think. The kitchen had an electric cooktop and what looked like the Thermador Flair-style range or ovens. It definitely had the two glass oven doors and what looked like the cooktop which in its closed position had the boxy cover that slid out to cover the cooktop was it was pushed in, but it might have just been the Thermador Flair-style ovens. They did not spend as much time as I would have liked looking at the appliances. The iron skillet that his cook used to make those god-awful fried sandwiches was on the cooktop. At the top of the front stairs was a curving blue curtain and behind that were the rooms Elvis used. Larry made a point of determining that the throne room from which the King left his castle was right above the entry foyer.

Did any of you youngsters know that his mother's mother was Jewish, making him Jewish as well? That has something to do with his middle name of Aaron. Did you know that he was a surviving twin? A neighbor of the family said that they had no money when she was pregnant, no heat and she was almost at death's door all swollen with the effects of pre-eclampsia. Liberace was also the survivor of a pair of twins. Some people claimed that is what gave both men such powerful personalities and was responsible for making them great entertainers.