Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley was born on 8th January 1935 and died on 16th August 1977. I was fifteen at the time and I'm now nearly ten years older than he was when he died. That feels a bit mind bending. When I was young I used to love watching his films. I seem to remember they used to show them on BBC2 on Saturday mornings (although I do have a habit of mis-remembering these things...so it could just as easily have been Sunday afternoons or BBC1)

Anyhoo, I used to have one of those old reel to reel tape recorders (can't remember where that came from) and I used to set it up in front of the telly with the microphone pointing at the speaker to record the songs. I remember trying to make whoever else was in the house keep quiet. That probably didn't go down too well. Of course now I have quite a few of the films on video cassette (but no machine to play them on!) and I would spend hours making lists of the films, the characters he played, his love interests, the songs he sang.

My favourite Elvis films are..... all of them, but if I have to narrow it down I'll plump for............................ 

G.I. Blues is probably my favourite favourite (who wouldn't love an Elvis in uniform) and it has some of the best songs.

Indulge me here, I'm posting quite a few videos which you don't have to watch...narrative continues after the said videos.

Songs from G.I. Blues include the fabulous 'Wooden Heart'

'Frankfurt Special'

and 'Didja Ever'

My second favourite is 'It Happened at the World's Fair' which was again choc full of cracking songs including.

'Broken Heart For Sale'

and 'Beyond the Bend'

Elvis Facts of the Day

At the age of 36 Elvis became the youngest recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Elvis had a pet chimp called Scatter who loved scotch and bourbon.

In 1947, Elvis was offered the chance (at aged just 12) to sing live on air, but he was too shy.

His only child, Lisa Marie was born in 1968 during his marriage to Priscilla Beaulieu who he met when she was just 14 years old! Lisa Marie went on to marry Michael Jackson and Nicholas Cage. She is now on her fourth marriage to Michael Lockwood with whom she has two kids and she also had two kids with third husband Danny Keough.

Elvis recorded more than 600 songs but didn't write any of them.

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My third favourite film is 'Fun in Acapulco' which includes 

'There's no room to Rhumba in a Sports car'

'Bossa Nova Baby'

and 'The Bullfighter was a Lady'

Seriously, I could go on forever about Elvis Presley. I think he is one of the most talented people who ever lived and it was a tragedy that he died so young. But bearing in mind that you lot probably don't feel quite so enthusiastic about him, I'll leave it there........

Well.....maybe one more of my favourite songs.....

'Memories'

Dare I squeeze another in, or are you fed up now?

'Don't Cry Daddy'/'In the Ghetto'

                                                          Tracey