Elvis Presley, The one and only King of Rock and Roll Options

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The last days of the King of Rock 'n' Roll
August 16 will mark 30 years since the iconic American singer and actor Elvis Aaron Presley was found dead, at 42, from drug abuse and an enlarged heart, in Graceland, his home in Memphis in the southern American state of Tennessee.
Had he lived he would be 72 today.

In death the King is larger than in life. His legion of of fans -- some 50,000 -- are expected to gather for an all-night candlelight vigil at Graceland to remember him during this Summer of Elvis as Elvis Presley Enterprises, which runs his wealthy estate, has dubbed it.
There will be day-long airing of his songs on Memphis radio stations. And plenty of tours one can take to see the two-room home in Tupelo, Mississippi on Highway 78 where he and his twin (stillborn) came into the world, the school he went to (where he was teased, thrown fruit at for being a quiet student, for stuttering and for being a mamma's boy; he was an only child), the Tupelo hardware store where he got his first guitar at the age 11 for $7.90 instead of the rifle he really wanted and so on.
Sonny West, Elvis's friend and bodyguard of 16 years, on the occasion of his 30th death anniversary will release Elvis: Still Taking Care of Business published by Triumph Books that relates fascinating off-stage and behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the life of the King.
We bring you an extract from this absorbing book:

On Friday, September 27, 1974, (Elvis) was in as bad of shape as I'd ever seen him in public when he arrived in College Park (University of Maryland campus near Baltimore) to start a fifteen-city tour. When he exited from the limo at the hotel, he looked as though he'd been on a huge bender. His hair was a mess, and his speech was pretty slurred.
There were policemen standing nearby to help me with the security detail. I tried to cover up Elvis's condition in front of them by saying, "Not awake yet, huh, boss?" and then whisked him up to his suite. After I got him settled in, I gathered Red, Dave, Jerry, and a couple of the other guys and asked what was going on with Elvis. He had never shown up for a tour in this condition. "Sonny, I didn't even know if he was going to make it here," said Red. "It's getting harder and harder to get him up and moving."
I didn't know what else to do but pray. I gathered all of the security detail, and we formed a prayer circle, asking God to please help cure Elvis of his prescription drug habit and whatever else was bothering him.
When we went into Elvis's room, he started handing out checks to everyone. The checks ranged from $10,000 for the "old-school" guys down to $2,500 for the younger and newer ones. I got a check for $5,000, and Elvis told me to forget about paying him back for an $11,000 loan he'd made me a couple of months earlier in July for a down payment on a home that Judy and I bought in Woodland Hills, California.
Tears came to my eyes, and I said, "Elvis, are you sure, man?" "Oh yeah, I'm sure," he said, smiling.
I thanked him, and we hugged. Then I turned to Elvis's dad, Vernon, and thanked him, too. "It was his idea," he said testily, nodding at Elvis. I knew that, of course. I just was trying to be respectful to Vernon.
Elvis could break my heart in so many ways.
After a nap, Elvis was still feeling the effects of whatever drugs he'd been doing. Dressed in a white peacock jumpsuit, he stepped onto the stage and told the crowd of fifteen thousand, "I just woke up."
He just about sleepwalked through the performance, hanging onto the microphone for dear life, mumbling unintelligibly, and screwing up the lyrics of Love Me Tender.
The show was cut twenty minutes short. The next night, Elvis was only slightly better.
But it wasn't the quality, or lack thereof, of the show that caught the attention of the The Washington Post reviewer as much as Elvis's weight gain. In his story in the next day's paper, the reviewer riffed on Elvis's 'paunch', and when Elvis saw the article, he was very upset. When he took the stage for his second show in College Park, he told the crowd, "Those of you who saw the morning paper, er, the evening paper, whatever it was, they gave, they gave me a fantastic write-up. No, they did. Except they said I had a paunch here, and I want to tell you something. I got their damn paunch!
"I wore a bullet-proof vest onstage. True. You know, in case some fool decides to take a .22 and blow my belly button off. That's the truth. I got this paunch, sonofa*****."
This excerpt has been printed with the permission of Triumph Books Presley was just 10 when he sang for the first time in public at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He sang Old Shep by Red Foley and won the second prize.

He also ranted about the tabloids, which had been hinting that Elvis was no longer the boy next door. He told the audience he was a federal narcotics agent and an eighth-degree black belt.
"I don't drink booze or take this or that," he announced. "Don't say boo to me when I tell you that because it's the God's honest truth."
The crowd cheered, but school officials made the decision that Elvis would never be invited back to the University of Maryland.
Things continued to get worse as the tour progressed. A few days after the College Park fiasco, Red and a couple of the other guys got wind that Tim Batey, a bass player in Voice, a backing group for Elvis, had a shipment of cocaine he was holding onto for Elvis. They marched to Tim's room. When he answered the door, Red pushed it open hard when entering, breaking one of Tim's toes when he leaned against the door to keep him out. "The next time I find out you've been giving Elvis drugs, I'm going start with your legs and work my way up," Red told him.
Then we put the word out that anybody getting drugs for Elvis was in for a serious ass-kicking. Elvis's stepbrother, Ricky Stanley, told Elvis what we'd said. It wasn't long thereafter that Elvis called Red and me into his room. He laid into us. "You guys need to stay out of my business," he said angrily. "I know what I'm doing. I can quit whenever I want to, but right now I need it."
"What about the good old days when you didn't need that shit?" Red asked.
"Red, there are no more good old days," Elvis said flatly.
I felt like a knife had been plunged into my heart.
"If you don't stop, you are going to be looking for other jobs," Elvis told us. We certainly didn't want that, but we hated even more the idea of him destroying himself. Image: Elvis Presley cheered by fans arrives at Friedberg, Germany in 1959, to do his military service. Presley was shooting for King Creole when he received his draft notice in December 1957. He was given time to complete the film. He joined 1st Battalion, 32nd Armor. While he was in the army he got into the habit of popping amphetamines.

When the tour ended in late October, Elvis went to Dr Ghanem (Dr Elias Ghanem, a Las Vegas general practitioner) for help losing weight. Ghanem put him on a 'sleep diet' he concocted, which consisted mostly of liquid nourishment and lots of sedated rest. Elvis stayed with part-time girlfriend Sheila Ryan in a special wing Dr Ghanem had added to his cavernous Las Vegas home.
After two weeks, Elvis walked out ten pounds heavier than he had been when he walked in.
He was in such bad shape that Colonel Parker (his manager) postponed his annual January engagement at the Las Vegas Hilton to February. Two weeks after his 40th birthday, Elvis was admitted to Baptist Memorial Hospital when he couldn't catch his breath. Dr Nick told the press that Elvis was having liver problems, but the truth was that his drug abuse was out of control.
A few months earlier, The National Enquirer had published a nasty story headlined: Elvis at 40 -- Paunchy, Depressed and Living in Fear.
"I hate those sonofa*****es," Elvis said. "I'd just like to destroy their whole place. All they do is write a bunch of lies." But what they'd written wasn't far from the truth.

--to be continued