August 16, 1977
 

The list...

Mom takes me to town to get groceries.
I also get a haircut.

We come home, the phone rings.
I answer it in the hall. It's my cousin.
Elvis died...

What? It can't be.
With the greatest fear I turn on the TV.
As the TV comes on I see a picture of Elvis.
1935-1977, as David Brinkley reports.

A day that forever changed me.

I remember this sad day myself.My late dad was a pro house painter .I was coming home from a house painting job with my dad in his green early 1970's Chevy pickup truck .We heard the sad news from the local radio station.

We were both shocked.Got home and my mom and my sister was shocked about the news as they heard it from the TV.

My late older sister and her future husband to be at the time had tix for one of Elvis's upcoming concerts at the local venue .She was devastated for weeks over the lost of her idol.

The lady that lives behind me is a big Elvis fan.She probably will be playing his music all day today.

The whole world was shocked.He was only 42.

Man, that would have been rough to have tickets to one of his
upcoming shows and this happen. I'd just seen him on June 2,
of '77 in Mobile, Alabama. So just two and a half months later
he was gone. I think being a young child, not yet a teenager is
one of the reasons it affected me so. Young enough to still have
heroes.

You mentioned radio. The radio stations around here played
Elvis and nothing but Elvis for days. And then there were all
the TV specials. The demand for his records was so high that
RCA had to hire out other companies record pressing plants.
Many artists had to delay their releases because of this.

Some estimates are as high as 150 million albums and singles
sold in the year and a half after his death. No one before or
since has sold that amount in such a brief period. I wish we
knew the actual amount he sold total - the number would be
staggering.

I was only a couple weeks from my third birthday when Elvis died; as such, I don't remember.

Growing up, I don't think there was a death that impacted me in a similar fashion until Princess Diana.

I was on vacation in Los Angeles for the month of August, 1977 staying at a cousins house. I had just come in from swimming in the pool when I heard the tragic news on tv. When I replay this scene in my mind, it is like watching myself in a movie because it is my view of myself as if the camera was filming from the ceiling.

Interesting. Mine's more like snapshots.

I had so many phone calls. It was really
hard to talk about.
___________________________

KarmaContestant,
Princess Diana is the only person that I can
think of that came close or even surpassed the
shock and grief that the world felt when Elvis
died. When he died there wasn't 24/7 news so it's
really hard to judge.

From what I've read the reaction to Rudolph Valentino's
death was similar. And that was back in the 20's.

I have only vague memories about Elvis's death because it was a huge media event. I knew about him, but his persona never held any great appeal to me, so his death didn't have a heavy emotional impact. I was only twelve years old at the time. I didn't perceive his premature death as too much of a tragedy because he seemed so old!:eek: I was clueless to his immense legacy.

I'm still more upset about Carole Lombard's plane crash death in 1942! Still very sad about Princess Diana; she had so much more to give to the world. Also, I get really sad when I listen to Jim Croce's music. Life is so random and unfair.

I hope future generations will appreciate his musical genius.
So many overlook his 1960's non-soundtrack work. They don't
know what they're missing. I'd have been a fan if I only heard
From Elvis In Memphis and Back In Memphis and the singles
released from those same recording sessions.

I don't know much about Carole Lombard except that she was married
to Clark Gable. What created your interest in her?

I was just a kid, but I remember exactly where we were, when it came on the radio that he'd died. Only about a half mile from home, but Mom had to pull over, to regain her composure. A surreal day in American musical history, I guess.

It's a bit surreal looking back. I had been out all night with friends, and got a ride home in the morning. I lived with the family of a friend at the time, and the house was a hangout for all the stoner kids, and one of the family members had a metal band that practiced in the basement, so there was always a crowd. When I got home that morning, the first thing I heard walking through the door was that Princess Diana had been killed, which I disbelieved until I took a moment to listen to the television - there were about 10 young men in the living room - weepy, stoned, sad, death-metal-guitar-playing young men, totally devastated by the death of a princess across the ocean.

I appreciate you sharing that.

A surprising bit of news about Elvis.

Was reading Billboard Magazine and checking out
the charts when to my amazement there he was in
this weeks charts.

Elvis Presley Forever enters the Top 200 album chart at # 11.
Elvis Presley Forever enters the Country Album chart at #2.

Not bad, not bad at all.