The story of one meeting: The Beatles and Elvis Presley - what it was like

Once upon a time. John Lennon said: "Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles..." And it's hard to argue with that. If it weren't for Elvis PresleyRock 'n' Roll would not be what it is today... The meeting of two of the greatest rock singers in history was long awaited! Especially for the Beatles, who were apparently a danger to the King of Rock and Roll. The press was not allowed and it could not be publicised, but... it was almost impossible to let this piece of history go unnoticed. Tony BarrowBeatles public relations specialist:

"First of all, the ground rules were set: no press to be invited, no pictures to be taken, no recordings to be made and no advance notice of our plans. We arrived shortly before 22:00. We travelled in a convoy of three large black limousines led by Colonel Parker and his men..."

From the moment I met you. "The Magnificent Four." was repeatedly asked about it. Despite the bans, a reporter from NME somehow managed to be there - he had allegedly been in contact with the Colonel and Presley the year before. Paul McCartney:

"We met Elvis Presley at the end of our stay in Los Angeles. We'd been trying to do it for years, but we'd never been able to get to him... We used to think we posed some threat to him and Colonel Tom Parker. In fact, that turned out to be the case... Every time we tried to organise a meeting, Colonel Tom would just turn up with a few souvenirs, and that should have worked on us for a while... We didn't feel put off. After all, this was Elvis, and who were we to dare want to meet him? But eventually we got an invitation to visit him when he was filming in Hollywood..."

So when is "The Beatles." finally met with King and what exactly happened? One can imagine that it was a very lavish meeting! In fact, the event was so anticlimactic that the tension in the room was palpable. So what exactly happened?

A fun trip to the Presley mansion.

У Beatles had a few days off during their tour of North America в 1965 year, and on 27 August, near the end of their stay in Los Angeles, they finally met the King. It was at Presley's mansion on the 565 Perugia Way, Bel Air, LA.. The Magnificent Four arrived at 23:00 ....

"Meeting Elvis was one of the highlights of the tour. It was funny because by the time we got to his house we had forgotten where we were going! We were in a Cadillac limousine, cruising around Mulholland Drive, and we had a couple of 'cups of tea' in the back of the car...," George Harrison recalled. He continues, "It didn't really matter where we were going: it's like comedian Lord Buckley saying, 'We go to the home village and get a couple of peyote buds: we may not know where we are, but we'll certainly know who we are!'" Anyway, we were just having fun, we were all hysterical... We laughed a lot. That's one thing we forgot about for a few years - laughter. Eventually we pulled up to some big gates and someone said: "Oh yeah, we're going to see Elvis!" We all literally fell out of the car laughing, trying to pretend we weren't stupid..."

Tony Barrowwho was in the Great Four's entourage, recalled:

"The estate consisted of two storeys perched on a hillside. It was a large round building with many windows and a spacious front garden... Along the road stood a Rolls-Royce and a couple of Cadillacs. Members of the notorious 'Memphis Mafia' guarded the high gate..."

Moment of truth...

When the group was led into the circular living room Presley, the King was watching colour TV without sound, playing bass guitar. Of all the participants, Lennon was most fascinated by what was going on, as he was Presley's biggest fan!

"It was very exciting, we were all nervous as hell, and we finally met him at his big house in LA! He had loads of blokes around him and he had pool tables! Maybe a lot of American houses are like that, but we thought it was amazing: it was like a nightclub..."

However, very quickly the meeting began to take on depressing shades... At some point the silence became somewhat awkward. Barrow reminisced:

"When the two legends met, literally faced each other, there was a strange silence... The first to speak was John, who rather awkwardly fired off a stream of questions to Elvis, something like, 'Why are you doing all this? Soft ballads for the cinema these days? What happened to good old rock 'n' roll?" The atmosphere was starting to get depressing..."

The king remained silent for the most part, while the camp of the "The Magnificent Four." tried unsuccessfully to break the ice.

Did Elvis Presley and The Beatles play together?

Gradually, however, both sides began to exchange stories about their trips. Eventually, when the ice cracked a little, Presley demanded some guitars, and a short jam session took place.

"I can't remember everything they played, but I remember one of the songs was 'I Feel Fine.' And I remember Ringo, who of course didn't have an instrument, tapping his fingers on the nearest pieces of wooden furniture," Barrow said.

Presleywho still had his bass guitar in his hand, said to Paul, "Look, I'm practising." To which McCartney jokingly replied, "Don't worry, Brian Epstein and I will soon make you a star!" Soon the bass guitar became a great subject for a lively conversation between Paul and Elvis! They even started to get along with each other..... Paul McCartney reminisced:

"Suddenly he was my friend! It was a great conversation for me: I could really talk about bass, and we sat idly by and just enjoyed ourselves... He was great - talkative, friendly and a bit shy. But that was his image: that's what we expected..."

Conclusion...

In many ways, the meeting turned out to be a disappointment. When "The Magnificent Four." gone, Lennon joked, "Where's Elvis?" He hinted that it was as if the King was under some strange spell, meaning he wasn't quite himself..... McCartney concluded:

"I only met him once, and then I think the success of our career started to push him away a bit, which made us very sad because we wanted to co-exist with him... He was our greatest idol, but styles were changing in our favour. Still, he was quite a strong image for the Brits!"