Celebrating Elvis on the anniversary of his death

It was two days and 44 years ago, on the afternoon of August 16, 1977 that Elvis Presley died.

His girlfriend, Ginger Alden, apparently found him lying lifeless on the bathroom floor.

All efforts to revive him failed and he was officially pronounced dead at the Baptist Memorial Hospital at 3:30 p.m.

As the reports got out quickly to the various medias of radio, TV and news outlets, by late

Thursday afternoon and evening, it seems that just about everybody had heard about it.

It truly was one of those ‘where were you when you first heard about it?’ moments. For me, it was around 5:30 p.m. in downtown Toronto at a broadcasting school studio on Queen Street East where I was in the middle of producing an aircheck recording that I could mail out to various radio stations in hopes of starting my career as an announcer or DJ somewhere in Ontario. Initially, I was surprised and shocked.

Then, as it really hit me later that evening, I was sad and very disappointed and even mad.

Sad because Elvis was my very first music star idol, on radio, that I started listening to around 1960 and onwards. And prior to 1965, I had collected many of his 45s and extended play 45s and also saw all of his movies, old and new, during the 1960s at the local theatre in Richmond Hill. His movies and songs gave me great pleasure. Why was I disappointed?

Well, the man I had admired for so many years wasn’t the same person in the mid 1970s.

Seeing footage of him slurring his way through songs and forgetting the words at concerts was hard to comprehend.

To me, he was the “King” who ruled the charts from 1957 to the mid-’60s with 17 number one hits and many more top 10 hits than anyone else at that time. Of course, just about everyone took a back seat when the Beatles arrived in 1964.

But forget that.

Before he imploded, Elvis made a musical comeback on December 3, 1968 when his one hour televised concert “Singer Presents Elvis” absolutely blew everyone away.

Dressed for a portion of the show in his tight black leather outfit with his long and thick sideburns, he looked incredibly cool and good looking.

He sang many of his classics, along with some contemporary gems like “If I Can Dream” and “A Little Less Conversation”. Elvis really was indeed back! Even the contemporary Rolling Stone magazine raved about it.

Just over a month later, Elvis finally – for the first time ever – made a decision without following his conniving, despicable and greedy manager Colonel Parker’s advice or direction.

It would be a decision that changed Presley’s future for the time being. Teaming up with producer Chips Moman and some excellent musicians and songwriters, including Mac Davis (at the time known as Scott Davis) and Mark James, among others, Elvis came up with a contemporary hit album called “From Elvis in Memphis” featuring “In The Ghetto” and his last #1 hit, “Suspicious Minds”.

These were both great contemporary songs. The album was amazing with a fresh mix of rock, pop and country and everything in between. The King had returned!

He would go on for seven years past then with some other great hits like “Don’t Cry Daddy”, “Kentucky Rain”, “The Wonder of You” and “Burning Love”.

But hearing “Way Down” in 1977 on the radio a month or so before he died seemed a bit off. Something was not right. It was kind of blurry and muddy sounding. When I heard it again that evening on August 16, I knew why.

That’s when I was mad and cried.