The quotes in this re-created interview are drawn from a wealth of reliable sources and involved extensive research into many rare articles, magazines and books

It’s hard to believe this is really happening. Look at it this way. As a boy I’d written a school essay about how ‘My Greatest Experience’ was meeting “my idol” Elvis Presley. That essay ended, prematurely, with me being greeted by the King outside his door in Graceland and freezing on the spot, “For months I had planned all the questions I would ask him,” I wrote, “and now I could barely speak my own name.” Now here I am, nearly a decade later, on August 15th 1977, telling Presley’s cousin, Billy Smith, at the door of Graceland, that Joe Jackson, from hotpress in Ireland is here to do the world’s first in-depth interview with Elvis Presley.

Elvis himself is singing at the grand piano in the music room, to the right, as I walk through the ante-bellum doorway. His voice sounds rich, resonant and soulful. And, as far as I can tell, his eyes are closed – just like they used to be when he was a kid singing gospel songs with his folks in church in Tupelo.

“Someday when we meet up yonder

We’ll stroll hand in hand again,

In a land that knows no parting,

Blue eyes crying in the rain.”

With Elvis in the music room now are Billy Smith’s wife Joe and Presley’s latest girlfriend Ginger Aldes. Smith waits until Elvis stops singing the last line of the song before telling him I’ve arrived. “Joe Jackson? So are you ‘Lucky’ like the Lucky Jackson name I used in Viva Las Vegas !” he jokes, swirling 180° on the piano stool, before striding across the room with his hand outstretched.

The closer Presley gets to me, the more I can see that his eyes are slightly clouded, his face is pale and he’s clearly overweight. But he still looks relatively healthy. And boy-ish in ways. But, as in my adolescent essay, when he greets me, I can barely speak. Why? Well, I have been summoned to Graceland to give Elvis the chance to finally address, in public, some of the allegations made by his bodyguards in the new book Elvis, What Happened. And among those allegations is the rather remarkable claim that Presley, who has had a totally drug-free public image until now, is actually addicted to uppers and downers. And worse. So I can’t help but be taken aback by the fact that he’s wearing a jacket emblazoned with the letters D.E.A. “D’ya like the jacket, man?” he says, as if reading my mind.

“Y’know Nixon had that same look in his eyes the day I walked into the White House wearing a purple velvet cloak, shitloads of jewellery, that big ol’ belt I got from the International Hotel with a gigantic gold buckle, and amber-tinted sunglasses!”

Presley pauses and smiles at Ginger, as if this tale is meant as much for her as it is for me.

“And I knew that sonofabitch was going to say something about my clothes before I left. And he did. I’d walked over to this portrait of George Washington – and I looked at his powdered hair, the frills on his shirt and cuffs and said to Nixon, ‘This dude dressed kind of funny’. And the President looked at me and said, ‘Uh, Elvis, I could say the same thing about you!’ And I told him, ‘Mr President, you’ve got your show to run and I’ve got mine!”

Everybody in the room laughs, even through they’ve probably heard this story a hundred times.

“But my point – Joe, is it? – is that I went in to see the President that day to get a Drugs Enforcement Agency badge because I hate street drugs, man, and I wanted me and the boys here to be able to bust the assholes who sell them, even here on the streets of Memphis.”

Elvis suddenly laughs. “Man, I’m grandstanding again,” he says, “maybe we should leave all this for the interview?”

Ginger, Billy and Jo take this as a sign that it’s time for them to leave. Not suprisingly, given that it is way past midnight, Alden says, in what strikes me as a somewhat disinterested manner, “Elvis, I’ll go on ahead to bed.” He replies, “okay, honey”, then he gestures towards the cream-coloured sofa where he and I both sit down.

“Hit it,” he says, glancing at the Sony cassette recorder. “And feel free to ask whatever the hell you want. Especially about that goddamn Judas book. But I will say one thing about it before we start. They have never beat me and they’re not going to beat me now.”

Joe Jackson: Listening to you sing ‘Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain’ reminded me again that that’s where it all started for you, didn’t it? Singing gospel?

Elvis Presley: (Smiling) Yeah. I’ve always liked music. My mother and dad both loved to sing. And they did tell me that when I was about three or four years old I got away from them in church and walked in front of the choir and started beating time. I grew up with gospel because my folks took me there. When I got old enough, I started to sing in church. That is one of the ways I got into singing. But I liked all types of music. When I was in high school I had records by Mario Lanza (laughs). And the Metropolitan Opera. I just loved music. Spanish, Mexican-flavoured music.

When I was in school, Billy Eckstine was one of the biggest inspirations of my life – as far as singing. But gospel is really what we grew up with, more than anything else. And when I was 15 I’d listen to J.D. Sumner sing bass with the Blackwood Brothers, in Memphis. I was a big gospel music fan, so they would sing all-night and I would stay there all night. But I never dreamed I’d be singing with him on stage. As part of my back-up group. So it is like a dream now.

JJ: Singing gospel isn’t just a matter of singing notes, it’s something that seems to come from deep inside you.

EP: And at certain times you push out and you pull in. It’s just part of you. You don’t even think about it. And when we get through work, what we have to do, we usually end up doing gospel. Because we wanna do it. We do two shows a lot of times and afterwards we will go upstairs and sing gospel songs, until daylight.

JJ: As far back as ’54, referring to gospel music, you said ‘Boy, this is my favourite music. when I’m out there (on stage) I do what they want to hear. When I’m back here, I can do what I want to do’.

EP: That’s still true. Now more than ever. But these days I also sing gospel in my concerts (laughs). Though I remember they told me I couldn’t sing a gospel tune actually on stage in Vegas and I told ’em, ‘to hell with that, Jack, I’ll sing what I want to sing.”

JJ: What does singing gospel do for you?

EP: It more or less puts your mind at ease. It does mine. And I still lose myself in my singing. Maybe it’s my early training singing gospel hymns. But my first love still is spiritual music – some of the old coloured spirituals from way back. I know practically every religious song that’s ever been written. In fact, before I started making records I wanted to sing in a spiritual quartet. And when I started being called ‘Elvis the Pelvis’ and gettin’ criticised for being unholy because of my gyrations – that upset mama so much I had to tell her, ‘I have a preference for God, Mama, but it’s just music, it makes me feel this way’. I actually asked Sam (Phillips, Sun Records) to release me from my contract because I wanted to sing gospel music. But he told me not to “talk religious” at Sun. I never forgot that.

JJ: That must have felt weird given that you admitted, at the time, that you got your style of singing and gyrating from being a “close follower” of religious quartets.

EP: Yeah, well they do a lot of rockin’ rhythm spirituals, so that’s where I got the idea. But, don’t forget, I was raised in an Assembly of God church where people stood up and sang. In that church we really feel our religion and get carried away with it. We’re not ashamed to show it. They got a beat and folks down our way really feel that music. We do what my mama used to sum up by sayin’, ‘make a joyful sound to the Lord’. She really believed in music being a way of getting in touch with the Holy Spirit. Just like I still do. I remember writing on a book somewhere, ‘God loves you... but he loves you most when you sing.’ I really believed that.

But back in Tupelo, we had ministers who played guitar, gyrated, cut up everywhichway and even spoke in tongues. In that church, man, we let it all hang out! And I still can’t explain what happens when the music starts. It makes me forget everything else except the beat and the sound. It tells me more than anything else I’ve ever known, how good, how great it is to be alive. I’ve been singing the way I do now for as far back as I can remember. I sing the way I do because it comes to me natural. I’ve never copied anybody. I just originated it accidentally, I guess.

JJ: But can you describe how that “accident” occurred? Specifically in terms of Sun Records, Sam Phillips and recording the first single, ‘That’s Alright Mama’?

EP: When I was called to make my first record, I went to the studio and they told me what they wanted me to sing and how they wanted me to sing it. Well, I tried it their way, but it didn’t work out so good. So while most of ‘em were sitting around resting for ten minutes or so, we just did it natural. It came off pretty good and Mr Phillips said I should go ahead and sing all the songs my own way, the way I knew best. We tried, and everything went along a lot better. They decided to put ‘That’s Alright’ on record, and backed it up with ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’.

JJ: What you seem to be saying is that it comes down to being yourself?

EP: Well, I’ll tell you how the “gyrations” really started. When Mr. Phillips called me in to make that first record, I started jumping up and down, they tell me, and I wasn’t even aware of it. My legs were shaking all over, mostly because I was so nervous and excited, but also because I can feel the music more when I just let myself react. After the third rehearsal, Scotty Moore came over and said, ‘you still scared, Elvis? You shake all over when you start singing!’ I told him I wasn’t scared once the music started and that I didn’t even realise I was moving around at all while I was singing. But that the minute the music started I wasn’t me anymore. I couldn’t have stopped moving around if I wanted to. Because all that motion was just as much a part of the music to me as the words I was singing. Scotty said, ‘okay, then, do what comes natural’. So that’s what I did.

JJ: What about doing it live, in front of an audience?

EP: After that record was a success I appeared on a big music jamboree in Memphis, in an open air theatre. I’ll never forget standing backstage and listening to all these great performers (Slim Whitman, Carl Smith, Webb Pierce) and knowing I’d have to go out there in just a couple of minutes and be as good as all the others. When my time came I was scared completely stiff! Me and my band went out there and set up and we were ready to begin but, man, we couldn’t move! We were like a bunch of dead people, we were scared so bad! There were four or five thousand people in the audience and they stared at me and I stared at them.

JJ: Which must have been a pretty unnerving experience – for you, I mean!

EP: Yet bet! Then someone in the bass section got up nerve and stared playing, and the others followed, and before I knew it I was singing. And then the audience got to squealing a bit, then someone started hollering, and they all got with it and we had a ball. I left the stage and they applauded and kept calling me back. I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, that they liked. My manager gave me a push towards the stage and told me to go back out there and do what I’d been doing, and I said, ‘what have I been doing?’ He said ‘you’ve been shaking all over. Your legs have been shaking with the music and your eyes twitching and your shoulders twitching and everything. Get out there and keep doing it!’. So I went back on, and we picked another rock ’n’ roll song real quick. And I said to myself, ‘now listen, try and do it again.’ And then the music started and I never did remember to do what I’d said to myself, but I must have done it again anyway because the audience was whooping and hollering like crazy when the song was through. That’s when it really started, that night, and it’s happened ever since!

JJ: You say the people at Sun, Sam Phillips, presumably, told you what to sing and how to sing it at that first session.

EP: Yeah. And the reason we couldn’t get anything was that I was scared, and when you’re scared you can’t breathe right. And besides, the songs weren’t my kind of thing.

JJ: You first heard the blues in Tupelo, in Shake Rag, which was a kind of black ghetto near where you were born and raised.

EP: I loved that music. Sometimes I’d just sit there in Shake Rag and listen and talk to people. The coloured folks been singing it and playing it like I’m doing now for more years than I know. They played like that in the shanties and in their juke joints and nobody paid it no mind till I goosed it up. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, I used to hear Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now. And I said that if I could ever get to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.

JJ: So you obviously were familiar with Crudup’s ‘That’s Alright’ long before you recorded it at Sun that day?

EP: Yeah, and after that I was ready to cut Crudup’s ‘Cool Disposition’ and ‘Rock Me, Mama’, but we never did. When I started recording at Sun I listened to other ‘gutter’ blues guys like B.B King, Big Bill Bronzy, John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed. And I already had a big stack of rhythm ’n’ blues records. Lots of Atlantic stuff. Clyde McPhatter, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles. From the start, apart from Billy Eckstine, I loved guys like Roy Brown, Brook Benton, Arthur Prysock, Roy Hamilton. James Brown who, to me is state of the art when it comes to soul singing, man. And I loved Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke. In fact, a lot of the singers I loved back then – and still love – were black. I used to listen to WDIA, which was the first black station and go down to Poplar Tunes here in Memphis and pick up all those records. Or just stay there for hours listenin’ to ’em, if I couldn’t afford to buy ’em. And I’d hear WHBQ play great black gospel acts like The Harmonising Four, Clara Ward, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson, who was a big influence on my style. WHBQ would even broadcast sermons from the East Trigg Baptist Church where Dixie Locke and I used to sneak into sermons – to hear the music – after attending our own First Assembly Services in Memphis. I really loved black music.

JJ: That’s not something you were encouraged to acknowledge?

EP: I remember the goddamn Colonel told me, back in ’56, not to be advertising my love of “race music” or “niggers.” He sure as hell didn’t like me being called “the white nigger”. But I also liked guys like Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Nat Cole, Dean Martin, Pat Boone. And country singers like Ernest Tubb, ever since I heard the Grand Ol Opry, as a kid, on the radio. Bluegrass. And when I’d play guitar and sing in Lauderdale Courts, here in Memphis, I used to sing things like Hank Williams’s ‘I Saw The LIght’ and ‘Lovesick Blues’. I always liked every kind of music, if it’s good.

JJ: But when you made your first “demo” at Sun you sang ballads in the style of Billy Eckstine or The Ink Spots.

EP: Man, I loved the Ink Spots so much that ol’ Faron Young, way back in ’56, wrote a song for me that went (sings) “If you tell a lie, you know that I’ll forgive you” and when I heard it I said, ‘hey, that’s good, who wrote it?’. And he said ‘I did, you little fucker, I wrote it for you!’. So I recorded it!

JJ: It’s a beautiful ballad, ‘Is It So Strange?’

EP: When I first started singing I used to sing ballads but hardly anyone came to hear me. But when I latched onto rock ’n’ roll, I had it made! Sam told me that’s where the money was at the start. So that’s what I sang. I grew up loving rhythm ’n’ blues and I loved singing rock ’n’ roll. But I also love ballads. And, even at the start, I said that as soon as the people tire of me singing rock ’n’ roll I’d be more than happy to sing the kind of ballads that were being sung by Perry Como, or whoever (laughs). Like I do, now, when I sing things like ‘It’s Impossible’!

JJ: Marion Keisker, Sam’s secretary, tells how, on that day you first walked into Sun she asked you ‘what kind of singer are you?’ and you said ‘I sing all kinds’. Then she said, ‘who do you sound like?’ And you replied ‘I don’t sound like nobody’! She actually wrote on a note, after you left, ‘Good Ballad Singer: Hold.”

EP: That woman was the one who had the faith, she was the one who pushed me. Marion did it for me. It took me a long time to get the attention of Sam Phillips. And she made sure I did. But the record I made that day was ‘My Happiness’ and one of the Ink Spots numbers.

JJ: Was that a birthday present for your mother?

EP: Nah. I just made it. You see I worked five days a week, Monday through Friday, and then on Saturday I called and asked if they could make me a record. They made personal dubs for people, for weddings and things like that. I’d really wanted to hear myself sing. I can’t remember exactly what hit me that day but I had to know what my voice sounded like. I didn’t even have enough money to do the record over, so I decided to let it stand as it was. I figured if nobody else likes the thing, mom would anyway, and she did. I made it to surprise her. When she played it, it was me singing! Either way, that obviously was the best five bucks I ever spent!

JJ: You played guitar on that record, too.

EP: Yeah, I had an old $20 guitar, sounded like somebody beatin’ on a bucket lid or something like that! But then I’d never had any music lessons. My daddy bought me a department store guitar when I was pretty young. I learned to pick out a couple of chords on it, but I didn’t try to get fancy or anything like that. Then, when I went out on stage in my first personal appearance, I just naturally took my guitar along with me, to sort of keep me company. I used it as a prop or whatever you want to call it. To me, in that first appearance, it was the best friend I ever had, because it kept me company and I knew I wasn’t alone out there making a fool of myself.

JJ: Do you ever listen to any of those old records from the Sun label?

EP: They sound funny, boy, they got a lot of echo on them! But when my first record came out I was leery of it, I thought everybody would laugh. So I went to the movies instead of staying home to listen to it played on the radio for the first time. I really thought people would laugh at me. Some did, and some are still laughing today, I guess.

JJ: What are your memories of the first time you sang in public?

EP: I was 11 years old when I went in front of an audience for the first time. It was at a fairground in Tupelo. I wore glasses, I was shaking like a leaf, but I’d set my heart on singing, and nothing in the world could have stopped me from entering the talent contest at that fair. I did it all on my own and I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do once I got out there in front of those people. All I had in my head was the idea that I was going to sing. I didn’t have any music or anything, and I couldn’t get anybody to play for me, and I couldn’t play for myself because I didn’t know how. So I just went out there and sang ‘Old Shep’ and I know they must have felt sorry for me because they gave me fifth prize and everyone applauded real nice. Man, I’ll tell you I was really scared and shaking and all turning over inside. But I felt good, too. I’d been on stage for the first time in my life. I got a whipping the same day, my mother whipped me for something – I don’t know (going on) one of the rides. Destroyed my ego completely.

JJ: It didn’t destroy your desire to perform.

EP: When I was 13 or so, me and a bunch of kids would fool around singing. I wasn’t popular in high school. I wasn’t dating anybody (there). I failed music – only thing I ever failed. And then they entered me in this talent show and I came out and did my first number, ‘Til I Waltz With You Again’ by Teresa Brewer. And when I came on stage I heard people kinda rumbling and whispering and so forth, ‘cause nobody knew I even sang. It was amazing how popular I became after that! But I wasn’t the big hero. In fact, I used to lie awake wondering what I was going to do. I really wasn’t much good at anything. At school I’d been only an average student. I couldn’t figure out how I was ever going to make something out of myself. In fact, I don’t know why they gave me a diploma. I don’t know how I got out of high school. I would sit there, I’d be looking out the window and I’d just be looking out the window. I had no idea what the teacher was saying. I’d be thinking about Tony Curtis and Marlon Brando and being a star and singing. I was dreaming.

JJ: Curtis and Brando became your role models when you worked as an usher in Loew’s State Theatre here in Memphis, while you were still in High school. You took your hairstyle, in particular, from Curtis?

EP: Yeah. And y’wanna know why I was eventually fired from Loew’s? I took some free candy from an usherette and some snitch told the boss so I knocked that tettletale to the ground (laughs)! Put him right on his ass, man! But when it came to my look in those days, you gotta remember that when I moved to Memphis, from Tupelo – where we left overnight because we was so broke – I was a nobody, a small town kind in a big city, without a dime in my pocket, not too good in class, kinda shy. And the other guys wore GI haircuts. I wanted to look older, be different. I guess mostly I wanted to be noticed. My hair, my black shirt and the pants I wore did it. But don’t think I didn’t take a lot of kidding from my friends. Still I stuck with it. I guess I always knew if you want to get ahead and stand out in a crowd you gotta be different.

JJ: You were, of course, your mother’s only child, because your twin brother, Jesse Garon, died at birth. And I believe she miscarried a child around 1942, something you remember vividly.

EP: Yeah. And I always felt a bit lonely when I was little. I suppose it might have been different if my brother had lived. A lot of things might have been different. But he didn’t live and I grew up alone. But mama worried. Mama would never let me out of her sight. I couldn’t go down to the creek with the other kids and swim. I used to get very angry at her when I was growing up. It’s a natural thing when a young person wants to go somewhere or do something and your mother won’t let you, you think, ‘why what’s wrong with you?’ But then later on in years you find out, you know, that she was only doing it to protect you, to keep you from getting into any trouble or getting hurt. And I’m very happy that she was kinda strict on me, happy it worked out the way it did.

JJ: Would you say you had what most people would think of as a good upbringing?

EP: I was raised in a very decent home. My folks always made me behave, whether I wanted to or not. My mother always taught me to have good manners, to help people, to work hard and never give up and to make it on my own. And I’ve tried to be the same, you know, the way I was brought up. My mother, my father and the whole family, we were always considerate of other peoples’ feelings. And I always considered other peoples’ feelings. I didn’t step on nobody on the way up! I’ve always treated people the way I would like to be treated myself. But when I was a kid it’s true we never had any money or nothing. I never had any luxuries, but we never went hungry. That’s something to be thankful for.

JJ: Do you really hate to see people wear blue jeans around you because it reminds you of the poverty of your childhood?

EP: I don’t want to wear jeans, man, I hate them. And I don’t want to see them. I had to wear them. When I was growing up they were the only pants I had. What do you think I worked so hard for? To get to hell out of those ugly ol’ overalls. And, when it comes to poverty, yeah, I gotta admit that when I’m feeling depressed I do think, ‘shit, man, my little brother died and my mama almost died because we couldn’t afford to go to no damn hospital’. But they say when one twin dies, the other grows up with all the qualities of the other, too. If I did, I’m lucky. And when I look around here (sweeping hand gesture) I also think to myself that you could set down that little ol’ shack we lived in, in Tupelo, right here in this room, and still have space over. So I’m grateful for that, too, man. But I’ve never been accustomed to things real easy. I know it looks like I came up overnight. Not so!It was a lot of hard work. I’ve done plenty of it. I worked as a common labourer. I drove a truck for Crown Electric in Memphis at the same time I recorded those first Sun cuts. I got up at 3:30 to be on the job for $12.50 a week (laughs). Maybe if it all ends tomorrow I could still go back to driving a truck!

JJ: After your mother died, while you stood by her coffin, you cried out: ‘I’ve lived my whole life for you. Oh God, everything I have is gone’. And you obviously still miss Gladys. It shows in your voice when you speak about her.

EP: (Elvis shudders) The bottom dropped out of my life that day my mother died. I thought that I had nothing left. In a way I was right. I remember telling Eddie Fadal, a friend of mine from Texas, when mama died, ‘I’ve lost the only person I ever really loved’. And I suppose since I was an only child that we might have been a little closer than – I mean, everyone loves their mother, but I was an only child and mother was always right there with me, all my life. And it wasn’t only like losing a mother, it was like losing a friend, a companion, someone to talk to. I could wake her up at any hour of the night and if I was worried or troubled about something, well, she’d get up and try to help me. I still think of her every single, solitary day. If I never do anything that’s wrong or bad, it’ll be because of mama. She wouldn’t never let me do anything wrong.

If I could have one wish granted, it would be to talk with my mother again. There are times I dream about her. She’s always happy and smiling. Sometimes we embrace, and it’s so real, I wake up in a cold sweat. But y’know the one thing I hated about going into the army was leaving my mother, because she was in bad health even then. And I just enjoyed having my family around. I didn’t look on it as a duty – something I ought to do – I loved them and I liked to have them around. They were all I had. They can’t be replaced. We were always happy when we were together. Even in the hard times.

JJ: I remember reading how, when you first made some money you bought your folks – apart from that pink cadillac – smaller, personal things.

EP: Actually, man, that cadillac was blue and I had it painted pink for her. I liked to do what I could for my folks. We didn’t have nothing before – nothing but a hard way to go. So, yeah, when I got money I got them anything I thought they might want. I got daddy some suits like he never had before. And mother went to town and bought anything she wanted. Which made me feel real good. I remember that when I was a kid, I’d hear them worrying about their debts, being out of work and sickness and I’d say ‘don’t worry, none, baby. When I grow up, I’m going to buy you a fine house and pay everything you owe at the grocery store and get two cadillacs – one for you and daddy, and one for me’. (Elvis sighs) But y’know, it’s funny, she never really wanted anything fancy. She just stayed the same throughout it all. And there’s a lot of things happened since she passed away that I wish she could have been around to see. It would have made her very happy and very proud. But that’s life and I can’t – can’t have her.

JJ: Didn’t you lock yourself in your room in Graceland for eight days after she died, barely eating, refusing to talk to anyone.

EP: Until I finally decided to come out of that room and sing gospel music, yeah.

JJ: And you told someone you felt responsible for your mother’s death because, I think, you felt that during your rise to fame you neglected her. And she, in the end, started taking too many diet pills – and drinking – so her heart gave out?

EP: Yeah, that’s all true, boy. I still feel guilty about that. Mama did take those pills to look pretty for me right up until the end. And I still hate alcohol to this day. You will not see anyone walk around Graceland with even a damn beer can in their hands. And I’ve only been drunk myself once or twice in my life. Though, near the end of my marriage to ’Cilla I did start drinking the occasional glass of wine with dinner because she liked to. (Elvis pauses) You know what just struck me? Looking back with you tonight, man, I realise I’ve experienced a lot of the different phases in life. I’ve experienced happiness and loneliness, the wealthy side of life and not having anything. And tragedy. Like losing my mother when I was in the army. Although I think that things like that, tragic as they are, make you a better human being. ‘Cause you learn more about yourself as well as other people. And it can only help. But I’ll tell you what I’ve really realised since my mother’s death. I’m just a human being like anyone else, I have blood running through my veins and (it all) can be snuffed out in a matter of seconds.

In Part 2: Elvis looks back on his life in the ’60s and ’70s and talks about Priscilla, Colonel Parker, Hollywood, the ’68 Special, sex, violence, drugs and religion. And much more music.