Bob Dylan has at all times professed his love for the King. As a child in Duluth, listening to Elvis Presley’s model of rock ‘n’ roll fervour lit a fireplace in him, one which has by no means gone out. In a single well-known interview, Dylan stated: “Listening to him for the primary time was like busting out of jail.”
But the 2 by no means fairly crossed paths. Elvis took a liking to Bob Dylan’s songwriting in the course of the 60s, and recorded just a few of his songs – together with the ballad ‘Tomorrow Is A Lengthy Time’, included within the Elvis flick Spinout.
Drawn into each other’s orbit, Bob Dylan turned down the prospect to satisfy Elvis, reflecting to Rolling Stone in 2009: “I by no means met Elvis as a result of I didn’t need to meet him.”
In one other interview, Dylan recalled: “The 2 or thrice we had been in Hollywood, he despatched his folks from the Memphis Mafia to the place we had been to take us to see him. However none of us wished. Why go? It appeared form of unhappy.”
With Elvis fading, Bob Dylan didn’t need to witness the decline of his hero: “I don’t know if I’d have wished to see him like that. I wished to see the highly effective and legendary Elvis, the one which had landed on American soil like a burning star. The Elvis who was vigorous. That’s the Elvis who impressed us in life. And that Elvis was gone, he had left the constructing.”
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In a single exceptional story, Bob Dylan – and George Harrison – truly turned down the prospect to report with Elvis Presley.
The 2 had been shut, and attended an Elvis live performance at Madison Sq. Backyard in New York collectively. That night in 1972 might have been historic, and sparked rumours that the duo – along with Elvis – had been going to report collectively. In response to lore, Elvis failed to show as much as the studio.
Because it occurs, the rejection was the opposite means spherical – in a 2017 interview with Bill Flanagan, Bob Dylan recalled: “He did present up. We had been those who didn’t do it.”
When Elvis Presley died in 1977, Dylan misplaced the prospect to satisfy his idol – and, probably, work with him. The information shook the songwriter to his core, sparking a week-long interval of silent reflection. “I went over my entire life,” recalled Dylan. “I went over my entire childhood. I didn’t speak to anybody for per week.”
What might have been…
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