Elvis Presley

I had a few maybe that weren't so good.

But, um, I don't mind opening the show, you know? I like to give them something to follow, you know? I remember, uh, Elvis Presley, um, Hank Snow, I think, uh, opened, or closed behind him one time, and he never did it again.

[laughs]

Yeah.

And everyone is just like, "Uh, no." Marysol just talked about losing her mom, and Luann is like, "I wanna die having sex." Or- [both laughing] I wanna- Or- Like it's like, whoa.

Okay, and she's like, "Because my uncle, he was just like Elvis on the toilet, hard." What is going- Hard.

[laughs] Yeah.

Put her arm up, you guys, as Raven demonstrated, just like that.

[laughs] Okay.

Elvis Presley, guys, was my wedding song.

Whatever.

Noelle.

On one hand, it was a reference to ancient Memphis, Egypt, pharaohs, pyramids, and monumental art.

But it also referenced Memphis, Tennessee, the birthplace of rock and roll, Elvis, and American diner culture.

This collision of the so-called highbrow ancient history and lower pop culture captured the exact mood the group wanted to celebrate.

In September of 1981, the Memphis Group had their debut exhibition at the Ark 74 showroom in Milan.

Musical extraordinaire Jim Steinman actually meant Two Out of Three Ain't Bad to be more straightforward, less of his usual sprawling multi-part rock epics that, that he became known for.

He actually said the main hook came to him after he heard an oldies station playing an Elvis track.

It was his number one hit I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, and he remembered it like this.

He said, "The radio station was on an oldies station, and Elvis was singing I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, and I just started s- humming my own version right away," basically just matching the rhythm of The King's 1956 ballad.

But then Jim went home, and he tried really hard to get the Elvis lyrics out of his head so he could write something original, but he couldn't do it.

It wouldn't go.

So he added a dramatic twist to it so that it wasn't a straight-ahead love song, but more about a complicated one-sided romance.

Mae Boren Axton was born in 1914.

Legendary songwriter and music executive who co-wrote Elvis Presley's breakthrough hit single Heartbreak Hotel.

Beth Nielsen Chapman was born in 1956.

Acclaimed singer-songwriter renowned for writing emotional hits for the top country artists, most notably Faith Hill's chart-topping song This Kiss.

I know.

First of all, he did it with Elvis Costello.

So he finally had the John Lennon replacement, not that he didn't do great things on his own with Denny Laine and other people-

Yeah

Right.

Jackie DeShannon?

Elvis did it.

Uh, close to you.

New Orleans was also a very musical city and speaking of music, we drove out to Memphis.

There we visited Graceland, the house of Elvis Presley, We also went to where it all began, Sun Studios.

I then finished off the afternoon with a jam at the Gibson Factory.

We continued to Dallas, Texas, right in the heart of the South.

And I was just hanging out in the dressing room with her and she was telling us lots of stories.

She'd gone out with Elvis Presley.

You don't meet many people who can say that, do you? Not exactly.

That's exactly what I thought.

And there were so many questions I wanted to ask about going out with Elvis Presley and what's that like? And she just said, oh, he was the ultimate gentleman.

I said, well, it's not really the bit I want to hear about, but never mind.

She was great, and then I talked to her, but I knew that she had these mad cars at home that she'd had built in the 50s.