HE TOUCHED ME (An Elvis Story)

I was watching a re-run of the PBS Elvis Presley special, “He Touched Me” today, and one segment was especially insightful. (Perhaps, “it went right by me” the first and second times around).

J.D. Sumner met the not yet discovered adolescent when he was singing with the Blackwood Brothers. Presley was 14 at the time, and had shown up for a concert.

Sumner had, apparently, run into the boy in the theater foyer, or an alleyway, and Elvis told him he didn’t have the money to get in. The gruff-voiced 6’6” Gospel singer told him that anytime he wanted to come to the stage door, anywhere he sang, he’d let him in for free. Over the years, the two developed an increasingly closer bond.

As the segment closed, and gave way to the next, the late great Gospel singer mused,

“After Elvis became famous there were times I had to go to his stage door to get in, …‘cause I didn’t have any money!” (Whether this is just an exaggeration for effect, who can say)?

Elvis was far from perfect. We are all too familiar with his unfaithfulness to his wife, Priscilla, his wild parties while he was on the road, his addiction to prescription drugs, and the hypocrisy which surrounded what he might have described as his “Christian faith.”

But whereas, the majority of what some refer to as “backslidden Christians” tend to distance themselves from every vestige of the Gospel, Presley seemed to do the opposite.

He even insisted on singing, “Peace in the Valley” on the Ed Sullivan Show. Although, the producers of the television production attempted to deter him, he responded with,

“My mama loves that song, and she wants me to sing it; (and I’m going to sing it”)!

(And sing it, he did).

Pt. 2

Many preachers of that day, and time spoke against Elvis and his music, not the least of which was his below the waist gyrations. (He was sometimes filmed from the waist up, as a matter of so-called “public decency”).

In one infamous sermon, southern Pastor Jimmy Snow exclaimed, (paraphrased)

“I am concerned for the welfare of our young people, and how certain factions are corrupting the morals of our teenagers with their music. I’m convinced that the corruption of our society is, at some level, influenced by the music of our society.

When they sing, you feel it down to your toes. You ask one of our youngsters what they like about the music, they’ll tell you, ‘the beat, the beat, the beat.’”

It is said that when Elvis got wind of the criticism of certain vocal ministers throughout the country, he cried.  And after he had time to “settle down,” he said,

“I ain’t trying to corrupt the youth of this country. I’m just doing what I’ve always done with my music. I’m doing the exact same thing I do in church; only different music and different words.”

Whether you like Elvis or whether you don’t, who can deny he will go down in the annals of international recording history as the greatest singer who ever lived.

He left us far too soon, and he left a void in the world that has never yet been filled.

by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Elvis Stories." Copyright pending