MARIE
25.10.2008, 17:39
Tom Regrets Not Keeping In Touch With Elvis
His friendship with Elvis provided him with some of his most cherished memories. They never performed together publicly, but they often went to Elvis's hotel suite for a sing-song when they were both playing Vegas . "He'd say, 'I'll get the group up and we'll do something' and I'd already done two shows. There were two songs he loved at the time. A song Kris Kristofferson wrote called Why Me and Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly. Once he latched on to something, he wouldn't let it go. So we're at the suite, comparing gospel I learned in Wales with gospel he learned in Mississippi. We must have sung The Old Rugged Cross a dozen times with an electric piano and his vocal group, the Sweet Inspirations. He'd say, 'D'you think I'd like Wales, Tom, if I came over ?' I said, 'You'd love the male voice choirs.' I had this vision of taking him up the Rhondda valley and having him sing with all the choirs."
For the last two years of Presley's life, Jones never saw him. He knew he'd become addicted to diet pills and had turned in on himself, but he didn't know how desperate he was. In 1977, Presley died and Jones still regrets that he didn't make more of an effort to help him. Towards the end he had stopped taking calls. "I didn't know Elvis was sick. I thought he was just getting lazy — he was getting heavy and pushed people away from him. The first thing that hit me after he died was I should have gone and seen him. Priscilla called me, and said, 'When you show up, you give him a spark. He's got this competitive spark in him again.' So I thought maybe I could have given him that shot again. Maybe."
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His friendship with Elvis provided him with some of his most cherished memories. They never performed together publicly, but they often went to Elvis's hotel suite for a sing-song when they were both playing Vegas . "He'd say, 'I'll get the group up and we'll do something' and I'd already done two shows. There were two songs he loved at the time. A song Kris Kristofferson wrote called Why Me and Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly. Once he latched on to something, he wouldn't let it go. So we're at the suite, comparing gospel I learned in Wales with gospel he learned in Mississippi. We must have sung The Old Rugged Cross a dozen times with an electric piano and his vocal group, the Sweet Inspirations. He'd say, 'D'you think I'd like Wales, Tom, if I came over ?' I said, 'You'd love the male voice choirs.' I had this vision of taking him up the Rhondda valley and having him sing with all the choirs."
For the last two years of Presley's life, Jones never saw him. He knew he'd become addicted to diet pills and had turned in on himself, but he didn't know how desperate he was. In 1977, Presley died and Jones still regrets that he didn't make more of an effort to help him. Towards the end he had stopped taking calls. "I didn't know Elvis was sick. I thought he was just getting lazy — he was getting heavy and pushed people away from him. The first thing that hit me after he died was I should have gone and seen him. Priscilla called me, and said, 'When you show up, you give him a spark. He's got this competitive spark in him again.' So I thought maybe I could have given him that shot again. Maybe."
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