Shortly after midnight Elvis returns to Graceland from a late-night visit to the dentist. Through the early morning of the 16th he takes care of last minute tour details and relaxes with family and staff. He is to fly to Portland, Maine that night and do a show there on the 17th, then continue the scheduled tour. He retires to his master suite at Graceland around 7:00 AM to rest for his evening flight. By late morning, Elvis Presley is dead of heart failure. It is announced by mid-afternoon. In a matter of hours the shock registers around the world.
Elvis died about 6 weeks after I started in Radio.
I was 17.
I was working weekends at CHAB Moose Jaw reading the news and hanging around the other 5 days a week trying to figure out how this whole thing worked.
I remember our PD Don West who actually gave me the name Humble, was very upset and went into full Elvis Tribute mode right away. People loved it.
Don was an old guy,(35!) and a big Elvis fan and we put our station into Elvis overdrive.
It was a pretty big deal for me, someone who had been in high school 7 weeks before, to witness the kind of immediacy and power that Radio could have and provide.
I was never an Elvis fan but I learned then what kind of impact he had. It was the same 3 years later when I was doing all-nights in Vancouver the night that Lennon was shot.
When I think about Elvis in the summer of 1977 now I remember that time in Radio.
I'm more than a little freaked out though that I'm now 10 years older than my "old guy" boss was 30 years ago.
Category: BREAKING NEWS...SORT OF
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