R&b
Bob Dylan has always professed his love for the King. As a kid in Duluth, hearing Elvis Presley’s brand of rock ‘n’ roll fervour lit a fire in him, one that has never gone out. In one famous interview, Dylan said: “Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
Yet the two never quite crossed paths. Elvis took a liking to Bob Dylan’s songwriting during the 60s, and recorded a few of his songs – including the ballad ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’, included in the Elvis flick Spinout.
Drawn into one another’s orbit, Bob Dylan turned down the chance to meet Elvis, reflecting to Rolling Stone in 2009: “I never met Elvis because I didn’t want to meet him.”
In another interview, Dylan recalled: “The two or three times we were in Hollywood, he sent his people from the Memphis Mafia to where we were to take us to see him. But none of us wanted. Why go? It seemed kind of sad.”
With Elvis fading, Bob Dylan didn’t want to witness the decline of his hero: “I don’t know if I would have wanted to see him like that. I wanted to see the powerful and mythical Elvis, the one that had landed on American soil like a burning star. The Elvis who was full of life. That’s the Elvis who inspired us in life. And that Elvis was gone, he had left the building.”
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In one remarkable tale, Bob Dylan – and George Harrison – actually turned down the chance to record with Elvis Presley.
The two were close, and attended an Elvis concert at Madison Square Garden in New York together. That evening in 1972 could have been historic, and sparked rumours that the duo – together with Elvis – were going to record together. According to lore, Elvis failed to turn up to the studio.
As it happens, the rejection was the other way round – in a 2017 interview with Bill Flanagan, Bob Dylan recalled: “He did show up. We were the ones who didn’t do it.”
When Elvis Presley died in 1977, Dylan lost the chance to meet his idol – and, potentially, work with him. The news shook the songwriter to his core, sparking a week-long period of silent reflection. “I went over my whole life,” recalled Dylan. “I went over my whole childhood. I didn’t talk to anyone for a week.”
What could have been…
