A : I started playing guitar back in the early 50's. My dad played and he showed me what he knew and I just kind of went from there. And one of the first bands I was with was a guy named Eddie Bond and the Stompers. This was like 1955 or 56 in Memphis, a rockabilly band. And we toured, this guy named Bob Neal used to book us, let's see, it was us and Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and sometimes Elvis would be on some of these things. We worked that whole year of 1956 with Eddie Bond. We were just rocking around all over the country. After that I went to Shreveport and worked on the Louisiana Hayride, Elvis had just left down there. I was working with Johnny Horton, had a record called 'Battle of New Orleans'. Anyway, I was with him until I got drafted in 1960. I spent a couple of years in Ethiopia, of all places, with the army. Came back and I formed a group with Bill Black, a bass player with Elvis, I formed that group with Bill in 1959, Bill Blacks Combo. And we had a record out, it was called 'Smokey Part 1 and Part 2'. And we toured for a couple of years. And then we all quit the road and was stayed in studio at Hi Studio, Hi Records in Memphis. And I was there for a few years and went in around 1964 I went on tour with the Beatles, that was their first tour and with the Bill Black Combo. They requested us to be the opening act for them on their first tour of America, and so we did that. That was a hoot, and Elvis trivia: a guy names Malcolm Evans was their road manager and he was a card-carrying Elvis fan, he belonged to the Elvis fan club and he was proud to show that right in the midst of all this Beatle mania going on.

And after that, sometime around 65, I got with Chips Momon and Tommy Cogbill, bass player. And we just sort of bound ourselves together and got Gene Chrisman, Bobby Emmons and Bobby Wood and Mike Leech and formed the Memphis Rhythm Section at American Studio where we cut Elvis in '69 I guess. But during that time that we were there, I'm not sure, somebody I've heard, well, ridiculous numbers, I think the honest number of the hits that we cut with the same band, just different producers, was somewhere around 120 something. And everybody from Elvis to the whole gamut of R&B artists: Wilson Pickett and Dionne Warwick and, it was quite a list that we did that. And I was there until 72. And then, we packed up everything and moved to Atlanta and stayed down there for about six months. And then we sort of all disbanded, I came to Nashville. Actually, we're all the band, the American band, here in Nashville now. And, everybody, as far as I know still playing and having a great time.

Q : When was the first time you heard of Elvis?

A : The first time I heard of him was probably maybe through the disc jockey, Dewey Phillips in Memphis because everybody listened to Dewey Phillips when I was in high school. He got 'Thats All Right Mama' and 'Blue Moon of Kentucky'. And he would just play them over and over and over again. And it was an R&B station, it was black artists, and here's this guy shows up. You know, that was probably the first time I ever heard of him.

Q : What did you think when you heard the record?

A : Oh, I thought he was very unusual, very different. I thought he was really cool. I knew, well, it was a place in Memphis called the Eagle's Nest. And they had a western swing band playing, it was a pretty big band. And Elvis played the intermission. And, I remember Bill Black was still working at Firestone. And Elvis had this pink coat on. He bought his clothes from Lansky Brothers down on Beale Street, which was outrageous back then, but it was cool because nobody did that. You know, not the white guys anyway. And he was just kind of his own. And, they would play the intermissions. The band would play like 45 minutes and Elvis, Bill and Scotty Moore would go on and play. And I knew Bill and Scotty just from things and records from back then. And, when the western swing band would play then, it wouldn't be anybody in there. When the intermission band, which was Elvis and his guys, everybody would rush in out of the parking lot and just pack the place, you know. And they'd play for 15 minutes and then when they'd quit they'd jump back out and then the western swing band played.

Q : Was that when you first met Elvis?

A : The first time I met him was at a radio station, I believe it was WMPS. There was a disc jockey named Dick Stewart. And he had a nickname, Poor Richard or something, I can't remember. But, I was up there with a friend of mine. And, Elvis came in with his record and gave it to Dick Stewart and introduced himself. And Kenneth, the guy I was with, knew Elvis. Anyway, we walked around down Main Street and Elvis went in Kress, this dime store, and he was flirting with the chick behind the counter, you know, and carrying on with her. That's the first time I'd ever seen him.

Q : Tell us about Elvis, you guys, American when Elvis played there.

A : Well, it wasn't state of the art, I mean, it wasn't like, you'd walk in and you'd think it was pretty funky because it didn't have all the latest gear and technology and all that stuff, it's a great place to work. I mean, there was no bells and whistles. Anyway, I was over there, we had cut at that time with this particular rhythm section, same guys. We had songs in the charts every week like on Billboard and Cashbox. And, so we had been planning on just tons of hit records. And anyway, we heard that Elvis was coming in. Chips Momon said, 'Hey, we gonna be cutting Elvis. Well, that's cool'. And it wasn't like it was a big thing, Elvis hasn't had a record out, hadn't had a major hit in years. And, it was kind of exciting, you know, Elvis is gonna be there. But it wasn't like we were hard to impress I guess at that time because we had worked with all these acts that were just really hot at the time.

And this back door opens and he walks in. And, God, I'll never forget it. I was kind of amazed at my reaction. I said, 'Dang, that's Elvis Presley'. I mean, we all just kind of backed up a step. You know, man, he had this charisma about him that was just dressed to the hilt. He had on a blue leather jacket, I'll never forget that and had a scarf. You know, and then he came in and he just owned the world, you know. But he was so cool, and he was a star, I mean, he was a star when he walked in that back door.

Q : Didn't Neil Diamond already have the time at that time?

A : We had been recording with Neil Diamond and there's another guy named Roy Hamilton was in there also. And so it was in that same frame that we did Elvis. As a matter of fact, when we got through with those sessions, we went back and we were finishing up some stuff we did with Roy Hamilton. Elvis really liked him.

Q : He did 'Angelica'?

A : 'Angelica'. Anyway, the back door opened while we were doing right in the middle of Roy Hamilton's session. And the back door opens again and it's Elvis walks in and he's got this song. And he said, 'I think this would be a great song for you, Roy'. And he took it up and we gave it to him. And we cut it and it was 'Angelica'.

Q : Did you record that song with Elvis?

A : I don't remember that, I dont know.

Q : What did Elvis say to the group when he came in?

A : Oh God, well, they had, you know, after we kind of broke the ice a little bit, he had a lot of songs that they had brought over from his publishing company. And it was like, I guess it was like movie songs. I remember they was playing something and Jarvis was there. They had a little turn table up in front of the control room and played this one. And, I remember Elvis turning and said, 'You like that?' And I said, 'Not particularly'. And he asked Bobby Wood, and Bobby Wood said, 'Man, that's awful'. You know, I think it kind of upset Felton that we might have, anyway he just asked and we was being honest. But anyway, I think Momon pitched either 'In The Ghetto' or 'Suspicious Minds' to him in the control room. And he liked it, he liked both of those. And, as I remember there was a guy there in a suit, with RCA, some official. He got Momon off to the side and said, 'We need, if he's gonna do any outside material, we'd like to have publishing'. They were trying to make a deal or something to. Momon said, 'Well, we have a reputation of cutting hit records. And if you don't want to do that, he didn't want to give him publishing up'. He said, 'If you don't want to do that, why don't y'all just leave?' Well, that got back to George Klein and George said something to Elvis about it. And Elvis made everybody else leave. So everybody else was out of the studio and that's the way we cut those records. And I remember Elvis would talk about, come on with Chips and say, 'Elvis, you might want to do you know, stop in the middle of a thing'. 'I think you can do that last line a little better or something'. But I think he really appreciated that a little criticism. And he really tried, he did a great job on those things that we did there. But, Chips wasn't afraid to talk to him like any other artist. And I'm sure he appreciated the professional advice that he gave him. You know, because he really tried, I mean, he tried and did his best. And the result was those hit records he had.

Q : Did George Klein bring in 'Suspicious Minds'?

A : You know, we had cut 'Suspicious Minds' on, one of the writers that worked there, his name was Mark James, for Sceptor Records I think. And the arrangement was pretty much what we did with Mark, as what we did with Elvis. Oh there was one thing, it was this guitar. Chips had traded a guitar, had traded a set of keyboard bells to Scotty Moore. Scotty had a studio in town at that time. Scotty wanted those bells, keyboard bells and traded this beautiful super 400 Gibson guitar that he played on a lot of these Elvis classics Scotty played. Well, anyway, this guitar had been laying around the studio, it was always there. You know, and I'd pick it up and play it sometimes. Anyway, I thought, dang, Elvis is gonna come in, it would be great to play that guitar on this stuff. So we sent it out and had it all fixed up and playable and everything. You know, and that's what I played on all that stuff we did with him. It was with Scotty's old guitar, you know.

Q : Where is that guitar?

A : Chips just auctioned it I think at Christies in London.

Q : You should have taken that guitar with you when you left.

A : Yea I should have, I should have stuck it in my trunk.

Q : You played tunes like 'Suspicious Minds'?

A : 'Suspicious Minds' and everything we did. 'In The Ghetto' I had a an old gut string guitar, I still got it, that I played on that. And, matter of fact, I almost brought it down here, I thought it might be cool to play it.

Q : Do you remember Mac Davis coming in and playing?

A : Yea, Mac Davis, what I played on In The Ghetto is exactly the way he played it, it was the same lick. I remember when Mac Davis pitched 'In The Ghetto' and he played it while Elvis was there. And he played that same guitar lick and I just stole it right off of him and played the same thing on Elvis record. But that's the way he wanted me to do, I mean, you know, that was the if I could have thought of a better guitar lick to put on it, I would have. But I couldn't come up with anything better than what Mac had already played so I just aped what he did and played that on 'In The Ghetto'.

Q : Elvis' sense of humor, did that come through a lot during the sessions?

A : Yea, you could tell he was very relaxed, he wasn't up tight about nothing. He was just like we're sitting around in this room and just started talking and it took a while to get over the fact that he was who he is, you know. But, then we were just like a band, everybody and it was, he was a pretty funny guy.

Q : What song are you the most proud of that you worked with Elvis on?

A : Gosh, well, I guess those 'Suspicious Minds', I really enjoyed that. 'In the Ghetto' was so cool because it was, before any over dubs, it was just like I counted it off and it's just me and him, just the two of us. And I remember being kind of nervous, you know, just me and him played for a while before the band came in. And then there's over dubs and sweetening and stuff goes on after that. But the basic track, I remember that was really cool. 'Kentucky Rain', it was, I remember that being a good track.

Q : Where were you when you learned of Elvis passing?

A : I was here in Nashville working for Buddy Kelin. And he came in and said, he had just got a phone call that Elvis had died. And we stopped and went home, everybody left.

Q : What has working with Elvis meant to you?

A : Well, I fell like I was blessed to be just a little small part of having to playing on some of his records. As I look back I'm totally honored that I was there, I feel like I'm totally blessed that I was there. It was just a magical time and the music. You know, and that whole era back then was just magical. And, I'm just so grateful that I had just a little bitty part of what happened to launch his career again. And, matter of fact he asked us if we would like to go out on the road and go play some gigs with him and do that. And I think we all turned him down because we were sort of into ourselves I guess.

Q : Do you get together with the guys from American Recording Studio and talk over times about Elvis?

A : We got to talking about the Elvis things. But when we all moved to Nashville in 72, nobody hired us as a rhythm section. Buddy Cohen did on occasion. But that just amazes me that they didn't, cause it was such a tight section, you know. But I don't know. That never happened. So we didn't work together a lot as a band here. And usually when we got together, we'd talk about our Memphis days. Cause we had such a track record of all those hits and stuff that we did. And Elvis was, man, that was a big part of that too, you know.

Q : Of all the performers you played with, do you get the question, what was Elvis like?

A : Yeah. Yeah, all the time. It's amazing, I mean, people ask that probably weren't even born yet at the time Elvis was happening. I remember, I was in the airport one time. a drummer here named Larry Londin. He passed away a few years ago. He and I were in the airport in Toronto. And Larry I think had played the last tour with Elvis. I believe it was the last. He had backstage pass on his bag that he had over his shoulder. I think it had Elvis, maybe Elvis backstage pass or something. And anyway, this girl came up, she was probably 13, 14 years old. And she asked Larry, she said, 'Oh did you see Elvis?' And he said, 'I'm a drummer, and I played on his last tour. Last tour he did'. And she looked at Larry and man, just started crying, you know. So, where does that come from, I'm sure she must have been just a little bitty kid, or even born at all when Elvis was alive.

Q : Have you ever seen reactions to any other performers like that?

A : Never, no.

Q : What was there about Elvis that was really unique? Elvis had a lot of charisma.

A : Oh, he did. I don't know. He was different. Lot of people, when he first started, I guess, probably looked down at him and maybe even laughed at him and stuff. But man, what a energy force he was. I mean, he stuck big tongue out, focusing on something, like going to Lansky's and buying clothes at Lansky Brothers. Nobody did that, you know. And now, dang, everybody does. I mean, he started the whole trend of everything. Music, the way he looked, clothes. He wouldn't back off one instant, either. Not one thing. He was Elvis, and if nobody liked him, there'll never be anybody like him, ever, you know. I don't know how you could top that act, you know.

Q : Do you have a special memory with Elvis?

A : Well, it's all a special moment. But especially American, the one on one, when we were just sittin around talking and you know, after the fact I look back and say, man I was just sittin around talking to Elvis. And, and he wasn't the king, he was just Elvis Presley.

Q Close : He's probably looking down and saying, that old Reggie. Thanks for everything.