I am 57 years old and saw Elvis perform live from 1969-1975 - 36 shows in all, mostly in Vegas and most of those I sat by the stage. I came to know people who knew him. NOT the MM guys, but others who worked in the hotel or came often..some “gate-girls”, etc.
I have in the past written Elvis articles and show reviews for Rex Martin, Strictly Elvis, Reflections (Charlie Hodge and Dan Mingori’s publication in the late 1970's), Elvis World, and several other Elvis magazines through the years. All this under my former name of “Christine Hayes”.
After Elvis’ death I came to know Wanda June Hill and some of the other people like her, who developed friendships with Elvis mostly over the telephone at first, due to his reaching out to them...to ordinary people who were not originally “Elvis fans”. How did he find them? On movie sets (extras, etc.) was one way. Once he had a “phone friend” he would call THEIR friends or family members.
Wanda Hill did not write her first book alone...she does not tell her story alone. There were 13 others in her Elvis phone group, and they knew Elvis had others he called like that as well. All 13 and Wanda contributed to her story. I have known Wanda now for about 26 years. She is one of the most sane, loving and honest people I know. I have met some others of the 13 and they are also nice, decent, normal people.
I have listened to (many times) excerpts from Wanda’s recorded conversations with Elvis. I have read almost all the transcripts of these conversations. I heard on those tapes the same man who spoke on the stage in Vegas at rare times in a confidential tone of voice different from the stage “Elvis”. When he would switch to that voice he was no longer “Elvis Presley” but instead became Gladys Presley’s boy. When I first listened to Wanda’s tapes I didn’t hear “Elvis Presley” speaking, but Gladys’ boy. I knew without a doubt at that moment that it WAS Elvis. It was the very same voice he switched to on a very rare few occasions on stage...lost in thought, in memory of the past, sharing with his audience just as he shared with Wanda and other of his phone friends. Then he would snap back and be “Elvis” again and get on with the show.
Much of Wanda’s tapes, transcripts and letters written by Elvis...many to her directly, reveal private information that would not be publically known, but which I already knew, at least in part from the other people I had met before who knew Elvis. In other words, her “Elvis” matched theirs. Not only in personality, but in certain private details of his life.
Before you “cast your stones” at Wanda June Hill I ask you to stop and think how people do exactly the same thing to Elvis. They hear a snatch of something someone says about him, or hear just one song...maybe “Hound Dog”, and he becomes a drugged-out eccentric who couldn’t sing much and was a dumb as they come. Are you willing to make the same judgement call about someone because you read one letter and scanned over a website quickly? Especially when NOTHING on that website or of Wanda’s story about Elvis is negative, invasive or dis-respectful of his memory?
Would Elvis himself make negative statements about another human being he didn’t know and had barely any information on? As he said, “Don’t judge someone you don’t know, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.”
If you wish to take a more unbiased look at Wanda’s story, the letters, documents, etc:
http://www.elvislightedcandle.org/WJH/wjh_index.htm
I will not be responding any further to dis-respectful postings on the TCB Forums. Many thanks to those of you who are reading this with an open mind and heart.
One of the TCB Forum theads which prompted my response above:
http://www.tcb-world.com/showthread.php?t=6898
