![\"\"](\"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Elvis-1.jpg\" "\\"Can")
<\/a>Elvis Presley performed for a packed house at the U.S. Cellular Center (then called the Civic Center) on July 22 and 23, 1975.(Photo: Bill Sanders)<\/p><\/div>\n
The crowd was wild, electricity sparking the air. As overhead lights slowly dimmed to darkness, the audience screamed in anticipation.<\/p>\n
“Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the opening music from the movie” 2001: A Space Odyssey,” grew louder, stronger \u2014 gradually overpowering the thousands of fans. A lone spotlight roamed the blacked-out Civic Center, then suddenly halted, illuminating the King, standing on the stage in a sparkling white jumpsuit.<\/p>\n
The audience blew up with flashbulbs lighting the center as if it was a midsummer day.<\/p>\n
Elvis had made it to Asheville.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve never seen anything like it, before or after,\u201d my friend Ronnie White, owner of A&B Tire and Wheel in Asheville, remembers. \u201cAfter the spotlight went out, the stage lit up. Charlie Hodge, one of Elvis\u2019 back-up singers, tossed him an acoustic guitar. El slipped the strap over his neck and began to sing \u2018C.C. Rider.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ronnie recites the first two lines from memory:\u00a0\u201cOh, C., C.C. Rider, Oh, see what you have done.\u201d He rocks back in his desk chair and leans against a wall filled with Elvis photographs, a 1-Elvis license plate, and an Elvis calendar. \u201cYeah, and you know what? I always thought Elvis was kind of singing about himself in \u2018C.C. Rider.\u2019 He was C.C. Rider.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in 1975, the year of the three sold-out Elvis Asheville concerts, Ronnie was working for Asheville Fence Company on Sweeten Creek Road. \u201cI pawned my\u00a0.22 rifle for $45\u00a0just so I could get tickets for my wife and me for the concert,\u201d he says. \u201cThen the Friday of the show, I drove my personal car to the job site. I didn\u2019t want the company truck to break down and leave me stranded.\u201d<\/p>\n
He grins as he thinks back. \u201cElvis sang all his hits, you know, ‘Hound Dog,’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ Sometime during the show, he sat on the edge of the stage with his legs hanging off the side and greeted women who were bringing him gifts. The line extended all the way to the back of the Civic Center and wound around the side,\u00a0creating a big U. And he met every last one of the folks on line \u2014 that\u2019s the kind of man he was. And I didn\u2019t mind a bit because we got a chance to watch him even longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>A large crowed packed the U.S. Cellular Center (then called the Civic Center) when Elvis Presley came to town in 1975. An event at The Orange Peel on July 30, Viva Ashevegas!, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the concert. (Photo: Bill Sanders)<\/p><\/div>\n
Ronnie sips from a cup of coffee. \u201cYeah, I never met Elvis and I still loved him,\u201d he says. \u201cI learned to play guitar and sing just because of him. And even though he had all his fame and fortune, and besides being the world\u2019s greatest singer, he was still a humble man \u2014 religious\u00a0too.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes he\u2019d just come out of his house at Graceland \u2014 it wasn\u2019t even a big mansion \u2014 and talk with fans by the fence gate. He\u2019d give away Cadillacs, guitars, pay off people\u2019s mortgages. That meant a lot to me. Folks don\u2019t think that way anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pauses, reflecting. \u201cAnd when I visited Graceland, I just didn\u2019t want to leave. I felt like I belonged there. Yeah, I sure didn\u2019t want to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of years after his Asheville concerts, in 1977, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was gone. An emotional tidal wave swept the country. Millions mourned the death of an original, never-to-be-duplicated\u00a0American icon.<\/p>\n
People still remember where they were when they heard the news he had passed. My friend Bob in Wisconsin\u00a0told me his buddy, Randy, a tough farm kid, cried for three days when he heard the King had died. Another friend, Kim, mentioned that when her mother heard the news, she closed her Asheville business, walked into her back office, sat at a table, stared at the wall and broke down. \u201cI\u2019d never seen that before,\u201d Kim said. \u201cMy mother was strong. She hardly ever showed emotion, and rarely\u00a0tears.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was driving \u2014 hours from home \u2014 when the radio announcer interrupted regular programming with the news that Elvis had died. I listened briefly to detail fragments, then turned the radio off and drove straight through from Ohio. I wasn\u2019t ready to hear miles of tribute\/memorial music. I didn\u2019t need the death confirmed over and over again.<\/p>\n
I was too much of a fan to accept the truth.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s true that some didn\u2019t care for Elvis, millions were captivated. Even today, his image still evokes a memory, an emotion, a powerful sense of loss, certainly for his music, flair and style, but also, just maybe, for a long-departed youth.<\/p>\n
\u201cElvis wasn\u2019t supposed to die. Heck, if he could die, anyone could,\u201d Ronnie says, standing up from his desk, shaking his head, part of him still not believing even after all the years. \u201cAnd you know, it didn\u2019t hit me until later in that awful day that nothing would be the same again with him gone.\u201d He looked away. \u201cI just never thought that Elvis could die. When he passed, it broke my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like the rest of us, Ronnie, like the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Oh, C., C.C. Rider, Oh, see what you have done.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note: Elvis Presley would have been 81 on Jan. 8.<\/em><\/p>\n Ted Alexander lives in Asheville. His second novel, \u201cAfter & Before,\u201d came out in October and is available at Malaprop\u2019s Bookstore\/Caf\u00e9 and online book retailers. Ted Alexander lives in Asheville. <\/span>Contact him at TedMAlexander.com\/contact<\/a>.<\/p>\n Learn more about the author and the novels online at TedMAlexander.com\/Books.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Asheville Citizen-Times 1\/21\/2016 – Ted Alexander, Columnist – The crowd was wild, electricity sparking the air.<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[12,15,9],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-asheville-citizen-times-articles","tag-asheville-nc","tag-elvis","tag-ted-m-alexander","h-entry","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iRM4-5U","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tedmalexander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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