Had he lived, Elvis Presley would have celebrated his 90th birthday today (January 8, 2025). Sadly, Elvis passed away at the young age of 42 after suffering a heart attack on August 16, 1977, while at home at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Presley, of course, was the first true rock ‘n’ roll superstar, whose charisma, powerful voice, and engaging melding of the country music and blues helped make the genre popular throughout the world.
The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, as Presley is known, inspired countless other famous artists to devote their lives to rock music. In honor of Presley’s milestone birthday, here are what four other rock legends had to say about Elvis’ impact on their own lives and careers.
John Lennon
The late John Lennon made no bones about how important Presley was to him and his iconic band The Beatles.
During a 1980 interview conducted by journalist/author David Sheff for Playboy magazine, Lennon said, “Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles. When I first heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ my whole life changed. I was completely shaken by it. I thought, ‘This is it!’ and I started trying to grow sideboards [sideburns] and all that gear.”
When The Beatles had the chance to meet Presley in person in 1965, Lennon was said to be so starstruck he could hardly speak to his idol. Elvis’ close friend Jerry Schilling recalled in an interview that after the historic meeting, Lennon chatted with him and asked him to relay a message from him to Presley.
Schilling shared that Lennon said, “I didn’t have the courage to Elvis this, would you tell him? … You see these sideburns? I almost got kicked out of high school ’cause I wanted to look like Elvis. [The Beatles] wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for him.”
The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards
The blues and early rock ‘n’ roll have always been major influences on The Rolling Stones’ music. Stones guitarist Keith Richards’ passion for Chuck Berry’s music is well known, but he also was a huge fan of Presley from the very start.
In his 2010 memoir Life, Richards recalled being blown away when he first heard an Elvis song on the radio.
“[T]he one that really turned me on, like an explosion one night, listening to Radio Luxembourg on my little radio when I was supposed to be in bed and asleep, was ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’” Keith wrote. “That was the stunner. I’d never heard it before, or anything like it. I’d never heard of Elvis before. It was almost as if I’d been waiting for it to happen. When I woke up the next day, I was a different guy.”
He continued, “That was the first rock and roll I heard. It was a totally different way of delivering a song, a totally different sound, stripped down, burnt, no bulls—, no violins and ladies’ choruses and schmaltz, totally different. It was bare, right to the roots that you had a feeling were there but hadn’t heard yet. I’ve got to take my hat off to Elvis for that.”
Richards also recalled that around 1959, when he was 15, he had a notebook where he’d write down lists of his favorite rock ‘n’ roll songs.
“Elvis … had a section in the notebook all to himself,” he revealed.” The very first album I bought [was Presley’s U.K. debut album]. ‘Mystery Train,’ ‘Money Honey,’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ ‘I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone.’ The crème de la crème of his Sun stuff. I slowly acquired a few more, but that was my baby.”
Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant was an admirer of Presley from a very early age.
In a 2020 interview with BBC host Jools Holland, Plant was asked what music first made an impression on him. Plant recalled that as a child, he was listening to a BBC radio program where servicemen would send in song requests, and one tune that was requested was “Hound Dog.”
“It was kind of an opiate,” Robert said of the effect the song had on him. “Something happened when I heard the sound of that record. It certainly made me put my stamp collection to one side for a bit.”
In a 2005 interview with music journalist Bill Flanagan, Plant expanded a bit on Presley’s impact on him.
“[When] I heard Elvis, I was about nine or something like that,” Robert explained. “[T]his voice came across, in amongst Pat Boone and Johnny Mathis … Elvis came straight through, and he had the blue note. He was listening to Sleepy John Estes, he was listening to [Arthur Crudup,] the guy who did ‘That’s All Right Mama.’ He got all this stuff, ‘Mystery Train,’ Little Junior Parker’s Blue Flames. I didn’t know anything about the references. I didn’t know anything about what I know now, where it came from, but I heard that voice.”
Presley’s influence on Plant is on full display on the 1979 Led Zeppelin song “Hot Dog.” In addition, Plant scored a hit in 1984 as part of the one-off supergroup The Honeydrippers with “Rockin’ at Midnight,” which Elvis recorded in 1954 under the title “Good Rockin’ Tonight.”
Bruce Springsteen
In his 2016 memoir Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen writes extensively about how seeing Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show changed his life and inspired him to go out and get his first guitar.
“Seventy million Americans that night were exposed to this hip-shaking human earthquake,” Bruce wrote. “A fearful nation was protected from itself by the CBS cameramen, who were told to shoot ‘the kid’ only from the waist up. No money shots! No shifting, grinding, joyfully thrusting crotch shots. It didn’t matter. It was all there in his eyes, his face, the face of a Saturday night jukebox Dionysus, the shimmying eyebrows and rocking band. A riot ensued.”
Springsteen continued, “When it was over that night, those few minutes, when the man with the guitar vanished into a shroud of screams, I sat there transfixed in front of the television set, my mind on fire. I had the same two arms, two legs, two eyes; I looked hideous, but I’d figure that part out…so what was missing? THE GUITAR!!”
Bruce described the instrument as “The master key, the sword in the stone, the sacred talisman, the staff of righteousness, the greatest instrument of seduction the teenage world had ever known, the…the…‘ANSWER’ to my alienation and sorrow.”
He concluded his rant by say, “[The guitar] was a reason to live, to try to communicate with the other poor souls stuck in the same position I was. And…they sold them right downtown at the Western Auto store!”
Springsteen then discussed how he convinced his mother to rent a guitar for him at a local music store. Although he was initially discouraged in his attempts to play the instrument and soon returned it, Springsteen would eventually buy his own guitar several years later.
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