On This Day in 2013, We Lost the Air Force Veteran and World-Famous Quartet Member Who Performed With Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, and Elvis

When Gordon Stoker died on this day (March 27) in 2013 at age 88, a wealth of firsthand knowledge about the career of superstar Elvis Presley died with him. Stoker was the last surviving member of the Jordanaires, a gospel quartet who toured and recorded with the “Burning Love” crooner in the fifties. The Jordanaires became one of Nashville’s premier background vocal groups and a major contributor to the famous Nashville Sound, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Born in Gleason, Tennessee, on Aug. 3, 1924, Hugh Gordon Stoker was a well-known commodity on the local music scene by age 12, playing piano at church and performing with the Clement Trio on WTJS in Jackson. At 15, he sang at the Grand Ole Opry with Nashville’s John Daniel Quartet, making him one of the Opry’s youngest performers.

In 1943, Stoker began a three-year stint with the U.S. Air Force, serving as a teletype operator in Australia and the Philippines during World War II. After his discharge, he tried his hand at college, but couldn’t shake his yearning for the bright lights of Nashville. In 1950, Stoker successfully auditioned for a piano-playing role with the Jordanaires, a popular gospel quartet formed two years earlier. After one of his fellow members fell ill in late 1951, he took over as first tenor.

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Gordon Stoker Recalls Meeting Elvis Presley

The Jordanaires began recording for Capitol Records in the early 1950s. Soon, they were providing background vocals on recordings for solo performers. By 1955, they had made a fan out of Elvis Presley, whom they met backstage at a 1955 concert with Eddy Arnold.

Signed with Sun Records at the time, Presley told the men he wanted them as backup singers if he ever landed a contract with a major label. While the Jordanires wished Elvis well, “we never expected to hear from him again,” Gordon Stoker said. “People were always coming up and saying that. We’re still told that.”

Long story short, Elvis made good on that promise, and the Jordanaires would sing backup on more than 200 of the King of Rock and Roll’s records. In an interview, Stoker reflected on the superstar’s warm, down-to-earth nature in the studio.

“The Jordanaires worked with everybody in the world, as you know, but Elvis was a little bit different from all the rest of them in the fact that he would come into the studio and go over and shake each person’s hand and tell them something a little funny,” he recalled.

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