September 30, 2024 • 46 mins
The link to purchase Unlocked: Memoirs of Elvis’s First Girlfriend is here:www.dixielocke.bigcartel.com
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Got any partners. You're listening to Conversations with Jacob, hosted
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with Jacob at gmail dot com. Now here's your host,
(01:11):
Jacob Waller.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And welcome back to another episode of Conversations with Jacob.
Today is episode eighty not quite sure it's eighty something
at this point. Before we get to our guest this week,
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Andy Barney, Opie Goober, Floyd de Barber. That's some of
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Speaker 2 (02:55):
And also you could check out the Life Shows Monday
at eight pm on YouTube or two Church Nowaiting dot com.
And also if you got a birthday, her, a weddin
or whatever it is, oh oh, if you could book
me on CAMEO for that at fifteen dollars, which I
know there's some of five hundred daughters and all that,
but you know, you know, I'm a fifteen daughters. Anyways,
(03:18):
and joining me this week is Christy Emmons Jones. She's
the co writer of Unlocked Memories of Elvis's First Girlfriend,
and we're going to talk about Elvis and his first girlfriend,
Dixie Locke. So, with no further introductions, unlet's welcome Christy
to the podcast. Kind of welcome aboard.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Hey, how are you, Jacob glad to be here?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, Now, for people who don't know who you are,
can you give us a background?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I'd be happy to. Yeah. So my name is Christy.
I am the daughter of Dixie Locke, and in the
Elvis world, my mother is known as Elvis's first girl friend.
He met at church. A lot of people tend to
assume that because they met as teenagers that they went
(04:12):
to the same high school together, but they did not.
As you know, Elvis went to Hume's High School. My
mother went to a neighboring Memphis school here in Memphis
called Southside. So they met at church, First Assembly of
God Church. Elvis came to that church to specifically hear
(04:34):
a gospel quartet, the Blackwood Brothers. As everybody knows, Elvis's
first love of music was in the gospel sector, and
he specifically loved southern gospel quartet music. So the Blackwood
Brothers were based at my mother's church. That was the
initial purpose that Elvis came there. My mom was just
(04:58):
barely sixteen and Elvis was nineteen when they.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Met, now if I remember correctly, and she kind of
kind of invited him out to the skating rink and
she talked to him that way, and if I remember
the story correctly, and she made a fake telephone call
to her mom so she could stay up with Elvis.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
That's exactly right, Jacob, she did. I really, as I
got old enough to fully embrace the story, I thought
she was a very clever teenager with the approach that
she took. So, you know, she, like many other people
have talked about, she said that Elvis was painfully shy
(05:46):
as a young man, and she knew that he would
most likely not have the courage to approach her and
initiate any type of conversation. So in the church lobby,
she and her girlfriends started making plans to go roller
skating the next weekend, and she said that she purposely
(06:08):
talked loud enough so that Elvis would be able to
overhear the conversation, hoping that Elvis would show up, and
so when they got to the skating rink, she and
her girlfriends got to the skating rink the following weekend,
Elvis was there. So she walked up to him and said,
(06:31):
you know, hey, my name is Dixie, and he said,
I know who you are, and so that opened the
gates of conversation, and she said that Elvis was not
a skater at all, and so she said, well, hey,
instead of skating, let's just go sit over on the
side and talk. So they did. They turned their skates in,
(06:55):
they sat and talked for the rest of the night,
and Elvis if he could take her home. So to
your reference, that is when my mother made the pretend
phone call to call my grandparents and ask permission. The
fact of the matter was that my family at that
(07:17):
point did not even have a phone. So she made
that phone call in a in a pretend way, and
then told Elvis that she had permission to go home
with for him to take her.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Home now, and what was their relationship?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Like, you know, she said that immediately they became very
very close to each other. They had so much in common.
Their faith was very important to both of them. They
(07:59):
both were very close to their families, and they quickly
became very close to each other's families as well. So
faith was very important to both of them. Family was
very important to both of them, and their love of
music and so, you know, those things just quickly bonded
(08:22):
them as teenagers and they became extremely close, just almost inseparable,
and spent a lot of time with each other's families too.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Now was there ever talk about a long term a
relationship or maybe even marriage.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, between them, very much so. In fact, in fact,
the Presley's, Vernon and Gladys Elvis's parents really wanted them
to get married pretty quickly. But keep in mind, you know,
was nineteen, he was already out of high school. My
mother was not out of high school. So my mother
(09:07):
said that, you know, she had promised her parents that
she would finish high school. She was not going to
get married until then. So the plan was that as
soon as my mom graduated high school that they would
get married. So they were very serious that that was
(09:28):
their initial intention. And then the timing of Elvis's career
really really started to explode. It was so much faster
and so much bigger than any of them had imagined.
And so that obviously changed the course of both of
(09:52):
their lives. And you know, they ultimately did not get married,
but they were very areas and had talked about that
for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
No, and what was the reason that they broke.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Up, Well, just to the reason that I was just
talking about. You know, my mom always talked to people
about the fact that she wanted a husband that was
a Monday through Friday, you know, eight to five kind
(10:28):
of men, home on the weekends, going to church on Sundays.
She had visions of a very simple, simple life and
which was very similar to how she and Elvis were
both raised. But you know, Elvis's Elvis's dreams were so
(10:52):
big and his his gifts to the world were so
big that it really would not allow them to have
the kind of life that my mom wanted. And so,
you know, she said it was they never really had
a breakup conversation, because they always cared very deeply for
(11:16):
one another. But she said it was more just the
realization of his life was taking him in such a
bigger way into a bigger life, and she stayed true
to what she wanted and knew that he needed to
stay true to his dreams as well, and that did
(11:37):
not allow them to, you know, stay together. So it
was just the reality of their lives going in different directions.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Now now, and how does she handle the breakup?
Speaker 4 (11:53):
You know, it was I think that it had happened
somewhat gradually, you know, key in mind that Elvis was
by that and Mom and Elvis met in nineteen fifty three.
The most famous photo of Mom and Elvis is the
(12:14):
one that's on our book. This was actually at Mom's
junior prom. So in this photo she was seventeen and
Elvis was twenty. So by this point and Elvis's career,
he was already starting to do a lot of travel,
a lot of overnight performances, and then even going into
(12:40):
his Hollywood movie career. So this was evolving over the
time of their courtship. So, you know, I think that
the reality was starting to hit Jacob because he was
gone more and more. The time between her getting deceit
him was getting further and further apart. So I think
(13:04):
that she handled it as best as she could because
it was just the reality of what was happening with
his success in his career.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now, and what does she think about his acting career.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
I think she was, you know, keep in mind that
that my mom was a typical teenage girl, and like
like all the other teenage girls, I think that she
was so enamored to see him on the stage, whether
it was on the movie screen or whether it was
(13:42):
on a stage where he was doing a concert. She
said that it was so transformational to watch him go
from being this shy, awkward, somewhat miss serious young man
(14:02):
to when he took the stage or when he was
you know, filming in Hollywood, that he truly transformed into
this icon that we all still love today. And so
I think that she, you know, I think she loved
seeing him shine because it was quite evident, just as
(14:28):
it is to all of us, that he had something
within him, uh that you know, just really couldn't even
be contained it. It was so natural the gift that
he had when he was in his element of singing
and you know, showing the acting abilities, you know, in Hollywood.
(14:52):
Whatever he did, he did it with such charisma that
no one could deny it or stop it.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Now, Tiss. She watched a sixty eight Comeback special, Yes.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
She did, and you know, she said that she was
just amazed and taken aback by his his presence, his commitment,
his how he was so again, transformational is the word
(15:28):
that just keeps coming back to me, and his his
fame was just continuing to rise and evolve. I feel
the same way about when the Elvis movie came out
a couple of years ago, that it was just a
resurgence of fans who maybe had not been exposed to him,
(15:51):
you know. I mean some of the younger fans had
never listened to Elvis music before that movie, and it
was again just undeniable of what he did, not just
music industry, but in the world in general. And I
think that it says a lot to see what type
(16:14):
of impact he still has today.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now, going back to the Elvis movie and what was
your opinions on it, or maybe your mom's opinion on it.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, I will tell you this. My family was very
honored to have been invited to the VIP screening of
the movie here in Memphis at the guest House at Graceland,
and we were able to meet all of the cast,
(16:45):
my mother and Priscilla. We can talk about that if
you want, but my mom and Priscilla have become very
close friends over the years. It's the sweetest, most unusual
friendship that I ever got to witness. But these two
ladies became very close friends. In fact, they referred to
(17:06):
each other as sisters. And so it was very sweet
that our family got to be part of that movie premiere.
As you know, my mother's character was played portrayed in
the movie. And so before we went to the movie,
I talked with my mom and dad and I said,
(17:26):
you know, listen, there are a couple of things we
need to keep in mind. Number one, this is a
Hollywood production. I knew enough about Baz Luhrman's work that
I knew it was going to be very eccentric. I
knew that it would have a lot of artistic liberties
(17:47):
used in the movie, which it did. So I said,
you know, we need to keep that in mind. And
we also need to keep in mind that the story,
the basis of the story, is being told from the
perspective of Colonel Parker, so it is going to have
a very different interpretation than it's you know, it's not
(18:12):
a documentary about Elvis's life. It's it's it's a Hollywood
interpretation of what it was like to be Colonel Parker's
role in this whole you know, elvis career. So I
was so glad that we went into it with that
(18:35):
open mind, and so I prefaced that before answering your question.
There were things that we really loved about the movie,
and there were some some some things that my mom noted.
First of all, she never ever, uh, in the time
that she was with Elvis, ever saw Gladys drink and
(18:59):
she never heard Elvis purse, so uh, you know, those
things were a little bit of a surprise to her
to see that in the movie. But again, we we
just had to remind ourselves that that's often what happens
(19:21):
with portrayals, not documentary. So but I think overall, what
the movie did to elevate Elvis's significance in the music
industry and in the world was was amazing. I think
(19:41):
that it opened up many many new fans and gave
people an understanding of the type of magnitude, the magnitude
of what he had done in his short life. You know,
it was quite significant. So yeah, I think the movie
(20:06):
was was well done, and I'm glad that it exposed
so many new people to Elvis.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Now you mentioned that your mam, I percid. It became
a good friends. What was her reaction when Elvis mary Priscida.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Well, so you know, I will say this when the
last time that my mother saw Elvis was at Gladys's funeral.
So Gladys passed away in nineteen fifty eight, and Elvis
(20:44):
and my mom had pretty much gone their separate ways
by then, but again they always stayed. It wasn't bitter,
it was it was very amicable. They still were so
close to each other's families, and Gladys loved my mom.
(21:09):
Gladys and my mother were very close. When when Elvis
first started traveling, my mother was still in high school.
She was too young to go with him. So when
he would go on the road many nights, my mom
would often go spend the night with Gladys and Burning.
And when Elvis would get in off the road at
(21:32):
the wee hours of the morning, Gladys and my mother
would get up and cook breakfast and then you know,
Elvis and my mother and Gladys and Burning would sit
down and have breakfast together. So my mother was extremely
close to Gladys. And when Gladys passed, Elvis called my
mother and he said, I really need you, and she
(21:57):
went without hesitation, without fail to be by his side,
and she said that he was the most broken man,
the most grief stricken person that she believed she had
ever seen. She said she really didn't know how Elvis
was going to recoup and go forward without his mom.
(22:22):
So it was a very as you know, it was
a very pivotal time in Elvis's life. So to circle back,
what did my mother think about when Elvis married Priscilla.
So my mother and my father got married in nineteen sixty,
(22:44):
so you know, my mother was moving on with her
life as well, starting a family, and you know, I
think that that she was happy to see Elvis find
someone that he could love and that that that could
(23:05):
be there to be a part of his life, because
after he lost Gladys, he was there was a huge void,
There was a huge void in his life. So I
think that my mom was happy that he could find
someone because you know, she had done the same and
(23:26):
it was just a reality of their lives moving in
different directions.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, But Gladys helped your
mom pick out a dress.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Yes she did so, Uh the dress that that mom
wore to the prom? Uh, Gladys took my mother's shopping
to pick out the dress, and Gladys actually paid for
the dress. My my grandparents rents were from a very
(24:04):
very poor family, and you know, and and Elvis's family
had been very very poor as well. But by this time,
you know, Elvis's career was starting to pick up, and uh,
there was more money being brought into the family. So
Gladys just got such joy out of taking my mom
(24:28):
shopping and being able to buy that dress for her.
So yeah, it was very special in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, how was her reaction to the day that Elvis died?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Oh, gosh, well, so you know it. My mother was
working at the time, and I'll never forget because you know,
we all knows. Mid August I was out of school
for the summer and our phone rang at home and
so I answered the home phone, and this gentleman asked
(25:04):
to speak to my mother, and I said, you know,
I'm sorry, she's not here, she's at work. May I
take a message? That's how my mother had trained me
to do when someone called our house. So he said, yes,
please take down my name and number. This is Vernon
Presley and h and he gave me a phone number.
(25:28):
So about the time that I hung up the phone,
across the TV in our den, Uh, you know, was
a ticker going across the bottom of the screen that
you know, Elvis had been pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital. So,
(25:49):
you know, I'm connecting the dots at this point of
why Vernon had called. So within just maybe thirty minutes,
my mom got home from work. And as soon as
I saw her face, I knew that she knew because
(26:11):
I could see the sadness and the sorrow and shock.
You know, we were all, I mean, the whole world,
the whole world was shocked. And yeah, she was quite
quite upset. She did call and speak with Vernon and
(26:32):
they had you know, it was a tearful, emotional conversation.
And so she shared with me that Vernon had invited
Mom to come to the funeral, and she said, you know, Vernon,
I'm gonna have to think on that. And she ended
(26:52):
up declining, uh, the invitation to go to the service.
And she said, you know, there're been and so many
opinions surrounding him and his life. Uh, you know, the
media had not been kind to to him. And she said,
(27:13):
that's not the man I knew, and that's not the
man I want to see at a funeral. You know,
she said, I know who he was at the core. Uh,
I know what a wonderful person he was, and those
are the memories that I want to stay connected with.
(27:36):
Those are the things that I want to remember. And
so she did not go to the funeral. Now.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Uh? Now, and when did your mom tell you that
she dated Elvis Presley?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So, I honestly can't remember specifically. You know, growing up
in my household, we knew that my mom had dated Elvis.
It wasn't something that we talked a whole lot about.
You know. Keep in mind that my dad, my mom
(28:16):
and dad were married sixty three years before she passed
last December. And so you know, my dad was a
City of Memphis firefighter. I can remember just loved seeing
him go to work in his uniform. And so my
(28:37):
dad was my hero. And there was a lot of
love in our home. We had a great family, lots
of love. We were a very middle class family. It
wasn't that we lived lavishly, but we lived with a
lot of love in our house. So we didn't sit
(29:01):
around talking about mother dating Elvis a whole lot, but
I will tell you when that changed for me. I
can tell you specifically when it changed for me in
nineteen eighty two is when Graceland opened to the public
for tours. And I'm going to give away my age
(29:25):
if anybody does the math. But I had just graduated
high school in nineteen eighty two, and so my cousin,
who was like a brother to me, had also just graduated.
So we were sort of footloose at Ncy Free for
the summer. We only lived about four miles from Graceland,
(29:47):
and he's like, Hey, they're opening up for tours and
they're hiring you want to go and see if they'll
give us a job. And it was sort of like,
you know, a not a joke, but a challenge to
see if we could go get a job at Graceland.
So we did go down to Graceland. They interviewed us
on the spot, and they hired both of us on
(30:09):
the spot. They hired my cousin to be one of
the van drivers that shuttled people from the parking side
of Elvis Presley Boulevard up to the mansion, and they
hired me as a tour guide. The interesting part of
(30:31):
it is that we did not say anything about my
mother being Dixie Locke being Elvis's girlfriend any We didn't
say any of that. So we immediately went to work.
And the interesting thing for me was as I started
(30:53):
studying Elvis as a part of my job as a
tour it began to sync in with me how significant
it was that my mother had been a part of
his life for three years and that, you know, the
time that she had gone to prom with him was
(31:15):
at such a pivotal moment, and that she really watched
his career unfold, you know, from going from this poor, shy,
awkward young man to this icon that no one had
ever even anticipated having the impact that he did. So
(31:39):
when I started to understand these things, that's when I
became very curious about knowing more about her relationship, knowing
more about what was it like. And so that is
when Mom really started to open up and share a
lot of things with me that I had not known before.
(32:03):
So it was very very It was such a great
experience for me because at that point, also keep in mind,
I'm eighteen years old. I'm working at Graceland as a
tour god, I'm the same age that my mother was
when she was dating him, and at the same time,
(32:26):
you know, like within a year of he purchased Graceland
in nineteen fifty seven. So all of these things became
very personal for me, and it was an incredible, incredible experience.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Now, how do you think that Elvis was not a
one woman man? That he had to have a kind
of multiple women?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Whoow? You know, man, Jacob, That's a hard question to answer.
I think that anytime someone rises to the level of
fame that he did, and that he did so quickly,
(33:17):
you know, and let's face it, I mean he he
is hands down one of the most beautiful men I
think that has ever graced this earth. It it definitely
gave him the opportunity two have access to, you know,
(33:38):
probably most women. I don't know if I could accurately
answer that did he need that? I don't know. Was
it probably hard to refuse? Yes, because you know it
was he he had such charisma, He had such this
(33:59):
magnetic draw to him that you know, even even men
could not deny the effect that he had on people,
you know, And so I don't know, I don't know
if I could answer did he need to have all
of those women? You know, I think that I'll tell
(34:23):
you a quote I heard years ago on another interview
with Phil Collins that was with the group Genesis, and
he talked about he had he had just gone through
a divorce and had released this new album and a
lot of the songs on his album were regarding his
(34:43):
healing process through his divorce. And so during this interview
he made a comment to me. He said, I never
stopped loving my wife. He said the problem was that
the more money that I made, the bigger the houses became,
and the bigger the house, the harder it was to
(35:04):
fill it with love. And I have never forgotten that
quote because I think that can often happen to a
lot of us. Is you know, the bigger our our
incomes get, the bigger the homes get, the more complicated
things can get, and I think it's harder to maintain
(35:27):
that that traditional relationship of love and marriage. So, you know,
that's really what I think happened. It happened with Elvis
and happens to a lot of people, you know that
(35:49):
have that magnitude of success.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Now, Kate, talk about the book that your release and
uh and what can readers take away from it?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Oh, goodness. Yeah. So it was a really huge blessing
the way the book came to be. Mom had been
asked for many years, you know, why haven't you written
your book? Why haven't you told you know, put your
story out there? And she always shied away from it
(36:22):
for for a variety of reasons. But in twenty twenty,
when the world stood still, and you know, COVID caused
all of us to pause, my world quite got very quiet.
(36:43):
And it was in that quiet moment that I truly
felt that I was being led to work with Mom
and write her book. And the name Unlocked came to
me with this with this same message. I mean, it
(37:03):
was like I was given the message, write this book
with your mother, and here's the name Unlocked. So I
went to mother and I said, I feel very led
that I am supposed to work with you and write
your book and the name of it is Unlocked, with
my mother's maiden name being locked. And she said, if
(37:26):
you will do it with me, then I want to
do this, and so it became our project. It was
like our COVID project. We had slumber parties, my mother,
my sister, and myself. We found a small bed and
breakfast in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It's about forty five minutes
(37:50):
out of Memphis. We found this small bed and breakfast
that would literally sneak us in to their bed and
breakfast because you know, keep in mind, hotels were I mean,
everything was shut down. But we need a place where
we could work in solitude and in a creative environment.
(38:13):
And so we spent a lot of time at that
bed and breakfast, and it was so precious to have
the time with my mom. And so what can readers expect.
We did not want this to be another book about Elvis.
We wanted it to be a book about the teenage
(38:36):
girl who fell in love with Elvis and what it
was like to be her. And so, you know, I
think that for all of us women who love Elvis,
it it gives you that readers expect experience to understand
(39:03):
what was like to be that teenager hanging out with Elvis,
going to prom with Elvis, sitting on the front porch
with him and his family, you know, going to the
drive in, going to the record store. She she got
a telegram. She was on vacation with my with my grandparents,
(39:28):
and got a telegram from Elvis that was the only
way to communicate really, you know, back then, and he
sent the telegram to tell her that they're playing my
song on the radio, you know, and that's when that's
all right, Mama started getting airplay. And so we wanted
the reader to understand what was that like, you know,
(39:52):
to hear your boyfriend singing and his songs being played
on the radio as you're driving home from your family vision,
you know, knowing that as soon as you get back
to Memphis you get to see him and hug him
and congratulate him. So that was really the goal and
(40:15):
I do feel that that's what the reader can expect.
It's a very sweet, tender love story. It takes you
right back to the nineteen fifties when things were very simple, safe,
and life was a little easier.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Now where can people purchase the book.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
At They can purchase it from from us directly. Our
individual website is called Dixie Locke dot Big Cartel dot com,
and I can if you want, you can put that
in with the podcast. It's also available for purchase through Graceland.
(41:00):
We were have been very blessed by the Graceland and
the Epe family. They have supported uh this book from
the day one. Priscilla actually wrote the forward of the book. Uh.
So that's been a huge blessing for us to have
Graceland selling the book. Uh. The two below birthplace also
(41:24):
sells the book and we we would we would love
for you to have a copy if for anyone that
doesn't have one yet. It's a sweet, sweet read.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah absolutely. Oh, I'll put the link down below and
the description for the book. So when the book came
out to to get like some good feedback from it.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
We we have gotten a lot of good feedback. And
you know again, uh, having Graceland's endorsement on it really
gave it a lot of at ability. And we've had
a lot of international fans that have purchased the book.
(42:09):
We have a distributor over in the UK that sells
quite a few books for us. We have a distributor
in Denmark that sold quite a few books for us.
One of the biggest things that helped give us a
lot of exposure was a couple of summers ago, Brian
(42:33):
Killmead with Fox News came to Memphis and did a
really detailed segment on Elvis. It was in conjunction with
the movie, but it also just went into a lot
of Elvis's history and his life, and as part of that,
(42:56):
Brian did an interview with me that was aired in
his segment on Elvis. And so with that exposure, Brian
talked a lot about the book, gave a glorious review
on the book. And it was so interesting because within
(43:21):
like thirty minutes after the show aired on Fox, my
email and Graceland's emails just started blowing up because the
orders were coming in so quickly. So yeah, that was,
you know, a definite advantage to having that endorsement. But
(43:41):
the book sales have gone really well. I'm actually going
tomorrow morning to pick up another printing of the books
from the publisher so that we have an adequate inventory
going into Elvis Week in a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Oh well yeah, no, Uh, Now, how we wrap up
the podcast which I used to oh, which I used
to ask my guest if they have a closing thought
for the people listening? Uh, Toll, you got a closing thought?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
You know, Jacob, I would just say that, h my. Uh,
it's such an honor for me to play a small
part in carrying on my mother's legacy and to carry
on Elvis's legacy. The thing that my mom always held
(44:38):
very close to her is is that Elvis did have
a very strong faith and uh he did carry that
with him and I think that, you know, he never
veered away from that. You know, he always had gospel
(45:01):
music infused into his concerts. You know. You hear how
after his concerts he would have his his backup singers
or his guests come up to his suite, and he
always wanted to end his day singing gospel music. And
I think that that's one of the things that was
(45:24):
so important to my mom, is that she wanted people
to understand that that Elvis had a very strong commitment
to faith and that that was always a priority to him.
And you know, life took him in very big directions,
but his heart was so genuine and so full of love,
(45:50):
and he was a great He was a great humanitarian
in addition to an entertainer, he was a great humanitarian.
He was a great eight philanthropists, and he left a
mark on this world that I think will be acknowledged
(46:12):
for centuries to come.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Oh yeah, I think so too. Well, Christy, I want
to thank you for coming on the podcast and talk
about your mom and ILFs. Oh it's I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
It's been an honor Jacob. Thanks for the work that
you're doing in h in our community, and wish you
lots of continued success as well.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
All right, absolutely, all right. That wraps up this week's
episode of Conversations with Jacob. Tune in next Monday for
another interview. Until then, God bless and we'll catch you
guys and the next
Got any partners. You're listening to Conversations with Jacob, hosted
by my good friend Jacob Waller. Make sure to check
out the podcast where podcasts are available, and check out
the video version on YouTube. You can follow us on
social media. Facebook is Conversations with Jacob, Twitter is at
(00:49):
CWJ podcast, and you can visit our website Conversations with
Jacob podcast dot weebley dot com. Hey, you got a
show idea, maybe a guest suggestion, email us at Conversations
with Jacob at gmail dot com. Now here's your host,
(01:11):
Jacob Waller.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And welcome back to another episode of Conversations with Jacob.
Today is episode eighty not quite sure it's eighty something
at this point. Before we get to our guest this week,
I want to do a few announcements.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Check out our Facebook page as usual Conversations with Jacob
website Conversations with jacobpodcast dot web dot com. You can
check for upcoming guests, past guest and future episodes into
the future. Also, you got a question, guest suggestion, you
(01:54):
can email it at Conversations with Jacob at gmail dot com.
We also check out the podcast every Monday at one
pm Eastern time and make sure they like and comment
on the YouTube channel. Like comment and subscribe to our
YouTube channel. Oh. Also, if you like podcasts, check out
(02:16):
Two Chairs No Waiting and Andy Griffith Fan Podcast hosted
by my good friend mister out in Newsom and hear
us out in Newsom to tell you more about that podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Andy Barney, Opie Goober, Floyd de Barber. That's some of
the names from the Andy griff Show. Drop by Two
Chairs No Waiting the Andy griff Show Fan Podcast and
we'll visit with some of those folks along with tribute
artists and fans and just all kinds of things related
to the Andy Griffith Show. I'm your host, Alan Newsom
and you can find the show Two Chairs No Waiting
(02:49):
at two Chairsnowaiting dot com or on iTunes.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
And also you could check out the Life Shows Monday
at eight pm on YouTube or two Church Nowaiting dot com.
And also if you got a birthday, her, a weddin
or whatever it is, oh oh, if you could book
me on CAMEO for that at fifteen dollars, which I
know there's some of five hundred daughters and all that,
but you know, you know, I'm a fifteen daughters. Anyways,
(03:18):
and joining me this week is Christy Emmons Jones. She's
the co writer of Unlocked Memories of Elvis's First Girlfriend,
and we're going to talk about Elvis and his first girlfriend,
Dixie Locke. So, with no further introductions, unlet's welcome Christy
to the podcast. Kind of welcome aboard.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Hey, how are you, Jacob glad to be here?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah? Absolutely, Now, for people who don't know who you are,
can you give us a background?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
I'd be happy to. Yeah. So my name is Christy.
I am the daughter of Dixie Locke, and in the
Elvis world, my mother is known as Elvis's first girl friend.
He met at church. A lot of people tend to
assume that because they met as teenagers that they went
(04:12):
to the same high school together, but they did not.
As you know, Elvis went to Hume's High School. My
mother went to a neighboring Memphis school here in Memphis
called Southside. So they met at church, First Assembly of
God Church. Elvis came to that church to specifically hear
(04:34):
a gospel quartet, the Blackwood Brothers. As everybody knows, Elvis's
first love of music was in the gospel sector, and
he specifically loved southern gospel quartet music. So the Blackwood
Brothers were based at my mother's church. That was the
initial purpose that Elvis came there. My mom was just
(04:58):
barely sixteen and Elvis was nineteen when they.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Met, now if I remember correctly, and she kind of
kind of invited him out to the skating rink and
she talked to him that way, and if I remember
the story correctly, and she made a fake telephone call
to her mom so she could stay up with Elvis.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
That's exactly right, Jacob, she did. I really, as I
got old enough to fully embrace the story, I thought
she was a very clever teenager with the approach that
she took. So, you know, she, like many other people
have talked about, she said that Elvis was painfully shy
(05:46):
as a young man, and she knew that he would
most likely not have the courage to approach her and
initiate any type of conversation. So in the church lobby,
she and her girlfriends started making plans to go roller
skating the next weekend, and she said that she purposely
(06:08):
talked loud enough so that Elvis would be able to
overhear the conversation, hoping that Elvis would show up, and
so when they got to the skating rink, she and
her girlfriends got to the skating rink the following weekend,
Elvis was there. So she walked up to him and said,
(06:31):
you know, hey, my name is Dixie, and he said,
I know who you are, and so that opened the
gates of conversation, and she said that Elvis was not
a skater at all, and so she said, well, hey,
instead of skating, let's just go sit over on the
side and talk. So they did. They turned their skates in,
(06:55):
they sat and talked for the rest of the night,
and Elvis if he could take her home. So to
your reference, that is when my mother made the pretend
phone call to call my grandparents and ask permission. The
fact of the matter was that my family at that
(07:17):
point did not even have a phone. So she made
that phone call in a in a pretend way, and
then told Elvis that she had permission to go home
with for him to take her.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Home now, and what was their relationship?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Like, you know, she said that immediately they became very
very close to each other. They had so much in common.
Their faith was very important to both of them. They
(07:59):
both were very close to their families, and they quickly
became very close to each other's families as well. So
faith was very important to both of them. Family was
very important to both of them, and their love of
music and so, you know, those things just quickly bonded
(08:22):
them as teenagers and they became extremely close, just almost inseparable,
and spent a lot of time with each other's families too.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Now was there ever talk about a long term a
relationship or maybe even marriage.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, between them, very much so. In fact, in fact,
the Presley's, Vernon and Gladys Elvis's parents really wanted them
to get married pretty quickly. But keep in mind, you know,
was nineteen, he was already out of high school. My
mother was not out of high school. So my mother
(09:07):
said that, you know, she had promised her parents that
she would finish high school. She was not going to
get married until then. So the plan was that as
soon as my mom graduated high school that they would
get married. So they were very serious that that was
(09:28):
their initial intention. And then the timing of Elvis's career
really really started to explode. It was so much faster
and so much bigger than any of them had imagined.
And so that obviously changed the course of both of
(09:52):
their lives. And you know, they ultimately did not get married,
but they were very areas and had talked about that
for sure.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
No, and what was the reason that they broke.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Up, Well, just to the reason that I was just
talking about. You know, my mom always talked to people
about the fact that she wanted a husband that was
a Monday through Friday, you know, eight to five kind
(10:28):
of men, home on the weekends, going to church on Sundays.
She had visions of a very simple, simple life and
which was very similar to how she and Elvis were
both raised. But you know, Elvis's Elvis's dreams were so
(10:52):
big and his his gifts to the world were so
big that it really would not allow them to have
the kind of life that my mom wanted. And so,
you know, she said it was they never really had
a breakup conversation, because they always cared very deeply for
(11:16):
one another. But she said it was more just the
realization of his life was taking him in such a
bigger way into a bigger life, and she stayed true
to what she wanted and knew that he needed to
stay true to his dreams as well, and that did
(11:37):
not allow them to, you know, stay together. So it
was just the reality of their lives going in different directions.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Now now, and how does she handle the breakup?
Speaker 4 (11:53):
You know, it was I think that it had happened
somewhat gradually, you know, key in mind that Elvis was
by that and Mom and Elvis met in nineteen fifty three.
The most famous photo of Mom and Elvis is the
(12:14):
one that's on our book. This was actually at Mom's
junior prom. So in this photo she was seventeen and
Elvis was twenty. So by this point and Elvis's career,
he was already starting to do a lot of travel,
a lot of overnight performances, and then even going into
(12:40):
his Hollywood movie career. So this was evolving over the
time of their courtship. So, you know, I think that
the reality was starting to hit Jacob because he was
gone more and more. The time between her getting deceit
him was getting further and further apart. So I think
(13:04):
that she handled it as best as she could because
it was just the reality of what was happening with
his success in his career.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now, and what does she think about his acting career.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
I think she was, you know, keep in mind that
that my mom was a typical teenage girl, and like
like all the other teenage girls, I think that she
was so enamored to see him on the stage, whether
it was on the movie screen or whether it was
(13:42):
on a stage where he was doing a concert. She
said that it was so transformational to watch him go
from being this shy, awkward, somewhat miss serious young man
(14:02):
to when he took the stage or when he was
you know, filming in Hollywood, that he truly transformed into
this icon that we all still love today. And so
I think that she, you know, I think she loved
seeing him shine because it was quite evident, just as
(14:28):
it is to all of us, that he had something
within him, uh that you know, just really couldn't even
be contained it. It was so natural the gift that
he had when he was in his element of singing
and you know, showing the acting abilities, you know, in Hollywood.
(14:52):
Whatever he did, he did it with such charisma that
no one could deny it or stop it.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Now, Tiss. She watched a sixty eight Comeback special, Yes.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
She did, and you know, she said that she was
just amazed and taken aback by his his presence, his commitment,
his how he was so again, transformational is the word
(15:28):
that just keeps coming back to me, and his his
fame was just continuing to rise and evolve. I feel
the same way about when the Elvis movie came out
a couple of years ago, that it was just a
resurgence of fans who maybe had not been exposed to him,
(15:51):
you know. I mean some of the younger fans had
never listened to Elvis music before that movie, and it
was again just undeniable of what he did, not just
music industry, but in the world in general. And I
think that it says a lot to see what type
(16:14):
of impact he still has today.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Now, going back to the Elvis movie and what was
your opinions on it, or maybe your mom's opinion on it.
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah, I will tell you this. My family was very
honored to have been invited to the VIP screening of
the movie here in Memphis at the guest House at Graceland,
and we were able to meet all of the cast,
(16:45):
my mother and Priscilla. We can talk about that if
you want, but my mom and Priscilla have become very
close friends over the years. It's the sweetest, most unusual
friendship that I ever got to witness. But these two
ladies became very close friends. In fact, they referred to
(17:06):
each other as sisters. And so it was very sweet
that our family got to be part of that movie premiere.
As you know, my mother's character was played portrayed in
the movie. And so before we went to the movie,
I talked with my mom and dad and I said,
(17:26):
you know, listen, there are a couple of things we
need to keep in mind. Number one, this is a
Hollywood production. I knew enough about Baz Luhrman's work that
I knew it was going to be very eccentric. I
knew that it would have a lot of artistic liberties
(17:47):
used in the movie, which it did. So I said,
you know, we need to keep that in mind. And
we also need to keep in mind that the story,
the basis of the story, is being told from the
perspective of Colonel Parker, so it is going to have
a very different interpretation than it's you know, it's not
(18:12):
a documentary about Elvis's life. It's it's it's a Hollywood
interpretation of what it was like to be Colonel Parker's
role in this whole you know, elvis career. So I
was so glad that we went into it with that
(18:35):
open mind, and so I prefaced that before answering your question.
There were things that we really loved about the movie,
and there were some some some things that my mom noted.
First of all, she never ever, uh, in the time
that she was with Elvis, ever saw Gladys drink and
(18:59):
she never heard Elvis purse, so uh, you know, those
things were a little bit of a surprise to her
to see that in the movie. But again, we we
just had to remind ourselves that that's often what happens
(19:21):
with portrayals, not documentary. So but I think overall, what
the movie did to elevate Elvis's significance in the music
industry and in the world was was amazing. I think
(19:41):
that it opened up many many new fans and gave
people an understanding of the type of magnitude, the magnitude
of what he had done in his short life. You know,
it was quite significant. So yeah, I think the movie
(20:06):
was was well done, and I'm glad that it exposed
so many new people to Elvis.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Now you mentioned that your mam, I percid. It became
a good friends. What was her reaction when Elvis mary Priscida.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Well, so you know, I will say this when the
last time that my mother saw Elvis was at Gladys's funeral.
So Gladys passed away in nineteen fifty eight, and Elvis
(20:44):
and my mom had pretty much gone their separate ways
by then, but again they always stayed. It wasn't bitter,
it was it was very amicable. They still were so
close to each other's families, and Gladys loved my mom.
(21:09):
Gladys and my mother were very close. When when Elvis
first started traveling, my mother was still in high school.
She was too young to go with him. So when
he would go on the road many nights, my mom
would often go spend the night with Gladys and Burning.
And when Elvis would get in off the road at
(21:32):
the wee hours of the morning, Gladys and my mother
would get up and cook breakfast and then you know,
Elvis and my mother and Gladys and Burning would sit
down and have breakfast together. So my mother was extremely
close to Gladys. And when Gladys passed, Elvis called my
mother and he said, I really need you, and she
(21:57):
went without hesitation, without fail to be by his side,
and she said that he was the most broken man,
the most grief stricken person that she believed she had
ever seen. She said she really didn't know how Elvis
was going to recoup and go forward without his mom.
(22:22):
So it was a very as you know, it was
a very pivotal time in Elvis's life. So to circle back,
what did my mother think about when Elvis married Priscilla.
So my mother and my father got married in nineteen sixty,
(22:44):
so you know, my mother was moving on with her
life as well, starting a family, and you know, I
think that that she was happy to see Elvis find
someone that he could love and that that that could
(23:05):
be there to be a part of his life, because
after he lost Gladys, he was there was a huge void,
There was a huge void in his life. So I
think that my mom was happy that he could find
someone because you know, she had done the same and
(23:26):
it was just a reality of their lives moving in
different directions.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, But Gladys helped your
mom pick out a dress.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Yes she did so, Uh the dress that that mom
wore to the prom? Uh, Gladys took my mother's shopping
to pick out the dress, and Gladys actually paid for
the dress. My my grandparents rents were from a very
(24:04):
very poor family, and you know, and and Elvis's family
had been very very poor as well. But by this time,
you know, Elvis's career was starting to pick up, and uh,
there was more money being brought into the family. So
Gladys just got such joy out of taking my mom
(24:28):
shopping and being able to buy that dress for her.
So yeah, it was very special in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Now, how was her reaction to the day that Elvis died?
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Oh, gosh, well, so you know it. My mother was
working at the time, and I'll never forget because you know,
we all knows. Mid August I was out of school
for the summer and our phone rang at home and
so I answered the home phone, and this gentleman asked
(25:04):
to speak to my mother, and I said, you know,
I'm sorry, she's not here, she's at work. May I
take a message? That's how my mother had trained me
to do when someone called our house. So he said, yes,
please take down my name and number. This is Vernon
Presley and h and he gave me a phone number.
(25:28):
So about the time that I hung up the phone,
across the TV in our den, Uh, you know, was
a ticker going across the bottom of the screen that
you know, Elvis had been pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital. So,
(25:49):
you know, I'm connecting the dots at this point of
why Vernon had called. So within just maybe thirty minutes,
my mom got home from work. And as soon as
I saw her face, I knew that she knew because
(26:11):
I could see the sadness and the sorrow and shock.
You know, we were all, I mean, the whole world,
the whole world was shocked. And yeah, she was quite
quite upset. She did call and speak with Vernon and
(26:32):
they had you know, it was a tearful, emotional conversation.
And so she shared with me that Vernon had invited
Mom to come to the funeral, and she said, you know, Vernon,
I'm gonna have to think on that. And she ended
(26:52):
up declining, uh, the invitation to go to the service.
And she said, you know, there're been and so many
opinions surrounding him and his life. Uh, you know, the
media had not been kind to to him. And she said,
(27:13):
that's not the man I knew, and that's not the
man I want to see at a funeral. You know,
she said, I know who he was at the core. Uh,
I know what a wonderful person he was, and those
are the memories that I want to stay connected with.
(27:36):
Those are the things that I want to remember. And
so she did not go to the funeral. Now.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Uh? Now, and when did your mom tell you that
she dated Elvis Presley?
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So, I honestly can't remember specifically. You know, growing up
in my household, we knew that my mom had dated Elvis.
It wasn't something that we talked a whole lot about.
You know. Keep in mind that my dad, my mom
(28:16):
and dad were married sixty three years before she passed
last December. And so you know, my dad was a
City of Memphis firefighter. I can remember just loved seeing
him go to work in his uniform. And so my
(28:37):
dad was my hero. And there was a lot of
love in our home. We had a great family, lots
of love. We were a very middle class family. It
wasn't that we lived lavishly, but we lived with a
lot of love in our house. So we didn't sit
(29:01):
around talking about mother dating Elvis a whole lot, but
I will tell you when that changed for me. I
can tell you specifically when it changed for me in
nineteen eighty two is when Graceland opened to the public
for tours. And I'm going to give away my age
(29:25):
if anybody does the math. But I had just graduated
high school in nineteen eighty two, and so my cousin,
who was like a brother to me, had also just graduated.
So we were sort of footloose at Ncy Free for
the summer. We only lived about four miles from Graceland,
(29:47):
and he's like, Hey, they're opening up for tours and
they're hiring you want to go and see if they'll
give us a job. And it was sort of like,
you know, a not a joke, but a challenge to
see if we could go get a job at Graceland.
So we did go down to Graceland. They interviewed us
on the spot, and they hired both of us on
(30:09):
the spot. They hired my cousin to be one of
the van drivers that shuttled people from the parking side
of Elvis Presley Boulevard up to the mansion, and they
hired me as a tour guide. The interesting part of
(30:31):
it is that we did not say anything about my
mother being Dixie Locke being Elvis's girlfriend any We didn't
say any of that. So we immediately went to work.
And the interesting thing for me was as I started
(30:53):
studying Elvis as a part of my job as a
tour it began to sync in with me how significant
it was that my mother had been a part of
his life for three years and that, you know, the
time that she had gone to prom with him was
(31:15):
at such a pivotal moment, and that she really watched
his career unfold, you know, from going from this poor, shy,
awkward young man to this icon that no one had
ever even anticipated having the impact that he did. So
(31:39):
when I started to understand these things, that's when I
became very curious about knowing more about her relationship, knowing
more about what was it like. And so that is
when Mom really started to open up and share a
lot of things with me that I had not known before.
(32:03):
So it was very very It was such a great
experience for me because at that point, also keep in mind,
I'm eighteen years old. I'm working at Graceland as a
tour god, I'm the same age that my mother was
when she was dating him, and at the same time,
(32:26):
you know, like within a year of he purchased Graceland
in nineteen fifty seven. So all of these things became
very personal for me, and it was an incredible, incredible experience.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Now, how do you think that Elvis was not a
one woman man? That he had to have a kind
of multiple women?
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Whoow? You know, man, Jacob, That's a hard question to answer.
I think that anytime someone rises to the level of
fame that he did, and that he did so quickly,
(33:17):
you know, and let's face it, I mean he he
is hands down one of the most beautiful men I
think that has ever graced this earth. It it definitely
gave him the opportunity two have access to, you know,
(33:38):
probably most women. I don't know if I could accurately
answer that did he need that? I don't know. Was
it probably hard to refuse? Yes, because you know it
was he he had such charisma, He had such this
(33:59):
magnetic draw to him that you know, even even men
could not deny the effect that he had on people,
you know, And so I don't know, I don't know
if I could answer did he need to have all
of those women? You know, I think that I'll tell
(34:23):
you a quote I heard years ago on another interview
with Phil Collins that was with the group Genesis, and
he talked about he had he had just gone through
a divorce and had released this new album and a
lot of the songs on his album were regarding his
(34:43):
healing process through his divorce. And so during this interview
he made a comment to me. He said, I never
stopped loving my wife. He said the problem was that
the more money that I made, the bigger the houses became,
and the bigger the house, the harder it was to
(35:04):
fill it with love. And I have never forgotten that
quote because I think that can often happen to a
lot of us. Is you know, the bigger our our
incomes get, the bigger the homes get, the more complicated
things can get, and I think it's harder to maintain
(35:27):
that that traditional relationship of love and marriage. So, you know,
that's really what I think happened. It happened with Elvis
and happens to a lot of people, you know that
(35:49):
have that magnitude of success.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Now, Kate, talk about the book that your release and
uh and what can readers take away from it?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Oh, goodness. Yeah. So it was a really huge blessing
the way the book came to be. Mom had been
asked for many years, you know, why haven't you written
your book? Why haven't you told you know, put your
story out there? And she always shied away from it
(36:22):
for for a variety of reasons. But in twenty twenty,
when the world stood still, and you know, COVID caused
all of us to pause, my world quite got very quiet.
(36:43):
And it was in that quiet moment that I truly
felt that I was being led to work with Mom
and write her book. And the name Unlocked came to
me with this with this same message. I mean, it
(37:03):
was like I was given the message, write this book
with your mother, and here's the name Unlocked. So I
went to mother and I said, I feel very led
that I am supposed to work with you and write
your book and the name of it is Unlocked, with
my mother's maiden name being locked. And she said, if
(37:26):
you will do it with me, then I want to
do this, and so it became our project. It was
like our COVID project. We had slumber parties, my mother,
my sister, and myself. We found a small bed and
breakfast in Holly Springs, Mississippi. It's about forty five minutes
(37:50):
out of Memphis. We found this small bed and breakfast
that would literally sneak us in to their bed and
breakfast because you know, keep in mind, hotels were I mean,
everything was shut down. But we need a place where
we could work in solitude and in a creative environment.
(38:13):
And so we spent a lot of time at that
bed and breakfast, and it was so precious to have
the time with my mom. And so what can readers expect.
We did not want this to be another book about Elvis.
We wanted it to be a book about the teenage
(38:36):
girl who fell in love with Elvis and what it
was like to be her. And so, you know, I
think that for all of us women who love Elvis,
it it gives you that readers expect experience to understand
(39:03):
what was like to be that teenager hanging out with Elvis,
going to prom with Elvis, sitting on the front porch
with him and his family, you know, going to the
drive in, going to the record store. She she got
a telegram. She was on vacation with my with my grandparents,
(39:28):
and got a telegram from Elvis that was the only
way to communicate really, you know, back then, and he
sent the telegram to tell her that they're playing my
song on the radio, you know, and that's when that's
all right, Mama started getting airplay. And so we wanted
the reader to understand what was that like, you know,
(39:52):
to hear your boyfriend singing and his songs being played
on the radio as you're driving home from your family vision,
you know, knowing that as soon as you get back
to Memphis you get to see him and hug him
and congratulate him. So that was really the goal and
(40:15):
I do feel that that's what the reader can expect.
It's a very sweet, tender love story. It takes you
right back to the nineteen fifties when things were very simple, safe,
and life was a little easier.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Now where can people purchase the book.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
At They can purchase it from from us directly. Our
individual website is called Dixie Locke dot Big Cartel dot com,
and I can if you want, you can put that
in with the podcast. It's also available for purchase through Graceland.
(41:00):
We were have been very blessed by the Graceland and
the Epe family. They have supported uh this book from
the day one. Priscilla actually wrote the forward of the book. Uh.
So that's been a huge blessing for us to have
Graceland selling the book. Uh. The two below birthplace also
(41:24):
sells the book and we we would we would love
for you to have a copy if for anyone that
doesn't have one yet. It's a sweet, sweet read.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah absolutely. Oh, I'll put the link down below and
the description for the book. So when the book came
out to to get like some good feedback from it.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
We we have gotten a lot of good feedback. And
you know again, uh, having Graceland's endorsement on it really
gave it a lot of at ability. And we've had
a lot of international fans that have purchased the book.
(42:09):
We have a distributor over in the UK that sells
quite a few books for us. We have a distributor
in Denmark that sold quite a few books for us.
One of the biggest things that helped give us a
lot of exposure was a couple of summers ago, Brian
(42:33):
Killmead with Fox News came to Memphis and did a
really detailed segment on Elvis. It was in conjunction with
the movie, but it also just went into a lot
of Elvis's history and his life, and as part of that,
(42:56):
Brian did an interview with me that was aired in
his segment on Elvis. And so with that exposure, Brian
talked a lot about the book, gave a glorious review
on the book. And it was so interesting because within
(43:21):
like thirty minutes after the show aired on Fox, my
email and Graceland's emails just started blowing up because the
orders were coming in so quickly. So yeah, that was,
you know, a definite advantage to having that endorsement. But
(43:41):
the book sales have gone really well. I'm actually going
tomorrow morning to pick up another printing of the books
from the publisher so that we have an adequate inventory
going into Elvis Week in a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Oh well yeah, no, Uh, Now, how we wrap up
the podcast which I used to oh, which I used
to ask my guest if they have a closing thought
for the people listening? Uh, Toll, you got a closing thought?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
You know, Jacob, I would just say that, h my. Uh,
it's such an honor for me to play a small
part in carrying on my mother's legacy and to carry
on Elvis's legacy. The thing that my mom always held
(44:38):
very close to her is is that Elvis did have
a very strong faith and uh he did carry that
with him and I think that, you know, he never
veered away from that. You know, he always had gospel
(45:01):
music infused into his concerts. You know. You hear how
after his concerts he would have his his backup singers
or his guests come up to his suite, and he
always wanted to end his day singing gospel music. And
I think that that's one of the things that was
(45:24):
so important to my mom, is that she wanted people
to understand that that Elvis had a very strong commitment
to faith and that that was always a priority to him.
And you know, life took him in very big directions,
but his heart was so genuine and so full of love,
(45:50):
and he was a great He was a great humanitarian
in addition to an entertainer, he was a great humanitarian.
He was a great eight philanthropists, and he left a
mark on this world that I think will be acknowledged
(46:12):
for centuries to come.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Oh yeah, I think so too. Well, Christy, I want
to thank you for coming on the podcast and talk
about your mom and ILFs. Oh it's I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
It's been an honor Jacob. Thanks for the work that
you're doing in h in our community, and wish you
lots of continued success as well.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
All right, absolutely, all right. That wraps up this week's
episode of Conversations with Jacob. Tune in next Monday for
another interview. Until then, God bless and we'll catch you
guys and the next
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