James Burton remembered Elvis on Facebook:
It’s so hard to believe it’s been 43 years today since we buried my friend, Elvis.
What a heart-wrenching three days we had that August in 1977. I’ll never forget flying out of L.A to Las Vegas that morning of the 16th, then we headed out from Vegas to our first show in Maine when we got word to turn around.
None of us knew why.
We stopped to refuel in Colorado to head back to Las Vegas when we heard the news that Elvis had passed.
My first question was, “Is this a joke?”
Unfortunately….it wasn’t.
My wife Louise and I immediately met up in Memphis to go to Graceland to check on Elvis’ Dad, Vernon. As you can imagine, he was just heart broken.
On August 18th, they held a private service for Elvis’ family and close friends.
We could hardly talk to each other, we were in so much shock. So many people that loved him showed up.
James Brown spent hours in there with Elvis, as did so many others. Louise and I sat there with Vernon and did our best to comfort him. We loved that man.
Thousands of fans lined the streets of Memphis on the day of the funeral to say goodbye to the king. Thousands! We had never seen anything like it, man.
Royalty had never seen anything like it.
We were honored to ride in the third or fourth white limo in the procession that day and were amazed at all the love people showed and how people came together in such a short amount of time to honor him from all over hthe world.
Elvis constantly gave to those around him and that was such an inspiration.
Yes, he was a legend….but Elvis was also my friend.
His talent, style, sense of humor and ‘in the middle of the night’ phone calls just to talk.
He is dearly missed, and I know he’s in Heaven singing and playing with my Son, Jeffrey… and I’m looking forward to seeing them both again someday and we’ll all jam together.
We want to thank the fan clubs and websites, Priscilla, Lisa Marie, Jack Soden, Graceland, the EPE family and Joel Weinshanker for all of the hard work in keeping Elvis’ legacy alive and we love the fans and friends who loved Elvis as much as we do.
Make each day count and love one another!
GOD BLESS YOU!
James