About Elvis his: This guy was really a wonderful person. Nobody knew until you got in the same room with him and in his company. He was a fun guy. If he could be open and be out on the street, he probably would have loved that. He was so secluded and being hidden all the time.
Being in his company, Elvis Presley was a jokester. He loved to have fun. He just couldn't do it out in the open. He had to do it secluded. When I met Elvis Presley the first time in Memphis at the Peabody Hotel, it was a thrill. He demonstrated karate on me and he flipped me over on my back. He almost broke my back. He ripped his pants.
The thing was, when he turned around and said to me “Freddy, I bought 'Tallahassee Lassie' and put it in my jukebox at my mansion.” All these singers were in the room. There was Fabian, Avalon, Rydell, Chubby Checker...you could go down the line...this was a big tour and everybody on the tour had hits on the Billboard and Cashbox charts. When he turned around and said that in front of all of them, he made me feel like a hundred feet tall because he didn't do that with any of the other people. Only my record. He liked my record because it was rock-and-roll. That was the biggest compliment of my life.