Does it take Fame and Fortune to Fulfill Purpose?

Written by Jimmie Burroughs

I grew up in the 1950s in the area where Elvis Presley got his start. I remember that he started playing music in school gyms. He was at Bono, Arkansas in 1954. Bono is so small that you would miss it if you were not careful as you drove through. It cost a dollar to see Elvis at that time. He was a very ordinary but likable person. He dressed kind of shabby and his shoes were kind of worn and run down looking but he had a wonderful stage presence and a beautiful voice.

Elvis Presley said he never planned on a singing career and he was the most surprised of all people that it happened.

His first guitar cost $12 and was a Gene Autry guitar. He said he was ashamed to sing before people and just sang for his mom and dad.

He just decided one day during his lunch hour  in 1953 to stop by Sun Records in Memphis and record a song for his mother’s birthday. Duey Phillips the owner of Sun Records,  was not impressed at the time but Elvis said he told him he might give him a call later; it was a year and a half later that the call finally came; Elvis made his second trip to Sun Records and this time he made a recording to be published; it was “That’s Alright Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky on the flip side”.

I can remember those two songs were played over and over in the Little Mint, that was the little resturant across from my high school. From that point forward everything happened rapidly for Elvis. Someone asked him about it and he said it just happened so fast; he was afraid to wake up in the morning because it might just be a dream and he would be back to driving a truck.

Everything changed dramatically within one year; Elvis had gotten national recognition by then. His records would reach the million marks in sales in a matter of a few days.

It was May of 1956, my senior year in high school, that I traveled to Memphis with some high school friends to see Elvis in concert at Ellis Auditorium in downtown Memphis. By then Elvis’s career had really taken off; it cost $5 and Elvis did a great show but still was dressing a little on the shabby side. The picture at the top was taken on that occasion.

The stage was in the center and there was an auditorium on either side of the stage. Both auditoriums had been opened to accommodate the 7.000 that day who had come to hear  this new style called rock and roll.

Elvis would sing a song facing one side and then turn and sing to the other side. He announced that he had just signed a contract to make the movie “Love Me Tender” which was released a few months later by 20th Century Fox on November 21, 1956. He also announced that he had recorded a brand new song to soon be released by RCA Records “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog”. I think that was the first time he sang the song publicly.

Elvis’s car was parked beside the Auditorium in a special spot. It was a grey Cadillac limousine; not the large kind we see today but more of a slightly extended Cadillac. Just recently I got a picture from the Internet of Elvis’s first home in Memphis on Audiburn Drive and Elvis was standing in the front yard beside that same car. There were also a couple of other Cadillacs in the background, one a white convertible and one a four door sedan; he had four at the time and a motorcycle.

To your left is a picture of Elvis squatting in front of a white Cadillac convertible that I saw him driving once in downtown Memphis. At that time I lived in the Memphis area and often drove past Graceland. One day the gate was open as it often was when Elvis was away so I took a drive up the winding drive, got out of my car and took a picture of my 7 year old daughter on the front porch. By this time Elvis was a super star known the world over.

When Elvis was just a kid he liked to go to gospel concerts in Memphis but he didn’t have the money so one day JD Sumner saw him hanging around and told him to come to the back and he could come in for free, so from then on Elvis had a free pass. I guess that was why Elvis had JD Sumner and the Jordinaries for his backup singers latter on.

The story of Elvis has always impressed me because he went truly from rags to riches. I think Elvis was a very good person at heart. In the beginning he was a very humble person with a kind heart. He did not see himself as anyone special at all.

Years of adulation and super stardom had its toll on him. It would bring him down to an early grave because he could never quiet deal with it; he felt compelled to take drugs just to stay afloat.

I was driving in my car near the Baptist hospital about midday on August 16, 1976 when I heard the news on the radio that Elvis had died at 42 years of age.

A couple of years ago I went back to Graceland, I now live in Nashville, Tennessee, and took the tour. Everything is just about as it was when Elvis lived there. Even though Graceland is located on beautiful grounds with very large trees and is a beautiful home, it is far from being a mansion on today’s scale of mansions. It is not much larger than my home in Nashville. A large addition was added to house all Elvis’s awards which are many. It is so amazing that he accomplished so much in the 20 years he had left from the time he became famous until he died.

Elvis gained wealth and worldwide recognition but was a prisoner to his home. He was never able to live an ordinary life again and go places and do things that most are able to do; he would be mobbed; he was so recognizable. He tried to disguise himself some. Ironically he adopted my last name as an alias; he called himself John Burroughs. I’ve often wondered if he one day looked in the Memphis directory and saw my name or one of the few other Burroughs listings that were there and decided to use it.

Anyway there is sadness about the life of Elvis. Although he accomplished so much, according to those who knew him best, he was a very unhappy person. I saw the last concert Elvis did for TV and the last song he sang publicly; it was “Are you lonesome tonight”; strange, I just today learned to play that song on my guitar and sing it. But anyway Elvis introduced the song and his voice became kind of shaky as he said, “I have been lonesome and I am lonesome”.

Elvis was brought up to believe in God and in Jesus Christ, so I would not be at all suppressed if one day I’ll walk up to Elvis Presley in heaven and shake hands and tell him how much I appreciated his music on earth.

I think what I really wanted to say in this article is that “Fame and Fortune Isn’t all it is Cracked up to be…” life can be a very good experience and it does not have to include the glamor, wealth and fame. It can be meaningful when we realize that we have an important task to fulfill, a special plan that God designed for us that no one else can fulfill. God has a plan for greatness for all of us. When we find his purpose and fulfill it in our life we have indeed made the contribution that no one else could have.

I have great confidence in the progress you are going to make.

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Jimmie Burroughs is the author of JimmieBurroughs.com ; get more tips on personal development: www.JimmieBurroughs.com

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