Yep, before they cut his balls off in the army. Elvis WAS king. But he was still pretty damn good after his hitch was through.

What some people have said:

"Before Elvis there was nothing."
-- John Lennon

"I'm sitting in the drive-through and I've got my three girls in the back and this station comes on and it's playing "Jailhouse Rock," the original version, and my girls are jumping up and down, going nuts. I'm looking around at them and they've heard Dad's music all the time and I don't see that out of them."
-- Garth Brooks

"Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be."
-- Chuck Berry

"Elvis Presley is like the 'Big Bang' of Rock 'n' Roll. It all came from there and what you had in Elvis Presley is a very interesting moment because, really, to be pretentious about it for a minute, you had two cultures colliding there. You had a kind of white, European culture and an African culture coming together - the rhythm, okay, of black music and the melody chord progressions of white music - just all came together in that kind of spastic dance of his. That was the moment. That's really it. Out of all that came the Beatles and the Stones, but you can't underestimate what happened. It does get back to Elvis."
-- Bono

"When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be my boss...Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.... The highlight of my career? That's easy, Elvis recording one of my songs."
-- Bob Dylan

"I learned music listening to Elvis' records. His measurable effect on culture and music was even greater in England than in the States."
-- Mick Fleetwood

"No-one, but no-one, is his equal, or ever will be. He was, and is supreme."
-- Mick Jagger

"Without Elvis, none of us could have made it."
-- Buddy Holly

"Elvis was a giant and influenced everyone in the business."
-- Isaac Hayes

"I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra's. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness... Elvis, he was unique. And he loved the blues, it was a pity he didn't do more."
-- B.B. King

"... he had a feel for rhythm in his voice. He could hear a song and he knew what he could do with a song. And nobody else could do it."
-- Scotty Moore (his lead guitarist)

"Elvis could do everything, from a very quiet sensual moan and groan to a high-panic scream and was willing to do it within the context of a three-minute song, with no inhibitions whatsoever."
-- Norbert Putman (His bassist)

"He was the firstest with the mostest....I saw Elvis live in '54. It was at the Big D Jamboree in Dallas and the first thing, he came out and spit on the stage…it affected me exactly the same way as when I first saw that David Lynch film. There was just no reference point in the culture to compare it to."
-- Roy Orbison

"This boy had everything. He had the looks, the moves, the manager, and the talent. And he didn't look like Mr. Ed like a lot of the rest of us did. In the way he looked, way he talked, way he acted - he really was different...We've lost the most popular man that ever walked on this planet since Christ himself was here."
-- Carl Perkins

vis was God-given, there's no other explanation. A Messiah comes around every few thousand years, and Elvis was it this time."
-- Little Richard

"...it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear, and somehow we all dreamed it."
-- Bruce Springsteen

"That boy made his pull from the blues, if he's stopped, he's stopped, but he made his pull from there."
-- Muddy Waters

"Ask anyone. If it hadn't been for Elvis, I don't know where popular music would be. He was the one that started it all off, and he was definitely the start of it for me."
-- Elton John

"When I was 13, I saw him perform live and I suddenly understood what sex is all about. I was screaming at the top of my lungs."
-- Raquel Welch

"His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac...It fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people... I'm just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture... There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis' talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man."
-- Frank Sinatra

"I love his music because he was my generation. But then again, Elvis is everyone's generation, and he always will be."
-- Margaret Thatcher

But people don't much like to see their idols grow older and show their mortality, do they? If he'd done a James Dean, he'd have been a god.