Death Day...August 16 1977

Ok..33 years ago, Jill and I are living at 100 North Main in Memphis... Lowenstein Towers 20th floor over looking the Mighty Mississippi.

The previous night we had played and engagement with MudBoy at an old porn theatre on Madison that had been converted into a Rock and Roll Joint.. I believe it was called the Ritz... A couple of years earlier, I had seen "Behind the Green Door" there.


Knox Phillips on death day

Following the performance, Dickinson and I were talking to Herbie O'Mell. Herbie said that he had earlier heard from Joe Espsito at Graceland and Elvis had not come down from upstairs in 2 days or so and everyone was getting worried. We collect our fifty bucks or whatever and go on home. The following day is my birthday.. Jill and I are lounging around the apt.. I actually was on some pretty heavy pain meds at the time as Pat Rainer and I had been in a pretty serious auto accident over by the Pink Palace just a few days earlier.. so I had a big patch on my face where some glass had cut me during the accident.

Dickinson call up about 1:30pm and asks if we had heard the news. About 30 minutes later, while still on the phone the news flash came across the TV. Dickinson said he was headed into town. We all meet up at Phillips Recording... where the phone is ringing off the hook. Knox and Ricky were there. Robert Palmer calls at some point and says he'll be in Memphis in 3 hours. Robert, from the "Insect Trust" band had become a senior music writer at the NY Times
Robert Palmer and Randall Lyon Death Day 1977

Palmer arrives a few hours later via taxi (which cost him a fortune as there were few taxis available and hotel rooms were really hard to get). I end up driving Robert to Graceland. It was a madhouse. The picture below is Palmer outside the gates of Graceland on this day 33 years ago. I also took photos at the funeral a few days later. If you'll remember, there were at least two Elvis fans hanging outside the gate that were killed by passing motorists.

I thought it might be appropriate to publish these pictures, or let them escape on this day in 2010..
almost to the minute of when this saga began.

Other folks who showed up at Phillips during this 3 day period were Tav Falco, Charles Rateri, Randall Lyon, Pat Rainer and several of the Sun artists who had recorded concentrically with Elvis..



Robert Palmer NY Times at Graceland on Death Day