Great and troubling are the dilemmas that weigh upon the editors of august newspapers of record. There is accuracy to be considered, and standards, and style.

When news of the death of Elvis Presley winged across the Atlantic, debate raged within this office as to how this important item should be treated. Not even The Times could ignore the demise of a figure whose name was on the lips of every teenager on the planet. He was known universally as the king of rock’n’roll, but could a newspaper as pedantically correct as The Timesproperly call a commoner – and an American commoner at that – a king?

Older hands among the sub-editors thought it unthinkable. Younger blood thought it preposterous and unbearably stuffy to pretend that the sobriquet by which he was so widely known did not exist. A compromise in the shape of quotation marks was eventually reached. Putting such marks around a word is a kind of teeth-gritting exercise that says to the reader: “We hate this word and don’t believe it, but it seems to have a certain currency amongst the common herd.”

Even the front-page news story straightforwardly reporting the death had to follow this middle path, referring in its opening paragraph to “the millionaire singer and ‘king of rock and roll’.” The obituary, surprisingly lengthy in 1977 for a mere popular artiste, kicked off with a masterpiece of linguistic sail-trimming. Today the headline would read: Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll. In 1977 it said: Mr Elvis Presley, “the king” of rock and roll music. Note the ancient formality of the Mr, those quotation marks again, and the addition of “music” further to distance him from monarchy.

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Times leader writers did not share the worldwide adulation of a younger generation, describing the king – sorry, “king” – as an indifferent singer and musician, and a totally uninteresting person, but grudgingly admitting that the Presley phenomenon was of considerable social significance.

Tim Rice, the lyricist, wrote to the Editor in a fury, demanding to know which popular singers The Times regarded as superior to Presley. But another correspondent, patently not a fan, wrote: “I find it difficult to understand how the President of the USA [Carter] can pay tribute to a man who caused many parents distress.”

It took a retired schoolteacher to distil the social signficance of the phenomenon. In a letter she recalled the headmistress bursting into her classroom and announcing: “I must speak to a boy called Elvis Presley because he has carved his name on every desk in the school.”

— ALAN HAMILTON

‘The Times was wrong. Thirty years on, I’m still right’

I remember exactly where I was: I was sitting at home. We’d recently heard that a Presley version of a song we’d written had made it on to what would be his last album.

I got a call from a friend in Los Angeles at 10.20pm. There had just been a newsflash that Elvis Presley had died. I had the News at Ten on, but it hadn’t been mentioned – they were already well into the Scottish football results and Reggie Bosanquet was reading. So I rang up The Daily Telegraph and asked them if they had heard. They hadn’t. I thought perhaps it was a hoax. Then, just as Reggie said “and finally”, he was handed a bit of paper and read out: “We have just had reports from Memphis that Elvis Presley has died. Goodnight.”

Presley was the best of his kind. He made wonderful records, both as a young rocker and again as a crooner in the Sixties. Songs such as Always On My Mind are corny, but also brilliant. Shortsighted critics argue that the later recordings weren’t groundbreaking, but you don’t have to be groundbreaking to be good.

He was an unimaginable human being to us youngsters. He looked so out of this world. He was the pace-setter of a new wave of music and his rise coincided with the arrival of TV, travel, the 45rpm and mass communication.

Today, his place as an icon is unsurpassable. Even my eight-year-old Zoe recognises his songs. But in 1977, anyone over 40 years old just wouldn’t get it. In fact, if your parents had liked him, you would have gone off him.

When I read the Times leader I thought that it was just plain daft. I thought whichever prat had described him as “uninteresting and mediocre” was wrong. And 30 years on, I am still right.

I did meet him once. I knew his publisher, so we were invited to an afterparty in the Vegas Hilton. We went to the 29th floor and there was a rather quiet party going on and no sign of Elvis. We hung on until 3am, then as we were leaving he appeared and we were introduced. We should have stayed on, but were completely overawed and decided to carry on leaving.

It was a bit wet of us really, but it was 1974 and he had just agreed to record our song. We thought we’d see him again. Of course, we never got the chance.

— TIM RICE

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