I played with Elvis!

Well I didn’t, but I knew somebody who did.

Our original guitarist (Matt Sims) and myself were asked to support a guy from America called George Hamilton the 4th on the West Country leg of his British tour.

I wasn’t that thrilled to begin with, firstly because he was a ‘Country & Western’ singer, and secondly because he was about the same age as my own father, if not a bit older. Not exactly cool for a rocker to play with somebody as old as your dad (note to Aaron….you may want to re-think your position son)

Anyway, even though I had never heard of him, we thought that it might be an opportunity to sell a few copies of our newly made album ‘Shout!.

Well, it transpired that in his day George Hamilton had been absolutely massive (no, not in the ‘way too many beef burgers' kind of way, the famous beyond the dreams of Averis way).

Back in the 50’s and 60’s he had played with all of the greats; in fact many of them had supported him at gigs.

When Matt and I met George, he turned out to be the nicest most gracious bloke you could wish to meet.

The point of my story is that we must have done about six or seven gigs with him and even performed a couple of numbers with him at the Christmas shows, and we grew to not only like the guy but to be in utter awe of him.

During the wait for the shows to begin, he would regale these two youngsters with tales of his early days on the road. Here was a guy that had performed with the Beatles for crying out loud.

He didn’t boast, he didn’t name drop to impress, he just told the story as it was.

His two closest friends were Chet Atkins and Patsy Cline, both giants in their own way. He had grown up with and had become Country royalty. Perhaps a difficult concept for us Brits, but for those over the pond he was something to be revered.

However, my favourite story was when he told us about the time he met Elvis.

He said that it was at a party after one of his gigs and this ‘kid’ walked in.

He was about 18 years old, had a face full of spots and gingerish hair (yes Elvis dyed those famous locks black).

George said that Elvis wasn’t exactly that good looking as fellas went, however, not one person in the room could take their eyes off of him. He was captivating in a magnetic way.

As we sat there with our mouths wide open George said that you could tell at an instant that this kid had something special….the X-Factor if you like, and that he would be a HUGE star.

History proved to bear out that belief.

And here we were sat in a room with a guy that in his day was both bigger and more successful than both Elvis and the Beatles.

And yet, you’d never know it as he was such a gracious, humble man.

I learnt a lot from that guy……never get above yourself, even when you are a Rock God.

Oh, and we sold more CD’s at that those gigs than most of our own gigs.

Ironic eh?