Elvis' Bubble: It Never Popped
Franklin Young
The Florida Times-Union
September 1, 1976

That Elvis Presley balloon never popped
Presley, rock and roll superstar for 20 years and still the idol of millions, will appear at 8 o'clock tonight in a concert in the Coliseum.

Security will be tight, fans won't be able to get near him and an entourage which reportedly will occupied an entire floor of the Hilton Hotel.

Presley long has travelled in a style befitting the phenomena that he became virtually overnight.

But it was literally a bumpy road in the beginning, one of second hand Cadillacs and one-night stands during which screaming fans could crowd the bandstands within touching distance

Twenty years ago, this writer and a newspaper photographer traveled some 30 miles to catch one of Presley's earliest concerts. His name has just begun to flash across the country and within a matter of months was to become a household by word.

Presley was playing another of those tiring one-nighters, this one in Lexington, NC, in an old red-brick armory typical then of small Southern towns.

A national magazine had dispatched a writer, who kept shouting to this reporter over the ear-piercing screams of a surging mass of boby-soxers: This is unbelievable.

Presley was so happy to get publicity in those days, the reporter was able to interview him throughout an intermission in his dressing room.

Presley himself was so awed by the whole thing, he could hardly believe it.

During one break, this newsman cornered one of the Presley group. a cousin attired uncomfortably in a ill-fitting dinner jacket, something he obviously was unaccustomed to wearing.
Said the Presley's cousin looking around in utter amazement: "This balloon is gonna burst".