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Twenty-seven years ago we lost a King. But we gained a ghost. And he walks among us today. And not just “Ten feet off of Beale.”

Playhouse on the Square, the Zippin’ Pippin and the Mid-South Coliseum are all haunted by Elvis Presley.

A person who knew him quite well, his daughter Lisa Marie, once said that even before he appeared in the morning, you knew he was headed down the steps because “you could feel his presence.”

And you still can.

It’s hard to go anywhere in Memphis without bumping into the Ghost of Elvis.

Beginning on page 10 photojournalist Alan Spearman and writer Michael Lollar chase the King’s ghost through the streets of Memphis and through the history of his reign.

Their hard work harmonizes with many historical pictures. Great thanks to the tireless efforts of picture editor Jeff McAdory and a helpful band of folks who knew The King.

It’s a fun ride. And it’s not over yet.

Rags to riches — Poor boy used talent to rip through social, cultural barriers

Elvis Presley had struck the chord heard around the world when he recorded “That’s All Right” in 1954.

No one, including Elvis, knew then he would become the soul of America’s rags-to-riches dream.

For some, the Presley family - their pink Cadillac, his gaudy clothes, his slicked-back hair - were a 50’s version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” but Elvis, at 21, was about to teach the world about upward mobility. From the shy truck driver who caught the ear of Sun Studio’s Sam Phillips, he would become the coolest cat on the planet, creating a generation gap with the shake of a leg, the curl of a lip and the toss of his hair.

With family in tow, the poor boy was ripping through every social and cultural barrier when, barely out of public housing at Lauderdale Courts, he paid cash for a $40,000 home next door to a federal judge on Audubon Drive in East Memphis. He would later move to his own Memphis Monticello: Graceland, in Whitehaven. The Audubon Drive home, now owned by two loving caretakers of the legend, is a frozen-in-the-50’s reminder that Elvis has now been gone longer than his career lasted.

Send in the crowds

Though it rarely turned into a criminal matter, the effects of his fans’ adoration had become a regular part of Elvis’s life by 1956. Years later, Elvis would slow down business when he tried to gamble at a Las Vegas casino, so the manager put slot machines in Elvis’s private rooms. “It wasn’t the same,” said Memphis Mafia member Red West, who said Elvis usually loved the public attention. “Most of the time (the slot machines) would just sit there.”

Hello, goodbye

Half a world away, in Germany, Sgt. Elvis Presley was still “Elvis the Pelvis” to fans. He feared he would be forgotten, but absence only made hearts grow fonder. Even Frank Sinatra got in on the act with a “Welcome Home Elvis” segment of his TV variety show. When he came home, he didn’t just draw crowds; he was mobbed. Finally a prisoner of his own fame, it was a welcome captivity. “Elvis loved being Elvis. He worked hard to get that recognition,” says Memphis Mafia member Jerry Schilling.

Only in Memphis, Las Vegas and Los Angeles could he move about easily. “Everywhere else we used to have to run for our lives, but he enjoyed that,” says friend George Klein.

Daddy’s girl

Elvis packed a lot into his 42 years: A string of gold and platinum records, 33 movies, marriage, divorce, and fatherhood.

Lisa Marie remembers her dad as an outsized presence at Graceland. Even before he appeared in the morning, you knew he was headed down the steps, she said, because “you could feel his presence.”

Elvis’s little girl has her own gold record: “To Whom It May Concern” was released in 2003.

Private in public

By the early 1960s, Elvis was renting out theaters and the Mid-South Fairgrounds for his friends and family. It began as a way to avoid the crush of fans, but it became part of the Elvis lifestyle.

Bodyguard Sonny West says Elvis liked to talk during movies. “If he didn’t like a movie, he’d have them put on something else.” Elvis made no attempt to disguise himself in order to go out in public. “If he put on a disguise, he would still look like Elvis,” said Red West. Besides, much of Elvis’s isolation was “self-imposed,” says Jerry Schilling, allowing him to be with only a small group of trusted friends or alone. “Elvis either liked everybody around, or he would be in his room for three days and nobody would see him.”

Monkeying around in a space-age hideout

Graceland was a refuge for Elvis, far from the formulaic movies he came to despise and the lifestyle and fan adulation that had made him famous. At home, he indulged the behavior that nourished his myth and legend.

He was a man of large, some might say obsessive, appetites: fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, meatloaf, target practice, Yahtzee, slot-car racing.

“He’d get hooked on something and just wear it out. He’d beat it to death,” says Red West.

“Don’t forget where Elvis came from,” says guitarist Scotty Moore by way of explaining Elvis’s habits. “Elvis was still a kid when he died. He never grew up. It was usually things he hadn’t had a chance to do when he was growing up. Then he’d do it until he got bored with it; it might be three days or it might be a month.”

At home on the road

Elvis loved the life of a touring performer, staying in hotels and sneaking into and out of arenas to duck the crowds. The announcement “Elvis has left the building” was, in part, designed to help Elvis make his getaway after concerts.

In Memphis, Elvis liked to maintain the adrenaline rush of the “road trip” when he performed. He would sometimes check into the Howard Johnson motel just north of Graceland with his entourage to feel like he was on the road, says Jerry Schilling.

Elvis and fans, alone together

Elvis did not shy from some of the perks of celebrity. He drew throngs to the Tennessee state capitol when he visited in 1961. In 1970, Elvis personally dropped off a letter at the White House asking to meet with President Richard Nixon in order to offer his services in the war on drugs.

That same day, he was summoned by Nixon to the Oval Office and left as a “deputy at large” of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

At the end of the meeting, Elvis gave Nixon a big hug. Egil ‘Bud’ Krogh, head of special action for drug abuse prevention, later told Jerry Schilling, who accompanied Elvis, it “was the only time he saw a hug at the White House.”

Elvis Presley forever

Fans didn’t want to believe that drugs played a role in their hero’s demise. It was “cardiac arrhythmia,” said medical examiner Jerry Francisco right after Elvis was pronounced dead on Aug. 16, 1977; Francisco didn’t want to tell the fans about drugs. Baptist Memorial Hospital pathology chief Dr. Eric Muirhead later confirmed he and eight other autopsy team members, including Francisco, determined the cause of death was “polypharmacy,” or death from drug interaction.

While drugs ended Elvis’s life, they did not diminish the memories of him. His remarkable story fuels the legend that fans still celebrate in Memphis every August.