Elvis wanted The Beatles to be our backing band. He was totally serious
Tom Jones couldn’t believe his ears when Elvis Presley pitched him a crazy idea – teaming up to form a supergroup with The Beatles as their backing band.
The pair were close friends and used to hang out together in Las Vegas where they both had money-spinning hotel residencies, Tom at Caesars Palace, Elvis at The Hilton International.
But Elvis’ madcap scheme to recruit John, Paul, George and Ringo as their backing band had Tom scratching his head in disbelief. He said: “I’ll tell you a story that I don’t think I’ve ever said before. And this is the truth. Elvis said to me, ‘I see The Beatles have broken up’. “I replied, ‘Well, yeah. Lennon and Mccartney are not gonna do any more live shows’.
“He said, and this is a fact, ‘What a shame, because wouldn’t it be great if we could use The Beatles as a backing band? We could go on stage, and you could sing some of your songs and I could sing some of mine and we could have The Beatles play them’.
“On my life! I said, ‘Well it sounds a great idea, but it’s not going to happen’.
“But that was the idea Elvis had. And he’d have done it. Really, because he loved The Beatles.”
Tom first met Elvis in 1965 when he visited the set of his movie Paradise, Hawaiian Style on a backlot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood.
He’d just release a new single, With These Hands, and he was stunned when Elvis walked towards him singing it.
They soon became close, but the hard-living Welshman admits even he, at times, found it difficult to keep pace with the King, who died in 1977, aged 42.
“Elvis was a very musical person and every chance he could get to sing, he would,” revealed Tom.
“If he finished before me, he’d head over to watch my show. It would be an all-night session.”