On the Way to Sunday .... Elvis has left the Building

Elvis Comes Home from the Army!

On the morning of 3 March, 1960, after a flight from Germany broken by a refuelling stop at Prestwick Airport, 30 miles south of Glasgow, the DC7 jetliner carrying Elvis Presley landed at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.  Forty-eight hours later, Presley was given just over $100 in "out pay" – for travel, food and clothing – and, at the age of 25, discharged from the US Army, his two-year commitment fulfilled.

Presley's first professional commitment in his new civilian life was to spend two days in a studio in Nashville, recording material to be rushed out for sale to the 1,275,077 people who had placed advance orders for his new single while he was still in Germany, before the songs had even been selected. Once that task was complete, he, his musicians and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, boarded a train that would take them, with frequent stops to greet crowds of fans carefully alerted in the small towns of half a dozen states, to Miami, where he would perform both sides of his new single, Stuck on You and Fame and Fortune, as the guest star on Sinatra's regular television show.

See you Sunday when Elvis comes to Church!