VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: Elvis Was a Straight-Up Racist

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes new entries every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on Jan. 20, 2023.

In 2002, hip-hop singer Mary J. Blige sang “Blue Suede Shoes,” a Carl Perkins song popularized by Elvis Presley, during the “Divas Live” special on cable network VH1.

She later told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I prayed about it because I know Elvis was a racist. But that was just a song VH1 asked me to sing. It meant nothing to me. I didn’t wear an Elvis flag. I didn’t represent Elvis that day.

Elvis Presley meets B.B. King, who would become a lifelong friend and defender, at a charity event for WDIA, a Black Memphis radio station, in 1956. (Image: National Museum of African American History Culture)

In 2021, Grammy-winning producer Quincy Jones told the Hollywood Reporter that he refused to ever work with Presley. Pressed to explain why, the 88-year-old flashed back to his days writing for orchestra leader Tommy Dorsey in the ’50s.

Elvis came in, and Tommy said: ‘I don’t want to play with him,’” Jones recalled. “He was a racist mother