Looking back, I think my callous attitude might have been fostered in part by bitterness over the earlier loss of younger musicians whom I regard to this day as greater talents, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix among them.

I thought at least the press would stop carrying those embarrassing stories about his physical and mental decline, and those pilgrims to his residence would have to find something better to do with their lives. Obviously I got that wrong, and each year has only cemented Elvis Presley’s godlike status.
I was shocked and dumbfounded by the hysterical reaction to his death, as I was to be again in 1997 when Princess Diana died. These were not people I had ever come close to respecting in life, and the fact that many other people did had just never occurred to me.