Why Elvis Sang the Hail Mary

How ELVIS came to sing the HAIL MARY

Elvis Presley sang about blue suede shoes and devils in disguise — and once the Hail Mary. On the 45th anniversary of the singer’s death at 42, Günther Simmermacher explains how the Pentecostal Christian came to sing a most Catholic of songs.

AS THE WORLD LOOKS BACK at the life of Elvis Presley on the 45th anniversary of his death at 42 on August 16, 1977, Catholics may note with interest that the erstwhile King of Rock & Roll once sang a song about the Rosary.

Elvis was not a Catholic — he came from a Pentecostal background — but he was a devout Christian. Indeed, he was greatly influenced by gospel music, no less so than he was by rhythm & blues and country music. All of these often overlapped at the time anyway to give birth to rock & roll in the 1950s. Sometimes, these influences crossed over into the Catholic terrain, as they did in 1950 when one of Elvis’ childhood heroes, country star Red Foley (whose song “Old Shep” was young Elvis’ favourite), recorded a song dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima.

Presley drew his influences widely, but when he was a young upand-coming singer, Elvis shared with his beloved mother Grace an obsession for the white gospel duo the Louvin Brothers. Elvis once described gospel music as “the purest thing there is on this earth” , and loved to sing songs of faith — in the studio, on stage, and especially in private jam sessions. The singer did not always live an exemplary Christian life, but he was always seeking God. “I believe in the Bible. I believe that all good things come from God. I don’t believe I’d sing the way I do if God hadn't wanted me to, ” he once said.

His interest in faith was lifelong. Found next to his dead body on August 16, 1977, was a book on the Shroud of Turin.

Elvis the Gospel Singer

Throughout his career, Presley put on record many gospel songs of different backgrounds: traditionals, black gospel, country gospel, and church

Elvis Presley and Lee Denson

hymns such as “How Great Thou Art” . With one of them, “Crying In The Chapel” (previously a hit for vocal group The Orioles), he had an international bestseller.

The most unusual of the lot must be “Miracle Of The Rosary” , which Elvis recorded for his 1972 album Elvis Now!, which also featured covers of hits such as The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” , Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through The Night” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” . The Rosary song is the LP’s second title, after the Kristofferson and before The Beatles songs. The lyrics couldn’t be any more devout:

OhBlessedMother wepray to Thee

Thanks for the miracle ofyour

Rosary

Only You can holdback

Your Holy Son’s hand

Long enoughfor the whole world to understand

HailMary fullofgrace

The Lordis withthee

Blessedare thou among women

Andblessedis the fruit ofthy womb, Jesus

OhHoly Mary, dear Mother ofGod

Pleasepray for us sinners

Now andat the hour ofour death

Andgive thanks once again

For the miracle ofyour Rosary.

A powerful Catholic statement by a man who knew little about Catholicism, growing up in a region where the Church of Rome is in a tiny minority, and adhering to a denomination whose relationship with Catholicism is, well, complicated. And yet, here Elvis is singing about the Rosary — and not on some obscure gospel LP but on a gold-selling pop album.

And it wasn’t the record company that had suggested the song: it was chosen by Presley himself — as a favour for an old friend who had written it many years earlier.

A Miracle of the Rosary

The writer was Lee Denson, one of Elvis’ first friends after the Presley family moved from Tupelo, Mississippi to Memphis in 1948, when Elvis was 13. It was Lee, two years older, who taught Elvis his first guitar chords. Denson went on to have a career as a rockabilly singer, with some success but no hits. In 1957 he and Elvis played together on stage for the first and last time, at a charity concert.

In 1961 Denson had a rare get-together with his old friend. During that encounter he played Elvis his song “Miracle Of The Rosary” , which he had recorded the previous year. They never met again.

It took Presley ten years before he recorded the song; what prompted him to do it at that time seems unknown. In the interim, Denson had recorded the song himself. Now, in 1971, Elvis associate Red West phoned Denson to announce that “Miracle Of The Rosary” would be on Presley’s LP. Denson received royalties from the song for the rest of his life.

The kicker is: Lee Denson was the son of a minister at the Pentecostal church which the Presley family attended. In fact, while he always remained a believer, he was not a particularly good Christian — until one day in the late 1950s, Denson felt what he later described as “a powerful inner force” surging through his body. He and his wife Mary were unnerved by the experiences and somehow decided to pray the Rosary. The following day they went to Mass, and in short order converted to Catholicism. His song “Miracle Of The Rosary” is a testament of that conversion.

Denson died on November 6, 2007, at the age of 75. His funeral Mass was celebrated in Memphis’ Catholic church of St Teresa. His remains were interred at the city’s Calvary Cemetery — located on Elvis Presley Boulevard. On his gravestone a final message is engraved: “Thanks once again for the Miracle of the Rosary” .

Listen to Elvis’ version of “The Miracle Of The Rosary” at https://youtu.be/3U2fdvA9HzA and to Denson’s 1960 original at https://youtu.be/z7DV4xHKWNQ

Left: Dolores Hart and Elvis Presley get close in 1957’s Loving You, her first movie and his second. Above: Mary Tyler Moore as Sister Michelle and Elvis as singing Dr Carpenter in 1969’s Change Of Habit, Presley’s final feature film role.

Elvisandthenuns

ELVIS PRESLEY APPEARED IN 33 FILMS — SOME better than others — and on celluloid he kissed an actual future nun and romanced a character who was a nun.

The future Sister was Dolores Hart, who would give up a promising movie career in 1963 at the age of 24 to become a Benedictine nun. She played Presley’s love interest twice, in 1957’s Loving You and 1958’s King Creole.

“I had no idea who Elvis Presley was, ” Mother Dolores later recalled. “When I first met him, he was just a charming young boy with long sideburns. He couldn’t have been more gracious. He jumped to his feet and said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Dolores. ’ He and Gary Cooper were the only ones in Hollywood who called me that. ”

When she knew Elvis, she recalled in 2013, “he wanted to do something with his career. He wanted to get rich and interesting parts. They never gave him that. They just kept putting him in one girlie film after the other. ”

She gave Presley his first screen kiss, in Loving You, his second movie and first as a lead. Their first kiss is aborted as they are interrupted by her parents, whereupon Elvis sings the hit song that shares the film’s title. But at the end of the film — SPOILER ALERT — they kiss. In the quite violent King Creole, Hart’s character is in love with Elvis’ club singer, but resists his sly attempt at seduction.

During the filming of King Creole, Elvis spent much time holed up in hotels to escape the public hysteria around him. Sometimes Hart would sit with him. “Elvis would open the Gideon Bible, as that was the version placed in the hotel rooms. Whatever passage he’d open it to, we would talk about it. He would ask me, ‘What do you think of this passage?’”

Inevitably Elvis, the enthusiastic womaniser, asked Hart out on a date. She turned him down. In 2011, Mother Dolores was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary titled God Is the Bigger Elvis.

Elvis kissed a future nun in his first leading role, and in his final leading role, he was romancing a religious Sister, played by Mary Tyler Moore.

The plot for 1969’s Change of Habits concerns three nuns, preparing for their final vows, who are sent incognito to a clinic in a rough inner city neighbourhood run by a hip young doctor, played by Presley. Not realising that the lay missionary he is falling for is, in fact, a religious Sister, the doctor tries to romance her. She has reciprocal feelings but also a strong call to her vocation. They never kiss.

Change of Habit was intended as a vehicle for Tyler Moore, and it stands above most of Elvis’ very patchy movie career. Mary Tyler Moore, incidentally, was raised Catholic and, with her mother, once had a personal audience with Pope St John Paul II.