The Greatest and The King: Ali and Elvis

As Muhammad Ali has been remembered since his death at age 74 on Friday, his greatness has been illustrated in mano a mano contrast with a series of rivals and foils.  

Ali and Frazier. Ali and Foreman. Ali and Cosell. And Ali and the U.S. government, whom the principled prize fighter defied when he refused to fight in Viet Nam, a stand that cost him three years of his livelihood in the prime of his career.  

But what about Ali and Elvis?

In 2011, the James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown had the clever idea to present a pair of photo shows on the duo of American icons. Alfred Wertheimer's 'Elvis at 21,' which captures photographs of a still innocent Presley in 1956 as his star was exploding. And Muhummad Ali: The Making Of An Icon was a group show that depicted the arc of his career from a boisterous youth in Louisville, Ky to the the silenced-by- Parkinson's secular saint who was revered late in his life by an America that was once threatened by his outspoken views.

Ali, who once recorded an album for Columbia records that included a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand By Me," and whose poetic flights of fancy focused on his superiority in all things qualifies him as one the Godfathers of rap, had his share of encounters with the pop music superstars of his day.

Photos have been circulating on social media of shots taken, when he was still known as Cassius Clay, of Ali backstage with Stevie Wonder and Ronnie Spector in 1963 in San Francisco and clowning with the Beatles while training to fight Sonny Liston in Miami in 1964. And there's a priceless pic of Ali backstage with boxing fan Bob Dylan during the Rolling Thunder tour in the 1970s, with Dylan wearing whiteface makeup and looking as happy and relaxed as you'll ever see him. (After Ali's death, Dylan issued a statment saying: "If the measure of greatness is to gladden the heart of every human being on the face of the earth, then he truly was the greatest. In every way he was the bravest, the kindest and the most excellent of men.")

Ali and Presley would seem an unlikely pair. But  they had more in common than you might suspect. Southerners blessed with physical grace and incomparable charisma, they were both lightning rods for controversy.

When I reviewed the Michener shows, I called Presley "the electrifying performer who channeled his deep affection for African American blues and R&B into a sexually explosive powder keg that detonated a pop-culture explosion. He scared the daylights out of mainstream America then, and is now often and unjustly demonized as a mere cultural appropriator. ... Ali was the incandescent, gregarious black athlete whose lack of fear about speaking his mind shocked white America when he joined the Nation of Islam and became an outspoken and early opponent of the Vietnam War."

But all that considered, it's still surprising that Ali and Presley were more than casual acquaintances, and formed a real friendship. Ali once said: "Elvis was my close personal friend. ... I don't admire nobody, but Elvis Presley was the sweetest, most humble and nicest man you'd want to know."

In 1973, before Ali fought - and lost to - Ken Norton, Presley, whose own taste for physical combat ran toward karate and martial arts, gave him a robe custom made by his own personal jump-suit maker, Gene Doucette.

In 1979, shortly after Ali had beaten Leon Spinks to win back his heavyweight title for the third time, TV Guide did a cover story on Ali, who was filming a CBS four part telemovie called Freedom Road in which he starred alongside Kris Kristofferson as a former slave who rises to become a member of Congress after the Civil War.

Talking on set, The Greatest told writer Dick Russell this mind blowing story about hanging out with the king in Schuylkill County, Pa.in the mid-1970s when he was training in Deer Lake, Pa.  

"A few years ago, Elvis came to see me at my training camp, stayed two weeks," Ali told journalist Dick Russell. "Nobody knew about it. One night I said, 'Elvis, do me a favor. I got a guitar.' "

The Greatest wanted The King to help him stir up a little trouble. He persuaded Presley to come with him to a bar in nearby Pottsville, "this little redneck place called Spoonies," where the duo sneaked in the back way. In Ali's telling, Presley went to the microphone with a towel on his head, then pulled it off, and sang, 'You ain't nothin' but a Hound Dog, cryin' all the time."

"Then we flew out the door again," Ali told writer Dick Russell. "Can you imagine bein' in a little one-horse town and Elvis Presley runs on stage? Man people ran all outta the place lookin'. geting in cars, trying to find us.  Elvis said, 'Champ, I've never done that before in my life.' "

The entirety of Russell's interview with Ali is worth reading, as it catches Ali at a time in his life when he's considering what to do with himself after boxing, and musing on his own mortality. Read it here.

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