{"id":355370,"date":"2025-08-18T23:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T23:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355370\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T23:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T23:38:11","slug":"when-roger-mcguinn-was-turned-away-from-meeting-elvis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/355370\/","title":{"rendered":"When Roger McGuinn was turned away from meeting Elvis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

(Credit: Alamy)<\/p>\n

Mon 18 August 2025 21:45, UK <\/p>\n

Anyone even mildly interested in rock and roll would consider it their life\u2019s goal to hang out with The Beatles. The Fab Four always looked like they were having the time of their lives whenever they were playing and while Roger McGuinn<\/a> did have a much closer relationship with the group than most other rockstars, he remembered there were more than a few times when he got the cold shoulder from his old friends.<\/p>\n

But it was going to take a lot to impress one of the Liverpool legends, and McGuinn had the right musical upbringing to make him stand out. The Beatles were always fascinated with all kinds of American music from country to early rock and roll, but when listening to the chime of McGuinn\u2019s electric guitar on The Byrds\u2019s \u2018Mr Tambourine Man\u2019, George Harrison found someone who seemed to be speaking the same language as he was on guitar.<\/p>\n

After all, some of Harrison\u2019s biggest musical influences were people like Carl Perkins, and since The Byrds had a natural twang to their vocals, it was easy for them to latch onto their music a lot better than whatever other garage band was out at the time. And when \u2018If I Needed Someone<\/a>\u2019 came out sounding a bit close to \u2018The Bells of Rhymney\u2019, McGuinn practically had a musical endorsement from one of the biggest artists in the world.<\/p>\n

When it came time for the band to meet one of their idols, though, there was no time for pleasantries with their friends. It was their dream to come to America, but when they dominated the country over the course of a few years, the Fab Four got the invite of a lifetime by having a meet-up with Elvis Presley. This would have been the closest they had come to witnessing a God in real life, but while McGuinn would have loved it, he remembered the band being a little bit distant when talking about it.<\/p>\n

McGuinn was by no means in their inner circle, but when he casually asked them about accompanying them to meet Presley, he got a much drier reaction from Harrison, recalling<\/a>, \u201cOne time I was hanging out at The Beatles\u2019 house in Bel Air when they were invited to go and meet Elvis. I asked George if I could tag along, but he said he just didn\u2019t think it would be right. So I waited at the house until they got back. When I asked them later how it was, they told me he was sitting on the arm rest of a couch and had a bass guitar plugged into his stereo.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole thing might look like a bunch of kids that wanted to make themselves look cool next to their hero, but when listening to their recollections, it seems like they all came back with mixed feelings as well. After all, meeting someone famous might always look a lot better in the person\u2019s head than it is in real life, and when everyone realises that they aren\u2019t gods, it can be a deflating feeling.<\/p>\n

And considering how the band jammed for a bit with \u2018The King\u2019 before eventually heading out, it seemed like their hero was a lot different than they imagined. The guy singing in Jailhouse Rock was now being looked at as a has-been, and while that was fixed by his comeback special in 1968, they didn\u2019t stop everyone from looking at him a little bit funny whenever they found out that he was more normal than they wanted him to be. <\/p>\n

But even if McGuinn was the one holdout who was barred from hanging out with his friends, that doesn\u2019t make his influence any less important than those who were in that room. He had his own path to forge, and even if it meant not meeting a rock and roll pioneer, it was much better for him to make his own legacy anyway.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Alamy) Mon 18 August 2025 21:45, UK Anyone even mildly interested in rock and roll would consider…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[34221,77,269,125303,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-355370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-elvis-presley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-roger-mcguinn","12":"tag-the-beatles","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115052406699267613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}