"Elvis Has Left the Building"

[Bill White]

On Thu Sep 11 2003 at 08:03, Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> said:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      "Elvis Has Left the Building"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is anyone able to shed any light on the earliest evidence for and
> coiner of the expression "Elvis has left the building"?

The following sounds plausible:

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http://www.satchmo.com/nolavl/old16.html

   Hayride Legend Dies: longtime Louisiana Hayride producer & emcee
   Horace Logan passed away in Victoria, Texas on Sunday (Oct. 13) at
   age 86; many future legends got their start on the Hayride (which
   aired nationally from radio station KWKH-AM in Shreveport) during
   Logan's tenure (1948-57), including Elvis Presley, Hank Williams,
   Webb Pierce, Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Kitty Wells and Jim
   Reeves; Hogan is credited with coining the catch phrase, "Elvis has
   left the building", uttered while trying to quiet a frenzied
   Hayride crowd after a Presley performance in '56; for more info,
   see Logan's 1998 book, "Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History
   on the Louisiana Hayride".
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Wasn't the phrase also used at the end of his last televised concert
in the mid-to-late 1970s?  I always assumed that after its initial
use, it became a tradition at his concerts (you could probably contact
a biographer about that).

bw
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