CityView Magazine

24 August 2022 One of the dates of that planned concert tour included an Aug. 25 show in Fayetteville. Instead of a concert featuring one of the best- known figures in the world of pop music, the Cumberland County Memorial Arena would present a tribute show in Elvis' memory. Smith played piano on stage during that concert, which was staged nine days aer Presley's death. 'How would you like to play for Elvis?' Time has been kind to the humble Milton Smith, whose looks have changed little as the decades have passed. His mop-top Beatles- style hair is dark, and his mustache is neatly trimmed. A native of Bladenboro, Smith has lived in Hope Mills and Fayetteville since returning home from Nashville in 1974. at same year, he started teaching music and was the assistant band director at Cape Fear High School. Later, he would play piano for 3½ years on tour with country music star Tammy Wynette. Early on, he and his wife, Colleen, lived in a 46-foot-long trailer on Doc Bennett Road on the outskirts of Fayetteville. One day the phone rang, and it was Larry Strickland, the husband of country singer Naomi Judd and a member of the Stamps quartet. "He said in his deep voice, 'How would you like to play for Elvis?' I said, 'C'mon, man.' "'No, I'm serious. I'm very serious,' he says. 'We need a piano player, and if you play with us, you'll be playing for Elvis some, too.'" Ed Enoch, the manager of the quartet, then got on the phone. "We want you. We hear you do a good job. Larry says you really do a good job. We want you to come to Nashville, and let's meet," Enoch told Smith. "Here I am with a full-time teaching job. You know, it's kind of scary to give that up," Smith says. "Colleen and I talked it over, and we decided, 'Sure.' ey paid all our expenses, an all-expense-paid trip to Nashville; put us up in the nicest hotel downtown. en we went out to Larry's house and, just about time we were getting there, (Stamps lead singer J.D. Sumner) was pulling up in a limo. Come to find out, that was the limo that Elvis had given J.D." Presley was known to give new Cadillacs as gis to friends and employees. e Stamps — with Smith in tow — made the pilgrimage to Graceland about three weeks before Elvis died to begin rehearsals for the upcoming tour. Smith came close to meeting e King, but it never happened. "I didn't get to talk to him personally," Smith remembers. "We rehearsed at the house. Elvis was asleep; he was in the bed. I was praying Elvis would get up and he would come down." Smith says the first time the Stamps bus pulled up at Graceland, Elvis and Priscilla Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, approached them in a golf cart. During their hours of rehearsals, Smith says, he played Southern gospel numbers including "How Great ou Art" and "I Can Feel the Touch of His Hand." He thinks he rehearsed nine or 10 songs for his part of the Elvis show, while also practicing the songs he would perform with J.D. Sumner and the Stamps. e day before the first concert of the tour, which was set for New England, members of the Stamps band converged in a private hangar area at the Nashville airport. "We were all standing around and waiting to go on the trip," Smith says. "e plane was in the air. We were all standing around." Felton Jarvis, Elvis' record producer from 1966 to 1977, told them to gather around him. He had some news from Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis' longtime manager. "e Colonel called me and said, 'Due to an act of God, the concert tour has been canceled,'" Smith remembers Jarvis telling them. "I always thought that was a strange way of telling us that the tour was off. l always did." Elvis was 42. Ginger Alden, the singer's girlfriend at the time, found him unconscious on his bathroom floor at Graceland. His modest funeral would be held two days later on Aug. 18, 1977. Leading the procession was a 1977 Cadillac Sedan de Ville followed by a white 1977 Cadillac hearse. Milton Smith is pictured on a plaque playing a grand piano that was dedicated in memory of Elvis Presley at the Cumberland County Memorial Arena. Smith played at a memorial service at the arena on Aug. 25, 1977, the day Elvis was supposed to appear in concert there. Photo by Tony Wooten When you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. Truist Bank, Member FDIC. © 2022 Truist Financial Corporation. Truist, the Truist logo and Truist Purple are ser vice marks of Truist Financial Corporation.

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