The Beatles meet Elvis Presley

From Did Elvis jam with The Beatles in 1965? The answer is complicated, August 2025:

The night Elvis Presley played with The Beatles is fondly remembered as the most epic jam in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. That is, if it actually happened.

What is certain is that Elvis politely hosted the Fab Four at his Bel Air home on Aug. 27, 1965, when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were in Los Angeles to perform two shows at the Hollywood Bowl. Elvis, looking every inch a rock god, greeted the quartet with his future wife Priscilla Beaulieu and his “Memphis Mafia” inner circle at his side.

“The Beatles were in awe, and I can say that because they told me that the next day,” Jerry Schilling, Elvis’ longtime friend, tells USA TODAY, while discussing the new Elvis collection “Sunset Boulevard,” which spans Presley’s LA studio sessions from 1970 to 1975. “But it got kind of quiet” after they were ushered into the den.

Elvis sat on the couch, holding his Fender bass guitar, as the four shaggy-haired Beatles stood and sat uneasily. Then Elvis announced, “If you guys are going to look at me all night, I’m going to bed,” Schilling, 83, recalls. “Everyone burst out laughing and that broke the ice. Not that there was any cold ice at all. I don’t care what anyone says, I was there, it was a great night.”

By all accounts, Charlie Rich’s “Mohair Sam,” one of Elvis’ favorite songs of the moment, was playing on repeat. George went off with Larry Geller, Elvis’ hairstylist, and “there was probably some grass going on,” Schilling says, pausing for a beat. “Let me be honest, there was.”

Starr and Schilling took on Beatles roadie Mal Evans and Elvis’ cousin Billy Smith in a game of pool. But what happened next is hotly debated. Did The Beatles jam with Elvis?

Lennon later claimed they did, as did Priscilla and Beatles press officer Tony Barrow, who recalls everyone playing The Beatles’ “I Feel Fine,” among other songs. Music journalist Chris Hutchins, who witnessed the meeting, wrote that McCartney gave Elvis tips on bass as Presley played along with Cilla Black’s “You’re My World.”

The day after the encounter, Harrison told radio reporter Larry Kane, “We were playing electric guitars and playing records and watching TV,” while McCartney described a pleasant evening spent “rock ‘n’ rolling, playing the instruments, a bit of billiards, a bit of roulette.”

Bafflingly, 30 years later, in “The Beatles Anthology” documentary, Harrison, McCartney and Starr couldn’t recall playing with Presley.

Joe Esposito, Elvis’ road manager, who also believed the jam session took place, acknowledged in an interview with “Elvis Australia” that recollections of the night vary. “We’ve all gotten older. All our memories are different. And maybe when you read things or believe certain things you read, which you know are not true, eventually they become real.”

As for Schilling, “I feel pretty strongly about what happened and what didn’t happen,” he tells USA TODAY.

“If there was a jam session, I would have been the first one to look at it,” he says, but acknowledges it may have taken place. “Maybe there was something I didn’t see. I would say it would be the worst mistake I ever made if I said it didn’t happen.”

The evening ended with Lennon extending an invitation to Presley and his entourage to visit The Beatles at the house where they were staying. Schilling dropped by, where Lennon introduced him to Joan Baez and famously asked Schilling to tell Elvis that he would have been nothing without him, because Lennon “didn’t have the nerve” to share the sentiment with Elvis the night before.

Schilling recalls Presley receiving the heartfelt message with “that same little boy smile” of pride he had after recording “How Great Thou Art.”

In the end, Schilling spent two more days with The Beatles and rode with them to the Hollywood Bowl when “I realized, uh-oh, I’m really not doing my job with Elvis. So I get a car and go back home. I’m probably the only guy in history who goes as a guest of The Beatles and didn’t see the show.”

Was Elvis upset that his friend disappeared to hang out with The Beatles?

“He had to know,” Schilling figures. “I don’t care how nice or how great artists are, they all have a certain survival ego that’s probably understandable. He never questioned me on it, never brought it up, never was angry about it.

“Quite contrary to everybody, Elvis did like The Beatles and recorded (a number) of their songs,” he says, including “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “Something.”

And perhaps more tellingly, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll also covered “Never Been to Spain,” which includes the lyric, “I kinda like The Beatles,” Schilling points out. “He went on tape with that.”

When you met him — and famously you guys did meet him eventually — was he as striking in real life as he is in photographs and on film? Did he have a presence?

Yeah. He was a really handsome guy. We kind of knew that, we were fans, so we just followed everything he did. It wasn’t a disappointment at all. The funny thing is though, we’ve talked about this meeting individually — I talked about it, Ringo talked about it… — and our memories are slightly skew-whiff. I say we rang the doorbell and Elvis came to the door and said, “Come in guys,” and invited us in, and we sat around and he played Mohare Sam the record that was a big hit at the time. Ringo says he didn’t come to the door — we went in and he was already sitting there. So who’s right? I am [Laugh].

But it was a great evening. He played a bit of bass — Elvis, yeah. He played on one of the records, he plays bass. So he had a bass there and he was talking about the bass, and so that was great for me being the bass player in the band — we could talk bass.

He was very personable, very nice. He had a bunch of his minders with him — I think they were mainly his cousins, his entourage… And one of the highlights of the evening was he introduced us to Priscilla. Now, you’re inviting four guys into your home — probably the last thing you need is them to be all over your wife, which we sensed. About halfway through the evening she came in, and I remember her outfit — I think it was gingham with a bow in her hair, but I could be making that up. Anyway, it was great. She was great, Elvis was great.

Paul McCartney – Radio interview for BBC Radio 2, May 25, 2026

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group.

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