Elvis festivals in U.S., Germany could create tourism partnership

TUPELO, Miss. — Elvis Presley’s Mississippi hometown could create a tourism partnership with the German city where he lived while serving in the U.S. Army.

Presley was born in 1935 in Tupelo. From 1958 to 1960, the king of rock ‘n’ roll lived in Bad Nauheim (bahd NOW-hime), near Frankfurt in what was then West Germany.

Tupelo Mayor Jason Shelton is traveling to Bad Nauheim in mid-August for the European Elvis Festival. He tells the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal he will seek connections between the two cities. Tupelo hosts an Elvis festival in June.

Presley met his future wife, Priscilla, while stationed in Germany. The cover photo of his 1959 album, “A Big Hunk o’ Love,” was taken in Bad Nauheim.

Presley died Aug. 16, 1977, at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.