Elvis Presley owned one of the most famous houses in the world. It was full of people almost around the clock — friends, relatives, bodyguards, staff, a girlfriend, a daughter. Fans were standing at the gates day and night. And one ordinary afternoon at Graceland, with his girlfriend out shopping, the most famous man on earth found himself with nobody to talk to. So he asked the maid.
Her name was Nancy Rooks. She started work at Graceland in May 1967 as Elvis’s cook and housekeeper, and she stayed for ten years, right up to the day he died. She often did not leave the house until two or three in the morning, and during that decade she worked seven days a week, missing only a handful of days.
She has told this story in her own words, and it is one of the loveliest things anybody who worked in that house ever described.
“Inside Graceland” by Elvis’ Maid And Cook, Nancy Rooks
Elvis was upstairs. His girlfriend had gone out shopping. And he sent word down for Nancy. As she remembered it, “he told me he get lonesome and to come on up there and sit and talk to him.”
So she went up. And then, rather than sit there, Elvis had an idea. Nancy’s memory of what he said is perfect, right down to the rhythm of it: “Well, we need something to do. I’ll tell you, we goin’ in the office area and I’m gonna play the organ.”
Her reply is the best part. She did not pretend to be a singer. “OK. We gonna sing. You know I can’t sing, but I’ll try to help you.”
Elvis Presley – Take My Hand, Precious Lord (Official Audio)
He sat down at the organ, and they picked a hymn — “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” the great gospel song written by Thomas Dorsey. It is one of the most beloved hymns in American music, and it happened to be Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite song. Elvis loved gospel above everything else he sang.
They got through the opening. Then they hit the part where Nancy did not know the words. She is very honest about it: “I’m sure he knew ’em, but I didn’t know ’em. We’d just hum through.” So that is what they did — the King of Rock and Roll at the organ, his housekeeper beside him, humming through the bits she could not remember.
She stayed up there with him for a good while. Then one of the bodyguards wandered in, came up the stairs, found the two of them at the organ and asked the obvious question. “What are you doing?”
And Elvis, without missing a beat: “What you think we’re doing? We’re singing!”
Then, in Nancy’s telling, everybody in the room cracked up — the bodyguard, Elvis and Nancy, all laughing at once.
Nancy Rooks was there in that house on 16 August 1977. She was the only maid on duty and the first to go upstairs when the call came. She died in 2022, aged 84 — one day short of the anniversary of the day she found him.
But this is the story she liked telling. Not the ending. The afternoon he got lonely and asked her to come and sing.