Lowell Hays grew up in Memphis, where his father started the family jewelry business back in 1937.
In 1969 he met Elvis Presley, and from then on he was Elvis’s jeweler.
His very first sale to the King came on Christmas Eve that year. Elvis asked to shop late that night, and he picked out diamond Christmas gifts for his family. It was a sign of things to come. This short video introduces Lowell, so you’ll know exactly who’s telling the story that follows.
Meet Lowell Hays, Elvis’s Memphis jeweler
Elvis loved giving gifts. He didn’t save it for birthdays or Christmas either. He liked handing things to people he met along the way.
So when Elvis invited Lowell to come out on tour, he had one condition. Lowell had to bring a case of jewelry.
Billboard, the music magazine, summed up what Hays saw over the years: “For every piece Presley kept for himself, he gave nearly just as many away.”
Hays has told his Elvis stories many times since, and in this 2021 talk he looks back on his years with the King.
Lowell Hays remembers his years with Elvis
Which brings us to one night in 1975.
Elvis was playing a show in North Carolina. Hays later named the city as Asheville.
That night Elvis called for the bag of jewelry to be brought out to him on stage. Then, as Hays told Billboard, “He just started handing jewelry to people in the front.”
Think about being in that front row. You bought a ticket to hear Elvis sing, and suddenly the man himself is handing out jewelry to the people right around you.
One of them went to a woman at the front who was holding a rose, Hays recalled.
Fans have kept track of Elvis’s tour stops for years, and this look at his shows in Asheville gives you a sense of the city and the crowds that came out for him there.
Elvis on tour in Asheville, North Carolina
For Lowell, it meant watching his case get lighter and lighter.
When it was all added up, the total was staggering. Hays told WCBI-TV in 2022 that Elvis “ended up spending 105 thousand dollars that night, giving away jewelry.”
That’s $105,000 worth of rings and jewelry, gone to people Elvis had never met, in one evening.
Lowell was not happy about it. By the time he got into the limo after the show, he was upset about how much had just walked out the door.
Elvis wasn’t worried at all. As Hays told Billboard, Elvis turned to him and said, “Lowell, I’ll have to sing five minutes longer tomorrow night to pay for it.”
Here’s Lowell himself, on camera, talking about the way Elvis gave jewelry away to his fans.
Lowell Hays on Elvis giving jewelry to his fans
Lowell brought that case along so Elvis would always have something to give. On that night in North Carolina, the woman holding a rose and the folks around her went home with a piece of it.