Elvis Presley's fans, around 35,000 of them, braved intermittent rain to file past the rock icon's grave on Friday to pay tribute on the 25th anniversary of his death.
Cradling candles against the breeze, mouthing prayers and wiping away tears along with raindrops, young and old took the solemn walk past Presley's grave all night and into the morning at his white-columned Graceland mansion.
"Elvis was the greatest and he has the greatest fans in the world, and he always will," Todd Morgan, media director for Elvis Presley Enterprises, said at the start of the 12-hour candlelight vigil on Thursday night.
The morning procession was interrupted by rain but fans, some taking more than one trip through the "Meditation Garden" where Elvis, his parents and paternal grandmother lie, streamed through until 9:30am. Organizers said it was the largest turnout ever for the vigil that has become an annual event at Presley's mansion.
The silent pilgrims had heaped a 1.7m high mound of flowers, teddy bears and mementos on the grave, some sobbing as they remembered the "King of Rock 'n' Roll."
"I grew up on Elvis. Those songs just exploded off my little record player. I could feel him coming through," said Bill Rowe of Dayton, Ohio, who secured the first place in line, as he does nearly every year.
"My friend said Elvis wasn't going to let it rain. I guess he's crying for us," said Betty Skinner, who recalled fond memories of Elvis in concert.
She and millions of others were devastated when Presley was found in his bedroom dead from a drug-induced heart attack at age 42 on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 1977.
"We've been fans since -- well, since he sang his first song," said Skinner's friend Janice Morgan. "The charisma, the looks, the voice, we loved everything about him."
Each bearing a candle many struggled to keep lit in the drizzle, fans filed up the curved driveway and past Presley's inscribed bronze tablet to the strains of If I Can Dream and other Elvis songs played over loudspeakers.
Some wept openly, others stopped to say a quiet prayer, blew kisses or posed solemnly for a quick photograph.
"Long live Elvis, baby," one shouted outside the wrought-iron, music-noted gates to Graceland.
"If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane ..." read one of dozens of floral tributes, this one from Kentucky, displayed along the walkway leading to the grave site.
"Elvis that's the way it is," read a note from the Chicago fan club, which created a collage of Elvis photos shaped into the "25" and fringed by blue-tinted carnations.
After the vigil ended, paid tours of the mansion, which draw 600,000 people annually, resumed. Tours on the anniversary date had been sold out for months, as had a special anniversary concert Friday night.
Some 75,000 people attended the week-long festivities that included dinners, dances, concerts and seminars.
"It's almost too heartbreaking for me. I start crying as soon as I turn onto Elvis Presley Boulevard. The man meant everything to me," said Barbara Barges of Houston, who was making her third pilgrimage.
"It kills me when I come here that he is not here."
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