Watch any Elvis Presley concert from the 1970s, and you’ll notice a small man on stage who never leaves his side. He plays a bit of guitar and sings some harmonies, but mostly he hands Elvis things. A glass of water. A microphone. And, over and over again, scarves. His name was Charlie Hodge, and being the man with the scarves is one of the strangest and most loyal jobs anybody ever had in show business.
The scarf thing wasn’t planned. It started in September 1970, in Phoenix, Arizona, at the opening night of Elvis’s first proper tour since 1957. Partway through, he pulled the scarf from around his neck and threw it to a young fan in the front row. Her reaction — and the crowd’s — was so joyful that Elvis, who always knew a good moment when he saw one, did it again the next night. And the next.
It became the single most famous ritual of his live shows. He’d use a scarf to dab the sweat off his face, then lean down and drape it around somebody’s neck in the front row. Then another. Then another. In a 1977 filmed performance, you can watch him give away 10 scarves in a single song.
Elvis Best Friend & Memphis Mafia ‘Scarf Man’, Charlie Hodge
Which is where Charlie came in. Somebody had to keep the King supplied. So Charlie Hodge followed him around the stage with armfuls of scarves, and there were piles more stacked on the piano — white, red and blue — ready to go. By the end of a show, the two of them would be throwing them into the crowd by the handful. Over the 1970s, Elvis is estimated to have given away tens of thousands.
There was a real system behind it, too. Early on, the scarves were carefully color-matched to whichever jumpsuit he was wearing that night. From 1974 they started being printed with his name. And after 1975 he mostly stopped worrying about matching altogether and just handed out whatever came to hand.
It could get dangerous. One account from a member of his circle describes almost being strangled at the edge of the stage when two women each grabbed an end of a crossed silk scarf and pulled — and neither of them would let go.
The Elvis I knew, Charlie Hodge
But Charlie Hodge was far more than a man with an armful of silk. He met Elvis on the troop ship to Germany in 1958 and stayed for seventeen years, right up to the end — he was at Graceland the day Elvis died. He sang harmony, laid out the set lists, and held the microphone whenever Elvis needed both hands for the piano — including on his famous last great performance of “Unchained Melody.” He also caught Elvis’s guitar whenever it came flying across the stage, and by his own account never dropped it once.
And he had genuine influence. Record companies pitching songs to Elvis learned to go through Charlie and bodyguard Red West first — the two men were nicknamed “the Imperial Council,” because Elvis trusted their ears.
Today, an authentic Elvis concert scarf can fetch $800 to $1,200 at auction. Most of the people holding them won’t sell at any price.