Weisman quote, "Elvis invited me to come to one of those wild parties, you know, the last evening of the season in crazy Vegas. I went upstairs and Elvis grabbed me, stood me up in front of the crowd and announced, "I want you all to meet Ben Weisman. The man who has written more songs for me than any other writer - 57! I want to hear it for this man". " There was a big applause, then he took me over to the piano. It was just me and him. Elvis wasn't looking too good. His eyes were puffy and he'd gotten very, very heavy. He said to me, 'Ben, there's a song I love called "Softly As I Leave You".'" Indeed, I knew it well, one of those ballads that just about everyone had a crack at in the sixties." "After he sang his heart out Elvis said, 'This is not a song about a man who's leaving his girlfriend. It's a song about a man who is going to die.' I didn't know what to say, but I knew there was trouble coming. As Elvis held my arm, I could feel his hand shaking. It made me feel as though mine was shaking, too. And that was the last time I saw him." After Presley's death Weisman composed the symphonic tribute, "The Elvis Concerto," to honor the musical partner whom he shared so many artistic achievements that were also commercial successes. After performing a worldwide tour of the concerto, Weisman, with Elvis gone, retired from public life and wrote very little music thereafter. 'I approached writing for Elvis differently than I did for any other artist. Elvis challenged my imagination. The songs had to have a combination of blues, country, rock and pop, sometimes gospel or swamp boogie, you name it. I lived my creative life walking in his musical shoes. And what shoes they were! Elvis had so much spirit. Beyond compare really. Elvis was a transformer, a rebel, like a meteorite, someone who only comes along once every few hundred years. He had that level of magnetism. Astonishing to be a part of it! And to write for him, to try and express what I knew he was going through as a man, throughout that whole journey. I feel very lucky.' Ben Weisman, "the mad professor," died in 2007 in Los Angeles, California, surrounded by friends and family.