Charlie Hodge, who performed for about a year with Bill Gaither before joining the Foggy River Boys and then Elvis Presley as a backup singer and guitarist has died at the age of 71 of lung cancer in a Knoxville, Tennessee hospital on March 3rd.

The Alabama born performer met Presley when they served in the army together, but his roots were in southern Gospel music. “I wanted to be in a Gospel quartet. And I went out to the Stamp School of Music when I graduated school and met a young man out there named Bill Gather. And we formed a quartet together, sang together about a year before we broke up.” said Hodge in a 2005 interview. Hodge was prominently featured on such Presley recordings as the album “He Touched Me” which featured Gaither’s signature song and Hodge doing backing vocals and guitar duties. He was a member of Presley’s band until Presley’s death in 1977 and lived at the Graceland estate for seventeen years. More recently he performed in tributes to Presley at the Memories Theatre in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.