The musician, famed for penning Presley's classics "In the Ghetto" and "A Little Less Conversation", was presented with the BMI Icon prize for his five decade-long career at a ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee.
During the event, he praised the late King for helping him evolve from just a songwriter to an artist, reported Billboard magazine.
"I watched him when he first came to Lubbock, Texas," he recalled, "and he stood on the back of a flatbed truck and the girls were just screaming and yelling and climbing up and trying to get to him. And I said, 'Man, I want to do that.'"