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How I Experienced Elvis!
Elvis in Las Vegas, September 1973
In January 1995, he was celebrated and remembered on his 60th birthday, with old movies and shows that were off-limits to young people in the ’50s and ’60s—unless the shots of his lower body were edited out. His record sales have long since surpassed one billion copies, but few Danes got to see him on stage and get up close to him, for even in life he was a living legend.
At your request, I’ll dig up some memories from a memorable trip that took us from the music city of Nashville via Tupelo, Elvis’s birthplace, to Memphis and a visit to Graceland. The highlight, however, was experiencing Elvis at seven shows in Las Vegas in 1973.
We flew into Las Vegas and took a taxi to a small motel on the main road connecting downtown Las Vegas with the large hotels and casinos springing up south of the city. The first thing we noticed was a sign announcing that the swimming pool was “chilled”—not surprising, since Las Vegas is located in a desert, and it’s hot here (40–45° during the day and 25–30° at night).
Las Vegas is a strange city—if you walk down the main street, you’ll find a cluster of small, charming wedding chapels in garish colors and with tacky architecture, while at the same time there are signs for sex clinics, since prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. There aren’t many people walking around, as it’s more comfortable to drive in large, air-conditioned cars.
We had no trouble finding the Hilton Hotel, because the city was plastered with Elvis posters, and the 25-story hotel was easy to spot.
To give you a sense of the atmosphere at a show, I’d like to tell you about the seventh and final Elvis show I attended. It was also the last show of a month-long run. Exceptionally, it lasted more than 1½ hours; normally, Elvis’s performances were about 60 minutes long.
But first, let me recall the scene at the Las Vegas Hilton: On the ground floor, there are shops, bars, the front desk, various halls, and three showrooms. All of this surrounds a massive hall featuring every kind of game, from roulette, baccarat, and keno to standard slot machines that accept coins ranging from 5 cents to $1. There’s a thick, soft, red plush carpet covering the entire floor and the large sofas placed all around. At the large tables, elderly ladies sit with stacks of $100 bills and look thoroughly bored as they lose without so much as a sigh. Hanging on the walls and from the ceiling are enormous Elvis posters, and right by the entrance is a booth selling Elvis memorabilia. The main showroom is on the far-right corner of the casino. If you have a reservation, the line starts around 3:00 p.m. for the 6:00 p.m. show. Invited guests do not have to wait in line but are admitted before everyone else. You are escorted inside and assigned a seat in the middle of the hall, which seats approximately 4,000 people. Everything is upholstered in red plush. The curtain is large and glittering. At the 6:00 p.m. show, you first enjoy a three-course dinner, which is included in the ticket price, while at this final midnight show at 1:00 a.m., you get three drinks, which must be ordered at the same time. I grab a bottle of Californian champagne and two whiskeys—that should be enough to get me started and pass the time while I wait. Close to the stage, only half the seats are taken. We quickly figured out that these seats required an extra investment, since they’re filled right before the show, in semi-darkness, by people who’ve bribed a waiter. We hired a waiter, gave him a roll of $1 bills—neatly wrapped in a $50 bill—and discreetly handed it to him when we reached the edge of the stage.
We developed a good rapport with one waiter, and on this last night we got the best seats right in front of the stage! The Sweet Inspirations sang first; then a comedian came on whose corny jokes bored us to tears. Get him off the stage!
Then all the lights went out and two spotlights were directed at the curtain, which read “Elvis-Now” in red—the curtain went up, and Elvis usually bursts in with a bottle of Gatorade in his hand, which he chugs down in one gulp. Sumner—at the midnight show on September 3, 1973, he rides in on the back of his biggest bodyguard, and even with a plush monkey on his back, the crowd was speechless. As in most shows, he’s dressed in a white suit studded with rhinestones and sequins. He grins goofily and kicks off with “See See Rider,” still with the monkey on his neck. He throws his upper body to the side in time with Ronnie Tutt’s powerful drum rolls — a great effect.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “I've brought one of my relatives with me!” — “Well—Well—Well” (in different pitches), “I Got A Monkey-Woman” — he keeps changing the lyrics. The song ends, just like in the other shows, with “Amen,” where J.D. Sumner really let it rip. Fantastic! “Ladies and gentlemen and animal lovers,” says Elvis, “we wanna sing some songs for you—and keep the monkey on the back” (in the other shows, he says, “and hope the suit stays on”). He moves on to “Love Me,” still joking around with the monkey—taking it down from his neck and tapping it against his chest. He continues with “Steamroller Blues,” which also has a dramatic opening: he suddenly and forcefully steps to one side while Ronnie hammers away at the cymbal—Elvis looks really tough, and the girls squeal with delight.
“You Gave Me A Mountain,” played a bit faster and with a better arrangement than the studio version, is followed by “Trouble,” which he performs fabulously well and where James delivers an outstanding solo. “Long Tall Sally,” in which he always sings: “saw Charlie Hodge and J.D. Sumner down in the alley!” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Your Mama Don’t Dance,” “Flip Flop Fly,” and “Hound Dog,” of which he sings only half the lyrics—and ends absolutely fabulously: he rocks out and makes sounds similar to the “Polk Salad Annie” version on TTWII. “That was totally un-rehearsed,” he said breathlessly afterward. “I’d like to sing a little bit of ‘Love Me Tender’ for you.” The music plays a short snippet very quickly, and Elvis jokes around a bit in a falsetto voice: “That was a little bit of ‘Love Me Tender,’ speeded up.” He continues, though, while lying on the floor—Charlie comes over with a little smile and drapes a scarf over him. Elvis drastically changes the lyrics from under the scarf, for example: “Adios mother—and papa too” and “To hell with this Hilton hotel and the showroom too, I’ll help you all I can—’cause I know you’re blind.” A little while later, he emerges from under the scarf and finishes as usual. The lights dim, spotlights are directed at the backdrop, and Elvis launches into “Fever”: “Myrna Smith and J.D. Sumner had a very mad affair; when their wives and husbands found them—they saw nothing but teeth and hair.” Here, too, Elvis makes some powerful leg movements to Ronnie’s drums; the girls squeal again, and he laughs. In the middle of the song, he shouts, “I light up when you call my name—Elvis!” and the crowd cheers. He continues: “Captain Smith and Poke… Poke… Pocahontas had a very wild affair,” after which he moans loudly and rhythmically while laughing silly. The crowd claps like crazy as he makes his way through the song with various lyric changes.
The lights go out, and when they come back on, a large bed has been wheeled onto the stage. Elvis starts “What Now My Love,” which he’s lying down to sing—he makes funny faces to the lyrics and jumps around on the bed like a madman. In the middle of the song, it cuts out again, and the rest is sung earnestly—his voice is at its absolute peak, seemingly filling the entire room. The orchestra continues with “Suspicious Minds,” but now it seems he’s out to make fun of them—because Elvis starts singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” They try to drown him out, but he just sings louder—they’re just as stubborn, so he finally loses his train of thought, stops the music, and walks over to get some water—the leftover water gets splashed in Glen Hardin’s face, who usually gets a splash during every show and, for that very reason, keeps a towel on the piano! On his way back, Elvis trips over Charlie’s music stand: “Son of a bitch,” he says, and it goes flying across the floor. “Let’s do ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water,’” but of course he can’t help himself and starts making fun of the lyrics again: “When you’re worried… weary—feeling balled, when tears are in your ears,” and so on. Suddenly, he apparently can’t keep his thoughts together; he says, “No, no, wait a minute, give me the words—you know the words,” whereupon the entire orchestra starts belting it out for him. The crowd cheers, and some start singing along—the atmosphere is at a fever pitch, but Elvis calls it quits while the going’s good and continues the song on his own. “Suspicious Minds” is next, and here, too, he changes the lyrics: “... cause honey I hate this song—I really do” and the previously heard line: “I hope this suit don’t tear up, baby.” After the song, Charlie sets about picking up the sheet music that Elvis had half-tossed into the wings. - Elvis won't have any of that, but calls over the other bodyguards, who are apparently standing backstage—a couple of them come in and take over for Charlie.
Elvis introduces his musicians, who also get their share of teasing: “J.D. Sumner and The Stumps… Stamps Quartet—The Sweet… uh (he thinks hard) Sweet Inspirations.” He leaves out Charlie, though, who usually gets teased a bit. He introduces some celebrities in the audience: actor George Hamilton, singer Bobby Gentry, Colonel Parker, his father—to whom everyone applauds heartily—and finally: “I want you to say hello to Linda—she’s a good friend of mine.” She is his new girlfriend, and she has attended all his shows, usually with Vernon, a few friends, and occasionally Lisa Marie.
Elvis now sings “My Boy”—a new sentimental song in the style of “Separate Ways” and “I’ve Lost You.” Only now does he introduce Charlie Hodge: “He’s been with me for 13 years; he sings this fantastic harmony with me, and he does it so well that it’s almost like one voice.” Charlie is visibly moved by this.
Elvis continues: “You know what I can’t do—‘I Can’t Stop Loving You,’ I said I’ve made up my bed... .Mind.’ This song has a fantastic ending with heavy reverb on the microphone. “American Trilogy” is next, and here, too, he cracks a joke: “Disneyland” instead of “Dixieland” and “Oh, I wish I were in the land of cotton… and I wish that you were there too.” After the song, he praises the flutist and the trumpeters. Next come “A Big Hunk ’O’ Love” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which he is very fond of and clearly sings to Linda Thompson, a girlfriend who lived with him for several years. She’s a beautiful young girl sitting two seats away from me. A more beautiful declaration of love has never been heard, and the recorded versions of the song pale in comparison to this. Later, after the show, I happened to be standing right behind her in the general crowd and couldn’t resist giving her a gentle pat on the butt (I’m sorry, Elvis — I couldn’t help it).
After the song, Elvis shows us a heavy gold chain he received from Hilton—he also mentions that Hilton just fired a guy named Mario, but Elvis thinks he should get his job back: “I just wanna wake up Conrad (the boss) and tell him, that’s all.” The crowd claps loudly; Hilton isn’t popular.
Then he performs “Mystery Train” and “Tiger Man”—he sings the latter to the staff at the Hilton: “I’m the king of the jungle—they call me the tiger man, if you cross my path, you’ll take your own life in your hand,” which is very fitting. Incidentally, it’s a wild version with brilliant lighting effects. The next song is “How Great Thou Art,” in which he also showcases his magnificent voice—the crowd cheers so loudly that he repeats the ending three times. After “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” he sits down and tells a moving story about a man dying of cancer. His wife, who has been keeping vigil over him for several nights, is lying beside him, asleep, when he senses death approaching—he writes a few lines for her: “Softly, softly as I leave you,” and when she wakes up, he is dead. Not a dry eye in the house — a sudden and dramatic shift from all the fun; who would have thought Elvis could pull that off, too? The show ends with “Can’t Help Fallin’ In Love,” and everyone stands to pay tribute to him as the curtain falls. He steps out onto the ramp and hands out the last scarves and handshakes… and then he’s gone.
We walk home in silence—once again, convinced that this is THE KING.