Hilton Hotel, Please!
"281 to Nash," the cab driver advised his HQ of our destination. The code name had obviously
stuck from the days of the International Hotel. The Big H - the Las Vegas Hilton - loomed
over larger ahead of us, the blue sign winking on top and the marquee in the car park clearly
spelling out the name ELVIS. Earlier that day, we'd watched them putting up the huge letters.
The taxi detached itself from the stream of traffic on Paradise Road and turned right into
the Avenue of the Hiltons. It was opening night, 2nd December, 1976. The Hilton entrance area
and lobby, and, indeed, the whole casino, was covered in Elvis posters and "sold out" signs.
Excited faces milled around the souvenir booth and the usual lines of fans snaked around the
casino, each body clutching its precious ticket.
POWERFUL PERFORMANCE
I'd heard about "Hurt" and how powerfully Elvis did it "live", but I sat back in astonishment
when Elvis sang it! A standing ovation encouraged him to repeat it. There was a look of
delight on his face at people's reactions. "Hound Dog" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song"sung in
contrasting style both had Eivis accepting gifts ringside, while flurries of females tried
to storm the stage. Elvis said he'd like to play guitar and do "Blue Christmas" for us.
"...... Cos some people think I can't play the guitar . . . they're right," he joked.
Glen Campbell yelled out, "If I was as pretty as you are, I wouldn't have to worry at all !"
Elvis sat down on the blue chair Charlie had put ready and sang the popular "Blue Christmas".
His own microphone was lowered to catch his guitar playing and Charlie held another microphone
close to Elvis's face. A few comments about Ed Sullivan and shaky legs and he was into
"That's All Right, Mama", playing the familiar opening riff on his acoustic guitar.
A tight sound remarkably close to the "Sun" original was achieved and very nice to hear too.
A completely different song and mood followed as Elvis wrapped his tonsils around "Bridge
Over Troubled Water", first telling us that his father was a lot better. Then, "Thanks for
making opening night really fantastic", he said, and "Can't Help Failing In Love" signalled
a further rush of stagebound bodies. Elvis came out from under the plush new Hilton curtains,
acknowledged the applause, then ducked under the curtains and was gone. The audience poured
out, ecstatic, many people making their way to the souvenir booth, or like us, to the coffee
shop to sit and talk and re-live the show and try to come down to earth! I fell asleep that
night in a rosy glow of happiness.
VERNON AND LISA
On Sunday evening, we arrived at the holtel about 9 a.m. All the lines had gone in by then
and we saw Vernon taking Lisa into the showroom just ahead of us. She was dressed in a long
white Victorian dress, her ash blonde hair in a long bob, and we could see the strong likeness to
Elvis around her eyes.
BARRAGE OF FANS
There was a marked improvement on Tuesday night, although Elvis was still limping a little
and said he had a pinched nerve. "I'd have come down if I had to do it from a wheelchair",
he told us. "Are You Lonesome Tonight" was a regular feature of the shows now, each night
being sung for more laughs. My huge binoculars acted as a bionic eye, giving me a front row
view of Elvis' facial expressions in this song. Elvis said there was something he'd wanted
to do for a long time - sing some spirituals on-stage. "You're the King", called out a
fellow, and Elvis, who dislikes being called the King, replied, "I'm fixin' to sing about Him."
The Stamps came out front and Elvis sang "You Better Run" and "Bosom Of Abraham".
It was all too short - suddenly Elvis was singing his closing number and the usual invasion
of the stage was under way. The bodyguards, headed by Jerry Schilling and Ed Parker, were
very half-hearted and didn't try very hard to stop the nightly barrage of fans. Fans near
the stage had been getting hurt and, knowing this, we were a little worried ourselves on
Wednesday evening, when we were sat within arm's length of the stage.
HIGHLIGHTS OF SHOW
Elvis looked happier on Friday, and at the 9 p.m. show he told us, immediately after the
first song, that he had just brought Vernon out of hospital. A scorching version of
"Steamroller Blues" was the highlight of this show.
ELVIS SINGS THE BLUES
Just before the close of Saturday's later show, Elvis took up his guitar and incredibly began
"Reconsider Baby". He was unsure of the words, but for a few minutes there was Elvis. Presley
singing the Blues, and this, plus "I Just Can't Help Believin'" on opening night, was alone
worth the cost of my whole trip.
or Adventures in Paradise Road
(by Anne E. Nixon)
It was an extra special occasion for me, as I'd never before attended an opening night.
Since my friends and I had pink tickets for this show, we were seated upstairs, but our
centre front balcony seats afforded a great view. The warm-up acts were interminable,
Mr. Kahane relying once again on jokes he was telling in 1972. At 10p.m. you could sense
the excitement in the air as "2001" was heard. The blue inner curtains parted and a smiling
figure in a white jumpsuit embroidered in turquoise and gold emerged to shrieks and cheers.
For the next hour and forty minutes Elvis captivated his audience with what may have been his
finest-ever opening show. After the initial delight of seeing him again, with the aid of my
powerful binoculars I took stock of the man on-stage. He was quite trim, his "fluid retention"
problem well under control and he looked as handsome and striking a figure as ever.
It was a superb show. "C.C. Rider", "I Got A Woman" and "If You Love Me Let Me Know" were
crisply performed; "Lord You Gave Me A Mountain" and "It's Now Or Never" were beautifully
sung, and he did a superior version of "Jailhouse Rock" with slow ending. "Softly As I Leave
You" and "And I Love You So" gained much audience approval, and various of his hits had Elvis
strolling around giving out scarves and kisses. it was a mob scene at times down front. Elvis
decided, out of the blue, to do "I Just Can't Help Believin'", and I was thrilled to see him
do my favourite song. He had forgotten the words, not having sung it for years, but it was
a magic few minutes for me. After a slow, burning "Fever" and an energetic "Polk Salad Annie",
Elvis began the lengthy introductions. He sang a verse of "Early Morning Rain" in John
Wilkinson's solo, and some of "What'd I Say" and "Johnny B. Goode" to James Burton's biting
guitar, the latter tune being played while James held his guitar behind his head.
Ronnie Tutt bashed the daylights out of his drums, Jerry Scheff played a Bluesy piece, and
new pianist, Tony Brown, played a skilful solo that had Elvis nodding and humming along in
appreciation. After David Brigg's piece on the electric clarinet Charlie Hodge took Tony's
place at the piano and Elvis said he wanted to sing "Love Letters" because they recorded that
tune the first time David Briggs ever worked with him. Elvis' fine rendition was a duplicate
of the disc version. Elvis turned his broad back on the audience while Joe Guercio's
orchestra played a swinging tune and the King could be heard singing a few lines of "Schooldays".
Vikki Carr and Glen Campbell were in the audience and Elvis told Glen he'd heard about the
impersonation he did of him and said that imitation was a compliment. For the rest of the show
Glen and Elvis continued to throw comments at each other, to our amusement.
On the next two evenings, Elvis gave two shows a night. The first show on Friday seemed very
short, although it lasted over an hour. Elvis wore the beautiful Indian jumpsuit from the
"Boulevard" album cover and included "One Night" among his hits, after it was requested.
He seemed a little anxious to get the show over with, mentioning several times about the late
show. It was a good show, but without that special sparkle.
The 1 a.m. show, however, was superb, and our central booth in the front half of the showroom
gave us a fantastic view. Elvis sang "America The Beautiful" for us, and a special treat for
me was to hear him do "Tryin' To Get To You."
Saturday's shows were both excellent. At the early show, before Elvis came on, we could see
a small blonde head in the Presley booth. Lisa got a big round of applause when introduced,
and Englebert Humperdinck and Roy Orbison were at adjacent booths just in front of our table.
A highlight of this show was "What Now My Love" with Elvis dramatically speaking the first
part.
Between shows we sat in the coffee shop, surrounded, as usual, by Elvis "people on all sides:
Vernon, J.D., Charlie, etc., and Jackie Kahane was wandering around in a T-shirt with
"I'm Not Elvis" on the back!
Soon after 1 a.m. we re-entered the showroom and sank thankfully into the comfort of a booth.
Elvis decided to change the order of songs around a little and did "Fairytale" and "Lawdy
Miss Clawdy". He attempted "Rip It Up", but the band were lost, so he gave up. "Lord You Gave
Me A Mountain" had part of the lyrics spoken by Elvis. Before he sang "Now Or Never", Elvis
asked Sherill Neilsen to sing the Italian words, and, as Sherill did so, Elvis did his best to
break Sherill up by pulling faces and making comments. In subsequent shows, Sherill extended
the high notes, and it was amusing to watch Elvis' reactions. Just before the end of the show,
Elvis had Sherill come out front and do "Danny Boy" and "Walk With Me". We realised, after this
show, that a third of the fifteen shows were over already. Time was going too fast.
During Kahane's act there was a lot of movement behind the blue curtains. Charlie's voice
could be heard. Jackie said that he'd been interrupted by a man with a scarf back there and jocked that Elvis
had fallen off his wallet and sprained his ankle and would be late on! We soon realised that
Jackie wasn't joking and when he finally ran out of jokes and ad libs at about 10.15, we wondered
just what was going to happen. For several minutes the orchestra played on, and the shadowy
figure of Charlie Hodge was adjusting the microphone and yelling at Bill Porter to switch it
on. Then, at last, "2001" began.
Elvis walked very slowly on from the left side of the stage (the side nearest to his lift
down to his dressing room). He apologised to us, saying he'd fallen down a step in his
bedroom while going to the bathroom in the dark and had sprained his ankle. He made a joke
about "Chester" in "Gunsmoke". After the two opening songs, during which Elvis looked down
at his right ankle with a look to let us know it hurt him, he sat down awhile on his blue
chair and sang several songs, including a hilarious version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight"
with dead-pan Charlie Hodge standing alongside holding the microphone for him. Charlie
hammed it up and Elvis changed the words of the song and broke up with laughter. The
expressions on his and Charlie's faces were priceless and it was one of the funniest things
I've ever seen.
Elvis next told us about his new ring. He said he'd studied numerology and had at last got
hold of a black diamond, which was his birthstone (isn't it a garnet?). His police pals in
Denver had located a collector with such a stone. He'd been searching for fourteen years.
"It doesn't shine, looks like coal," he said about the VERY expensive ring. This ring and the
outsize TCB ring were the only rings he wore all season Elvis, still sitting down, attempted
"Sweet Caroline " but had forgotten the words. He got up off the chair during the song
(to applause) and didn't use it again that show. When Lisa was introduced, Elvis joked
that "Lisa Marie runs the house ... knows all the telephone numbers!" And he stood there, a
silly grin of pride on his face as Lisa turned round in the spotlight. Sunday's show was a
good one, despite the twisted ankle that was obviously giving Elvis pain. He was in good
spirits, very loose, and we felt grateful that he'd gone ahead with the show.
Next night, as we predicted, the ankle was causing Elvis greater pain and he didn't look at
all well. He rather unwisely included "Polk Salad Annie" and walked about as usual giving out
scarves. In "Fever" he wore Graucho Marx-type spectacles, nose and moustache that a fan gave
him, and which quite ruined the mood of the song! There was an excess of water-throwing too,
as happened many nights, and even Elvis got soaked. There was a mopping-up operation going
on over by The Sweet Inspirations amid a lot of laughter. Elvis sang "Help Me Make It
Through The Night" and then asked Sherrill to do his two songs, followed by Kathy Westmoreland
singing the lovely "My Heavenly Father". Before ending the show Elvis told us that he was in
pain with his leg and hoped it would be better by the next night. He'd been on-stage over
an hour and, again, we were grateful just to see him there. In the coffee shop soon after,
Charlie told us that Eivis was already upstairs and sleeping, and in the good care of
Dr. Nichopoulos.
It was another brilliant show, with Eivis fully recovered. When he began "Love Me" he came
in our direction and, unfortunately, some girls pushed down the row in front of us and
refused to return to their seats even after Elvis had gone to the other side of the stage.
There was quite a battle between the pushy fans and other fans near to us and we were caught
in the crossfire. It was frightening. I think that Elvis had begun to realise what was
happening. For the rest of this show and in subsequent shows he cut down the scarf-giving
a lot. The new sound system in the showroom was giving a lot of problems, with Eivis having
to re-start many songs because the sound was poor. He said there were twenty speakers and 39
microphones on-stage. Indeed, the front of the stage was ringed with large black speakers
that made it hard for fails by the stage to see properly. It was the English Fan Club's last
night, and a fellow called out, "When are you coming to England?" Diplomatically, Elvis
replied, "It's being prepared right now . . . it takes time." After the introductions, Elvis
showed us a gold-coloured award, said the English fans were present and mentioned Todd
Slaughter. The vivacious Liza Minelli was in the audience, plus other celebrities. There
were a bunch of Memphis folks there including Gary Pepper in his wheelchair. Following his
policy of including at least one different song in each show - sometimes as a request - Elvis
did "Mystery Train/Tiger Man," but the light man omitted to operate the strobe light, so
Elvis, no doubt feeling foolish, gave up trying to do his usual movements in the latter song,
but ended with a tremendous karate kick. It was a long exciting show, the kind of show that
makes you tingle all over with pride. From that night on, the Hilton musak was incorporating
Elvis' Christmas songs; a nice touch.
Next day we went out to McCarran Field Executive Airport. Elvis' large "Lisa Marie" jet was
parked near to the perimeter fence shining, white and beautiful in the sunlight. The smaller
TCB jet was parked close by the terminal buildings. Our cameras worked overtime!
On Thursday evening, Elvis seemed preoccupied, not seeming to notice many of the gifts being
offered to him. We realised why when he paused to tell us that his father had gone into
hospital the previous night, and then he did the most moving version of "Help Me" that I've
ever heard. A rather negative aspect hat night was a surfeit of rude fans in the audience,
interrupting Elvis and yelling for scarves. Elvis was often more patient with them than they
deserved. Charlie told us later that Vernon had been taken ill after Wednesday night's show
and that Elvis was going to the hospital to visit him. Vernon had indeed looked ill each
time we'd, seen him during the previous week, and we'd been shocked at his appearance and
loss of weight.
At the second show on Friday, the sound system was causing more problems. While the sound
engineers went on-stage to check the microphones, Elvis asked The Stamps to do "Sweet, Sweet
Spirit", and then joined them in "Why Me, Lord ?" It was pleasing to see him do a full
version of "Early Morning Rain" in this show, instead of just the first verse.
Saturday, December llth - and we had just three shows left. For both of Saturday's shows we
had excellent seats in booths close to the front. We much preferred the booths that we had
for the majority of our shows to the front tables. Booths were safer, with a better allround
view, and more comfortable than playing sardines down by the stage. Being able to go into the
showroom most nights after the lines of fans had gone in, we missed most of the degrading
hassle for stage seats. Seats, as usual, were allocated on how much you tipped, not on ticket
numbers. Showroom staff disliked the ticket admissions as much as we did. Despite being
"sold out" there was always room for the gamblers and there were as many non-fans as ever.
Tickets hadn't improved the fan situation one bit as I'd hoped. As the maitre de admitted,
fans don't count, monied folks do. This situation is driving many fans away from Vegas and
there's nothing anyone can do about it, except hope that Elvis will quit the Hilton as soon
as possible.
During Saturday's early show Elvis was handed up a pair of overalls as on the "Elvis Country"
album cover. He refused to put them on, muttering about Mississippi two hundred years ago!
Charlie Hodge pulled on the overalls, which came up to his chin, and stood there scratching!
Charlie's sense of humour is as zany as Elvis'! I record this amusing incident to illustrate
the kind of things that can and do happen at every Elvis show, making each show a unique
experience. Elvis sang ar few lines of "Rip It Up" again, but the band couldn't follow him
and he gave up. "Blue Suede Shoes", like "Jailhouse Rock", was getting a good serious
treatment from Elvis at many shows. Other oldies like "All Shook Up" were thrown away, being
"scarf" songs. Priscilia's parents were Elvis' guests that weekend and he dedicated "My Way"
to them. He spoke warmly of Col. Beaulieu, who'd just retired after many years' service in
Vietnam, etc. Col. Parker was keeping a low profile all season, but was sitting in the next
booth to us for this show.
Inevitably, Sunday night came, and we were seated at a front table watching The Stamps, The
Sweets and the repetitious Mr. Kahane for the last time. The groups' songs had grown so
familiar. The Stamps' best item was a catchy song called "Operator", and The Sweets included
a haunting version of "If You Leave Me Now".
There was a long orchestral interlude, then at last Elvis was in front of us, wearing a white
jumpsuit as he had at the fourteen preceding shows. This excellent closing, which lasted
ninety minutes, was full of highlights. "Little Sister" was sung with great drive, James
Burton shining in support. Elvis played a little flamenco guitar before he did "That's All
Riqht". He re-started this song to make sure we'd heard his guitar-playrng ! "Bridge Over
Troubled Water" was outstanding. An amazing thing about Elvis is that you think you've heard
his best, then he does an even stronger version of some song. There is often the feeling too,
that he has something in reserve, that he is reluctant to unleash the full power of his voice
and intangible charisma in case his audience become too dazzled. As someone once said, he
keeps the pendulum swinging slightly away from himself.
The souvenir booth had been operated in aid of the American Heart Association and Elvis
announced that they'd raised over $17,000 (plus a little extra that he wouldn't know about,
for ticket scalpers had been operating from the booth). Vernon was well enough to attend
the closing show (although he'd confessed to us in the casino earlier that day that he was
still ill), and he got warm applause when introduced, as did singer Wayne Newton, who is
possibly second to Elvis in drawing power in Vegas showrooms. Just to show Newton who was
King, Elvis outdid himself on "Hurt" and gained a fantastic long standing ovation.
"Such A Night" came next although Elvis had forgotten the words. He was handed up the sheet
music of "Sweet Caroline" and did a carbon-copy to that in "TTWII", complete with swinging
arm movements, to my delight.
Before we realised it, Elvis was thanking Bill Porter and the musicians, and was singing his
final song. It was chaos then, with almost everyone down front standing on chairs and
tables, girls rushing the stage and glimpses of Eivis almost submerged under fans and
bodyguards. If ever there was a moment I wanted to hold back, it was then - but you can't
petrify time, and, suddenly, Elvis was gone. Utter desolation replaced the exhilaration of
the past eleven days.