As many of my regular readers and visitors to this blog will remember, last year, Ann Moses, the former editor of Tiger Beat and the Hollywood correspondent for Britain’s NME wrote a fabulous guest blog for me about her first ever trip to Graceland as a guest speaker at Elvis Week 2018, and provided me with some excellent shots of her visit, so for this blog piece, to mark the 50th anniversary of Elvis’s first live appearances in Las Vegas at the International Hotel, I called on Ann again, to ask her if it would be okay for me to reproduce a passage from her autobiography (Meow, My Groovy Life with Tiger Beat’s Teen Idols) as she was there on the opening night, and to this day, her account of how it was, is probably the best I have read of Elvis’s opening night 50 years ago tonight. I must also thank Ann for supplying the lead picture of her with Elvis at the after show press conference, just eleven days before man landed on the moon during the historic Apollo 11 space flight. A slightly different pose of the same shot appeared on the cover of Elvis Monthly in May 1970, that featured a six page article by Ann entitled An Elvis Fan, Then and Now.
If
you haven’t read Ann’s book, you really should, as it includes a
lot more Elvis. As many Elvis fans know, Ann was seen on the famous
1968 TV Special, sharing the screen with Elvis when her face was
superimposed with his during Can’t Help Falling in Love,
visited him on the set of his final scripted movie, Change of
Habit, went to many of the Vegas shows, appeared in the 1970
concert movie Elvis – That’s the Way It Is, interviewed
director Dennis Sanders, which was featured in the book of the 2014
deluxe 8 disc box set and also wrote the liner notes for the 2013 FTD
On Stage Season 2-CD set as well as writing countless reports
about Elvis in Vegas for the NME in England. What follows is Ann's story of Elvis’ opening live show in Vegas, as it appears in Chapter 19 of her book: Elvis Goes to Vegas (and I follow)...
The
day of Elvis’ July 1969 concert in Las Vegas finally arrived. I
left early in the morning, hoping to avoid much of the desert summer
sun, because my VW Bug had no air conditioning. By noon, it was 107
degrees in my tiny car, even with both windows rolled down. The
air-conditioned lobby of the brand-new International Hotel, with its
ten-foot-high letters spelling out Elvis’ name, felt wonderful.
The
Colonel had arranged for a carnival-themed Elvis fantasyland, with
young women in straw hats handing out free Elvis swag. Comical and
exciting at the same time, there were custom-made banners, pennants,
posters, oversized cardboard records, and Elvis pictures plastered on
every pillar and wall, both inside and outside the hotel. Nick Naff,
the International’s publicity director, gave me a tour of the
thirty-story hotel. It had been open less than a month and, with
1,500 rooms, was the biggest hotel in the world. The main showroom
seated 2,000 and was the largest room of its kind anywhere, with a
sixty-foot-wide stage bigger than Radio City Music Hall’s in New
York City. The International set out to capture a first-class
clientele with Japanese, Italian, French, and Bavarian restaurants
and crystal chandeliers imported from Czechoslovakia. Each floor was
decorated in Spanish, French provincial, and Oriental decor—as far
removed as could be from the Vegas strip hotels with their five-cent
slot machines and two-dollar buffets.
After
my tour (during which I’d peeked into the lounge showroom where Ike
and Tina Turner were rehearsing), I killed an hour on the quarter
slots and watched tourists play roulette, craps, and blackjack until
the showroom opened. My mom had made me a sleeveless, embroidered
lace mini-dress from the latest French Vogue pattern book. It was
simple but elegant, and I felt stunning. Unlike the concerts
presented in Vegas today, the Elvis shows back then followed the
traditions of an old-time Vegas dinner show. When the magic hour
arrived, I was led to a table just to the right of center stage - as
front-row-center as I could get. From my seat, after dinner, I could
see Elvis arrive in the wings.
“Elvis
live, again!” I wrote in my NME article. “And I was there to see
it for you!” I went on to promise that Elvis could hold his own
with the new stars of the day, and pointed out that even the deep
breaths he drew between songs elicited applause. He performed medleys
of all his hits, as well as new material like “Memories,” which
he’d introduced on the comeback special. Designed by Bill Belew,
Elvis’ black tunic shirt with the four-inch turned-up collar would
very soon be copied by everyone from the Osmonds to the Jackson 5,
but on that night, it was an original.
So,
too, was his humble approach to his audience. “I’d like to do my
latest release; it’s been a big seller for me,” he told us, then
added shyly, “something I really needed.” He performed two
Beatles songs and introduced a new song, “Suspicious Minds,”
which would go on to be another million-seller for him. He wrapped
things up with the Ray Charles hit “What’d I Say,” clutching
the microphone, shaking his legs, and doing karate punches as he
screamed the lyrics. Almost before the song ended, Elvis walked off
the stage to a standing ovation.
As
Elvis performed his encore number, “I Can’t Help Falling in
Love,” Graylon slipped behind me and whispered in my ear, “There’s
a press conference in Room C3. Get there as fast as you can!”
I
practically ran to the conference room, where I grabbed a chair in
the front row. Elvis greeted us by saying, “I’m really beat. That
was the fourth time I did that show today,” referring to the three
dress rehearsals he’d done earlier in the day. He didn’t look
beat; he looked confident as he basked in the glow of a wonderful
performance. He answered questions for more than an hour, after which
Col. Parker told us if we’d like to have a picture taken with
Elvis, to please line up. I was third in line for that opportunity,
and I have the greatest picture of me looking up into his handsome
face. He shook my hand, and, when I told him how much I’d enjoyed
his show, he replied with his trademark, “Thank you very much.”
I
raced back to my hotel room, typed out my story about the show for
NME, and the next morning, took a cab to the nearest post office so I
could send my copy out via airmail, the fastest way to get written
material overseas at the time.
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| Ann's book is available from Amazon - or for an autographed copy go here |
