WEBVTT - How Elvis Reinvented Las Vegas 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.560 This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories, 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.840 and we tell stories about everything here on this show, 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.200 from the arts to sports, and from business to history. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.239 And our next guest has written a terrific book, Elvis 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.840 in Vegas, How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.520 And I welcome Richard Zoglin to our American Stories. How 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:31.160 are you, Richard? 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:32.800 Great? Great to be with you. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:34.720 Well, you know, I want to start in the beginning, 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:40.680 because you start by describing Elvis Presley and this town 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.800 called Las Vegas. And it turns out that long before 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.279 he did his big comeback show, he had actually played 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.040 in Vegas well one time before when he had just 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.640 become a star for RCA. Talk about that first show, 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.080 that first time Elvis played Vegas right. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.840 Right, That was in nineteen fifty six. He was just 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:03.520 coming up. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.400 He had just he had one hit song at that point, 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:11.479 Heartbreak Hotel, and Colonel Parker as manager, decided to put 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.200 him into Las Vegas, which was a very strange venue 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.040 for a young hip shaking rock and roller from Memphis. 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:21.920 He was on a bill at the New Frontier Hotel 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.640 with Shecky Green and Freddie Martin's orchestra. So it was 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.240 a very strange kind of nightclub show for Las Vegas. 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:30.520 And he didn't do very well. 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.520 The middle aged nightclub crowd that frequented Vegas in those 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.840 years just really didn't know what to make of this kid. 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.560 But Elvis it turns out he really loved Vegas and 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.720 it became his kind of favorite getaway. He would go 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.000 back there in between movie shoots just for rest and 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:48.600 relaxation with his friends. 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:51.440 You see other shows pick up women. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.200 And he got married to Priscilla there in nineteen sixty 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.600 seventy made, of course, Viva Las Vegas, the kind of 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.440 quintessential Vegas movie there in sixty three, so it became 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.800 a very familiar place to him during the sixties. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.000 Let's talk about Vegas itself, because it's a quirky city. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.280 It wasn't a big city until fairly recently. In fact, 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.720 I was shocked, Richard, how small Vegas was until right 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.000 around the time of the nineteen fifties. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.360 Yeah, it was a small town in it got founded 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.640 in nineteen oh five. It kind of hit the big 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.760 started to attract people in the early thirties when Hoover 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:32.000 Dam was constructed nearby and Las Vegas was the place 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.680 where everybody, all the construction workers went downtown Vegas to gamble. 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.280 Nevada was the one straightened union that had legalized gambling. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.680 The real boom in Las Vegas happened during the forties. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.280 There were first a couple of hotels that opened on 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.880 what we now know as the Las Vegas Strip, which 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.320 was the highway leading from Vegas to Los Angeles. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.119 But then right after the war, in nineteen forty six. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.600 The Flamingo Hotel opened, and that was the hotel Siegel 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.799 and his mob friends from New York opened, and they 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.480 began attracting really the top line big stars. And the 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.919 whole idea of Vegas the Vegas hotels was to get 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:16.720 people into the casinos to gamble and pay top dollar 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.360 for the biggest stars, because that would get people into 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:20.840 the casinos. 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.880 And they'd make the money back from the gambling. 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.360 Then that was the money they could pay top dollar 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:27.840 to the stars with. 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:29.760 And so starting with. 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.680 The Flamingo in nineteen forty six, then all the hotels 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.280 opened on the strip in the early late forties early fifties, 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:39.520 the Sands, the Sahara, the desert In, et cetera. By 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.240 the mid fifties, you had it was really the entertainment 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.600 capital of America in terms of live nightclub entertainment, and 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.280 so it was really hitting its golden age, its heyday 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.240 years right around the time that Elvis first appeared in 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:53.400 Vegas in fifty six. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.920 You wrote this in your chapter. You said there was 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.000 just one rule, keep the show to a strict timeline, 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.080 usually an hour or less, to make sure your patrons 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.640 weren't away from the casinos for too long. For keeping 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.680 people in the casino was the key to Vegas's whole 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.080 business model. That led to one of Las Vegas' great 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.440 innovations of the nineteen fifties, the lounge show. Talk about that. 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.080 Yeah, there were, of course the big showrooms where Sinatra, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.799 Tony Bennett, everybody played, all the major every major nightclub 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.120 star in the country played Vegas sometime or another in 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.440 the fifties and sixties. But then starting in the mid fifties, 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:38.120 somebody had the idea to have a show in the lounge, 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.240 which was kind of a bar lounge area right adjacent 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.800 to the casino, in between the big shows in the 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.839 big showrooms. It would keep people in the casino in 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:49.440 the hotel. 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:50.440 They wouldn't leave. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.960 They'd go and spend an hour or so at the 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:58.040 lounge where a different performer, comedians, singers were performing, jazz groups, 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.880 and the whole idea was to keep them from leaving 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.440 the hotel stay in the casino. 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.400 But the lounge shows became a genre of their own. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.240 Louis Priman and Keeley Smith were a great duo back 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.520 in the fifties and they really set the model for 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:17.440 lounge shows in Vegas. So you had this double helping 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:18.919 of entertainment in each hotel. 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.320 And let's talk about a character who is from West Alice, Wisconsin, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.440 and his name americanized. It's wlad Zeo or something really 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:34.240 really hard to pronounce. But Walter Liberaci. Talk about Liberaci, 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.240 and by the way, talk a little bit about Liberacci 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:37.440 and Elvis. 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:40.720 Sure, one of the big stars in Vegas in the 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.880 mid fifties was Liberaci. He had a really unique act, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:48.640 very flamboyant, you know, piano and talking with the audience 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:50.960 and musical, you know, all sorts of. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.799 From classical to pop, popular. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:54.680 And very flamboyant. 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.400 He was really one of the biggest stars in Vegas 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.400 in the fifties. Elvis came in nineteen five fifty six, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.159 and he wasn't doing very well at the New Frontier Hotel. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.720 So Colonel Parker went over to the Riviera where Liberaci 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:11.680 was playing and doing very well, of course, and asked 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.280 Libaraci if he could come over and help out his boy, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.280 you see his show, maybe take some publicity shots with him, 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.280 And Liberaci was a very generous performer did that for. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.040 Elvis, and Elvis always. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:28.160 Appreciated that that Liberachi was nice enough to sort of 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:29.880 help him out when he was struggling a little in 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:34.120 Las Vegas. But also Elvis I think learned from Liberaci. 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.200 Strangely enough, there was something about his showmanship. Liberachi had 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.360 one piece of advice for Elvis after he saw his show. 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:45.680 He says, Elvis, your show needs more glitz, And sure enough, 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.240 not long after, Elvis was touring in a gold blas 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.760 jacket very much like the one that Liberachi was wearing 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.120 in Las Vegas. And I think that they were friendly 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.600 throughout their careers, continued to see each other and occasionally, 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:05.400 and I do think that Liberachi's showmanship was a big 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.320 influence on Elvis, particularly in those later Vegas years when 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.160 he came out with the White jumpsuits and the flashy 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.800 outfits and stuff. I think you can look back and 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:16.800 see Liberachi's influence there. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.280 Well, we'll continue with this conversation. The book is Elvis 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.720 in Vegas, How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show. 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.600 We'll be back with more of Richard Zoglin's story Elvis 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:33.000 in Vegas after these messages. Leah Habib here, and I'd 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.400 like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.360 on Apple podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:45.280 our podcasts. Any story you missed can be found there daily. Again, 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:50.600 please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple podcasts, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.600 the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It 0:07:54.680 --> 0:08:09.880 helps us keep these great American stories coming. And we 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.040 continue here on Our American Stories Elvis in Vegas. We're 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.640 talking about this terrific book with author Richard Zodwin, How 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:21.280 the King Reinvented a Las Vegas Show. Let's talk about 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.760 the rat Pack. Who were they and what impact did 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.040 these guys have on Vegas. 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.240 Frank Sinatra was already a big Vegas star from the 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:35.560 early fifties, and in nineteen sixty he was making a 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.080 movie in Las Vegas called Ocean's Eleven. He was also 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.400 going to appear at the Sands Hotel in the evenings 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.640 after his day shooting was done well. This film had 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.679 all a lot of his sort of friends from Hollywood 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.560 in the cast, and somebody came up with the idea 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.760 that maybe Frank could bring some of them on stage 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:54.800 with him in the evening when he did his show 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:59.319 at the Sands, and so Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.200 Peter Law, and Joey Bishop would come on stage every night, 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.400 it turned out, and they would just have this kind 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:07.319 of free for all. 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.800 Session of songs and jokes and drinking. 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.480 And it was a smash. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.840 Hit in Las Vegas for like one month in January 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:20.960 February nineteen sixty, the rat Pack shows were the biggest 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.679 thing Vegas had seen. Every celebrity from Hollywood came to 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:25.240 a Jack. 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.000 Kennedy who was campaigning for president. 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.439 He came to see the show on the campaign trail, 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:36.439 and they kind of became the quintessential iconic stars of Vegas, 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:37.199 the rat Pack. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.520 And let's talk about what happened soon after, because rock 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.240 and roll is coming down the pike a new generation 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.720 and this is always the case with pop music. A 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.240 new generation is coming in. I want to read something 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.719 because it almost seemed to summarize the clash of these 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.960 almost two civilizations and cultures. You're right, they needed, and 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.560 you're talking about the rat Pack to leave the stage 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:01.520 before a new kind of vagae entertainment could emerge. Frank 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.480 Sinatra and Elvis Presley represented two opposite polls in American 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:10.240 popular music, the suave, largely urban jazz influenced tradition that 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.520 dominated radio recordings and nightclubs for decades, and the unruly, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:19.040 largely rural blues and country influenced music that would first 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.600 catch on in the mid nineteen fifties and virtually take 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.440 over in the next decade. That seismic shift in music, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:28.960 as well as in the rest of the culture, was 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.839 mirrored in the changes that would come to the Las 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.080 Vegas Strip. Talk about that because it's fascinating. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:36.520 Yeah. 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.920 Well, as I said, the rat Pack kind of epitomized 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.080 Vegas cool in the early sixties. But then things started 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.000 to change very quickly, starting in sixty four with the 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.120 advent of the Beatles and the whole British invasion, the 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:54.200 whole all the changes in rock and roll, the counterculture, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.120 the Vietnam protests and everything we know what happened in 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.920 the sixties. And suddenly, by the late sixties, the cool 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.000 rat pack guys were looking very last generation and the 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:07.840 new rock and rollers were not coming to Las Vegas. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.760 The younger generation did not think Vegas was cool anymore, 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.440 and so Vegas was starting to wonder where it was 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.040 going and how it was going to get the next generation. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.720 The nightclub scene was fading out, the traditional. 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.959 Nightclub show, the nightclubs were closing around the country. Vegas 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.960 was really the last outpost for real nightclub entertainment, but 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.160 it was starting to fade, and so the rock and 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.160 roll scene really made Vegas have to take a look 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:37.320 at itself and figure out. 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:38.280 What to do next. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.560 And I think that Elvis's arrival in nineteen sixty nine 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.360 helped Vegas enter that new era, that new era. 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:46.920 Of rock and roll. 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.080 And it's interesting because it also helped Elvis resuscitate his career. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.079 Let's talk about the sixties, because Elvis comes back from 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:59.440 serving his country and Tom Parker, and that's Colonel Tom Parker. 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.280 You write and Chronicle made a big mistake in the 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.520 end by focusing Elvis only on this movie career of his, 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.480 which these are some really wretched films in the end, 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:15.000 and Elvis had stopped touring and playing almost entirely. So 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.880 talk about that. It's almost a lost musical decade. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.960 Sure, it was Colonel Parker's decision after Elvis came back 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.200 from the Army that he would become a movie star, 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.240 and he didn't want him to be. You know, people 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.800 felt that rock and roll was for kids, and that 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.680 if you wanted a career, you had to graduate to 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.280 something else. You couldn't just sing rock and roll forever. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.560 So Elvis wanted to do movies and had done some 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:42.880 good movies, fairly good movies. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.079 In the fifties before the Army. After the Army, though, he. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:49.600 Was restricted only to movies and recording, and through that 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.320 entire decade the movies got worse and worse. The songs 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.800 he was recording were kind of no longer making the 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.520 charts by the mid sixties late sixties, and Elvis was 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.959 getting bored to death. He knew the movies weren't very good. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.280 He really missed performing live. But the Colonel was very 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.480 strict about this plan. He wanted to sort of restrict 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:15.280 the access to Elvis, and so you know, strangely enough, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.840 he did not do any live performing except for a 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.920 couple of benefit performances in nineteen sixty one. Elvis did 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.600 no live performing during the nineteen sixties, no concerts until 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.319 finally in nineteen sixty eight, when he made his famous 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:37.360 comeback special on NBC. Finally it was time the Colonel 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.280 decided for Elvis to come back to live performing, and Vegas, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:43.680 being very familiar to both of them, was where the 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.000 Colonel decided to do it. 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.480 And let's talk about that night. He had to be nervous. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.800 First of all, it's been a long time, but he 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:55.199 comes out in that leather elfit and he changes everybody's 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.000 mind about him. People had thought he was washed out 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.160 rock and roll had changed. Talk about the importance of 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.440 this for Elvis's career in the culture, and particularly the 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.040 cultural elites of the rock and roll crowd. That John 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:11.520 Landaus and those young music critics who sort of thought 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:13.760 of Elvis as sort of that old fifties character. 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:15.920 That's right, they had written him off. 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.560 Now things had started to change in December sixty eight 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.040 when he did his comeback special on NBC. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.760 There they saw Elvis still as powerful of a performer 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:27.240 as ever. 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.200 Still, the idea of Elvis returning to the stage, that 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:32.920 was a big gamble from him, and. 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:34.320 He was very nervous. 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:36.360 He had been away for so long and thought so 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.920 much had changed in the rock world. Elvis didn't know 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.040 if he could still draw a crowd anymore, if he 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.360 could still perform like he did a decade earlier, So 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.400 he was very nervous about it. The rock and roll 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.440 critics all came to that show. There was so much 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.560 anticipation around that return. I think the appetite was wetted 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.960 by that sixty eight special on NBC, but all the 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.600 major rock critics and rock reporters from around the country 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.200 basically flew in for that one night, that opening night 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.280 on July thirty first, nineteen sixty nine, and the reviews 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.760 were almost unanimous. Raves and even the rock critics who 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.240 were very skeptical of Elvis, who felt he was a 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:26.120 has beien, they admitted that he was amazingly good on stage. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.840 He could still rock with the old to the old numbers. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.320 He had new stuff that he was doing for the 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.040 first time that would you know, these songs like Suspicious 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:36.160 minds and in the ghetto. 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:38.520 That kind of introduced a new Elvis. 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:41.760 He was reinventing himself, and I think the rock critics 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:46.200 were kind of amazed and grateful to see him back 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.000 as dynamic as ever. 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.720 Let's talk about a guy named Krekorian. Is Kirk in 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.480 the end has something to do with his comeback. I 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.400 mean he's building a brand new hotel with a big, 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:00.760 big stage and a lot of capacity. 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:01.880 Yeah. 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.520 Well, Kurt Kacorian was coming to Las Vegas. 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.880 He had bought a hotel, the Flamingo Hotel, I think 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.280 a year earlier, and then he decided to build the 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.760 biggest hotel in Vegas off the strip in the convention 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:20.360 center area, called the International Hotel, with a showroom twice 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:21.160 as large. 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.400 As any other in Las Vegas. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.880 He had a whole crew getting ready for the getting 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.720 the hotel ready. He hired a you know, an entertainment director, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.120 and the instructions were to get the best, you know, 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.280 the biggest entertainment available. A guy named Bill Miller was 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.800 the entertainment director who was a kind of well known 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.840 booker in Vegas. He went out and he wanted Elvis Presley. 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.880 He thought that that was the kind of big name, 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.960 you know, big attraction that the hotel needed to open. 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.200 Colonel Parker was receptive, except he had one problem. He 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:59.120 didn't want Elvis to open the hotel because the hotel 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.880 was still being construction. They were racing to finish it 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.520 in time for the summer opening. And he said, we'll 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.720 do the hotel, we'll play the hotel, but Elvis shouldn't 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:10.280 be first. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.000 Have somebody else be the guinea pig. We'll come in second. 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.520 And so Bill Miller, the booker, went to his backup choice, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.920 Barbara streisand who actually opened the hotel in July, played 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:23.960 the month of July in nineteen sixty nine. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.159 Barbara actually didn't do that well. 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.520 Her show was not that well received. She did more of. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.679 A sort of stripped down New York cabaret style act, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.879 and it didn't really fill that big stage. Elvis filled 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.560 the stage, and when he came, he sold out every 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.040 single show for twenty eight straight days. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.000 And we're talking to Richard Zoglin. The book is Elvis 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.960 in Vegas, How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show. 0:17:49.400 --> 0:18:08.760 We'll continue with this story after these messages, and we 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.879 continue here with our American stories and Elvis in Vegas 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.800 by Richard Zaugun, How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.399 Go to Amazon dot com pick this up. If you 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.200 love the culture, if you love music, you're gonna love 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.760 this book. And if you love Vegas, and well, who doesn't, 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:27.160 at least for a few nights. By the fourth night, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.919 I gotta go home. But three nights, it's just perfect. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.200 And we continue now on the chapter called the Comeback. 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:37.680 And Elvis had gone through a lot clearly in that decade. 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.560 But what I really had forgotten was, as you said, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.560 how much the counterculture, all these young rockers, all these 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.320 new musicians from the Woodstock era, and after so many 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.120 of them just didn't like Elvis at. 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.840 All, they recognize him as an influence, major influence. I 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.159 mean the Beatles, John Lennon, all, you know, knew that 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.000 he was the rock and roller that they all were 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:02.760 inspired by. 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.560 But you know he was he was so far out 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:06.159 of the picture. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.800 The movies were kind of being made fun of, and 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.880 it was, you know, he just wasn't a factor anymore. 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.120 And playing Las Vegas was not the cool thing to do. 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:17.800 Most of the. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:19.920 Rock and roll groups, certainly the big rock groups, were 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.760 not playing Las Vegas. So the idea that Elvis was 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.600 was doing Las Vegas did not exactly enhance his credibility 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.080 with the sort of hip rock crowd. But I think they, they, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.320 you know, were won over by the sheer power of 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.480 his stage performing. He was really never better as a 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.239 stage performer than he was in those that first year 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.520 or so in Las Vegas, and his voice was was 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.399 bigger than ever, and his energy level was absolutely at 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.320 the peak. He was so excited to be back in 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.359 front of his fans again. So it was it was 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.159 a really peak of the peak of his stage performing career. 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.840 I think let's talk about the show itself. You're right, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.160 Elvis had no intention of becoming a nostalgia act, nor 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.280 did he want to do a conventional Vegas show. A 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.560 little bit later, you said, Elvis had a dream one 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.960 night in which he saw himself on a Vegas stage 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.639 filled with a huge collection of musicians, a rhythm band, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.160 two backup singing groups, and the biggest orchestra Vegas had 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:23.920 ever seen. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:29.199 Talk about that, Yeah, the colonel Colonel Parker's idea for 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.920 a Las Vegas show was chorus girls, showgirls, a kind 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.720 of traditional Vegas show, and Elvis said, no, I'm going 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:39.119 to do it my way, or I'm not going to 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.879 do it at all. And he just went out and 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.879 he first he had to select a backup band rhythm group, 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.680 starting with James Burton, the famous guitarist who people knew 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:56.040 from Ricky Nelson's TV show, and he really put the 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.960 show to Surprisingly, what surprised me was there was really 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.760 no director or producer, you know, hands on producer of 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.800 the show. It was really Elvis with just a couple 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.199 of his friends, going through figuring out what songs to 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:14.320 do and what order. He picked all the musicians, the 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:19.200 backup band, the two singing groups, a male white male 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.440 gospel group and a black female soul group, the Sweet Inspirations, 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.680 and just put the show together himself. He just knew 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:30.920 what he wanted to do, and it was kind of 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.600 the first sort of rock concert like show that Las 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.960 Vegas had seen. And you know, it was kind of 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:41.800 a brave thing for Elvis to do. He was not 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:46.119 fitting into the usual mold of Vegas shows, the traditional 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:50.200 nightclub rat pack style nightclub show, more intimate. Of course, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.160 he was on a much bigger stage and he knew 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.840 he had to do something bigger and also something that 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.399 would showcase what he did well, the old rock songs, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.800 the new big ballads, and you know, he just knew 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.360 what he wanted and he had his instincts were right 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:05.919 on the money. 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.720 I want to read another passage. The musicians on stage 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.159 represented a grand coming together of all the music Elvis loved, 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.320 and that it shaped him as a singer, rock and roll, country, gospel, 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.880 rhythm and blues, plus the symphonic sound of a full orchestra. 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:25.679 What a dream that is to represent in the end, 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.200 almost all of American music on one stage and probably 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.360 one of the only people in American history who could 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:33.520 have pulled that off, Richard. 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.639 Yeah, and I think it was a great achievement. And Elvis, 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.359