Elvis in Las Vegas Page #4

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That Presley only does songs published by Hill And Range.

The Colonel was looking after the golden goose and didn't want

anybody to get close enough,

especially close enough

to give Elvis a new song

that they didn't have the publishing rights locked up on.

But unlike the movie years,

when Elvis had to accept mediocre songs,

he now had the self-confidence to insist that he got only the best

and to ignore the Colonel's henchmen.

Great hits like Kentucky Rain and In The Ghetto

established Elvis as an adult artist,

in that rundown studio on the wrong side of the tracks.

# On a cold and grey Chicago morning

# A poor little baby child is born

# In the ghetto... #

These offered a new realism, far removed from the blander repertoire

of Hill And Range, as did Suspicious Minds.

HE PLAYS SUSPICIOUS MINDS INTRO

The song I was trying to capture I knew at the time had to be a mature rock song

to put him back and regain his title in rock'n'roll.

# We're caught in a trap

# I can't walk out

# Because I love you too much, baby

# Why can't you see Wo-oh-oh-oh-oh

# What you're doing to me Wo-oh-oh

# When you don't believe a word I'm sayin'? #

On stage in Vegas,

Elvis had reached his pinnacle as a live performer.

# I can't walk out

# Because I love you too much... #

Elvis did like to work in Vegas.

He liked that the lights were great, the sound was great, the room was great,

everything was under control. He didn't have to travel,

he came down, right to the show.

Colonel moved fast to cash in on Elvis's feelgood factor.

An agreement was scribbled on a tablecloth in a hotel coffee shop.

It would tie Elvis to two shows a night,

four weeks at a time,

at 100,000 a week.

It would run for a full five years.

Colonel was repeating the tactic that had gone so wrong in Hollywood.

He was tying Elvis to a long-term contract that would ultimately threaten his career.

But Colonel knew exactly how to get what he wanted.

Colonel played a part.

He played the part of an uneducated Southern person,

who really didn't know the score.

And he loved doing that.

Because that caught everyone offguard.

He never made notes.

He said, "Don't write it down, remember it."

He had an unbelievable mind.

# Well since my baby left me

# Well, I've found a new place to dwell... #

And the five year agreement suited the Colonel in more ways than one.

He had become an increasingly big spender in the hotel's casino

and now negotiated some secret and preferential terms for himself.

The Colonel was sharp. He was getting a lot of perks for himself

by Elvis playing Vegas.

All of his suites were taken care of,

he had almost a full floor for his assistants to work out of,

he could do all of his business there.

He got extra benefits as far as all the food and we all thought,

it was never proven, but everybody knew what time it was,

had a feeling that the Colonel was, he would lose all that money at the casino, he had a deal.

I think it was probably about 50 cents on the dollar.

If he lost 1 million, he only had to come up with 500,000.

My manager, Colonel Tom Parker, where is he?

Is the Colonel around anywhere?

Oh, he's out playing roulette, no kidding me, I know what he's doing.

Actually, it wasn't too bad, cos the Colonel was kind of a draw in the casino, he put on a show

while he was playing roulette.

He'd make everyone crowd around, he'd holler and have fun and all that jazz.

But I think there were some extra concessions that Elvis didn't know about

that Colonel was getting out of playing Vegas.

Whatever the intricacies of Colonel's deal,

its effect was to revitalise the whole city.

Elvis attracted a massive new influx to this oasis of gambling and entertainment in the Nevada desert.

And he brought them in from all over the world.

What has this trip meant to you?

- A chance to see America and Elvis.

- Which is more important?

- Elvis.

He's the king.

I think that as in as much as there was some sort of symbiosis in the relationship,

vis a vis Elvis in Las Vegas,

there was also a symbiosis

between the Colonel

and Elvis. It may be true that the Colonel benefitted economically

and monetarily from a number of the deals that were cut,

but so did Elvis.

# Well that's all right, mama

# That's all right with you

# That's all right, mama

# Do it any way you do... #

Elvis was of prime importance to the hotel.

He was the first entertainer to make a profit in the show room.

Before that time, the hotels always assumed they would lose money

on the shows but make it up in the casino.

But Elvis drew big players.

And the hotel was thrilled because these people had money.

The women were thrilled. They went to two shows a night.

And the men were in the casino undisturbed. Everyone was happy.

When Elvis was in town, everything lit up.

There were girls all over the hotel.

They would come up and ask, "Can you get me up to Elvis's room?"

There was hundreds of girls all over the hotel.

Elvis did a lot for the hotel and a lot for this town.

At the time, he was the most popular entertainer.

I gave him the nickname White Boy With A Brother On The Inside!

Because he was very generous.

He would generate such a tremendous business for the whole town,

it was incredible. Incredible.

The clothes he had, the capes,

with the rhinestones on, they was real heavy.

You couldn't pick 'em up by yourself,

it took two or three people to pick 'em up.

If you let it lay in a box,

it weighs 25- 28 pounds, 30 pounds.

So whenever I did Elvis's outfits,

I always tried to distribute everything to his chest area,

his shoulder area.

The jumpsuits, like his act, were getting heavier and more flamboyant.

One of the things I had noticed from watching him was

that he was enjoying his outfits, the audience started enjoying them

and he started playing with how to present them.

It became part of the whole act.

Mirroring the showbiz extravagance of Las Vegas,

Elvis's karate moves became a trademark of his act in the early '70s.

- What do you do for relaxation?

- Karate.

If you can relax doing this, I don't know.

Karate became a way of communication with people for Elvis,

that on some levels, he could not communicate directly with people

in other areas, they could share this love of karate,

the physicality and the control of emotions and intellectual power

that was associated with that.

He did transform that into a stage performance.

He largely did that because of Las Vegas.

I think that's really where he began to hone his ability

to take an audience in the palm of his hand and he did that in Las Vegas, night after night.

He learned that showmanship and first started wearing the jewels

and jumpsuits and putting on the big, powerful show

with a 30-piece orchestra.

Thank you.

Here in Las Vegas, we stayed at the International Hotel.

We had a beautiful suite on the top floor, the 30th floor, the only suite up there.

It overlooked the city, it was completely closed off,

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