The truth is that what happened in Las Vegas in April 1956 was not what Elvis expected a couple of weeks before, on April 23, when he made his debut in the Venus Room of the New Frontier in Las Vegas.
Elvis performed at the New Frontier Hotel, in the Venus Room, from April 23 to May 6, 1956.
During these two weeks, he did not rest a single day, giving two shows a day.
“I’m too scared, I think I’m going to explode”
That’s how Elvis felt.
Although the young Elvis, 21, might not have admitted it publicly then, you could feel it and hear his regret in his voice. Maybe because of the dazzling lights, maybe because of the wee hours of the morning, maybe because he felt that audience far away from him… in the City of Sin. Perhaps it was because he had spent the last two weeks working to try to win over an audience that was as educated as it was skeptical and stunned.
Colonel Parker had booked Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and DJ Fontana for a two-week engagement at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas.
But Las Vegas, in 1956, was not yet ready for Elvis. Actually, at that time, neither Las Vegas nor the rest of the prudish and conservative society of the time was prepared.
Las Vegas… an inflexible and stony city that only welcomed those who were of the same condition; and Elvis back then wasn’t. It’s not that Elvis wasn’t an artist of deserved prestige, which he was; and that he didn’t put on some great shows, which he did. But it was too transgressive for an environment as hermetic, traditional and controlled by the mafias as that.
That Parker maneuver, even today, is still considered one of his great missteps, although, the truth is that it was part of a much more complex plan.
DJ Fontana said: ”I don’t think people were ready for Elvis. We worked with the Freddie Martin Orchestra and there we were making all that noise. We tried everything we knew. Elvis was usually able to get the audience on his side. It didn’t work that time…
Parker wanted to try a new direction for his boy and he tried it with a classic, more conservative, more adult audience and for this reason he decided to program these performances in Las Vegas. But people were used to something that had nothing to do with what Elvis had to offer. Elvis was freshness, energy, a transgressive artist in its purest form, he had been leaving a trail of frantic teenagers in his footsteps for two years. It was an explosive mix of sexuality, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel, Country…the genesis of Rock and Roll.
Uninhibited and innovative, he went against the grain, breaking with everything conventional, with all the classic musical and cultural norms of the time. DJ Fontana already said “there we were, making all that noise”. And perhaps that is the only thing that audience in Las Vegas would hear, since their ears could not yet, nor were they prepared to hear Elvis.
Las Vegas was nourished musically by his Big Band, shows by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martín… and a style of music in line with the most classical musical culture. An audience that was more interested in the glamour, the booze, and the arcade next door, than the “noise” these guys were making.
That little “failure” of Elvis, deep down, was just one more sign that that adult audience, glamorous and wealthy, was not for the work of what Elvis offered. It was nothing more and nothing less than a society clinging to its status and its conservatism and Elvis put it in danger. But the feeling of disappointment and failure would remain stuck in Elvis like a thorn that, fortunately, he was able to remove years later.
Still, Elvis was not unmoved by the magic of Vegas.
Las Vegas fascinated him. He liked it very much and promised to return to this city, still unable to imagine what that city would bring him in the future and how it would become for him the city that was associated with his name forever, that adored him, admired him, and in the one in which Elvis left his mark eternally.
But for this he would have to wait until 1969, for a triumphant and unprecedented return to the stage, at the International Hotel, to show the world that his strength on stage was still untouchable, and make Sin City fall, this time yes , surrendered at his feet, forever…
Las Vegas was no longer the paradise of the Mafia. Tourism and visitors to the city were already very different. Las Vegas was now made for the general public. And Elvis was an artist who had matured and evolved, but he still kept his essence, his sexuality, his aggressiveness on stage and that was his moment.
But that is another story…and what to do?” he said in 2004. “I get here every morning at 6 o’clock, seven days a week.”