- 304 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
*The inspiration for the CNN original series Vegas: The Story of Sin City*
“Outstanding pop-culture history.” —Newsday
The “smart and zippy account” (The Wall Street Journal) of how Las Vegas saved Elvis and Elvis saved Las Vegas in the greatest musical comeback of all time.
Elvis’s 1969 opening night in Vegas was his first time back on a live stage in more than eight years. His career had gone sour—bad movies, mediocre pop songs that no longer made the charts—and he’d been dismissed by most critics as over-the-hill. But in Vegas he played the biggest showroom in the biggest hotel in the city, drawing more people for his four-week engagement than any other show in Vegas history. His performance got rave reviews; “Suspicious Minds,” the song he introduced there, gave him his first number-one hit in seven years; and Elvis became Vegas’s biggest star. Over the next seven years, he performed more than 600 shows there, and sold out every one.
Las Vegas was changed, too. By the end of the ‘60s, Vegas’ golden age—when the Rat Pack led a glittering array of stars who made it the nation’s premier live-entertainment center—was losing its luster. Elvis created a new kind of Vegas show: an over-the-top, rock-concert extravaganza. He set a new bar for Vegas performers, with the biggest salary, the biggest musical production, and the biggest promotion campaign the city had ever seen. He opened the door to a new generation of pop/rock artists and brought a new audience to Vegas—not the traditional well-heeled older gamblers, but a mass audience from Middle America that Vegas depends on for its success to this day.
At once “a fascinating history of Vegas as gambling capital, celebrity playground, mob hangout, [and] entertainment Valhalla” (Rolling Stone) and the incredible “tale of how the King got his groove back” (Associated Press), Elvis in Vegas is a classic feel-good story for the ages.
“Outstanding pop-culture history.” —Newsday
The “smart and zippy account” (The Wall Street Journal) of how Las Vegas saved Elvis and Elvis saved Las Vegas in the greatest musical comeback of all time.
Elvis’s 1969 opening night in Vegas was his first time back on a live stage in more than eight years. His career had gone sour—bad movies, mediocre pop songs that no longer made the charts—and he’d been dismissed by most critics as over-the-hill. But in Vegas he played the biggest showroom in the biggest hotel in the city, drawing more people for his four-week engagement than any other show in Vegas history. His performance got rave reviews; “Suspicious Minds,” the song he introduced there, gave him his first number-one hit in seven years; and Elvis became Vegas’s biggest star. Over the next seven years, he performed more than 600 shows there, and sold out every one.
Las Vegas was changed, too. By the end of the ‘60s, Vegas’ golden age—when the Rat Pack led a glittering array of stars who made it the nation’s premier live-entertainment center—was losing its luster. Elvis created a new kind of Vegas show: an over-the-top, rock-concert extravaganza. He set a new bar for Vegas performers, with the biggest salary, the biggest musical production, and the biggest promotion campaign the city had ever seen. He opened the door to a new generation of pop/rock artists and brought a new audience to Vegas—not the traditional well-heeled older gamblers, but a mass audience from Middle America that Vegas depends on for its success to this day.
At once “a fascinating history of Vegas as gambling capital, celebrity playground, mob hangout, [and] entertainment Valhalla” (Rolling Stone) and the incredible “tale of how the King got his groove back” (Associated Press), Elvis in Vegas is a classic feel-good story for the ages.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Elvis in Vegas by Richard Zoglin in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
INDEX
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
Abbott and Costello, 25
Action Faction, 153
Adams, Don, 122
Aladdin Hotel, 132, 133, 142, 146, 154, 157, 162, 240–41
Alden, Ginger, 236
Ali, Muhammad, 11
Allen, Marty, 233
Allen, Travis, 248
Allen, Woody, 11, 115–16, 147
“All My Trials,” 232
“All Shook Up,” 3, 77, 167, 197, 227
All Shook Up (tribute show), 247, 248
Aloha from Hawaii (TV special), 233
Alton, Robert, 109
American Sound Studio, 171, 218
Andersen, Kurt, 243
Andrews, Julie, 110
Andrews Sisters, 25, 33
Angelica, Sal, 111, 112
Angélil, René, 243
Anka, Paul, 12–13, 60, 82, 96, 123, 140, 143, 148, 150, 162, 194
Ann-Margret, 104–6, 153–54, 194
Anrias, David, 196
Apcar, Frederic, 111
Arden, Donn, 38, 39, 108–11, 128
“Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” 205, 209–10, 240
Aria Resort and Casino, 247
Arlen, Harold, 77
Armstrong, Louis, 55, 98
Arnold, Eddy, 7
“Artificial Flowers,” 156, 157
Ashton, Barry, 41, 127, 1...
Table of contents
- Cover
- One: Vegas Meets Elvis
- Two: How Vegas Happened
- Three: The Cool Guys
- Four: The Entertainment Capital
- Five: Changes (Elvis Rising)
- Six: Comeback (Elvis Reborn)
- Seven: Aftermath (Elvis Forever)
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Live from Vegas
- Notes
- Index
- Insert Photograph Credits
- Copyright