July 31, 1969: Elvis Takes Vegas
July 31, 1969: Elvis Presley takes the stage again. It had been a while. And he had returned to the scene of a "crime."
No, I don't mean that the Las Vegas hotel where he was performing was owned by the Mob. Whether that was true or not is, for the purpose of this post, irrelevant.
Elvis' first concert stand in Las Vegas was an unmitigated failure. On April 23, 1956, still early in his career, he began a 3-week stand at the Frontier Hotel. He did 2 shows a night, at 8:00 PM and 12:00 Midnight. Putting aside his already-present nicknames of "Elvis the Pelvis" and "the Memphis Flash" -- "The King of Rock and Roll" would come later in the year -- and with Nevada's nearby atomic tests in mind, he was billed as "The Atomic-Powered Singer."
So, on May 7, after 2 weeks, the Frontier's management decided to cut their losses: They paid Elvis for the full 3 weeks, and sent him home.
When he got back to Memphis, he saw his former Sun Records labelmate, Carl Perkins, then riding high with "Blue Suede Shoes." (His version was already coming down the charts before Elvis' version started going up.) In an interview a few years before his own death in 1998, Perkins recalled Elvis saying, "Someday, I'm going to be the highest-paid guy, ever, on that Strip." And, in the present, Perkins said, "I have had so much respect for him: He did that very thing."
He did pretty well everywhere else in 1956 and 1957. Then he got drafted. In 1958 and 1959, he played no shows, not even for his fellow troops. He didn't ask the U.S. Army, and they didn't ask him. On March 26, 1960, right after he was discharged, he did a TV special with Frank Sinatra in Miami. On February 25, 1961, he did 2 shows in his hometown. And on March 25, 1961, he did a veterans' benefit at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.
That was it, for 7 years: It was movies, some good, mostly bad. By 1968, with the culture, and rock and roll itself, having changed tremendously, he was seen as a relic. So a comeback was arranged. On June 27 and 29, 1968, he taped 2 performances for a TV special at NBC's Burbank studio, the same one at which his new favorite TV show, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, was taped. (He really wanted to make a guest appearance on that show. His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wouldn't let him.)
The shows in June were successful. The special, airing on December 3, was a smash. He wanted to strike while the iron was hot. He went back to Memphis and recorded fantastic new material, including Mark James' "Suspicious Minds" and Mac Davis' "In the Ghetto." And he wanted to hit the stage again. Particularly, in Vegas.
In 1969, while the International Hotel was still under construction -- it became the Las Vegas Hilton and, since 2015, has been named the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino -- Elvis signed a contract to receive the highest performance fee in Vegas history. His record would be broken by Liberace, and later by the man known as "Mr. Las Vegas," Wayne Newton. As of July 31, 2022, Rod Stewart holds the record.
And there was a tremendous difference from 1956. By 1969 (when the photo at the top was taken), he was 34, and his original fans were well into adulthood. And lots of older people had heard their favorite singers praise him, and had seen him serve in the Army without public complaint. As a result of these factors, they had changed their minds about him, hence the "blue-haired ladies" jokes about his audience. Until he died on August 16, 1977, Elvis never played to an unsold seat in any Nevada casino -- not in Las Vegas, not in Reno, not in Lake Tahoe.
Today, Vegas casinos provide big sums to plenty of entertainers in residence. Newton is still alive and performing, Celine Dion was said to have owned the town for a while, Britney Spears had a standing Vegas show, and even younger stars like Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars have conquered the Strip. The image of Vegas as Sinatra's town still has some hold, but now, Frank is considered the 1st in a long line of stars to make Vegas their own -- and not the biggest one. That's Elvis.
The Westgate today, behind the Vegas monorail
A statue of Elvis now stands in the lobby of the Westgate, after previously being outside it. He also has statues in Memphis, and outside the arena where he gave his Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite concert in 1973. Sinatra, rightly, has a statue in his hometown of Hoboken, New Jersey. As yet, he does not have one in Vegas. Nor does Liberace. Nor does Newton.
There is only one King.
*
July 31, 1969 was a Thursday. These games were played in Major League Baseball:
* The New York Yankees lost to the Oakland Athletics, 3-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. The Yankees led 2-1 going to the bottom of the 8th, thanks to solo home runs by Bobby Murcer and Roy White. But Mel Stottlemyre ran out of gas, allowing a run in the 8th, and then, in the bottom of the 9th, 3 straight singles, to Rick Monday, Dick Green and Larry Haney to give the A's the win. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-2, but did draw 2 walks -- for the A's. The Yankee years would come later.
* The New York Mets lost to the Houston Astros, 2-0 at Shea Stadium. Tom Griffin pitched 8 innings of 4-hit shutout ball, and Fred Gladding pitched a perfect 9th inning. Jimmy Wynn hit a home run off Tom Seaver. As their unofficial fight song, quoted by Jim Bouton in his book Ball Four, went, "It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro."
* A doubleheader was split at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The Atlanta Braves won the opener, 4-2. Hank Aaron went 2-for-4 with a solo homer, then was given the nightcap off. The Philadelphia Phillies won it, 9-0. Rick Wise pitched a 5-hit shutout.
* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Al Oliver singled Matty Alou home with the winning run in the bottom of the 15th inning. Roberto Clemente went 4-for-6. Oliver and Freddie Patek each got 3 hits for the Pirates. Willie Stargell only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base. The entire Dodger team only got 6 hits in 15 innings.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos, 6-1 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 2-for-5, and Johnny Bench hit a home run.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Chuck Hinton singled home the winning run in the 10th inning.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants, 12-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks, Randy Hundley and Billy Williams hit home runs. Fergie Jenkins went the distance. Willie Mays did not play.
* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-3 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew each went 1-for-4, and Killebrew added an RBI. Al Kaline went 0-for-4.
* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Kansas City Royals, 3-1 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-4, and Frank Robinson went 0-for-3 with a walk.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the California Angels, 9-1 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Carl Yastrzemski went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Mike Andrews went 3-for-5 with a homer and 3 RBIs.
* And the Washington Senators beat the Seattle Pilots, 7-6 at Sick's Stadium in Seattle. Bouton spent most of the season with the Pilots before being traded to the Astros on August 24. This game was tied 1-1 after 6 innings, the Pilot run coming on a homer by Jim Pagliaroni.
Fred Talbot was the starting and losing pitcher for the Pilots, going 6 1/3rd innings. But the Senators scored 5 in the top of the 7th. After John O'Donoghue faced 2 batters in the 7th, and couldn't get anybody out, manager Joe Schultz used his mentality and woke up to reality, bringing in Bouton and his "Super Knuck." He gave up an RBI single to Frank Howard. At 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds, Howard was the biggest and perhaps strongest slugger in the game, so Bouton may have gotten off lucky. Then he threw a knuckleball that Pagliaroni, the catcher, couldn't handle, a run scored, and it was charged as a passed ball to Pagliaroni. But then Bouton struck Mike Epstein out, and got Bernie Allen to ground to 2nd to end the threat.
The Pilots got 2 back in the bottom of the 7th. Howard homered in the top of the 9th to make it 7-3, Washington D.C. over Washington State. And it was just like the bedraggled Pilots to have a bottom-of-the-9th comeback that came just short. Batting against Darold Knowles, Tommy Harper led off by flying to center. Ron Clark drew a walk. Wayne Comer singled. Tommy Davis doubled Clark home to make it 7-4. Greg Goosen drew a walk. Pagliaroni popped up to short. Jerry McNertney singled home Comer and Davis to make it 7-6. But Knowles struck John Gelnar out to end it.
Also on this day, Italian soccer player and manager Antonio Conte was born.
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