Two weeks after the production of the tv special "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" the king was back at the Las Vegas Hilton. From January 26th to February 23rd he had to do 57 shows, the opening night aside he was on stage twice each day.
Musicians
James Burton (guitar), John Wilkinson (guitar), Charlie Hodge (guitar and harmony vocals), Jerry Scheff (bass), Ronnie Tutt (drums), Glen D. Hardin (piano) and The Joe Guercio Orchestra. The harmony vocals were provided by The Sweet Inspirations (Myrna Smith, Sylvia Shemwell & Estelle Brown), J.D. Sumner & The Stamps (Bill Baize, Ed Enoch, Donnie Sumner & Ed Wideman) as well as Kathy Westmoreland.
About The Engagement
To look good on television, Elvis had gotten himself into shape. He was very thin and his skin was tanned. Of course he worde the "Aloha" suit during some of the shows, but he also had ordered the "Pharaoh Suit & Yellow Cape", the "Orange Starburst Suit & Orange Cape", the "Blue Rain Suit & Blue Cape" and the "Light Blue Teal Suit & Gold Cape". Besides that, he wore several older outfits, some of them with new belts. The opening show more or less mirrored the "Aloha" event and also included "Sweet Caroline" and "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy". But soon Elvis left out all the new songs, the only exception was "Steamroller Blues". It still was a good mix of songs, nevertheless it became clear, that the king wasn't willing to do anything out of the ordinary, anything that demanded focus and attention. In Hawaii Elvis' voice had sounded powerless and nasal at times, here in Vegas it wasn't much different. The king also moved very little and executed many of his concerts with a tad too much routine. It was claimed, that Elvis suffered from a throat infection. On January 31st and February 1st all shows were canceled, between February 13th and 15th he just performed dinner shows. On the 15th he even went backstage for twenty minutes and had his harmony singers fill the time. Finally he was attacked on stage by four drunk men on February 18th. Even though the set list offered little new and Elvis was anything but dynamite, the concerts themselves were ok. The king's lack of vocal and physical power mostly was explained with his illness.
The reaction of the press and the fans certainly would have been different, if they had been able to see behind the courtains of the Presley show. By now Elvis was abusing heavy drugs and even had to be rescued by an emergency team. In his deluded mind the drunk tourists, who had attacked him on stage, became karate fighters, sent by Priscilla's boyfriend to kill him. His hallucinations became so bad, that he wanted to hire a hitman to kill Mike Stone. Elvis still was able to perform one or two concerts per day, but everyone knew, that it simply was a matter of time, before the fassade would break.
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