Due to the huge success of the king's engagement in 1971 Elvis returned to Del Webb's Sahara Tahoe Hotel in May 1973. He was booked from the 4th to the 20th of the month and appeared on stage twice each day. During the 8:00 pm show the hotel served a dinner, the concert at midnight included drinks.
Musicians
James Burton (guitar), John Wilkinson (guitar), Charlie Hodge (guitar and harmony vocals), Emory Gordy (bass), Ronnie Tutt (drums), Glen D. Hardin (piano) and The Al Tronti Orchestra (conducted by Joe Guercio). The harmony vocals were provided by The Sweet Inspirations (Myrna Smith, Sylvia Shemwell & Estelle Brown), J.D. Sumner & The Stamps (Donnie Sumner, Bill Baize, Ed Enoch, Richard Sterban & Ed Wideman) and Kathy Westmoreland.
About The Engagement
Elvis' second engagement at Del Webb's Sahara Tahoe Hotel was ill-fated right from the start. The demand for tickets was so huge, that the landlines broke down and the Bell Telephone Company saw no other solution than to block a certain percentage of trunk calls to area-code 588. Besides that, the hotel management had calculated, that at most 90% of the ordered tickets were picked up. They were shocked to see, that each and everyone actually showed up and wanted to see the concerts. To make it worse, they had given some of the tickets to premium customers (wealthy people, who regularly lost huge amounts of money in the casino). When the refused people, who had pre-ordered tickets and traveled a long way to see Elvis in person, found out about it, the situation got out of hand and the hotel management called the police. The king reacted to the chaos with an additional performance on May 13th at 3 am in the morning. He didn't take the concert too serious (it was his third performance in a row), but everyone was in party mood and had a good time. The proceeds from that show were donated to the local hospital.
The press wasn't too delighted by the singer's latest Tahoe stint. One critic wrote "Elvis is neither looking or sounding good. Some 30 pounds overweight, he's puffy, white faced and blinking against the light. His voice sounds weak, delivery is flabby with occasional dynamic great effort and no enthusiasm". For me this is a tad too negative. Compared to his appearances in Vegas Elvis had gained some weight and he was not as motivated as during his recent concert tour. But most of the shows were solid. The repertoire was based on the "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite" show, but Elvis also included material from the albums "Elvis Now" (1972), "Elvis Country - I'm 10,000 Years Old" (1971), "That's The Way It Is" (1970) and "On Stage" (1970). For his shows he dressed in the "Fire Suit & Red Cape", the "Snowflake Suit & Turquise Cape", the "Nail Studded Suit & Gold Cape" as well as several outfits, he had used in Vegas.
Even though the concerts were not as bad as the quoted critic wrote, he still met the truth. Elvis lacked motivation, maybe he even was bordering a burnout. According to the book "Elvis And The Memphis Mafia" he told his people out of the blue, that his health wouldn't allow him any further performances. On May 17th both shows were canceled and on the next day Elvis visited the local hospital. The doctors attested respiratory problems, caused by an infection of the thorax. This enabled the singer to cancel the remaining six concerts and to return to Memphis. In Vegas Elvis had also canceled several shows, but in contrast to the management of the Hilton, the executives of Del Webb's Sahara Tahoe Hotel didn't accept this behavior. Due to the doctor's certificate they couldn't force Elvis to continue the engagement, but they insisted on making up for the canceled dates in the future. The negotiations with the Presley camp took a while, but in October 1974 the king made up leeway.
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