Elvis Las Vegas 1956

In April 1956, Elvis' manager, Tom Parker, booked him and his band, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and D.J. Fontana, for a two-week engagement at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. It was to begin on April 23rd.

It has been widely reported that Elvis bombed in Las Vegas, even that his contract was cancelled after a week. That the middle-aged audience and retirees that could afford to visit Sin City at the time reacted coolly to Elvis is true enough, but his contract was never broken. However, during the first performance, the reserved audience who came to see the other performers, only politely applauded. Thereafter, his performance was switched from closing the show to opening it. Elvis did the scheduled two weeks, closing with his last performance on the evening of May 6.

It was Elvis' manager who bombed, proving early on that he had no clue about what made Elvis so popular. "Heartbreak Hotel" was a number one hit. His first album Elvis Presley was on its way to becoming a million seller. Still what escaped Parker was the reality that the single and the LP were not bought by the people who came to see Freddy Martin playing tunes from the Broadway show Oklahoma or Shecky Greene's shtick.

Most critics were not nice. Newsweek aptly described his performance as "a jug of corn liquor at a champagne party." And here in black and white was Parker's mistake revealed: putting Elvis where he did not yet belong. Indeed, when a show was added on a Saturday on April 28 for teenagers, "it was just jam-packed, with everyone screaming and hollering," remembered D. J. Fontana.

Still, although these two weeks must have been a chore for Elvis and his band, they soldiered on. The pictures taken during this period show a raw Elvis on the threshold of unequaled stardom. Thirteen years later, he would return as the most acclaimed entertainer the world had ever known.