*The inspiration for the CNN original series Vegas: The Story of Sin City*
âOutstanding pop-culture history.â âNewsday
The âsmart and zippy accountâ (The Wall Street Journal) of how Las Vegas saved Elvis and Elvis saved Las Vegas in the greatest musical comeback of all time.
Elvisâs 1969 opening night in Vegas was his first time back on a live stage in more than eight years. His career had gone sourâbad movies, mediocre pop songs that no longer made the chartsâand heâd 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; âSuspicious Minds,â the song he introduced there, gave him his first number-one hit in seven years; and Elvis became Vegasâs 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 â60s, Vegasâ golden ageâwhen the Rat Pack led a glittering array of stars who made it the nationâs premier live-entertainment centerâwas 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 Vegasânot 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 âa fascinating history of Vegas as gambling capital, celebrity playground, mob hangout, [and] entertainment Valhallaâ (Rolling Stone) and the incredible âtale of how the King got his groove backâ (Associated Press), Elvis in Vegas is a classic feel-good story for the ages.