Having allowed this city to hold its red carpet at the ready for seventeen years, Himself, Elvis Presley, finally came to New York June 9th.

Ask why Elvis waited so long to conquer New York and you get the same cornball excuse: There never was enough money to make it worthwhile. When Elvis retired from touring in the early Sixties Colonel Tom Parker, his mouthpiece, said: "There ain't no reason for a boy who can make a million dollars for two weeks of movie work to have to play to the public for his supper." If New Yorkers wanted to see Elvis they could go to the Whitestone Bridge Drive In. The first sign of a change in the pattern came in 1968 when Presley did his highly acclaimed television special.

Steve Binder, who produced and directed it, described the state he found Elvis in. "I felt very strongly that Elvis was creatively burning to perform. All of his talents were being hidden under the most highly controlled situations. The people around him weren't interested in the creative product, just the financial benefit of keeping his name up. And Elvis himself was a frustrated fireball.

"I'm not sure why The Colonel wanted him to do the special, maybe he felt he needed a shot in the arm. But they approached the TV special with an idea of maintaining the same controlled formula as with all the films. They figured that any appearance was as good as any other, as long as Elvis did twenty to twenty-five minutes that somehow tied in with the Christmas season. Everybody was scared of the power structure. I took Elvis aside and told him that I wanted him to do the TV special as if it was something new, to put the same feeling and enthusiasm into it as he did on his very first album. That got to him.

"All of a sudden after the special he was on fire again. He told me he wanted to change his lifestyle. He said doing the program had given him a new feeling of confidence. 'It's the public who made me,' he said, 'but I've been away from them for too long. They've given me a lot of love and now I want to give it back to them. From now on I'm only gonna do what I want to do.'"

The first Vegas invasion, during which Elvis would break all the attendance records held by Sinatra and Streisand, came quickly after the airing of the special. Announcement of a tour of major cities followed the second Vegas triumph. New York was included on the itinerary, but the date was held off until the start of the third tour 30 months later.

To accompany him, he selected high caliber talent — James Burton and others, the cream of the Memphis studio scene, and back-up voices including the Stamps Quartet and the Sweet Inspirations. The ever-present Colonel Parker, of course, still had much of the power.

For example: In planning the first tour The Colonel got involved in a heated negotiation with a Midwestern promoter who was bidding for the right to produce in St. Louis and Kansas City. Parker demanded a $250,000 guarantee and wouldn't budge. The promoter insisted that he couldn't possibly profit on a deal like that. He couldn't be sure Elvis was still capable of generating such a gate in that part of the country after such a long absence. Besides that, his facilities weren't the same as larger Eastern and Western cities. None of this reasoning moved Parker and he held pat. Finally the promoter challenged Parker's credentials. He said he didn't want to continue negotiations unless he could speak to Elvis personally, that he doubted Parker's authority and his power.

With lawyers present Parker invited the Kansas City Slicker to challenge his authority. "Here's what we'll do," Parker is reported to have said, placing a silver dollar on the negotiating table. "I flip this coin. You call it in the air. If you call right you'll have a written guarantee that Elvis Presley will play for you free. But if you call it wrong, son, it's gonna cost you a half a million dollars." Kansas City had to drop out of the game.

Eventually this medicine show just had to come to Fun City.

The second tour in the winter of '71 came close to New York, hitting Philadelphia one night and Boston the next without touching down. When it was first announced that the third tour would start from New York in June, the press carried a promise of history being made twice over: the King of Rock and Roll coming to New York for the first time to play at what is potentially the world's greatest Rock Palace: Radio City Music Hall. By the time definite announcements were made the location had been switched to the much larger Madison Square Garden — already deflowered by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Sly, Grand Funk, and the Concert for Bengla Desh. A number of columns carrying the announcement boasted an intriguing footnote. Elvis would be available for interviews to any periodical willing to pay his required fee of $120,000. There were no takers. But in a surprise last minute move The Colonel announced that Elvis would meet the press, for the first time since his 1969 Vegas opening — in the Mercury Ballroom of the New York Hilton at 4 o'clock on the day of the first of four sold-out concerts.