The Final Years

Guitarist John Wilkinson was standing a few feet away from Elvis. "The lights went down," he recalled, "and Elvis came up the stairs. He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so fucked up. It was obvious he was dragged, that there was something terribly wrong with his body, It was so bad, the words to the songs were barely intelligible. He could barely get through the introductions. We were in a state of shock. I remember crying. He cut the show short, yet it seemed like it went on forever."

The rest of the tour was, as Brown put it, "uphill" For three nights, in Detroit, South Bend and St. Paul. Elvis seemed in control. His eyes were bright and the shows were energetic, giving hope to those around him. Back in Detroit for another show, he slipped again.

"I watched him in his dressing room, just draped over a chair, unable to move." said Wilkinson. "So often I thought, 'Boss, why don't you just cancel this tour and take a year off" I mentioned something once in a guarded moment. He patted me on the back and said. 'It'll be all right. Don't worry about it."'

The cities rolled by all of them very much alike, all noisy and somewhat numbing. Dayton, Wichita, San Antonio, Abilene . . . Limousines, hotel rooms, huge auditoriums and the chartered Playboy jet that took him from town to town became the only environments he knew.

After that, Elvis didn't work for five months.

It didn't get any better in 1975. On January 8th, Elvis celebrated his fortieth birthday. He worried that he was "getting up there," and that hurt.

Twenty days later, Elvis entered the hospital for, among other problems, an enlarged colon. At least that's what the press was told. And it was true. But it was also true that Elvis was there for another detoxification. This, too, would be confirmed years later by Dr. Nick [George Nichopoulos]. At the time, however, Nichopoulos merely stated that Elvis had been sick for several days but was reluctant to go to the hospital. He said it had required several more days of talking before Elvis submitted to the physician's wishes during which time a suite was held for him on the Baptist Hospital's eighteenth floor.

Finally, on January 28th at five a.m., the telephone rang at the nurse's station. Dr. Nick said he was leaving Graceland with Elvis and would be arriving in fifteen minutes. Elvis, wearing navy blue pajamas and a few days' beard, showed up with his father, Joe Esposito, Linda Thompson and a few bodyguards.

The enlarged colon and drug detoxification were two serious problems treated during his three-week stay. Another more serious problem -- one never discussed publicly-showed up in a liver biopsy Later, Elvis would joke about the long needle that was stuck into his side to extract a sample of liver tissue, but the findings weren't at all amusing. There was severe damage to the organ, and it was clear to attending physicians that the probable cause was drug abuse.

The colon problem was caused by Elvis' poor eating habits, Dr. Nick said. Elvis loved fried foods and sugar, and needed an almost complete change in diet.

As usual, Elvis was cheerful and obedient, promising to mend his ways. Of course, he didn't.

December 1975-January 1976

This was the first time Elvis ever worked during the winter holidays. In the 1960s, it was always written into his contract that he was not available until after January 8th, his birthday. Why did he break tradition? And why did he agree to perform on New Year's Eve in the huge Silver Dome in Pontiac, Michigan, which seated 80,000, when he knew it would be too big to give his fans the show they paid to see? The answer, of course, was money. Elvis needed money, desperately. His bank accounts were empty, and he had borrowed money against future earnings, using Graceland for collateral. As difficult as it was to believe, Elvis was broke.

Every way except economically, the show was a disaster. The sounds of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" echoed through the gigantic hall. As Elvis entered, he looked confused. Where were his sidemen? Where were his singers? Finally, he spotted them below him, on another level. He was surprised, then angry. Why hadn't anyone told him he'd have to sing alone?

In the middle of the show, his pants ripped, splitting at the seams because of his extra poundage.

The temperature made it worse. It was so cold, the members of his band were playing in their overcoats. "The trumpet players' lips were so cold they could barely blow their horns," said John Wilkinson. "It was so cold our strings kept changing key. Oh, we were glad to get out of there."

On the way home, Elvis exploded, cursing and blaming everyone he could think of for the show. So black was his mood, Linda Thompson just sat there and let it happen. Normally, she would have made a face at him or fed him some gooey sweet and cooed him back to serenity with baby talk.

A few days later, a story in the entertainment trade papers reported that the concert grossed $800,000, believed to be a world's record for a single night by a single artist, beating out the Beatles' take at Shea Stadium in 1964. Elvis kept about half of it.

The Colonel pulled off another coup at about the same time, selling to RCA Records the rights to all material recorded by Elvis through 1972. Obviously, this represented a huge body of product -- more than 350 songs, nearly fifty albums' worth, almost all of it still in the catalog and selling slowly but steadily. One RCA executive claimed that the Colonel's motivation for the deal was 'greed, pure and simple,' and said the record company went for it only because it figured eventually it'd get the money back, and the big price tag was worth paying to keep Elvis and the Colonel happy.

The price? A nice, round $6 million.