Elvis Presley Unravelled #1
…..Las Vegas Debut in 1956

Elvis’s first Las Vegas residency was in 1956. Sadly, his reception was lukewarm. It was a very different story when he returned in the 1970s!

PODCAST – First Las Vegas Residency

This is the podcast of Derek Shelmerdine‘s Elvis Presley Unravelled guest appearance, on Steve Chelmsford’s Mop Tops and The King radio show.
A one-minute slice of Elvis Presley history…

Elvis – First Las Vegas Residency

Elvis played his first-ever residency in Las Vegas at the New Frontier Hotel in 1956. He was billed as the “Atomic Powered Singer”.

The audience came to hear the “smooth music of headliner Freddy Martin and His Orchestra. Sadly, Elvis’s reception was decidedly lukewarm.

In his review of the show in the Las Vegas Sun, Bill Willard described the performance as, “Elvis’s musical sound with a combo of three is uncouth, matching to a great extent the lyric content of his nonsensical songs”.

Elvis spent the 1950s as the King of Rock’n’Roll and the 1960s as a Hollywood movie star. It was a very different story when Elvis returned to Las Vegas in the 1970s.

Extract from Rock’n’Roll Unravelled

The Elvis Presley Unravelled and The Beatles Unravelled podcasts are all based on an extracts from Derek Shelmerdine’s book Rock’n’Roll Unravelled. With its unique three-part structure, the book tells the story of rock’n’roll from its roots to mid-1970s punk.
EXTRACT FOR THIS STORY: 23 April 1956: Elvis’s First Las Vegas Residency

TO BUY – a signed copy of Rock’n’Roll Unravelled

Guest on the Mop Tops and The King Radio Show

Derek Shelmerdine presents the feature segments Elvis Presley Unravelled and The Beatles Unravelled on Steve Chelmsford’s weekly the Mop Tops and The King radio show.
Derek is a fortnightly guest on Steve’s show.

The MTK network of over 75 radio stations around the world carries the Mop Tops and The King show. This means that every day, someone, somewhere in the world is broadcasting the Mop Tops and the King show
For the broadcast time for each station – check out the weekly schedule. (The weekly schedule is in Eastern Time – The UK is five hours ahead.)

The Mop Tops and the King show is all about the music, lives and times of The Beatles and Elvis Presley.

First Broadcast

This show was first broadcast 21-27 May 2021 on the MTK network of radio stations around the world.