December 3, 1968: NBC airs the special Singer Presents ... Elvis. It becomes known to Elvis' fans as "The '68 Comeback Special."
Elvis Presley became a regional star in 1954, and a national superstar in 1956. After 2 years in the U.S. Army, he returned in 1960, and made his 1st comeback, a very successful one.
But by 1962, a pattern was set: No live performances, and 2 or 3 movies a year. Those movies wouldn't be very good, thus staying within their budgets. But they would be Elvis movies, so enough of his fans would come see them anyway that they would make a profit, and thus deliver no reason to change the pattern.
By 1967, Elvis had grown stale. And popular music had changed tremendously, thanks to The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and everybody they influenced. He was still The King, but there had been a coup: Rock and roll was now a republic.
In October 1967, Elvis' manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker, talked NBC into doing a Christmas special with Elvis. (This was around the time the word "special" began to be used to describe such out-of-the-ordinary programs. Previously, such a program would be called a "spectacular.") NBC talked Singer sewing machines into sponsoring it. Elvis hated the idea.
NBC hired Bob Finkel to produce the special. He had another idea: One Christmas song, and enough material for a soundtrack album, including new songs and Elvis' greatest hits. This idea appealed to Elvis, and the Colonel was talked into it.
Finkel hired Steve Binder, NBC's rock and roll guy. He had directed The T.A.M.I. Show in 1964, and the variety series Hullabaloo in 1965 and '66. He was already signed to direct a special for British singer Petula Clark, which would air on April 8, 1968. Binder believed he could reintroduce Elvis to fans who were too young to remember his first burst of success in 1956, and were too young to appreciate his first comeback in 1960. Binder set out to remind everyone of the old question: "Who's king around here, anyway?"
(EDIT: I first heard that question in a 1980 ad for Pepto-Bismol, with an actor playing King Henry VIII. I had presumed that the question had been borrowed from an old movie or TV show. But I can't trace it back any further than this.)
They taped at NBC's studio in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, California on June 27 and 29, 1968. There was a segment of Elvis singing new songs, like "Guitar Man" by Jerry Reed, later to be known for singing songs like "When You're Hot, You're Hot" and playing Cledus Snow in the Smokey and the Bandit movies. There was a segment of Elvis singing gospel songs, like "Saved," which Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, who had written several of his hits, had written for LaVern Baker. He sang the Christmas song with which he is most identified, "Blue Christmas."
But the key segment was on a square stage, surrounded by about 100 fans, reunited with his old band. Well, two of them: Bass fiddle player Bill Black had died in 1965, but lead guitarist Scotty Moore and drummer D.J. Fontana were there.
And, wearing a black leather suit, he sang songs from the first segment of his career, 1954 to 1961. "Heartbreak Hotel.""Hound Dog.""All Shook Up.""Jailhouse Rock.""Love Me Tender.""Are You Lonesome Tonight?" And he had those teenagers eating out of the palm of his hand.
At one point, he sang "Can't Help Falling In Love," from his 1961 film Blue Hawaii. It's almost as if you can hear the transition from "The Memphis Flash" to "The King of Las Vegas."
The closing song was "If I Can Dream," written by Walter Earl Brown. Wearing a white suit with a long double-breasted jacket indigenous to the time period, Elvis knocks out a spectacular performance that shows that, in spite of having run in place throughout (Cliché Alert) the turbulent Sixties, he could be in tune with the times.
It was recorded on June 23, 1968. It had been 18 days since Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated a few miles away, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; 70 days since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Elvis' hometown of Memphis; with riots at Columbia University in New York and the streets of Paris; and the Vietnam War continuing with no end in sight.
By the time the special aired on December 3, things had gotten no better: It had been 98 days since the riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; 48 days since the black-gloved salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics in Mexico City; and 28 days since Richard Nixon and George Wallace, racists both, had, between them, won 57 percent of the popular vote in a Presidential election. And still, the war had no end in sight.
The world needed that song at that time. It's needed the song many times since.
Certainly, Elvis needed the boost the special gave him. It turned out to be the most-watched program of the entire 1968-69 television season. The month after it aired, in January 1969, an inspired Elvis recorded a back-to-his-roots album in Memphis -- at the same time, as it turned out, that The Beatles were trying and not exactly succeeding in doing with what became Let It Be. These Memphis sessions would produce hits like Mark James'"Suspicious Minds" and Mac Davis'"In the Ghetto."
And he went back to live performing, starting the following July at the International Hotel in Las Vegas -- later the Las Vegas Hilton and now the Westgate Las Vegas. Maybe he was a figurehead now, but the King was back on the throne.
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December 3, 1968 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. And no games were scheduled for the NHL. But there were 6 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 126-93 at the new Madison Square Garden.
* The Cincinnati Royals beat the Baltimore Bullets, 129-127 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now named the Royal Farms Arena). Oscar Robertson scored 38 points for the Royals.
* The San Diego Rockets beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-103 at the Chicago Stadium. The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 137-115 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. John Havlicek led all pro basketball players on the night with 41 points.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 122-108 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Wilt Chamberlain scored 35 pounds and grabbed 25 rebounds.
* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 127-122 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California.
There were 3 games played in the American Basketball Association:
* The New York Nets lost to the Denver Rockets, 127-108 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. Larry Jones scored 37 for Denver. In 1974, to avoid confusion with the Houston team, the Denver Rockets adopted the name of the 1st NBA team in Denver, the Nuggets.
* The Minnesota Pipers beat the New Orleans Buccaneers, 116-94 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* And the Oakland Oaks beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 135-109 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.