We saw Elvis Presley in March of 1977 at the Rapides Parish Coliseum in Alexandria, Louisiana. It was amazing that he would appear two nights in a city of 50,000 after he had been quoted in the middle 50’s saying he would never return to Alexandria after appearing at Jimmie Thompson’s arena probably upset with a small crowd.
Our seats were terrible being so far away from the stage we could barely see Elvis. We couldn’t tell how out of shape he was at this point in time.
At one point in the show Elvis asked a backup singer to sing so he could sit down and get some rest.
Someone there one of the two nights has a reprint of an autographed photo from Elvis at the show on Ebay. There are also references to his father Vernon Presley being introduced at a show and his girlfriend at the time of his death Ginger Alden was also introduced to the crowd.
Elizabeth Roberts of the Alexandria Daily Town Talk wrote this review of the March 29, 1977 show:
http://www.elvisconcerts.com/newspapers/press230.htm
A bootleg CD was made of the March 30th show and the website has a list of the songs that Elvis sang that night.
http://www.elvisconcerts.com/cds/special.htm
Jerry Hopkin’s book Elvis the Final Years tells what happened after Elvis left Alexandria.
“On March 31, 1977 after a so-so show in Alexandria, Louisiana, Elvis’ private plane took him to Baton Rouge for a concert at Louisiana State University. As was customary, the show started before Elvis left the hotel for the coliseum.
Elvis usually arrived during the intermission that followed the comedian Jackie Kahane’s monologue. Tonight he didn’t.
There was chaos backstage. Elvis’ hotel room was called.
A half-hour passed. There were more calls. Finally, it was decided to cancel the rest of the show, to say that Elvis was too sick to go on, that he was under a doctor’s care and was being flown back to Memphis to be hospitalized.
It was sad to see Elvis in concert as his life began to ebb away from him. We had seen him three years earlier in Monroe, Louisiana at the Monroe Civic Center in 1974.
We heard about the show on television and we had great seats on the floor about 20 rows back from the stage.
Elvis was still at the top of his game back then and put on a great show. Little did we know that the next time we would see him he would be less than five months from his death.
There is no doubt in my mind that Elvis and Frank Sinatra were the two best singers of the 20th century although they sang music of different genres.
These are the 14 drugs found in Elvis Presley during his autopsy:
Dr Nick: prescribed all of Elvis’s regular tour drugs. Elvis had 14 different drugs in him when he died. The list of what they found at autopsy was: Codeine – Morphine – Quaaludes – Valium – Diazepam – Placidyl – Amytal – Nembutal – Carbrital – Demerol – Sinutab – Elavil – Avental – Valmid
Nostalgia and Now 