It was just a voice in the radio — disembodied, yet real somehow — the past invading the present in the form of a baritone as deep as the memories long associated with it.
It was one of those rare instances when someone speaking to millions feels like he’s speaking just to you.
Cliff Wright recalls the moment with a clarity suggestive of someone watching a movie of his life unspool before his eyes — even though it happened nearly four decades ago.
He was 9 years old, riding in the car as his family moved from Dallas to Russell, Alabama.
Wright asked his father whose voice it was purring through the speakers.
“He’s like, ‘Well, that’s a guy by the name of Elvis. He’s no longer living,’ ” Wright says. “It just so happens that we were going through Memphis, and then my dad pointed up to one of the billboard signs.
“I remember it clear as day,” he continues. “It was a black-and-white picture of Elvis, and it had pink all around him. I started getting really wrapped up into it.”
By the time they got to Russell, they’d already stopped and bought three or four Elvis records.
“My parents could see how drawn to it I was,” Wright says. “I’ve been doing that ever since.”
Even though he had yet to be born when Elvis Presley died in August 1977, Wright has been a successful tribute artist to the man in question for years now.
He’ll be one of the featured performers at The King of Las Vegas, a new three-day festival starring Elvis impressionists from around the globe, from Britain to Brazil, representing every era of the iconic entertainer.
Hosted by longtime Elvis girlfriend Linda Thompson, the event will also feature a two-day contest with 16 contenders vying to win the Dream King Contest.
And it’s all going down at the Westgate Las Vegas, formerly known as the International and then the Las Vegas Hilton, where Elvis played hundreds of shows — every one sold out — from 1969 to 1976.
In a city long synonymous with Elvis, but which doesn’t have as many Elvis-oriented attractions as it used to with currently only one ticketed tribute show (“All Shook Up,” at Alexis Park’s Pegasus Theater), this is the biggest event of its kind here in years.
Some 4½ decades after he last took the stage at the property in question, Elvis has returned to the building.
“Our initial concept was to bring back the music to the building where everything happened, ” explains Rosa Montano, marketing promotions director for Kwick Productions, which is putting on the event. “We want to go ahead and just get him back home, because we don’t see a lot of Elvis going in Las Vegas — we do, but it’s like in the little chapels and stuff. We need something big again.”
Some big (blue suede) shoes to fill
It was like a rock ’n’ roll laying on of hands.
Like Cliff Wright, Jacob Roman was 9 years old on a family outing when his fascination with Elvis was ignited like flame to kerosene.
It was a moment of career foreshadowing, taking place at a tribute show in Laughlin.
“I was in an aisle seat,” Roman remembers. “The guy who was performing, Todd Luxton, he came down from the stage and put his hand on my head and kind of like shook it, in front of this sold-out theater. My mom always said that he gave me the Elvis blessing.”
Roman was transfixed.
“This guy came out in the jumpsuit and everything, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is magical,’ ” he effuses. “Literally, at 9 years old, I told my mom that I wanted to perform as Elvis for the rest of my life.”
Now 26, Roman has been performing professionally as Elvis since he was 16 after winning a contest at an Elvis expo in Yuma, Arizona.
Also like Wright, he mines Elvis’ early years, with a focus on the ’50s, back when Elvis’ voice was as raw as the emotions he sang of and a swish of the hips led to shrieks of ecstasy and outrage alike.
The times are always changing, and Elvis followed suit, progressing…
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