New festival brings Elvis Presley back to Las Vegas

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 from ’50s rock ’n’ roll rebel to ’60s matinee idol to glammy ’70s showman, a rhinestone incarnate fond of both musical and sartorial ostentation.

It’s this late-period Elvis that serves as the basis for British tribute artist Ben Portsmouth’s act.

“That’s my favorite era of Elvis,” he says, “I think he really mastered his craft. The music was a lot better. I love the jumpsuits. His voice had matured — it was almost operatic towards the end.”

If Elvis’ music and wardrobe were ever-changing, one thing remained constant: the enduring power of his diffuse songbook, which was posited on both emotional and musical range, the latter encompassing country, blues, gospel, pop, Latin and more.

“To me, Elvis has every song that can connect to people,” Roman contends. “If you’re sad, Elvis has a sad song for you. If you’re happy, Elvis has a happy song for you. If you’re on a road trip, Elvis has a road trip song for you.

“Elvis has all these songs for all your emotions,” he continues. “When people hear Elvis, it’s a connection — they say, ‘Oh, my gosh, Elvis understands me.’ ”

And now it’s his job to understand Elvis — and then convey that live on stage.

This begs the obvious question: As a performer, what’s it like to portray another, more famous performer, for a living?

“For a half-hour, or whatever the time limit I’m on stage, I get to go in the telephone booth and come out and put on my Superman costume, basically,” Wright explains. “For a few songs I get to pretend, ‘Hey, I get to do what Elvis did.’ ”

The house that Elvis built

The statue of Elvis still stands in the Westgate lobby, a bronze symbol of continuity as disposable incomes come and go at the slot machines nearby.

For Elvis diehards, this is hallowed ground, the former International, the house that Elvis built, where he put on some of the most elaborate, highly orchestrated shows of his career and karate-kicked his way into Las Vegas immortality.

“To me, there’s Graceland and then there’s the International, because Elvis was always there,” Roman says. “He practically lived at that hotel.”

When Portsmouth talks about performing at the Westgate this weekend, his voice has an incredulous ring to it.

“I’m in England, playing in some theater in Hastings, and then the next minute I tell the audience, ‘I’m off to Las Vegas and I’m playing on the very same stage where Elvis did,’ ” he says. “It sounds like I’m bull————, you know what I mean?”

The International is featured prominently in Baz Luhrmann’s recently released “Elvis” biopic, which updates the Elvis mythos with a visual flair that pops like the King’s sparkly sequins and a hip-hop-referencing soundtrack.

The timing of the film’s release and the debut of The King of Las Vegas fest couldn’t be more ideal in Montano’s mind, the box office hit drawing renewed interest in Elvis.

“This is like the best PR gig ever,” Montano says of the movie.

She’d like The King of Las Vegas to have a similar impact as said film: to introduce a new generation to an old favorite.

“We want to keep his legacy alive for many more years to come,” she says. “He’s been gone for 43 years or so and we’re still talking about him.”

And why do we continue to do so?

Portsmouth responds to that query as if he’s just been asked a rhetorical question.

“Why do people keep liking it?” he wonders of Elvis’ ongoing popularity, his answer underscoring his British heritage. “I mean, it’s like a cup of tea, you know? Good things never die.”

Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jbracelin76 on Instagram.