Elvis in Tucson in 1956

 

by Bonnie Henry

 

'The Atomic-Powered singer rips up Tucson and the fans go wild!

 

In 1956 the fans screamed, and away from the stage the king was a veritable prince. It was his first visit to the Old Pueblo. Everything's changed but the venue. And the heat.

 

Fifty years ago this week, you could buy a pound of hamburger for three dimes or a three-bedroom bungalow for $42 a month. Or you could see a legend in the making for $1.50 in advance, two bucks at the gate.

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y48/elvis1959/elvis_tucson_1956.jpg

Sheriff's deputies escort Elvis Presley to his car after a press conference at the Tucson Rodeo Grounds in June of 1956)

 

One night and one night only, "the nation's only atomic-powered singer" gave us his all at the Tucson Rodeo Grounds. His name: Elvis Presley. On June 10, 1956, a day that would top out at 108 in the shade, Elvis brought his famous pelvis to town for the first time.

One thing about Elvis, he could move. No doubt about it," says Frank Barrios, one of four Pima County Sheriff's Department deputies assigned to escort Elvis to and from his concert. Guarding celebrities would become old-hat to Barrios, 75, a Tucson native with a long career in public service. "John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Little Richard," he says, ticking off the names. But only Elvis offered him a job.

 

That would come at the end of a long day, a day that began when Barrios and the other three men in his detail met Elvis' plane at the airport.

 

"We went in two vehicles," says Barrios, who drove Elvis to his motel, with Deputy Bill Stewart sitting next to him up front. Elvis and his personal bodyguard sat in back.

 

Along the route, Elvis, says Barrios, talked about the weather and asked the deputies about their jobs. "He wanted to know how long I'd lived here," says Barrios.

 

After checking out the motel room, Barrios and Stewart left Elvis to freshen up while they whiled away the time drinking coffee at a nearby restaurant.

 

Then they drove Elvis to the Rodeo Grounds, already packed with fans and members of the press.

 

"The fans were there yelling," says Barrios, who escorted Elvis to the press conference under the bleachers.

Later, the deputies would also stand outside his dressing room door, while Elvis dressed for the concert.

"He was wearing a cheap tuxedo, and he perspired through the whole show," former Star photographer Jack Sheaffer noted back in 1993.

 

While Sheaffer struggled to get a shot of the writhing singer up on stage, Barrios kept an eye on the crowd, sneaking an occasional glance in Elvis' direction.

 

"That's how I knew he was moving," says Barrios, father of Arizona Daily Star reporter Joseph Barrios.

 

After the concert, he and the other deputies whisked Elvis to their car through a phalanx of fans, many of them teenage girls. Along the way, Elvis signed a few autographs here and there.

Meanwhile, Star reviewer Shirley Phillips already was pounding out a rather scathing review of the performance.

 

Elvis, she wrote, "could hardly be classed as a singer ¡ª unless one is familiar with the trade term 'exotic singer,' which included writhing, twitching, squirming and exercising the entire body along with the vocal cords."

 

Not that any of that mattered to the fans ¡ª or to Barrios, who remembers Elvis for his "penetrating" blue eyes and his kindly manner.

 

"He was very fine, down to earth."

On the way back to his motel, Elvis did gripe about the weather, asking Barrios, "How can you stand this heat?" That's when he made the job offer. "He asked me if I'd like to be on his security team," says Barrios, who politely declined.

 

"I was going steady," he says, pointing to Maria, his wife of almost 49 years.

 

No doubt the fellow who gave us "Love Me Tender" understood.

 

(News/Spotlight, Source: Arizona Daily Star/Sanja Meegin)

 

 

 

 

 

 

He sure could move and what a great Pelvis he had :wub: