But it turns out that two shots from the evening performance appeared in a local paper review (Orlando Evening Star) the next day, while the morning paper (Orlando Sentinel) covered the opening performance with a shot. Another local paper (Corner Cupboard) managed to print a trio of images the following week. Below is everything I gathered, starting with the evening newspaper.
George Miller's Orlando Evening Star review was a hoot:
"… the nation's best known spastic case …"
" … he was, at least temporarily, on top of the world of show business …"
Miller seemed to imply Elvis opened with Smiley Lewis' #2 r&b hit "I Hear You Knocking," but the singer was simply name-checking the title before launching into "Heartbreak Hotel." Fans had been banging on the doors ever since the afternoon show finished, as they knew Presley was inside, waiting for the next audience to come in.
Elvis' outfit (red coat) and the frenzy of the crowd are as far as Miller is willing to go in terms of recounting the set.
Very interestingly, Miller noted that Red West ("a burly, red-haired bodyguard") informed Scotty, Bill and D.J., already on the stage waiting for Elvis, to kick off the evening set on their own ...
"Play one," he shouted. Elvis was not ready.
An interesting quote was included from one of the band, too.
"He knows he won't be on top forever," said bass fiddle player Bill Black before the show. "he's going into movies and maybe save some money to fall back on."
"He can spend and spend and not spend it all," Black added in wonder.
Here's the full page with photos and review:
The first Orlando show (Elvis clad in "a bright green coat") made the front page of the Orlando Sentinel, and included journalist Jean Yothers brief interview with the singer.
'Oh, Elvis'
Presley Makes 'Em Shriek, Yell, Jump
By JEAN YOTHERS
A big-shouldered youth with sideburns and a full-lipped face wandered slowly on stage and thousands of adoring teenage girls went wild.
They shrieked. They screamed. They jumped up in their seats. And they gazed at their idol as though transported into a state of ecstatic bliss.
SUBJECT OF this mass hysteria was Elvis Aaron Presley, 21-year-old singer and hero of the nation's teenagers who purely fractured two full houses at Municipal Auditorium last night with his unique actions and sensational style.
Wearing a bright green coat, black trousers and white shoes, the heavy-lidded, touseled-haired Elvis surveyed his audience with a half-smile on his lips and then cut loose with a three-piece band backing him up.
When he moaned out Heartbreak Hotel, his first number, the auditorium was filled with piercing, ear-splitting screams. When he jumped around the stage to Long, Tall Sally, fans rushed up to the rail to snap pictures, and as he twisted his hips suggestively to the rhythm, they yelled like dying cats, "Oh Elvis."
FOUR POLICEMEN were posted at both stage entrances to hold back the crowds, but still they milled about the auditorium taking photographs of the gyrating Elvis at all angles.
When he removed his green coat to throw himself into Hound Dog, his current hit record, a delighted squeal erupted from the house that could've blown the top from Vesuvius. He then wiggled and switched his hips passionately, dragging the microphone across the stage in the process. He was gone, man, gone.
"What do you think of this guy?" a mother-spectator was asked. "I just came 'cause the kids wanted to," she said. "I was curious. Now I know. Look at him. He looks just like a hound dog in heat and sounds like a sick cat."
First-row sitter Pat Hix, a teenage girl, had a different slant. She adores Elvis. "I like his style of singing and his flashy clothes best about him," she said with reverence.
Backstage in The Pelvis' dressing room, he was a different person. Relaxed and friendly, he answered in his slow, southern drawl.
Q. How long do you think you'll stay on top in show business?
A. "Ah wish ah knew, ma'am. People change a lot."
Q. Do you consider your gyrations vulgar?
A. "No ma'am. Ah don't. Ah don't feel sexy when Ah'm on stage."
Q. What kind of girl do you want to marry?
A. with a sigh "Ah've never thought much about it."
Q. Do you sleep in pajamas?
A. "No ma'am. Ah sleep in my shorts."
Q. Do you kiss all those girls you read about in the papers?
A. "Only upon special request."
Orlando Sentinel - Thursday, August 9, 1956
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/223303540/
A 2019 article from the Sentinel included the page one photo and more.
OPINION
The King is dead, but did Elvis ever rule Orlando? | Ask Orlando
By DAVID WHITLEY
ORLANDO SENTINEL | AUG 16, 2019 AT 4:35 PM
In summer 1956, Elvis Presley played Orlando for his 3rd time in the 1950s, and the newspaper's 'On the Town' columnist Jean Yothers got a kiss for the cameras.
In summer 1956, Elvis played Orlando for his 3rd time, and the newspaper's 'On the Town' columnist Jean Yothers got a kiss.
(ORLANDO SENTINEL FILE)
There was an ad in the newspaper May 11, 1955. The Hank Snow All-Star Jamboree was performing at Orlando’s municipal auditorium.
Under Snow’s photo was the list of warmup acts. Faron Young, The Wilburn Brothers, Mother Maybelle & The Carter Sisters, Slim Whitman, Elvis Presley….
Hey, whatever happened to that guy?
That sort of brings us to this week’s Ask Orlando question.
“Did Elvis ever come to Orlando and did he get in trouble for shaking his pelvis?”
Now’s a good time to answer since we are coming off Elvis Week, aka High Holy Days in Memphis. There were concerts, symposiums, Graceland tours, a 5K run (insert Fat Elvis joke), trips to his birthplace and a candlelight vigil.
It all revolved around the anniversary of Elvis’s death on Aug. 16, 1977. He was 42.
The King has now been dead as long as he was alive. Though you might be surprised at how well he’s living on.
According to Spotify, more than 16.5 million hours of Elvis music has been downloaded this year. The surprising thing is 18-22 year-olds stream his music almost as much as 45-59 year-olds.
Presley’s performance at the Municipal Auditorium came just a month before his first appearance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’
(from the Corner Cupboard, August 16, 1956 / Joy Wallace Dickinson / Orlando Sentinel)
I figured most millennials would laugh those who worship the King. They would think of that bloated druggie in the white jumpsuit who briefly would have been Michael Jackson’s father-in-law, not the preternatural force that changed the entertainment world.
As John Lennon said, “Nothing affected me until I heard Elvis. Without Elvis, there would be no Beatles.”
Maybe he sneaked over from Liverpool and caught that first show in Orlando. Elvis was just a few months removed from driving a truck for a living. Sentinel columnist Jean Yothers had never been to a “hillbilly music” show, much less heard of the guy in an orange jacket who came on before Slim Whitman.
“What really stole the show was this 20-year-old sensation, Elvis Presley,” Yothers wrote, “a real sex-box as far the teenage girls are concerned.”
Elvis returned to Orlando two months later as part of the Andy Griffith Show. Like the Hank Snow Jamboree, it was two shows in one night. This time, Yothers got an autograph from Elvis that read “Love Ya.”
Girls scream for Elvis Presley during a performance in Orlando on Aug. 8, 1956.
(Orlando Sentinel)
She gave him some advice in the paper.
“He’s wearing himself out giving customers more than their money’s worth. I wanted to say to him, ‘Slow down, boy… your fame won’t disappear.'”
A few months later, Sun Records sold Elvis’s contract to RCA for $40,000, and Col. Tom Parker became his manager.
Elvis’s days of warming up for Mother Maybelle were over when Parker set up a Florida blitz in August of 1956.
Nine days, seven cities, 25 shows. All sold out.
By then, Elvis’s dangerously gyrating hips were preceding him. The prudes in Jacksonville wanted them banned.
Rev. Robert Gray of Trinity Baptist Church said Elvis had “achieved a new low in spiritual degeneracy.” Judge Marion Gooding threatened to have Elvis arrested for “impairing the morals of minors” if he broke into his “suggestive” movements.
Elvis and his pelvis somehow made it through six shows without getting busted. There were no such threats for his two shows in Orlando, much to the joy of female minors.
Elvis Presley performs in Orlando on Aug. 8, 1956, wowing his fans.
(Orlando Sentinel)
The critics still weren’t impressed. A Sentinel story had this prediction: “He’s a fad, a fellow girls turn to for one of those mad, impetuous infatuations, whereas Perry Como and Eddie Fisher will still be around, the dependable types, when Presley is back driving his truck in Memphis.”
Well, not quite. Twenty-one years, a few hundred million records and too many fried-peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches later, Elvis returned to Orlando in his private jet.
He played the Sports Stadium on Feb. 17, 1977. The barn-like structure near Bithlo held 7,200 people and was packed.
At 10:10 p.m., the stage went dark and “2001: A Space Odyssey” cranked up. The Elvis appeared in full Elvis glory: white jumpsuit, gold chains and diamond rings.
“He appears healthy, but somewhat overweight,” the Sentinel reported the next day.
The audience didn’t seem to notice.
“I think he drrriiiips sex appeal,” one woman said.
“I hope his pants split,” a 25-year-old teacher said.
There was enough “suggestive” gyrating to make Elvis drip with sweat. He wiped his face with silk scarves and tossed them into the shrieking audience. After 21 songs, he finished with “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
Then the lights came up. Elvis had left the building. Six months later, he left the Earth.
So to answer the original question, Elvis played seven shows in Orlando. Unlike Jacksonville, our morals weren’t impaired by his pelvis.
And he never took Yothers’ advice to slow down, boy.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-op-ask-orlando-elvis-david-whitley-20190816-7inwwu5cina63lout4435vpzcy-story.html
BONUS ORLANDO
With Scotty, D.J. and Bill in Orlando, FL - Wednesday, August 8, 1956
The only other known photo from this visit.
