The King Recorded An Album Here In El Paso Over 4 Decades Ago

I don't think Elvis needs an introduction. He was the King of Rock & Roll for a reason & he's had memorable moments involving El Paso, including flirting with some of the girls during the 60s or being convinced by an El Paso woman to get the polio vaccine back in the 50s. Back in his heyday, Elvis practically ruled West Texas playing nearly 100 shows in Texas alone. So with the release of the new Elvis movie that came out in theaters, I figured I'd take a look back on when Elvis... The King... came to perform in El Paso.

Getty Images

What REALLY peaked my interest was just how many times Elvis performed in El Paso; not once, nor twice but 3 TIMES: 1956, 1972 & 1976. The El Paso History Alliance Facebook group shared a post back in 2017 stating just how excited the fans were to see The King live. Some of the people even shared their personal experiences about meeting Elvis.

I was extremely fascinated with his two performances during the 70. Because it was during that time, we started not only saw footage of his performing, but there's audio existing too. So much audio it became a live album; all consisting of when his performance at the Civic Center Coliseum (now the El Paso County Coliseum) back in June 2nd, 1976, just one year before his passing: El Goes El Paso. According to a 1976 article of the El Paso Times, Elvis performed for over 7,000 fans & the show got... CRAZY. In other words... it was a typical Elvis concert.

There's no known footage of his 1956 performance but thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can HEAR the whole album in its entirety. AND we can even see footage of his 1972 concert.

(albeit it's not in the greatest quality but it IS something)

So how and where did this album come from? According to a website dedicated to Elvis's releases (ElvisNorway), the Audionics label used the audio that was taken from the soundboard at the show & released it as a bootleg album. They also go on to say that the sound quality of this album is much better than anyone expected (usually bootleg albums have less than stellar quality). That also means that you can't find or listen to the recordings on Spotify, iTunes, etc (and a physical copy of the cd is really hard to come by).

Getty Images

But like I said earlier... thank god for YouTube so we CAN listen to that show & take pride that Elvis DID come & loved playing in El Paso.