Elvis Presley spent a good part of 1974 on the stage of the Las Vegas Hilton, and some of those nights were recorded. For fans who love the chatty, joking side of Elvis between songs, one of those recordings is a real gift.
He opened an engagement there on Aug 19, 1974. Two nights later, on Aug 21, he played a midnight show. Both concerts were later released together on “Nevada Nights,” a 2-CD set from FTD. Those letters stand for Follow That Dream, which is the official Elvis collectors’ label.
By then Elvis was a proud dad who liked to talk about home.
His daughter, Lisa Marie, was 6 that August. She’d been born on Feb 1, 1968, and she was the apple of his eye. We’ve told you before what little Lisa Marie liked to call her famous father, and that funny nickname turns up again in this story.
He was in a warm mood at that midnight show. Before he sang “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” he told the audience “this is for Linda.” That was Linda Thompson, his girlfriend at the time. Piers Beagley of the Elvis Information Network wrote those words down when he reviewed the set back in 2009. If you’ve never heard Elvis talk about his daughter in front of a Vegas crowd, this clip from that 1974 run gives you a sense of how easily he chatted with a crowd about her.
Elvis talks about little Lisa Marie on stage in 1974
Here’s where it gets sweet.
When Geoffrey Mc Donnell reviewed “Nevada Nights” for the fan site Elvis Australia in 2016, he listened closely to that Aug 21 midnight show. Then he wrote this: “Elvis even mentions his dog ‘Getlo’ and six year old daughter, Lisa Marie and that she calls him ‘Alvis’.”
Getlo was a chow. You’ll sometimes see his name written “Getlow,” too.
The review doesn’t tell us what Elvis said about the dog. It only tells us the little guy got a mention in that show alongside Lisa Marie. But the story of how Getlo came to stay with Elvis comes from the woman who looked after him.
Linda talked about it years later with writer Alanna Nash for Ladies’ Home Journal. Out of all the dogs in their lives, she said, “we kept this chow, little Getlow.”
There was nearly a different ending, though. Elvis read that chows can turn on their masters, and he wanted to find Getlo a new home. Linda wasn’t ready to give up on him. She asked Elvis to “give the little fella a chance,” and then she raised the dog herself.
So the pup Elvis nearly gave away stayed with Linda, and he even got a mention from a Las Vegas stage. Linda was a big part of Elvis’s life in those days, and in this 1980 interview you can hear her look back on her time with him in her own words.
Linda Thompson looks back on her years with Elvis
Elvis Australia’s page about Linda carries a real photo with the caption “Elvis and Getlow on stage.” It doesn’t say when it was taken. Still, it’s a lovely thing to see, a chow up on stage with the man himself.
If you have “Nevada Nights” on your shelf, it might be worth another spin of that Aug 21 midnight show. Listen for Lisa Marie. And keep an ear out for the furry member of the family Linda wouldn’t let Elvis give away.