On 14 January 1973, Elvis Presley performed a concert that was beamed live by satellite to more of the planet than any single performer had ever reached — somewhere between one and 1.5 billion people across 40 countries.
It is still cited as the most-watched concert broadcast ever made. And here is what almost nobody knows about it. There was no ticket price. Not a cheap one. Not a premium one. None at all. Every person in that arena paid whatever they felt like paying, and every cent of it went to a fund named after a Hawaiian songwriter who had been dead for six years.
His name was Kui Lee. He was a Hawaiian singer and songwriter, and in 1966 he died of cancer at just 34 years old. He had written a song called “I’ll Remember You,” which Elvis loved and performed for years afterward. When the satellite concert was planned for Honolulu, Elvis decided the whole thing would be a benefit for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund.
Elvis Presley – Aloha from Hawaii
The way they handled the money was remarkable. Instead of fixed prices, fans donated whatever they could afford, and the size of your donation determined how close to the stage you sat. Elvis took no fee whatsoever. He also bought a ticket himself at the top rate and tickets for his entourage. The target was $25,000. The night brought in around $75,000.
The reason the concert existed at all is the sad part. Elvis had never performed outside North America and never would, because Colonel Tom Parker refused to let him travel — Parker being an illegal immigrant with no passport who could not risk leaving the country himself. So instead of taking Elvis to the world, they made Elvis perform to the world.
Closest-Ever Look At Elvis Presley’s American Eagle Jumpsuit! Worn For Worldwide Concert ’73
He took it extremely seriously. He lost about 25 pounds for it and asked designer Bill Belew to create a costume that would represent America, since the entire planet would be watching. Belew’s answer was the white American Eagle jumpsuit, studded with thousands of stones, plus a matching cape. There is a lovely mishap attached to it too: at the packed dress rehearsal the night before, Elvis got so carried away that he threw the cape into the audience — the one he was meant to wear on live television the next night.
The broadcast went out live to Asia and Oceania, then across Europe. In the Philippines, it accounted for 91.8 percent of all television viewers. And Americans, bizarrely, could not see it at all, because their broadcast was delayed until 4 April — that same January day happened to be Super Bowl Sunday, and nobody at NBC fancied competing with American football. When it finally aired at home, it drew over half of the American viewing audience, and, by one commonly repeated comparison, it was seen in more US homes than the first moon landing.
The soundtrack went to number one, the last chart-topping album of his lifetime. And it was the last time the world saw Elvis Presley at full power. The biggest audience any performer had ever assembled, gathered for free, in memory of a songwriter most of them had never heard of.