ELVIS LIVES

  Elvis' first show after Christmas and last of 1954 was a long way from Memphis at Cook's Hoedown Club in Houston, advertised in the Houston Post as a 'Yuletide Hillbilly Jamboree'. The December 25th Houston Press even included a portrait of Elvis (That's All Right) Presley for the show, which at $1.25 was more than a ticket to the Louisiana Hayride, but it would go toward raising money for the fire department. Adjusted for inflation, the ticket would set you back about $15 nowadays. Although the venue reportedly held around 2,000 people, I have not found any contemporary exterior photos, but this photo of Johnny Ragsdale and his Sundowners, circa 1954, shows the stage as it appeared when Elvis, Scotty, and Bill were there: According to  one source,  only 150 people attended the December 28th show, but I'm not sure where this information originated or how accurate it is.  The fate of Cook's Hoedown Club seems to be largely absent from the historic record. ...

Elvis' celebrated his first Christmas as a professional musician back home in Memphis at his parents' apartment on Alabama Avenue. This photo, taken outside the home likely in the latter half of 1953, shows Elvis and his trusty Lincoln Zephyr, an 18th birthday present purchased by his father Vernon for the princely sum of $50. Some claim it was a 1941, some a 1942, but the consensus is that, while unreliable, Elvis was certainly proud of his first automobile. Our typical focus on this site is the venues where Elvis played, but I've included the Alabama Avenue duplex because Scotty Moore's timeline lists a Louisiana Hayride performance in Shreveport on the 25th. Usually I go with Scotty since he would know where they were better than most, but I believe the December 25th Hayride date to be a mistake. I do think there's a pretty good chance some Christmas carols were sung at the Presley house that evening though, so we'll give it a pass as a venue. Alabama Avenue...

On December 20th, Elvis played a show at the Hawkins High School Gymnasium (shown here circa 1949/1950) in the provincial hamlet of Hawkins, TX, whose census population at the time was a robust 493. Hawkins has grown a bit over the years, and now boasts as many as 1,274 residents. With that growth came a new high school campus and the destruction of old Hawkins High. In a historic stroke of luck however, he gymnasium still stands, though it is now private property and showing signs of age and neglect. The google maps images above are dated September 2013, so google hasn't been out that way in over a decade, but the 2025 aerial shows that the building is still around. The historical record of Elvis' earliest performances is incomplete at best, and the 1954 Hawkins High show was somewhat of a mystery until Elvis historian Francesc Lopez found this snippet in the December 21, 1954 Gladewater Daily Mirror, which confirms the location of the show and the December 20th date. Interes...

Another Saturday night, another Louisiana Hayride for Elvis, Scotty, and Bill,  and that meant Elvis would have $18 in his pocket, at least for a little while. If you've been following along with the 1954 gigs, you'll know that Elvis and the boys were perpetually broke at this stage of their careers, at one point "marooned in Shreveport" as Scotty put it, without even gas money to get back home to Memphis. According to a concessions worker at  the Catholic Club in Helena, AR on December 2nd,  Elvis didn't even have enough money for a Coke. The Hayride ad above ran in the December 18th, 1954 Shreveport Journal , but doesn't give too many particulars about that night's show. You can find more information about  the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium and Elvis' first show on the Hayride by clicking here,  and you can find all of his previous Hayride performances by clicking the dropdown at the top right corner of this page and looking in the October, Novembe...

At some point, tentatively identified as between December 14th to 17th 1954, Elvis made an appearance at the Mint Club in Gladewater, Texas. There are conflicting accounts of exactly when Elvis first came to Gladewater, but some photos found in Gladys Presley's papers were marked 'December 1954', and in the one shown here, a 'Mint Club' flyer is visible in the background. I was unable to find any exterior photos of the venue from that time period, but the building is apparently still around, though in a slightly different location and much sadder shape than it was in 1954. According to Scotty Moore's excellent website, scottymoore.net, the defunct Mint Club building was purchased by a preacher at some point in the late 1990s and for reasons I am not fully aware, moved across the street. The church failed to gain traction, and the building is currently abandoned and considerably deteriorated. In the aerial above, the arrow at the top shows the original Mint Club...

Another Saturday night, another Louisiana Hayride for Elvis, Scotty, and Bill,  and that meant Elvis would have $18 in his pocket. If you've been following along with the 1954 gigs, you'll know that Elvis and the boys were perpetually broke at this stage of their careers, at one point "marooned in Shreveport" as Scotty put it, without even gas money to get home to Memphis. According to a concessions worker at the Catholic Club in Helena, AR on December 2nd, Elvis didn't even have enough money for a Coke. The Hayride ad above ran in the December 11th, 1954 Shreveport Times , but doesn't give too many particulars about that night's show. You can find more information about  the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium and Elvis' first show on the Hayride by clicking here,  and you can find all of his previous Hayride performances by clicking the dropdown at the top right corner of this page and looking in the October, November, and December categories. Sources: ...