Elvis Hasn’t Left the Building

No other recording star had a more enduring relationship with our city than Elvis

By Billy Ingram

Feature Photo: Elvis Presley boarding the Lisa Marie to leave Greensboro, N.C. for Asheville

“Of all the places we’ve been to, you’re one of the most fantastic audiences we’ve had.”     — Elvis Presley to a Greensboro crowd

A few minutes after midnight on Monday, July 21, 1975, a Lockheed JetStar glided to a halt on a secluded spot at the Greensboro-High Point Airport’s tarmac. A fleet of limousines awaited the colorful parade of passengers as they deplaned, followed by the greatest superstar of the 20th century, Elvis Presley. The King was in town to electrify what would be a record-breaking crowd at the Greensboro Coliseum that night.

Within half an hour of touchdown, Elvis and his enormous entourage pulled up behind the high-rise Hilton Hotel on West Market, located across from Greensboro College, where an advance team had already covered every window on the top two floors with aluminum foil, preventing even a ray of daylight from encroaching. Elvis was escorted to the Wedgewood Suite, encompassing the western end of the 10th floor, familiar to him from two previous stays in 1972 and 1974. Shortly after arrival, the Memphis Mafia called down to the kitchen to order a fruit tray.

Normally closed by midnight, the Hilton’s kitchen was fully staffed and prepared to fulfill room service orders not only from the ninth and 10th floors but for the two levels below, where The King’s less crepuscular courtiers were holed up. When the order for that fruit tray came in from Elvis’ suite, a tower of melons, grapes, bananas and cottage cheese was prepared, oddly enough, by Greensboro Daily News reporter Jerry Kenion, who had taken a part-time job in the kitchen in an attempt to score an interview with Presley. The closest she came was catching a glance of the star while wheeling the food cart into the suite’s living room.

Around 3:30 a.m., word went out from Presley’s personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, to Greensboro Coliseum general manager Jim Oshust that Elvis was suffering from a major toothache. Armed with the City Directory, Oshust began ringing up local dentists one by one. Officer Judy Allen, part of a security task force assigned to serve the King, had a better idea. She suggested her longtime practitioner, Dr. J. Baxter Caldwell.

Minutes later at 1100 Sunset Drive, the cacophonous ringing from 1970s-era landlines interrupted the stillness of what was an unusually hot summer night. On the line, the voice of an all-night operator informed Caldwell that the most famous mouth in America was in need of emergency oral surgery. Could he be of assistance?

Caldwell agreed to attend to Presley, dressed hurriedly, and arranged to meet his receptionist, Mrs. Ann Wright, at his practice located just up the street at 1817 Pembroke Road (still a dental office today with the same phone number). Officer Allen drove Presley’s limo to the physician’s back door around 5 a.m. while another stretch transporting two bodyguards and Elvis’ physician, the infamous “Dr. Nick,” followed closely behind.

What the dentist didn’t know was that it had become common for Presley to remove one of his fillings, then arrange to be seen on a rush basis for what would eventually yield him a prescription or two. What Elvis didn’t know was that Dr. Caldwell was especially reticent to prescribe painkillers to his patients. But Presley’s predicament was entirely legit this time. Dr. Caldwell determined there was an abscessed tooth under the bridge in the lower right bicuspid, which he went right to work on. Returning to the Hilton around sunup and before retiring for the day, Elvis finally noshed on that fruit tray he’d ordered earlier.

Around 8 p.m., Elvis, attired in his bedazzled Aztec-inspired outfit, and his posse descended the elevator to encounter about a dozen fans congregating outside the Hilton’s rear exit. Bodyguards had advised the assembled that Presley was suffering from a toothache and wouldn’t be hanging around to talk.

During the previous night’s concert in Norfolk, Elvis began inexplicably pestering his female backup singers, The Sweet Inspirations, with crude insults. Most of his vitriol was reserved for on-again, off-again girlfriend Kathy Westmoreland, who harmonized with the girl singers. All but one of the women walked off stage midperformance. Determined to quit for good, “The Sweets” reconsidered in Greensboro after a preshow heartfelt apology from Elvis. On July 21, all but Westmoreland performed at the coliseum.

To the tune of “CC Rider” at 8:30 sharp, a newly slimmed-down Elvis glided confidently but casually on stage, his mere presence causing 16,300 fans to erupt into screaming and squealing conniption fits. Before he ever sang a note. One local reviewer declared this 1975 appearance “better than ever.”

As the concert progressed, Elvis became increasingly obsessed with a rough spot on his reconstructed tooth that kept rubbing his tongue. Not a small distraction. A midnight call went out to Dr. Caldwell. The entire staff was on hand when Elvis arrived around 1 a.m., including two dental assistants who had been in the audience that night. Receptionist Ann Wright noted that the entertainer didn’t look particularly tired, considering he’d given such a high voltage performance, while Dr. Caldwell told The Greensboro Record, “He was a nice fellow. It was ‘Yes sir this’ and ‘Yes sir that’ with him.”

Upon returning to his 10th-floor Hilton penthouse, Kathy Westmoreland reluctantly met with a morose Elvis as he sat on the bed, clad in karate pajamas. Brandishing a gun in one hand and a gift-wrapped jewelry box in the other, Elvis offered her a choice: “Which do you want? This or this?” Nervously accepting and opening the gift, a watch, she agreed to remain by his side until the end of the tour.

More bewildering, at the airport the next afternoon, Elvis’ retinue discovered that he had flown ahead to their next engagement in Asheville without them. After the jet was piloted back to Greensboro and everyone finally settled in at Asheville’s Rodeway Inn, Elvis demonstrated his remorsefulness by showering his entourage with what the jeweler who traveled with Presley, Lowell Hayes, called “Practically a whole jewelry store!”

That erratic behavior continued. There were multiple accounts that Elvis was angry that his personal physician had confiscated the drugs he’d just scored from another dentist. His temper also flared up when the vertical hold on the TV screen went haywire, a not frequent occurrence. According to those reports, he fired a bullet into the Rodeway Inn television set, which ricocheted into Dr. Nick’s chest but caused no injury.

Frustrated by the lack of standing ovations in the last of his three Asheville dates, Elvis doled out a diamond ring from the stage, worth $6,500 (about $38,000 today), and handed over to a random fan perhaps his most iconic guitar, a Gibson Ebony Dove with a mother-of-pearl “Elvis Presley” inlaid into the black rosewood fret board. Prominently featured in his 1973 Aloha From Hawaii TV special and strummed onstage frequently, that guitar sold at auction in 2016 for $334,000.

Elvis triumphantly returned to the Greensboro Coliseum and the Hilton (now called The District at West Market) in June 1976 and April 1977, the latter being opening night for the last concert tour before The King’s untimely death in August that year. Employees at The District swear to me that Elvis’ spirit hasn’t left the building. I’ll believe that when a late night phone call goes out to Dr. Caldwell’s office. After all, he has the number.  OH

Billy Ingram is a hunka hunka burnt-out love.