... a smart and zippy account of the watershed moment when the King of Rock ’n’ Roll came to Sin City to reclaim his squandered talent ... Mr. Zoglin is in his element outlining Vegas’s glory years ... In Mr. Zoglin’s view, Presley’s true legacy is the way he opened up Sin City to a broader range of music styles and ultimately to a new sort of spectacle.
oglin's smart and entertaining book combines genuine affection for its subject with a keen sense of show-biz history and a lively style ... The book's title is slightly misleading: at least half of it is taken up with a breezy history of Vegas in its Rat Pack glory years that sets the stage for Elvis's arrival. This is no loss, though: Zoglin's survey of Vegas from its postwar years has snap and verve ... provides appreciative accounts of the considerable craft that went into the ainstage casino shows, often dismissed as a wasteland of tacky shlock ... This is outstanding pop-culture history, even before it gets to the King. When it does, Zoglin's canny revisionist flair ratchets up into high gear.
This is more about Vegas than Elvis, but the King’s fans should slurp it up anyway. Showbiz maven Zoglin is such a slick pop writer that his prose goes down like rainwater. He depends as much on living performers’ testimonies as on historical newspapers and other books ... What [Elvis] changed Vegas from and to constitutes rich, fascinating context in Zoglin’s smart book.
