Address:
4601 Bosque Blvd, Waco, TX 76710 ➤
The Heart O’ Texas Coliseum was first opened on April 11, 1953. At the time, the coliseum was the single largest indoor arena in the state and the second largest coliseum of any kind in Texas boasting a seating capacity of 7,638. And for big-ticket events like the rodeo it wasn’t uncommon for the venue to fill to capacity. Before its opening, The coliseum and the fair held there got their name from a contest won by a local Texan, Mrs. Cousins. In addition to having her winning name chosen for the fairgrounds and venue, Mrs. Cousins won an additional cash prize of $100.
On May 11th, exactly one month after its grand opening, an F5 tornado hit downtown Waco. The tornado devastated the area, killing 114 people and injuring over 600 more. With hundreds of homes and businesses completely destroyed, the nearby H.O.T. Coliseum quickly became a distribution center for clothes and supplies, solidifying it’s importance to the local community.
Coliseum exterior and interior with full attendance during rodeo (7,638 seats) c. 1953
Today, the coliseum still stands and is still actively being used. Over the decades the grounds have seen various renovations, upgrades, extensions and a name change in 2010 to “Extraco Events Center” as it is known today. The venue’s biggest event is still the yearly Heart O’ Texas Fair & Rodeo held every October attracting over 200,000 visitors per season.
Performances
Elvis at The Heart O’ Texas Coliseum Waco, TX
➤ April 23rd 1955
➤ April 17th 1956
➤ October 12th 1956
Elvis played in Waco only three times in his lifetime, and all of those shows were at the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum. Though he returned in later years through his basic training, Elvis never performed in the city again. Of the three shows, the first was a remote event that The Louisiana Hayride held, this put Elvis on stage shared among familiar faces. However, Elvis’ star was rising quickly and by his second Waco H.O.T. visit it was his show to headline. Then by October 1956 Elvis was beyond modest local fame; now a national music, TV, and movie star. His filming schedule was starting to interfere, even causing his third Waco visit to be rescheduled to accommodate for the star’s new Hollywood priority.
➤ April 23rd 1955 at 8pm
Directly following a performance the night before in Texarkana, Elvis, Scotty, and Bill drove nearly 300 miles west across half of Texas to their next show. At Waco’s Heart O’ Texas Coliseum, The Louisiana Hayride was holding a remote broadcast of their performances. This was the boys’ first time playing in Waco and the coliseum was no small gig. In fact the venue drew in more than 5,000 attendees making it one of the largest of the Louisiana Hayride.
The Saturday night show began at 8:30pm with doors opening at 8pm. And for the next three hours a staggering 40 performers entertained central Texas, names including Slim Whitman, Jim Reeves, and of course the young showstopper growing in local fame and making his way up the setlist, Elvis! For just $1.00 for adults, or 80¢ for children, tickets could be pre-purchased at a local coffee shop in town. (ironically the same corner is once again home to a local coffee shop, I wonder if I can buy Elvis tickets there still!)
Scotty, Elvis, and Bill onstage (via scottymore.net and elvisconcerts.com courtesy ColonelSnow/theelvisforum.org fool/FECC, and Barry Olman)
For the show Elvis wore a dark suit jacket, dark pants, and a black shirt with a solid textured tie. And among his songs, Blue Moon of Kentucky and That’s All Right (mama) are confirmed to have been sung during the show. Following the performance the boys were headed right back east again, this time to Houston for two same-day shows on the 24th and again another two same-day shows on the 25th but this time in two different cities: Wichita Falls, TX and Seymour, TX. The gigs were not slowing down as Elvis and The Blue Moon Boys continued with show after show through 1955.
➤ April 17th 1956 at 8pm
Elvis Presley
Due April 17
“Elvis Presley, a new singing sensation who has skyrocketed to the top virtually overnight, will appear in person headlining a show Tuesday, April 17, in the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum.
A little over two years ago when Presley was only 19, he stopped in a recording studio in his home town of Memphis, Tenn., to make a demonstration record of his voice to play for his relatives and friends. Six months later the recording manager called him to ask if he would make some records for sale to the public, and that’s how it started.
Each succeeding record release has outsold the previous on of the “hottest” thing in show business, and is one of the few artists to have his records played by country, pop and blues disk jockeys.
Advance tickets are on sale at the Disc Record Shop.”
Following an eventful performance in South Texas’ coastal Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi the day before, Elvis and the boys headed north to Waco for another show at the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum both by land and by air. Splitting up, the band traveled by car and Elvis flew into Waco with cousin Gene Smith. It was all of a week shy of being exactly one year from Elvis’ first performance in Waco in 1955. By this point though Elvis was now a national rising star with six TV appearances under his belt. And Elvis’ band, The Blue Moon Boys, had now also grown to include DJ Fontana on the drums along side Scotty and Bill. This gave Elvis’ sound a more robust presence on stage. Adding on the fact that the setlists got longer, the hits got bigger, the fans got wilder, and the venues got larger; the star power that was “Elvis Presley” just continued to grow. Not long after this would Elvis be heading on to Vegas for his first residency.
Like the Waco show the year before, the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum was once again hosting Elvis as part of The Louisiana Hayride for their remote broadcast. This meant that before Elvis took to the stage about 45 minutes of “opening acts” preceded him in which the eager crowd waited not so patiently for their young idol to appear. “Opening for Elvis had become the most thankless job in show business” according to author Lee Cotten in his 1995 book Did Elvis Sing in Your Hometown, Too?
“Opening for Elvis had become the most thankless job in show business”
In addition to the bigger and wilder shows, Elvis was better learning his craft, improving his legendary sense of showmanship. So while artist after artist went on stage before him, Elvis was hidden away in a Cadillac near the venue’s entrance. Quiet with a nervous energy, he sat watching the crowd until the cue was received, at which point the Cadillac raced him straight to the stage!
Elvis jumped right into his set starting with his hit “Heartbreak Hotel”. The crowd was so ecstatic he could hardly be heard over the screams, but he continued on through his hits with “I Got A Woman”, “Baby Let’s Play House”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Money Honey”, and an unreleased song “Only You”. And then at the end of his performance in what was potentially one of the first times to do so in his career (yet what would become common practice to avoid mobbing) Elvis jumped back into the Cadillac and was gone just as quickly as he came.
Backstage Elvis also met for the first time Eddie Fadal, a Dallas-based DJ for KRLD radio station. As a Waco native, Fadal and his family would go on to become close with Elvis’ especially during his training at Fort Hood when they would open their home to him, even going on to build an extra room for Elvis to visit and stay.
One of the most unique things about this April show that sets it apart from the other shows of Elvis’ early years is actually not the show itself, but the interview that took place beforehand. Usually, Elvis would allot time before a show to any city reporters requesting interviews. Many of these interviews fair about the same with the similar types of questions asked, and similar insights into Elvis.
However, at this show the interview for local newspaper, The Waco News Tribune, went a little different. For one thing instead of interviewing back-stage with the singer, young Bea Ramirez was sat next to Elvis in the seat of his famed Cadillac as they waited for the cue to race Elvis to the stage! Bea interviewed Elvis in a setting more intimate, and where he was arguably more comfortable and unguarded. Yet, at the same time we can tell from her detailed observations that this was also an Elvis still unsteady and nervous with all he was facing; early in his career, moving maybe a little too quickly.
Elvis Gives Out With
Crazy Cool Interview
“Shortly before he was to go on stage at the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum, Elvis Presley, the 21-year-old king of the nation’s rock ’n’ roll set, sat in a darkened Cadillac limousine for an interview—well hidden from the sight of nearly 4,000 screaming, squealing teen-agers who were on hand to welcome him Tuesday night.
All the hep cats were there and not enough fuzz (cops). Out in the stands and on the floor, his audience of idolizing teen-agers did all but hiss and boo to rid the stage of a group of other hillbilly entertainers and bring Presley out behind the microphone that he handles more like a limp blonde than a mechanical gadget.
Still Elvis made them wait . . . and he stared out at them, half scared and half unbelieving. Then with some sort of spasmodic movement, he turned to talk about himself.
E: “What do you want to know about me, honey?”
B: “Elvis, have you any idea at all about just what it was that started the girls going crazy over you?”
E: “No, I don’t. I guess it’s just something God gave me. I believe that, you know. Know what I mean, honey? And I am grateful. Only I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll go out like a light, just like I came on. Know what I mean, honey?”
Presley has a way with that “honey” business. When he talks, he looks straight ahead, or sort of dreamy like in no direction at all. Then he turns with that “know what I mean, honey?” His face is close, real close. Right in your face—almost.
B: “When do you start making your first movie, Elvis?” (Everybody calls him Elvis.)
E: “Oh, early in June, I think, because . . .”
At this point he stopped talking and stared ahead into the crowd. He squinted his eyes, jerked up a pencil (which had no lead) and began scribbling on the dash of the car. Then he turned and said:
E: “Huh, did you say something?”
B: “Elvis, when you start acting, will you keep the sideburns?” (The sideburns come down below his ears.)
E: “Oh, I don’t know, it depends on what type part they put me in. You know, I’m supposed to do ‘Billy the Kid’ pretty soon.”
B: “But Elvis, ‘Billy the Kid’ has been done to the ground.”
E: “Yeah, I know, but this time it will be different.” The way he says “different” it really will be.
B: “Elvis, will you sing in your first movie?”
E: “No, honey, sure won’t. Going to be in it with Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, and I won’t sing. I don’t want to, I want to be an actor.”
Then he turns and stares into the crowd again, listens to one of the other entertainers singing and grins slowly.
B: “But Elvis, have you thought how unhappy all these girls are going to be if you stop singing?”
E: “Huh, what was that? Oh, I’ll never stop singing, honey, never.”
He was beginning to make me wonder if I knew what I was talking about, so I changed the subject:
B: “Elvis, I hear you walk in your sleep.”
E: “Well, I have nightmares.”
B: “What kind?”
E: “I dream I’m about to fight somebody or about to be in a car wreck or that I’m breaking things. Know what I mean, honey?” (I don’t have any idea what he means.)
B: “Where are you from?”
E: “From Memphis, Tenn.”
B: “Oh, yes, that’s where all the hill-billy singers come from, isn’t it?”
E: “Maybe so, but I’m no hill-billy singer.”
B: “Well, have you typed yourself . . . I mean your type of singing?”
E: “No, I don’t dare.”
B: “Why?”
E: “Cause I’m scared, know what I mean, honey? Real scared.”
B: “What of?”
E: “I don’t know . . . I don’t know. Know what I mean, honey?”
At this point I thanked him for his time and started to make a beeline for the door. He grabbed my hand, sat there looking sleepy-eyed into my face and fanned his long lashes while he said:
E: “Write me up good, will you honey?”
And he drove out to meet the hysterical adoration of young girls and boys whose emotions he has found are easy to stir up with a song.”
In her article reviewing the performance, Bea writes in the Waco Herald Times about the moments directly following her exit from the backseat of Elvis’ Cadillac. They had sat together in the dark car, talking about his new clothes; a red shirt and black jacket that he nervously buttoned and unbuttoned every few minutes. She watched as he watched the crowd, and eventually it was show time!
Shrieks, Squeals, Moans
Meet New ‘Cat’ King Here
“All of a sudden the intermission was over, the Cadillac zoomed Presley to the side of the stage and he leaped out, took a stranglehold on his guitar and went right into his famous “Heartbreak Hotel,” as thousands of teenagers seated on the floor and in the stands moaned, groaned and attempted to push their way nearer the stage.
From that moment on confusion reigned. Presley could barely be heard above the noise of chairs moving, falling, girls “ohhing” and “eeeeyeeeing . . . One hypnotized teen-age girl repeatedly walked up in front of the stage to take flash pictures. After taking several, she aimed once more, pushed the button and the camera burst into flame. A teenage boy explained it: “Gosh, he’s so hot even the cameras are burning up!”
Presley sang a series of hot and heavy songs, which included “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Money Honey,” and “Only You” and interrupted his “singing” several times to tell a few off -color jokes, then after two encores, he leaped into the waiting Cadillac and was gone before the crowd knew what was happening.”
➤ October 12th 1956 at 8pm
For one third and final time Elvis was back at the H.O.T. Coliseum in Waco. This time Elvis was coming right off of the flames of a huge record-breaking performance in Dallas just the night before. Over 26,000 people filled the Cotton Bowl Stadium for the 1956 annual Texas State Fair to see the “Atomic Powered Singer.” It was the largest crowd the Cotton Bowl had seen for a performer yet!
After such a massive show Elvis then headed two-hours south to Waco for his headlining show at the Heart O’ Texas Coliseum. Unlike previous years in Waco, Elvis was no-longer just a local or even regional star; by this time he had become a national name with numerous TV appearances and even his first movie, Love Me Tender, due for release just the following month. In fact, Elvis’ schedule had become so packed that the October 12th show had actually originally been planned for the 5th of October. But due to scheduling conflicts with the movie’s production it was pushed back a week to the 12th.
