Mick Jagger Shamed Elvis Presley For Playing Sin City: ‘Singing in Las Vegas With All Those Housewives and Old Ladies’
In his youth, Mick Jagger was quite outspoken about life as a rock and roll star in middle age and beyond. He once told reporters he couldn’t see the Rolling Stones rocking out well into their 50s. In fact, he once shamed Elvis Presley for playing Sin City, “singing in Las Vegas with all those housewives and old ladies.”
Mick Jagger couldn’t fathom ever playing Las Vegas like Elvis Presley did in the latter part of his career
At the age of 29, Mick Jagger insisted that he would quit rock and roll in his early 30s. He claimed, “I don’t want to be a rock star all my life,” in a quote reprinted by The Independent.
“When I’m 33, I’ll quit; I don’t want to be a rock star all my life,” Jagger stated. “I couldn’t bear to be like Elvis Presley and sing in Las Vegas with all those housewives and old ladies coming in with their handbags. It’s really sick.”
Jagger likely referenced the rooms Elvis played in the late 1960s and early ’70s when his Las Vegas residency drew thousands of admirers. Elvis had a Las Vegas residency for seven years.
Elvis made his Las Vegas debut in 1956. He would go on to bang out a grueling Las Vegas concert schedule — two shows a night, seven days a week — that led to 636 sold-out shows at the International Hotel from 1969-1977.
“Sinatra was a show. Elvis was a happening,” says Joe Guercio, the Las Vegas Hilton musical director and orchestra leader for Elvis’ Vegas shows and tours in the 1970s to Nevada Magazine. “It was another world. You can’t get that going again.”
Did Mick Jagger ever meet Elvis Presley?
Paul Du Noyer interviewed Mick Jagger for MOJO Magazine and said the Rolling Stones frontman admitted he had never met Elvis Presley. He further explained it was because of John Lennon.
Jagger admitted, “I never met Elvis because John Lennon once told me he was a real disappointment. So I said I’d take his advice because I’d already had it with Chuck Berry, and I didn’t want it to happen again with Elvis.”
He continued, “Though now, of course, I wish I had met Elvis. You never think, ‘Oh, he’s gonna die soon; I’d better hurry up and meet him.'”
“Because in those days, he wasn’t very old. If nothing else, you’d still be able to talk about it, wouldn’t you?” Jagger concluded.
Mick Jagger was once linked to an Elvis Presley biopic
In 2013, sources told FOX that Mick Jagger and his production company, Jagged Films, were looking to team up with 20th Century Fox to produce a biopic of Elvis Presley. “He was a unique artist – an original in an area of imitators,” Jagger reportedly said of Presley.
A representative for Fox a decade ago confirmed that the studio had a script for the film Last Train To Memphis. The film remains in development.
The screenplay is reportedly based on the 1995 biographical book by Peter Guralnick of the same name. The book “explored Elvis’ lifelong passion for music, his compelling affection for his family, his intimate relationships, and the mystical faith Presley had in his music.”
No further details have emerged regarding Jagger’s involvement in the project. The Rolling Stones will tour their latest album, Hackney Diamonds, in 2024.
