Photography courtesy of Paul Anka Productions

In the ’50s, pop music was in the infancy stage. I was on a tour with early rock and rollers like Bobby Darin, The Diamonds and Frankie Lymon, traveling in buses and playing arenas. On the bus, I’d sleep in the luggage rack above the seats. We’d get there, I’d do two songs and we’d go on to the next place. It was a grind. My best friend was Bobby Darin and our idols were the Rat Pack—Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop. Bobby and I realized that this pop music thing wasn’t going to last forever and we wanted to get into the club circuit. My first show in Vegas was at the Sahara. I opened for Sophie Tucker. I was under age and not allowed in the casino, so they brought me in the back door. The place was filled with waiters, gamblers and cigarette smoke. The amazing thing was, when the show was on, the casino was empty. The audiences dressed up in suits and ties and cocktail clothes and jewelry. People came as families because the kids knew who I was. The girls were screaming. I was still doing my rock shows. And while I wasn’t scared in front of my kid audiences, once we got into clubs, there was no benchmark. No consistency. Here I was, dressing up in a tux, singing for adults. In Vegas, I was totally out of my environment. I was always a very confident kid. I just tried to be cool, but for those first five years, I shook inside. It was a great training ground. After that first show, Sophie told me in that really deep voice of hers, that she couldn’t follow me with all that commotion. So, from then on, I closed the show. I was a headliner from the start. I had special material written to bridge the kids and their parents. Then I’d do my hits. I charmed the kids and the adults right into the woodwork.