Mac Davis and his wife Elise in Las Vegas in 2012. Photo: Norm Clarke

By Norm Clarke

Mac Davis and Helen Reddy had more in common than Davis’ signature song “I Believe in Music.”

They were Las Vegas regulars in the 1970s, both headlining at the original MGM Grand hotel which had opened in 1973.

Both were so popular they had their own TV shows.

Reddy twice appeared on “The Mac Davis Show” on NBC, singing her cover of “I Believe in Music,” written and recorded by Davis.

Tuesday they died hours apart. Both were 78.

I was working for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in November, 2012 when I met Davis at the Camelot gala at Opportunity Village. I approached him for his account of the MGM Grand fire on Nov. 21, 1981. 

“Probably one of the scariest days of my life,” he said.

The night before the fire Davis and his musicians had opened his headliner engagement at the MGM Grand.

He was awakened by an early-morning telephone call from his Los Angeles-based assistant in Los Angeles.

Davis and his wife, Lise, were staying in Engelbert Humperdinck’s villa on the Desert Inn property.

Davis’ assistant said, “Look out your window and (you’ll) see the MGM on fire."

The news immediately rattled Davis.

“I had several people from my band, my road manager, my conductor, and a couple friends were staying there,” he said.

Davis and his wife turned on their television. Huge pillars of smoke were rising above the megaresort.

It was bad.

Davis’ wife, a registered nurse, instinctively knew she was needed..

“She went down and did triage at the Convention Center,” Davis said. “She was there all day.”

Davis was on the telephone for several hours before he got the news: all of his entourage had survived the fire that killed 85 and injured hundreds.

His conductor and a friend were immediately in trouble. Upon leaving their room, they realized the door had locked behind them, with the key inside. Dense smoke made it difficult to see and breath. They used a necktie as a lifeline, tying it to their wrists so they didn’t get separated in the smoke.

“When they realized they weren’t going to make it, they started crawling and banging on doors but people wouldn’t let ’em in because they thought there were flames out there,” he recalled.

Out of options, they stood up in the smoke to make a run for it, and “there was an exit,” Davis said.

Later in the day, as they departed Las Vegas on a chartered plane, the pilot circled over the still-smoking hotel, now Bally’s.

“We saw all those sheets hanging out the windows and all the curtains flowing out the windows,” Davis said.

Later, his conductor gave him the framed sheet music retrieved from the showroom stage after the fire.

“It was covered with wet soot from the sprinklers and the smoke combined. It was our last song. It was laying open on the stand.”

Davis framed it and had it hanging on a wall at his home for decades.

The song: “I Believe in Music.”

Before he became a hit-making machine in the 1970s, he wrote songs for Elvis Presley. Davis’ big break came when Elvis recorded “In the Ghetto” (1969) and “A Little Less Conversation” (1970). They were part of The King’s comeback.

Between 1970 and 1981, Davis had 15 Billboard Hot 100 hits. In 1972 he hit No. 1 with "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me," his only chart topper.

In 1974 he was named entertainer of the year by the Academy of Country Music and he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.

He penned songs for Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Bobby Goldsboro and Kenny Rogers.

Davis died days after heart surgery. He will be buried in Lubbock, Texas, where he drew inspiration from Buddy Holly, who also grew up in Lubbock.

Reddy, known as the “Queen of the Pops” in the 1970s, died of dementia in Los Angeles. She had three No. 1 hits in the U.S.: “I am Woman” (1972), “Delta Dawn” (1972) and “Angie Baby” (1974)