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A collection of my Elvis and Elvis-adjacent writings outside The Mystery Train.

Elvis Shocker: 1974 Richmond concert is a multi-track recording

/ TY / 5 Comments

48 Hours To Memphis, capturing Elvis’ March 18, 1974, concert at the Richmond Coliseum in Virginia, will feature a recently discovered 16-track recording of the event.

48 Hours To Memphis (concept cover art)

48 Hours To Memphis (concept cover art)

Instead of the typical soundboard recording most fans expected, it turns out that this is actually a fully mixed, professionally-recorded show. “Taken from a tape copy (2 channels mix-down) of a 16-track recording, the show is complete (with some tape damage that has been fixed/altered),” notes the Elvis In Norway site.

Two days after the Richmond concert, Elvis closed out his tour with a live appearance in Memphis. RCA also recorded that performance at the Mid-South Coliseum in multi-track. It appeared in an edited form a few months later as the album Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis.

Questions abound. Did RCA record Richmond as preparation for that Memphis concert album? Or did RCA originally conceive the album as a tour compilation? How did RCA seemingly lose this multi-track recording and any record that it ever existed?

Sony’s Follow That Dream collectors label will release the CD in September, packaged in an oversized, 7-inch digipack and including a 16-page booklet with photographs from the show.

See below for the tracklisting. Is it September yet? Elvis is coming to town!

Live At The Richmond Coliseum: March 18, 1974
01) Also Sprach Zarathustra/
02) See See Rider
03) I Got A Woman/Amen [edited with Memphis, March 20, 1974]
04) Love Me
05) Tryin’ To Get To You
06) All Shook Up
07) Steamroller Blues
08) Teddy Bear/Don’t Be Cruel
09) Love Me Tender
10) Long Tall Sally/Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On/Your Mama Don’t Dance/Flip, Flop & Fly/Jailhouse Rock/Hound Dog
11) Fever
12) Polk Salad Annie
13) Why Me
14) Suspicious Minds
15) Introductions By Elvis
16) I Can’t Stop Loving You
17) Help Me
18) An American Trilogy
19) Let Me Be There
20) Funny How Time Slips Away
21) Can’t Help Falling In Love/
22) Closing Vamp

Bonus Songs
23) Sweet Caroline [Tulsa, March 1, 1974]
24) Johnny B. Goode [Memphis, March 17, 1974]
25) That’s All Right [Memphis, March 17, 1974]

FTD releases are official products and available from various online stores. They originate in Denmark and then ship to retailers, so there is sometimes a two or three week delay after the release date before the CDs arrive for those of us in the US.

Down that lonely road

/ TY
Elvis Presley, 1935-1977

Elvis Presley: January 8, 1935—August 16, 1977

“Should you go first and I remain for battles to be fought, each thing you’ve touched along the way will be a hallowed spot. I’ll hear your voice, I’ll see your smile, though blindly I may grope. The memory of your helping hand will buoy me on with hope.” –From “Should You Go First” by Albert Roswell, Poems That Touch The Heart, compiled by A. L. Alexander, Doubleday, New York, 1941.

Pump up the volume: Elvis Week 2011 begins

/ TY / 8 Comments

Elvis Week officially kicks off today in Memphis. Of course, Elvis Week really occurs all over the world – wherever there is an Elvis fan. Most of us take a little extra time to remember and enjoy the music.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in Memphis, I envy you, but also hope you have a fantastic time. Elvis Presley Enterprises and others put on a variety of events, so it always looks like there is something for everybody.

Perusing the schedule, one thing that I’d definitely attend if I was there is Saturday’s screening of the 2000 documentary Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll, which was written and produced by none other than Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick. Guralnick, along with Knox Phillips (Sam’s oldest son), will speak after the film.

In honor of Elvis Week, the O.co (Overstock.com) entertainment blog yesterday featured a fun Elvis infographic. Check it out.

Have a great week, everyone. Remember to crank up the Elvis!

* * *

August 12, 2011, Update: Check out MJ’s fantastic post about visiting Graceland during Elvis Week 2007 on her blog.

Update #2: And here’s another one. This one is from the Elvis Today Blog with Thomas’ memories of Elvis Week 2005. The funny thing is, this was written shortly after Elvis Week 2007 – referenced in MJ’s post above.

August 18, 2011, Final Update: To bring things full circle, here are a couple of great blog posts from Memphis resident Deena Dietrich about Elvis Week 2011.

Thomas claims victory in Elvis Trivialities #4, becomes first back-to-back winner

/ TY / 2 Comments

Thomas has once again triumphed over Elvis Trivialities by being the first person to correctly answer the fourth installment.

With a response time of two hours and twenty-six minutes, he becomes the first member of The Mystery Train’s Night Riders to score not only a repeat victory, but a back-to-back one at that. Thomas now receives even more bragging rights.

And the answer is…

Brett Reno in Love Me Tender was played by an actor who later had two different roles on Star Trek.

Veteran character actor William Campbell portrayed Brett Reno, a brother to Clint (Elvis). Among many other television roles, he went on to appear as Trelane in the first season Star Trek episode “The Squire of Gothos” (1967) and Koloth, a Klingon captain, in the second season episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” (1967). Both installments consistently rate among Trek’s best.

He reprised the role of Koloth in “Blood Oath,” a 1994 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Campbell passed away earlier this year.

Congratulations again to Thomas!

The Mystery Train’s Night Riders

  • August 6, 2011: Thomas (2:26)
  • July 9, 2011: Thomas (5:26)
  • June 23, 2011: Fred Wolfe (0:18) <— Record time
  • June 22, 2011: [Ty stumps the train]

Elvis Trivialities #4

/ TY / 4 Comments

Welcome to Elvis Trivialities. Your question is:

Which character in Love Me Tender was played by an actor who later had two different roles on Star Trek?

Bragging rights to the first person to post the correct answer in the comments below.

Will we have our first repeat winner? Or will a new winner join their ranks? Can anyone break Fred Wolfe’s speed record? Check in next time to find out.

Amarillo ’77 for completists only

/ TY

Amarillo '77I originally planned to write a full review of Follow That Dream’s Amarillo ’77, but I just don’t have the heart to do it. I enjoy much of the 1977 material on Elvis In Concert, Spring Tours 77, and Unchained Melody, so I was looking forward to this release.

I’ve played it twice now, and I’m going to have to put it away for awhile. It pains me to write this, but Amarillo ’77 is the worst Elvis concert album I’ve ever heard. I don’t own every FTD release, so perhaps there are some worse ones out there. If so, I don’t need to hear them. I have never felt like this after listening to an Elvis album. Unless this is the last CD you need to complete your collection, I can’t recommend Amarillo ’77.

Despite its misleading title, Amarillo ’77 is actually a compilation of songs from five different concerts. While it could be said that the performances on Spring Tours 77 were cherry-picked to cover only highlights, I believe the opposite is true of Amarillo ’77.

This is one of only four official albums ever released that is devoted to 1977 material. Given how rarely this Elvis year is visited, why were these particular performances chosen? Rather than picking cherries, I believe someone intentionally plucked a bunch of sour grapes this time.

I don’t believe in kicking a man while he is down, even if it is 34 years after the fact, so I’m just going to leave my thoughts on this depressing disc at the above.

I can really use a good laugh right now, so I’m going to pull out FTD’s All Shook Up, which covers Elvis’ August 26, 1969, Midnight Show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. It features Elvis in good spirits and at the top of his game.

Back In Richmond

/ TY

An Elvis Presley concert recorded in Richmond, Virginia, will soon become an official album. In September, Sony’s Follow That Dream collectors label will release 48 Hours To Memphis, a CD that captures Elvis’ March 18, 1974, concert at the Richmond Coliseum.

In the 1970s, Elvis performed live on four dates at the Richmond Coliseum. The March 18 concert was only six days after his March 12 appearance there that same year. The tour swung back through Richmond due to a rapid sell out of the earlier show. An audience sign in 1972’s Elvis On Tour modified the state tourism slogan to say, “Virginia Is For Elvis Lovers.” This clearly was still the case two years later.

I’m glad that they gave this CD a creative title, rather than just slapping a song name on it. Richmond is about 13 hours from Memphis by car – and much shorter, obviously, by plane. The 48 Hours To Memphis title reflects that Elvis closed out the tour two days later with a concert in Memphis on March 20. An edited version of the Memphis show became the July 1974 album Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis.

To the point of sounding like a broken record, I’ve noted several times here that I missed out on seeing Elvis perform live due to being only two years old when he passed away. I have intentionally avoided the bootleg versions of concerts like this for years in hopes of someday enjoying official releases. 48 Hours To Memphis will be a very special way to think of what might have been. Thank you, FTD.