1970s

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.

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.

“I told the Colonel to stay off the stage”

/ TY / 17 Comments

Found this video of Elvis live in 1974 on YouTube. I normally don’t link to this kind of thing, but this is the best footage of this nature I have ever seen. Unbelievable.

It doesn’t seem that impressive at first, but wait until 25 seconds in. It is totally captivating after that.

Looks like a fun time. Sure wish I could’ve been there. I had trouble getting tickets, you see, because I wasn’t born yet.

Hey Sony, isn’t it about time for an Elvis On Tour boxed set?

/ TY / 7 Comments

I started to do this in reply to Mike Hermenet’s comment on my Trilogy post, but decided to make a new post about it instead.

Though the 40th anniversary of That’s The Way It Is in 2010 essentially went unobserved by both the main Sony label and its Follow That Dream collectors label, I’m with Mike in hoping that the 40th anniversary of 1972’s Elvis On Tour will capture Sony’s imagination in 2012.

Elvis On Tour deserves a 3-CD treatment on the main label:

Disc 1: April 9, 1972, Evening Show, Hampton Roads, VA
Disc 2: April 10, 1972, Richmond, VA
Disc 3: April 16, 1972, Greensboro, NC

And then, to complement the above, there should be an Elvis On Tour: The Rehearsals – Volume II CD on the FTD label.

Or perhaps swap out one of the concerts from the set and release it on FTD, and put the disc of newly released rehearsals on the main label boxed set instead – since some may find three concerts from the same week to be too repetitive for a mainstream release (who are these imbeciles?).

After last year’s poorly handled Blu-ray release of the film, I’m not holding my breath for Warner Brothers to release anything new as far as Elvis On Tour video footage next year. I hope I’m wrong on that account, though.

There is, at least, some hope for additional audio releases to go with those from the past.

Thanks for commenting, Mike, and for the quick post idea.

Elvis revamps his show

/ TY / 18 Comments

Inspired by a recent eBay auction of Elvis’ handwritten rehearsals set list from August 1974, Thomas has a posted another creative piece over on his Elvis Today Blog. This is a must-read:

“The Handwritten Las Vegas Rehearsal Set List” — Elvis Today Blog

Sony’s Follow That Dream collectors label for Elvis fans documented the rehearsals on the 2-CD set From Sunset to Vegas. The unique opening show of this engagement is one of two concerts that appear on FTD’s 2-CD Nevada Nights.

“The Twelfth Of Never” and “Softly, As I Leave You” from the August 16, 1974, rehearsal first appeared on 1995’s Walk A Mile In My Shoes.

I always find it a little eerie while listening to “Softly” in particular to think that Elvis would pass away exactly three years later.

He felt himself start to die, and he took his notepad from the side of the bed, and he wrote, ‘Softly, I will leave you, softly. For my heart would break, if you should wake, and see me go…'” –From “Softly As I Leave You,” Elvis Presley version, August 16, 1974

That’s The Way It Is: Rehearsals – The Official Audio Releases

/ TY

My favorite Elvis event is 1970’s That’s The Way It Is, with 1968’s ELVIS (comeback special) a close second. That’s why I’m looking forward to the new Stage Rehearsal CD, coming later this month from Follow That Dream Records.

The core of Stage Rehearsal will be songs recorded during Elvis’ August 10, 1970, final rehearsal before the opening show later that night (the concert captured on FTD’s One Night In Vegas). MGM did not film this particular rehearsal for the movie, but I still consider it part of That’s The Way It Is.

To this point, official releases of That’s The Way It Is rehearsals have been scattered on various titles. Below is a listing of what we have so far.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the audio recordings made for That’s The Way It Is rehearsals. I hope Sony and FTD release the remaining That’s The Way It Is material over the next several years as we approach the film’s 50th anniversary in 2020.

Elvis Aron Presley (1980)
(August 10)
You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
Sweet Caroline

Walk A Mile In My Shoes (1995)
Alla En El Rancho Grande (July 15)
Froggy Went A-Courtin’ (July 29)
Stranger In My Own Home Town (July 24)

A Life In Music (1997)
(July 29)
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
I Was The One
The Cattle Call
Baby, Let’s Play House
Don’t
Money Honey
What’d I Say

That’s The Way It Is: Special Edition (2000)
Peter Gunn Theme (July 15)
That’s All Right (July 15)
Cottonfields (July 15)
Yesterday (July 15)
I Can’t Stop Loving You (July 15)
Such A Night (July 29)
It’s Now Or Never (July 29)
A Fool Such As I (July 29)
Little Sister/Get Back (July 29)
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water (July 24)
Johnny B. Goode (July 24)
Mary In The Morning (July 24)
The Wonder Of You (July 24)
Santa Claus Is Back In Town (August 4)
Farther Along (August 4)
Oh Happy Day (August 7)

One Night In Vegas (2000)
(August 4)
Words
The Cattle Call/A Yodel
Twenty Days And Twenty Nights
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
Bridge Over Troubled Water

The Way It Was (2001)
Words (July 14)
The Next Step Is Love (July 14)
Ghost Riders In The Sky (July 15)
Love Me (July 15)
That’s All Right (July 24)
I Got A Woman (July 24)
I’ve Lost You (July 24)
I Can’t Stop Loving You (July 24)
Just Pretend (July 24)
Words (July 29)
I Just Can’t Help Believin’ (July 29)
Something (August 4)
Polk Salad Annie (August 7)
Mary In The Morning (August 7)

One thing I didn’t realize until compiling this list is that it’s been a decade since Sony or FTD have released any new That’s The Way It Is rehearsal material. Time sure does fly.

* * *

Below is the track listing for Stage Rehearsal, which will add to the That’s The Way It Is legacy.

August 10, 1970
01 You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
02 I Just Can’t Help Believin’
03 Something
04 Sweet Caroline
05 Polk Salad Annie
06 You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
07 I’ve Lost You
08 Bridge Over Troubled Water
09 Patch It Up
10 Can’t Help Falling In Love
11 You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
12 You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
Bonus Tracks
13 Any Day Now (August 2, 1972)
14 True Love Travels On A Gravel Road (August 3, 1972)
15 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (August 3, 1972)
16 Fever (August 3, 1972)
17 Portrait Of My Love (August 3, 1972)
18 I’m Leavin’ It All Up To You (January 25, 1973)

* * *

Primary Research Sources