Elvis On Tour - The Rehearsals is one of the best! It's practically a studio album and it's a great pick if you're looking for some good rockier stuff as well.
Are you talking the stray tracks on the debut, LP Lovers and Date With? I mean, I think Tupelo sounds great. Even if it's about the same, I'd want all the Sun stuff in one spot anyway.
Those and the FTD of the debut album. I'm still getting versed in Elvis' discography so If I'm confusing sessions/what songs are on which releases, forgive me.
Agreed. I grew up with the VideoDisc (not LaserDisc) of "Elvis On Tour". That is still my favorite version of Elvis. Being able to hear those songs from '72 in such great quality with no orchestra or crowd noise is a treat. The mix really let's the TCB Band shine! I wish Elvis would have worked up "Young and Beautiful" and done it live. It is such a great song and his more mature voice really sounds fantastic. I think crowds would have eaten that up in 1972. Heck, it could have been a B-side or even a single if done right.
One of the great travesties of the final chapter of his career is that he largely avoided his own catalogue of classic and dynamic material in favor of other artists' songs, tired hits in pedestrian arrangements, and MOR hits of the day. Elvis had such a rich, diverse, and substantive catalogue of material he could have chosen from, virtually hundreds of quality songs. "Young And Beautiful" is just one example of a great tune he could have included into his 1970's set-list.
You're exactly right. So many great tunes were ignored. "Such A Night", "It Hurts Me, "His Latest Flame", "Suspicion" and on and on and on. Any of those, and many others, would have been so good in the 70's.
I hope that in my lifetime (I'm 45) I see a massive "Elvis On Tour" box set with all the live shows and at least 2 discs of rehearsals. And may I be so greedy to ask for a new Blu Ray with Johnny B. Good and some unreleased footage (i.e. "Lost Performances" stuff and more)? Wouldn't that be awesome?
Don't worry: the only people who aren't confused by Elvis' sessions and discography aren't actually Elvis fans.
Check this thread, bit of a trawl but you'll get the answers you need. Elvis Presley "A Boy From Tupelo" SUN recordings apparently getting SONY/Legacy reissue
I've said this before and I'll repeat it again..... If a law was passed that stated you could only own THREE FTD's, the ones I would keep would be the three that make up the 1969 Memphis trilogy! These albums are essential and show the master at work, just listen to how he fumbles with "Suspicious Minds", struggling to get it right before nailing it so beautifuly, the "Back In Memphis" FTD is worth the price for that alone.
My guess is that he simply wasn't that interested in his own catalogue at that point in his career. I think that he was shooting for a more contemporary sound and assumed (incorrectly, imo) that MOR bombast and Olivia Newton-John covers were the way to go in concert. I certainly don't agree with this approach but, 40 years on, it is what it is.
Makes sense. My impression is that he regarded (some of) his 'older' songs as a thing of the past. Still, if that was the case, why not more from his own more recent Memphis trilogy e.g.? Clearly, Elvis himself liked (at least some) bombast. IIRC, he already wanted or liked big orchestra's in early sixties (Revelations from Memphis Maffia). But, indeed, it is what it is, and I do enjoy what he left us - the good and not so good.
The thing we know is that Elvis was not only isolated from the real world, he was also isolated from anyone who could have kept him musically up to date. People like Chips Moman and Steve Binder who really knew their stuff and cared enough to give Elvis the chance he deserved to make great music, were kept away from him by Parker and his cronies, including Felton Jarvis, all whom were simply looking out from themselves.
Well, I certainly won't deny that, but still... Did Elvis live in such a cocoon that he wasn't aware of new trends in music?... I mean, he heard the music of Beatles, Zeppelin, Ike & Tina, Elton John... Isn't it a bit too easy to 'blame' it all on his entourage?... For some reason, be it lack of self-confidence or naïvity, Elvis also let it happen... Sure, sometimes he would stand up against Parker or some musical decisions, but he never took that radical decision to start from scratch again in the 70s, so to speak. Sorry, can't express it more properly in English now. Bit tired.
There certainly is some truth to that. Elvis was a reclusive and isolated figure, some of it self-inflicted, some of it orchestrated and perpetuated by Tom Parker. When Elvis got too close to outside creative influences such as Leiber & Stoller, Binder, and Moman, those parties were ostracized from his world. Tom Parker did not like the independence and potential influence by outside parties, even if their work with Elvis produced greatness. His primary objective was to have complete control over Elvis and if Elvis' work ultimately suffered because of it, that was a price that had to be paid.
Elvis was definitely attracted to bombast and MOR music. That said, he only had an hour set-list and it was a shame that he began to mismanage the set-list so badly. In 1969, he worked very hard with others to effectively sequence his set-list and its content. As the 1970's progressed, clearly no one in his inner-circle or band were willing to have a constructive dialogue about his deteriorating live show. Just because Elvis liked Olivia Newton-John doesn't mean it was appropriate to perform two of her songs within the course of one hour (plus the occasional reprise), effectively bypassing stellar music in his own catalogue. Hardin (who was one of Elvis' chief arrangers for concert material) or Burton (who helped Elvis build his initial 1969 live band) or even Hodge (who had been instrumental with assisting Elvis program his show in 1969) appear to never have spoken up to Elvis about the state of the live show. Although, one wonders where Elvis got the inspiration to significantly revamp his show for his August/September Las Vegas engagement -- I suspect it was Elvis who determined he wanted to make a switch. Nevertheless, Elvis was the boss, and if he instructed Guercio to create bombastic, over-the-top orchestrational arrangements; wanted to kill 10-15 minutes of his concert with band introductions; give Sherrill Nielsen solo spots (Danny Boy, Aubrey, Softly As I Leave You, etc); cover contemporary MOR standards of the day; and sing Olivia Newton-John songs; that was his prerogative to do so.
I think it can be argued that Elvis was musically up-to-date, he just wasn't that interested in what was going on with pop or rock music. But he was certainly listening to what was new on the country and easy listening stations. Elvis Today is a good example... it's mostly a covers album, and most of those covers are songs that had been very recent hits on the country and easy listening charts. It's not so much that he was out of touch with new music, rather it was that his tastes in new music were not in step with those of rock/pop listeners at the time, or of classic rock fans 50 years later.
I think Elvis had a general, limited familiarity with contemporary rock music during the 1970's, but aside from what some of his inner-circle played him (including the Stanley brothers), he was pretty detached from what was going on. He allegedly was not familiar with who Eric Clapton was when they met in 1974; that was a pretty big omission from his musical awareness of the period, considering Clapton had a number one single and number one album on the charts at the time. That is not to say he was not engaged with the music from a variety of artists and musical genres, but he seemed to be more acquainted with the easy-listening and country playlists of the day than anything else. Elvis was likely not too familiar with some great artists during his reclusive state during the mid-1970's.
Yeah, that does indeed seem to be true. I think though that this was by his own choice, rather than because he was reclusive, "out of touch" or not receptive to new music. His taste in covers shows that he must have been listening to a notable amount of modern country radio. It appears that when he turned on his radio, he chose the country stations and avoided pop or rock stations. I'm just guessing, but it stands to reason that whatever 70s rock he was exposed to did not inspire him to seek out more.
He said this during the MSG press conference: Why don't you film or write a biography about yourself? I just don't feel that it's time yet. Maybe I will someday, but not right now. I'd like to do something in the way of a movie script, if I can find the right kind of a property. In fact, we are looking for it now. You're talking about a nonsinging type of thing. Yeah, I'd like to do that. It's hard to find good material nowadays, for everybody. It's very difficult to find any good hard rock songs, really. If I could find them I would do them. I think that there's so many companies, everybody becomes independent once they have one hit record, they form their own company. And there's so many. And also the people who write them are starting to record their own songs. And that's why I say it's very difficult to get good material. I'm in a publishing firm, but I'll take songs from anywhere or from anybody if they're good. It doesn't have to be at my company. It could be just completely an unknown person or just anybody that writes a song, if they can get it to me. If it's good, I'll do it. Transcript - Elvis Presley at Madison Square Garden MSG 1972
Elvis was kept isolated by his company and his cronies, but he wasn't totally isolated, he kept his ears open. He did so many covers in his last five years, but where did he get them? For example, the two Olivia Newton-John songs (which imho are approximately the same song). He did one, ok. Then he did the other, why? Because he liked them. I imagine everyone told him not to do the second one, that one was enough, and everyone with his hand in the Elvis money till really did not want either. Where did he hear and cover (copy) this album track that caused not a ripple on its release? Teresa Brewer who had been around since 1950? (This is a Dennis Linde song.) And 25 others?
