You saying Elvis didn't work hard is just simply has no basis in fact. Maybe...maybe it was hard to be Elvis??? When you say other artists have did more work, I want to know what other artist played as many shows, did as many movies, recorded as much material, and even had as much home recorded material in a period of 23 years??? (Ok maybe Bing Crosby). I really really want to know this.
That was an appalling creative/financial decision on the part of WB. Clearly, the parties responsible were not aware that there would be such a backlash with the removal of Johnny B. Goode from the intro. It is a great montage that never should have been altered. The lack of attention that On Tour has received from WB has been one of the big disappointments in the Elvis world. The documentary is 45 years old, and it has been practically virtually ignored except for the Blu-ray blunder of 2010. In addition to WB not being able to justify producing an expanded edition of the documentary with outtake material, Sony (and BMG before it) has sat on the audio for way too long. With every passing year, the sales potential at music retail diminishes. When and if an audio set appears, it will likely underperform and be a bit anticlimactic.
I don't know why Sony and FTD haven't released more On Tour material. On Tour rehearsals is nice and we got a complete show on the Close Up box set, but that's pretty much it. I can understand the reasons not to release the In Concert shows but On Tour is probably the last very good Elvis material left in the vaults. A release similar to the That's The Way It Is box set would be nice.
Are you kidding me? In his "movie years" elvis had at least six months of every year. .. While most artists in the 70's worked on one album for several weeks, months sometimes, elvis never planned his sessions, recorded several songs in only one night and often not even properly, he hardly ever rehearsed with his band after 74, he didn't made tv appearances to promote his records, never gave interviews with magazines, he didn't even made photo shootings for his own album covers. His shows run hardly ever longer than one hour, and he was not playing more shows than other artists, when you see how many concerts a band like ac/dc gave, and they where working much harder on stage, elvis tours could hardly be called "hard work".
I mean, i don't know what kind of work you have, i work 180 hours every month, normally 11, sometimes 12 days in a row, eight hours a day. I already said that we all didn't know how it was to be elvis, and we don't know the pressure, but on the other hand, like i said before, it's also possible that he has to much time to waste, that this was the real issue. Nobody knows, but elvis wasn't a hard working man.
WB got the rights to use the song after the blu-ray was released. They should have waited until could release the movie properly. Chuck Berry might have been bitter but the complete Aloha show has been released on dvd.
Ok, so I currently have 3 FTD's on the way: Elvis Is Back!, Wild In The Country, and Paradise, Hawaiian Style (that one only because it was recently deleted and I found a good deal on it.) Now I have owned the Elvis Is Back! FTD for the past 7 or so years, but have sorely needed a replacement because somehow I got a goofed pressing when I was at the Graceland store (and didn't open it until after the trip) that has 2 Disc 1's, and no Disc 2 So that's getting rectified. As for Wild In The Country, it was more like why not get it, I like the material enough. Will talk more about those when I get them. Right now I'm focusing almost exclusively on the Classic and Soundtrack Album series before diving further into picking up more soundboards. As for recent acquisitions, the most recent is A Date With Elvis. I love this one, "Is It So Strange" is one of my favorite Elvis songs so naturally it's pleasing to have the session officially and in stunning sound to boot. Many of the tracks are taken from other FTD's in the past (most by Sebastian Jeansson), but thankfully all the correct versions are included (I Want To Be Free is the same correct spliced master as on Jailhouse Rock Vol. 2). And the stereo/binaural masters are nice as always. Disc 2 of course presents many of the Elvis home recordings from Germany, and it's nice to hear them unadorned with reverb and noise reduction that marred previous releases of the material. The quality isn't studio grade, but very listenable. Excepting of course the final few tracks which are "distorted". Honestly I'm pretty sure if they had time they could have reduced if not eliminated the buzz on those tracks, but they are what they are. Add to that a beautiful cover restoration by Jimmy Carpenter (cannot praise his restoration work on the RCA Album Collection enough) and you've got a surprisingly solid release, especially with it basically serving to mop up what remained from the 1957 Binaural tapes.
By the way, y'all, someone has a TON of great FTD CD's for sale in the classified section here. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/elvis-ftd-titles.702618/
My apologies I misunderstood. Though from what I hear there was no negotiation at all. To put it simply, Berry's rep never answered. My apologies if you already knew this. As for my experience with the FTD, I would never assume because X amount of takes are published, it doesn't mean that there wasn't hours of set-up time, a full day of hashing out the arrangement...etc. You can't just go in and blitz through all that, despite what it appears to be. From being on many jobs in my life, the most grueling are not the long shifts, but the shifts that deal with management. Manual labor is a piece of cake compared with the head games of wasted time and meeting after meeting about nothing. Being a grunt at one time, I never knew how good I had it until I managed a work force and dealt with the games from upper management. With Elvis, you can tell from the work, that it was getting to him many times over, even if he appeared to be having fun. Sometimes I think he had so many songs swimming around in his head, that they just spit out without him really thinking about it in those hours of boredom. Case in point on Too Much Monkey business where Elvis is clearly annoyed with the setup and he breaks into Irish Eyes Are Smiling, and within seconds gets Jerry in on it with the Tupelo Mississippi Flash "kill the boy" line. So much stuff like that where you blink and you will miss it. By the way, So High is such an excellent release. xxxxxxxxxxxxx In some cases this is true, but I think the Home Recordings especially Eddie Fadal is over-processed and worse yet, edited together from different sessions. I know it is about selling to Joe Public, but accuracy is important too. It isn't a real big deal, but these examples do exist. Sometimes the pure sound of the "imports" are actually better on the recordings that we all know are never really official. The original "green" import of Germany is a masterpiece, plain and simple. Though I have not heard A Date with Elvis.
That's what I heard as well. I still hold out hope of a big EOT box set with a corrected Blu Ray/DVD. I just hope it happens before I am on an all Ensure diet! The TTWII Deluxe box is the template. Just MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!
Yes, allegedly, there was silence from Berry's representatives. That said, a number of observers are skeptical about that story. Nevertheless, if it is true that Berry's camp declined to communicate with WB regarding clearances for Johnny B. Goode, then the negotiations were indeed unsuccessful. Interestingly enough, communication was revived after the fact, with clearances allegedly agreed to by both parties. The TTWII box is certainly a template (although, it would be criminal to simply recycle FTD's "On Tour Rehearsals" for the rehearsal portion of the box set mirroring how Sony simply recycled previously released rehearsals for the TTWII box set) and it has been rumored ever since TTWII was released that a similar set for EOT has been in the making. Obviously this subject has been discussed ad nauseam in this forum, but EOT remains complicated for a number of reasons. WB appears to have determined that there is not a viable market to justify the cost of producing and marketing the EOT materials as part of an expansive set. For years, BMG and later Sony were waiting in limbo to release the audio material associated with EOT in hopes of doing something in conjunction with WB for obvious reasons. A few things were issued in the interim, such as the San Antonio show via "Close Up" and the aforementioned "On Tour Rehearsals" disc from FTD, but most of the material has remained under lock and key. While the Blu-ray debacle was less than ideal, WB did put a fair amount of promotion behind its release, and that was the perfect opportunity for Sony to finally release an expansive audio set, yet the music company sat by and let its first real opportunity pass it by. It almost seems like Sony has waited too long. With every passing year, the argument can be made that a music release of EOT becomes less viable at retail due to challenging retail considerations. It will be interesting to see what ultimately happens with EOT, but it appears to be in a perpetual holding pattern.
The most recent FTD titles, "Elvis The Last Movies" and "Lake Tahoe '74," appear to be shipping to fans in Europe, and likely to suppliers in the U.S. It will be interesting to hear opinions and observations about the Tahoe material because Elvis' Tahoe dates are underrepresented on FTD.
Pacific, We can split hairs all day, but a negotiation by definition is a discussion. If a discussion did not happen, it was never a negotiation to be unsuccessful in the first place. Kind of like saying a bank robbery was unsuccessful because the driver never answered the phone. No driving to bank...it is just an idea. No crime committed (sorta...complications of other crimes aside). Whatever the case, coming to agreement after discs are pressed is clearly the fault of the Berry camp. They were playing it, and WB wasn't having it. I am no WB fanboy, but Berry and co. are asses and I blame them. The Aloha thing proves it. Sony has done a lot of great Elvis releases. Jumping on EOT would be nice, but I cannot fault them for not going after everything under the sun either. Perhaps one day it will be a moot point, but I hope Sony stays with Elvis regardless, because the releases are fantastic!
WB never should have proceeded with the project without proper clearances; WB is every bit to blame as Berry's camp. And it is unclear what actually happened; the scope of the negotiations and/or communication between the parties (or lack-there-of) has never been officially revealed as far as I can tell. We will have to agree to split hairs, because my statement was more than accurate -- the negotiations with Berry's representatives were "unsuccessful," whether due to Berry's camp refusing to respond to an initial offer, or because Berry's camp was acting in a difficult manner, or due to some other hypothetical. There was an attempted negotiation to obtain the necessary publishing and licensing clearances, and it was unsuccessful. And after all of that, ironically, WB subsequently obtained the proper clearances. And your attempted "bank robbery" parallel would be more accurate if the criminals actually went to the bank and held it up, only to have no one at the bank react. Clearly WB's attempts at negotiating to acquire the necessary clearances to use Johnny B. Goode went well beyond the "idea" stage. But I digress. I suggest that if you want to continue engaging about EOT, you start a new thread. The FTD threads in this forum have been very engaging and informative over the years; no reason to derail it now over petty EOT clearance banter and other playground antics like threatening to "school" someone.
Oh thats just great. So we do without EOT until Berry decides. It is all WB and bluray medium fault. Carry on, because I started this all.
Elvis (regardless of vocal shape in 1977) never lost the power to communicate while pleasing to the ear... feelings and emotions so well. Many technical singers in my opinion, lack that gift. At least at Elvis's level for me.
To me it is difficult to put into words what these FTD's have meant to me and how going through his entire collection down to his one liners of songs change my perception of how great of an artist he was, over and over again. I probably shouldn't ever get protective of this great man's work when I see banter about criticism of him as being "lazy", but all I can say is that very few people saw his kind of success and that kind of lone dedication where he was the only one to share in that kind of pain of not being "normal". The thing with Elvis, there is so much that can be related to him, and with these releases, I don't complain about what is left off, as much as I am thankful for the gifts that we have been given on his catalog. In 1977 his vocals were superb. My Way and Unchained Melody are solid proof of this. Despite his physical shape his voice never left him. The Jungle Room sessions were truly an eye opener.
Just listen to FTD's "Unchained Melody" and "Amarillo '77" -- Elvis' voice is largely missing in action, the vocal prowess is gone. His vocal delivery is pitchy and flat, he has difficulty with his breath-control, slurs, and stumbles throughout those discs. Elvis' vocals circa 1969/1970 are superb. Elvis' vocals circa 1977 had grossly deteriorated. He rose to the occasion with "My Way" in Rapid City, and could make spirited attempts at "How Great Thou Art" or "Unchained Melody" on occasion. But even "Unchained Melody" from Rapid City is a disturbing and heart-wrenching display. Elvis' vocals waver all over the place, with issues of pitch-control, breath-control, and some bellowing for good measure to mask deficiencies. The song is redeeming in the sense that it does not completely fall apart as Elvis struggles to keep it together. That is not superb vocal work.
No, i haven't ordered them yet, i will buy the last soundtracks, but for completeness sake only. I saw a review on yotube, the reviewer said that the sound of the lake tahoe is better than usual. The artwork wasn't to appealing. The 7 ftd doesn't have much interesting material, there are well known pictures in the booklet, but very few informations. The chanel i saw the review is called RBs vinyl corner or something like that. I'm not at home at the moment, and its tricky to link videos with my old smartphone, otherwise i would have put a link to the review in here ....
Cheers! I'm away for a week so if they don't arrive today it might be a while before I can properly get to them...
