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Monday, August 20, 2007

The Comeback Special - bits and pieces

It’s always pleasant when people get interested in Elvis and you can, so to speak, help them along the way. That happened today at work, when a colleague and friend asked me if I had a DVD version of "The '68 Comeback Special" that she could borrow. She had watched "Elvis by the Presleys" on television and taken a fancy to our man dressed in black leather. Also, she was wild with him performing "If I Can Dream".

I decided that the first disc of the 3-DVD set was enough for her. Even if she was interested I didn't think she was quite ready for the "Huh-huh-huh promo" and ten takes of "Big Boss Man". Not yet, anyway.

Speaking of the special, I've always thought that BMG made a big mistake not releasing a CD box set with material from it, in the style of "The Las Vegas Years" or even "The Complete 50's Masters". Instead they released first "Memories - The '68 Comeback Special" and "Tiger Man", then "Burbank 68" on the FTD-label and finally, last year, "Let Yourself Go!" on the FTD-label as well. Such a shame!

As a final note, here is an interesting piece of information. In the April/May issue of the Official Elvis Presley Fan Club magazine, there is an article titled "The other Side of the Story", where Alfred di Scipio, the Singer Sewing Executive for the TV-special, is interviewed.

According to the article, it was di Scipio that convinced the Colonel that the special should not be a Christmas special, and not the producer of the show, Steve Binder. And Alfred di Scipio has the document to back it up. This is very interesting reading, indeed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read that article too and it was very interesting. Seems like Steve Binder is full of shit. They've even omitted di Scipios name from the credits, although he was very much creatively involved in the making of the program, and had gotten credit for all the previous shows that he had been involved in.
I'm totally blown away by the fact that the fan club magazine has presented an article actually worth reading!

Anonymous said...

I really like your blog, although I'm not a very big Elvisfan!