Not having fun on stage

This weekend I made a bargain and brought what is probably the worst album of Elvis career. While visiting my brother and his family I found the LP Having Fun With Elvis On Stage for a very reasonable price in a second-hand record store.

After work today I put it on my record player and have just finished listening to it. As you probably know it's "a talking album only" with pieces of between-songs banter spliced together into something that is not funny at all.

There's a lot of Elvis "Well, well, well..." taken from (but not leading to) different versions of "I Got A Woman" and also numerous "Guess what I can't do" and then the intro to "I Can't Stop Loving You" followed by lines such as "Sing and drink water at the same time."

The only part that would've had any value to a buyer of this album when it was released back in 1974 is about five minutes of Elvis monologue/life story from a 1969 show in Las Vegas. The rest is totally incomprehensible.

No surprise then, that Elvis himself thought the record a huge embarrassment and started grumbling about it to the Colonel who initially released the album on his own Boxcar label. (The album was deleted, but not before being put out by RCA and selling 130 000 copies.)

So, why did I buy it? Well, I defend my actions the same way I have on similar occasions. An album such as Having Fun With Elvis On Stage, as horrible as it is, is part of the Elvis Presley legacy, and as such has a place in any fans collection.

On the other hand, there are four follow-up volumes of this album, having been put out by bootleggers. These are, in my opinion, not worth owning, having no historical significance and only showing poor taste and a way to take money from fans who will buy anything or doesn't know better. As Elvis himself once sang: "Once is enough!"