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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Whole Lot-ta Elvis Goin' On

So far this week has been a busy one when it comes to Elvis, at least for my mailman. Monday he brought me the April/May issue of the The Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Great Britain magazine, Tuesday he delivered my copy of Madison's Opening Night - January 1970 and yesterday Blue Hawaii from FTD arrived.

Starting with the magazine, I guess the biggest piece of news was that Todd Slaughter revealed that the CD the fan club is putting together will be "a unique theme album featuring those tracks which Elvis recorded which were written by UK song-smiths." The album is expected to be released in August and according to Todd, could be "one of Elvis most powerful and commercial releases for some time."

The only British songwriter that comes to mind is Roger Whittaker, who recorded "The Last Farewell" and of course the members of a certain group called the Beatles. By the way, want to know what "The Last Farewell" is all about?

Moving on to Opening Night - January 1970, I have to say it's just as impressive as its companion Closing Night - February 1970. Not only is the show first class (even "Teddy Bear"/"Don't Be Cruel" rocks), so is the accompanying booklet with liner notes and lots of photos. Also, the album includes the rare live version of "True Love Travels On A Gravel Road."

As for Blue Hawaii, I'm afraid that one will have to wait until tomorrow. This evening is dedicated to Opening Night. Right now "Suspicious Minds" is blasting through the speakers and it's hard to sit still in front of the computer. So I'll sign off for now and go enjoy this fantastic CD one more time.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Thomas,

Really enjoy reading your blog from time to time - especially interesting as I am an English man now living in Sweden. I lived in Göteborg for two years but now live in Stockholm.

You might be interested in this link:

http://www.songlink.com/elvis.html

which has some interesting facts on UK songwriters of Elvis songs.

Some of the songs mentioned include:

How The Web Was Woven
Sylvia
This Is Our Dance
Girl of Mine
My Boy
Love Me Love The Life I Lead
Just Pretend
The Fair's Moving ON

And "Wonderful World" was originally a Eurovision Song Contest possibility - Cliff Richard recorded it at the same time as "Congratulations" but it was voted out in favour of the latter.

Talking of Eurovision, Andrew Lloyd Webber is writing the UK's Eurovision entry this year - and of course he and Time Rice wrote "It's Easy For You" especially for Elvis.

The Bee Gee's are sort of Australian, but were born in the UK, so I guess "Words" counts as a UK written song too.

Hope that helps! Should be a good album...

Unknown said...

... and I just found this that you might find of interest:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/my-biggest-mistake-geoff-morrow-1369065.html

Thomas said...

Hi dashby5!

Thank you for sharing some very interesting information, I learned a lot from it! And I agree, the track list seems like it could be an interesting one, and not the usual "greatest hits" stuff.

Hope you like living in Sweden, and also that you continue reading my blog. Really nice hearing from you!

Wilvis said...

Last Farewell is one of my favorite songs. Elvis really captures the emotion of that song.

Love this blog!