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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

"First Impression Is Not So Good"

Yesterday I found an update about the recent FTD album Stage Rehearsal on the excellent Elvis In Norway website. This is the first official release of the show rehearsal Elvis did on August 10, 1970, in Las Vegas, which pleased me when it was first announced. What I read about it did not.
Out now, but first impression is not so good! The sound quality is great, but too many edits are evident. The most HOPELESS of all is the vocal edit on 'Polk Salad Annie' (Polk A Little Sock Salad'). You can still hear Elvis talking about "overweight little woman etc..., but it is only a bleed from other microphones. This vocal edit is utterly pathetic, really!! What's the harm!? FTD is obviously going for the old Parker - good clean fellow - philosophy! I'm embarrassed by this, really.

Songs that are incomplete from start are patched together with a live take of the same song, with audience reaction and everything. And it do so NOT WORK. Most annoying is 'Something', but also two versions of 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' have lost their charm with the same opening sample on both takes... Ouch!!

According to the short review of the same album at ElvisNews.com, the liner notes stated that there was some repair necessary because the intros were missing, but I never thought much about it. Until now.

I probably could understand the decision to tamper with the material in this way if Ernst Jorgensen was aiming for the general public. But the Follow That Dream label is a collectors label for the fans. And as one of them, I want the material presented in the way it was recorded, with late starts and all. Surely not manipulated in this way.

I'm also disappointed that Ernst Jorgensen didn't tell us about his approach to this material when the announcement about the June releases was made.

It's been ten years since we had an official release featuring rehearsals from That's The Way It Is, and when another one finally comes along it's done like this. What a shame!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i totally agree the cd has such high hopes for me but the freaken thing sounded like it was recycled nonsens. none of it was done correctly. if it was a rehearsel dont go putting audience sound in it dont go editing elvis fooling around. i love hearing elvis sweara nd everything and goofing off its fun to hear that side of elvis.

BobCatAl said...

Hey you guys, you kinda making it too damn complicated...the cd sounds great...don't worry...soon you'll have a cd by Venus or some other shit bootlegs labels that will publish all the reharsals complete and uncut...only then you'll realize how good this cd sound...just think of the On Tour Reharsals...compare the FTD version with the bootleg versions, ok the bootleg version is more complete..but how many times would you listen to the bootleg and how many times to the FTD version, I'd rather go for FTD...much more enjoyable...even if you can't hear Elvis swear...if I have to say something bad about this cd release...well, I would say I hate the quality of the recordings of the 1972 reharsals, ok, it's rare to listen to Elvis reharsing two songs from the '69 era, but the quality is so low, that I would have preferred to see this on a bootleg rather than on a FTD release.
Outstanding, comparing to the vinyl bootleg quality is Portrait Of My Love and I'm Leaving It Up To You...shame they last so little!

Michael said...

Thomas, you hit the nail on the head when you said the meddling might be ok for a general release, but not for an FTD release. Maybe a little case of overthinking the project here.

Anonymous said...

To me, the cd and it's main rehearsal has a nice flow, is great for listening expierience.
I think FTD did the best they could-re-creating "complete" recordings using small partions of known recordings.
The bonus material is (altough in lesser quality) outstanding stuff too.

Fact: all versions on this cd where released before on imports, but here the quality is FAR better.