Reviews From The Past 2

Reading the other day that Elvis Country will be the next Elvis legacy release from Sony (coupled with Love Letters From Elvis) made me remember my brother telling me of the high praise the album received in a review by Rolling Stone's Peter Guralnick when it was originally released.

My brother had read the review after bying a box set called Rolling Stone Cover To Cover, featuring a searchable digital archive on DVD, from the first issue in 1967 through 2007. He recently gave me the box set as a gift, which enabled me to study the review first hand. I'd like to quote one of the passages Peter Guralnick wrote in issue 77, published on March 4, 1971:

It's the singing, the passion and engagement most of all which mark this album as something truly exceptional, not just an exercise in nostalgia but an ongoing chapter in a history which Elvis' music set in motion. All the familiar virtues are there. The intensity. The throbbing voice. The sense of dynamics. That peculiar combination of hypertension and soul. There is even, for those who care to recall, a frenzied recollection of what the rock era once was, as Elvis takes on Jerry Lee Lewis' masterful "Whole Lotta Shakin'" and comes out relatively unscathed. He has never sung better.

While reading this, I imagined how exciting it must have been being an Elvis fan back then, reading the review and then buying the record and listening to songs such as "Tomorrow Never Comes," "Funny How Time Slips Away," "I Really Don't Wan't To Know" and last but not least, the hard-driving "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water."

Four months later, though, I bet it wasn't as fun to read what reviewer Jon Landau had to say about Love Letters From Elvis in Rolling Stone issue 87, from July 22, 1971:

The first cut is "Love Letters" and it's a beautiful song. Presley's voice is all there and then in comes the schizoid background, half funk and half muzak. And thus it goes for two sides of Presley's latest. The voice is there, some of the material is OK, James Burton is picking away, the rhythm sounds passable, but oh those strings, horns, background voices, and what not. It's enough to drown a grown man - precisely what it does to Elvis on this album. Love Letters is the most discouraging event of the last three years of Presley's career.

So, do you agree with these reviews from the past? After reading the one by Peter Guralnick I gave Elvis Country a spin, and have to concur with what he wrote: Elvis has never sung better.

Reviews From The Past

It's a safe bet to assume that a lot of fans, me included, can't wait to get their hands on the upcoming FTD release 48 Hours To Memphis, featuring a multi-track recording of Elvis' March 18, 1974, concert at the Richmond Coliseum. Until then, you could do worse that to listen to the show recorded two days later at another Coliseum, this one located in Memphis, to get a taste of things to come.

Released under the name of Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis in July 1974, the album features the majority of the songs from the tour's last concert which took place at the Mid-South Coliseum in Elvis' hometown. As you probably know, it won him his third and final Grammy award, for the performance of "How Great Thou Art."

But how was the album received at the time? In the 10 October, 1974, issue of Rolling Stone magazine, this is what reviewer Paul Gambaccini had to say about it, among other things:

This is the first Elvis Presley album in years from which we get the sense of an individual human being who feels and cares. Presley cares about his God, his late mother and rock & roll, and the themes strike home repeatedly in a varied program. A rock & roll medley running the gamut from "Long Tall Sally" to "Mama Don't Dance" is delivered with the convincing force Presley has recently lacked. A gospel pairing of "Why Me, Lord" and "How Great Thou Art" is so intensely delivered it is genuinely moving, regardless of one's own convictions.

So why don't you give Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis a spin? (Preferably the FTD version from 2004 which contains the entire concert, including great versions of "Steamroller Blues" and "Polk Salad Annie.") It will definitely help you to get in the mood for 48 Hours To Memphis.