Previous Page In March of 1974, Elvis toured from one corner the United States to the other, stopping in Houston for another concert at the Astrodome. His 1970 show was a huge success and the 1974 followup topped it; his two performances set the single-day attendance record and netted him a huge payday. At the end of the tour, Col. Parker scheduled Elvis for a two-show event in Memphis. It was to be Elvis’s first concert in his hometown since a charity show in February of 1961. This being the twentieth anniversary of the recording of “That’s All Right” it was a poetic (and profit-conscious) booking decision. Demand for the shows was so high that the engagement was extended from two shows to three, and then again from three to four. Felton Jarvis convinced RCA that a live album should be recorded to commemorate the occasion. Reluctantly, RCA agreed, on the condition that new material be featured. Indeed several songs were performed that hadn’t been a regular part of his live act, but only two songs were actually “new.” The rest were plucked from Elvis’s own library of hits. That being said, there is more energy here than could be found in the sleepy Aloha special, and Elvis seems looser, more relaxed and more playful with the crowd than he was at either the Madison Square Garden or Aloha shows. Maybe it was the lower stakes (a live album in Memphis is not the same as a world-wide TV special or a concert in the most famous arena on earth) or just the fact that he was home amongst a crowd he knew would cheer him no matter what he did, but whatever it was, a comfortable Elvis gave the best show of the year here and fortunately RCA was on hand to capture it. “I Got a Woman” had been a regular early-show number for Elvis in his 1970 Las Vegas set, and he brings it back here along with a little bit of the old black spiritual “Amen.” It was something he did in 1972 and featured it on the Elvis on Tour film, but he plays around with it more here. The live album that would be released in July was heavily edited to fit on a single record; the hour-long show was trimmed down to forty minutes, and in the process, a lot of the banter was cut. That free-styling fun was exactly what set this concert apart from this previous two “big shows.” Fortunately, his routine with JD Sumner (whose deep voice drops to an octave lower than the Dead Sea) is kept intact. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content “Trying To Get To You” was one of his dad’s favorite songs, and being that it was recorded in Memphis, it was a fitting number to feature after rarely playing it live. And after years of burning through his 1950’s repertoire whenever he’d play it—-like he was embarrassed to play it—he gives the song here the attention and respects his hometown audience had given it for twenty years. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Ever since 1969, when Elvis returned to live concerts, he liked to lump together many of his old rock and roll records and get through them in one go. He would often introduce them as “a medley of some of my biggest records” and then joke “though they’re really all about the same size…” At that, he would tear into Jailhouse Rock, Don’t Be Cruel, Hound Dog and others. The thing is, despite what he called it, it wasn’t a medley; it was just playing a bunch of songs in a row. A medley is when you combine multiple songs, and sing them with an arrangement that makes the two (or more) sound like they were always meant to be played together. During this concert, Elvis finally performed a true “medley” of, not only his own biggest rock and roll numbers, but also some others from the same era. It starts with his customary blazing of “Long Tall Sally” and then smoothly transitions to “Whole Lotta Shaking Going On.” “Your Mama Don’t Dance” was the first non-Elvis song featured and it took the audience a little by surprise, as did “Flip Flop and Fly.” After that Elvis returned to his own catalog with “Jailhouse Rock” and then wrapped up with “Hound Dog.” It was over three minutes of warp speed rocking. Fans today call it the “rock and roll medley” and it’s one of the absolute highlights of the concert (look for it on Youtube) and of Elvis’s entire live-performance career. “How Great Thou Art” was another song Elvis brought out for the 1972 tours, retired it in 1973 and returned to it here. It was the lead track off his first Grammy-winning record and it was a song he always poured his heart and soul into. His performance here is stirring and caught the attention of the Grammy’s again, who once more gave Elvis an award for his performance of the song. Elvis remains the only person in Grammy history to win two separate awards in two separate years for two separate recordings of the same song. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Similar to his attaching “Amen” to the tail-end of “I Got a Woman,” Elvis had taken to attaching the old Fats Domino number “Blueberry Hill” to “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Once again the man’s gift for arrangement and interpretation shines through as he blends the two songs so seamlessly you’d swear they were always meant to go together. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content “Let Me Be There” was one of only two brand-new numbers Elvis performed (the other being a spiritual, “Why Me Lord”). It was a recent hit by a recent breakout star in the US, Olivia Newton-John, and Elvis took a liking to it. In truth, it’s a bit more bubbly than anything he typically sang, but it was at least lively in its arrangement and Elvis clearly has fun with it. After it’s done and the crowd showers him with an ovation, he spontaneously bursts back into the chorus, stretching the song out for another minute. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content “My Baby Left Me” was written by the same man who penned “That’s All Right” (Arthur Crudup). Elvis obviously recorded the latter song on that hot July day at Sun Studios, but he also recorded “My Baby Left Me” for Steve Sholes at RCA in early 1956 (during the same session that produced “Blue Suede Shoes”). And when you hear it after being told “it’s basically ‘That’s All Right’ with different words” you’ll never hear anything else. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content The crowd ate up the concert, which was the perfect mix of old rockabilly songs and modern flair. Parker was told that RCA would only release an album that was different from the Aloha concert and this was as different as it could be. Only eight songs from the Aloha concert were carried over to the Memphis show and only four of those were actually featured on the album. Even the cover art for the record was different, featuring a picture of Elvis’s Graceland mansion on the front of the sleeve, and the big estate gates with music notes filling up the back of the sleeve; it was the first Elvis record not to feature his picture anywhere on the cover. And while the album did not reach the heights of success that the Aloha soundtrack achieved, it did sell over half a million copies in its first run and was a top-thirty charter. On the other hand, his latest studio album, Good Times (with material taken from his December 1973 Stax session) terribly disappointed in the charts. It didn’t help that the record featured yet another generic picture of Elvis dressed in a Las Vegas jumpsuit (this one from 1972). There was nothing about the record to indicate to the public that it was worth noticing. It reached only #90 and was the worst-charting studio-album (not soundtrack or live record) in his career. As with Raised on Rock and the ELVIS (Fool) album before it, the record failed to reach Gold-record status, selling less than 500,000 copies. Meanwhile, the Joan Deary-produced Legendary Performer: Volume 1 outsold all three records combined. Another Deary album, the UK-only “40 Greatest Hits” was the best selling record in that country in 1974. His old material was clearly viable, but his new material was frequently dead on arrival. Elvis continued to sell out wherever he performed in concert but those numbers were not translated to sustained success as a contemporary artist. He was an oldie.
