entered the building.
Sort of. Aloha via DVD.
I just received copies of the new DVDs of two of Elvis' most famous TV appearances, the 1968
Elvis TV Special and 1973's
Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite. These are brand new issues, of the deluxe kind, and the people in charge have finally done it right. Previous DVD releases of both events had key songs cut because someone -- Elvis' Estate or the songs' copyright holders - wasn't backing down in payment disputes for use of the songs. The neutered DVDs should never have been released and I boycotted them, much as I wanted to see this TV footage in its cleaned-up form, against the day that they did it right. Well, that day's here. And the picture and sound is as clean as '60s and '70s TV recordings could possibly be.
Best of all, not only do we get the goodies as released before, but we also get a ton of other stuff. It's a treasure trove for anyone interested in Elvis or, really, anyone with a serious interest in American pop culture and music.
I haven't watched the whole things yet. The '68 set has something like seven hours of footage on three disks and the
Aloha box has two discs that hold over four hours' worth of stuff. I've watched a bit of each, though, and I'm blown away.
The 1968 set includes the TV show as released previously (extended over its original 1968 and 1969 showings, with more songs, including the "Let Yourself Go" bordello scene cut because it was too hot for 1968 TV) as well as the entirety of the four live shows (to a studio audience at NBC Burbank) during which Elvis wore his famous black leather suit. The first two (June 27) were 'sit down' shows -- a recreation of the kind of informal jams that Elvis was constantly getting into in the studio and at home -- and the second two were 'stand up' shows (June 29) with Elvis alone in the boxing-ring style stage.
The live recordings are, predictably, the highlight of the proceedings...these are the performances that made everyone from rock critics to Bob Dylan rave. "Music that bleeds," one critic said, and another said that Elvis "moved his body with a lack of pretension that would make Jim Morrison green with envy." Some other pundit wrote something to the effect that it was like watching a lost man finding his way back to himself. It was, indeed, rather a powerful moment, and arguably high among Elvis' finest public moments.
But the TV Special also included -- kind of a bow to the prevailing trend, I suppose -- studio production numbers, including some very good ones. This DVD set includes everything shot for those portions, in sequence, take by take. I'm intimately familiar with this stuff from bootleg releases that began in the '80s, but this set has it all in pristine quality. I do know that these parts include some funny stuff, and also show just how good Elvis was as a performer (most of his studio recordings were done live with a band, rather than to backing tracks, and he was used to doing endless takes in search of perfection) and as a professional.
The highlight among highlights of the production outtakes for me was, probably (again, this is harking back to bootlegged footage), Elvis working on the song that closed the TV special, "If I Can Dream." Recorded on June 30, Elvis did a live vocal (wearing a white preacher's suit) and it just totally blew me away that he could knock that challenging song out time after time until he got it right...every time I thought he'd nailed it (and his moves and expressions were even exactly the same each time) he'd do another take. Amazing.
Anyway, the only part that I have watched so far is the first stand-up show from the 1968 box. Whoa. The man was a god in that black leather...even the straightest of straight men might feel a flutter at how preternaturally good he looked at the age of 33. Part of this show's been available on the '68 Special videotapes for years but much is going to be new to anyone who hasn't seen the bootlegged stuff.
Among the highlights are, while he was waiting for playback of "If I Can Dream" (for these two shows they had him lip-synch it, and he did a better job than most...they never used the footage, though), was him picking up his electric guitar and jamming on "Baby, What You Want Me To Do," the Jimmy Reed blues song that he'd earlier done during the sit-down shows. But everything was cool, despite a somewhat intrusive band at times, from the opening medley to "If I Can Dream."
The show starts with a raw "Heartbreak Hotel" that has an unusual opening -- very hard-rocky, sort of, with overdrive on guitar -- but they lose sound and Elvis segues into a stellar (short, sound on only the last part) "One Night" (highlight of the June 27 sit-down shows) before starting the show over with the "Heartbreak Hotel/Hound Dog/All Shook Up" medley. He also knocks out excellent versions of "Jailhouse Rock," "Can't Help Falling In Love," "Love Me Tender," and an insane "Blue Suede Shoes." "Don't Be Cruel" has -- being done here in the '60s -- inexplicably features a flute. I fear The Flute. I can just see some Christopher Walken type of dude saying, during rehearsal, "what we really need is MORE FLUTE." Elvis also tackles the "Trouble/Guitar Man" medley as a live tag to the production numbers but he loses it on "Guitar Man" and they skip trying again.
It's a great show. The second show, just over an hour later (Elvis must have been knocked out...he also barely paused between all-out rockers and ballads in each show), had almost the same track listing except that he didn't do the guitar jam and he worked more on the "Trouble" medley. He also sang brief falsetto versions of "MacArthur Park" and "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" and did a softshoe -- really -- but that's another story. I can't wait to see that show and the rest of this set. That certainly goes, too, for the two sit-down shows, that feature Elvis on fire with a passion rarely seen on this planet...his versions of "Tryin' To Get To You" (a 1955 Sun studio recording), for example, each rate among the most incendiary two or three minutes of audio ever committed to tape.
Perhaps most amazing of all is that the '68 special, as a cultural touchstone (one critic wrote "finally, I know what Bob Dylan will be watching tonight," and he was right), almost never was. Colonel Parker envisioned the show as a traditional Christmas extravaganza, complete with carols and children. Now, that'd still have been cool, I'm sure, but not
as cool. Elvis and his young producer, Steve Binder, nodded to what the Colonel said and, when Parker left the room, Elvis told Binder that they were going to do it his way. Steve Binder was a producer of high-profile rock and pop TV specials and series and had a strong vision of what he wanted Elvis to reveal. It was one of the very few times that Elvis stood up to -- defied, even -- the Colonel.
The same was true of the excellent song, "If I Can Dream." The song came about as a result of Elvis talking about his feelings about the US and racism in the wake of MLK's assassination (Elvis was a student of assassinations, but Dr King's really shook him on many levels, not least because it occurred in his hometown and he was deeply ashamed of that)...the show's musical director, W. Earl Brown, went home, wrote all night, and came back the next day with "If I Can Dream." Elvis loved it and recorded take after take, with the studio lights off, before he knew he had what he wanted...apparently he fell to the floor several times while recording it and listened to the finished master over and over and over again. He told Steve Binder that he'd never again record another song that he didn't believe in and he told the Colonel that "If I Can Dream" was staying as the show's closer in place of the "I'll Be Home For Christmas" that Parker insisted on.
Elvis did, at least, do "Blue Christmas" (and a wicked, short, lyrically-challenged impromptu version of "Santa Claus Is Back In Town") during the second sit-down show. "Blue Christmas" was a song that Elvis loved and, as he did live in the '70s, he sang extra-long versions during these tapings. Otherwise, though, the Christmas special had been replaced by a rock-blues-gospel festival that essentially -- through the variety of music and through the "Guitar Man" storyline that links the production numbers -- tells Elvis' story. Excellent stuff.
The
Aloha DVD set starts with Elvis arriving beachside via helicopter and getting lei'd to an extreme by the crowd. Most of this footage (from January 9, 1973, the day after Elvis' 38th birthday), snippets of which opened the original broadcast, consists of people standing around and waiting for Elvis to arrive.
After Elvis leaves via open jeep we go to the
Aloha 'rehearsal' concert from January 12, 1973. The satellite transmission was set for 12:30 AM on January 14, to coincide with prime time in Japan and elsewhere in Asia, and they recorded the first concert as a backup in case something went wrong with the satellite show. This was the first time that anyone had ever done anything like this.
Elvis was a bit looser on that night than during the subsequent
Aloha show (too loose, in that he forgot the lyrics of "Burning Love," a song he didn't much like and that he had a real mental block about, lyrics-wise), but still didn't move around as much as he did even a year before (and, indeed, would a year later). He was downright sedate, to an extent, in the satellite show -- by his usual standards -- and I think it was a combination of nerves and perhaps a desire to not wish to alienate the viewing audience by playing with the live audience as much as he usually did. Nerves, for sure: not only did the TV people keep the stadium lights up throughout the show, not allowing Elvis to ever escape seeing the expanse of audience, but he was being seen by an estimated 1.5
billion TV watchers, more than watched the first moon landing. Can you say 'pressure'?
He did, however, turn out some perfect renditions of many songs, in both shows, focusing strongly on ballads rather than rock (these were, though, the Patented Elvis Presley Power Ballad type). To my mind, the
Aloha shows were not representative of Elvis at his absolute best in the '70s -- to me, that'd include a lot more fooling around and a slightly more diverse setlist and more engagement -- but there's no doubting that they were still stellar performances and they were
definitely a huge event at the time...still are.
The January 14 show is included on the set, finally uncut and in perfect quality with lots of new angles that reveal a lot more (and goodbye to all of the split-screen stuff that was
de rigeur back in 1973). It;s how we should have seen this show all these years. That it comes packaged with the rehearsal concert is a real bonus, especially given that both were before only available on separate DVDs, missing crucial songs (including Elvis' version of Hank Williams' plaintive "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry").
Also on the DVD set are all -- every take -- of the recordings done
after the satellite broadcast. I can't believe that they made him do that. I mean, he'd just played a concert that was perhaps one of the more gutwrenching he'd ever done (remember, 1.5
billion viewers who could potentially have seen him mess up a song or split his pants) and then they film him back on the stage doing songs from his 1961
Blue Hawaii movie as well as (the excellent) "Early Morning Rain." Elvis was beyond tired and the recordings I've heard definitely show it, though it lends a nice laid-back aspect to the songs that's kind of nice. Elvis wasn't feeling particularly laid back as the morning dragged on, though, and began getting impatient.
These songs were shot to be inserted into the US version of
Aloha, that was played on NBC on April 3, 1973. He's still wearing the ornate American eagle jumpsuit but has no belt -- he threw that and the cape, both worth thousands of dollars -- into the audience during the concert. I've never seen this stuff -- nobody except for maybe some hypothetical uber-collector who's had leaked footage has since 1973 -- and it should be an interesting peek into how a superstar should
not be required to wind down after a huge show.
Elvis always did have problems with 'coming down' after a performance, as well as a general excess of energy and inability to sleep -- hence the destructive cycle of drugs to bring him down and drugs to start him back up again, to counteract the first prescription's effects -- and he didn't need to be doing this weird little live session after the show. He got himself into shape for the event without any shortcuts -- no diet pills, and he got his weight down to at least ten pounds lighter than when he went into the Army in 1958 -- but
allegedly went right back to his 'medications' the day after the broadcast. He'd done it all, blown away every precedent, and after all that he found himself trapped in the penthouse suite of a Waikiki hotel while his entourage went out and enjoyed Honolulu. It's not easy being King, I guess.
Also on the
Aloha set is the 1973 US broadcast of the show, complete with the after-show songs that they used, for anyone who misses the show they know and love from the old days. Pretty complete record of these concerts. I have to say that the '68 material stirs me more deeply, even though I'd potentially choose Elvis' '70s output as being what I listen to most, but the
Aloha concerts were also a huge deal and rightfully so -- only Elvis could pull that off, and he gave us some superb performances that demonstrate the range of his talent, voice, and influences.
These DVDs are topping the charts (general DVD release charts, not just music DVDs) around the world despite the usual lackluster promotion. I got mine at a great price from BestBuy.com -- for a limited time they had both for $40 (usually the 1968 set is $50 and
Aloha is $30, MSRP). I can't afford them right now but, hey, sometimes you've just got to say "what the hell" and take care of business. If you're interested, currently, the best deal (shipping included) on the '68 material is $34.99 at Amazon and
Aloha is $22.85 at DeepDiscountDVD.com. The best deal I could find right now for the two of them is $ 55.98 at Amazon. Look around or wait and a better price may present itself.
More evidence that Elvis is everywhere: just heard that 'Elvis' is the most-used password on security systems in the UK. Cool, baby.
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