Review by Trevor Cajiao - Elvis: The Man And His Music
Another inevitable release from Follow That Dream was the soundtrack album to the 1981 documentary movie that many consider to be our boy's thirty-fourth film. After all, it’s been bootlegged numerous times over the years after never receiving an official CD issue from the parent company. So, a mere thirty-four years after its initial release, This Is Elvis made its “proper” debut on shiny as a 2xCD set in FTD’s 7" digipak format, complete with twelve-page booklet. CD1 contains the whole of the original double-album, whilst CD2 features stuff from the extended, home video release, including the end title version of ‘Love Me Tender’, and the 1960 duet with Frank Sinatra - both of which were in the cinema release but failed to make the soundtrack album.
I always detested the unnecessary overdubs applied to the ‘50s TV recordings and they’ve only gotten worse with age! The ‘Shake, Rattle And Roll’ / ‘Flip, Flop And Fly‘ medley from Stage Show and ‘Don't Be Cruel‘ from The Ed Sullivan Show aren’t too bad; the overdubs being more acoustic in nature. But the horns added to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ (Stage Show) and especially ‘Hound Dog’ (Milton Berle) are dreadful and, sadly, reflect what would be happening in Vegas two decades later. The running order is more or less how the tracks appear in the film, but l had to keep reminding myself of that as I listened, with ‘Merry Christmas Baby‘ following ‘My Baby Left Me’, ‘I've Got A Thing About You Baby’ coming after ‘Love Me Tender’ and before ‘I Need Your Love Tonight’, and so on.
The second disc follows a chronological route and, thankfully, none of the additional ’50s TV shows were overdubbed for the extended video version. Naturally, it's all very familiar stuff with the only track making its legal debut being ‘Love Me‘, taped in Omaha on June 19 1977 for the Elvis in Concert project. It never made that show (hardly surprising - it’s very lacklustre), but replaced ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’ on the video release due to copyright problems. It's in stereo here too, but that doesn’t make it any better.
Unfortunately, the quality control folks at FTD were obviously taking a break when the whole thing was put together as, sadly, there are a bunch of mistakes and silly gaffes on the two discs - both in the audio and track listing details.
For starters, CD1: ‘Don't Be Cruel’ is listed as being from the September 9 1956 edition of The Ed Sullivan Show, but it‘s actually from the January 6 1957 show. (The original RCA vinyl release credited it to June 6 1957!)
‘Suspicious Minds‘ is listed as being the That's The Way It Is version from August 12 1970 - as seen in This Is Elvis - albeit poorly edited. In reality it's a shortened version from the Aloha From Hawaii broadcast of January 14 1973. (The original RCA vinyl release credited it as “Unreleased live version - 1970”)
Moving on to CD2 and the set’s biggest howler: ‘Hound Dog’ is listed as being from the July 1 1956 edition of The Steve Allen Show, which it should be, but instead it’s a repeat of the June 5 1956 version from The Milton Berle Show which is on CD1 - only here it's minus overdubs!
Finally, the ‘Trouble‘ / ‘Guitar Man’ medley from the NBC-TV special is listed as being the shortened version (2:19) as featured in the video, but is in fact the original cut (3.27).
How much longer are FTD going to keep screwing up like this? It isn't rocket science. Such silly errors and daft mistakes are unforgivable in this day and age, and yet they continue to happen with virtually every release.
And while I'm bitching, I have to say the booklet leaves a lot to be desired as well. Rather than an essay explaining what the movie set out to do and how it was put together, all we get are reproductions from the original artwork, some lobby cards, additional photos and reprints from the press book that are far too small to read. And on top of all that, there’s no sign of ‘Kung Fu Fighting’!!!
