Memories of 'Elvis On Tour'

When I was eleven (1981) my Dad bought our first video recorder. It was a VHS top-loading Ferguson Video-Star, with a ‘remote control’ handset that was attached to the machine with a long cable. It came together with a free one hour blank video tape which, since he’s also brought home a pack of three hour tapes, he gave to me. 

Not long afterwards ‘Elvis On Tour’ was shown on TV. I forget the channel that showed it, but it must have been BBC1 or BBC2 as there were no ad breaks. I sat cross legged and real close to the TV for what seemed like ages waiting for the film to start, my one hour tape in the machine and my fingers hovering above the ‘play’ and ‘record’ buttons that had to be pushed simultaneously for recording to begin.

“My Daddy had seen a lot of people who played guitars and stuff and didn’t work. So he told me, you should make up your mind about either playing guitar or being an electrician…I never saw a guitar player who was worth a damn!” - EP, opening lines of Elvis On Tour.

I’d heard Elvis before on the couple of LP’s my Dad owned and I’d seen a TV broadcast of ‘Aloha From Hawaii’ that was shown on TV following his death on 16^th August 1977 (sadly, my first Elvis memory is his death and the reports on radio and TV that followed). But, since I was seven years old at the time, little remains in my memory, other than The Aloha stage set and Elvis singing Hound Dog, which at seven, was (rather predictably) my favourite Elvis record. I’d also seen a few of his films from the mid 1960’s – they were always on TV to mark the anniversary of his death – but I didn’t like them very much, the songs were usually rubbish - An opinion I hold to this day. 

So I’d stuck with his records from then on and had accumulated a small collection of Elvis LP’s and 7” singles that I’d either been bought as Christmas or Birthday presents or that I’d managed to persuade someone to give to me. By the age of ten, I was getting copies of ‘Elvis Monthly’ magazine regularly (My Mam had bought me membership in the Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Great Britain when I was nine, so I also received the members only magazine TCE – Taking Care of Elvis)

and had read about Elvis On Tour and seen (usually the same dozen or so) photographs that the magazines were prone to use and re-use repeatedly for years. I became obsessed with it, looking through my little stack of Elvis magazines and Annuals for any information I could find and hoping that one day ‘On Tour’ would be shown on TV, instead of the likes of ‘Clambake’ or ‘Paradise Hawaiian Style’! 

Looking back, it’s hard to remember a time when finding photos and information on a musician or a film was difficult, and even more so, actually being able to own them. So that VHS machine was now going to record onto my prized one hour blank tape, and I’d be able to watch and re-watch the film I’d waited so long to see. I can still remember the huge anticipation, doubting that it could possibly live up to my huge expectations. 

I’d read, over and over, the reports on his live shows and the huge hype and emotionally driven reports of his live appearances, witnessed by fans and reported in the pages of ‘Elvis Monthly’ etc.

I hit play/record. The film started…

It’s my opinion that the April 1972 tour encapsulates everything that was great about Elvis in the 1970’s. Fifteen cities in fifteen nights, sold out arenas and thousands of fans on the point of uncontrolled hysteria coupled with some of the definitive performances of his later stage repertoire. 

Elvis was on top form at this point in his career and it comes across magnificently in the three concerts that form the main body of the films live footage. The Hampton Roads, Greensboro and San Antonio concerts show Elvis at the summit of his ability as a singer. Often unleashing magnificent, powerful vocal performances unequalled in twentieth century popular music, his range is absolutely incredible. Check out his versions of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and ‘American Trilogy’ from Greensboro 14 April 1972, both definitive versions that I would argue are amongst the finest of his career

But On Tour didn't just collect together some random live film and leave it at that. It also showed Elvis backstage, in the recording studio and travelling with the entourage. 

Since Elvis was never over-exposed in the news media (he never gave an in-depth interview in his life) and access to him had always been closely guarded, what On Tour preserves is (at least in a small way) a glimpse into his world of hotels, limos and a tour schedule that modern artists wouldn't ever begin to match. Let’s not forget that at this point in his career, Elvis was constantly performing. A punishing itinerary often (in Las Vegas especially) performing two and even three shows a day! 

Unlike That’s The Way It Is, filmed in July and August 1970 in Las Vegas, On Tour is Elvis unleashed from the confines of the Hilton Hotel in Vegas and let loose on the road, something that is evident in his On Tour performances - They explode with energy and confidence.

An hour into the films TV broadcast the tape stopped and started to auto rewind as if to rub salt into a wound. I was devastated. It would be another year before I’d see ‘Trilogy’ onwards and that would more than make up for this mishap with the tape length as I got to see ‘On Tour’, along with ‘That’s The Way It Is’, on the big screen, when the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle upon Tyne, started having Elvis movie screenings on Saturday afternoons. (I even got a discount on the ticket price as Fan Club members got in cheaper). Happy days!

Since that first viewing, over thirty years ago, Elvis On Tour remains my favourite of his films and I have seen it around 150 times (I did say I was obsessed!). I now own it on Blu-ray, and whilst that edition has its flaws (The opening of Johnny B Goode has been replaced by Don’t Be Cruel because of Chuck Berry and his refusal to let it be used on the Blu-ray release), the print isn’t exactly marvellous and there are no extras, despite many hours of material existing on the underground bootleg collectors market.

My ‘On Tour’ quest isn’t over yet. Who knows, one day I may see a deluxe version released, not unlike the ‘TTWII’ special edition DVD and the ‘Aloha’ and ‘Comeback’ deluxe DVD releases from several years back. One day…one day.

Great Concerts Part One: Boston 1971

Boston Garden. November 10, 1971 (8.30 pm). 

Rolling Stone - ‘In Praise of Elvis Presley’ - By Jon Landau

He stands there in a black jump suit with gold spangles and an orange cape. When he stretches out his hands the cape forms a half sun under his outstretched arms and he looks like the true king of rock 'n' roll. He parades in front of 15,000 people and waits for the applause to wash over him and it comes as it always does and as he knows it will.

After strutting from one end of the stage to the other after waiting until he feels just right, and until the audience can't wait another second, he turns to a back-up musician who hands him his acoustic guitar. With the rhythm section churning, he stands in front of the mike, holds but does not play the guitar and sings, "That's Alright mama, that's alright for you, just any way you do".

It was his very first record and it doesn't sound quite the same as when he did it 17 years ago at the Sun studios in Memphis. But I am moved by the fact that he is doing it at all. Following a first half consisting of a wonderful performance by the Sweet Inspirations, a typically tasteless (but well received) attempt at humour on the part of a Las Vegas comedian, and an intermission, the official Elvis Presley Tour MC called people back to their seats.

When things had settled down, he announced from the darkened stage that, "There will be no congregating in the aisles of any kind. It is mandatory that everyone remain in their seats so that others can see. These rules will be strictly enforced by the security guards. Suddenly the sounds of "Theme from 2001," as the opening bars of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" are now called, filled rusty old Boston Garden to its hilt. The horns were quickly enhanced by the addition of what seemed like a full coterie of choral singers. Finally, as the horns eased their way out of the final notes, drummer Ronnie Tutt struck up a percussive pattern worthy of Gene Krupa. And then, after a beautifully planned, seemingly endless delay, he jumped up on stage (not descending from a helicopter through the ceiling, as a few of us had by now expected) and he was ready for action.

The audience was dazed as they caught its first glimpse of him. As the stage lights went on they also saw for the first time the whole entourage - the six-man rhythm section, the nine back-up singers, the 20 horn players - all perfectly arranged and blocked out on stage to enhance the glory of Elvis Presley, or King El, as he now appeared to be.

The magnificence of Presley's performance lies in its presentation of him as royalty. He is the one entertainer in the world who doesn't have to take out any insurance on his fame, success, grandeur, or greatness. He is the one and only performer who can simply revel in it and us with him.

On the stage itself, Presley surrounds himself with the best that money can buy. Tutt is the only true big-band rock drummer I have ever seen in action (one day Hal Blaine will go out on the road) and he is magnificent. But then too, it isn't everyone who has James Burton himself for a lead guitarist and the Sweet Inspirations for a third of the background voices. Not everyone has a personal road manager alternating between playing acoustic guitar and singing backup parts, and handing the star his guitar, clothes, glasses of water, towels, or holding the microphone chord when he starts to move with it. Poor Charlie Hodge even gets introduced as "...the man who hands me my water and my scarves" (which latter Presley periodically throws into the audience).

All of it is for the greater glory of Elvis himself. Every person on the stage, every article of clothing, every instrument, light, microphone, is a prop. When men solo it isn't for music but effect. The accumulation of effect is the core of Presley's art. His success at it makes him one of the few touring practitioners of the art of the American musical comedy. His 31 movies have given him enough training so that when we see him today we are watching a musical comedy actor first and a pure musician later. When he combines that talent with his projection of a very personal sort of regality, the result is a beautifully wrought modern-day pageant.

Elvis Presley has lived through the greatest superstar trip of any performer and he has survived it in his own kind of way - with a sense of humour. The Beatles may have been more popular but they were a group. Elvis participates in a pure one- to-one relationship with his audience, and when he steps on stage it is he and he alone who is the subject of the manic, uncontrolled, irrational adulation which is the core of the American star system. Stardom, of whatever type and in whatever period, is the goal that turns into a burden. Personally, it is killing rock stars too young, crazy and blind to cope with it. And yet while the signs of self-destructiveness in the life style of the rock musician are increasingly obvious to those outside the arena, fans and the rock press continue to glorify it and musicians continue to live and die by it. Because stars grow into fixed entities in the public mind, stardom is frequently antithetical to the growth of personal art. The price of a large audience is the need to be continually satisfying it. Part of Dylan's greatness has been his constant flirtation with his audience, his capacity to reject it, his refusal to capitulate to its demands upon him.

When Dylan persisted in his rock 'n' roll after endless denunciations for showing up at Newport with the Butterfield Band backing him up, he ushered in a freer approach which assumed greater capacities on the part of the audience than in the past. Elvis, however, remains of the old school. He has his audience, they have him, he loves them, they love him, and his purpose is to please himself by pleasing them, never to please them by pleasing himself.

Elvis is too old to imitate his own past. He will not pretend that he is some adolescent high-energy rocker straight out of the Delta. Nor can he cope with the continuing feelings so many people have about him with a straight face. He must undercut their adulation of him just as he must undercut his own narcissism if for no other reason than to preserve his own sanity. If he really believed all the things they felt about him he would have risen up long ago.

The one thing Elvis Presley obviously doesn't want at his concerts are uncontrolled displays of emotion. He has had them before, knows how to elicit them, could have them now if he wanted them, but controls his performance brilliantly to make sure that they don't occur. They frighten him and drive him farther back into a conception of himself that he cannot handle. He wants his people to have fun and he wants to have fun with them. But it's all middle-aged now and he wants them to have a middle-aged kind of fun. And so he does his balancing act between really singing and acting, and farce, burlesque, vaudeville. His brilliance is reflected in his control; he never moves too far in any one direction and therefore never loses his grip. When he finally exits the ovation is enormous but when the lights go on it ends instantly. People have a good time, they scream and they shout, but they never once move to get out of their seats.

What surprised me at the concert was how much I did get involved with Elvis, how much I could relate to his need to be the way he is, and how much sheer artistry and talent manages to pour through the tightly drawn lines of his very stagey production.

While he sings in a lower voice than ever, and what I liked about the early records was that beautifully vulnerable high voice he sang, "That's Alright Mama" with enough verve to scare the unsuspecting. He marched right into "I've Got A Woman" and then segued into a false ending built around "Amen", only to launch back into "Woman". Without coming up for air he was lost in "Proud Mary", and when he hit the chorus, he rolled his body right through "We're rolling, rolling, rolling on the river", with a series of startling knee bends. He did it all in ten minutes and it was a tour de force of theatrics, professionalism, and, happily, music. For despite the refusal to put it all out, he sings so well, so naturally, so evenly, one hesitates to press him for more.

He sings like an angel and moves like a ballerina, and he left me struck dumb.

He finished it with yet another series of Karate moves, done to the accompaniment of Tutt's drumming. Not through yet, he moved like a locomotive through the last four numbers, all recent hits, climaxing with a fine version of "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You". When it was over Charlie Hodge draped the cape over his shoulders, Elvis extended his arms so that the fiery orange formed that half-sun underneath him and he once again basked in his glory. 

He looked at the audience from every side of the stage and then he left. For one of the few times in my recent memory, I had witnessed a performance that had left me completely satisfied. On a recent Ed Sullivan show they showed some film clips of Presley doing "Hound Dog" in 1956. He looked great but the performance was laughable in its ineptitude and self-parody. Presley made greater records 17 years ago. But in his own way he has grown as an artist and any man who can do the show I saw him do last week doesn't have to apologize to any one for not singing the old songs or the songs someone else may want him to do.

Presley hasn't looked back and he hasn't stopped growing. As much as he was 15 years ago, he is a pure reflection of American popular culture. He is, on the one hand, gross, excessive, vain, narcissistic, and violent. On the other, incredibly competent and professional, unpretentious, exhilaratingly visceral, innately physical, and talented in the most natural and personal sense possible. He is a different artist today than he was 15 years ago, but to me, no matter how frustrating the lapses in his career have been, he remains an artist; in fact, an American artist and one whom we should be proud to claim as our own.

If you've enjoyed reading this review and don't already own this classic concert performance, then please support future archive releases by purchasing FTD's CD here

Madison Square Garden 1972...again!

Back in June 1972, Elvis performed to four consecutive sell-out audiences at Madison Square Garden in New York City. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of these historic shows RCA/Legacy will release a double CD and DVD set in November - You can order it here  

Prince From Another Planet takes its title (like this blog) from a New York Times headline that accompanied its rave review of the King’s four sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden on the weekend of Friday through Sunday, June 9-11, 1972.

CD one reprises the Saturday afternoon show, issued for the first time on RCA's 'An Afternoon in the Garden' in 1997. CD two reprises the Saturday night show in its entirety, originally issued on the LP 'As Recorded at Madison Square Garden' on June 18, 1972, just eight days after the concert took place.

Accompanying the two CDs is a bonus hour-long DVD that presents unseen footage of the Saturday afternoon show, captured on hand-held camera by a fan, and now acquired by Legacy from that fan decades later for this package. The press conference that took place on Friday afternoon before the run of shows and attended by Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis’ father, Vernon Presley, Elvis disarms and wins over the New York press corps with his good-natured demeanour, is also included.

I'll be reviewing both shows and the DVD just as soon as I get my hands on the new set in November.

PRINCE FROM ANOTHER PLANET!

So what's the point? Does the world really need another Elvis obsessive rambling on about the King and even if it did, then why would anyone want to listen to what I have to say? Well, and here's the punchline, this blog isn't for you, nor is it aimed at anyone at all, so you might as well stop reading now. OK? OK!

Oh, you're still here? Right, now we've gotten rid of that lot, I'll continue...But first, some Elvis music...

The reasons for starting this blog? "The Prince from Another Planet" (an New York Times headline following Elvis' sold out run of shows at New York's Madison Square Garden in June 1972) is my own personal take on Elvis based on musings from over thirty five years of listening to his music. Twenty five years of that, at a level most folk would describe as obsessive. Whilst my obsession with Elvis and his music has been with me since I was a kid, it's only now that I have the urge to write about it. For myself, to put the whole listening experience into words and maybe increase my own appreciation for it. If you want to read it, feel free. Leave a comment if you have anything constructive to say...

Unlike many Elvis fans I've met and corresponded with over the years, I love and listen to many different genres and eras of music, from Country and Blues through to Punk and Metal. Whilst this isn't a qualification of any sort, it maybe gives me an outlook and opinion unique in comparison to many Elvis magazines and web pages you may have already looked at. So, in future posts I'll be looking at two main areas of his career; the 1950's and his later career as a live entertainer from 1969 - 1977. I'd rather forget about 99% of his 1960's film soundtracks and movies, thanksverymuch! I'm not a fan of that nonsense and in most cases would never wish to hear or watch them again. My 'real Elvis' is the young man who woke up the world back in the mid 1950's and especially the mature entertainer that thrilled live audiences on stages all over the USA between 1969 and 1977. So, that'll be the focus here. 

Thanks for listening,

Steve