Fifty years ago this month Elvis undertook his first tour of the year playing eighteen shows over fifteen days. He played to over 210,000 people during the tour which criss-crossed the States from Buffalo, New York to Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this article We look back at the tour, the months leading up to the concerts and the record releases, including the planned, although eventually cancelled, live album.
Back in January and February Elvis had played a month-long engagement at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, his sixth season in the city since his comeback shows in August 1969. During the season a number of new songs were recorded live for possible inclusion on a future album including The Impossible Dream, Never Been To Spain, You Gave Me A Mountain, It's Over and the show-stopper An American Trilogy.
Released as a single in early-April, An American Trilogy, failed to achieve the kind of success they had hoped for when it stalled at #66 on the Billboard Hot 100. The sleeve advertised the Standing Room Only album stating it was a summer release and would be a live album. This, as we shall see later, never materialised and the live material along with those recorded at the March session would end up spread out over several singles and albums. There wouldn't be another single release until August, four months after the tour ended.
Around this time it has been mentioned that negotiations were taking place between Colonel Tom Parker and MGM for a new documentary film to be filmed in Vegas. The working title was Standing Room Only and there would also be a soundtrack album. MGM had agreed a fee of $250,000 (over $1.5 million today). The concept was later changed to a film covering Elvis on tour across the United States during his Spring Tour in April. Elvis would receive $1 million from the concert promoters (around $6 million today).
MGM approached two directors, Robert Abel and Pierre Adidge, who had worked on the Joe Cocker documentary Mad Dogs & Englishmen, which followed Cocker's tour of America in 1970. At first Abel was not that interested but a trip to Las Vegas to see Elvis in concert and a meeting with the star soon convinced him otherwise. Neither Abel or Adidge had been impressed with That's The Way It Is, feeling it was too staged. They would only work with Elvis if he acted naturally, to which he agreed.
They would film the opening show of the tour as a guide to the show and Elvis' performance as a preparation to the planned filming of four shows during the tour.
Before the tour started an RCA recording session was booked for late-March where Elvis recorded a number of tracks including Separate Ways, Fool, Always On My Mind, It's A Matter Of Time and Burning Love. Following the RCA sessions Elvis and the band spent the next two days rehearsing material for the upcoming tour. They also recorded a 'mock studio session' for MGM to film for the proposed movie.
The tour, with ticket prices at $5, $7.50 and $10 and booked by Concerts West, opened with a sold-out show before a crowd of 17,360 at the Memorial Coliseum in Buffalo, New York. Elvis wore what was known as the Blue Nail Suit suit, one he would wear at several of the shows on this tour.
For those who have an interest in the various jumpsuits he wore on the tour this is some information... The Owl Suit (gaining its name from the fact that Elvis referred to the owl emblem during one of the shows), The Burning Love Suit (the same one featured on the Burning Love single, hence the name), The Pyramid (White Diamond) Suit, White Star (Firework) Suit, White Pinwheel Suit (also known as Lion Head Suit) and The Spectrum Suit (named after the venue he appeared at in November 1971) and, of course, several hundred scarves which he gave away every night!
The set-list for this and most of the other shows on the tour followed a similar pattern. To the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from '2001: A Space Odyssey') Elvis hit the stage and launched into See See Rider. Songs recently tried out and recorded in Las Vegas were featured including Never Been To Spain and You Gave Me A Mountain along with many concert favourites from previous years like Proud Mary, Polk Salad Annie, I Can't Stop Loving You, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Suspicious Minds. Classic hits included Love Me, All Shook Up, Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel, Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog and Love Me Tender. Often asking for the house-lights to be turned up so he could see the audience Elvis would sing Funny How Time Slips Away. Two highlights of these shows were the recently recorded and future single Burning Love and the show-stopper An American Trilogy, his latest single. Like most shows in the past couple of years he closed with Can't Help Falling In Love.
Reviews of the Buffalo concert were positive with comments like, 'Elvis still wields that old magic' and 'Presley magic still strong as record 17,360 turn out.' In his review in the Courier-Express, Thomas Putnam wrote, 'For a performer with a reputation for being somewhat extrovert, Presley seems remarkably shy, or at least his reluctance to exploit his appeal, which is certainly strong. His modesty is a fuel for the fan adoration. If he looked in the direction of some fans, they screamed, and Presley would look down, shaking his head, as if to wonder how the old response was still there.'
Concerts followed in Detroit at the Olympia Stadium, where 16,215 fans attended the evening show, the biggest crowd to ever see a concert at the 44-year old venue. Elvis' next concert in Dayton broke two records for attendance of 13,788 and ticket sales approaching $157,000 and apparently in a newspaper article it mentioned that the Colonel stopped counting when it reached $120,000!
The tour then headed south for two concerts in Knoxville, Tennessee and three shows in Virginia at Hampton Roads, Richmond and Roanoke. Back north for an evening concert in Indianapolis was followed by more concerts in the south at Charlotte and Greensboro, both in North Carolina, two shows each day in both Macon, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida.
JoAnna Moore, writing in the Jacksonville Times-Union, wrote, 'He was a glimmering figure: wisps of his greaseless shag hair brushed the collar of his white, silver and stone-studded, caped jumpsuit.' She went on to praise his performance, 'His extremely physical presentation was alive in each song and the audience reaction never subsided.'
Moving westward Elvis played shows at the T. H. Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas and the Convention Center Arena in San Antonio, Texas. The tour wound up with an evening show before a crowd of almost 12,000 at the Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Following his longest tour since the 1950s Elvis returned to Memphis for a well-deserved rest and preparations for his next tour, which would include his first live appearances in New York City.
Four of the shows were filmed by MGM for the documentary film, still provisionally titled Standing Room Only... Hampton Roads, Richmond, Greensboro' and San Antonio. Footage was also filmed backstage at various venues.
RCA also planned to record the show in Knoxville on 8 April apparently 'to finalise the album' and release their own recording rather than depend on those MGM made. Unfortunately technical issues meant the recording didn't go ahead.
So what happened to the planned Standing Room Only album and the live and studio material recorded earlier in the year? There were obviously serious plans to release the album as it was allocated the catalogue number LSP4762.
It is unknown if the Standing Room Album would have featured a complete live concert from the tour or a mix of the live recordings from Las Vegas and studio recordings from March, a similar format to the That's The Way It Is album from a few years earlier.
However, future plans would see the album delayed and finally cancelled. In June Elvis was booked to play Madison Square Garden in New York and there was also talk of a satellite TV special from Hawaii later in the year.
When the decision was made to record the June New York concerts and release it a few days later as Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden, featuring an almost identical set list as the shows recorded on tour, it seemed logical to delay the Standing Room Only album from its original scheduled release date of September to October.
The original date for the Hawaii concert, which was going to be recorded and released, was November but at the request of MGM, who didn't want it to clash with the release of the concert movie, it was rescheduled for early 1973. This signaled the end of Standing Room Only. There were just too many live projects scheduled and the album was finally withdrawn.
In 2009 the FTD label released an album titled Standing Room Only which bought together the January/February live and March studio recordings together in a 2-CD set. A final track selection of the originally planned album is not known but this release gives the listener an idea of what could have been done. The album artwork was taken from an original mock-up in the RCA files.
It is interesting to note that the photo of Elvis, taken in Jacksonville during the April tour, was used on the cover of the At Madison Square Garden album.
However, material officially released from the March tour rehearsals and April concerts has been scarce with only the FTD release Elvis On Tour The Rehearsals and CD 4 of the Close Up set which featured the San Antonio concert.
It took the bootleggers to plug the gap and they have more than made up for this with all four concerts that were filmed/recorded and the rehearsals released on several different labels over the years. The most comprehensive bootleg release was issued by Amigo International, Elvis On Tour Deluxe Edition, which was a nine CD set featuring the four concerts, rehearsals and the complete interviews recorded for the film. Presented in a slip-case with a book with over 120 pages full of photos, memorabilia and accompanying text.
Apparently FTD are planning to release a box set to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Elvis On Tour later in the year and in a future blog I will be looking at the movie, it's release and success along with a review of the FTD release.
Till then... 'Elvis has left the building, thank you and goodnight.'
