MEMPHIS HOMECOMING

On 1st March 1974 Elvis Presley hit the road for his longest concert tour since the mid-1950s. The tour, which ran from the 1st to the 20th of March, would see Elvis play twenty-one concerts across the southern states with sold-out shows in Tulsa (Oklahoma), Houston (Texas), Monroe (Louisiana), Auburn (Alabama), Montgomery (Alabama), Charlotte (North Carolina), Roanoke (Virginia), Hampton Roads (Virginia), Richmond (Virginia), Greensboro (North Carolina), Murfreesboro (Tennessee), Knoxville (Tennessee) and Memphis (Tennessee).

At Houston, Charlotte and Knoxville, Elvis would play afternoon and evening shows while in Tulsa, at the opening of the tour, he played shows on two consecutive days. The first concert in Monroe sold out so fast that two additional shows, a few days later, were added. It was a similar story in Richmond and Murfreesboro where a second date was scheduled.

This brings us to Memphis and Elvis' first appearances in his hometown since the charity show held at the Ellis Auditorium back in 1961.

Originally only four shows were scheduled, on the 16th and 17th March, at the Mid-South Coliseum with performances at 2.30 and 8.30 each day. Due to the demand for tickets an extra show was added at the end of the tour.

It is the concerts in Memphis, and in particular the final show that was recorded by RCA, that we concentrate on in this article.

It is reported that the attendance at each of the five Memphis concerts was 12,300 and that the total concert gross was around $555,000 with the Mid-South Coliseum receiving $50,000.

Although it would have made more sense for Elvis to have stayed at Graceland during the run of Memphis concerts he actually booked rooms at both the Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson Motel.

In her review of one of the concerts on the 16th Jane Sanderson, of the Memphis Press-Scimitar, wrote, "Like a streak of white lightning, Presley darts on stage. He is dramatically clad in all-white which sparkles with jewels and nail-heads with a jacket slit to the waist and a diamond cross hanging from his neck. He nods his approval to the hometown reception, and he begins to sing." She went on to say, "He laughs in the middle of a song, at himself and at the audience, but he drops his head to gain repose. He rolls his eyes, jerks his head, thrusts his shoulder forward, points to pretty girls, slaps his guitar, and, of course, shakes his hips." Talking about the reaction of the fans she noted, "They scream, yell, cry, clap and do their best to drown out what they came to hear."

Before looking at the various album and CD releases we take a look at the actual 20th March concert at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

Following the 2001 theme, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Elvis opened the show with See See Rider and I Got A Woman/Amen, with the awful J. D. Sumner dive-bomber routine which, unfortunately, Elvis made him do twice.

Strong versions of Love Me and Trying To Get To You followed then a rushed All Shook Up before one of the highlights of the show, James Taylor's Steamroller Blues, a far superior version than that which appeared on the Aloha From Hawaii concert and album. James Burton's guitar playing on the track is outstanding and the reason he was always in demand for studio and live work.

Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel is rushed but far better than later performances of the songs while Love Me Tender is treated with more respect.

A medley of Long Tall Sally/Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On/Your Mama Don't Dance/Flip Flop And Fly/Jailhouse Rock/Hound Dog follows and has received mixed opinions over the years. However, it does show Elvis putting a bit more effort into his hits and the hits of other artists than he would in the years that followed. The few lines of the Loggins & Messina hit Your Mama Don't Dance showed that Elvis had not lost touch with the current music scene. Jim Messina recalled how he felt about Elvis' performance, "I was thrilled Elvis covered one of our songs. I could tell he had the passion for it and the audience really reacted well when he sang that part of the song. For me, the ultimate compliment that an artist can pay another artist is to record one of their songs."

Elvis' live versions of Fever never matched his 1960 studio cut that appeared on Elvis Is Back and you can tell Elvis is just having fun during his performance in Memphis.

As always Elvis puts a lot of energy into Polk Salad Annie, a concert favourite for the past few years. The only slight disappointment here is that bass player Duke Bardwell doesn't manage the excellent bass lines that Jerry Scheff could do. It is still a great performance though.

Two gospel songs follow, Why Me Lord, which is mainly J. D. Sumner & The Stamps Quartet, with Elvis just joining in on the chorus, and a rousing version of How Great Thou Art, another highlight from the show and one that received recognition as we shall see later.

Soon to be dropped as a regular in his set list, Suspicious Minds is as good as ever and then introduces those on stage with him... James Burton (guitar), John Wilkinson (guitar), Duke Bardwell (bass), Ronnie Tutt (drums), Glen D. Hardin (piano), Charlie Hodge (guitar and vocals), The Joe Guercio Orchestra, The Sweet Inspirations (vocals), J. D. Sumner & The Stamps (vocals) and a new group, Voice (vocals). He also gives name-checks to his sound engineers Bruce Jackson and Bill Porter, the tour promoters Jerry Weintraub and Tom Hulett, Ed Bonja, Tom Diskin, record producer Felton Jarvis and last but not least, the audience.

Introducing I Can't Stop Loving You with, "You know what I can't do", he throws the band off by then launching into the Fats Domino hit Blueberry Hill instead. Just a few throw-away lines before returning to an energetic version of I Can't Stop Loving You. He even throws in a small change of lyric for the occasion, "I've made up my mind, to live in Tennessee/memory for such a long lonely time."

He introduced Help Me as his new single and following a brief false start he performed a version that was as good as the recently recorded studio version.

An American Trilogy receives a thunderous reception and is as good, if not better than any of his earlier live performances on record. The song would have meant more to a southern audience than those in Hawaii and this is evident in the crowds reaction when Elvis sings lines including, 'For Dixieland where I was born'.

Let Me Be There is a John Rostill song that had been a hit for Olivia Newton-John and is another great performance by Elvis.

The show draws to a close with My Baby Left Me, a song seldom performed by Elvis in his concerts, Lawdy Miss Clawdy and Funny How Time Slips Away. During My Baby Left Me it seems like the band are not sure which song they are doing as, at times, there are close similarities to That's All Right, prompting Elvis to sing, "The band I knew is gone."

Before ending the show with Can't Help Falling In Love, Elvis told the audience, "It's always been said that a person cannot return to their home town, but you have disproven that theory completely and really made it worth while."

The usual announcement, "Elvis has left the building" was changed to "Elvis has left for Graceland."

Throughout the show there is a lot of interaction between Elvis and the audience and also Elvis and the band. At the start of I Got A Woman Elvis jokes with the audience, commenting, "Honey you have got bad laryngitis" and "She's louder than I am, but I've got the microphone." Before singing Love Me he says, "Those binoculars look like a bunch of frogs up there." During the introductions he jokes with John Wilkinson and Glen D. Hardin. It is obvious Elvis is having a good time on stage.

RCA were at the show to record it for future release. They rented recording equipment, apparently at a cost of around $100,000, to capture the event and with microphones placed around the auditorium, they captured the crazy reaction of the crowd who were seeing him perform in their hometown.

The day after the final concert James Kingsley, writing about the live recording in The Commercial Appeal, said, "Elvis Presley ended his 15-city tour with a hometown performance recorded before 12,300 fans at The Mid-South Coliseum last night. The recording is to be used for an album to be distributed by RCA Victor." Apparently Elvis had turned down requests from other cities on the tour to record a show in order to wait to record for his hometown fans. Kingsley then went on to say, "The album, which will be released in early June, will have the songs, screams, and cheers that were hallmarks at each of Presley's five Memphis concerts."

Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis (RCA CPL1/APL1 0606) was released in July 1974. The album, which had a running time of approximately 42 minutes, featured fifteen tracks and nine of the songs performed at the show were omitted. 

For those interested in details the album title on the cover was Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis whereas the label copy read As Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis. There were other differences on song titles, the songwriters and there are too many to include here so I'd point you in the direction of the excellent series of ELVIS UK books written/compiled by John Towson and Gordon Minto. The album was re-released on vinyl in 1977 and 1981.

The songs left off the album were All Shook Up, Steamroller Blues, Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, Fever, Polk Salad Annie, Suspicious Minds, Funny How Time Slips Away and the band introductions.

As all of these had appeared within the past couple of years on the previous live albums, Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden (released in 1972) and Aloha From Hawaii (released in 1973) this decision did make sense.

Although nobody realised at the time, the album had been subjected to some overdubbing, with extra crowd noise added to the original recordings made on the evening of the show. This was to add more excitement to the album, but was unnecessary.

The album cover featured a photo of Graceland, taken on 27 March 1974 by photographer Ed Bonja, while the back showed the gates of Graceland with the song titles, credits and other information printed over the image.

After all the studio albums released over the past few years, and in the years that followed, all featuring a live photo, totally irrelevant to the material on the albums, it seemed strange that an image of Graceland was used instead of a live photo from the actual show. We are, of course, talking about RCA and The Colonel so this is no real surprise!

It could have been different though, as photographer Ed Bonja recalled in the liner notes to the Legacy Edition of the album, "The Colonel was friends with the editor of one of the Memphis newspapers. His son was taking photography at the University and asked if he could take some photos of Elvis. The Colonel said 'Yes, and if I like them I'll put them on the cover of the live album.' A few days later after the tour ended, I'm at our office in L.A. when The Colonel receives the package with the photos. All of a sudden he screams out in a loud voice, 'Eddie, come in here! I can't use any of these pictures, they're terrible. I want you to get on a plane tonight to Memphis and get some shots of the front of Graceland, we need them for the album cover.' I took a few photos of the front gates, took photos of the front of the house and also took additional photos of the grounds. The exterior photo of Graceland made the cover and my image of the gates landed on the back cover."

Elvis is listed as Executive Producer on the back cover along with Mike Moran, Gus Mossler, Ronnie Olson and Larry Schnapf all credited as Recording Engineers.

The album reached #33 on the Billboard Album Charts, #2 on the Billboard Country Album Charts and #1 on the Cashbox Country Album Chart. In the UK it only managed one week on the charts peaking at a disappointing #44. It would be twenty-five years after the albums original release that the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) would award it a gold disc for sales of 500,000 copies.

Although Elvis received several Grammy nominations throughout his career he only ever won three and they were all in the gospel categories. His first win was for 'Best Sacred Performance' with the title track from his 1967 album How Great Thou Art. In 1972 He Touched Me won the 'Best Inspirational Performance' and his 1974 powerful live version of How Great Thou Art gave Elvis his third Grammy Award in the same category.

Billboard reviewing the album in their 'Spotlight' section had nothing but good things to say, "The last time Elvis cut a live set, it sold more than a million units. With this collection, Presley again demonstrates the charismatic performance and magnetism that have made him the all time King of Rock. Perhaps more than any other LP, we see a more personal side of Elvis as he banters back and forth with the audience, particularly his conversations with one girl who has a different request between every song." Going on to talk about the music he wrote, "As for the music, his voice sounds much stronger than it has on recent studio product as he puts together a mix of country, religious, current rock, blues and his own vintage hits. Back-up vocals of J. D. Sumner & The Stamps, The Sweet Inspirations and Kathy Westmoreland is excellent." He summed up how great he thought the album was in his final sentence, "Best Presley we've heard in a long time."

Robert Matthew-Walker, author of the book Elvis Presley - A Study In Music published in 1979, was particularly harsh in his opinion of the album. He wrote, "This album is the most superfluous of Presley's career. Every title had been recorded by him at least once before, in performances which are invariably better. These here are often below Presley's best, the band is not 'tight', many words are slurred, with scant regard for sense or atmosphere, and the audience constantly interrupts. The performances say nothing new." He did, however, make one valid point, "... the record is packaged with the most inept sleeve in a succession of generally mediocre packaging's."

The album made its first appearance on CD in Europe and the USA in February 1994, although it had been available since 1986 in Japan. The track listing was identical to the vinyl release although there had been discussions with co-producers Roger Semon and Ernst Jorgensen about adding the missing songs. This plan was scrapped when those higher up at RCA decided that to include the extra tracks would not only involve extra payments for copyright but also additional payments to all the musicians and vocalists.

The accompanying eight-page booklet featured liner notes about the 1974 Memphis concert and earlier appearances in the city, musician and other credits, track listing, a complete list of his 1974 concerts and a black & white image from the show that hadn't been included on the original vinyl issue.

The CD, identical to the 1994 release, was included as part of The Original Elvis Presley Collection, a 60-CD set released in June 1997 with each CD housed in a card sleeve featuring the original artwork.

The vinyl album was deleted from the catalogue in 1986 and the CD was available until 2003.

With the introduction of the Follow That Dream label and the 'Classic Albums' series it wasn't long before they turned their attention to Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis. Released in April 2004 to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the concert it would be the first time the whole concert would be released. However, as we will see, everything was not perfect.

As mentioned above the nine missing tracks were added, although Steamroller Blues had already found a release back in 1997 on the 4-CD Platinum set, released to commemorate twenty years since Elvis died.

In their pre-release press announcement they said, "It will include the songs that were left out of the original album and consequently the whole show has to be remixed. The package will be in the 7" format including a booklet with pictures and information about the show." Unfortunately the resulting CD was not as perfect as the press release made it sound.

Unfortunately they omitted the false start to Help Me and also left off some of the dialogue. Only a small matter but when you advertise the set as the complete concert then why leave out certain bits. The running time was expanded from 42 minutes to 69 minutes so there was still room for the minute or two that would have been required to make the show complete.

Now sound is very subjective and what works for one listener may not appeal to another. When released by FTD the tracks were mixed by Chris Theis and mastered by Lene Reidel. The overdubbed audience was removed and extra reverb added. It wasn't long before the comments about too much reverb started to appear and I must admit I do agree.

The CD was packaged in a three-panel sleeve which featured the original album cover, the original back cover, two photos from the show and the album title/track listing.

The 12-page booklet featured a live photo from the show and looked really good. Inside were eight photos of Elvis on stage along with the track listing, credits, a review from The Commercial Appeal and a list of the March 1974 tour dates. 

It followed the style of other FTD 'Classic Album' releases but one is left feeling it could have been so much better. Many of the photos are blurred and there is little information about the show. It would have benefited from comprehensive liner-notes and more images, memorabilia, paperwork etc. Fortunately this would be forthcoming on the albums next appearance on CD.

The Follow That Dream label started re-releasing their previous releases on 180gram vinyl and in September 2013 they added the Memphis live album to their list with the 2-LP set Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis.

The albums were housed in an attractive gatefold sleeve with some great live shots and brief liner notes. The cover would have made a better choice had RCA put more thought back in 1974.

In 2014, in celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the concert, Sony Music re-issued the album as part of their Legacy Edition series in what can be considered the definitive version.

This time it would contain the complete concert, including the false start and dialogue that was omitted from the FTD version. Remixed by Steve Rosenthal and Rob Santos and mastered by Vic Anesini in New York, the sound is superior to any previous release with more emphasis on the band and Elvis' vocals standing out.

The set also featured a second disc, the Richmond show from 18th March, that was recorded as a test recording or back-up and released a few years earlier on the FTD label as Forty Eight Hours From Memphis, albeit only in mono. There were also five songs from an August 1974 rehearsal which are unrelated to the rest of the set.

Packaging on the Legacy Edition was superb with the two CDs housed in a 5" three-panel sleeve with original front and back cover, a list of all his 1974 concerts including those in Las Vegas, a map of the USA with cities played marked on it and a photo of Elvis on stage in Amarillo on 19th June. The back listed all the tracks, a brief text about what was included in the set and a photo from the Memphis show.

There were comprehensive and informative liner notes written by Ken Sharp that detailed the March tour and the Memphis show in particular. There are photos from various shows on the tour and a two-page spread of memorabilia, company paperwork and reviews which make interesting reading. This is how the FTD booklet should have looked. Furthermore, for those that shelled out for both the Memphis and Richmond shows on FTD, they had every right to feel cheated when both shows were available on Legacy for a fraction of the price.

I'll end this article with my own thoughts on the album and the various reissues. I bought this album the week it was released here in the UK and over the following few weeks it was seldom off the turntable. Despite my earlier comments about some of the material it remains one of my favourite live albums released by Elvis Presley during his lifetime, far superior to the Aloha From Hawaii set.  Yes, some of his early hits are not given the treatment they deserved, although a lot better than in the years that followed, and I know I might be in the minority but I do enjoy the medley. Yes the songs in the medley are rushed but at least a bit of thought and effort was taken with the choice of material that included both Flip, Flop And Fly and Your Mama Don't Dance.

I enjoyed the FTD release in 2004 because of the extra tracks and improvements over the original sound, however, my go to copy of the album has to be the Legacy Edition which, to my ears, has the best sound and is also the first time the complete show made it onto CD. It also has a much better booklet than the FTD version.

I am surprised Sony or FTD haven't released a fiftieth anniversary set, remixed by Matt-Ross Spang and featuring a more comprehensive booklet, but then again, how many more copies do we really need. Of course, with FTDs recent track record they could be planning a fiftieth anniversary edition to be released next year on the fifty-first anniversary!

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During the research and writing of this article I referenced several books and sources including: Elvis The Man And His Music (Now Dig This), Did Elvis Sing In Your Hometown, Too (Lee Cotton), Elvis UK and Elvis UK 3 (John Townson & Gordon Minto) and the booklets that accompanied the FTD and Legacy Editions of As Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis.