On return to live performances in 1969 Elvis' initial setlist was heavily loaded with many of his 50's hits intertwined with some more recent hits and recordings. As the 70's wore on most of the 50's hits were maintained albeit in abbreviated forms and occasionally some songs from the 50's like 'Trouble' would make an appearance for a full season before being dropped or others would have one off performances such as 'I Was The One' on 12 Aug 1970 during that legendary sit down section at the Midnight show.
An exception to all of those examples was A Big Hunk Of Love which two and a half years after the live comeback was the 'oldie' introduced to the setlist among five new songs on 26 January 1972 and would become almost a permanent fixture in the setlist for exactly two years and was usually given a fully committed performance.
It was sung on the first two shows of Elvis' tenth Vegas season on 26 January 1974 before being appearing to be dropped and never to be performed live again. In the time that it was included in the setlist it was three times committed to film firstly in the 1972 movie Elvis On Tour (from Hampton Roads on 9 April) then during both Aloha shows (although a fourth is likely to have been filmed for 'On Tour' at Greensboro on 14 April).
Incidentally it was the fourth last track recorded in the 50's on 10 June 1958 before Elvis began his national service in the Army and it would be almost two years before Elvis entered the recording studio again on 20 March 1960.
In this wonderful first 70's live version Elvis is practically spitting out the words, almost like the old Elvis - who said Elvis of Vegas couldn't do rock 'n' roll!!!
Listen Here
Friday 3 February 2017
Thursday 19 January 2017
You Can Have Her (Only Time Performed Live)
Elvis Presley appeared four times at The Forum of Inglewood in Los Angeles in the 1970’s over two days ,three years apart. The first in 1970 on 14 November during just his second tour and the second on 11 May 1974.
The 1974 shows were attended by British rock group Led Zeppellin and both the afternoon and evening shows had very little difference in terms of the setlist .
Of the 37,000 who attended those two shows the half which made their way into the Forum for the afternoon show had no idea that within that show would be two and a half minutes which would set this show apart and the treat that awaited them.
Both shows were excellent with Elvis in good voice and mood – a combination which always proved to be a winner. During the afternoon show between ‘Love Me Tender’ and ‘Steamroller Blues’ something magical and quite wonderful happened. In a moment of pure Elvis spontaneity he started to sing Ray Hamilton’s 1961 hit ‘You Can Have Her’.
The song seems to progress in stages with the passing of each verse firstly Elvis shouts the songs title then Elvis and pianist Glen D. Hardin start of before Ronnie Tutt joins in with the cymbals but at the start of the next verse it’s full blown drums. At the beginning of the next verse it’s the turn of the guitars which then become more prominent next turn around. Joining next time around are the backing vocalists and then it just becomes singing for fun. By this stage you can hear the clapping along as everyone seems to be playing and singing with a smile on their face and it’s almost just like they never want it to end but eventually Elvis does just that by bringing the song to a close.
A studio version could never have caught this fun in quite the same way and the audience recording seems to add to the ‘fly on the wall’ feel to this recording. I doubt if anyone in the crowd that afternoon had any inclination as to how special a moment they were witnessing. In a cruel twist of fate the Evening show was recorded at the mixing board and the subsequent soundboard recording was released by Sony on the FTD label in 2007 but it appears that the same cannot be said of the afternoon show. This suspicion is strengthened further by the fact that Sony actually bought the audience recording of ‘You Can Have Her’ and included it as a bonus track on the aforementioned ‘Live in L.A.’ album. It is however lucky for us that the performance was captured at all and that in spite of it being recorded by an audience member it is of good quality.
Listen to "You Can Have Her" here
The 1974 shows were attended by British rock group Led Zeppellin and both the afternoon and evening shows had very little difference in terms of the setlist .
Of the 37,000 who attended those two shows the half which made their way into the Forum for the afternoon show had no idea that within that show would be two and a half minutes which would set this show apart and the treat that awaited them.
Both shows were excellent with Elvis in good voice and mood – a combination which always proved to be a winner. During the afternoon show between ‘Love Me Tender’ and ‘Steamroller Blues’ something magical and quite wonderful happened. In a moment of pure Elvis spontaneity he started to sing Ray Hamilton’s 1961 hit ‘You Can Have Her’.
The song seems to progress in stages with the passing of each verse firstly Elvis shouts the songs title then Elvis and pianist Glen D. Hardin start of before Ronnie Tutt joins in with the cymbals but at the start of the next verse it’s full blown drums. At the beginning of the next verse it’s the turn of the guitars which then become more prominent next turn around. Joining next time around are the backing vocalists and then it just becomes singing for fun. By this stage you can hear the clapping along as everyone seems to be playing and singing with a smile on their face and it’s almost just like they never want it to end but eventually Elvis does just that by bringing the song to a close.
A studio version could never have caught this fun in quite the same way and the audience recording seems to add to the ‘fly on the wall’ feel to this recording. I doubt if anyone in the crowd that afternoon had any inclination as to how special a moment they were witnessing. In a cruel twist of fate the Evening show was recorded at the mixing board and the subsequent soundboard recording was released by Sony on the FTD label in 2007 but it appears that the same cannot be said of the afternoon show. This suspicion is strengthened further by the fact that Sony actually bought the audience recording of ‘You Can Have Her’ and included it as a bonus track on the aforementioned ‘Live in L.A.’ album. It is however lucky for us that the performance was captured at all and that in spite of it being recorded by an audience member it is of good quality.
Listen to "You Can Have Her" here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)