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<\/p>\nElvis Presley<\/p>\n
Sunset Boulevard<\/p>\n
RCA\/Legacy (CD, LP, digital)<\/p>\n
By Gillian G. Gaar<\/p>\n
There have been box sets focusing on Elvis Presley\u2019s recording sessions in Memphis and Nashville. Now comes a box set that takes a look at his 1970s sessions in the City of Angels: Sunset Boulevard.<\/p>\n
Presley first recorded in Los Angeles in August 1956, recording songs at 20th Century Fox\u2019s soundstage for his film debut, Love Me Tender. Over the next decade and a half, he often recorded in Nashville, but recorded songs for his movies on the west coast, especially at Radio Recorders. He began using RCA\u2019s studio located at 6363 Sunset Boulevard in 1967; the tracks on this box are drawn from sessions in March 1972 and March 1975.<\/p>\n
The first disc in the five CD box set is the standout. The 17 master recordings from both sessions are presented in new mixes by Matt Ross-Spang, removing all the instrumental overdubs. This has been done on other releases, such as Way Down in the Jungle Room, to good effect. What it leaves you with is pure, unadulterated Elvis, without the slatherings of schmaltz that marred his later recordings in particular. Ross-Spang gives a similar treatment to the session outtakes presented on Disc 2 (which don\u2019t sound too different to the final versions).<\/p>\n
The sessions featured some of Presley\u2019s best studio work of the 1970s. That included some of the most autobiographical songs he ever recorded. In February 1972 he had separated from his wife, Priscilla. Just one month later, he was in Los Angeles recording songs of heartbreak and disintegrating relationships: \u201cSeparate Ways,\u201d \u201cAlways on My Mind,\u201d \u201cFor the Good Times,\u201d \u201cFool.\u201d Such songs obviously touched a nerve with Presley. After recording \u201cSeparate Ways\u201d (co-written by his Memphis Mafia buddy Red West), he played the track over and over again for members of his entourage. Jerry Schilling, one of those members, observes in the liner notes that the song \u201cwas very reflective of his life. He wasn\u2019t getting any hit material, [so] he just sang about his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that long-awaited hit would also come during those March 1972 sessions, though it wouldn\u2019t have if Presley had his way. Producer Felton Jarvis brought Dennis Linde\u2019s rocker \u201cBurning Love\u201d to the sessions, but Presley didn\u2019t like it. Everyone else did though, and Presley was finally persuaded to record it, and was rewarded with the last Top 10 hit of his lifetime when the song peaked at #2 (kept from the top spot by Chuck Berry\u2019s inane \u201cMy Ding-a-Ling,\u201d truly a criminal offense).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By the time Presley returned to RCA Studios in March 1975, he had largely lost interest in recording. He didn\u2019t enter a studio at all in 1974. And in comparison to the work he\u2019d done in 1972, the 1975 sessions were a bit lackluster. He does have a lot of fun with the lively \u201cT-R-O-U-B-L-E.\u201d And he threw himself into the country weeper \u201cGreen Green Grass of Home,\u201d a song that Presley had loved since hearing Tom Jones\u2019 version of it back in 1966. A look at the record stats in the liner notes show that Presley\u2019s singles and albums were now doing better on the country charts, suggesting this was a direction he could\u2019ve pursued more seriously, as Jerry Lee Lewis was doing. Presley never entered a proper recording studio again; his 1976 recording sessions were held in one of his rooms at Graceland (later dubbed the \u201cJungle Room\u201d after his death).<\/p>\n
The set\u2019s remaining three discs feature rehearsals at the RCA studios held in 1970 and 1974. There\u2019s no new material; all the songs have previously been released, mostly on albums issued by the collector\u2019s label Follow That Dream, though on this set they\u2019re mixed by Vic Anesini. Presley sounds rather listless during the rehearsals (which were held in preparation for his live engagements), but as he\u2019s primarily performing songs he\u2019s done before, he apparently feels he doesn\u2019t need to put in much effort. It\u2019s more interesting when he works through the numbers he rarely performed live, like \u201cGood Time Charlie\u2019s Got the Blues\u201d and \u201cPromised Land.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the five-CD box, Sunset Boulevard is also available in a 2-LP \u201chighlights\u201d edition; a colored vinyl edition is available through Graceland\u2019s website<\/a>. All tracks are also available digitally.<\/p>\n Overall, the set presents a concise look at a less-examined period of Presley\u2019s career.<\/p>\n Visit the Goldmine store\u00a0\u2014\u00a0it is a music collector’s one-stop shop of vinyl, CDs, box sets, collectibles, collecting supplies, audio equipment, music history books and Goldmine-only exclusives.\u00a0Click\u00a0HERE<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elvis Presley Sunset Boulevard RCA\/Legacy (CD, LP, digital) By Gillian G. Gaar There have been box sets focusing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[16009,1546,146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-16161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-box-set","tag-elvis","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}