Los Angeles / give me Norfolk, Virginia / dial one oh four ten oh nine / tell the folks back home th...
Los Angeles / give me Norfolk, Virginia / dial one oh four ten oh nine / tell the folks back home this is the promised land calling / and the poor boy is on / the line
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By the mid 1970's The King had matured into a stellar MOR performer and recorded some of his greatest songs, though consistency was still a problem and this album is no different from a few others he made at the time, having some overall excellent vocal work (by 1973 in my opinion he was sounding as good as he was in 1956) let down more than once by some weaker filler material on his LP's, a situation not helped by the two-album-a-year deal he was in at the time. Any artist, whoever they are, would struggle to produce two geniunely listenable albums in a 12 month span.
So it was to Stax Studios in Memphis that the Elvis entourage headed in December 1973; the original plan was to record with some of the house musicians there but sadly things didn't work out and the Presley live band were drafted in to back him up. Therefore this release can best be described as patchy, and anyone who hates Elvis would probably have this kind of LP in mind when they describe why. Not that it isn't immaculately produced; not that the songs are beautifully crafted and played, not that The King couldn't still stand up as one of the finest singers around at the time, because it's all that and more; it's just that too many of the 10 cuts veer dangerously towards safe crowd-pleasing C&W when with a little imagination Elvis could have had a real balls-out rougher sound on this record. Keeping it in the can, label RCA didn't release it until January 1975.
The good songs; the title track, a top 10 hit in Britain, is a cover of Chuck Berry's travelogue vis a vis from Virginia to Hollywood, a fast bouncing rocker with breakneck singing. It was featured in Men In Black, in the scene where Tommy Lee Jones drives his car upside down along a road tunnel. The King's plaintive plea that he doesn't want to write another Love Song Of The Year, a gorgeous meandering tune of the kind he was making his speciality by now.
Co-aide Red West helped to pen If You Talk In Your Sleep, a down and dirty funky jam, all big brash and unforgiving, contrasts sharply with the ultra-maudlin It's Midnight, as Elvis bemoans the woman he left behind deliberately, but it's midnight "and I miss you", one of the starkest songs he ever recorded. Larry Gatlin's gospel plea "Help Me" features well, as Presley begs him upstairs for guidance. Legend has it that The King dropped down on his knees in the studio whilst singing it, lending more effect to the song.
Those are the goodies; here comes the bad side; the safe predictable and (gasp) downright dull country covers There's A Honky Tonk Angel, Mr Songman, Thinking About You and even worse the pointlessly long Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming, which I refer to as This Song's Been A Long Time Ending oh the irony. These as mentioned above are all nicely played and sang but it's all a bit, well, unexciting. You Asked Me To closes out in quiet reflection.
So in all honesty it's a steady-as-she-goes album, with some good songs and some mediocre ones, it's not as good as Elvis Today or From Elvis Presley Boulevard (which I consider as one of the greatest albums ever made in the history of music) but it will keep fans happy, whilst leaving some others scratching their head wondering what all the fuss was about. Some reissues appear as a double with Raised On Rock, which is pretty much the same old same old.
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