This is the 180-gram vinyl LP reissue of From Elvis In Memphis. It was released in 2003 for the still-growing market for records and probably retailed for $29.99.
Honorable mention
One of the first fan letters I received as a professional writer was in response to my 1985 book Elvis Presley Price Guide. An older fan took me to task for suggesting that From Elvis In Memphis was a better album than G.I. Blues! While that 1960 soundtrack album has some fine moments, I’d never heard anyone actually defend it before, as it is usually considered the first Presley album to willfully step down from the lofty heights Elvis had scaled during the ’50s.
I can see an argument for Blue Hawaii (1961), which was the pinnacle of Presley’s soundtrack albums of the ’60s and a special album that has held up very well indeed in the ensuing decades.
I can see an argument for On Stage – February 1970 (1969–1970), which would have made a marvelous two-record album combined with Elvis Live In Stage At The International Hotel.
Elvis’s final album was Moody Blue, a hodgepodge of tracks recorded in the home studio set up in Graceland and some live recordings. At the time of its release, it was accepted as a good but unexceptional Presley album. Now there are fans who consider it a great album. Death will do that.
Good times in the promised land
I can’t see an argument for any of Elvis’s later studio albums from the ’70s, including what were probably the strongest titles from his declining years: Good Times and Promised Land (both recorded in 1973) and Elvis Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis (1974).
While the ’50s sides will always be his greatest sides (for a variety of reasons, one of which the kid was infused with magic), I think the mature Elvis Presley peaked as a recording and performing between June 1968 and June 1970, both in the studio and on stage.
Then the drugs started exerting their inexorable and inevitably fatal effects.
FEATURED IMAGE: In June 1968, Elvis spent a considerable amount of time at NBC-TV’s studio soundstage in Burbank, California. There he taped hours’ worth of material for his first television special. Broadcast on December 3, 1968, the special was simply titled Elvis, although it is also known as “Singer Presents Elvis” and the “NBC-TV Special.” In the sixty minutes allotted him, Presley resurrected a flagging career and established himself as the King of Rock & Roll.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
Not exactly: Geller was with Elvis between 1964 and 1967 when the Colonel “persuaded” him to leave. Geller wouldn’t return to seeing Elvis until late ’76, brought back, ironically, by the Colonel (fearing that Elvis’ condition was getting worse and thought that Larry would add some stability in his life).
MIKE
After reading your comment, I contacted Larry Geller and you are correct: He had nothing to do with Elvis’ hair during the television special.
I have deleted the reference in the article.
My thanks for your correcting my mistake.
Rockahula, baby!
NEAL