Title: Let It Roll (released in 2006)

Label: Madison

Date: Different dates (see below)

Sound Quality: * * * * * - / * * * * * +

Content Rating: * * * / * * * * * +

Tracks: 1.It's Midnight (rehearsal) 2.It's Midnight (take 1 [sic]) 3.Bosom Of Abraham (alternate take) 4.I'm Leavin' (unedited master) 5.Always On My Mind (take 2, unedited) 6.Always On My Mind (take 3, unedited) 7.Promised Land (take 5, unedited) 8.My Way (master, original 1971 mix) 9.Johnny B. Goode / O Holy Night (studio jam) 10.Patch It Up (unedited master) 11.Help Me (multi-track) 12.Without Love (take 1) 13.Without Love (2*, 3, 4) 14.Without Love (undubbed master) (Duration: 46 min. 03 sec.)

Package: It seems to be becoming a rule that Madison releases are greatly packaged. About ten years ago the bootleggers begun thinking about the level of their work and the packages kept becoming better and better ever since. These days Madison, SR and Fort Baxter continue the tradition of being [often] better packaged than the official releases. It is a pity that contrary to the two other labels Madison rarely manages to put something worthy content wise inside this bright and promising packages.

Elvis: Besides the studio rendition of My Way which wisely was not released until the mid-90s, and a pretty poor rendition of Help Me from 1977 this set features Elvis at his best.

Highlights: We already noted it before and will concentrate on it below, but it is very upsetting that so little new material is put on this CD. However, the different mix of Promised Land, with an obvious upfront and kicking bass and wonderful organ / guitar "duet" sounds better here to our liking.

Review: It is already predictable when we write about Madison releases that we can give them a five for packaging and two or three for content. When we were not spoiled by so many great FTD releases and high quality bootlegs we most probably would have been delighted by this release. But in terms of what has been released officially in the past eight years and what the bootleggers have released in the last, say, ten years this set, which could have been a welcomed addition in the mid 90-s nowadays seems to be a rip off. First of all, though mentioned as previously unreleased, It's Midnight and Bosom Of Abraham have previously been released on Platinum. Besides that , take 2 of Without Love has previously appeared on Finding The Way Home, though here it is presented in better stereo sound quality.

That said, let's get through a quick overview of the tracks. The CD starts with a short rehearsal of It's Midnight, a fine addition and one of the few new tracks on the set. After a tape stop Elvis even throws a line of Tomorrow Never Comes and tries to learn the words for a few seconds and then we hear somebody counting "one , two , three". And then the same counting is made on hi-hat this time and is followed by take 10 and not 1 as mentioned on the cover of It's Midnight. The sound really is better here than on the Platinum release, which in many terms could be considered as one of the last not properly mixed official releases. Bosom Of Abraham features a tape error - we could have lived without it, and the take is well known to the owners of the Platinum set. The unedited version of I'm Leaving means that we get the single version with no fade out and Felton declaring "It's a gas." We note that this is not quite correct in terms of the word "unedited". Most often "unedited" means not only the exclusion of any fade outs in favor of real endings but no overdubs as well. This is not the case, unfortunately. Both versions Always On My Mind are familiar to the fans that follow official releases.

Promised Land, though featuring almost nothing new when compared to the version from Platinum (except for the proper ending instead of a fade out, where the band completely messes up, so we understand why Ernst Jorgensen excluded this from Platinum) seems to have a different mix, which is much more moving, Elvis' voice is covered by two great guitars (finally the second guitar gives the really rocking feeling, the same goes for the organ) - all in all this mix sounds more rocking, more bass in the mix - truly a diamond in a list of endless uninteresting tracks on this release. The studio version of My Way is next, this one is a pretty poor version on it's own, the mix differs a bit from what we had in 70-s box set, but only when you listen to it in the headphones, otherwise, nothing new here. We had big expectations for the Johnny B. Goode / O Holy Night track - but it didn't give us what we waited for, Elvis' voice is very weak on the first song which is represented by about the last 10 seconds only and the second is simply a one-liner, but finally, this is some unreleased stuff ! Patch It Up has a few unreleased seconds at the very end - taking in account that it misses the first second in the beginning, it's not that big pleasure to listen.

The final unreleased song is Help Me from Saginaw , May 3 , 1977. The back-vocalists and orchestra are buried in the mix only to point the low voice condition Elvis is in. He simply is out of breath, and he couldn't take it anymore - this is a painful rendition, no matter how important this documentation is. Finally, all takes of Without Love in very good sound quality end the CD but this material is not new at all, so it makes us wonder.

All in all, with this release Madison once again proved to be a label selling a low quality compilation by adding a good package. If you're not a die-hard collector you can easily skip this one. And do something about it in the future, Madison!

February 2007

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