Title: Southern Nights (released in 2006)

Label: FTD

Date: Different dates April, May and June 1975

Sound Quality: from * * * + to * * * * / * * * * * +

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

Tracks: 1.That's All Right, Mama (April 30) 2.It's Now or Never (April 30) 3.Help Me (April 30) 4.Steamroller Blues (May 2) 5.Heartbreak Hotel (June 1 Afternoon Show) 6.Release Me (June 01 Afternoon Show) 7.Polk Salad Annie (June 1 Evening Show) 8.I'll Remember You (June 1 Evening Show) 9.Little Darlin' (June 1 Evening Show) 10.Bridge Over Troubled Water (June 2 Evening Show) 11.Tryin' to Get to You (June 5) 12.You Gave Me a Mountain (June 5) 13.Help Me Make It Through the Night (June 9) 14.Fairytale (June 10) 15.Jambalaya (May 4) 16.Big Boss Man (April 24) 17.It's Midnight (April 24) 18.Promised Land (April 24) 19.Trouble (May 31 Afternoon Show) 20.T-R-O-U-B-L-E (May 31 Afternoon Show) 21.Hawaiian Wedding Song (May 31 Afternoon Show) 22.Blue Suede Shoes (May 31 Afternoon Show) 23.For the Good Times (May 31 Afternoon Show) 24.I Can't Stop Loving You (May 31 Evening Show) 25.I'm Leavin' (May 31 Evening Show) (Duration: 67 min. 09 sec.)

Package: A fine looking, with a great front-cover picture (even the quality of this scan can not spoil it ))).

Elvis: You can read a more detailed "inside" look below, but in a few words - Elvis was in a fine shape during these 75' "southern nights" as the producers call it. You just can't deny the charm of these performances.

Highlights: It is hard to pick some, since the producers have wisely chosen the rarities and highlights. It's Midnight is not very well performed, otherwise the song selection is fine. The only question is why the producers have chosen not to include the very best performance of How Great Thou Art from Memphis?

Review: ...Charming is the right word...

There is something unexplainably attractive in the three tours Elvis gave in 1975. They sound quite similar to the Elvis On Tour concerts, there is something in common in the atmosphere. It is both professional and unpredictably funny. Elvis is in much better mind state than the previous autumn but maybe just a little overweight, especially comparing to the late 60-s and the very early 70-s. His mood seems to be steadily good according to the existing soundboard and audience recordings from the period.

This said, once taken out of contest (read: out of a complete concert) these performances lose much of their appeal. The reason may be found in the cutting of so many in-between songs dialogues which all displayed a sense of good humor. There's no need to say that we are putting FTD's job down by saying this, anyway. The quality of the material has nothing to do with the quality of the release. The idea of gathering together the best performances on a live compilation has already been warmly greeted by the fans at the time of Spring Tours release. This time we get a very fine treatment again.

This compilation starts with a fine rendition of That's All Right Mama. "Ok, the first record I made, that's all right mama, we'll do [it] for you," Elvis says before launching into this song. The band seems a bit confused for a second or so, before James Burton launches into a My Baby Left Me kind of intro. Elvis' voice becomes better closer to the ending, however this spontaneous rendition with Elvis encouraging the band ("One more time, ending") is closer to the 77' versions rather than the 70' or 71'. "Let's do It's Now Or Never," Elvis says as the band launches into a delicate version. The piano and bass are upfront in this rendition, leaving aside the never ending hysteria in the audience this version is calm and charming. Help Me is next, a very fine rendition, Elvis never gave throw-away renditions of this song, this version is no-exception. "I'm a steamroller baby!" Elvis says as the band launches into a great performance, we can only praise the efforts of Jerry Scheff, Glen D. and of course J.B. The Great! And what about Elvis? He is pouring his soul, as blues music in the same way as country and gospel gives you hints of his roots. "There goes the career, boy, I mean, twenty years down the drain, right here!" Elvis concludes. "We're supposed to do Burning Love in this spot but instead I'm gonna do Heartbreak Hotel, ok? Is that all right with you, Charlie? I wanna get your permission before I do it..." This performance is a lazy laid back one, clearly Elvis' voice is not in top form here. "Do we know please, release me? Please release me? We got that? Ok, let's wing it!" It is sure great to have this rare performance on this compilation, but Elvis' voice is not in highest form here and in no way can compete it's original 1970' recording. With the next track Elvis unsuccessfully tries to attempt Burning Love, as he forgets the words and stops the song. The members of the Sweet Inspirations try to help him by reciting the words. When he finally remembers them and the band starts playing the first chord again he suddenly stops the band and declares that he doesn't want to do the song anymore. Instead he chooses to perform Polk Salad, the tape on this number clearly has some trouble, as the sound is unsteady. The performance itself is fine till the very end, when Jerry Scheff messes with the key and plays it lower than it should be, which ruins the song.

Next is a touching performance of I'll Remember You, Elvis' voice is just a little bit uncontrolled but this is usual for this period of his life. Next is a performance of Little Darlin'. Never performed seriously this rendition has most probably been added to this release to show Elvis pointing that the back vocalists forgot to do some of the "oop-oop-oop"'s or whatever they do with him. Elvis takes the time to thank the Huntsville public after the song. What follows is Bridge Over Troubled Water already available in FTD's Dixieland Rocks, so we see no point in adding it here. An inspired rendition of Trying To Get To You follows with a few lines of The Eyes of Texas preceding it. You Gave Me A Mountain seems to be quite an unexpected number as the orchestra doesn't know where to start at the first few bars. However, this give the performance a country feel, so nice to hear a different approach. Elvis' voice is great on this number as well. A messy Help Me Make It Through The Night - not to mention that it's way too short as well - follows. Fairytale comes from the Memphis Concert, a high quality performance to say the least. We then go to a rare and probably the longest performance of Jambalaya that exists on tape. Big Boss Man has so many piano on the mix that we finally get to appreciate the job Glen D. does on this number. Next is a pretty poor performance of It's Midnight, Elvis' voice is uncontrolled here, a pity.

Promised Land doesn't feature Elvis in high voice form as well, a throw-away version. Next in line is a rare rendition of Trouble, as Elvis plays with the audience, announcing T-R-O-U-B-L-E, and performing only one verse of it, stating that "I don't know the rest of it, so we'll do the next song". It's a big question why the song didn't make it's way into the standard repertoire, as Elvis seemed to enjoy it. T-R-O-U-B-L-E is a fine rendition as most of them, though even reading the words to it Elvis manages to mess it a bit. Instead of doing the request of Blue Hawaii Elvis delivers a nice performance of Hawaiian Wedding Song. Blue Suede Shoes seems to feature some kind of inspiration from Elvis, as his voice seems to be fine. "I tell you what we can do.. We can do, uh, for the goods, J.D. likes it..." Elvis announces and delivers a sincere, calm version of this country song, great addition to this compilation. Elvis tries very hard during the following I Can't Stop Loving You, but he has to do his best to hit the last note, as he almost cracks up there. The CD ends with a nice rendition of I'm Leaving with Elvis instructing the sound engineers to bring the tenors and the guys singing falsetto up. His voice is not in the highest form again, but at least he's sincere.

What should we say as a conclusion? There is no need to point that we prefer the complete stuff. At the time of release of this particular CD Ernst Jorgensen stated that it is a part of FTD's strategy to represent every Vegas engagement and every major tour with at least one release. This is a fine idea, but we see no point in declaring that most probably no more stuff from this April-May-June tours shall be released. This leads to a series of questions, such as why the August 1970' engagement is already represented by a book with a CD and a single CD plus two multitrack recordings released via the main label? Again, we are not judging the material quality - give us a box with the remaining multitrack recordings from August 1970 or 1969 - we'll get it immediately and it would take a year to take a smile off from our faces. But we would as well be glad to get as many soundboard recordings from these two tours as possible. And we really hope to see the coming of a day when it is released as a multi CD edition. By the way, the bootleggers are already doing such a package under a yet another Profile box-set title, with four concerts from Huntsville.

Anyway, we enjoyed this CD and it will get a spin more often than most other recent releases.

January 2007

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