Title: Unchained Melody (released in 2007)

Label: FTD

Date: Tracks 1 - 14 recorded live in Charlotte, N.C. February 20, 1977; tracks 15, 21, 22 recorded live in Charlotte, N.C. February 21, 1977; tracks 16, 17 recorded live in St. Petersburg, FL February 14, 1977; track 18 recorded live in Montgomery, AL February 16, 1977; tracks 19, 20 recorded live in Columbia, SC February 18, 1977

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

Show Rating: * * * - / * * * * * +

Tracks: 1.Love Me 2.Fairytale 3.You Gave Me A Mountain 4.Jailhouse Rock 5.O Sole Mio / It's Now Or Never 6.Little Sister 7.Teddy Bear / Don't Be Cruel 8.My Way 9.Moody Blue (false-start only) 10.How Great Thou Art 11.Hurt 12.Hound Dog 13.Unchained Melody 14. Can’t Help Falling In Love 15.Moody Blue 16.Blueberry Hill 17.Love Letters 18.Where No One Stands Alone 19.Release Me 20.Trying To Get To You 21.Reconsider Baby 22.Why Me Lord (Duration: 63 min. 49 sec.)

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

Elvis: This is Elvis in 1977, and what can one expect from it? The mood of the main concert is fine, still Elvis is not in great shape here...

Highlights: Little Sister is surprisingly well performed, but in fact it's very hard to point at any highlights since the concert is below average.

Review: The magic of the Brightest Star was fading after a fantastic December tour- clearly one of the best ones of his life. This February 1977 tour was at least a two-step back move, it makes us remember of the summer 1976 concerts.

In the last couple of months there's been a lot of speculation regarding this release. And it makes us wonder. The main concert featured on this CD is of much better quality than, for example, Old Times They Are Not Forgotten - we mean from any point of view - the Presley spirit, the Presley voice, which although fails him a couple of times is clearly stronger. There's no need to expect a Second [December] Coming from this one, but if for whatever unexplainable reason you happen to like the 76' Tuscaloosa show, you will like this one no less.

Now, after such an optimistic beginning we are starting the track-by-track review. Love Me begins the CD. The sound is very clear, maybe, just a little flat to our liking. The performance is rather long, with Elvis asking his sound engineer Bruce Jackson to "watch it". He ad-libs the line "I would beg and steal" with "Steal and beg". The song is not very good, but still better than many of the versions we already have. "Uh... This next song is a song that we did in an album a couple of years called... the story of my life, called Fairytale," Elvis says and launches into the song. It begins fine with Elvis' voice showing little lack of power, however, contrary to what we are used to Elvis looses a lot of power as the performance progresses, he doesn't make it into the higher notes closer to the end, as he eventually is unable to hit them right, but he tries. "Mountain, son," Elvis declares going into the song. The higher notes are a bit uncontrolled again, but Elvis tries as much as he is able at this point of his career. Jailhouse Rock is a throw-away version, though clearly better than the next day's performance. It's Now Or Never is next, with O Sole Mio by Shaun Neilson preceding it. Elvis laughs a lot through this performance concluding by singing "kiss me, you fool". After the song somebody gives Elvis a replica of Graceland, which he accepts happily. He takes the time to interact with the audience before launching into Little Sister, this interaction shows he's in a good mood, and the following performance of Little Sister is surprisingly fine, much better than the next day's version, however he is very impatient to end the song as he says: "That's it, that's it, any way you cut it - it's the end," before the song eventually ends. On the other hand this could be explained by the band's lost concentration as they were, most probably, not aware of any possible changes in the arrangements - this was rather rare from Elvis' side at this point of his career. But he was clearly expecting them to watch him.

Teddy Bear / Don't Be Cruel is a throw-away version, with Elvis adding "Charlie, get out of the way," at the very end. "I mean, you people are wild, you know? OK. I'd like to do a song that Frank Sinatra did, I don't know the words to it, it's called my way... Very difficult to sing with icing throat," Elvis declares. The performance itself shows Elvis facing difficulties with some of the higher notes, however, most of the song is very good. Next is an unsuccessful attempt on Moody Blue - the song is totally unrehearsed and Elvis is not prepared to sing it in the original key. So he decides to sing How Great Thou Art instead. The song is rather sad to hear, El tries real hard to sound fine on the last part of the song, but he does not succeed too good. We've had better versions of this song.

After the edited intros we get to hear Hurt, this version is not exceptionally good too, the reprise of the ending is messed up, but however, the song would get worse in time. Elvis voice sounds thin on the last note as well. Hound Dog is simply terrible, and somebody gives Elvis a photograph of him and his parents featured on the cover of Elvis Country CD. Interacting with the audience Elvis throws the line "My wish came true," - who can state that he was in bad mood after this? "I'd like to, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to sit at the piano, because we're recording this live, I'd like to do a favorite song of mine called Unchained Melody and play the piano..." Elvis says. He makes a first attempt which is unsuccessful and is just a few seconds long as he doesn't like the way his voice sounds. Elvis then begins the song again. This rendition is not very good at the beginning, but becomes better, except for the fake ending with Shaun taking the lead on the high falsetto note. Finally the main concert ends the usual Can't Help Falling In Love.

Some previously documented by bootleggers portions of concerts follow. First is the only complete live rendition of Moody Blue. It is truly to high for Elvis to sing the song in the original key, but this is all we have. Elvis moves Tony Brown from the piano to show how to play the intro of Blueberry Hill. There are lots of jokes about Glen D. not being able to play anything but Lawdy Miss Clawdy as his solo number but at least he could pick anything Elvis would throw into the list - it is a big pity that he left the TCB band in 1976. Love Letters is next, this one was never a good song for performing live, but Elvis tries hard and makes it one of the best renditions of this song. Where No One Stands Alone has some annoying hiss on it - we didn't have it on the bootleg CD, so we can only guess what it may be, since Ernst obviously has a better source tape than Fort Baxter did. Elvis tries to urge Tony Brown to play the intro of Please Release Me, but Tony doesn't know it, so it starts after Elvis getting to know the key it is done in. This rendition is longer than the one from Moody Blue And Other Great Performances CD. Trying To Get To You is a very fine performance, Elvis' voice is pretty strong on this number. Reconsider Baby and Why Me Lord (again from Moody Blue And Other Great Performances) end the CD.

This CD is documentation of Elvis' live performances in early 1977 - what would be Elvis' last year of life. It's interesting to point that Elvis mentions the concert to be recorded live right before Unchained Melody. Maybe this is the reason he sings Moody Blue during his second night in Charlotte. But since this is a soundboard recording, obviously, not intended to be released to public during his lifetime this could mean two things. First - Elvis wanted this concerts to be given as presents to somebody close to him. Second guess - well, he might have wanted this records to come out some day and show us that he was dedicated to his job, no matter what his health state was. Anyway, if you like sterile performances - you can easily skip this one, if you are a soundboard collector, we recommend you to have it in your collection. Maybe it won't find the way into your CD player too often, but it is not that bad. And we must also say that we thank Ernst for putting out a concert not available previously in soundboard quality, he watches what's out on bootlegs. Thank you for dedication, Ernst! As for the material - thank you for not putting it on the main label.

April 2007

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