Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight

Disc 1 (1953-1957)
01 My Happiness
02 That's All Right
03 Blue Moon Of Kentucky
04 Good Rockin' Tonight
05 Baby Let's Play House
06 Mystery Train
07 I Forgot To Remember To Forget
08 I Got A Woman
09 Heartbreak Hotel
10 I Was The One
11 Blue Suede Shoes
12 My Baby Left Me
13 One-Sided Love Affair
14 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)
15 Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
16 I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
17 Hound Dog
18 Don't Be Cruel
19 Love Me Tender
20 Love Me
21 Paralyzed
22 Too Much
23 All Shook Up
24 Mean Woman Blues
25 (There'll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)
26 (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear
27 One Night
28 Jailhouse Rock
29 Treat Me Nice
30 Blue Christmas
31 Don't

Disc 2 (1958-1962)
01 Hard Headed Woman
02 Trouble
03 King Creole
04 Wear My Ring Around Your Neck
05 I Need Your Love Tonight
06 A Big Hunk O' Love
07 (Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I
08 Stuck On You
09 A Mess Of Blues
10 It's Now Or Never
11 Thrill Of Your Love
12 Such A Night
13 Are You Lonesome Tonight?
14 Reconsider Baby
15 Doin' The Best I Can
16 Pocketful Of Rainbows
17 Surrender
18 Crying In The Chapel
19 I Feel So Bad
20 There's Always Me
21 Judy
22 Can't Help Falling In Love
23 (Marie's The Name) His Latest Flame
24 Little Sister
25 Good Luck Charm
26 Suspicion
27 She's Not You
28 Return To Sender

Disc 3 (1963-1969)
01 Bossa Nova Baby
02 (You're The) Devil In Disguise
03 (It's A) Long Lonely Highway
04 I Need Somebody To Lean On
05 Viva Las Vegas
06 It Hurts Me
07 This Is My Heaven
08 Adam And Evil
09 How Great Thou Art
10 Tomorrow Is A Long Time
11 Guitar Man
12 Big Boss Man
13 Too Much Monkey Business
14 U.S. Male
15 If I Can Dream
16 Memories
17 Don't Cry Daddy
18 In The Ghetto
19 Suspicious Minds
20 Stranger In My Own Home Town
21 Kentucky Rain
22 Only The Strong Survive

Disc 4 (1970-1977)
01 Polk Salad Annie
02 The Fool
03 Funny How Time Slips Away
04 I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
05 I Just Can't Help Believin'
06 I'm Leavin'
07 An American Trilogy
08 Burning Love
09 Always On My Mind
10 Steamroller Blues
11 Loving Arms
12 Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues
13 Promised Land
14 T-R-O-U-B-L-E
15 For The Heart
16 Hurt
17 Way Down
18 Unchained Melody
19 A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Remix Edit)

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There are quite enough Elvis Presley compilations around, thank you, that this new, four-disc set of all previously released material seems unnecessary at best, a cynical move aimed at the Christmas market at worst.

Either way it's inevitable with what would have been Presley's 75th birthday coming up on Jan. 8. Even if "Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight" is essentially a cash-in, it's still smartly assembled, packed with hits but also sparing room for a surprise or two.

Unfortunately, it also spares room for the 2002 Junkie XL remix of "A Little Less Conversation," space that could have been better used for, well, silence, for one thing.

For a catalog such as Presley's, four CDs is essentially a greatest-hits with bonus tracks affair. In the '90s, RCA released three five-disc boxes, one per decade of Presley's career, with very little that could be considered filler across all the boxes.

Nitpicking aside, Disc One is impossible to argue with, as the Sun label singles segue into the RCA recordings from 1956, the foundation of – or at least a huge part of – all rock 'n' roll recorded since.

Discs Two and Three cover the movie years, cherry-picking the sublime but including enough of the ridiculous to show how Presley's (or manager Tom Parker's) focus shifted to his movie career (since rock 'n' roll was a fad destined to be forgotten).

Disc Three also includes Presley's magnificent version of the hymn "How Great Thou Art," which follows "Adam and Evil," proving someone had fun with the sequencing.

By the end of Disc Three, Presley is finding his footing again, thanks to some raw versions of Jimmy Reed's "Big Boss Man" and a pair of Jerry Reed tunes, "U.S. Male" and "Guitar Man."

Then comes Presley's final glory, the 1969 Memphis sessions that produced "Suspicious Minds" and the "Elvis in Memphis" album. Disc Four contains the highlights of his decline. Though they came fewer and further between, they still packed a punch. Check his 1973 version of Chuck Berry's "Promised Land" for proof Presley still had it in the years before his death.

Any Presley fan will find a track or two missing (where's "Trying to Get to You"?). "Elvis 75" isn't the end-all be-all of Presley compilations but novices too curious to be sated by 2002's single-disc "1s" may find it to be a valuable road map.

By CURTIS ROSS | The Tampa Tribune

In 1992, Bono recorded a solo version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" for the Honeymoon in Vegas soundtrack. His take on the song is slow and somber, with almost no instrumentation save a bit of percussion. Filling out the sonic space is a recording of an Elvis Presley press conference, which finds him answering a few random questions, including one about what he's been reading. Elvis begins his replies with "Yes sir" or "No sir," like the polite Southern boy he was, and he sounds distant, careful not to say anything that might offend. I suspect that Bono included this spoken bit because it represented for him a theme he had explored a few years earlier on U2's "Elvis Presley and America", a murky, hazy track found on The Unforgettable Fire that some see as filler but which I've always found fascinating. "Elvis Presley and America" and Bono's version of "Can't Help Falling in Love" both speak to one of Elvis' fundamental contradictions: How can singer say so much-- through someone else's song, even-- and then find feelings and ideas so hard to articulate away from music?

Elvis now occupies a strange place in music in part because he was never a songwriter. Long ago, of course, very few singers were also writers, but the 1960s changed much of that. After Bob Dylan and the Beatles, there was an expectation that the words that came from the singer's mouth also originated in his brain. There have been many exceptions, some of them significant (disco comes to mind), but a strong sense of agency has continued to be important. Present-day pop singers who aren't writers (and most of the major ones have writer credits) still take pains to position their albums as personal statements. A rite of passage for a pop singer is the album that says, "This is me-- this is what I'm all about." Celine Dion is an outlier in this regard, but the list of singers of her ilk is not long. We've been conditioned to want some sort of direct line to the artist's point of view. With so much of Elvis' music, the sense that it reflected something about how he felt about the world wasn't there in quite the same way. This doesn't diminish his accomplishments, which are massive and undeniable, but it does mean that as new generations discover him, they'll be hearing him differently.

Over the years, Elvis' estate and RCA have taken a few different tacks to position him as a vital musical force and win him new fans. In the early 1990s, the hardcore devotees and serious music obsessives hit the jackpot, as RCA and BMG released three well-received box sets totaling 15 CDs, which together offered a searching overview of his entire career, dividing his output by decade. The sheer scope of that reissue project, and its ultimate success (two of the sets went platinum, the other gold), affirmed that Elvis was an artist worth exploring in minute detail, with musical treasures that extended well beyond his dozens of top 10 hits. But the last of these boxes came out almost 15 years ago. Since then, as the ranks of those who had their minds blown after seeing him on "Ed Sullivan" continues to thin, Elvis' place in music seems a little less assured. ELV1S, a collection of his #1 hits released in 2002, sold well, but it still had nowhere near the impact of the Beatles' 1, upon which it was obviously modeled. It's tempting, in a year in which the Beatles catalog was remastered and Michael Jackson's music hit the charts after his untimely death, to stack Elvis up against these giants and see how he fares. Is he reaching new generations of fans? Are download-happy kids looking for ways to flesh out their Elvis mp3 collections?

Good Rockin' Tonight, a 4xCD box set commemorating the 75th anniversary of Elvis' birth and covering his entire career-- from his first acetate in 1953 to the 2002 remix of "A Little Less Conversation"-- could be seen as an attempt to answer the question of what he means today in a relatively succinct package (there are 100 songs here, but he recorded more than 700 over the course of his career). There's little for the fans that own those decade sets-- the 50's Masters box was complete, and the 60s and 70s collections hit just about every highlight-- but Good Rockin' Tonight offers a thorough and well-rounded look at a seminal artist for those who might know only a handful of hits. There are a few songs from his gospel records, which are usually cordoned off from his pop work on Elvis comps, as well as selections from his many film soundtracks (these were omitted from the 60s box) and some live cuts. The lot is sequenced in chronological order according to when it was cut, and you come away from this set with a good sense of how his music developed and changed over the 24 years of his recording life.

Ironically, because Elvis was not a songwriter and was so guarded about what he shared with the public, his music ends up having an odd sort of purity. All we have is surfaces-- the grain of his vocal, his phrasing, video and film images showing us how he moved. So in one sense, the story of this box set is the story of that virtuosic and unmistakable voice, how it grew and adapted and bent songs to fit Elvis' vision of what they should be.

"Jailhouse Rock" has one of rock history's greatest snare sounds, but it's Elvis' half-screamed phrasing that makes it sound like a world-changing anthem. The assurance and richness of Elvis' tone on "Love Me Tender" is striking, but remembering when reading the set's well-done documentation that he was only 21 when he recorded it amplifies its depth. There's the drive and warmth of his tone on "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame", one of his more enduring second-tier hits, as Elvis seems to stick his neck out in the verses and then come back to a more assured place for the chorus. On "Suspicious Minds", he establishes a tone of anxiety and yearning and masterfully sustains it through the song's entire length without becoming tiring. And on into the 70s, when his hits were more likely to land only on the country charts, there's the big-hearted generosity of his version of the now-standard "Always on My Mind", showing how easily he could do simplicity when it was needed. For a singer whose vocal tics are so widely known that they became nuggets of pop culture history, the emotional range and variety of Elvis' singing here is extraordinary.

There are plenty of revelations here for those who know only the biggest singles. "How Great Thou Art" and "Crying in the Chapel", two cuts from Elvis' 1967 gospel album, How Great Thou Art, feature over-the-top arrangements, but Elvis brings a palpable vocal intensity to the material-- these were songs he is said to have felt very deeply, and that's the way they come across. "Pocketful of Rainbows", a tune from G.I. Blues, with its thick reverb and spacious arrangement, sounds oddly contemporary, a haunting but straightforward bit of mid-century pop. To use a recent touchstone, you can just about trace Richard Hawley's entire oeuvre to it. Like the gospel cuts and 1963's "I Need Someone to Lean On", an ultra lean ballad with a cocktail jazz tone, it shows a side to Elvis' singing that hasn't been overexposed, and it still sounds terrifically fresh.

Just as Elvis' voice pushed decent material into the realm of greatness, so it managed to wring something out of a duff song. "Bossa Nova Baby" is one of Leiber and Stoller's lyrically fuzzier and more dated creations, and it has the added handicap of not being not especially fun, but Elvis almost makes it worth hearing again. "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" from 1975 is a bland, unconvincing attempt to recapture the early rock'n'roll energy, and there are a couple of early "That's All Right" re-writes here that don't impress. But with the energy Elvis brought to his singing in the 50s, it didn't much matter. Even where the songs fail to connect as songs-- and for me there quite a few here-- Elvis' presence often redeems them.

For music fans who have trouble following along with Elvis' Vegas shtick as his career wore on, it's a cliché to say that the Sun Sessions, those recordings Elvis made in Memphis before he was nationally famous, are the best thing he ever did. And while I won't make that argument, considering how much he developed and expanded what he could do as he went on, the six tracks here from those sessions have lost nothing and still resonate, and I'm probably more likely to play "Blue Moon of Kentucky" than just about anything here. Elvis sounds like a teenager (which he was) who is just starting to realize the thrilling power of his gifts.

But oddly, the next track I'm likely to play is "Unchained Melody", the second to last cut on the set, recorded in 1977 during one of his final shows. As you can see from an Unchained Melody live performance (see youtube), Elvis during this period is bloated, caked in horrifying makeup, and drugged, a shell of a man only months away from death. But somehow, sitting down at the piano, he manages to wring something out of this song that no one else had imagined. It's garish, operatic, and morbid, and I feel a little guilty for how much I love it; Elvis failed in so many ways, but this was his one untouchable thing, and I love hearing him do it in spite of it all, speaking to the world in the one language he thoroughly mastered. That the song to follow it and close out Good Rockin' Tonight is the bland and forgettable big beat remix of "A Little Less Conversation", commissioned for Nike's 2002 World Cup campaign, is a reminder of how easily that communication can become garbled.


by Mark Richardson | Pitchfork.com

Elvis Presley would have turned 75 on January 8, 2010. In celebration of that event the RCA label, through their Legacy Series, has issued a four-CD, 100-track box set.

Elvis 75: Good Rockin’ Tonight may not contain any huge surprises nor has it unearthed any new material that had been hidden away, but what it does do it does well. It gathers all of his number one hits, some other well known material, live performances, and a few cuts that do not surface very often, assembling them in chronological order to present a nice history of his music. Everything has been digitally remastered which has given it a crystal-clear sound. In addition there is an 80-page booklet which includes a 7,000-word essay by Billy Altman, rare photos, and copious information on every track.

In the mid-fifties Elvis combined country rockabilly with black southern rhythm & blues, which coalesced into rock ‘n’ roll. When you add in his personal charisma you have an artist who emerged as a cultural phenomenon and changed the course of American music. From 1955-1977 he would record over 700 tracks and solidify his reputation as The King of Rock ‘N’ Roll.

Disc one covers his rise to fame; 1953-1957. The set begins with his 1953 recording of “My Happiness” which was a present for his mother and well worth its $4.00 investment. His mid-fifties Sun material quickly follows as songs such as “That’s All Right,” “Baby Let’s Play House,” “Blue Moon Of Kentucky,” and “Mystery Train” would jump start his career in the south and pave his way to being signed by the RCA label. By 1957 “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “All Shook Up,” “Hound Dog,” “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” “Too Much,” “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,” and “Don’t” had all topped the singles charts in the United States and made him a star.

Disc two is the strongest from beginning to end as it culls the best of his 1958-1962 material. Tracks such as “Stuck On You,” “It’s Now Or Never,” “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” and “Return To Sender” are interspersed with some lesser known material including “Thrill Of Your Love,” “Doin’ The Best I Can,” “I Feel So Bad,” and “Pocketful Of Rainbows.”

Disc three, 1963-1969, wisely avoids most of his soundtrack material and concentrates on the series of strong singles that he issued during this period of his career. “Guitar Man,” “U.S. Male,” “Don’t Cry Daddy,” and “Kentucky Rain” may not have reached the top of the charts but they remain some of the best songs in his catalogue. “Viva Las Vegas,” “How Great Thou Art” and perennial favorites “In The Ghetto” and “Suspicious Minds” serve to enhance this disc.

The fourth disc, 1970-1977, is the weakest as it presents material from the last part of his career, which is hit or miss. The live material just does not measure up and while “Way Down,” “Burning Love,” and “Promised Land” may be listenable, overall this is the disc I will return too least often.

Elvis 75: Good Rockin’ Tonight may not be for everyone but it is a fine addition to the Elvis Presley legacy. If you have avoided his box sets in the past or are a fan who must have everything then this is a must purchase.


Author: David Bowling | blogcritics.org

I made a compilation for myself that fit all on one mp3 disc that I play in my truck, at work in my computer..etc. Also I've made CDR's of this compilation for friends and bandmembers so they can hear what I personally feel is the best of Elvis.

If I were making the boxset, I would have used my tracklisting which is not far off from this collection actually. After HITSTORY came out I made the compilation so I used the CORRECTED versions of what was wrong on the first E1 album....bad Hound Dog, wrong Fool Such As I, wrong Big Hunk, wrong Wonder Of You, flanging Suspicious Minds...and in SoundForge I did my best to make the other songs that were missing sound like they came from that set. That took quite some time, getting the levels the same and re-eq'ing those tracks to make the entire compilation mesh. I was VERY successful but it was a lot of work.

Here is my tracklisting and most of it's a no-brainer:

That's All Right
Blue Moon Of Kentucky
Good Rockin' Tonight
Baby Let's Play House
I Forgot To Remember To Forget
Mystery Train
Heartbreak Hotel
I Was The One
Blue Suede Shoes
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
My Baby Left Me
Don't Be Cruel
Hound Dog
Love Me Tender (24 Karat Hits stereo version)
When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
Love Me
Paralyzed
Too Much
Playing For Keeps
All Shook Up
Teddy Bear
Mean Woman Blues
Loving You
Jailhouse Rock
Treat Me Nice
Don't
I Beg Of You
Wear My Ring Around Your Neck
Doncha Think It's Time
My Wish Came True
King Creole
Trouble
Hard Headed Woman
One Night
A Big Hunk O' Love
I Got Stung
I Need Your Love Tonight
Ain't That Loving You Baby
(Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I
Stuck On You
Fame And Fortune
It's Now Or Never
A Mess Of Blues
Girl Of My Best Friend
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
I Gotta Know
Flaming Star
Surrender
I Feel So Bad
His Latest Flame
Little Sister
Can't Help Falling In Love
Rock A Hula Baby
Good Luck Charm
Follow That Dream (alt take stereo)
She's Not You
King Of The Whole Wide World
Return To Sender
(You're The) Devil In Disguise
One Broken Heart For Sale
Bossa Nova Baby
Kissin' Cousins
Viva Las Vegas
It Hurts Me
Such A Night
Crying In The Chapel
Wooden Heart
Puppet On A String
(Such An) Easy Question
I'm Yours
Ask Me
Suspicion
Love Letters
Big Boss Man
U.S. Male
Clean Up Your Own Back Yard (Elvis Gold Records Vol 5 1984 remix)
If I Can Dream
Memories
In The Ghetto
Suspicious Minds
Don't Cry Daddy
Kentucky Rain
The Wonder Of You
See See Rider
Polk Salad Annie
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
There Goes My Everything
I Just Can't Help Believin'
I'm Leavin'
Burning Love
Always On My Mind
Separate Ways
Steamroller Blues (did an edit that makes the song slam in ommitting the guitar intro)
An American Trilogy (Aloha version)
I've Got A Thing About You Baby
If You Talk In Your Sleep (Elvis' Gold Records Vol 5 1984 remix)
Are You Sincere
There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who'll Take Me back In)
Help Me
It's Midnight
Promised Land
My Boy
T-R-O-U-B-L-E
Hurt
Moody Blue
Way Down (original mix)
Unchained Melody
My Way (1977 single version)
Lovin' Arms (remix from Guitar Man album)
Guitar Man (remix from Guitar Man album)
A Little Less Conversation (JXL Radio Remix Edit)
Rubberneckin" (Paul Oakenfold radio edit remix)
Born To Rock (C'mon Everybody remix from Viva Las Vegas)
Baby Let's Play House (Spankox Radio Edit Remix)
If I Can Dream (duet with Celine Dion from American Idol Itunes download audio)

I just threw the ones at the end because I wanted some more remixes that were legitimate to go with "A Little Less Conversation".

You will notice that the recordings are not necessarily in chronological order, but that was done on purpose to give the collection continuity. "Wooden Heart", "Such A Night", "Suspicion", "Crying In The Chapel", "I'm Yours", "One Night" were released years after they were recorded. Now if the song clearly doesn't sound right ...ex. "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby" sitting beside 60's material then I put it in its true chronological order. I think I came up with a good track listing.

I can see adding "Reconsider Baby", and several others like "How Great Thou Art" and ending the album with "A Little Less Conversation" and losing the other remixes as they are not nexessary.

But my tracklisting would definitely be a 5 disc set and closer to what I would have liked to have seen them do.

Wow! Your idea is great waymore!

Love that selection of tracks!

is this thing available with two different covers? sometimes i see eBay or Amazon listings with the 1969 pic instead of the 1956 pic.

No, but the booklet has the '69 pic on the front. On elvisnews.com you can see a promoclip of this boxset made by sony germany (www.elvisnews.com)

I wondered the same thing about the cover. I personally think that to distinguish between the single disc ELVIS 75 and the box set they chose to show the front of the booklet. I could be wrong, but makes sense to me.

JD

Quote:

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Originally Posted by waymore44

I wondered the same thing about the cover. I personally think that to distinguish between the single disc ELVIS 75 and the box set they chose to show the front of the booklet. I could be wrong, but makes sense to me.

JD

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you're probably right, thanks.

Having given the boxsets a few spins, I must say that it's a wonderful collection of songs in fantastic soundquality. I love the mix of the many uptempo rockers and the smooth ballads. All songs show the skills of Elvis as an artist and an unmatched vocalist.

This boxset is much more than just a zillionth Greatests Hits compilation.

This really is a very good boxset, with a great book to go with it as well.

My first impression is Ernst went for the rock songs more then he did for the ballads.

The sound quality is great, of course better with the sixties and seventies tracks.

A very nice compilation for sure!

I mean a serious Elvis Fan dont need this collection !
It´s very poor from BMG to release on 75th Birthday this one.
It´s a best of collection and nothing more.
We need new outtakes and unreleased recordings.
We don´t need released material that eveyone have in his collection.
The sound of the release is good but not better as from other releases.
For someone who have nothing from the King is the collection ok.

this longbox set was almost not in store in canada we had a 2 cd set with a b/w picture used before and this 2 cd set in stillon sale in wall-mart for 10$steve grayson