70's Elvis underrated?

[debtdbruno]

The liner notes to the 70s box "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" set by Dave Marsh give an excellent critic of the brilliance of Elvis in the 70s.
One problem is that the explosive music, the monster hits that helped created rock-are historically foreever associated with Elvis...nothing will change that.
The 70s music as great as it is, IMO some as good as the 50s hits-is not what he is known for. The voice so much more depth and range in the 70s, trades off the frenetic raw sound of Sun and early RCA. The press is not in the business of prefering any certain era of sound by artists-they will tell about Hound Dog, Don't Be Cruel, Jailhouse Rock etc because those are worldwide the historically known songs that helped launch rock.
You could play all the 70s greatest recordings for the press and I would venture a guess that they would devote a paragraph about their greatness-but many more on the historically significance and brilliance of the 50s hits.
Its just the way it works.
Sinatra had some great music after 1960-but his 70s, 80s stuff is not what you will hear about-his greatest music will always be his saloon songs from the 40s and his swinging hits of the early to mid 60s and thats what people will point to.

[Kajo]

I think it's very sad that Elvis was so underrated in the 70's. His music was better and better and he grew so much vocally and musically. His tours were legendary and so were his Vegas shows. The 70's are my favorite Elvis era too and the most brilliant too. I became a fan because of those dynamic and dramatic recordings of the 70's. Sure that I love the 50's and 60's Elvis too, but nothing can touch the 70's. They were his best gift to us. It would be great if more and more people could see it that way and enjoy those fantastic recordings that were recorded with so much passion, love, sadness, happiness, raw energy from the king with that beautiful powerful voice.

[vivaelvis]

There are three main periods in Elvis' career that stand out. The 50's, the early 60's and the comeback era of 68-73. There was a lot of good music recorded from the latter period. It's also funny how Elvis' early recordings are always recognized by the media as his best work but it's the image of the Vegas Elvis that's usually used in media articles.