Looking Back: Elvis In Concert, Hampton Roads, Virginia, April 9, 1972, Evening Show.
Las Vegas, Nevada, February 1972, and once again Elvis is performing at the Hilton Hotel. The RCA mobile recording unit are on hand to record some of the new songs Elvis has added to his stage repertoire for a proposed live album which will be called "Standing Room Only". Elvis is due to tour America's southern states in April, and RCA plan to record additional material on the April tour, and complete the live album then. The new material consists of songs that were added to the set list during Elvis' previous Vegas engagement in 1971, and some additional songs that have been added specifically for this engagement. Elvis had started performing "The Impossible Dream" during his previous engagement, and it had even taken the place of his regular closing number "Can't Help Falling In Love" during some of the shows. He was considering this song for a future single release, and it was taped by RCA at this season, along with Elvis' interpretation of Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy", another song he was considering releasing as a single. RCA also taped versions of Marty Robbins' "You Gave Me A Mountain", "Never Been To Spain", a hit for Three Dog Night, "It's Impossible", and "It's Over" (not the Roy Orbison song). Elvis had also revisited his 50's hit single "Big Hunk O' Love" and given it a new arrangement, and this was also committed to tape, along with a slower blues version of "Hound Dog", and reworked version of the 1961 hit "Little Sister" which was now performed as part of a medley with The Beatles' hit "Get Back". A good live album was beginning to take shape.
During this period the Colonel was also in negotiation with MGM for a second concert documentary, but the idea this time was to film Elvis on the road, rather than in Las Vegas, as had been the case with the first documentary feature "Elvis - That's The Way It Is". Two young film makers Robert Abel and Pierre Adidge, fresh from their critically acclaimed work on the Joe Cocker documentary "Mad Dogs And English Men" were invited to the Hilton to watch one of the February shows with a view to them taking on the production of the new Presley documentary, and after watching the show and meeting with Elvis, the deal was struck for Elvis' second MGM documentary feature, which would become the Golden Globe award winning "Elvis On Tour". It was decided that MGM would also start work on the documentary feature during the April tour, and following a short recording session in RCA's Hollywood Studios at the end of March, Elvis held a rehearsal for the upcoming tour in the same studio, and the MGM cameras were on hand to capture these performances for possible inclusion in the documentary.
The tour opened on April 5, in Buffalo, New York, and whilst this wasn't filmed by the entire MGM crew, Robert Abel made a video tape of the show which would serve as guide to Elvis performance for the 12 MGM cameramen who were due to start filming live footage for the documentary during Elvis' evening performance at the coliseum in Hampton Roads, Virginia on April 9, 1972. RCA had actually planned to start recording shows earlier in the tour for the completion of their proposed "Standing Room Only" album, but due to a power malfunction in the recording equipment the recording didn't take place. It was decided that RCA would also start recording during the evening show at Hampton Roads on April 9, and as most of the new material premiered during the February 1972 Las Vegas season, had now been added to Elvis' stage repertoire, RCA were now considering scrapping the "Standing Room Only" project, and releasing their own "Elvis On Tour" soundtrack album made up entirely of recordings from Elvis' April Tour.
Filming and recording continued on April 10, in Richmond, April 14 in Greensboro, and finally in San Antonio on April 18. Excerpts from all of these shows were included in the final print of the MGM documentary, and whilst Elvis was in good form throughout the tour, it's generally accepted that after the opening night in Buffalo, (Elvis' opening shows were normally a bit special) the strongest show recorded during the tour was the Hampton concert, featuring Elvis in the Blue Nail jumpsuit, and it was footage from this concert that dominated the completed MGM documentary. Additional footage has since been used in a couple of additional documentary projects, and there are only a handful of songs left over from this show that remain unseen. Below is a breakdown of the set list and how the footage has been released to date:
2001 Theme
See See Rider (Elvis On Tour)
I Got A Woman/Amen (Elvis On Tour)
Never Been To Spain (unreleased footage)
You Gave Me A Mountain (Elvis On Tour)
Until It's Time For You To Go (unreleased footage)
Polk Salad Annie (Elvis On Tour)
Love Me (unreleased footage)
All Shook Up (The Lost Performances)
Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel (The Lost Performances)
Are You Lonesome Tonight (The Lost Performances)
I Can't Stop Loving You (The Lost Performances)
Hound Dog (unreleased footage)
Bridge Over Troubled Water (unreleased footage)
Suspicious Minds (partially released in Elvis On Tour)
For The Good Times (unreleased footage)
Introductions (unreleased footage)
An American Trilogy (This Is Elvis)
Love Me Tender (partially released in Elvis On Tour)
A Big Hunk O' Love (Elvis On Tour)
How Great Thou Art (The Lost Performances)
Sweet, Sweet Spirit - performed by JD Sumner and The Stamps Quartet (Elvis On Tour)
Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Elvis On Tour)
Can't Help Falling In Love (Elvis On Tour)
Closing Theme
Looking at the breakdown listed above, we can see that apart from the opening and closing themes and introductions, there are only six complete songs that remain unreleased, and two that are partially unreleased, some thirty years after the concert was filmed. It appears that MGM are not keen on producing a Special Edition of the "On Tour" movie at this time, so it looks as though we may have to wait a while longer to see more footage from this period of Elvis' career. The Hampton concert itself would make a great video/DVD release for the fans, and I would guess this could be produced at a fraction of the cost of re-editing the entire film, and giving it a full theatrical release. Whether this will happen at some point is anybody's guess, but I'm sure that if it does happen it will be gratefully received by the millions of Elvis fans around the world. What does seem certain is that BMG will finally release some of their "Elvis On Tour" recordings in the near future, either commercially or through the FTD collectors label, and whilst much of this is has already been bootlegged in acceptable sound quality, a re-mastered release from the multi track master tapes is no more than these recordings deserve.
Additional Information
At the time of writing the "Elvis On Tour" documentary which contains the majority of the released footage from the Hampton concert, is currently available on both video and VCD. "The Lost Performances" is also available on video and VCD, and "This Is Elvis" is still available on video. Unfortunately non of these documentaries have been released on DVD yet.
Although the "Standing Room Only" album was scrapped, a February 1972 Las Vegas recording of "An American Trilogy" was issued as a single in the summer of 1972, coupled with a 1971 Nashville studio recording of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". The live recording of "It's Impossible" was released by RCA on the 1973 album "Elvis" (including "Fool") and the rest of the recordings remained officially unreleased until after Elvis death.
An alternate February 1972 version of "Trilogy" was issued on the box set "Elvis Aron Presley" in 1980.
Two different February 1972 recordings of "A Big Hunk O' Love" have been issued to date. These were both assigned the same master serial number in error. The most common version first appeared on "The Legend Lives On" bootleg and subsequent BMG releases, (see below) whilst an alternate version was released on the album "Greatest Hits Volume 1 " in 1981.
Some of RCA's February 1972 recordings which were originally planned for the cancelled "Standing Room Only" album were released in excellent quality on the bootleg album "The Legend Lives On" (Presley Collectors Series) in 1976. The tracks were finally given an official release on BMG's 70's box set "Walk A Mile In My Shoes - The Essential '70's Masters" in 1995, but the running order was changed. The tracks were released again in 1999 on the CD album "Burning Love" but once again the running order was incorrect. The live master of "Little Sister/Get Back" and a slow blues version of "Hound Dog" which were also recorded in February, 1972 were released for the first time on the "Burning Love" CD in 1999.
Although RCA's "Standing Room Only" album was scrapped, the "Elvis On Tour" soundtrack album never materialized. The most likely reason for this is that after the April tour finished, Elvis opened his next tour in June 1972, with his first ever shows in New York City at Madison Square Garden. RCA decided to record two of the shows and rush release one of them them in attempt to beat the bootleggers. They even used almost identical cover artwork to what had originally been planned for the "Standing Room Only" release". As The Garden concerts were similar in content to the April tour the "Elvis On Tour" Album was scrapped. There were still some songs left in the vaults that hadn't been issued on the Madison Square Garden collection by the time the "Elvis On Tour" documentary was released in November 1972, and it may have been possible to compile an album made up of studio and live masters in the style of the "That's The Way It Is" album, but this didn't happen either. By this time plans were already underway for the satellite broadcast "Elvis Aloha From Hawaii" in January, 1973 and any songs that were still unreleased at that point would be re-recorded during the satellite broadcast, and added to the subsequent soundtrack album.
Whilst RCA's recording of the Hampton concert remains officially unreleased. Elvis' version of "An American Trilogy" from this show was included in the "This Is Elvis" documentary in 1981 and this version was included on the soundtrack album. When RCA released the LP/CD "Presley - The All Time Greatest Hits", they used the Hampton recording, rather than the February 1972 version, that was originally issued as a single.