In 2014 Follow That Dream Records released a collector's edition of "Elvis", the second album of the king. As usual it was a set of two compact discs, housed in a 7" digipak and accompanied by a booklet with liner notes, pictures, etc. The first disc contained the tracks of the original album plus several songs, that were only available on singles at the time of release. The second disc featured Elvis' final performance on "The Louisiana Hayride". Because FTD sticks to physical formats, the album is not available for streaming.

I will focus on the tracks, that are not available on the album or on other RCA Victor releases. For a review of the album "Elvis" just tap HERE.

Back in the 1950s nobody could forsee that outtakes would become a business issue half a century later. So RCA Victor trashed a lot of these tapes to make room for the masters, which were meant for release. So we find just a few outtakes of "Rip It Up" and the 5th take of "Old Shep" on this compilation. The audio restauration was done by Sebastian Jeansson.

Take number ten doesn't last half a minute, the next attempt fails at the drum intro. Now Elvis reaches the first line, tries again and doesn't get any further. "What's happening?" he asks. Take 14 is a complete performance, the guitar solo by Scotty Moore sounds different to the known version. After some studio talk Hugh Jarret sings "Natalie Wood" (a reference to the actress, who was present at the session). In general the performance works well, but Elvis' voice cracks on "union hall".

Take 16 is a complete performance, but the king obviously has problems to control his voice. The following attempt is also a complete one, but now the singer wants to meet his girl at the social hall instead of the union hall. On take number 18 Elvis' voice sounds shaky wherefore Scotty and Bill more or less stop to play. "Hey Nick, you wanna play drums?" asks the king. Elvis had befriended Nick Adams and Natalie Wood while he was shooting "Love Me Tender" in Hollywood. The relationship between the singer and the actress went a little further at the time, therefore he stayed in contact with Nick much longer. The session ends with take number 19, which is the released version.

Elvis recorded five takes of "Old Shep" and selected the first one for release. By mistake some pressings of the album "Elvis" featured the 5th take and became a highly sought-after item. Compared to the master the ballad is played a tad slower and the king sings it with a touch of blues in his voice.

Shortly after the release of his second album Elvis appeared on "The Louisiana Hayride" for the final time. Because the singer had to appear on the radio show every weekend, the contract started to hinder his career. So Colonel Parker bought him out of the contract for $10,000 and a huge, final farewell concert. It was staged on December 15, 1956 at Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport/Louisiana in front of 9,000 screaming fans. Besides his well known hits Elvis also performed some songs from his latest album. For the collector's edition of "Elvis" FTD used the same recording, that Sony already had released on their boxed set "The Young Man With The Big Beat". Unfortunately Vic Anesini made a mistake when he mastered the recording without correcting the speed. The recording runs a tad too slow. It's not really a big issue, because the deviation isn't all that big and the audio quality isn't the best anyway, but still a mistake like this could have been ironed out.

The recording starts at the first bars of "Heartbreak Hotel". Every move Elvis makes is greeted with screams.

Ironically the king announces the next tune by saying "Here's a sad song". The performance is cool and effective, far better than later in the 1970s. Even though "Long Tall Sally" is a song from his latest album, Elvis doesn't promote the record.

Now the king greets the fans, mentiones "The Louisiana Hayride" and introduces The Jordanairs. After that he announces "I Was The One", the b-side of his number one hit "Heartbreak Hotel". Elvis is fooling around with the lyrics, sings "I'll never know, I whish it would snow" and "Who learned the lesson when she broke my neck". In-between he laughs at the fans' reactions, which he triggers himself by emphasizing certain lines, etc. It's interesting to hear, how much self-irony the young singer already had and how well he knew how to work an audience.

Elvis announces "the song from the movie, in which I got blasted". He's hinting at the hysterical reactions of his fans, when they found out, that his character was killed at the end of the movie. The king performs "Love Me Tender" with emotion, but still has to laugh at times about the screaming of the girls. At one time he also sings the word "when" in exaggerated southern accent.

His performance of "Don't Be Cruel" is interesting, because Elvis doesn't copy his own record, but the performance of Billy Ward & The Dominoes, whom he had seen in Las Vegas.

Now Elvis mentiones his new album. He also calls his audience to order, of course with a touch of irony. In contrast to the sped-up, half-hearted performances of the 1970s the king presents the ballad the way it should be done. The tempo is matches the studio version and he sings with real emotion. I also like Scotty Moore's guitar throw-ins.

The rock'n'roll king toys a bit with the word "well", but not as long as he would do in the later part of his concert years. The drumming is interesting here, because D.J. Fontana plays different to the studio recording.

Elvis announces another "song from the album" and performs "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again". The uptempo country song is presented very well and it's obvious, how much the singer likes this kind of music.

By now the fans are completely hysterical and therefore it's not a bad idea to sing another song, that's a bit more quiet. Elvis announces the tune with "All I could do was stand there paralyzed". When the show was released on the boxed set "The Young Man With The Big Beat" this song was a big surprise. Until that point it wasn't known, that Elvis ever performed "Paralyzed" live in concert.

Because of the many exploding flashbulbs (back in those days the flash worked just once) Elvis jokingly asks to audience to keep them to themselves, because they would not be needed on stage. The king introduces the silly song with "As a great philosopher once said..." and yells "You ain't nothing but a hound dog". At first the song is performed in its normal rock'n'roll tempo, but then the pace is reduced and Elvis moves in extremely sexually suggestive style. The result is a delirium of the audience. The rock'n'roll king leaves them in this condition. We don't get to hear his exit, the recording is faded after the final bars of "Hound Dog".