In October 1968 the stores of The Singer Company started to sell an album called "Singer Presents Elvis Singing Flaming Star And Others". The record was a part of the sponsoring contract between the sewing machine company and NBC/Universal regarding the television special "SINGER presents Elvis" that was to be aired in December. After six months RCA Victor's own budget label CAMDEN took over and sold the album regularly under the name of "Elvis Sings Flaming Star". To the average fan it looked like one of the king's usual albums, albeit it just featured ten songs and was sold at a lower price.

On April 19, 1969 the album entered the "Top LPs Chart" and never made it past number 96, even though it was retailed 500,000 times in its initial sales period. To avoid, that labels could "buy" good rankings by offering the records at low prices, Billboard calculated their charts by the turnover in USD. Therefore "Elvis Sings Flaming Star" (as well as all the following CAMDEN releases of the king) charted comparably low in the US. However, the RIAA calculated their awards by the number of sold units and honored the record with Gold (1999) and Platinum (2004). In Great Britain the charts were also calculated by sold units and therefore Elvis was able to score a number 1 hit with his budget release. Worldwide "Elvis Sings Flaming Star" sold 2 million copies, which translates to 300 million paid streams of the complete album or 3 billion paid streams of individual tracks. Everybody was quick to realize, that this cheapie with nothing but archive material had sold twice as good as "Speedway".  Nowadays the popularity of the compilation has decreased a lot, on Spotify "Elvis Sings Flaming Star" barely found 6 million listeners.

The cover photo was made in 1967 in connection to the western comedy "Stay Away, Joe". The backside of the sleeve was used to advertise the "Golden Records" series as well as the king's gospel albums. The first edition of "Elvis Sings Flaming Star" included a photo card.

On the streaming platforms "Elvis Sings Flaming Star" is presented the way it was issued in 2016 as part of the set "The Album Collection". For this project all tracks were scanned with high-resolution equipment and remastered. Therefore the album can be presented with the golden Hi-Res emblem. The better sound of these versions is owed exclusively to the new mastering (the elimination of interfering noise). Because first one cannot turn an analogue recording into a high resolution recording just by scanning the tape with hd equipment and second even an old cd with 16 bit/44.1 kHz exceeds the auditory sense of a human being.

With the exception of "Flaming Star" all tracks on this album were previously unreleased. The majority of the songs had been recorded for movies, but there also was a regular studio recording and an outtake from the tv special "SINGER presents Elvis". In total the album has a running time of 20:30 minutes.

On  August 8, 1960 Elvis taped "Black Star", the title song of his latest movie, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood/California. After 13 takes he also produced 5 insert-takes, the master was a splice of the takes 13 and 5. Unfortunately 20th Century Fox re-named the western to "Flaming Star", so Sid Wayne and Sherman Edwards had to adjust their song and Elvis had to record it again. He did so on October 7th and needed 6 takes to archive a satisfactory result. Originally RCA Victor hadn't planned to release any music from that movie, but when several radio stations played illegal copies of "Flaming Star", the label hastily compiled an extended player named "Elvis By Request" and included this very song.

This walz was known from Elvis' current movie "Live A Little, Love A Little". He had recorded it on March 7, 1968 at Western Recorders in Hollywood/California. While the film featured the seventh take, this album presented performance number 17. "Wonderful World" was written by Guy Fletcher and Doug Flett, the first artist to record the tune was Cliff Richard. The song is no highlight, but certainly much better than many other carols Elvis performed in his movies.

Elvis had recorded "Night Life" on July 9, 1963 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood/California for the MGM production "Viva Las Vegas" within 14 takes. Finally the tune wasn't used in the movie and the king had also refused to have it released on the compilation "Elvis For Everyone!" in 1965. Three years later he had changed his mind and approved the track. As the title suggests the song by Bill Giant, Bernie Baum and Florence Kaye deals with the narrator's joys of the night life (neon lights, gamblers and beautiful women). It's an above average movie tune.

The Presley fans knew the track from the western comedy "Stay Away, Joe", which had been shown in the cinemas earlier this year. The bluesy song was written by Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman and is much better than most of the other stuff the king sang in his movies. The recording was done at RCA Studio B in Nashville/Tennessee on October 1, 1967. The band recorded a music track within three takes, to which Elvis later added his voice. It's not known how many attempts he needed.

The Chuck Berry song was not connected to a movie and was recorded for a regular release at RCA Studio B in Nashville/Tennessee. The 14th take was selected for release and enhanced with the guitar playing of Jerry Reed. He needed five takes for his part. The narrator describes several stages of his life. Elvis updated the lyrics and moved the military mission from Yokohama to Vietnam. He's really on fire and it's obvious, how much fun he has with this song. To me it's a mystery, why Elvis agreed to waste such a great track on a budget album. Well, maybe he simply didn't like his performance as much as I do.

Randy Starr and Fred Wise compiled the traditionals for the movie "Viva Las Vegas". Rusty (Elvis) sings it in a casino in front of a bunch of hillbillies. The recording was made at Radio Recorders in Hollywood/California on July 10, 1963. The king recorded 9 takes of the medley. Because professional singers would have sounded too good for a casino audience, the part was done by the instrumentalists. Back in 1965 "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" / "The Eyes Of Texas" had also been suggested to the king for the "Elvis For Everyone!" album. Once again he seemed to have changed his mind by 1968 and approved the release.

Elvis recorded "She's A Machine" on September 29, 1966 at the Paramount Scoring Stage in Hollywood/California. Take 13 was intended to be used in the movie "Easy Come, Easy Go" and take 15 was supposed to be used on the soundtrack release. Because the king didn't like the song by Joy Byers at all, Paramount and RCA Victor agreed to file it away. Obviously Elvis had lowered his standards, otherwise he wouldn't have approved so many songs he had rejected before.

The same applies to "Do The Vega". It had been recorded for "Viva Las Vegas" but finally wasn't used in the movie. In 1965 RCA Victor suggested a release on the compilation album "Elvis For Everyone!", but the singer opposed and the track stayed in the vaults. By 1968 he had no concerns to have it released. Even though the Vega wouldn't have been a smash, the song itself is not bad at all and certainly above the level of most of the movie tunes Elvis recorded between 1965 and 1967. That's quite surprising, because it was written by Bill Giant, Bernie Baum and Florence Kaye, who had penned so many of these mediocre songs. By the way: "Do The Vega" was taped on July 10, 1963 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood/California.

The management of The Singer Company insisted on having a song from the sponsored show on the album. Because Colonel Parker and RCA Victor had no intention in sharing anything from the soundtrack they wanted to sell, they opted for a performance of "Tiger Man". It had been recorded on June 27, 1968 during the informal live session (the 8:00 pm edition), but was cut from the show in favor of "Blue Christmas". The song was written by Sam Burns and Joe Hill Louis, the first one to release it was Rufus Thomas in 1953. Elvis' voice is rough, he's full of power and rocks even harder than in his glory days.