After the release of "Elvis In Concert" many radio stations started to play "My Way" to commemorate the late singer. Of course Colonel Parker and RCA Records realized the business potential and issued the track on a single. To make it more attracktive "America (The Beautiful)", an unreleased recording from 1975, was put on the flipside. On Billboard's "Hot 100" the song had a run of 12 weeks and peaked at number 22. On the "Adult Contemporary Chart" it stayed 13 weeks and made it to number 6. The single had its most successful run on the "Hot Country Singles Chart". Here it could be found for 15 weeks and peaked at number 2. Within just three months more than 1.5 million units were sold in the US alone, so the RIAA presented a Gold Award to the Presley family as early as January 1978. Worldwide the single sold 3 million units which equals 450 million paid streams. Because the "Elvis In Concert" album isn't all that popular on Spotify, the single version accumulated just a million streams. However, the very similar rendition from the boxed set "Platinum - A Life In Music" was requested more than 30 million times. Elvis' version of "America (The Beautiful)" wasn't able to generate even 400,000 streams and therefore seems to be almost forgotten.

For the cover the Colonel picked two photos from May 1974. Even though the shots were barely three years old, Elvis looks way better than he had in the summer of 1977.

Today the album "Elvis In Concert" is available on the streaming platforms, so "My Way" can be found here, too. Unfortunately "America (The Beautiful)" was released on physical formats only.

Four years ago Elvis had released a performance of "My Way" on the double album "Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite". It was sung well, but also was arranged in a slick vegas-style without any edges. Nowadays it's obviously harder for him to present the song and he barely can hide his shortness of breath. But he also sounds real, he is literally living the song and from time to time he even manages to belt out certain lines in impressive style. The arrangement isn't as smooth as in 1973, it has more drama. In total -maybe because of Elvis' vocal shortcomings- this new version is more believable and therefore my favorite one.

By the way, the performance was recorded on June 21, 1977 in Rapid City/South Dakota and is also featured on the soundtrack of the television special "Elvis In Concert".

As incentive to buy RCA Records also offers  "America (The Beautiful)", a song never released before by Elvis. It was recorded in mono on December 13, 1975 in Las Vegas. For the 200th anniversary of the USA the king had included the song in his show and would continue to perform it throughout 1976. Vocally Elvis is much better than in the summer of 1977, his voice is full of power and sounds nothing but great.

The melody was written in 1888 by Samuel Ward and named "Materna". Later it was also used for the hymn "O Mother Dear Jerusalem". The lyrics "America (The Beautiful)" were written in 1893 by the English teacher Katherine Lee Bates. The song was performed by many artists, amongst them are Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra.