 Elvis Presley 70s Elvis retains a coolness factor that seems indomitable, impossible to kill despite millions of Elvis impersonators out there trying to make a punchline out of it. And yeah, there's some joke value to the idea of 70s Elvis, or at least the conventionally-accepted caricature of what he actually was. Here's why 70s Elvis stays cool: He didn't give a shit. Like Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, James Dean, or fill-in-your-favorite-icon-of-cool, 70s Elvis didn't need anyone's approval. He may have become a bizarre distortion of what he was in his prime, but somehow he made that seem like a natural extension of being Elvis. As such, 70s Elvis is my favorite Elvis. 50s Elvis bores me, 60s Elvis is a forgettable wisp of a pop star … but 70s Elvis made the world his world. And yes, he was in on the joke, too. There are millions of discs out there that let you drop in on 70s Elvis, mostly in his Vegas days, sleepwalking his way through a 250-song repertoire with a crack band in front of room after room of rapturous fans who would clearly settle for whatever 70s Elvis might bestow upon them. Some nights he might have even cared about what he was doing. Live at the International Hotel, from '69, is the best one you can find, though it's sadly not been reissued on CD with any respect. That album features, among others, an absolutely scorching senven-and-a-half-minute "Suspicious Minds" that is entirely atypical of live Elvis, in that he really seems to believe in himself at that moment. On Stage, from '70, followed that disc, with the focus not as much on Elvis's own stuff as on his covers of the era. Though a lesser album, On Stage has been reissued with love, expanded to present a more well-rounded view of Elvis's set at the time. This night, he didn't much care. He mumbles his way through a bunch of B.S., only intermittently connecting with the material (his then-recent hits – "Suspicious Minds," "In the Ghetto," "Kentucky Rain," and "Don't Cry Daddy" – fare best), and the audience (at one point he casually blurts out "Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got the flu" – almost by way of apology). The covers range from utterly perfunctory ("Release Me," "Sweet Caroline," a medley of "Yesterday" into "Hey Jude") to rollicking (Del Shannon's "Runaway," a slightly-too-smarmy "Polk Salad Annie"). 70s Elvis sounds much more inspired tackling epic ballads ("The Wonder of You" and "I Can't Stop Loving You" are both almost great; "Let it Be Me" is devastating). "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" may be the brightest spot – a crossburnin' gospel rocker that obviously made a lot of sense to the man. In between songs, Elvis cracks his weird jokes, flirts a lot, and at a couple of points semi-harasses female audience members, making for some nice awkwardness. It's non-essential on every level, but better than a lot of Elvis live records, and certainly it bears the best cover art of any of 'em. On Stage is a snapshot of a man having as much fun as he can with a mode life that he can just take or leave.
Review by Zachariah Woody |