We'll Make You Happy
Jun 23, 2002
A couple of weeks ago this 2CD set was released on the Savoy-label. It contains mainly recordings from the April 1975 Tour, including "the never before released soundboard recording of the April 28, 1975 Lakeland (Fl) Show". This implies that the rest of the set is available elsewhere, and indeed it is. The Macon show can be found on Rock Legend's "From Macon To Georgia", and the Jacksonville show on CD2 can be found on Vicky's "A Damn Fine Show".
Design
The cover is very simple, containing some pictures by Keith Alverson and just the track listing, including the date and city. We've seen both better and worse covers.
Content
The first CD starts with a part of the Macon show from April 24. The sound quality is more than fair, with the instruments, especially the piano, very upfront in the mix. Because of this mix we get e.g. an extremely swinging version of "Big Boss Man". Elvis really gave it all that evening, with wonderful versions of "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me", "It's Midnight", "My Boy" and "I'll Remember You" (unfortunately incomplete). In between these beautiful ballads "Promised Land", "Burning Love" and "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" (again much piano, and Elvis getting lost a bit) took care for a driven, rockin' balance in the show. Unfortunately the introductions disturb this otherwise fantastic track list so far.
The second part of CD 1 features the Lakeland (Fl) Show. Elvis asked the Stamps to do a song during a show regularly. We like it often, but not this version of "When It's My Time", it gave us a cold shower after the good Elvis performances on the first part of the CD. Anyway, the Lakeland show is of less sound quality than the Macon show but the part of the show we get gives not too many doubles, unfortunately the introductions are among them. "Help Me Make It Through The Night" starts very promising, but probably kissing the audience disturbs it halfway. "Let Me Be There", "An American Trilogy" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song" give a nice addition to the strong first half of the CD.
CD 2 starts with the April 25 show in Jacksonville. Basically it's more of the same, again in a more than fair sound quality, but less than the Macon show. The song list is almost the same as in that show, with the exclusion of "Promised Land" and "Fairytale", but including those …. introductions. There was more on the Jacksonville-tape than on the one from Macon, therefore we get a complete version of "I'll Remember You" and "Let Me Be There", "An American Trilogy" and "Funny How Time Slips Away" as an extra. The CD gets a very strange filler with "What Now My Love" from the Las Vegas Midnight show on February 17, 1973. Not only the year, but also the sound quality do not fit on this CD set. Because of the year the last part is better in place. It's summer 1975, but exact date and city are unknown. We wonder why it is included anyway, since we were not exactly waiting for a part of "Amen/ I Got A Woman", a pretty common dialogue and a part of "Love Me".
Conclusion
A better name for this set would have been "The Introductions". That boring part of an Elvis show three times on a CD-set is too much. We agree that it should be in a complete show, for completeness' sake. Since these shows are incomplete anyway, it would have been better to cut them out; at least twice.
Also for completeness' sake we can recommend this set to hardcore collectors only. Other people better save their money for more interesting releases, with more complete and unreleased material.
Autor
