Many of us in the Elvis world have throughout the years, have constantly been looking for that little gold nugget that has something new. This may come in the guise of whatever level your anal Elvis obsession ascends to. This could be range from a newly discovered unheard show, a one off live rendition or even a few seconds of studio chat during a session that had never been released previously.
It is unfortunate that with the plethora of bootlegs and the formation of the Follow That Dream label by Sony, that all such nuggets are now at something of a premium, and the discovery of something truly unique becomes rarer with each passing month. As a result, hard core collectors such as myself are becoming resigned to having a deeper appreciation of the release of a live album which contains the single rendition of a song in that particular year.
This live rendition of My Boy falls into that later category, being the single live rendition of the song in 1974. The show from which it originates, Elvis’ Las Vegas dinner show of 28 August 1974, has never been officially released. However, three songs, recorded on the soundboard, were released as bonus songs in 2018 on Follow That Dream’s Las Vegas ’74 album. In 2021, the superb bootleg label Straight Arrow, released previously unheard audience recordings of both the 28 August shows, dinner and midnight in wonderful sound.
This creates the opportunity to provide a video containing both recordings in order to compare and decide for yourself which is best. Many dismiss audience recordings immediately out of hand, often due to the sample that they may have heard was from very poor. Whilst this is often the case, many are of outstanding listenable quality and give the listener a unique perspective and an actual in the room feel.
The rendition of My Boy itself, is one of the most intimate live readings by Elvis and is obviously unrehearsed and unexpected by the band. This is shown by the orchestra not being heard after “before it gets too late” as normal but first heard after “love has finally died”.
As with all of these videos, to get the most out of the re-edited audio, I highly recommend you use ear /headphones and turn the volume up as much as you dare!
29 апр 2023
