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"Today Tomorrow And Forever Reviews

In the U.S. the long awaited box-set "Today, Tomorrow And Forever" was released. We have the first reviews right here.


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New CD Gives Elvis a Fresh Spin

By David Hinckley

Elvis Presley has been dead now for longer than he was a rock-'n'-roll star. It isn't slowing him down.

For tens of thousands of hard-core Elvis fans from around the world, the highlight of this summer will be Elvis Week in Memphis, Aug. 10-18, where they will mark the 25th anniversary of Presley's death on Aug. 16, 1977.

For everyone else, BMG Heritage has compiled a four-CD box set, "Elvis: Today, Tomorrow and Forever," which comes out today and includes 100 previously unreleased recordings, some live and some studio outtakes.

And that's just the beginning.

Six Elvis hits, including "Burning Love," can be heard on the soundtrack of the movie "Lilo and Stitch," which came out Friday. Just last week, Elvis scored a No. 1 record in the United Kingdom with a remix of an obscure movie track, "A Little Less Conversation."

Also, Random House is publishing three Elvis books this summer, and on Sept. 24, BMG is releasing another Elvis CD, "One," with his 30 No. 1 hits.

The songs on "Today, Tomorrow and Forever" span his career, from an eerily unadorned early-'50s solo rendition of "Harbor Lights" through the swelling ballads of the Vegas years.

Amusing moments include a nervous radio deejay in 1956 promising Elvis will sing his big hit "Heartbreak Motel," and Elvis himself hacking around with the lyrics of "I Was the One," replacing "she broke my heart" with "she broke my leg."

"Yes, it sometimes would seem like there's a bottomless well of Elvis material," Alex Miller, BMG Heritage senior vice president, admits with a laugh. "[But] what we've heard so far is still just a portion of the available material."

BMG and the Elvis office at Graceland in Memphis receive calls every week, says Miller, from people who have tapes they think are of Elvis.

"About 90% of them are not," he says. "But we listen to all of it, because you never know when someone might have turned a tape recorder on at the right moment."

"Conversation" is being released as a single tomorrow in the U.S., and though it is considered less likely that radio stations here will jump on it, Miller says it should still provide valuable exposure.

"It introduces Elvis to a generation that may know him mostly by name or reputation," he says.

Meanwhile, Elvis also is gaining more respect among scholars. The University of Memphis is offering a day-long seminar in August on Elvis as a historic figure.

On the lighter side, two Memphis women — Cindy Hazen and Betty Harper — are marketing a three-pack of "Elvis Spices," called "Jailhouse Rock," "King Creole" and "GI Blues."

So even though Elvis Week will feature the annual all-night candlelight vigil, during which thousands of fans silently file past his grave, at no time soon does it look as if the King will be resting in peace.

Source: Daily News

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His heart is true measure of Elvis' work

by Terry Lawson

Almost every time I write about the Beatles, I get a call from a local Elvis authority who likes to argue about whose influence on popular music was greater. As someone whose impressionable years straddled the reign of both, I usually ground my argument for the Beatles in their recording career, which had some low points, for sure, but none as embarrassing as "Queenie Wahine's Papaya." Nor did the band ever cobble together albums from leftovers.

Presley released nearly 10 times as much music, but only a half-dozen of his albums are essential. If you have the "Sunrise" reissue, containing the glorious Sun sides, and the three volumes of "Elvis Golden Records," with the best of the pre-Army RCA recordings, you don't really need the '50s albums. The '60s are covered by the post-Army "Elvis Is Back!," the 1968 "Elvis NBC-TV Special" and 1969's "From Elvis in Memphis."

The recording-studio Elvis has been better treated in death than in life. Colonel Parker's death and a settlement between Presley's estate and RCA -- to which Parker had sold the masters for a song -- ended the flood of shoddy compilations. The keys to the vault were handed to Ernst Jorgensen, who has overseen a number of sets designed to restore Presley's recording reputation.

The latest, to be released Tuesday, is "Elvis: Today, Tomorrow & Forever" (RCA, $69.98). With 100 outtakes and alternate takes, it proves again that when Elvis was making music he cared about, he was a perfectionist, and even an innovator.

The four-CD set begins with a previously unheard alternate version of "Harbor Lights." Thirty minutes later, Elvis, guitarist Scotty Moore and bass player Bill Black would start fooling around on "That's All Right," the marriage of R&B and country would be consummated and "Harbor Lights" put away in the closet like a bridesmaid's dress.

Next comes a string of interpretations of R&B hits by Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Little Richard and Big Mama Thornton. I'm always pained when Presley is accused of ripping off black singers while the Beatles, the Stones and Dylan are credited with paying them tribute. Presley's performances of these songs don't whiten them in any way; they're as wild and raucous as the originals.

Songs from "Jailhouse Rock," "Flaming Star" and "Kid Galahad" remind us that not all the movie music was dreck. And Elvis' excitement over being back in a studio with Southern musicians instead of L.A. session players is palpable on alternate versions of "In the Ghetto" and "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" from his '69 Memphis sessions.

The rap on Elvis' '70s studio recordings is that they're the maudlin musings of a broken mess, which "Pieces of My Life" appears to validate, and that they are careless, which they aren't. Even his version of George Jones' She Thinks I Still Care," -- cut at Graceland, where musicians would wait hours for Elvis to stumble downstairs -- reveals him putting his enlarged and mistreated heart into every overwrought note.

Half of "Today, Tomorrow & Forever" allows us to accompany Elvis over the yellow brick road; the other half is gravel, but he never quits walking. You can have Elvis the icon; I'll take the singer who wouldn't quit.

Source: Detroit Free Press

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On CDs, Elvis Is Still Rockin'

By Steve Morse

You're not entering the Twilight Zone yet, but you may be soon. This is the summer of Elvis hype - the 25th anniversary of Presley's death is Aug. 16 - and waves of Elvis goodies are on their way, as marketing departments work overtime to satiate the anticipated demand.

The first wave is a four-CD boxed set, ''Today, Tomorrow & Forever,'' which RCA issues on Tuesday. It's a sometimes transfixing but wildly inconsistent set of previously unreleased music that spans the King's career. More on that in a moment.

The box is just the teaser. A separate compilation, ''Elvis 30 #1 Hits,'' patterned after the best-selling Beatles release of hits two years ago, is due later this summer. And because RCA's parent company, Bertelsmann, also owns. Random House, there are three Elvis-related Random House books in the pipeline: ''The Elvis Treasures'' (a coffee-table biography); ''The Girls' Guide to Elvis'' (a look at his romantic life); and ''Lilo & Stitch,'' a children's book companion to a new Disney film with an Elvis connection.

The film features six Elvis songs and is targeting the pre-pubescent generation. An older, teenager-plus generation is the target of a newly remixed single of a 1968 Elvis tune, ''A Little Less Conversation.'' It was remixed by Dutch DJ JXL (who was formerly known as Junkie XL but had to modify his name because Presley's estate didn't appreciate the drug reference). The song will come out in two weeks in the US but has already gone to No. 1 in England, where it made history because it broke a tie with the Beatles for most No. 1 hits in the UK. (If you're keeping score, Elvis now has 18 to the Beatles' 17.) And in a further marketing stroke, the song has been used in a Nike ad for the World Cup.

The older generation - the people generally thought to have a few more dollars to spend - represent the target audience of ''Today, Tomorrow & Forever,'' especially if they are collectors. And of course, some Elvis collectors have to scoop up everything in sight.

The marketing gurus are getting clever in coming up with Elvis boxes. Last year's entry was the four-CD ''Elvis: Live in Las Vegas,'' which collected 20 years of performances in the neon city. And it has been 10 years ago since the release of the impressive five-CD box ''Elvis: The King of Rock 'n' Roll - The Complete '50s Masters,'' which tracked his rockabilly hiccup and hip-shaking days.

The new box is a chronological look at his entire career, from the mightiest of highs to the schlockiest of lows. Too bad RCA didn't just release the first of the four CDs, because that's the keeper. It features seven newly discovered live tracks (from a private collector) of a 1956 concert at Robinson Memorial Auditorium in Little Rock, Ark. It's like listening to an early Beatlemania set. A local DJ, Ray Green, sounds as nervous as Elvis as he introduces something he calls ''Heartbreak Motel.'' The DJ also gives a fractured, running commentary: ''Presley just walked out on stage. ... He's fumbling with his microphone now. ... He's giving his cues to the boys and he's winding up his legs right now, and here he goes!''

The Little Rock set speeds from ''Heartbreak Hotel'' to ''Long Tall Sally'' (''recorded by a friend of mine, Little Richard,'' says Elvis), ''I Was the One,'' ''Money Honey,'' Ray Charles's ''I Got a Woman,'' Carl Perkins' 'Blue Suede Shoes'' (about which Elvis jokes, ''We've been doing this song for 25 to 30 years across the country''), and ''Hound Dog".'

The exhilaration of this live performance should keep collectors happy, but far less successful are the alternate studio takes that fill much of the box. Even though some of these come from newly discovered tapes, many are just a mess. And do we really need to hear take 48 of ''Doncha' Think It's Time'' and take 26 of ''Can't Help Falling in Love''? OK, in some cases, yes. ''It might seem like we have all the other takes, but we don't. Many were taped over in those days,'' says Alex Miller, vice president of BMG Heritage and a prime compiler of the new box. Miller also notes that ''almost every day we get a phone call from someone saying, `I have a tape, and I'm certain it's Elvis.''' Miller often sends such tapes to Elvis expert Ernst Jorgenson in Denmark, who ''can tell from the opening two notes,'' he says. ''He knows Elvis's phrasing that well.''

The new box, however, has too many syrupy outtakes of ballads that Elvis sang for B movies such as ''Blue Hawaii,'' ''Girls! Girls! Girls!'' and ''Fun In Acapulco.'' They're just going to remind you of how his autocratic manager, Col. Tom Parker, made some terrible decisions in taking the young, raw Elvis and steering him into Hollywood snooze land. But if you can procure the Arkansas live tracks on the first of the four CDs, you'll realize, even after all these years, that there are still some new Elvis gems that shine no matter how deep the marketing is piled on top."