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To be honest 1976 is not an easy Elvis live-in-concert year to review. There were no major set-list changes as had happened in earlier years, no dramatic "emotional roller-coaster" of 1974 and no high-flying "Huntsville" 1975 excitements. Apart from the exceptional blast of the final December 1976 Tour (inspired by the challenge of new-young-love Ginger) 1976 in retrospect seems a slow-grind continuing the inevitable downward spiral. By early 1976 Elvis’ set-list had become routine. I Got A Woman would always feature the JD Sumner double dive-bombing routine, the Introduction and solos would be drawn out with the inclusion of Bass and Drum solos, usually two piano solos plus Early Morning Rain and Love Letters. Hurt and America the Beautiful became the regular dramatic highlights with only the occasional surprise addition (Danny Boy!) making a real difference. A true sign-of-the times was that from the 1976 April Tour #17 through to his August Tour #21 Elvis basically wore his "Bicentennial Suit"at every single concert, surely a sign of a bored performer. And that blowsy-shirtsleeves-and-waistcoat look did Elvis no good at all as a cool-looking jumpsuit. However despite some of his worst concert ever in mid-1976, three months later there was a definite and positive change in the month leading up to Elvis' October 1976 Tour #22 and then in December Elvis would end the year with some of his best performances in a long, long time. Unfortunately for collectors the number of Elvis soundboards available in good quality increase at a similar rate that Elvis’ performances declined. His tours also got shorter and shorter. This means that if FTD are to release a soundboard from every Elvis tour we will always get more concerts from 1976 than any other year. This is a real shame as there are proportionately far fewer good quality soundboards from Elvis’ sensational early years of touring. FTD have now released twenty concerts from 1976 - compared to only two from 1971.
Elvis: St Louis / Spokane 1976 - FTD review by Geoffrey Mc Donnell / Piers Beagley With so many 1976 soundboards already released by FTD, and also available on bootlegs, the idea behind this FTD double-pack seems to be to give us two (mostly) unreleased 1976 performances. And with both of them being “Closing Shows” there is hope that Elvis would be giving that little bit extra. Coincidentally Elvis wore his “dark blue Aztec’ suit at both concerts, the only times he would wear it on-tour in the whole of 1976. (Note that Elvis would wear it again twice during his Lake Tahoe season including, yet again, the Closing Show)
But, hey, a ‘bonus’ for both concerts is that Elvis clearly states and actually knows where he is for each performance and at least hasn't yet crashed to the depths of the mid-year disasters. However by 1976 Elvis’ set-list and shows had become all-too-routine with lengthy and boring “Introductions” plus the ‘I Got a Woman / Amen’ warm-up often running to over 7 minutes, so collectors have to be aware that discovering essential, inspirational, new performances over 40 years later is never really going to happen.
The MUSIC CD1: St Louis, 22nd March 1976 Closing Show. - Attendance 10,200. 52 minutes. 2001 / See See Rider, the first thing to note is that the sound is very good indeed (almost excellent ‘mono’). The audio mix is well balanced and there is a thrill generated by Larrie Londin’s opening drumming, an excitement which reminds one of the ‘Holding Back The Years’ bootleg. In fact it is the difference between Londin’s lighter drum style and Ronnie Tutt’s heavier background power-thump that is the major fascination of this new release. Elvis comes on sounding ‘ok’ (slightly ‘foggy’) but it’s a very standard opening. At the start of ‘I Got a Woman / Amen’ Elvis sounds tired and there’s no thrill despite the audience obviously lapping it. By 1976 being in the presence of Elvis was enough. The song gets an ordinary J.D. Sumner 'Amen' ending but with no reprise as Elvis wants to get on with the show. Elvis then welcomes everyone and comments that he has “played the Kiel Auditorium many times before”. ‘Love Me’ is taken at a slower pace than usual and there is a delight in hearing Londin’s light playing and cute drum triplets in the place of Ronnie Tutt’s more routine thump. ‘Let Me Be There’ on the other hand is faster and almost has a false start with Elvis saying, “No wait” but they keep going. In the middle you can hear Elvis saying to a loving fan, “be careful.. whoa, choking..” where I presume she had grabbed his necklace. The crowd is super-enthusiastic with Elvis telling them, “You have to go back to your seats”. During a routine ‘You Gave Me A Mountain’ Elvis changes a line to “tired of the sound” (later in the concert Elvis actually comments that the on-stage sound is bad). Of real note is that just before the end of the song you can hear where a woman rushes the stage and crashes into Elvis smashing his microphone into his teeth. (This moment is captured on fan video). Elvis continues to the end of the song as the bodyguards pull her off but it obviously throws Elvis. At the end Elvis says with a laugh, “Lord have Mercy, kid! What the matter with you folks?” Elvis then kicks in to ‘Steamroller Blues’ to recover - and it’s not bad at all with a cool, lazy groove and with Shane Keister’s bluesier piano to the fore – sounding very different to Glen Hardin. Next, during the ‘oldies’ ‘All Shook Up’ / ‘Teddy Bear/Don’t be Cruel’ Elvis’ vocal is rather muted - in fact Elvis does not sound as strong vocally on this particular show as he did the rest of this tour. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ is better featuring some cool Shane Keister piano and again sounding quite bluesy. ‘Love Me Tender’ “my first song” is also a surprisingly good version quite tenderly sung again matched by Londin’s lighter drumming style. For 1976 ‘Polk Salad Annie’ is pretty good (while nothing like the classic 1970 versions of course) and Elvis teases the crowd with some karate action and some traditional left / right low knee bends. The rhythm section of Larrie Londin / Jerry Scheff plus Shane Keister’s piano again help push things along. The 'Introductions' are slightly ‘edited’ as Sherrill Neilson intro cuts to the end of James Burton playing ‘What’d I Say’ instrumental. Larry Londin’s Drum solo is complete but disappointingly short with Elvis laughing, “Is that it? Thank you Larrie”. Jerry Scheff plays some blues and new player Shane Keister plays a brief piano instrumental. The regular David Briggs electric piano solo, Charlie Hodge mention and Joe Guercio Orchestra ‘Hail, Hail Rock N’ Roll’ all follow. Elvis then introduces ‘And I Love You So’ as “from my last album” and it is very nicely sung, another highlight, along with Kathy Westmoreland’s high soprano. ‘Hurt’ should be the concert highlight but instead Elvis gets the words slightly mixed up and it is a truly terrible version. His voice wavers and drifts off-key, no wonder there is no reprise this night. ‘Hound Dog’ is the ‘usual’ throwaway but at least helps mask the tragedy of ‘Hurt’. ‘America’ is introduced, “Since it is our country’s bicentennial year”, and is carefully sung and a decent version. Elvis then asks for the house lights to be turned up and mentions the Kiel Auditorium “look up there at the rafters” and complains about the sound, “the sound on the stage is weird and we can’t hear ourselves up here at all”. ‘Funny How Time slips Away’ is another highlight with some great jazzy piano courtesy of Shane Keister along with some delightful lighter style Larrie Londin drumming. Very nice and bluesy. Elvis then says a quick, “Until the next time we see you, God Bless and Adios” before closing with ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ and nearly all the Closing Vamp plus Al Dvorin ‘Elvis has left the building / super concession stands’ announcements. So while this concert has excellent sound, as a Closing Show it is a disappointing with even the local newspaper review noting, “Elvis was only on stage for 50 minutes”. It seems highly likely that the woman crashing into Elvis banging the microphone into his teeth would have stopped his usual end-of-the-tour positive mood. This show was after all the shortest show of this tour and probably the least interesting. Dick Grob (RIP) in his 2016 book ‘Safe & Sound’ noted that after this concert Elvis asked him to tell Col Parker not to schedule a St Louis show again. To be honest if you already have the 21st March 1976 Evening Show (‘Holding Back the Years’) sadly this all too short concert offers you nothing new. Uultimately it is a pretty short and fairly ordinary show, which is more or less exactly what newspaper reviews noted at the time. Note that despite a spare 27 minutes, which could have featured the first part of the Johnson City soundboard for instance, we get nothing ‘extra’.
Again this cd opens with the full 2001 Theme before opening riff and See See Rider. While the sound quality and audio mix is ‘good’, unfortunately it is less bright and more muffled compared to St Louis. Note that there is an obvious edit in See See Rider but we are not sure why and you can also immediately note that Ronnie Tutt is back thumping those drums! Also worth noting is that Tony Brown now replaced Glen Hardin on piano and would stay with the TCB band until the very end. Elvis sounds ‘ok’ if just ‘slightly sleepy & thick-tongued’. Looking at a fan in the front row Elvis asks, “I wonder if I saw her last time I was here” and obviously in good humour laughs, “You paid to see this? You could have stayed at home and watched Policewoman”. ‘I Got a Woman / Amen’ is very extended by Elvis and made longer by Elvis requesting the J.D. ending be repeated, “He can do it better, He thinks he is back in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium, or whatever the name of the Grand ole Opry place is!” Elvis notes that the last time he was in Spokane was 3 years ago and asks the audience to pay NO attention to the announcer who previously had asked fans to “stay in your seats and sit there until you die… like a Mortician’s Convention”. ‘Love Me’ is a quite slow - you can sure feel Ronnie Tutt back slamming the beat - and a lengthy version, 1 minute longer than usual, with lots of fan interaction “C’mon here baby” and a very long held final note. Elvis then says “I caught the creeping crudd last night in Seattle”, and Elvis has a lot of fun with a woman in the front who was screaming, “Elvis kiss me please, please, please..” (Seattle was a 70 minute plane flight away) ‘If You Love Me’ had been basically dropped off the set-list since summer 1975 replaced with ‘Let Me Be There’ but was back this tour. Tonight it is very routine and performed at a fairly pedestrian pace. Afterwards Elvis interacts with a fan who he discovers is pregnant and then dedicates the following song to her… The required oldies ‘All Shook Up’, ‘Teddy Bear / Don’t Be Cruel’ are also sung better than the usual 1976 throwaway versions. After Elvis jokes, “My nose is running, ain’t nothing unusual about that! I’m human!” ‘Trying to Get to You’ is another treat for the fans tonight with Elvis putting in some cool vocal runs as he obviously enjoyed this sun classic. ‘America’ tonight is ‘ok’ but not as good as the St. Louis version. ‘Polk Salad Annie’ is fairly average, although I am sure fine for Elvis’ loving audience. Afterwards Elvis explains that he did not perform the usual “deep knee bend” as the last time he had ripped his suit. Perhaps providing an easy excuse for a poorer than usual version. If fans were paying to be in the PRESENCE of their icon then extending the concert by adding 11 minutes of band introductions might have been fine. However listening to them 40 years later, even with the included short solos, is not such a good experience. The Introductions here last for more than twice the length of the St Louis ones and are ‘Boring’. It seems everyone had to be introduced individually while the solos are nothing you’d listen to again. Tonight Elvis comments on his band wearing different coloured stage suits “Did you guys get into an argument?” and says he is surprised David Briggs is wearing anything at all! Elvis introduces piano player Tony Brown piano player who is “new with us”, in fact this was only his eighth concert of the 180 he would eventually play with the TCB band. The only enjoyable part is actually when David Briggs plays ‘Jingle Bells’ as his solo with all the band joining in. This was obviously an arranged Closing Show joke which does actually throw Elvis off course! He laughs and stutters, “The band has been sniffing coal or charcoal, there’s something wrong with this group!” (as opposed to ‘coke’?). Funny stuff Back on track ‘My Way’ is a pretty decent version (for late 70s) and is performed seriously. Interestingly, although memorable for being included in Aloha, Elvis very rarely performed this classic in 1973, 74 or 75. Elvis would re-introduce the song on this 1976 tour and would only start singing it at every show in 1977 - a bit sad when you consider the lyrics. Elvis unfortunately messes up the lyrics of the first verse of ‘Burning Love’ but otherwise it is also pretty fine and with Elvis obviously digging the band and great soulful backing vocals. Elvis’ brand new single ‘Hurt’ should be a concert highlight but ends up being a rather average version with Elvis cancelling the suggested reprise “want to do it again?” just as he is about to start with, “Nah, hold it”. Instead he gets the house lights turned up and showing some last-night humour jokes about a recent newspaper report, “I woke up one morning and I heard on the news I was married to somebody!” and also laughs, “If you give us a good reception everyone gets a Cadillac tonight too”. A regular ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’ follows including the added J.D. Sumner deep-bass reprise. Interesting to check the difference between Ronnie Tutt’s regular “slam” to Larrie Londin's lighter touch. ‘How Great Thou Art’ was a concert highlight in 1976 and tonight’s version doesn’t disappoint with a strong, positive vocal effort and two “how great, how great”s exclaimed before the finale making it an impressive addition. The inevitable ‘Hound Dog’ is a crowd-pleaser throwaway before Elvis gets serious with his loving fans mentioning his couple of recent hospital visits as being “nothing serious, just minor things. There’s a lot of rumours, they are not true”. With “If you want us to come back, just let us know because we’d love to come back, we really enjoyed it” he then closes with ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’. Elvis performed to his Spokane fans four times in his lifetime, sadly they would never get the chance to see him again.
FTD first released ‘America’, Omaha April 22nd from this tour (see EIN review here) and although it did not have great sound there seems little reason to hunt down this additional, lesser show. Geoff McD adds, “Having said that, there is some humour and good moments in this show and it is possible that FTD could release more shows from this tour - both Kansas City and Seattle are ‘very good and lengthy shows’ and deserve a release.” Piers B adds, “OMG, please, no more routine 1976 shows with 7 minute ‘I Got A Woman / Amen’ versions and way-too-overlong Introductions! That’s enough. The missing 1976 Lake Tahoe season and the final Las Vegas season is all we need.” After 3 days rest Elvis opened with a solid opening Lake Tahoe season show on April 30th, but this may be the closest we get to hearing him perform at that Tahoe 76 Season from FTD. Overall Verdict: Finding something worthy to discover in previously unreleased Elvis performances from 1976 has to be a tough call. Nearly every concert was the same format and they only got worse mid-year before the final power-blast of his late December shows. Having paid US$34 for this double FTD I did enjoy hearing the “different beat” of Larrie Londin in the St Louis show and with Elvis and the band in fine humour at the Spokane Closing Show it also has its moments. However apart from those little highlights Elvis basically puts out some “OK” performances adding nothing out of the ordinary. Hearing unreleased concerts in fine audio quality is still a collector’s dream and FTD eventually had to release one concert from Elvis’ first tour of the year - so they are still working-for-the-man. However if 1976 isn’t your Elvis-bag then these unheard concerts cannot be flagged as essential - unless you are a hard-core collector. (EIN thanks Merijn van der Meer for the cover scans) Review by Geoffrey McDonnell / Piers Beagley. Click here to comment on this article
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