The latest outing in the classic album series is the third album simply titled “Elvis”, which soon got named “Fool”.
Design
The design is the same as the others in this series. The extra photos are mainly from Aloha From Hawaii. Furthermore you’ll find session notes, behind the scenes and more memorabilia.
Content
The original was never among my favourites. Although I like quite a lot of the songs, the inclusion of Padre made it hard to play. Padre is battling with some of the movie songs for worst Elvis-recording ever! Except It’s Still Here I don’t really like the “piano songs”, but the remaining half of the album is good to great. For Lovin’ Me, Love Me, Love The Life I Lead and Don’t Think Twice, It's All Right ended up on several tapes with my own favourite collections soon.
Disc 1 is filled with, of course, the original album, but also other songs that where suggested at the time and some bonus songs, among them Steamroller Blues (great to hear anytime, but in my ears it doesn’t really fit) and the remake of Until It’s Time For You To Go (which I like much better than the original). The songs recorded for the US version of Aloha (mainly from Blue Hawaii) are not a valuable addition either.
The outtakes are that what you expect of them, a lot of false starts, forgotten words, and the occasional swearing. Again I am not glad with the fact there are outtakes of Padre too, but ignoring those the second disc is a pleasant listen. Quite some unreleased outtakes are included, topped with a (different) 11:20 version of Don’t Think Twice.
Conclusion
It had to be done (assuming they will release all albums in this series).