Souvenir CD “Without A Song…”

For their Gospel Show last November the Danish Elvis Unlimited released a “Souvenir CD” with merely gospels that Elvis once sung.

Design

The digi-pack has the tasteful design that EU offers on most of their releases. A fitting “If I Can Dream”-shot with an unclear “In Concert” shot in the background decorate the front. A great shot from August 1974 is shown on the back and on the CD itself. The only little minor is the font size, which makes the tracklist pretty hard to read.

Content

As said in the introduction the CD contains mainly songs that Elvis once sung. Several artists that performed on the Gospel Show in Denmark took this hard task. The whole show is stuck together with pieces of “Elvis talk”, which makes it sound like a kind of radio show, presented by Elvis himselvis. The difficulty with albums like this is that most fans are so used to Elvis’ versions of the songs, and comparing with the real thing is something one shouldn’t do, so we tried to listen to it open-minded.
The Dutch singer Maarten Jansen opens with “If I Can Dream” – probably one of the hardest songs he could choose. Still he delivers it in a very strong way, not trying to sound like Elvis, but with the same passion Elvis threw in it. Also Maarten’s next contribution “Lead Me, Guide Me” is pretty strong. Bill Blaze (The Stamps) opens his part with “When It’s My Time” and also sung “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. Both are good performances, but a bit “too heavy” for our taste. The Sweet Inspirations are represented with two songs of the Duluth-show in 1976, “Sweet Inspiration” and “The Last Time I Saw Him”, always good to hear the ladies live. Stephen Acles is good to see/ hear live, but his contribution to this CD, “It’s Over”, sounds thin and doesn’t really fit with the other performances. Last, but certainly not least is Stan Urban with at least one beautiful tribute song “Why Can’t They Leave Him Alone”. His other performance “Lifetime Friend” can be seen as a tribute song too, but we leave it at saying it is a nice swinging rock and roll song.

Conclusion

We prefer actually being at such shows, and CD’s like this won’t find its way to our player often. Still for those being there, or even missing it, it might be a nice souvenir. The only performance that really stood out were Maarten Jansen’s, and we are looking forward to his Christmas album of Elvis’ songs, that will be available through Elvis Unlimited soon too.

Tracklist:

[1] Elvis Speech - Without A Song... (Memphis 1971)
[2] Maarten Jansen - If I Can Dream
[3] Elvis Talks About Gospel Music (Burbank 1968)
[4] Maarten - Lead Me, Guide Me
[5] Elvis Introduces Bill Baize (Collage Park 1974)
[6] Bill Baize - When It's My Time
[7] Elvis Talks About Gospel Music (Houston 1970)
[8] Bill Baize - You'll Never Walk Alone
[9] Elvis Introduces The Sweet Inspirations (Huntsville 1976)
[10] The Sweet Inspirations - Sweet Inspirations (Live Duluth 1976)
[11] Sylvia Shemwell Introduces The Sweet Inspirations (Live Duluth 1976)
[12] The Sweet Inspirations - The Last Time I Saw Him (Live Duluth 1976)
[13] Elvis Talk About His Gospel Hero Mr. JD Sumner. He Also Talks About XXX (Hollywood 1972)
[14] Stephen Acles - It's Over
[15] Elvis Talks About All Night Gospel Singing In Las Vegas (Hollywood 1972)
[16] Stan Urban - Why Can't They Leave Him Alone
[17] Stan Urban - Lifetime Friend
[18] Elvis Farwell (Omaha 1977)
[19] Teaser For The Complete Word For Word, 1955-77 - Radio Commercial (Gladewater 1955)
[20] Teaser For The Press Conferences, Vol. 1 - Elvis Accepts An Award (Pearl Habor 1961)
[21] Teaser For The Press Conferences, Vol. 2 - Elvis Answers A Question (Vancouver 1957)