Straight Arrow is planning a new CD release, in a jewel case with a now standard 16-page booklet: "FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY (SA 2011-18-02). It will feature Elvis’ May 23rd, 1977 show from Providence, RI.
Producers are aware of the fact that Elvis' May '77 tour was an uneven one, compared with previous tours. He performed 14 shows in a row, and for the first two concerts he was reported being lethargic and unwell. However, the 3rd show of the tour was already solid with the singer in relatively fine form and good voice. As usual, Elvis paid attention to ballads like "You Gave Me A Mountain", "My Way" and "Hurt". There are also other solid performances, namely "Little Sister" and "Early Morning Rain". The CD title song was performed for the very last time, and is performed in the first half of the show.
The audio-quality of the recording is pretty good. As you've come to expect from Straight Arrow, the producers managed to get the best possible source. We ended up with the choice of TWO 1st generation copies of different original tapes, obtained from the persons WHO WERE THERE. The better tape was chosen, and the other one was used to fill a few missing seconds. The recording was completely restored and the sound was enhanced for the best possible listening pleasure.
The CD package is completed with a 16-page booklet, including a collection of rare photos from the Providence show; several are published for the very first time! The liner notes were written by a person who was THERE and describes the show in detail. Also included is a positive press review of the show.
"Funny How Time Slips Away" will be released in early February, 2011. Don’t miss your chance to obtain another cool hour with The King, as provided by Straight Arrow!
Tracks:
01. Introduction: Also Sprach Zarathustra - 02. C. C. Rider - 03. I Got A Woman / Amen - 04. Love Me - 05. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) - 06. You Gave Me A Mountain - 07. Jailhouse Rock - 08. O Sole Mio (Sherrill Nielsen) / It's Now Or Never - 09. Little Sister - 10. (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear / Don't Be Cruel - 11. Funny How Times Slip Away (last-ever version) - 12. My Way - 13. Introductions by Elvis of Singers, Musicians - 14. Early Morning Rain (John Wilkinson)- 15. What'd I Say (James Burton) - 16. Johnny B. Goode (James Burton) - 17. Drum Solo (Ronnie Tutt) - 18. Bass Solo, with reprise (Jerry Scheff) - 19. Piano Solo (Tony Brown) - 20. Electric Piano Solo (Bobby Ogdin) - 21. School Day (Joe Guercio Orchestra)- 22. Hurt - 23. Hound Dog - 24. Can't Help Falling In Love - 25. Closing Vamp / Announcements.
Approximate running time: 65:13
I'd like to hear a sound sample before I invest my money into this one. Straight Arrow advertised their previous release ("A Private Audience With The King") as "a really good audience recording" and for me the audio quality was really disappointing. In my opinion the pre-release hype and lavish artwork/design often cloud the judgement of many fans nowadays. Just because a producer states in his press release that this or that show sounds pretty good/ really good/ excellent or whatever, it doesn't necessarily mean it does, unfortunately. After so many lies i've completely lost my trust in this label.
Another 1977 show? Unless it's a soundboard,i say: no,thanks...
Really nice design. But content wise, I'm not interested in another 1977 show. The Final Curtain box was more than enough. Love,Erika
well some SA releases sounds like Elvis was singing somwhere in the bathroom..
Don't judge a book by it's cover,it's not even released yet how then can you already say that this is not good quality?,this label delivered good releases so far, and the cover alone of this release is worth buying it, their last two releases are among the best releases concerning AR. 1977 or not it's part of Elvis's legacy.
Yeah. The sound is pretty weak on about half of them. To be fair,these are amateur recordings so nobody expects professional and not even soundboard sound quality. But when they state in the press release that the sound is "very good" and "excellent" and later it turns out that it isn't,then it's quite a big disappointment. This is a label that supposed to release only good audience recordings... They can fool the fans once or twice,but after the third occasion it becomes harder and harder. Intelligent fans don't pre-order these releases but rather wait a little and read the reviews before they buy anything.
Their latest release ("A Private Audience With The King") costed me €22 + postage. Quite a high price for a bad sounding audience recording. If the price were let's say €10 i would say: "let it be!". But for €22 i expect better sound. Even the nice design can't mask the bad sound. Love,Erika
Jesse Garon: I respect your opinion but i think their latest release was sub-par soundwise. We don't judge by the design, we judge by the sound. We never stated that 1977 is not part of his legacy. We were talking about the sound quality of these releases.
The packaging looks great! I would love to get this one! I have a few '77 shows that were recorded in the audience that sound decent, hopefully this one does as well. I love the live feeling you get when you listen to audience recordings.
Imports?......ever since i brought my first 'boot' as they were called then i have never really thought that a AR tape would ever be as good as a SB, and when listening to a AR no matter what they have done to it i/we have to expect it is what it is and surely by now we should all know the difference and have the frame of mind as to whetever we buy or not.
Artwork is easy to do and of course does not always match the quality of the sound on the vinyl/cd but again for me as a Elvis collector it's there if i want it.Have certainly heard worst AR throught the years but if it's of interest o me then it will end up in my collection.
I agree with you,Carpenter. It's easy to make a nice design and a 16-page booklet (esp. because they don't have to pay royalties for the photos and they can steal that well-known Elvis-logo from another designer) but improving the sound quality is much harder. Now that's something that they can't really do. Or even if they do it,it will still remain a bad audience recording. The sound will never be good,no matter what they do.
The Elvis logo was stolen from the EIC TV-Special,you can see it during the opening credits. How original... :/
You're right, the whole design is based on a stolen logo.
Zoltan84 i'm not from yesterday.. i know just what you mean ....just to make that clear...their latest release was much better than the release from the 90's ,then you talk about a bad sounding AR. SA made it a worth while release they put effort in it unlike some other labels,maybe there are better sounding AR's ok but..and if some fans do not care about the design..fine by me, but i do care for it, plus the sound is ok for me, and i'm not that picky anyway thank god, and let's leave it at that.
The logo was stolen? really? well i won't sleep tonight knowing that..
Ok,maybe not a tragedy... But this and the constant lies in the announcements speak volumes about this label.
If you are a fan of audience recordings..this one is a must have no matter what. The show wasn`t released before on silver disc which makes it essential for collectors. The sound will be a good as at least the cdr source sounds fine, too. The show belongs to the better ones of this tour..which wasn`t full of highlights. If you dont like AR`s ..just skip it and go to the soundboard section..
Thank you Cisco at least you know what you r talking about and thnx for the info,this label never told us any lies.Nothing wrong with this label,but there will always be fan's who are searching for something which isn't close to reality especially concerning this label.
One thing about these boots, you get unseen pics. One thing I will never understand, why does the parent label give the same tired pics. The legacy editions are no different, the same pics. Elvis fans have always been short changed in this respect.
Great design! Moaning about the logo? This is a great link to the next tour and nothing is stolen, it's a bootleg: (Don't tell anybody hang loose) SA always has feeling for heritage.. First time on cd, always liked the sound on this one, it's warm with a very slight "civic center" reverb, let's hope it's upgraded. A solid 1977 show, way above average in this very difficult year.
New photos from this actual show? How will we know? He wore the exact same jumpsuit at every show in 1977, pictures could be from any one of them.
These CD's were pressed in about 800 copies. If a bootlegger were pay for the unreleased photos,he wouldn't make any profit at all. The photos have been obviously released somewhere,but there were so many Elvis releases already... Hundreds of books and other releases. It's often impossible to tell which photos are unreleased and which aren't. Mentioning the word "unreleased" is just a part of the well-known hype in the announcements. Of course everything they are trying to sell is "rare" or "unreleased":)
Quote from Jessy: "this label never told us any lies" ...... Really? Not even when they told us that "Here Come The Stars" is better sounding than "Love Letters From Nevada" and then it turned out that it's actually worse?
I just have a diffrent opinion,and "" Here Come The Stars"" is not worse ( much better)then the previous outing of this concert ,and the ( many) reviews i read about this cd say the same as i do,but there will be always people who can not hear the improvement,paint the picture buddy.And as far as the pictures are concerned i have no doubt they are from the actual concert.SA does not fool people,you can try to react to me and say that they do..i don't buy iit..simple.This negstive vibe on some of the reactions gives me the creeps,that's all it does to me.
Sadly "Here Come The Stars" is inferior compared to "Love letters from Nevada". Too much noise reduction was used and it removed not only the hiss,but the freshness of the sound,too. These over-denoised CD's were quite popular in the 90's, fortunately it has changed since then. Well,most of the times at least. "Here Come The Stars" is not as fresh and clear sounding as LLFN. It's rather flat,muffed and lifeless. The more hiss you remove,the more sound clarity you lose. I don't expect huge sound improvements from these reissues,but when a supposed upgrade sounds inferior compared to the old release,that's quite disappointing. Love,Erika
Well we always can depend on you to review "' Here Come The Stars" or other imports now can we Erika, it has been a while since i listened to this cd,after so much debating about it i wanted to hear it again,the artwork on itself alone is worth buying it, and then the sound well what can i say...is not bad...not inferior compared to the previous release..no it's better, the artwork was also below par on first release, and the artwork of SA wins that hands down,you can say what you want but there's nothing wrong with this release,no lies involved in this release,a nice addition to my collection anyway, and if you don't agree? i really don't care.
Love Letters From Nevada has a famous and excellent cover. That's a classic,a work of art. It has no booklet,that's true. But for me the sound is the most important thing and that's better on LLFN. The S.A. title has a nice booklet,true. But a nice booklet can't make up for the worse sound. And i don't like the cover of the S.A. title. That's very simple,only a fat and puffy Elvis with black background. Half of the S.A. front-covers look like this. How boring.
Jesse, you must realise that you are not allowed to have your own opinion, you must simply agree with the opinions of those that shout the loudest and tell you that you are wrong!
Tony C : I totally understand you ; ) and how boring their opinions are ,like i said i don't care for their opinions, i will never agree with them,giving into them is exactly what they want, i'm not that stupid.
The only audience recording from 77 I've enjoyed is "Adios." Even if this was a multi-track professional recording, I'd only be interested in hearing the songs where Elvis really shined. The sad thing about Elvis 'near the end' is that his performances were hit and miss, mostly miss. Getting every tid bit from that era just doesn't do it for me. A compliation of the best performances from 77 might be good, but that's not what's being offered. Kudos to the fans that enjoy this type of product.
