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Cracker Barrel

January 12, 2012 | Music

The U.S. based Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant released a twelve track gospel compilation 'Elvis Gospel' in their Classic Collection series. The CD is only available through their outlets.

Source:ElvisDayByDay.com
Jerome wrote on January 13, 2012
why don't they release a Country album instead...?
Deano1 wrote on January 15, 2012
There is nothing wrong with this release. It is not meant for Elvis fans who already own his entire catalog. It is meant to win new fans and what better way than with some of Elvis' best sacred music. My Grandmother (God rest her soul) hated Elvis when he rose to fame in the 50's, but because she liked gospel music she bought the budget LP "You'll Never Walk Alone". This led to the purchase of "How Great Thou Art" and then secular music with the purchase of "Double Dynamite" and "Elvis' Golden Records". With this eclectic collection of Elvis music she discovered how talented Elvis was as a vocalist and became a fan before she died in 1994. Elvis fans (myself included) need to step out of the bubble we live in sometimes and realize a majority of the population does not consider themselves Elvis fans (I think the last poll I saw showed 30 some percent considered themselves Elvis fans) and a person who is considering an Elvis purchase is not going to purchase a $40 FTD release and having Elvis' music readily available after a meal at Cracker Barrel for an affordable price might just lead them to "discover" the man and his music and what they have been missing.
Harvey Alexander wrote on January 15, 2012
JeanMarie, if it's 'Boulevard' outtakes you want, why not buy the 'Welcome To The Jungle' series of CDs? They'll give you more than FTD ever will.
Greg Nolan wrote on January 17, 2012
Another Elvis "Cracker Barrell CD....! I have one, somewhere! Nearly all of the non-American readers will not know about this "Cracker Barrel" chain store found on highways across the U.S. but mainly the South. Frankly, until recently, I had not seen it much in my part of the country but then I traveled some more and saw it all over. I saw an interesting piece on the recent death of the founder of the store, Dan Evins and you can sort of see why their Elvis repackagings fit in line with their nostalgia and "down home" southern image they cultivated. Here's a condensed excerpt from the Washington Post today. See if you can kind of figure out why an Elvis CD makes sense in a store like this. Dan Evins (born October 11th, 1935 in Smithville, Tennessee), the Cracker Barrel founder who turned his eatery into a highway empire, offering millions of hungry motorists a down-home alternative to traditional fast food, died Jan. 14 at his daughter’s home in Lebanon, Tenn. He was 76 and had cancer, said his daughter Betsy Jennings.“Nostalgia Sells” was the headline of a 1992 Forbes magazine article that chronicled the rise of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. The chain began in 1969 as a single shop in Lebanon, Mr. Evins’s boyhood home, and expanded across the southern United States before becoming the national grits-and-biscuits behemoth that it is today. The chain went public in 1981 and employs 67,000 people at 600 locations in 42 states. Cracker Barrel stores, with their barn-style, weather-beaten wooden architecture, stand like mile-markers along American highways. For fans, part of their draw is that no matter the location, the eating experience is almost always the same.Before being seated, visitors walk through a “country store” stocked with wares such as rock candy, marmalades and wooden toys. Once at their table, they open a brown-paper menu listing trend-resistant American dishes — hickory smoked country ham, “chicken n’ dumplins,” and meatloaf — and fare such as the catfish platter, turnip greens and country-fried steak. After the meal, a porch lined with rocking chairs awaits. Mr. Evins owed his success in large part to two insights about American life in the second part of the 20th century. The first was that the interstate highway system, whose construction began in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration, would forever change the way people traveled and, therefore, ate. His second was that some things never change, among them the appeal of a home-style meal, especially to someone who is on the road.“Most people perceive tourists on the interstate as being mostly one-time customers,” he told the publication Restaurant Business in 1987. “We knew that tourists were just creatures of habit.” In the 1960s, Mr. Evins was working at the oil company founded by his grandfather as a jobber, or wholesaler, with Shell. He dealt primarily with small gas stations in rural areas whose roads had become less traveled with the emergence of the highway system. Sensing a looming problem, Mr. Evins built a gas station off the highway near Lebanon, Tennessee. To distinguish his station from others, he added a small restaurant and gift shop and called the outfit Cracker Barrel — a reference to old-time country stores where people played checkers atop barrels used to carry crackers and other wares. Other eateries — most notably McDonald’s — had already become entrenched in the highway food market. Like the proprietors of successful fast-food chains, Mr. Evins emphasized predictability in service. But instead of pursuing a sleek and modern look, he played to customers’ nostalgia. The store was a quick success — so quick that Mr. Evins decided to abandon gasoline for grits and country ham.Gas pumps were removed from Cracker Barrel outposts during the oil crisis of the 1970s. Mr. Evins once explained the old-fashioned appeal of his restaurants. “We aimed for authenticity,” he told Forbes, “but without the outhouses.”