Aztec King

Released recently was the CD “Aztec King” from the Czech Elvis Presley Fan Club.

Cover Art

The cover of this release looks good. A nice shot of Elvis on the cover, the circles remind us of the “No Fooling Around” release from a few weeks ago. Inside interesting liner notes from Sandi Pichon who attended this concert (the announcement of a book by her hand containing images from the concert is featured on the back of the booklet) and details by Otto Meszaros on the various bonus tracks.

Content

This release contains an unreleased audience recording from Elvis’ midnight show at Las Vegas on March 27, 1975. The audio quality is o.k. we’re almost getting used on the sound of these recordings with all the recent releases.

The show has the usual start; nice to hear is the drum solo in “I Got A Woman", but the fooling around with JD Sumner spoils the ending this time. Elvis seems to be in a good mood and does “Love Me” when that title is shouted from the audience.

Both The band and Elvis sound powerful, a bit too powerful for the recording equipment brought in by the audience. Hopefully this concert will be released sometime in soundboard quality.

On “Big Boss Man” the Big Boss Man behind the drums does his duty resulting in a good rocking version. On the great "It’s Midnight” Ronnie Tutt is too much up front though, or is it someone tapping along with his foot near a speaker? The tapping returns on several other songs. The tempo comes back on a rocking’ “Burning Love”.

Always great to hear is “My Boy” because of the theme and Elvis performance, you hear the audience react immediately. Unfortunately he laughs a little in the song, this doesn't fit the sad story. The remainder of the show is also good, we even get two lines of “The Lord’s Prayer” before he starts “Heartbreak Hotel”. Not too many of the usual show stoppers on this release, but “Bridge Over troubled Water” is a good version.

The bonus tracks are interesting; “Trouble/Raised On Rock” from August 1973 is the first live performance of this song since the 1968 Comeback Special. “San Antonio Rose” is a short, 15 second, improvisation, and sung only once by Elvis, and so is the version (one verse) of "Roses Are Red” from 1975. Good to hear from Elvis is a great version “You’ll never Walk Alone" from 1975. The bonus tracks end with the classic SUN original “Memphis Tennessee”, a complete version of Elvis singing about his home place from August 1973. This version doesn’t have the “desperate feel” of the original version, but good to hear a complete live version.

Conclusion

Again an interesting CD because of the bonus tracks, these are nice to collect this way for the ones that missed the orginal (bootleg)releases containing these. The concert itself is a nice one, but unfortunately, again an audience recording is all we have to listen to.