Elvis Is Back!

Elvis Unlimited is into books lately. After a few specials on movies this time the book focuses on a complete year.

Design

As with the recent movie books, “Elvis Is Back!” sits in a box with some extra goodies like postcards, a vinyl single, a DVD and a certificate. The 152 pages are well designed, although a bit busy sometimes. The text is printed clearly, with occasionally a different colour for quotes.

The DVD that’s coming with the book has a straight menu, with as only “extra” the possibility to select scenes. The picture on the menu has some strange editing effects around Elvis’ hairdo.

Content

The book is a kind of month by month, day by day view on 1960. It focuses around some obvious important themes like the return from Germany, the recording of his first post army album (hence the title), the Sinatra Show, G.I. Blues, Flaming Star and His Hand In Mine.

The pleasantly written – well, at least it’s pleasant to read – text by Megan Murphy is only a small part of the book. The tons of photographs, both known and unknown are the main asset of the book. Add to that zillion images of goodies from different countries (Argentina, The Netherlands to name a couple) and you have a picture of this superb issue.

The only strange thing we noticed is the date of the press conference at Vernon’s office… the chapter opening and DVD say that it was March 8, while the text itself mentions March 7. Since “Elvis Day By Day”, the Jorgenson/ Guralnick bible, says March 7 I vote for that one.

The DVD has footage of the arrival at Fort Dix, including the interview, silent footage of the arrival in Memphis, the press conference at Vernon’s office, the train ride to Miami for the Sinatra show, the backstage meeting with Bobby Darin, a news flash from Scandinavia on the princesses’ visit to the set of G.I. Blues and the trailers of both G.I. Blues and Flaming Star. In other words it is comparable to Tunzi’s DVDs, only this time you get it for free with a great book.

Conclusion

If there is a book in this genre worth buying, it certainly is this one. Elvis Unlimited is getting better and better on this! Together with the FTD with the same title on the stereo this set gives a fan a perfect time.