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It’s Different Now At Stax

By ElvisNews.com/ Kees, August 12, 2009 | Music

Just how different is it now at STAX?

Content

Although it’s just part of Elvis face on the cover and even out of focus the cover looks attractive. Unfortunately that is all there is to be said about the design, the booklet is only two black pages with some well known images and a STAX logo.

If you create a bootleg with “borrowed” why not “borrow” the great STAX mini site that is available on the world wide web with a good design, interesting background information and nice images.

 

Content

Elvis’ 1973 recordings at the famous STAX studio – where American Sound Studio founder Chips Moman once was Stax's main man behind the control board – delivered some great tracks that hit the singles chart and ended up on albums like “Raised On Rock”, “Good Times” and “Promised Land”. A lot of these tracks appealed to me and therefore I picked up this CD although I hesitated a bit because of the source (I expected to be) behind this import release; the same as behind the Wolf Call “Legendary Performances” and other "undefined alternate takes" re-issues. Unfortunately I think I was right.

Although the tracks in the track listing contain some of my favorites like “Raised On Rock” and “I’ve Got A Thing About You Baby” and of course “Promised Land” I don’t know what I’m listening to. Besides some originals the set contains “unreleased long and alternate” versions, but no information on the exact tracks is given.
Listening to the tracks you can sometimes hear the alterations of the home made cut and paste edits. Some edits are done very nicely but on the whole the lack of information and several bad edits spoil the listening pleasure. It will do as a collection of STAX recordings playing on the background, but knowing it is not the real thing I think I'll skip it browsings through my Elvis collection looking for a CD to play.

Conclusion

It is too damn different at STAX, skip this one if you want a real STAX compilation, track a copy down if you need some elevator music that’s sound familiar. 

Let's hope Ernst Jorgensen picks up on the idea of a STAX compilation.

Tracklisting (for what's it worth):

  1. Raised On Rock 5.06
  2. If You Don't Come Back 3.08
  3. Just A Little Bit 3.57
  4. It's Different Now 4.11
  5. Three Corn Patches 3.51
  6. Find Out What's Happening 3.30
  7. My Boy 4.25
  8. It's Midnight 4.14
  9. Take Good Care Of Her 4.32
  10. I've Got A Thing About You Baby 3.53
  11. Mr. Songman 3.13
  12. Promised Land 4.01
  13. Love Song Of The Year 4.48
  14. Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming 3.52

Bonus:

  1. Girl Of Mine - Undubbed 3.41
  2. I Got A Feeling In My Body - Undubbed 3.38
  3. You Asked Me To - Undubbed 2.53
  4. If You Talk In Your Sleep - Undubbed 2.18
  5. Thinking About You - Undubbed 3.57
  6. Help Me - Undubbed 2.28
  7. Sweet Angeline - Vocal Overdub 3.11
Jerome-the-third wrote on August 13, 2009
borowed this release of a friend of mine but indeed some takes are a copy and paste job which you can actually hear. Buy this if you want to have some laughter..
pasa-ryu wrote on August 14, 2009
pity this impoort cd is a rip off as i really love the songs elvis recorded at stax studios1-i agree that rca/ftd should do a project with outakkes and undubbed songs from the 1973 sessions at stax.9they did include some very nice outtakes on the rca/ftd album "raised on rock" in 2007,but for some unknown reason they failed to inlcude an outtake or even an undubbed version of 'sweet angeline',which i happen to really love)..no doubt,i probally will end up getting this new cd just to see whats its really like??(you cannot believe what everyone says-you have to make up your own mind)
Only1King wrote on August 30, 2009
What a crap cd... really hate homemade mixes that is badly done, just like this cd. Stay away...