Rockin’ With Elvis And Friends

Released by the Presto Entertainment label is a CD titled "Elvis And Friends". Is it a release worth getting?

Design

What attracted our attention on this release was the use of one of our wallpapers on the booklet. But when the CD came in, we were disappointed in three ways.

The artwork appears to come from a home printer … we could have done that ourselves, and better. Strangely enough the CD itself is a real picture CD with the same image as the cover on it. The double sided paper they call booklet contains no information, neither does the back cover. For a CD apparently containing alternate takes the least the producers could have done was list the correct (if any) version of the song.

Content

We picked this CD up without knowing the track listing; so far only the cover art had been available. So the second disappointment was the content of this CD. Besides tracks by Elvis (no alternates at first listen) it contains tributes and covers by other artists. Unfortunately no well know artist; excluding three songs by Scotty Moore, Janis Martin and The Jordanaires. We’d expected more home recordings of Elvis with some of his real friends, not some copycats trying to copy the original hillbilly cat.

The audio quality varies, and so does the speed of the tape on various tracks, disappointment three, and reason enough to hit the “open” button on our stereo. If it wasn’t for the use (or should we say abuse) of one of our wallpapers we’d throw this release out of the window.

Conclusion

If you want to call alternate performers alternate versions then the title is correct, otherwise we couldn’t discover any interesting version. You can skip this release with ease. Or as the label "marginal records" states on the cover, this is a marginal release.