It’s easy to dismiss Vegas-era Elvis, to argue that as soon as the one-time king of rock ’n’ roll reclaimed his crown with his memorable 1968 TV special and exemplary 1969 record, From Elvis in Memphis, he abdicated the throne by embracing jumpsuits, capes, and schmaltz. Or to say that he swapped formulaic, forgettable films for kitschy Vegas engagements and barnstorming tours, while live albums and “budget” compilations replaced his schlocky soundtracks in cut-out bins.
By August 1970, for instance, when he returned to the International Hotel in Las Vegas for the third time in a year, he’d released two live albums: Back to Memphis, an ill-conceived two-LP set destined to be split apart (in the U.S., at least) within a year, paired more songs from the American Sound Studio sessions—including the bluesy “Stranger in My Own Hometown”—with an LP’s worth of recordings culled from his initial Vegas engagement; and On Stage, which collected songs from his February 1970 Vegas concerts alongside two from August ’69. The budget-minded Let’s Be Friends, meanwhile, gathered bottom-of-the-barrel soundtrack dreck, several Change of Habit tunes, and two more American Sound Studio outtakes, “If I’m a Fool (For Loving You)” (written by Stan Kesler) and the Bobby Darin-penned “I’ll Be There.” Yet, as Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, a concert documentary filmed before and during that August 1970 Vegas engagement demonstrates, while tackiness was creeping in elsewhere, it had yet to overtake what matters most: the music.
For instance, though the album released in tandem with the That’s the Way It Is film shared its title—and features a picture of a jumpsuit-clad Presley on the cover—it wasn’t a soundtrack album; rather, it contains eight songs recorded in Nashville during June 1970, including a stellar “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” alongside four live tracks, including a rip-roaring rendition of “Patch It Up.” In short, it showcases an Elvis—who by then was 35—embracing adulthood. His take on the Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil-penned “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” a hit for B.J. Thomas, captures the heart palpitations that come with the first flush of love, while “Mary in the Morning”—a 1967 hit for Al Martino that was also covered by Glen Campbell—finds him unabashedly in love with his wife. His dramatic spin on “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” meanwhile, gives the Righteous Brothers a run for their money.
The mammoth 2014 That’s the Way It Is deluxe edition, a box set that spans eight CDs and two DVDs, gathers that original album, several singles, a few outtakes from the Nashville sessions, rehearsals, and not one, not two, but six shows from the August 1970 Vegas run. It also includes the original film and its expanded 2001 version. (While less is sometimes more, such is not the case with it.) The live shows find him in peak vocal form and good humor, with his takes on the Beatles’ “Something” and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” working well alongside his classic and contemporaneous hits. The pairing of his 1961 single “Little Sister” with the Beatles’ “Get Back” fares much better than one might think, too. The disc of rehearsals is a whole lotta fun, as well. It finds him and his crack backing band running through songs, obviously, including a few not featured in the live shows.
The original That’s the Way It Is album was, is, and will always be one of my favorite Elvis releases; I’ve owned it in one form or another since 1978. Some have said that it finds him veering to the middle of the road, which is a fair criticism, but I hear it as what I inferred above: a man eschewing the follies of youth in favor of the concerns of maturity. The box set expands upon that theme, to an extent, but I find it more rewarding to listen to it a little bit at a time—one show a day instead of back-to-back times three. While the eight-disc bonanza is no longer in print (an Amazon seller is currently hawking it for $2728.92), the music itself can be streamed via all the usual suspects. It’s well worth the trek.
The Old Grey Cat 