Peace In The Valley - ElvisNews.com

Rating:

4.3 / 5

Released: 2000

by BMG

Everybody will have to answer the question whether to buy the set or not themselves. The quality and completeness are the biggest pros we can think off.

ElvisNews review

After a few chords of "His Hand in Mine" you'll notice that somehow BMG managed to improve the sound (again). The "Amazing Grace" -2CD, which is only 6 years old sounds less clear than "Peace in the Valley". That might be a reason to buy yet another Elvis (gospel) collection. Are there any other reasons?

Besides the collectors, who want to have everything, a large group of people will might the CD attractive. Basically the set is formed by the already mentioned "Amazing Grace", completed with tracks that were released the past 6 years, together with "The Million Dollar Quartet"-gospels. The completeness of the set will probably attract a lot of people. Gospel wasn't only important to Elvis himself, but also a large audience seems to enjoy this side of The King of Rock'n'Roll. A good example is the popularity if the "He Touched Me"-video's, which are high in the charts for a pretty long time now.

Among the more or less recently released tracks, mainly "homerecodings", are even "Farther Along" and "Oh Happy Day" from the new TTWII. We wonder if the target audience, we assume that to be a larger audience than the collectors, are waiting for such primitive recordings like these. More or less the same counts for the "Million Dollar Quartet"- and homerecordings. It's a pity that Elvis' first official gospel-recordings from 1957 are in such big contrast with these, but on the other hand... it eases the ear a little in between the lesser quality tracks.

People that didn't buy the FTD-release "In a Private Moment" will get "He" for the first time. Other "rare" tracks are "Sing You Children", "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot" (movie-version) and "Let Us Pray", that were only released in the "Double Features"-series. Also included is the complete medley from the NBC-TV special. "How Great Thou Art" is represented on each of the 3 CD's: the studioversion on the first, the 1974-live version on the second and the third contains the live version from 1977 (In Concert).

The booklet gives a nice read, and pretty complete information, like we are used to with the later BMG-releases. Everybody will have to answer the question whether to buy the set or not themselves. The quality and completeness are the biggest pros we can think off.

Tracklisting

JerryNodak wrote on December 19, 2005

I love Elvis' Gospel music. But this set is so complete it becomes tedious. 5 stars for completness. 3 stars for listenableness.

Rating: 5 / 5

Mystery Rider wrote on July 16, 2007

its all here this is all the religious music elvis was so good at. Put it in your collection.

Rating: 5 / 5

Greg Nolan wrote on October 11, 2007

While I still have the prior 2-CD "Amazing Grace" boxset (with it's "master-only" emphasis and great liner notes), this 3-disc "Peace In the Valley" set remains the "go-to" set for Elvis gospel. Sure, I'm not wild about some of the rougher sounding cuts on disc three, but it's great that RCA and Ernst knew well enough that these deserve attention like this. Elvis was proud of knowing virtually gospel song ever recorded or known, so including even lower-fidelity cuts such as from the "Million Dollar Quartet" and home recordings makes perfect sense in honoring his shining gospel legacy. Discs one and two remain my "first grab," but I see Disc 3 as a nice bonus, particularly the more scattered gospel cuts from the '60s and '70s, such as from movie and television soundtracks, including that great '77 "How Great Thou Art." 2000 is already a long time ago in terms of CD sound quality but outside of the single-disc "Ultimate Gospel" hodgepodge (in DSD sound), this remains a must-have majestic set for all fans and would-be fans.

Rating: 5 / 5

marco31768 wrote on December 21, 2008

This is the only COMPLETE Gospel release. Great !!!

Rating: 5 / 5

Sandman wrote on February 01, 2010

The complete gospel recordings contains some of Elvis' greatest vocal performances.

Rating: 4 / 5