Out In Hollywood

At first we thought "are we really waiting for this one?" and to be honest our answer was "not really!" But we bought it anyway to try to make it sure the series will be continued.

Last week we mentioned the release and tracklisting of this new Follow That Dream records release, now it's time for a closer look.
At first we thought "are we really waiting for this one?" and to be honest our answer was "not really!" But we bought it anyway to try to make it sure the series will be continued and in the hope FTD will release something more interesting in the future in the line of the Burbank CD.

We hope more people had this idea to make sure the series will be continued. But after listening the CD we somewhat changed our opinion. Just looking at the tracklisting we have here is a nice compilation of Elvis' movie work, looking at the versions we discovered some interesting things.
Without any doubt it is the weaker work, but still it's much better to consume than the average work of today. And even in this so-called weaker work there are some real gems hidden. Of course people will say "we have most of it on bootleg", which is true. But obviously BMG can't keep that in mind, and no single bootleg comes near this release regarding quality.
The CD starts with a pretty fast version of Mexico (Fun in Acapulco). Maybe not as perfect as the used one, but it sounds very fresh and fits better than the original. From Girl Happy comes Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, with as highlight the ending. This is not meant negatively, Elvis decided it was enough and started an early version of the Chicken Dance Polka. Eddy Ouwens, a.k.a. Danny Mirror, "singer" of I Remember Elvis Presley, which song still has the worldrecord "playing vulture", produced the final version of that tune.
Wild in the Country is beautiful as ever, slightly faster than the original. Some studio chat before Adam and Evil (Spinout) is the highlight of this version of a catchy song. Lonely Man is another beautiful song from the movie Wild in the Country. The drums on Thanks on the Rolling Sea sounds better than ever, while Where Do You Come From is one of those hidden gems, from the same movie as Thanks to the Rolling Sea, Girls! Girls! Girls! King of the Whole Wide World (Kid Galahad) and Little Egypt (Roustabout) are two of those songs that are above average movietracks.
Little Egypt is the only song released before by BMG. Wonderful World (Live a Little, Love a Little) is a nice tune while drinking a cup of coffee, before heading towards the beach, but not more than that. With This Is My Heaven they managed to pick one of the less bad songs from Paradise Hawaiian Style. Spinout's titletrack is a moderate song, while a song from the same movie;
All That I Am is another one of those hidden gems. We'll Be Together is an enjoyable song from Girls! Girls! Girls! Is it Spanish or does it only sound Spanish? Frankie and Johnny is a relaxed first take. Another one of the highlights is I Need Somebody to Lean On (Viva Las Vegas), a beautiful ballad superbly sung. The Meanest Girl in Town is another one from Girl Happy. That's all that can be said on this one, except maybe for the sax-solo.
Back to the Viva Las Vegas-session with Night Life, where BMG forgot to use there usual pair of scissors. Puppet on a String, some people like it, some hate it. It is a relaxed tune from Girl Happy. Hey Little Girl from Harum Scarum is at least powerful, but nothing more. A very big contrast with this kind of song is Edge of Reality (Live a Little, Love a Little), which is without any doubt one of the best moviesongs Elvis ever recorded. The CD is closed by a vocal overdub on Baby I Don’t Care. It really sounds great, but we do not hope we’ll get the other 700+ songs this way too.

CD

ElvisNews review

Tracklisting