ElvisNews.com Review
ElvisNews.com | www.ElvisNews.com | 02/21/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"First of all it's a fantastic item from France, it took a long time to get this item, but it's worth it. This is a limited edition (2000 copies) release, made only for a French Fan Club and distributed only in France. Disc one contains the original versions from the songwriters "Mort Shuman & Doc Pomus", in total 16 tracks. Disc 2 contains 12 alternate takes, one live version from "Little Sister" a interview (in French) with Mort Shuman. The other bonus tracks are: "His Latest Flame", "Suspicion" & "Viva Las Vegas" sung by Mort Shuman himself, and let me say he's got a good voice.And now the artwork, absolute fantastic, I got no words for it if there was a scale from 1 till 10 I'll give it a 11. It came in a digi-pack (four foldout - eight panels) and contains three beautiful pictures from Elvis. The booklet contains 24 glossy high quality paper pages. The booklet contains track by track information about the songs (written in French and English). This is a item you must have in your collection! don't miss it."
4 1/2 Stars: Beautiful Package, Great Songs
D.C. Hanoy | Athens, Georgia | 05/26/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This unique collection (put together by the French fan club and sanctioned by RCA) is one of the best looking Elvis releases I've ever seen. It even tops the great FTD (Follow That Dream) series. Lots of rare and beautiful color pictures from the early sixties, nice booklet with lots of information from the songwriters (in French and English), double gatefold case, picture discs, etc. The music is simply some of the finest Elvis ever recorded. His voice would never sound this good again, and the studio band he was using at the time was perhaps the best to be found anywhere (just listen, for example, to the drums on "His Latest Flame" or the bass on "Little Sister"). The production was also excellent. These recordings don't sound forty-plus years old.
Disc 2 has several interesting alternate takes where you can really hear Elvis stretching as an artist. There's also a short interview (in French) with Mort Shuman, followed by three of his demos for Elvis. (I always wanted to ask him if the catchy vamp in "Viva Las Vegas" was his idea or the session guitarist's, and if it was lifted from the standard "Brazil" written by Ary Barroso.)
Maybe the best thing about this collection is the tribute it pays to the great, underrated songwriting team of Pomus and Shuman. You often hear praise for Leiber and Stoller, and deservedly so, for the many great R&B tracks they provided Elvis. But Pomus and Shuman are long overdue for the recognition that a collection like this provides. Not only did they write great rock and blues numbers ("Little Sister," "A Mess of Blues") they also composed sophisticated pop songs ("His Latest Flame," "Surrender," "Suspicion," "Viva Las Vegas") that were important not only in the evolution of Elvis's recording career but also in the development of Pop Songwriting during its golden era - the 1960's. And for my money, "His Latest Flame" b/w "Little Sister" is one of the greatest singles (45's - remember those?) ever released."
Nice Collection
A Music Fan | Forest Park, GA USA | 09/26/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This is one cool Elvis Presley compilation, and it's embarrassing that it comes from BMG France -- why can't the American catalog support releases like this? Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus never loomed as large in Elvis' legend as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, coming along a little later, when his music was no longer on the cutting edge of rock & roll. On the other hand, they wrote brilliant blues, rockers, and ballads for him, and the Pomus-Shuman compositions that he cut between 1960 and 1969 are among the best songs he recorded during that decade. Not every one of them was an A-side, or a huge hit -- though several were -- but all except two of the numbers here could stand alongside any competition of their era. This double-disc set is dazzling, not only for sound but also for the subtleties in his persona that one picks up from the songs -- some of the best of what we knew, saw, and heard of Elvis in the 1960s, the mix of maturity and boldness, passion and vulnerability, came from songs like "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" and "Viva Las Vegas." Established jewels like "Little Sister," "Surrender," and "Suspicion," and diamonds-in-the-rough like "Gonna Get Back Home Somehow" and "(It's A) Long Lonely Highway," all help loft such lesser fare as "Double Trouble" to new heights; and the collection ends on a high note with one of the great Elvis B-sides, "You'll Think Of Me." Disc one consists of the finished masters, while Disc two is made up of 12 alternate takes and one live Presley cut, plus four bonus tracks featuring Mort Shuman. The Presley alternates have different emphases in the accompaniment, or a looser approach by the singer, and they'd be regarded as perfect versions by any other artist. What's more, Shuman's versions of "Suspicion," "His Latest Flame," and "Viva Las Vegas" are hardly filler material; he cut a few singles of his own in England during the early/middle '60s, and was a more than competent singer in his own right; Presley's producers sought to emulate his demos in their sound, texture, and tempos. The set also contains a well illustrated booklet, thoroughly annotated in French and English, and is beautifully packaged. The only thing that may be useless to most Americans is the short Shuman interview, which is entirely in French. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
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Track Listings (33) - Disc #1
