Elvis - '68 Comeback Special

Curiously disjointed TV special, which features a heap of specially-shot stand alone sequences, stuck together with sellotape.

There doesn't seem to be much order or context to proceedings. Some feature the Pelvis lip-syncing in some slightly trippy sketches, while others find him performing to an assembled audience.

Another scenario that we cut back to finds Elvis and his friends performing unplugged. Even here though, it's a shame to witness the trappings of TV creep-in to spoil what should be a great piece of raw footage, as the soundtrack repeatedly features an appreciative audience significantly bigger than the one we're looking at.

And you have to wonder if even the crowd we can see is genuine. In the mimed pieces he coincidentally has some 40 extras performing with him! Hmmm...

For all that, there doesn't seem to be a single dud number in the entire show. Elvis just doesn't know how to perform a song badly, and even his prerecorded medleys carry an uplifting zest that makes you wonder just how on Earth he did it.

The gospel medly particularly, is one that I've heard a coupla' times before on my Peace In The Valley 3CD set, when I was convinced that he was live. I mean it has all the energy of a live track!

That, and the chance to see him joking his way through familiar numbers in real-time, while kidding around with the audience, make this one surreally spectacular show, and a nugget of gold that TV archives were surely begun for.

Available here.