Loose As A Goose!

 
Digipak

3 panel Digipak

The new Straight Arrow's double-digipak CD release, called "Loose As A Goose!", featuring the August 19th, 1970 Las Vegas dinner and midnight shows. These recordings were first released in 1998 ("Double Dynamite" set) and were never re-released - until now.


From the press-release:
17 years have passed, and it is the right time for the ultimate release of these special recordings.

To call this new Straight Arrow release „a nice upgrade“ would be like calling the Mona Lisa an „okay“ painting! The label was able to retrieve the first generation Rick Rennie cassettes from the August 19, 1970 dinner & midnight shows (the originals are lost) and then carefully enhanced every second on the tapes. As it turns out, that earlier release of these two show was edited, so this new SA release presents Rick's 1st generations tapes in their complete form for the very first time. To give you an example, the dinner show on "Double Dynamite" was about 45 mins; now it‘s 56 mins!

Still, one edit remains in the DS recording, the one made by the late Rick Rennie originally. Rick told us about 10 years ago that ‘Love Me Tender’ just went on and on, with Elvis being mostly preoccupied with entertaining a few lucky ladies in the front rows. This went on for almost 15 minutes, and all around him Rick could hear people starting to "boo" Elvis. He felt embarrassed about this moment and edited it from the tape. Interestingly, the label on the tape reads: "Elvis - the booed show. Edited." Even though Elvis’ performance on this night was quite strong overall, you can hear in parts that Rick’s account rings true. Elvis’ off-color jokes receive only polite applause, if even that, and during ‘Polk Salad Annie’, he accidentally falls flat on his face!

But make no mistake about it, even these moments cannot distract from the pure dynamite of Elvis’ vocals and showmanship at the time. Especially on the newer stuff he sings at full throttle. The midnight show is even better: it’s 70 action-packed minutes of Presley at his mightiest, rockinest, lovinest… It’s „Elvis 1970“, and that really says it all for the true fan & connoisseur. Even more so than the TTWII recordings, these tapes give us a unique insight into Elvis performing live in his element & at the peak of his considerable powers. At the same time, these recordings are significant because they give us the first glimpses of what was to come…

As with every Straight Arrow’s "upgrade", this beautifully designed double-digipack edition is limited to 500 copies. If you enjoyed "A New Decade, A New Sound" and "Lightning Strikes Twice In Portland" you will definitely not be disappointed by "Loose As A Goose!". These shows never sounded better! Elvis never sounded better!  (press note, January 2015)