Memories That Linger In My Heart

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December in Las Vegas in the 1970's has not really been a time where it would be easy to sell out concert venues. Unless you were considering bringing a musical phenomenon to town for the holiday season. Exactly this happened in 1975. When Elvis played Vegas in August of this year, it was a short-lived engagement as the "King" gave up after just 5 appearances because of pure exhaustion. Fans who eagerly awaited his iconic presence were disappointed, yet hope remained alive that Elvis would be back soon. And the contract had to be fulfilled anyway, so the Colonel and the Hilton management decided to bring Elvis back in December of the same year.

To make it short: The whole engagement in December of 1975 was nothing less than a rescheduled triumph! What you will hear on our new 2-CD set is (for the first time) the COMPLETE show of December 10 (there was only 1 show that day, at 10.00 PM). On previous releases of this concert the producers were not willing to invest in a second CD so they simply cut out some dialogue - which is a shame of course.

There are many highlights in the very good sounding audience recording of this evening. A more loose show with Elvis seemingly having a good time interacting with the audience. Plus the one or the other surprise, such as Elvis obviously playing a prank on people at the beginning of the Show by going from "See See Rider" into "Can't Help Falling In Love" (including the so-called "Closing Vamp"!!) - as if the show would already be over after just 2 songs! And then, when you could have expected that he would go straight into "I Got A Woman" after the usual "Wells" he presented another surprise: A spontaneous, nice version of "When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again". 

A hilarious moment indeed! The song "Just Pretend", a musical pearl from 1970 was brought back this season as a regular in the setlist after not having been performed since November 72 in Hawaii. A seemingly spontaneous request shortly before the end of the show, the "dramatic" tune "My Way" became a duet between Sherill Nielsen and Elvis because Elvis did not remember the lyrics and made Sherill sing for him in certain parts. And regarding the quality of our new CD: Needless to say that the recording of this show is newly remastered and speed-corrected.