I claim is owned by Ringo Starr\u2019s I Wanna Be Santa Claus<\/i><\/a>. But remember that at this time, Elvis had become a caricature of himself. Gone was the thin, movie-star idol that everyone remembered; in his place was the fat, sweaty, jump-suited character that kind of looked like Elvis in the right light if you squinted, surrounded by screaming, crazed fans who would have applauded Elvis farting.<\/p>\nSo in 1974, the idea of selling a record featuring nothing but Elvis talking on stage might have seemed like a travesty. Yet in an age where anything somebody allegedly touched, took a drink from, excreted or took a bite from can be sold for thousands on eBay, this disc seems tame in comparison. So maybe it\u2019s true that time indeed heals all wounds.<\/p>\n
Yes, most of the stories are true. This disc features nothing but Presley talking to the fans, teasing them with snippets of brief singing (so much for this being a \u201ctalking album only\u201d), sharing inside jokes with the band, dealing with female fans\u2019 demands for scarves and kisses and telling stories about his start in the music business.<\/p>\n
Yet there is something about this disc that kept me listening\u00a0— and I can\u2019t really explain why. Maybe it\u2019s that we\u2019ve become conditioned to Elvis the jokester over the years\u00a0— check out the DVDs of \u201cAloha From Hawaii\u201d as you see Presley try to maintain his composure at a few times (though this could have been from the \u201cAlternate Aloha Concert\u201d\u00a0— it\u2019s been years since I saw these), and the recording of \u201cAre You Lonesome Tonight,\u201d where he absolutely loses all control and goes into hysterics\u00a0— are part of our pop culture now.<\/p>\n
So putting up with nearly 38 minutes of hearing Presley yuk it up on stage is almost dealable\u00a0— indeed, almost expected. In truth, it\u2019s not nearly the nuclear bomb that everyone says it is.<\/p>\n
Maybe\u00a0— just maybe\u00a0— Presley was so accustomed to the caricature of himself that he allowed himself to become part of the joke, thus laughing at himself and being able to be a good sport about it. And, in the end, I think this is the saving grace of Having Fun With Elvis On Stage<\/i>\u00a0— namely, that Presley had come to terms with what he had become, and decided to deal with it, with a smile on his face.<\/p>\n
That all said, would I go out of my way to own this disc? Not unless I was a drooling Presley fan who absolutely, positively had to own every record ever released under his name — and I am hardly a Presley fan, to be truthful. (Interesting to note that, in subsequent years, four additional volumes of Having Fun With Elvis<\/i> have been released, though I believe these are all bootleg recordings.)<\/p>\n
RCA has never, to my recollection, reissued Having Fun With Elvis On Stage<\/i> on CD\u00a0— and, dare I say, maybe now is the time to do so. While it\u2019s hardly a picture of Presley\u2019s glory days, it does capture some of the feeling of a mid-\u201870s Presley show, and is worth experiencing once.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6914],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-40211","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-elvis-presley","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40211"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}