Recorded at the end of June, a special called Elvis, which aired on December 3, 1968. Then known as the special characteristics of 68, see Comeback lavish stage production studio as well as songs by the band's first concert in front of a small audience-Presley lives since 1961. Segments saw Presley clad in black leather living tight, singing and playing guitar in a rock style and the first days free roll. Director and co-producer Steve Binder has worked hard to convince the singer was nervous and produce an event away from hours of Christmas carols Parker initially expected. Show, NBC highest ratings of the season, capturing 42 percent of viewers in total. Jon Landau Eye magazine remarked, "There is something magical about seeing a person who has lost himself find his way back, she sings. With this type of capability is not expected to rock 'n' roll. He moved his body with a lack of desire and effort must have made Jim Morrison green with envy. "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide calls one of the performance" of the grandeur and emotional resonance of history. "
In January 1969 the single "If I Can Dream", written for a number, especially for $ 12. Thesoundtrack album entered the top ten. According to the friend Jerry Schilling, a special reminder of that Presley "was unable to do for years, could choose someone, who could choose what song and can not be told what should be on the soundtrack .. . It. Leaving prison, man. "Binder said that the reaction of Presley, Elvis, I played 60 minute event, and he said to the projection room," Steve is the greatest thing I've ever done in my life that I give. You believe me, I would never sing a song, I do not believe in "
From Elvis In Memphis International
With the experience Comeback Special, Presley was involved in a series of recording sessions at American Sound Production Studio, which causes acclaimedFrom Elvis in Memphis. Released in June 1969, his first secular, non-album soundtrack of the period of dedicated studio in eight years. As described by Dave Marsh, it is "a work in which Presley soon catch the trend of pop music that seems to go through the years of the film. He sings country songs, soul and rock with real conviction, an amazing achievement. "The album featured the single" In the Ghetto "was released in April, which reached number three on the pop chart gospel Presley the first non-top ten hit since" Bossa Nova Baby "in 1963. D Other singles from the American Sound Session: "Suspicious Minds", "Do not Cry Daddy" and "Kentucky Rain."
Presley was eager to resume normal life problems. After the success of the Comeback Special offers from around the world. London Palladium offered Parker $ 28,000 for a commitment of one week. He replied: "It's good for me, now how can you get Elvis?" In May, the new international brand hotel in Las Vegas has the largest showroom in the city, announced that they had booked Presley. It is planned to achieve 57 shows over four weeks from July 31. Moore, Fontana and the Jordanaires declined to participate for fear of losing their lucrative session work in Nashville. Presley has assembled a new, accompanying high level, led by guitarist James Burton and included two gospel groups, The Empire and the Sweet Inspirations, however, he was nervous just before the start of Las Vegas in 1956, was pathetic. Parker, who intended to return Presley is an exhibition event in the company, overseeing major boost to the promotion. Meanwhile, the hotel owner Kirk Kerkorian is configured to send his own plane to New York to fly on a rock journalist for his performance.
Presley went on stage without introduction. The audience of about 2200, including many celebrities, giving him a standing ovation before she sang a note and another after his appearance. A third followed his point, "Can not Help Falling in Love" (a song that ends the number of years of the 1970s). At a press conference after the event, when the reporter called "The King," said Presley Fats Domino, who took in the scene. "No," said Presley, "the true king of rock and roll." The next day, Parker's negotiations with the hotel which resulted in a five-year contract for Presley to play each February and August, with an annual salary of $ 1 million. Newsweekcommented, "There are wonderful things about Elvis, but more remarkable is the strength of his life in a world where meteoric careers fade like shooting stars." Rolling Stone called Presley "supernatural, the resurrection itself." In November, the end of the film non-Presley concert, Habit Change, was opened. Double album from Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis was released the same month, the first LP made up of spectacles of the International, the second cut more than Sessions of the American. "Suspicious Minds" topped the pop charts, Presley's first issue of the United States more than seven years, and the last.
Cassandra Peterson, Elvira, and then television, Presley met during this period in Las Vegas, where he worked as a dancer. He remembers their meeting, "He was very anti-drugs when I met him I mentioned that I was smoking marijuana. And he's just stunned. He said:" Never this again. "Presley was not only strongly opposed to drugs, he also rarely drink. Several members of his family had been an alcoholic, a fate that he intended to avoid.
Nixon is back on tour and meeting
Presley returned to international debut in 1970 for the first two years of commitment for a month, do two shows tonight. The recording of this event was published on the album on stage [187] At the end of February., Presley performed six shows a record turnout at the Astrodome in Houston. [188] In April, the single "The Wonder of You" was issued, the number one hit in Britain, it topped the adult contemporary chart in the United States as well. MGM exercises and concert footage filmed at the International in August documentaryElvis: The Way It Is Presley is now appearing in a combination, which became the trademark of his live act. During this engagement, he was threatened with assassination less than $ 50,000 was paid. Presley became the target of numerous threats since 1950, often without their knowledge. The FBI took the threat seriously and increased security for the next two events. Presley left the stage with a Derringer in the trunk to the right and 0.45 pistol in his belt, but the concert was uneventful.
Album That's the Way It Is, was produced to accompany the documentary and show both studio and live recordings, marked a turning point in style. As music historian John Robertson notes, "The Power of Presley singing helps disguise the fact that the album firmly moved away from the inspiration of American-roots session to Memphis more than a middle-voice Road. With the state back wore R burner, and soul and left & B in Memphis, which remains a very classy, very clean white pop-perfect for a variety of Las Vegas, but a decline for Elvis. "After the end of its international commitment on September 7, Presley began a concert tour of a week, most of the South, its first since 1958. Another tour for a week, West Coast, then in November .
On December 21, 1970, Presley strange genius meeting with President Richard Nixonat White House, where he was declared patriotism and contempt for the hippie drug culture. He asked Nixon for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge, add the same point, he began to collect and to signify the official sanction of his patriotic efforts. Nixon, who seems to find awkward meeting, expressed the belief that Presley could send a positive message to young people and it was important that it was "maintaining credibility". Presley Nixon said that the Beatles, the song is regularly performed in concert at the time, illustrated by what he saw as the trend of anti-Americanism and drug abuse in popular culture. (Presley and his friends have a four-hour appointment with the Beatles five years earlier.) After hearing the report of the meeting, Paul McCartney later said he "felt a little betrayed. ... Big joke is that we take drugs [illegal], and look what happened to him, "a reference to Presley's death, rushed to the abuse of prescription drugs. [196]
U. S. Junior Chamber of Commerce named one of the men Presley annual Ten Most Outstanding Young Nation January 16, 1971. Shortly after, the city of Memphis has named a stretch of Highway 51 South, located Graceland "Elvis Presley Boulevard." In the same year, Presley became the first rock and roll will be given the Lifetime Achievement Award (then known as the Bing Crosby Award) by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Grammy organization. Three new non-album studio Presley movie, released in 1971, a total that comes out in the past eight years earlier. Best received by critics Elvis Country is a concept album focusing on the standard kind. The biggest seller is the Elvis Sings Wonderful World of Christmas, "the true state of all", as Greil Marcus. "In the midst of Christmas carols painful polished ten, each sung with sincerity and humility terrible, you can find travel tom-catting Elvis ablaze six minutes of" Merry Christmas, Baby ", a lecherous old Charles Brown blues. .. If sin [Presley] was not his life. It is sin that brought him to life. "
Marriage and disorganization Aloha from Hawaii
Presley and his wife, meanwhile, has become increasingly distant, almost did not cohabit. In 1971, his relationship with Joyce Bova results unbeknownst to him during the pregnancy and abortion. He has often mentioned the possibility of passing it to Graceland, said he could leave Priscilla. The Presley separated on February 23, 1972, after Priscilla disclosed her relationship with Mike Stone, a karate instructor Presley recommended. Priscilla told me that when she told him, Presley "grabbed ... and love for" her, saying: "This is how a real man to please his wife." Five months later, the new small Elvis girlfriend Linda Thompson, a songwriter and a time Memphis beauty queen, lives with him. Presley and his wife filed for divorce Aug. 18.
In January 1973, Presley performed two benefit concerts for the Kui Lee Cancer Fund in connection with a breakthrough TV special Aloha from Hawaii. The first show was used as backup should run the practice and technical matters concerning the live broadcast two days later. Served as planned on January 14, Aloha from Hawaii concert was the first global satellite broadcast, reaching around 1.5 billion viewers live and recorded. Presley became the best known examples costume together complicated equipment with his character on the final day become intimately linked. As described by Bobbie Ann Mason, "In the end, when he unfolds his cape American Eagle, an eagle with wings spread fully studded on the back, he became a figure of God." Double album above, has was published in February, went to number one and eventually sold over five million copies in the United States. This proved to be Presley's last number one U.S. pop album of his lifetime.
In the middle of the night showed the same month, four people rushed the stage during an attack clear. man jumped defense security Presley Karate singer and instinct took over when he removed one of the invaders from the scene itself. After the show, he becomes obsessed with the idea that people were sent by Peter to kill him. Although they were found to have fans that overexuberant, he raged, "There's too much pain in me ... Stone [must] die. "His explosion continued with such intensity that doctors are unable to calm him down, although a large dose of medication. After two full-time rampage, Red West, his friend and bodyguard, is felt compelled to get a price for a contract killing and was relieved when Presley decided:. "Aw hell, let's leave it for now maybe a bit heavy
medical crisis and the last studio session
Presley divorce came into force October 9, 1973. It is now increasingly unhealthy. Twice over the years, he overdosed onbarbiturates, spent three days in a coma in his hotel room after the first incident. In late 1973, he was hospitalized, semicomatose cons effects of Demerol addiction. According to the attending physician, Dr. George C. Nichopoulos, Presley "feel that by getting [the drug] by the doctor, it was not common everyday junkie getting something off the road." Since his return, he played more live shows each year passed, and 1973 168 see the concert, his busiest schedule ever.Despite his health deteriorated in 1974, he made an extensive tour another time.
Presley condition declined rapidly in September. Keyboardist Tony Brown remember the arrival of the singer in a Marylandconcert University: "It fell from the limo, on his knees to help people jumping, and he encouraged them to go like." Do not help me. "He walked on stage and held the microphone for 30 minutes Everyone sees this first post as the other. Do tour will happen? "Guitarist John Wilkinson recalled," It is a gut every speech .. He's so messed up. ... Clearly she had been drugged. Obviously there is something very wrong with his body. While the words barely comprehensible bad song ... I remember crying .. She could barely through the introduction of "Wilkinson said. a few nights later, in Detroit," I saw him in the locker room, all draped over a chair, unable to move so often I thought, "Boss, why not just cancel the tour and take a year off ...?' I said something once in a guarded He hit me in the back. He said, "Everything will be alright Do not worry .." "Presley continued to play before crowds of demand. As a cultural critic, says Marjorie Garber, it is now widely regarded as a crooner of pop striking: "In short, it became Liberace Even his fans are now middle-aged moms and grandmother with blue hair .. "
On July 13, 1976, Vernon Presley, who had become heavily involved in the financial affairs of his son-fire "Memphis Mafia" bodyguard Red West (Presley friend since the 1950s), Sonny West and David Heble , citing the need to "cut to the detriment of the" Presley. in Palm Springs at the time, and some suggest the singer was too cowardly to face the same three. Another colleague Presley, John O'Grady, was argued that the guards were dropped because of their rude treatment of fans has made too many demands. However, Elvis' stepbrother, David Stanley said that the guards who were fired because they had become noisier on drug addiction Presley. Presley and Linda Thompson split in November, and he took with a new girlfriend, Ginger Alden. He proposed Alden and gave him the engagement ring two months later, although some of its Friends later said he had no serious intention of remarrying.
RCA, which has benefited from the flow of products Presley for over a decade, worried that interest in spending time in the studio guests. After the December 1973 session which produced 18 tracks, close enough to two albums, he did not enter the studio in 1974. Parker sold at a concert record RCA, Elvis: As Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis. Registered March 20, it includes versions of "How Great Thou Art" which will win the Third Prize Presley and his last Grammy competition. (All three of his Grammy competitive on a total of 14 applications were for gospel recordings.) Presley returned to the studio in Hollywood in March 1975, but Parker's efforts to hold another session at the end of the year did not work. In 1976, RCA sent a mobile studio at Graceland, which allows two sessions Record scale at home Presley. Even in the context of comfort, the registration process are currently struggling to him.
For all the problems of labels and managers, studio sessions between July 1973 and October 1976, Presley recorded almost the entire contents of six albums. Although no longer a significant presence on the charts, five of them in the album charts the top five countries and three were number one: Promised Land (1975), From Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis Tennessee (1976), and Moody Blue (1977). The story is similar to his pop hits not only big, but Presley is a major force in the market not only countries but also the adult contemporary radio. Eight singles studio this period was released during his lifetime that affects the top ten in any maps, four in 1974 alone. "My Boy" is the number one AC hit in 1975 and "Moody Blue" at the head of the country charts and reached second place in AC in 1976. Perhaps most critically acclaimed recordings coming time of year, in what Greil Marcus describes as "apocalyptic attack" his soul on the classic "Hurt". "If he feels he has heard "Dave Marsh wrote about the performance of Elvis," not surprised that only one year left to live, but he managed to survive that long. "
Journalist Tony Scherman writes that in early 1977, "Elvis Presley has become a caricature of his bizarre elegant, energetic former self thoughts are overweight. That blunted by the pharmacopoeia, he ingested daily, was almost unable to pull through Short gig. "In Alexandria, Louisiana, the singer on stage less than an hour and it is impossible to understand" [240] Presley has not appeared in Baton Rouge. He can not leave the hotel bed and the rest of the tour was canceled. Although the acceleration of injury to health, he stuck with a commitment to ride the most. In Rapid City, South Dakota, "he was so nervous on stage when she could barely speak, "according to historian Samuel Roy Presley, and unable to" make any significant movement. " Guralnick tells fans "are more eloquent about their disappointment, but all turned to the right past Elvis, the world is now almost entirely confined to his room and his book of spirituality." A cousin, Billy Smith, recalled how Presley would sit in her room and chat for hours, sometimes telling favorite Monty Python sketches and adventures of his own past, but most often plagued by paranoid obsession that recalls Smith Howard Hughes. "Way Down," Presley's last single to be released during his life on June 6 his last concert was held at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, June 26
The book Elvis:? What happened, cowritten by the guards fired three years earlier, was published on 1 August. This is the first detailed description of drug abuse Presley. He was devastated by the book and tried failed to prevent the release by offering money to the publisher. At this point, he suffered from various diseases, glaucoma, hypertension, liver damage and intestinal dilatation, each worse, and may be caused by drug abuse.
Presley was scheduled to leave Memphis on the night of August 16, 1977, to start a new tour. This afternoon, Alden found him unresponsive on floor bathroom. Efforts to resuscitate him failed, and was officially pronounced dead at 15:30 at Baptist Memorial Hospital.
President Jimmy Carter issued a statement Presley deserves to have "permanently changed the face of American popular culture." Thousands of people gathered at Graceland to see the open casket. A cousin of Presley, Billy Mann, received 18,000 dollars in secret photograph of the corpse, the image appears on the cover of National Enquirer edition of the bestseller ever. Alden reach an agreement with the $ 105,000 Enquirer for the story, but less settled when he violated his agreement exclusivity. Presley has left nothing in his will.
Presley funeral took place at Graceland, Thursday, Aug. 18. At the door, a car struck a group of fans, killing two women and seriously injuring a third. About 80,000 people lined the parade at Forest Hill Cemetery, where Presley is buried near his mother. In a few days, "Way Down" at the top of the country and British pop songs. After trying to steal the body of the singer at the end of August, the remains of both Elvis Presley and his mother buried at Graceland Meditation Garden, October 2.
Since 1977,
Between 1977 and 1981, six posthumously released single by Presley hitting ten countries. Graceland opened to the public in 1982. Attracted more than half a million visitors each year, is the second most visited house in the United States after the White House. It was declared a National Monument in 2006.
Presley was inducted into four Music Hall of Fame: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986), Country Music Hall of Fame (1998), theGospel Music Hall of Fame (2001), and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame (2007). In 1984 he was awarded the WC Handy Award for Blues Foundation and the Academy of Country Music Hat first Golden's. In 1987 he received the American Music Awards of Merit.
A Junkie XL remix of Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" (credited as "Elvis Vs JXL") is used in an advertising campaign for Nike during the2002 FIFA World Cup. It topped the charts in over 20 countries and included in the compilation of Number One Hits Presley ELV1S, who is also an international success. In 2003, a remix of "Rubberneckin ', 1969 records of Presley, the top selling cards in the United States, as well as birthday-50 re-release of" That's All Right "next year. The latter is a direct hit in the UK, reaching number three on the pop charts.
In 2005, reprinted three singles, "Rock Prison," "One Night" / "I Got Stung" and "It's Now or No," went to number one in England. Some 17 single, Presley was re-issued during the year, all being top five in the United Kingdom. For the fifth consecutive year, Forbes named Presley top-earning dead celebrity, with gross revenues of $ 45 million. In 2009 he was ranked fourth. The following year, Viva Elvis: The album was released, the establishment of a new instrumental voice to the song recorded.
Presley holds the record for most songs charts on top of the Billboard top 40 and 100: Joel Whitburn chart statistics count the total, respectively, 104 and 151; Presley historian Victor Adam gave 114 and 138. Presley ranked top ten hits and a number varies depending on how the two sides of "Hound Dog / Don 't Be Cruel" and "Do not / I beg you" single, which preceded the birth of the Billboard Hot 100-US which analyzed.d According Whitburn, Presley holds the record for most hits from ten to 38; by Billboard current assessment, he ranks second with 36 behind Madonna 37. Whitburn Billboard and agree that the Beatles hold the record for most number one hits with 20 and Mariah Carey second with 18. Whitburn also Presley with 18 and therefore linked to both; Billboard his third with 17. Presley maintain a record of cumulative weeks at number one: only 80, according to Whitburn and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, tied with Carey at 79, according to Billboard. He holds the British record for the number at least one hit, with 21, and top ten hits with 76.