December 05 - Ooh Las Vegas

The Millbranch Music import record label releasedthe CD and DVD set 'Ooh Las Vegas' featuring a soundbooth recording of the February 11, 1973 Midnight Show performance is Las Vegas and previously unreleased video footage on DVD. 

Publicity stated: Millbranch Music is back with a very strong CD and DVD combo containing unreleased “Soundbooth” Audio and Video (in unbelievable, simply stunning quality)! And we are completely focused on Elvis' first “After Aloha from Hawaii” Las Vegas engagement in early 1973!

'Ooh Las Vegas' is a CD and a DVD in a deluxe 2-panel Digi-Pack. We are delighted to be able to present a completely new show on CD (February 11th, 1973 - Midnight Show). Recorded by UK's super fan Rex Martin, we are able to fill another hole in all our collections of Elvis´ Las Vegas concert legacy! 

And we are lucky for sure, since this recording - taken from the original cassette tape - presents an absolutely complete show in stunning “Soundbooth” quality. Starting with music from Joe Guercio's Orchestra about half a minute before the 'Also Sprach Zarthustra' Intro begins, you can even hear a couple of female voices greeting Rex Martin (and a little bit of conversation between them). He clearly had already built up and running his recording devices (both audio and video). Then there is the complete show until the very end, when you hear the announcer talk about the souvenir stand in the lobby. It doesn't get much better!

The DVD presents Millbranch's typical premium quality approach. You'll get more than 90 minutes of Video material, also including a great documentary about Elvis' early 1973 appearances, with both information and entertainment. But most of all you will get unreleased Video! See extremely rare footage in stunning quality with Elvis appearing in his Blue Pinwheel suit! And so much more! Quality wise this DVD easily represents the best picture quality of any Las Vegas 8mm footage that has been seen before.

CD: Orchestra Introduction / Also Sprach Zarathustra - See See Rider - I Got A Woman / Amen - Love Me Tender - You Don't Have To Say You Love Me - Steamroller Blues - You Gave Me A Mountain - Fever - Love Me - Blue Suede Shoes - Heartbreak Hotel - Johnny B. Goode - Hound Dog - What Now My Love - Suspicious Minds - Introductions - Introduction Of Jack Lord / Hawaii Five-O Theme - I'll Remember You - I Can't Stop Loving You - An American Trilogy - Can't Help Falling In Love - Closing Vamp / Announcements

The CD is available from >>> Bennies Fifties.

Content DVD:

1. An American Trilogy (different Camera angles) – January 12, 1973
2. Ooh Las Vegas (Documentary)
3. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 10, 1973 MS
4. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 12, 1973 DS
5. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 15, 1973 DS
6. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 17, 1973 DS
7. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 17, 1973 MS
8. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 18, 1973 MS
9. Elvis At The Hilton (8 mm footage with sound) – February 20, 1973 MS

The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World

Little, Brown and Company announced the August 5, 2025 release of the 752-page hardcover book 'The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World' by Peter Guralnick.

Publicity stated: From the award-winning biographer of Elvis Presley, The Colonel and the King is a groundbreaking dual portrait of the relationship between the iconic artist and his legendary manager, Colonel Tom Parker, drawing on a wealth of Parker's never-before-seen correspondence to reveal that this oft-reviled figure was in fact a confidant, friend, and architect of his client's success.

 

In early 1955, Colonel Tom Parker - the manager of the number-one country musician of the day - heard that an unknown teenager from Memphis had just drawn a crowd of more than 800 people to a Texas schoolhouse, and headed south to investigate. Within days, Parker was sending out telegrams and letters to promoters and booking agents: “We have a new boy that is absolutely going to be one of the biggest things in the business in a very short time. His name is ELVIS PRESLEY.” Later that year, after signing with RCA, the young man sent a telegram of his own: “Dear Colonel, Words can never tell you how my folks and I appreciate what you did for me.... I love you like a father.”

 

The close personal bond between Elvis and the Colonel proved impossible for outside observers to understand—not during their lifetimes, and not in the decades since. It was a long-standing, deeply committed relationship, founded on mutual admiration and support. As the Colonel wrote to Elvis in July 1973, several years before the star’s tragic death: “Without a doubt you are by far the greatest artist I have ever known, and can be even greater if you just believe in yourself half as much as I believe in you.” From the outset, the Colonel defended Elvis fiercely and indefatigably against RCA executives, Elvis’ own booking agents, and movie moguls. But in their final years together, the story grew darker, and the relationship strained, as the Colonel found himself unable to protect Elvis from himself—or to control growing problems of his own.

 

Featuring troves of never-before-seen correspondence from the Colonel’s own archives, revelatory both for their insights and -particularly with respect to Elvis - their emotional depth, The Colonel and the King provides a unique perspective on not one but two American originals. A tale of the birth of the modern-day superstar (an invention almost entirely of Parker’s making) by the most acclaimed music writer of his generation, it presents these two misunderstood icons as they’ve never been seen before: with all of their brilliance, humor, and flaws on full display.

The book is available for pre-order from >>> Amazon (associate link).

Guitare Sèche Le Mag

Elvis Presley is featured on the cover of the French Guitare Sèche Le Mag magazine (#67, December 2024)

Description: The notion of guitar hero is generally linked to the electric virtuosos of the 1960s and 70s. However, if we generalize the concept a little, Elvis Presley is one of the first who made a whole generation of teenagers want to pick up the guitar. His television appearances did not only cause teenage swoons and outcry from the leagues of right-thinking people in the USA. 

The King also shook the image that we could have of black music by making it acceptable to the majority, thus bringing the blues and its derivatives into popular culture. However, we can wonder what remains of the subversive character of an art when it becomes an industry. 

The vocal jazz of Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith ultimately suffered the same fate, ending up in the throats, admittedly talented, of Sinatra and Dean Martin. We won't talk about pop or rap that exploded where in the end young musicians were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to do to become cash machines, stifling emerging proposals by the systematic search for a deadly commercial consensus. There remains the dream and the memory of what a young man from the working classes saved by music (and his mother's love) can transmit to an entire continent, and it is undoubtedly a part of this dream that pushed us all to one day pick up a guitar. 

Victor Pitoiset looks back on Elvis' journey through his favorite guitars that tell as much about his career as the uses of musicians in America during the Trente Glorieuses. 

(Source: Millbranch / Amazon / Guitare Sèche Le Mag)