Elvis in the 70s - Tribute Home Page

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Welcome!

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A very warm welcome to our homepage providing a growing collection of content and links celebrating Elvis' life on the road in the 1970s, but with a focus on the widely misunderstood period between the Aloha From Hawaii event and his final concert in Indianapolis in June of 1977. We provide some links to concert recordings from the soundboard and by audience members, as well as some suggested additional sites, articles and podcasts.  Background information on the YouTube posts is largely thanks to Francesc Lopez and elvisconcerts.com (see link below).

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Through bootleg audio of concerts from 1974-77, which are now widely available, we can get to know Elvis as a working entertainer and human being, rather than a cartoon hero. There were nights, right up to the very end, when he was on fire, his voice sounded better than ever, and he could enthral a huge stadium audience right to the back row; without giant video screens and with only rudimentary lighting. He had fun with audience members, and with the band, was unfailingly polite to fans, and laughed at himself and his image. He no longer rehearsed, forgot lyrics occasionally (or couldn't be bothered learning them in the first place), stopped and re-started songs if he wasn't happy, and improvised on stage. He could be grumpy, especially with sound imperfections (feedback was a constant source of annoyance), and there were nights that he was homesick, lethargic, medicated and unwell, which inevitably affected his performance. He turned up, night after night, whether he felt like it or not.  

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The reality, beyond the mythmaking, was that he was a working entertainer who needed the money, and who was responsible for the livelihoods of hundreds of people, while living with addiction and erratic mental health. The human aspect is a fascinating story in itself.

 

(These uploads are not monetized. For the sake of completeness, copyrighted material is retained so any revenues are directed by YouTube to the music publishers and spoken word rights holders.)

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Page currently not being updated. For new links and material, we'd love to see you on Tumblr, Pinterest, at the DEC4 Webpage, or on Substack and YouTube. Follow the links from this page. You can also contact us or comment on all of those platforms, or here.