ELVIS PRESLEY
"Still Crazy After All These Years"
Recorded live at the Civic Center, Asheville, NC
Tuesday July 22, 1975
From the collection of Roy Martin: http://db.etree.org/roymartin/elvis
Lineage: Average, distant audience tape -> ? -> Silver CD -> WAV -> FLAC
Ripped from original silver discs using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) in
"Secure Mode" for optimal error-free extraction & using correct drive
read offset. Encoded to FLAC using Trader's Little Helper" (TLC).
Total Time (91:52)
101 Also Sprach Zarathustra
102 C C Rider
103 I Got A Woman - Amen
104 monologue
105 Big Boss Man
106 monologue
107 Why Me Lord
108 Having Fun With The Band
109 Love Me
110 If You Love Me (Let Me Know)
111 Elvis about his album "Today"
112 Looking For the C Chord
113 Shake A Hand
114 All Shook Up
115 Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel
116 Hound Dog
117 The Wonder Of You
118 Elvis Jokes About The "Creepin' Crud"
119 Memphis, Tennessee
201 Funny How Time Slips Away
202 Polk Salad Annie
203 Introductions Part 1 By JD Sumner
204 James Burton - Johnny B. Goode
205 Ronnie Tutt Drum Solo
206 Jerry Scheff Bass Solo
207 Glen D. Hardin Piano Solo
208 Introductions part 2 by JD Sumner
209 Joe Guercio Orchestra - School Days
210 T-R-O-U-B-L-E
211 Bathroom Explanation
212 It's Now Or Never
213 You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
214 How Great Thou Art (with reprise)
215 Burning Love
216 audience monologue
217 Let Me Be There
218 Heartbreak Hotel
219 Little Darlin'
220 Mystery Train - Tiger Man
221 Gift Presented to JD Sumner
222 Can't Help Falling In Love - Closing Vamp
This is the first of three sold-out performances at the Asheville Civic
Center that ended Elvis' third tour of 1975, a 17-date road trip.
This tour in particular was tumultuous as Elvis' mood was sour, his
performances included bizarre episodes of anger. A week earlier, during
a show in Springfield, MA, he tossed his guitar into the audience,
declaring "whomever got the guitar can keep the damned thing. I don't
need it anymore." Several days later, during shows in Richfield, OH &
in Uniondale, NY, he turned his nasty sarcasm towards Kathy Westmoreland,
introducing the soprano singer (& former bed partner) as willing to "take
affection from anybody, any place, any time." After she complained bitterly
to Colonel Parker's lieutenant, Tom Diskin, Elvis racheted it up and became untolerable during July 20th's concert at the Scope, Norfolk, VA. During
the band introductions, Elvis had a biting response to Kathy's complaint
to Diskin, and accused the Sweet Inspirations of smelling as if they'd
been eating catfish. All of the female singers, with the exception of
Myrna Smith, promptly abandoned the performance and declared their intention
to quit the tour due to the on-stage embarrassments. Elvis, never ever able
to apologize for anything least of which mutter the words "I'm sorry," merely
purchased (in the words of Lowell Hayes, his favorite Memphis jeweler)
"practically a whole jewelry store."
One of Lowell Hayes' surviving invoices shows a total close to $90,000 in
jewelry purchased by Elvis this week. Ninety thousand dollars, in 1974 &
adjusting for inflation, is about $500,000 dollars now. An ounce of
gold in 2017 is approximately ten times the price as in 1974. Hot damn,
Charlie. Elvis must felt the need for some serious apologizing.
The Sweet Inspirations accepted their gifts, returning to the July 21st show
in Greensboro, NC. Kathy declines Elvis' golden, but unspoken, apology.
Felton Jarvis (Elvis' fulltime producer) arranges Millie Kirkham to be flown
in as a standby soprano replacement for Westmoreland.
Elvis summons Kathy to his hotel suite, making an offer she couldn't refuse: Holding out both of his hands (expensive gold jewelry in one; a pistol in
the other.) After explaining that she was receiving one or the other, Kathy
chose the gold over the lead & returned to the stage for this Asheville show
on July 22nd. Millie Kirkham is never needed & gets paid to essentially attend
an Elvis concert.
---
Elvis Still Wows 'Em
by Billy Pritchard
Asheville Citizen-News
July 23, 1975
A paunchy but pretty 40-year-old Elvis Aron Presley filled the huge Asheville Civic Center with his booming. barrel-chested voice here Tuesday night to the delight of a fully-packed 7500-seat house. The King, as some call him, came on stage around 9.55PM and sang for nearly two hours. His act was interrupted only for about seven minutes while he excused himself for a trip to the restroom, he said. "I always dreamed this would happen," he told the shouting crowd.
Dressed in embroidered and sequined white pants and jacket and white boots, Elvis spent his time singing and giving away colored silk scarves to the few young ladies who managed to make their way past a tough ring of security guards to the stage. Although his voice was still there, as vigorous and convincing as ever, the rock seemed to have gone out Elvis the Pelvis' roll. Except for a few brief moments of concentrated body movement, such as a brief Kung Fu dance during the closing of Poke Salad Annie, Elvis walked casually around the stage without a lot of fanfare.
Closing with a rousing I Can't Help Falling in Love with You, Presley's Tuesday night repertoire included such hits as Burning Love, How Great Thou Art, It's Now Or Never, All Shook up, Teddy Bear, Shake a Hand, I Gotta Woman, Amen and (You Aint' Nothing But a) Hound Dog. Presley, who will also appear in concert Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Civic Center for his three-night, sell-out stay in Asheville, is backed up by a 15-piece band and 11 back-up singers.
The music is provided by a center-stage rock band, backed up by an 11-piece orchestra, including four trombones, four trumpets, a percussionist, a piano and a band leader. The stage band includes four guitars and a drummer. The singers, who perform individually as warm-up acts before joining Elvis on-stage, included J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, a superb and beloved gospel group, three black women known as Sweet Inspiration, and various other Nashville (or Memphis) voices.
In between songs, Elvis also knelt to kiss the women the scarved and threw silken handkerchiefs to back rows and into the balcony behind the stage. There didn't appear to be an empty seat in the house. The Memphis Casanova was off the stage, into an awaiting limousine and gone from downtown Asheville before the house lights came on after his final number. His entourage is being housed in a large bloc of rooms east of the city on US Highway 70 at the Rodeway Inn, but inside word has it that Presley is not staying overnight in Asheville.
The word is that Presley is flying back and forth during his three-day stay here from his Graceland mansion in Memphis, where he spends most of his time in seclusion. Elvis spent about 15 days in Baptist Memorial Hospital during the first part of this year for what his doctor described as "intestinal blockage" due to a "twisted colon." This may explain why the pelvis has gone out of Elvis.
Asheville is Presley's last stop in his latest tour which began nearly a month ago in Charleston, W. Va. and led him through northern states before coming to Greensboro Monday night. He will rest after his stay here and open in Las Vegas in a few weeks. Presley stands to gross more than $200,000 during his three sell-out nights here, a much better showing than his performance here 20 years ago when he played the old auditorium with the Martha Carson show on May 17th, 1955.