Golden Celebration [Out-of-Print]

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Elvis Presley, The Jordanaires.

Compilation producers: Joan Deary, Gregg Gellar.

Digitally remastered by Dennis Ferrante and Vince Caro.

In the years since Elvis' death, RCA has chosen various landmark occasions on which to release sets of previously unissued Presley material. ELVIS ARON PRESLEY, sometimes referred to as the "Silver Box," arrived on the fifth anniversary of Presley's passing. PLATINUM: A LIFE IN MUSIC marked the twentieth anniversary. The release of the best of these four-CD boxes, ELVIS: A GOLDEN CELEBRATION, coincided with Presley's fiftieth birthday.

GOLDEN CELEBRATION focuses three of its four discs on the first years of Presley's career. Several excellent Sun session outtakes precede the core of the record, which consists of a complete collection of Presley's incendiary 1956 television performances and a September 1956 homecoming concert in Tupelo, Mississippi. The final disc contains a potpourri of goodies: home demos, an interview with a rude TV Guide reporter, and a generous helping of songs from the "sit-down" concert portion of the 1968 Comeback Special. The sound quality on the recordings, a number of which were apparently made on crude home recorders, is usually pretty good, except for the Tupelo concerts which are bootleg quality. Alongside THE COMPLETE '50S MASTERS, GOLDEN CELEBRATION provides an essential panoramic view of Presley's best years.