Reviewed by Dave Brassington

Upon his release from the army in 1960, Elvis staged a spectacular comeback with some huge selling singles and two fantastic LPs of which the above is a reissue of one of them. On the first CD, we have all 12 tracks from the original album plus the secular song "Surrender" and his revival of the old country/doowop hit "Crying In The Chapel" which was not released until 1965 when it topped the UK pop charts. The remainder of CD one is taken up with first takes of many of the titles appearing on the original album. The second CD is made up of session outtakes of many of the songs from the original recording session. The original album was in my opinion just superb, recorded in Nashville with a very sensitive small group backing. Can you beat the emotion that Elvis puts into "If We Never Meet Again" which was probably influenced by the recent loss of his beloved mother Gladys? 40 years later the album sounds exceedingly fresh and modern and is worthy of a wide hearing. However opinion will be divided about the value of outtakes in particular when we're presented with four different attempts of "His Hand In Mine".

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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