As with every other album of the week, all we ask you to do, it pull out your vinyl, 8 track cassette, cassette, or CD.
Or
even stream it from your favourite streaming site, or even download it,
whichever is your preference to listen, just give the album a listen,
then give us your thoughts and feedback.
We would love you to actually listen to the album, just to refresh your memory.
Thanks.
Moody Blue
Released: July 1977
Recorded: February 2 and 4, 1976; October 29 and 31,
1976; April 24 and 26, 1977
Genre: Soft rock, Country Rock, Doo Wop
Length: 31 minutes 12 seconds
Label: RCA Victor
Moody Blue is the twenty fourth and final studio
album by Elvis, released by RCA Records
the month before his death in August 1977. The album was a mixture of live and
studio work, and included the four tracks from Presley's final studio recording
sessions in October 1976 and two tracks left over from the previous Graceland
session in February 1976. "Moody Blue" was a previously published hit
song recorded at the earlier Graceland session and held over for this album.
Also recorded at the February session was "She Thinks I Still Care".
"Way Down" became a hit after Presley's death less than one month
after this album's publication. The album was certified Gold and Platinum on
September 12, 1977 and 2x Platinum on March 27, 1992 by the RIAA.
Contents
As
described in Elvis: The Illustrated Record, RCA was not able to obtain
sufficient new studio material for a complete album, with all but two songs of
Presley's studio recordings of 1976 having already been used in the previous
album, From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee or released as
singles. The company chose to augment the remaining available works with three
live songs recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 24 and 26, 1977, which
were heavily overdubbed for the album, and were also the final recordings Elvis
would ever make. One of those was his version of "Unchained Melody"
which he accompanied himself on the piano. RCA and the producer Felton Jarvis
had booked a recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee, for January 1977, to
record some new tracks for this album. Presley had chosen a few songs to record
with the help of Jarvis, most of them rather country and uptempo.
Unfortunately, Presley never showed up at that session, claiming that he was
sick and thus staying home (an excuse that Presley used rather frequently
during the 1960s to avoid recording poor soundtracks for his motion pictures).
Jarvis and RCA had nothing left to do but to fill the album with the live
tracks mentioned above. Also included is a live performance of "Let Me Be There" which had already
been released three years earlier on his album Elvis: As Recorded Live on
Stage in Memphis, even though, as noted, RCA had access to a previously
unreleased live recording, "Softly, As I Leave You", which it would
later utilize for a single release of "Unchained Melody".
The song
"Moody Blue" was released as a single in December 1976 and it reached
number one on the Billboard Country Singles Chart and #31 on the pop chart.
"Way Down" was released as the album's next single during the early
summer of 1977. It did not go very far up the chart, but it soared to #18 after
Presley's death in August (jumping to number one in the U.K.) It was a bigger
hit on the country charts, and it had risen to number one in the same week of
the death of Presley. This album reached number three on the Billboard album
charts after his death, although it had already entered the top 40 before he
died. This was the last album by Presley to reach the TOP 40. Moody Blue
was also a number one album on the Country Albums chart. Moody Blue was
issued in July 1977, and it peaked on the album chart after Elvis' death on
August 16, 1977.
RCA
pressed the album on blue vinyl, to match the title track. Since colored vinyl
pressings were relatively uncommon at the time, and they almost never occurred
in a wide release, this has led to collectors mistakenly assuming that blue
vinyl copies of Moody Blue are collectors' items, when in fact, the true
collectables are pressings from immediately before Presley's death on standard
black vinyl. (Immediately following his death, the production of Moody Blue
was shifted back to blue vinyl. However, in later years the album was produced
again using standard black vinyl). Following Presley's death, "Unchained
Melody" was also released as a single, and it peaked at #6 on the country
music charts. This version was not the same as on the Moody Blue LP. The single
version was an overdubbed version of the song, recorded in Rapid City, June 21
1977.
Reissues
The original RCA CD issue contained the same tracks and cover art as the
original vinyl LP. RCA reissued the album on CD again in 2000 with revised
cover art including a different concert photo of Elvis and omitted the track
"Let Me Be There", due to its presence on Elvis: As Recorded Live
on Stage in Memphis, and it added the complete album From Elvis Presley
Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee as tracks 10–19 – in effect compiling the
Graceland sessions rather than reissuing the original album.
Tracklisting:
Side 1:
Unchained
Melody
If You
Love Me (let Me Know)
Little Darlin'
He'll Have To Go
Let me be There
Side 2:
Way Down
Pledging
My love
Moody
Blue
She
Thinks I Still care
It's Easy
For You
