Elvis : The Concert Years 1969 - 1977

by Stein-Erik Skar (1997)

Review

Where to begin? There are so many good things to say about that book that a review seems rather unnecessary, but excellent material deserves praise and any fans of the concert years has to have this book on his shelf.

Mr. Skar certainly worked long hours for several years before having that book published, this is extremely well organized and more importantly,VERY accurate. A few books on this era had surfaced along the years but ALL of them contained too many errors, of which some are totally unforgivable considering how basic was the information, moreover the ' other ' books ' suffered from lack of informations on many levels. Yes, there are a few mistakes here and there in the book, but a work of such  magnitude couldn't be possibly mistakes free from beginning to end, yet Mr. Skar produced the reference on the subject and  there are no contenders near the throne.

There are really something for everybody in the book, you have different press reviews that were originally published in the different cities where Elvis performed, this is also beautifully illustrated with LOTS of photographs in each chapter, and all from famous photographers like ; Sean Shaver, Bob Heis and Keith Alverson among others, may I also add that the details about the photographs are accurate and noticed that only a few aren't located in the good chapter or wrongly dated.At the end of the book, there are all kind of datas related to every concert tours including the jumpsuits worn by Elvis for every shows from 1970 to 1977, here too there are only a few errors, which is also surprising  considering that it's not so easy for gathering all the exact informations related to that, these details about jumpsuits aren't given for Vegas and Tahoe, but this is quite understandable as details for all performances in Vegas and Tahoe aren't available or not documented anywhere.Another part of interest at the end of the book, you can find listings of songs that Elvis performed for each Vegas, Tahoe or on tour venues,this is not a listing for every show but mainly a listing of the songs used frequently by Elvis for a particular stand, with extra details on songs rarely sung during that same stand, and in some cases one liners are also mentioned.

Somehow Mr. Skar realized the impossible and produced the BEST book ever available on the concert years from 1969 to 1977, this is now the reference on the subject and any books that has been released in the past on this period in Elvis' career are pale in comparison, and suffice is to say that future projects on the same theme will have to suffer the comparison too. Who knows? Perhaps Mr. Skar will be able to top himself if he decides to update it in several years from now, until then I HIGHLY recommend that book to any fans of the best performer that ever lived on the face of this earth.

(note:five gold books is the higher grading)

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