Seventy years after his epochal debut That’s All Right invented, or at least popularised, rock’n’roll, this colossal collection – 111 tracks across five CDs (or debatable highlights on a two-LP edition) – gathers everything Elvis Presley ever recorded in his home town. It’s a rewarding retrospective, not dissimilar in breadth and depth to the kind revered visual artists get at major museums.
It runs from his early, savant, sex-driven emissions, through his responses to freakout levels of fame, on to his final, intimate Graceland grabs for grand emotion. Suspicious minds might ask if it’s anything more than yet another Elvis cash-in, but its scholarly diligence will satisfy those who just can’t help believing. The latter titanic track alluded to there is the major omission, which shows the problem with defining a box set by geography.
