RCA have announced the release of Elvis Country: Legacy Edition, the newest entry in the series of multi-disc package. The deluxe two-CD package will be available at all physical and digital retail outlets starting January 3rd through RCA/Legacy.
Forty years after its release in 1971, Elvis Country, an LP that found him getting back in touch with the Nashville country music mainstream.
Elvis Country: Legacy Edition is the first Elvis release of 2012, a year which marks the 35th anniversary of the artist's passing and a year-long celebration of his life and legacy. A full schedule of catalog reissues and compilations are planned by longtime Elvis archivists/co-producers Ernst Mikael Jorgensen and Roger Semon.
Included in the new package on CD one is the original 12-song Elvis Country (subtitled "I'm 10,000 Years Old"), which debuted January 23, 1971, on the Billboard 200 album chart. The album peaked at #12, spent 21 weeks on the chart, and was certified RIAA Gold. Three bonus tracks are drawn from the original recording sessions of June and September 1970 (more info below). On CD two, from the June sessions, comes the original 11-song Love Letters From Elvis (chart debut June 26, 1971, peak position # 33, 15 weeks on the chart), also with three bonus tracks from the original sessions.
In his liner notes to ELVIS COUNTRY: LEGACY EDITION, writer Stuart Colman calls the original Elvis Country "a pivotal release, in that it served to maintain the momentum generated by the ''68 Comeback Special,' the breakthrough in Las Vegas and Elvis Presley's long overdue return to touring." Colman, a veteran British rock musician since the '60s, is also a prolific album notes writer and compilation producer, with a special interest in roots rock, rockabilly, and early R&B.
