The Elvis: ’68 Comeback Special, with exclusive interviews with Pricilla Presley and filmmaker Steve Binder, will be released in over 290 cinemas in the UK, Europe, Ireland and USA this Thursday
10 Facts about the ’68 Comeback Special that you didn’t know:
1. 42% of the US television viewing audience watched the show on NBC in 1968, making it the most watched television program in America that year.
2. The special was originally just titled “Elvis” and the show was sponsored by the Singer sewing machine company.
3. Elvis was paid $250,000 to record the show.
4. The ‘68 Special was originally planned by Colonel Parker as a Christmas special, full of carols and polystyrene snow. Luckily Presley and producer Steve Binder thought outside the box. However the show ended with Elvis singing a Christmas song to appease Colonel Parker.
5. Prior to the “Special” Elvis had not performed live since 1961, appearing in movies rather than recording music or performing live.
6. The “Special” opened with footage of him dressed in a slick, black leather jumpsuit–curling his lip the way his fans remembered–and included a loose, “sit-down” set where he played his early hits with members from his backing band in the Fifties.
7. It is said the when Elvis took to the stage to record the ‘jam session’ portion of the Comeback Special, he did so only after Binder talked him out of a last-minute case of stage fright. “Elvis was hardly ever nervous–but he was then,” drummer D.J. Fontana told Rolling Stone in a feature about the special last year. “We played a couple of songs, and it got loose after a while, and it turned out fine. He just had been out of the public eye for a long time.”
8. The apex of the show comes in the unscripted “unplugged” segment, where Elvis jams informally with his pals, including old road buddies, guitarist Scotty Moore and recently deceased drummer DJ Fontana, both of whom he’d abandoned a decade earlier when he headed to Hollywood. There are untouched and raw elements within this performance where the old friends tell stories and make fun of each other between songs. It is one of the only instances where you get to see and hear him actually play, and he tears it up.
9. In one fell swoop the ratings-smashing broadcast single-handedly revived the King’s chart and live career. Within months of its broadcast he was playing Vegas and scoring number ones again. Hence it being referred to moving forward as the ‘Comeback Special’
10. The cinema release across the UK, Ireland, Europe and the USA marks the 50th anniversary of its original airing on NBC, the anniversary of Elvis’ death on August 16th 1977, and the start of ‘Elvis Week’.
