At 05:30 PM 4/24/99 EDT, you wrote:
>where what I believe was his last televised concert he sang "Unchained
>Melody" accompanying himself on the piano. It is one of the most emotional
>and powerful musical moments I have ever seen. He looks like hell, but that
>voice is strong and perfect. It makes me cry.
This amazing clip is on one of the Great Performances videos as well (and
the arrangment/interpretation is largely borrowed, I'd say, from Charlie
Rich's Sun era version of the song). It makes me cry too. But it makes me
cry precisely because his voice CAN'T do it anymore, which isn't so
suprising since he's like only a few weeks away from being dead. He can't
hit the high notes at all, or the low ones either. It's a pretty pathetic
performance, but it's also painfully poignant for the sheer gesture of the
attempt, or maybe because of his glassy-eyed obliviousness to his lack of
chops. At any rate, Unchained Melody is a very hard song to sing even for
someone in their prime, but Elvis doesn't try to sing it differently to
account for his new vocal weaknesses; he just plows through.
So I agree with you that's it's among the most emotional and powerful of
musical moments. But it's incredibly hard for me to watch, especially since
I know what he's lost, and what's coming. --david cantwell
