Having Fun with Elvis on Stage

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Having Fun with Elvis on Stage is a 1974 live album from Elvis Presley that Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, had RCA put out.

Having Fun With Elvis on Stage is considered by many critics to be the worst live album Elvis or anyone else has ever put out. This is because there were no song performances on it, only tape byplay recorded between songs—Elvis telling jokes, requesting a drink of water, and demonstrating eleven different ways to pronounce "Memphis." Though it clearly said "A Talking Album Only" on the cover, Having Fun with Elvis on Stage was nonetheless packaged and marketed as a legitimate concert album.

Parker was seeking to add to the collection of merchandise sold at Presley's concerts. RCA owned the rights to Elvis' music, but Parker discovered he could sell an album of Elvis simply talking. Someone took 37 minutes of Elvis' stage banter and spliced it together. The banter on the album does not follow any set pattern or purpose. "If one had any reason at all to believe that Col. Parker put more than an afternoon into assembling this album," writes the AllMusic Guide, "one might suspect he was aiming for a purposefully dada-esque approach, but apathy and ineptitude seems to be the only realistic explanations for this record's haphazard structure."[1]

It managed to make it up to #130 on the Billboard album charts.

  1. Side A - 18:10
  2. Side B - 18:43

Rock critics Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell, writing in their 1991 book The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time, named Having Fun With Elvis on Stage the worst rock album ever.

Quotes from Elvis Presley on this record include:

  • "On the piano, Mr. Colonel Parker."
  • "I'll get back with you once I sing 2 1/2 songs"
  • "By the time this show is over, I'll have made a complete, total fool of myself"
  • "Look at all these things in my pants here."
  • "I'd like to be relieved here."
  • "What the heck was I gonna do?"
  • "Well..." (quoted repeatedly)
  • "Memphis."
  • "I'm the NBC Peacock."
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