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Post by rick on Jun 29, 2023 14:15:09 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Jun 29, 2023 18:33:02 GMT -5
Referring to that 1968 NBC "Comeback" special as a "make-or-break situation" is an all-too-accurate thing to say.
Elvis, principally because he was acceding to what The Colonel was telling him to do, which was to make really mediocre films like Clambake, Spinout, and Speedway, was watching his career becoming something of a sick joke by that time; and Binder just made it a point of being straight with Elvis about it. If he showed the world what he really was about, he could be back in an awfully big way--which, of course, was exactly what happened. But if Elvis just did what the Colonel wanted with this special, which was a strictly Christmas special with nothing but about twenty X-Mas songs, then his career would, for all intents and purposes, be dead in the water.
Against the Colonel's wishes (an understatement, to put it mildly), Elvis and Binder took things a step further. Given that Martin Luther King had been murdered only eight miles from Graceland on April 4th, and Bobby Kennedy killed only ten miles from the NBC Studios where he was filming the special, Elvis felt the need to pour out his anguish, stating "When things become too dangerous to say, you sing." The result was "If I Can Dream", the special's gospel-based closing number, written by Walter Earle Browne, that encapsulated the hopes, dreams, and wishes for all good people in America and throughout the world. All the Colonel could do was throw a conniption fit, that he had been gainsaid in this way, but the song and the TV special became big hits for Elvis, making him relevant once again.
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