Elvis Country : Elvis Presley's Concept Album

Harley Payette explains why he thinks that the I'm 10,000 Years Old : Elvis Country' album 'tells us as much about the man who created it as anything he ever did'. In January 1971, RCA records slipped its latest Elvis Presley LP on the market, not two months after the previous one. That record, 'I'm 10,000 Years Old: Elvis Country', the singer's 30th of original material (excluding live collections, compilations and greatest hits sets), wasn't just another Elvis LP. It was an honest to gosh concept LP. The songs were not only linked stylistically and thematically, but all the performances were linked by splices of a song interspersed between each number. Even the cover wasn't the usual head shot of a smiling Elvis, concert pose, or movie still. In their place was a sepia toned photo of a very familiar looking young boy, Elvis Presley aged two