Elvis Presley -- "Taking Care of Business: The Essential '70s Masters"

The box set The King of Rock 'n' Roll: The Complete '50s Masters, which packaged all of Elvis Presley's Sun and RCA recordings from 1954-1958, was a big success.

As a result, RCA assembled a second Elvis Presley box set the following year titled From Nashville to Memphis: The Essential '60s Masters. This second box set included all the studio songs he recorded in that decade, except for movie soundtracks and gospel album tracks (these were collected on Command Performances: The Essential '60s Masters II and Amazing Grace: His Greatest Sacred Performances respectively).

With the third decade-spanning box set of the series, RCA issued Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters. But instead of following the outline of The Essential '60s Masters, the '70s box set has two discs made up of the A and B sides of singles, discs 3 and 4 made up of selected studio cuts, and the final disc 5 of live tracks.

I don't know why this change was made, but it's possible that RCA realized that with three box sets, most people could own nearly everything they would ever want of Elvis' music. In other words, they were killing their cash cow.

Whatever the reason, to me this was a letdown. I strongly believe that the '70s box set should have included all studio tracks from 1970-78, minus songs from his gospel and Christmas albums. This would have made it more akin to The Essential '60s Masters.

So here's how I think it should have been issued.

DISC 1

1. Twenty Days and Twenty Nights
2. I've Lost You
3. I was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago
4. The Sound of Your Cry
5. The Fool
6. Little Cabin on the Hill
7. Cindy, Cindy
8. Bridge over Troubled Water
9. Got My Mojo Working / Keep Your Hands Off of It
10. How the Web was Woven
11. It's Your Baby, You Rock It
12. Stranger in the Crowd
13. I'll Never Know
14. Mary in the Morning
15. It Ain't No Big Thing, But It's Growing
16. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
17. Just Pretend
18. This is Our Dance
19. Life
20. Heart of Rome
21. When I'm Over You
22. I Really Don't Want to Know
23. Faded Love
24. Tomorrow Never Comes
25. The Next Step is Love
26. Make the World Go Away

DISC 2

1. Funny How Time Slips Away
2. I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water
3. Love Letters
4. There Goes My Everything 
5. If I Were You
6. Only Believe
7. Sylvia
8. Patch It Up
9. Snowbird
10. Where Did They Go, Lord
11. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
12. Rags to Riches
13. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
14. Early Morning Rain
15. (That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me
16. Miracle of the Rosary
17. Padre
18. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
19. Help Me Make It Through the Night
20. Fools Rush In
21. It's Still Here
22. I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
23. I will Be True
24. I'm Leavin'
25. We Can Make the Morning if We Try
26. It's Only Love

DISC 3

1. Love Me, Love the Life I Lead
2. Until It's Time for You to Go
3. Put Your Hand in the Hand
4. My Way
5. Separate Ways
6. For the Good Times
7. Where Do I Go from Here
8. Burning Love
9. Fool
10. Always on My Mind
11. It's a Matter of Time
12. If You Don't Come Back
13. It's Diff'rent Now
14. Three Corn Patches
15. Take Good Care of Her
16. Find Out What's Happening
17. I've Got a Thing About You Baby
18. Just a Little Bit
19. Raised on Rock
20. For Ol' Times Sake
21. Girl of Mine
22. Sweet Angeline
23. I Miss You
24. Are You Sincere?
25. I Got a Feeling in My Body
26. It's Midnight

DISC 4

1. You Asked Me To
2. If You Talk in Your Sleep
3. Mr. Songman
4. Thinking About You
5. Love Song of the Year
6. Help Me
7. My Boy
8. Loving Arms
9. Good Time Charle's Got the Blues
10. Talk About the Good Times
11. Promised Land
12. Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming
13. There's a Honky Tonk Angel
14. If That Isn't Love
15. Spanish Eyes
16. She Wears My Ring
17. Fairytale
18. Green, Green Grass of Home
19. I Can Help
20. And I Love You So
21. Susan When She Tried
22. T-R-O-U-B-L-E
23. Woman Without Love
24. Shake a Hand
25. Bringin' It Back
26. Pieces of My Life

DISC 5

1. Bitter They Come, Harder They Are
2. She Thinks I Still Care
3. The Last Farewell
4. Solitaire
5. Moody Blue
6. I'll Never Fall in Love Again
7. For the Heart
8. Hurt
9. Danny Boy
10. Never Again
11. Love Coming Down
12. Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
13. It's Easy for You
14. Way Down
15. Pledging My Love
16. He'll Have to Go
17. A Hundred Years Ago from Now #
18. I Didn't Make It on Playing Guitar  #
19. The Lord's Prayer  #
20. Lady Madonna  #
21. I Shall be Released  #
22. Softly as I Leave You  #
23. The Twelfth of Never  #
24. Tiger Man  #
25. Alla en el Rancho Grande #
26. Stranger in My Own Home Town #

Here we have five discs with 26 tracks each. Everything is in chronological order except the 10 bonus tracks at the end. These are mostly partial songs recorded during rehearsals.

To compile the tracklist in the proper order, I used Ernst Jorgensen's excellent book "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music -- The Complete Recording Sessions" as a guide. I didn't realize until working on this that the last song Elvis recorded was "He'll Have to Go" -- which is kind of an eerie title considering he would die soon afterward.

Since Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters gets its title from a live track that isn't included in my version, I had to come up with a new title. "Taking Care of Business" was Elvis' personal motto, and he used the TCB logo for jewelry and other things, and named his backup band the TCB Band. So Taking Care of Business: The Essential '70s Masters seemed like a good title for this collection. 

I used the cover from Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters for this box set cover and rather clumsily changed the title.