“From the Waist Up” Golden Archives 56-57 GA 150
was released in 1976 and originated in the US. This LP contains the three Ed Sullivan Appearances from
September 9 1956, October 28 1956, and January 6, 1957.
This material was released the previous year on the LP
titled “The King Goes Wild”, which I have already
reviewed. While the original outing
of this material is a definite must have, so is this issue.
The original release omitted Ed Sullivan’s comments during the second
and third shows, however these comments are included on this release.
The cover features a full color photo of Elvis on stage circa 1955.
The back has six photos taken from the Ed Sullivan performances and nice
liner notes putting these performances into perspective.
The original pressing came with a 23x31 inch poster of a cartoon Elvis
and Ed titled “Elvis on TV in the 50’s”, as announced by the red sticker
on the shrink-wrap. The
presentation of this release rivals that of any official commercial release, and
that is what makes these high-quality bootlegs so much fun!!
The sound quality is excellent, though limited in
frequency range considering the sound was sourced from kinescopes of the
original television broadcasts. My
current copy is still sealed. I had
a second copy, which I sold to a fellow collector a few years back, and from my
recollection of having played the LP once; it is a quality pressing on good
vinyl with minimal noise. The label
has the familiar “Treasure Chest of Music” theme, which aptly represents the
majority of the Golden Archives label releases.
An anomaly of this release has been documented on the elvisvinyl.com
website; a few copies of this LP were mistakenly given labels from the 1978-79
Golden Archives release “Rockin’ Rebel” vol. 2. Due to the quality of this LP it is not unlikely that it was
repressed perhaps several times, which is a reasonable explanation for this
label mix-up.
In 1979, the Golden Archives label released the first
Ed Sullivan show from a better source on the Rockin’ Rebel” vol. 3 LP.
The differences are in that the fidelity is slightly improved and also
with the inclusion of the introductory remarks of Charles Laughton who was
filling in for Ed on that evening.
Ernie Boyes Jr.