“My daddy had seen a lot of people who played guitars and stuff and didn’t work. So he told me, you should
Elvis On Tour – 1972 … (15 city tour April 5 thru April 19, 1972)
make up your mind about either playing guitar or being an electrician. I never saw a guitar player that was worth a damn.”- Elvis Presley, opening lines of Elvis On Tour
In the Spring of 1972 Elvis began a 15 city concert tour beginning April 5 in Buffalo, New York (attendance 17,360). Elvis would typically sing about 22 songs for each show starting with CC Rider and ending with Can’t Help Falling In Love. His schedule put him in front of over 231,000 fans in the cities of Detroit, Dayton, Roanoke, Charlotte and San Antonio to name a few and ended on April 19 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. On this tour MGM Studios is with him filming footage of Elvis on and off stage to make a documentary that would be titled “Elvis On Tour”.
If you never had the opportunity to see Elvis perform live on stage, than this is the next best thing. What Elvis liked most about performing live was the energy he received from the audience around him. Second to the audience, Elvis got strength from listening to and singing gospel songs. Included in the film are scenes of rehersals with Elvis always singing gospel around the piano with the guys and gals in his group. Later in the film he has the Stamps sing by themselves “Sweet Sweet Spirit”, which seems to really lift him up. “Elvis on Tour” would later go on to win a Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary, making it the only Elvis film to win an award of any kind.
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