68 Comeback Special Elvis Views

• Movies & TV shows

Elvis, starring Elvis Presley, was the title of a 1968 United States television special. Sponsored by The Singer Sewing Machine Company, it aired on December 3, 1968 on the NBC television network. The special is commonly referred to as the '68 Comeback Special, because of subsequent developments in Presley's career, but the soundtrack album was released simply as NBC-TV Special. It was directed by Steve Binder and produced by Binder and Bones Howe.

At the beginning of the '68 Special project, a nervous Presley had said to the executive producer Bob Finkel: I want everyone to know what I can really do. Critics generally agree that the broadcast did show what Elvis Presley really could do - in addition to making profitable, if generally uninspired movies and soundtracks. The '68 Special is widely credited with revitalizing his career: chart statistics for the summer of 1968 suggest that Presley's recording career was becoming all but non-existent. After the special, he began his stint in Las Vegas and toured, achieving a string of record-breaking sell-out performances across America. Chart successes returned, including a U.S. number one in 1969 ( Suspicious Minds ) and a U.K. number one ( The Wonder of You , (1970)) - his first since 1965.

The live segments of the '68 Comeback Special in particular gave the audience more than a glimpse of Presley's charismatic and emotionally charged performing style that won him his first fans in the 1950s. This is arguably even more evident in the later uncut versions of the special (see below). His career had been considered by many to be artistically fallow since his return from the Army (1960), the subsequent Beatles invasion and since the new and varied musical directions forged by the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.

The Comeback Special is featured in the television mini-series Elvis, a biopic about Elvis' life story starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. It shows him first meeting with Steve Binder and performing the songs on stage which includes Lawdy Miss Clawdy, Big Boss Man and at the end of the film If I Can Dream.