ELVIS JUNE TOUR 1973
A Unique visual view of Elvis' live performing in 1973
A Review By Lee Dawson

I was shocked to realise that it's been 3 years since we got our first book offering from Steve Rino in the form of 'Teenager's Hero', a 413 page  book that focused on the first 6 months of 1956. I really enjoyed this book and have been waiting for the promised 2nd volume.
But 3 years it has been and now we get the 2nd offering from Steve in the form of 'Elvis June Tour 1973' co-written this time with Bob Rush, so what's thisnew book like? Well it's not worth beating around the bush, if your thing is Elvis in the 70's then this is a MUST HAVE addition to your library.'Elvis June Tour 1973' is a hardback release with more than 170 pages that focuses on Elvis' 17 concerts which he performed in June/July 1973 startingon June 20th 1973 in Mobile, Alabama at the Municipal Auditorium and ending in Atlanta, Georgia on July 03rd 1973 for his 8:30pm concert at the Omni Coliseum.The books forward is written by Sandi Pichon (author of 'Raised on Elvis! Elvis! Elvis!' and 'Elvis OnTour 1975') and some of the amazing photos included come from the collections of people like Bob Rush;Sean Shaver; Keith Alverson; Erik Lorentzen and several others.There are so many fantastic pictures included in this book that you cannot get bored of looking through thisone. Add to these the information about the songs performed at each venue along with the crowdattendance and suit worn with which belt...and if that’s not enough there are the newspaper reports from thetime and of course the photo’s from the particular show....I LOVE IT!
Anyway, back to the beginning and after the forward and introduction there’s the wonderful memoir’s of a then 10 year old Brad Stalnaker who shares his memory of seeing Elvis in concert in Pittsburgh on June 25th 1973 giving us the full experience from learning that his parents were to get tickets to see Elvis, arriving at the venue (including a picture of him outside the venue), finding out about Rocky Barra’s
‘Strictly Elvis’ magazine, sitting through the warm up acts in anticipation of hearing that spine tingling music of Elvis’ impending entrance and then a full run through of the concert performance he experienced. We are then given an extract from ‘The King Of Las Vegas’ written by Erik Lorentzen about how he and four fellow fans from Norway got the opportunity to meet with and present awards to Elvis prior to his show on June 24th 1973 and we are given a selection of photos sharing the moment these 5 lucky fans met with Elvis Presley. A different touch is the 1973 Music Timeline which the authors have included to show how Elvis’ music was in comparison with the other music that was hitting the big time that year. For example, Elvis’ album ‘Raised On Rock / For Ol Time Sake’ was released on October 01st while other releases in October ’73 included ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ by Elton John, ‘Selling England By The Pound’ by
Genesis, ‘Quadrophenia’ by the Who and ‘Pin Ups’ by David Bowie. The Beatles released the massive ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ compilation albums earning 15x and 16x Platinum awards. Elvis was being left behind in the contemporary music field, but his live concert performances were still rocking the nation and selling out venues for every show. ‘Elvis June Tour 1973’ then reaches it’s first concert on the tour, June 20th for the 8:30pm show at the Municipal Auditorium in Mobile, Alabama. Elvis wears the ‘American Eagle Suit’ famous for it’s appearance on the ‘Aloha From Hawaii’ show at the start of the year. We get plenty of photos from the concert as well as a newspaper article about the show with the headline, “Elvis Attracts Young And Old” and another report which announces, “Elvis Sends 10,000 Women In Auditorium Performance”. The rest of the book follows this format giving us a look at each concert performance on that tour and an abundance of outstanding photo’s all in the right order. ‘Elvis June Tour 1973’ features more than 250 photographs of Elvis wearing 8 different jumpsuits throughout the tour which saw Elvis perform for a total of 250,620 fans. There are more facts and figures included at the end of the book including the number of songs performed during the tour (31) complete with a list of all those performed as well as the names of all those who backed Elvis up along with information on how and why Elvis stopped using the capes at the end of each show. I cannot stress enough how much this book impresses me...in fact I am pretty sure I may have mentioned that "I LOVE IT". In all honesty I’d be dumb-struck to hear that anyone did not enjoy this book and encourage you to go out and grab yourself a copy.Oh and there is great news that the long awaited volume 2 of the excellent ‘Teenagers Hero’ is coming laterthis year and I can tell you that I will be looking forward to that one for sure.