Walk A Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters - Purpose

Purpose

After the success of his television special in 1968, the album From Elvis in Memphis and the chart-topping single "Suspicious Minds" in 1969, Presley took himself off the treadmill of churning out the motion pictures that had become his public identity in the 1960s, and returned full-time to music. During the course of the 1970s, in addition to the abovementioned singles, 41 Presley albums appeared in the U.S. prior to the deluge of reissues and vault releases after his death: seven new compilations on RCA, including The Sun Sessions; nine compilations on the budget RCA Camden label, including an altered reissue of the 1957 Christmas album; two additional compilations on the bargain bin Picwick label; four more reissues; six concert documents, including Having Fun with Elvis on Stage and the posthumous Elvis in Concert; and thirteen original albums of new material, with one Christmas LP and one gospel LP among them.

As seen from the chart positions in the discography, public reaction to Presley's output during this period was mixed, in part owing to the sheer volume of released items. Unlike the fifties box, Walk a Mile in My Shoes cherry-picks the material in three sections - commercial singles, choice album cuts, and live performance. Winnowing down the selections argues for the continued vitality of Presley's work in this period. As stated by Marsh in the liner notes:

Elvis' Seventies music has been picked at and picked over, issued and reissued, discussed, dissected, distorted, displayed, and dismissed. But it's only now, gathered into one place, that it kind of makes you gulp a bit to realize how productive he was in the last six years of his life...Certainly, Elvis' albums lack the structural integrity of some other artists recording in this period - which is one reason a box set such as this can in fact present a clearer picture of his music than weeding through all his discs one by one.