BY MIKE METTLER – FEBRUARY 13, 2018
RCA/Legacy will release Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) on Friday, April 6, 2018. The musical companion to the upcoming two-part HBO Original documentary directed by Emmy- and Grammy-award winner Thom Zimny, Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) will be available in digital and physical configurations, including an 18-track definitive soundtrack, a 2LP gatefold 12-inch vinyl edition, and a 3CD collectible deluxe box set.
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) includes 18 essential Elvis Presley hits, powerful performances, and rare alternative versions of songs at the musical core of the groundbreaking 3-hour HBO film that focuses on the development of Elvis’ artistry from his early blues and country roots and influences through his seismic contributions to popular culture to his 1976 recording sessions at the Jungle Room in Graceland. The two-part documentary, which will premiere in the United States on HBO on April 14, 2018, uses rare footage culled throughout Elvis’ life and career as a means of exploring Elvis’ singular musical vision in all its complexity.
The 3CD deluxe box set features 37 additional Elvis cuts plus a special disc featuring selections from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready’s original score for Elvis Presley: The Searcher, as well as Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers performing “Wooden Heart” and the music that inspired Elvis, including R&B and country classics and “Home Sweet Home” sung by his mother, Gladys Presley. The Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) deluxe 3CD set includes a 40-page hardcover book featuring rare photography, liner notes by Warren Zanes, and a director’s note by Thom Zimny.
Elvis Presley strikes an iconic pose at the mic.
In his package notes for Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack), director Thom Zimny writes, “The soundtrack was in my mind from the beginning. I wasn’t just making a film, I was thinking about the collection of recordings I would gather for a person who saw the film, who wanted to complete the experience, just as I always had. Thankfully, our friends at Sony gave me and the Searcher team the chance to create this collection. It’s been in my mind for years now. To me, this collection is part of the film.”
Writes Warren Zanes in the book featured in Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) [Deluxe Box Set], “So, in this collection, one gets not a Greatest Hits package but a song-by-song, curated portrait of an artist. . . . an artist who very consistently and courageously gave himself to his performances, as if in the giving he might find some missing part of himself. The truth in his voice, in the end, was the sound of a searcher. Along the way, he built a catalogue as deep as any found in the broad and beautiful vistas of American music.”
As Bruce Springsteen observes in the documentary, Elvis Presley belonged to a singular category of musicians in the pantheon. “You hear performers in the thrall of the beauty of invention, not knowing quite where they’re going to go, not knowing exactly what they’re doing,” Springsteen notes. “Just discovering and doing it literally as the music is being played.… You’re out on the frontier and it’s a very pristine and exciting place to be.“
“You know, God bless him,” adds Tom Petty (RIP). “He was a light for all of us. We all owe him for going first into battle. He had no road map, and he forged a path of what to do and what not to do. And we shouldn’t make the mistake of writing off a great artist because of all the clatter that came later. We should dwell in what he did that was so beautiful and everlasting, which was that great, great music.”
Elvis Presley: The Searcher, an HBO Documentary Films production, in association with Sony Pictures Television, debuts in the United States on Saturday, April 14 from 8-11 p.m. ET/PT on HBO. Priscilla Presley, David Porter (legendary Memphis music writer and producer), Thom Zimny (director), Jon Landau (producer), and moderator John Jackson (SVP A&R, Sony Music) will discuss the film, the cultural impact of Elvis’ music, and how that impact became the embodiment of rock ‘n’ roll at the 2018 SXSW Festival in March.
PREORDER OPTIONS
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack): https://Elvis.lnk.to/TheSearcher_StandardPR
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) [Deluxe]: https://Elvis.lnk.to/TheSearcher_DeluxePR
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) LP: https://Elvis.lnk.to/TheSearcher_LPPR
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) Digital (standard): https://Elvis.lnk.to/TheSearcher_StandardDigitalPR
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (The Original Soundtrack) Digital (deluxe): https://Elvis.lnk.to/TheSearcher_DeluxeDigitalPR
ELVIS PRESLEY: THE SEARCHER (THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK)
TRACK LISTING
CD/Digital
1. Trouble / Guitar Man
2. My Baby Left Me
3. That’s All Right
4. Baby Let’s Play House
5. Heartbreak Hotel
6. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
7. Hound Dog
8. Crawfish
9. Mona Lisa
10. Milky White Way
11. Like A Baby
12. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
13. It’s Now Or Never
14. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
15. Suspicious Minds (take 6)
16. Separate Ways (rehearsal version)
17. Hurt (take 5)
18. If I Can Dream
3CD Deluxe Box Set
Disc 1
1. Trouble / Guitar Man
2. My Baby Left Me
3. Baby, What You Want Me To Do
4. Old Shep
5. That’s When Your Heartaches Begin
6. That’s All Right
7. Blue Moon Of Kentucky
8. Fool, Fool, Fool
9. Tweedlee Dee
10. Baby Let’s Play House
11. Good Rockin’ Tonight
12. Trying To Get To You
13. Blue Moon
14. When It Rains It Pours
15. Blue Christmas
16. Heartbreak Hotel
17. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
18. Money Honey
19. Hound Dog
20. (There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me)
21. Crawfish
22. Trouble
23. Farther Along
24. Mona Lisa
25. Hide Thou Me
26. Loving You (end title take 16)
27. Lonely Man (solo version)
28. Power Of My Love
Disc 2
1. Milky White Way
2. A Mess Of Blues
3. Fame And Fortune
4. Love Me Tender / Witchcraft (duet with Frank Sinatra)
5. Like A Baby
6. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
7. It’s Now Or Never
8. Wooden Heart
9. Swing Down Sweet Chariot
10. Reconsider Baby
11. Bossa Nova Baby
12. C’mon Everybody
13. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
14. Take My Hand, Precious Lord
15. Run On
16. Baby What You Want Me To Do
17. Suspicious Minds (take 6)
18. Baby Let’s Play House (rehearsal)
19. Words (rehearsal)
20. That’s All Right
21. Never Been To Spain
22. An American Trilogy
23. You Gave Me A Mountain
24. Burning Love (rehearsal version)
25. Separate Ways (rehearsal version)
26. Hurt (take 5)
27. If I Can Dream
Disc 3
1. Dissolution 2 – Mike McCready
2. Satisfied – The Blackwood Brothers
3. That’s All Right – Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
4. She May Be Yours But She Comes To See Me Sometimes – Joe Hill Louis
5. Mystery Train – Little Junior’s Blue Flames
6. Smokestack Lightning – Howlin’ Wolf
7. Rock-A-My Soul – The Blackwood Brothers
8. Just Walkin’ In The Rain – The Prisonaires
9. Rocket 88 – Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats
10. Write Me A Letter – The Ravens
11. Blue Moon Of Kentucky – Bill Monroe
12. Ain’t That Right – Eddie Snow
13. Just Walkin’ In The Rain – Johnnie Ray
14. Lawdy Miss Clawdy – Lloyd Price
15. Home Sweet Home – Gladys Presley
16. Blowin’ In The Wind – Odetta
17. Tomorrow Is A Long Time – Odetta
18. The Weight – The Staple Singers
19. Heartbreak Hotel – The Orlons
20. Wooden Heart – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
21. Rebound – Mike McCready
2LP
Side A
1. Trouble / Guitar Man
2. My Baby Left Me
3. That’s All Right
4. Baby Let’s Play House
5. Heartbreak Hotel
Side B
1. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
2. Hound Dog
3. Crawfish
4. Mona Lisa
5. Milky White Way
Side C
1. Like A Baby
2. Are You Lonesome Tonight?
3. It’s Now Or Never
4. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Side D
1. Suspicious Minds (take 6)
2. Separate Ways (rehearsal version)
3. Hurt (take 5)
4. If I Can Dream
Soundtrack Producers: Ernst Mikael Jørgensen, Thom Zimny, and Jon Landau
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