Portal:Elvis Presley/Selected article/8

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Moody Blue Is the title of Elvis Presley's last album to be released in his lifetime. The album was a mixture of live and studio work, and included tracks from Presley's final studio recording sessions in 1976, including "Moody Blue", a previously released hit, and "Way Down," which would become a hit after Presley's death less than a month after the album's release. As described in Elvis: The Illustrated Record, RCA was not able to obtain sufficient new studio material for a complete album (most of Presley's 1976 studio output having already been used in the previous album, From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee) and chose to augment the remaining available works with three live tracks recorded in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 24, 1977, including a version of "Unchained Melody" which would be the album's third single, released posthumously.

The track "Moody Blue" was released as a single in early 1977 and reached #1 on the Billboard Country Singles Chart (partly thanks to the country B-side "She Thinks I Still Care"). "Way Down" was released as the second single in the early summer of 1977. Although it did not initially rise on the charts, it soared to #18 after Elvis Presley's death in August (#1 in the United Kingdom). The album reached #3 on the Billboard album charts after his death, although it had already cracked the top 40 before he died. The last Elvis album to crack the top 40 had been a live album in 1974.