That’s Elbert With An E

Musician’s Friend is a web retailer of just about anything a musician needs. On a weekly basis they issue a summary of music history for that week, including births and deaths. This week they had a fit of silliness. Betcha didn’t know this:

1970, Elvis frees the slaves of Graceland …

or this:

1976, building on the overwhelming popularity of the 8-track audio cartridge, RCA announces it is working on an 8-track video cartridge … according to one RCA exec, the “8-TV” cartridge will hold up to one 40-minute program with only a brief interruption every ten minutes as the tape heads change tracks …

One of my favorites:

1977, RCA releases the latest Elvis album, The King Requests, a compilation of taped phone calls Elvis made to a Memphis deli over the years to order sandwiches, pizza, and other snacks for delivery to Graceland … the calls were recorded over 12 years on 37 cassettes by the enterprising deli owner who sold them to RCA for $385,000 … and yes, every call ends with Elvis saying “thang-you-very-much” … in 1983 a remastered CD edition is released that contains hilarious outtakes including the time Elvis called and couldn’t remember what he wanted, as well as the time E made three calls in five minutes with the exact same order …

Apparently they even saw into the future:

2022, The Rolling Stones cancel the remaining dates on their African tour due to an undependable supply of Depends …

You can read all of the foolishness (Week in Review March 27, 200 at this link. Usually this page changes from week to week, so a PDF copy is here.