That’s The Way It Is

In essence, this was the soundtrack album for the new movie, a cinema verité MGM documentary memorializing Elvis’ August 1970 Las Vegas engagement. Movie director Denis Sanders filmed Elvis in rehearsal in Los Angeles, through additional rehearsals in Las Vegas, and in performance at six of the shows during his August/September run. While nearly all the songs could have been sung in live performance, the majority were represented on the LP by versions recorded in Nashville in June. The album nonetheless possessed an emotional integrity and an understated grace in marked contrast to the slapdash budget collections, but it sold about the same, maintaining the very respectable half-a-million level.