Love Me Tender: A Tribute to the Music of Elvis Presley

Dr Robert & his band The Blow Monkeys also performed a song in this tribute show. The programme is in mono due to it's age but it is an excellent tribute to the king on what was the 10th anniversary of his death. It is a typical ITV pop production along the lines of Supersonic, Razzmattaz, Shang-A Lang and the fabulous Marc Show. I'm sure if Marc Bolan had been alive in 1987 he would have sang a couple of songs because he used to love Elvis Presley. A very thin Boy George sings Teddy Bear in the show, he does look very ill, it was the time when he had serious drug related problems. Roger Daltrey puts in a fine performance as does soul singer Jaki Graham and the beautiful Ruby Turner. This should really be repeated on one of the four ITV channels as it stands up today some 21 years after it was originally broadcast.

A galaxy of talent lined up to salute the King, 10 years after his death. They did not let him down. Everyone will have their personal favourites in this show and mine are not necessarily yours. Kim Wilde's "One Night With You" is sexsensual. Ruby Turner is superb. Meatloaf is meaty especially in his version of American Trilogy, which comes with tears blood and sweat. Elkie Brooks sings her heart out in "Love Letters" but Kiki Dee's "Loving You" is my favourite. One hour 17 minutes into the show, the female backing singers, Sylvia Mason, the deeply missed Vicki Brown, P. P. Arnold and Helen Chappelle get a chance to perform centre stage with "All Shook Up". The show ends with the equally deeply missed Stephanie Lawrence providing a poignant version of "Love Me tender" which is played over the end credits. Overall the show loses marks for the quality of the audio. Even in 1987, there was no excuse for this not being transmitted in Nicam stereo. The mono is muddy. Jon Scoffield produced and directed and for reasons known only to the "moguls" at ITV, this show has remained locked away for nearly a quarter of a century, never published on DVD. It had an outing on TMC. The VHS of this show is one of my treasured possessions.