Introduction
Don Gibson wrote I Can’t Stop Loving You in 1957 in a mobile home in Knoxville, Tennessee. His recording (RCA 47-7133) hit number one on the country chart in 1958 sold over a million copies (as did the flip side, Oh Lonesome Me). Kitty Wells’s version (Decca 30551) also charted in 1958 (#8 on the country chart). In 1962 Ray Charles included I Can’t Stop Loving You in his best-selling LP Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (ABC-Paramount ABCS-410), the first Gold album for ABC-Paramount Records. His single release from the album reached number one on the Hot 100 chart, rhythm and blues chart, and the Easy-Listening chart. I Can’t Stop Loving You was the number one song of 1962 and a million-seller. Even Count Basie recorded an instrumental version of the song (Reprise 20170).
Elvis sang I Can’t Stop Loving You in concert on quite a fez occasions, and in his 1973 TV special Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii. It is these live versions that appear on record.
Elvis Presley makes television and entertainment history with his Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii – Via Satellite special. Performed at the Honolulu International Center Arena on January 14, 1973, broadcast live at 12:30 AM Hawaiian time, beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries. It is seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. A tape of the show will be seen in America on April 4th on NBC. The live broadcast in January attracts 37.8% of the viewers in Japan, 91.8% in the Philippines, 70% in Hong Kong, and 70-80% of the viewers in Korea. The April showing in America will attract 51% of the television viewing audience, and will be seen in more American households than man’s first walk on the moon. In all, it will be seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people. Elvis commissions an American Eagle design for his jumpsuit for this show, his patriotic message to his worldwide audience. Never has one performer held the world’s attention in such a way. Elvis is in top form physically and vocally. This is probably the pinnacle of his superstardom, one of the all-time great moments of his career. Elvis was very, very nervous at first. Nobody else had ever done a satellite show before.
He was the very first entertainer, ever, to do a satellite show.