ELVIS PRESLEY - A THREE HOUR SPECIAL Drake-Chenault Radio Show 1977 3-LP set

$

280

Drake-Chenault presents ELVIS: A Three Hour Special

Records: VG+ with a few light marks
Box: Good (edges are torn/taped - includes 3-page cue sheet that DJs would use when airing)
RARE Radio Show produced in 1977.  The box is numbered, and this copy is #881.  These programs were market-exclusive, meaning only one radio station in a given market was given the right to air it.  It's unlikely that more than a couple hundred copies were ever pressed up, despite the box being numbered 881, but I haven't been able to verify this information.  The only other copies I could find that had been sold in the last 10 years were numbered 829 and 882.

Here's a blurb from the Drake-Chenault website about the production:

In August of 1977, [History of Rock & Roll] production was in full swing. That month, the script writers and pre-production assistants were preparing the HRR segment that would chronicle the music and life of Elvis Presley. We had scripts mostly written, interviews recorded and edited, and background instrumental tracks ready for Mark Ford to assemble into the "Elvis chapter" of the show. Then Elvis died! Since we had all of the production elements ready to go, it was decided that Drake-Chenault would produce a three-hour "Elvis Tribute" program. I believe that Elvis died on a Tuesday. We began production immediately. Bill Drake came in that night to record the voicing as Mark Ford produced the show. The writers were working frantically to make last-minutes script changes.
They'd bring the scripts in to Bill. He'd voice them, and Mark would mix the show almost on-the-fly. Just to be sure there were no technical problems, I stayed at Drake-Chenault throughout the night, not leaving until 4:00 pm the following day (Wednesday?)
The production of "Elvis: A Three Hour Special" was completed Wednesday afternoon, and went immediately into tape duplication. For two days, the tape duplication system ran three shifts. By Thursday afternoon, we had several hundred copies of the show. The show shipped Thursday and Friday for air that weekend.
The show got rave reviews, even from our competitors, who couldn't figure out how we were able to put together such a high quality show in such a short time span. The answer was that Elvis picked the right time to die!