Sony Legacy will reissue Elvis Presley’s On Stage later this month, and the show documents his first live appearances in nine years in 1969 and 1970. Besides the constant pleasure provided by James Burton and way Elvis mows through rock ‘n’ roll classics punk rock-style (dispatching “Long Tall Sally,” “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Hound Dog” each in under two minutes), it’s interesting to think of the show as Elvis trying to decide who he is or who he should be. After all, he’d spent nine years in movies playing a similar character and singing largely faceless songs that sort of became his, but also he became  theirs.

For On Stage, Presley tries on the other voices of the day to decide which ones are right for him – Neil Diamond’s, Tony Joe White’s, CCR’s for starters – and he seems least sure about his musical relationship to who he was. His a cappella intro to “Are You Lonesome Tonight” is a little wobbly, and he’s overheated as he explodes into “Hound Dog.” He sings “Mystery Train/Tiger Man” like a gattling gun.

Not surprisingly, he’s most convincing as his contemporary self singing “Suspicious Minds” and “Kentucky Rain” – a skeleton of a song whose words mean less than the explosive passion he invests in them. In those tracks, he reminds everybody that the quest for identities represented by the covers was a search for something smaller than himself – something he didn’t realize.