Elvis Presley: Classic Or Dud?

I suppose a thing about Elvis is, how familiar is he really? He *seems* over-familiar - we think we know it all already - and maybe many folk do, several times over. But often, when I actually go and play the stuff rather than just think about it abstractly, it surprises me. It turns out to be more exciting than I imagined, or there are great songs I'd forgotten about; etc. I mean: the reality of Elvis might, possibly, be more (rather than less) interesting than the idea.

with all due respect to little richard (who i love) and chuck berry (who i respect), elvis was rock n' roll, until those damned beatles showed up, as he epitomized what it was all about viz. white kids doing naughty things viz. commingling with blacks. he had the hair, the looks, the moves -- few people have looked as bad-ASS as the king did on his comeback special -- and most importantly the voice, the one thing he'd have after everything else was gone.

search: "mystery train," "jailhouse rock," "surrender," "can't help falling in love," "anything that's part of you," "it hurts me," "tiger man," "if i can dream," "wearin' that loved on look," "i'll hold you in my heart," "tomorrow never comes," "american trilogy," etc muthafuckin' etc.

destroy: the films and most of the concomitant music, the cult, his private life, the karate...it's not too difficult to figure out what should be discounted.

I'm like Tom, I appreciate the idea of Elvis but I can't be bothered to listen to him, like ever. I own none of his CDs, because I have no desire to turn him on. If he comes on the radio, I won't turn it off, but really it's not my cup of tea. I won't search him out, simple as that.

Elvis I think does the business, but proceed with caution. The really bad sixties movie cuts aren't even good for camp value.

DESTROY: Greil Marcus. Much of the time, he's worse than the folks who see the image of Elvis in the grease spattered on a toaster of the local Waffle House.

As for me, I would say classic. I think a lot of the mythology surrounding him has belittled the music he created.

Other than that, he never meant a thing to me. Dud I guess. I'm such a fucking kid.

No wait, that was William Lyon Mackenzie King!

Dennis Lee to thread!

I don't understand how anyone can say he's a "watered-down Little Richard" since (a) they sound nothing at all alike, even when Elvis covered Little Richard songs, and (b) Elvis started making records before Little Richard cut "Tutti Frutti," the first record he made in the style he's famous for.

Though he IS undeniably a great singer, with really terrible management, though try telling that to the billion dollar EP Estate.
Like Ali, his talent was squandered, though there are many moments of transcendence throughout his career.

Also, in Linda Gail Lewis's autobio, she claims that the time Jerry Lee stormed the gates at Graceland, it was because a doped up EP had called him to come rescue him, a claim not as preposterous as it seems.
Elvis might have been King, but Colonol Parker ruled.

Here's a question to ponder: What would Elvis's legacy be had he not been so incredible looking?

One of whom I phoned just to hear her voice after her repeating "Listen, we will invite some guys over, listen to Elvis and play some yahtzee".

quite apt, that. in my case. didn't ever mean much to me, really.
i have read, and probably will read, well-written articles (wouldn't stretch that to book-length, tho!) by various worthy people who have interesting - entertaining, meaningful, amusing, sad, shocking - things to say 'bout him, but i've never been tempted to get myself lots of his music (which doesn't mean i haven't heard any, "haha"). and the attempts of some of my best pals to help me "get it" haven't worked either. elvis simply fails to rock my world, period.)

This statement is 100% OTM. He *did* collaborate with some different people on the Memphis sessions; is it any coincidence those sessions are some of his greatest? Even kings need to be challanged once in a while, not continuously coddled.

But everything he did after '56 sounds pretty close to easy listening to these ears.

Listen again. Maybe start with "Memories" (dud title), the soundtrack plus loads more of the famous "68 Comeback Special". Even the most MOR ballad is worth listening to in his hands... but don't worry; there's only a couple of those here! Of course there are many *ballads*... but with a couple exceptions ("Memories" itself being one of them), they're pretty electrifying.

I do agree he's undervalued too. It's strange saying that about one of the biggest stars of all time, but it's true. I guess I mean undervalued *artistically*.

Second best thing, from Nick Tosches: "I think that Elvis Presley will never be solved."

I used to think exactly the way Jim M does, but now I realize it's kinda silly: Elvis's post-Army stuff is frequently just too WEIRD to be "easy listening" - I mean, "Do The Clam"? "Old MacDonald Had A Farm"? "There's No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car"? You can't make this stuff up. People will never cease to be impressed by The Beatles' interest in everything from random noise to showtunes, but the crackbrained audacity of Elvis's lifelong attempt to sing just about every type of song there was just makes them cringe.

Elvis was always a jumble of contradictions, musically and otherwise, no less pre-Army than after - that's what made him who he was. It's part of what made him so outrageous in the beginning: he was mixing blues with country with r&b and singing them in a way that often meant you couldn't tell where one genre left off and another began. That side of Elvis never really went away entirely, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking it was all there ever was. Just listen to "I Love You Because," recorded at Sun, and just as drecky and dull a song as he ever sang. He doesn't triumph over the dross: he succumbs to it, he likes it. Then listen to "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone," and marvel at how slick and professional he sounds: this guy could easily have made a career for himself as a straight entertainer all the way, without offending a soul. Then listen to "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and wonder, 'Where the hell did this guy come from?' Like Tosches said, no one will ever know.

this is a bit lame. there are plenty who could cut loads of songs in 30 days but the studio and what 'artists' do has changed. and its quality that counts anyway.

''They run his demise into the ground, search for dirt, print as much inuendo and trash as they can find. They never explore the fact that he had a 3 octave voice, and could virtually sing any style of music.''

could elvis do opera if he wanted to ken?

Mind you, it was his human weaknesses that did him in.

Would love to rant on about Elvis for ages but loads of work to do before I leave tonight so I'll just quote Andrew from way up thread:

"above all else he's a great singer, of all different kinds of material - country, r'n'b, rockabilly, gospel, soul, torch songs, etc. Contrary to all that 'creatively dead after leaving Army' bollocks, he made fine records at every point in his career"

Sadly, Jerry Lee has had very bad management and frequent bad health for the last 15/20 years. His 95 or 96 album Young Blood was decent, but not what it could have been.

Plus, Elvis had many successful imitators, but Jerry Lee has none. Nobody dared. Partly this has to do with the expense and imcompatibility of travel intrinsic in being a piano man. But nobody has used the piano as the primary instrument ni Rock/Roll since JLL and Little Richard.
Elton John/Ben Folds/Billy Joel all play pop, not rock/roll.

And as for JLL: Nobody cuts the Killer, baby, NOBODY!

Classic.

Plus now he's droppin' some lite techno! "A Little More Conversation" is what Bob Mould's new shit SHOULD sound like.

The point about Sam Phillips is probably true, but I see no reason to think your first point is. If it wasn't Elvis it woulda been -- who?? Jerry Lee? He's great but he seriously doesn't have more than a fraction of Elvis' talent, let alone his ability to connect with such a broad swath of the population. That's the thing about Elvis: He really was unique. There's NO ONE else who could have done what he did in the mid-fifties.

Wuh-huh I don' know whether tuh thank ya or hate ya Geir!

I find EP, even at his best, almost always lacking in some kind of telling detail/nuance/aesthetic distance, blah blah, that for me is necessary--his music just seems one-dimensional to me. Occas. it does not, but only seldom. There's something great about him but his "art" seems smug, involuted, airless...his presence is something else entirely, and he did have a good voice...I dunno, it just doesn't move me, I want to get real gone for a change but EP don't do it, not like the greatest man to ever record for Sun, Howlin' Wolf.

interview snippet ("Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I can't help it.")
That's All Right
Mystery Train
Heartbreak Hotel
Blue Suede Shoes
Blue Moon
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
Hound Dog
Don't Be Cruel
Love Me Tender
All Shook Up
Teddy Bear
Jailhouse Rock
Love Me
It's Now Or Never
Are You Lonesome Tonight
His Latest Flame
Can't Help Falling In Love
Return To Sender
Devil In Disguise
Viva Las Vegas
Guitar Man
In The Ghetto
Suspicious Minds
interview snippet (Elvis leaves for Germany "I am going away...")

(this one's only about 60 minutes long so I've got about 20 extra minutes for more stuff. Anybody want to finish it for me? Also, try to place any contributions chronologically)

"Help Me Make It Through The Night" - token C&W choice

Spencer, does this mean that you don't own an original copy of The Memphis Record??????

In "Return to Sender" when he says "I took it to the mailbox, I sent it 'Special D'" it's so great, you just want to hang out with him all day and get him to teach you all the other slang he knows.

So, so true.

When you left you know you told me
That some day you'd be returnin'
In a fancy car, all the town to see, oh yea,
Well now everyone is watching you
You finally had your dream, yea
You're ridin' in a long black limousine

You know the papers told of how you lost your life, oh yea
The party, the party and the fatal crash that night
Well the race along the highway, oh the curve you didn't see
When you're riding in that long black limousine

Through tear filled eyes I watch as you pass by oh yea
A chauffeur, a chauffeur at the wheel dressed up so fine
Well I never, I never, never, never
Oh my heart, all my dreams yea, they're with you
In that long black limousine

Yea, yea, they're with you in that long black limousine
Yea, yea, they're with you in that long black limousine

----

great call Matos. it's like "Will the Bitterness Be Unbroken," basically

Should I go for the 50s, 60s, and 70s box sets? Or is there another tack I should take? (Amst highly recommended at least the 70s set.) Also, what about the live recordings box sets? What is recommended in that area? (I am partial to the Las Vegas concerts.)

What is a good Elvis gospel compilation? Or should I just let this be taken care of by the box sets?

Finally, what are your favorite LPs? 50,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong looks enticing.

Not sure about the box sets since I've never had any of them, but one great sleeper album you might try is Tomorrow Is a Long Time, which is 18 tracks from 1966-68, most of which is terrific. As I said upthread, the title cut vies for best Dylan covers ever--reeeeal slow and bluesy, just devastating, pure torch.

I'm obviously not talking about his early breakthrough and image; of course he's by far the ultimate rock and roll star, but even then, in the more limited context of Memphis/the South, he's still a reference for other music and a super-fan.

One Elvis song no one talks about much is "How Can You Lose What You Never Had," which is on the double CD I have of "Speedway" and "Clambake" (it also contains his very generic but nicely retrospective and self-referential--he's his own super-fan here) "Guitar Man," which is really referential to Jerry Reed, and that's odd, shows how willing EP was to reference anything that caught his ear.

Anyway, check out "How Can You Lose What You Never Had," which is nicely Band-esque. I'm surprised this reissue of his two best movies left off the incredible "Who Needs Money" from "Clambake" in which he sings a duet with a guy who looks a lot like Jerry Reed while riding a motorcycle thru Florida.

Classic.

but this might be total bullshit

i think eddie's post about elvis's soundtracks is pretty right-on, but i take exception when he says that elvis's is "a rather generic rock and roll sensibility with few real marks of actual personality or musical detail." i think the five sun singles are overflowing with both, though maybe that's due as much to scotty moore and bill black and sam phillips as it is to elvis. it's amazing how well those performances hold up; even the lesser stuff, like "just because," bubbles with genuine spirit compared to some of the more self-conscious stuff he was doing even a year later.

would someone please tell me where i might find a recording of the above quote?

I bought a 3CD Elvis set yesterday. Delightful: the first CD is early Sun stuff, Scotty Moore solos and all that - with an explosive live 'Money Honey' that feels like rock&roll is being invented on the spot - the second starts with 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'Blue Suede Shoes' and 'Hound Dog', late 50s classics I suppose; the 3rd takes it through to more shlocky material including 'True Love'. It's treasurable. I could listen to Elvis all day, or for a lot longer than I could listen to most people.

There's a great collection available on eMusic, "Elvis Presley Portrait". I've never seen it anywhere else. The sound quality is a bit patchy, and I'm not sure of the exact copyright status, but it's a well-chosen overview of Sun sides and the early RCA hits.

Three underrated albums that would make a really good 2CD set: Raised On Rock, Good Times and Promised Land. All recorded in 1973, some tracks in the Stax studios with the Stax band and some elsewhere with other musicians. The story is, the Stax musicians were so intimidated to work with Elvis that he had to leave the building while they laid the tracks down, and then he'd come in and do vocals, rather than do the interacting-with-the-band thing seen in Elvis: That's The Way It Is. But there are 30 tracks (10 per album), and some real killers among 'em: "I Got A Feelin' In My Body," "Talk About The Good Times," "Promised Land," "If You Talk In Your Sleep," "You Asked Me To," "Raised On Rock," "Find Out What's Happening," "If You Don't Come Back," "Just A Little Bit," "Three Corn Patches"...the best are on the level of the 1969 Memphis sessions, but with more funk and a slightly harder country edge. I'm telling you, if you don't hear these records, you will never get the full picture of Elvis's awesomeness.

Little Milton's Stax cover of "If You Talk in Your Sleep" is a great one.

Elvis' studio recordings from the 70s are totally deep blues; shit can knock you over, particularly Elvis Country and the companion Essential Elvis vol. 4. I have no idea how these are rated, but they're incredible.

Today has been the day to dig out the vinyl 33 that is ELVIS' CHRISTMAS ALBUM and set it whirling.

I remain a little troubled by the lack of an S on the end of the first word, though maybe ELVIS'S would look and feel worse.

He kicks off with 'Blue Christmas'!

As for the mid-1950s material again - I still cannot believe the raw power of the live 'Money Honey'. No wonder people were shocked, scared, excited and all the rest of it.

Hang up your pretty stockings
And turn off the light
Santa Claus is comin' down your chimney tonight!

does anyone actually listen to Elvis Presley's music? All I ever hear about is his cultural influence and his persona. I'm very curious to see if I would actually like his music.

if you like great early rock'n'roll vocals and/or rockabilly at all you ought to try Elvis at Sun. it's been reissued a million times, but the 2004 issue is one i can vouch for, sonically speaking. imo he's one of the greatest rock/pop vocalists ever and could cover so much ground. on the other side of the Elvis spectrum is Amazing Grace, a sublime collection of gospel performances. From what i've heard of his 1968 comeback, he was still inspired and at the top of his game.

The production on Blue moon is so amazing. Are there more songs that are this minimalistic in his catalogue ?

elvis is back!, his first post-army album and the last thing he did before he got dragged into soundtrack hell, is one of the best things he ever did. uneven, but full of great, sneery stuff like "make me know it" and his cover of "fever," and the closing track, "reconsider baby," is right up there with the sun sides.

But often, when I actually go and play the stuff rather than just think about it abstractly, it surprises me. It turns out to be more exciting than I imagined, or there are great songs I'd forgotten about; etc. I mean: the reality of Elvis might, possibly, be more (rather than less) interesting than the idea.

― the pinefox, Monday, 30 April 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ I think this idea of Elvis being "more impressive in reality than as an abstract idea" is interesting, certainly when most artists and groups seem to be the opposite - impressive as an abstract idea but a total disappointment in reality. Even when Presley was overweight and drugged up, there was still enough of his greatness to keep people interested. An LP like "Having Fun With Elvis On Stage", which on the surface is such a cynical cash-in rip off that even the most money grabbing of acts wouldn't have released it, actually becomes an insightful view of Presley's situation and even emotionally moving. No matter how bad Elvis got, there was always a sense that he was giving the audience something extra compared to other singers, giving people a piece of himself in a way. Which I suppose is one reason why people still care about Presley 30+ years after his death.

More people should listen to his 1970s albums, particularly Raised on Rock, Good Times and Promised Land. They're amazing collections of country, soul and rock 'n' roll songs that show a real artistic maturity. Elvis was terrible in the '60s, but starting with From Elvis in Memphis, he came back really fucking hard, in the studio at least (and some of the live albums are great, too).

. . Elvis being "more impressive in reality than as an abstract idea"

Absolutely. Coming across his music by chance, I'm often shocked by just how intense and unhinged it is.

I want to second what unperson said here: Raised on Rock is really great, in particular. You may know the title song since it was a single, and it's excellent. But for me the real knockout is "For Ol' Times Sake": a deep and tender vocal (and heartbreaking since we know how it all ends up), but the playing is great too, esp. the organ which plays up the high lonesome of the lyric.

Elvis was terrible in the '60s, but starting with From Elvis in Memphis, he came back really fucking hard, in the studio at least (and some of the live albums are great, too).

RCA has just reissued From Elvis In Memphis. It now includes a second disc that contains just about all the tracks recorded at Moman's studio in 68/69. So awesome. This stuff rocks hard.

Very cool. Looks like there's a lot that was not included on the bizarrely out-of-print "Memphis Record" album

It sure does. My intention in reviving this was to talk about the '68 comeback special cd Tiger Man, which is so urgent (even without the visuals): by the end of "Tryin' To Get To You", Elvis is screaming hoarsely, but while it's not clear that he's actually enunciating words by that time, he's making his point about longing more articulately than he was at the start of the song. This performance burns my ears it's so intense and so horny.

But then after reading unperson's post I've spent the rest of my work day with 70s Elvis on, which seems quite inappropriate for mid-summer. This is September music, trying to make deeper the sounds of his past and while failing at that (because the voice fails, because the time has come for the blues), ends up with the spook of Lefty, Hank Snow, George Jones, trying to rebuild amongst the wreckage. It's absolutely gorgeous.

The production on Blue moon is so amazing. Are there more songs that are this minimalistic in his catalogue ?

After hearing Dylan's version on Self Portrait the other day, I dug this out and was shocked by how weird and electronic it was. Not listening to the Sun stuff often, I lazily tend to remember it as sounding very live-in-the-studio, but this seems to have been beamed down to tape from the moon. Needless to say, Dylan did not fare well in the comparison.

He sounds like Morrissey on that one.

classic for having the gall to tell his backup singers that their breath smelled like catfish.

We have David Lightbourne's account of seeing Elvis's first concert in Chicago (1957) in the <a href="http://newvulgate.blogspot.com/2009/09/issue-10-september-9-2009.html";target="_blank">New Vulgate</a>.

Let's try it again: the New Vulgate.

But often, when I actually go and play the stuff rather than just think about it abstractly, it surprises me. It turns out to be more exciting than I imagined, or there are great songs I'd forgotten about; etc. I mean: the reality of Elvis might, possibly, be more (rather than less) interesting than the idea.

most definitely. i have to admit i barely get the 'king' stuff, my frames of reference and i daresay those of any random person of my generation is too scrambled for his specific 'star' to come through very coherently other than as a collection of milestones (and i wouldnt say that about many artists, even earlier ones); anyone with appreciation for great songstylism (?) can't help but be smacked in the face with the material however. and most interestingly it comes through more with the balladry, for me at least

The actual 68 comeback special comes across as Elvis hosting Laugh In. The acoustic sit down sessions are fab, though.

As the year ends I'm on another big Elvis kick. It looks like Follow That Dream, the deluxe reissue label, is putting out two-CD remastered versions of his '70s albums...Raised On Rock is already out, Good Times was supposed to come out in November but isn't listed on the ShopElvis website (the only place these discs are available AFAIK) and there's no word on a deluxe Promised Land. But as soon as they're all available I'm grabbing all three for sure.

Any idea how long FTD cds stay available at ShopElvis.com? I can't buy these at present but the Raised on Rock they're selling looks absolutely fantastic.

oh, my grandma says she remembers being blown away by an elvis cover of ave maria, anyone know where i can find it?

Would get Having Fun With Elvis On Stage deluxe box

Interesting bit of info about how a famous photo of Elvis was taken: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-elvis-photos8-2010jan08,0,5003931.story

Watching Elvis: That's The Way It Is on TCM. The version of "Suspicious Minds" in this movie is just crushing, plus the rehearsal footage of Elvis whipping the band into shape is killer.

the "suspicious minds" studio recording is a lesson in the art of ear candy, the way the strings, horns, and backup vocals trade off

There is a great story about how when the American Studio musicians first heard the playback of "Suspicious Minds" they got "that slimy feeling" because they knew it was something special and it was going to be a big hit.

No, I am mistaken. That was "In The Ghetto." When I heard the tune I really just felt slimy all over.

Yeah, god, Suspicious Minds, what a song.

I'm shamefully unaware of most of Elvis' stuff. I mean, I have the Sun recordings and they're Great but I think I like a lot of his later...what was it after Sun, RCA?...I like the real big sounding stuff he did later on. I have the same problem with him as I do with, say, George Jones, or Bob Wills, where there is just so goddamn much and it all looks so potentially sketchy and unessential and I always walk away from the used record bins empty handed.

Went ahead and bought the deluxe 2CD editions of Raised On Rock and Good Times that I mentioned upthread. Remastering, bonus tracks, outtakes from the early '70s Stax sessions...oh yeah.

good grief does he sing well with Charlie Hodge...seek: "I Will Be Home Again" and especially "Beyond the Reef". It's music for a desperate, stoned luau, music of gorgeous emotional impotence.

OK I really tried, but can someone direct me to the best career spanning anthology if there is possibly one? I guess Sun Sessions must be unimpeachable, but what about everything else? Thanks if someone can suggest one or two that cover the best of the best

Got the 70s box recently, and it's great. But I wouldn't mix post 68 Comeback with pre-Army Elvis, they're just totally different things. Rockabilly sparseness vs Soul Review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qak7y262SRc

This 4CD box is quite good and reasonably priced. This 2CD set is pretty good, too, but I'd advise you to go for the 4CD one.

that four-CDer looks like it's got adequate deck space betwixt the bow and stern.

thanks for the tips folks, i am gonna get the Elvis75 Box

RCA has just reissued From Elvis In Memphis. It now includes a second disc that contains just about all the tracks recorded at Moman's studio in 68/69. So awesome. This stuff rocks hard.

picked up this 2cd set yesterday : wow.

subsequently, i got the 2 cd set of his live albums on stage/in person today.

cant get enough of the big band + backing singers ..

The deluxe 2CD reissue of Promised Land (the third album from Elvis's Stax Studios sessions of July and December 1973) finally came out; I got my copy in today's mail. Gonna write a lengthy article about these sessions. Overlooked even at the time (the albums all placed way higher on the Country charts than on the regular top 200).

Thought this revive would have something to do with Dolores Hart movie.

x-post

I need to hear that. I've been spinning Elvis Country a lot. What a great album.

His band in those days was always on fire, and the 70s box is absolutely flawless -- one of the most consistently thrilling boxes I've ever heard. Definitely gonna look into the Promised Land reissue.

Me on the TV-advertised double album that topped the charts after he died: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/elvis-presley-elvis-40-greatest.html

Great piece Marcello.

indeed.

really enjoyed reading that mc.

That's really good, both as a survey of his career and as a memory of August 1977. Thanks!

I guess you didn't get to see Geraldo Rivera in a white TCB In A Flash jumpsuit on that side of the pond during that fateful August way back when.

typically excellent piece from marcello -- espec. nice to see someone taking elvis's 'lost' early '60s years (after the army but before the comeback) seriously.

Agreed. Although I think "Stuck on You" is a little better than he credits.

Yeah, that was nice. Never really noticed all the stalkerish/rapey lyrics in his tunes but y'know, he was the King

In 1977 there were 170 Elvis impersonators. By 2002 there were 85,000. At that rate of growth, by 2019 a third of the world's population will be Elvis impersonators

http://www.moma.org/collection_images/resized/162/w500h420/CRI_151162.jpg

when i visited Tupelo, loved the sign on the church opposite the birthplace: "COME INSIDE AND MEET THE REAL KING!"

ha.

during a drunken session last week i ordered the legacy editions of the kings debut, and 'elvis is back' each of which is backed with another album, plus a lot of extra tracks.

Buying this tomorrow.

bought Elvis in Memphis recently, partly because of this or another ILM thread and ugh really not feelin it. Should've gone w/Sun Sessions.

That live set looks amazing. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on it.

i love 'from elvis in memphis' -- it's prob the one i'd take to a desert island -- but yeah 'elvis at sun' is the one even elvis-haters ought to love.

i have the 'elvis stage' 2 cd legacy edition, so thinking i dont need the new live set ..

or do i ?

I believe it is a different band, different setting, different year. So yes? I think?

The On Stage set (which I might pick up this week) is Las Vegas 1970, this one is NYC 1972. Basically the same band (James Burton, John Wilkinson Jerry Scheff and most importantly Ronnie Tutt on drums—on the MSG set the dude is practically playing blast beats on some of the rockabilly numbers) but a lot of different material. I think you need both.

ok.
i'm convinced.
on stage is totally brilliant ..
the band are beyond good ...
i've played this and the legacy editions all weekend and loved every minute.
guess this new set has to be added to the archive.

I threw on 30 #1's for the hell of it last night driving home. I've listened to Elvis, especially hits, for most of my life, and in my head there was always the memory of this big sound that went with 'All Shook Up'...but I realized it's all Elvis! I mean that song is just handclaps and a faint piano! (or that's what it sounds like). The way he performs it, it's almost acappella. I dunno why but that blew me away.

Watched this Roy Orbison and His Friends tv concert video a week or two ago and was happy to realize that the house band was basically Elvis's TCB band from the Vegas period.

Cool interview with Steve Binder about the 68 Comeback special

http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/interview_steve_binder.shtml#sthash.ZZ30qGFA.dpbs

Q : Was there a mix-up of tickets where no one showed up and you had to get people from Bob's Big Boy?

A : The incident with the tickets was --- I went to Colonel Parker and when I was told it was okay to do this and I decided we'd have two audiences and we were inviting 250, 300 people to come to each one of these sessions. And so I had NBC guest relations print up the Elvis Presley tickets. And believe me, we could've sold those tickets for $1000 apiece or something, even in those days. I mean, to see Elvis Presley for an hour or two, you know, improvisationally singing and talking and everything was just unheard of. And so I went to the Colonel and I said 'How many tickets do you want for your friends or your family or RCA or whatever?' And he said, 'Bindel, said you don't understand how the Colonel works'. He said, 'I don't want any tickets. But, if you want all of Elvis fans with the bouffant hairdos and all the screaming and yelling and everything from Memphis,' he said, 'I want all the tickets. And if you give me all the tickets, that means all of 'em. You can't have any, NBC can't have any, Singer can't have 'em, nobody gets 'em'.

So I went to NBC and I went to Bob Finkel, and I went to the sponsors and I said 'This is the deal. And for me there's no contest, let's give 'em to the Colonel and let's get this, cull this audience'. Not taking into consideration that my real feelings were, in all honesty, is I didn't trust what the Colonel said. I mean, I just didn't feel 100 percent confident when he said he was gonna do something it was really gonna happen. And I usually try and protect my backside all the time by anticipating whether things are gonna happen. In this case I didn't. I convinced everybody to give the Colonel all of the tickets for both shows, which I did. He got out his briefcase and all the tickets went into the briefcase. And I'm expecting these airplanes to fly in from Memphis, and all these screaming women coming out and all the Elvis hard core fans and so forth.

And about two days after the tickets were given to the Colonel, the guard at NBC while I was driving out one evening, said 'Hey Steve, do you need any tickets for Elvis?' And I said 'What are you talking about?' And there on his desk in the guard booth was a stack of Elvis Presley tickets. That was my first indication we're in trouble in River City, you know, we're in deep trouble if this doesn't come off. So the next morning I got there extra specially early, expecting to see the Johnny Carson, Jay Leno fans lined up outside of NBC but, you know, tenfold. I just expected there'd be fans taking over all of Burbank wanting to see Elvis Presley. There was nobody and I drove into the gate and we're gettin ready to organize the staff and the stage to shoot this sequence and all of a sudden the head of the guest relations comes to me and said 'Steve we're in big trouble'. There's just a few people standing outside. Those tickets weren't distributed. They didn't go to anybody. So we panicked. I mean, we called some friends of ours at some local radio stations and asked them to promote it on the air. We sent somebody over to Bob's Big Boy to ask customers eating hamburgers and malts to come over to see Elvis Presley and we somehow pulled together with enough people at NBC who were there, calling their friends and families and what have you to get these audiences in there.

Wow

what i love about the colonel is he was actually a pretty shitty businessman -- like outright incompetent -- who managed to fool everyone into thinking that he was this slick master operator just by acting like everyone's cartoon image of what a slick, devious businessman was like.

yeah Charlie Louvin's descriptions of him in his book give the impression that he wasn't much more than a legitimized carny

Motherfucker took an insane percentage, and his renegotiations with RCA were so inept that not only did Elvis lose out on millions, but the Colonel himself did too.

Also, wasn't it some shadiness with Parker that was the reason Elvis never played outside the US?

Parker was an illegal alien, and could have been denied reentry in the States if Elvis had travelled overseas.

^ bingo

albert goldman's 'elvis' actually has a lot of great, fascinating stuff about parker in it, espec his shady background and total mismanagement of elvis's finances.

man on stage is fucking great, huh

I gotta get that. His 70s band(s) were insane.

albert goldman's 'elvis' actually has a lot of great, fascinating stuff about parker in it, espec his shady background and total mismanagement of elvis's finances.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, April 25, 2013 12:47 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd heard that about the Goldman book, but because it's Goldman, stayed away. May check it out.

It's one thing for a manager to screw their artist and make millions doing it; but from what I've read, Parker screwed himself out of millions, possibly hundreds of millions. That's kind of amazing in its way.

man on stage is fucking great, huh

oh yes ...

Yeah, I love this period of Elvis. I had a bootleg cassette copy of his Vegas 72 opening night in college and it was one of my favorite things. I mean, there's nothing he can't sing, nothing the band can't play, it's just awesome to hear him kill every single song.

That's The Way It Was band is killer

er That's the Way IT IS

that is

#waltercronkite

#rundmc

I bought that 2CD Madison Square Garden '72 set when it came out last year, and that band fucking tears it up. The drummer, Ronnie Tutt, in particular, is amazing.

Crazy - after Elvis's death, Ronnie Tutt joined the Jerry Garcia Band, and is now Neil Diamond's drummer!

wow, I didn't know that

A bunch of the TCB guys backed Gram Parsons on his solo joints, but you knew that already.

Crazy - after Elvis's death, Ronnie Tutt joined the Jerry Garcia Band, and is now Neil Diamond's drummer!

― 誤訳侮辱, Thursday, April 25, 2013 2:39 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Weird, I didn't know that either! Kinda almost makes me wanna go see Neil Diamond. Almost.

Ron, Jerry Scheff and James Burton were also on Elvis Costello's King of America. Scheff was in EC's touring band for a while, dunno if any other TCBers were.

Kinda almost makes me wanna go see Neil Diamond. Almost.

That urge came over me for a second, too. Then I remembered the Neil Diamond songs I know and changed my mind.

I like how effortlessly Elvis can hit all the low notes in Sweet Caroline that Neil struggles with

what i love about the colonel is he was actually a pretty shitty businessman -- like outright incompetent -- who managed to fool everyone into thinking that he was this slick master operator just by acting like everyone's cartoon image of what a slick, devious businessman was like.

been reading a bio on Colonel Parker, he's from my hometown, anyway if you've seen Mae Wests I'm No Angel, the Colonel is like Big Bill and Slick combined. he's a sheister, a sideshow man.

in the thirties the Colonel was working for some kind of local animal rescue organisation (!) in Florida, at some point he thought he figured he could sell people gravestones for their animals (it worked) then he figured maybe sell 'em flowers as well (like the Colonel would provide flowers on the pet graves for all times) now the real Colonel thing isn't that, it's that he actually went to some florist and said 'say can I pick up your unsold flowers in the evenings'. 'Yeah sure, glad to get rid of 'em', and the Colonel put those on the pets graves. When people remarked "hey those flowers are sloppy" the replied: 'you should've seen 'em yesterday, they were marvellous"

i was in a very depleted fopp today when this full on version of 'suspicious minds' came on.
massive band sound and thumping instruments etc.

sounded ace, and made me think damn, i love this.

it was only as the track progressed i thought i need this version as its not the same as the epic live/studio versions i have.
turned out it was from that 'viva elvis' show ..

of course this being ilm we have to hate such projects, but fuck it, the song is strong enough to withstand such a makeover
- especially as the vocals were original.

nothing though beats the full 7 minute 'on stage' version (same goes for 'polk salad annie', 'proud mary' etc ... )

otm

"Polk Salad Annie" is the Mount Rushmore of Vegas-era Elvis.

really enjoying this revive, also taking notes on records to look up, thanks y'all. I've only read the Guralnick books, and I have the two old RCA #1 box sets, but I have a vivid memory of hearing a killer live recording around 15 years ago and I bet one of these is it.

I got caught up last night in watching EAP videos from the 70s on YouTube. Every damn song he sang, he just completely owned. Watch his version of Bridge Over Troubled Water. Dude was as high as the UP Building, but it didn't stop him from greatness.

Man, even something as outdated and cheesy as the American Trilogy, when he gets to that part of "Hush, little girl and don't you cry..." My heart melts.

I dunno if it was in the Binder interview or somewhere else I read it, but after the 68 comeback special, he enjoyed the experience so much he said to that he wouldn't ever sing a song he didnt believe in or work with musicians he didn't like, because the whole movie experience had sucked the soul out of him creatively. I think that's why, right up until shit really hit the fan performance-wise & he was visibly deteriorating, that he could still be so affecting. For me, his power as a singer was in his ability to convey a full range of emotion, not just the big ones but the subtle ones inbetween...and when he felt it, you felt it.

Listening to the 30 #1's compilation as an album the other day, I really noticed the hollowness in those midperiod songs...it *sounds* like Elvis, and I enjoy some of those songs a lot, but they don't feel like Elvis, in that ~hits you in the feels~ way that characterizes him for me.

i've always kind of wanted to go through the '60s soundtrack stuff and see if there were any lost gems. crazy to think that elvis spent so many of the prime years of his career making so much throwaway crap.

he was thrown in with a lot of people who didnt know or care about his rock n roll roots, or rock n roll in general...the job was just hits and lots of them

but it's that classic thing though, like with The Beatles, even his B materisl is still just fine. It's not horrible; it's just he set the bar higher than a lot of those collaborators could reach

Picked up the Legacy edition of Elvis Country yesterday (this guy) and, only really knowing the Sun stuff and the first two RCA albums, I was floored at how good it is.

I mean, it's cheese, but it's really good cheese.

cos of this revive .. i have all the legacy editions/68 special boxset all lined up for the day ..

so chuffed there are others here rediscovering elvis.

There was a boxed set, Command Performances, that culls the best of the movie soundtrack songs, but I've never listened to it. I'm certainly not gonna buy it, not at $51 for two CDs...

Listening to the 30 #1's compilation as an album the other day, I really noticed the hollowness in those midperiod songs...it *sounds* like Elvis, and I enjoy some of those songs a lot, but they don't feel like Elvis, in that ~hits you in the feels~ way that characterizes him for me.

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, April 26, 2013 1:06 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is OTMFM. I've never been able to get into his 60s material (pre-'68, that is). There's the obvious clunkers, but even the better songs fall short -- obviously, they fall short compared to most of his 50s work, but they also don't measure up to his 70s records.

I can't recommend the 70s box enough (Walk A Mile In My Shoes). All killer, no filler.

A big part of the problem with that era was that the Colonel didn't want Elvis to record any songs that their publishing company didn't own. Eventually various songwriters gave up even thinking of submitting material because of this, never mind those that were frozen out like Leiber and Stoller because they had gotten too chummy with The King and were giving him career advice about taking more challenging movie roles. This changed, at least for a while, when Elvis went to Memphis to record at American. It was he who decided to record "In The Ghetto" without asking his manager's permission.

Wondering how something like "Viva Las Vegas" by Pomus and Shuman got through. It was released as a B-side, the A-side was a version of "What'd I Say"! But that was 1963 so maybe it was still early on enough.

I guess the answer is that the publishing for that song WAS controlled by Hill and Range.

if you haven't heard it, i highly recommend the first post-army album, 'elvis is back!' it's a little uneven, but there's some killer moments -- 'reconsider baby' is as good as anything he ever did.

as is "Such A Night"!

I was listening to the Moody Blue/From Elvis... twofer last night cause of this thread. "The Last Farewell" is kinda amazing.

My three biggest blind spots: Shakespeare, the bible, and (four or five singles and half the Sun Sessions excepted) Elvis.

kinda sorta ditto here,

Any Search recomendations for albums that give some nice deep cuts, the odd hit and a bit of oddness?

i've got a compilation called 'suspicious minds' that collects i think almost all the elvis-in-memphis stuff from '68. i'd try that one and 'elvis at sun,' which despite its fame is mostly made up of stuff you never hear on the radio. shakespeare, i'd go for 'merry wives of windsor.' you're on your own with the bible.

if you haven't heard it, i highly recommend the first post-army album, 'elvis is back!' it's a little uneven, but there's some killer moments -- 'reconsider baby' is as good as anything he ever did.

the legacy edition of this album packages it with another album, something for everybody, that aint all that as its full on cheese, but then they add some extra tracks from an ep, that just kill : his latest flame, little sister, good luck charm, and anything thats part of you.

oh and 'elvis is back' has one of my all time fave tracks : 'the girl of my best friend'

the vocal swagger, the doo wop backing ..

shivers up my spine every time ..

xposts to Clem: if you happen upon the deluxe dvd of Elvis: That's The Way It Is in the cheapie bins, grab it. Two cuts of the film: the newer one is all rehearsal and concert footage, while the original has several fan interviews raditiating pre-Cristopher Guest weirdness.

that film is amazing

the pathos of the final concert shot (Elvis shot from behind, facing an opulently attired but thinning and sort of half-interested dinner theater-type crowd), belting out "I just can't help falling in love with you" ... that is some epic tragedy shit

yeah, that's prob my favorite concert film ever.

Any Search recomendations for albums that give some nice deep cuts, the odd hit and a bit of oddness?

http://www.dejkamusic.com/images/album/large/elvis_presley/from_elvis_in_memphis.jpg

you know another aspect that never ceases to amaze me is the brevity of the songs.
on the live albums the songs are over and done with before you can catch your breathe.
if a band had a full orchestra set up like that these days, anything of value is stretched out to the max (gotta get value for money out of the musicians i guess !), whereas elvis just performed the guts of the song and moved on.

I fervently hope that Bear Family issues a "Elvis Rocks!" comp of his best uptempo numbers. Their selection is always outstanding.

A Date With Elvis from 1959 was sort of of a mishmash of Sun Sessions, Jailhouse Rocks tracks and some other stuff that turned out to be a real solid and exciting album. I bought it because Greil Marcus recommended it and never looked back. Seems to be on Spotify.

I'm telling you guys, run don't walk to your date with Elvis.

I like "On Tour" better than "That's the Way it Is". The version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on there is a triumph. He owns it.

his abuse of his backing singers is next level. "tomorrow we'll get Mahalia Jackson in here"

A friend of mine asked me what was so great about That's The Way It Is, and first thing I thought of, Well, there's this one part during "Love Me Tender" where he kisses every woman in the room.....

And there's this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2akVrPYBMA

such a great clip ...

this is all time classic elvis ..

relaxed, swagger-n-curled lip, prime time band clearly loving the groove, the shirts etc.

fucking love this clip ..

Even the sycophancy is amusing. There's one song in the studio where they're all jamming and Elvis' mic there slips to where it's impotently pointing at the floor. He points at it and grins a little, and the whole room goes nuts.

totally.
i chanced upon these clips a year ago and have them favourite'd ..
they just underline all that i love re the man ..
he had so much more talent than the colonel ever allowed him to give.

oh hey looky here amazon prime has 'on tour' streaming free :D

I'm kind of obsessed with late '60s/early '70s Elvis - basically, everything from From Elvis in Memphis on, but especially the trilogy of 1973/74 albums Good Times, Promised Land and Raised On Rock. I have the limited edition 2CD versions of all three, which are jammed with alternate takes, studio rehearsals, etc.

The recent deluxe edition of From Elvis in Memphis is a 2CD set, too, with Back in Memphis (the 1970 album that gathered the rest of the sessions) appended, plus the non-album singles. Totally worth getting. Elvis Country is a 2CD set now, too, and I'm thinking about picking that one up soon.

i have come into a new appreciation of his gospel stuff too.

Mum loved Elvis, but she only mostly had his gospel albums, and one compilation of his movie songs...I used to get so mad that she didn't have any cool Elvis. And it wasn't like she was terribly religious. I think she just really loved his singing voice, and she was right that that's kinda where the key to him is. I really quite enjoy the gospel stuff now, damn it's moving. That gospel interlude in 'On Tour' just made me bawl like baby

Mum used to get *so* mad when we made fat Elvis jokes, or talked about how fucked up he was. She wouldnt hear a word against him, bless her heart lol

the "Good Rockin Tonight" boxset is really good!

C. Grissom and J.D.: I've actually got a decent amount of core Elvis...Sun Sessions, both Worldwide Hits boxes, another four or five albums. I just can't ever think of a time when I was as caught up in Elvis as I was with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, or Bo Diddley at various points in my life. And I've never quite been able to figure that out. The big early hits are dead for me ("Jailhouse Rock" maybe the one exception), and some, like "All Shook Up," I never much liked in the first place. The operatic stuff like "Now or Never" I really dislike. "(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame" is my favourite Elvis song, which tells you something about how out of it I am when it come to him. I like "Kentucky Rain" and the comeback singles. And "Mystery Train." And I love talking to students about his impact. But I haven't put an Elvis album on the turntable in 30 years.

Recorded Live in Memphis, 1974

Kentucky Rain is beautiful. Some days it's my all time favorite

On Tour was great!

How great are JD Summer & that quartet, and the Sweet Inspirations? Damn they are talented, and so perfectly matched for Elvis.

from elvis in memphis is like an all-time top ten record for me, that shit smokes.

you all kind of need this bootleg, although here it is in most of its glory on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IOAOCduoa4

if you're skeptical, scroll to 58:00 and listen.

you also get to hear elvis cuss a lot on this album.

Wow. "Got My Mojo Working" is aces.

When I worked at a used record store about ten years ago, we had a five disc player and usually four employees on staff and Cut Me and I Bleed was almost always the consensus fifth pick. It's funny as hell, but worth repeat listens.

I picked up the Legacy Edition of Elvis in Memphis today. Even though it's my first time hearing the album in full, I was surprised at how much of the material I already knew. Still, hearing it all at once like this, wow. Win for including the mono single mixes at the end of disc two as well.

Slight bummer though: they forgot to put a booklet in the one I bought.

i love how in the cut me & i bleed outtake stuff elvis will slip from these profane asides to singing with utter fluency and conviction in a heartbeat. guy was such a natural.

WHATCHU THINK I AM?

Elvis At Stax 3CD set coming out in August. No word as to what's on it, though.

(I mean, presumably his Stax sessions, but no further details)

Amazon says there's also gonna be a 1-disc version. Kinda interested to know what's on it, but since I already have the 2CD Follow That Dream deluxe editions of Good Times, Raised On Rock and Promised Land (the three albums that include Stax recordings), and they're jammed with bonus tracks, outtakes, etc., I'm pretty sure I have all I need already.

I'm kind of obsessed with late '60s/early '70s Elvis - basically, everything from From Elvis in Memphis on, but especially the trilogy of 1973/74 albums Good Times, Promised Land and Raised On Rock. I have the limited edition 2CD versions of all three, which are jammed with alternate takes, studio rehearsals, etc.

yeah "Only the Strong Survive" is FUCKING AMAZING. Btw in my copy "I'll Hold You in My Heart" has a great false start and I've always wondered if that was on the original album when it was released or not.

Recently I found a book in a thrift store called "The Most Incredible Elvis Presley Story Ever Told", which is really quite batshit insane. Basically it is a take on Elvis faking his own death, as told by a woman who wrote a book of fiction about a singer called Orion who faked his own death, and the bizarre circumstances surrounding the release and suppression of her book at the same time as the release of an Elvis sound-alike named Orion:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Orioningold_photo_by_Shelby_Singleton.used_with_permission.JPG/220px-Orioningold_photo_by_Shelby_Singleton.used_with_permission.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_%22Orion%22_Ellis

It's pretty darn entertaining, if more focused on the conspiracy to suppress her book than prying apart facts surrounding Elvis's death. The greatest parts are when she slips in anonymous anecdotes about people running into Elvis randomly and the 'lost tape' transcribed at the very end of the book that more or less amounts to Elvis telling his fans he's doing OK (just chillin' in Hawaii, dating again, jamming on tunes now and then, etc) and she makes a very strong effort to insert "uh"s often enough to make it seem like something he would say. It's pretty entertaining. Apparently she wrote the Orion book using some kind of New Agey automatic writing techniques or something.

whoa can anyone hit me up with Cut Me & I Bleed?

I think I remember that book and if my recollection is correct, they actually sold the tape with the book!

here it is

http://cdn2.sulitstatic.com/images/2010/1025/080615990_dscn6924.jpg

http://tiptopwebsite.com/photos4/lindahoodsigmoncom/GailsbookonEbay.jpg

http://www.basedefotos.com/files/images/2011/11/fotos-de-elvis-5.jpg

i saw elvis in the freehold raceway mall standing in front of macy's. he just looks like a normal seventysomething but the sideburns were the giveaway.

Yeah that's the lady. This is probably my favorite passage, pretty much representative of the book:

Another gentleman said he actually ran into Elvis in Atlanta. "I can't believe what I'm seeing?" he said he told Elvis. "I don't believe it!"

He said Elvis adjusted his sunglasses and smiled sheepishly, then said, "Man, you ain't seen me, O.K.?"

Every minute of every hour you'll be shaken by the strange and mighty power

I remember that book. I think I even bought a copy from a Woolworth's at the time, but lost it or threw it away. Never listened to the tape.

oh man. forgot about the 900 number too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_s_CXh3YPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um57FvM220U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtGb0lQovZU

i think i might buy a blu-ray and flat-screen TV just for "elvis on tour"

also, from orion's wiki page:

Ellis first album appearance for Sun was as an unidentified singer singing duet with Jerry Lee Lewis on ten tracks of the 1978 album Duets (Sun 1011).

i have that album and it is great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyXk1iZffGM

So the more I listen to Elvis lately, the more curious I get about his early/mid 60's work. Has there ever been a good compilation that attempts to to sum up those years and does so in a respectable way?

I saw this thing (and a similar-looking one on Pickwick) this past weekend at my local used record store, but I would like to get a semi-informed recommendation before I jump in.

Does the Pickwick one have a version of "Cycle Annie"?

I don't remember. It looked a little cheesy honestly — like only eight songs total on the album.

This box (From Nashville to Memphis: The Essential '60s Masters) appears to be what you're looking for. (I don't have it.) Note that it stays away from movie music - that stuff is on its own two-disc compilation.

I have a playlist of all his '60s singles, soundtrack or not, and after repeated listening here's what I would say... It seems that 1963 to 1967 is the deadly period, but there are highlights. "Devil in Disguise" and "Bossa Nova Baby" were from '63 and you might like "Viva Las Vegas" and "Ain't That Loving You Baby" from '64.

He had a big hit in '65 with "Crying in the Chapel" but that was a five-year old recording.

The rest of the pre-'67 singles are not that interesting (to me), whether they're retreads of earlier, better hits ("Kiss Me Quick," for example) or cheesy movie songs or leftover ballads.

Things get more interesting at the beginning of '67 with "Indescribably Blue." But for that song and the whole 1966-1968 period there is this great handy CD - Tomorrow Is a Long Time that collects the stuff he recorded in Nashville (not in Hollywood) during that period.

the 60s box is so so so fantastic; the best part for me was discovering those tranked out mid 60s cuts like "Beyond the Reef", the Jordanaires like some Greek chorus you're hearing from 1000000 miles under the sea

10,000 years ago! Great description of an incredible track.

i do think of the three big box sets release in the early 90s the 1960s one was the least impressive, not that it doesn't have a lot of good stuff on it. the 50s one is about as amazing as you'd expect and the 70s box is a revelation.

That "Beyond the Reef" is pretty good though. Like another helping of Roy Orbison's "Leah."

Well, I went ahead and ordered Elvis is Back last night and I'll look into the Tomorrow is a Long Time set (which looks awesome, by the way).

Just want to put a word in for This is Elvis, the '81 documentary. A bit hard to find. Good soundtrack though. My moms played it all the time when I was a kid.

http://www.johnnyharrathelegend.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/This-Is-Elvis-LP.jpg

personal fave on this album is "His Latest Flame" which is just so groovy

I can also highly recommend Peter Guralnick's two volume Elvis bio

yes, guralnick + marcus's 'mystery train' and 'dead elvis' are pretty much the definitive writings on elvis.

i need to read those guralnick books

I need to re-read them.

The Guralnick books are ridiculously informative and well-organized, and likely the last word on the guy, but I found them a little dry. Towards the end, the second volume starts to get stuck in a tape loop of "He took some pills. Then he bought a car. Then he did karate. Then he took some pills." I found myself drifting off until Guralnick suddenly opined on something, and it made me wish he'd been doing that throughout the books. I realize Guralnick's not a Marsh or Marcus; he's not gonna offer a lot of theories and opinions about the whys and wherefores. But on the few occasions he does, it really enlivens things.

Yeah that is Guralnick's appeal for me, at least the excerpts i have read. Marcus turned me off because it read like slobbering stream of consciousness...there's only a few authors, biography-wise, where I enjoy noticing them as much as the subject. For mostly I prefer it when they serve the story.

Well, I went ahead and ordered Elvis is Back last night

disc 1 = perfection

widescreen STEREO and great performances etc .. seriously fantastic.

disc 2 = mellow moods.

the album they have used as the second disc, 'something for everybody' is very mellow and a little one dimensional.

however, the extra tracks are totally essential

thereby making this 2 cd edition essential.

sorry .

but this has to be added to this thread ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5CU6_FFWK8

never seen that before, it's awesome!

yup.

the fact is, i will go to my grave having never seen a live band like that ,,

Track listing for the Elvis at Stax set:

Disc 1: The R&B and Country Sessions – The Outtakes
1. I Got A Feelin' In My Body - take 1
2. Find Out What's Happening - takes 8-7
3. Promised Land - take 4
4. For Ol' Times Sake - take 4
5. I've Got A Thing About You, Babe - take 14
6. It's Midnight - take 7
7. If You Talk In Your Sleep - take 5
8. Loving Arms - take 2
9. You Asked Me To - take 3A
10. Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues - take 8
11. Talk About The Good Times - take 3
12. There's A Honky Tonk Angel - take 1
13. She Wears My Ring - take 8
14. Three Corn Patches - take 14
15. I Got A Feelin' In My Body - take 4
16. If You Don't Come Back - take 3 (I)
17. Promised Land - take 5

Disc 2: Part 1 – The Pop Sessions – The Outtakes
1. Mr. Songman - take 2
2. Your Love's Been A Long time Coming - take 4
3. Spanish Eyes - take 2
Take Good Care Of Her - takes 1,2,3
5. It's Diff'rent Now (unfinished recording)
6. Thinking About You - take 4
7. My Boy - take 1
8. Girl Of Mine - take 9
9. Love Song Of The Year - take 1
10. If That Isn't Love - take 1
Part 2 – The July 1973 Masters
11. Raised On Rock (Hot 100 #41, country #42)
12. For Ol' Time Sake (charts same as track 11)
13. I've Got A Thing About You Baby (Hot 100 #39, country #4)
14. Take Good Care Of Her (charts same as track 13)
15. If You Don't Come Back
16. Three Corn Patches
17. Girl Of Mine
18. Just A Little Bit
19. Find Out What's Happening
20. Sweet Angeline

Disc 3: The December 1973 Masters
1. Promised Land (Hot 100 #14, country #9)
2. It's Midnight (charts same as track 1)
3. If You Talk In Your Sleep (Hot 100 #17, country #6)
4. Help Me (charts same as track 3)
5. My Boy (Hot 100 #20, country #14)
6. Thinking About You (charts same as track 5)
7. Mr. Songman (Hot 100 #35, country #11)
8. I Got A Feelin' In My Body
9. Loving Arms
10. Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues
11. You Asked Me To
12. There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In)
13. Talk About The Good Times
14. She Wears My Ring
15. Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming
16. Love Song Of The Year
17. Spanish Eyes
18. If That Isn't Love

the "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues" on the bootleg posted above is so great; is that whole show, August 19, 1974, that good?

Wow that version of "Polk Salad Annie"

Drummer clearly earning his $$$

Scored a copy of Tomorrow Is A Long Time for a fiver tonight!

I've never been a huge Elvis guy and always more of a "well, sun elvis and early elvis is the best" guy, but even the early songs there's pretty much always a better pre-Elvis version IMO. Like the Arthur Crudup "That's Alright Mama" is so assured and easy, whereas the Elvis version sounds a little bit manic and confused. Crudup captures the irony and subdued anger of the song whereas I don't hear it in the Elvis version.

Nice discussion here with Conan and Peter Guralnick....
http://teamcoco.com/video/52830/music-historian-peter-guralnick-serious-jibber-jabber-with-conan-obrien

yeah I was watching that, which was what sent me to revisit the sun recordings, which was what made me realize I had never really overcome my blah feelings about elvis in spite of all my reevaluation via Guralnick and others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeN5wPsalI

I love the way he says "But they did alright" in that Polk Salad Annie performance.

I think I like his dancing more than his singing

The spoken intro to PSA is part or what makes it so great, although I heard a faster version without it this weekend that was cool. It even had a bass solo, perhaps to compensate for missing intro.

Looking forward to that future date when Hurting finally gets into Elvis.

I've been trying for like 15 years on and off. I can't exactly pinpoint what misses about him for me. I could say his singing is a bit too hammy, but I love Roy Orbison who is way hammier. I don't really hear all the "vulnerability" that Guralnick keeps talking about though.

The spoken intro to PSA is part or what makes it so great,

he flubs this a lot. "some of y'all might have been down s--, i mean might never been--, I mean might never have been down south.... down there we have a po-- i mean we have a weed that gr-- we have... (grunts a few times)"

B-b-but don't all of those flubbed versions have a compensatory electric bass solo or something similar?

Those all should've been compiled into Having A Compensatory Bass Solo On Stage With Elvis.

Ha.

One of the things that Conan mentions in that Jibber Jabbar is that artists like Elvis who lived into the 80s and 90s got redeemed and to work with great producers again.

I can't even imagine an Elvis via Rick Rubin type album.

I can.

"Uh pardon me I'm only blee-din'
Cause-a you cut me to the bone
Like a hyooo-man cannon BALLLLL'

Like the Arthur Crudup "That's Alright Mama" is so assured and easy, whereas the Elvis version sounds a little bit manic and confused.

This is 100% OTM, but to me that's exactly what makes the Elvis version awesome. He sounds a teenager trying on an adult persona that doesn't really fit him; you can hear his anxiety but also his hilarity.

Crudup sounds like he is talking to a particular woman about problems he and she know all about. Elvis sounds too young to know anything or to be addressing any actual woman, unless maybe it's his mother, Gladys; that ambiguity makes the song even more confused, twisted, and funny.

otm. You might as well complain, as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller did, that Elvis's version of "Hound Dog" didn't make sense.

PBS is showing Aloha From Hawaii as a pledge special tonight--had forgotten he already was doing "My Way" that early ('72-3).

One of the things that Conan mentions in that Jibber Jabbar is that artists like Elvis who lived into the 80s and 90s got redeemed and to work with great producers again.

pretty sure in the 80s he'd have gotten to work with Jeff Lynne not Rick Rubin

but his 70s stuff doesn't need any hipster retooling

They did a doc on his Gospel stuff afterwards. This clip (from Elvis: On Tour) is rather chilling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzjP-hXrzpo

^^^ love that so much

One of the things that Conan mentions in that Jibber Jabbar is that artists like Elvis who lived into the 80s and 90s got redeemed and to work with great producers again.

pretty sure in the 80s he'd have gotten to work with Jeff Lynne not Rick Rubin

aw man, he'd be showing up on records with bruce springsteen and garth brooks and jay-z and madonna and arcade fire and brad paisley and maybe in a quentin tarantino movie or two. maybe he'd have done the "look who's talking" movies too.

damn there are some amazing youtubes on this thread.

Damn, I dug out my dad's clean vinyl copy of the '74 Sun Sessions reissue and...well, DAMN.

https://vine.co/v/ePmzxKzKnLK

Polk Salad Annie... A Gator's got your granny...

That's it.

RIP Scotty Moore, by proximity alone one of the most important guitarists of the 20th Century:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA5HErVE9oI

That right there really is the end of an era at last.

He was only about 3 years older than Presley. I always had the sense that Scotty and Bill were a decade older. Bill was, but both of them were raised in a pre-rock 'n' roll world, so it makes sense that they'd read a generation older when standing next to the first of the new breed.

RIP Scotty, those Sun singles made a lot of people pick up guitars for the first time

RIP Scotty. They don't come much more god-like in the annals of rock and roll than that. Here was the man who played guitar on "Mystery Train." Jesus. I'm glad we had him around all these years.

RIP!
i read that sam philips bio last month, and it is crazy the amount of sheer happenstance/good luck went into those Presley Sun sessions. just change one tiny element and it wouldn't have worked.

It's crazy how they found that feel. "Mystery Train" ain't hard to learn to play, but it's nigh on impossible to do it justice.

i have said this a bunch of times elsewhere but I love the joy on Elvis's face in the 68 Comeback Special - he loves being back with the guys again. grinning & wooping, throwing to Scotty for the killer solos

Yup. I love the part in the Comeback Special where Elvis tells some story about how Old Scotty almost never said anything and then one day leaned over and said "Can you play that 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy'?"
Or something to that effect.

Haven't seen in twenty years, memory may have shapeshifter a little over that time.

Ha, found it on Vimeo. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2sn6ss

Kind of gives an idea of when Elvis might have died had he not been so tortured.

I love the joy on Elvis's face in the 68 Comeback Special - he loves being back with the guys again. grinning & wooping, throwing to Scotty for the killer solos

I saw excerpt about the '68 Special from some Elvis book that revealed that his leather suit had to be dry cleaned quickly between the two 'sit down' shows. According to one of the cleaners, they inspected it for any problem areas before cleaning, and found semen in the crotch...so yeah, The King was really happy to be back with the old gang.

sounds apocryphal

can I be excused to listen to Marie's the Name?

Please

Love the switch between the two bass parts (acoustic and twangy electric) on that one.

What was the story about "You're So Square (Baby, I Don't Care" again? That Bill was comfortable playing the electric bass so Elvis finally just grabbed it and played the intro, I believe.

Dude couldn't play shit. C F G Am at the most

Bill?

Big E

r.i.p. scotty, the elvis sun sessions are one of those things that will just sound awesome forever

RIP!
i read that sam philips bio last month, and it is crazy the amount of sheer happenstance/good luck went into those Presley Sun sessions. just change one tiny element and it wouldn't have worked.

― tylerw, Wednesday, June 29, 2016 3:41 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just finished the Guralnick Elvis bios not too long ago. Even his first meeting with Scotty and Bill... I knew how it would end, but still worried he was going to blow it.

I just love that imagery of Elvis, Scotty, Bill, and Sam Phillips crammed into one car, with Bill's bass strapped to the roof, and driving from show to show all over the South.
Now they're all gone. RIP

Really in a "Moody Blue" mood lately. great song

Is the 70s masters box set worth seeking out and digging into?

Really in a "Moody Blue" mood lately. great song

Is the 70s masters box set worth seeking out and digging into?

100%

The FTD Jungle Room sessions is great late Elvis.

The at stax set is excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB74JaVoWLA

20/20 The Elvis Cover-Up (1979)

Excited to find this documentary. This is referenced a lot in an Elvis conspiracy book "The Most Incredible Elvis Presley Story Ever Told" by G.B. Giorgio.

Anything new in that special ? I like the vintage feel but the content is pretty well-trodden at this point

Just echoing above: the '70s masters box is fantastic, and so is the recent Elvis at Stax 3CD set.

Is the 70s masters box set worth seeking out and digging into?

YES. it is my favorite of the three box sets. it's addicting. i spent one week listening to nothing else and i regret nothing.

'70s box set also the only way to hear "elvis country" without the interludes afaict

'70s box set also the only way to hear "elvis country" without the interludes afaict

Some of the tracks yes but not all from the album. Plus the versions on the box set are not necessarily the album masters. However the box is one of the few places where you can hear the interlude song in full (I was born 10000 years ago)

I'd not heard the 1968 semen anecdote before. What's the source? (of the anecdote not the semen obv)

'I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago' also available on the Legacy Edition of Elvis Country.

It's also on the 90s reissue as a bonus track

Re: The Semen story--It was in some Elvis bio that got reviewed in Blender in the early/mid-00s. They ran an excerpt w/the anecdote alongside a still from the special wherein Elvis has this very goofy look on his face and a caption speculating that perhaps that moment was when it happened.

Oh man...."An Evening Prayer" from He Touched Me, take 3

Back-up singer proposes way to sing the closing "Amen...."

Elvis: Good Idea. Now get your ass back in the room.
Back-up singer 2: It's easier just to do it the other way.
Back-up singer 3: It's easier to do it the other way.
Back-up singer 4: It's easier to do it the other way.
Back-up singer 3: We like the other way.
Elvis: We're not looking for easy ways.

The FTD Jungle Room sessions is great late Elvis.

RCA just dropped their own version of that collection: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/22213-way-down-in-the-jungle-room/

Ah, that most have been what showed up in my Release Radar on Friday.

Finally reading Guralnick's Last Train To Memphis
Barely begun and already teared up

so good

this seems to have rattled a few cages.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/16/millennials-elvis-presley-legacy

idk, i feel like it's a very statistics-driven piece and i dont disagree but it's kinda ignoring the reality of what elvis has become

I dont think i really started buying elvis albums until my late 20's or early 30's when i realized on my own that it wasnt just nostalgic hits my mum liked that i heard growing up, that there was a whole world of stuff that was pretty cool

frankly i dont think he's been an artist for the "youth" for a long time, decades even

im not mad about it

agreed, and anyway good music endures, esp. in a digital marketplace that obviates the choice of one artist's work over another. It's not like Elvis is gonna go unheard.

my feeling about the article is that the argument it makes is probably pretty much right -- but, yknow, who cares. i don't think elvis's greatness should be judged by how many millennials are listening to him on spotify. his place in american culture is secure and isn't going to vanish just because we aren't experiencing an "elvis moment" the way we arguably had a bowie moment last year.

my sense is that he's falling into obscurity slightly faster than his contemporary musical icons

That article is "true" but also completely wrong. It pertains to Elvis the business not Elvis the artist. He has one of the richest outputs out there so as long as there are music heads around he'll be fine.

well, it pertains to Elvis the Baby Boomer messiah.

Elvis the interpreter vs Elvis the songwriter
Have to go interpreter right? I mean, an American Trilogy.

how many songs did he even co-write? maybe a dozen?

according to a snap YouGov poll of 2,034 British adults, a hefty 29% of 18- to 24-year-olds said they had never listened to an Elvis song

lol wow you've proved a specific demo of British 20 somethings don't care about Elvis

The messiah thing is in need of a revival I feel. The poptimist turn took rock as an antagonist too carelessly. Elvis is the moment pop actually becomes good imo. But that depends on how you feel about Broadway and jazz-pop and adult contemporary I guess.

So do interpreters fade away faster than composers?

pop was fantastic before Elvis

ok

So do interpreters fade away faster than composers?

i suppose it depends on just how long-lasting the appeal of a static sheet of music is.

not sure how pop is being defined here but yes there was a lot of great popular music before elvis

how many songs did he even co-write? maybe a dozen?

I'm not sure there's even one. At some point, the Colonel required songwriters to share a co-writing credit with Elvis if they wanted him to sing their song. Not sure how long that lasted because Elvis seemed embarrassed by the arrangement and admitted that he'd never written a song.

The co-writing credit was on a couple of songs on the love me tender ep iirc. Plus there's a handful of "arranged by" in the gospel stuff.

So do interpreters fade away faster than composers?

Sinatra?

What do milennials think of Sinatra

yeah he's someone that's fallen off the radar even with the Gen x-ers. the endless tribute shows and 'An Evening With The RatPack' balls must have had a similar dulling impact as the Chinese Elvis impersonators.

http://www.masseytheatre.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Rat_Pack.jpg

if only there was a way for millennials to effortlessly search for older music that is not being presently marketed to them.

sadly, no such system has been invented.

I always thought Chuck D was talking about Elvis Costello

From the perspective of 2017, Presley is closer to Sinatra and the world of crooners than the Beatles and what came after - an interpreter of straightforward songs with professional backing. He doesn't navigate irony, investigate druggy surrealism or engage with studio production. It's top line melody with sincere introspection and a swinging rhythm section. Even when I got into him in the 1990s, it was when I was choosing to explore older approaches to pop- Hank Williams, Besse Smith, Louis Jordan. His singing-songwriting peers like Berry and Bo Diddly and Jerry Lee Lewis were much more about the riff and the noise and everything that came after. He was a real weirdo like the other early rock 'n' rollers, but his art doesn't work the same way.

From the perspective of 2017

yes the era of Carpool Karaoke. Elvis could fit in perfectly in this post-rockist world.

The article doesn't acknowledge it's the post-rockist world but goes for the bizarre "where's his Sgt. Pepper?" angle. It's true that Presley is closer to the pre Beatles world but that's no longer that big of a deal (and as I said, I'd treat him as a bigger delination mark but that's a nonstarter apparently) and yeah, he doesn't do the rock Diddley/Berry/Lewis stuff but he does the pop part of the rock and roll equation (him/Buddy/Fats) which is as important these days. But he's one of a kind really. He has a much more exposed singing style than any of the earlier "crooners". No one ever sold pomposity in such a vulnerable way. Anyone else who goes for something like Blue Moon, Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, American Trilogy etc etc ends up kitschy imo. One of the key distinctions being that Elvis had a recognizable tone and character for each part of his vocal range. Basically not sure I'd rate any vocalist above him. It helps that he was fed hits for a long time so 30#1's plays as well as Immaculate Collection.

someone in the article says that it's a shame elvis didn't live long enough to reinvent his career + image the way johnny cash did w/ his last few albums. but you could argue that elvis had already done that w/ the comeback special and "from elvis in memphis," which is a genuinely great album that i'd recommend to anyone who just associates elvis w/ the early stuff.

it is really intriguing to imagine an alternate scenario where elvis got off drugs, slimmed down, and went on to become a revered music statesman like cash, going back to the style of the sun years, his voice getting richer and deeper with age, being the first to laugh at his own shitty movie soundtracks. unfortunately that scenario probably requires an elvis who was a completely different person, someone w/ better friends and better willpower.

Late Cash is a weird benchmark for anything imo. It presupposes every old country singer is a goth at heart. Works for Cash I guess but would ruin Elvis. Nick Cave is a sort of peek into that alternative timeline.

I would rather have heard Elvis in the style of '80s Johnny Cash (can you imagine a Highwaymen-style group that included an older Elvis?) than Rubin-era Cash.

He doesn't navigate irony, investigate druggy surrealism or engage with studio production. Try The Complete Sun Sessions, also he gets more interesting near the end of 50s, 60s, 70s.

"He doesn't navigate irony"
This is a great line and seems true to me

I prefer this one from Christgau: "The very refusal of sophistication that renders him unlistenable to Sinatraphiles is what his faithful love most about him." Just switch sophistication with irony and Sinatraphiles with whatever.

I don't agree that he lacks sophistication, not even sure what an example of that would look like

He means Sinatra's and Crosby's mannerisms. Elvis is way less inhibited.

I'm with dow re studio production. Whether he twiddled knobs or not is by the by. He knew how he wanted to be heard. Ref the story about the sessions for hound dog

Ah ok. So just a visual thing

Calstars I don't think it's just a visual thing. It's also about what he did with his voice and the effect that had.

And how that was different to how bing or frankie used their voices.

in the Sun sessions, he and Philips are exploring the possibilities, incl. a new approach to crooning, that would fit the mix of material and tempos---certainly there's as much cultivation of atmospherics as Sinatra was exploring, but here it's all small groups of course, and the difference made by overt use of studio techniques, the reverb of a single guitar note's attack and decay, say,the echo of a snare tom, kickdrun, and at one point his balladeering goes into this unearthly falsetto sidetrip, envy-bait for Bryan Ferry and Scott Walker, who I've never heard attempt anything like it.
All those overcast, end-of-the-60s folk-etc ballads, "Kentucky Rain", "In the Ghetto". Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" (think he covered "Don't Think Twice"too) for that matter the rueful pulsations of "Suspicious Minds", are atmospheric as hell too. And check the uncut Comeback Special (the Dec. '68 TV special, not at all the conventional seasonal bit the Colonel wanted), and the concert doc Elvis On Tour.for the downhome bellbottom Tony Joe White grooves, with soul, blues, gospel, country, rockabilly etc.

Also, he had a sense of humor about himself----on The Million Dollar Quarter, he keeps trying to tell his hopped-up colleagues about seeing the guy (Jackie Wilson) with Billy Ward and the Dominos, who does a wicked Elvis---wonder if humor wasn't his way of justifying doing some of those dire soundtrack songs later on, the ones for which the Col. just happened to own publishing (in some cases).

Only the finest in pharmaceuticals for Mr P

engage with studio production

What I mean here is pure studio creation, in the late-Beatles, Brian Eno sense. Not that Presley's peers engaged in this way either, and not that the Sun Sessions weren't a break through production-wise. The Sun singles reverb was otherworldly by contemporaneous accounts. What I like to wonder about is what keeps an artist like Presley on the far side of the "modern" line, compared to subsequent rock stars? These things are strengths! It's an approach to music making that's not really possible without affect any more. Like, I don't think Nick Cave's "In The Ghetto" is intended to have any irony, but irony attaches itself to it anyways.

Calstars I don't think it's just a visual thing. It's also about what he did with his voice and the effect that had.

yes it really is this simple. people liked his singing a lot. he had a charming voice and vocal drawl and homespun package.

i think the main difference between him and the Beatles is they come from a more DIY artist-centric era wheras Elvis hailed from the more industrial pre-rock pop era. he had to make those movies while the Beatles had the creative freedom to not. as for him being a manufactured star, again, his voice is indisputable, his style is legendary, and his renditions of many hit songs are still the most famous 60 years later. on top of that his backing musicians were frequently killer musicians, he had a great ear for collaborators, a pop tactic later used to great success by Bowie.

Had never thought about how close to each other The Sun Sessions and the Beatles' Rock 'n' Roll Music were released in the States: Elvis in March of '76, the Beatles inside of three months later. I was very aware of Rock 'n' Roll Music at the time, didn't know anything about The Sun Sessions until I saw it in Paul Gambaccini's greatest-ever book two or three years later. The Beatles LP hit #2 on Billboard, Elvis only made it to #76.

I'm a bigger Beatles fan, but easy nod to Elvis there.

40th anniversary of his death today. I still say the music he made between 1969 and his death is every bit as good as the music he made in the 50s. Often better.

You're not the only one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_pmor3iPbw

Seems to me 1969-1972 was a high point but 1973-1977 not so much, although someone here was saying his '73 sessions in Memphis are really rich; I haven't explored that, I only know the singles.

Obvious, but I'd take The Sun Sessions over everything else.

The 1973 Stax sessions are great.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3EHxFLhmgSGEBmJ7tFXwRz

I can still remember exactly what I was doing 40 years ago when my dad told me the news. Led to 40 years of musical joy.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/da/37/8f/da378f4558eeaa5f0aaf3bf139b63e6c.jpg

also hi Elvis! if he faked his death and has been living in a cave in Tibet for 40 years instead

🖼

also hi Elvis! if he faked his death and has been living in a cave in Tibet for 40 years instead

Pretty sure that the nose had secret squirrel stash zones hence more puffy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyKWLmi3wPo

which reminds me i've been meaning to watch the above, "The Elvis Cover-Up" (1979) from 20/20 ABC News wherein a young Geraldo helped fan the flames of conspiracy

Seems to me 1969-1972 was a high point but 1973-1977 not so much

cosign

73-77 has its lows but some undeniable highs. Jungle room sessions.

The angels called him home so that we were spared a Bono duet.

Thanks, I needed an excuse to post this:

http://www.thetravelmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/JUNGLE-ROOM.jpg

Country funk is the best elvis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxnunLJ_fH4

The angels called him home so that we were spared a Bono duet.

I can still remember exactly what I was doing 40 years ago when my dad told me the news.

I was 15--can't say that I do. I was buying albums by then, but I'm pretty sure I didn't own a single Elvis album until I bought The Sun Sessions a couple of years later.

It's coming closer
The flames are reaching my body
Please won't you help me
I feel like I'm slipping away
It's hard to breath
And my chest is a-heaving
Lord have mercy,
I'm burning a hole where I lay

Shoulda mentioned this! Don't totally agree w xgau's take, although do about"the knockout rockouts"---album is def worth looking for:

Scotty Moore/DJ Fontana: All the King's Men [Sweetfish, 1997]
There's no rationalizing the success ratio of this tribute comp--I mean, gosh, Elvis Presley's original sidemen collaborate with artists who like them. I'd like to credit Scotty and D.J.'s groove, but with second drummers powering the two rockingest cuts and extra guitarists everywhere, let's just call it serendipity. Plus maybe--since Joe Ely, Steve Earle, and Raul Malo all benefit from not trying too hard--the kind of affable discretion that stays out of talent's way. The knockout rockouts are Cheap Trick's "Bad Little Girl," which sounds like great John Lennon, and Keith Richards and the Band's "Deuce and a Quarter," which sounds like great old roots-rock and also like nothing I've ever heard. And then there's Ronnie McDowell with that essential soupcon of Memphis-to-Vegas schmaltz. A-

Any album on which a Cheap Trick song is a highlight is gonna be lost on me. I hate that band.

Yeah but still the Keith / band track sounds like a must hear. Firing up slsk

https://youtu.be/l0jpqF1uolk

Marshall Crenshaw on bass, natch

What? Then what's Rick Danko doing?

Also bass. And a third guy on bass too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mJlcW3X4PQ

how is this so great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_UHZ_62GCI

Happy birthday yesterday

^ great song I'd never heard. Some speculation that Bowie used it as a jumping-off symbol for his last work.

I found the weirdest Facebook group recently.

https://i.imgur.com/JF7O5ss.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/6cS2H43.jpg

The weird part being not so much the website itself, but that there are so many altered photos of EP that someone felt obliged to start a Snopes-like site to combat them all.

Because, believe me, I really wanted to submit this one of Madonna getting an autograph to the Photos taken of famous people together that you would never have expected to be together but make you happy all the same. thread.

https://i.imgur.com/N64KUXi.jpg

Thanks for the "Black Star" YouTube, that really is great

ha that picture is terrific, I am opting to believe it's true

http://alldylan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Elvis-Bob-Cowboy.jpg

lol i love these

is this the thread where we post great videos of Elvis live? cause I can only find stuff on Youtube where he seems pretty drugged out

heh that's the best stuff. Polk Salad Annie '72 to thread

love the photos! long live the king

Just yesterday I found a good one of an early performance of “Burning Love” in which he is still reading off the lyric sheet. Will re-search and post in a bit

One of the weirder connections of 70s rock is that drummer Ronnie Tutt was in the TCB! band backing up the King and then would also do gigs in the Jerry Garcia Band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7I4DfUGM4

i didn't realize how many shitty bootleg outfakes of "dark moon" there were

here's a good one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQAa4arQCIc

Tutt was Neil Diamond’s drummer forever. (Might still be.)

Isn't there some story of the Memphis Boys initially being mumped up when Elvis came to American to record because Neil Diamond had been bumped?

from Elvis On Tour: You Gave Me A Mountain

at this point he could sing anything & the way he goes SO big in the chorus with so little effort gives me chills

https://youtu.be/yg9B6ciuAzg

Majestic

from Elvis On Tour: You Gave Me A Mountain

at this point he could sing anything & the way he goes SO big in the chorus with so little effort gives me chills

https://youtu.be/yg9B6ciuAzg🕸

Thanks for that Burning Love clip James, hadn't seen that before.

The 1976 Birmingham concert is well worth checking out. He was so fired up and in good spirits.

https://youtu.be/B7HdFF5w408



Damn links!

good stuff guys, thanks!

interesting to see him in such a playful mood, laughing with that sly smile... I'm glad the musicians are also laughing and smiling, and it doesn't look like it's from anxiety

and then he's switching from playfulness to full on passion out of nowhere, really something special

sounds grrreat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GG9NBKur1Q

can't beat this kind of stuff

This HBO documentary tonight looks interesting.

And it turns out that it is interesting.

good to know!

Will watch asap

Yall see this on Deep Cuts?

Just yesterday I was talking about Elvis's amazing cover of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow is a Long Time," which was not only not a single, but was stuck on Side Two of the soundtrack to Spinout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=0VLpgttfEM0

---grawlix (unperson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=0VLpgttfEM0

That video's down. This one works until it doesn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dRNZZuuR8I

Weird, it worked a few minutes ago--now it's "Can't Help Falling In Love With You." Also good.

From the doc I just learned that Elvis decided to cover “Tomorrow is a Long Time” after hearing the Odetta version.

Internet says it was played for Elvis by Charlie McCoy during How Great Thou Art sessions, which is when Elvis’s version was recorded, only to be released later in the context you mentioned.

Famous quote from the '69 Rolling Stone interview: "I liked Elvis Presley. Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine. That's the one recording I treasure the most...it was called 'Tomorrow Is a Long Time.'"

Yes. I believe I first read that quote in my long ago crumbled to dust copy of The Book of Rock and Roll Lists

I was listening the other day to Suspicious Minds and thinking to myself how it's actually pretty much a piece of shit as far as a song, and it's only Elvis's performance that makes it great, yet great it is

I started part 1 tonight. Loving it.

i love that it’s all edited footage without the usual cuts to talking heads.

I just finished reading the Guralnick book last week. I'd be interested in seeing this.

I haven't seen the whole thing yet but it is without question excellent, probably the best Elvis doc. It's structured like Last Train to Memphis/Careless Love.

They do a phenomenal job talking about the impact of Sun Records and Sam Phillips. That's the crux of Part 1.

Yes. I believe I first read that quote in my long ago crumbled to dust copy of The Book of Rock and Roll Lists

Best toilet book of all time.

It's well worth watching. It does a good job of showing the attachment Elvis actually had to the music and what a fan he was.

xpost kornrules, yeah pt 1 definitelyfelt like an “aerial view” of Last Train to Memphis book in a lot of ways.

And I enjoy the inclusion of an occasional Tom Petty chuckle here and there <3

But Guralnick’s not involved I don’t think? Watched pt 1 last night and didn’t notice him. Seems like an odd omission.

I thought Petty was great

Petty was great, I had no idea he was such a student of Elvis but given his age it makes sense.

He’s very perceptive about a lot of things but it made me especially happy for some reason to hear him talk about kinescopes.

Yeah, Petty and Springsteen are both excellent and add a lot. Robbie Robertson does too.

I hope they talk to Joe Esposito, he was a key guy. And Careless Love readers will also agree that you can't have a doc called Elvis Presley: The Searcher and not have plenty of interview time with Larry Geller.

Yeah Petty was huge Elvis nerd - he actually met him when he was a little kid, so he was fully geeked for life after that, understandably so

Yep, think I heard him tell the story on Fresh Air, also here:
http://www.gainesville.com/news/20070816/young-tom-pettys-life-changed-when-he-met-elvis

He also loved horses, and America too.

His big mistake, moving to Reseda.

lol u guys

Just finished pt 2. Beautiful imo.
I saw elsewhere online some slight murmurings about it being incomplete or too austere towards the end. I understand the remove, esp given the involvement of Priscilla & her being a big part of the project. But also the doc worked hard to show his passion & craft, and came from a place of such musical enthusiasm; there’s so much pain & sadness in those last years that I really don’t begrudge the choice, for me personally at least.

That being said, I could happily watch a 10 parter of this calibre.

the documentary is a legacy-saving enterprise but I dont begrudge it that. As far the end of this documentary goes, you really get the sense that Elvis was being increasingly torn away from his music through the sheer exhaustion of his touring schedule and those Elvis-ploitation movies. its v sad

There is an element of legacy rehab or reframing with this documentary--it pushes his artistry very hard. It shows a near intellectual approach to his perspective and clarifies the puppet masters in a way that is far less cynical than before. It humanizes Elvis without relying on heavy handed pity, which comes off as a fresh take on his music and life. The story told is so much more tragic as a result.

I went to Graceland last year. I expected it to be kitschy and it is because it's stuck in 1977. It's decorated like a poor boy from Mississippi would if you dropped a bag of money in his lap in the 70s. TVs in every room, fabric on the ceiling, extra kitchenettes, and then there's the "Jungle Room".

But the more I looked, my mood went from "Oh isn't it all goofy" to "What a tragic life this man had, self-medicating to the point of blocking up his entire system, dying so young and leaving his wife and daughter".

One building houses a bunch of his old cars and there's a loop of clips from his movies playing. Most of them are just awful, and again it just emphasized for me how outside forces manipulated a naive kid to monetize his great talent.

Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit - I haven't read the books, was he complicit in his own star-making or did he have genuine personal artistic goals that went unmet?

I haven't read the books, was he complicit in his own star-making or did he have genuine personal artistic goals that went unmet?

Difficult question, because the Graceland/Jungle Room Elvis is far different from the Sun Sessions Elvis, at least based on the Guralnick books. Early on, he definitely had a huge role in his own star making. He wasn't just a puppet of Sam Phillips or Col. Parker. He had his own path, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

The 70s Elvis, the kitschy Las Vegas one, is a different story. Again, based on the books, mainly Careless Love, Elvis could have done anything he wanted. It wasn't as if he wanted to make an artistic statement and Col. Parker wouldn't let him. It was Elvis' own decision. He chose the easy money in most cases, from movies and later touring. All the countless background singers and strange wardrobe decisions were his taste.

The biggest artistic hurdle was probably the publishing situation, explained well here. When Elvis chose a song, Col. Parker so Elvis got a big chunk of the royalties. In the sixties and seventies, this discouraged a lot of the top songwriters from submitting songs.

It was frustrating, particularly when you hear what he could do with A+ material like Dylan's Tomorrow Is a Long Time.

I think it's important to point out that for most of what is called "70s Elvis" he had renounced his movie career and vowed to never again record a song he didn't believe in. The narrative seems to be stuck w/r/t Elvis's decline, but he took the reigns back creatively in the 70s.

The dregs are the sixties, after Elvis is Back! (1960) and before Elvis in Memphis (1969)

those Elvis-ploitation movies.

The aforementioned Book of Rock Lists (1981 edition) has a pretty hilarious rundown of these, presumably penned by Dave Marsh. Kid Creole unsurprisingly gets the highest grade, while Clambake "makes Spinout look like Citizen Kane."

The narrative seems to be stuck w/r/t Elvis's decline, but he took the reins back creatively in the 70s.

Every Elvis studio album starting with From Elvis In Memphis - Back in Memphis, Elvis Country, Elvis Now, Elvis (aka Fool), Raised On Rock, Good Times, Promised Land, Elvis Today, From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee, and even Moody Blue - is worth hearing, and some of them are genuinely great. He was doing something really interesting in the '70s, blending rock, blues, soul, and country in a way that sounded like nobody else even when he was doing songs other people had already recorded and even had hits with.

there are great things in the sixties too, like the aforementioned "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" but also this astonishing cover, recorded in 1966 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OgyRSq5w4g

Honestly, I'll take 70s Elvis over 50s Elvis any day.

me too

I'll take 'em both. A classic example, especially in the cognitive dissonance 70s, but really all along, judging by the books (I've read way too many or at least many Elvis books), of the Rain Man muso, mostly (yet sometimes supremely) functional in music.
Enough about that now: it seemed evident in the 70s that a lot of his appeal was so "retro" it was actually what was happenin': that whole rootsy cross-genre convergence, not just for the sake of nostalgia but revitalization and reaffirmation and even self-expression (and also redemption for being part of the beast they called Rock, that ate rocknrollrhythmnblues and everything else tasty), that we were getting from Dylan and The Band, together and sep, yaddayadda, but maybe more relevant show-wise, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, which could incl. George Harrison and Duane Allman and Eric Clapton and maybe all the rest of Derek and the Dominos, among many others (also relevant: the crossroads tendencies of the Dead, especially Garcia and his several sidebands).
Oh yeah, shoulda posted this here already (from Rolling Country)
When I worked in a Deep South CD store in the mid-90s to early-00ties, Elvis sold almost as well as the Dead, and his gospel outsold all his other stuff. This Easter weekend, some public radio stations are re-broadcasting/-streaming "He Touched Me: Elvis' Gospel Music, " w cogent comments from colleagues, intros by Laura Cantrell. Sounds great, wish there were more live (do hear some live w Jordanaires x Sweet Inspirations, for some audiences adjusting or not to integration)(most of the material is from the SI's side of the tracks).
More info on the ever-handy (though Not Secure) Elvis Information Network:
http://www.elvisinfonet.com/elvisnews_HeTouchedMeRadioversion.html
The whole show may be posted somewhere.

― dow, Sunday, April 1, 2018 10:41 AM

Xpost "Kid Creole" is actually a decent movie, directed by Michael Curtiz, Walther Matthau as the villain. Elvis gets to indulge in some proper Brando/Dean angst in it. The guy could act too!

yeah elvis's 50s movies are p good for the most part

Oh, I love King Creole. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, having only seen bits and pieces of his worst films, but (among other things) it showed how Elvis the actor could really rise to the occasion, given decent material. It definitely set high expectations for future films that, to put it mildly, were not met.

xp

Yeah that was good, and Burning Star, directed by Don Siegel, is supposed to be pretty good. The people I knew who went to film school in the 70s really liked Siegel, don't think I've seen any of his though.

Actually Flaming Star, and I've actually seen a bunch of his without knowing the director: Invasion of the Body Snatchers and five Eastwoods, for instance.

So I listened to the 70s box this week based on the strong recommendations itt. I'm a child of the 70s, my mother had top 40 on all the time, we watched the big variety shows - Elvis was a regular presence in one way or another though we didn't have his records.

There's a ton of orchestral pop, which I know everyone was doing as the time, but it's just dripping with schmaltz! Unnecessary strings, overdone backup singers, clichéd harmonica bits, spoken word interludes when he's "getting serious". At times he just seems like a caricature of himself.

I like the straight blues and soul cuts the most and some of the country stuff on disc 3 stands out. There's even a track or two that brings to mind Scott Walker's early solo work. But where Scott definitely had a creative vision, Elvis was just going for the "easy money" as pointed out above.

It's the eternal mystery as to where he would've gone if he'd lived. Based on his 50s contemporaries post-1977 work, I'm not sure there was anything left in the tank. Johnny Cash is the only one from that time that I can think of who produced critical work after the first 20 years of their career.

Let me add that, because of his association with my childhood, I find his voice extremely comforting.

Seems like post-77 Elvis would probably have continued moving towards Country, although there are faint hints of Disco on his last couple of albums.

I've also entertained thoughts of him going New Wave and hooking up with Rockpile for collab.

Finished watching the first half of this last night. It's an interesting choice to go the no-talking-heads route, but I dunno if putting reverent slow-mos and close-ups of random gear and furniture or still photos is all that great a substitute, it became a little soporific.

As far as the subject himself and the overall content I was struck by a couple things. First, it is crazy to consider how brief his "peak" period was, ie the canonical stuff that rocketed him to fame and changed the music industry and the wider culture. It's all over in barely two years! He's immediately whisked into movies and then the army and at that point he's no longer really a musician per se, he's some kind of other entity, a pop star. And he really is like a comet, blazing through the firmament with a huge impact and startling everybody. Second, this survey of the first segment of his career just underscores what a tragic figure he ultimately he is. He is the proverbial dog-that-caught-the-car. He gets everything he ever wanted - massive fame, fortune, buying his parents ridiculous shit, etc. - and then he doesn't know what to do with it and spends the rest of his life a confused, directionless mess.

I have to say, generally my relationship to Elvis is kind of fraught. I can appreciate and understand his role in the culture, but to be honest the vast majority of his music doesn't affect me at all, and a huge swathe of it is downright awful. Apart from a handful of songs, I don't get the visceral joy that I get from, say, the canonical catalogs of Little Richard, or Chuck Berry, or (my favorite) Bo Diddley. It's often to hammy, too mannered, too corny. His commitment and eagerness to please always comes through, but I dunno I can't deal with that much white-man-gospel vibrato applied to such a random grab bag of material. He is, of course, still totally fascinating to watch right up until the end, but I wouldn't say it's because the music's amazing, it's more because of his story and his role and the weird mixture of country bumpkin good ol boy and strangely deluded drugged out rich guy that ultimately defined him. (To be fair, sometimes the music is genuinely amazing - that version of Dylan's "Tomorrow is Such a Long Time" is great and Dylan's appreciation of it is totally understandable).

It's funny to think how he's the musician who set up a template that's still very much in play in our current age, where the public persona's story arc is ultimately more significant/of greater interest to the audience than actual music. The cult of personality is the thing, the music is just a (sometimes minor) component of it.

he's also that kind of case where I really can only appreciate his impact only because of people telling me about it. I don't have any problem believing that Tom Petty or Bob Dylan or the Beatles or any number of other people had their lives change by their first exposure to Elvis. It obviously happened. At the same, time if I was unaware of all that and you had just played me his early singles for the first time I would say "hey that guy's pretty good!" but I wouldn't necessarily be blown away by them in the context of other stuff going on at the same time. I get *why* he was such a shock to people, how he was different etc. but I don't get that same shock myself. And maybe that's just because of being removed by several decades and his general omnipresence, but it is the kind of thing that requires explanation, to my ears and mind. I dunno how anyone in this day and age would come to Elvis and just go "hoooly shit what is THAT?!" upon initial exposure. (Whereas that *was* my initial reaction the first time I heard, say, "Keep a Knockin'")

I dunno how anyone in this day and age would come to Elvis and just go "hoooly shit what is THAT?!" upon initial exposure

i dunno im still impressed when i hear him knock out a tune i haven't heard before. he has tons of incredible performances, he is/was an incredible performer. not sure what is stopping someone from being impressed by an artist who has impressed millions of people for decades.

overexposure + archaic aesthetics

like, you can hear echoes of what Elvis did in so many other things before even hearing Elvis-the-source, things like that *can* weaken the impact

Coming on board now, there's also decades of "racist"/"thief"/"Elvis-wasn't-shit" rhetoric to wade through before you get around to hearing the actual records, too. It's hard to deny the effect of that on a modern listener.

There's a ton of orchestral pop, which I know everyone was doing as the time, but it's just dripping with schmaltz! Unnecessary strings, overdone backup singers, clichéd harmonica bits, spoken word interludes when he's "getting serious".

The arrangements on some of the songs leave a bit to be desired, definitely. But his voice -- this incredible instrument that lay dormant throughout the '60s and suddenly sprang to life in the '70s -- is so fucking magnificent and majestic that I'm willing to overlook its surroundings.

At times he just seems like a caricature of himself.

Arrangement-wise, yes. Vocally, I would disagree.

Also, some of his best '70s recordings are on He Touched Me, which is not represented on the '70s box.

like, you can hear echoes of what Elvis did in so many other things before even hearing Elvis-the-source, things like that *can* weaken the impact

i disgree. i'd heard a zillion machine gun snare rolls by the time i heard his live on Ed Sullivan "Hound Dog" for the first time, and it's sounded impressive and cool even then. there is no replacing the original performers. just cos i have heard a snare roll before doesn't diminish the impact of hearing this particular performer playing a role in this particular way as recorded with this particular technology and this point in time.

on that tip im not convinced what Elvis has done has been done by so many others. certainly he has a large influence but it's not like there are other post bands/singers that are Elvis subsitutes. it's not like Chris Isaac makes Elvis obsolete.

the "he's a theif" stuff is dull, tired. i mean, if you want to go down that route, go for it, but burn ALL your albums not just Elvis.

you're pretty incoherent

er wait nm I misread your second post

Blue Moon was a "holy shit" moment for me. It sounded sinister and psychedelic, hard to believe it was recorded in 1954:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiY5auB3OWg

^same

guys I'm not saying it can't happen, I'm saying it didn't happen for me.

I mean, did you just hear that a year ago? or in the 80s? I think the first time I heard Blue Moon was in the Jarmusch film.

and there was a *lot* of Elvis kitsch about in the 80s

obviously it's a great song and performance, v sinister and wierd

not everything is about you yanno

i bought a cassette of elvis's sun sessions as a cynical late teen/early twentysomething w/ no real interest in the guy, i was into the clash and the fall and dylan and what i thought of as "real" music, and it really did blow me away. not just the spookiness of "blue moon" but the crazy intense energy of stuff like "blue moon of kentucky," the menace of "milkcow blues." even the ballads felt pure and sincere in a way i wouldn't have expected from elvis's later stuff. i can see ppl maybe not responding so much to the familiar 50s hits or having trouble understanding why it was such a big deal when a guy swiveled his hips, but the sun stuff seems p timeless and wonderful to me still.

having trouble understanding why it was such a big deal when a guy swiveled his hips

there is continually controversy over this sort of thing. the artist being free to use sex in their performance is a more relevant topic than ever. we still have debates over Miley Cyrus and Janet Jackson. twerking is mainstream now but only a few years ago it was a revolutionary or underground thing (from my understanding). ofc Elvis is a man and they are women and etc. that's another discussion & one worth having...

some Elvis songs hit deeper as you get older i find. after you have been in relationships or traveled or lived life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUKP8SF-mYs

kinda a lovely song. a little nostalgia and 60s soul pop vibe. you can see him punching the air while he sings like a karate instructor.

there is a live video of "Polk Salad Annie" i post all the time that i wont post again but he is prowling around the stage like a 80s hardcore singer and deep throats the mic at one point. he had the original dgaf attitude. people know what's real - you can't fake that.

lol @ 2:26 shaking Rodney Dangerfield's hand

This is the clip in question, for folks who haven't seen it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpjNnXNY4A

And yeah, Elvis is amazing in this clip, but I also want to point out Ronnie fucking Tutt, the drummer, who was completely locked in with him onstage.

I was thinking about the conundrum they raise a few times in the doc, why DID he stay with Parker when he was obviously so creatively stifled & restricted

I wonder if part of it just comes down to the combination of growing up poor & being stunted emotionally.

Growing up poor creates the fear of losing it all if he breaks away from Parker. Having all that incredible wealth & fame IS the dream, theoretically, and in that kind of mindset “happiness” is a luxury that runs second fiddle. You might secretly dream of doing something more fulfilling but those thoughts get dismissed as being greedy or hubris etc

But also he seems quite stunted emotionally. Between the army & “movie gulag” he completely skipped the important & best part of early adulthood: independence & burgeoning creativity. Like it’s not even that he didn’t choose it: it wasn’t available. And the death of his Mom in between those phases perhaps led him to subconsciously avoid it, and instead latch onto a new influential presence in her absence ie Tom, *because* he’s feeling so lost (but doesnt have the emotional maturity to know thats whats happening & never really deals with his grief in any kind of normal way).

Crucially, as a result he wasn’t free to find himself, learn, fail miserably, create, meet new people to inspire you, broaden your horizons the way many of us do in our 20’s; we take that for granted. But what if you just skip from your teens to your 30’s without it & you’re trying to constantly live up to an ideal ~of yourself~ ? What if you live your whole life like an orchid trapped under a glass: captured & preserved & forced to stay the same, rather than grow & become a fully formed person.

It’s so unnatural & it makes me so sad when I think about it.

I think he bought into the image of himself being pushed on him because it was safe. for all his stagecraft & charisma, he is not confident within himself off the stage. Parker knew it, and excavated that seam until it was an open-cut crater, til there’s barely any Elvis left.

in his whole life he’d never been independent for very long, except for brief glimpses here & there growing up. Once he’s stuck in the machine & sees what he doesn’t want he wants independence but he’s too far in. And deep down he knows he doesnt know the first thing about actually BEING independent. It’s an abstraction by then.

(forgive my romanticism obv)

Wow

Absolutely otmfm, VG. Brilliant post.

:)

Funny, and a little sad/ironic that Tom Petty's the one asking that question of why he stayed with Parker.

Petty's the poster-child for independence, practically from birth he was willfully striking out on his own & ultimately blazing a trail with his merry band of misfits hoping somehow that fame would be around the corner somewhere eventually, but also secretly somehow SURE of it.

It's endearing in it's way that Petty couldn't grasp the idea of someone, ie Elvis his hero, *fearing* independence.

Parker was pretty adept at manipulating Elvis even from the early days (getting friends and hangers-on of Elvis to keep an eye on him for Parker). Was Parker involved in getting all those drug prescriptions and connections for Elvis too?

but yeah VG gets the core there of how Parker had such a hold on Elvis

Growing up poor creates the fear of losing it all if he breaks away from Parker. Having all that incredible wealth & fame IS the dream, theoretically, and in that kind of mindset “happiness” is a luxury that runs second fiddle. You might secretly dream of doing something more fulfilling but those thoughts get dismissed as being greedy or hubris etc

Someone asked Eddie Murphy (himself an Elvis fanatic) about the string of awful movies he’d made, Pluto Nash, Daddy Day Care, Meet Dave, etc. He said something along the lines of, “Look, when you grow up with nothing, turning down offers of millions of dollars simply doesn’t make sense.”

Yeah vg killing itt

Rap critics that say he's "Money Cash Hoes"
I'm from the hood, stupid
what type of facts are those?
If you grew up with holes in your zapatos
You'd celebrate the minute you was having dough

Skipping from teens to 30s makes a lot of sense. He also kept his little gang (Memphis Mafia) with him all the way into his 40s and some type of codependency developed there. iirc it was they who helped him get pills etc. & were involved in his personal business in all kinds of ways while of course they depended on him financially. Other celebrities have their entourages but are able to separate themselves from it, realizing who is the artist and who is the staff, but Elvis operated as if he felt his support group was integral to his success/lifestyle.

yeah they became a sort of lifeboat for him.

Isn’t there one school of thought that the Memphis Mafia were not enablers but were actually trying to encourage him take better care of himself? I am will willing to entertain such a notion but...

it seems plausible, esp in the final years. his excesses would have been more than a little alarming to just about everyone close to him i would think

And those guys got fired as soon as they started making a big deal about that stuff, hence Elvis: What Happened?

VG et al. otm ... it's worth emphasizing how poor the Presleys really were, especially after Vernon did time for writing bad checks ... nothing against East Tupelo, but if you drive around that area today and imagine what it was like during the Depression, it becomes clear that just making it to Memphis was a huge upward climb

add to poverty and Vernon's patchy success as a provider Gladys' reaction to the death of Elvis' twin and the intensity of their bond, and her death the day after he got home from the army ... it's no wonder he clung to Parker and Graceland for the rest of his life

Gladys is a huge key to his psyche, even long after her death. Kinda like those radiation shadows burned into the concrete after Hiroshima.

the photos of him & Vernon the day of her death have stayed with me - ghoulish as it is to see that moment captured, there’s something about seeing such a tragic turning point imo

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f7/e0/f1/f7e0f14874980853a8f268e450900208.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c4/f5/ab/c4f5ab956d8345cd8213c27de6a26615--elvis-death-family-homes.jpg

Yeah, fascinated by that photo.

Also, loving the term “movie gulag.”

And pondering this statement from Jon Landau: “Because I believe he was a genius from start to finish, even when he was recording the soundtrack to ‘Clambake.'”

The account of their grieving in Last Train To Memphis is pretty intense, in a grimly funny and extravagant way—“mama ain’t gonna feed those chickens no more!” Reminds me of Leland Palmer in season 1 of Twin Peaks.

Also still pondering this Peter Guralnick quote about Sam Phillips:

Sometimes in the middle of the night he arrives unbidden. He even sets me riddles. In one dream he said to my bewilderment (both then and now), “I am nothing if not an idealist.… I am everything but an idealist.… The boy cannot fully understand.” I dream of Sam. I dream of my grandfather. I dream of Solomon Burke and the songwriter Doc Pomus. All gone. They come around less frequently now. But whenever Sam arrives, as often as not rattling at the window in the midst of a torrent of conflicting concerns, I always listen.

/Growing up poor creates the fear of losing it all if he breaks away from Parker. Having all that incredible wealth & fame IS the dream, theoretically, and in that kind of mindset “happiness” is a luxury that runs second fiddle. You might secretly dream of doing something more fulfilling but those thoughts get dismissed as being greedy or hubris etc /

Someone asked Eddie Murphy (himself an Elvis fanatic) about the string of awful movies he’d made, Pluto Nash, Daddy Day Care, Meet Dave, etc. He said something along the lines of, “Look, when you grow up with nothing, turning down offers of millions of dollars simply doesn’t make sense.”

Earlier today was texting that exchange back and forth with a friend.

It's infectious and never seems to get old.

so classic. the fat elvis walk gets me every time

reading that peter guralnick quote right after sciatica's post has made me realize that sam phillips would have been right at home, somehow, in twin peaks

Was visiting a friend in Brooklyn. One of the girls from Girls lives around the corner and was having a sidewalk sale. My friend picked up a huge pile of Elvis trading cards, each packed with facts on the back. My favorite I saw re: the famous meeting with Nixon, captured in Black and White. But supposedly Elvis's suit was bright purple, like something Prince would wear!

Well, Prince died the same year as David Bowie, who had the same birthday as Elvis and sent out various encoded signals throughout his career acknowledging this and so... *scratches chin*

Da Presley Code

Exactly

Haven’t heard every recorded note, but starting to subscribe to Landau’s “Clambake” theory. And still amusing myself thinking of Sam Phillips in Twin Peaks

We need an Elvis Presley poll.

I can start it next week!

Yes!!!!!

watched part one, really well done

one thing that's I think making it pretty affecting for me on another level is there are so many quotes by Tom Petty and it's just so nice to hear him talk and hear him say things I've never heard before almost like he's alive ;_;

yeah it’s a nice added layer

Loved this HBO doc. As someone who was only familiar with the Sun Records era, hearing tracks like A Mess of Blues and Crawfish were revelatory for me.

About 3 hours into this, how did everyone not know Parker wasn’t born in the States? When he speaks he sounds like Goldmember.

Parker looks like such a cigar chomping sleazy manager type it's almost like he's a made up character

there was one photo where he was wearing this ridiculous jumpsuit with the Girls Girls Girls logo on it and he looked like a bad guy from the Batman series, like they tried to mix the Riddler and Penguin

Yeah he looks like such a total huckster

I just recently watched part 2. The whole thing is great, but there were some curious omissions.

For example, since they pin just about everything bad that ever happened on Col. Parker, why would they omit the fact that he was a degenerate gambler who lost just about everything he took from Elvis (a 50/50 split!) in the casinos? Wouldn't that be a relevant point if you want to show how bad he was?

Another issue is the relentless focus on his creative output, all those movies etc. I understand they were trying to stay away from the Memphis mafia, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, karate Graceland kitsch which has been covered ad nauseum, but that played a big part in his decline and demise. Blaming it all on his tour schedule doesn't seem accurate. He took plenty of pills at home too.

3rd, Larry Geller should have been interviewed. He plays a big part in Careless Love. He was Elvis' hairdresser, who was deeply interested in spirituality and mysticism. He got Elvis, who was always spiritually bent, even deeper into it. They spent a ton of time together in the 60s. It drove the Memphis mafia crazy. A bunch of good ol' boys who loved to party and chase women were losing Elvis to this guy.

Yeah, also the doc frames the decision to record in the Jungle Room of Graceland in 1976 as some kind of bold creative choice on Elvis's part whereas Guralnick paints a more pathetic picture, suggesting it was at the Colonel and RCA's request given that Elvis had apparently "developed a pathological aversion to the recording studio."

Yes. The last 3 years of his life, based on Careless Love, were basically a death spiral, capped off by him dating Ginger Alden, who was cheating on Elvis with her high school boyfriend.

This doc made me check out the 2nd gospel album and it's pretty great stuff

finished last night...really affecting.

i don't know enough to talk about the accuracy of the later days stuff mentioned itt...

though i will say that -- just from a cinematic standpoint -- ending with "if i can dream" then pulling back to the television in graceland was amazing way to end

one thing i REALLY liked:
even though they had some really big names like springsteen and petty etc, i liked the fact that they never actually appear onscreen as talking heads, all the footage kept me in the world of elvis and didn't break the spell (though many of the people had very interesting things to say, i'm just glad they weren't onscreen)

just dropping in to say that those Guralnick books are essential reading

^

Springsteen was a bit of a mixed bag – his comments about the creation and performance were generally really insightful but the ones about Elvis’s artistry were often a bit much...

This is why he didn't want Elvis to perform across the border---Parker couldn't go with him, couldn't extend the reins much:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/colonel-parker-managed-elvis-career-but-was-he-a-killer-on-the-lam-108042206/

Thats is the most complete version I've come across.

Petty and Bruce were just distracting

(a 50/50 split!)

Louis Armstrong had the same deal with his manager, Joe Glaser. Ostensibly, at least in the beginning, it was accepted by Armstrong, as Glaser kept gangsters at bay. I don't know how Armstrong felt about the percentage in later years, and Glaser, not unlike Parker, pushed Armstrong into situations he was decidedly against, and which made lots of money ("Hello, Dolly!" most notoriously).

Without looking at his catalogue to check for sure, it’s infuriating to think that Elvis never covered Bob Dylan, the Beatles, or did a record of (non-religious) standards because of Colonel Tom Parker.

It’s also a little stunning that his whole career more or less mined the same early R&B, gospel and country influences he loved as a kid. One of the reasons I was never really a fan was that once you got past 1965 it all seemed so backwards looking. Now it looks more to me like stunted growth – again, thanks to Colonel.

For a guy who was a “searcher,” Elvis sure spent a lot of his career wandering around his manse doing very little searching. Odd.

Elvis did a few Dylan's--"Tomorrow Is Long Time has been kicking around ILX as of late. And iirc, he covered "Something" live.

...but yeah, lots of blown opportunities to be sure.

"I need a drink of water. My mouth feels like Bob Dylan spent the night in it."

About all I can add to this is banal and you've probably heard it a million times. But I feel like I've lived it, so indulge me. that Elvis epitomizes the Memphis approach to everything. The casual psychodrama of Memphis. The sublime and insane assurance that you are right and the rest of the world is wrong. The will to make a joke out of the most serious things and something serious out of the most inane shit. I don't really trust anyone who's a pop intellectual who has to slot Elvis into some scheme of "he blew it" or "he wasn't an idealist." Like I would say about Dean Martin, whom I think Elvis was the spiritual brother to, Nothing Matters. Except money, creature comforts, blowing the whole fucking thing off and being glad you can afford to do it. I don't ever listen to Elvis Presley; once in a while I do screen his greatest work, Clambake, the kind of dada I can relate to. I also sometimes listen to "Kentucky Rain" or "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road," and his Dylan cover is really good. I plan on never listening to the guy again as long as I live. I don't believe in him and I think the Guralnick approach, fine as Guralnick is, as good a man as he apparently is and humane, is beside the point when it comes to Elvis. I think anyone who's ever spent time in Memphis, I lived there for almost a decade, gets this pretty much immediately. He's a copy of a copy of a copy and yet real, and he's a joke. Which is how the city is, it might as well not even exist. But Dean Martin! He's great in Rio Bravo, and he's also just as inauthentic as Elvis but somehow far more real. Elvis never got close to the scene in that film in which Dean, drunk for a year, starts to fish around in the spittoon for the silver dollar piece, and Wayne kicks him away. But Dean never sang a musical-comedy number, one of the worst songs ever written, while riding a motorcycle thru Florida with a bad Jerry Reed lookalike. That's my two cents on Elvis.

xps Elvis also covered "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright"

great post edd

Elvis did "Get Back" live