ESSENTIAL ELVIS
One of many problems in assessing the career of Elvis Presley lies in the fact that his music was released in a very haphazard way rather than being showcased as a coherent body of work. That his material could also be considered haphazard in the first place, demonstrating a catholicity of taste that some would consider less than discerning, adds to the problem in presenting anything like an “Essential Elvis.” The volume and range of the material certainly affected Elvis' critical reputation, with his music coming to be seen as weak and ephemeral when, in fact, the opposite was the case. There is a diversity of styles which those who favour one kind of music and lack a taste for other kinds would not appreciate. I think Elvis' remarkable stylistic range is to his credit. Others may not care for the various kinds of music he lent his talents too. Further, it is undoubtedly the case that too much material was released, poorly presented, with no thought for coherence, and spread thinly over far too many albums of decidedly average character. By padding out albums with weaker material, the impact of the strong material was weakened, to the detriment of Elvis' critical reputation. But who cared for that? Certainly not Elvis' management and recording company. They had no idea of Elvis' musical qualities and historic importance, and evidently thought that such things mattered not at all. The music was treated as pure 'product,' with the result that too much was issued with too little thought given to artistic identity and impact. There are very many Elvis albums. I should know. I seem to have bought most of them! That, of course, is why RCA kept churning them out. But very, very few of these albums could be classed as truly representative of his work at its best, and there are fewer still that could be classed as 'great.' Even his first albums for RCA, the two iconic “Elvis” albums from 1956, (plus “For LP Fans Only” and “A Date with Elvis” that were released in the fifties), were effectively compilations, excluding the stellar hit singles and padded out by the Sun recordings. They are very good records, of course, and I have no hesitation in classing them as 'essential.' But they are not actually representative documents of Elvis' music as it was recorded. They were put together from different recording sessions. Very few Elvis albums actually are representative documents. Elvis is considered a singles artist, a hit maker, and his record of achievement shows him to be the biggest and best of all pop stars in this respect. But I've never found numbers persuasive, least of all when presented as a monetary value. He is also considered a film maker and concert performer, again one of the biggest and best. But he is not considered an album artist. Which strikes me as a complete injustice. Because Elvis was a powerhouse in the studio, recording a wide range of material in mammoth sessions and integrating it effortlessly to give it coherent form.
I have therefore sought to establish coherence in the career of Elvis Presley, not as a hit maker or film maker, but as a music maker who expressed a remarkable stylistic range.
I have sought to exercise a certain degree of quality control in order to focus on essential cuts, but not too much. I'd prefer not to be too strict. For the truth is that very many favourite Elvis tracks, tracks that struck a chord with the people, are merely simple songs of no great distinction when considered as pieces of music in themselves. The value of such songs lies in Elvis' voice, which does indeed deserve to be heard. That's a matter of my own personal taste, of course, and not everyone is as tolerant as I am of songs sung whilst flirting with puppets. But some people are. In fact, many are. Elvis is something of the people's champion rather than the critics choice in this very respect. Elvis' voice as well as his songs struck a chord with people, even as the critics sniff over poor taste. The critics who love rock and/or blues, for instance, have no time for gospel, for country, for ballads, for what they dismiss as 'schmaltz,' by which they mean dramatic ballads, big vocals, orchestration, strings … To such people I simply say, treat Elvis as a musical education. Listen without prejudice long enough, and you may come to develop precisely what Elvis had and a lot of his fans have – a multiplicity in music. I love both the blues of “Baby What do You Want Me to Do” and the balladry of “Spanish Eyes.” I make no distinction that the one is better than the other. They are different and, through Elvis, I have learned to appreciate the qualities of each for what they are. That's the approach I take to these songs. I don't rank them according to category, and say that the blues tracks are better than the ballads etc.
When Elvis first walked into Sun studios as a teenage boy he was asked what kind of songs he sang. “I sing all kinds,” he replied. He was asked who he sounds like: “I don't sound like nobody.” Elvis sang “all kinds” of songs his own unique way. I like “all kinds” of songs. And I like those who are open to all kinds of songs. I take the songs on their merits. I have no interest in imposing taste and classification. Something I particularly like about Elvis is that he was open to all kinds of music. That quality comes with the danger of losing a precise artistic definition, and we can see Elvis coming to apply his voice to some of the most appalling musical misconceptions in history. Some of this was forced on him by contractual obligation, but some of it was his own personal choice. You can make your own mind up. Personally, I like it that Elvis would choose to record in Stax Studios, the home of black soul music in Memphis, being able to call on Booker T's Memphis Group, only to proceed to record a song like “Spanish Eyes.” Some would consider that proof of Elvis' tawdry tastes (as I read one critic say) or his conservatism. We can argue about taste. But Elvis was actually very ambitious musically in the way he drew so many diverse forms and genres together. His version of “Spanish Eyes” had nought to do with soul music, whether black or blue-eyed. But it was a very fine rendition of the song all the same. That's the world of Elvis for you. If you are a person who is concerned to demonstrate impeccable taste at all times, and possess a rather nervous disposition when it comes to musical purity, then Elvis is certainly not for you. I like the blends, the borrowings, and the bendings. “But it's a mistake,” Carl Perkins protested to Sun Records owner Sam Phillips over a take of a song he'd just finished. That's Sun Records, Sam Phillips responded, “a big original mistake.” In doing it all wrong, mixing things that should have been separated, I think Elvis got it right. That's why I'm a fan. He's not for everyone. But he does seem to have been for a lot of people, and forty years after his death still is. He was a remarkably popular figure, and remains so.
I haven't sought to be comprehensive in the selections below. I don't, for instance, include all the Sun recordings. I take it as read that fans and completists will want everything. I have presented comprehensive lists and guides elsewhere. That is not my brief here. The problem with being comprehensive is that quality will come to be drowned by quantity, with Elvis' appeal remaining something of a mystery to non-fans. Elvis was a very prolific artist. Which is also to say that he recorded too much. That, in itself, is not too much of a problem, provided you have a management that knows how to exercise quality control. The smartest artists know the value of the John West approach – only the best salmon should go into the tin. With Elvis, the tins came out thick and fast, with everything available being put in. Some of it was unfit for human consumption. In fact, ravenous dogs and cats wouldn't have touched material like “Queenie Wahine's Papaya” or “Britches” and such like. The problem with issuing too much material lies in critics coming to make an enormous issue of the lesser material to the neglect of the quality that was evident nearly every year in his career. Yes, we know that Elvis sang “Yoga is as Yoga Does” and “Old MacDonald,” but critics harp on about this as though such tracks are typical. They are not. Had they been, Elvis would have been washed up fairly early on, and he would certainly not be remembered today as the artist he is. Being critics, their job is to highlight the quality that was being weighted down and even drowned by the dross. And quality there was, as I shall make clear. It says something that a track like “A Little Less Conversation” comes to be rescued from the obscurity of a long dismissed film soundtrack to become a world-wide million selling smash. The song is now rated as an Elvis classic. The song is now what it was then, nothing has changed. My point is that the critics missed its value back in 1968 completely through their constant harping on the undoubted mediocrity Elvis was churning out in the films. Elvis sang snatches of the song throughout his TV Special rehearsals in 1968, which should have told us something as to what he thought of its quality. In fact, he sang a full version. It was not issued at the time. Since it became a global hit in 2002, it is now included on the "Memories" disc containing the pick of the '68 performances. The same applies to “Let Yourself Go.” The critics, in their obsession with the worst that Elvis was doing, missed the good stuff. They missed “Guitar Man” and “Big Boss Man” too. The truth is, critics were already set in their narrative of Elvis' rise and fall in the sixties. As a result, we tend to lose sight of the fact that Elvis Presley not only recorded a range of songs of high quality but did so in a far greater quantity than is generally acknowledged. That said, critics may feel justified in panning “The Last Farewell.” No one seems to have a good word for the song, not even Elvis' friends, family, and musicians. Elvis loved it, though. And so do I.
So here below is how I divide Elvis' gold-plated career up musically. I have deliberately sought to dissolve all memory of the films by including songs on their merits and, where possible, blending the film material with the main studio recordings when they are deserving of such treatment. It is often impossible to integrate the film material, without destroying the identity of other recording sessions. So I have sometimes grouped two or three films together to make for something quite entertaining, something certainly more artistically worthwhile than most of those film soundtracks. I seek to establish that there are good songs from the films which are deserving of being rescued and heard. These songs may not show Elvis at his best, but more of them do than critics allow. And we should remember that these films and songs were popular. Heretical it may be, and an affront to art, no doubt, but a lot of these songs meant more to more people than, say, did “That's All Right” and “Mystery Train” from the historically important Sun years. It was, I have to say, a long time after I had become an Elvis fan that I finally gained access to the stellar Sun sides as well as the first RCA recordings with which Elvis made his name. I was an Elvis fanatic as a result of those early seventies 'budget' albums which contained scraps and leftovers from the sixties mainly. It was only in 1976 that I obtained “The Sun Collection” and 1978 the two volumes of the “'56 Sessions.” In other words, I had already drawn the conclusion that Elvis was the greatest singer ever – my favourite singer, in other words – on the basis of his lesser material. I thought he was even better than even I had thought that when I came to hear his best material. You understand what I'm saying here. A lot of the lesser material is actually very good. To my ears, certainly, but to a lot of others, too.
But if you want the short version, here is my essential guide to the music of Elvis Presley: Sun-Sound-Stax. Or the even shorter version: Memphis.
I'm talking of the original country/blues/gospel/rock/pop/ballad synthesis that Elvis effected not in live performance in the clubs with other musicians at the time but in his bedroom with the radio and record player as his accompaniment. Here, in the safety of his Memphis home, Elvis was free to indulge his wide musical tastes, not having to fit that range-riding taste to narrow grooves to appeal to the audiences. Elvis was free to make connections where those playing for instant acclaim would see none. Elvis started in Memphis and, when RCA in desperation for 'product' sent its mobile recording unit to Elvis' Graceland home in 1976, he ended in Memphis, too. I have no name for that blend of country/blues/gospel/rock/pop/ballads and so, in the dishonourable tradition of Elvis' recording company in giving Elvis albums a title, I'll just call it “Elvis.”
What is “Elvis?” Here is how Chet Atkins, who played guitar at Elvis' very first session at RCA in 1956 said:
“When he came in to do 'Heartbreak Hotel' I called up my wife and told her to come over. I said, 'You might not get a chance to see him again, he's gonna get so damn big.'
… he loved gospel music. Jake Hess had influenced him and Bill Monroe [country] and Big Boy Crudup. [blues] The first time I ever heard him I thought, 'What in the hell is this?' I couldn't tell if he was black or bluegrass or gospel or what. Of course, that was what made him what he was. He was so damn versatile he could sing anything. I talked to (Elvis' guitarist) Scotty Moore about it once. Scotty said, 'Y'know, instead of patting his foot while he sang he'd shake his hip. It turned the girls on so he just exaggerated it a bit'.
(...) From an interview by Larry Katz (thekatztapes.com)
Elvis embodied a genuine multiplicity in music. And he also loved to please a crowd. How to remain true to the music without succumbing to temptations to exaggerate for effect pretty much sums up the predicament of Elvis' career.
This is how I have broken the music down, original albums in brackets:
Essential Elvis
1954-1955 Sun
1956 RCA – Rock'n'Roll I and II (Elvis Presley, Elvis)
1957 The Holy and the Profane (Loving You, Elvis' Christmas Album)
1957 The Holy and the Profane II (Jailhouse Rock, Elvis' Christmas Album)
1958 Going for Gold (King Creole and the singles on Elvis' Gold Records vol II)
1960 Elvis is Back (Elvis is Back)
1960 His Hand in Mine (His Hand in Mine)
1960 Flaming Star/GI Blues/Wild in the Country
1961 Something for Everybody (Something for Everybody)
1961 Blue Hawaii/Follow that Dream/Kid Galahad
1961-1962 Pot Luck (Pot Luck with Elvis)
1962-1963 Girls! Girls! Girls! /The World's Fair / Fun in Acapulco
1963 For the Asking (the “Lost” album)
1963-1964 Viva Las Vegas/Kissin Cousins/ Roustabout/Girl Happy
1965 Harum Scarum/Frankie and Johnny/Paradise Hawaiian Style
1966 Spinout/Double Trouble/Easy Come Easy Go/ Speedway / Clambake
1966 Tomorrow is a Long Time
1966 How Great Thou Art
1967-1968 Goin' Home
1968 Live a Little/Trouble with Girls/Charro/Change of Habit
1968 NBC TV Special
1969 American Sound – two sets
1970 On Stage
1970 That's the Way It Is
1970 10,000 Years Old – Elvis Country
1971 Elvis Now I and II (Elvis Now, He Touched Me, The Wonderful World of Christmas)
1972 Fool I and II – two sets combining live and studio recordings (Fool, Madison Square Garden, Aloha from Hawaii)
1973 Stax – two sets, Good Times and Country Soul
1975 Today
1976 Graceland, Memphis Tennessee (From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Moody Blue)
Recognizing that I have selected many more songs than is normal in a guide, I have employed a three-level ranking scheme.
I have highlighted the truly essential recordings, recordings which stand as just plain good music, in red. The very best of these, the cream of the crop, are in bold red. A quick count reveals 260 of tracks in red, of which 170 are in bold. That's a pretty good guide, a substantial amount of material, quality guaranteed.
I have highlighted recordings that are fine and well worth the attention of casual Elvis fans in black bold. (A quick count reveals 196 of these tracks).
The remainder are fine but not essential, added to make for a consistent set of recordings in any one year.
Remember that my brief is to break down the Elvis catalogue in such a way as to provide an album of material for ever year of recording. Those who may be inclined to think that my year-by-year selections have been overly-generous - and I'll openly declare that I am an Elvis fanatic who thinks Elvis was the best, even if I state that more modestly in public in the form of Elvis is my favourite singer - can simply proceed to the tracks highlighted in red. These really are very good indeed (although even here I have deliberately mixed the superb and the sublime with some songs that critics may consider slight, but which have qualities that all music fans can appreciate. I may have to do some more fine-tuning and pruning, admittedly).
SUN 1954-1955
That's All Right July 5-6 1954
Blue Moon Of Kentucky July 5-6 1954
Blue Moon August 19, 1954
Good Rockin' Tonight September 10-16, 1954
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine September 10-16, 1954
Tomorrow Night September 10-16, 1954
I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin') September 10-16, 1954
Just Because September 10-16, 1954
Milkcow Blues Boogie December (or November) 20, 1954
You're A Heartbreaker December (or November) 20, 1954
Fool, Fool, Fool January or February 1955
Baby Let's Play House February 1, 1955
I'm Left You're Right She's Gone March 5, 1955
Mystery Train July 11, 1955
I Forgot To Remember To Forget July 11, 1955
Trying to Get to You July 11, 1955
1956
ELVIS PRESLEY
ROCK'N'ROLL I
I Got A Woman January 10, 1956
Heartbreak Hotel January 10, 1956
Money Honey January 10, 1956
I Was The One January 11, 1956
Blue Suede Shoes January 30, 1956
My Baby Left Me January 30, 1956
One-Sided Love Affair January 30, 1956
So Glad You're Mine January 30, 1956
Lawdy Miss Clawdy January 31, 1956
Shake, Rattle, and Roll January 31, 1956
I Want You I Need You I Love You April 14, 1956
Hound Dog July 2, 1956
Don't Be Cruel July 2, 1956
Any Way You Want Me July 2, 1956
These are the recordings from the RCA sessions in the first part of 1956. The standard is incredibly high and, frankly, all seventeen tracks recorded at these first sessions could have been issued to make for a classic album. These are the songs with which Elvis swept America and the world. I have decided on a tight fourteen. The following three could easily have been placed among the above. For various reasons, I consider them slightly flawed (Elvis' “Tutti Frutti” may have been a revelation to the white public of 1956, alarming adults and exciting teenagers in equal measure, but it is not a patch on Little Richard's original. Similarly Elvis' version of “I'm Gonna Sit Right Down,” which is frenetic compared to Roy Hamilton's version. I am sure that Elvis would have agreed with both views. “I'm Counting on You” is a fine country ballad, a precursor of Elvis' best work of the early 1960s. Elvis sings well here, showing significant improvement as a vocalist from his early efforts at ballad singing at Sun. He would go on to sing such material even better in the '60s. These tracks I have excluded could easily be added. As it is, the fourteen I have selected here are of the very highest standard, making a perfect statement as to why Elvis became “Elvis” and changed so many lives for the better.
I'm Counting on You
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)
Tutti Frutti
1956
ELVIS
ROCK'N'ROLL II
Love Me Tender August 24, 1956
Poor Boy August 24, 1956
Playing for Keeps September 1, 1956
Love Me September 1, 1956
How Do You Think I Feel September 1, 1956
How's The World Treating You September 1, 1956
When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again September 2, 1956
Long Tall Sally September 2, 1956
Paralyzed September 2, 1956
Too Much September 2, 1956
Anyplace Is Paradise September 2, 1956
Ready Teddy September 3, 1956
First in Line September 3, 1956
Rip it Up September 3, 1956
This is another tight selection of fourteen tracks. These are the recordings from the August and September of 1956. People may want an explanation with respect to the omissions. I know a lot of people love “Old Shep.” By the number of times it turned up on Elvis compilations in the 1970s and 1980s, we could presume the song to be popular. Or maybe just overused. It even made it onto “Elvis' 40 Greatest” from 1974, which was something that bogged an otherwise excellent collection down. I know Elvis loved the song and made his name as a boy singing the song at school and at various festivals. That the song is of historic importance, I have no doubt. Liverpool's Ian MacCullogh of Echo and the Bunnymen has a theory that “Old Shep” proves that Elvis is the greatest singer ever. He refers to Frank Sinatra, his fine voice and excellent material recorded with the best musicians. Sinatra can sing “One For My Baby” and sing it impeccably. But you knew it was fake. He wasn't the depressed, lonely guy at the bar. As soon as the song finished, you would know Sinatra would be off partying. By way of contrast, Elvis would sing “Old Shep,” a song about a dead dog, and sing it with an evident and eminently believable, if slightly alarming, sincerity. And that's why Elvis was the best. For the life of me, though, I don't see the song's attraction. I think I am entitled to omit it from the best twenty eight cuts of Elvis' first year at RCA. But as song about dead dogs go, this song is the Mount Olympus. And Elvis did the greatest ever version. Just not for now. For another day, perhaps.
1957
LOVING YOU
JAILHOUSE ROCK
ELVIS' CHRISTMAS ALBUM
Elvis' recordings from 1957 are diverse and hard to organise thematically. There are film songs, religious songs, Christmas songs, blues, rock'n'roll, and ballads.
It would be easy to put everything in their appropriate categories and issue the film songs alone, the religious and Christmas songs alone, and the remainder alone. But Elvis defied such categorisation. What would be most interesting to do is to combine this incredibly wide stylistic range around the theme of “the holy and the profane.” That was precisely how the music was recorded, and Elvis applied no artificial division to the music.
So I saw two ways of proceeding here:
1) a division between film music (Loving You and Jailhouse Rock), religious and Christmas music, and the remaining studio recordings
or
2) two volumes of “the sacred and the secular.”
The first approach is the simplest, offering a clearly identifiable theme; the second approach is the most interesting and offers a way of showcasing Elvis' remarkable stylistic range.
The appeal of the second approach to me is twofold. In the first instance, it merges the film material into the main body of Elvis' work, dissolving the film identity entirely, with songs emerging on their own merit. In the second instance, it blends the religious and Christmas material into the main work, too. Those who have no particular interest in such material are liable to miss some of the best recordings in Elvis' career.
All of these songs were recorded between January and May in the first half of 1957 and so quite legitimately belong together.
Those who disagree with my approach will have no trouble in putting the soundtracks Loving You/Jailhouse Rock together. The Christmas Album of 1957 was issued at the time with the religious material. I prefer to present Elvis' music as a blend of blues/country/rock/pop/ballads/gospel. There isn't a name for that genre. Let's just call it “Elvis.”
1957
THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE I
Mean Woman Blues January 13, 1957
Teddy Bear January 12, 1957
Don't Leave Me Now (Loving You version) February 23, 1957
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? January 19, 1957
All Shook Up January 12, 1957
That's When Your Heartaches Begin January 13, 1957
Lonesome Cowboy
Got a Lot O'Livin' to Do January 12, 1957
White Christmas September 6, 1957
Tell Me Why January 12, 1957
Is it so Strange January 19, 1957
Santa Claus Is Back In Town September 7, 1957
One Night February 23-24, 1957
I Need You So February 23-24, 1957
Peace in the Valley January 13, 1957
O' Little Town Of Bethlehem September 7, 1957
Loving You January 12, 1957
Party January 21, 1957
I Believe
Hot Dog
Eighteen tracks. The two omitted could easily have been added ("Hot Dog" makes for a very breezy one and a half minutes). As it is, I ought really to try and cut four from the above to keep selection to a tight fourteen. I think “Bethlehem” could go to a Christmas album, although it is indeed beautifully sung and deserves a wide hearing. And maybe either “Heartaches” or “Lately” as two country songs. They strike me as essential, though. The same with respect to "Lonesome Cowboy," a song I always loved from the film "Loving You," with its echoes of the Sons of the Pioneers (not that I remember them, of course.) I love the variety. And I find it intriguing that Elvis could record “Santa Claus is Back in Town,” a double entendre blues whose meaning is so obvious as to be completely singular and thoroughly salacious, at the same session as he recorded “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Hence my title “The Holy and the Profane.” With Elvis the two could not be divorced. We should know this from “Peace in the Valley,” whose writer was the Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey by day and “Georgie Tom” by night, a blues singer with the accent on the blue.
THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE II
Jailhouse Rock April 30, 1957
Baby I Don't Care May 3 & 8, 1957
Don't Leave Me Now (Jailhouse Rock Version) February 23-24, 1957
Blue Christmas September 5, 1957
I Beg of You January 13, 1957
Don't September 6, 1957
One Night of Sin January 18, 1957
When it Rains, It Really Pours February 23-24, 1957
Blueberry Hill January 18, 1957
Treat Me Nice September 5, 1957
True Love February 23, 1957
Young And Beautiful April 30, 1957
Take My Hand, Precious Lord January 13, 1957
It is no Secret January 19, 1957
I Want To Be Free May 3 & 8, 1957
I'll Be Home For Christmas September 7, 1957
Silent Night September, 1957
Eighteen tracks. If I was being truly rigorous, I would have to reduce these sets to fourteen. But each track here has a solid case for inclusion. I merely make the point that Elvis Presley was not merely a prolific artist, he produced more quality tracks in much greater numbers than critics admit. I'll put it this way, in both 1956 and 1957 Elvis Presley produced material sufficient enough to pack two high quality albums. But, yes, Elvis' take on "Blueberry Hill" is stiff and stilted, leaden compared to Fats Domino, but it makes for interesting listening all the same, more polished than "One Night of Sin" and "When it Rains," so I see the material as of a piece; and, OK, maybe neither "True Love" nor "Silent Night" are truly essential, but both are beautifully sung.
1958
KING CREOLE
50,000,000 ELVIS FANS CAN'T BE WRONG: ELVIS' GOLD RECORDS – VOLUME 2
GOING FOR GOLD
Trouble January 15, 1958
King Creole January 23, 1958
Hard Headed Woman January 15, 1958
Crawfish January 15, 1958
A Big Hunk O' Love June 10, 1958
A Fool Such As I June 10, 1958
I Need Your Love Tonight June 10, 1958
I Got Stung June 10, 1958
Ain't That Loving You Baby June 10, 1958
Don't Ask Me Why January 16, 1958
My Wish Came True February 1, 1958
Wear My Ring Around Your Neck February 1, 1958
Doncha' Think It's Time February 1, 1958
As Long As I Have You January 16, 1958
Danny February 11, 1958
Your Cheatin' Heart (alt take) February 1, 1958
Young Dreams
Lover Doll
Dixieland Rock
New Orleans
The recordings of 1958 comprise the "King Creole" soundtrack and studio sessions that were undertaken with the explicit purpose of producing a number of hit singles and B-sides for while Elvis was away in the army. The standard is high, making it difficult to know which tracks to leave out in order to give 14-16 sides. There are sixteen tracks here. If you feel the need for a tight fourteen, then see which two tracks you would omit. You'll be the loser, one way or another. Take the track “Danny.” This was supposed to be the title track for the film “King Creole,” when it was still planned to be called “A Stone for Danny Fisher.” The title of the film was changed, and “Danny” was thrown out of the film and kept off the soundtrack album. Which is a genuine shame. Because it is an obvious hit record. Britain's number one rock'n'roll star Cliff Richard covered the song on his very first album in 1959 whilst in America Conway Twitty scored a massive hit with the song rewritten as “Lonely Boy Blue.” So there it is. “Danny” is a song that was cut from the “King Creole” film and soundtrack but is actually a very good example of Elvis' mastery of mid-tempo ballads. I have no doubt that this could have been the biggest hit from the film by far. And there were some great tracks in this film. So beware what you cut. Indeed, the four omitted tracks from “King Creole” are also worthy of inclusion. I cut them for reasons of repetition. Let's just make the point, again, that Elvis Presley was actually very, very good.
1960
ELVIS IS BACK
ELVIS IS BACK
A Mess Of Blues March 20, 1960
Make Me Know It March 20/1, 1960
Soldier Boy March 20/1, 1960
It Feels So Right March 20/1, 1960
Stuck On You March 21, 1960
Fame and Fortune March 21, 1960
It's Now Or Never April 3, 1960
Fever April 3, 1960
Like A Baby April 3, 1960
Girl Of My Best Friend April 4, 1960
Surrender October 30, 1960
Are You Lonesome Tonight April 4, 1960
I Gotta Know April 4, 1960
Thrill Of Your Love April 4, 1960
Such A Night April 4, 1960
Reconsider Baby April 4, 1960
I Will Be Home Again
Dirty, Dirty Feeling
Girl Next Door Went A'Walking
That's sixteen stellar tracks, comprising the bulk of the “Elvis is Back” album, widely considered one of Elvis' three greatest albums, plus the massive hit singles of the year. There's no arguing with the material or the quality of its performance, these recordings are simply stunning. John Lennon said that Elvis died when he entered the army. The idea that John Lennon may have had of Elvis may have died, but that is the fate of all illusions. Elvis had never sung better than on these recordings from 1960. Whilst a lot of the attention this year fell on the multi-million selling “It's Now or Never,” “Surrender,” another number one hit in similar operatic vein, is even better, making much more demands on Elvis as a vocalist. Elvis acquits himself very well indeed, with one of his greatest performances. Even more impressive, however, are the various kinds of blues among the material. It is the three omissions I have made that require explanation. These three tracks from the “Elvis is Back” album are decent enough. I just felt that Leiber and Stoller's “Dirty, Dirty Feeling” to be a little dated by 1960. It's a fair enough track, of its kind, but it's kind was of the 1950s, and Elvis had clearly moved beyond such material by this stage. “Girl Next Door” is fine, too, but somewhat inconsequential. I love “I Will be Home Again” but I am trying to avoid a situation in which decent but lesser material dilutes the impact of the good material. It could easily be included, it is a good song. But I'm been trying hard to keep to a tight fourteen to ensure maximum impact. The quality here is so high that I couldn't lose another two. As it is, I have a knockout sixteen here.
1960
HIS HAND IN MINE
HIS HAND IN MINE
His Hand In Mine October 30, 1960
Milky White Way October 30, 1960
I Believe In The Man In The Sky October 30, 1960
He Knows Just What I Need October 30, 1960
Mansion Over The Hilltop October 30, 1960
I'm Gonna Walk Dem Golden Stairs October 31, 1960
In My Father's House October 31, 1960
Known Only to Him October 31, 1960
Joshua Fit the Battle October 31, 1960
Swing Down Sweet Chariot October 31, 1960
If We Never Meet Again October 31, 1960
Working On the Building October 31, 1960
Crying in the Chapel October 31, 1960
Two days' work, resulting in music that will last for all eternity. Impeccable phrasing, diction, and intonation with respect to the vocals, beautifully arranged when it comes to the instrumentation. This record was equally as good as “Elvis is Back.” And to think that this same year Elvis starred in three films too, complete with soundtracks. Talent fit to burn.
1960
GI BLUES
FLAMING STAR
WILD IN THE COUNTRY
MOVIE STAR
Tonight Is So Right For Love April 27, 1960
What's She Really Like April 28, 1960
I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell November 7, 1960
Wild In The Country November 7, 1960
Wooden Heart April 28, 1960
Pocketful Of Rainbows May 6, 1960
Flaming Star October 7, 1960
Lonely Man November 7, 1960
G.I. Blues April 27, 1960
Tonight's All Right For Love May 6, 1960
Summer Kisses, Winter Tears October 7, 1960
In My Way November 7, 1960
Doin' The Best I Can April 27, 1960
Forget Me Never November 7, 1960
Blue Suede Shoes (New Version)
Frankfort Special
Shoppin' Around
Here I have put together the soundtracks from the three films that Elvis made in 1960. The "GI Blues" soundtrack was a huge million selling album in its own right, and was nominated for a Grammy award. Obviously, though, that album contains songs which are obviously 'film' songs, making more sense in the film than they do on record. My intention is to dissolve the film association so as to focus on the qualities of the songs as independent songs in their own right.
The Elvis films from this year were actually very good, with “Wild in the Country” and “Flaming Star” being particularly good. These two did relatively little at the box office compared to “G.I. Blues” and the sun'n'fun films that followed. Elvis' management had no strategy other than follow the money until it ran out, wasting Elvis' talent in the process. Elvis went along with it. He complained and grumbled, to the wrong people, people who could do nothing to remedy a bad, albeit exceedingly profitable, situation. Then he expressed open contempt. But it wasn't Elvis' rebellion that changed things around. By the end of the 1960's, even the fans had stopped going to see the Elvis films. And so they died a death. Ironically, his final films are among the more worthy ones.
I live in hope that, one day, there will be a general recognition that many of the Elvis film songs were actually quite decent, and that more than a few of them were actually very good. A lot are not, of course, and that's where the critics focus. But when freed from being surrounded by more dubious material, and released from their association with the films, many of these songs can come to be appreciated as songs in their own right. Perhaps not ground-breaking and far from being Elvis' best, but decent all the same. And odd songs like "Can't Help Falling in Love" are most certainly among Elvis' best.
“Wooden Heart” is a well-loved million selling international hit, whilst “Pocketful of Rainbows” and “Doin' the Best I Can” very much continue in the high quality blues balladry of the “Elvis is Back” sessions. The songs from “Wild in the Country” are intimate acoustic ballads which Elvis sings beautifully. “Summer Kisses” from "Flaming Star" is an overlooked gem that deserves to be better known.
1961
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY
SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY
I'm Comin' Home March 12, 1961
Put The Blame On Me March 13, 1961
There's Always Me March 12, 1961
In Your Arms March 12, 1961
Sentimental Me March 13, 1961
His Latest Flame June 26, 1961
Little Sister June 26, 1961
Starting Today March 13, 1961
Kiss Me Quick June 25, 1961
I Feel So Bad March 12, 1961
I'm Yours June 26, 1961
Gently March 12, 1961
Judy March 13, 1961
Give Me The Right March 12, 1961
I Want You With Me March 12, 1961
That's Someone You Never Forget June 25, 1961
The bulk of these tracks were recorded in just two days, March 12-13 1961. That's a high standard of performance. It's right to be critical of poor quality material, and I will be critical when the moment comes. But being critical in the true sense of the word means also giving credit for high quality performance when the occasion merits. These recordings are the height of pop sophistication. At this stage of his career, Elvis' recording career had coherence. The albums were complete self-contained documents. Unfortunately, some bright spark at RCA had the brainwave to divide the “Something for Everybody” album into ballad and rhythm sides. The result is that the blend and balance that the material contains comes to be lost, the ballad side coming to sound very dreary, the rhythm side samey. When properly balanced, the strength of the material comes out clear. So I've balanced it. And I've added the three singles from 1961, which gives a strong backbone to he whole, exhibiting the qualities of the other songs all the more. It's amazing what a little balance can do.
I've omitted “It's a Sin,” which is a fine country ballad. I just couldn't squeeze it in and, at sixteen tracks, I already had too much material. Some of the tracks here were left over for the “Pot Luck” album of 1962. I'd prefer to keep the material together around the date of recording. It gives more sense of Elvis' music as it developed. And again, with sixteen selections, I hope I have made the point that Elvis was a prolific artist in the best sense.
1961
BLUE HAWAII
FOLLOW THAT DREAM
KID GALAHAD
DREAMING
Follow That Dream July 2, 1961
Steppin' Out of Line March 22, 1961
What A Wonderful Life July 2, 1961
A Whistling Tune July 2, 1961
No More March 21, 1961
Can't Help Falling In Love March 23, 1961
Blue Hawaii March 22, 1961
King Of The Whole Wide World October 27, 1961
I Got Lucky October 27, 1961
Ku-U-I-Po March 21, 1961
Angel July 2, 1961
Rock-A-Hula Baby March 23, 1961
Home Is Where The Heart Is October 26, 1961
Hawaiian Wedding Song March 22, 1961
Moonlight Swim
Hawaiian Sunset
This is three film soundtracks reduced to one decent fourteen song selection. It's a combination of catchy tunes and finely sung ballads. It's not quite what made Elvis' name, but it's what earned Elvis millions of fans the world over. And it tends to be forgotten that "Blue Hawaii" was the second biggest selling album of the 1960's (and to that extent did actually make Elvis' name as the world's number one pop superstar). “Can't Help Falling in Love” is one of the greatest songs ever. And whilst the “Hawaiian Wedding Song” is far from being rock'n'roll, it is beautifully sung all the same. As to the songs from the other films, Bruce Springsteen paid homage with his own version of “Follow that Dream,” a particular favourite of mine. “I Got Lucky” is an infectious little twister, and on “Angel” Elvis' voice is simply divine. Many of these songs are modest little gems.
A word on “Ku-U-I-Po.” It's not a song I ever paid that much attention to until I heard the nice acoustic inflection on the alternate take. It's a delicate beauty. The two omitted songs could easily take its place. There came a point in Elvis' career when a lot of the songs became not bad but somewhat interchangeable, inoffensive, pleasant even, but far from essential. That leaves us with the impossible task of choosing between a mass of non-essentials. That situation carried on for so long, with immense damage to Elvis' reputation, because Elvis had the ability to make the appalling actually something quite appealing. I have a soft spot, too, for “Moonlight Swim,” not least because it had been a minor hit record for Anthony Perkins. Nice to see Norman Bates putting his talents to better use. By selecting the best from the three film soundtracks I hope to have made the point that Elvis' film songs are far from being universally dire. This is actually a very good selection, of which most other artists would have been proud. Remember that these film songs were Elvis' other career, in that sense a bonus to the "Something for Everybody" album and singles. Again, prolific. I am determined to smash the narrative of decline that surrounds Elvis' post-army career.
1962
POT LUCK
POT LUCK
Good Luck Charm October 15, 1961
Gonna Get Back Home Somehow March 18, 1962
She's Not You March 19, 1962
Night Rider October 16, 1961
Anything That's Part Of You October 15, 1961
Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello March 19, 1962
Easy Question March 18, 1962
I Met Her Today October 15, 1961
Something Blue March 18, 1962
Suspicion March 19, 1962
You'll Be Gone March 18, 1962
For the Millionth and the Last Time October 15, 1961
Fountain Of Love March 18, 1962
Just For Old Time Sake March 18, 1962
I Feel That I've Known You Forever
Elvis' studio career starts to get complicated from this point on, given the way that his film commitments started to intrude on his studio work, getting in the way of his recording sessions. There's no questioning the material and musicianship, and Elvis is in fine voice. People can pick their own examples of Elvis' voice at its best, but I always loved “I Met Her Today” and “Suspicion.” “Anything That's Part of You” is another country ballad of which Elvis was the master. Pop perfection doesn't get any better than this. But there's the problem – in becoming slick, Elvis was at risk of becoming merely slick: something of the old fire was fading away. That leaves us often choosing between indistinguishable tracks that are competent enough, but not particularly memorable.
“Just for Old Times Sake” is essentially a rewrite of “Old Shep,” for all those excited by the memory of the greatest “dead dog” song ever written. I couldn't really separate it from “I Feel that I've Known You Forever.” Earlier I had a problem of deciding between real quality tracks. Now I'm deciding which tracks are less boring than others. Be warned, The Beatles are just around the corner, ready to take the world by storm. For Elvis '56 read Beatles '64. But if Elvis can be accused of dozing off, he had done so for the very good reason that in tracks like “Good Luck Charm,” “She's Not You,” and “Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello,” with its irresistible Latin rhythm, pop just doesn't get any better. It's just that it can get more exciting … Elvis' years of exciting the world were behind him. His style was more mature. His rockers, like "Night Rider" here, were entertaining and well performed. But they are performances. And remembrances of the days when rock was young. His teenage fans were now young adults. Pop is eternally young and lively. The wheel was about to turn.
1962-1963
GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! / IT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD'S FAIR / FUN IN ACAPULCO
FUN FAIR
Girls! Girls! Girls! March 27, 1962
One Broken Heart For Sale September 22, 1962
Where Do You Come From March 27, 1962
Bossa Nova Baby January 22, 1963
I Don't Want To March 26, 1962
Guadalajara January 23, 1963
Return To Sender March 27, 1962
They Remind Me Too Much Of You September 22, 1962
Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You March 27, 1962
I'm Falling In Love Tonight September 22, 1962
I Don't Wanna Be Tied March 28, 1962
Because Of Love March 27, 1962
A World Of Our Own September 22, 1962
We'll Be Together May 23, 1962
Earth Boy March 28, 1962
You Can't Say No In Acapulco January 23, 1963
Song Of The Shrimp
Happy Ending
Thanks to the Rolling Sea
We're Coming In Loaded
Dainty Little Moonbeams
Plantation Rock
Take Me To The Fair
Mexico
Fun In Acapulco
I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here
As the doctor muttered when he saw I was still lying happily in my hospital bed at Christmas, “this is ridiculous.” I think he wanted me up and out, jogging or engaged in similarly vigorous pursuits. The problem here is that there is just too much Elvis material but not enough distinctive quality. That a lot of it is decent makes the problem worse, since you are effectively having to choose between indistinguishable tracks. Any of the discarded could easily supplant slight tracks like “Because of Love” or obvious film tracks like “Guadalajara.” I have a soft spot for “Mexico,” but others will just see it as film fodder. I originally had eighteen here but cut “Happy Ending,” which is jolly enough, but plainly a film song. Same with “Thanks to the Rolling Sea.” But they both say something about Elvis' film career that is worth saying – even the ephemeral material had certain qualities - the songs were not uniformly dire.
These sixteen tracks are culled from three soundtrack albums, “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” “It Happened at the World's Fair,” and “Fun in Acapulco.” No one seems to remember any of these films with any particular fondness. There had been high hopes for “Fair” when it came out, with a deluxe gatefold sleeve of the album planned. The single “One Broken Heart” bombed (relative to Elvis' usual high standards) and the plan was abandoned. I have selected sixteen tracks here not because I was overrun with high quality but because the material is much of a muchness, with little to separate the individual tracks. The “Girls” material has a greater range to it, with some fine old-fashioned ballad touches, so that soundtrack is over-represented in my selection. To tell the truth, I did want a further track from “Girls” with the inclusion of the much maligned but actually quite delightful “Song of the Shrimp.” But many would have been inclined to think things as getting beyond ridiculous with such a selection. It's not half bad, though, if you listen without prejudice. It already pained me to have to cut “Mexico,” a track for which I have an unfathomable soft spot. It is far from being an essential cut, though.
1963-1964
THE LOST ALBUM
FOR THE ASKING
Long Lonely Highway May 27, 1963
Slowly But Surely May 28, 1963
Witchcraft May 26, 1963
It Hurts Me January 12, 1964
Love Me Tonight May 26, 1963
Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers May 26, 1963
Bossa Nova Baby January 22, 1963
Memphis Tennessee May 27, 1963
Devil In Disguise May 26, 1963
Please Don't Drag That String Around May 26, 1963
Blue River May 28, 1963
Ask Me January 12, 1964
Western Union May 27, 1963
What Now, What Next, Where To May 26, 1963
Echoes Of Love May 26, 1963
Never Ending May 26, 1963
Tomorrow Night 1954 redone 1965
The famous 'lost' album from 1964. It is remarkable that this album came to be 'lost.' Elvis recorded fourteen tracks in just three days. Studio material was cut up and issued as 'bonus' songs to beef up increasingly flimsy film soundtracks or as B-sides to lead singles to promote films .. Of course, the film soundtracks should have been left to flounder on their own demerits, with Elvis' strongest material used to produce substantial studio albums. The approach got things entirely the wrong way round, the good being sacrificed to the bad .. Elvis' music, like Elvis himself, lost in Hollywood. Elvis' management made the three soundtracks a year the cornerstone of their marketing plans, clearly thinking of Elvis' fan base as no more than a ready made market, money in the bank. Utterly cynical and, in ruining Elvis' reputation along with his music, completely self-defeating.
The recording sessions for the intended album did not go well, and there was a shortage of usable material. In the meantime, the films kept coming off the conveyor belt. Here and there, homeless songs were rounded up and added to soundtracks and singles, until the already skimpy material disappeared along with the intended album. As it turned out, between 1962's “Pot Luck” and 1969 “From Elvis in Memphis” there was no album of original non-religious, non-film material from Elvis. That is nothing short of a scandal, for which Elvis' management deserve to be held in complete contempt. As The Beatles took the world by storm, Elvis went missing in action. He was withdrawn from the music scene and sent into exile in Hollywood. This, in the years which recorded the most revolutionary changes in pop music. Elvis came to sound like a relic from a bye-gone age. As Jimi Hendrix noted in 1968, the only progress Elvis made in these years was in his bank balance. And Hendrix, remember, was very much an Elvis fan in his younger days (he saw Elvis in Seattle in 1957, and there are sketches of Elvis and his songs that Hendrix drew in his teenage years). It need not have been so (it depends on how much you are concerned to keep art from the clutches of commerce).
The material here ranges from the exceptional (“It Hurts Me,” “Devil in Disguise,” “Long Lonely Highway,” “Witchcraft,” “Ask Me” to the excellent with obvious hit potential (“Memphis Tennessee”) to the decent if inconsequential (“Western Union” is yet another rewrite of “Return to Sender,” no lessons being learned from the fate of the “One Broken Heart” single). Five of the tracks here went onto the first release of Elvis' Gold Records vol 4. The 1997 reissue added “Bossa Nova Baby,” which I think I am entitled to add to the selection here. It is a Leiber and Stoller song that was used in the film “Fun in Acapulco,” for reasons known only to those that made the decision. It is not a film song. And the Bossa Nova is Brazilian, not Mexican. I'm sure that few who saw the film knew and still less even cared.
A few words on “Tomorrow Night” are in order here. This song was recorded at Sun some time between September 12 and 16, 1954, but was unfinished and for that reason unreleased until overdubbed in 1965. The new version issued on the album of scraps and leftovers “Elvis for Everyone” in 1965 excites debate to this day. The main body of opinion much prefers the original, unfinished, Sun recording. For good reason. Elvis loved ballads and was from the first trying out as a ballad singer. His first attempts at Sun are gawky, but had something that sparked and retained the interest of Sam Phillips. What that “something” was, or could be, started to become more clear with Elvis' eerie version of “Blue Moon.” In truth, although now considered a classic, that track is itself unfinished. I love it. But Elvis only sings certain verses, missing out the lyric, whilst the instrumentation is sparse. With “Tomorrow Night” the gap where a guitar solo ought to be is more obvious, hence the recording may sound more unfinished than "Blue Moon." So it went without release. Considered as a vocal, it was actually one of Elvis' best performances at Sun. Here we hear for the first time the baritone that Elvis was to employ on his early love songs at RCA. This is an important point, likely to be missed through a concentration on the rock and R&B material with which Elvis made his name. Elvis had always seen himself as a ballad singer, and would later become recognized as such. Here we hear clear evidence of his abilities as a ballad singer developing.
But there it is. Sam Phillips didn't care for ballads, not even blues ballads, and did nothing with either "Blue Moon" or "Tomorrow Night." RCA released "Blue Moon" on the first album of 1956 but did nothing with "Tomorrow Night" until, desperate for material to pad out a new album, Chet Atkins was authorized to overdub the original recording to make it sound 'modern,' in a Nashville country way. He succeeded. The Sun recording was stripped of its original music and the vocal laid across a musical accompaniment that gave the old Sun recording a more modern Nashville sound. On paper, it sounds like an abomination. And whilst I prefer the original Sun recording – bare, sparse, and primal as it is - I have to say that the Chet Atkins re-recording is actually very good. Yes, it turns a blues ballad into mainstream mid-sixties Nashville, disdainfully called “countrypolitan.” But that style was popular for a reason.
The new backing track was recorded on March 18, 1965 at RCA Victor Studio, Nashville, Tennessee. The musicians involved were Nashville's A team: Chet Atkins (electric guitar), Grady Martin (electric guitar), Henry Strzelecki (bass), Buddy Harman (drums), Charlie McCoy (harmonica), and Anita Kerr Singers (backing vocals). That's a quality line-up. Nice guitars and harmonica, not sure about the backing singers.
In time, with the first issue of the original Sun recording, the 1965 overdubbed version of “Tomorrow Night” disappeared from view. We are right to want the original and we are right to see this track for what it is, a blues ballad which Elvis had been singing in such a style from way back. The version released on “Reconsider Baby” is excellent. It's not a mid-sixties Nashville country song, and it wasn't when Elvis sang it, and it wasn't the way Elvis sang it. But for all that, the 1965 overdubbed version has its merits, and is of historical significance. In a year in which Elvis sang “Queenie Wahine's Papaya” (don't ask, and most of all don't listen) its release was a definite highlight. And if we had never heard the original, we would certainly be appreciative of this countryfied version. I see no reason why we cannot enjoy both versions. And I think Chet Atkins did a really fine job here. Just my view. I'm not a purist. But those who complain that a blues song has been turned into a country song should just consider this – whilst Elvis is undoubtedly influenced by Lonnie Johnson's blues version of this song, the song was actually written as a country song by country artist Hank Thompson. It's a complicated world for purists, working out who “stole” what from whom. It's music and, as such, is available to all and belongs to all.
I'm just calling for a little perspective. And I'm also left wondering why Elvis couldn't be tempted to re-record the song himself, particularly in a year when he was wasting his talent on some of the worst film songs he had ever recorded.
More than anything, Elvis needed to bring focus and direction to his music again, rather than spreading himself thinly between too few studio and far too many continuous film commitments. Too much focus on easy film money is certain to make an artist fat and lazy! The films came thick and fast from here on, fast off the conveyor belt, and certainly thick. Most of them contained at least a couple of good songs which merited single release, and a few more that would have found their place on any non-film album. But the overall quality declined, as did the headline tracks. By the time we get to “Do the Clam,” the alarm bells ought to have been ringing so loud as to force a response. Together, these films songs are repetitious and formulaic, and leave a sour taste in the mouth. Any critic who is in need of evidence of how appalling and overrated Elvis was, a phony, plastic, sellout, has ample material to prove their thesis in these film soundtracks. The films made Elvis a lot of money, but turned him into a joke at the same time, ruining any artistic credibility he had aspired to as either a singer or an actor. All I can do is cram them all together, creaming off the best cuts, and hoping people will forget the films they came from.
1963-1964
VIVA LAS VEGAS / KISSIN' COUSINS / ROUSTABOUT / GIRL HAPPY
VIVA
Viva Las Vegas July 10, 1963
C'mon Everybody July 9, 1963
Night Life July 9, 1963
If You Think I Don't Need You July 10, 1963
I Need Somebody To Lean On July 10, 1963
Today, Tomorrow and Forever July 11, 1963
What'd I Say August 30, 1963
Kissin' Cousins September 30, 1963
Kissin' Cousins No. 2 October 10, 1963
There's Gold In The Mountains October 10, 1963
Tender Feeling October 10, 1963
Once Is Enough October 10, 1963
Little Egypt March 2, 1964
It's A Wonderful World March 2, 1964
Big Love, Big Heartache March 3, 1964
There's A Brand New Day On The Horizon March 3, 1964
Puppet On A String June 10, 1964
Do Not Disturb June 11, 1964
Cross My Heart And Hope To Die June 11, 1964
One Boy, Two Little Girls October 10, 1963
Anyone (Could Fall In Love With You)
Hard Knocks
Startin' Tonight
You're the Boss
Do the Vega
Catchin' On Fast
Meanest Girl In Town
That's a lot of tracks of about the same quality. Even I have to admit defeat at times. Once tracks bottom out at a less than outstanding, but still pleasant, and even catchy, standard, then selection becomes well-nigh impossible. It's not that songs like “There's a Brand New Day” or “Cross My Heart” are particularly good. They are not. They are highly unlikely to win Elvis any new fans or persuade the unpersuaded. They are OK, decent, and listenable, in the same way that a lot of these films were undemanding and watchable. Neither memorable nor great art, but capable of passing a little time to. I particularly like “Brand New Day,” modeled as it is on “This Little Light of Mine.” It's Elvis far from his best redeeming some decidedly average material with the sheer force of his vocal ability. That Elvis had always made material sound better than it actually actually counted for a lot when the material was pretty good in the first place. As the sixties progressed, the material became average, at best. But selection is worthwhile in that it produces an overview that is genuinely representative of his career.
With that point made, it bears emphasis that the eight tracks selected here from “Viva Las Vegas” are actually quite strong. As the policeman in Clockwise said at the scene of yet another crime, “this one's going to take some sorting out.” The temptation is to divide the material into two, with a strong 1963 album of Viva Las Vegas and Kissin' Cousins. That means adding a few more tracks to the already weak 1964 material. That, in truth, would be merely to compound an error.
In truth, the nineteen tracks here offer too much material of the same quality and needs to be cut to sixteen tracks. Few people are kept entertained by songs that are of broadly the same type and quality, merely a lot of the same kind of thing. Both “Kissin' Cousins 2” and “Cross My Heart” could be cut. Actually, I prefer “Kissin' Cousins 2” to the “Kissin Cousins” title track that was issued as a single, with the immense ballad “It Hurts Me” on the B-side. The lesser songs here are none of them even close to being essential Elvis cuts, and do actually explain a lot about how Elvis came to lose his way. “There's Gold In The Mountains,” “It's A Wonderful World,” “There's A Brand New Day On The Horizon,” and “Cross My Heart And Hope To Die” could all be lost without anything musically essential going missing. That would take us to a manageable fifteen songs. It's just that, for all of the hit singles and gold records in Elvis' career, I have a view that the real secret of his immense popularity was his ability to sing “all kinds,” even simple, catchy tunes that do no more than make people happy for a little while. Every song an artist records doesn't have to be a groundbreaking song. Elvis takes a lot of stick from those who seem to presume that every song he sings has to be of the highest artistic standards. When it came to nice songs nicely sung, Elvis was the master. It's not great art. But it is entertaining. There's no mystery to Elvis' huge popularity. Undemanding as some of this material may be, simple tunes blessed by a good voice can easily find an audience. Those with higher artistic standards who are inclined to scoff should try singing a song whilst flirting with a puppet to see if they could do it well enough to gain wide appeal. I very much doubt it. And even if they could, I'm certain they couldn't do it better than Elvis did it. Elvis sang more ground breaking songs than most. So we are free to appreciate his pleasant, if inconsequential, material too, if we want to.
I read that “It's A Wonderful World” was considered for an Academy Award nomination as Best Song. It's hardly the most challenging of songs, but I quite like it. I like “Big Love, Big Heartache” too. But I wouldn't rest the case for Elvis on such kinds of songs. Same with “There's Gold in the Mountains” from Kissin' Cousins. Pleasant and catchy, and offering no sort of threat to the likes of Beatles, Dylan, et al, it's Elvis absenting himself in another world entirely. At the same time, if you are prepared to listen with an open mind, then you will find odd classics like “I Need Somebody to Lean On” and “Today, Tomorrow, and Forever.” These songs stand up today, more than half a century on, as fine recordings. But certainly, point made, Elvis needed much more than the nice, pleasant, and entertaining if he was to remain a relevant artist in the 1960's. The fact that a lot of these songs are actually OK, but little better than that, explains how this show could have stayed on the road for so long, despite being an evident waste of Elvis' talent.
1965
HARUM SCARUM / FRANKIE AND JOHNNY / PARADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE
PARADISE - SO CLOSE, SO FAR
My Desert Serenade February 25, 1965
Go East - Young Man February 26, 1965
Kismet February 25, 1965
Mirage February 26, 1965
So Close, Yet So Far (From Paradise) February 25, 1965
Frankie And Johnny May 15, 1965
Beginner's Luck May 13, 1965
Please Don't Stop Loving Me May 13, 1965
What Every Woman Lives For May 14, 1965
Hard Luck May 14, 1965
Drums Of The Islands August 2, 1965
This Is My Heaven August 2, 1965
Stop Where You Are August 3, 1965
Sand Castles August 3, 1965
From the ridiculous to the frankly unbelievable. As that fine Liverpool comedy actor Derek Nimmo might have said, “Oh Moses!” I've struck out the real abominations of the soundtracks from 1965. And abominations some of these tracks most certainly are. With the likes of “Harem Holiday,” “Hey Little Girl,” “Chesay,” “Datin'” and “Queenie Wahine's Papaya,” even hearing is not believing. Just appalling. It's as if The Beatles had never happened. The Elvis world was just in the process of consuming itself with its greed and stupidity. The only consideration seemed to be to keep selling “Elvis” to the ready market that existed. The world passed on by. I once listened to the full studio recordings for “Paradise Hawaiian Style,” which had Elvis singing “Datin'” and “Queenie Wahine's Papaya” over and again. You do actually find yourself singing these songs for days after. Not because you actually like them, but because they have burgled their way into your head, taken up squatters' rights and flat refuse to come out, even under threat of physical violence. They are like those appalling stains on your best clothes, not even napalm can shift them. They've sought asylum in your head, and that's precisely where tracks like these will send you. Especially if you start singing them in the street, as I'm afraid I have done, thinking there was no one around. There's always someone around out there. It can be quite a worry at times.
This “Queenie” song has always intrigued me. It is so inexplicably bad that the rational philosopher in me has me seeking an ulterior motive. I have read suggestions from people who style themselves scholars and linguists (others may consider them mischievous folk with filthy minds), that the song has a message that somehow went under the radar. But only suggestions, mere undeveloped hints really, because no-one wants to go out on a limb and provoke a contentious debate around a song like this. I'm not aware of any controversy surrounding the song. Then again, the film “Paradise Hawaiian Style” is considered just another descent in Elvis' plummeting movie career and merited barely a glance as it passed the world by. So maybe there's mischief to be had here, for those bothered to look. I suspect those few who do wander this way are so undemanding in their entertainment needs as to be oblivious to any meaning of even the most surface level type, let alone anything deeper. It's just a catchy song, and no more, let's leave it there. There's no deeper meaning and even if there were, such people wouldn't see it if it stripped naked, painted itself luminous green and held a placard saying “deep meaning, get it here.” And it is such an appalling song that a double meaning is the only way to redeem it. Just read the lyrics and see what you think. And do a little research on the words “wahine” and “papaya.” Curious. I have written elsewhere on this, but have, wisely, decided to keep my thoughts to myself.
But maybe it was just a bad song. Many of the film songs were. “It's come to THIS,” Elvis cursed to Priscilla when he found out that he would be recording “Old MacDonald.” It had been a long time coming. The descent didn't start here in 1965. But it came out into the open in this year. This was probably the worst year in Elvis' career as an artist, with several candidates for the most embarrassingly abominable songs of his entire career. 1965 was quite a comedown from Elvis had very recently been.
Leonard Bernstein made the claim that “Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural figure of the 20th century. He changed everything – music, language, clothes – and a whole revolution – the sixties – sprang from it.” I would agree with Bernstein here, so long as it is understood that this change he effected had both good and bad aspects, and that there is a debate to be had over what standards of evaluation we employ to differentiate between the two. Bob Dylan made this comment about hearing Elvis:
“When I first heard Elvis Presley’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
Others say the same thing, McCartney, Lennon, Harrison, Springsteen, Paul Simon, you name them. I can even find people like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards saying some such thing. “Nobody was going to be my boss” is a comment that sums up the liberatory impact Elvis had on a generation. On the whole, I would say that that impact has been good, creating the cultural ground for social and political advance. But how far can liberation go before it dissolves its moral, social and psychic grounds and turns in on itself? There is wisdom in knowing that there are limits, in knowing where they are, and having the discipline and character to live in accordance with them.
Those comments pertain to Elvis' important cultural impact. But how important was he as an artist? Does his music actually have any enduring artistic content? I say yes. Which isn't that much of a claim, really. Some forty years after his death, his songs remain hugely popular across wide sections of the global public. Elvis was blessed with an immense talent, and he was a tireless worker. But he worked too hard on things that were not worthy of his talent, and not hard enough at the things that mattered. Elvis' life, like his career, was a sorry mess, with the result that he fell far short of all of which he was capable. The irony of Bob Dylan' reading of Elvis as a liberation lies in the fact that Elvis became an employee in his own career, working for his exploitative and parasitic boss of a manager.
Paul Simpson recognizes the greatness of Elvis' talent, only to add that “you will occasionally wonder how Bernstein's great innovator, applauded by Gene Kelly as he shimmied his way through Jailhouse Rock, ended up singing a ditty like 'Queenie Wahine's Papaya.'” (Paul Simpson, Elvis Films FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King of Rock 'n' Roll ).
There's lots to wonder about. “Music was the biggest casualty of Elvis' film career. He labored through such groaners as 'Queenie Wahine's Papaya,' 'Yoga is as Yoga Does,' and '(There's) No Room to Rhumba in a Sport's Car.' 'Terrible stuff!' shuddered Scotty Moore. 'But Elvis did every song to the very best of his ability.' (LIFE Remembering Elvis Presley: The King Lives On by Life Magazine Editors).
For many, the answer is actually quite simple, Elvis sold out, was content to take the money and run from the demands of artistic control and integrity; he was too passive, irresponsible even, in managing his career, and never grew up in life. My view that Elvis was catholic in his tastes is considered generous by those who say that he didn't much like rock in the first place and was simply tacky, not only unable to distinguish good from bad material, but unconcerned too. It is true that Elvis was non-too discerning when it came to songs. He could just as easily record “From a Jack to a King” to please his dad in the same sessions that yielded “In the Ghetto” and “Suspicious Minds.” For my own part, I have only to listen to the undubbed alternate take of “Kentucky Rain” to settle the issue. And I, like many, like mainstream and middle of the road material as well as more challenging and innovative materials. Elvis could sing all of it with equal plausibility. His talent was immense. But there is more than an element of truth in the words of the critics. It's not just the film material that is in bad odor, but the whole Las Vegas flash, pomp and noise. I'll defend the Las Vegas material, whilst at the same time making the point that as good as many of these performances were, they would have been so much better in another setting, with other arrangements. That can't be changed now. All we can do is reassess and properly appreciate the songs we have.
I return to Elvis' exasperation: “It's come to THIS!!”
How could it have not have come to this!? Look at the contracts, look at the management, look at how Tom Parker defined and conducted 'business.' It was never going to end well. The whole operation was mean, cheap, and tawdry. It is only possible to explain Elvis' exasperation here by his utter incomprehension when it comes to giving direction to his music and his career. He was evidently clueless when it came to taking charge of his affairs. Hence by 1977 he had no option to embark on yet another tour of America. Despite poor health, Graceland was going broke. That's right, the highest paid artist in Hollywood and Las Vegas was skint. So I don't see this issue as anything so simple as Elvis 'selling out' for money, for he had as little idea as to how to look after his money as he did how to look after his life.
As one Elvis critic writes:
“Who would have thought that ten years after changing the world with his music Elvis Presley would walk into a studio and record Old MacDonald – and do it as badly as this? This kind of thing can only happen when someone's creative morale has been beaten into submission by years of commercial over-demands and you just give in to whatever you're told to do.”
Professionally, Elvis had long since “given in.” As remarkable as this may seem, he effectively saw himself as employed by and working for his manager, the tasteless incompetent Tom Parker, rather than employing a management that worked for him and his artistic ambitions. That inversion of the true relation sealed the fate of Elvis' music and, in the end, of his life.
“This is high-order garbage produced by people who don't give a fig about the fan base: his manager, the infamous Colonel Tom Parker, had no compunction over issuing any old rubbish with his star attraction's name pasted on the front, as he did with the imbecilic Having Fun with Elvis On Stage – an album which contains almost forty minutes of between-song banter from The King but absolutely no singing whatsoever.” (Darryl W Bullock, The World's Worst Records: Volume One: An Arcade of Audio Atrocity).
I agree very much. It's beyond awful: it's manipulative, greedy, and cynical; it's a case study of all the worst vices and excesses I absolutely loathe in others. But I stay with Elvis nevertheless. Because I see him as the victim here, even if he is a victim who is in on the crime himself. He had character flaws a mile wide. He couldn't run his own life, so how can we expect him to have been able to have run a multi-million dollar career? I don't let any of the failures, nor even the rottenness, blind me to the good qualities of the man and his music. I have the nerve to persevere to the core essence, and attempt to separate it from its corruption. That's what I am doing in this article.
And critics can stretch a good point much too far when it comes to the overall standard of Elvis' catalogue. Take this from Darryl W. Bullock, who argues that Elvis' early tracks “would start a revolution which would change the world forever. However, for every 'Hound Dog' or 'That's All Right' there's a 'Queenie Wahine's Papaya' or an 'Old MacDonald.'”
That's factually incorrect. That statement is based on both ignorance and prejudice. That's a claim that can be objectively tested and very quickly falsified, so long as we stick to a genuine musicology here and not mere personal tastes in music. I could easily supply one hundred or more tracks of the calibre of “That's All Right.” Elvis recorded too many rotten songs. But by no means are we talking of a hundred, not of the standard of dear old "Queenie" (unless we really are talking personal tastes). I have supplied discographies elsewhere to make that point abundantly clear. And note how Bullock states the point at extremes, with ground breaking tracks being pitted against dross. Of course, it is easier to produce dross than it is to produce tracks of epoch-making significance. His argument is an optical illusion, with the average, the decent, and the fine being passed off as dross in comparison with the exceptional. So I take the statement to read for every good track Elvis produced he also recorded a dire one. That is patently not true. The overall standard of Elvis' music is high, regardless of one's personal taste. Criticisms like this are merely lazy. That this is so soon becomes apparent with respect to this particular critic. Bullock soon makes his own musical narrow-mindedness clear:
“I'm with John Lennon on this: once Elvis joined the army it was all over. All that followed was an endless stream of mediocre recordings, slushy ballads and dreadful films. The '68 special was okay, but the Vegas years of fat Elvis in his ridiculous jumpsuits, stupid karate moves and overblown, corpulent music does nothing for me. I could easily fill this book with the worst of Elvis ...” (Bullock 109-110).
The '68 Special was “okay.” Tracks like “If I Can Dream” merely “okay.” Spare me, please, because this is merely opinionated drivel that feeds on its own controversy. You learn nothing from such writing. I could fill a book with the worst of Elvis, too. So what? I don't doubt that anyone guilty of such verbiage could fill a book with anything. But this is mere caricature, lazy writing. And let's challenge this view that John Lennon's word is gospel. Lennon, at risk of sounding heretical, could speak utter drivel. I could fill a book with the drivel that John Lennon spoke (not to mention some of his tracks in the seventies, "Oh Yoko" is worth a book in itself). Let's not forget that John Lennon panned Elvis' new single “Devil in Disguise” when it was released in 1963. That's a fine country rocker with excellent guitar work from Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland. I don't give a damn about the great songs Lennon wrote (and he wrote many of them), he is just plain wrong and blinkered here. I heard Mark Kermode talk about people repeating Lennon's claim that Elvis died when he went into the army, “but that's just pants!” said Kermode, most emphatically and very correctly. In that same TV programme Lennon also made disparaging remarks about Elvis sounding like Bing Crosby. Even if that claim is true, so what? Many people who value singing of the highest order would consider that an enormous compliment. It says a lot that it is intended as abuse. But Lennon came to know better. In the seventies, he had a long spell when he listened to no-one but Crosby. Dylan, too, is a big Crosby fan. Some people eventually grow up and widen their musical tastes. I'd suggest people like Bullock do the same, because what he offers here is not musicology at all but a demonology all too typical of rock and pop writers who lack a wide musical appreciation. Elvis always had wide tastes.
That's not to deny a large element of truth in the assessment of critics. I'd have much preferred, too, had Elvis cut the antics, silly jokes and gags during his songs. In making a joke of the song, he makes himself look like a joke. I don't care for jumpsuits and Las Vegas, either. As a Queen fan, I quite enjoy a little pomp and ceremony, mind. Queen, yes, a band that critics derided but who were hugely popular and greatly loved.
I'm not blind to the flaws. And I've no interest in defending the indefensible. But I'm not blind to the qualities, either. And I'd like to make a serious point here. There is a basic misunderstanding as to who and what Elvis was as an artist. That “King of Rock'n'Roll” title has done him a massive disservice, generating a whole load of misconceptions and false expectations, as well as a controversy over cultural theft that he could well have done without. My view may be contentious, but the rock fans and critics who sneer at Elvis as a new Crosby have a large part of the truth, even if it is a truth that they don't like. It took an Elvis to break the doors down to rock music, and that's why he took the crown. Elvis did it, no one else. You can argue the case for your personal favourites all you like, but the facts on this are emphatically on Elvis' side. And yet he entered Sun Studios singing ballads, not R&B and rock. That, and gospel, is where Elvis' musical tastes lay. He listened to pop on the radio in his room at home. He was pop. And he did progressively less rock as the years went by, so much so that he could hardly come to be classed as a rock star at all. Much of the rhythm material that he did in the films was not authentic rock at all but mere pastiche and ersatz, a remembrance on the part of hack writers that they were writing for 'the king of rock'n'roll' and so had better deliver material that supported the act. Listen to tracks like “Blue River” or “I Don't Want to be Tied.” It's passable entertainment. But as actual rock'n'roll it is unconvincing and unpersuasive, a world away from Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, as well as from where Elvis had once been. It's performance, Elvis acting the part of king of rock'n'roll.
To that extent, it would seem that I am in agreement with the harshest judgments of the critics. Not quite. Because I appreciate the qualities of the ballads and the pop in a way that they do not. Whisper it, but there is more to music than rock. Elvis as “King of Rock'n'Roll” is caught between irreconcilable positions and unsatisfiable critics. I have heard Elvis criticized as a mere rock'n'roll “mumbler” by those who favour “proper” music and singing, an older style that pre-dates the rock and rhythm Elvis unleashed on the world. Such critics dismiss Elvis on account of being a rock star, that is, as one who can't sing and whose pretensions at singing in a grown-up manner are risible. The truth is that Elvis actually became a singer of the highest order, but this is something derided by rock critics. Neither side of these competing prejudices care to open their ears. I give them short shrift. They are just plain wrong, but will never care to see the error of their ways. Elvis' musical appreciation was much more expansive.
As for the claim that Elvis' career was all over after the army, that's laughable. Lennon's interest in Elvis may have ceased in 1958, but that is a different point entirely. I have no interest in John Lennon's personal tastes, still less his fantasies and illusions. Elvis never was what Lennon thought he was (which if we take Lennon's view on this, makes him even worse than Lennon actually thought). I have a great interest in defending the quality of good music against ignorant claims. “Reconsider Baby,” “Such a Night,” “Stuck on You,” “A Mess of Blues,” “Little Sister,” “His Latest Flame” from 1960 and 1961, “Suspicious Minds,” “In the Ghetto,” “Only the Strong Survive,” “Kentucky Rain,” “Long Black Limousine” from 1969. That's just off the top of my head. Finding truly great Elvis songs after 1960 requires little thought. That points to an endless stream of quality recordings (interrupted, quite true, by dreadful films and their soundtracks). Elvis was offering these latter tracks when Lennon was doing “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” There's simply no comparison. When Elvis was up and running again in 1970, it was pretty much all over for Lennon and, truth be told, had been for some time. Lennon couldn't keep up with McCartney and so started to play silly beggars in The Beatles. Yoko didn't break up The Beatles, Lennon and his petty jealousy, his awareness that he had lost the song writing competition with McCartney, did. Lennon seemed to disappear without trace in the 1970's. Check out The Essential Seventies Masters box from Elvis. I'd put that up against Lennon in the seventies any day. And remember that Elvis was struggling against ill health, never recorded in the studio again after 1975 and died in 1977. That points to an endless stream of quality recordings (interrupted, quite true, by dreadful films and their soundtracks). True, Lennon came back in 1980, with a poor Elvis impersonation in “Starting Over.”
Slushy ballads? You try hitting those notes on “Surrender.” And try the delicate phrasing on the likes of “There's Always Me” and “Can't Help Falling in Love.” But maybe that's a comment that reveals a loathing of ballads. It all depends on what you like. I like Matt Monro, Sinatra, Nat Cole, Bobby Darin, Charles Aznavour. Of course it's not rock'n'roll. Those who appreciate ballad singing and chanson might themselves have a few choice words for rock music. It's pathetic. I like both kinds of music, and Elvis did both. He did them very well indeed. Elvis is being criticised here for not limiting his own musicality to the narrow tastes of those who like just the one kind of thing.
'68 Special merely “okay?” Tell me who else could deliver performances like “Trouble/Guitar Man,” the powerhouse blues performances like “Baby What do you Want me to Do?” and “Trying to the Get to You,” the gospel segment topped off with the immense “If I Can Dream.”
As for the claim that the Vegas years were years of “fat Elvis,” such critics are blind as well as deaf. Elvis developed a weight problem as the seventies went on. But in those first years at Vegas he was a powerhouse, delivering shows that critics' favourites couldn't even dream of putting on. Physically, before we even get to musical abilities, the critics couldn't have delivered the shows that Elvis delivered. Research if you can the concert dates for Elvis in the seventies. He worked tirelessly, night after night, year after year. He was worked into the ground. And lost his health in the process. Those who repeat the stock image of 'fat Elvis' are merely lazy and can be dismissed.
Yes, Elvis did make a name with hugely orchestrated numbers in the seventies, but he also did more spare recordings, such as “I Will Be True.” Listen to the undubbed recordings of the “pure Elvis sound” with respect to the Stax '73 material. I make these points not in an attempt to persuade the prejudiced, the bigoted, and the narrow-minded, but to check their lies being mistaken for truth through repetition and lazy assimilation.
I am beyond tired with pop and rock critics who think the world of music revolves around their teenage tastes and obsessions. As Nik Cohn writes in “Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom,” pop is a young persons game, forever young, brash and ephemeral. Elvis was never quite rock, he auditioned himself from the first as a ballad singer. Teenagers may not care for it when they are young. But one day they will mature and will care, should they expand their musical palette with experience. I'm judging him at his best, here, of course. We don't need critics to tell us the obvious. And I am openly contemptuous of lazy writing based on prejudice and narrow tastes. Elvis grew up in a way that a certain kind of rock and pop critic never could.
“Elvis descended into darkness as he searched for forgiveness.” Since it can be an unforgiving world, you had better do all that you can to try to avoid a position in which you will have no option but to beg for forgiveness and mercy.
Knowledge and even self-awareness are not enough if these are not backed by will and ability. Call it psychic and physical capacity, for those enamoured of the language of “capacity-building.” Is it madness if you can identify a thing for what it is, but fail to act on that knowledge? It is an insight of some worth to identify a thing for what it is, but it remains madness nonetheless to the extent that you fail to act on that knowledge. You know and yet still do nothing because you are either unwilling or unable to do anything and can't tell the difference between will and ability or make the necessary connections between them.
Not even easy money can explain why Elvis would record the dreck he did. The fact is that he did, and the stain will forever remain on his memory. My brief is to rescue the quality and restore Elvis' reputation as one of the finest music makers there has been in popular music. And place the emphasis where it ought to be placed, on the great music that Elvis made. There's room in that brief for a decent tune, too, a simple ballad or a catchy toe-tapper.
The tracks here in 1965 are from the three film soundtracks recorded the year I was born. It was not, in all truth, a very good year for Elvis at all. In fact, it was a very bad year. 1965 was the lowest point he had ever reached since he first started out at Sun. "Harum Scarum" and "Paradise Hawaiian Style" are two of the worst films in Elvis' career. Whilst the former is at least mind boggling - Elvis as Valentino as karate expert involved in all manner of Arabian intrigue, the latter is lazy and tedious. The third of the trio of films making for this selection is the likable "Frankie and Johnny." I tend to dismiss it on account of appearing to belong to an entirely different universe we were living in, the one in The Beatles were making the running. The odd thing is, though, I have a strange feeling that this film gave McCartney, at least, some ideas for the concept of Sergeant Peppers (if not, thankfully, the music). There were some good songs in "Frankie and Johnny." The title track in particular was one of my most favourite Elvis songs when I was growing up. But the two ballads "Beginner's Luck" and "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" are the choice cuts from the film, along with the blues "Hard Luck." I have tended to overlook and underrate "Hard Luck" for no other reason than its association with a film that included "Petunia, the Gardener's Daughter" and miscellaneous other horrors. OK, I know the song is fun and is perfect in context, I just think that Elvis would have been far better off in a different context altogether. His performance of "Hard Luck" is proof of that. I rediscovered the song through hearing a fantastic cover done by a blues band, Boston Rockabilly, done with biting guitar and harmonica. I tended to have a downer on the song in the film as a performance, something pastiche. OK, it is a performance made to fit the film. But it is a far better blues performance by Elvis and his musicians than I had ever been inclined to think.
The tracks from "Harum Scarum" are actually - whisper it - very enjoyable. I think they must fall in the category of "guilty pleasure," because by common consent that particular film is an official declaration of surrender on the part of the people who were in charge of mismanaging Elvis' career with spectacular stupidity and montenish greed. (If you think my comments harsh, you should be made to listen to the tracks I have omitted on a tape loop for a day, you'll soon be demanding capital punishment for all involved).
It is unfortunate to record that, if we focus exclusively on the films, that he had yet to reach rock bottom. There was worse to come. But at least Elvis' career as a whole picked up from here as he discovered a life outside of the movies and their soundtracks.
As an Elvis fan, I go through his catalogue from the sixties and just despair at the lack of response to The Beatles. He didn't merely fail in the challenge, he didn't seem to take it on at all. Which suggests one or two things. The roots of Elvis' music were elsewhere than pure pop. In which case, the country and blues songs he continued to record, as well as the gospel album which won him his first Grammy Award ("How Great Thou Art") were his response. It's not like for like, hence we can make the mistake of concluding simply that Elvis didn't respond. Then there are the film commitments, which got in the way of everything. Whatever reason or reasons that lay behind it, Elvis' failure to "get with it" leads to his music of this time having a very odd and, when decent, enduring quality. Whereas plenty of the sixties music that was fashionable at the time has dated, some of these Elvis songs were so manifestly out of time and place when issued that they effectively existed in a universe all of their own. At risk of sounding heretical, but I actually listen much more to "My Desert Serenade," "Kismet," "Mirage," and "Go East Young Man," far more than I do to Sergeant Peppers, and enjoy these tracks greatly. And I'm not the only one. I rather like that Elvis has his own funny little world going on, a world in which you don't have to join the competition with The Beatles and The Beach Boys, because that really isn't the point.
I also love “Sand Castles,” too, which for some reason was cut from "Paradise Hawaiian Style," one of Elvis' very worst films with a soundtrack to match. “Sand Castles” may not rank as a classic, and by no stretch of the imagination would it trouble a world of Beatles, Dylan, Doors, soul and Motown. But it has a dancing fiddler crab playing on the back of a whale, and ranks a level or two higher than “Octopuses Garden.” So let's not rule out simple and quirky little songs, The Beatles themselves always found room for them. It is a pleasant little gem. And it needs to be understood that, more often than not, we are responding not to the qualities of the song but to the qualities of Elvis' voice.
And there it is, freed from connection with the dreck, many of these songs prove to be of some value, with the odd track like “So Close, Yet So Far (From Paradise)” emerging as an overlooked classic. It's a great smouldering ballad that really does deserve to be better known.
This selection from 1965 is, to be brutally honest, a work of salvage, like sending out a rescue squad in a disaster zone. My harshest criticisms are reserved for the tracks that are not on this list, pure film fodder with no life independent of the screen (and not much life on the screen, to be honest). Put against what the likes of The Beatles were producing at this time, one could be embarrassed to be an Elvis fan but, much more than that, actually saddened by what Elvis had been reduced to, knowing from where he had come, what he had done, and what he had once represented. With this material, we are having to make an awful lot of precious little. I'm just intrigued by the fact that two of the three soundtracks from this year included songs with “Paradise” in the title. The truth is that Elvis was “so far” from Paradise as to be in Hell – which is not remotely “close” at all. “So Close, Yet So Far (From Paradise)” is such a good song, though, by far and away the best of this bunch. It has been sunk, no doubt, by its association with an absolute clunker of a film, “Harem Holiday” (albeit a film which is weirdly compelling all the same). Gresham's Law that bad money drives out good holds for music and art, too.
1966
SPINOUT / DOUBLE TROUBLE / EASY COME, EASY GO / SPEEDWAY / CLAMBAKE
Spinout February 16, 1966
All That I Am February 17, 1966
Stop, Look And Listen February 16, 1966
Am I Ready February 16, 1966
Never Say Yes February 17, 1966
Could I Fall In Love June 28, 1966
Double Trouble June 29, 1966
City By Night June 30, 1966
Easy Come, Easy Go September 28, 1966
I'll Take Love September 28, 1966
Sing You Children September 28, 1966
She's a Machine September 29, 1966
You Gotta Stop September 30, 1966
Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby June 20, 1967
How Can You Lose What You Never Had February 21 & 22, 1967
House That Has Everything February 21 & 22, 1967
The Love Machine September 29, 1966
Holy Artichokes! Even some of these selections from these soundtracks are borderline atrocious (and critics will claim I am being overly generous in that assessment). I need some serious therapy after considering the relative demerits of some of this material. In the Dante's Inferno of songs, some of the lowest reaches must be reserved for abominations such as “Beach Shack,” “Long Legged Girl (With The Short Dress On),” “Old MacDonald,” “I Love Only One Girl,” and “Yoga Is As Yoga Does.” I excluded them from consideration immediately, within a second or two. It's reassuring to know that one's ears are still in working order. It says something that, whilst tracks such as this are easy to eliminate, even in selecting the best of the rest leads to some extremely dubious choices having to be made. I should, really, have included “I'll Be Back” instead of “She's a Machine,” for which Elvis, I read, had a particular dislike. He does, it has to be admitted, sound somewhat impatient with it. I think he is trying hard to sound tough and manly. If these lyrics are anything to go by, he had better be:
“Well she's a..
Earth quakin', hip shakin', soul breakin', love makin'
Machine...hey hey!!
Well she's a
Wild movin', smooth groovin', clock tickin', love makin'
Machine...hey hey!!
She's a real breezin', rough squeezin', hell teasin' cat
You know what I mean...hey hey!!”
I'm not at all sure that the writers of this song knew what they meant. I think they put this question in the hope that those who had a better idea about these things would be fooled into thinking they knew. I think the Elvis operation has caught news that there is something of a musical and sexual revolution underway in the world, although they don't quite know what it is about. So they have a guess, and make it clear that they haven't got a clue.
“The Love Machine” is of the same quality, which is to say that it is “just as bad.”
“We're just a bunch of salty sailors
One thing on our mind
Takin' a chance on this machine
Maybe love we'll find
She maybe tall she maybe short
She may be wide
But Lady Luck stop that wheel
On 38-24-35.”
I had this song on the “I Got Lucky” album. I can remember playing it in 1974. I can date it precisely. Because I took the numbers in that last line to be referring to age. My mother was 35 exactly, and I remember pointing this out to her. She was not remotely impressed and totally ignored my pointing out that she fit the bill when it came to being a “love machine.” I didn't quite realize that this was a bust/waist/hip measurement. The waist size was well out. I would guess. None of my business, really. As if the weren't unhip and uncool enough, in the film, Elvis sang the song in army uniform. It's amazing that he survived the debacle of the films, really.
“Stop, Look, and Listen” is old and dated, whilst “Double Trouble” (from Pomus and Shuman) always reminds me of The Doors' “Break on Through” as it starts, but not after since it soon wimps out.
These four tracks, upon which I would never dare stake my reputation for good taste, all went into the initial selection, to make for fourteen tracks at a stretch. This selection is hardly Elvis at his best, but it is representative of his film career in 1966, without telling the whole and truly abominable truth. I'll say half a dozen of these tracks are fine and well worthy of being heard. But maybe I shouldn't say which half dozen. For casual Elvis fans who are more interested in music than iconic status and adulation, there's nothing to hear here.
“Spinout” and “Easy Come, Easy Go” are decent contemporary sounding rhythm songs. Elvis hasn't quite caught up with things, but at least he is showing willing. “All That I Am” and “Am I Ready” are fine ballads, which were something of an Elvis trademark in the films (“As Long as I Have You,” “Where do you come From?” and best of all "Can't help Falling in Love.") “Never Say Yes” is another Bo Diddley update, OK but not remotely in the class of “His Latest Flame.” “City By Night” oozes bluesy sophistication, without actually being an authentic blues. It's the film world of pastiche, again. But I've always loved its jazzy feel, and think Elvis should have sung more in this category. I think that “Sing You Children” is an overlooked gem, a good slice of modern rock gospel. As for “The Love Machine” and “She's a Machine,” ask my mother. Her blank refusal to answer always had me thinking that the songs maybe not quite as good as I thought they were, or concerned themselves with matters I should not have been thinking about at my young age.
Nothing to worry about here, better to move swiftly on. In fact, I decided to omit “The Love Machine” and add three tracks from 1967's “Clambake.” “Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby” was the B side of “Let Yourself Go.” It is a pleasant tune, warm and affecting, as is the gentle balladry of “A House that has Everything.” “How Can You Lose What You Never Had” has a Dean Martin type swagger to it that makes it well worthy of showcasing somewhere. It's an oddity, and frankly reminds me of nothing more than Francoise Hardy's “Etonnez-Moi, Benoit” from a year later. Astonish me, Francoise! I'd be truly astonished if Francoise Hardy was watching Elvis in beach party movies like "Clambake."
In a guide to the “essential Elvis,” this selection from the films of 1966 is very inessential. Of interest to the curious. Elvis was actually recording songs of much, much higher quality in this year.
1966
HOW GREAT THOU ART
HOW GREAT THOU ART
How Great Thou Art May 25, 1966
Run On May 25, 1966
Stand By Me May 26, 1966
Where No One Stands Alone May 26, 1966
In The Garden May 27, 1966
Somebody Bigger Than You And I May 27, 1966
Farther Along May 27, 1966
Without Him May 27, 1966
So High May 27, 1966
By and By May 27, 1966
Where Could I Go But To The Lord May 28, 1966
If The Lord Wasn't Walking By My Side May 28, 1966
Stellar. It is hard to believe that the man singing at this high a standard was the same man in the films of the same time. The album earned Elvis his first Grammy Award. It was well deserved. It stands as testimony to the sheer waste of talent when it came to the films and their soundtracks, where Elvis strove earnestly to redeem the truly wretched material he was given. Here, with quality material, he is in his element. The songs are sublime, the arrangements impeccable.
I realize that not that many people have the patience to take a gospel album in its entirety. That would mean that some of the best performances in Elvis' career would come to fall into neglect. So I propose to cut the material by merging the studio, film, and gospel recordings to form one coherent document. Again, the theme is “the sacred and the secular.” I'd say “the holy and the profane” were it not for the fact that Elvis' secular material is so sublime as to be far from profanity. This is what Elvis could, and should, have been doing with his time and his talent.
1966
TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME
TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME
Tomorrow Is A Long Time May 26, 1966
Run On May 25, 1966
Where Could I Go But To The Lord May 28, 1966
Down In The Alley May 26, 1966
Love Letters May 26, 1966
Somebody Bigger Than You And I May 27, 1966Indescribably Blue June 12, 1966
So High May 27, 1966
Fools Fall In Love May 28, 1966
If Every Day Was Like Christmas June 12, 1966Come What May May 28, 1966
All That I Am February 17, 1966Am I Ready February 16, 1966
I'll Remember You June 12, 1966
Stand By Me May 26, 1966
Where No One Stands Alone May 26, 1966
How Great Thou Art May 25, 1966I've taken an approach here that may seem unusual but which does have an impeccable logic. At the “How Great Thou Art” sessions Elvis recorded folk like “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” ballads like “Love Letters” and “I'll Remember You”, and R&B like “Down in the Alley,” “Fools Fall in Love,” and “Come What May.” It makes complete sense to add a couple of the best ballads from the recent films, a couple of rhythm tracks from the films, and the old blues standard “Frankie and Johnny.” In the end, I kept “Frankie and Johnny” off, since it was recorded from a year earlier, and since such material was a little old-fashioned by the mid-sixties. “Come What May” and “Fools Fall in Love” go back to the fifties and Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters. Excellent. But Elvis was excellent then, too. And then was then, and now was now. I resisted the temptation to include “Easy Come, Easy Go” here too. It's a decent contemporary sounding rhythm number. It could have beefed up proceedings considerably, but could also have stuck out like a sore thumb. I originally took the highly contentious decision to omit “How Great Thou Art,” even though it is indubitably Elvis at his best. My reasoning was that this is an overtly religious song which is unlikely to move the non-religious. People so inclined can, and will, listen to the full “How Great Thou Art” album, so the track will not be lost. But since it is Elvis at his very best, I saw no option but to include it. If you don't know Elvis' religious root, then you don't know Elvis.
Here, I have sought to include religious material that is soulful, rhythmic, and dramatic in a way that would appeal to the non-religious. The selection makes for something very different from both the “How Great Thou Art” album released at the time and the “Tomorrow is a Long Time” released in the 1990's Those releases are excellent and essential. But what I have here is a very strong statement of who Elvis was as an artist in 1966.
1967-1968
GOIN' HOME
Let Yourself Go June 21, 1967
Guitar Man September 10, 1967
Too Much Monkey Business January 15, 1968
All I Needed Was The Rain October 1, 1967
You Don't Know Me February 21 & 22, 1967
Just Call Me Lonesome September 11, 1967
Big Boss Man September 10, 1967
Hi-Heel Sneakers September 11, 1967
Mine September 11, 1967
You'll Never Walk Alone September 11, 1967
U.S. Male January 15, 1968
Suppose June 20, 1967
Singing Tree September 11, 1967
Stay Away January 15, 1968
We Call on Him September 11, 1967
Goin' Home January 15, 1968
With Jerry Reed on acoustic guitar, the sound is grittier, bluesier, countryer, the voice growling, tougher. Talking songs, talking country blues. Long before the “'68 Comeback Special,” Elvis was back. The material here presages the American Sound material. Really, I should cut the sixteen tracks down to fourteen. I have added film material because a), some of it merits inclusion and fits the overall sound, and b) their inclusion here redeems them. Elvis thought enough of “Let Yourself Go” for it to be included in the '68 TV Special, where it is a prominent theme. It is something of a forgotten Elvis song. I think it is ripe for discovery in the way that “A Little Less Conversation” came to be discovered. With better, more contemporary instrumentation, it has the makings of a classic. If I didn't mention that “All I Needed was the Rain” came from a film you would never have thought it. It belongs in this company of country blues.
I did think of calling this selection “Guitar Man,” the single which really declared that Elvis was on his way back. There is a heavy guitar theme throughout. But there are also a number of fine ballads, Elvis accompanying himself at the piano on occasion. It's Elvis rediscovering his musical roots. So “Goin' Home” is an appropriate title. I decided to exclude three tracks from “Clambake” here, for the reason they don't fit the mature material here and are not up to the standard of the other songs. I put those songs elsewhere. They are lesser songs in this company, but strength the 1966 selection, which says a lot.
1968
ELVIS - NBC - TV SPECIAL
ELVIS - NBC - TV SPECIAL
Trouble/Guitar Man
Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Heartbreak Hotel
All Shook Up
Can't Help Falling In Love
Jailhouse Rock
Blue Suede Shoes
Love Me Tender
Gospel Medley: Where Could I Go But To The Lord
Up Above My Head
Saved
Baby, What You Want Me To Do
That's All Right
Blue Christmas
One Night
Tiger Man
Trying To Get To You
Memories
A Little Less Conversion
Road Medley: Nothingville
Big Boss Man
Let Yourself Go
It Hurts Me
Guitar Man
Little Egypt
Trouble
Guitar Man
If I Can Dream
When it Rains, it Really Pours (rehearsal)
Baby, What Do You Want Me to Do? (rehearsal)
You can select your own highlights from the '68 material that has been issued since the original release.
1969
FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
Wearin' That Loved On Look January 13, 1969
Long Black Limousine January 13, 1969
You'll Think Of Me January 14, 1969
I'm Movin' On January 14, 1969
Gentle On My Mind January 14, 1969
Don't Cry Daddy January 15, 1969
Inherit The Wind January 15, 1969
In The Ghetto January 20, 1969
Suspicious Minds January 23, 1969
My Little Friend January 15, 1969
I'll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms) January 23, 1969
I'll Be There January 23, 1969
Rubberneckin' January 20, 1969
Without Love (There Is Nothing) January 23, 1969
A Little Bit Of Green
Mama Liked the Roses
This Is The Story
Hey Jude
From A Jack To A King
This is the material recorded during the January session at American Sound Studios, Memphis, 1969. I have gone for a very tight, high quality selection of fourteen. I omitted “A Little Bit of Green” as OK but average, serving to detract from the overall high standard of the tracks here on offer here. I omitted “Mama Liked the Roses,” too, as a somewhat overly sentimental track. I have to admit a fondness for “Roses,” mind, which Elvis himself shared. My mother loved it too, although she never actually said so. Amazing how we get bullied into being silent on the things we really love.
1969
BACK IN MEMPHIS
ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
Stranger In My Own Home Town February 17, 1969
Only The Strong Survive February 19, 1969
And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind February 17, 1969
Power Of My Love February 18, 1969
Do You Know Who I Am? February 18, 1969
After Loving You February 18, 1969
Kentucky Rain February 19, 1969
True Love Travels On A Gravel Road February 17, 1969
If I'm a Fool for Loving You February 19, 1969
It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin' February 19, 1969
Any Day Now February 19, 1969
The Fair's Moving On February 21, 1969
Who Am I? February 22, 1969
Mama Liked the Roses January 15, 1969
This is the material from the February session at American Sound Studios, Memphis, 1969, plus “Mama Liked the Roses” from January to make for a nice and even fourteen tracks. The American Sound material made for two very strong albums. Select the best fourteen tracks from this material, and you have one album which absolutely no artist bettered in the sixties. Elvis entered the 1960s at the top with “Elvis is Back” and associated singles, he left the decade taking his place back at the top.
1968-1969
LIVE A LITTLE, LOVE A LITTLE / CHARRO / THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS / CHANGE OF HABIT
CHANGE OF HABIT
A Little Less Conversation March 7, 1968
Almost In Love March 7, 1968
Wonderful World March 7, 1968
Edge Of Reality March 7, 1968
Charro October 15, 1968
Let's Forget About the Stars October 15, 1968
Clean Up Your Own Back Yard October 23, 1968
Swing Down Sweet Chariot October 23, 1968
Almost October 23, 1968
The Wiffenpoof Song October 23, 1968
Change Of Habit March 5, 1969
Let's Be Friends March 5, 1969
Let Us Pray March 5, 1969
Have A Happy March 6, 1969
A decent collection of songs to bring the film years to an end. I felt for years that “Clean Up Your Own Backyard” was a yet to be discovered Elvis classic. I still hold that view. As it happened, my hunch that there were neglected classics among the film material was proven correct when “A Little Less Conversation” was recovered from the dustbin of film reputations in 2002 and turned into a global number one smash hit. Which somewhat makes my point about coming to treat many of these film songs as songs in their own right, independently of their origins and associations. There are a number of interesting tracks here, some understated little gems like “Let's Forget About the Stars,” “Almost in Love,” and “Let's Be Friends.” “Edge of Reality” is one of a kind in being a dramatic psychedelic ballad. After “Backyard,” “Change of Habit” is the pick, driven on by powerful electric bass and beat.
The years Elvis spent wasting his talent in Hollywood not only damaged his reputation, they made him a relic and an irrelevance in a decade he ought to have owned. Elvis had done more than anyone to bring the sixties about, then he barely made an appearance when The Beatles showed up. That can't be altered. What can be altered is the way in which we see and present the good material he continued to record in the sixties. The tracks here, bringing the film career to a close, make for a decent collection, with the occasional moment of inspiration promising better days to come. I added “The Wiffenpoof Song” to make for a nice even selection of fourteen. It is what Cary Grant described as a “silly song,” spoofed by many, but also sung by many great artists. It has the melody to “Love Me Tender,” Elvis' first film. Here were are again, with one of Elvis' last films. That's the world of Elvis – odd.
ELVIS - FROM MEMPHIS TO VEGAS / FROM VEGAS TO MEMPHIS
Released: October 14, 1969
From Memphis To Vegas (In Person)
Blue Suede Shoes August 25, 1969
Johnny B. Goode August 24, 1969
All Shook Up August 25, 1969
Are You Lonesome Tonight August 24, 1969
Hound Dog August 25, 1969
I Can't Stop Loving You August 25, 1969
My Babe August 25, 1969
Mystery Train / Tiger Man August 25, 1969
Words August 25, 1969
In The Ghetto August 25, 1969
Suspicious Minds August 26, 1969
Can't Help Falling In Love August 26, 1969
I make no great claims for this concert, other than this is Elvis back as a performer, lively and hungry. I think the whole thing catches fire and becomes substantial with the knockout performance of “I Can't Stop Loving You.” I don't like to hear Elvis take his old rock'n'roll classics by force. My view is that you lose the groove for a quick adrenalin burst. That was my view on the '68 Special, too. I think songs like “All Shook Up” are much better than that. And what marked Elvis' voice out in the fifties for me was its elasticity and suppleness. He had the groove thing and didn't need to be overtly aggressive. Get the first bit out of the way, as exciting as it is for white folk who need to be forced to get down, and the rest is outstanding.
1970
I Just Can't Help Believin'
I've Lost You
Patch It Up
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
Little Sister/Get Back
Something
I'm loathe to cut the first four live tracks here from the “That's the Way It Is” selection. The original “That's the Way” album is one of the most coherent and consistent selections of material in Elvis' career, one of the very few times Elvis' material was showcased well. But with studio versions of “I've Lost You” and “Patch it Up” going into my own 1970 selection, and having given extensive concert selections to present the new Elvis of 1970, it makes complete sense. The appeal of the original “That's the Way” album lay in the blend of live and studio material, but it was always something of an illusion, given the applause dubbed onto the studio recording of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I'd prefer, then, to make a division between live recordings and two sets of the Nashville recordings.
1970
1970
THAT'S THE WAY IT IS
THAT'S THE WAY IT IS
Love Letters June 7, 1970
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights June 4, 1970
How The Web Was Woven June 5, 1970
Patch It Up June 8, 1970
Only Believe June 8, 1970
Mary In The Morning June 5, 1970
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me June 6, 1970
Rags To Riches September 22, 1970
I've Lost You June 4, 1970
Just Pretend June 6, 1970
The Sound of Your Cry June 4, 1970
Stranger In The Crowd June 5, 1970
I'll Never Know June 5, 1970
The Next Step Is Love June 7, 1970
Heart of Rome June 6, 1970
Bridge Over Troubled Water June 5, 1970
Life June 6, 1970
Sylvia June 8, 1970
This is Our Dance June 6, 1970
The original “That's the Way It Is” album is an excellent representation of the Elvis of 1970 as a mature balladeer and high-powered vocalist. I have, however, chosen to concentrate the live material and the June 1970 studio recordings together. My reasoning is that as both a live and studio artist, Elvis Presley in 1970 produced a substantial body of work that demands proper presentation. Yes, he was both a live and studio artist, and I shall later have cause to blend the two. But here, his work in both forms is so strong as to be able to stand alone, with two volumes of each. That's a lot of material. I hope in the process to establish the point clearly that Elvis Presley was an artist of the highest calibre who produced quality recordings in high quantity. And in 1970 he was highly prolific.
The approach I take, however, leaves “That's the Way It Is” without the two choice cuts that opened either side on the original album, “I Just Can't Help Believin'” and “You've Lost that Loving Feeling.” And it means adding yet more long, heavily orchestrated ballads. This may be an instance where it could be unwise to mess with the original. But it does mean that I get two very strong live sets for 1970, and two strong studio sets instead of the three that were issued at the time. I kept the selection in each set to sixteen. Which means that, with regret, I had to omit “Life.” There were high hopes for this song at the time, Elvis worked hard on it, and it was released as a single. It was an age of worthy wordy 'meaning' songs in the country/folk vain. A Jimmy Webb or a Kris Kristofferson could pull it off. Lesser writers would produce well-intended but awkward songs like “Life.” Elvis couldn't salvage it. No one could. But there is pleasure to be had listening to Elvis' attempts to redeem a song about redemption. The song is the kind of oddity that, every now and then, can take off to become a smash hit from left-field. It's an ambitious song that deserves greater attention than it receives. Elvis worked hard on it. I class it as an heroic failure. Non-fans may not be so tolerant.
I apply the same reasoning with respect to “Sylvia” and “This is Our Dance.” They are unremarkable as songs, but have their defenders on account of Elvis' vocal performance. On “Sylvia,” Elvis delivers a big-voiced powerhouse vocal that is really deserving of much stronger material. It is worth hearing for that reason alone. “This is Our Dance” is a romantic ballad in the manner of Englebert Humperdinck's “The Last Waltz.” Such material has its fans. The deficiencies are, however, apparent when set alongside the strong material that Elvis was cutting in 1970. Such songs detract from the main body of work and I therefore omit them. That leaves us with a tight and coherent sixteen tracks with no weak/er spots. This makes a powerful statement as to the new Elvis of 1970, the mature singer of contemporary ballads.
Elvis' new mature style has attracted criticism in some guides. For instance, John Robertson in the Guide to the cds of Elvis Presley writes that “That's the Way It Is” marks a decline from the American Sound material and a descent into MOR balladry. That is a gross simplification based upon an analysis of the material as it was issued in album form. In the first place, Elvis' taste and talent for MOR balladry was very much in evidence at American Sound in 1969. “This is the Story,” “Do You Know Who I Am?,” “A Little Bit of Green,” “The Fair is Moving On” and such like offer substantial proof of that. My view is that the MOR material, and Elvis' performance of it, was better in 1970 than it was in 1969. In the second place, this wasn't the whole of Elvis' output in 1970. Something of the country/soul spirit of the previous year's recordings at American Sound is more evident in the “Country” set of the 1970 material. True, there are no equivalents of “In the Ghetto,” “Suspicious Minds,” and “Kentucky Rain,” but such songs are exceptional and not easily repeated. Most artists are lucky to get one such track in a career. Plus, in tracks like “Tomorrow Never Comes,” we do get strong material which is very much on a par with the likes of “Long Black Limousine.”
1970
ELVIS COUNTRY
ELVIS COUNTRY
I Was Born about Ten Thousand Years Ago June 4, 1970
Snowbird September 22, 1970
Tomorrow Never Comes June 7, 1970
When I'm Over You June 7, 1970
Funny How Time Slips Away June 7, 1970
I Really Don't Want To Know June 7, 1970
A Hundred Years from Now June 4, 1970
Little Cabin on the Hill June 4, 1970
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On September 22, 1970
It Ain't No Big Thing (but it's growing)
June 6, 1970
If I Were You June 8, 1970
Got My Mojo Working/Keep Your Hands Off It June 5, 1970
Cindy, Cindy June 4, 1970
There Goes My Everything June 8, 1970
It's Your Baby, You Rock It June 5, 1970
The Fool June 4, 1970
Faded Love June 7, 1970
Where Did They Go Lord September 22, 1970
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water June 7, 1970
Make The World Go Away June 7, 1970
That's twenty tracks in total, which in truth is far too many. The tracks, however, cohere nicely to form a consistent whole, with rhythm and mid-tempo country material joining the ballads to produce a good blend and balance. Whilst it is easy to see which tracks could be cut as weaker efforts (“A Hundred Years from Now,” “Cindy, Cindy,” “When I'm Over You” and even the popular “Mojo”) these tracks all bring something essential, something fresh and spontaneous, to the mix. “Mojo” would certainly be missed. Over to you, which four would you omit?
In terms of the relation of Elvis in 1970 to the Elvis of American Sound in 1969, I would make this point. We have all become accustomed to the overdubbed versions of these songs as issued on “Elvis Country.” We get strings and choirs and, on the rocking country blues of “I Washed My Hands in Muddy Waters” parping horns. This was not how the material sounded when Elvis recorded it live in the studio. There is often a case for added vocals and orchestration, it doesn't worry me as a rule. But this material sounds rawer, livelier and fresher without it. So I like to listen to the original versions recorded live in the studio on “A Hundred Years from Now” and “The Nashville Marathon.” The “American Sound” sound is still very much there. Plus, the delicate instrumentation on the undubbed “I've Lost You,” which sounds like Pachelbel or Bach, highlights the hidden qualities of that song, qualities which the heavy orchestration had served to bury in the single and concert versions.
1970
On Stage
In all truth, I need to listen carefully to the many concert recordings now available and present a definitive, concise, selection for 1969 and 1970, a mixture of southern fried country/rock/soul and mature ballads. I have a mass of Elvis concert material to choose from. I have to say that Elvis was in such good form in 1970 that I feel the need to listen to and issue all of it rather than select the best performances. I shall have to report back with definitive concert documents for 1969 and 1970. I have blended the live performances of the “That's the Way It Is” material with the “On Stage” material and with live versions of the American Sound and “Elvis Country” material. If this is all beginning to sound like an awful lot, that pretty much sums up Elvis in 1970 – an awful lot of awfully good things. Frankly, in this form, there was no-one on the planet to touch him. Not even close.
ON STAGE - FEBRUARY 1970 (LP)
(US) RCA LSP 4362
Released: June 1, 1970
See See Rider February 18, 1970
Release Me February 18, 1970
Sweet Caroline February 16, 1970
Runaway August 25, 1969
The Wonder Of You February 18, 1970
Polk Salad Annie February 18, 1970
Yesterday August 25, 1969
Proud Mary February 16, 1970
Walk A Mile In My Shoes February 19, 1970
Don't Cry Daddy February 17, 1970
Kentucky Rain February 17, 1970
Let It Be Me February 17, 1970
Suspicious Minds
Long Tall Sally
I have this collection of live performances from 1970, from which to make a selection:
See See Rider
That's All Right
I Got a Woman
Proud Mary
Release Me
I Just Can't Help Believin'
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights
Patch it Up
Mary in the Morning
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
Mystery Train / Tiger Man
Little Sister / Get Back
I Was the One
Love Me
Something
Words
Sweet Caroline
The Wonder of You
There Goes My Everything
You've Lost that Loving Feeling
Polk Salad Annie
I've Lost You
Just Pretend
Stranger in the Crowd
I Can't Stop Loving You
Make the World Go Away
The Next Step is Love
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
In the Ghetto
Don't Cry Daddy
Let it Be Me
Kentucky Rain
Long Tall Sally
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Suspicious Minds
Can't Help Falling in Love
That's quite some song selection. That's thirty seven songs, with more than a few of them being vocally demanding pieces. The rock'n'roll medleys must have come as a breather to Elvis in addition to being a crowd pleaser, a win-win situation for both artist and audience.
ON STAGE
ON STAGE
See See Rider
Proud Mary
Release Me
Little Sister / Get Back
I Was the One
Polk Salad Annie
The Wonder of You
Words
Sweet Caroline
Something
I Can't Stop Loving You
Long Tall Sally
Make the World Go Away
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road
Walk a Mile in My Shoes
Don't Cry Daddy
In the Ghetto
Let it Be Me
THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS
That's All Right
I Got a Woman
Mystery Train / Tiger Man
I Just Can't Help Believin'
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights
Mary in the Morning
Patch it Up
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
There Goes My Everything
You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling
I've Lost You
Just Pretend
Stranger in the Crowd
The Next Step is Love
Bridge Over Troubled Water
Kentucky Rain
Don't Cry Daddy
Suspicious Minds
Can't Help Falling in Love
That's two live sets comprising eighteen tracks each. That's a lot of Elvis. That's a lot from Elvis. This guy must have been worn out. I have divided the live material according to the original split between a southern fried “On Stage” set and a more MOR “That's the Way It Is” set. Of course, this is all Elvis in 1970 and so the material is all of one piece. My only criteria has been the insistence that these performances are legitimate takes on material of substance rather than a mere medley of hits and memories for entertainment and old times sake. As the years went by Elvis did too much of that. He was a crowd pleaser, and that's what the crowd wanted. That was his job. But his music lost its edge as a result. I have concert footage in which Elvis is performing quality versions of “Don't Cry Daddy,” “In the Ghetto,” and “Kentucky Rain,” and he has to respond to members of the audience calling for “Jailhouse Rock.” That must have been soul-destroying for the man. Elvis is fairly curt in his response, explaining that he can't do all the songs that people like and that he and the band have rehearsed only certain songs, so unfortunately he can't do all the hits. In time, he would try to do all the songs the fans living in the past wanted to hear, in boring, interminable, throwaway melodies that had certain fans in delerium. It's a shame, and a real affront to an artist. No matter how hard you strive to develop your music, to see that it didn't matter. In one concert, Elvis lay on his back and idled his way through the old hits. And the audience whooped and hollered and lapped it up. Elvis should have told them to take a hike and go and watch a nostalgia show elsewhere if they had need to relive their youth. It's death to an artist. My preference is for an Elvis when he is adding to his body of work, not parasitic on the memories of his audience. And I maintain that Elvis in 1970 was an exceptional artist, both on stage and in the studio.
1971
ELVIS SINGS THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHRISTMAS
ELVIS NOW
HE TOUCHED ME
NOW I
We Can Make The Morning May 20, 1971
I'm Leavin' June 22, 1971
Early Morning Rain March 15, 1971
Bosom Of Abraham June 9, 1971
Help Me Make It Through The Night May 17, 1971
Until It's Time For You To Go May 17, 1971
I Will Be True May 19, 1971
Merry Christmas Baby May 15, 1971
If I Get Home On Christmas Day May 15, 1971
Lead Me, Guide Me May 17, 1971
Amazing Grace March 15, 1971
I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen May 19, 1971
NOW II
It's Only Love September 21, 1971
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face March 15, 1971
For Lovin' Me March 15, 1971
I, John June 9, 1971
I'll Be Home On Christmas Day May 16, 1971
It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You) May 15, 1971
Love Me, Love the Life I Lead May 21, 1971
It's Still Here May 19, 1971
A Thing Called Love May 19, 1971
Put Your Hand In The Hand June 8, 1971
Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees
My Way June 10, 1971
I Shall Be Released May 20, 1971
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright May 16, 1971
Elvis recorded sufficient material in 1971 for three albums and a number of singles. One of the albums was of Christmas songs, another was a Grammy award winning gospel album. In my humble opinion, Elvis sounds fairly tired and uninspired at times on both albums, which are weaker than his previous (strong) efforts in both genres. But they do contain some real highlights which are well worth showcasing alongside the stronger material he recorded that year. That same reasoning applies to the material that went on the “Elvis Now” and “Fool” albums of 1971 and 1972 respectively. These albums were padded out and also contained material which, in itself, was fine but together was repetitive and depressing. There was a desperate need for a better blend and balance to bring out the qualities of these tracks. The packaging served to undermine the material. So I have decided to reduce the three albums to two albums possessing a similar balance and feel.
By this stage, Elvis was recording a lot of similar sounding material, which makes it increasingly difficult to be selective. I think this is a nice blend. I originally selected the modern rock gospel of "Seeing is Believing," underlining Elvis' willingness to make new departures in his sound. In the end, I omitted it for the rather lovely and reflective "Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees," co-written by Elvis' friend and bodyguard Red West.
Those who dislike my approach can simply leave the Christmas and gospel material on their appropriate albums, to be enjoyed by those who enjoy such things, and to be ignored by everyone else. That allows us to focus instead on the secular material. Some will listen to Christmas and gospel albums, but a lot won't. I think something essential from Elvis' catalogue goes missing when the religious material is discarded, and some of those songs are bluesy and soulful and really do belong with the secular material. It would be a shame if such material goes unheard. So I've added it and blended it in. It makes for a couple of unusual documents. But that always was Elvis, it is what made him distinctive and unique. If you can only cope with one thing done one way, then you are in the wrong place.
That's my defence of the above selection.
But the secular approach gives us the following selection, which is very fair:
ELVIS NOW
We Can Make The Morning May 20, 1971
I'm Leavin' June 22, 1971
Early Morning Rain March 15, 1971
Help Me Make It Through The Night May 17, 1971
Until It's Time For You To Go May 17, 1971
I Will Be True May 19, 1971
I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen May 19, 1971
It's Only Love September 21, 1971
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face March 15, 1971
For Lovin' Me March 15, 1971
Love Me, Love the Life I Lead May 21, 1971
It's Still Here May 19, 1971
A Thing Called Love May 19, 1971
Put Your Hand In The Hand June 8, 1971
My Way June 10, 1971
I Shall Be Released May 20, 1971
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright May 16, 1971
“I Shall Be Released” is only a snatch of the Dylan song, and it blends nicely into “Don't Think Twice.” If we class the two Dylan songs as one, then we have a nice even sixteen tracks here. I have retained “A Thing Called Love” from the gospel album since it is written by Jerry Reed and fits very nicely with the folk theme of the material. People will remember Johnny Cash's country version of the song, so there may well be general interest in Elvis' little known gospel version. I will just repeat that the best of the Christmas and gospel albums deserves to be heard and is on a par with the best material here.
1972-1973
1972
FOOL
ELVIS AS RECORDED AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
ALOHA FROM HAWAII VIA SATELLITE
FOOL
Fool March 28, 1972
Never Been To Spain (live 1972)
Burning Love March 28, 1972
Steamroller Blues (live 1972)
Always On My Mind March 29, 1972
It's Over (live 1972)
It's A Matter Of Time March 29, 1972
Polk Salad Annie (live 1972)
For the Good Times February 16, 1972
I Can't Stop Loving You (live 1972)
Early Morning Rain January 14, 1973
The Impossible Dream (live 1972)
Separate Ways February 16, 1972
Where Do I Go From Here? February 16, 1972
It's Impossible (live 1972) February 16, 1972
You Gave Me A Mountain (live 1972)
What Now My Love (live 1973) January 14, 1973
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (live 1973) January 14, 1973
An American Trilogy (live 1972) February 16, 1972
Welcome To My World (live 1973) January 14, 1973
I'll Remember You (1973) January 14, 1973
A fact that is often overlooked about Elvis in the 1970s is just how prolific he was as an artist. Committed to an impossible three album a year contract, and with compilation albums of all kinds coming out at all times, as well as live in concert albums, Elvis was effectively competing against himself. No wonder that he was struggling to establish his new identity, divided as it was between live, album and singles careers, all of them up against his past self, which was a constant presence with the many compilations that were forever coming out. It didn't help matters that every Elvis album seemed to be called “Elvis” and boasted a photo of Elvis in a jumpsuit on the cover. It was a nonsense, a strategy that was concerned merely to say “Elvis” to an undemanding audience and paid no attention at all to the actual music. There was no reason at all to present Elvis' studio material with an image of the man drawn from live performance. It just gave the impression that Elvis' studio material was secondary to the hits and the concerts, which is precisely how it was packaged and, in time, came to be considered. These albums became increasingly poor sellers.
If the awful truth be told, RCA and Elvis' management had always taken this approach to Elvis' music. Even in the 1950s, albums of padded out, second-hand, previously released material poured out, “For LP Fans Only,” “A Date with Elvis,” and “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't be Wrong.” As documents in themselves, these albums are excellent. But at the time, they gathered material that was already out. It was a way of getting fans to buy what they had already bought. The marketing strategy was to have the fans continually buying Elvis. That these albums sold markedly less than the previous Elvis albums ought to have told management something. But, no, they carried on with their singular concern with emptying Elvis fans' pockets. “Elvis for Everyone” anyone? You could get away with it in the 1950's, when Elvis was top of the world. By the 1970's, when Elvis was struggling for identity as a studio artist, the approach was disastrous. Perfectly good material was butchered in its release, and perfectly fine albums sold squat. If that doesn't kill an artist's soul, then nothing will. In the very least, it killed Elvis' reputation. He was immensely popular and critically dubious.
Critics look at the rather padded out studio albums and conclude that Elvis was drying up as an artist. As my song selections prove, this is patently untrue. This utterly false impression is the result of too much “product” being issued. Elvis was both a singles and a concert artist, and very many of his finest performances came not in the studio but live in concert. Of course, RCA issued very many live concert albums, too many in the view of many critics. The general point is that there was a failure to adequately capture the true nature of Elvis the artist. The “Elvis Now” and “Fool” albums of 1971 and 1972 were panned by critics as dreary, padded affairs. The “Fool” album contained too many of the same kind of song, fine performances in themselves, but together quite depressing. To be fair to the critics, there is more than an element of truth to their criticisms. But the problem was not the deficiencies of the material but the stretching of all of the material further than it artistically could go (which was very far indeed, but nowhere near as far as the insatiable greed of the money men stretched). Elvis was putting out three or four albums a year, along with stand alone singles, so no wonder that even the ample material run short. The result was that Elvis' 'thick' studio output was made to sound decidedly 'thin' on release. And the critics were unsparing in their judgments, claiming Elvis to be dried up as an artist. Taking each album individually, it did indeed look as though Elvis' talent was drying up. The truth is exactly the opposite.
Hence I make no apologies for issuing this gargantuan selection of more than twenty tracks, with a strong emphasis on Elvis' remarkable live performances from 1972 and 1973. Feel free to explore the two concert albums from Madison Square Gardens in 1972 and the two “Aloha from Hawaii” concerts from 1973. For non-Elvis fans and casual fans, that's a lot of material. Add the other live albums, from “On Stage” in 1970 to “In Concert” from 1977, with the Memphis recording from 1974 in between (and other releases of concert recordings since) and that's a lot of live material, a lot of repetition. How many times does a person need to hear fairly perfunctory renditions of “Hound Dog” et al before going elsewhere? Elvis fans will want to hear it all. That's what makes them fanatics (and what makes them keep buying Elvis product as it is issued, as the marketing men well knew). Discerning music fans are not fanatics. They want the essentials. So I have decided to select essential performances from the live material, here from 1972 and 1973, leaving the rest for the Elvis fanatics (fine folk as they are, people like my good self).
Many people were put off the concert recordings, containing as they did too many of the overfamiliar songs, not least the frequently thrown away rock'n'roll melodies. I'm not too harsh on Elvis here. I noted earlier his performing his new, vocally demanding, musically sophisticated material only to face calls from the audience for the old rock'n'roll hits. An artist is an artist, an entertainer is an entertainer. Elvis was in the interest of putting bums on seats and keeping the many customers satisfied. When very many of those customers are so easily pleased as to be excited by remembrances of their youth through tepid retreads of “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Teddy Bear,” sitting on their hands when it came to more demanding material, then why not just give up? But as Rick Nelson in “Garden Party” cautioned, “if memories are all I sing, I'd rather drive a truck.” You can't live in the past. You can die there. But you can't live there.
If you take a selective approach to the concert recordings, focusing on the material that added substance to the catalogue, then you produce a very strong document like the one above. It's not Pink Floyd, it's not Roxy Music, it's not David Bowie. But it is rich and expansive, a fleshing out and maturing of Elvis' original country/blues/gospel/pop/ballad synthesis. And that makes it something very special indeed.
1973
STAX STUDIOS, MEMPHIS
The idea to record at Stax studios in Memphis was a inspired one. The problem was that Elvis was tired, distracted, uninspired and not in the best of health. Some of the material, too, was fairly uninspiring. An additional problem is that instead of injecting his music with some Stax soul and musicianship, Elvis took along his usual musicians – exceptional as they were – and indulged his own musical tastes – rich and varied as they were. It was very much a missed opportunity. It came good in the end. But it could have been better.
The first session short-circuited. There were a few decent tracks from these first sessions and two or three very good ones. A couple were kept back for single release, later being issued on the “Good Times” album. Rather than wait, the material was issued as a rather underwhelming album that got precisely nowhere. It was another marketing disaster. This was the time for a strong follow up building on the worldwide success of the live Hawaii broadcast in January 1973. Instead, we got yet another tepid album with a jump-suited Elvis on the cover. These albums were not selling!! That simple truth needed to be hammered into the heads of marketing, inciting a search for causes and a determination to put things right on their part. In truth, Elvis was in the hands of a management whose montainish greed and stupidity could have been designed to put his career down the toilet. It's been over forty years now since Elvis died. He remains immensely popular and his music has stood the test of time. That his career was in such dire straights when he died – and that he died at the young age of forty two – has reasons. Never was a career of an artist of such stature and ability so stupidly mismanaged. But it seems that Elvis was unable to run his own life, let alone his career. Such are the ingredients of a tragic story.
I shall select the best of the first Stax session here and merge them with the sessions from later in the year. As a stand-alone, the material from the first session is decidedly average, and even where there is good material, Elvis sounds lame. Compare what Jerry Lee Lewis does with “Just a Little Bit” this same time to Elvis' version here and you will see the difference. Elvis had the ability to redeem some uninspiring material. Here, he fails. “Three Corn Patches” may not be one of Leiber and Stoller's best efforts (one of their worst, probably) but Elvis tries to make the thing swing and fails. It may be that the song is leaden. But I can't help but think that the Elvis of “A Mess of Blues” could have worked magic here. Same with “If You Don't Come Back” and “Find Out What's Happening.” The material sounds average. But it may well be that the problem was that Elvis was tired. Such tracks are OK. If you are not already a fan, then you wouldn't be by the end of hearing such material. The inadequacies of these tracks work to the detriment of the handful of the good to very good songs that were recorded at this session.
Elvis' recording sessions at Stax studios, Memphis in 1973 are remembered, if they are remembered at all, by the three very poorly performing albums that were issued in 1973, 1974, and 1975. This is grossly unfair. Both “Good Times” and “Promised Land” were fine albums, the former in particular containing several quality cuts that deserve consideration as among the best songs that Elvis recorded in his entire career. The music from this year deserved a much better fate than to be issued over three long years. No wonder Elvis' spirits soon started to sag. He was to record just one more album in the studio, 1975's “Today,” full of songs of loss and lament. So reluctant was he to return to the studio that RCA would send a mobile recording unit around to his home in Graceland in 1976. This was a tragic, and undeserved, end. If we were to be highly selective, the Stax material makes for one very strong album, a mature update of the Sun and American Sound country/blues/gospel/pop synthesis. And there would still be material left over for a mature country-themed album. It could be dismissed as 'middle of the road,' but there's a legitimate audience for such material. We can't be cutting edge and ground breaking all the time. There's a time to relax, take stock and look back, take each day as it comes. So that's my reasoning with respect to the second selection here. And that's the way I cut the Stax material into two albums:
1973
RAISED ON ROCK
GOOD TIMES
PROMISED LAND
GOOD TIMES
Promised Land December 15, 1973
Raised On Rock July 23, 1973
Loving Arms December 13, 1973
It's Midnight December 10, 1973
I Got A Feelin' In My Body December 10, 1973
If That Isn't Love December 16, 1973
I've Got A Thing About You Baby July 22, 1973
For Ol' Times Sake July 23, 1973
You Asked Me To December 11, 1973
My Boy December 13, 1973
If You Talk In Your Sleep December 11, 1973
There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In) December 15, 1973
Talk About The Good Times December 14, 1973
Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues December 13, 1973
A strong and coherent fourteen tracks. Five tracks from “Promised Land,” three tracks from the first Stax session, and seven tracks from “Good Times,” supporting my view that the latter was a strong album as it was issued and should have performed better than it did. I've made Good Times even better! That leaves plenty of ballad and country material over for a decent MOR album.
Take Good Care Of Her July 21, 1973
She Wears My Ring December 16, 1973
Find Out What's Happening July 22, 1973
If You Don't Come Back July 21, 1973
I Miss You September 22 & 23, 1973
Help Me December 12, 1973
Spanish Eyes December 16, 1973
Are You Sincere? September 22 & 23, 1973
Girl Of Mine July 24, 1973
Just A Little Bit July 22, 1973
Mr Songman December 12, 1973
Love Song Of The Year December 12, 1973
Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming December 15, 1973
Thinking About You December 12, 1973
Not ground-breaking by any stretch of the imagination, and disappointing were it to be offered as the main course. The types of song are not everyone's cup of tea, either. There's nothing here that would be of any interest to rock fans, certainly. But, for those blessed with catholicity of taste, it is decent, all the same. The danger would be to add this material with the above to produce two mainstream releases. What actually happened was much worse, with three albums being issued, with the result that the lesser, more middle of the road, material dulled the impact of the quality sides. So I've gathered the quality in one place and the MOR here. And some people do enjoy this kind of material. The country ballads, in particular, are very good, for those who appreciate such things. The country gospel of “Help Me” is also deserving of entry in the first choice material. “Are You Sincere?” takes us back into “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” territory. And “Spanish Eyes” also marks a return to 1960 and memories of “It's Now or Never.” If you liked those records – and millions, like me, did and took them to the top of the charts in 1960 – then you will like these, too. I do. They may not be chart toppers in the mid-seventies, and they may not be what you would associate with Stax studios Memphis. But they are precisely what you would associate with Elvis. Some don't like it, and they are free to pass on by. A lot do like it. That's what makes an Elvis fan the curious, catholic person he or she is. And you never know, listen without prejudice and you may in time become one of us. And you can take that as either a promise or a warning.
RECORDED LIVE ON STAGE IN MEMPHIS
Released: July 1974
See See Rider
I Got A Woman / Amen
Love Me
Trying To Get To You
MEDLEY:
Long Tall Sally; Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On; Mama Don't Dance;
Flip, Flop and Fly; Jailhouse Rock; Hound Dog
Why Me Lord
How Great Thou Art
Blueberry Hill - I Can't Stop Loving You
Help Me
American Trilogy
Let Me Be There
My Baby Left Me
Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Can't Help Falling In Love
Closing Vamp
Recorded: Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, March 20, 1974
Elvis just sounds at at ease in this concert.
Studio Rehearsals, RCA Studios, Hollywood
August 16, 1974
Down in the Alley
Softly As I Leave You
The Twelfth of Never
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues
1974
“Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis.” An imaginatively titled album. Elvis On Stage in Memphis, five words that seem to capture most of the titles of the Elvis albums. Elvis is in relaxed mood in the concert, comfortable performing his victory tour. To have to do such a thing year in year out could, in time, become a chore. I distinctly remember my impressions when I heard this album for the first time. I felt that Elvis was at ease with himself, his music, and the world. It sounded like a homecoming. There was no edge, just enjoyment among friends. And a little inspiration here and there. I'm thinking in particular here of “Why Me Lord?” and “How Great Thou Art,” the performances of which are exceptional. But they are lost in yet another concert album that fans will hear, but no-one else.
For me, the material from the studio rehearsals this year is most interesting: “Down in the Alley,” “The Twelfth of Never,” “Softly as I Leave You,” and “Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues.” I would have loved to have heard these songs, and others like them, in concert and seen them released on record. OK, I don't much like the approach to “Softly as I Leave You” and will happily stick with Matt Monro. But I like that Elvis was always prepared to try new things. I don't like that a large element of the Elvis fandom were content with the same old thing over and again. That sealed Elvis' musical fate with respect to the Hollywood films and soundtracks – endless sun, fun, gadgets and girls, girls, and still more girls – and it sealed his fate with respect to the concerts. I swear there's only so many times I can hear “Hound Dog,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Teddy Bear” and such like being thrown away in a memories medley for those unable to put their teenage years behind them before I lose the will to live. And I swear that it must have been the same for Elvis, who saw his creative edge constantly dulled by force of dull expectations and crude commerce. If you think I am wrong then find, if you can, the video to “There's Gold in the Mountains” from the movie “Kissin' Cousins.” It's a jolly tune which has Elvis frolicking in the hay with a blond and a brunette. Cue the gaga: Where did it all go wrong?! Wait for the end of the song, and look at Elvis' expression as the scene ends and the girls run off – Elvis has a face of total frustration and misery. Lazy editing kept that revealing impression in the film. It looks like fun, it sounds like fun, but, as dear old Paddy McAloon sang, “some things hurt more than cars and girls.” There's more to life. There's certainly more to music and art.
Elvis the artist was elsewhere by this stage, and he should have had the nerve to face the rather predictable expectations of the dullest section of his audience down. But there's the dialectic of art and commerce. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Elvis had a big house and an entourage. He had a big reputation to maintain, too, and bills to pay. He needed bums on seats. If people wanted lame retreads of his old rock'n'roll hits, then his job was to keep the customer satisfied. He was packing the houses out to the end. The problem was that the end came a whole lot quicker than it ought to have done. Elvis was capable of better, and had he done better he would still be with us today. He ended up doing things that were not worthy of his talent. Whether he would have been as popular, selling out concerts all over America, is another question. It's not a question that Elvis wanted to answer. He did at some point change his concert material, adding more blues and contemporary material. The audience sat on its hands. Compare that to the ecstatic reactions to the old hits, however much they were thrown off the conveyor belt. At some deep level, Elvis seemed to need the adulation and the validation it brought much more in the short run than creative space and artistic achievement in the longer run. Elvis did not live in the long run. Or, put another way, when having to make the call, he opted for short-term validation over long-term health and sanity. There's the Elvis paradox. I'll state my view plainly. “The Twelfth of Never” is a beautiful song that has been recorded by many very fine artists, singers of the highest calibre. The version which Elvis recorded in this rehearsal from 1974 is the most beautiful version of all. And the version of “Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues” was also worthy of a wide hearing. If only we could have had these in full concert versions ... But all some folk want is “Hound Dog,” “All Shook Up,” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” You can't be a teenager forever. Those days have gone for good. And if “Memories” is the only song you sing, then you'll be gone soon enough, too.
Listen to the concert material on disc two of the “That's the Way It Is” box. After the old hits, Elvis says: 'well we got that out of the way now we can go on with the show.' Many a true word is spoken in jest. Elvis pauses to listen to requests from the audience: 'what? oh yeah, yeah, there's about 26 I forgot.' Too many of his fans didn't want the old hits out of the way: to them, that was the show.
1975
RECORDED LIVE ON STAGE IN MEMPHIS
ELVIS TODAY
TODAY
T-R-O-U-B-L-E March 11, 1975
And I Love You So March 11, 1975
Fairytale March 10, 1975
Susan When She Tried March 11, 1975
Shake A Hand March 11, 1975
Tiger Man (jam) March 11, 1975
Why Me Lord March 20, 1974
How Great Thou Art March 20, 1974
Pieces Of My Life March 13, 1975
The Twelfth of Never rehearsal 1974
I Can Help March 11, 1975
Woman Without Love March 11, 1975
Bringin' It Back March 13, 1975
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues rehearsal 1974
Green, Green Grass Of Home March 11, 1975
America The Beautiful (Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, December 13, 1975 Midnight Show)
The sessions for the “Today” album issued in exactly ten sides, just enough for one complete album, with no room for arguments for selection. The album was seen as somewhat lacklustre and derivative at the time, and confirmed the general impression that Elvis' career was meandering into irrelevance. So I have decided to strengthen the album with live cuts from the Memphis concert of the previous year as well as songs performed in rehearsal.
I always found “Today” something of a disappointment. The arrangements sound clunky and intrusive, not quite gelling with the vocal. Elvis sounds rushed and forced, his vocal buried in the arrangements, blurred. And the material is rather second-hand and overly familiar. At the time it felt like Elvis idling his way to inconsequentiality. Two things have served to alter perceptions of the “Today” album: 1) time; and 2) the release of the undubbed versions. At a certain distance in history, the recent memory of the other versions of these songs fade, leaving us to take Elvis' versions on their merits. Yes, many of these songs were famous in hit versions by others, either in the pop or country charts. Now, I see Elvis not only did his own versions of these songs, but he actually delivered very warm and sympathetic readings that eclipse the memory of the others. I prefer Elvis' versions of “And I Love You So” and “Green Green Grass of Home” to all others. For the rest, we are back in country and R&B/gospel territory. This is Elvis' home ground, and he does indeed sound at home. Above all, the lead song “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” really ought to have brought Elvis back to the charts with a vengeance, the evident potentialities of the song becoming plain in the hit versions that were to follow in the decades after Elvis' death. It was the smash hit classic that got away. Which is a shame, because in 1975 Elvis was badly in need of a career boost. With the country ballads and country rock of this and the Stax albums, Elvis was actually ahead of the game, anticipating the country explosion of the 1990s. Critics were lamenting his departure from the rock of his youth. What they had missed is that Elvis was delivering a mature update of his old synthesis of all musical genres. At this distance in history we can now appreciate the music for its intrinsic qualities. More than four decades on, we are still listening to these songs. What seemed inconsequential at the time now seems essential.
1976
FROM ELVIS PRESLEY BOULEVARD, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
MOODY BLUE
ELVIS IN CONCERT
Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall February 2, 1976
She Thinks I Still Care February 2, 1976
The Last Farewell February 2, 1976
Solitaire February 3, 1976
Moody Blue February 4, 1976
I'll Never Fall In Love Again February 4, 1976
For The Heart February 5, 1976
Hurt February 5, 1976
Danny Boy February 5, 1976
Never Again February 6, 1976
Love Coming Down February 6, 1976
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain February 7, 1976
It's Easy For You October 29, 1976
Way Down October 29, 1976
Pledging My Love October 29, 1976
He'll Have To Go October 31, 1976
Heavens to Murgatroyd! What on earth are we supposed to make of material like this? This is strong meat, the great unravelling, Elvis at the end of his tether. What to do when the recording artist no longer wishes to record? Elvis was refusing to enter the RCA studios. He was depressed and suffering from bad health. So does the recording company give him the time to recover and get his health back? Of course not! Time is money. If the artist refuses to come to the recording studios, you just send the studio to the artist. RCA thus sent a mobile recording unit to Elvis' home in Graceland, his refuge from the world, to be on hand to capture any sound that Elvis made and rush it out as 'product.' And people still wonder why he was dead within a year.
Two albums from this material was one too many. Even RCA knew it, adding material from the 1974 Memphis concert and other live material to beef up the “Moody Blue” album. Even as one album, this material makes for very uncomfortable listening. This is Elvis “way down” depressed and seemingly beyond help. The words in the song titles say it all: “bitter,” “harder,” “last,” “farewell,” “solitaire,” “never” (twice), “hurt,” “down” (twice), “blue eyes,” “crying,” and the very last recording “He'll Have to Go.” That leaves “Danny Boy,” a song of love, loss, death, and lament. These songs are a desperate cry for a help that deep down he knew would never come; on the likes of “Hurt,” that cry erupts into a primal scream. It's difficult not to see the music as anything other than a “Last Farewell.” There is a stark reality and rawness to these sides that makes them unique and compelling. Taken as a whole, the effect is depressing, designed to have most people switching right off. Such is the nature of depression. When you are depressed, you express your hurt and pain in the most extreme ways, and people turn away. Nothing attracts people more than a happy, smiling face. "You got to have a happy smiling face," Elvis sang in "Have a Happy." It's just not so easy to put on. Misery is a virus that threatens to bring everyone down. I think something of this explains the fate suffered by the Stax and “Today” albums, too. It can be like listening to a self-absorbed drunk at the bar, blaming the world, and particularly his long suffering wife, for all of his self-inflicted problems, exhibiting his self-destructive tendencies for all the world to see. It's not edifying and can become boring. If we are being critical, then one gets the distinct impression of a wounded narcissist on the brink of disaster who blames others for his imminent demise but cannot see his own part in the fall from grace. Who is “Hurt” addressed to? To think that you lied to me? It's an immense performance, certainly. But it doesn't tally as autobiography. And when Elvis injects his songs with such an emotional charge, you can be certain that he is identifying with words and meaning in some way. Elvis spent the best part of the seventies singing about how much he missed his wife. One song after another on the lines of “I Miss You.” There's little recognition from him as to the deleterious effects his endless womanising on his marriage, when his wife found him missing with other women. It doesn't appeal, not as a continuation of the self-mythologising of 'the King.' But considered as a document of self-implosion, the material is compelling. Once you understand the context, and can go past the self-delusion, there is real pain here, the exposure of raw soul, with all the rights and wrongs. It's tough stuff to deal with. I would have been eleven and twelve at the time, and this material sailed way above my head. Elvis sounded so old … Old and worn out. He's complaining about things of which I had no experience (and still don't, in the main, but can now understand). This is material with an adult classification. Here is a man who had the intelligence to partly understand the depths of the predicament he found himself in, both personally and professionally, but lacked the resources to get out of it. That lack was both internal and external. He couldn't help himself but when he cried out for help, he found that no-one else could or would help either. And that's how sad stories end as tragedies. In the very least, he saw the depths and reported back, giving expression to some incredibly raw feelings and emotions. We now know that he was unable to extricate himself from the depths to which his life had plummeted. He would be dead within the year. And that makes for very uncomfortable listening indeed. It is impossible to read this material as anything but autobiographical, and seeing as these were the last songs that Elvis was to record in studio conditions, there is some value in issuing the complete set in order of recording. As music, I think there are too many songs of the same “down” and “depressed” type, and the effect is utterly depressing. If I was issuing a set to appeal to the general music fan, I would omit “Bitter they Are, Harder they Fall,” “Never Again,” and “I'll Never Fall in Love Again.” But, actually, they tell the truth in words and music of the final unwinding of Elvis' life.
It would be possible to take a selective approach and showcase the material better. That is what people interested in the music rather than the autobiography would want. I think with these recordings, though, a naked honesty, however raw, is the best policy. Here is the essential Elvis, the ragged edges and damaged soul of the glittering icon exposed to the world.
As a studio artist, Elvis went out with the late, great Johnny Ace's “Pledging my Love” and the country standard “He'll Have to Go” reimagined as a slow blues. It was the old blues/country synthesis with which Elvis made his name: “Blue Moon” revisited as “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” Either way, it was the end.
The original “Moody Blue” album opened up with an embellished version of “Unchained Melody.” It sounded like it was sung in an echo chamber. The performance, however, was exceptional, Elvis hitting with real power but, most of all, delivering an emotional charge that only he could deliver. That was a live recording from 1977, Elvis' last year, for which there are no studio recordings. We had the “Elvis in Concert” album released in October 1977 to see Elvis off. We played it endlessly at home that Christmas. We looked at the photographs on the cover and told each other that Elvis was “not fat,” and we listened to the rock'n'roll medleys and told ourselves that Elvis was still the “King of Rock'n'Roll.” We were fans. But even at that young age I noted that the best performances from this concert were the sadder songs, the songs of loss and regret, songs like “You Gave Me A Mountain,” “I Really Don't Want To Know,” “Hurt,” “My Way,” “Early Mornin' Rain,” “And I Love You So.” I remember Elvis introducing “Fairytale” with the words that the song told “the story of my life.” I took it to mean that Elvis was saying his life had been a fairytale, and I am sure that that is what he meant. But I listened to the lyrics to the song, and they are actually quite hard hitting:
I'll pack up all my things and walk away,
I don't want to hear another word you have to say
I've been waiting for so long
I just found out there's something wrong
And there's nothing what get better if I stay
There's no need to explain anymore
I tried my best to love you, now I'm walking out the door
You used me, you deceived me,
And you never seemed to need me
But I'll bet you won't forget me when I go
Seems I've been lost in a dream
Pretending that you care
But now I've opened up my eyes
And found it's all been just a great big fairytale
I've been lovin' you so long
Don't think I'd even know how to forget you
But now the way that things have been
I think I'm better off alone
Than to be with you
“Elvis in Concert” was not the “'77 TV Comeback Special” that the romantics among us had envisaged. Elvis had been caught out denying reality for too long, and so had we, the fans. We pretended to each other that Elvis was still the best and went out at the top of his game. Things had been wrong in Elvis' world for far too long, and the rest of us were too blinded by his iconic status to see some pretty obvious truths. That leaves a lesson for all of us to draw, should we have the nerve and the nous. “Who Am I?” asked Elvis in the last song he recorded at American Sound studios in 1969. Good question. We spend a lifetime answering it and, if we have any sense, we don't mistake the self-image or the identity that society can have of us for the real person. We live in more than the opinion others have of us or we have of ourselves. Too soon in his life, Elvis became “Elvis” and thus slowly ceased to be long before his actual physical demise. But, here and there, there were still echoes of the essential core. I heard them in some of those final concert performances. “Unchained Melody,” of course, but my attention was always taken by “How Great Thou Art,” which Elvis performs as if he could see the Gates of Heaven opening before his very eyes. “Elvis in Concert” is not a great document with which to remember Elvis. Non-fans and casual fans will lack the patience to wade through lesser versions of familiar songs to find the quality. And they'll lack the empathy to appreciate that quality in any case. So I'll identify the performances that took my ear at the time.
Unchained Melody
I Really Don't Want To Know
Fairytale
Little Sister
Early Mornin' Rain
And I Love You So
Take out one from “Bitter they Are,” “Never Again,” or “I'll Never Fall in Love Again” from the “Graceland” recordings and add the three best performances from this six (Unchained Melody, I Really Don't Want to Know, and And I Love You So), and you have eighteen sides. It's doable and, if not quite digestible, it does make for a suitably strong final document. That said, it makes much more sense to issue the Graceland set alone, adding only Unchained Melody as new to the Elvis catalogue. That sixteen is much more digestible.
Unchained Melody
She Thinks I Still Care February 2, 1976
The Last Farewell February 2, 1976
Solitaire February 3, 1976
Moody Blue February 4, 1976
I'll Never Fall In Love Again February 4, 1976
For The Heart February 5, 1976
Hurt February 5, 1976
Danny Boy February 5, 1976
Never Again February 6, 1976
Love Coming Down February 6, 1976
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain February 7, 1976
It's Easy For You October 29, 1976
Way Down October 29, 1976
Pledging My Love October 29, 1976
He'll Have To Go October 31, 1976
It all depends on how much reality you can bear and how raw you actually want it. If you want your Elvis neat, you will have to give up on the winning smile and the pretensions to kingly status. Elvis was all too human. Like the rest of us, then, with all the same flaws. Elvis didn't die for our sins, he died of them, magnified by money and power. And when read in this humble light, his actual achievements become all the more remarkable. Maybe he was a king of some description after all.