Elvis Presley: Classic Or Dud?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

i need to read those guralnick books

I need to re-read them.

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

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

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

disc 1 = perfection

widescreen STEREO and great performances etc .. seriously fantastic.

disc 2 = mellow moods.

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

however, the extra tracks are totally essential

thereby making this 2 cd edition essential.

sorry .

but this has to be added to this thread ..

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

never seen that before, it's awesome!

yup.

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

Track listing for the Elvis at Stax set:

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

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

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

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

Wow that version of "Polk Salad Annie"

Drummer clearly earning his $$$

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think I like his dancing more than his singing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ha.

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

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

I can.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

^^^ love that so much

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

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

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

damn there are some amazing youtubes on this thread.

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

https://vine.co/v/ePmzxKzKnLK

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

That's it.

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

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

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