Honestly another thing that I really got out of the doc was how *beautiful* he was especially young Elvis, what an amazing creature you couldn't not be drawn to him
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 26 April 2018 03:14 (six years ago) link
otm
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 April 2018 03:35 (six years ago) link
and weirdly childlikelike him & Priscilla holding hands in divorce court
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 April 2018 03:36 (six years ago) link
I heard a cheap cover of “always on my mind” and yeah it’s a willie song but I couldn’t help but think of the EP version and how emotionally pregnant it is
― calstars, Thursday, 26 April 2018 03:58 (six years ago) link
I think if I'd lived in Memphis for a decade, I might not ever want to listen to him again either, much less read books about him. But considering how carefully contrived his approach was, from intuition and in-accrual of method, referencing once again The Complete Sun Sessions and studio bootlegs, plus night after night on stage, in quite a range of settings and situations, and considering how interested he got in other performers bouncing his signature sounds back at him----on The Million Dollar Quartet, he keeps trying to tell his hopped-up colleagues about seeing that fella with Ward and the Dominoes (he means Jackie Wilson, Billy Ward's lead singer at that point), in Vegas, doing an Elvis song, singing "tellyphone"--E is fascinated by this detail; did he not know he was singing "tellyphone'?---considering how often he later fell back on self-imitation, and how known the stylistic elements were even at best, it's amazing how many tracks still work---mainly because he found his way back to material that worked for him and his audience, no matter how sappy etc. some of it might be otherwise---I don't particularly give a shit about "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "How Great Thou Art" or even (gasp!) "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" as sung by anybody else.(Speaking of Dylan, Presley's jam or vamp on "Don't Think Twice," which I've found on the 'Tube in 5 and 12 minute clips, is just repeating the same words and vocal efx forever, a big bad jokey waste that takes us back to Edd's take.)
― dow, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:03 (six years ago) link
"in-accrual"? Ah meant plain "accrual," like.
― dow, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:06 (six years ago) link
The song that affects me most is American Trilogy - i guess the Hawaii version. So hush, little baby, don’t you cry / you know your daddy’s born to die ... his truth is marching on... dudes got death on his mind, right?
― calstars, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:09 (six years ago) link
all my trials lord, soon be over ...
― calstars, Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:10 (six years ago) link
elvis did "hey jude" too
― had (crüt), Thursday, 26 April 2018 04:23 (six years ago) link
So then by your lights, edd, Alex Chilton is some sort of Elvis through the cracked looking glass filled with Brandy or somethingYeah, filled with a girl named Brandy. Fundamentally Elvis and Chilton are coming from the same place. An attitude toward pop itself, toward seriousness of all kinds. Furry Lewis did it perhaps better than either of them. Stay out of tune, stay aloof from the real world while bemoaning your shitty place in it--Furry swept the street, Elvis drove a truck and hated it, Alex reveled in how it feels to lose your job and be on the bottom. All very Memphis attitudes. I like to exaggerate and I'm definitely doing that in that post above. I do appreciate Elvis, but he's just so hard to listen to now, he's a failed god wandering among this detritus he helped create, and that's not something impressionable young people are good at dealing with, and that's why people like simple rock 'n' roll so much.
― eddhurt, Thursday, 26 April 2018 05:07 (six years ago) link
There’s a clip of him playing with Lady Madonna on the 70s box.
― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, 26 April 2018 05:10 (six years ago) link
And, I'd add, I like to exaggerate because that's what rock 'n' roll requires. As Elvis did so well and Alex Chilton, perhaps the most recognizable Memphian after Elvis, tried hard to negate by turning the personal into ugliness you could enjoy. Dickinson also understood this principle, as did Rufus Thomas when he wore short pants, acted like a piece of fried chicken on two legs, and so forth. Tall tales and exaggerated bathos and pathos, perhaps. I wonder what The Searcher's conclusions are about Elvis.
― eddhurt, Thursday, 26 April 2018 05:16 (six years ago) link
I’d like to add that his closing performance of “If I Can Dream” from the ‘68 Comeback Special suggests that Elvis also seemed to leave a career of being the world’s greatest soul singer on the table. Holy shit, what a performance.
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 26 April 2018 14:33 (six years ago) link
The '70s box has a brief informal rehearsal of "I Shall Be Released." It ends with Elvis just saying, "Dylan." It's a shame it never got a proper arrangement or recording -- I could see it benefiting from an overblown horns-and-strings arrangement.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 26 April 2018 14:45 (six years ago) link
ha, I have that "Dylan...." echoing away in a mix I made from the period.
I'm sure this has been posted a million times here (and by me, too) but I don't see it in this thread (and haven't seen the doc yet, if it's included)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmLOt9mRD18
To say that Elvis was more expressive than his contemporaries or that there was a yearning in his voice isn't really enough. I know it's common knowledge but all the spending and gift-giving, his jealousy and possessiveness of friends and lovers, the hyperactivity and almost constant joking and punning you hear in-studio, and of course the drugs—all of it was maintained to keep a profound pain at bay. That's what I hear even in some of his goofiest stuff and what for me elevates him as an interpreter and performer—a need to go down into what is painful about music, to locate what hurts in a song and stay there and suffer it, maybe in the hope the pain will abate when it's over.
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:02 (six years ago) link
I haven't seen this yet but I look forward to watching it. In the meantime, re: Bruce and Petty, I find it fascinating that such different people could be equally impacted by Elvis. On one hand you've got Bruce, who is clearly indebted as a musician/ performer. But then Petty, there is virtually no overt Elvis influence, at least not to my eyes and ears. It's like when Ozzy cites the Beatles as his favorite band. We're so used to acts sounding like the Beatles that it's easy to forget the band's impact was so huge that one needn't sound like the Beatles - or even make music at all - to have been influenced by the Beatles. Same with Elvis. (And Dylan, and Bowie, Madonna, Prince, and a few others). It's a pervasive, epochal, elementally cultural impact.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:10 (six years ago) link
Lemmy was mad for the Beatles, Elvis, all that. It’s more the age group that is the tell rather than their personal musical style
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:14 (six years ago) link
I'd guess class and obviously race played a role, too.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:19 (six years ago) link
Also who the hell else was on then?
― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:22 (six years ago) link
But remember, Lemmy saw the Beatles play in Hamburg, and said they were basically a speed-freak punk band at that point.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:23 (six years ago) link
much like Christian Nolan digging Stanley Kubrick while not making Kubrickian movies, people can be hugely influenced by a singular artist while taking that energy into entirely new directions
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:23 (six years ago) link
Christopher Nolan even
But also: it’s not quite the same thing but I have 2 friends, one my age and one 10 yrs younger. We were talking abt Michael Jackson & she just didnt get our love for him bcz by the time she was old enough to know about his music he was full tilt boogie weird.If you werent there when the wave hit, it’s hard to explain what that feeling was like & how that joy compounds over time & carries you through the weirdness
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:24 (six years ago) link
When I went to see a tribute band play Michael Jackson, the crowd responded proportionally by age/generation depending on whether the music was Motown, Off the Wall, Thriller or Bad.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:25 (six years ago) link
But much more than, say, someone like Kubrick, Elvis (like the Beatles) demarcated a clear cultural before/after.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:26 (six years ago) link
Esp. for people in palookaville, I imagine. Did anyone look at (insert pre-Elvis musical star here) and think, that could be me? That is my way out of middle of nowhere poverty?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:27 (six years ago) link
When I went to see a tribute band play Michael Jackson, the crowd responded proportionally by age/generation depending on whether the music was Motown, Off the Wall, Thriller or Bad.when i was in full Thriller mania, learning to moonwalk etc, a younger friend of my parents said, you know how you feel about Michael Jackson? that's how i felt about Michael Jackson when i was your age
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 26 April 2018 15:46 (six years ago) link
The way he says “Dylan” in the take above, it’s an incantation.
― droit au butt (Euler), Thursday, 26 April 2018 16:07 (six years ago) link
Did anyone look at (insert pre-Elvis musical star here) and think, that could be me? That is my way out of middle of nowhere poverty?
Hank Williams? i think the lack of grooming and willingness to not shy away from southernness & stereotypes about hillbillies was pretty unique and somewhat democratizing.
however im not sure if there was even a pre-Elvis music industry marketing infrastructure to support a popular idea of music as a ticket to riches. like that way of thinking was probably true for Hollywood (and to that effect Elvis is a bit old school by also being a film star) but i dunno.
also this was an era before LP as album & recorded music automated most things, i'd imagine there were lots more opportunities for working musicians. perhaps it was more of a legit career path back then than the "you'll never make it as a giant star" all-or-nothing sort of success chasing we have now.
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 26 April 2018 16:51 (six years ago) link
that unchained melody clip just left me speechless....six weeks before he died...jesus, he's just giving everything to get through it
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 26 April 2018 17:01 (six years ago) link
There's a great book about the history of country music (and "country music") called Don't Get Above Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern Working Class; definitely worth checking out.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 26 April 2018 17:52 (six years ago) link
Is there any documentary that covers the more tawdry aspects of his celebrity – ie, the karate/friend peanut butter and banana sandwiches/super young girlfriends, etc. I appreciate that this doc tried to focus on his artistry as it can be lost among that stuff. But I realize I don’t really know much about it and my sense is that it’s not exactly irrelevant.
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 5 May 2018 13:59 (six years ago) link
peanut butter and banana sandwiches are very good and not tawdry
― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, 5 May 2018 15:10 (six years ago) link
^ also true of karate
― Brad C., Saturday, 5 May 2018 15:12 (six years ago) link
there was a Geraldo-led 20/20 special from 1979 but it's about the "cover up" of his death
― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 5 May 2018 15:18 (six years ago) link
Had to do some work at the library today, and discovered this in the stacks:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41PFAWG6bgL._SX366_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
A Novel About Elvis By William F. Buckley
― Making Plans For Sturgill (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:25 (six years ago) link
If you’re looking for sensationalism and hearsay, you may enjoy the Goldman biography
― calstars, Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:48 (six years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 5 May 2018 14:59 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
This is what you're looking for: Arena, 1996, The Burger and The King.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5LQ-rNSd8
― glumdalclitch, Saturday, 5 May 2018 23:59 (six years ago) link
To say that Elvis was more expressive than his contemporaries or that there was a yearning in his voice isn't really enough. I know it's common knowledge but all the spending and gift-giving, his jealousy and possessiveness of friends and lovers, the hyperactivity and almost constant joking and punning you hear in-studio, and of course the drugs—all of it was maintained to keep a profound pain at bay. That's what I hear even in some of his goofiest stuff and what for me elevates him as an interpreter and performer—a need to go down into what is painful about music, to locate what hurts in a song and stay there and suffer it, maybe in the hope the pain will abate when it's over.― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, April 26, 2018 4:02 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, April 26, 2018 4:02 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
The recording sessions book says he recorded this one in a couple of takes, then listened to the playback in the studio over and over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pljYD7ncmSU
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Sunday, 6 May 2018 11:20 (six years ago) link
Another painful stab at loneliness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLj0aLPLsys
and the live version with "listen Cilla" interspersed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZaFihDRjZs
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Sunday, 6 May 2018 11:30 (six years ago) link
My stab from a couple years back at soundscaping a young searcher's stomping grounds, jumping between WDIA and WHBQ and meandering up and down the the dial, skipping back and forth across the tracks with Dewey Phillips spots, news bulletins, jingles, good and bad weather, miscellany postwar ephemera.... pm me for a link!
http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo346/HadrianVIII/EAP_1941-1953_zpsgqdjuhly.jpg
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 7 May 2018 16:10 (six years ago) link
oh that was big. anyway:
01 Night Train To Memphis (3:39) Roy Acuff 194402 All She Wants To Do Is Rock (3:54) Wynonie Harris 194903 Up Above My Head (2:27) Sister Rosetta Tharpe 194904 Ida Red Likes The Boogie (2:17) Bob Wills 195005 Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb (2:31) The Soul Stirrers 195006 Blue Moon Of Kentucky (2:04) Bill Monroe 194707 Gotta Let You Go (2:39) Joe Hill Louis 195008 Rolling, Riding, Rocking (1:51) Blackwood Brothers 195309 Standing in the Safety Zone (2:22) Professor Johnson 195010 That's All Right (2:57) Arthur Crudup 194611 That's When Your Heartaches Begin (3:23) The Ink Spots 194612 Satisfied (2:41) Martha Carson 195113 Rocket 88 (3:01) Jackie Brenston 195114 The Hot Guitar (2:59) Eddie Hill 195215 When the Swallows Come Back [....](3:19) Billy Ward &The Dominoes 195216 Booted (3:02) Rosco Gordon 195217 La Fiacre (3:05) Giselle Mackenzi 195118 Call Me Fool (3:12) Mario Lanza 195319 Sixty Minute Man (2:53) The Dominoes 195120 Didn't It Rain (3:20) Sister Rosetta Tharpe 194721 The Great Atomic Power (2:56) The Louvin Brothers 195222 That's Amore (3:05) Dean Martin 195323 Take a Trip (3:38) Utah Smith 195324 A Full Time Job (2:24) Eddy Arnold 195225 She Moves Me (2:55) Muddy Waters 195226 The Golden Rocket (3:53) Hank Snow 195027 I'm Gonna Murder My Baby (2:52) Pat Hare 195428 Joshua Fit The Battle (3:29) The Spirit of Memphis 195129 I've Got Five Dollars & It's Saturday[...] (3:35) Ted Daffan 195030 Mystery Train (2:26) Little Junior's Blue Flames 195231 Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy (2:43) Red Foley 195032 Rats In My Kitchen (3:04) Sleepy John Estes 195233 More And More (2:18) Webb Pierce 195434 Hound Dog (4:10) Big Mama Thornton 195235 There's a Man In Jerusalem (2:21) Southern Jubillee Singers 195136 Shotgun Boogie (2:32) Tennessee Ernie Ford 195137 Cotton Crop Blues (3:36) James Cotton 195338 Everybody Will Be Happy Over There (1:56) The Statesmen Quartet 195439 Keep Them Cold Icy FIngers Off Me (3:11) Fairley Holden 194740 Mess Around (2:51) Ray Charles 195341 I've Forgotten More (2:59) The Davis Sisters 195342 Work With Me Annie (2:42) Hank Ballard & Midnighters 195443 Cry (3:01) Johnny Ray 195444 My Kind Of Carryin' On (3:32) Doug Poindexter 195445 Love Don' Love Nobody (3:17) Roy Brown 195046 Fortunes In Memories (2:58) Ernest Tubb 195247 No Swallerin' Place (4:01) June Carter 195348 One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer (3:20) Amos Milburn 195349 One More Time (2:54) Dean Martin 195450 The Boogie Disease (2:38) Dr. Ross 195451 (What About) Frank Clement (2:58) The Prisonaires 195452 Thirteen Women (2:51) Bill Haley & His Comets 195453 Dear Lord Take My Hand (2:58) Maddox Brothers & Rose 194954 Sleepy Eyed John (2:35) Ole Rasmussen 195055 Blacksmith Blues (3:26) Ella Mae Morse 195256 Who Is That Knocking (2:55) Southern Wonders 195257 Better Cut That Out (2:56) Sonny Boy Williamson 194858 No Help Wanted (2:24) The Carlisles 195259 I'm My Own Grandpa (3:12) Lonzo & Oscar 194760 When I First Sought The Lord Sister (2:27) Rosetta Tharpe 195261 Rock House Boogie (3:31) John Lee Hooker 195262 Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (2:53) Joe & Rose Lee Maphis 195363 Just Married (2:23) Faron Young 195364 I'm Using My Bible For A Roadmap (2:28) Reno & Smiley 195265 Open The Door Richard (2:56) Dusty Fletcher 194766 Going To The River (2:31) Fats Domino 195367 Molly Darling (2:34) Eddy Arnold 194768 Feelin' Good (3:01) Little Junior's Blue Flames 195269 Why Should I Cry (2:50) Lonnie Johnson 195170 Tired of Your Lies (2:12) Mississippi Slim 195271 The Things That I Used To Do (3:23) Guitar Slim 195372 The Gold Rush Is Over (2:23) Hank Snow 195273 Mona Lisa (3:23) Nat King Cole 195074 Working On a Building (2:50) The Jordanaires 195075 You Hit Me Baby Like An Atom Bomb (1:58) Fay Simmons 195476 Merle's Boogie Woogie (3:00) Merle Travis 194877 If (2:48) The Ink Spots 195178 Lord Will Make a Way (3:37) Rev. Anderson Johnson 195279 Reconsider Baby (3:07) Lowell Fulson 195480 Hillbilly Fever (2:52) Little Jimmy Dickens 195081 I'll Make Sweet Love To You (3:00) Maddox Brothers & Rose 195282 Diesel Smoke (2:34) Doye O'Dell 195283 Swing Down Sweet Chariot (3:36) The Spirit of Memphis 195184 Tiger Man (2:54) Rufus Thomas 195385 This Train (3:03) Rosetta Tharp/Louis Jordan 194386 My Happiness (3:35) Elvis Presley 195387 Harbor Lights (3:30) Elvis Presley 1954
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 7 May 2018 16:11 (six years ago) link
So good to see some recent ILM love for EP. Got to see the docu last night, ticked all my boxes. There was an ILM thread about doing sp0tify playlists for artists you liked, around 10 years ago. Anyway I did an Elvis primer. Hope links still work.
https://open.spotify.com/user/kwimper/playlist/425zoJTN0Cs6cv9aMOkHrBhttps://open.spotify.com/user/kwimper/playlist/0g32rk60x8xf0oc3v0IpAh
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Monday, 7 May 2018 20:44 (six years ago) link
Thanks, Hadrian VIII -- your mix will be road trip music next time I'm passing through Tupelo.
― Brad C., Monday, 7 May 2018 21:38 (six years ago) link
holy crap hadrian
what a service
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 7 May 2018 22:01 (six years ago) link
truly my pleasure
hey someone sent me a request but forgot to include their email address. let me know!
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Monday, 7 May 2018 23:37 (six years ago) link
Hadrian, it's awesome. Sent you a PM.
― Joe Gargan (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 8 May 2018 00:19 (six years ago) link
on it's way
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, 8 May 2018 00:36 (six years ago) link
its
― DACA Flocka Flame (Hadrian VIII), Tuesday, 8 May 2018 00:37 (six years ago) link
Elvis Presley: The Searcher is all right, but it's no Radio Free Shake Rag
― Brad C., Tuesday, 8 May 2018 02:40 (six years ago) link