Elvis Presley: Classic Or Dud?

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

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

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

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

those Elvis-ploitation movies.

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

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

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

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

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

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

me too

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

― dow, Sunday, April 1, 2018 10:41 AM

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

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

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

xp

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

overexposure + archaic aesthetics

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

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

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

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

At times he just seems like a caricature of himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

you're pretty incoherent

er wait nm I misread your second post

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

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

^same

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

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

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

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

not everything is about you yanno

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

lol @ 2:26 shaking Rodney Dangerfield's hand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(forgive my romanticism obv)

Wow

Absolutely otmfm, VG. Brilliant post.

:)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah vg killing itt

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

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

yeah they became a sort of lifeboat for him.