Elvis Presley: Classic Or Dud?

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

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

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

At times he just seems like a caricature of himself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

you're pretty incoherent

er wait nm I misread your second post

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

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

^same

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

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

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

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

not everything is about you yanno

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

lol @ 2:26 shaking Rodney Dangerfield's hand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(forgive my romanticism obv)

Wow

Absolutely otmfm, VG. Brilliant post.

:)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah vg killing itt

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

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

yeah they became a sort of lifeboat for him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, fascinated by that photo.

Also, loving the term “movie gulag.”

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

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

Also still pondering this Peter Guralnick quote about Sam Phillips:

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

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

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

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

It's infectious and never seems to get old.

so classic. the fat elvis walk gets me every time

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

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

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

Da Presley Code

Exactly

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

We need an Elvis Presley poll.

I can start it next week!

Yes!!!!!