Elvis Presley: Classic Or Dud?

Yeah, “Spain” and “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” are two standouts for me on that set — those performances are heroic (and his band rises to the challenge).

xp

xposts IIRC like the post-'50s movie soundtrack material, they decided to compile all of his gospel recordings into their own two-CD collection.

Yup, there was a 2CD comp in 1994 called Amazing Grace: His Greatest Sacred Performances. It’s got all of His Hand In Mine, How Great Thou Art, and He Touched Me, plus religious songs from other records (and a few informal recordings). I got it not long after it was released , and it was my first exposure to his gospel, and his ‘70s, recordings. (I also remembered that Dave Marsh gave most of those records five stars in the RS Record Guide.)

i think i bought that comp for my mum, it’s really great

forks otm, it’d be great for him to one day be rediscovered, it’s sad to me how he’s become an empty signifier

I don’t think he/his legacy every completely shook off the flimsiness of how he was presented and packaged from roughly the early ‘60s through the early ‘90s. So many respectful and thorough reissues have come out in the last 30 years or so, but it feels like some of the stink of the Colonel’s carny ways is still wafting around.

*every = ever

And unfortunately there have been some cheesy recent things too, slapping his vocals on top of ultra-generic orchestral backing tracks and whatnot. But then there are things like the recent From Elvis In Nashville compilation that actually strips away the glop from a really amazing set of studio recordings from 1970.

In a weird way there's no middle ground in terms of public consumption -- he's either presented as cheaply disposable trash or sanctified. He can't just be a striking singer with notable hits.

I think he can be this last but one kind of has to make it clear that one is not from either of the first two camps. See the end of Francis Davis's Blues book.

I know that some readers are going to feel that Elvis Presley keeps turning up like a bad penny in these pages, but there are a few quick points I feel need to be made about him in this context. It isn't enough to say that Elvis treated thousands of white teenagers to their first sugared taste of black music and perhaps gave them an appetite for the real thing. That's not giving him his proper due. He was one of the finest white blues singers. To put it in a way that acknowledges both the murky and possibly biracial roots of the blues and Presley's own double consciousness as a white boy from Tupelo, Mississippi, he was one of the finest singers ever spawned by the Southern United States.

Francis Davis. The History Of The Blues: The Roots, The Music, The People

Anyway, I see that “Unchained Melody” was on his last album, Moody Blue, which I recall as being pretty good. The title track at least is grebt.

appreciating this revive, not much to add but I have been playing these two mono 4LP "50 Worldwide Gold Records" sets for the last day and it has been super enjoyable

i can’t watch those final shows, it feels too much like car crash footage. (cannot get over the fact that he was only 42)

blows my mind too. dude recorded like 3700 songs, shot 40 films and was deployed for a while. one of those "people used to be older when they were younger" things I guess

I agree he was best in the 70's...not only that but some of the backing bands he got were awesome. I saw a documentary about him and some of those drummers were insane

one of the things i loved about the Guralnick “Last Train To Memphis” was the session musicians who would roll their eyes at having to work with Elvis, “this fuckin guy” energy. And then they’d be 100% on board once they saw how he would respectfully talk to them on their level, like they’d been playing together for years, how much he loved & knew about music, and how talented he was when it came to performing. it surprised them.

Yeah almost every anecdote of people meeting him shows him to be very kind, respectful and humble person.

I can’t remember the source but there’s a story of him being deeply hurt and crying to someone (iirc someone from his family) because the media where bullying him for being fat and he didn’t understand at all why people were suddenly turning against him when he kept being very professional and loving to his fans.

Unrelated to the current discussions, but I watch early clips and just marvel at the absolutely criminal amount of charisma he had as a performer. He is so fucking fun to watch. We've heard everything they said about him a million times, but it's all true:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tiBYUzRLmI

my god he was hot

There was some quote from Ian Hunter in The Book of Rock Lists, but my copy long ago crumbled into dust from overuse. Hmm. Let me see.

"Elvis had animal magnetism. He was even sexy to guys. I can't imagine what the chicks used to think." — Ian Hunter

This looks interesting. https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_night_mott_the_hooples_ian_hunter_sneaked_into_elvis_presleys_home

Except it isn’t really

like if beyonce did an elvis album that would be kind of fucking awesome

i hold out some hope that somebody might rediscover and re-reappropriate elvis old and new back into pop culture

Unfortunately, it'll probably be a hologram.

Funniest bit in that "Ready Teddy" performance is Elvis standing stock-still for a couple of seconds at 1:15.

Haha love that.

And that clip reminded me of what a fantastically driving guitarist he was, as seen to better effect here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_t20f4PiRM

About the only time he played lead guitar, right?

I watched the comeback special on DVD through Netflix about 15 years ago. I can see where U2 learned the concept of the smaller stage.

and ooh boy this is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMCr3cFvMU4

xxp Yeah, he's kind of underrated as a guitarist - it may be lead, but it really showcases his skills as a rhythm guitarist, and he's just flat out awesome. That whole sitdown portion on the DVD set (previously released in audio-only on the Tiger Man CD) is my favorite part of that DVD.

And yeah, "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" is marvelous - the whole Elvis in Memphis album may be his only album-by-design (not a compilation, not stitched together from a grab bag of sessions) that I would call a masterpiece.

Hard to argue with, although the original version of that album was missing several of the big singles. Still love this story.

In particular "Suspicious Minds" and "Kentucky Rain." Still a good album without them though.

thank you guys for all these great videos.

just confirms again that more than anything i would just love to see an 'elvis in the studio' streaming thing a la get back. surely the man had so much footage taken of himself, something could be found??

Can I pause this thread to say Elvis has the best one of these videos by far

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jd9AmepgdM

XP Probably as close as we're gonna get:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7piUjpXDgNw

Plus all the MGM studio rehearsals for those shows.

lol @ the shreds video

thank you c grisso but i'm spoiled now, i need that sweet peter jackson AI upscaling

...and Elvis apologizing for farting.

Lol yeah love that musicless elvis video, my favorite one is probably the bowie and jagger one though and the lionel richie “hello” one always makes me laugh, he’s such a creep on that one.

LMAO, didn't know they did "Hello." It stops just short of this Onion article.

I think it's really one of the great what-ifs of rock history to think about Elvis releasing From Elvis in Memphis as a double album including "Suspicious Minds" and "Kentucky Rain" plus the studio tracks that came out on From Memphis to Vegas / From Vegas to Memphis. That would have been considered an undisputed masterpiece. And it did come out that way in the '80s when RCA released the CD The Memphis Record] but by then the moment had passed.

Most of the Memphis tracks on From Memphis to Vegas... aren't quite as strong, so I'm kind of glad they didn't go for a double album. As great as the singles were, especially "Suspicious Minds," I can accept their single-only release as common practice, especially during the '60s. At least Elvis proved he could match the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks et al at putting out a masterpiece while saving more great stuff for 45's.

fun to hear them finally nail "little sister"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWPr3iMMA2o

I mean you could probably make at least one classic 5 star album if you were to play god and select a very concise 12 track album just from his 1969-1970 recordings. There’s at least 50 songs to pick from. There’s 11 singles, 3 live albums and 5 studio albums just in that small frame of time according to rym.

Yeah but even just choosing from what he recorded in American Sound Studio in Memphis in January/February 1969, that should have been a tour de force album. Instead it was portioned out in dribs and drabs for an entire year.

This Luhrmann movie looks like it could be ok, but the casting of Hanks as Col. Parker seems like a major mistake, compounding by having him do a stiff Dutch accent and wear thick make-up. There are precious few interviews with Parker floating around, but in one from the '80s his accent sounds indistinguishable from Southern American. I don't think he could have passed himself off as a good ol' Southern boy if he talked like Hanks does in that clip. Is it supposed to make him seem more menacing? They should have cast someone younger and ditched the makeup and accent.

Or maybe somebody European maybe. Such as Benedict Cumberbatch? *ducks*

Maybe casting someone Dutch or German who can do a convincing Southern accent would have been the way to go. Like Christoph Walz maybe? Too late now.

Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking, maybe a Scandinavian even. First thought of Max von Sydow, now thinking Stellan Skarsgård.

that baby what you want me to do is amazing, great rhythm guitarist. almost gets into some chaotic 90s fat possum, rl burnside type vibes at points

Who is up there besides Elvis, Scotty and D.J.?

Also think he just keeps coming back to "Baby What You Want Me to Do" multiple times and it never gets old.

Wonder how many people know that the actress who played a belly dancer in the Star Trek: TOS episode "Wolf in the Fold" also did the same on the Comeback Special. I'll bet at least one person knows that besides me, who just learned it.

I did not know that. So this Tanya Lemani was like a session belly dancer in the '60s.