Entertainment For Lively Minds
Has Elvis left the building?
In the short time I've been part of our little community I have followed and contributed to threads on almost every major act of the last 50 years. The Beatles, Stones, Cliff, Dylan, Springsteen, Bowie, Prince the list goes on right up to Gaga. However there has been very little if anything written about Elvis Presley. Is he irrelevant now? Do we just remember him as a fat Vegas sideshow? Has he just moved out of our sphere of reference? Is he more relevant to an older generation? I have vivid memories of my dad's friends and his generation with the bad Elvis quiffs that they continued to wear as their hair thinned, much like the footballer Frank Worthington. I only know the songs we all know, seen the films we've all seen and the stories we've all read maybe that's it, there's nothing left to be said. What I do know is that of all the "moments" of poular music history the one I would most like to able to say "I was there" about is the beginning of the Elvis phenomenon. Just Imagine being a teenager in the 50's and hearing this for the first time? Completely mind blowing
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I love Elvis...
... particularly the Sun recordings - and is influence on music was immense. The only thing that pisses me off are those Elvis fans who are so into him that they've become demented.
Elvis is not irrelevant.
Anyone who think's he's crap is just WRONGITY WRONG!
What I mean by this (and really I am now being serious) is that the test of all music for a listener is to rise above the cliche. There is no musical artist in the world more cliched than Elvis.
And there is no artist more responsible for what we love in music here at word than Elvis either.
I am not arguing here. I cannot be persuaded otherwise. I really do think this.
The single most perfect two minutes in the entire history of music is Mystery Train. Those two minutes make every piece of crap Elvis ever did (and I accept that they existed) worth putting up with.
Sorry to sound like a loon. I've had a rough week at work and have taken a drink tonight. But I really truly love Elvis, and also distrust the opinion of any professed music lover who doesn't.
You are not one of the demented...
... you are absolutely correct.
My favourite Elvis song by far.
Terry Wogan speaks of the profound effect this record had on him when he first heard it as a young man in rural Eire. Scotty Moore's guitar alone is enough to raise the hair on your neck whilst the whole thing is positively atavistic. Combine this with the way he looked and moved - suddenly young men around the World knew who they wanted to be like whilst young women got funny tingly feelings in their tummy.
Probably wouldn't be allowed today.
I appreciate the
late night element of your comment but the passion behind it is what I was I was hoping to find. I wasn't claiming he was irrelevant just that he seems to be from another time and if he's hardly ever discussed here then where is he? I was intrigued as to whether there is a cut off point in time in our minds as to who warrants discussion. Thankfully Elvis DOES still matter to people and I mean the Elvis of the 50's who as I stated must have caused the most almighty kerfuffle in houses all across the world as this denim clad, hip shaking, pelvis thrusting adonis with that voice was let loose among them. It must have been THE time to be a teenager.
He seems like he's from another time I agree...
... what it takes with Elvis is the right introduction when your ears are open and he becomes perfectly relevant.
The thing about Elvis is for most people of my generation (I'm 35), we are exposed to bad impersonators, kitsch, and annoying fans before we are exposed to Elvis himself. I was aware of individual songs as a young lad, but I was more aware of Elvis impersonators, jumpsuits, sideburns, hamburgers etc. It was hard to get past that lot.
Then, at around 19, I found Aloha From Hawaii going for about a quid in a charity shop. I bought it because I had no actual Elvis in my collection and I felt I needed to plug a gap.
Hearing actual Elvis, seemingly unmediated, for a whole album changed my entire attitude to the man. I couldn't believe that one person could sing so many different styles of music and sound so much like one man, if that makes sense? He owned and lived every song sung on that album. What I also couldn't believe was that the Elvis I was aware of (eg the kitsch I mentioned above) always seemed fake and ironic. Aloha From Hawaii has not one fake or ironic moment in the entire album, I felt like I was hearing genuinely honest music from a guy singing from his heart. It was a full on reappraisal. I have never felt so strongly before or since in my life, that I had misunderstood an artist to such an extent.
Since then I have been careful with Elvis. He's been mis-sold and still is, too many cheesy compilations are out there. But Sunrise, the 68 Special, Elvis In Memphis, That's The Way Of the World, Elvis 56 are all marvelous and are probably where newbies should start.
So my point is, what we are presented with Elvis is not what we get. We are often presented with a sweaty, jumpsuit clad buffoon, but for me, Elvis at his best is quite simply the most affecting and honest performer (and I stress performer here) that there has ever been. And no impersonator, to my experience has managed to get the mid fifties Elvis down.
Hence my passion. Elvis taught me to trust actual music and to try and rise above everything else around it.
Phew. Hope this makes sense Dave. In the cold light of day my original post made more sense than it deserved frankly...
Amen, Brother.
'Sun Sessions'
Everything is there,
I mean everything.
If anyone wants to talk about Elvis
I will always listen. I know what you mean: he's not talked about much around here. I, for one, would never want to be without what I consider to be his greatest achievement: From Elvis In Memphis.
All hail The King!!
Another devotee here. From the giddy hopping freedom of the Sun era through the leather - clad comeback all the way to the Jungle Room Sessions, there is greatness in all his works.
As an aside, he invented MTV unplugged in that 68 comeback.
I've had a theory for a while...
... that Elvis is starting to be perceived in the same way as Charlie Chaplin is for film, i.e. as a pioneer, and important to the history of the artform, but actually less and less relevant as the years go by.
Not that I think that's necessarily a correct viewpoint, but as opposed to (say) the HJHs, he's edging further along the kitsch axis with each passing year, rather than getting cooler. Maybe it's those demented fans putting everyone off...
I must be getting awfully old fashioned...
... I've been working my way through a Charlie Chaplain box set for a while now (just done Modern Times) and genuinely I've been blown away by it. The scene in The Gold Rush where he turns into a chicken had me laughing like a drain...
Much to admire in Chaplin's oeuvre, but...
... of the era, you're far more likely to see a Buster Keaton (still clever) or Laurel & Hardy (still funny) retrospective than a Chaplin one, as received wisdom (right or wrong) is that the latter's work is too sentimental and ingratiating to modern eyes. Certainly the L&H DVDs sell far better than Chaplin's.
I'll be honest and say that I've not seen much Keaton.
But I admired The General a lot more than I laughed. Generally I've laughed at the Chaplin flicks. Humor is the most subjective thing in the world I know, but I thought the heart in the Chaplin films I've seen made them funnier.
always loved Elvis
I used to have to visit Memphis for work - one day I had a free afternoon and got to go to Graceland. Fantastic. Forget the sequins, I was reminded how good the music is. And how much of it there was (good and poor).
Maybe we don't discuss him because we all agree.
The '68 Comeback...
...Is my favourite Presley 'thing'. He rarely appears in '100 best album' lists, I suppose he's considered a 'singles' artist, but that's a great, consistent (well, 'memories' aside), unified piece. It's the best singing he ever did to my mind, he still had the youthful energy and range but with added maturity and grit. 'If I Can Dream' is a perfect, controlled vocal, on a song that could very easily have been cloying.
Is it the first proper 'Rock' comeback? I can't really think of an earlier example (Sinatra maybe, but that's not 'rock'). It's probably the start of the notion that a sustained career in rock is possible. And it sets the template for most rock comebacks since, : Stripped down, return to original sources. Which seems obvious in retrospect, but I bet was surprising at the time (and I bet the safe money then would have been to come back with show tunes or other such 'grown-up' music - indeed, the original idea of the show was to be Christmas songs a la Andy Williams or whatnot).
The Sun era's great too, and there's plenty of gems in the 'lost' years also. I'd even suggest that the film soundtracks have their moments and are due a reappraisal. the 'GI Blues' soundtrack, for instance, is quite a good album.
Chuck Berry's 'comeback' (from prison)...
...in '63 pre-dates that of Elvis.
There's some seminal stuff in Elvis' oeuvre, but you have to wade through an awful lot of sh*te to get to it.
My favourite Elvis moment:
Elvis...
I used to go to his birthday party every year on 8 January at Break for the Border... Lennon was right, before Elvis, there was nothing. Good piece in today's Grauniad by the Venerable Richard Williams about him coming out of the Army.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/04/elvis-presley-army-rocknroll
There's so much I love about Elvis.
I could listen to "Mystery Train", "Marie's The Name" and "Burnin' Love" on repeat for a fortnight and be happy. And much more besides - those are just close to being my favourite pieces of recorded music ever ever.
It is unfortunate though
that there is a contingent of Elvis fans, and I'm probably refering more to the late seventies early eighties here, who are a bit strange. They had Elvis plates on the wall, small figurines (including but not limited to Elvis) on a crammed mantelpiece, the dad had a quiff and a tartan bomber jacket with a furry collar and the house was untidy and smelled of bird food and cats.....or was that just the people i knew?
You are not wrong sir,
They go to American car rallys and have patches saying the south will rise again. It seems they want to live in an idealised vision of 50's America.
Odd people. (oh they often have a confederate flag in the garden too)
I love this tune...
The Next Step Is Love. It's corny and cheesy with some lyrical howlers ('we've yet to taste the icing on the cake / That we've been baking with the past') but the feel of it is wonderful. The musicianship is top-drawer and his voice is at its peak...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?videos=GcQ9l15F1PQ&v=QmsOdSC-A_Y
Aged about 10 or 11
....the charts were full of rock n roll revivalists like Showaddywaddy and Darts. I remember my nan saying "don't bother with that, listen to this" and gave me a 78 of Heartbreak Hotel which I still own. I've been an Elvis fan ever since.
I love all of it from Sun to 68 to That's The Way It Is.
I was lucky enough to work on Elvis Number 1s in a previous life and I've never been so excited about work.
If I Can Dream is definitely my favourite. The way his voice just about cracks at different points is perfect but I also love the simplicity of this.
I also love this from King Creole
Thanks for posting. Cheered me up no end.
I'm sure I shall get slaughtered,
But wasn't he a bit over-rated?
Give me Jerry Lee anyday.
Sometimes we forget the voice
and concentrate on his looks and the circus that surrounded his life.But that Voice..56 years later and this sounds so good.
Hound Dog, Hound Dog, Hound Dog
I love Elvis as well, and yes I agree the Sun stuff is a beautiful body of work.
But I always feel that the big gaping thing that everyone ignores is that his very best song is (in my humble opinion) Hound Dog. Has it become so ubiquitous that everyone has forgotten how great it is?
I can't think of another 45rpm single that leaps out of the speakers like this song. It sounds mighty even just blaring out of a little radio. There's something in the production of it that just sounds so tight and exciting: and rhythmically every instrument is pulling against every other instrument, so it rocks and swings and powers along all at the same time. Oh, it's a mighty mighty song.
The trouble with Elvis is that the age old cliche is true: he went soft and cabaret very quickly. Even the 68 comeback sounds a bit hokey to my ears.
But Hound Dog, oh the majestic Hound Dog. Can't get enough of it.
Interesting aside for musicologists: the melody of Hound Dog hangs on the bluesy halfnote between the major third and the minor third (or is it a flattened and unflattened third? Excuse my musical ineptitude). It's the note that goes: "You ain't nuthin but a..."
It's a very common note to hang a song on, and the very same note that drives Subterranean Homesick Blues: "Johnny's in the basement mixin up the medicine..."
See? Same melody.
The Problem with Elvis...
...is that he was utterly great for too short a time. To many people (and I include myself in this bunch) Elvis clearly peaked in his first few years but then there were far more years when his output is virtually unlistenable. By the time I was starting to listen to music seriously in the mid-seventies, Elvis was already an MOR monster, completely irrelevant. I've since taken the time to go back and listen to early Elvis and, of course, the contrast is huge, but the damage was done and to me, Elvis is just part of history - important, but short-lived and not someone whose music I've ever developed a sense of caring about.
Important, yes, but no more so and in some ways less so, than many of his contemporaries.
I know what you mean
There's only so much kitsch you can take, isn't there? And if you are a lover of Elvis you have to put up with the fact that the vast majority of the general public think you worship a fat guy in a white jumpsuit.
But where are the artists
who have been consistently great over decades? Obviously Elvis's golden period was the late 50s, but he did much that was great in the 60s and 70s as well.
I feel you are vastly underrating his impact. You say he was 'utterly great for too short a time' - isn't that a bit like saying Einstein never topped the General Theory of Relativity? By that reckoning, countless artists would be perceived as 'better' than Elvis because they were mediocre - never sweating profusely in a white jumpsuit but never inventing pop music either. I know which I prefer.
People seem quite selective on this 'only good for a few years' thing. Someone like Shane McGowan is routinely lauded as a genius despite hardly being able to string two words together for the past 20-odd years, while people like Elvis or McCartney are patronised. Seems strange to me.
It's all relative
I agree that a good innings for a musical performer can only be two or three years that they never scale the heights of again. But the problem with Elvis is the sheer ubiquity of his jumpsuit period: as an aural and visual shorthand it's a regrettably lazy cliche. So when I mean it's sad that he was only great for a few years, I just mean that it's sad that his cheesy stuff vastly outweighs his good stuff.
For the record, I have the same problem with Dylan, McCartney, Stones... almost everyone who didn't have the foresight to die young (sorry, morbid observation there). With Elvis the problem is just amplified by all those impersonators in those bloomin jumpsuits.
I was listening to the 'Complete Way It Is Concerts' box
a couple of weeks ago and he was a dynamite live performer in the Vegas years.
Elvis - Just Pre-Vegas
Just on the point of moving from '68 Elvis to the 70's caricature, he seemed to find a groove again. I can sit and listen to the PERFECT 40 minutes of "An Afternoon in the Garden" time and time again. From 70-72, Elvis was back. The first knockings of the jumpsuits, capes, jewellry and gaudy belts but by God was it entertaining.
The Wonder of You and An American Trilogy. Listen and weep. Genius.
Sing it fella's.
Sky Arts 1 tonight at 11pm...
... Elvis '56 Special.
It's been said before, and by me
But anyone remotely interested in Elvis, or in fame, or in the tragedy of his life should really read Peter Guralnick's two books on the subject. To get to the end of Careless Love is an exhausting recreation of living inside Elvis' very skin. A genuine tragedy, impeccably told, of the first person who was ever that famous.
Just a thought.
X-factor auditions.
Very good-looking boy with snaky hips and a quiff turns up. Plays guitar, sings pretty well. Shakes a bit.
Would Elvis make the same impression today? I think he would.
Simon Cowell would be salivating at the potential.
It's an interesting thought experiment
but I'm not so sure. I don't know why, but I just think the young Elvis would have the necessary "sheen" to succeed under Simon Cowell.
It would certainly have been a very different story anyway. The early Elvis recordings are all about the spontaneous talent of a few like-minded musicians happening to be on the same wavelength at the same time. The word "raw" comes to mind. Not something that would fit well with Pop Idol type stuff: Elvis would become a Vegas cabaret act far sooner, wouldn't he?
I've posted it before
but any excuse..
best vocal performance ever
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=elvis+tomorrow+is+a+long+tim...