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Post by rick on Feb 16, 2012 5:26:46 GMT -5
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Post by erik on Feb 16, 2012 13:59:37 GMT -5
Talk about an avalanche!
Only one complaint: It doesn't include that hysterically funny version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" from August 26, 1969, where the King breaks out in laughter. It's proof positive that the man knew how to make even the biggest onstage goof-up of his career look good.
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 17, 2012 1:07:27 GMT -5
Talk about an avalanche! Only one complaint: It doesn't include that hysterically funny version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" from August 26, 1969, where the King breaks out in laughter. It's proof positive that the man knew how to make even the biggest onstage goof-up of his career look good. The so called "laughing" version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" came about because Elvis noticed a man in the audience lose his toupee, sang that line "do you gaze at your bald head" (always thought it was 'body') adding "and wish you had hair?" and burst out laughing at his own joke. That might have been the end of it except that Whitney Houston's mom, Cissy Houston was doing the "ooh" solo in the background and that caused Elvis to break up even more. Elvis goofed and Cissy Houston carried on straight as you please. And he loved every second of it! I recall hearing one rock radio station in Kansas about 20 years ago, playing the laughing version of AYLT, with the DJs saying it was proof Elvis was high on drugs. Of course, the DJs being a little high themselves, I think, got the story wrong and said it was from Elvis's last TV special in 1977. Elvis's 1977 filmed performance of the song was an attempt at humor, although he wasn't as high on drugs as some people imagined as much as he was in ill health during that last tour. |
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Post by erik on Feb 17, 2012 9:51:42 GMT -5
Another point of note, this one regarding "Crying In The Chapel":
Elvis didn't feel he had captured the essence of the song quite like previous recordings of it by Darrell Glenn (whose father Artie had written it) or the Orioles, both of which were from 1953. And thanks to some typical Colonel jerrymandering over publishing rights, it wasn't until April 1965 that RCA even released it as a single. When they did, it became the King's biggest hit of the mid-1960s, getting to #3 on the Hot 100 (#1 in England), and topping the Adult Contemporary chart for seven straight weeks. It is arguably the most successful Gospel single in the history of the charts.
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 17, 2012 11:45:42 GMT -5
Another point of note, this one regarding "Crying In The Chapel": Elvis didn't feel he had captured the essence of the song quite like previous recordings of it by Darrell Glenn (whose father Artie had written it) or the Orioles, both of which were from 1953. And thanks to some typical Colonel jerrymandering over publishing rights, it wasn't until April 1965 that RCA even released it as a single. When they did, it became the King's biggest hit of the mid-1960s, getting to #3 on the Hot 100 (#1 in England), and topping the Adult Contemporary chart for seven straight weeks. It is arguably the most successful Gospel single in the history of the charts. When I was 17, I read Jerry Hopkins's 1971 biography on Elvis and recall that it said "Crying in the Chapel" had been withheld for release by RCA for some unnamed reason for five years. Parker's greediness with regards to music publishing wasn't even known to the public at the time, yet I think the commonly held belief of the time was that the original music publisher objected to Elvis recording the song and refused to issue a mechanical license to RCA to officially authorize the song's release. RCA had been through a similar problem before when Elvis recorded his version of "White Christmas," although in that situation, the publisher (Irving Berlin Music) authorized the song's release but the composer (Irving Berlin) objected and wanted all copies pulled from the stores and destroyed. These days, it seems more plausible that what kept "Crying in the Chapel" from being released was Parker's obsession to get the publishing on the song. However, it also seems implausible that Parker would've battled with the original music publisher for five years trying to get the publishing, only to then throw in the towel and surrender. Incidentally, Darrell Glenn wrote the song "Indescribaly Blue," which Elvis recorded and which was said to have sold two million records in 1967, yet according to Billboard, barely made it into the Top 40. Along with his father Artie, plus Mae Axton and her son Hoyt Axton, they hold a unique distinction of being songwriters related as parent and offspring who all wrote songs Elvis recorded. There isn't a lot of examples where that happened with rock but where it did happen, more often than not, the songwriter was rellated to the artist or group member - such as Linda's father writing "Lo Siento Mi Vida" with his daughter or Buddy Holly's mother writing "Maybe Baby." Holly's mother didn't want the writing credit, insisting that Buddy take the credit. Buddy's manager-producer, Norman Petty had no objection to that idea and even insisted on giving himself half of the songwriting credit. After Parker, Petty would be among the candidates for worst manager. Maybe even worse than Parker as he not only had the publishing, he also put his name on the credits on a lot of Buddy's songs, and even omitted Buddy's name, Jerry Allison's name and Joe Mauldin's name from songs they wrote and gave the credits to himself and others who had nothing to do with them. Only in rock and roll! |
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Post by erik on Feb 17, 2012 14:34:30 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker re. "Indescribably Blue":
Now of course, when "Indescribably Blue" was released as a single in January 1967, the competition for airplay was far stiffer than it had been even three years before, just prior to when the Beatles arrived in America. The song peaked at #33 on the Hot 100, but it did incredibly well on the Adult Contemporary (or Easy Listening) chart. When combined with international sales, it's not hard to imagine Elvis getting million-selling hits that didn't necessarily place very high on the charts in the US.
It should be said that this song came from the same 1966 sessions at RCA's Nashville studio that yielded "Love Letters" (the 1962 Ketty Lester hit that Elvis took to #19); "If Every Day Was Christmas"; and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" that Dylan to this day rates as one of his favorite covers of his material. Elvis was slowly but surely working his way back from the Purgatory that the Colonel had put him in.
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 18, 2012 2:26:49 GMT -5
Now of course, when "Indescribably Blue" was released as a single in January 1967, the competition for airplay was far stiffer than it had been even three years before, just prior to when the Beatles arrived in America. The song peaked at #33 on the Hot 100, but it did incredibly well on the Adult Contemporary (or Easy Listening) chart. When combined with international sales, it's not hard to imagine Elvis getting million-selling hits that didn't necessarily place very high on the charts in the US. It should be said that this song came from the same 1966 sessions at RCA's Nashville studio that yielded "Love Letters" (the 1962 Ketty Lester hit that Elvis took to #19); "If Every Day Was Christmas"; and a cover of Bob Dylan's "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" that Dylan to this day rates as one of his favorite covers of his material. Elvis was slowly but surely working his way back from the Purgatory that the Colonel had put him in. It seemed incredibly difficult for Elvis to get a huge Top 40 hit in the mid 60 before the '68 comeback special. The problems for "Indescribably Blue" was great song though it was, (a) that it sounded like it belonged from an earlier time than 1967, and (b) it was a regional hit, more popular in certain areas of the country than in other parts of the country. Yet, it still seems ludicrous that the record could do no better than 33 while you had things like "Winchester Cathedral" (which sounded straight out of the 1920s) and "Georgie GirL" which sounded dated the moment it was released, doing incredibly well. I'm kind of surprised RCA didn't go for releasing Elvis's version of "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" as a single, pulling it from its position as a bonus track on the "Spinout" soundtrack and making it (at the time) a non-album single. Of course, the RCA corporate suits probably would've freaked over the song's five minute plus run time but for Elvis, it would've been a bold move. I think radio would have reacted favorably to Elvis singing Dylan, more favorably than what they did with "Love Letters" or the double sided hit "Big Boss Man" and "You Don't Know Me." It would've been Elvis covering a contemporary songwriter of the times rather than dipping into Parker's bag of soundtrack songs (not all bad but few worth the trouble to release as a single) or hoping for gold with a remake of an old tune from the past. |
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Post by erik on Feb 18, 2012 12:33:35 GMT -5
Well Elvis and producer Felton Jarvis really intended "Big Boss Man", "You Don't Know Me", and other songs from that Nashville session of September 1967 (and a subsequent one in January 1968) for a straight-ahead non-movie album release; but because there weren't enough songs on the CLAMBAKE soundtrack, someone (most likely the Colonel) decided to shoehorn those songs there instead. God knows that "Big Boss Man", a perfectly good Jimmy Reed blues number that Elvis was so at home with, should have been a far bigger hit than it was (it topped out at #38 in November 1967). A number of years ago, however, RCA did decide to release a lot of that stuff that Elvis recorded between 1966 and early 1968 for the compilation release Tomorrow Is A Long Time; and while I can't vouch for its availability (try Amazon), it is well worth seeking out if you can find it. I know for sure that there ain't no "Queenie Wahine's Papaya" on it.  |
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 19, 2012 0:25:33 GMT -5
Well Elvis and producer Felton Jarvis really intended "Big Boss Man", "You Don't Know Me", and other songs from that Nashville session of September 1967 (and a subsequent one in January 1968) for a straight-ahead non-movie album release; but because there weren't enough songs on the CLAMBAKE soundtrack, someone (most likely the Colonel) decided to shoehorn those songs there instead. God knows that "Big Boss Man", a perfectly good Jimmy Reed blues number that Elvis was so at home with, should have been a far bigger hit than it was (it topped out at #38 in November 1967). A number of years ago, however, RCA did decide to release a lot of that stuff that Elvis recorded between 1966 and early 1968 for the compilation release Tomorrow Is A Long Time; and while I can't vouch for its availability (try Amazon), it is well worth seeking out if you can find it. I know for sure that there ain't no "Queenie Wahine's Papaya" on it. Many of Elvis's movie soundtrack albums started coming up short (of material) big time around 1966 and because RCA had to have an album, they raided the vaults for unreleased recordings or previously released recordings that were never featured on an album. Strangely, there were always stories about unreleased movie soundtracks songs that could've been included as the "bonus" material, yet if they existed (and some did), RCA rejected the recordings in favor of the using the non-soundtrack songs. It would've made more sense to have used the movie soundtrack songs that were cut from the movie as the bonus material on the soundtrack albums, and issue the non-soundtrack songs as a stand alone album. But, I seriously think Parker or RCA or both feared the idea that if a non-movie soundtrack album should be more successful than a movie soundtrack album, that Elvis would want to forego the movie soundtracks and focus on regular recording efforts. Both had an interest in preseringn the status quo: for Parker, he had 100% of the publishing on most of the songs, and for RCA, it meant they had no problem filling the requirement that Elvis record and release four or five new albums every year. Taking their cue from "The Lost Album"/"Long Lonely Highway"/"Elvis Sings Memphis, Tennessee," (all essentially the same album), the Follow That Dream/BMG label collected the 1966-67 regular studio session songs that were parsed out onto the movie soundtracks as bonus material and issued them last year as the two disc-set "Elvis Sings Guitar Man." You get the songs that were originally released in the 60s, along with numerous alternate outtakes. "The Lost Album, Vol. 2," if you will - or volume three, if you consider the soundtrack CD for "Viva Las Vegas" to be another "lost" album. |
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Post by rick on Feb 19, 2012 0:50:08 GMT -5
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Post by sliderocker on Feb 25, 2012 0:35:52 GMT -5
It's ironic that Mother Dolores was kind of in the same boat as what fake nun Mary Tyler Moore was in Elvis's last acting role, "Change of Habit." She had a boyfriend whom she gave up to be a nun and from what I understand, the boyfriend never found or married someone else. Another strange irony is that Mother Dolores has always spoken very kindly about Elvis but never in a way to suggest they had been boyfriend and girlfriend at one time, which I think they were actually. She showed up in some of Elvis's home movies - home as in home in Memphis, not Hollywood. The two of them made for an attractive couple but I'm guessing the reason their relationship never went any further wasn't because she decided to become a nun but because Parker didn't want Elvis getting married. He feared Elvis being married would've sent all of his female fans away to some other teen idol star. |
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