Elvis: CD Review

[rick]

theseconddisc.com/2012/01/03/review-elvis-presley-elvis-country-legacy-edition/

The Second Disc

Review: Elvis Presley, “Elvis Country: Legacy Edition”

By Joe Marchese

The title of Elvis Presley’s 1969 double album said it all: From Memphis to Vegas, or if you turned the jacket over, From Vegas to Memphis. Both sides of the singer were on display both on the album and in its title: the superstar showman who had triumphed at Las Vegas’ International Hotel and the onetime Sun Records prodigy who’d periodically returned to his R&B roots. Though no studio album was released in 1970, the singer returned in January 1971 with Elvis Country: I’m 10,000 Years Old, and again the artist was addressing his roots, though with some decidedly contemporary flourishes. Nicely coinciding with the album’s 41st anniversary, RCA and Legacy Recordings have paired Elvis Country with its follow-up, 1972’s Love Letters from Elvis. Love Letters was drawn from the same four days of Nashville sessions as Elvis Country, making for a particularly effective entry in the current series of Legacy Editions for the Presley catalogue. (Still more tracks from this studio marathon were utilized for the soundtrack of Elvis: That’s The Way It Is, which itself could be a contender for another upgrade down the road.)

The concept behind the Legacy Editions is a simple one: pair two related albums in one package, adding related singles, outtakes and ephemera, but largely avoiding the alternate takes that are the bread and butter of Follow That Dream, the Internet/mail-order Elvis-only collectors’ label. The Legacy Editions have been remarkably effective in streamlining the often-confusing state of Presley’s basic compact disc catalogue, and Elvis Country: Legacy Edition (88697 90439-2, 2012) is no exception.

Considering the furor which greeted Presley’s rise to national prominence, it’s remarkable from a contemporary vantage point that many of the singer’s earliest, most muscular recordings could today be considered as much country as rock and roll. The future King always paid respect to his Southern heritage in song, and so Elvis Country would be marked with deep soul and gospel intensity, even if filtered through the outsized presence commanded the stage at the International nightly in glittery jumpsuits. Befitting the famous “Nashville sound” pioneered at RCA, Presley’s band (James Burton, Chip Young and Charlie Hodge on guitar, Norbert Putnam on bass, Jerry Carrigan on drums, David Briggs on piano, Charlie McCoy on organ and harmonica) was supplemented with overdubbed musicians, with Burton, Carrigan, McCoy and Briggs all returning to participate in the overdubs themselves. (Burton, Young and McCoy were all familiar to Elvis, and Putnam, Briggs and Carrigan arrived via Muscle Shoals!) When Elvis joined these musicians for four days of recording in June 1970, he hadn’t set foot in a recording studio since March 1969 when he recorded tracks for Change of Habit, the film in which he starred opposite a post-Dick Van Dyke Show Mary Tyler Moore as a nun. Not surprisingly, though, Elvis returned to Nashville like a fish getting back to water. The resulting album would be derived from the June sessions and one night in September which yielded four tracks: “Snowbird” and “Whole Lot-ta [sic] Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and “Where Did They Go Lord” and “Rags to Riches,” two single sides also included on the Legacy Edition.

The modern touches applied by nominal producer Felton Jarvis are apparent from the start of Elvis Country and suit the naturally deeper voice Presley had acquired by this point. An electric sitar figures prominently on the opening cover of Anne Murray’s “Snowbird,” written by Gene McLellan. It’s the same instrument familiar from B.J. Thomas’ “Hooked on a Feeling” or many of Thom Bell’s best Philadelphia soul productions. “Snowbird” segues rather jarringly into the first of many snippets of the old traditional tune “I Was Born 10,000 Years Ago.” This song, with its raucous and rollicking beat, is woven between the album’s tracks to create one of the most pronounced “conceptual” touches on any Presley album. Was the singer commenting on how integral these songs are to the musical firmament? The complete recording was originally released on 1972’s Elvis Now and is included here as a bonus track.

The bolero rhythm of “Tomorrow Never Comes” isn’t typical country-and-western, though it was adopted from Glen Campbell’s recording of the Ernest Tubb composition. Elvis brings the song home with a booming gospel choir, big notes and even bigger passion a bit redolent of his 1968 rouser “If I Can Dream,” which also managed to be both singularly heartfelt and bombastic. Freewheeling, up-tempo tracks make the strongest impression, such as a tough, reworked “Whole Lot-ta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” which replaces Jerry Lee Lewis’ famous piano licks with furious guitar interplay and a vocal that finds Elvis shedding a few years in the process! He’s carried away as he admonishes drummer Jerry Carrigan to “take it out, Jerry! Take it out!” as the track draws to a close. Joe Babcock’s “I Washed My hands in Muddy Water” becomes another brisk, lean rocker in Elvis’ hands. On the bluesy take of Lee Hazlewood’s “The Fool” (credited to Hazlewood’s then-wife, Naomi Ford), you might have to turn your stereo up to hear Elvis’ conspiratorially whispered vocal!

The singer was equally comfortable with the ballads, however. Hank Cochran’s “Make the World Go Away” is a big AM-ready production drenched in strings, though Elvis’ strong vocal is still out front. It’s a mystery as to why this track wasn’t selected as a single. (Dallas Frazier’s “There Goes My Everything” and the Barnes/Robertson “I Really Don’t Want to Know” were the choices instead.) A sweet, tender and affecting one-take reading of Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away” is accented by Briggs’ lilting piano fills and Burton’s guitar. It’s said that the idea of a country album germinated when Elvis and his team realized the kind of groove the band had been creating in the studio, and there are many vivid instrumental contributions. The virtuoso Burton brings his distinct dobro to Shirl Milete’s “It’s Your Baby, You Rock It,” and Buddy Spicher’s overdubbed fiddle graces the sensitive “Little Cabin on the Hill.”

In addition to the full “10,000 Years Ago,” Elvis Country is expanded with a brief, frenetic studio jam of Flatt and Scruggs’ “A Hundred Years From Now” first issued on The Essential ‘70s Masters box set, and another Dallas Frazier song, “Where Did They Go, Lord,” the non-LP single. Hit the jump to receive some Love Letters from Elvis!

Love Letters from Elvis was built largely around the unused material from Elvis Country and lacks the consistency of the prior release. While it’s without a question the lesser album, it’s a solid companion, emphasizing (out of necessity) the singer’s softer side, though far from exclusively. The title song, a 1945 movie song by Victor Young and Edward Heyman, was already a hit for Elvis in a 1966 version; though the voice was rather more burnished by this point, he managed to sing it in 1970 in the same key and with a very similar arrangement. He’s likewise gentle on Fred Karger, Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman’s “I’ll Never Know.”

British songwriter Geoff Stephens (“Winchester Cathedral,” “A Kind of Hush”) contributed two songs. The brassy, Tom Jones-flavored “Heart of Rome” features Elvis belting out its big melody, replete with La-la-la-la-las, while “This is Our Dance” is a thinly-veiled rewrite of Engelbert Humperdinck’s “The Last Waltz” which was written in part by Stephens’ co-writer Les Reed. “This is Our Dance” hardly matched the success of that song, and is devoid of even a snatch of Southern soul. But it makes for an enjoyable MOR diversion. (Stephens’ “Sylvia,” also co-written with Reed, appears here as a bonus track, having first premiered on Elvis Now.) A diversion of another sort came from “Got My Mojo Working” (incorporating a bit of “Keep Your Hands Off Of It”) on which Elvis certainly does, as well as from “Cindy, Cindy,” an incendiary rockabilly number given a makeover with an unstoppable drum beat, harmonica, horns and of course, James Burton’s typically smoking guitar.

Shirl Milete, whose “It’s Your Baby, Rock It” appeared on Elvis Country, further benefited from The King’s patronage with two more tracks on Love Letters including the twangy “When I’m Over You” and the grandiose and unusual single “Life.” The spacey, quasi-spiritual anthem (“Somewhere out in empty space, long before the human race/Something stirred, a vast and timeless source began/Intelligence was born and then, there was the world…”) was hardly standard fare for Elvis. The experiment doesn’t exactly work, and sits uncomfortably next to the stronger titles, concerned with either love or lust. But nobody could accuse Elvis of not throwing himself into the song, and his vocal is far from a detached one.

In addition to “Sylvia,” two more 1971 single sides have been added to the Love Letters line-up: Elvis’ full-voiced take on the Tony Bennett favorite “Rags to Riches,” composed by Richard Adler of Damn Yankees and The Pajama Game fame, and The Sound of Your Cry” by the Brill Building team of Bill Giant, Bernie Baum and Florence Kaye. The Giant/Baum/Kaye team was one of the most frequent suppliers of songs for Elvis, and also penned songs for artists ranging from Lou Johnson to The Everly Brothers.

As with all of the Presley Legacy Editions, the albums are presented in their best sound yet of the CD era. Vic Anesini has remastered beautifully, bringing out the nuances in each track. It’s too bad that room couldn’t be found for the dedicated mono single mixes of these albums’ related singles, but the package is otherwise a solid accounting of this period. Stuart Colman contributes a strong essay about each of the two included albums, discussing each song and performance in detail. The familiar orange RCA labels grace each CD, and you’ll find the front and back covers of each album reproduced. The original poster enclosed with Elvis Country is also reprinted under the trays of the digipak, and there are full color photographs a-plenty. Unfortunately, in keeping with recent custom, this Legacy Edition isn’t slipcased.

It’s always tempting to wonder what might have emerged had Elvis Presley teamed with a visionary producer of the LP era, free from Colonel Parker’s influence. Ah, the might-have-beens! But with so many of Presley’s albums simply collections of disparate songs, however great, Elvis Country is a welcome change of pace. Emotions run high and the strains of Tennessee and Mississippi flow in the veins of these recordings. Elvis Presley may have affirmed “I’m 10,000 Years Old” on the original LP, and in fact, he only lived to 42. But a fitting epigram might be a toast borrowed from Frank Sinatra: “May you live to be 100, and may the last voice you hear be mine.” With the sweet sounds of Elvis Country still resonating, that might not be such a bad way to go.

[sliderocker]

Great review but just a minor point about "Elvis Country:" the song "I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago" as originally heard on "Elvis Country" was Elvis's way of letting the fans know about the mood he was in as regards his music career. Problem was, I don't think many fans picked up on that theme and rather than directing his thought at the fans, he should've directed those thoughts towards his manager, Col. Parker. Not that it would've done a lot of good but Parker was the root cause of most of Elvis's misery in the recording studio in the late 60s and 70s. Overall the album was one of Elvis's best albums although the deluxe edition misses a couple of important tracks: the very different, almost mystical "I'm Leavin'" and the rocker "It's Only Love," which was marred by the unnecessary overdubbing of horns and strings. Both songs deserved a better showing on the charts than what they did; in fact, all of Elvis's 1971 singles should've did better in the charts than what they did.

[erik]

Part of the problem that Elvis had in finding songs suitable for himself, especially after 1969, was that the Colonel and his minions insisted on being cut in for as much as 50% on a song's worth; and by that time, most songwriters were not only not willing to do it, they didn't have to. The worst case involved "Suspicious Minds", because neither Mark James (who wrote it) nor Chips Moman (who produced the recording that Elvis did) were willing to fork over anything to the Colonel. This is why, despite the King's success with Moman, the two never worked together again.

Realistically, the Colonel (who was not only not a Colonel, but probably even in the U.S. illegally, from Holland, which explains why Elvis never toured outside America) had outlived his time by 1964, when the Beatles had the kinds of record sales that Elvis used to have. The later times when Elvis had anything approaching the sort of success he had in his Glory Years were when he was challenged to give everything he had, like on the 1968 NBC Special, the Chips Moman sessions; the Madison Square Garden shows of 1972, and Aloha From Hawaii in 1973. The Colonel, unfortunately, never allowed him to be who he really was; and even with all the great music he made throughout his career, that, in and of itself, is a loss for the world (IMHO).

[sliderocker]

Jan 3, 2012 23:20:45 GMT -5 erik said:

Part of the problem that Elvis had in finding songs suitable for himself, especially after 1969, was that the Colonel and his minions insisted on being cut in for as much as 50% on a song's worth; and by that time, most songwriters were not only not willing to do it, they didn't have to. The worst case involved "Suspicious Minds", because neither Mark James (who wrote it) nor Chips Moman (who produced the recording that Elvis did) were willing to fork over anything to the Colonel. This is why, despite the King's success with Moman, the two never worked together again.

Realistically, the Colonel (who was not only not a Colonel, but probably even in the U.S. illegally, from Holland, which explains why Elvis never toured outside America) had outlived his time by 1964, when the Beatles had the kinds of record sales that Elvis used to have. The later times when Elvis had anything approaching the sort of success he had in his Glory Years were when he was challenged to give everything he had, like on the 1968 NBC Special, the Chips Moman sessions; the Madison Square Garden shows of 1972, and Aloha From Hawaii in 1973. The Colonel, unfortunately, never allowed him to be who he really was; and even with all the great music he made throughout his career, that, in and of itself, is a loss for the world (IMHO).

Parker's way of running things on Elvis's behalf (allegedly) were utterly ridiculuous. After he had chased away every respectable songwriter who was willing to write for Elvis, he began badgering other music publishers and songwriters for half of their publishing. Towards the end, he was still in there trying for at least a 25% share on a song already published. He could've had all of the publishing if he had left alone the songwriters who wrote for Elvis. The debacle on "Suspicious Minds" proved just how out of touch Parker was. That he was willing to sacrifice what would be a number one song because he couldn't get part of the publishing just staggers the mind. But, the irony of that incident was perhaps rendered moot just a few short years later when Chips Moman sold his Press music publishing catalog to Screen Gems-Columbia Music.

I've always felt that Parker outlived his usefulness to Elvis pretty early on, when he started controlling the artistic direction in Elvis's life, whether it was with the recordings or in the movies. The early movies weren't really bad when you compare them with the star vehicle movies certain other actors were doing. The movie rot set in the early to mid-60s with "Kissin' Cousins" being a harbinger of what was to come. Presley made some fair films after that movie but then the low quality movies began coming one after the other. Sadly, the films probably did well enough to keep them coming. Hollywood will ride a genre until the public tires of it. But, I think the critics would've been willing to overlook those movies if some of the soundtracks had offered good, quality songs. Some did offer a few good songs but the good was few and far between, with the poor to the extermely mediocre ("Ito Eats" and "Dominique," a song about a bull that Elvis never wanted released in his lifetime, being two of the worst examples) dominating, and the poor movie scripts, along with the publishing hassles in the studio and overbooking on the concerts provided Elvis with justification for getting rid of Parker. Why didn't he? I've always felt that if his faith in Parker was badly shaken, that it was possible that Parker had made it impossible for Elvis to trust anyone else to be his manager. How could he trust someone else to do what Parker could not do and would not do? Faar worse, what if someone else was not only as bad as Parker but actually worse as a manager? Many managers pointed to Parker as an example of the manager they wanted to emulate. For any performer, that's pretty scary when you realize that Elvis was like the protagonist in "Suspicious Minds," caught in a trap and he couldn't walk out. Not because of love but because he didn't know which way to turn or who to trust.

[erik]

Still, one has to admit that, for all those terrible movies he made after coming home from the Army (you can make a case for BLUE HAWAII and VIVA LAS VEGAS for being the two better ones), and the frequently terrible songs from those films, when he got a hold of a truly great song that he could feel in him, he let it all out. "Suspicious Minds" is a great example, of course; but there was also "In The Ghetto", "If I Can Dream", "Kentucky Rain"; "Don't Cry Daddy"; "The Wonder Of You", and many others.

In terms of Elvis Country, although I think parts of it are kind of bombastic, his version of "I Really Don't Want To Know" is a tremendous bit of turning a great country standard into an R&B-style number; and it is that forceful combination of C&W and R&B that the King integrated into the musical conscience of us all. Like I said, when he got a hold of something he believed in, he made us believe in it too, which is at the heart of his greatness (IMHO).

[sliderocker]

Jan 5, 2012 23:05:15 GMT -5 erik said:

Still, one has to admit that, for all those terrible movies he made after coming home from the Army (you can make a case for BLUE HAWAII and VIVA LAS VEGAS for being the two better ones), and the frequently terrible songs from those films, when he got a hold of a truly great song that he could feel in him, he let it all out. "Suspicious Minds" is a great example, of course; but there was also "In The Ghetto", "If I Can Dream", "Kentucky Rain"; "Don't Cry Daddy"; "The Wonder Of You", and many others.

In terms of Elvis Country, although I think parts of it are kind of bombastic, his version of "I Really Don't Want To Know" is a tremendous bit of turning a great country standard into an R&B-style number; and it is that forceful combination of C&W and R&B that the King integrated into the musical conscience of us all. Like I said, when he got a hold of something he believed in, he made us believe in it too, which is at the heart of his greatness (IMHO).

I can't argue with anything here. It's all spot on. As for the movies, I also consider "Flaming Star" to be a better movie than it's generally given credit for being, and the near the end movie (the mistitled) "The Trouble with Girls (And How to Get Into It)" (sounded like a soft porn movie) was another movie that was wrongfully dismissed by the critics as typical Presley fluff. "Roustabout" was actually planned for production in 1960 but I don't know if Elvis had been set to star in that version. What I do know is that the original story line and script were much darker than the movie produced in 1964. I've never seen or read the original story and script but it's said Elvis probably would've preferred filming the 1960 script to the 1964 script. I got the impression his character in the original script wasn't quite so nice.

As for EC, I find it easy to overlook the bombastic parts of the original album. I'm not sure I'd call it a true country album, more like a pop album of country songs with some considerable rock and R&B shadings to them. Some of the songs that followed EC on "Love Letters from Elvis" probably would've been more at home on EC than on LLFE, yet some of those songs would've weakened the original EC album because even though they had the same musicians playing on them, the twelve songs that made up the original album sounded like a different group of musicians was being used. One almost suspects the musicians had grown bored or tired but some of the songs were recorded at the same time as the songs that made up EC, not to mention the studio recordings of the songs for the "Elvis: That's the Way It Is" soundtrack album. LLFE needed stronger songs to help make it into a better album but RCA unfortunately kept those songs off the album in favor of making them non-album singles.

[erik]

Another thing the Colonel did that was kind of demoralizing was that some very good songs that Elvis did were put onto the soundtracks of some of those movies where they clearly didn't belong; witness the Jimmy Reed blues classic "Big Boss Man" placed on the CLAMBAKE soundtrack (it only got up to #38 in November 1967, and deserved far better [IMHO]), or the Mac Davis-penned "Clean Up Your Own Backyard" (from THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS; it stalled at #35 in August 1969). It's kind of a perverse way of thinking to me--putting some of the best stuff Elvis was doing in the studio at the time onto the soundtracks of movies that would embarrass almost any other rock and roll heavyweight.

With respect to "Life", which was a minor hit for Elvis in 1971, I think the grandiosity of that song lies in the fact that it was a kind of gospel ballad more than anything else; and gospel was a style that the King excelled at, even if his lifestyle by that time was in such total contradiction. Like a bit too much of his later material, it is a bit over-arranged, but the statement he sings about is that of humility and love, rather than some half-a**ed televangelist walking the land in sack cloth and ashes preaching the Armageddon.

[sliderocker]

Jan 6, 2012 22:42:23 GMT -5 erik said:

Another thing the Colonel did that was kind of demoralizing was that some very good songs that Elvis did were put onto the soundtracks of some of those movies where they clearly didn't belong; witness the Jimmy Reed blues classic "Big Boss Man" placed on the CLAMBAKE soundtrack (it only got up to #38 in November 1967, and deserved far better [IMHO]), or the Mac Davis-penned "Clean Up Your Own Backyard" (from THE TROUBLE WITH GIRLS; it stalled at #35 in August 1969). It's kind of a perverse way of thinking to me--putting some of the best stuff Elvis was doing in the studio at the time onto the soundtracks of movies that would embarrass almost any other rock and roll heavyweight.

With respect to "Life", which was a minor hit for Elvis in 1971, I think the grandiosity of that song lies in the fact that it was a kind of gospel ballad more than anything else; and gospel was a style that the King excelled at, even if his lifestyle by that time was in such total contradiction. Like a bit too much of his later material, it is a bit over-arranged, but the statement he sings about is that of humility and love, rather than some half-a**ed televangelist walking the land in sack cloth and ashes preaching the Armageddon.

Part of the problem with the album soundtracks for Elvis's movies was RCA and Col. Greed didn't have enough movie songs to make up an album, so they raided from the songs Elvis recorded with the intention of releasing a regular studio album. Problem solved; what Elvis wanted didn't figure into the equation. FTD recently released a collection of the 1966-67 nonsoundtrack songs onto a CD called "Guitar Man," which is probably the album that would've been released circa 1967 if RCA hadn't used the tracks to complete the soundtrack albums.

I agree that "Big Boss Man" deserved far better than a chart showing of 38 but I've always been leery of the Billboard chart rankings because of that magazine factoring radio airplay into their chart make-up. Elvis had some million sellers in the 60s and 70s that didn't do so well on the singles charts, and that sometimes outsold the records that were in the Top 10. One single from 1967, "Indescribaly Blue," reportedly sold two million copies yet its best showing in Billboard was only 33? Unfortunately, the single's radio airplay was primarily limited to the southeastern part of the US with not enough stations elsewhere adding the song to their playlists. The song was a big ballad, a much better song than many of the songs found on the soundtracks at the time.

Likewise, "Clean Up Your Own Backyard," good song that should've done better in the charts than what it did do, given it came in the middle of Elvis's string of hits from the Memphis sessions. Maybe that was the problem as the song wasn't part of the songs recorded in Memphis. I can't recall if the song was recorded at the RCA studios or the MGM studios in L.A. Its attempting to be hip lyrics certainly fit in with the 1960s but the song didn't fit in with a movie about a 1920s Chautauqua travelling show. The movie probably helped a little on the sales but I think RCA wrote the song off as another movie soundtrack song, even though it was written by Mac Davis and Billy Strange.

"Life" had kind of an outer spacey feel to it, making it one of the strangest Elvis recordings ever to be released. Maybe new age before new age ever existed. I don't think Elvis was quite so taken with the song as he groused in the studio that the song was as long as life itself, but he must've saw some potential in the song as he didn't give up on recording a suitable version. It was still a better tune than some of the songs that made up the "Elvis Now" album. That album seemed to be RCA and Parker trying to cobble an album together from whatever leftovers they could find.

At the time, I thought it would've made good sense at the time to have gathered the non-album songs from 1971 and use them to strengthen up the "Love Letters from Elvis" and the EN albums. Far better to have done that than the nightmare Parker put together in 1972, using Elvis's biggest hits ("burning Love," "Separate Ways" and their B-sides) to anchor two budget albums featuring old movie soundtrack songs and old studio songs.

Of course, part of the problem was that Elvis was repeating history, but this time by not recording enough studio songs to make up an album. Parker hadn't hit on the idea of using concert recordings as regular album tracks but that was around the time that Parker was hassling songwriters and publishers for a 25% interest on the publishing, so it's likely Elvis lost interest and gave RCA what they had up to that time. Given "Burning Love" became Elvis's biggest hit since "Suspicious Minds" three years eariler, RCA might have been able to have done more for Elvis with an album of all new songs than an album of almost all old songs riding on the coattails of the hit singles. Surprising they didn't side with Elvis more often as he knew how to give them what they wanted: hits! Parker only knew how to give them the short end of the stick!