Elvis in Concert

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by genesim, Sep 13, 2017.

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  1. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    St. Louis
    I know. That is a killer...but it does start out the whole bluray set with Thats All Right.

    I see that I missed the repeat of Thats When Your Heartaches Begin on All Shook Up...that is about 300+ tracks I gotta renumber. Lol. Strangely I consider the first version to be the "master" because the RCA one was not a hit.

    That and it has a better abrupt ending.

    Here is one to consider. Is Hey Jude a true master or almost an incomplete rehearsal/snippet like I Shall Be Released? With the messed up words and no multiple takes it might be one worth leaving off...that and it kinda sucks.

    However I have appreciated the discussion and cases for leaving any songs on. I hope I don't sound too pompous with my "rules". It has been a journey.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2017
  2. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    I just wish the King didn't go out on such a low note, relatively speaking. I'm not wishing he died sooner, by any means, but his legacy might be so much better if he had died say, right after Aloha in Hawaii. The imagery of the 'fat, washed up' Vegas Elvis wouldn't exist. He had just had his last major hit with Burning Love, was in terrific shape, and sounded great. In a spiritual sense, I think Elvis DID die in 1973. I don't think he was ever the same after Priscilla left. It's not a coincidence to me that his decline into using drugs full-time and the weight gain and his descent into reclusive paranoia all began happening right around the time of their divorce being finalized.
     
  3. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    St. Louis
    I just bought the crappy version, but I may seek it out because of sound quality.

    Xxxxxxxx

    Capatain Leo I didn't want him to die. He was far from washed up. He did plenty of great stuff after 1973. I can't imagine. There is nothing wrong with fat. That often happens as one ages as I am sure you know.

    Elvis just needed off the drugs, but I think you are right about his divorce
     
  4. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Well, put it this way, had Jarvis not been desperate for material and willing to release almost any scrap of a salvageable song, Elvis' indifferent, unfinished attempt at "Hey Jude" would have remained in the vaults along with things like "I Shall Be Released" and "Lady Madonna" until they were finally resuscitated and issued on box sets 20 years after the fact as rarities. It is not a proper master.
     
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  5. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    St. Louis
    Hey Jude is the best of 3 as far as released/completed form...but yeah not proper. It just may go. You have convinced me.
     
  6. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    None of the 4 amateur Sun sides were masters nor hits. The RCA version of That's When Your Heartaches Begin WAS a hit, albeit a minor one. The Sun When It Rains was unfinished. The RCA one was a finished product although Elvis was not all that happy with it. The dry version (not the reverb laden one found on the 60CD box) sounds damned good to me. The Sun version is another throw away. I would suspect had he remained at Sun a bit longer, it would have been revisited, maybe even the flip side to Tryin' To Get To You.
     
  7. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Elvis' downward spiral circa 1973 was due to a lot more than his divorce. It has been well documented that he was essentially forced into his marriage, suggested a separation during Priscilla's pregnancy, refused to have a physical relationship with Priscilla after the birth of their daughter, and had numerous extramarital affairs (as well as numerous dalliances leading up to the marriage). Issues of a bruised ego, custody concerns, Priscilla's willingness to find new romantic partners, and financial repercussions weighed heavily on Elvis -- rather than a sense of lost love. Nevertheless, the emotional and psychological stress from divorce proceedings weighed heavy on him as he entered a period of clinical depression and extreme pharmaceutical abuse.

    As far as Elvis "dying" in 1973, he almost did during a serious overdose in St. Louis in June 1973. One can only imagine how different his legacy would be just months after Aloha had he passed away in 1973, rather than 1977.
     
  8. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Maybe his image would not have been almost destroyed like is has with the damned impersonators!
     
  9. CowboyBill

    CowboyBill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah
    This is a touchy thing. While I do agree that I wish the last 2 years didn't happen. I just wish he would've stopped doing the rhinestone Vegas thing after Aloha. Where could he go after that? He needed a change and time to dry out. Some entourage members have said that he did dry out on several occasions but started back up with a tour or run of Vegas shows. He needed to take a couple years off and refresh himself if you ask me.

    Sorry to be off topic here.
     
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  10. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    St. Louis
    Yeah this one is an example of my exception. First my OCD says...3 left on, but one left off? Those songs are too good to me to leave off.

    The later version is like a been there done that thing. He never truly got it perfect, but there is an honesty with the first recording.
     
  11. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    Let me ask you something - you seem to know more about the man than I do. But did he love her? I mean "Elvis and Priscilla" is kind of a trope in pop culture for a power couple...I figured he was forced into marrying her, but wasn't he the one who aggressively (I don't mean in a negative way, but in terms of pure infatuation) pursued her in Germany? I know he wanted to have Mike Stone killed. I've read as Elvis began sinking deeper into addiction, he began to exhibit more and more violent fantasies...Learning that saddened me. Putting a contract out on Mike Stone only to rescind it at the last minute, learning the names of the top local drug dealers and wanting him and his boys to whack them out, shooting out TV sets...Dark stuff. I don't recall reading he was a violent man before the drugs. Was he?

    It sounds like in all honesty, that the divorce took less of a toll on his heart, and more on his ego and pride and that helped fuel the drug binge. Elvis, left? Elvis leaves you, you don't leave him.

    I am happy for Lisa's sake, and for his as a human's that he lived four more years, I just wish they were happy years. What little I've read suggests his only joys after 1973 were drugs, Lisa, and his different girlfriends. He sounds from the little I've read like a guy who was pretty consistently unhappy, miserable even, after 1973...Would you say that that is an accurate assessment? I've read that a big bulk of his depression and thus drug use came from a lack of feeling challenged artistically.
     
  12. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    The dryouts were not only short-lived, but even during his hospital stays, he was not committed to the process because he often tried to smuggle in pharmaceuticals. The bottom line is that he liked getting high and it didn't take a tour or a Las Vegas engagement to corrupt him.
     
  13. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    The "power couple" perception in pop culture is a carefully designed publicity sham and not based on the historical record. By many accounts, it was not much of a marriage.

    Yes, Elvis pursued Priscilla in Germany and even went to great lengths to bring her to Memphis when he returned from the Army. Like with many things, Elvis became bored and restless. His outlet was that he was in Hollywood multiple times throughout the year, usually with Priscilla at home in Memphis, while he wolfed around Hollywood. He also entered into a deep, emotional relationship with Ann Margaret while Priscilla was in Memphis. That is not to say he did not have a connection with Priscilla during the 1960's, but it was clearly a dysfunctional relationship that Elvis was only partially committed to, if only when it was convenient. By 1967, he was under great strain and pressure to follow through with an alleged promise of marriage he made to Priscilla's father in the early 1960's, with Tom Parker forcing it through in the end.

    Elvis' emotional instability was evident during the 1960's, with periods of pharmaceutical excess, searches for spiritual awakening, bouts of depression over his lagging music career and the diminishing quality of his film work, fits of rage, etc. Elvis' 1970's period had its share of darkness, but the behaviors, excess, love of drugs, string of dysfunctional romances, boredom, etc. were not new. The Mike Stone incident was alarming and disturbing -- clearly a culmination of his severely bruised ego, pharmaceutical abuse, and paranoia. Fortunately he came to his senses.
     
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  14. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I'd be bored out of my mind too after a decade of those movies and then the REST OF MY LIFE on the road singing Hound Dog every night for 200+ nights a year. Too bad he was not smart enough to save up some money and quit the rat race.
     
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  15. lvs35

    lvs35 New Member

    Location:
    South Carolina
    Elvis' maid Pauline told me Elvis wanted Priscilla back right up until the very end. According to her Elvis would say he wished Priscilla would come home but he knew she wouldn't. She also said everybody in the house knew Ginger Alden was a mistake at the end. Nice girl but in way over her head. No matter who it was, Elvis was not husband material. Unless you could accept his terms of course.
     
  16. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    It should be noted that this was not exclusive to Elvis and Priscilla. Elvis had been known to pass over women who had previously had a child. Apparently that was filed with "ugly feet" in a mental "Thanks But No Thanks" folder. :p

    Is that really something anybody tries to push? I thought it was pretty understood that Elvis was The Man and Priscilla was The Wife.

    I guess if someone's never read Guralnick they wouldn't get that, though...
     
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  17. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    It was just the general perception I always had, that they were this glamorous Hollywood power couple while it lasted. The fact their wedding happened in a general time frame not long before Elvis roared back into the spotlight might have something to do with it.

    You had the photoshoots, too, which kinda sold it to me
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  18. genesim

    genesim Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    St. Louis
    A lot of judgment here. Elvis was not smart enough...Elvis liked to get high too much....

    To understand what Elvis was and what he went through is to walk in that man's shoes. The facts are that if you grew up poor like him with very little parenting for most of his life, and then was given the world, most of us would be dead meat.

    Every human likes to get high, it wasn't just Elvis. Every human feels jealousy and insecurity in special circumstances. Drop any of us in the EXACT experiment in the EXACT same circumstances, there are very few of us that would take it well. Perhaps there are some of us with special DNA that would cope better...but then would we be one of the greatest entertainers that walked the earth?

    I think it was obvious Elvis loved Priscilla, at least as much as he could love anybody in those extraordinary circumstances. Again, put yourself in his shoes, every woman ever at your disposal and then coming home and playing daddy, just to know that you have to go back out again while having a sense of duty to uncle sam having that father as some kind of adviser with no experience at all with any of it.

    When you think of Elvis quitting, back int he Clambake days, he almost did. Of course like a lot of us with money, it is too much fun to spend it for a while. He without question over did it, and thus had to go back to work because of "obligations".

    Of course there is that nagging feeling of wanting to live up to the fans. This was special to Elvis in a way that few entertainers have matched (and those that did, were also dead meat...the female equivalent who gave it her all and having movies and tv work and tons of recordings while having similar insecurities and fame, being Judy Garland).

    I think Elvis was a very smart man and had he not had an obsessive personality like a lot of great people, he would have dug himself out of the mess. The doctors prescribing the drugs certainly didn't help. That doctor he had was a straight up criminal. Of course there are a lot of them and I am sure he could have found another. Doesn't excuse what Dr. Nick did.

    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Anyway, getting back Skatterbrane, another thought I had about the first 4 singles being "masters". There is one thing that bugs me. I am thinking of putting them first, because in a way they are not outtakes. Elvis served as producer because he paid for them and had complete control over them, and owned the product in the end right? While he didn't exactly sell it or market it, he still was his own freelancer. I guess that makes those singles not outtakes to anyone. Matter of fact, it was also part of its own session by definition of all the others. That is what is hard to figure, because I Love You Because would be an outtake to Thats Alright...etc. Oh, but then that becomes an annoying listen for sure in the middle of each single release.

    By the way I was looking up That's When Your Heartaches begin. That song only went to 58 and didn't chart in any other country. Am I missing something? I would call that a bomb in any sense of the word. My guess is that any fame it got was based on All Shook Up alone.
     
    Last edited: Sep 14, 2017
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  19. dreambear

    dreambear Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kalix, Sweden
    If they only had trimmed down the Elvis In Concert to a single LP, it would have been a much better album. But some of the oldies (especially Hound dog and Teddy bear/Don´t be cruel) are hearbreaking to here. A few missed notes on "And I love you so" too, which is very rare for Elvis. A
     
  20. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    There's always a strange kind of feeling I can't quite put my finger on that I get when 'And I love you so' begins as the last track on 'Elvis In Concert', I can almost feel myself there, in the summer of '77, before that fateful August, just in the crowd, enjoying the moment, blissfully unaware of the future, the King before me, performing.
    I know, I know, my rose tinted glasses are steaming up somewhat...
     
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  21. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    "All humans like to get high" hmmm I did not know that. I must not be human nor would be my brother or daughter.
     
  22. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    Spiritually high on music, perhaps? Or climbing tall towers? :D
     
  23. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Compiling a single disc of the best performances would have resulted in a very short album. ;)
     
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  24. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Just to be clear, are you referring to "My Happiness," "That's When Your Heartaches Begin," "I'll Never Stand In Your Way," and "It wouldn't Be The Same Without You?" None of these songs were authentic master recordings, they were essentially demos in acetate form. They are very important recordings and justifiably could be part of most in-depth career spanning compilations/playlists, but in many ways, SUN starts with "Harbor Lights."
     
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  25. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    I guess it depends on how one defines power couple. They certainly were not equals in terms of celebrity during the 1967-1973 period, not even close. Priscilla was essentially a homebody during that period. She became a celebrity starting in the 1980's, and most of her ongoing public presence has to do with the promotion of Elvis or using Elvis as a way to promote herself. So, it is natural that there is at least a partial misleading perception in today's public conscious that they were some form of a power couple. More so than that, because of Priscilla's active promotion of Elvis, there is this perceived "love story" that is somewhat falsely perpetuated, and it is another reason why she is viewed by some of Elvis' great love, and in the minds of some, his widow. Not that any of this has anything to do with Elvis In Concert and the OP's questions about compiling an album/masteres retrospective.
     
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