Elvis Presley - So many albums - like an insane amount of albums!

I listen to Promised Land more than any of the other 70's albums. I love it! Good old Country & Rock!
I do like the Stax sessions generally, although the critics say it has the leftover tracks from the previous two stax albums, I like Promised Land the most.

 

I may have to give that one a listen today. I know that some albums are better than others, but so far I am finding that there aren't any that i actually dislike .... and I was sort of expecting to dislike a few

 

I find it hard to dislike any of Elvis' albums, except the majority of the soundtracks.

 

i've even been enjoying the soundtracks so far lol

 

Yes, its odd that Promised Land is stronger than Good Times.

 

Promised land is really one of Elvis's finest studio albums ever, but especially one of the better ones of the seventies, which I believe was largely underrated by many rock critics at the time when it was released. Hindsight has given this album and several of his others in this decade a better and fairer perspective on some of his best and unheralded songs.

The title song written and first recorded by Chuck Berry is fantastic and Elvis leaves Chuck's version in the dust. This is one of those songs that Elvis and the TCB were born to play. James Burton's great lead guitar work, Ronnie Tutt's fantastic drumming and the great bass work by Norbert Putman, IIRC, are meshed together so perfectly and it is a true rocker. Elvis establishes his enthusiasm and the movement and travel of the song with his opening spoken phrase, "Ah, get on it." Burton's great opening guitar licks and Elvis's blatant love of the song had me sold in the first 15 seconds. Elvis should have recorded a few more Chuck Berry classics along the way.

It's Midnight, ironically the flip side of the great PM single, is also the other side of the coin of Elvis' still remarkable talent to sing ballads and rockers with almost completely equal aplomb. Maybe he is singing to Priscilla, maybe its Linda Thompson or maybe its somebody else, but some woman is "Burning way down deep inside of me" in this great lyric and Elvis sings the low notes as well as he sings the high ones in this very fine ballad by Jerry Chestnut and Billy Ed Wheeler. Help Me, There's A Honkey Tonk Angel and If You Talk In Your Sleep, the last song co-written by one of his bodyguards no less as I recall, really show Elvis's versatility and his complete mastery of the new country-pop and country-soul sound that the great Charlie Rich had been mining so well during the previous few years, since his great Behind Closed Doors album. This style of music was sometimes dismissed at the time for being too schmaltzy, but the passage of time has given it too a new and more positive legacy.

I also agree with Shane about the Today album being a stronger album in Elvis's legacy than it is often given credit for in his catalogue. It almost brings elements of the Sun sound full circle and thats a good thing. I mean, does not I Can Help almost sound like a rockabilly record written especially for Elvis?

I part ways with a fair share of Elvis fans on the From The Elvis Presley Boulevard and Moody Blue albums. I won't try to rehash that argument here ad nauseam as its been discussed on the Way Down In The Jungle Room thread and perhaps this one, but POB put together the highlights of both albums in one hypothetical album that was rather brilliant and would have really given a better legacy to those last recording sessions, if it had been released in that manner without some of the weaker cuts, especially the live performances that were thrown in to fill out the Moody Blue album. I do cherish both albums as they helped make me the Elvis fan I am today, but I do recognize some of the serious flaws in them as well.

 

Re: Promised Land, the 2000 CD (which also contains most of Good Times) has much to recommend it. The tracks have been remixed, which provides quite a different listening experience; I believe that these are the same mixes that appear on the 70s box.

As a side note, many of the other tracks on the 70s box are remixed as well, which means that you'll have to seek out other releases if you want to hear the songs as they were released during Elvis' lifetime.

 

I have Raised on rock LP. I really like it. I know it's a patchy album but it's good to me

 

I also had this excellent CD at one point. I didn't realise they were remixed or the 70's box. I guess if you want the original masters then stick with the 60CD complete album box?

 

I don't own that set, but I seem to recall reading about a couple of anomalies (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about these; also, I'm sure I'm missing some. This is just off the top of my head):

- The tracks on A Date With Elvis and For LP Fans Only use the untampered-with versions of those tracks - that is, on the original albums, the songs were featured in electronically-reprocessed stereo, but on the 60CD box they use the regular mono versions.

- I think they fixed the distortion on Blue River.

- RCA has apparently been using the wrong version of I Want To Be Free for decades now (IIRC, the last non-FTD release of the correct version was on Essential Elvis, all the way back in the 80s?).

 

i don't know anything about any of that, but i'm looking forward to reading the answers from these guys that do .... i have it on the way lol

 

Yup. Just like Frank. And I love them all.

 

I do not understand how anyone can honestly rate "Promised Land" among Elvis' finest LPs. Like most of Elvis' other post-1970 LP's, it is an uneven affair. It has its high marks, especially the dynamic title track, but the album also contains a number of second-rate songs such as "Mr. Songman," "Love Song of The Year" and "Thinking About You." Even the single "It's Midnight" contains a number of deficiencies, from the bombastic arrangement to the schmaltzy chorus. And though Felton Jarvis tried to emulate Billy Sherrill's sound, he did not quite pull it off. While I can appreciate that fans enjoy the album cover-to-cover, I do not think it comes close to Elvis' best work, nor do I think it is among Elvis' greatest album achievements, which includes "Elvis Presley," "Elvis," "King Creole," "Elvis Is Back!," "His Hand In Mine," "How Great Thou Art," "From Elvis In Memphis," and even "Elvis Country."

 

Much of what people view as good or bad relies on their view of what Elvis SHOULD have been recording at the time. I don't judge the easy listening/middle of the road material as mere "schmaltz" or of less worth just because of its genre.

That said, I don't think Promised Land is particularly brilliant, but it is enjoyable, and I tend to feel that enjoyment was exactly what Elvis was aiming for at that time - when he was in the mood to be bothered. "Just sit back and leave the driving to us," was what he said at concerts, and that's very much the kind of show that you got in 1974 and 1975. (with the exception of the troubled second half of 1974). And that kind of comment completely sums up what he delivered in the 1974 Memphis show (even more so in the original album edit). And it's also worth saying that the Memphis 74 album actually got more positive reviews at the time than almost any album he recorded - and certainly more than the 1969 Memphis albums, which were only given so-so reviews in the main at the time and have grown in stature since.

As for the 1976 recordings - I think E P Boulevard is a more problematic album than Moody Blue which, to be honest, is a miracle that it's an enjoyable listen given how it was recorded and put together. Jarvis's overdubs on the live tracks, particularly Unchained Melody, are some of his best work in that area, and he certainly made a silk's purse out of a sow's ear on that occasion. I also don't have an issue with the re-use of Let Me Be There. Sinatra was happy to re-use tracks in the 1960s, as was Sammy Davis Jr, and I think anyone who objects with Elvis doing it on one occasion is just nit-picking, to be honest - although the issue could have been avoided if the full version of Pledging My Love was used, allowing the album to be released with nine tracks instead of ten but running the same length. Sadly, too many Elvis recordings from his last decade were heavily edited for release when there was no need.

There is a fix on Blue River, and my understanding is that you are correct on I Want to Be Free. A date with Elvis and For LP Fans Only were not originally in ER stereo. They were released in the late 1950s, but electronically reprocessed stereo albums weren't released until 1961 - classical albums by Toscanini, I believe. However, the boxed set appears to use different sources for some of the tracks on these two albums than for the rest of the box. To be honest, I tend to get lost in these technical discussions at a certain point, but I'm sure someone can give a fuller answer. It's also worth adding that I Got Lucky and C'mon Everybody are wholly stereo albums in the boxed set, but were originally mostly mono, I believe. And one of those two has the tracks in slightly in the wrong order.

 

Some random thoughts on the Album Collection:

Elvis Presley (the first album): Just Because is the "restored" version. The begining of the song is originally clipped.

Elvis' Christmas Album: The restored version of White Christmas which removes Elvis finger-snap at the beginning oof the song is used. This version was also used for The Complete Masters box set.

King Creole: A great sounding disc. The ending of Lover Doll is originally clipped. They have tried to repair this, probably by using the last couple of seconds of the undubbed version which is complete. but they messed it up because the repaired part is MUCH louder.

For LP Fans Only and A Date With Elvis: There are problems with these two discs in the box. They are mono but some of the songs are sourced from inferior tapes. Regarding I Want To Be Free, RCA have used the wrong tape for years, but the original master sounds poor compared to the tape that RCA have used since the 90s. The Jailhouse Rock vol. 2 FTD contains the correct version and in great sound for the first time.

Elvis Gold Records Vol. 2. Wrong version of Doncha' Think It's Time is used. The LP originally contained an alternate version of the song, but the single version is used.

G. I. Blues: Too much noise reduction used on Big Boots.

Roustabout: One Track Heart has tape damage and too much NR is used. The Roustabout FTD has the same damage but with less NR.

Double Trouble: Big River was originally distorted. It is clean in the box.

Elvis For Everyone: The original vinyl contained five stereo tracks. The remaining seven tracks were mono or Electronically reprocessed stereo if one had the stereo edition of the record. The cd in the box contains the original stereo mixes of four of the five tracks. The fifth track (I Met Her Today) is a drier version than the one that appeared on the album originally. The tracks that originally only was mono are mono in the box except Summer Kisses, Winter Tears, In My Way and Forget Me Never which are stereo remixes.

NBC TV Special: The original album master is used which means that Memories and If I Can Dream are mono. The live portions of the album was restored from the best sources for The Complete Masters but this restoration has not been used since, not even on the FTD.

Let's Be Friends: Let's Forget About the Stars was originally released in mono and containing a piano overdub. The mono version is in the box. A stereo mix was released on The Complete Masters and on The Last Movies FTD.

C'mon Everybody and I Got Lucky: The albums were originally all mono but stereo mixes are used for the box if available.

Non-album singles: These are stereo and they generally match the single versions.

 

The only song I don't like is "Love Song Of The Year". I love those others, including "Mr. Songman"!!

I agree that they are not up to the standard of those other albums you listed, but "Promised Land" and "Today" give me a similar feeling when I listen to them. There's a comforting, emotive vibe to them.

 

cheers mate, very much appreciated

 

I quite enjoy 'Love Song of the Year'.. Just goes to show how we all have different tastes!

It's quite astonishing how much variation there is and different mixes there are in the Elvis world, thank you @ClausH for shedding some light on it all!

 

Once again you really hit the demarcation point that divides Elvis fans on what they like and do not like and often what their subjective criteria is when it comes to judging whether they like a particular album or single. I for one greatly admire your second statement here as it shows that you do not come with a preconceived musical bias or position on the type, style or genre of Elvis's music that you are willing to like or dislike for that matter.

I have spoken about this before, but I lived through so many so called "popular" music critics during Elvis later career, and really to be more accurate, they were actually "rock" critics and they despised Elvis's drift towards that countrypolitan sound that was selling so many records for Charlie Rich, Glen Campbell and Ronnie Milsap, among many other artists. This genre of music is not inherently good or bad on its own merits, but was looked at with greater and greater dismay at the time by many music critics at the time. How many times did I have to read a critic say, " There are too many sweetening strings in the arrangement" and "This song is a schmaltzy ballad and Elvis should be performing more rock songs like Burning Love."

Well, its funny, but that style of music is actually been given a revisionist review by some critics and many do not see it as just good or bad on its own, but judge the performances on the individual song's strengths and the production on its own merits. Listening to country music in the 80s and more directly in the nineties, makes's one pine for the old days, because this time period quite often featured terrible synthesizers trying to imitate the far more natural sound of real strings and brass. Yuk! There is my bias, if I have one. Those later records with the modern production have not held up well over the years, but Elvis's more natural country- pop records of the 1970' do indeed hold up quite well.

My biggest beef with Elvis's last two albums is the fact that they could not get him into a state of the art recording studio and it would have been nice to get some of those other original songs to him that were waiting for him on the missed Nashville recording session. The second sessions at Graceland had some muffled sonics on his voice that did not much the sonics of that earlier session. Elvis's voice may have been at some fault here, but I hear it sonically on the instruments as well. "He'll Have To Go," which Elvis gives a decent vocal on, sounds very metallic and harsh to my ears.

I also happen to love the "schmaltzy" ballad It's Easy For You, but here is a case where RCA or his producer, obviously in a hurry to get product out in my opinion, instead of having Elvis's favorite Nashville studio arranger, Bergen White, compliment the sad tones of that song with some beautiful strings and down low cellos, like the beautiful ones that were done by Glen Spreen and Mike Leech on In The Ghetto, instead we get a whip job with some cheesy synths. Oh well, I am sure Vernon Presley was pleased that they saved some money on the production charges.

 

There are certainly some fans/critics that have a problem with some of Elvis' 1970's releases because of what they think he could have recorded, rather than what he did. But there are also a number of observers who just see a lot of the 1970's era output for what it is; uneven, poorly produced, and a step down in overall quality. That is not to say Elvis did not deliver some very good songs and compelling vocal performances during the era, but if Elvis' body of work solely consisted of this 1970's period, there would not be thousands of pages of discussion about his work on this forum. There is no reason to try to elevate his 1970's era body of work beyond what it is. That said, everyone is entitled to their opinion on the matter, and if some fans think it is under-appreciated and among the best work of his career, so be it.

 

Of course there wouldn't, but the same is true if he was judged solely on any period, including his very best. Had he not made his "comeback"after the army successfully, he would have just been another 1950s rock n roller who couldn't last and created some classic songs. He certainly wouldn't be one of the most recognisable stars in the world. He changed music and cultural history in the 1950s, but not many people attain that kind of importance more than once, and so everything will always be relatively unimportant in relation to that. And the same is true of the Beatles, Dylan, Sinatra and others. Sinatra was creating great albums twenty five years after he first became popular, but if they were the only albums he ever made, we wouldn't be discussing him here either - despite their quality. Elvis could have created something of the standard of Elvis Country every year, and the 70s would still be relatively unimportant musically. But the 70s in many ways cemented Elvis in our lives forever. The iconic images of him are, for better or worse, more often from 1968 onwards rather than the 1950s. There are no pictures from his early years that scream Elvis in the way that one of him from Aloha would.

 

It doesn't matter what Elvis recorded after the 1968 TV show, it was never going to be good enough for the rock critics. This can be summed up by a comment from Peter Guralnick's Rolling Stone review of From Elvis in Memphis. He gives the album a glowing review, and then says this:

"And yet it’s still not the same. …You can’t recapture the innocent ease of those first sides, you can’t bring back the easy innocence of new adulthood, whether for listener or singer. What is so striking about the sides cut for Sun Records, even today, fifteen years after their release, is the freshness of style, the cleanness and the enthusiasm."

With that attitude, Elvis was never going to win over the critics in the years that followed. It's a striking, almost alarming quote, and a key starting point for arguments about the 1970s Elvis. He had just recorded a number of masterworks at American Studios, but even that was never going to be good enough. I used that quote as a kind of opening argument when starting the section in the book about Elvis's later work:

"The problem here is that Guralnick’s yearning for Elvis’s early style seemingly has little to do with Elvis himself. In fact, he had just spent two pages of a magazine praising his most recent work. No matter how much it might be denied, the comments he makes about the Sun sides here have little to do with their quality (wonderful though many of them are), and much more to do with Guralnick’s yearning to recapture the wonders of his own adolescence. By 1969, Guralnick was a grown man, and not a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy who was, no doubt, captivated by Elvis’s early records. By his own admission here, no matter how good Elvis was in 1969 (or after), it would simply never be good enough – and it’s clear from the other reviews of this material that Guralnick was not alone.

Much has been written about Elvis’s work in the final seven or eight years of his life, and much has been said about the material he chose to record, the genre he chose to record in, and the arrangements he chose to employ. Blame has been put on all those things when critiquing Elvis’s final decade but they are often just a scapegoat. Even if the quality of those final years was as high as these masterful recordings in Memphis, they still wouldn’t have been good enough for those critics who were not able to face the idea that they had to grow up, and that their idols had to grow up too, and sing about more serious things than playing house, teddy bears, or asking someone to wear a ring around their neck."

I still think that holds true.

 

i have always found it sad, yet understandable that Elvis impersonators only ever do vegas Elvis ... I don't think anyone could pull off fifties Elvis to be honest ... I probably could have in my twenties, but I just wasn't handsome enough lol

Oh I was just thinking too. my pic up there was a great moment for me. Singing My Happiness into the Elvis style 50's mic at Sun Studios ... it was great ... I know it probably doesn't mean much to any of the US folks on here, but as an English born Australian, the thought of ever even being near Memphis had never crossed my mind.

Another thing that strikes me about the above comments is I guess Elvis actually had two big comebacks of sorts. The post army comeback and the post movie comeback ... Can't wait for this box to get here

 

I have never read a more brilliant summation of how Elvis's later stellar studio work in the latter part of his career was dismissed out of hand merely because it did not match up against the historical importance of the commercial explosion that took place at the beginning of his storied career! I now plan to order multiple copies of your book for all my children and friends. You have said something here so important and so well that I wish I had said it myself first.

 

it is remarkable, when you look at it in that light, isn't it.