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

It's a funny thing about the seventies most of the older artists went into a country kind of mode. Jerry Lee's country stuff is my favourite stuff he ever did. I very much like the Elvis stuff I have heard, but I don't have that "been with me all my life" nostalgia with it.
I think the reasoning for the move over to country may well lay in the musical landscape around them. It would be hard to see Jerry Lee or Elvis wanting to compete with Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, I can't see that it would suit them at all anyway. Then about 1970 we had the onset of King Crimson, ELP, Yes and the whole progressive rock thing, and again it is really very hard to see singers of their history being super interested in have four, ten minute songs on an album that is mainly instrumental.
There was a huge shift in the music world after the Beatles sprung Sgt Pepper on the world. The experimentation was right out there, it's probably/possibly never been that far out since. Another factor was now the music industry had become a serious albums market, and although the singles market certainly wasn't dead, it wasn't the main focus anymore.
It seems that a lot of those guys, though making good music, had the same problem most seventies bands had trying to cross over to the eighties. The fact that any of them sold anything is testament to the talent that they had, because most seventies bands crashed and burned in the eighties and the ones that survived were constantly bombarded with insults by they old fans about how it was in the good old days .... hmmm familiarities....
So anyhow, it really does make sense for them to move into country music based on the environment that surrounded them and the particular set of abilities and circumstances they had. After all rock and roll was a hybrid of blues, r & b and country to begin with, so it is pretty much a natural progression. As for the strings and stuff, well that was a sign of the times, just like every man and his dog had a dx7 in the eighties, and we got songs and albums that had the current sound, but not the correct feel to carry it off, often..... So often music in particular periods of a decade becomes damaged historically by the production/instrumentation/writing trends of the day.
This is really interesting stuff ... and I had never thought about any of this that way before ...

 

I don't really have a position on this one way or another, but I've enjoyed reading these latest posts. I'd like to pose the question though, "Where else could Elvis have performed?" Black radio and venues? With his form of black R&B merged with country, i.e. the beginnings of white rock and roll, mainstream radio and venues weren't interested. The Louisiana Hayride let him come on, so he went there often. Wouldn't you have done the same?

I have no idea just how he felt about performing country music in the beginning. It was undeniably part of his inspiration. I'm just saying that he had few other professional options than to rub shoulders with the country music world.

 

There are probably some parallels to Dylan's decision to record and perform gospel music and critics' befuddlement. It sounds like, ultimately, Guralnick isn't reviewing an artist creating art. He's is reviewing how that artist and art fit into a box that the critic has created for the artist. The artist never envisioned making art for the narrow purposes of the critic's box. Elvis wasn't making new music in 1969 or 1973 with the purpose of "competing" with his Sun records. Dylan wasn't making new music in 1980 with the purpose of "competing" with "Like A Rolling Stone". Artists follow their muses and often don't analyze their own work with a fine toothed comb. Yet, a critic making such an odd or unnecessary comparison does a disservice to the artist's evolution and desire to move in new directions. When an artist is dead and buried, that is a more appropriate time, if a critic so desires, to take a step back and evaluate different periods of that artist's career and how they relate to each other.

There have been some good comments in this thread about the genres that Elvis decided to focus on and how others were unsatisfied with his choices. Ultimately, the genre choices were Elvis' to make. As far as rock 'n roll, he was satisfied performing recent swamp rock hits like "Proud Mary" and "Polk Salad Annie" in concert and covering old Chuck Berry, still a vital and then current force in rock 'n roll due to The Rolling Stones continuing to rely upon Chuck for inspiration during the 1970's. Elvis was able to supplant original rock 'n roll material like "Burning Love" with covers bearing the unique Elvis vocal stamp.

Again, Elvis was the artist in control of his destiny. Each song that he recorded in the studio was a new opportunity to bring his voice to the people. His vocal chords weren't just rock 'n roll vocal chords. They were also pop, gospel, and country vocal chords. Elvis had a talent for singing rock 'n roll, but if that were his only interest in life, he could have easily focused on it if he wanted to. Instead, he was more interested in fulfilling his artistic desires wherever the songs led him. He wasn't a writer of rock 'n roll songs just like he wasn't a writer of gospel, pop, or country songs. He took the songs that he could work with and tried to make quality vocal records.

Those genre choices were his to make. He liked country music, so that was appropriate that he would follow paths that brought him the opportunity to record new country songs that he could create with. Ultimately, when a critic tries to pigeonhole an artist like Elvis who was a capable artist, it actually effects an opposite of reality, in that the critic pretends that the artist is actually not a capable artist and must follow the paths of what others want him to do. Instead of giving credence to the artist's decision, it lends to an idea that the artist doesn't know what he's doing. Elvis took drugs, but he wasn't so out of it that he didn't know what kind of music that he liked.

I get the impression that many rock 'n roll critics may not have valued the country music genre, which would have biased them against Elvis recording music that Elvis wanted to record and was interested in. He was the artist and an adult capable of deciding which type of music he wanted to record. Even, during the height of Elvis' "rock 'n roll years" he was recording pop and much lighter material than "Hound Dog". He had a broad palette of musical options and genres starting with his decision to record with RCA. Elvis wasn't a one trick pony at any point in his career and never wanted to be one.

 

I think a big reason many 50s rockers turned to country in the 70s is because that's where their original audience had gone. People like my parents, who were teenagers in the 50s, were most definitely not listening to top forty radio in the 70s, they were listening to country. Based on the covers he selected for his 70s albums, I get the impression that Elvis probably listened mostly to country radio himself when he did have the radio on. And country had evolved to the point where it was much more pop influenced by then. So Elvis' work was a natural fit for it.

 

No for the love of god let’s not re live that Queen thread lmao

 

On a different note, 41st anniversary of his death today. Which means he's almost been dead longer than he was alive, taken way too soon. Long live the King!

 

wow ... a reminder of how time flies ... Looking forward to seeing him in the wild blue yonder

 

An interesting argument, some of which I agree with.

What I don’t agree with, however, is your premise that there was music that Elvis wanted to record and was interested in. RCA or Felton Jarvis had to cajole him to record in the first place, and the few songs Elvis himself chose to record would surely not have motivated him to arrange a recording session. Since he had to be there whether he liked it or not, he simply appears to have made the best of a bad situation.

 

I wonder if Elvis had been allowed some time off to get away from it for a little bit. How many of us feel up to working non-stop with no breaks? I know I wouldn't want a schedule anywhere close to what he had.

 

That Jarvis cajoled Elvis into recording is fine. Elvis signed contracts to produce recordings, and he needed to deliver the goods in accordance with the contract. Jarvis could have tried to cajole Elvis into recording traditional jazz or Gregorian chant. Instead, Elvis recorded songs which generally resonated with his talents and interests. Even if he wasn't as interested in recording as he was in 195x or 196x, this still was the type of music that he signed up to record and that he had a track record in delivering.

Not every song that every other artist has recorded has been a flaming passionate exercise in artistic intensity. All singers who do it for a living and who don't write their own material have to rely upon others for the initial inspiration and spark. Nothing wrong with not feeling like a 20 year old kid when you're pushing 40 and give tremendous efforts on stage for 60 shows a month in Las Vegas. Elvis' artistry was a balancing act between being a live performer and a recording artist. When his voice and health was in good shape, he balanced the two well.

 

Modest? Most artists would kill for a guaranteed 300,000 sales for any album they released, or for a top-40 placement for most of their singles.

 

You are correct, but Elvis was not most artists.

 

You're wrong. He WAS like most other artists in that he had peaks and troughs. But you're right, he wasn't like them in the fact that he had continued chart success why they all fell by the wayside.

No artist ever has gone on for twenty-three years riding the top of the singles and/or album charts without peaks and troughs. Any of Elvis's contemporaries from the 1950s would have given their right arm to have been getting into the top half of the singles charts in the mid-1960s, and they certainly would have bit your hand off if they had been offered the constant chart placings that Elvis got in the 1970s, both in the US and, in particular, in Europe. That includes the legnds that are Chuck Berry. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Neil Sedaka, Ricky Nelson, Bobby Darin, and others. The exceptions for that kind of longevity/chart success? Sinatra (in the album charts) and McCartney, but considering the latter had various incarnations both solo and in groups, he is hardly fit for comparison. I'm sure someone will cite The Rolling Stones, but after a decade they went to releasing albums as and when they felt like it, which also removes them from the comparison. Elvis was still in the charts when ALL of his contemporaries were out of it. Not just out of the top 40, but out of the charts completely. Jerry Lee Lewis's highest place single in the 1960s in America was #30. In the 1970s, it was #40.

Despite the fact that you, for some bizarre reason, cannot appreciate just how many records Elvis was still selling in comparison to every single other rock n roll star from the 1950s, he was doing something that none of his contemporaries were by remaining a success in the charts.

If you want to argue against that, you need to find another star from the mid-1950s that had 5 top twenty albums between 1970 and 1977, and 10 top twenty singles during the same period.

 

One of the best and most thoughtful comments I have ever read on this subject. I simply cannot add anything of value to it as it already says everything I have been trying to say, but in a far more succinct and articulate manner.. Thank you very much for your very insightful post, I will be referring back to it many times, I am sure.

 

Really? Elvis underperformed commercially during the mid-1970's. Just because his so-called 1950's era "contemporaries" would have given anything to have Elvis' moderate mid-1970's era sales and chart placings does not mean he was therefore successful. If Elvis was committed and engaged in his work and delivered the same 1970's era mediocrity, we could agree that he was like other artists experiencing peaks and troughs. But there is much more to the story. Why was Elvis moving lower six figure units of new recordings and why were his chart-placings average? The American Sound sessions from just a few years prior showed that when Elvis was surrounded by the right producer, material and musicians, he could produce highly successful, commercially viable work. There is no reason to think Elvis could not have continued that trend for much longer. The reality is that during the mid-1970's recording period, Elvis not only lost all passion and interest in the recording process, but was surrounded by a sycophant producer who mismanaged sessions, a controlling management team that was not committed to his best interests, and a record label with no influence. As such, it was a small miracle he was as moderately successful as he was during the period -- even if Jerry Lee Lewis and Ricky Nelson would have given anything to achieve the same mediocrity.

Elvis could have and should have been much more than that -- a couple hundred thousand sales of a hodge-podge album is nice, but he could have produced far greater work and achieved far greater success. He was Elvis Presley.

Guess you changed your mind.

 

Maybe we can all chill and agree that everyone has a different gauge when it comes to what equals success.
My take, not knowing the whole history, is that Elvis did really well in the late sixties and seventies, but not as well as he did in the fifties and early sixties.
I get the impression that with a change of manager in at least sixty eight we would be looking at a completely different ball game, and perhaps expecting an auto-biography .... if he had Leonard Cohen's staying power, maybe even an album.

 

Agreed.

 

Well at least you got one fact basically right here out of three, but you might want to stop from posting completely false suppositions that try to support your rather weak argument that Elvis was not a viable recording artist in the 1970's. Remember, it is not the amount of posts you make on this board that contribute great discussion, but the quality and credibility of the analysis you make.

Elvis showed true passion on many occasions during both his studio and live concert recordings in the middle seventies as even some of his harshest critics would even acknowledge. Hurt, Unchained Melody, My Boy, Its's Midnight, Danny Boy, And I love You So, are just a few examples that both critics and fans have noted are highly respected recordings and Elvis was certainly passionate about his recordings of these songs as five of them were studio recordings that he chose to also put into his live performance repertoire. During the studio version of And I Love You So, he actually was singing to his current girlfriend at the time as I recall as she stood in the studio with him IIRC. I think there might have been some passion demonstrated there as Elvis usually never allowed a love interest in the studio with him why he was actually recording material.

The RCA label was actually the number one country music label according to Billboard Magazine for almost all of these years as I recall and their promotion team worked diligently to get his songs to reach reach the top of those important charts, charts that you dismiss because of your own music prejudice.

Felton Jarvis was a respected record producer and a nice man that Elvis enjoyed great chemistry with in the recording studio. He had worked with both Fats Domino, someone Elvis admired greatly, and Charley Pride among others. You have some personal beef against the man that got so heated on another Elvis thread that the monitors had to temporally shut it down and move that subject to another thread, where it more or less died on the vine. I will not address the Jarvis issue with you any further than what I have said here.

You will not get any argument by me here about the terrible mismanagement by Tom Parker as I will not hesitate to agree with you when your analysis is supported by the facts and not your own personal music bias.

 

First of all, there is no reason to inject a combative tone into the thread simply because you are frustrated with another point of view. As @mark winstanley stated, maybe everyone should "chill" and recognize that there are different interpretations of success. I have not posted "complete false suppositions" to support a "rather weak argument." Furthermore, you make a jab about my alleged "own personal music bias," yet it appears much of your defensive nature concerning Elvis' 1970's-era body of recorded work stems from your own personal music bias, which is really quite ironic. The individual positions by various forum members have been made on this topic, many supported by various facts, evidence, and informed interpretations, and there is not a consensus, nor will there be. It is best to leave it at that.

 

His 70s stuff is mostly adult oriented MOR, but this doesn't mean bad

 

Just to add my 2 cents to the thread...

To the OP, great job buying the 60 CD box, there is a lot of great music there, enjoy the ride.

As for the current side discussion on Elvis' late career success or lack thereof. I think there are a lot of great points being raised by both sides of the argument, but I fall more towards POB's side here mainly because, this is Elvis Presley we are talking about here. I've read that Felton Jarvis thought Elvis could score a hit in the 70's whenever he wanted too provided he started recording more up tempo rock material. as the 70's wore on I'm not so sure that would be a guaranteed hit coming from Elvis (He's been around since the 50's don't forget) I do believe he certainly could have kept the momentum of his 1968 comeback going longer than he had, and been an even bigger presence on the pop charts if he had recorded better material. I love a great deal of his 70's work, but there is an awful lot of mediocre to sub mediocre stuff there as well, and for this decade he didn't have the excuse of having to churn out movie songs.

 

i can agree with that
i am not too bothered about the producer really. it seems to me that if they had a good working relationship that's fine, but a good manager would have suggested using a different producer for a fresh perspective. Artists often do what is easy when they have become hugely successful and managers need to poke them with a stick sometimes.
I hear the Colonel did well early on, and that's cool, but by the time he started all the paranoid junk, trying to stop Elvis from working with people and dealing with certain songwriters etc, it was time for him to go. He was afraid his cash cow would realise he was being ripped off and move to a new pasture.

 

No, he "shouldn't" have achieved more than that at all. You are assuming that someone can continue churning out brilliant material year after year, decade after decade, and never lose interest or get bored. It's a ridiculous assertion, as is to suggest that his string of gold and platinum records in the 1970s were an indication of "moderate success." The suggestion that Elvis lost "all passion and interest" in the recording process is also ridiculous. Was he easily bored? Yes, of course, he was - but he was easily bored in the 1950s too. But the Vegas and other live recordings from 1972 don't betray boredom, and neither do the studio recordings from the March sessions. Neither do many of the Stax recordings from December 1973, or the Memphis concert from 1974, or, indeed, the Today album - which, yes, finished abruptly, but there's no indication that this was through a lack of interest in the recording process itself, but because his concentration skills on anything were shot and he got bored easily. We all know the story about how he got angry about the original mixes - but why would he care about them if he had no passion or interest for his craft or the process of recording? The argument doesn't hold up.

Your argument is that Elvis was somehow not human, never should have got bored of his job, and should have been doing great work, year in and year out. It's a ridiculous and unrealistic theory - and what's more you have yet to come up with a single artist who has done that. Even Sinatra threw in the towel in 1970, and barely recorded over the next eight years.

 

Actually, I have a high regard for all the various stages, time periods and genres of Elvis's recording and live concert performances and it is you that has a real issue with acknowledging the greatness of a moderate number of outstanding recordings from the seventies. I do not think that the 70's recordings are the high point of his career as you basically imply wrongly. I have told you in the past that I think his early 60's material and the American Sound recordings in Memphis are probably peak Elvis at his very best vocally and production wise. I also have agreed with you that Elvis should have been given an opportunity to record with producer Chips Moman again as his production skills were stellar. You and I have also agreed in the past as well that Elvis would have been served better by experimenting with a new outside producer as well, perhaps Billy Sherrill, who did those great records with Charlie Rich. I stand by my previous post, but again, I will give you the last word on the matter as you usually seem to desire.