Coming soon will be the Just For You EP I suppose. It was recently discovered that for a VERY brief time it was originally issued with the Loving You version of Don't Leave Me Now, which was almost immediately replaced by Is It So Strange.
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I sometimes wonder if those early gospel tunes were done more traditionally so as not to bring more wrath upon him from those concerned about his stage movements. Almost "Hey I can do this too, I am not what you are suggesting I am" ... Hence we get traditional sounding Church songs rather than Presleyfied versions
Yes. "Ahm not the devil" you can imagine him saying. I think that he was genuinely troubled about all that. However, I think it's evident that he had a very real passion for gospel.
That is cool. I love Fats and think he is the most consistently underrated of the first generation of rockers. He and Dave Bartholomew were the architects of the New Orleans Rock N' Roll sound, and Little Richard never would have had a career without them. Thanks! I'm with you 100% on 'Just A Little Talk With Jesus'. It's magical. It's kinda crazy how many essential Elvis moments exist outside of the master tapes. Whenever I'm compiling compilations for people interested in Elvis, I'm always reaching for MDQ, the Home Recordings, Live shows or the odd radio acetate. We're really lucky that so much extraneous material exists on Elvis - though If I were in a position to bargain, I'd trade most of the 1976 soundboards for just one show from 1957! It's less that they're done traditionally than that they're done in a way that's sort of unnaturally "citified".
Just to get caught up: Too Much: This is an important record for Elvis, because it seems to be the cut that made him more comfortable with the aesthetic value of raggedness. It signals a direction he would explore more fully in 1957 with stuff like 'I Need You So' and 'One Night'. It's not quite the 'high 50's' style I mentioned in my 'Loving You' post, but it's clearly headed in that direction. Gaining the confidence as a performer to embrace sloppiness as a legitimate means of expression is a big step, and it speaks to Elvis's maturity as an artist that he was both willing to recognize that "Yes, this playing may be imprecise and technically messy, but there is expressive value in that" while never letting that messiness pervade his mastery and become an excuse for not doing the hard work of proper arrangements. He employed it as a tool, to be used at appropriate moments. Much has (rightly) been made of Scotty's wandering off key in the solo, but listen to the drums and the backing vocals. There's a shambling nature to the whole thing that makes it really rock - it makes the song loose, unpredictable, and slightly dangerous, like a Doo-Wop song that's been pumped so full of electricity it's about to either explode or collapse - and Elvis saw that this was something he could capitalize on. All Shook Up: Elvis famously didn't like this song at first, and I wonder if it might possibly have been that someone played him David Hill's original recording of the song as a Demo. Hill's cut makes heavy use of dissonance to create a schizophrenic feel. I suppose the idea is that if one is "All Shook Up", one is in a sense going crazy. In any event, it's over the top -- and Hill's arrangement limits the song to the slim hopes and specious artistry of the 'novelty' hit. I wonder if this is how Blackwell originally conceived the song. The Blackwell "demo" version circulating is actually from a much later recording of the song by Otis - long after Elvis had a massive smash with it, so it's hard to tell. In any event, Elvis's changes are brilliant. He eschews the dissonant business in Hill's arrangement, for a solid, steady groove, propelled by a 'heartbeat' percussion borrowed from his arrangement of 'Don't Be Cruel'. Rather than trying to express the nervousness in the lyric as Hill does, Elvis makes his vocal a cool, confident counterpoint to that nervousness - that confidence only shaken by the intermittent stops in the rhythm, and only fully shattered at thought of being near the one that the singer loves best (Elvis only builds into a fervor when he sings "it scares me to death"). Even though the stops in rhythm appear in both versions, think of how much more effective it is, how much more profound those stops become, when Elvis performs the rhythm on the back of his guitar mimicking the sound of a heartbeat. Elvis paints a portrait of a guy who is to all outer appearances cool and confident, belying the nervous wreck he is on the inside from the palpable terror and thrill of sexual anticipation. He gives the song this extra layer of significance -- of truth -- by acknowledging the difference between what we show the world and the way we feel internally. You could almost read it as a sly commentary on the expectations of the masculine social role. It's a great record.
I’ve always felt it was due to extreme reverence for being able to record and release to the general public gospel songs. He wanted to show the songs the utmost respect, and felt it was important to due them justice ‘properly.’ On a related note, I’ve thought it was absolutely bizarre (in a very, very good way) that he was allowed to release gospel songs at this point in his career. This is the guy who just revolutionized not only popular music but also youth culture with rock ‘n roll, daddy-o. And here he comes with some gospel tracks. This could have damaged his image and career, so I have the utmost respect that he chose to record/release these at this point in time. And that The Colonel allowed it (why risk rocking the boat with a departure to a new genre?) also gives me pause.
I think the "ragged" style began with Hound Dog. Too Much is simple, driving rock with a wild and out of control lead guitar by Scotty. Elvis' All Shook Up is top notch stone cold classic.
I have to disagree. Elvis gives a raw, ballsy vocal on 'Hound Dog', but the instrumentation and arrangement are very tight and together. One might say it has a nasty precision. The 'raggedness' I'm referring to is about Elvis embracing an overall sound that's a little sloppy from a technical standpoint.
I still love the song but does anyone else think the backing vocals on 'Hound Dog' are a little... well, incongrous? Or is it just me?
Many feel that way but he became a better singer which no one anticipated. That's why there are many who don't really listen to his 50s material short of a love ballad. The Elvis that sings It's Now Or Never, Tonight's So Right For Love, It Hurts Me, Surrender, Staring Today etc. should have done entire albums of mature vocals. He did so on his gospel albums but the secular material was always blended on soundtracks or albums with attempts at blues and rock.
In my world, a proper pop/rock album track can be 1:11 but no shorter. The reason for this is Hot Dog, which has everything a rock song should have, even if it is actually more like some speed up western swing. Loving You is the first album I ever bought myself, which is probably a good reason for my distinction. It was in the 90's when I was about 11 years old, and I remember thinking that at least Hot Dog was not one of those ballads. The album as a whole was quite a disappointment. I cannot say it's a favorite song of mine, but 1:11 is not wasted.
Party (Lets have a) Written by Jessie Mae Robinson and recorded January 21 1957 at Radio recorders. This is another short simple rock and roll song. The song itself has had a life of its own since Elvis recorded it. Immediately after Elvis' recording, Wanda Jackson had a minor hit with it in the UK and the US, and was also featured in the classic Dead Poets Society movie. Paul Mccartney released a version that came out on his Run Devil Run album. It was featured in the Broadway musical "Million Dollar Quartet". In T rex's Born To Boogie concert film Marc Bolan And Ringo Star recite some lyrics from the song. Led Zeppelin often featured it in their Whole Lotta Love rock and roll medley and it can be heard on the How The West Was Won album. British bands Mud and Dr Feelgood also did versions of the tune. I also know that In the eighties when I was a young pub crawling fellow, that many varieties of bar bands also liked to through the song into the set. It is a good fun, fairly simple to play, good time tune and generally always goes down well with most crowds. So for another song that just breaks one and a half minutes, it has certainly had a fairly active life. I have always found the line "but I can shake a chicken in the middle of a room" to be quite bizarre lol
From the movie It appears in the movie twice but there are negligible differences between the video and the audio
