Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

IMO, Elvis was never really seen as an album artist no matter how many he did sell. Look at the june / september 70 sessions: everything was released between the fall of 1970 and mid 1971 without taking into account the quality of the material. Which is shortsighted and sad.

 

Exactly.

 

The late 60s movies showed real signs of improvement and breaking away from the rut of the mid-60s movies. The movie songs started getting better, too - Edge of Reality, Rubberneckin’, and Clean Up Your Own Backyard are all pretty strong tracks - the last two would have fit seamlessly on From Elvis In Memphis, and I think Power Of My Love from that album was originally slated to be a soundtrack song.

 

It sure is interesting the way it played out.

Yea, I know Elvis was never considered an album artist, but that is the biggest shame of it all, because even without them thinking about albums he put out so many good ones.
Operating in the late sixties and seventies with a fifties mentality.... where was that new manager for goodness sake.........

 

Elvis' manager should have been a first class one. Not a carnival worker.
It is still pretty amazing that several "classic" albums were created despite the circumstances.

 

I was going to write something about "I'll Remember You" and "If Everyday Was Like Christmas," but I decided to check what Jorgensen says about them in A Life in Music. As usual, it's informative and helps explain the quality of those recordings.

It turns out that "Indescribably Blue," "I'll Remember You," and "If Everyday Was Like Christmas" were all recorded during the same session at Studio B Nashville on the night of June 10, 1966. As others have pointed out, Elvis was not present at the session, since he was suffering from a cold/throat infection, and he sent Red West to sing guide vocals.

The results were excellent, as Jorgensen writes: "The three songs they'd recorded were all ballads, all potential hot singles; the arrangements Felton and the musicians worked out featured state-of-the-art recording technique and beautiful acoustic gut-string guitar playing from Chip Young and Harold Bradley. The tracks were a definite stylistic departure for Elvis; they sounded contemporary, and it'd been a long time since anyone said that of an Elvis record."

Elvis came to the studio on June 12 and breezed through the vocals for all the songs in seven takes, "spending little more than 30 minutes of actual recording time in the process...the performances were sincere and beautifully sung." After Elvis returned to Memphis and listened to acetates of the recordings, he sent a written thank you note to Felton Jarvis, to convey "how much I deeply appreciate the cooperation and consideration shown to me and my associates during my last two trips to Nashville." He thanked everyone else involved as well: "Please see that every one of them know my feelings. And as General McArthur said, 'I will return.'"

Jorgensen notes that "as difficult as they'd become by the end, this series of sessions would be a turning point in Elvis's recording career..he was finally channeling his artistic ambitions, his apposite to develop as a singer and recording artist into his studio work."

Very brief comments of my own: "I'll Remember You" is a gem--the arrangement and pacing are exquisite (and indeed contemporary-sounding) and have a fullness completely absent in the soundtrack recordings surrounding them. The song is less depressing than sad and deeply elegiac. Elvis sings as if he'll never see his beloved again; he looks back on their summer together with an awed gratitude and wonder, a contemplative reaction that is doubly moving.

"If Everyday Was Like Christmas" might be the finest of Elvis's non-bluesy Christmas songs, and further shows what an excellent songwriter Red West was. The sound is perhaps a bit overstuffed and ornate, but the song is a welcome addition to the sub-genre of big, dramatic ballads that Elvis trademarked, and why shouldn't a Christmas song have a big, soaring sound? The question "why can't everyday be like Christmas?" is easily answered, but Elvis's expression of the sentiment is irresistible.

 

You have superior taste with that compilation. Wow, Merry Christmas Baby and After Loving You are superior blues selections as well. I would also include Power Of My Love as one of my favorites. Both After Loving You and Power Of My Love are two of my favorite bluesy tracks from what to me is probably Elvis's greatest studio album ever, From Elvis In Memphis, along with Elvis Is Back! of course. I can hardly wait until we get to 1969 and we get to talk about the former album.

 

"From Elvis in Memphis" is without any doubt a masterpiece filled with Rock, Soul, Country and R&b. After Loving You is a wondeful bluesy number, just like Power Of My Love. My favorite Blues, though, was not included in the lp but should have: Stranger In My Own Home Town. Bluesy, Funky, Rock'n'roll. Elvis was such a great bluesman.
Can't wait eather!

 

Stranger In My Own Home Town is a masterpiece as well. Gosh, did RCA ever capture a live version of Elvis singing that song in Las Vegas or anywhere? Of course we have the unedited rehearsal, and I treasure that version as I laughed my tush off the first time I heard Elvis's very personal reinterpretation. Fantastic, but wow a Vegas live version with that great string and horn chart and the strength of the TCB band would have been glorious to have on tape. It would have been great to have a visual record of it as well, although I am thinking he never attempted a live version in Las Vegas, but I could be wrong.

 

I am probably almost as fond of Back in Memphis, as From Elvis In Memphis ... yet they are two completely different types of albums to me.

 

I think the rehearsal is great too.

 

Most of the songs from the 1969 sessions were never performed live. He performed a few deeper cuts during the 1969 engagement in Vegas (This is The Story and Rubberneckin') and he did True Love Travels On A Gravel Road in early 1970, but he mostly did the big hits (Suspicious Minds, In The Ghetto, Kentucky Rain and Don't Cry Daddy) during that year and only Suspicious Minds was performed regularly throughout the 70s.

 

Agreed, it was just a coincidence it worked out that way, but it was sure tough watching Stay Away, Joe when it was released in March '68 (US) at theaters. I think we had more ushers than people in seats watching the movie.

Thank goodness Parker signed the deal for the Singer Presents ELVIS Special and Steve Binder came along, when he did.

 

And "Inherit the Wind" (on the Live in Las Vegas FTD)--another eccentric deep cut. He also rehearsed "Any Day Now" in 1972 (on the Stage Rehearsal FTD) but sadly this never made it into a concert.

 

I love it! I've never heard that before. It's as great as his performance of Baby What You Want Me To Do in the stand up show for his comeback special. Thanks for sharing it ClausH!

 

I agree, the whole feeling is so much different on "BIM". The album is maybe a little bit too short too. Had a couple of tracks been added there, we would be talking about a different beast:

SIDE A
1- Inherit the wind
2- This is the story
3- Stranger in my own home town
4- Suspicious minds
5- Just a little bit of green
6- And the grass won't pay no mind

SIDE B
1- Don't cry daddy
2- Rubberneckin'
3- From a jack to a king
4- Do you know who I am
5- You'll think of me
6- Without love


And boy did he look good in 1969!

 

Indescribably Blue


Written By :
Darrell Glenn

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, June 10-12, 1966: June 12, 1966. take 2

1967 starts off well with this as the year's lead single. The vocal sounds like it is mixed a little low. This arrangement is one of those arrangements that is going to annoy some folks I guess, because we have essentially the seventies live type arrangement with a lot of backing vocals, but I have never personally have never been too bothered by that.
To me this is a well written sung, sung well, with conviction, and for the drama that that song is trying to portray I think the arrangement works.

 

Fools Fall In Love


Written By :
Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, May 25-29, 1966: May 28, 1966. take 5

This is a very quick tempo song, I wouldn't so much call it a rocker, it is more a fast swing or something of the sort. It is a very cool song.
We have an unusual wah guitar lead break amongst the horns and big band sound.
Here we have a good mix and we roll along at a break neck speed all the way through.

This track may be slightly too quick. I could hear this as capitalising on the swingish aspect, if it was slightly slower, but it's a good track non the less

 

Ending '68 with the hugely successful Singer Special, the album from the Special "Elvis" and "If I Can Dream" single climbing the charts, had us forgetting the movies and brought Elvis back into the spotlight!

The Elvis momentum continued in '69! Elvis' return to live performance was heard on many Radio Stations and finally, we get to hear from Elvis' recordings sessions at American Sound Studio in Memphis with the release of "In The Ghetto" b/w "Any Day Now". No doubt: Elvis was back!

 

Indescribably Blue is another great song and performance that deserved better sales and chart placement. Fools Fall In Love is much like Come What May. They are quirky, almost novelty songs, but I like them too.

 

To me, Indescribably Blue doesn’t sound like a 70s song, it’s more like a throwback to Elvis’s 1960-62 Italian- and Latin-style ballads. Kind of a cross between There’s Always Me and It’s Now Or Never. I love that era, and I like Indescribably Blue, but, in 1967, I’m sure it sounded hopelessly dated compared to the Beatles and Cream and Jefferson Airplane.

 

This is the first time I hear Fools Fall in Love. I have listened a lot to the Drifter's version. This is indeed a very fast version and Elvis cannot deliver with 100% control from what I hear. But this is not a problem: he still seems dedicated to the song and I think his performance is charming. Otherwise I agree with Mark: it would have benefited from a slower pace that could have implied more swing and better instrumental solos.

 

Indescribably Blue is one of my all time favorite Elvis ballads. It doesn't sound like a single, as great as the production is.
Fools Fall In Love is such a catchy tune and he sounds really inspired as well. Almost sounds like late 50s Elvis in some points.

Despite the disappointing placement on the charts, this was probably the best single since Crying In The Chapel

 

One of my favorite songs... "Indescribably Blues" peaked at 33 on BB (US) in '66 and could've done better, if Elvis spent some time promoting it. Good Luck with that happening.