Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

But the movie version is truly the kid's voices I think?

 

I am with Dirk and SKATTERBRANE's father with regard to Just Call Me Lonesome. The thing I admire most about the way Elvis and Charlie Rich approached country music songs was the way they both avoided conventional vocal intonations or even heavy use of steel guitars. Now, I am a huge country music lover, but I like the more restrained steel guitar playing on some of the cuts on From Elvis In Memphis. It took me awhile to appreciate the steel guitar playing in country music, and I do like it on some songs, but when it gets to prominent or loud it can be like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

Now, I really like Singing Tree as I think it is a gorgeous performance, despite it's strange lyrics.

 

This thread may interest somebody here, except for the naysayers who like to mock.

Nick Cave's Thoughts on Elvis Presley

This is the OP, and as we are moving towards the seventies I thought it may be nice to read what one of my favourite artists has to say about another of my favourite artists ...
Nick Cave talking about Elvis

What does Elvis mean to you?

GEORGIA, GLASGOW, UK

Dear Georgia,

In early 2000, I saw Johnny Cash walk into a studio in LA, old and ill and temporarily blind (he had toward the end of his life a condition that affected his sight), sit down and sing a song, then transform into a higher being. I have seen Nina Simone climb a flight of stairs to the stage at the Royal Festival Hall in London, barely able to walk, sit down at the piano and be transformed. I have seen Shane MacGowan stand on stage at a concert in France after taking ten LSD trips, and not knowing where he was, shuffle to the microphone, begin to sing so very beautifully, and be transformed. These transformative moments encapsulate the religious nature of performance as they imitate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself. This narrative of suffering and rebirth is played out again and again within our own lives, but I believe it is captured most beautifully, within the musical performance itself. Through the boundless power of music, a performer transcends his or her own wretchedness by performing a kind of public exorcism and by doing so, transforms into a deity.

In 1981, in London, I saw the movie This Is Elvis. I had always been an Elvis fan, with a special love for the songs he made in the seventies – Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, Kentucky Rain, Always on My Mind – and had a particular obsession with the gospel album, How Great Thou Art that he recorded in the early sixties. The last ten minutes of This Is Elvis changed my ideas on performance forever.

In the final minutes of the film, we see Elvis, on stage in Las Vegas, sing the famous so-called ‘Laughing Version’ of Are You Lonesome Tonight? The camera begins with a long shot and does a slow zoom in on Elvis’s face. Elvis is stoned and overweight and by the time he performs the disastrous central monologue, we can see the pure anguish of his performance, the drugged and mortified eyes, the terrible aloneness, the horror of the moment - his vast soul crucified on the cross of his own body as he blunders through the words. It is one of the most traumatic pieces of footage I have ever seen. This is followed by the medley, An American Trilogy. Elvis dies and as the world media reports his death, we hear him sing Dixie over shots of his funeral procession. We see the motorcade, the weeping crowds, the coffin, and the flowers, as the film returns to the Vegas concert and Elvis sings the eternally beautiful All My Trials. To me it is immeasurably moving, Elvis’s head bowed, his extraordinary voice steeped in sorrow - then the band rises, he lifts his head and sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic and Elvis is resurrected, triumphant. It is pure religion and as powerful as anything I have ever seen. The final shot of him, in slow motion, arms outstretched, the angel wings of his silver cape flung wide, shows his exultant ascent into heaven.

As I walked from the cinema, I was left with these three images - Elvis’s mortified, tear-streaked face; his head hung in sorrowful acceptance; and his caped arms outstretched in triumph. These are the stages of Christ’s passage upon the cross, the anguish, the sufferance and the resurrection, a journey which welcomes us all, in time.

Elvis continued performing until the end. In my eyes, he was some kind of angel; both terribly and awfully human yet divine in his meteoric reach that touched so many hearts. He was fallible and God-like at the same time. He crucified himself on stage in Vegas, at the supper show and the late show, hundreds and hundreds of times. His latter years on Earth were as sad and lonely as any can be, but his Vegas performances were epic triumphs of human transcendence, where the angels looked down on one who had fallen so far, then looked up to where he ascended.

Much love, Nick

 

Singing Tree is a mediocre song that is elevated by the general vibe and enthusiasm of the session. But it's the worst track they cut that day.

I really like Just Call Me Lonesome. Two Eddy Arnold covers in the same session. Elvis rarely did straight up country like this with no pop elements watering it down. In this case, it works well. I think the pedal steel is great, but then I'm a big fan of straight country and LOVE hearing a good pedal steel. Lloyd Green, Tom Brumley, those guys were amazing. This track is an interesting change of pace for Elvis.

 

I think the steel guitar that sounds a little too prominent now was about normal for country songs at the time. They did a much better job blending them in the Elvis Country album.

 

I appreciate the sentiment, but man he gets a lot of facts wrong in there.

 

Probably. He is getting older and it is probably more emotive than factual.

 

Yep, the steel guitar is only too prominent if you're not a country fan, I'd say. It's entirely normal for country of the day. By contrast, Elvis Country is not straight country. It's more country-rock and countrypolitan sounds.

 

I have always love the pedal steel ... perhaps it is because out of all the guitars, it is the only one I never got a chance to master, but it always sounds wonderful to me.

 

You're killing me here, Jason. I love country music as it was my go to format from about 1973, when I first discovered Charlie Rich. I love the 50's country too, everything from Johnny Cash to Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves. I just think you can make that pedal steel sound really cool, when its not miked so upfront and its played a little more subtly.

 

Here is take 6 which was the last take recorded. It was released Great Country Songs in 1996.

 

Aw, geeze. I sure didn't intend to suggest you are not a true country fan, but looking back at what I wrote it does seem to give that impression. My apologies. I guess from reading your comments I've gotten the impression you lean more towards stuff that is more pop oriented (like Reeves and Cline) or stuff that skirts the edges of country (like Charlie Rich) rather than the hardcore stuff. For me, pedal steel is a big part of the classic honky tonk sound, and I love hearing it prominently. Some of my favorite country ever is Johnny Paycheck's 60s stuff. He had Lloyd Green on there, and they let Lloyd off the leash and let him play some really gonzo stuff. There's a time for subtlety, but on a good old honky tonk weeper like Just Call Me Lonesome I think a big pedal steel sound works perfectly. Earlier in this thread I was negative about Elvis' cover of Your Cheatin' Heart because he made it way too much of a pop song. I really like how Just Call Me Lonesome has a straight country arrangement, something Elvis did not do very often.

 

I reckon it's one of the standouts on this album to be honest, and I quite like the album.

 

But he gets the truth right.

 

I haven't seen This is Elvis in a long time, but he's got his info mixed-up here, right? The version of Are You Lonesome Tonight that's in the movie is not the Laughing version from like 1969, but the one from the 1977 Elvis in Concert performance? From what year is the version of An American Trilogy in the movie?

 

I haven't seen it, I have no idea, sorry

 

The version in the movie is from Elvis In Concert, Rapid City, June 21, 1977. It was not included in the extended version of This Is Elvis.
Trilogy is from Hampton Roads, April 9, 1972. It was filmed but not used in Elvis On Tour.

 

I'm a big Porter Wagoner fan, and pedal steel is quite prominent in his 60s recordings ... along with alcoholism, murder, suicide, child abuse, and Jesus. Typical country music then.

 

That's the best kind!!

 

I keep getting light years ahead of this thread but I have to say that I love the overdubbed version of An American Trilogy from This Is Elvis. I save that for cranking up the volume and jamming on road trips.

 

No apologies needed my friend as I was trying to be a little overdramatic I guess, but I think you have probably pegged me right as far as my love for that countrypolitan sound as being my favorite. I do love Johnny Horton, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings and a lot of the more traditional stuff as well. It took me awhile to dig the sound of the steel guitar, but it does really have a special sorrowful feeling when added to the right song. I guess I just felt it stuck out a little bit on this song, but the beauty of Elvis Presley was that he was not afraid to do any type of country music. I personally think he sounded a little more authentic on the country-rock and country-pop stuff, but that is my own bias.

 

Agreed 100%. I love quite a bit of country music, from the Carter Family to Ernest Tubb to Johnny Cash to Floyd Cramer to Steve Earle to (hold your breath) slick, more-pop-than-country stuff like Sylvia and the first Shania Twain album, but the combination of over-the-top pedal steel and upbeat rhythms is just a dealbreaker for me.

 

DirkM, you haven't lived until you've been immersed in country gospel from the late 60s and early 70s. Drum tight southern gospel harmonies paired with blazing tempos and maniacal steel guitar picking front and center. Some of those guys play so fast, you think they are getting paid by the slide. Lol

 

Loved this. Who cares about factual inaccuracies when he's speaking from the heart?? I first saw Nick Cave with the Birthday Party in Melbourne, circa early 80s. He was a force of nature then. I'm a fellow fan of his and Shane McGowan who I was lucky enough to see most weekends when I left Melbourne for London when the Pogues were just kicking off. What a great and fertile musical era that was!

 

Sorry Nick, "the laughing version" was recorded in 1969 in Las Vegas. I would dub the version you are talking about from 1977 "the crying version". Otherwise very nice quote from also one of my favorite performers.