Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, Oct 7, 2018.

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  1. ClausH

    ClausH Senior Member

    Location:
    Denmark
    That's correct. The instrumental track and Elvis' vocal were recorded at the same time. Nancy overdubbed her vocals a week later at a different studio.
     
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  2. I've got one ;)
     
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  3. I'm quite surprised they were out the door for even one day! At the time, were the theaters quite full when a new Elvis film arrived for the first days/week?
     
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  4. EPA4368

    EPA4368 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sacramento CA
    It was mostly for Nancy. Many years later on one of the talk shows, she said how much she enjoyed working with Elvis and how great he looked, but the script was terrible.

    Ernst Borgnine on a talk show said, he knew Nancy wasn't happy with the script, but she's been wanting to work with Elvis for years. When he brought up visiting the Speedway set and mentioned, how cheap the set looked, he didn't make any friends that day.

    [​IMG]
     
  5. Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby/Let Yourself Go

    I really like this single. 'Let Yourself Go' is fantastic, great groove and I like the studio version as much as the '68 Special version. If they ever do a future remix, please bring up that bent guitar note (at app. 35 seconds, and elsewhere) further up in the mix! Best moment of the song, but almost lost in the mix.

    While I don't really care for the song 'You'll Never Walk Alone', Elvis' vocal is pretty amazing. The build-up is a bit of foreshadowing to those dramatic tracks he added to the live set (How Great Thou Art, You Gave Me A Mountain, Trilogy etc.) in the 70's.
     
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  6. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    You'll Never Walk Alone is a great performance by Elvis. Let Yourself Go/Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby is not too bad of a single.

    You'll Never Walk Alone is another one of Elvis' nod of admiration to Roy Hamilton, probably his favorite singer.
     
  7. ClausH

    ClausH Senior Member

    Location:
    Denmark
    Here is take 2. First released on the Platinum box in the 90s.

     
  8. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Nancy was still hot at the time the movie was filmed (mid 1967) but this was another film that they sat on for awhile (Stay Away Joe leapfrogged it on the schedule). By the time it came out in mid 1968 her hit making days were pretty much over, and her biggest hits behind her.

    The most amazing thing here is that she's actually on the album. Doing this presumably meant she got a cut of the LP sales royalties, and it's shocking that the old man agreed to that.
     
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  9. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    A bit of reverence or fear about Frank?
     
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  10. The whole thing about Nancy getting a stand-alone track is a bit odd from many angels. Certainly the royalty aspect as czeskleba mentions above. But also how may major stars gave over an entire track on an album to a different artist? Muddying the waters is that this is a soundtrack album, but generally speaking all these soundtrack LPs are presented/marketed as 'Elvis' albums. I can't think of any other pop/rock album by a major star in this era where this occurs. Duets, yes but outright solo cuts? No.
     
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  11. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    and with all due respect the ignored Ann Margret tracks were better to my ears :)
     
  12. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    My guess is that it had more to do with the declining sales of Elvis records. They were probably desperate enough to include Nancy's songs in the hopes it would help sales.

    This really is something of a transitional album. Recorded after Clambake but before Guitar Man. Elvis has lost weight and looks 100 times better than he did in Clambake, and he seems to be trying harder also with his singing. Overall the material is a bit better, foreshadowing the improved soundtrack work that was coming.
     
  13. Revelator

    Revelator Disputatious cartoon animal.

    Location:
    San Francisco
    "You'll Never Walk Alone" was a song that meant a lot to Elvis, and it was one of his favorites ever since he heard Roy Hamilton’s version in 1954. Hamilton's influence was also responsible for Elvis's versions of “I Believe,” “Unchained Melody,” and “Hurt.” Here's Roy's version of "You'll Never Walk Alone."

    Elvis's version was unplanned--he simply sat down at the piano and began singing the song, which he knew by heart from singing at home.

    Jorgensen writes that "the singer began transforming his sudden inspiration into a delicate group performance. He asked for an introductory figure on acoustic guitar, which Harold Bradley provided. Bob Moore contributed a stabilizing beat on the double bass, and an organ was added for underlying color. The Jordanaires, of course, knew where to fit in. After finishing the first run-through Elvis started from the top again without the slightest break, improving the drama of the song, accepting the challenge of its range and the previous achievements of some of his greatest heroes. The actual moment may have been improvised, but its foundations were in Elvis’s endless hours of gospel singing with friends at home and in the studio. The second take was another extended version, with Elvis throwing himself into the ending, trying to define both the vocal and piano conclusion to the song. They kept going. Millie tried out a part, the drummers came up with percussion ideas, Harold Bradley redefined the guitar runs, and they slowly moved from a jam into a regular recording process."

    Strangely, Elvis only sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" once in concert, on July 19, 1975 in Uniondale, New York. But the live version is even more moving than the original. Guralnick, who calls the performance "stunning," wrote the song's "message was one of exaltation, God’s presence in the midst of peril and fear, but much like the Twenty-third Psalm, the classic Rodgers and Hammerstein composition was dependent for its emphasis as much on the singer as the song—and in Elvis’ case the hope expressed in the lyrics seemed balanced by a tone that reflected a heart-rending, almost desperate struggle for belief. The song was the high point of the show, something, Elvis announced, he had always wanted to do onstage."



    The renown rock critic Nik Cohn was in the audience at that concert. His entire review is worth reading, but I'll leave you with the finale:

    Elvis is still impassioned, but now there's a note of desperation, something haunted. After a few minutes, he sits down at the piano and starts to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.

    It's a song I despise, but Elvis clearly loves it. Years later, I'll read that Roy Hamilton's 1954 version was a major inspiration in making him a singer. At any rate, he tells us he's always wanted to perform it on stage. Tonight's the night.

    Instead of the triumphalism of Gerry Marsden and the Kop End, he treats the song as a private meditation, full of pain and the yearning to believe. Though the lyrics speak of hope, Elvis turns them into a cry, as if reaching for one last sliver of light in engulfing darkness. I am alone, he seems to be saying. All of us are alone. But maybe, just maybe, we can find someone or something to cling to. In his case, it's God. But each of us, hearing him, reaches for our own salvation.

    The rest of the night is a blur. Objectively, I have seen better shows - Jimi Hendrix at the Savoy, Prince at the Ritz, James Brown (more than once) at the Apollo, and Johnny Paycheck at the Acadia County Fair, to name just a few. None chilled me as profoundly as those few minutes of Elvis alone at the piano, singing a song I can't stand. If great art needs nakedness, it was the most naked performance I've ever witnessed.
     
  14. artfromtex

    artfromtex Honky Tonkin' Metal-Head

    Location:
    Fort Worth, TX
    Epic post, man. Thank you.
    :cheers:
     
  15. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    One of my favorites as well. Check out Charlie Rich's very similarly styled narrative of a child who is wrongly accused of a crime on his crossover single from 1967, July 12, 1939.


    [​IMG]
    50+


    Mix - July 12, 1939
    YouTube

     
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  16. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Well Elvis boinked Frank's Girl (Juliette Prowse) and later boinked his daughter, I guess he felt he owed Frank something stupid.
     
  17. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    No surprises there ... his position made his sin nature quite easily fed lol
     
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  18. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Juliette was very cute in GI blues.. watched that last night
     
  19. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    To answer your last question, Johnny Cash gave over complete songs to guest artists on The Junkie and the Juicehead, although that was mid-70s.

    What perhaps is most remarkable with Elvis is that this hadn't happened before. They should have been proper soundtrack albums from the outset, and we would no doubt look more sympathetically at this period of Elvis's output if they had been. Many of the soundtrack albums would have benefitted from the actual film versions of songs, and certainly they would have represented better value for money.

    It is rather a shame that hurdles haven't been overcome to present, for example, the proper G I Blues soundtrack album as it should have been (especially on FTD) - with the big band opening instrumental from the credits, and with Juliet Prowse's dance numbers which use motifs from other songs from the film and (oddly) Crawfish. The same is true of, for example, Mexico from Fun in Acapulco which, instead of including the duet voice, just has random gaps (although some alternate takes had Elvis singing the other words). Frankie and Johnny could also have benefitted from the title track in its film version. At the same time, this would have differentiated them from Elvis's regular albums - and in most cases would have prevented the need for bonus tracks from regular sessions which then prevented "normal" albums being released due to lack of material. FTD even managed to foul that idea up on the new version of Viva Las Vegas where it for some reason didn't try to present it as a proper soundtrack album on the first disc with Ann-Margret's performances included.

    What is ironic is that Nancy's song is one of the best (if not the best) piece of musical material in the film.
     
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  20. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I cannot agree. For example, I prefer the UK versions of Hard Day's Night and Help. I don't need any more "show tunes" or instrumentals making Elvis soundtracks even worse. The exception I can think of is I prefer the full length movie version of One Broken Heart For Sale.
     
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  21. Chip TRG

    Chip TRG Senior Member

    It just looks.....weird. Very anachronistic.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  22. PepiJean

    PepiJean Forum Resident

    "Speedway" is AT LAST the end of an era.
    We should all be more than happy about it as the Comeback era is about to start with some of Elvis most interesting, energetic and exciting music ever.
    I can't wait mark winstanley!
     
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  23. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Sure can't agree with that opinion. I'm not a big fan of Nancy, but more to the point some of Elvis' material in the film is quite good. I'll leave the specifics until we get to the individual track discussion, but this is definitely not a soundtrack filled with lousy songs as some others were.
     
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  24. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Not exactly the same thing, but the Beatles had a side of their Yellow Submarine album filled with songs not by the George Martin Orchestra. And there's The Chocolate Watchband... Half the stuff on their albums was by other artists. In the case of Elvis though what's strangest to me is just the inconsistent way the soundtracks were handled.
     
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  25. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Me either.... I really am itching to hook into 1969
     
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