Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

I suppose that's possible, but in the context of the song a fairytale is not a good thing. Unless his intention was to make a deeper comment, that the seemingly fairytale existence of his life is not all it's cracked up to be? Who knows.

 

Thanks for that! It has all of the twists and turns just like in the threads!

 

I really like that version of Fairytale! Thanks for sharing it! Today is not an Elvis album that I used to frequently reach for but when I did, Fairytale and the double entendre of I Can Help were always cool to hear. Billy Swan's version is perfectly fine but I prefer Elvis' version as he seems to be enjoying it. Elvis certainly sings it much better! I Can Help also takes me back to the song Suspicion. On both Suspicion and I Can Help, Elvis' performance was so much better compared to the hit version although the arrangement was the same.

 

I have wondered too, what Elvis meant. My guess is that in referring to his life as a fairytale he was thinking more along the lines of what he said at the Jaycee award event, "... every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times…"

Rather than a deeper, bitter, "...You used me, you deceived me, and you never seemed to need me, but I'll bet you won't forget me when I go..."

Or he could have been saying that his life was fairytale in that, “The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”

 

Nope. Keeps rock-solid speed, though.

 

The anti-skate should have been fixed on those tables in 2017.

 

That is good to hear. I am in the market for a new TT and I really like those Audio Technica direct drive quartz units.

 

Just for fun, I threw together an alternate Today album. It makes a mockery of the title in an Elvis Now sort of way, but I think it makes for an entertaining listen.

Side A:

T-R-O-U-B-L-E
Susan When She Tried
For The Good Times (Standing Room Only FTD)
Pieces Of My Life
Tiger Man (Walk A Mile In My Shoes)

Side B:

Fairytale (original mix; Today Legacy Edition)
I Can Help
Bringing It Back
Green Green Grass Of Home
A Hundred Years From Now (Elvis Country Legacy Edition)

 

Bringin' It Back
Written By :
Gregg Gordon

Recorded :
RCA's Studio C, Hollywood, March 10-13, 1975: March 12, 1975. take 4

We have a nice acoustic guitar and piano bringing this song in. We move into a cool groove. There is a country feel, with a somewhat country soul groove, particularly in the chorus. Elvis again nails the vocal. Again this is probably a lesser song, but the two lesser songs on this album, for me at least, are still very enjoyable on their own merits.

 

Green Green Grass Of Home
Written By :
Claude Putnam Jr.

Recorded :
RCA's Studio C, Hollywood, March 10-13, 1975 : March 11, 1975. take 5.

I think the only version of this song that was particularly familiar to me, was the Tom Jones version, but memory seems to tell me that this is a very different arrangement. With all the respect I have for Jones as a singer, I have never owned any of his albums. This track has a nice slow and steady feel, and Elvis again gets the vocal spot on. In this instance I think some of the backing vocals could disappear, but for the most part I think that this works well, and closes the album well.

 

I'm going to say that this is a solid album, and very worth the Elvis fan getting. The only real complaint someone could have with this album is the country flavour, because some folks just don't like country. The thing is though, that's where Elvis went, and whether any of us are unhappy with that or not is somewhat redundant nearing fifty years after the fact.
Elvis has a refreshing return of strength to his vocals and the songs come across well, even those that are somewhat weaker as songs themselves.
So we end up with a solid album, that is well worth having.

 

My first experience with Green Green Grass Of Home was Dean Martin. I have always liked the song. Elvis does a fine job with it. Even those of us who are not incarcerated and on death row probably have had a similar dream or daydream of "going home".

 

At the beginning of discussing Today, I was wondering which album I preferred - Promised Land or Today. I'm going to go with Promised Land. While I like Today, what I consider its 'lesser' songs bring it down a notch.

 

I have to say that Bringin' It Back is pretty nice bit of sequencing between I Can Help and Green, Green Grass Of Home. I like Elvis performances on these two but they don't stand out especially to me.
Speaking of Green, Green Grass Of Home, I have a tape (I need to find it ) of a radio special from January 1979 called "Elvis Memories". In that special there's a story told by Joe Esposito ( I think, it's been a long time) about one year in particular when Elvis had been out in Hollywood and was more homesick than usual (mid 1960s I'm assuming). Anyway, Elvis had finished his working and they quickly packed the car and headed for Memphis. He said along the way early in the trip, Green, Green Grass Of Home by Tom Jones came on the radio. Elvis immediately started singing it along with everyone else. He said that the entire trip, Elvis and the guys kept stopping at payphones wherever they were and called the radio station that they were listening to and asked them to play GGGOH. He said Elvis couldn't get enough of that song on the trip and everyone singing it really lifted his homesick funk and put him in a great mood.

 

I would have liked hearing what Elvis could have done with Green Green Grass of Home at American Sound in 1969. The 1975 master is fine, but I always expected more from it. Perhaps that was the best he could do by 1975.

 

I think you are spot on here as well. Elvis was slowly and methodically turning back to his country roots, with a little rockabilly throne in no less, if you count I Can Help into that mix of songs on the Today album. Yes indeed, I was actually thrilled when he made that turn back to country, but I am glad he still had a mild interest in other genres as well doing the later stage of his career.

I really like his stellar version of Bringing It Back, which he and Brenda Lee turned into hit singles. Well, the Elvis version should have been a much bigger hit than it actually was in my opinion, but I think it was probably too pop sounding for the country crowd and too country for the the top 40 audience. Elvis proved to be pretty adapt at straddling both fences at both the beginning and ending of his career, but Bringing It Back was sort of a failure in this regard. Nevertheless, I just dig Tony Brown's great piano work, which he had actually played on the demo version that Elvis liked, so he got called to play on Elvis's studio version as well for the very first time. Tony would go on to work with many country artists in the 80's and 90's as country music's premier record producer. Elvis could really spot talent when he heard it.

I was a pretty big Tom Jones fan and just like Elvis, I fell in love with Tom Jones county-pop version of Green Green Grass Of Home. Yeah, I love those big, rangy and powerful voices a whole lot. I always liked Elvis's version well enough, but now after all these years, I find Elvis's understated country take more authentic than Tom Jones popish version on this classic song by country songwriting legend Curly Putman.

 

I forget who it was, Marty Lacker maybe, had played Jerry Lee Lewis's version (from the Country Songs for City Folks album) for Elvis, and Elvis didn't show any interest in it.

 

Man, that would have been interesting to hear. I pretty much felt the exact same way as you did about Elvis's gentle, but straight version of Green Green Grass Of Home, but for some reason it has grown on me like perhaps no other song of his. I like James Burton's understated electric guitar and Elvis's deep, but sincere vocals.

 

The question remains, did Elvis really go there? Because his live act, which is predominantly how he reached his audience and the public during that era, was not really country. For a time he occasionally performed some tracks from the Today LP and performed an Olivia Newton-John cover or two in concert, but as an entertainer, he was hardly a country act.

With respect to what he recorded, I think the content reflected some of his radio listening interests, but mostly the country song submissions were likely overseen and encouraged by Jarvis, who was trying to promote Elvis on country radio. As such, it didn’t necessarily reflect Elvis going country.

 

That's a fair call .... is it possible that Elvis' disinterest in recording was sparked by him receiving songs he didn't want to sing via Jarvis?

 

That would have been a perfect time for Elvis to have recorded that! Besides Tom Jones great version of GGGOH, there's been so many covers of this that I've heard. I particularly like Porter Wagoner's country version. Although the studio version wasn't anything special, I think Jerry Lee Lewis did a fantastic live performance of this in this video.

 

Yeah, I can see that. Jerry Lee's studio version wasn't anything special but he did a fantastic live performance.

 

That is a good point to make as well. No, I do not think that Elvis ever wanted to be exclusively a country singer as much as he respected the genre and many of its singers. Elvis and Charlie Rich hated to be boxed into one style of singing, and you are right to point out that Elvis's concert repertoire was still made up of a multitude of music styles and genres. Elvis never would have allowed himself to be pigeonholed into just being a "country" singer as much as he loved a lot of country songs and artists from that format.

 

By the mid-70’s, I think Elvis was resigned to record songs, whether he truly had interest in the material or not. It was a similar pattern from the soundtrack era. The session work was designed to meet contractual obligations rather than to create. Occasionally he felt like recording something specific, but the system in place was to review stacks of song submissions, many from his publishing companies and Jarvis’ channels. It was restrictive and there was no real creative objective. It is understandable that Elvis lost most of passion and enthusiasm for making music.

 

I think the one of the main differences between the mid-70's recordings and much of the mid-60's soundtrack recordings is that Elvis was actually picking out a lot of songs that he wanted to sing during the 70's period, like My Way, My Boy, Padre, Green Green Grass Of Home, Hurt, Pledging My Love, The Last Farewell, Solitaire, He'll Have To Go, and Unchained Melody, just to name a few.