Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, May 26, 2019.

  1. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    Another thing that I think gave Elvis a black eye to a lesser extent was the circus atmosphere surrounding the vacuum crated when he died. Colonel Parker and many others flooded the market with the most tasteless "Elvis merchandise" that was unfortunately referred to as memorabilia. I can't even guess how many velvet Elvis paintings I saw at flea markets (selling very well). I even saw a few with Elvis and Jesus as if they were somehow best buddies now. I found this on the net but it's close to some that I saw ( Jesus, Elvis, and Robert E Lee hanging out). Wow!
    [​IMG]

    Speaking of a circus after Elvis' death, does anyone else remember this guy?

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2019
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  2. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    I bought the cassette version in the last few weeks. Excellent and a revelation for me. Hearing Elvis songs I’d never heard before.
     
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  3. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Elvis in Concert

    [​IMG]
    Live album by
    Elvis Presley
    Released
    October 3, 1977
    Recorded June 19 & 21, 1977
    Venue Omaha, Nebraska (June 19)
    Rapid City, South Dakota (June 21)
    Genre Rock
    Length 71:41
    Label RCA Records
    Producer Felton Jarvis, Elvis Presley

    Elvis in Concert is the live album released by RCA Records in October 1977 in conjunction with the television special of the same name which featured some of the final performances of American singer and musician Elvis Presley. Videotaped and recorded in June 1977, both the special and album were broadcast and released on October 3, (the single "My Way"/"America the Beautiful" was released the same day) six weeks after Presley's death. The album peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard chart in late 1977. It was certified Gold and Platinum on October 14 and 3x Platinum on August 1, 2002, by the RIAA.

    Disc 1
    1. Elvis Fans Comments (Pt. 1)/Opening Riff
    2. "Also Sprach Zarathustra"
    3. "See See Rider"
    4. "That's All Right"
    5. "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
    6. "Teddy Bear"/"Don't Be Cruel"
    7. Elvis Fans Comments (Pt. 2)
    8. "You Gave Me a Mountain"
    9. "Jailhouse Rock"
    10. Elvis Fans Comments (Pt. 3)
    11. "How Great Thou Art"
    12. Elvis Fans Comments (Pt. 4)
    13. "I Really Don't Want To Know"
    14. Elvis Introduces his Father
    15. "Hurt"
    16. "Hound Dog"
    17. "My Way"
    18. "Can't Help Falling in Love"
    19. Closing Riff/Special Message from Elvis's Father
    Disc 2
    1. "I Got A Woman/Amen"
    2. Elvis Talks
    3. "Love Me"
    4. "If You Love Me"
    5. "'O Sole Mio/It's Now or Never"
    6. "Trying to Get to You"
    7. "Hawaiian Wedding Song"
    8. "Fairytale"
    9. "Little Sister"
    10. "Early Morning Rain"
    11. "What'd I Say"
    12. "Johnny B. Goode"
    13. "And I Love You So"
    ---------------------------------------------------
    From what I can tell, this is by far the most controversial album in the Elvis catalog. I am not going to say it is bad, as I have heard some stuff off it now, that I like, and I have heard some stuff off it that I disliked.
    When we first started doing this thread, I bought and watched many Elvis concerts and such, that I had never been aware of, and/or never seen.
    This sometimes involved looking through youtube to see what was available.
    When I found this, I was just happy to be able to find a full concert to watch ...... When I started watching ...... well I was a little horrified. I had never seen any of this, to the best of my knowledge, and I couldn't watch it.
    To be honest it seemed like a cruel joke, or a deliberate attempt to unseat the throne.
    I wouldn't say this is the sole reason for the multitude of jokes, but it certainly doesn't help.

    I find it disappointing and astonishing that this has sold three times more the Elvis Is Back, or From Elvis In Memphis, and so the perpetuation of somewhat cheap nasty recordings and albums, that were promoted better, and sold cheaper with considerably higher turnover has pretty much defecated on the Elvis story, in my opinion. Yes with a certain crowd like us, Elvis legacy has been renewed via good back catalog releases, and a "fixed reality of how things really were, but for the majority, they heard all these cheap album put together by a machine that was merely focused on the instant dollar return, and Elvis sadly has one of the most mismanaged catalogs ... probably prior to the birth of FTD I have ever seen.

    Lets imagine for a minute that the Beatles legacy after they split, was perpetual images of John smacked out of his brain, or George scowling in the corner, or the worst traits of any of the members being the number one focus of attention for the last, nearly fifty years? What if the main selling songs of the band, due to the record companies motives were "You Know My Name" or some floor cutting outtakes that were never meant to be ... We wouldn't currently see the Beatles as the number one band around the place. The way the Beatles catalog was handled and the way the Elvis catalog was handled are absolutely chalk and cheese, and we see the results play out in modern times.

    So the biggest single musical artist of the twentieth century becomes a joke and a byword, in the face of an overwhelming media drive to dethrone the "King Of Rock and Roll", via a forty year slander campaign based on poor management and record company policies.... It is a terrible shame, but frankly the man's work stands up in spite of all this stuff.

    I'm looking forward to being made to listen to this album, merely because I haven't been able to yet. I won't be posting the videos, unless that is all there is, because I don't see the need.

    I feel that any management group, with any knowledge knows how the public are with an artists death. they know that whatever they release at the time of an artists death is going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread and is forever going to remain one of the main things that the artist is remembered for....
    So it is beyond me, who in management and the record company thought that this was the best way to characterise Elvis as a musical eulogy..... sorry for rambling on, but this makes me angry.
    I think this had its place to be released, but I think that it should have been down the track. When you are really thirsty, the first mouthful of liquid is the one that hits you best..... This became the public's first mouthful of liquid at the time

    Anyway, sorry about the ramble.

    Please give us your perception of this album, and how it hit you, what it means to you, and anything else that comes to mind.

    Cheers
    Mark
     
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  4. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    [​IMG]

    The 'fat Elvis' thing was around long before the TV special. This National Lampoon issue was in 1976 and I remember a similar cover (with a photo) in Melbourne scandal sheet The Truth
     
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  5. JLGB

    JLGB Senior Member

    Location:
    D.R.
    Exactly. The "fat Elvis" stuff happened around 1974-75. When he indeed, was seen overweight.
     
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  6. DirkM

    DirkM Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA, USA
    EIC is, to be generous, a mess of an album. The fan comments are dreadful. The mixing/mastering is flat and lifeless, at least on CD. The "bonus tracks" seem thrown in without any thought as to sequencing (ending with And I Love You So reminds me of their fondness for ending Stax collections with If That Isn't Love...why?!). Some of the performances are so awful that it makes you wonder how anyone could have cleared them for release.

    All of that having been said, there are also some wonderful tracks on the album, including one of Elvis' very best performances. For this reason, I actually prefer EIC to Aloha. I have to use the skip button pretty liberally on both albums, but EIC has the edge (emotionally, if not technically) on key tracks like You Gave Me A Mountain and My Way. The problem is that, on EIC, they get lost in the shuffle of poor production values and an overly-long tracklist. By cutting the lesser tracks and including Unchained Melody, it's just about possible to cobble together a pretty decent single album. You could even cheat and include some of the multitracks that were released on the Spring Tours FTD (much better performances and sound than EIC, imo).
     
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  7. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

  8. Pelvis Ressley

    Pelvis Ressley Down in the Jungle Room

    Location:
    Capac, Michigan
    My mom had the album. There wasn't much to like about it. "Early Morning Rain" was one of the few songs I liked. Since I didn't see the CBS special until I was much older, I didn't understand why Elvis didn't do a longer version of the song (it was part of the musician intros).

    I noticed that Vernon's closing comments on the LP are different than the one from the CBS special. He recorded it twice?
     
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  9. JLGB

    JLGB Senior Member

    Location:
    D.R.
    During the videotaping, it was done a few times (takes).
     
  10. Pelvis Ressley

    Pelvis Ressley Down in the Jungle Room

    Location:
    Capac, Michigan
    I can picture van Kuijk standing off camera, "c'mon Vernon, more emotion, more sighs."
     
  11. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Of course Elvis wasn’t completely shielded from scrutiny, but several millions of people did not read National Lampoon. The 1970’s was a much different time, not the era of a 24 hour news cycle largely built on sensationalism and tabloid news. Yes, there were jokes about Elvis being fat and 40, and some stories in grocery store tabloids, but nothing in the mainstream on the scale of EIC. I think it is odd that anyone familiar with Elvis’ history would downplay or dismiss the damage that EIC caused, and how its damage is directly and indirectly still felt to this day.
     
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  12. The Slug Man

    The Slug Man Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Carolina
    Elvis: What Happened? (released shortly before his death) had a negative impact. Or did most of the readers take it with a grain of salt and assume it was just sour grapes on the part of his ex-bodyguards who'd been fired?
     
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  13. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Speaking of EIC, the album is largely a bloated train wreck. Why RCA pushed for a double LP of such substandard performances is bizarre. Make it a single disc, mask as many deficiencies as possible with post-production overdubs, and move on — this isn’t the kind of project to expand and get elaborate with. Elvis holds it together for a couple of performances such as I Really Don’t Want To Know (although incomplete), How Great Thou Art, and My Way, but most of performances are shambolic in nature with pitchy and uncommitted vocals, severe breath control issues, and some bellowing and other histrionics for good measure.
     
  14. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    The timing of Elvis In Concert ironically lended credibility to the book.
     
  15. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    Once again, Dirk pretty much sums up Elvis In Concert for me personally, other than the fact that I actually prefer the Aloha album over this one. It is a terribly conceived live album, but as Dirk says so well in his post, "There are some wonderful tracks on the album," nonetheless.

    Heartbreak Hotel
    author and classical music producer Robert Matthew Walker points out some of Elvis's better performances on the Elvis In Concert album in his book:

    "But Presley is an superb voice. Not for a long time had the ringing power and tenderness, the range of expression, and the certainty of feeling been so clearly displayed. These performances needed no cosmetic surgery before release. In 'How Great Thou Art', for example, Presley's top A's are amazing: they would be a credit to any singer. Some performances are given with great care. 'My Way', especially, a better performance than on the Aloha From Hawaii double album, suffers nothing from comparison with Frank Sinatra. The appearance of Sherrill Nielsen in the Italian verse of 'O Solo Mio' is a nice touch; it is a pity it was cut from the television show. 'Are You Lonesome Tonight' begins magnificently, but unfortunately Presley messes up the words in the middle section. Although he recovers well by making a joke of it, the sincerity of the opening verses show that he did not mean this to be a send-up. However, one cannot escape the suspicion that some of his early rockers are put in - in a very abbreviated form - for old times' sake; the performances are little more than sketches, with hectic garbled words."
     
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  16. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    “Superb voice?” Not even close. There are maybe 4 redeeming performances out of 2 concerts worth of performances.

    And while the opening verse of Are You Lonesome Tonight? is well sung, the monologue is not just a mess-up, it is defining example of his drug-induced state, of a once brilliant performer wrecked and incapable of delivering on the big stage. It is crushing watching Elvis stumble through that performance.
     
  17. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Not bizarre, just greedy. Elvis records were flying off the shelves. They knew a new Elvis record would sell like hotcakes, and they were right. They and the Colonel went for the quick bucks, regardless of the long-term damage to the value of Elvis as an asset. As the Colonel cynically put it, "it's just like when he was in the Army."
     
  18. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Exactly. It's one thing to see a drawing on a magazine cover or a grainy photo on a tabloid. It's another to see crystal clear video in which Elvis is not just fat, but seriously messed up on drugs. And 24 million people watched that show, as opposed to the few thousands that would see a magazine. In Concert had a huge effect on making the public aware of Elvis' sad state at the end, which in turn made possible the plethora of jokes and bad impersonators that continue to this day.
     
  19. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    I remember getting this on CD in the early 90s, I hadn't any experience with it before. Little did I know the shocking footage of Unchained Melody I'd witnessed from The Great Performances came from this special. "Who's that?" my older cousin asked one day when I was watching the VHS. "Elvis" I replied. "That's not Elvis!" he exclaimed, leaving the room. Hmm.

    The cover-art showed Elvis in a good-light, but it was like listening to a different artist. Very poorly conceived album, and I haven't revisited it in a long time.

    "What the heck is he doing?" my brother asked one day when all the weird noises and grunting were going on during I Got A Woman/Amen... "Karate!" I told him, picturing Elvis pulling off a killer display of excellence. That picture stayed in my head for a long time, blinded by my fandom. Ugh.

    Elvis In Concert is an abomination.
     
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  20. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina

    I can recall reading that Elvis became enraged when Johnny Carson did an Elvis is fat and forty joke in 1975. On the net I recall one audio recording where Elvis is noticeably upset about stories of his weight. Saying to the audience that it was a bulletproof vest. I agree about EIC being the knockout punch to his image after jabs being made for at least the two final years of his life. It's been years since I saw the CBS special. I think the fan comments were to provide some filler for the show and they were originally planning to use the special to counter the damage done by ELVIS, WHAT HAPPENED?. Before Elvis died, I've read that CBS wasn't happy with the footage they had and they were going tape more shows in hopes of getting something better. After his death, they were stuck with what they had. Why they didn't change gears and make it into a tribute tv special by selecting only the strongest performances from EIC and using older and better footage to give some balance is beyond me.
     
  21. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    Sadly, $$$$ already invested.
     
  22. PepiJean

    PepiJean Forum Resident

    Totally.
    I still do not understand what is the point about watching / listening to a sick man falling apart live.
     
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  23. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    It wasn't CBS's choice what footage to use, it was up to the Colonel. I think combining with older footage would have been even worse, because then you'd have the contrast right in front of your eyes. There's no way the 1977 footage wasn't going to make Elvis look bad, because he literally looked terrible in it. But to the Colonel it was a sunk cost (they'd paid for it) and he knew there was demand, so he did what he did best... sell a circus freak to a gawking audience.
     
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  24. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    I should have figured that Parker was going to squeeze the last pennies from his meal ticket. Thanks for the information.
     
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  25. kreen

    kreen Forum Resident

    First, it has historical value.

    Second, there is beauty in any artist getting out there on the stage, no matter the circumstances, to do to the best he can while he's in a difficult state. (See the recent movie on Judy Garland).

    Third, while the actual performances are not among Elvis' best, they're still musically enjoyable to a degree. It's not like he's not singing the songs or remembering the words. I mean he's singing those songs, and they're good songs.

    Fourth, it was not preordained that he would die a few months later. He could have never had that heart attack on that fateful night, and he could have lived for many more years, in which case that concert would simply be known as "the one from that bad period of his", not unlike many other albums/shows/books/films that we still enjoy from artists we love, but which they made when they were at a low point.

    EIC should get an official release.
     
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