Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Eek, sorry I just peeked at that.

 

According to songwriter Ben Weisman in Writing For The King, it was himself with 57 songs that he wrote or co-wrote.

 

With a little quick research, the answer seems to be Ben Weisman, who several online sources report as having written or cowritten 57 Elvis songs with different collaborators (Weisman himself reports this number, so it's probably accurate).

Number two appears to be Tepper/Bennett. I found an obituary for Sid Tepper that said he and Bennett wrote 56 Elvis songs. However, there's also sites that claim they wrote 42 songs.

Giant/Baum/Kaye are listed on several sites as writing "over 40" Elvis songs, so they are probably #3.

I'm not about to go count to check the accuracy of any of this.

edit: Steve beat me to it about Weisman being #1...

 

I see a man in pain emotionally and physically, knowing how bad he looks, embarrassed in front of the CBS cameras with the house lights up, keeping his eyes closed while he sings to hide the humiliation. I suspect that is the last place he wanted to be.

That said, I don’t disagree that there were moments during 1976 and 1977 when being on stage was an outlet. But there were numerous examples where he was uninspired and mailing it in with an almost complete disregard for his craft, which suggests he was not particularly happy.

 

With one exception: the video of "Unchained Melody" (easily found online) is worth seeing, despite how horrible Elvis looks. Eugene Jarecki made great use of it in his excellent recent documentary The King, and it also appears in the Greatest Performances video compilation issued back in the VHS days, with liner notes from Guralnick, who noted that Elvis looked like a horror movie monster but achieved a kind of transcendence. It was his last moment of greatness.

 

As mentioned already, I think there’s a consensus that Parker’s gambling debts and Elvis’s out-of-control spending kept him on the road. My point was the same as yours: Elvis was quite capable of blowing off duties he didn’t want to perform, but, even at his lowest ebb right before he died, I think he fundamentally enjoyed performing on stage, both for the joy of making music and for the adulation from his audience. Even in the Omaha ‘77 footage you can see that.

 

I agree 100%. There are cringeworthy moments but that version of "How Great Thou Art" is my favorite. Despite his poor health and everything else, it still showed what he was capable of when he enjoyed performing the song.

 

FWIW, I rechecked the Alanna Nash Memphis Mafia book, and Lamar Fike does say that the last time he talked to Elvis (two or three days before he died) Elvis said that he was tired and "didn't feel good" and mentioned problems with his eye. Lamar says he suggested Elvis could cancel the impending tour, but Elvis said "I need the money. I've got to keep everything going." Lamar says he suggested Elvis take time off and go to Europe or Hawaii, and Elvis said "I'd love to do it, but I've got this obligation."

So it appears you're correct that at least at the very end of his life, Elvis felt forced to go out for financial reasons.

 

Paradise Hawaiian Style
Written By :
Bernie Baum, Bill Giant & Florence Kaye

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, July 26-27 and August 2-4, 1965 : August 4, 1965. splice take 4 and take 3

7" EP Paradise, Hawaiian Style by Elvis Presley with The Jordanaires (RCA Victor, New Zealand)[8]
A1. "Paradise - Hawaiian Style" (Giant, Baum, Kaye)
A2. "This Is My Heaven" (Giant, Baum, Kaye)
B1. "Drums of the Islands" (Polynesian Culture Centre, Tepper, Bennett)
B2. "Stop Where You Are" (Giant, Baum, Kaye)
-------------------------------------------------------
I actually like this song. It certainly has a bit of a cocktail lounge feel, but it has some nice instrumentation and a cool chord progression. I really like the vocal too. Perhaps Elvis wasn't too annoyed with this song .... I reckon it's a pretty good start to the album.

 

Queenie Wahine's Papaya
Written By :
Bernie Baum, Bill Giant & Florence Kaye

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, July 26-27 and August 2-4, 1965 : August 4, 1965. splice takes 2 & 6

For some reason they decided to make this song some form of tongue twister that gets faster and faster, and I'm not really sure why. The song could be ok, but it has this silly tongue twister thing going on and just gets faster and faster for no apparent reason.

 

Thats about my take on it too.

 

I always liked this song, though there's not much to the lyrics. The first time I heard it was when I rented the VHS for Aloha from Hawaii in the 1980s.
I don't think I'm the only one who heard it first there and thought that it was newly recorded for the 1973 special. Elvis' voice has a deeper quality here that makes it resemble his 1970s voice.

 

The speeding up is actually why I like Queenie Wahine! It's so ridiculous that it works for me.

The title track is actually quite beautiful, although it took some time to really grow on me (I first heard it via Command Performances and, at the time, I thought it was pretty bland). It may even be my favourite movie title song. I really like the little vocal flourish that he adds during take 4 around the 2:00 mark ("USA...a...a!"):

 

I like the title track, but Elvis labors and struggles to execute his vocals.

 

I am lagging way behind!! I just wanted to say that I LOVE these two songs. I had the Pickwick reissue of this album as a kid and actually liked it quite a bit. Some of those songs I don't like much anymore, but these two I still think are top shelf. Especially the remixed versions where Elvis' vocal is properly situated.

 

Do I need to pause for a day or so?
I don't mind

 

The title track (Paradise, Hawaiian Style) is OK, although to my ears Elvis' voice sounds slowed down a touch. The less said about Queenie Wahine's Papaya the better.

 

No. Once again I was not receiving notifications. They're popping up again, and I am getting caught up.

 

I think that all three of you are on to something. I really like the vocal flourish too that Dirk refers to in his post, but it almost seems like Elvis is trying to open up his voice a bit as I think POB is correct that he seems to be struggling a tad with the range of the song, which to me should not be that big of a challenge for Elvis given his great vocal range. I like the engineering for the most part on the album proper, certainly a vast improvement over the previous two soundtracks, but this track or Elvis's vocals on it, sound a little muffled to my ears. Maybe Shawn has it correct about the vocal being slowed down a bit. I do like the song itself and the production overall is pretty decent sounding.

 

Yea, I started the threads and more often than not I don't get notified when the page changes lol

 

Agreed. While I enjoy the song, its sentiment, its tropical/island backdrop, and even Elvis' voice -- there is something noticeably off. He had tremendous vocal range during the 1960's, and it is odd hearing him try to master something he can't reach (something he typically could reach with ease during that period). That said, I do not think he was particularly invested in the "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" soundtrack, and did not make too many attempts at mastering the title track.

 

I was actually going to sarcastically suggest that Elvis and the musicians were speeding up the song so they could get through it faster. Well, then Claus posts this adorable scene with the little girl and Elvis, and she really lights up the screen with him. I have not seen the movie in a long time, but it is interesting to note that sometimes the context of the movie improves your enjoyment of a particular song and sometimes the movie version ruins its enjoyment like with Hey Little Girl from Harum Scarum. The use of that song in the movie is cringeworthy, but if you listen to the remixed version outside the context of the movie, it is quite listenable.

 

I agree completely with the above. The song is not bad... kind of "Elvis goes exotica." But his vocal sounds strained, almost similar to some of the less-successful vocals from the den in 1976. I guess the likely theory would be he was apathetic and not trying his best. He was singing to a track and only did three complete takes, and the master was a splice of two of them.

 

The Fifties Easy Reference guide
Elvis Presley the Albums and Singles Thread *