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. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Almost In Love -
    [​IMG]
    Written By :
    Luiz "Rick" Bonfa & Randy Starr

    Recorded :

    Western Recorders, Hollywood, March 7 & 11, 1968 : March 11, 1968. take 3

    This is a very cool song and has a very sophisticated melody and styling that borrows from several genres. We have Elvis singing really well and the song is really something a little different, which adds to the attraction for me.



     
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  2. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    A Little Less Conversation -
    [​IMG]

    Written By :
    Billy Strange & Scott Mac Davis

    Recorded :
    Western Recorders, Hollywood, March 7 & 11, 1968 : March 7, 1968. take 16

    This version is great. I liked the JXL remix, but the song didn't really need anything added to make it a cool song with a great beat. This is just a fantastic song that should have been a number one.

     
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  3. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    The Almost In Love album version. take 10
     
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  4. DirkM

    DirkM Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA, USA
    Almost In Love all but puts me to sleep. I like the atmosphere, but the tune itself doesn't do anything for me.

    I never liked ALLC (be it the single version, the album version, or the remix) until I heard the version formerly known as the "Comeback Special" version. Then it, or at least that performance of it, became one of my go-to Elvis tracks. As heard on Memories or the 4-CD Comeback Special box, it's an absolute joy, from the opening drum beats to the "Hey!" that ushers in the key change at the end. The way Elvis sings "Shut your mouth and open up your heart" is pure magic.



    We recently found out that it's actually take 2 from the studio session, but the version on the Live A Little, Love A Little FTD just doesn't work for me. It sounds dull rather than exciting, lacking the punch and intensity of the Memories/Comeback Special version (the unrepaired ending doesn't help, nor does the dryness of Elvis' vocal). It's amazing what a little echo and aggressive mixing can do.
     
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  5. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    I've never known Luiz Bonfa referred to as "Rick" before?

    Almost in Love is Elvis's one and only attempt at a bossa nova track from one of the masters of the genre. Bonfa was the writer of Black Orpheus (aka: Manha da Carvaval & A day in the Life of a Fool), one of the key songs to help popularise the music in the US at the beginning of the 1960s. Almost in Love started off as an instrumental entitled Moonlight in Rio in 1966, with words added later by Randy Starr, a dentist and part-time lyricist who also provided the words to such classics as Datin', Carny Town, and Who Needs Money. The arrangement for Elvis's recording is very much based on the Bonfa instrumental recording from a couple of years earlier. It's a shame the arrangement is more lounge music in style than bossa, but it works well on film and the recording and performance is good enough to make one wish that Elvis had taken time at some point to record an album in the bossa style using classic songs of the genre and someone like Claus Ogerman to arrange it. The original instrumental is below:

     
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  6. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    I like it! Thanks shanebrown! That makes me want to sip brandy and speak in a cool accent while wearing a smoking jacket.
     
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  7. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Thanks for sharing! Another piece of the puzzle. :)
     
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  8. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    A fantastic single all around. The Almost In Love Bossa Nova lounge feel is wonderful. And the original take 16 single version of A Little Less Conversation has always been one of my favorites since I bought the single back in 1968. I took it to a friend's house and we must have played it a dozen times. He did not care for Almost In Love however. When I bought the Almost In Love LP, I could not figure out why A Little Less Conversation was not the version I had on the single. Of course I found out much later it was a MISTAKE!!!! The so called TV Special version has way too much reverb in the vocals. And the remix which uses the "TV Special" version is just stupid. (But I am glad it helped draw attention to Elvis to a younger generation).
     
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  9. PepiJean

    PepiJean Forum Resident

    Nothing to add on here: your opinion about that single is 100% like mine.
     
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  10. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    Yes indeed, the first thing that I thought of when hearing this track again after so many years was how Elvis is in full Frank Sinatra crooner mode here. It made me immediately think of Frank Sinatra's great collaboration with the great Antônio Carlos Jobim. And yes, the arranger was Claus Ogerman as well. Wow, that string and horn arrangement by Billy Strange is about as lush as Elvis ever got in a studio recording setting. Splendid to my ears. It makes one wonder what Elvis would have sounded like on a full fledged big band style of album as well.
     
  11. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Here we see the first fruits of the campaign to improve Elvis's film music. Songs by real composers rather than hacks, backing by the Wrecking Crew, recorded at a new studio rather than RCA, and with a genuine outside producer (Billy Strange). Of course there was nothing wrong with the musicians Elvis had been using, but sometime familiarity breeds laziness and I suspect being around all new people motivated Elvis to up his game.

    For awhile Mac Davis seemed to become Elvis's favorite songwriter. He gets the designated b-side here, but in 1969 he would be the writer or co-writer of an amazing four of the six singles Elvis released that year. That is certainly the record for most Elvis singles written by a composer in the same calendar year... I don't think anyone else has more than two.
     
  12. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    Once again you say just about everything I would want to say about this great song and performance. It only took about 34 years for it to become a worldwide number one smash, but it also shows Elvis's firm belief in the merits and quality of the song were spot on.

    The thing I have noticed about hit singles over the years, and I say this as someone who has routinely followed the Billboard charts pretty close since I was a teenager, is that timing is everything. We know that the hit version would probably never happened without its inclusion in that commercial for Nike during the World Cup. I firmly believe that if Elvis had released this single after the Comeback Special or some of the Memphis single releases, it could have easily been a top ten hit or number one record. Elvis was coming off a very cool spell, when many top 40 radio station programmers deemed it unhip to play his records. The hype and good ratings of the television special and the huge publicity surrounding his Las Vegas return to splendor, not to mention some stellar recordings in Memphis, made it impossible for PD's to ignore Elvis on the radio now.
     
  13. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    Mac Davis really was a terrific songwriter and a rather engaging performer as well. I got the chance to see him as a headliner in Las Vegas at the original MGM Hotel (Now known As Ballys) in 1983. Mac put on a pretty good show and ironically, I would catch Larry Gatlin's show as well while I was in town. Larry was another songwriter that Elvis admired greatly having recorded both his songs, Help Me and Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall, in the 70's. Both songwriters mentioned Elvis during their shows as I recall.

    Mac was in a silly mood that night and joked around a lot with his band. I liked him a lot and had watched his television show quite a bit as well, but I was surprised that Larry and his brothers put on a more focused and compelling show as I would have guessed it to be the other way around, if you had asked me which show I was going to enjoy more before I saw each one. Nevertheless, Mac Davis's stellar songs for Elvis during this period really were highly critical to Elvis's comeback period. In The Ghetto might have even reached the number one chart position too, if it had been released after Suspicious Minds instead of before it. Once again, timing is everything, with regard to the chart success of single releases. In The Ghetto did make it to number one on the US Cashbox chart and in Australia as well.
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2019
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  14. Hooperfan

    Hooperfan Your friendly neighborhood candy store owner

    Location:
    New York
    Almost In Love was a song that I rarely played when I was younger. Thought it was one of the most boring songs he ever recorded. Now my attitude has changed and I think it's very good.

    I like A Little Less Conversation, though for some reason I always thought it was too short. Plus, I had only heard the "album" version for a long time before I heard the proper "single" version, which has more punch.

    And, I was really surprised when suddenly I heard Elvis' voice coming on the modern radio station back in 2002. Even more shocked when it became a massive hit. Not bad for a man who had been gone for 25 years!
     
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  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I was exactly the same a few years ago, with Almost In Love
     
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  16. This scene of A Little Less Conversation contains my favorite two Elvis background actors. The crazy ginger with the most swinginest dance moves of 1968 (at the 45 second mark) and the faux beatnik dancer (at the 57 mark). Please tell me these guys went on to greater things. Seriously though, I can never watch this clip without cracking up.



    And does Elvis ever look cooler than he does in the first few seconds of this clip? And the song itself is awesome.
     
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  17. Hooperfan

    Hooperfan Your friendly neighborhood candy store owner

    Location:
    New York
    Elvis definitely was very photogenic for most of his life. Too bad he starred in so many mediocre movies.

    But I think Live a Little, Love a Little is actually not that bad. It's quite surreal, and actually looks like a movie from 1968, where something like Clambake looks like it was made 20 years too late
     
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  18. GillyT

    GillyT Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wellies, N.Z
    Agreed. I generally stayed away from the film soundtracks, so my introduction to ALLC was via purchasing the 'Memories' cd. I recall watching the film 'Oceans 11' at the cinema not long after, and without warning ALLC comes blasting out of the speakers!!!!! That was a fantastic, super cool moment and IIRC predated Junkie XL's remix by a few months.
     
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  19. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Oddly, I think Speedway is very much of its time too.
     
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  20. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I think it is all too easy to look back fifty years and misinterpret whether something was or wasn't of its time. Seems to be a common thing.

    I generally regard everything of its time.
     
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  21. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    Does anyone know why they used this version of A Little Less Conversation on the AIL album and not the single version? A mistake?
     
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  22. Hooperfan

    Hooperfan Your friendly neighborhood candy store owner

    Location:
    New York
    I believe so. That album had another mistake initially by including Stay Away, Joe instead of Stay Away
     
  23. shanebrown

    shanebrown Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Almost in Love is one of my favourite Elvis albums. If they had put in Hi Heel Sneakers instead of Long Legged Girl, I think it would stand up even better.
     
  24. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    It's funny that they fixed that error and not ALLC. Even if they wanted that particular version on the album, that leaves the single version officially out of LPs at this time. It could have been included in one of the two first Legendary Performer albums.
     
  25. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Great album .. it bewilders me that it was a Camden release... and I only vaguely even understand the whole Camden thing
     
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