Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

"Elvis sings Flaming Star" - Hodge-podge candem album... that includes 2 amazing nuggets: Berry's TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS (my favorite Chuck Berry cover by our man) and the wild and fiery TIGER MAN from the 2nd sitdown show (although I've been listening to the dressing room version from the "Platinum" set lately.)

 

Flaming Star
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

 

Tracks 3/6/8

Night Life
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Yellow Rose Of Texas/Eyes Of Texas
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Do The Vega
Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

 

track 2

Wonderful World
Written By :
Guy Fletcher & Doug Flett

Recorded :
Western Recorders, Hollywood, March 7 & 11, 1968 : March 7, 1968. taker 17

This track is from Live A Little Love A Little and it is very sweet. We have a big orchestral production number, and it has a very good vocal. Very much a movie song, it would be impossible to escape that, in fact you are almost waiting for dialogue to come in at the end.

 

All I Needed Was The Rain
Written By :
Ben Weisman & Sid Wayne

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, October 1, 1967 : October 1, 1967. take 3

The irony of this song this morning is quite big, as we are in the middle of a huge storm that has been going all night ... I was actually surprised the power was on this morning lol, but anyhow.....
This is a pretty good song, a hint of blues and a nice slow groove. It is another of those really short songs that we have gotten used to.

 

Too Much Monkey Business
Written By :
Chuck Berry

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, January 15-17, 1968 : January 15, 1968. take 14

I'm guessing from the acoustic guitar that Jerry Reed is on this. We have a very cool feel and this was always a good song, and this is a good take.

 

Wonderful World is sweet, but it's also a song that I enjoy in the moment...and then don't really want to hear again for a while. I can't explain it, but for some reason, it doesn't leave the best impression. It probably doesn't help that, in my memory, I tend to mix it up with It's A Wonderful World and, to a lesser extent, What A Wonderful Life.

I can't remember much about All I Needed Was The Rain, except for some harmonica parts and that I always either tune it out or skip it. Like Hard Luck, it gives off a vibe that just doesn't appeal to me.

Too Much Monkey Business is by far my favourite of these three songs. It goes for a somewhat different atmosphere than Chuck's original, and I think it's quite successful at that. Jerry's guitar makes all the difference.

 

There was certainly no shortage of posters for the comeback special

 

The publicity for the first UK broadcast of the TV Special (retitled, for some reason, The Fabulous Elvis) on BBC2 on December 31, 1969 (!) was somewhat more restrained than in the US:




(Thanks to the remarkably knowledgeable Dr. John Carpenter, M.D. on the For Elvis CD Collectors forum for the images)

 

Oh man, once you get into collecting different mixes you really go down the rabbit hole. There are so many I cannot keep track of it all. And like the Kentucky Rain thing, I have to refresh my memory over and over again and go back to my CDs to reevaluate them for discussion. There are at least 4 different versions (mix and master wise) of the CD Elvis For Everyone for example. Just various greatest hits CDs have so many mix and master variants, Top Ten Hits, WWGAH, All Time Greatest Hits each have their own sound (just to name three). Sometimes some tracks are said to be stereo in the booklet, but are really mono on the CD. (Yes there are ways to get some of the hit singles in mono but you wouldn't know it until you played them). Until Elvis At Sun came out, the best Sun CD was the UK's The Sun Collection. For some reason it was mastered much better than the US's The Sun Sessions, The Complete Sun Sessions and Sunrise and just about all US Sun releases until Elvis At Sun and A Boy From Tupelo came out.

 

All I Needed Was The Rain I like much more than the average Elvis fan. Of course Too Much Monkey Business is well liked by most and by me as well. Wonderful World is so-so. I don't skip it, but I do not like whistling on any song by anybody.

 

Even Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel?

 

Love All I Needed Was The Rain, and it deserved a far better opportunity than it got (as part of the Stay Away, Joe film and on the Flaming Star LP). Laid back, catchy groove. Nice vocals. Nice harmonica. And I get a kick out of Evlis' off-lyric 'yeah' at app. 45 seconds in. I could see Bobby Gentry doing a nice version of this track.

I like Wonderful World in the movie, with Elvis (and stunt double) driving like a maniac down PCH and on the beach in that groovy dune buggy, although I don't seek out the song much otherwise.

 

It’s easy to pick on the Colonel as old-fashioned or corrupt, but you can’t accuse him of of not going all out with the promotional strategies he did employ.

 

Like the Tickle Me feather kit:



I have a bunch of the Elvis movie press kits, and some have insane promotional suggestions for theater owners to tie in with the showing of the films. I'll have to dig them out and put a few in the thread.

 

Well that is the least annoying of them. But a nice vibrophone doing that riff would sound much better! (but a marimba would suit Gabriel's sensibilities better).

 

Last night I scored a really nice original CD pressing of Gold Records Volume 5. for $8.99. Looking forward to it. Glad I still have my copy of The Memphis Record.