Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Oh .... smh ... these guys were running the career of the biggest star this side of the sun .... it is bewildering

 

This was Elvis' peak IMHO. I love all of these sessions.

It's funny, I was thinking, this was roughly 15 years into Elvis' recording career. The equivalent for John Lennon and Paul McCartney would've been around 1977. I don't know what that shows, but I find it interesting, LOL.

 

You're right that Elvis was a rather insular person by nature, but at the same time that insularity was tempered by a natural curiosity that took him far, far beyond the limitations he was born to. I don't think he'd have had a problem touring the world, providing the infrastructure to provide some of the comforts of home was in place. That's usual for all touring acts. The universal language of music transcends many, many barriers!

 

I treated myself to the Friday Music version of FEIM (thanks to the recommendations from the good people on this forum) and retired the crappy old version I've had for years. What a revelation!!! Just wanted to slip in a quick thanks to you all.

 

I'm almost afraid to admit this here, but although I appreciate and respect FEIM, I've never been able to love it. Perhaps it's a victim of the high expectations curse (it was the first proper Elvis album that I bought, after hearing so many amazing thing about it), but it just isn't something that I find myself reaching for very often. A large part of it has to do with the mix (why did anyone ever think it was a good idea to pan the drums and bass hard left/right???), but I also just don't enjoy some of the songs all that much. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin' is corny, Gentle On My Mind is bland (particularly compared to John Hartford's version), and the studio version of In The Ghetto is a performance that I've never been able to cotton to (side note: this thread is making me realize how much I dislike Mac Davis' compositions).

On the positive side, hearing Wearin' That Loved On Look for the first time is one of my best memories as an Elvis fan. I popped the CD into the car on the way home from the record store (yeah, yeah...I know...), and it just completely blew me away. "Baby, if you never loved me/Then Bonnie and Clyde loved the law"...and then that stuff about apple pie and trees in Arkansas? Just brilliant, and Elvis kills it. True Love Travels On A Gravel Road is another favourite. The fast and slow versions are both great in their own ways, and it's one of those songs where I'll gladly listen to every available version and love them all.

I really do think that FEIM would have been better (not to mention enjoying a greater reputation as a "classic" album) had Suspicious Minds and Kentucky Rain been included instead of some of the weaker tracks. Throw in Stranger In My Own Hometown, and remix the whole thing in mono (or at least proper stereo), and it'd be greatly improved. Even then, I don't think it would quite reach the heights of Elvis Is Back!, with its immaculate production and Elvis' voice at the peak of its beauty and power.

 

Dirk have you ever heard The Memphis Record? Maybe the mix would be more to your liking.

 

The Memphis Record's narrow stereo picture really brings out the overdubbing. After I played it last I made an unplugged version from the FTDs as an antidote.

 

This should have been the back cover photo:

 

I regret getting us way out into posthumous releases but a few years ago when the "Elvis Uncovered" CDs came out I was talking to a friend of mine about it and trying to Google information on the CD to see just what versions of the songs that it contained. We start joking around about this being the "Pot Luck Uncovered" CD. Then we start cracking on other titles like John Lennon "Shaved Fish Deboned" , Billy Joel "Glass Houses Underpinned" and Donald Fagan "The Nightfly Unzipped" etc. Feel free to make up your own.

 

Well it seems like everyone has had a chance to let us know what they think about the album so I'm going to roll the first song today after all.

 

Wearin' That Loved On Look
Written By :
Arthur L. Owens & Dallas Frazier

Recorded :
American Studios, Memphis, January 13-16 and 20-23, 1969: January 14, 1969

This track opens the album really well. We start with an organ, but it isn't too prominent and it suits the mood. Elvis comes in like a preacher reprimanding his congregation and then the beat kicks in.
As Dirk said, the lyrics in this song are great, they are witty and fun, in spite of the subject matter and the dancing around the innuendo is also really well done. Pointing continually at the things around that reveal the lie, "the ashtrays are all filled with ashes, the floor needs a touch of the mop, there's amna downstairs with long bushy hair, he said your party was a three day rock". It is really well written and then of course the line Dirk references "Baby if you ever loved me, Then Bonnie and Clyde loved the law, Well a bird can't fly and I don't like apple pie, And a tree won't grow in Arkansas". It is just really good use of pictorial writing.
I always thought the riff that comes in was the guitar, but it is the bass (apparently) and it is really effective. The tremolo also works really nicely. The piano sections again are really effective. There are also some really nice guitar sections. Musically there is something for everybody.
I personally think the use of the backing vocals here is very well done. The oooooo's add some power to Elvis vocal section. The ahhhhh's during the piano section take you straight into a church. The call and response in the chorus also works beautifully... I am hard pressed to find anything at all to be disappointed about.
The mix - from the perspective of levels, all the levels work for me. There are certainly a few elements that if mixed at the wrong level could well spoil this and make it sound cheesy or overblown, but I think they got the levels spot on. As for the stereo mix, well just like those Beatles recordings in the sixties, I have learned to live with them. Yes I prefer stereo over mono. Unless I am listening to something from the forties or fifties, or mono is all that is available, I am just not interested in mono, and until I came to this forum I had never ever heard folks waffle on about how fantastic mono is .... Personally I want all these albums in 5.1 on sacd or bluray audio, but of course that is really not an option in most instances. Do I wish they had used the same kind of mixing techniques as Dire Straits Love Over Gold, or even Elvis Is Back, but the mid to late sixties was full of weird stereo mixes, and I tend to just accept it for what it is.
As for the vocal, Elvis has this fantastic hoarse quality to his vocal that adds to the feel, and unlike a lot of the soundtrack stuff, he is focused on killing this song, and he therefor does.
All in all we have a great uptempo song, with clever lyrics and a fantastic feel to open up the album, and I have no complaints

 

I do have that album, and even though I like some aspects of the new mixes and prefer some to the originals, they're still ultimately unsatisfying to me. There's just no warmth to them. My preferred way to listen to the American Sound material is via the Memphis Sessions FTD, which sounds absolutely gorgeous in every way (it's sequenced well, too). I just wish we could hear the masters (overdubs and all) in the same quality.

 

Heck yeah!

 

But then they would have used the Viva Las Vegas pic for the 45 sleeve. C’mon, you know it’s true

 

The band on these sessions is just super tight, and this track is a great example - what a groove. Elvis sounds invested in the lyrics, really getting in to the ‘character’ of the song’s narrative.

 

Probably.

They were using 1972 photos for 1976-77 picture sleeves. Though most likely it was because Elvis at the current time was not in good physical shape. Heck, they even doctored up the pic used for "From Elvis Presley Boulevard"...airbrushed out the double chin and trimmed a bit of the side bloat

 

The outtakes for "Wearin' That Loved On Look" are great. Elvis has a bad head cold but keeps pushing himself to at least get a good backing track. But he sounds extremely inspired and full of humor. An example:

 

Yeah I like the undubbed masters of this material as well. Suspicious Minds/You'll Think Of Me is a fantastic single. I like You'll Think Of Me almost as much as Suspicious Minds. And I MUCH prefer Any Day Now over In The Ghetto (a very over rated Elvis song in my opinion).

Now Wearin' That Love On Look is a KILLER lead track, not even Suspicious Minds would have been a better choice to shock an Elvis fan after enduring the 60s soundtracks. It was like someone threw a glass of cold water in your face. Even after the TV Special I was expecting a return to the better Nashville style recordings (Guitar Man, US Male, You Don't Know Me etc) at best. I was not prepared for FEIM. And Love On Look really hits it off with a bang (no pun intended, who am I kidding ALL my puns are intended).

 

One thing I like about The Memphis Album is using Stranger In My Own Home Town as its opening track - to me, that would have been a killer opening song on FEIM.

 

When are they going to release the rest of the outtakes from these sessions.
I was just listening to some ten disc set of tracks from the sessions and the Only The Strong Survive outtakes are hilarious lol

 

What a fantastic description of the song opener. Wow, you take the words right out of my mouth. It is such a stunner of an album opener. I am assuming it is the virtuoso bass/guitar player Tommy Cogbill playing that fantastic bass/guitar riff you reference. I know Mike Leech played some bass on the album as well, but when you hear that funky and stellar bass on songs like I'm Movin' On or Gentle On My Mind, I am guessing it is Tommy Cogbill playing the bass. Stupendous. He would also provide his signature funky bass lead on Elvis's fantastic version of I've Got A Thing About You Baby, during the Stax Memphis recordings in 1973, which I think are somewhat underrated, but not everyone feels that way.

Dallas Frazier, who along with Al "Doddle" Owens, wrote this splendid opening title track, had a long and stellar career in country music, but also wrote two of the biggest novelty songs to ever hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Alley Oop, for the Hollywood Argyles, and Elvira, which he actually first recorded himself, but would go on to be a huge crossover smash for The Oak Ridge Boys in 1981. Elvis would also go on to cut both lyrical versions of one of Frazier's most acclaimed standards that country legend Jack Greene earned a CMA Single Of The Year award for in 1966, There Goes My Everything, as well as its re-written and gospel counterpart (same melody), He Is My Everything. It is great to hear the two different versions by Elvis, and he must have loved the great melody of the song too, because he also did a live version in Las Vegas of his first hit single version of the song.

 

STRANGER IN MY OWN HOME TOWN

I can't agree more, it would have been the perfect opener: a strong Blues number with the ultimate title for an LP titled "From Elvis in Memphis".


WEARIN' THAT LOVED ON LOOK
What a great recording. I've always thought that Elvis was the best when mixing genres. Like when he infuses some Country into the Blues classic THAT'S ALL RIGHT, MAMA or when he takes a straight Country & Western composition and performs it in a much R&B tone (BLUE MOON OF KENTUCKY or, later, DON'T THINK TWICE IT'S ALL RIGHT - 1995 edit if possible -). Here the song starts with a strong Gospel feel (that great organ opening), then transforming into an exciting Soulful number - a little bit ala Otis Redding, another wonderful performer - with our Man displaying his tough, rockest voice ever. Pretty difficult for the rest of the album tracks to top that. BUT SOME OF THEM ACTUALLY DID!
WEARIN' THAT LOVED ON LOOK still remains today a fantastic Elvis recording.

 

Definitely two of the best double-sided singles of Elvis's career. I know we will get to You'll Think Of Me later, when we get to the album Back In Memphis, but it really is a fantastic song and that dobro played by Reggie Young is fantastic on it. So Elvis's Suspicious Minds single is coupled with one of his better original songs from the American Sound recordings and then we have a truly stupendous cover of Any Day Now, which we will also get to soon on this great thread.

It is my belief that Any Day Now in particular, but perhaps even You'll Think Of Me as well, could have been a sizable hit on top 40 radio, if it had not been swallowed up by the great success of In The Ghetto being on the A side of the single. By 1969, I so not think PD's in top 40 radio were thrilled about playing double sided hits on their format anymore, given the fact that the overall time length of singles had increased quite a bit and the competition and size of the business had grown so much. In order to play two current songs by one artist at the same time in this era in radio, you were asking a lot. Now, if Any Day Now had been released shortly after the huge impact of In The Ghetto or even after Suspicious Minds as a stand alone single, I do think that it would have had an impact on the top 40 chart, and I can almost guarantee it would have been successful on Billboard's Easy Listening chart. I think the same thing might have been true for You'll Think Of Me as well.

 

100%! In The Ghetto is ok but how did Any Day Now not get A side status?