Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

I'm Moving On: I was more familiar with the original, and The Rolling Stones cover before hearing it in Elvis' hands. And while I like the other two, Elvis wins hands down. Sounds like he's having a blast with the vocals, and yet another great drum track by Gene Chrisman. But that whole band is killer.

Here's a version with the unedited vocal:

 

Haha. Nash unearthed some primary evidence from the Colonel's military service that sheds light on exactly the kind of person Elvis was dealing with. Not that it changes anything. Just adds another dimension to the conversation.

 

Absolutely, if you don't have the right people at your back. I work with creatives and I can tell you that it's rare to find someone who is exceptional and plans well, doesn't forget things easily, is organised etc. Where they really come into their own is when you give them an objective, (and crucially) the space & latitude to come up with ideas to achieve that objective. That's when the creative juices really start to flow that enables the most amazing, original ideas to surface. Monetary incentives/bonuses don't work btw. The key is to pay people enough so that the issue of money is taken off the table. With Parker managing Elvis, the money was front and centre all the time.

I'm not trying to make Elvis out to be blameless here, but to illustrate the barriers he faced, creatively.

 

Here's also a cool site...

By Maria Columbus & Jeannie Tessum
(Attended the July 31 opening show as well as the press conference that followed)



https://elvicities.com/~eip/august-1969/reviews-by-fans-1/maria-columbus-jeannie-tessum/

 

Ali said of his friend "Elvis was my close personal friend. He came to my Deer Lake training camp about two years before he died. He told us he didn't want nobody to bother us. He wanted peace and quiet and I gave him a cabin in my camp and nobody even knew it. When the cameras started watching me train, he was up on the hill sleeping in the cabin. Elvis had a robe made for me. I don't admire nobody, but Elvis Presley was the sweetest, most humble and nicest man you'd want to know."

 

Indeed.

 

I am a little surprised that Sony are celebrating a 50th Anniversary occasion this year by going for a box set of all known "live" recordings from Vegas ‘69 instead of doing something for FEIM or the Memphis sessions. I realise that Elvis collectors will probably have the FTD variants but if Sony want to go after the more casual buyer, issuing a box of 11 shows that are basically the same and repetitive does not seem the right way to go. But then perhaps they think there is little mileage to be had from Elvis these days for the general record buyer outside of issuing five unreleased shows in a box to the hardcore fans who will buy anything, even if it means paying for the shows they already have via FTD.

I know that FEIM came out via Legacy five years ago, or rather sneaked out as I cannot recall any big announcements like Sony did with Down in the Jungle Room, but I think the album merits a decent celebration. Personally, I was hoping for a 50th Anniversary FEIM of 3 or 4 discs where Sony could have issued a quad or 5.1 mix of the album along with outtakes and mono mixes. But I guess it would only work if Sony spent some effort and dosh on promoting it.

 

The copyright will expire for the 1969 recordings in Europe on December 31st this year. They have to get them out or by January 1 it'll be a free for all with every show being released by Hallmark and NOTT.

 

So are you saying that by law, Sony will have to hand over those tapes to any third party.

I thought the idea was that recordings would fall under a "use it or lose it" clause, which allows the recordings to revert to the performer if the producer or record company has no desire to market the recording.

 

Anyone who taped a 1969 Elvis show that RCA haven't released can legally put them out after January next year. Putting out everything protects the copyright on the recording. In another 25 years everything's up for grabs (released or not).

 

Interesting. So if I understand what you are saying correctly, anyone who recorded or was involved in The Beatles work in 1966 could release outtakes from the Revolver sessions then. I assume that person would have to request the tapes from Apple Records and that under the law, Apple could not refuse the request.

 

He should have recorded Elvis' "Smokey Mountain Boy" from Kissin' Cousins. :-D

 

Legally you could probably find a Revolver bootleg, make sure all the tracks were never released by EMI/Universal, and put them up for sale on iTunes. When the 50 year rule was in place lots of $2 companies were doing it with little or no ownership of anything.

 

Power Of My Love
Written By :
Bernie Baum, Bill Giant & Florence Kaye

Recorded :
American Studios, Memphis, February 17-22, 1969 : February 18, 1969. take 7

This track is another great piece. We have a somewhat blues, somewhat rock track and the lyrics are somewhat smutty, most notably "no baby you can't lick it" with a little chuckle afterwards.
We start with a fairly raw limping blues riff, but with the first time through the main line the backing singers come in with a wonderful breathy backing vocal section, that may well be my favourite ever piece of backing vocal in any song.
As we move along the song develops a wonderful horn section that is adding to the melody and the rhythm and this whole things deveops into this unstoppable force of pulsing rhythm and blues that for me is just magic.
I'm going to call it the bridge, but the change "baby I want you..." is again fantastic, it has just the right amount of drama and just a bit more emphasis and this track just becomes one of my favourite Elvis blues/rock/r&b tracks. For me it just works ... and all this in spite of the fact that some of the lyrics are a bit ho hum.
Great opening to side two, and the perfect choice to include if at one stage they weren't certain.

 

Or as in his "You'll Never Walk Alone" outtake or his jam of "Don't Think Twice It's All Right".

 

Here is a nice mixture of rock, pop and blues plus Elvis in top form, clearly enjoying the recording. For some unknown reason, i've never listened to the máster take since i discovered that tougher alternate take first released on the "platinum" boxset. The lack of overdubs makes it a bit bluesier to me and that cannot be bad when you've been a r&b lover for the last 30+ years.

 

Surprisingly, from the same writing team that brought us "Shake That Tambourine", "Queenie Wahine's Papaya", "Beach Shack", and "Wolf Call".

 

Do You Want To Know A Secret and Happiness Is A Warm Gun also share the same writer.;-)
It's fun to imagine how intense Elvis would have made some of his movie songs had he cut them at the '69 sessions. On the other hand I kinda can imagine how mediocre Power Of My Love would have sounded in, say, Clambake.

 

Now Imagine Power Of My Love recorded for a movie as it was marketed a couple of years earlier to Elvis. Yes it was a studio session. But imagine it being used on Speedway or Clambake. Elvis singing it as he chases a girl around a couch. It would have been sung in a much LESS aggressive manner and would have been coy and cute.

 

I'm picturing him singing it to one of the dogs in Paradise, Hawaiian style while it's playing with a bone:

Oh break it, burn it, drag it all around
Twist it, turn it, you can't tear it down
Cause every minute, every hour you'll be shaken
By the strength and mighty power of my love
Crush it, kick it, you can never win
I know baby you can't lick it
I'll make you give in
Every minute, every hour you'll be shaken
By the strength and mighty power of my love

 

True enough, but they were also responsible for writing 43 sings for Elvis over the years, particularly during the much maligned soundtrack period, but I personally believe their songs are some of the better ones from those years, including the following songs I actually like quite a bit:

Animal Instinct
Ask Me
City By Night
Devil In Disguise
Do Not Disturb
Edge Of Reality
Go East Young Man
House Of Sand
Kissin' Cousins (Number 2)
Mirage
Night Life
Paridise Hawaiian Style
Poison Ivy League
Roustabout
Scratch My Back
Sound Advice
Tender feelings
The Sound Of Your Cry
This Is My Heaven
Today, Tomorrow, And Forever
Wisdom Of The Ages
Wolf Call

 

That's actually a pretty nice list of songs!

 

Thanks. I actually come to the conclusion after going over these soundtrack recordings by Elvis in detail with all of you fine folks on this thread that several of Elvis's soundtrack albums might be almost unlistenable without many of their better contributions.

 

Elvis's Power Of My Love is probably in my top twenty favorite Elvis songs of all time, but I guess so are the vast majority of the songs on this stupendous album. Everything that is great about Elvis is reflected in this performance, from his soulfulness to his outright naughtiness ( My gal loves that word "naughty" as she thinks it is highly underused in our vocabulary). Power Of My Love features a perfect combination of soulful/blues that Elvis could always seem to deliver in spades when he felt connected to a great song.