Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Sorry if this may have been noticed here on this thread later (long ago) as I'm very late on reading this dicussion from time to time when there's some free time for me.
What hasn't been mentioned here so far is that Elvis for one time tried to break through his usual song list (I think in a 1974 Vegas engagement- also released via FTD) and more or less completely changed his set including leaving off Can't Help Falling In Love at the end and opening without C.C. Rider. He did a lot of very unusual stuff including recently recorded songs as he was very aware of a set that even bored him in 1974. I'm not sure (some of the folks here will know better) but I think it was also during this time that he even sang spontaneously songs which were collected from the audience written down on paper and collected in a box.

So why did he cancelled the whole concept after three days and came back to playing again the same stuff more or less until he died? The audience didn't react enthusiasticly and he got the impression that he couldn't win them over. Maybe it would have worked out much better outside the Vegas audience.
So at least there was this one time in the mid 70s where he tried to break the song-cage and sadly had to withdraw his plans BECAUSE of the audience.

 

I has been such a long series that I am not sure if someone mentioned that or not, but it is certainly nice to know.
I'll have to check that FTD out, I like the mixed setlists ... cheers.

I've seen you having a browse, and it makes me smile that someone is still having a look through.
So thank you, and cheers

 

He didn’t cancel the whole concept. There were a few songs such as Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues that were only played on opening night of the August 1974 Vegas season, but he kept on playing new material such as It’s Midnight and If You Talk In Your Sleep throughout the season, as well as deep cut oldies such as Big Boss Man and I’m Leavin’.

The shows where he took audience requests were in 1975.

 

Too much beans perhaps, but he let rip/fart during a version of Blowin’ in the wind “ Bob Dylan” Elvis proclaims chortling.

 

After reading some threads from the Easy Reference guides from the Sixties I'm still not sure if I can find the single mono versions from "Stuck On You" until "Don't Cry Daddy" on cd or download files. At least the singles who reached the top 50.

 

A good start, though admittedly it falls short by a large percentage, is the CD version of 'Elvis Forever - 32 Hits' from 1985 this release has mono versions of Stuck on You, It's Now Or Never, Are You Lonesome To-night?, Surrender, Rock-a-Hula Baby, Can't Help Falling In Love, Good Luck Charm, Return To Sender, Devil In Disguise, In The Ghetto, Suspicious Minds and There Goes My Everything. Also 'From Elvis In Memphis' Legacy Edition CD from 2009 has the Memphis sessions Mono singles on disc 2. Sadly, a dedicated 'Elvis In Mono' set is sorely missing from the man's catalogue.
If you're a vinyl kinda guy I would heartily recommend Both 'World Wide Gold Award Hits Vol. 1' and 'The Other Sides' - all in glorious mono, **however**, keep well away from their respective CD counterparts as they are all over the place in terms of masters, sound quality and execution - in my humble opinion...

 

Thanks. I have ordered 'Elvis Forever - 32 Hits' (used) and 'From Elvis In Memphis - Legacy' (new). I have found a lot of mono songs at Qobuz from BnF Colletion of France. But the source of this releases are vinyl or tapes from 1954-1962.

Elvis Mono for albums to download in True CD Quality (Lossless), 24-Bit Hi-Res  – Filtered by Elvis Presley, BnF Collection

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and Bobby Darin was a very classy, witty, charismatic person. And he was an impressive, deep actor who got an Oscar nomination for "Captain Newman". The more you read about him the more fascinating he becomes (like Elvis. Or Michael Nesmith).

 

Today I have received cd set. When I heard "Crying In The Chapel" I thought that it's also mono. I checked the songs with the program "MusicScope". The result is that it's not perfect mono songs. A perfect mono song is represented by a green narrow vertical line.









I tested 4 songs from the European release of "Elvis 75" (3 cd-set). Three songs are perfect mono but "All Shook Up" is not perfect mono:



I will keep the mono songs from 'Elvis Forever - 32 Hits' until sometime better mono songs are released.

 

I forgot about 'Crying in the Chapel' that too is mono on that set. They may not be perfect mono on your musicscope program but they are as mono as your likely to get from those thirty odd year old CD's mastered from nth generation master tapes; remember, mono mixes were designed to be heard through one speaker: one channel of powerful sound, both direct and immediate... or something.
Hope you enjoy them nevertheless...

 

Sorry, late to the party - I got the Albums Collection box for Christmas so I'm going through these threads as I listen in chronological order. For some reason, I Slipped reminds me of I Got Stung - but no where near as good or raw of course.
'Something' is a great album, but I agree that it's done no favours by the sequencing. I like a good ballad or two but six in a row is just too much and threatens to bore the listener before they get to the excellent second side!

 

It's all good mate.
These are for reference any time. Comments certainly aren't going to be frowned upon

 

This album is fantastic - much better than I had expected, and a marked improvement over Blue Hawaii (seeing Elvis in shorts on the back cover should have been a warning!). It's criminal that it took so long to get another secular Elvis non-soundtrack album. I now face the forthcoming soundtrack albums with a fair bit of trepidation...

 

For the most part, they are very good. Sure there are songs here and there that are a bit of a cringe, but most are good, and some are excellent.

 

I can actually imagine Morrissey doing a good version of this!

 

ELVIS - Studio B, a playlist by artfromtex on Spotify

ELVIS - Hollywood, a playlist by artfromtex on Spotify

 

Where and when were the May 1963 versions eventually released?

 

Collectors' Gold in 1991.

 

Thanks! Are they also the versions used on the Essential 60s Masters boxset, or does that use the later versions?

 

The later (January 1964) versions of the 2 songs appear on disc 3. The earlier (May 1963) version of Memphis is on disc 5. The earlier version of Ask Me is not on the box set.

 

Excellent info - thank you very much.

 

Possibly his best collection of soundtrack songs in the 60s (perhaps tied with GI Blues) and only released as an ep? You have to wonder if the people making the decisions on what to release were actually listening to the material first. The contrast to the material on this with Kissing Cousins is quite stark, but that got an LP!

It's interesting to read that the ep was no longer a viable format in 1964 as it must have been primarily a USA thing. I've just got the deluxe edition of the Kinda Kinks album originally released in 1965, and that includes material from a couple of Kinks eps. And of course The Beatles originally released Magical Mystery Tour as a double ep in the UK in late 1967 (but turned into a LP in the USA), so eps were clearly still selling well in the UK.

 

Viva Las Vegas should have been a full LP soundtrack and "You're The Boss" should have been a single. I really think the Carnival Barker sabotaged the soundtrack because he regretted pairing Elvis with a legit co-star and didn't want to set precedent going forward. VLV could and should have been much bigger.

If Elvis worked closely with big names and the discussion of managerial relationships and ethics ever came up, the Carnival Barker know Elvis might have wised up.

 

Viva Las Vegas is a puzzle. Obviously the wisest thing to do would have been to release a full-on soundtrack album that contained both the Elvis solo songs, the duets, and the Ann-Margret solo songs (she was under contract to RCA at the time so there would have been no problem whatsoever doing that). It is generally speculated that this didn't happen because Colonel Parker didn't want Elvis sharing the spotlight on a record with anyone else. But even if that was the case, there still were ten Elvis solo songs they could have used (including outtakes) and they'd done ten-song albums before. Why a solo Elvis album wasn't put together is a mystery. Viva Las Vegas is the only Elvis film with seven or more original songs that didn't get a soundtrack album, and the fact that they chose to make an exception to the rule with one of his most popular films is downright bizarre.

 

I’m wondering if something between The Colonel and MGM went bad and he kept he soundtrack to an EP. It was the last MGM film Elvis made prior to Paramount’s Roustabout so maybe he was working some angle as he made MGM films soon after. Pure speculation, but there had to be some legitimate reason as I can’t see The Colonel passing an opportunity for an LP unless there was something else in play.