Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

The title track is nicely done and Elvis sings it beautifully. I cant say the same for Vino, the first of a handful of recordings where it sounds like everyone has got drunk before hitting record. It reaches its peak with the Viva Las Vegas Texas medley .

 

Well the characters are acting drunk in the movie scenes too.

 

Mexico
Written By :
Roy C. Bennett & Sid Tepper

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 22, 1963. take 5

Another fun Latino flavoured number. Musically solid, vocals solid. The lyrics are a little strangely placed with odd gaps, somewhat spoiling the feel. Not devastating certainly, but it just sounds a little awkward with the unusual gaps.

 

El Toro
Written By :
Bernie Baum, Bill Giant & Florence Kaye

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 23, 1963. take 2 spliced to end of take 1

Here we have a very dramatic song about a defeated Matador. In what is generally a lighthearted, fun soundtrack, this is a more serious track. I enjoy the Mariachi flavour to these songs.

 

There's an early take of Mexico where Elvis sings all of the words (it's on Out In Hollywood), but ironically, I think the album version sounds more natural! Both are preferable to the film version, which I find painful to listen to.

 

Yes, those gaps are filled by the little obnoxious kid in the movie. Probably the 2nd most obnoxious kid in any Elvis movie. (1st prize goes to Donna Butterworth in Paradise Hawaiian Style).

 

It's not an early take, actually. The LP version is take 5, the film version is take 5 with the kid's voice overdubbed, and the alternate master in which Elvis sings all the words is take 7. Despite your preference, I've got to think they put take 5 on the LP by mistake. It seems clear the intent was that take 5 was a work part to be used in the film (with gaps deliberately left for the kid to overdub) while take 7 was supposed to be the soundtrack album version. It's similar to "Yoga Is As Yoga Does," where Elvis sings with Elsa Lanchester in the film but sings the entire song himself on the album. For some reason, the wrong take ended up on the album. Take 7 is much better in my opinion:


I really like this song. It's kind of like "what if Elvis fronted the Tijuana Brass?" I'm a TJB fan, so to me that's a cool concept.

 

This song, on the other hand, is garbage. A strong contender for worst-ever Elvis song. Elvis seems to be deliberately histrionic, as if he's parodying himself. It's good that he could laugh at himself, but he should not have been wasting his time with this.

 

That version makes much more musical sense to me. I reckon you're right

 

Marguerita
Written By :
Don Robertson

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 22, 1963. take 8

I really like this song. This soundtrack is completely new to me, and the style of music really isn't, but I really like this .... and this song in particular, it just has a really good feel. Aside from the obviously great vocals, we have a great melody and a great musical backing. There is a sense of the dramatic without moving into a level of hysteria. I love the way the horns work in these songs, particularly this one.

 

Bullfighter Was A Lady
Written By :
Roy C. Bennett & Sid Tepper

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 22, 1963. splice take 7 and 9

I'm not big on the idea of bullfighting to be honest, but in spite of that, I find this song to be quite entertaining. If I look at this song from another perspective, how many of us males have been slayed by ladies that we fell for over the years ... I know I have lol

 

Amen brother!

 

So i got a fifty dollar amazon voucher for Christmas.
I got the blurays for love me tender, jailhouse rock, viva las vegas and that's the way it is and the king creole dvd.
Looking forward to them, always loved king creole, but havent seen the others.
I'll report back

 

Tepper and Bennett churned out some rubbish for Elvis, but they also had a rather pleasant way of coming up with the occasional whimsical effort, which is so slight that it's easily dismissed. Despite that, I think Bullfighter and Song of the Shrimp work rather well. Bullfighter doesn't have the wordplay of Shrimp, but it's still rather amusing. And, I might add, I'll take most of Fun in Acapulco over most of the bland retreads that Elvis recorded in the studio in 1963.

 

Well i lied, i have seen love me tender before, but it must be most of my fifty years ago.
Good movie, not Casablanca, but a good movie.
Viva las vegas is fun, and Presley and Margaret have really good chemistry, but it definitely isn't an A team production.
And what's with the snap cut editing at the end... wins the race, quick wedding, sing last verse of title song ... oh well, love that soundtrack.

 

Gonna skip ahead a little and discuss VLV and the Texas medley for a moment. Like SKATTERBRANE said it was intentionally sung that way because of the scene in the film. However, another issue was that the recording session for that song in particular was fraught with problems. Elvis' headphones kept glitching out, leading to half the session consisting of him complaining about it. He's missing cues, the band are missing cues, in 9 takes only 2 are complete attempts. It was near the end of the session (around 2 or 3 in the morning) so everyone was exhausted. It's actually surprising in a way that the next and final song of that day's work, the movie version of "C'mon Everybody", turned out to arguably be one of the best things they did in the entire set of VLV sessions.

Fun In Acapulco I like for the reason that I have an appreciation for this kind of music. As tends to be the case in this period the highlight is another Don Robertson song "Marguerita" (perhaps best known among Elvis fans as one of Ernst Jorgensen's self-professed favorites) although Bossa Nova Baby is the song that is the most well know by the general public these days, having been released as a single, and rom-com fans will probably recognize the Viva Elvis remix's use during a montage sequence in the otherwise run of the mill 2011 film "No Strings Attached" (starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher).

I feel like they cut a lot of stuff from the ending. Like maybe that's what happened to You're The Boss (dunno if they planned on doing that during the wedding scene though since it'd not only be a showstopper but ruin the mood, but who knows)? It's been years since I've seen the movie but the 3rd act has all that unnecessary side stuff with Cesare Danova's character that boggs everything down.

I understand that they probably wanted a star attraction alongside Elvis and Ann-Margret, but with those 2 you really don't need it since they carry the movie along as it is.

 

Look guys! I tracked this down just for you!



Seriously though, the only track I can tolerate from this soundtrack is Bossa Nova Baby, and even that is lower tier. I've never had much use for FiA.

 

Ugh, whoever edited that film did it with a dull hatchet. There must have been some sort of wedding scene filmed, since photos exist of shots not seen in the movie. I think a wedding scene with them singing "You're the Boss" would be perfect, and would alleviate that problem that there's no music in the final 15 minutes of the film and the ending is ridiculously abrupt. I like to hope there's footage out there of that very thing which will eventually surface.

 

I think Marguerita is a rare misstep from Don Robertson. Not a very good song, and not well-suited to Elvis' abilities. The Bullfighter Was A Lady is also pretty bad. The 1-2-3 of El Toro and these two tracks make up the low point of the album. Fortunately things get better from here onward.

 

My wife said she reckons they rushed that bit so the girls weren't upset Elvis got married, and rushed to the outro chorus with them in seperate frames

 

Sorry for the side track ...

 

Well, that didn't stop them from putting a big wedding scene at the end of Blue Hawaii. It's puzzling there's such a hamfisted edit in there. It's not like the film would be long without it. With the edit, the film ends up being the shortest Elvis movie to date, a good 10-15 minutes shorter than average. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

 

Anyway You Want me is a very difficult arrangement to sing.
I hapoen to be a singer and do a lot of Elvis and it's the one 50s performance by him I can't comfortably master.
I can't remember who said it but when they heard him singing AWYWM in the studio they knew then that Elvis could really sing.

 

No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car
Written By :
Dick Manning & Fred Wise

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 23, 1963. take 1

Here we have another fun little song, that is obviously a little risque. It comes in the form of a moderate tempo song that actually sounds like a Cha Cha, but I am certainly no expert in dance steps. We have the horns introduce us to the theme and then really the piano and percussion seem to hold the fort with the guitar mixed a little lower and putting in the occasional fills. Like everything on this album, I enjoy this. It's nice to have some light hearted fun music playing for a change.

 

I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here
Written By :
Don Robertson & Hal Blair

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, January 22-24, 1963: January 22, 1963. splice of take 10 and end of 7

This song has a lot in common with an older style rock and roll song, with just a flavour of Acapulco added. We have another mid tempo number with the Jordanaires bouncing along in the verses, that skip nicely along. Elvis vocal is very laid back and smooth, there's no reaching for notes or trying to power through, in character with the song, he is just comfortable and relaxed.