Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

No Surprises there ... the parker trap

 

Good points guys ... just speculating

 

insisted

Mark: Exactly. Elvis ruled the studio, when he was satisfied with take, that was it , and onto the next. When the songs were terrible, he'd get a usable take and rush thru the rest to get out of there. When the songs were good, not only would he concentrate on his vocal job, He'd offer suggestions to the musicians. You can hear him doing that on some of the outakes. You ALSO hear him blow up at the awful songs.

 

While you make a very fine argument here as you usually do, I wonder if the real evidence that Elvis might have been more committed to these songs is Elvis's vocal performances themselves and the fairly strong quality of a few of the songs themselves. I mean, Elvis really did have a great ear and he knew when he was getting decent songs, ****ty songs or great songs. I do think his voice shows a lot of commitment and effort on songs like Big Love Big Heartache, Little Egypt (Elvis loved that one so much he brought it back for the 68 Special), Hard Knocks, and One Track Heart, just to name a few of the better quality songs. I think the extended takes that @mark winstanley points to are relevant as well, but I have not analyzed that fact closely. Put more emphatically, this may be one of the last soundtrack sessions where Elvis was more fully engaged in many, if not all of the songs.

I also have to agree with @stereoguy's greater overall point that Elvis was fully aware of the statue and importance of working with a Hollywood legend like Barbara Stanwyck. We all know that Elvis did want to be taken seriously as an actor and we know he raised his game a little when he was working with a Walther Malthau or an Ann Margaret for that matter. I think there is some empirical evidence that might indicate Elvis was a little more committed to this film and soundtrack than he was to some that came before and a lot that came after this one.

 

While this is speculation, it's in part based on communications I had with people who worked at RCA back in the 70's. 'Let Me Be There' was released as a promo single in April, 1977. This was done 'under the table' without the full green light from the powers-that-be, and was therefore pulled / no commercial single was released once RCA got wind of it.

It's suggested that the promo single was pushed by the publisher of 'Let Me Be There', and that, had radio picked up on it, RCA would have had their hand forced to release it as a single. Again, when RCA got wind of this promo single they had it recalled.

But the song did start to track / get (very) minor radio play, and DJs were at least aware of it. So my guess is that The Colonel and some others thought, 'what the heck, even though we didn't authorize the promo someone did push this track to the DJs so let's go ahead and use it on Elvis' upcoming LP as it might help us move some units.' Stating the obvious, but they were short tracks for what would become Moody Blue, and I don't think Elvis really cared about the track listing of his albums all that much in 1977.

In the case of Elvis, it's usually a situation of 'follow the money' and this IMO could certainly explain why 'Let Me Be There' was on the Moody Blue LP.

More info on the promo single can be found at the excellent ElvisRecords.com web site:

Let Me Be There / Let Me Be There | elvisrecords.com

 

I'm humbled by the knowledge all you guys have ... I am a mere novice lol

 

I get humbled as well by the knowledge and thoughtfulness that so many Elvis experts bring to this forum, but I also appreciate newer fans like you who approach the Elvis catalogue with fresh ears and perhaps less baggage from time to time. Sometimes those of us who have followed Elvis for a substantial time get a little too lost in the details and we end up "Not being able to tell the trees from the forest," so to speak. It is my hope that all Elvis fans, no matter the quantity of their Elvis knowledge, feel quite free to weigh in with their opinion on Elvis's recording career. Their opinion is no less worthy than ours as far as I am concerned.

 

I'm definitely all for that. All opinions are valid. If someone thinks Harum Scarum is the best thing Elvis ever recorded, who am I to tell them they're wrong
I just love songs and albums of songs, and Elvis had a particularly large amount of great albums and songs.... seeing as though we're not even half way, it is somewhat overwhelming, but thankfully the lovely folks on this thread are making it interesting and rather educational.
I did fear that everyone would be starting to run away around about now, and I would be on my own for quite a few albums lol

 

Some final thoughts on Poison Ivy League. I agree with @czeskleba overall about the quality of this song in so many ways. I should hate this song for so many reasons. It is a rather simple minded ditty in so many respects and yet after I played it a few times, I could not get the song out of my head. Once again, I believe it is Elvis's sheer vocal panache that makes this very average and rather silly song, pretty decent and enjoyable. I just do not know any other way to explain it.

 

I like Big Love, Big Heartache, but I have to confess that I'm nowhere near as enamoured with it as others in this thread are. It doesn't have the drama of a Roy Orbison song, and though it stands out by being quite different from everything else on the soundtrack, I don't think it's a particular highlight.

Poison Ivy League has the distinction of being one of two songs that made it both to Command Performances and to the Elvis' Greatest **** bootleg (well, four if you count Do The Clambake...). I think it works quite nicely and is worthy of the former compilation, being filled with silly wordplay that's not too awful, and having an engaging tune and arrangement. That having been said, Command Performances is a terribly flawed comp. It doesn't give an accurate overview of the movie years (since it's almost entirely bereft of situational songs), and it fails as a "best of" due to its insistence on using title tracks. I think most Elvis fans (even those who don't care for the soundtracks) would find it an easy task to compile a far superior tracklisting.

 

RSteven: such was the talent of Elvis.

 

I think the reason we ultimately differ on this issue is that I disagree with your premise that the material here is substantially better than previous soundtracks. To my ears, this is the usual soundtrack mixture of some good songs, some average, and some awful. The overall balance is about the same as the other 1963-64 soundtracks, with the exception of Viva Las Vegas which I think has a notably better slate of material overall.

I agree he's singing better here than on Kissin' Cousins, but I think that is simply down to a return to recording live with the band rather than singing to tracks. I don't think it indicates greater enthusiasm or effort on his part. And I don't think his singing is better than on any other (non KC) soundtrack from the era.

And I'm sticking to the point that we can't conclude anything from amount of takes. Certainly there are examples where Elvis did a large amount of takes because he was really working to perfect a song (Loving You is the obvious example). But there's also examples where it took a large amount of takes because he was struggling to make something decent of subpar songs. And on the flipside, as @SKATTERBRANE noted, there are instances where he created great recordings in just a couple takes, or even on the very first take. Since there are no outtakes from the March 2 and 3rd sessions, we don't know how he was feeling those days. We don't even know how many of those takes were complete takes as opposed to false starts. And anyway, the amount of takes for this material isn't substantially more than for any of the soundtracks preceding, except Kissin' Cousins.

I do agree that this might well be one of the last soundtracks where he was engaged with the songs, because we do have empirical evidence that he was frustrated with the songs on the very next soundtrack, and most of the ones immediately after. We do not know for certain how he felt about the Roustabout material, though.

I agree that it's reasonable to speculate that Elvis might have been excited to work with someone who was a big star when he was a kid, and that may have made him more focused on his acting. But that would not necessarily have any bearing on the music. Again, there is no indication any effort was made to get better-than usual material, since the same group of usual suspect songwriters was tapped to write this record.

 

I thought that the exclusion of situational songs was a guiding premise for the set. The liner notes certainly suggest as much,

 

It was, but if they were excluding them for reasons of quality, then they should have also thrown out the somewhat silly "include all title tracks" policy (which wasn't stated in the liner notes, IIRC, but was obviously a factor behind the final track selection). IMO, there would be two reasonable approaches to compiling a two-disc selection of Elvis' 60s soundtracks:

- Make it a "best of." So no need to include, say, Roustabout simply because it was the title of the movie.
- Make it an overview, warts and all, of the movie years. So you'd need to include some of the silly and overly-specific songs to give a real flavour of what it's like to listen to the soundtracks.

Even if they had to include at least one track from each movie (which I think would be a reasonable idea for such a set), there's no reason why it would have to be the title track. So they could have used You Gotta Stop instead of Easy Come, Easy Go, etc.

 

Yep. In at least a couple cases (Clambake and Stay Away Joe) the title song is the worst song in the film. And there are a lot of peculiar choices that aren't title songs too... good songs that are omitted, and bad (non-title) songs that are included.

 

One Track Heart
Written By :
Bernie Baum, Bill Giant & Florence Kaye

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, March 2-3, April 29 and May 14, 1964 : March 3, 1964. take 5

Interesting track this one. The arrangement works really well. The little tick tock start is pretty cool and fits the lyric well and then it bursts out of the gate really nicely. Singing the lyrics as a fairly standard rnb/blues guitar riff is interesting too. To me, another good and well written song on this soundtrack.

 

It's Carnival Time
Written By :
Ben Weisman & Sid Wayne

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, March 2-3, April 29 and May 14, 1964 : March 5, 1964. take 9

This is obviously somewhat one of those movie songs that is really just a movie song. I personally find it fun and a pretty decent song of it's type.

 

I also see my theory that Elvis used more takes on this album is shot to pieces by these two songs lol

 

"Choo-choo train" notwithstanding, I am also a fan of One Track Heart. Can't say the same for Carnival Time, although it fits into the movie and is not terrible (like Barefoot Ballad).

One Track Heart has a good melody and arrangement.

 

I love the way that side 2 of the album has a childish, whimsical feel that really makes you feel like you could be at a carnival (well, at least until the very end, but more on that later...). One Track Heart is one of those great little feel-good songs that make the soundtracks such a blast to listen to. The "choo choo train" line has never bothered me, and it never even occurred to me that it might be considered particularly bad...at least not until I started reading other fans' thoughts online! I also quite like It's Carnival Time, with the cheesy organ and Elvis doing his best to capture the air of a sleazy carnival barker. He doesn't succeed, and you can tell he's bored (or possibly embarrassed), but he sings it beautifully all the same.

 

Choo Choo train never bothered me either, but as you are, I am aware of fans who are.

 

One Track Heart Choo Choo Train Keeps On Chuggin' has both onomatopoeia and consonance going for it.