Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt2 The Sixties

Cool lobby card from my collection.

 

Carny Town
Written By :
Fred Wise & Randy Starr

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, March 2-3, April 29 and May 14, 1964: March 3, 1964. take 9
This is obviously Tom Parker's favourite song in the Elvis catalog. This isn't a bad song, but it does sound a little generic and is very obviously a piece of movie incidental music.

 

There's A Brand New Day On The Horizon
Written By :
Joy Byers

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, March 2-3, April 29 and May 14, 1964 : March 3, 1964. take 5
This track has a When The Saints Go Marching In vibe. It is pretty good, but doesn't really do too much for me.

 

Wheels On My Heels
Written By :
Roy C. Bennett & Sid Tepper

Recorded :
Radio Recorders, Hollywood, March 2-3, April 29 and May 14, 1964 : March 3, 1964. take 7
The album finishes with a fairly decent rock and roll song, and has an engaging vocal from Elvis.

 

To me the intriguing thing here is, based on our previous discussion, side two is much less of a draw than side one ..... and side two is all single digit takes ... could be a coincidence I guess, but to some degree it seems to show an interest or difficulty factor.

 

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that till you mentioned it. I wonder if the amount of times they were previously recoded/played has anything to do with it.

 

Subject matter aside, Carney Town is a decent rock song in its structure and delivery. Brand New Day is a great song. And Wheels On My Heals has Elvis yodeling for short bursts.

 

Carny Town sounds great coming after It's Carnival Time, and I know it's stupid, but I like that line about "we've got a two-headed cow, and that's no bull." I really can't explain it...

There's A Brand New Day... is, quite simply, one of the most uplifting songs Elvis (or anyone) ever recorded. It's a shame that most of the tapes are missing, because I'd really like to hear the early takes for this one.

The only weak link on the album for me is Wheels On My Heels, which is just an awful, tuneless mess. At least it's over in under 90 seconds!

 

Its melody is lifted from "This Little Light Of Mine".

 

Damn No wonder it sounds so familiar!

 

Ahhh ... I was hearing Saints, but this little light makes sense

 

I agree with all these sentiments as Carney Town has a nice up tempo melody and actually some pretty clever lyrics for a movie song. It has some nice piano too and the guitar run at the end sounds fantastic to me as well. I even like the line about "They'll be girls shaking their grass." A little racy for its time no doubt as the writers could have used another rhyming word that would not have been allowed in the picture.

 

The Barefoot Ballad of Roustabout.

Maybe I'm getting less critical as I get older, but I'm re-visiting/listening the albums as this thread progresses and my opinion of the Roustabout album - It's Carnival Time aside - has certainly gotten higher. It's a lot better than I remembered.

 

I still maintain we can't draw any such conclusions without having the outtakes to hear. A huge unknown factor in the cases where there were double-digit takes here is how many of those takes were false starts. Look at an upcoming session... "Adam and Evil" on Spinout. Elvis did 20 takes of that song. So initially one might think, "wow, he was really working hard to perfect it." But in this case we have the outtakes so we can discover the truth: 18 of those 20 takes were false starts caused by Elvis repeatedly making mistakes. Only two takes were complete. So in that case, the number of takes seems to indicate lack of focus or enthusiasm for the song. Since we don't know why there were double digit takes of some of the Roustabout material, or how many were complete, we can't really discern anything about attitude or effort.

 

Agreed. He did 36 takes of Do Not Disturb (3 complete takes) and 24 takes of Spring Fever (4 complete takes).

 

For sure. Just something interesting. I notice weird stuff. I think we can safely say side A is the stronger side and he had more takes. As you say, there could be many reasons for that, and I haven't looked up the order the songs were recorded in, so it may just be something to do with getting in the groove, setting up ....
Phone's ringing ala way down in the Jungle Room lol

 

I was reading some interviews and came across the answer, from Lance LeGault:
"I had tried to get Harley bikes for Elvis. I called Harley Davidson up in Milwaukee and they did not even return my calls. So he ended up riding the little Honda 350, which was not Elvis. Elvis rode Harley Davidson motorcycles. And I rode motorcycles with Elvis a great deal."

So it appears they tried to get Harley to provide the bikes for free but when no one returned their calls they went with Honda instead. Funny how times have changed... these days, a company like HD would jump at the chance to have that kind of product placement.

 

I also came across this interview with Winfield Scott. He says the reason he and Otis Blackwell's "Roustabout" song was rejected was that Hal Wallis objected to the line about telling the boss to "stick it in his ear." That's pretty ridiculous, since that line is perfectly in keeping with the attitude of Elvis' character. And Scott was the source of the acetate we have of the song.

 

So I guess "stick it up his bleeding bum" is totally out of the question, right?

 

Well if Harley had developed that attitude at that stage it's no wonder they just about went under not too much later on. They completely revamped their whole deal ... I think it was the eighties

 

You beat me too it but I was leading with an A lol

 

These days Honda makes a much better "Harley" than Harley ever did.

 

I always wanted a bike ... in England all my rellies had Norton's and BSA's .... my dear Mother was the nervous type, and I was always a little reckless, so for a change I showed some discretion. Too old to suddenly start riding one now, no experience and I don't bounce the way I used to lol

 

Hmm, I remember reading that it was actually taken from Battle Hymn Of The Republic, which seems more accurate to me (though I'm not always very good at detecting similar melodies!).

 

Never wanted a bike. I like air conditioning and a nice stereo when I drive.