Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

"Elvis Has Left The Building"

It would have been hilarious to me, if one time there was a recording of "Elvis has left the building" and then a few seconds later, you hear the guy say, "Oh no he hasn't, he's just over there. He forget his robe" idk, I have a weird sense of humour

 

While there were mingling songs in Elvis' set, An American Trilogy isn't one. Every version that I can recall, Elvis (The finest showman I've ever heard and saw) goes up to the mountain top and delivers this with that command of the stage that only Elvis could accomplish. After the tension and spectacle of An American Trilogy, he brings down the drama with Funny How Time Slips Away. FHTSA is also a good song here as Elvis is getting ready to wrap up the show.

 

I was listening to the live Bowie release Cracked Actor (recorded in the USA in 1974) and I was quite surprised to hear at the end the announcer saying that Mr Bowie has left the auditorium! I had always presumed it was a special thing at Elvis concerts! In Australia at least, they just turn the house lights back on and you know that the show is over.

 

Right. Elvis cleverly used this song to be about him and the audience, more so than to tell the story of a man greeting his old lover.
(Hello crowd- how are you? Our time together has passed by quickly- I've got to go now...and I don't know when I'll be back in town.)
That's why he changed the lyric from "in time you're gonna pay" to "it's gonna be OK." He didn't want to sing something harsh directly to the audience.
The catch-22 for those wanting to hear Elvis sing the song as written (as discussed in the 60s thread) is that if he wasn't using the song in this manner, it probably wouldn't have been in the show at all at this point.

I don't mind Elvis closing every show with Can't Help Falling in Love. It's a great sentiment to convey to the audience at the end. I wish he would have always given it his best singing effort, though. Speaking recently of The Impossible Dream, I believe Elvis did use that as the closer at a few shows in 1971.

 

Can't Help Falling In Love is the perfect closing song but I do wish he had mixed it up a bit. Maybe I'll Remember You, Until It's Time For You To Go or Memories would have been good closers. What songs would y'all have liked to have heard Elvis perform as a closer?

 

Memories

 

"Elvis has left the building!" = "You ain't gettin' no stinkin' encore!"

 

Agreed - but was/is it a common announcement at shows in the USA? I didn't expect it to be, which is why I was surprised that it also happened at a Bowie concert.

 

Hampton Roads is the best version I have heard.

 

I'm not the most knowledgeable person to ask about concert protocols of that time period but I started seeing live shows in the mid 1980s and I never heard similar announcements that I can recall. Usually the big name artists just left after doing the show without an announcement that they were gone. Maybe with Elvis, they were trying to prevent people from hanging around the facility hoping to get an autograph or get a wink and nod to meet Elvis at his hotel room or something. I like that Mark made some funny announcements. I would like to hear "Elvis has left the building but Charlie Hodge is still here and feeling frisky tonight!", "Elvis has left the building but you can have your photo made with Col. Parker for only $19.99 in the lobby!", or "Elvis has left the building, he wants Jenny Amsley of aisle 7b row 4 to meet him at the Waffle House on exit 2b right off the interstate! Elvis wants ONLY Jenny to meet him there! Everyone else please disregard this announcement!".

 

It isn't so much that I don't think he should hav used it as a closer, but if you release five live albums in five years, perhaps four of them is too many to contain the same closer each time

 

Burning Love

(US) RCA 74-0769
Released: August 1, 1972
Recorded: RCA Studio C, Hollywood, March 28, 1972

Written By :
Dennis Linde

Recorded :
RCA's Studio C, Hollywood, March 27-30, 1972: March 28, 1972. take 6




B-side "It's a Matter of Time"
Released August 1, 1972
Format 7-inch 45 rpm record
Recorded March 28, 1972
Studio RCA, Hollywood, California
Genre Rock
Length 2:50
Label RCA Records
Songwriter(s) Dennis Linde
Producer(s) Felton Jarvis

Elvis Presley's version became much more popular than the Arthur Alexander original recording, and was released as a single on August 1, 1972, with the B-side "It's a Matter of Time", and it reached the Top 40 on the country charts, peaking at #36. Elvis had recorded it at RCA's Hollywood studios on March 28, 1972. It was his last big hit.[1] The electric guitar opening and riffs were overdubbed and played by Dennis Linde himself.

For the week of October 28, 1972, "Burning Love" rose to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100,[2] being kept from #1 by Chuck Berry's novelty song "My Ding-a-Ling."[3] However, it reached #1 on Cashbox's Top 40 Charts for the week of November 11, which gave him 20 US #1 hits. The song was Elvis's 40th and last Top Ten hit on the Billboard US charts. "Steamroller Blues" in 73 was his last one on the Cashbox Charts, peaking at #10, in the wake of the massively successful Aloha Concert. It was also one of the last real rock songs in the last years of his life; from 1972 to 1977 the majority of his songs were ballads, and many of those placed on Billboard's Hot Country Singles chart. "Burning Love" was one of the few exceptions, along with "Promised Land" in 1974.

He performed it in at least two high-profile productions: the concert film Elvis on Tour (during which he had to use a lyric sheet as the song was still new to him), and the later Aloha from Hawaii concert.

The song was also released on an album titled Burning Love and Hits from his Movies: Volume 2 on November 1, 1972. Despite this album's subtitle, none of the movie songs on it were ever hits. The only actual hit on the album was the title song, "Burning Love".

• Elvis Presley — lead vocals
• James Burton, Dennis Linde — guitar
• John Wilkinson — rhythm guitar
• Emory Gordy, Jr. — bass
• Glen D. Hardin — piano
• Ronnie Tutt — drums
• J. D. Sumner & The Stamps — backing vocals
• Jerry Carrigan – percussion, cowbell[4]

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This is a great little rocker and even the back and forth of the rhythm instruments in the stereo field has a rocking back and forth feel.
I suppose this is one of the last well thought of singles that Elvis released, although there are a couple coming up that did pretty well.
This is a really good arrangement, and it is only this morning that I realised that someone else has even recorded it.
It is a shame that this was Elvis' last hit, but for me there are still plenty of great songs to come.

 

Great single and a really good b-side as well.

 

It's A Matter Of Time



Written By :
Clive Westlake

Recorded :
RCA's Studio C, Hollywood, March 27-30, 1972: March 29, 1972. take 5

This is an easy going countryish ballad, and I quite like it, but to be honest I am actually quite fond of Elvis singing these country type ballads, they suit his seventies voice and he has always had a way of inflecting emotion into his singing, that to me at least, always makes up for any technical flaws, or inconsistencies.

 

I loved Burning Love when I first heard it, but it's far from a favourite these days. Maybe I just overplayed it, or maybe it's because after so many listens I started to hear some flaws in the recording. The original mix isn't as sharp as it could be, particularly in regard to the drums (mastering issues aside, the 30 #1 Hits remix delivers the goods), and Elvis sounds somewhat distant or unengaged in parts. Still, that ending is a beauty (Linde's overdubbed guitar leading into the "hunka hunka burning love" cries? Pop rock perfection).

I agree with all of Mark's comments about It's A Matter Of Time. To me, this is a much more interesting and enduring performance than Burning Love. I particularly love the blend of beauty, pain, and hope in the way that Elvis sings "she'll see me again." File it under that absurdly long list of great Elvis tracks that deserve to be better known outside of the EP fan base.

 

BURNING LOVE
I think that everything in that rocker shouts out "MONUMENTAL HUGE HIT": some nice - but not great - vocals from our man, awesome drum work by RonTutt and fun / catchy bassline. Even the overdubs (by Linde himself) are tasteful and, more important, very effective. And last but not least, not everybody gets the opportunity to create not one but two pop-culture catchphrases during his career: first there was ALL SHOOK UP back in 1957 and, fifteen years later came the "hunka-hunka" BURNING LOVE! Of course, everything around that recording was wrong: the awful Candem album where it was first released plus Elvis' own disdain for the song (he could have named it in the NY press conference when talking about "rock songs very hard to find" - but he actually did not - and, moreover, he did not perform it during the MSG gig!!!) Still, we should be grateful for the success of the single and for Presley's too short return to Rock'n'roll roots.
The B-Side was not bad at all, a little bit on the C&W side, a little bit too bland for my taste, but still nice to calm down after the roosing rocker.

Rehearsing at RCA's studio "C", March 1972:

 

Well that brought a healthy chuckle out of me this morning.

 

Okay I was living with my dad the year Burning Love came out. Remember, I had stopped buying Elvis records since Elvis Now. I heard Burning Love on the radio several times. I thought the "hunka hunk burning love" was a ripoff of A Big Hunk O' Love. The voice sounded thin and nasal-like to me. I was totally convinced it was an Elvis sound alike, and NOT Elvis Presley. I totally dismissed it. I did not even bother to closely evaluate whether it was Elvis or not, because I did not think it was upon casual listening. Besides I did not like the song anyway.

Then one time, my dad was present when it came on the radio. He asked me how I liked the new Elvis song. I replied it is a impersonator. My dad commented to me that my being an Elvis fan one would think I would recognize Elvis when I heard him! Well, I was shocked to learn IT WAS ELVIS singing Burning Love. (Yes I was still as much of an Elvis Fan, just not interested in his new releases since being burned by Love Letters From Elvis, Wonderful World Of Christmas and Elvis Now). I did not buy Elvis records after Elvis Now until EP Boulevard (more on that when the time comes).

And that pretty much sums up my opinion of Elvis' voice in the 70s. He sounds more like an impersonator than the real thing. He had become a caricature of himself. Elvis did not care for the song, and neither do I.

 

It's A Matter Of Time is a non descript song and performance. Nothing objectionable, and nothing to write home about, let alone bother to return home about.

 

I agree about having it on four live albums. After thinking about it, there are several songs in his catalog that he could have used. It would need to say I love y'all and leave on a positive vibe without any melancholy sentiments. I would say a faster tempo Loving You or As Long As I Have You would fit the bill. If he was feeling especially in the mood at the end he could've done After Loving You as a closer.

 

I really like Burning Love. We all know Elvis didn't like the song that much, and it sounds to some degree like he was not taking it that seriously and even engaging in a little self parody, but the result is (to me) a pretty good record.

This one is another case where Elvis was beaten to the punch on a song, as Arthur Alexander recorded it first, though his version wasn't released before Elvis recorded his own version. Elvis stuck pretty close to the demo, whereas Alexander made it more of a soul track:

 

Here is the Dennis Linde demo.

 

Greensboro, April 14, 1972.

 

I had the 45 and played it to death as a kid. The album was a total disrespecting of Elvis and his fans alike. For such a bad album, I see these out in the wild everywhere. It had to be his #2 or #3 best selling album of all time.

 

I've never heard that before. Thanks! It kinda sounds like John Fogerty doing Burning Love.