Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by mark winstanley, May 26, 2019.

  1. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    I think both of you are in the right ballpark, if Elvis were alive today and still had the star power had at his peak in 1969 or 1970, he would undoubtedly be offered between $500,000 and a million dollars per show in Las Vegas. Just take a look at Adele's offer of $500,000 per show a couple of years ago or Lady Gaga's one million per show she currently receives from Park MGM in Las Vegas. As one entertainment director said, "Las Vegas is no longer a place where stars go to retire anymore." And to think that Elvis really did start the whole Las Vegas long term residency deals that are such a fixture now for pop stars.
     
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  2. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    I don’t think that’s quite accurate, at least not for all of the Vegas seasons. By all accounts, after the shows he often had people in his suite, ranging from celebrities who had caught his show to the Sweet Inspirations and other members of his band, jamming on music all night, or just talking. And he always had a girlfriend (or two). He frequently secluded himself in Graceland when he wasn’t in Vegas or on the road, so I’m not sure how Vegas was unique in that regard.

    You could say that about any musician who tours. Why are there a million songs about the grind of life on tour? Because it’s a hard, grueling life. Why did the Beatles quit touring in 1966? Because it wore them out. As you yourself admit, at least Vegas took away the all-night travel on planes and buses.

    Now you’re simply making up stories to justify your prejudice against Vegas. Watch That’s The Way It Is and you see Vegas fans dancing in their seats, clapping their hands, and generally going crazy for Elvis. So you’re telling me that all of the UK fan club members who chartered flights to Vegas specifically to see their idol were “lukewarm” when they got there? You must be kidding.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
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  3. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    It's true that Elvis was in a cash crunch in 1973. He did spend money recklessly, and he had his father managing his finances (Vernon, with a 4th-grade education, had no grasp of how to use investments to grow the money). And he needed to come up with the cash to pay Priscilla $725,000 for the divorce settlement.

    At the same time, we should note that the biggest reason Elvis was in a cash crunch was mismanagement and malfeasance by the Colonel. The Colonel was taking an unprecedented (and undeserved) 50% commission, more than twice the industry standard of 15-20%. And on top of this he was often double dipping, charging Elvis twice (For example, in one instance the Colonel started a company to manage the licensing of Elvis merchandise, and made himself and Elvis co-owners of the company, with each collecting 50% of the profits. But then on top of that, he took his 50% commission out of Elvis' share, meaning Elvis only got 25% of the profits for his own merchandise. This type of double dipping was obviously unethical). It can realistically be said that at least half the money the Colonel pocketed in the 70s should have gone to Elvis, and the Colonel was making more money off Elvis than Elvis was.

    Beyond his unethical behavior, he was making bad deals or turning down deals due to self interest. The Colonel locked Elvis into a long-term deal at the Hilton that was far below his market value, and this was likely because the Colonel was afraid that if he took Elvis somewhere else, the Hilton would demand he settle his enormous tab (numbering in the millions) at their casino. And shortly before he made the terrible deal with RCA to sell off the royalties, the Colonel turned down an offer of $10 million to do one concert in Egypt at the base of the pyramids (due to his fear of leaving the US and having his citizenship status exposed). Obviously, this one deal alone would have prevented the need to sell off the catalog. Elvis would not have been in a cash crunch if he'd had competent and ethical management in the 70s, regardless of his spending habits.
     
  4. When In Rome

    When In Rome It's far from being all over...

    Location:
    UK
    I think Nilsson did it right in that respect. He rarely, if ever, toured and just delivered an album each year but Iguess he had his own demons...
     
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  5. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The three songs from the 68 Comeback were included as bonus tracks on the 90s-era CD version of the TV Special album, and I believe you used that tracklist and covered them already when we did the 68 Comeback. But it's important to note that these three tracks were not on the original album nor were they in the original cut of the TV special, so they were unheard and unreleased when they appeared on this record in 1973.

    The other "new" track you overlooked is "Tonight's All Right For Love." The US version of the GI Blues album featured a song called "Tonight is So Right For Love," with a melody taken from Jacques Offenbach's "Barcarolle." However, it was then discovered that the melody was not in the public domain yet in parts of Europe, so the song had to be reworked for the European market. The lyrics were slightly rewritten and set to a different melody ("G'schichten aus dem Wienerwold" by Strauss). This track was unreleased in the US until its appearance Legendary Performer V1.
     
  6. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    Apologies. I thought that was the one on GI Blues
     
  7. Dave112

    Dave112 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Carolina
    It's for sure that I doubt anyone could make a credible case for the Colonel to have remained as Elvis' manager into the 1970s. The biggest breaks Elvis was getting was due to his bucking Parker at this point. If he had stuck to his guns when initially breaking with Parker until he found a truly competent management team, there's no telling how things might have changed. I'm not giving Parker a pass on anything but Elvis was aware enough to how show business worked by this point and could have demanded better for himself. Surely he saw other artists in the business that had better arrangements.
     
  8. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident

    Having a train of different guests in his suite every night does not exactly equal the freedom he enjoyed at home which included riding his horses or driving his cars and motorcycles around town. He basically had to put his normal life 'on hold' when he worked Vegas. He eventually isolated himself at Graceland but that behavior only worsened as his depression deepened. One could even say he learned this behavior of staying in his room all day and night while in Vegas.

    You're still not considering the difficulties that Vegas did bring to his life which I outlined in my previous post.

    For every artist like The Beatles that gave up on the road there are literally thousands of others who stayed in the game and continued to work the road for decades and that includes Paul McCartney himself.

    I would argue that the livelier audience footage in the film came from the B-roll footage they captured in Phoenix on September 9th and not the footage from Vegas. The difference in both crowds is noticeable.

    I have no prejudice against this period. Good portions of it are some of my favorite areas of his career. With that said, I cannot subscribe to this rewriting of this period as "not as bad as it really was." I argue that it was and that it was permanently damaging to Elvis in every aspect of the word.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
  9. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Elvis never would have conceived of such a plan on his own. Parker orchestrated that deal, put the feelers out to RCA, and presented the offer to Elvis. Elvis took the deal, arguably without a clear understanding of what he was selling, and blew through the funds within months. If one is going to sell off one of the most lucrative and biggest selling catalogues in music, it should be for a “never having to work again” figure, not a moderate figure — $5.4 million was a lot of money in 1973 dollars, but not a large enough figure for the deal in question, especially considering Parker walked away with over half.

    The Hendrix estate is a very complicated story. Hendrix’s father lost control of the catalogue and Jimi’s intellectual property earlier than that. Al Hendrix was on a moderate stipend for decades while his attorney Leo Branton and producer Alan Douglas made countless millions from Jimi Hendrix’s music and intellectual property.
     
  10. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    To be clear, I wasn’t necessarily referring to Las Vegas. If in 1969 we were dealing with 2019 dollars with Elvis in his mid-30’s and in top form, Elvis could have commanded $500,000 minimum per show, up to $1,000,000 depending on the size of venue. To command $500,000 in a 2,000 seat showroom, the ticket prices would be astronomical.

    Elvis did partially usher in the Las Vegas residency concept, but it has evolved into a much different business model, which resembles very little of what Tom Parker put together. And the irony is that today, artists frequently play Las Vegas for easier and more lucrative paydays — in Elvis’ case, it was for more work and less pay.
     
  11. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    Yeah that's a good point. The Park MGM is basically an arena that seats over 5,000 people, so it has twice the capacity of the International Showroom back when Elvis played Las Vegas. I think Adele's proposed Vegas deal was at one of Steve Wynn's hotels in more of a theater setting, hence the $500,000 number. It really is all relative to some degree, but our greater point remains the same that Elvis was able to draw top dollar no matter the location or the venue and although the original Las Vegas deal was high for its time, Parker was in a highly conflicted and perilous condition to renegotiate Elvis's contract in the future for more money and less work as we both feel should have happened over the ensuing years.
     
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  12. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    One could say that, but saying it doesn’t make it true. From Guralnick’s biography, describing Elvis and Priscilla’s life at Graceland in the summer of 1963:

    For much of the next three weeks they shut themselves off in Elvis’s bedroom and never even went downstairs. With the windows covered over with tinfoil and blackout drapes, it made no difference whether it was night or day. They called down to the kitchen for their meals, listened to gospel music, made sure not to miss The Untouchables or the Tonight Show on TV ... it was their own private world ... “here, [recalls Priscilla] he ... stayed in his pajamas for days at a time.”

    So, no, he didn’t learn to stay in his room all day and all night in Vegas, he was doing it at least six years before he went to Vegas.

    I was responding to your assertion that Elvis was “cooped up in his [Vegas] hotel room, practically in seclusion.” Again, simply not true, according to Guralnick:

    Every night Elvis held court in his suite. One night, Tom Jones might stop by, and the two of them would sing together until the sun came up. Another night it might be the Imperials, with whom Elvis liked to harmonize on some of the old gospel songs. “Every night was like a command performance,” remarked Imperials manager-keyboard player Joe Moscheo - to the point that some nights you might just prefer to slip away after a few words of perfunctory congratulation, so as to avoid getting stuck in the suite all night long. “A lot of times he just really wanted to sing, and he’d sit down at the piano and entertain for whoever was there. Sometimes there were a lot of big names, sometimes it was just a bunch of hangers-on, a lot of times it was just the guys.” Whoever it was, the room was always filled with people, and Elvis was always singing.

    While Elvis doubtless became more reclusive in Vegas as the years wore on, Guralnick’s description of his room always being filled with people suggests that, at least for the first few years, Elvis’s life in Vegas was more social and connected to people than it was when he and Priscilla were locking themselves in their room for weeks on end at Graceland or in Palm Springs.

    He had to put his normal life on hold when he filmed a movie. He had to put his normal life on hold when he drove to Nashville for a recording session. He had to put his normal life on hold when he went on tour outside Vegas. In this regard, Vegas was no different than any of the other aspects of his career.
     
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  13. I agree with much of this discussion re Vegas, but it should be pointed out that Vegas itself was a much different place in 1969 than it is today. The Strip was nothing along the lines of what it’s been for the last 30 years or so.
     
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2019
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  14. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Or, hear me out now, just MAYBE if Elvis had taken just a little bit of personal responsibility.
     
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  15. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I completely understand where you're coming from with this, but this was still the same kid that was driving trucks .... bear with me here.
    This young kid got given the keys to disneyland and I don't think he ever really figured out what it was all about.
    Girls falling all over him his whole life. Folks, including the United States government encouraging him to take a pill to pep him up, and take a pill to bring him down. Money rolling in hand over fist ....
    By the time Elvis may possibly have realised that this amusement park wasn't exactly a friendly place to be, he was messed up on drugs and still treated like royalty by everyone, pretty much everywhere.
    I agree that he should have taken some personal responsibility, but I actually don't think that he was capable of doing that, because he had never had to, and with no disrespect, I think he was just too naive to see where everything was heading. I reckon that's why so many folks took advantage of his generous nature. I think that's why the sycophants had such rock solid positions. I think that's why he took so long to boot Parker, and partly why he allowed him back.
    Elvis was a musical wonder, but he was a lost lonely little boy, in a mean alpha dog world.
    When I think of Elvis, I think of the Alice Cooper line "I may be lonely, but I'm never alone"
    It is a sad sad story, and even though he became a red light warning to the whole rock and roll world, others armed with much more information fell into the same traps over and over.......
     
  16. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Tell you what, if I were in Elvis position, my hobby wouldn't be riding horses on some ranch. It would have been learning how to manage my own financial affairs and finding better management. But, hey, I am control freak that way. And just how many times can a grown man watch Dr Strangelove? Kids love to watch the same movies over and over again. My limit so far has been 3 times over several decades.
     
  17. Spencer R

    Spencer R Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oxford, MS
    That’s the whole story in a nutshell. Maybe one in a million people could have kept their head screwed on straight if they had to walk a mile in Elvis’s shoes. As I’ve said before, it’s arguably a miracle he didn’t die in his twenties.
     
  18. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I agree with your assessment. However by the time a man reaches 19 years old (his pre fame age) there are so many basic things I had learned by then that shocks me Elvis hadn't. I was not QUITE as poor as he, but damned close. A hard upbringing typically prepares you for life, and I guess Elvis did not learn much by age 19. And that the f*cking Army would be able to tell me to take uppers or downers is WAY beyond anything I would tolerate. I am one stubborn son of a bitch.
     
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  19. At least in my experience, creative types generally can't be bothered with things like book kepping / accounting. Yes they should, but they don't. But you don't see accountants hitting the top of the charts with songs either.
     
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  20. garyt1957

    garyt1957 Forum Resident

    Location:
    mi
    I'd even say Parker was fine for longer than that. Nobody knew RnR would last as it has so getting Elvis into mainstream movies and out of the rebel role was really a good move financially. And it was about finances. Again nobody knew RnR would last and there'd be any reason to leave a "legacy". Those early movies made Elvis an insanely rich man and actually weren't bad for the time. You can't watch an Elvis movie made in 1962 with a 2019 mentality. After VLV the movies should have gotten better or ended. Elvis should have still done the occasional live performances. I would've liked Parker gone around 1965. No way he should've allowed Elvis to be in movies like Kissin Cousins, Tickle Me, etc. Of course Elvis is at fault too.
     
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  21. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Creative types CHOOSE not to be bothered. They are above such mundane thought processes. (so they think)
     
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  22. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    Eventually they were right RnR died about 20 years ago. I agree Colonel was right in transforming Elvis into a "respectable" entertainer. Many of his strategies were quite shrewd. That does not take away from the fact he was a psychopath, and took wealth from Elvis legally and right under his nose, in plain sight.
     
  23. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    I just cannot lay the blame at Colonel's feet. He served his own self interest. Elvis should have done the same.
     
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  24. SKATTERBRANE

    SKATTERBRANE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tucson, AZ
    If someone gets away with trading all his nickels for your dimes, and you do nothing to find out why, then the fault is now yours. It's the old "fool me once..." scenario.
     
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  25. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product Thread Starter

    I understand that, I would probably be the same, to some degree, but we are all different personality types. Addiction doesn't hit everyone the same, nor with the same items.
    Some folks die on the couch in tv land. Some folks can't stop spending no matter how hard life is getting. Some folks can't help but hunt for physical gratification. We all have our pitfalls, and Elvis got caught in a storm that was bigger than he could handle.... I wouldn't have died from pills, but I would have probably ended up down some other messy unfortunate path.... Life's a hard game, especially if you never got the right mental tools to fight it right.
     
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