Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

Initial sales of regular release albums just before and then after Aloha:

Love Letters From Elvis (1971) 300K
Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas (1971) 200K
Elvis Now (1972) 400K
He Touched Me (1972) 200K
Elvis: As Recorded At Madison Square Garden (1972) 500K
Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite (2 discs, 1973) 2M
Elvis (Fool) (1973) 200K
Raised On Rock (1973) 200K
Good Times (1974) 200K
Elvis: As Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis (1974) 500K
Promised Land (1975) 300K
Elvis Today (1975) 350K
The Sun Sessions 300K
From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (1976) 400K
Welcome To My World 400K
Moody Blue (1977) 400K (sales before death)

You can see almost a linear, steady doubling of sales from Fool to EP Boulevard. Live albums, much like early 60s album sold better than studio albums.

You can see Aloha and Blue Hawaii had virtually the same initial sales figures.

 

You can find an answer here :Elvis' 1974 Easter Television Special | Elvis Articles

 

Take Good Care Of Her
Written By :
Ed Warren & Arthur Kent

Recorded :
Stax Studios, Memphis, July 20-25, 1973: July 21, 1973. take 6

Chart (1973)Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 - 39
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary - 27
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles - 4
Canada RPM Top Tracks - 56
Canada RPM Adult Contemporary - 7

I like this song, but I am not really sure I see it as an album opener. I understand with this album that there are more slow than fast songs, so therefore a slow opener is very likely, but I think there are better slow songs to open with.
This is one of those I love her, but she is marrying someone else songs, and I wish her well, but I am heartbroken things. Elvis sings it well, and the instrumentation is good.

 

Lovin Arms
Written By :
Tom Jans

Recorded :
Stax Studios, Memphis, December 10-16, 1973 : December 13, 1973. take 3

I really like this, and frankly the vocal is brilliant. He appears to be very connected to this song, and with his obvious depression, and everything else going on with him, I can see how he would be connected to it.
It's a really nice song, and I like the arrangement. It is a little more subdued in its overdubs, and the song is allowed to breathe. Prehaps Jarvis realised that the vocal was so much better than some of the recent vocals and decided not to futz with it too much.
A song that although in the mellow adult contemporary arena, really shows that Elvis still had something to offer.

 

Take Good Care Of Her is a beautiful, heartbreaking song that features one of my favourite Elvis vocals from Stax. I'm still not sure if I prefer the master or the outtakes; the overdubs on the master are lovely, but Elvis sounds more vulnerable on the outtakes. In the end, I'm glad we have both!

Loving Arms is decent, but I prefer the versions by ONJ and Tom Jans. Elvis' take tends to drag a bit, and he doesn't completely sell me on the lyric. ONJ and (especially) Tom Jans do.

 

Completely agree that it's an odd choice for an LP opener, but I'm guessing the logic went something like this:

RCA A&R Rep: I got an idea, why don't we call the album Good Times.
RCA Marketing Rep: That doesn't make much sense, most of the songs are downers.
RCA A&R Rep: Don't we have Elvis doing the song Talk About The Good Times? It'll tie in nicely.
RCA Marketing Rep: Gotcha. And he did Take Good Care of Her, since it has 'good' in the title it'll make a great opening track!
RCA A&R Rep: Perfect! He also did Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues - let's bookend this baby with two songs with 'good' in the title!
RCA Marketing Rep: Love it! They'll think we're geniuses.
RCA A&R Rep: Don't we have him doing For The Good Times too?
RCA Marleting Rep: Yeah, but I can't be bothered to fill out the paperwork to get it, it's almost lunch time and I'm starving.

 

Loving Arms is also one of my favorites on the album. Elvis strains a little when reaching for the right notes here and there but it's more than made up for in that killer chorus- 'I've been too long in the wind, too long in the rain, takin' any comfort that I can' - wonderful! Elvis is engaged and passionate. I greatly prefer the undubbed master; the pre-song chatter shows Elvis to be in a good mood, and you can hear that phase/flange effect on the guitar nicely:

 

Loving Arms and I've Got A Thing are my favorites from this album.

 

It doesn’t really answer anything. It reaffirms Parker was again trying to put a television deal together for an Easter special or at the very least had a plan to negotiate with the networks for a television deal (which everyone knows); what it would have consisted of, and why it did not come to fruition remains unclear.

 

One of the better recordings and vocals from the disjointed July sessions. Still it is nowhere near Elvis’ best work.

 

It really is a very underrated performance, from both Elvis and the great band. I really passed over this cut a lot when I was younger for I was stuck on My Boy, Lovin' Arms and I've Got A Thing About You Baby from the Good Times album. Now I see this as a sort of hidden gem, perhaps not as great as those three previously mentioned cuts, but a very fine recording nonetheless. The all-star band of Burton and Tutt, playing along with the Memphis Boys, are just terrific, maybe the most prestigious group of musicians ever to play on an Elvis studio session at one time. Luckily, we get to hear them on the terrific I've Got A Thing About You Baby as well.

Yes indeed, those are two of my four favorite songs from the whole album, along with Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues and My Boy. I just love the stark instrumentation on Lovin' Arms that is led by Norbert Putman's propulsive bass line, and I also dig the way that Elvis takes his voice up on the lines, "Singing somewhere in the lonely night...dreaming of the arms that held me tight." The way that he delivers that line so powerfully makes you stop and take notice.

 

My take on reading the article was that The Colonel thought he could come up with something, but nothing materialized. I don't think it ever got further than a notion in his head. Beacuse they were too cheap to reprint/correct the picture sleeves the info (such that it was) got out to the public.

 

Agreed, Parker clearly had an idea for an Easter television special of some sort, but it never materialized for whatever reason. It is unclear if the idea was dead by the time single was issued.

 

I have always loved this song. I also really like the re-recorded version from 1981.

I agree.

 

LOL!

 

FWIW, Take Good Care of Her was also originally pencilled in as the first song on the previous album, before it and I've Got a Thing were pulled to be used as a single instead (according to the handwritten tracklist pictured in the Raised on Rock FTD booklet). Aside from FEIM and the records where they put all the fast songs on one side and the slow on the other, Elvis records appear to have zero thought devoted to sequencing. It might just as well be random.

 

Don't forget the rocker/ballad/rocker/ballad sequencing used on a number of his LPs too. I've said it before, but the contempt shown to Elvis by RCA (and anyone else who had a hand in it) in regards to properly caring about his product is unbelievable. It's almost as though they try to put as little thought as possible in to it, knowing it would sell to the core audience regardless.

 

I reckon part of it is the fifties mindset of "this isn't going to last long, it doesn't matter".
I would be interested to know if it was RCA or Elvis' management calling the shots.
If it was RCA, I would be interested to know if that's what all their artists got in terms of album thought.

I can understand this mentality up to about 65-66, but one would assume anyone with an inkling of where the industry was at, should have altered procedure accordingly.

 

I suspect it was pretty standard for the artist to take an active role in the composition and sequencing of their albums. So the blame ultimately lies with Elvis for having zero interest in what happened to his work once he completed a master take. One would expect the producer to step up and fill the void when there's a disinterested artist, but (aside from Moman on FEIM) this did not happen when Jarvis was in charge. So it's true RCA didn't do a good job, but in a perfect world the job shouldn't have been left entirely to them in the first place (and probably wasn't with most of their other artists).

 

Yea, that makes more sense

 

I’m wondering who did what in regards to sequencing albums by Dean Martin, Sinatra and other artists of that stature who were not a part of the ‘modern rock’ era, and solo artists.

 

The Guitar Man album with its newer backing music is a mixed bag but I have to agree that they hit it out of the park with Loving Arms! Other songs on that album now sound more dated than the original mixes in some cases.

 

I grew up listening to country radio, and this song was an old warhorse that was covered by a few dozen artists before Elvis got to it. So when I finally heard Elvis' version it was hard to hear the song with fresh ears. Elvis does a decent job and the song is well-suited to his persona/sensibilities. I agree that it's one of the better vocals from the July sessions.

Loving Arms is not a favorite of mine, but it's striking how much better his voice is on the December tracks.

 

Not surprisingly, Sinatra took a very hands on approach. From Will Friedwald's book:

Most important, Sinatra selected songs and sequenced them so that the music and lyrics created a consistent flow from track to track, affording an impression of narrative, as in musical theater or opera. "The thing about Sinatra," Frank Military explained, "was that he never went into a record session just to do a record session. He sat down and carefully planned his albums, and lyrically they had to make sense. They had to tell a story. He'd spend days and weeks just preparing this album. Each song would be handpicked, it had a reason for being in the album."

I suspect Dean was not so meticulous. I'm not familiar enough with his records to know how well they are sequenced. I would guess probably his producer(s) did the sequencing.