Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

It's a pity Elvis didn't deliver (or Felton didn't ask him to, Chips would have) a better vocal for I've Got A Thing About You Baby. The song and arrangement deserved better.

 

"Bombastic" is a good word for it. Christgau once described Ray's voice as a "foghorn" (he meant it as a compliment) and he definitely could go for the bombast sometimes. Price's track was recorded at Columbia New York so likely not Cottler or Blaine on drums as they were West Coast guys. Wonder who it is?

 

Yeah, it sure did not sound like a Nashville based recording to my ears. I really would like to know who that drummer was on that record. He is really is quite terrific.

 

They're on the master take, but mixed quite a bit lower. The This Is Elvis mix is an edit, so the spots you mention come in later in the master take, 1:28, 1:34, etc.

 

Here is a wild guess; Gary Chester, who played on a ton of studio recording in New York during the 50's, 60's and 70, including records by Tony Bennet and Frank Sinatra. He also played drums on Van Morrison's iconic hit record, Brown Eyed Girl.

 

My Boy
Written By :
Claude Francois, Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, Bill Martin & Phil Coulter

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

I already know the panel is going to be split on this one.... I personally really like this. I like the song from a writing perspective, the arrangement, and Elvis knocks the vocal out of the park. I think he gets the emotion right on the money. The delicate sections are delicate, and the big sections, are big.
I guess some folks find this cheesy or something, but to me this is a song that touches all the right spots, and in a modern world with too many children growing up without fathers, it is sort of poignant too.

 

Spanish Eyes
Written By :
Bert Kaempfert, Charles Singleton & Eddie Synder

Recorded :
Stax Studios, Memphis, December 10-16, 1973 : December 16, 1973. take 4

I don't really know where to start with this song ... I don't hate it, but I am not a fan, and I think it gives me a feeling of Granddad playing the cheap organ bought at the electronics show or something. The song in itself isn't really bad, but it somehow carries a stigma of one of the poor things about a lot of seventies music for me.
It kind of of, by default, becomes the weakest song on the album, because of what the song represents to me, rather than the performance or arrangement.
In a removed from that mindset way.... we had a nice guitar intro. Elvis puts across a very controlled, gentle vocal, that suits the song and gives it a certain level of pleasure. Until the instrumental break, we have a very sparse arrangement (for these seventies recordings), and the strings that come in aren't overbearing, but there is just something about this song that is a little unconvincing for me.

 

Muh boy, muh boy! Ok. Is it cheesy? Sure, a bit. Is it overblown? Yup. But does it work? Yes, absolutely! Through all the bombast and melodrama, not to mention the somewhat absurd setting, Elvis somehow finds heart and sincerity. In that sense, it's one of his greatest achievements at Stax.

Elvis' version of Spanish Eyes isn't great, but it's pleasant enough as an album filler track. I'd probably take it over Al Martino's studio version, though no one can touch Martino's live performances of the song, where it really came to life.

 

Hi guys,

Just so you are aware, I will be off the map for eight days from Saturday.

If anyone wants to continue through while I am away, that would be cool. If you want to wait for me to get back, that would be cool too.

Please let me know how you would like it to go.

Cheers
Mark

 

We could discuss Having Fun With Elvis On Stage in your absence.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Bill Cosby."

"Well, well well well well well well well well well"

"If you milk this thing long enough"

 

That could be fun, I am pretty sure I have never heard it lol

 

This made for easily one of the best Royal Philharmonic Orchestra tracks. Throws in the bass intro from "You're So Square"(?!) for good measure.

 

Personally, I think we should wait for your return! I don't think anyone else could do nearly as good a job as you've done on these threads.

 

Cheers mate, I appreciate that.
I just don't want folks getting bored or whatever

 

Wow I was just looking and we have been doing this for just over thirteen months lol

 

Yep, I agree: we should wait for you, man. No hurry here.
As soon as you come back, we will get back to the conversation.

 

One of the most cringeworthy masters in the 70’s catalogue. A big sappy, melodramatic, bombastic piece of garbage. Of course, that is one man’s opinion.

Elvis introduced it in Vegas and played it for a time in ‘73 and later in ‘75, but it never became a mainstay, and he couldn’t be bothered to finish a completed master (Jarvis had to splice two takes to round it out). While some fans have speculated the song’s lyrical content may have resonated with Elvis, there was actually very little that mirrored his own circumstances.

 

Agree - Mark, you've steered this ship and kept it on course (and no bickering!), I'd like to see you continue so I'm more than happy wating till you get back.

 

Elvis always had an attraction to the Latin/Spanish flair, with the sound incorporated into his work as far back as the early-1960’s (he even alludes to it in one of his EOT interviews). So this song’s arrangement is not as out of left field as one might think. It is a bit schmaltzy, but relatively pleasant and somewhat representative of where his musical interests were during the mid-1970’s.

 

What another fine post there, mate. You capture almost everything I would want to say about Elvis's stellar take on My Boy. I think it is one of the best vocals he ever put down on tape and the fact that Elvis was singing it in Las Vegas, before he even had a chance to cut it in the studio, shows that he was fairly enamored with the song, even though it was very taxing on his voice as Ernst Jorgensen pointed out in A Life In Music. As Ernst also pointed out in his fine book, My Boy was simply "the kind of sentimental cry-in-your-beer divorce number he could no longer resist," just like Separate Ways or perhaps even It's Midnight.

I am pretty much with you and Mark on this one as well. I find Elvis's voice pleasant enough on Spanish Eyes, and the guitar playing is quite beautiful, but I never really seek Elvis's version out, unless I am playing the whole album. I actually like Charlie Rich's version a tad better. It's also quite interesting that Rich would end up cutting two songs from this album in a few years, Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues and Spanish Eyes. Elvis would end up covering Rich's Pieces Of My Life in 1975, so once again, Elvis and Charlie seem to be drawn to some of the same songs over their careers.


https://www.youtube.com › watch
▶ 2:54

 

I'm fairly nuetral on My Boy. I don't think it's bad, nor do I think it's great. It's one of those tracks that I frankly never took notice of until the wonderful Internet brought all the controversy around this track in fandom to my attention. Of all the things to argue about, My Boy!

I do enjoy Spanish Eyes. To me, it's a fun song to play (guitar, etc.) and like PacificOceanBlue mentioned it's a genre Elvis had an attraction to. I can appreciate why it appealed to Elvis, and the performance here is one of the better ones IMO of this often-covered-at-least-through-1980 war horse.

 

Mark, I wish you the best and will be waiting for your return. I enjoy your opinions on each release. It's been so long since I've listened to Elvis' recordings as they were released that I forgot how great it was sometimes and how bizarre it was other times. This is a great group of Elvis threads.

 

The whole chart history of My Boy is rather interesting and perplexing. Firstly, RCA did not release it as a single until January of 1975, so whatever chance it had to help promote his Good Times album was lost as RCA had already released two more singles from his next album, Promised Land. I wonder if anybody knows who instigated the late release of this single. I wonder if it was Elvis himself, after seeing the positive reaction from his Las Vegas audience or maybe producer Felton Jarvis. I know its not for everybody on this thread and I understand that sentiment, but it was Elvis's last top twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100 to make it there in his lifetime. Way Down made it to number 18 in 1977, but that was after his death had created a huge demand for the single. My Boy also was a huge crossover hit as it hit number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart as well as number 14 on the Billboard Country Singles chart. It had great international success as well, making it into the top five in Britain, Belgium, and Ireland, among many other top ten international charts, so despite its faint praise by some fans on this thread, it was a pretty successful single from Elvis's later career.

 

I'm normally hesitant to use the word "bombast" when discussing Elvis's 1970s recordings, but "My Boy" fully deserves that loaded adjective, because the bombast gets in the way of any real emotion. This one of the very few recordings where Elvis's delivery sounds pompous and phony, especially with the glitzy backdrop of the Eurotrash arrangement. I also wonder how the hell that boy managed to sleep through the hamhanded orchestration and Elvis's breast beating. He must have been dead. Faced with the horror of hearing an unspeakably lachyrmose Richard Harris ballad, the boy offed himself. Like many sensible people he preferred death to hearing "My Boy." Who could blame him? Elvis should have been prosecuted for child abuse; I hear that in some states adults can get 5 to 10 years in prison for playing "My Boy" in front of children.

As for "Spanish Eyes," I like its breezy feel and the note of relaxed gallantry in Elvis's voice, as if he was trying out for a musical remake of Zorro. "Spanish Eyes" might be very far from rock and roll, but this sort of parlor music has its own sort of modest integrity. Moreover, it has the sort of swooning romanticism that Elvis was attracted to and excelled in conveying. No over-the-top theatrics or over-egged arrangements either. "Spanish Eyes" is the very best sort of filler.

 

There's no denying that Elvis loved bombast, and he loved cheap, maudlin sentiment, while paradoxically many of his fans do not like these things. My Boy has these qualities in spades. Since I have to watch my cholesterol, I can only consume small doses of cheese myself. This is not a song I would listen to or enjoy if performed by anyone else, but I do enjoy Elvis' version somehow. I guess I would say that I enjoy it in spite of itself, in the same manner that I can enjoy some of his sillier soundtrack songs. I can find enjoyment in My Boy in a way I cannot with Mama Liked The Roses or Solitaire.