Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

Honestly, even with those US chart placings (and like most Presley placings during the mid-70’s, the songs quickly disappeared from the charts soon after), the song was quickly forgotten in the US conscience, rarely if ever ever gracing the numerous hits compilations posthumously issued over the subsequent decades. The recording never resonated with US listeners and music buyers.

I actually didn’t hear it for the first time until 20 years after it was first issued and was baffled at how absurd the recording sounded. A cringeworthy moment usually reserved for substandard mid-60’s soundtrack recordings.

That said, other fans clearly love the song, so maybe I didn’t get the memo, but it is a lower-tier recording to these ears.

 

Very well said once again. It definitely has more than a bit of bombast, which of course I too like from time to time, but the part that I like best about Elvis's performance and arrangement of My Boy is the dynamics between the softer, quieter passages of the verses that feature those gentle guitar notes, and the wind-up to the chorus, when arranger Mike Leech brings in some blaring horns and a very brief string section, and Elvis gets to cut loose a bit vocally. I find his last refrain on "Be---cause your all I have my boy..." to be quite powerful and majestic sounding.

 

30 minutes of My Boy.

 

My Boy came at a turning point in his chart career, when he was starting to fade on the pop charts and starting to surge on the country charts. I can see why it might have appealed to a 70s pop audience.... I mean, these are the people who were buying "Feelings" and "You're Having My Baby" in large quantities. The single was actually less successful than those around it on the country chart though. Prior to My Boy, he'd had a string of top ten hits on the country chart, of which My Boy broke the string, stalling at #14.

 

The first English version.

 

As I said before, My Boy was actually all over the charts and even my country station in Los Angeles that I listened to at the time was playing it, despite the fact that it really was outside their genre style with its full string and horn chart. My local drug store even carried the single in their very limited 45 section of the best selling singles on the pop chart. It seemed like his fans at the time liked it a lot too, and I don't think I have ever heard Elvis sing a bad live version of it. Yeah, its sure not for everybody, but its successful run on the various charts cannot really be disputed at the time. I am not sure trying to judge its long term status in the Elvis fandom is worthy of much space on this thread as some fans seem to really like it a lot and some simply cannot stand it. That is not necessarily a totally rare thing for a latter day Elvis song.

 

It topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and it also was a top 5 hit in England.

 

Could it be that after the success of the song in Europe (#5 in the UK, IIRC) RCA decided to make a single of it in the States?

 

The really germane point here is that Elvis could get a song like My Boy to crossover into the country chart at all, let alone as high as number 14. Elvis's version of My Boy had a very pop/MOR oriented production style with some big band horns on it, something very rarely used on country records at the time. Elvis could not even get any substantial airplay for Suspicious Minds on the Billboard Country Chart at the time of its release. The very fine Kentucky Rain, with a lyric tailor made for a country audience and written by a future country star, Eddie Rabbit, could only climb as high as number 31 on the Billboard Country Chart, so the most amazing thing about Elvis's version of My Boy was that he was able to place it on so many different charts in the first place as Claus points out in his post.

 

Good point! My Boy was released with Loving Arms as the b-side in the fall of 1974 in Europe. The U.S. single with Thinking About You as the flip-side was released in January 1975.

 

Some UK copies of the "My Boy" 45 were pressed by RCA in the US.

 

I think what this really speaks to is the dramatic changes in country between 1969 and 1974 and the changes in country radio's attitude toward Elvis (and other 50s rockers). During this time, country radio became far more open to EZ listening and pop-oriented material, as the Billy Sherrill sound took a foothold. They also became far less of a closed shop that demanded stylistic purity, and became a lot more open specifically to 50s pop/rock artists who'd been displaced from the pop charts by changing times (I suspect this was in large part driven by the fact that a lot of first-generation rock and roll fans from the 50s had also fled the pop charts and were embracing country at the time). You're right that My Boy is not really country, but neither were I've Got A Thing About You Baby (#4 country) or If You Talk in Your Sleep (#6). I am pretty sure Elvis' version of My Boy would have stood no chance on country radio in 1969, and conversely that Kentucky Rain would have been #1 country if it had come out in 1974.

None of this is meant to dispute your overall point though, that My Boy had definite commercial appeal to the 70s pop audience, regardless of how some of us more serious-minded fans might view it today.

 

You have some great points there on your whole analysis about country music radio's changing format with its acceptance of the countrypolitan style of music that Billy Sherrill helped to herald in with Charlie Rich and others, but even Sherrill rarely used a full brass section on his productions. I have to tell you too that as far as a double sided country hit like I've Got A Thing About You Baby is concerned, it is more likely that the flip side, Take Good Care Of Her, was actually getting most of the airplay. The same was true for Elvis's last couple of double sided numbered one country singles, Moody Blue/She Thinks I Still Care and Way Down/Pledging My Love. My Los Angeles based country station did not play either B side of either single, despite the Billboard placement. I never heard them play I've Got A Thing About You either as it just did not fit the country format at all. Now for some reason they went ahead and played My Boy, perhaps because the B side was not promoted to radio at all and as you point out, Elvis was now seen as a country artist to a large degree. I just think Billboard was not distinguishing the A and B side airplay on these country singles they way they use to for the pop chart in the 50's or 60's. You will notice that both sides of the double sided singles on the country chart by the mid 70's always magically had the exact same chart placement. Billboard was not measuring actually airplay at this time and was merely going by the radio station airplay reports and sales figures for most of their chart placement figures.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. It was likely the country sides that were getting played on the country stations, and as you noted My Boy did not have a country song on the other side like Thing and Sleep did. The weird thing to me though is that I listened to a LOT of country radio in the 70s (it was all my parents ever played, and they had the radio on a lot) yet I do not remember hearing any of Elvis' mid-70s country hits on the radio prior to Moody Blue. They must have been getting played somewhere, but it wasn't on the Minnesota or Bay Area stations my parents were listening to.

 

Ha Ha, dirty little secret, "My Boy" is one of my absolute favorite Elvis 70's tracks.

 

You are a man of impeccable good taste in my humble opinion.

 

I think your parents and I had the same radio listening habits. I was the first one in my family that actually listened to a country radio station most of the time. My dad was a PD for the Mighty 690, so he liked the old 50's and early 60's rock 'n' roll, and my Mom was pretty eclectic in her tastes, but Elvis was probably her favorite. She and I discovered Charlie Rich together when he guested on the Jonathan Winters show in 1973, so that's how I became a country music fan. I found you could hear his music a lot more on country radio than the pop stations.

I think that you are spot on about the country music stations warming to Elvis slowly during the mid 70's, after all he had taken a very non country approach to his 60's soundtrack recordings, although once he showed that he was more than ready to get back in touch with his country roots with his gospel albums and the Memphis recordings, I think they were willing to embrace him again wholeheartedly. Now, I listened to KGBS 97.1 in Los Angeles during this time period, which billed itself as "Gentle Country" radio, so they loved Charlie Rich and started to embrace Elvis again on It's Midnight, My Boy and T-R-O-U-B-L-E a little bit, and although I remember hearing Promised Land some, I think that song was almost too rock for them to play a lot, so they concentrated on the other side of the 45 (It's Midnight). I think the first Elvis single I heard a whole lot on KGBS was Hurt, but your right about Moody Blue being the one that really bursted the doors open. They could not get enough of Elvis during the next couple of years, even after he died. My Way made it all the way to number 2 on the Billboard County Singles Chart and number one on the Cashbox Country Chart IIRC.

 

Talk About The Good Times
Written By :
Jerry Reed Hubbard

Recorded :
Stax Studios, Memphis, December 10-16, 1973 : December 14, 1973. take 4

Well this is another great song to me. I love that traditional kind of country sound and feel. The instrumentation is perfect, and Elvis puts in a great vocal. Jerry Reed wrote a great song that is still lyrically relevant, perhaps even more so these days.
Yea, I really like this. The guitar is excellent, and the bass is pretty great too.

 

Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues
Written By :
Danny O'Keefe

Recorded :
Stax Studios, Memphis, December 10-16, 1973 : December 13, 1973. take 9

I am also a big fan of this song. Again the arrangement is perfect for this. The guitar, is again, excellent. Elvis doesn't do anything particularly special in the vocal, but it is spot on, in terms of what the song needs, and that is really what a singer is supposed to be doing.

 

The previous two proper album releases didn't really hold up to closer inspection for me. I still like them, but they are weaker, with some songs and performances that are just sub par, without being unlistenable. This album on the other hand has stood tall on closer inspection. I probably rate this album more highly than most people would find acceptable. The only song on here that I am a bit iffy about is Spanish Eyes, and I don't dislike it or Elvis' performance so much, it is just a song that I have a negative mindset about due to its history in my world.
Like most Elvis albums, I think a minor adjustment of track order would do it a world of good, but with the country styling of this album, it isn't an imperative.
I think this is a solid album, and an excellent addition to the Elvis legacy.

 

Nice song, good performance, although I prefer the out-take #3 with the backing vocals joining up later in the recording and Elvis throwing a couple of "wooos" just before the chorus.

 

Whenever I play this album, I'm always mildly surprised when I remember that Talk About The Good Times isn't the closing track. It's a terrific performance, full of energy and life, and seems like the natural way to end the album.

Not that there's anything wrong with Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues...it's one of the best performances from the sessions. It just doesn't feel like a satisfactory conclusion to me.

The same goes for Essential Elvis Vol. 5, which contains the take 3 performance linked by @PepiJean. Once again, this fantastic rave-up seems like it's about to send the collection out in style, and then If That Isn't Love pops up...

 

Oof. This one hits a bit too close to home these days anyway. Though I never liked it on the Pickwick Christmas album either.

 

Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues is pure perfection. It works both as a quasi-autobiographical song about where Elvis was in his life at that moment, even if Elvis omitted the original lyric “I’ve got the pills to ease the pain / Can’t find a thing to ease the rain,” and, on a larger level, as a metaphor for the mood of the country at the time, in the long, slow come-down from the big bang of the 1960s. It’s as perfect a summation of the era as any song on Blood on the Tracks.

It’s not a vehicle for a bravura vocal performance by Elvis, simply a showcase for his uncanny ability to get straight to the heart of any lyric presented to him. This lyric gave him more to chew on than most.