Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

I don't know of anyone that was as versatile as our man. He could rock out like no other but could equally croon, gospel, country, and anything a else. EIB is a showcase with great performances throughout. If we go back to his home recordings, the ones that I've heard are songs like, Mona Lisa are the I'm Beginning To Forget You, etc.. Even early on he was into the goop.

 

Love Coming Down
Written By :
Jerry Chesnut

Recorded :
Jungle Room, Graceland, Memphis, February 2-9, 1976 : February 6, 1976. take 5

I am stealing this quote from @Mylene , cheers mate -
Phil Spector: "He's a great singer. Gosh, Elvis is so great. You have no idea how great he is, really, you don't. You have absolutely no comprehension—it's absolutely impossible. I can't tell you why he's so great, but he is. He's sensational. He can do anything with his voice. Whether he will or not is something else. He and Dylan I would like to record. Elvis can make some masterful records and can do anything. He can sing any way you want him to, any way you tell him."
There was also another quote somewhere but I can't find it ... it states that Elvis managed to create a connection, because he was able to imprint his heart into whatever he sang....

The reason I mention this, is an awful lot of Elvis' seventies music isn't really my kind of thing ... not all of it by any means, but some of it, just isn't the music that touches me in that deepest part.
I think those of us who get it, can look passed the failings, and just feel the heart behind the vocals ... I also think that as Elvis became less and less interested, due to his mountain of internal personal problems, he often wasn't quite able to telegraph that emotion as well, because his pain was so internalised that it became more and more of a destructive thing, rather than a source of delivery.

I think more than anything when I hear these songs, I hear a singer and musician who is so broken that I can relate to it. We are all broken to varying degrees, and thankfully not everyone is this broken, but if you are, or have been, this is an affirmation to your inner being ... idk, just my thoughts.
I like this song, because Elvis is singing it ... If Jack Rivers was singing it, It probably wouldn't even get my ear. Even at this point where his voice is ravaged by ill health, internal sorrow and the effects of addiction, this voice manages to carry so much weight, that I can't help but listen. The fact that he is only about forty, and you remember how incredible his voice was fifteen years prior, tends to reinforce all the things you hear ... again just my interpretation.

I do like a lot of these songs, and I do like this album, but more so than that, this is just about one of the most broken people I have ever heard on record, and it still manages to transfix my attention ... and as stupid as it is, it also makes me wish I could have been there for the guy ... and I know it would have probably made no difference

 

I'll Never Fall In Love Again.
Written By :
Lonnie Donegan & Jimmy Currie

Recorded :
Jungle Room, Graceland, Memphis, February 2-9, 1976 : February 4, 1976

So the first thing that strikes me, is that the king of skiffle up there? Lonnie Donegan.
A great choice of song for him to close the album. This song could well fall under the same category as I described above to be honest.
Although I can hear the frailty in Elvis voice, I think he takes this one home.
I can see Elvis with his eyes closed, with that stoic male thing holding back tears, as he belts this out of the park.
I feel each word, and it doesn't break me, because love is the least of my issues at the moment, but if I was in a place of heartbreak at the moment, I couldn't listen to this.

 

Alternate take #3

 

So for me this is actually a great album .. it isn't that they are necessarily the best songs Elvis recorded by any stretch of the imagination ... It all comes down to being such an honest expression of the guy singing them.
Like the Stones said, it's the singer not the song, and this album is the very definition of that statement. I do like a lot of the songs, but I am captivated by the singer who is projecting them.
Certainly this is not Elvis Is Back, From Elvis In Memphis, and is so far removed from King Creole that it is somewhat bewildering, but this album touched me from the first listen, and roughly 18 months later it still does.

 

That's the thing: it is a totally different voice and artist.

 

The drugs multiplied the problem.

 

At the end of your post you listed his top qualities. Nobody was a better vocalist.

 

Well said.

 

I don't have much to say about Love Coming Down that I didn't already say about Solitaire: strained lyric, attractive music, fantastically convincing Elvis vocal. The bridge ("Can't you see how everything I've learned would just be wasted if you leave me?") is particularly moving.

I'll Never Fall In Love Again isn't bad, but it never really goes anywhere, and it makes for a rather underwhelming finish to the album. It's by far my least-favourite JR performance.

 

I agree, but you could say the same thing about Frank Sinatra's Capitol Records' voice in the 50's vs. his Reprise period in the 1960s. A totally different voice and even his vocal range had changed, but Frank's ageing baritone was still capable of a showing a range of emotions and could still muster some vocal power. As I have said before, Elvis's voice was gonna change over the course of 20 years whether he popped pills or not as all male baritones do. The amazing thing about Elvis's voice was the power and range it maintained up until his last concerts, despite the breathing issues and side effects of his pharmaceutical issues. Here is the quote again from classical music producer and writer Robert Matthew-Walker on Elvis's very reliable vocal range over many years:

Presley's vocal range was exceptional - amazingly so for an untrained singer. It ranged form low F in the base register to top B flat and B in the tenor range. This is over two octaves: most people can only manage just over one octave. Quite apart from the range of Presley's voice (And this range remained with him through his life, a fact proved by his recordings) the equally surprising thing was that its quality and distinctive timbre remained constant throughout this range.

 

Just a great post Mark that says it all so well. Again, this very personal and melancholy album by Elvis is the one that planted its brain in the head of a 16 year old teenager in high school, who was familiar with Elvis from his father's 1950's 45 rock 'n' roll records that he brought home from his radio station, and I listened to everything in those days from Don McLean's American Pie to Bob Dylan's Lay Lady Lay. I was then stuck on Charlie Rich and my country music phase. I too was just "captivated by the singer who is projecting" these songs on this album as you so well put it. This album made me seek out those truly fantastic albums you mention like Elvis Is Back, From Elvis In Memphis and King Creole, not to mention Elvis That's The Way, On Stage and Elvis Country. From Elvis Presley Boulevard was a complete turning point in my passion for music. Moody Blue would seal my fate with Elvis.

 

I love how convincingly that Elvis sings that bridge as well. How could Elvis not identify with the lyrics of the song for was he not a man "so busy going up in the world, that he couldn't see Love Coming Down?"

It was probably my least favorite performance on the album when I first bought it as well. I was hooked on Ton Jones over the top hit version where he moans, grunts and sells the song with everything he's got. I also thought Elvis' vocal was not at its best on this cut, it sounded a little muffled and not as vibrant as on the rest of the album. As I have said before, Vic Anesini's fine remastering seemed to bring out the best on this song, and now I enjoy Elvis's slightly more restrained vocal (compared to Tom Jones over the top version) as well as the fact that Elvis actually hits some rather grand notes on the climax of the song. Nonetheless, I think it is probably Elvis's weakest vocal on the album, but still an enjoyable listen.

 

Not much to say about this one except another good song that's more than just about lost love in Elvis' case.

 

This seems almost like a resigned accepting reprise of Hurt. He started the album in blazing anger and we don't believe that he would never hurt back because he sounds like he wants to make someone pay. Here we don't really believe when he says that he will never fall in love again because even he knows deep down that he will fall in love and other things if given the chance again. He has to. It's like a cruel Sisyphean fate. A great wrap up song for the whole well sequenced album. This whole album usually puts me in mind of Morrissey songs.

 

another singer obviously inspired by Elvis

 

That could've been written yesterday. Cheers mate.

 

He was in the throes of a severe opiate addiction. That context can't be airbrushed out of the picture.

 

Ugh, Morrissey. Not a fan. I bet From EP Blvd is his favorite Elvis album. But Elvis even at his most maudlin and self-pitying was never a whiner.

 

Here's the George Jones original of Love Coming Down, an album track on his The Battle album. Elvis almost certainly hadn't heard this version when he recorded his own take, because it was released about a week after Elvis' session. So it's another case where the Elvis version appears to be a cover but technically is not. The Jones version is more country and less MOR so I like it better:

 

I'm a casual fan of Morrissey. I like the morbid phrasing and whining humor of some of his songs in small doses. I fessed up about liking the goopy shlock long ago. I think that I love that super fine edge that can just bring a tear to my eye without becoming a cheese whiz coated block of Velveeta. After that point, I enjoy the glow of sonic dumpster fire. I often wonder where this LP would rank in Morrissey's top 10 Elvis albums too.

 

Nor would I ever want to. But, again, his addiction was of his own doing. Hence he abdicated his throne.

 

Well, we know that Moz has a certain appreciation for 60s Elvis, given that he covered You'll Be Gone (live), incorporated Marie's The Name as an intro to Rusholme Ruffians (again, live), titled a Smiths song "You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby," and used Elvis' likeness on a Smiths single (off the top of my head, I think it was Shoplifters Of The World Unite...don't quote me on that). I should also probably mention, for the record, that I love the Smiths and enjoy the occasional Moz solo track.

Anyway, I don't think Moz ever captured the FEPB feel, for better or worse. Much of his work has a sense of humour that's missing from FEPB, and even at his darkest, there tends to be a pure pop sensibility that gives a bit of lightness to the music (Everyday Is Like Sunday sort of exemplifies both). The closest he came would probably be the live versions of I Know It's Over, but even there, you can tell that he retains some sense of conscious control over what he's singing. I believe him when he says "Love is natural and real, but not for you, my love," and yet it doesn't have the raw authenticity of Elvis singing (confessing) that he hopes he'll never love anyone else this much again.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Moz had never heard FEPB, or if he had no interest in 70s Elvis.

 

I don't equate Elvis and Moz as being identical here. Like you say, Moz did make many references to Elvis' work in his music. I'm put into the Moz connection with this album as a cyclical thing of falling in love, being hurt, getting angry, wallowing in sorrow, trying to rationalize things, deciding love's not for me, vowing never again, and then rinse and repeat.

 

I'll Never Fall In Love Again is not a good performance and one of the weaker 1970's era masters. Ironically, the layers of post-production camouflage Elvis' inability to master the vocal.