Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

Really ??? its personal taste i guess ! i HAVE listened to dollys version and i didnt think much to it !
i havnt heard rondstats version though ! the world at large knows this purely as a whitney song, i dont consider myself a whitney fan but as i said previously its probably her signature song and i think she nailed the studio version !

i dont hear off pitch and i consider myself very tuned into anything musical - ive played guitar for 23 yrs and im almost OCD about tuning being 100% perfect - the second a string is slightly flat it literally screams at my ears lol
where do you hear her singing flat?

who knows what elvis would have done with it ? he was amazingly inconsistent - look at "hey jude " from the sessions that produced some of the best recordings from his whole career - tho in his defence i think he was suffering from a cold and was pretty much messing around, i dont think he was trying to cut a master at all - it should never have been put on an album - especially 2 years later when his voice, style and material had totally changed !

i think a jungle room elvis would have been best to leave it alone, but i think a "today " elvis would have totally killed it , the undubbed takes of " and i love you so " are stunning and compare to anything he did after 69 - hes 100% in control of his voice and hes got a richness, depth and power he hadnt had for probably 5 yrs and sadly would never have again - i dont think its recognized just how great he was sounding right then? its a shame he couldnt be bothered to cut more than a handful of songs when he would never be that good ever again !

 

thankyou ! great answer - as you say who knew the future ? i didnt even know it was a dolly parton song at the time or for quite some time after !

though i didnt know it as fact i have always assumed that it wasnt about the money with dolly actually, but as you say, the pride and ownership in her work - her art ! as someone who has tried to write songs and strives to take perfect photos on an almost daily basis i totally get that !

really Elvis or should i say colonel had no damn right in demanding publishing from any songwriter at all - it was a scam of the highest order , as you'd expect from mr dancing chickens !
it worked out for EVERYONE in the 50s but it worked to his detriment in the 70s without a doubt !
without that crap, would he have even cut crap like "this is our dance ", "padre " etc etc

sadly im inclined to believe that elvis could really care less about a cut on publishing, he blew money like crazy & gave away expensive cars & jewelry like chocolate bars - i dont think he was that materialistic at all to feel the need to get extra money on every song he cut !
HOWEVER - he did go along with it, he could have put a stop to it - like most of his career,
he was really done with vegas by 1971 and yet he kept going back & back year after year & hating it !
ill never understand him with those things ! especially when he clearly wanted so much more !

behind closed doors he was the big boss - it was his way or the highway, you went along with every whim & action and never told him what to do and yet the colonel had a hold over him like hitler & his SS guards - i just dont get it !

 

It's unclear when the song was under consideration for recording. The most likely scenario is during the Today sessions, since Dolly's song was a big country hit in 1974 and Elvis covered several 1974 country hits by other artists at those sessions. However, Dolly says that she was invited to attend a Nashville session where it would be recorded, which doesn't make sense because Elvis didn't have any Nashville sessions after 1971. That raises the possibility maybe it was under consideration for the aborted January 1977 Nashville session. If that was the case it would really be ironic, because it would mean that even if Dolly had said yes to the publishing agreement, Elvis still wouldn't have done the song since he no-showed that session.

Elvis was well aware of the publishing practices employed by the Colonel. Marty Lacker says he talked to Elvis about how it was hurting his career, and Elvis agreed but insisted it was "good business" to at least try to get publishing. So he was not willing to put a stop to it.

 

Jason, you might be thinking of an Andrew Lloyd Webber interview instead of Rice, if I am remembering it correctly. Tim Rice was the huge Elvis fan among the two, and he actually mentions the other song that he and Webber wrote for Elvis in Writing For The King:

We specifically wrote a couple of songs for Elvis. We wrote the ballad "It's Easy For You" and we wrote a rocker called "Please Don't Let Lorraine Come Down." It was a sort of Chuck Berry rip-off, it had that sort of feel to it. I've always wondered if he ever recorded it. We made demos of the two songs and submitted them. To be honest we didn't think Elvis would record either of them. Although we liked them as songs we thought there must be millions of songs coming his way.

 

thankyou, great answer ! i agree with everything you say, the pills certainly started early on,
by the time he died it was a habit he had for half of his life - thats why im quite sure he never would have kicked it, he was in so deep ! some addicts OD once and thats enough to wake them up & clean up, others od ten times and rush straight back to a needle until the time they od once & for all !
i know myself i was put in an ambulance 3 times & it never once stopped me for more than 24 hrs !

his obsession with his books and the bible is intriguing - he clearly wanted answers to questions he didnt need to be asking - he was on some kind of quest to seek wisdom & truth he was never gonna find ! im sure he just never really had inner peace & contentment which is such a shame considering exactly who he was .

im very sorry about your brother ! its a horrible monster to fight and not many make it out alive , its very very painful for those left behind ! my heart goes out to you!

i agree, he certainly loved his gospel and would have possibly focused on that & country!

i also agree that he was bloody fantastic in 'King creole' - i love it, he looks amazing & does the role justice - especially for someone who was literally a beginner at that point ! hes the real elvis there , the rockin rebel - hes a bad ass muther ready to smash a bottle in a mobsters face lol
This is the elvis people like john lennon , mick jagger fell in love with - his best movie surely !
its crazy to think 2 years later a cleaned up , sanitized family friendly elvis would be singing
"big boots" instead ! wild in the country is also one im happy to sit through

 

Count me as someone who enjoys It’s Easy For You. Once again, Elvis makes it seem like he is singing to the listener, and is struggling. I don’t like anything else from these song writers but this one works for me.

 

Yet it is still a good album, it's quite remarkable isn't it

 

I’ve always found Elvis’ version of The Last Farewell to be a bit of an insult, since he never set foot in England. Unlike Roger Whittaker.

 

If we could have gotten rid of the carny, I'm sure he would have gone just about everywhere

 

Yes and no. What are the chances that Elvis would have gotten tangled up with an even more unscrupulous manager who saw ELVIS PRESLEY and dollar signs sparked in his eyeballs?

 

All of them have dollar signs in their eyes. It's just some of them know what they are doing lol

 

Actually, he did set foot in the U.K., although arguing that he had to spend time in England in order to sing an English song is akin to saying he should have been an actual ex-con in order to sing Jailhouse Rock.

Elvis Presley In Scotland | March 3, 1960 | Prestwick Airport in Scotland

 

S'funny coulda sworn it was Elvis singing on that album...

His interpretation of the song matters not about stuff like that. He's probably never shook a chicken in the middle of the room, awaited in a prison cell for the guard and a sad old padre or had a boy called Danny for that matter.
I say probably...
He's just singing the song, I can let him off for that...

 

I dunno, Elvis got up to some pretty wild stuff when he was stoned...

 

Don't we all

 

Scotland is not England. I was deliberately specific.

 

I agree with you about the greatness of side 2 of Elvis's Moody Blue album, and I might even go a little further and say that side 2 of Moody Blue is his best album side since side two of Elvis That's The Way It Is, especially, if you we could replace the live version of I've Lost You with the stereo studio version.

Elvis That's The Way It Is (Side Two)

1) You've Lost That Loving Feeling
2) I've Lost You
3) Just Pretend
4) Stranger In The Crowd
5) The Next Step Is Love
6) Bridge Over Troubled Water

 

When I was a kid, this song meant nothing to me. About the time that i got an affection for FEPB (note that I said an AFFECTION and not what it sounds like in your dirty mind), I warmed to this song from Moody Blue. At first it was one of those things where I thought "Good! You deserve to be miserable after leaving your family for some bimbo!". The song means a lot to me now. After many years of enjoying this song, it now speaks to me of the realization that there are SO many things that tear us away from what is truly important. They tear us away with promises and leave us without a care. It's only then that we are confronted by the folly of our decision when the pain is our own to bear and not what we inflicted on those that love us. IEFY also seems to be one of those Elvis songs where he is doomed to have the same losing consequences of falling in love only to be hurt yet again in an always repeating cycle "I've got no choice I'll forgive you, it's easy for you". This song is like a quote from King Solomon. "Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit." Ecclesiastes 6:9.

 

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King

The King is a strange and somewhat unusual tag for this Christian guy who once stopped a concert and addressed a group in the audience with and Elvis is the King banner, to state Jesus Christ is the King, but it is what. it is and we like to tag people with labels.
After a long battle with pills, Elvis finally succumbed to the side effects of those pills and died on August 16 1977.
Moody Blues was recorded and released, two of the singles had done really well on the charts despite the odds being against them. In concert was in the can and ready to release and in true record company style .... (ah hum) Was released on record and with a video of the concert played on television. It is still debatable whether this was a good move for Elvis' legacy, and in hindsight it seems like replaying the That's The Way It Is or 68 Comeback Special would have been a more fitting tribute. Still to this day that show seems to somewhat stain the legacy of Elvis in many folks minds. Yet in typical record company vampiric nature they hauled out what they could to start the postmortem money machine rolling.
A lot of folks have remarkably liked to joke and make fun of the way Elvis died, and I am not going to even go there. The sad fact is it's impossible to avoid the shot that launch rock and roll into the stratosphere to be the most well regarded and purchased form of music for nearly fifty years afterwards, and in spite of many trying to underplay it these days, it is very debatable that rock and roll would have gotten the foothold it did without Elvis showing the corporate suits that it was a huge money making venture. He wasn't the first, but he was truly an original. He exploded into the world of music with such a mighty bang that society changed completely afterwards. Ever singer and front man to follow, whether directly or indirectly was trying to be Elvis. Thise fifties concerts/shows were unparalleled in the way they gripped a nation, and in fact the world through the raw energy and performance, that even now looking back at the rare snippets, are on par, if not better (due to authenticity) than anything that came after .... and I love a lot of bands, and artists.
He was the first rock and roll star, and he paid the price dearly for being so. Even in his declining years he was still the biggest thing in the world holding court wherever he went, and so generally staying somewhat reclusive.
Artists that followed, if they had any sense, looked at the map Elvis drew, and tried not to fall into the same pits, but it is a fairly savage industry, and we still have artists falling by the wayside unnecessarily due to the pressures of trying to appear perfect and somewhat godlike for the ever present need to keep the image up in the press.

When I saw the news about Elvis, I was about eight years old, and it was big news. There was no way anyone alive at the time, that had tv or radio didn't know what had happened. So much so that some still claim Elvis didn't die but attempted to hide from the public life, so as to try and be normal again. This in itself is another damaging thing for Elvis public image, and it seems that forever his legacy of wonderful music, against the odds, with a manager not worth two nobs of goat ****, and a record company that seemed to treat every year as more than likely his last, managed to release album after album , at a ridiculous volume, and aside form a couple of glitches here and there, the material is strong and enjoyable.
So much so that he remains one of the worlds best selling artists of all time.

So for today, please give us your stories about this horrid day, in the face of how unnecessary this death was, and how it effected you and yours. Also whatever you may remember about the way it was portrayed in the media, as I was too young to have clarity.

Cheers,
Mark

 

I was five years old in my friends house (who were neighbours) with my older sister when the news came on. My sister got up straightaway and ran back to our house, naturally I followed suit.
'Dad, Elvis is dead!' She said. My Dad replied 'He can't be, you must've heard wrong', no she insisted put the news on. Sure enough, the King was dead. My dad was visibly taken aback by this. Not blubbering but obviously reflective. I remember that much.
The upside of this, is that my Dad had a renewed interest in Elvis which bought a few albums to our house. 'That's the Way it is', 'On Stage' and 'TV Special' albums duly turned up within weeks. I probably watched whatever movies were shown around this time too. In turn these planted a few seeds in my young head...


Nothing that ever came to fruition though... Bwah ha ha ha!!!

 

Another splendid post there my friend, and I could not have explain the sheer importance of the Big Bang of Elvis on our culture or the music business better than you just did in your post.

There are only a few days from decades ago where I can tell you exactly where I was when a major tragedy or event happened and recall it in so much in detail. I was only three years old when John Kennedy was assassinated, so I obviously don't recall that event, but I do certainly recall my parents speaking of it quite vividly and emotionally. I was too young to recall Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations as well, so the first public figure death that carved itself in my brain was the death of Elvis. It many ways, I can recall certain aspects of it like it was yesterday.

I had driven my older sister to the Dr. for some reason on that August 16th of 1977. We were living in Newport Beach very briefly and I thought the weather was fine at the start of that Southern California morning. I was in the waiting room of the Dr's office when this young woman in her 30's or so came barging into the area and announced that "Elvis is dead, can you believe it?" I mean it was just so ridiculous sounding as he was such a relatively young man of 42. I was 17 years old at the time and I knew death could hit early as both my aunt and my father's best friend, who were both in their late 30's, died on the exact same day within hours of each other of natural causes. Strange, huh! Somehow in my young mind, I concluded very quickly that this strange woman must be some kind of a mental case and was just saying this to seek attention or something. I decided quite quickly to make a move to our car that was parked outside and turned on the radio immediately and of course there it was all over the radio, an Elvis song being played shortly by the DJ's sterile announcement of his death. My worst fears were realized and the great weather that started out as sunshine had turned to clouds and rain. My Mom, the original Elvis fan in our family who yelled for my father to come into the living room and watch this guy sing on the Dorsey Brothers show in the 1950's, was in a bit of shock, but in some ways I thought she was taking it better than me. I retired to my bedroom early that night and listened to the Moody Blue album and listened to all night radio tributes to the King. I had only become a huge fan two years before and this was his first album that I had anticipated with baited breath, and now the King was gone.