Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

I really come down right in the middle of this argument. I know from my own skill set and natural talent that I would never make a great engineer, regardless of how many hours I spent immersing myself in geometry or other fields closely related to engineering. My talents definitely lie elsewhere. Yet, I do believe that hard work and sheer ambition can help make up for a lot of shortcomings. I know as a former high school history teacher that I would take a whole classroom full of students with higher ambition over higher I.Q. students every time.

 

I know I could jam with the instructions: just play a I, IV, V with emphasis on flat 7ths. I am NOT a musician by any stretch of the imagination. But I can play just well enough to have developed my own line of humbucking pickups 15 years ago (now retired). I have noticed songs "written" on guitar differ greatly than songs "written" on piano. Rock guitarists use chords that are NOT in the key of the composition with regularity. For example in the key of C the ONLY major chords are C, F and G. And yet you see A major or D major being played all the time in songs in the key of C.

Furthermore a lead guitarist will play all notes in the key of F (including B flat, which is NOT in the key of C) when the IV chord of F is played in a key of C song. And they will play F# when the V chord of G is played from the key of C. So many rock guitarist do not know music theory. So they play the SAME scale pattern over the C, F and G chords. When the pattern over each of these chords differ in the key of C. And when you play a A major chord while in the key of C you are playing a C#. And when you play a D major chord, you are playing a F#. So it ends up many rock songs are a bunch of Major Barre chords that include notes NOT in the key of the song.

In short many rock guitarist do not understand the difference between changing the key and changing a chord.

This is something I could never get over when learning guitar. I would map out all the proper notes on the fingerboard in whatever key, and when someone threw in a D major chord when playing in the key of C, I did not know what the hell to do.

Those who learn music on piano have a much better grasp of music theory. I guess when you play two note "power" chords some of this is avoided. My brain gets in the way of my heart when I try to play music. I have to know WHY certain rules can be broken and still work.

But I have learned that if I want to play the blues in G, all I have to do is move the fingerboard pattern down two frets, that is use the fingerboard pattern for F major's second position and viola' the pentatonic scale for G is there (if you avoid 2 notes from that pattern). So after learning F major's pattern, I did not have to learn G pentatonic's pattern! Yes, unfortunately my logical brain kills my creative brain.

 

As an ear player who cannot read music at all, ya'll left me behind three posts ago!

 

Yeah, enthusiasm is quite important and rewarding. The problem with high IQ students is they are BORED OUT OF THEIR SKULL. and since they are, they do not pay attention. They end up NOT learning the lesson.

 

Certainly, we are individuals.
Each of us bring something different to the table.
Often I think the most successful artists (prior to the complete industrialization of the music business) are the ones that recognize what they bring to the table and nurture it, rather than the misfocus on other things.

 

Agreed.

 

Yea, on guitar, when writing, generally you're trying to create a backing for a vocal melody, so the rules of key are very flexible

 

Heh heh. I went to 8 different schools growing up. (hence my maladjusted social skills). Back then we had what was called "spiral learning" in that the first 1/4 of any school year was a review of the previous year (in essence). Well I did not forget over the summer! So I was lulled into this boredom and by the time new information was being taught, I was still not paying attention. Then I found all of a sudden I was playing catchup! (or is that Ketchup? Catsup?). But also back then they had a 3 tiered classrooms for each grade. slow, average and advanced. Whenever I went to a new school they arbitrarily put me in the average class. It usually took them a couple of months to figure out I was best suited for the advanced class. Boy oh boy I then had a full 1/4 of catch up to do. It is a wonder I did not end up being a serial killer. (he was such a quiet boy, always kept to himself...NOT).

 

As so it is the singer's fault they cannot keep in key! ha ha. But there are better ways to incorporate a note that does not normally belong to a key than a major chord that does not belong to that key. There are MANY chords that can accommodate any given note. Suspended chords, Augmented chords, Diminished chords, added 7th chords and so on. All this major Barre chords is rather uninspired if you ask me. Hell the Beatles understood this, or maybe it was George Martin who taught them these things.

 

As I've written elsewhere, this is a remarkable album. It is almost as if a hipster in 2000 time-traveled back to 1970 an compiled an album that would speak to turn-of-the-millennium sensibilities. Note the stylistic contents:

A Bossa written by the great Luiz Bonfa - Almost In Love
A garage rocker - Long Legged Girl
A psych number - Edge Of Reality
A faux spaghetti western theme - Charro
Two funk tunes - A Little Less Conversation, Rubberneckin'
A swamp-funk track - Clean Up Your Own Backyard

As for the other three, I have no use for them, but those seven, wow!

 

Almost In Love is the best Camden release by a mile. I have always loved that album and it was where I first heard each of those songs.

 

I think often guitarists know the chord voicing/s they're going to use, and don't necessarily write it out that way.
Then as you say, heaps of folks use the ol' two note power chord, and key distinction becomes sometimes vague.. they can be useful and effective though.

 

I agree, especially when they corrected ONE of their errors by including Stay Away instead of Stay Away, Joe.

 

And it REALLY cuts down on the practice time! lol

 

Lol

 

Is Ricky even awake when he performs? I've never seen a more boring performer.

 

You haven't heard the story of how she taught him to orally please a woman?

 

You mean like talk to them

 

I must have missed that one. Damn!!

 

I like the album as it is, but tracks three through eight makes it an incredible bunch of songs sequenced extremely well and as a cohesive unit.

What the f*** was "Long Legged Girl" doing in there, we'll never know.

 

It's a better album than "Elvis Now", that's for damned sure

 

Yep, if you're looking for late 60s Elvis it probably comes in as third best of albums released in his lifetime, after the two American sessions LPs.

 

I disagree. Great top to bottom except for the three country throwaways.

Amazing that Elvis had the good taste to do a Luiz Bonfa tune. Who knew?

 

I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask for a while about Elvis recording in Memphis. He recorded at American, Stax, and even Graceland, but why didn’t he record at Sam Phillips Recording Studio? I don’t mean the studio at 706 Union (Sun), but the Phillips Studio at 639 Madison, which opened in 1960 and is still an active studio. Did Elvis or Felton ever consider it for recording tracks in the 1970’s?

Sam Phillips Recording | The Man Who Invented Rock-n-Roll

 

Yes, Long Legged Girl SHOULD have been replaced with ANY of these three:
Come What May
Fools Fall In Love
High Heel Sneakers.