Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

While we're still talking about "That's the way it is", have you seen the new set of pictures from the movie on pixbizz.com?
Some of them are nice:

 

Stranger In The Crowd
Written By :
Winfield Scott

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, June 4-9, 1970: June 5, 1970. take 9

We start with an acoustic guitar, and then the drum and bass roll in to the equation. The second half of the first verse the horns come in as punctuation marks to the chords. This has a reasonably quick tempo, and a train-like rhythm. The bass is really very good and this has a very nice groove.
Elvis says "Play somethin' boy" and we get a good length Burton lead break.
This is a very cool song, and like most everything on this album I enjoy it a lot. This album really does hold up well under scrutiny to me.

 

I’ve always seen this one as having a Tom Jones, er, vibe.

 

The two disc version of The Cutting Edge is enough for me.

 

Even the eighteen disc version isn’t enough for me.

 

Packaging should be outsourced to the Japanese. No shortage of rice paper there! Yes all the funky packaging that allows for discs to scrape against cardboard and which requires one to grab the disc in such a way that you put finger prints on the edges of the data side is ridiculous.

 

Your question was answered upstream.

 

I hate that!!!

 

I passed on the new Bob Dylan 1975 box because I listened to the previews and realized that I would probably rarely listen to the whole thing. I’m pretty sure I will get my $100+ of listening enjoyment out of the new Elvis 1969 box.

 

Yea, I got the two cd rolling thunder set, and I reckon it's great. I didn't get the 500 disc cutting edge set ... even though they are my favourite Dylan.
I did buy the Gospel years box, because I really like that much maligned Bob period.
As I say, if money was like water in a stream, I would probably get the 69 box without thinking, and TTWII, but I really need to consider if it will get enough play to be worth it or me.
There is a lot of stuff coming out this year that is of high interest to me, and I spent a fortune collecting all the relevant FTD's in the last six months, not to mention the 60cd box, the movies and concert movies

 

I still have not played even 1/2 of the discs on Elvis 60 CD box. I tend to be an archival collector. If I had Dylan, Beatles or King Crimson subversive sets, it would be a CHORE to listen to every disc just once for me. After having done so I probably would not listen to any of them again. That is even how it was on the 2nd CD with multiple takes on the various FTD Classic albums. The quality of the binaural Jailhouse Rock CDs were an exception due to their sounding so damned good it was like actually being in the studio. What I DO like about so many of the outtakes is they sound so much better than the masters because they are not "enhanced" (or should I day dicked with) for commercial considerations such as added reverb and compression. Even the recent Beatles White album, I only got the 3 disc set and started listening to the 3rd demo disc and I just did not have the patience to do anything but sample through the cuts. It has gotten to the point where even listening to most songs, I only listen to a minute per song as most popular music simply repeats itself if not lyrically, at least musically. After one verse and chorus the rest is redundant. I am VERY jaded with life at this point, been there, done that.

 

I understand completely. I am a big fan of 5.1 albums, and have been put in a position in modern times where if I want them I need to purchase a great big box, and I only end up listening to the 5.1 album, because as someone who has recorded plenty of music, I am not much interested in demo's, out-takes can sometimes be of interest, but really I just want an album that speaks to me, in the language I want to hear.

 

JUST PRETEND
JUST PRETEND is a nice Country song with a beautiful Gospel vibe. Elvis is fully invested and his singing is majestic. Good performance.
This is another Lisa Marie's favorite.

STRANGER IN THE CROWD
This is my favorite track from the album and I believe that STRANGER IN THE CROWD could have been a good selection for A-Side single. It's a great, energetic Pop tune from Winfiel Scott (RETURN TO SENDER). There's a catchy rhythm (a "train-like" groove as @mark winstanley said earlier) all the way through and, again, Elvis' performance is top notch. It is no R&B type of song but you can easily imagine someone like the soulful Wilson Pickett giving it a spin. A highlight from the whole "Marathon Sessions" in my opinion.

Rehearsal:

 

As with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, this performance is on a different level from just about any other singer. Again, perhaps not the greatest song ever written, but with Elvis gets to “I’ll come flying to you / a - gain / all my crying is through / Woah oh oh oh ho / I will hold you and love you again” it’s chills down the spine time. As he did a decade earlier with Love Me, a song written as a joke and a parody of country music, Elvis can’t help but to take any song put in front of him and interpret as if it’s a matter of life and death. One of my top ten favorite Elvis songs.

 

Conversely, Stranger in the Crowd is my least favorite song on this album. Perhaps a bridge too far in the adult contemporary direction, Elvis does his best here, but not even he can redeem what is a fairly weak song, in my opinion.

 

Ah well now we're talking. Back to home base we go. This is where Elvis shines--his natural habitat. A rich gospel, country and R&B tapestry here. His vocals can slither in and out of those notes with such ease. Just fun as heck to listen to. Why this never became a concert staple like "An American Trilogy" would become later I have no idea.

 

"Stranger In The Crowd" worked better on stage than on record. Elvis only performed it once, 8/13/1970 DS.

 

I agree. I dig the studio version but yes the live version gets the edge. It comes alive. Good dynamics with the band.

 

Stranger In The Crowd knocked me out when I first heard it on the 70s box, and I love it even more now. There's something magical about the way this acoustic-sounding song powers along with an energy you'd expect out of a tougher-sounding number. Elvis' vocal is brilliant even by his standards; I particularly love the way it sounds during the "and then" part, simultaneously strained and passionate.

The live version is nice to have, but it doesn't have the same intimate feel as the studio version, nor does the climax come across as effectively, imo. "I knew the stranger in the crowd and I would be...strangers no more" almost has a "You turned around and walked away with me" feel on the studio cut. On the live version, it doesn't have the same magic or urgency for me.

 

Just Pretend features one of my favorite vocal performances by Elvis ever as well. The studio and live versions are both almost equally powerful and with a lesser singer than Elvis that would definitely not be the case in most cases. I love PepiJean's description here, "A nice country song with a beautiful Gospel vibe."

I think that there are a number of tracks on ETTWII that could have been additional singles, including this one, but you really have an embarrassment of riches on this album as it is overloaded with some very good songs and some of Elvis's finest vocals of the last decade. I think Just Pretend could have easily been a top 20 pop hit and also probably had a decent shot at making into the upper tiers of the Billboard country chart, but wee already have two doubled sided hit singles directly or indirectly coming from this album, so it was not to be. Oh, and James Burton's guitar solo on Stranger In The Crowd is one of my favorites that he ever played on an Elvis studio cut, a little different than his usual style to my ears as he shows off just how versatile and talented he was as a guitarist.

 

Great photos and practically never seen before, no? Any more?

 

All of these songs and performances on TTWII album are top notch in my book. 1970 was a watershed year for Elvis.

 

Yes and no I'd say.

I got the RSD release and download and the mix is pretty good, but still below the work Vic Anesini did on Hot August Night, Live in Vegas and In Person (disc 2).

In particular Hot August Night just shines.

One thing that is a little frustrating about these recordings and how they're generally mixed post-69 is that the shows we recorded to 8-track, and all the audience reactions are basically bleeds into the stage mics. Ever noticed how some of the '69 shows have a nice, wide-stereo audience spread and others have kind of a detached "up-the-middle" audience sound with no width?

It's down to the different approaches to mixing the channels and in this case the "vintage-mix" approach, with the drums on the left, bass on the right etc results in more space and atmosphere in the presentation to these ears. There's more natural ambience to the recordings this way.

So in my view these shows NEED to be mixed "vintage" to get the best out of the recordings, and the new box-set is mixed more "modern", with the drums and bass centred, and the audience atmosphere as well.

It's fine, it still sounds very good, and way better than the early 2000s releases, but it won't be replacing the Vic shows in my collection.

 

Interesting.
Thanks for the insight
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