Elvis Presley - The Albums and Singles Thread pt3 The Seventies

It makes you wonder about the sequence of events. Did they put Rosary and Put Your Hand on Elvis Now first and then realize they didn't have enough gospel songs left over? Or had they already selected the tracklist for He Touched Me prior to compiling Elvis Now, and those songs had already been deemed leftovers?

 

It is bizarre.
It's like they had a fifteen years old movie buff sitting at a desk in an office somewhere, and they would send a list of songs and tell them to compile them into albums lol

 

I've never owned an Elvis album, other than a "Greatest Hits" or one of his "Christmas albums", but I love his music!

 

Elvis's live versions of "Help Me Make It..." are also significantly better than his strangely inert studio performance. This was a song Elvis really wanted to record, despite not being able to get a publishing deal--he worked out the arrangement and went through 16 takes, but as Guralnick writes, "the singing was insipid, almost an impersonation of sensitivity rather than the real thing."

My favorite version of this song is Gladys Knight's:

Good question. I think both of those songs deserved to be on that album more than a dud like "There Is No God But God." I know some people regard "Miracle Of The Rosary" as too Catholic to be gospel, but such distinctions are lost on a heathen like me.

 

The concept of something being "too catholic to be gospel" seems silly to me. At the same time, it does seem weird to hear a non-catholic singing such a catholic song. Southern baptists don't carry rosary beads or ask Mary to intercede for them. Regardless, it's more gospel than A Thing Called Love.

 

"A Thing Called Love" - the only thing remotely "gospel" about it is Armond Morales, and that's a stretch.

 

This is the album that finally caused me to suspend buying any more new Elvis releases back in the day. My then best friend's younger brother was becoming an Elvis fan and he pretty much picked up where I left off. I got a chance to hear his copies of Elvis Fool and Raised On Rock LPs and they only reinforced my decision was justified!

Help Me Make It Through The Night--I actually like this performance.
Miracle Of The Rosary--This belonged on He Touched Me as far as I am concerned and it is really dismal.
Hey Jude--more embarrassing than Yoga Is As Yoga Does, Queenie Wahine's Papaya, or Confidence.
Put Your Hand In The Hand--meh, belongs on He Touched Me
Until It's Time For You To Go--great song plagued by Elvis' "old man" vibrato.
We Can Make The Morning--Not bad, I like it.
Early Morning Rain-- by FAR the best track on the LP. (all of the four songs from this session are good. I prefer Elvis being backed up by female singers anyway).
Sylvia--Pretty decent performance. Not much of a fan of the song.
Fools Rush In--This sounds like it could be the opening track to an early 60s movie. It would be much better in his Blue Hawaii voice.
I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago--not bad, not great, but not bad.

After Love Letters From Elvis, Wonderful World Of Christmas, the It's Only Love single and then Elvis Now, I gave up on Elvis for a few years. (and NO Burning Love did NOT bring me back! More on that later.)

 

MIRACLE OF THE ROSARY doesn't fit anywhere. But PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND would definitively have had a place on "He touched me" (instead of, say, HE IS MY EVERYTHING.)

SIDE A
intro: "You'd Better Run"
1. "He Touched Me"
2. "I've Got Confidence"
3. "Amazing Grace"
4. "Seeing Is Believing"
5. "An Evening Prayer"
6. "Bosom of Abraham"

SIDE B
1. "Put Your Hand In The Hand"
2. "Lead Me, Guide Me"
3. "There Is No God But God"
4. "A Thing Called Love"
5. "I, John"
6. "Reach Out to Jesus"

 

I recall reading on FECC that a number of the songs on He Touched Me were songs that the Imperials had recorded in the recent past and, I think, that is what may have led Elvis to do them. Looking at Discogs, I see the the 1968 Imperials album The Imperials...NOW! had A Thing Called Love on it.
So it wasn't too far of a stretch for a gospel group to it put on their album. Although, looking at other Imperials releases of the time, I do see that they sang quite a number of non-gospel inspirational type songs.

 

I really like "A Thing Called Love" and if they were short a sufficient number of gospel songs I could see an argument in using it. To me it's just weird to not use Put Your Hand in the Hand instead though, as it's a decent performance and an unambiguously gospel song, and thus fits the album much better.

 

Memories Single and In The Ghetto single advertised Coming Soon FEIM. Clean Up Your Own Back Yard advertised Now Available FEIM. Try, try as they may but they could not get it past 500K sales during its initial chart run. The sad thing is Elvis Now sold almost as much at 400K.

 

It is bizarre... It seems everything about Elvis career, management, personal life, public reaction, sales etc etc , is just bizarre

 

That is true. And while I agree that A Thing Called Love is a good song, what I don't like about Elvis' version is that he (sings/is mixed) almost as if he is just a member of the backup group and if you don't listen close, you might not even know he's there.

 

At my local bookstore, and I see that Richard Zoglin’s book Elvis In Vegas has been released.

 

I got the book a couple of days ago and have just skimmed through it briefly, and I am pleasantly surprised by how much I like it. Zoglin actually did interviews with some of the last living participants that were there at the time, including a very reluctant James Burton. The book is very well researched and really covers the iconic history of entertainment in Las Vegas and all its significant players and characters. His original idea for the book was a more general look at the great history of entertainment in Las Vegas during its exponential growth in the 50's, 60's and up to the mega residencies of today, but the author's editor suggested using Elvis's bookend Las Vegas shows in 1956 and 1969 as a focal point, because it so changed the direction of entertainment in Sin City after Elvis's later gig. The author does not minimize Elvis's decline after 1971, and in fact addresses it right up front, but he does not dwell on it either. I have read a lot of books that cover Elvis's Las Vegas residency, and other than Elvis biographer Jerry Hopkins' initial coverage of Elvis first three gigs in 1969 and 1970, no one has covered Elvis residency with such objectivity and dispassion. He covers the history of Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Bobby Darin, Barbara Streisand, Dolly Parton and even Wayne Newton. He also covers the history of the mob in Las Vegas as well as other interesting characters like Howard Hughes and Kirk Kerkorian, the latter of whom actually built what was then at time the largest hotel in the free world, the International Hotel, which Elvis would make his home for two months out of every year.

 

I can see where many people would have stepped back after this album. It's a funny thing about post 1972 Elvis. This is when I became a fan so I like his voice during this time although it was in decline. My uncle and Aunt were fans in the 50's and they hung on through the soundtrack era right up to Aloha. My Uncle still bought his albums but wasn't enthusiastic about them like the earlier ones. It's pretty amazing at this point IMO. From 1968 to 1972, Elvis released so much material that it eclipses entire discographies of some other artists. I have no idea why his sales were relatively low on albums like FEIM given the quality of the music. All I can figure is that he was pegged as a singles artist and there were so many other great albums coming out everywhere during this time. The Camdens sold well but I wonder how much those tired old movie songs left a bad memory in listeners minds in the early 1970s. Elvis Now gets some ridicule but with some previous singles songs added and a couple deleted, it could have been a solid album. I think what really cemented the "1970s Elvis album" in people's minds is about to come. Sure Burning Love sold like hotcakes. You couldn't hear it on 8 track or cassette unless you had that awful album. With 8 tracks, the listener had to try to find the good tunes. On the Burning Love 8 track, it's just too much crap to wade through.

 

Hey Jude
Written By :
John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Recorded :
American Studios, Memphis, January 13-16 and 20-23, 1969: January 21, 1969. take 7

This is one of the most bizarre things in the Elvis catalog. This is take seven of the track. It is bewildering to me that by the second take someone didn't just jot down the words ..... What is the point of wasting all that time to record a song that you have no idea what the actual lyrics are?
5 or 10 minutes with a pen and you have the lyrics. Then the next 7-10 takes are actually usable.
It seems obvious that Elvis liked the song. For the most part he in into this, it seems. The arrangement is good. The mix is good, but then we get this mumble bumble series of lyrics, that resemble the song but aren't.
In the nah nah nah section you can hear Elvis have a bit of a chuckle, almost like he's thinking "well that would have been good if I only knew the words".
I can't fathom how Felton and Parker thought this track was ready to be released on an album as an actual cut .... I could understand if it was an age of outtakes and demos being included as bonus tracks, but it certainly wasn't. It is one of the most ponderous releases in any artists catalog ever, and it just leaves me scratching my head.

 

Put Your Hand In The Hand
Written By :
Gene MacLellan

Recorded :
RCA's Studio B, Nashville, June 8-11, 1971: June 8, 1971. take 2

We get to another song that is somewhat ponderous, not because of the quality of the song, but as folks have pointed out, management surely knew they had a gospel album coming up -Really really soon ....
In the seventies Elvis started to put gospel type songs on his secular albums, so there is that. I have no problem someone putting gospel songs on secular albums, in all reality it is the duty of anyone who is saved to try and leave little messages for those who aren't, bearing in mind, that they do it without beating them over the head with the message, as we all know that is going to push someone away rather than draw them near ...
Anyway this song makes an appearance on this album, and that's great, but the album is so poorly conceived and compiled ... it is called Now, and it covers 3 or 4 years of material, it contains a very famous song that has virtually not one verse sung correctly, it has songs that the star of the show obviously just wasn't into, and then we have a song that is essentially trying to proselytize, but it is sitting in the middle of a bunch of random, uninspired songs that could be the worst collection of songs you have ever recorded ... Again truly bizarre.
The song itself ends up being one of the better tracks on the album, we start with a nice little percussive section, and roll into a country rock rendition of the song, that has enough pep and enough involvement to raise it above the mess it has been stuck in the middle of..... perhaps that was the idea, make the song stand out by default..... Who knows.

 

Yeah, Hey Jude is a stinker. It's actually not the sloppiness that bothers me, necessarily. There are plenty of wonderful Elvis performances that are completely ragged, such as the incredible This Time/I Can't Stop Loving You jam. Side note: if they were going through the American Sound outtakes, why not use this instead of Hey Jude? It would still be the proverbial sore thumb on the album, but at least Elvis delivers a killer vocal.

Anyway, my issues with Hey Jude are the plodding rhythm/tempo and Elvis' semi-committed-but-not-quite-there vocal, both of which make the song seem to drag. It's only four-and-a-half minutes, but it feels as long as the Beatles version. The spliced version on Memphis Sessions, at a mere 3:18, is much easier to get through (plus, it's made of earlier takes, so Elvis sounds a bit more interested).

Put Your Hand In The Hand is a nice little gospel-pop song. I've never heard the original, but I'd probably give the edge to Lynn Anderson over Elvis for this one:

 

Loretta did a nice version too.



I like the original version best. Elvis' version is fine but so many people recorded the song (arguably) better that it's hard to get very excited about it.

 

agreed

 

Another rare cover by Elvis that fails to deliver the goods. I like Elvis's voice well enough, but the arrangement seems too reverential and plodding and Elvis is simply not able to do something special with it. I mean, Elvis could actual sing circles around Paul to my ears, sorry Beatles fans, although I really admire their songwriting skills and musicianship as well. I actually like Paul's voice a lot, but he just does not have Elvis's vocal range or power. Nevertheless, Elvis's version of Hey Jude is inferior to Paul's in almost every conceivable way. I really dig Elvis's impromptu tribute to producer Chips Moman of This Time/I Can't Stop Loving You, despite it being such a spontaneous and rough run through.

I feel pretty much the same way. Elvis and the band could pretty much run through numbers like this with their eyes closed and it is an enjoyable enough listen, and certainly is one of the stronger cuts on this rather dismal album, but I do not think his voice really shines on this number, like it does on most of the other gospel songs on the outstanding He Touched Me album that is coming to our thread very soon.

 

For me, Now! is the low point and things LP-wise tend to improve over the coming years. Excluding Camdens of course.

Regarding Put Your Hand In The Hand, it's definitely one of the stronger tracks on this album. Now whether this was the right place to put it is a whole other story. Too bad the song didn't originate a year earlier by Anne Murray as I think it would have fit in nicely within Change of Habit. Anyway, I dig the fuzz guitar solo, backing vocals and that lead guitar over the verses/chorus in the 2nd half of the song. And the drum/cowbell intro sets up a funkier intro than this song deserves, certainly more of a groove than what's on the Anne Murray version (which is where I think Elvis got the notion to do this song?).

 

What a gorgeous take of Help Me Make It Through The Night. Gladys is an amazing singer and a total class act. At age 74, she sang The Star Spangled Banner at last year's Super Bowl and blew it right out of the stadium. With regard to the controversy surrounding players kneeling during the National Anthem, Glady's merely responded with the quip that "She was reclaiming the song and giving it back to the people" or something to that effect.