Posted on 08/16/2011 6:47:07 AM PDT by US Navy Vet
Impossible! I've been married 25 years! :^)
Listen to “Love Me Tender”; it's practically acapella, with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. Modulation, breathing, dynamics; all spot on.
My mother-in-law is an absolute Elvis fanatic. I have heard stories from my wife’s family about how she used to walk to the nearest movie theater (six miles, over a state line, often in the snow) every time an Elvis movie came out.
I think they actually sound similar.
I’ve heard Love Me Tender. It’s ok, but it doesn’t come close to real singers. Listen to Sam Cooke singing “A Change is Gonna Come” and then try to tell me Elvis was “spot-on.”
He had good hair.
HA! I posted the same thing before I read down to your post.
You are a GEEEENIUS.
You're right. Fantastic read. Guralnik is one of the best writers on the subject of Elvis. Last Train is a remarkable piece of writing. Careless Love, the followup is also good, but not in the same league.
FWIW, a pretty good companion to Guralnick's books is Greil Marcus' Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession. Marcus is another writer who 'gets' Elvis. It's a unique book that looks at Presley from the perspective of his impact on the culture after his death.
Not only did Holly not have the looks, he didn’t have the charisma or the ability to communicate with his audience the way Elvis did.
Personally, I felt his music was more one dimensional as well.
I drove by Graceland after work the day he died. Once you got off the expressway onto Elvis Presley Boulevard, it was like you were hauling shuttles. You barely moved. It took a long time to travel the ±2 miles from the expressway exit to the house. What was unreal about that day was that the news had been reported about three hours before I got off work and all those people came out of no where. Never seen that kind of scene before.
I worked at the local tax assesor’s office at the time. When the news broke, every phone in the place lit up. Everyone wanted to know everything about the Graceland property. It was unreal. A definite slice of life day, one not to be forgotten.
Elvis wasn’t the first Elvis. Frank Sinatra had the swooning women before anybody ever heard of Elvis.
Elvis took “race music” songs and made them mainstream. He was one of the first and probably the best. He took a Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton blues tune and made it immortal.
I always wondered what the record producers were thinking when they started having him sing Hollywood movie tunes.
Personally, I felt his music was more one dimensional as well.
Holly was missing the looks and charisma, true, but when you say "his" music, it was Holly's music. He wrote it. And he was on the scene and had a period to mature of only a little more than two years before his death.
Elvis was a great singer and performer. A great singer and performer. What's your favorite among the songs that Elvis wrote? (sound of crickets? Ironic in a reply about Buddy Holly?) Or Elvis's personal iconic guitar riffs? (crickets again).
I respect your opinion, but it's a long way from "Peggy Sue" and "That'll Be the Day" to "Everyday" and "True Love Ways." And the difference is that Buddy Holly made that transition personally. It's not a case of somebody handing him different songs over a period of twenty years.
In 1964, in the midst of Beatlemania, the Beatles showed up to play on the Ed Sullivan Show. The first thing John Lennon asked was "is this the stage where Buddy Holly played?"
Elvis was the first “American Idol.”
My wife and a sister in law still think Elvis is alive. They say his name is spelled wrong on his headstone and a case full of his favorite sunglasses is missing.
I have to think that Col. Tom Parker robbed us of what would have been great Presley music. After 1958, Presley had virtually no rock and roll hits. Virtually none.
Yes, "Return to Sender" in 1962. Yes, he had "Burning Love" in 1974.
And he had a great 1968 and very, very early 1969 in the ballad/popular music arena with "In the Ghetto," "Suspicious Minds," and "Kentucky Rain" (all recorded at the same 1969 session at the American Sound Studio in Memphis).
Other than that?
Well, after 1958 he sang notable ballads and gospel songs . . . and show tunes. Show tune after show tune.
"Spinout"
"Long-legged Girl"
"Big Boss Man"
"Let Yourself Go"
"Do the Clam"
"Clean Up Your Own Backyard"
"Queenie Wahine's Papaya"
A great voice, wasted in large part after 1958 by Colonel Tom unless you were a fan of show tunes.
I said "in large part." There were memorable and great ballads and gospel tunes. And that brief spark during the 1968 American Sound Studio session.
A great voice. But "Queenie Wahine's Papaya?" "Rock-a-Hula Baby"? Colonel Tom, what where you thinking?
They were thinking that he'd sell more records to white middle-class buyers, and they were successful at that for a long time. From a purely financial point of view, Elvis was never bigger than during the early movie years. And don't forget that Elvis's idol, the man he wanted to be, was Dean Martin.
Part of the problem with the movies (and their soundtracks) was that they made too many of them. Three a year at times. That forced them to use weaker and weaker songs ("No Room to Rumba in a Sports Car," anyone?) By about 1966 the public was catching on. The movies weren't doing the business they were, and the soundtracks weren't selling at all. All of which set the stage for the 1968 comeback TV special, where he showed he could still rock. From there, though, it was a pretty much a quick slide to self-parody and death, interrupted by a couple of good songs ("Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto") and the "Aloha From Hawaii" special in 1972.
Blame Colonel Tom for a lot of it, but in the end it's an American Tragedy.
Wouldn't love to have been a fly on the wall . . .
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