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ok,
so, in one week's time on the 16th August it will be the 39th Anniversary of Elvis Presley's not unexpected, but premature death...
so over the next week as a lead up to his death anniversary I will attempt to bring you guys some of my favourite tunes of his....
there wont be many of the standard ones we've heard a million times on radio, and probably not even any/many of his big hits,
just a series of lost/forgotten or tracks that Presley fanatics would know and love...
I hope you listen to them and at least give the guy a chance to demonstrate that there was more to his career than the stock standard
hits he had and also, more than that abysmal 1960s era of terrible movies and lame movie soundtrack albums...
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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first up,
we have a b-side of a 1964 single,
the a-side was the title track to the "kissin cousins" movie, this one was not from the movie
and IMO is one of the best ballads he ever song....
it was written by Charlie Daniels and Bob Johnson.....
Charlie Daniels was known outside of the US for his megahit "the devil went down to Georgia" 15 years after he wrote this one....
Bob Johnson was a producer who produced apbums by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan to name a couple,
dut due to his contract with Columbia records he would be in breach of that contract if he was mixed up with other labels, thus
he gave writing credits to his wife Joy Bayers,
Joy was credited with writing or co-writing numerous songs for Presley through the 1960s...
Presley revisited the track in 1968 and sang it at his "comeback special" tv special as he thought the track
was worthy of more than being a forgotten song hidden away on the b-side of a single, and I have to agree with him!
anyway,
here is the track I have picked to open the proceedings in this thread:
[video=youtube;x8nkQYN9MhI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8nkQYN9MhI[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
Posts: 35,524
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and now another b-side of a single....
this one was issued as the b-side to his 1970 monster hit "the wonder of you"...
track was written by John Christopher, the guy who wrote "always on my mind"....
its a real tearjerker about a sons love for his departed mother...
Presley puts all his emotion and feeling into this one...
he was probably thinking of his own mother when he sang it...
she, incidently, died in 1958 aged 42 of heart failure, just as Presley himself did nineteen
years later...
his mum was the one true love in his life and her loss affected him until the day he died...
so, here it is, if you've lost your own mother youll feel everything in this song so,
grab the Kleenex and settle in for three minutes of wiping your eyes!
[video=youtube;voCzJ4oIbWQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCzJ4oIbWQ[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
Posts: 35,524
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this one was never released as a single, not even a b-side of a single,
but came from the 1970 "that's the way it is" documentary and soundtrack...
it was written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil who also co wrote many other classic tunes like:
"Saturday night at the movies", "on broadway" and "we gotta get out o this place" amongst others...
Bobby Vee recorded the original version in 1969, and was a hit for BJ Thomas the same year Presley took it
to a whole new level....
here is the brilliant live version from that documentary special:
[video=youtube;xyKtRoGiNIM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyKtRoGiNIM[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
I was never a great Elvis Presley fan. However, in fairness, it needs to be said that Elvis was an entertainer, a performer, and basically an interpreter of other people's songs, in much the same mould as people like Tom Jones, Michael Jackson, Shirley Bassey, Engelbert Humperdinck etc. Hence one can't really compare him to the kind of artists who came later, the singers and bands who mostly wrote their own songs.
Whether I liked Elvis at any point in time really depended on what he happened to be singing at the time. I liked songs like It's Now or Never, Surrender, Edge of Reality, Memories, Kentucky Rain, and I will say that Elvis did those songs justice. On the other hand I'm not a fan of songs like Hound Dog and Heartbreak Hotel, no matter who is singing them. I'm also not much of a country guy, so I can take or leave songs like "Are you Lonesome Tonight" or "Love Me Tender."
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Trivia for you bob-32:
1: He won three Grammys during his lifetime, all for his Gospel recordings.
2: Was the first so called actor to earn $1,000,000 for a movie role (1956).
3: Never, in 33 movies had a box office failure.
4: The first artist to sell one billion album sales ( according to a plaque from the RIAA as seen by myself on the walls in the 'trophy room' at Graceland).
5: The Presley machine is the biggest employer both directly and indirectly in the State of Tennessee.
6: Was offered ' I will always love you' by a young Dolly Parton but Tom Parker insisted she hand over half the writing royalties to him (Parker) if she wanted him to record it, she declined saying she did the work and she deserved all credit for it...
Parker refused to present the track to Presley, thus he never recorded it,
Shows just what a crooked, corrupt manager he was.
He manipulated and controlled the dumb hillbilly Presley till the day he died, to Parker it was all about 'the money' and not 'the artist.
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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next track ive picked is one that again, was a b-side of a single (1906's Stuck On You)....
could have been an a-side in its own right proving the quality of the material he was still
releasing up until Hollywood enslaved him for the best part of that decade!....
absolutely nothing on the WWW regarding the song...
this one is a live recording from the Sinatra Show...
[video=youtube;kSyYUS92sjw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSyYUS92sjw[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
Posts: 35,524
Threads: 3,558
Joined: Jul 2010
back to 1956 for this next one...
yes, it was a single, #1 in the US on the Billboard and country charts becoming his second US #1 hit (Heartbreak Hotel was the first)
300,000 advanced sales on this one....
song was, according to Jim Steinman, the influence for writing "two out of three aint bad",
obviously doesn't sound like that one but if Jim wrote it, he should know what influenced him to write it...
the Presley track has him extending words with what they call a hiccup 'h-h-h-h-hold me close,hold me tight...'
Buddy Holly seized on this style a couple of years later in his songs...
[video=youtube;HFnaGgULRpg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFnaGgULRpg[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
Posts: 35,524
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and now one that bob_32 mentioned further up the page....
this one was the b-side of my favourite Elvis track of all time...
it was a 'double a side single' here in Australia though...
track comes rom the 1969 movie "live a little, love a little"....
terrible movie.
in the movie Elvis is invlolved with a crazy woman and cant get away no matter what he
does, in the clip he is in a dream sequence...
incidently, for the 35th anniversary of his death the Elvis fanclub in Australia conducted a poll
amongst the members of the fan club, they ended up releasing a 40 something track double cd of
the songs as voted by the fans in preference order, this one was the irst song on the first disc making it
the most popular Elvis Presley track amongst his Australian fans....
[video=youtube;1uqaULykbH4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uqaULykbH4[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
Posts: 35,524
Threads: 3,558
Joined: Jul 2010
next up we have a track Presley never recorded in a studio but was a live staple through the early/mid 1970s...
track was written and first performed by country singer Marty Robbins...
as much as I like Marty's material, his original leaves a lot to be desired IMO...
mainly because it lacks the power and oomph of the Presley version...
[video=youtube;yoH367Dg4YY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoH367Dg4YY[/video]
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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