A "stream of consciousness" observation on music and how we relate to it. How we purchase, listen to and enjoy music is changing. What does it mean to be a music fan in a world where every song, performance and video is literally at your fingertips? I hope to be a guide to this new world of musical experience. Featuring tunes and comments about artists, old and new in nearly every genre.
As a young boy, Elvis was a fan of the country bluesman Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. "Big Boy's" extremely primitive blues-style is scarcely remembered today, but for the fact that a couple of his originals, "That's Alright Mama" and "My Baby Left Me" were recorded by Elvis Presley at Sun Studio and RCA Studios in the mid-50's at the time of the "Big Bang" explosion that was mid 50's Elvis. We start off with Elvis take on "My Baby Left Me" which sounds like a Sun Sessions cut, but was in fact recorded at RCA as the B-Side of "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You." Scotty Moore amd Bill Black on guitar and standup bass. Elvis on Guitar. DJ Fontana on drums (most Sun cuts did not feature drums!). Recorded January 30-31, 1956.
This is Arthur's take on the song.
Finally, we hear Elvis doing in in Vegas in 74. Not a song he did very much in his live shows at the time!
Saw a commercial this morning for the musical "Million Dollar Quartet." The musical commemorates the meeting of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Studios on December 4, 1956. The four men loosely jammed around Jerry Lee's piano though Cash's voice is not heard on any of the tracks that the UK Charly label put out on some archival releases. The session is mostly Elvis, Carl and Jerry Lee singing the southern country gospel they grew up on, singing barbershop/gospel harmonies of the type typified by The Jordanaires and JD Sumner and the Stamps, the male gospel singers most known for backing up Elvis. It was the only time that the four men were together in one recording studio.
The "jam session" became legendary until the tapes were tracked down and released and, well, turned out to be something less than the legend. I am not sure from the commercial I observed with the backup dancers and singers that the historical accuracy of the original meeting will be scrupulously observed. But the show is playing the Fisher Theater from January 24, 2012 through February 5, 2012. Tickets are available through BoxOffice.com. Here's a little clip from the 2010 Tony's for a taste of what the show will entail.
By way of contrast, today's song of the day is a tune Elvis performed in the film "GI Blues" which was released as a single in 1960 in the UK were it spent six weeks in the number one slot. It was released here in 1964 as a B-side to "Blue Christmas." A guy named Joe Dowell covered the tune, as often happened in those days to Elvis tunes not released as singles (cd "Suspicion" and "Girl Of My Best Friend") and it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. "Wooden Heart" is an example of the kind of novelty tunes that Elvis would record throughout his movie career, a scant four years and a million miles away from "Heartbreak Hotel."
I guess you could say I am on a little bit of an Elvis Presley kick as we go back once again to the catalog of the King of Rock N Roll. Early period Elvis is my absolute favorite as Elvis was at the top of his game from the Sun Sessions until the time he left the army. I am including the handful of sessions he cut while on leave from the Army in this group of top notch tunes. After he got out, he spent a lot of years acting in movies with scripts that descended in quality from what he was offered at the start of his career. I've always felt that Elvis had a raw natural acting talent that could have been really put to good use instead of being squandered in indifferent vehicles like "Clambake" and "Double Trouble." In any event, for a good decade, Elvis spent most of his time recording movie tunes, chosen not for their quality, but because the songwriters had no problem giving up the publishing to Elvis and the Colonel (who is Satan in most of my Elvis stories). It was rare that Elvis went into the recording studio to record songs with the goal of putting them out as a single or album release. One such occasion was in 1963 when on May 26 that year, Elvis strolled into Nashville's Studio B with his usual sidemen of that period and recorded a set of songs for an upcoming album. Elvis cut "(You're The) Devil In Disguise," "There's Always Me," and Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee." It was a pretty good day for Elvis and those were good tunes. He also cut "Never Ending" a cut written by Buddy Kaye and Philip Springer. As usual, Elvis had the Jordanaires backing him on vocals. This fine cut got lost in the shuffle and wasn't released until years later being stuck first on a Soundtrack album and finely seeing CD release in 1991 on "The Lost Album." Give it a listen!
Back to the Elvis well for today's Song of the Day. I had a disastrous weekend with water coming into my basement (and LISTENING ROOM) during the weekend storm. Not a lot to comment. Elvis doing "Love Me Tender" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. From his movie "Love Me Tender."
Today's song of the day is a trifle. An upbeat slice of acoustic Elvis from the year 1956. As featured in a western originally entitled "The Reno Brothers" but retitled "Love Me Tender" after Elvis was offered his first film role. this little ditty features the King of RnR working out on acoustic guitar with some call and response vocals, presumably the Jordanaires. Never fails to entertain me!
