I have been listening to the 68 Comeback Special discs a lot recently. It must have been quite amazing at the time when this was broadcast to see a man that most people thought was washed up by nearly a decade of starring in pish films and whose relevance had never been lower pull off probably the greatest comeback since Lazarus. You get the feeling from the recording that Elvis was having a ball during the four onee hour performances.
It is easy to sneer at Elvis but when you listen to this, the recordings before he went into the army and the From Elvis In Memphis recordings you kind of appreciate him as an artist. Although for somebody of my generation let alone those younger it is nigh on impossible to comprehend just how dangerous and exciting this guy was in the 50s.
Btw - Time to rejoice I am in my favourite town in the world today, fucking Luton!
Elvis - Trouble/Guitar Man
4 comments:
Elvis Power: that run from The 68 Special, through to the Memphis sessions and early Vegas appearances - he's on fire.
The remastered That's The Way It Is - is worth a squint too. Powerhouse performances...
A mate of mine Jukebox Jimmy (moved from Glasgow to London in the late 60s), said Elvis was unreal to his generation. Even the name - it just sounded made up...
A fave clip from 68 - this improv between take jam
You can catch a few of Jim's podcasts on my blog if you dig about - search for Jukebox Jimmy
Was listening - as I do quite often - to the Memphis album this morning. Elvis was my mum's number one musical 'thing'. She was 14 or so when he broke through. All of us have music we were into at that age, a lot of us bloggers have the same music roughly. But imagine Elvis 'new'. I cannot actually picture it in my head what it must have been like. All those bad films, and middle of the road things. Being born late 60s early 70s we knew him too well. Imagine him being beamed down like some kind of alien. Bloody hell.
He's still one of my favourite singers, and my favourites go right across the board with him. Fantastic singer, I wonder sometimes how good he would have been if he had not been pushed into the middle of the road. Imagine it, Elvis at Stax, working with Steve Cropper and Booker T, In The Midnight Hour as sung by Elvis. Wow.
I've always unashamedly and unabashedly loved Elvis.
I'll be in Tupelo tonight...smoke a square on his porch.
Also dig about for 'Cut Me and I Bleed ' - a bootleg that's effing and jeffing with Elvis
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