Like a Prince From Another Planet. By Colin Escott

Its hard to know why it took so long for Elvis to play New York. He had performed on sound stages there when he had guested on "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Steve Allen Show" and "The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show". He had recorded there, and he had embarked for Germany from Brooklin, but the most popular star of all time had neve played a stage show in his country´s most populous city. That changed on June 9-11 1972, when Elvis played four shows at Madison Square Garden.

Elvis at a Press Conference, N.Y. 1972

The Colonel's first idea had been to stage the New York debut at Radio City Music Hall, then he switched to the much larger Madison Square Garden. The media scrutiny was intense. The Col. decided to use the advance publicity to his advantage. After he hadn't found any takers for an exclusive interview with Elvis for $120,000, he scheduled one of Elvis' exceedingly rare press conferences five hours before the first show at the Mercury Ballroom in the New York Hilton. Elvis was in a bouyant mood, sidestepping questions about draft dodgers and current entertainers, attributing his staying power to Vitamin E, and bantering lightheartedly with the press corps.

There was one glorious soundbite, which must have made it all worthwhile from the Colonel's standpoint. "Elvis", came the question, "we're told that deep down you´re really very shy and humble".

"What do you mean shy? replied Elvis, standing uo and pulling back a powder blue cape jacket to reveal a splendiferously gaudy belt buckle, a gift from the Las Vegas Hilton for setting an attendance record. It was on every newscast that night. The Colonel knew you couldn't buy that kind of publicity. 

Everything now hinged on the shows themselves. There were four shows spread over three days, one on Friday, June 9, two on Saturday, June10, and another on Sunday, June 11. Tickets were $5.00, $7.50 and $10.00 and every seat was sold. There where no freebies. George Harrison, John Lennon and Bob Dylan had to pay like everyone else. RCA, deciding to make the most of the publicity surrounding the even, planned an in-person album to be issued just days afterward.

Elvis brought along his own emcee, Al Dvorin. Dvorin reminded the fans that Elvis merchandise was available after the show, and introduced the supporting act, Vegas comic Jackie Khane. A Slow handclap ushered Kahane from the stage; his act didn't work in New York. Dvorin brought on the Sweet Inspirations before the break. The Anticipation was intense by the time everyone had settled back in their seats. The lights dimmed and the Joe Guercio Orchesta broke into the omnious opening bars of Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra". A cordon of red-jacketed security men appeared, and suddenly Elvis appeared in a blue body suit with gold appliqué. "He looked like a prince from another planet", said The New York Times reviewer.

The Horns slowly subsided, pairing down the intrumentation for "That's All Right". At double the original tempo, it was clear that this was going to be a high-energy show. "I'm sure Elvis never sang bettet than he did at the Madison Square Garden," said pianist Glen D. Hardin. "I supose he thought the fans in the BIg Apple might be more demanding, so he turned on the power, and powerful it was." The shows recapped everything that the New York Fans had been missing in the 18 years that Elvis had been a professional entertainer. He barely gave the fans let alone himself, a chance to catch their breath between songs. The crowd danced in their seats as Elvis tore through his '50s classics, "All Shook Up," "Teddy Bear," "Love Me," "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Hound Dog," punctuating them with his recent hits, "An American Trilogy" and "Until Its Time For You To Go"," and a selection of songs that moved him. "That afternoon he chose Three Dog Night's "Never Been To Spain," " Kristofferson's "For The Good Times,"  Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," and Tony Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie." He roved the Stage, giving those seated at awkward angles a chance to see him. Then, at the close of "Can´t Help Falling In Love", the red-jacketed guards reappeared, and he was gone, leaving Dvorin to tell the Crowd that Elvis had left the building. The Colonel was a firm believer in leaving the wanting more ...and Elvis did.

The press eedict was unanimous. "From Backwoods Phenom in 1956 To Polished Superstar," said Variety", "Presley Talents Richly Intact," said The New York Times, "Elvis Enjoying Reign As King In New York," added the Memphis Commercial Appeal, "Nostalgia was but a small part of the celebration," said Billboard. "Elvis' voice, always better than the critics admitted has become even richer and more resonant than before... Thousands of bursting lightbulbs created a psychedelic lightshow, and the stage seemed to shudder and jump in the tiny spaces between light and dark. That image only reinforced what one had suspected from the start. Elvis has transcended the exasperating constrictions of times and place."

Elvis, rockin' at Madison Square Garden, June 10, 1972

As Elvis sang on Saturday, the RCA tape machines were rolling. "We recorded two of the shows", said Joan Deary. "The second was what we put out". The album, ELVIS AS RECORDED AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, was released the week after the show. It reached No.11 on the LP Charts, and No.3 in the U.K, and was certified double-platinum.

 "Elvis Enjoying Reign As King In New York," said  the Memphis Commercial Appeal,
but as soon as the N.Y. tour was over, Elvis was back in Memphis, and rather than looking like "A prince from another planet," as the New York Times stated about his concert appearence, he in fact looked as the downhome southern rebel he always was. Here the Memphis Commercial Appeal captures a long haired Elvis riding his Harley with a long legged girl on his back,  August 1972.

Elvis: American David. By Bono

Out of Tupelo, Mississippi, out of Memphis, Tennessee, came this green, sharkskin-suited girl chaser, wearing eye shadow — a trucker-dandy white boy who must have risked his hide to act so black and dress so gay. This wasn't New York or even New Orleans; this was Memphis in the Fifties. This was punk rock. This was revolt. Elvis changed everything — musically, sexually, politically. In Elvis, you had the whole lot; it's all there in that elastic voice and body. As he changed shape, so did the world: He was a Fifties-style icon who was what the Sixties were capable of, and then suddenly not. In the Seventies, he turned celebrity into a blood sport, but interestingly, the more he fell to Earth, the more godlike he became to his fans. His last performances showcase a voice even bigger than his gut, where you cry real tears as the music messiah sings his tired heart out, turning casino into temple. In Elvis, you have the blueprint for rock & roll. The highness — the gospel highs. The mud — the Delta mud, the blues. Sexual liberation. Controversy. Changing the way people feel about the world. It's all there with Elvis.


I was eight years old when I saw the '68 comeback special — which was probably an advantage. I hadn't the critical faculties to divide the different Elvises into different categories or sort through the contradictions. Pretty much everything I want from guitar, bass and drums was present: a performer annoyed by the distance from his audience; a persona that made a prism of fame's wide-angle lens; a sexuality matched only by a thirst for God's instruction. But it's that elastic spastic dance that is the most difficult to explain — hips that swivel from Europe to Africa, which is the whole point of America, I guess. For an Irish boy, the voice might have explained the sexiness of the U.S.A., but the dance explained the energy of this new world about to boil over and scald the rest of us with new ideas on race, religion, fashion, love and peace. I once met with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and some of the other leaders of the American civil rights movement, and they reminded me of the cultural apartheid rock & roll was up against. I think the hill they climbed would have been much steeper were it not for the racial inroads black music was making on white pop culture. Elvis was already doing what the civil rights movement was demanding: breaking down barriers. You don't think of Elvis as political, but that is politics: changing the way people see the world. 

 In the Eighties, U2 went to Memphis, to Sun Studio — the scene of rock & roll's big bang. Elvis' music diviner Cowboy Jack Clement opened the studio so we could cut some tracks within the same four walls where Elvis recorded "Mystery Train." He found the old valve microphone the King had howled through; the reverb was the same reverb: "Train I ride, 16 coaches long." It was a small tunnel of a place, but there was a certain clarity to the sound. You can hear it in those Sun records, and they are the ones for me. The King didn't know he was the King yet. Elvis doesn't know where the train will take him, and that's why we want to be passengers. Jerry Schilling, the only one of the Memphis Mafia not to sell him out, told me that when Elvis was upset and feeling out of kilter, he would leave the big house and go down to his little gym, where there was a piano. With no one else around, his choice would always be gospel. He was happiest when he was singing his way back to spiritual safety. But he didn't stay long enough. Self-loathing was waiting back up at the house, where Elvis was seen shooting at his TV screens, the Bible open beside him at St. Paul's great ode to love, Corinthians 13. Elvis clearly didn't believe God's grace was amazing enough. Some commentators say it was the Army, others say it was Hollywood or Las Vegas that broke his spirit. The rock & roll world certainly didn't like to see their King doing what he was told. I think it was probably much more likely his marriage or his mother — or a finer fracture from earlier on, like losing his twin brother, Jesse, at birth. Maybe it was just the big arse of fame sitting on him. I think the Vegas period is underrated. I find it the most emotional. By that point Elvis was clearly not in control of his own life, and there is this incredible pathos. The big opera voice of the later years — that's the one that really hurts me. Why is it that we want our idols to die on a cross of their own making, and if they don't, we want our money back? But you know, Elvis ate America before America ate him. 

Source:  Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231/elvis-presley-19691231#ixzz1llx60xoS

1968 - One Night: A Live Jam in Burbank

Elvis: The '68 Comeback Special Sit-down Sessions.

So this is it!, raw, pure Elvis, almost alone on stage, trashing the guitar, looking deep for what he once stated: "Down in Pupelo I used po hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said 'If I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw." The music Elvis delivered that night of  June,1968, could be traced both, back to the 30's and 40's, Furry Lewis or Lightnin' Hopkins, and all the bluesmans and country pickers that Elvis absorbed as a child in Tupelo Mississippi, or forth to people like Jack White, early Black Keys, or even Kurt Cobain doing a Leadbelly song.Its the basic, raw, timeless sound which is the essence of rock music, The Cramps or Neil Young or Charlie Feathers, all of what's rock music is made of( before or after Elvis, is self-contained in his performance, and this is why, after all those 60's ridiculous movies, this is Elvis playing the role he played best: being Elvis.

Back in 1965 there was some talking about a reunion of the old gang, Elvis and The Blue Moon Boys,  that's Elvis, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and D.J. Fontana. No studio time was sheduled for Elvis that year, and all the movies he had to painfully do where sheduled for the birst half of the year. Everything was clear and a go for the second half of the year, and the timing was perfecp, if anybody though rock music was dying in '61, it was now britishly proved wrong. The Beatles and The Stones where bringing it all back home, and everybody wondered if Elvis was really death or not. It was time for a comeback. But there was tragedy in the way, wild man Bill Black suddenly didn't felt very well, and after two sudden operations followed bt lengthy hospital stays, died of a brain tumor on October 21, 1965. Devastating for their plans, Elvis and Scotty refused to use another bass player and go on, there was no way they will do it without Bill. No studio recording (appart of the soundtracks) was done by Elvis that year. In 1966, he and new found producer Felton Jarvis, build up another band in Nashville, that included Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana, but it was a Grammy awarded Gospel album that year, and the Guitar Man Session in '67 what came out of that. It was until 1968 when producer Steve Binder, working wiph Elvis on a TV Special, and wapching Elvis and friends jamming in the dressing room, that came across the idea of making that Sun days reunion plans true, as the best way to bring Elvis back on stage after 7 years of not doing any live performances. Still, Elvis and Scotty, although excited with the idea, refused to use another bass player, the absence of a bass player in those two concerts was their silent tribute to Mr. Bill Black, rock 'n' roll and rockabilly pioneer, their musical soulmate. We never got to see The Blue Moon Boys together again, but still, that night, according to Greil Marcus, Elvis made: "...the finest performance of his life. If ever was music that bleeds, this was it".

Memories: The '68 Comeback Special. By Collin Escot

If Elvis had been harboring any doubts about facing a live audience for the first time in more than seven years,  the 6:00pm show has dispelled them. His audienca hadn't forgotten him, as recent chart placing and box office receipts tended to suggest; they were simply waiting for him to be Elvis Presley again. He looked better than he'd ever looked, proving that he was still the yardstick against which all others are measured. The spoken segments weren't especially revealing. Elvis unveiled a gently selfmocking sense of humor. Musically, though, he was surefoote. He had deep knowledge that told him what worked. "One Night" and "Trying to Get to You" in particular were exquisitely paced. This was the Elvis that many thought had been irretrievably lost. He seemed to be saying that rock 'n ' roll had nothing to do with peace and love and flowers in your hair. Three chords and a little country band was all you needed. "The one thing I've always felt about Elvis," told Billy Goldenberg (musical arranger of Elvis NBC TV '68 Special) to biographer Jerry Hopkins, "is that there was something very raw and basically sexual and mean. There's a cruelty involved... Most Elvis' movies have shown him as the nice guy, the hero, but really that's not where he shines best. He's excited by certain kinds of violent things."

The first show began appropiately enough with "That's All Right", the record that had started it all fourteen years earlier. By the tiie Elvis was ready to do "Baby What You Want Me To Do", a loping Jimmy Reed blues hit that Elvis alchemized into a rockabilly romp, he and Scotty Moore had swampped guitars. Swapping guitars was not in Scotty's nature. His Gibson Super 400 was a prized possession and Elvis was a thrasher. There must have been one especially nerve-wracking momejt for Scotty when Elvis started shaking the guitar during "Tiger Man", another blues, first recorded by Rufus Thomas for Sun almost a year to the day before Elvis cut his first record. Elvis almost certainly considered recording it at Sun, and later joked it was "my second record, but not too many people got to hear it". He hurls himself into it with wild-eyed fury that had been absent for almost a decade. It was always the blues that drew out the best. "One Night", once a languid and regretful, veers between barely buttoned-up passion and outright menace. "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" sounds better with the all-guitar arrangement that with the upfront piano that Elvis had employed in '56. Knowing that the show would be aired in December, he turned into "Blue Christmas", investing it with meaning it almost doesn't deserve. Charlie Hodge offers encouragement from the sidelines, "Play it dirty". The show closed with Elvis sitting on the edge of the stage, singing "Memories" to a prerecorded track. Then it was off to the shower. The leather outfit was hastily dry-cleaned, and Elvis went back out at 8:00PM. Now he was pumped-up and eager to win over the second sitting. Segments of both shows aired as part of Elvis TV Special (The '68 Comback Special), on Decembar 3, 1968. Jon Landau, then a music journalist, famously remarked on Rolling Stone magazine, "There is something magical in watching a man who had lost himself find his way home".

-Collin Escott. 

8span style="background-color: black; colkr: white; font-size: medium;">The Little Theater by Greil Marcus

The Sit Down shows are the little theater to which people will always return. Are we on television? Elvis asks Charlie Hodge at one point. "No", Hodge says, "we're on a train bound for Tulsa". When Elvis relaxes into the first of five dives into Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do" -the deep well fo the sessions, where every few minutes Elvis returns for a more open rhytm, a harder beat, a knowledge that cannot be put into words- it's as if the song itself is a train to ride, or that he is. 

Early in the show, Elvis takes Scotty Moore's electric guitar for himself: and immediately he locked into the most low-down chords imaginable, into a music that any musician can tell you anyone can make and almost no one can. In an instant he moves from the quiet reading of a verse to a conflagratio so powerful it doesn't seem real. 

"Tehl me, dear, are you lonesome-" he croons. "NO!" shouts a girl in the crowd. A woman in the audience cries as he plays "Blue Christmas"- as Hodge shouts "Play it dirty, play it dirty" But Elviss is already playing it dirty, reaching as if un`er the guitar for tones that can't be advertised. As he climbs the mountains and crosses the streams of "Tryin' To Get To You" he waves his hands in the air, he rubs the strings of the guitar on his legs, he picks it up and shakes it, his whole boddy fluttering like a leaf picked up by a wind and shot through the air. He dives into "Baby What You Want Me To Do" for a fourth time and suddenly he is Casey Jones, holding down the train whistle until it is the only sound in the world. The music rises, slams down, rises again, as if a whole ne language had been discovered- as if, this night, it has to be made to say everything, because it will never be spoken again. And then he wejt on to the next number. 

-Greil Marcus

So here is our new YeahElvis!!! deliver, the full Sit-down concerts, plus complete rehearsals, all in great sound, plus our special bonus: One Night: A Live Jam in Burbank, for the one who doesn't care much about teenage girls screaming at Elvis and inbetween songs dialogue, we put together some of the best performances from both shows, making a good playlist containing just the music, leaving out the other stuff. Play it loud and enjoy!

Download

CD 1

Elvis Presley

One Night: A Live Jam in Burbank

Recorded LIVE in JUNE 27, 1968

In Burbank California

Lawdy Miss Clawdy

Blue Suede Shoes

That's All Right

Are You Lonesome Tonight

Baby What You Want Me To Do

Tiger Man

Love Me

Tryin' to Get to You

Blue Christmas

When My Blue Moon Turns Gold Again

One Night

Plus

I Got A Woman (Rehearsal)

Tiger Man (Rehearsal)

When It Rains It Really Pours (Rehearsal)

Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Rehearsal)

Blue Moon of Kentucky (Rehearsal)

CD2

The Complete 6:00PM Sit-down Show

CD3

The Complete 8:00PM Sit-down Show

CD4

The Complete dressing room rehearsals

Musicians

Elvis Presley: Vocals, acoustic and electric guitars

Scotty Moore: Acoustic and electric guitars

D.J. Fontana: Percussion

Charlie Hodge: Backing vocals and additional guitar. 

 

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 Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

None of the download material as presented in this blog is on the market, it is offered to complement our reviews, and always intended to provide with a new angle on Elvis music, it is always an alternate playlist on an old album, or our own playlists, or ultra rare items not available on record shops, it is all part of our  research and scholarship work, all aimed to provide and in deep point of view on an often missunderstood artists. That's our job here at yeahelvis.blogspot.com

Para nuestros lectores en castellano. 

Piratería es hacer dinero con lo que no te pertenece. Aquí no vendemos Cd's quemados con pésima calidad de audio en un puesto en la calle o via web. Aquí no lucramos con lo que no nos pertenece. No hacemos dinero con este blog, y no buscamos dañar a alguien, por el contrario este blog es pensado como un trabajo de investigación, crítica y comentario a un artista, Elvis Presley, por lo general poco comprendido por la crítica musical; los artículos y la música para descargar en este blog están dirigidos para ofrecer una nueva perspectiva respecto a su música, siempre ofrecen un playlist alterno, rarezas, distintas mezclas de audio etc. todo con el objetivo de complementar el comentario ofrecido en el post y procurar un nuevo anguho respecto a dicho material en al lector.  Lector que tal vez, a través de este blog, decida ir, y comprar el material original. 

Compartir un disco favorito con un amigo que visita tu casa nunca ha sido un delito, tampoco lo es dejar que lo cargue en su ipod (tal vez después de escucharlo largo rato se decida por ir a comprar material de ese artista), considero este blog como nuestra casa, tu casa, y todo visitante un amigo . Tampoco podría ser nunca un delito mostrar un disco en un salón de clase para ilustrar un tema. Aquí en este blog lo único que nos interesa es hacer circular, de boca en boca, el arte y el conocimiento, pensamos hay cierto valor en ello. 

El valor del arte está en su circulación como lenguaje propositivo de nuevas formas (de pensar, de experimentar, de comunicar, de vivir y crear nuestra vida), no un valor de capital netamente explotable. ¿En qué momento aparecen entidades abstractas que acaparan catálogos discográficos meramente en términos de capital explotable? Material que no les pertenece en términos de trabajo, capital muchas veces divorciado en beneficios de su creador intelectual, y al que solo puedes accesar en términos de producto monopolizado, lo que reduce la circulación del arte a una clase privilegiada en poder adquisitivo, anulando así posibilidades de generación de lenguajes críticos y propositivos en la sociedad entera. 

La acaparación del arte por una clase social es el sinsentido del mismo.

Elvis For Everybody or death...