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Aug. 23rd, 2022 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I've discovered this marvelous six-eight hour Ken Burns style documentary by HBO Documentary Films, entitled "Elvis - The Searcher", and the focus is completely on his musical career, how he created music and what took him away from it and the struggles he had with the industry - it's clearly the inspiration for Baz L's Elvis film.
I stopped part II at the half-way mark - because it's almost 10 pm, and I don't want to stay up too late tonight. Early wake up call and all that.
I've kind of fallen down the rabbit hole on Elvis. I think it's partly, because I find something about his story relatable - and there's something about him, an undefinable something, that makes me think of my Dad. He kind of looks like him - six foot (my father was six foot three), blue black hair, and dark brown eyes. Also driven and came from poverty, and worked hard. Other than that - the comparisons fail, of course. But they were contemporaries, and both got drafted into the Army around the same time and around the same age. I'm not alone - my mother did too - she's been hunting down youtube videos on the film and on Elvis.
What's relatable - is how the world gets in the way of creating and sharing art. In Elvis' case it was the industry and bad managers, who put their own self-interest above Elvis's. I can identify - I have bad managers as well, who are, alas, doing the same things. My father used to call it "managing up" as opposed to what they should be doing "managing below or equal too".
My Dad had another saying - some folks are good at managing a position, others people. The Colonel was good at managing a position and had no business managing people. He gaslit Elvis, and isolated him. And why Elvis cowed to him - was never completely understood - except that he really didn't know anything else, and had no one who he trusted enough to get out him away from him. The Beatles for the most part had each other, and they had troubles with bad managers who mis-managed him, just imagine being a kid and getting caught in that trap.
What I did not realize...is that Elvis in 1970 did Sixty-Seven shows or thereabouts, and in 1971, one hundred and fifty, and in 1972, one hundred and sixty-seven. Dear God. How?
A music critic of the time, John Landau, wrote that he saw Elvis in Boston in concert, and that Elvis ruled and owned that stage - that he had the uncanny ability to know exactly how far to go on stage and how to pull in his audience.
Elvis is often dismissed - because he wasn't a song-writer or composer of music, but he was a phenomenal artistic talent. He could scale up and down the note register just for fun with his voice, go up and then down again. Not many folks can do that. He could change his voice to fit a song. And he knew how to arrange and remaster music almost intuitively. He was also wildly eclectic in his tastes - he loved opera, blues, rhythm & blues, country, gospell, pop, swing, big band, blue grass - and blended those styles. Also he had terrible stage fright, was terrified to go up there, but once he did, he relaxed and got caught up in the act of creating music.
John Lennon once famously stated "without Elvis, there would be no Beatles". Other musicians from Freddie Mercury to David Bowie to Led Zepplin to the Rolling Stones have said the same.
In 1966-1970 he revitalized his career by going back to Memphis and having Chips Taylor, a record producer and arranger - help him choose new music and change his sound, make it more contemporary. In 1966, he put out a gospel album.
But unfortunately, many people only know him for the bad movies he was forced to do from 1960-1965, which he couldn't get out of, despised making, and was contracted to do - it was a money making machine for the Colonel up to a point. And it almost destroyed his music career and destabilized him emotionally and creatively. Gospel was how he worked his way out of it.
Also he's known for the demoralizing Vegas shows, which while fun to start, became isolating and demoralizing after a while. He did two shows a night, one for the dinner crowd and one for the night crowd. The audience was mainly high rollers who were older folks that he couldn't quite connect with as a performer. Also, as one of his friends and musicians comments - "you are stuck in a hotel room in between shows, no one to talk to but the people doing it with you, not getting outside, and going on constantly being asked to perform - it can get demoralizing after a bit". So he went on tour and did ...well over 100 shows each year. To put this in context? Around the same time, the Rolling Stones only did 24 shows. The Beatles did 32 concerts in 1964 at their height of popularity. Madonna - 19. High profile bands did between 50-100 a year. And Elvis did this in his late thirties.
The documentary is a must for anyone who considers themselves a music critic or music geek or music historian. It really delves into the historical changes in the music industry and how things evolved.
It's also haunting, much like Baz L's Elvis film, and weirdly comforting in a misery loves company sort of way. I kind of identify with Elvis in an odd way - the loneliness, the desire/drive to get my art out there, the insane obstacles in the way. And dealing with bad managers, and not knowing who to trust.
The documentary also - clearly is where Baz L got a lot of his inspiration and content for his film. So a good portion of it is actually fairly accurate.
2. Sigh. Work.
I can't retire apparently until I turn 60 or 62, because I won't get my full pension. I have to have at least 20 years with the company, and/or be 60 years of age. If I had 20 years now - I could do it - because 55 and 20 years is workable. But I won't have the 20 years until around 62.
I feel like I'm working in an evil law firm. It's annoying, because I did not apply for a job with a law firm. Nor did I apply for a job working for evil lawyers.
Today overheard a co-worker bemoaning the idea of socialism and how he is not a socialist, supports capitalism and the American Way of Life.
The kicker?
The guy is our union rep. Add to that - he's a union rep for a union in a state agency. His pay check is from tax payer dollars, and he works for a state not a private agency, which has given him a steady pay-check, plus raises and sizable overtime since he graduate from high school.
I resisted the inclination to tell him that technically speaking his life was due to socialism. And he should look up the word, because he clearly has no idea what it means. And hint - it's not fascism, that's Trumpism, which he does support.
But I bit my tongue and stuck to my desk instead.
I wonder what all these blue collar anti-socialists would do if they realized that they are actually card carrying socialists, and if we were a true free-market society like they all want - they'd have no job, no home, and most likely be destitute.
3. Wales is enamored of James Baldwin's Another Country, so was Chidi. I probably should read it at some point, but considering I'm in a reading slump and can barely focus on the Fantasy that I'm reading entitled "Spin the Dawn" (which is an interesting take Asian mythology and folk tales), I don't think I can read Baldwin. Not in the right headspace. I just want to listen to music - reading is kind of beyond me. I kept drifting to sleep on the trains today, trying to read. (Too much reading of dry material in my job.)
I stopped part II at the half-way mark - because it's almost 10 pm, and I don't want to stay up too late tonight. Early wake up call and all that.
I've kind of fallen down the rabbit hole on Elvis. I think it's partly, because I find something about his story relatable - and there's something about him, an undefinable something, that makes me think of my Dad. He kind of looks like him - six foot (my father was six foot three), blue black hair, and dark brown eyes. Also driven and came from poverty, and worked hard. Other than that - the comparisons fail, of course. But they were contemporaries, and both got drafted into the Army around the same time and around the same age. I'm not alone - my mother did too - she's been hunting down youtube videos on the film and on Elvis.
What's relatable - is how the world gets in the way of creating and sharing art. In Elvis' case it was the industry and bad managers, who put their own self-interest above Elvis's. I can identify - I have bad managers as well, who are, alas, doing the same things. My father used to call it "managing up" as opposed to what they should be doing "managing below or equal too".
My Dad had another saying - some folks are good at managing a position, others people. The Colonel was good at managing a position and had no business managing people. He gaslit Elvis, and isolated him. And why Elvis cowed to him - was never completely understood - except that he really didn't know anything else, and had no one who he trusted enough to get out him away from him. The Beatles for the most part had each other, and they had troubles with bad managers who mis-managed him, just imagine being a kid and getting caught in that trap.
What I did not realize...is that Elvis in 1970 did Sixty-Seven shows or thereabouts, and in 1971, one hundred and fifty, and in 1972, one hundred and sixty-seven. Dear God. How?
A music critic of the time, John Landau, wrote that he saw Elvis in Boston in concert, and that Elvis ruled and owned that stage - that he had the uncanny ability to know exactly how far to go on stage and how to pull in his audience.
Elvis is often dismissed - because he wasn't a song-writer or composer of music, but he was a phenomenal artistic talent. He could scale up and down the note register just for fun with his voice, go up and then down again. Not many folks can do that. He could change his voice to fit a song. And he knew how to arrange and remaster music almost intuitively. He was also wildly eclectic in his tastes - he loved opera, blues, rhythm & blues, country, gospell, pop, swing, big band, blue grass - and blended those styles. Also he had terrible stage fright, was terrified to go up there, but once he did, he relaxed and got caught up in the act of creating music.
John Lennon once famously stated "without Elvis, there would be no Beatles". Other musicians from Freddie Mercury to David Bowie to Led Zepplin to the Rolling Stones have said the same.
In 1966-1970 he revitalized his career by going back to Memphis and having Chips Taylor, a record producer and arranger - help him choose new music and change his sound, make it more contemporary. In 1966, he put out a gospel album.
But unfortunately, many people only know him for the bad movies he was forced to do from 1960-1965, which he couldn't get out of, despised making, and was contracted to do - it was a money making machine for the Colonel up to a point. And it almost destroyed his music career and destabilized him emotionally and creatively. Gospel was how he worked his way out of it.
Also he's known for the demoralizing Vegas shows, which while fun to start, became isolating and demoralizing after a while. He did two shows a night, one for the dinner crowd and one for the night crowd. The audience was mainly high rollers who were older folks that he couldn't quite connect with as a performer. Also, as one of his friends and musicians comments - "you are stuck in a hotel room in between shows, no one to talk to but the people doing it with you, not getting outside, and going on constantly being asked to perform - it can get demoralizing after a bit". So he went on tour and did ...well over 100 shows each year. To put this in context? Around the same time, the Rolling Stones only did 24 shows. The Beatles did 32 concerts in 1964 at their height of popularity. Madonna - 19. High profile bands did between 50-100 a year. And Elvis did this in his late thirties.
The documentary is a must for anyone who considers themselves a music critic or music geek or music historian. It really delves into the historical changes in the music industry and how things evolved.
It's also haunting, much like Baz L's Elvis film, and weirdly comforting in a misery loves company sort of way. I kind of identify with Elvis in an odd way - the loneliness, the desire/drive to get my art out there, the insane obstacles in the way. And dealing with bad managers, and not knowing who to trust.
The documentary also - clearly is where Baz L got a lot of his inspiration and content for his film. So a good portion of it is actually fairly accurate.
2. Sigh. Work.
I can't retire apparently until I turn 60 or 62, because I won't get my full pension. I have to have at least 20 years with the company, and/or be 60 years of age. If I had 20 years now - I could do it - because 55 and 20 years is workable. But I won't have the 20 years until around 62.
I feel like I'm working in an evil law firm. It's annoying, because I did not apply for a job with a law firm. Nor did I apply for a job working for evil lawyers.
Today overheard a co-worker bemoaning the idea of socialism and how he is not a socialist, supports capitalism and the American Way of Life.
The kicker?
The guy is our union rep. Add to that - he's a union rep for a union in a state agency. His pay check is from tax payer dollars, and he works for a state not a private agency, which has given him a steady pay-check, plus raises and sizable overtime since he graduate from high school.
I resisted the inclination to tell him that technically speaking his life was due to socialism. And he should look up the word, because he clearly has no idea what it means. And hint - it's not fascism, that's Trumpism, which he does support.
But I bit my tongue and stuck to my desk instead.
I wonder what all these blue collar anti-socialists would do if they realized that they are actually card carrying socialists, and if we were a true free-market society like they all want - they'd have no job, no home, and most likely be destitute.
3. Wales is enamored of James Baldwin's Another Country, so was Chidi. I probably should read it at some point, but considering I'm in a reading slump and can barely focus on the Fantasy that I'm reading entitled "Spin the Dawn" (which is an interesting take Asian mythology and folk tales), I don't think I can read Baldwin. Not in the right headspace. I just want to listen to music - reading is kind of beyond me. I kept drifting to sleep on the trains today, trying to read. (Too much reading of dry material in my job.)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 01:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 02:03 pm (UTC)I never figured out exactly why. She was more into the pop classical types like Andres Rieu or easy listening country like Roger Whittaker. But Elvis (and Johnny Cash) were special to her. (Was it Elvis' stay in Germany and songs like "Wooden Heart"? But he was in Germany long after she left.)
She really connected to Elvis' gospel material ("How Great Thou Art"). She had abandoned Catholicism decades earlier to marry my father, and she didn't seem to miss it too much. Maybe Elvis' interpretations of gospel connected her to the material in a way her upbringing never did.
****************
Elvis' vocal range was phenomenal, almost supernatural. Freddie Mercury is the only pop figure I can think of who even came close. (Yes, Freddie loved Elvis. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" was practically a tribute.)
And yes, he had an equally phenomenal ear for material. The three main sources of his greatest hits--Otis Blackwell, Doc Pomus and the team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller--probably all deserve documentaries of their own.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 04:57 pm (UTC)Freddie did do Crazy Little Thing Called Love as a homage to Elvis - he called it his homage, and wrote it not long after Elvis' death. "Freddie Mercury was a great admirer of the King Elvis Presley and looked up to him as a performer and songwriter. So much so, that the Queen frontman penned a song in tribute to the rock ’n’ roll legend two years after his death on August 16, 1977." https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/1255871/Freddie-Mercury-Queen-Elvis-Presley-Crazy-Little-Thing-Called-Love
Actually, you left some out ....Fats Domino (was Elvis's favorite), Lloyd Price, The Blackwoods, and an Italian Opera singer, who was a baritone.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 04:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 05:01 pm (UTC)That's what killed Prince, Carrier Fisher, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Uppers to wake up, downers to come down.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 05:25 pm (UTC)It's also interesting to note what's happening in pop music when Elvis broke through. Yes, Elvis was the unicorn Sam Phillips found at Sun Records--the "white man who could sing black"--but he wasn't the only groundbreaker.
In the late forties and early 50s, you had pop music for the white audiences and "race records" for the black audiences--jump blues like Louis Jordan. It was all segregated, much like rock in the 70s and country music... well, now.
But then you had Atlantic Records and artists like the Drifters and the Coasters (mostly written and produced by... Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller!) who added humor and pop touches (like string sections) to their songs. These acts started crossing over to the pop charts; so while Elvis was working on smashing one side of the wall, these artists were breaking the wall on the other side.
By the time the fifties ended, America was ready for a real crossover powerhouse, a factory of hits for Young America. Motown was warming up...
no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-24 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 01:04 am (UTC)Then there was Elvis who wasn't pop music at all. He was country, gospel and the blues. He combined all three. He sang the Black music. He broke the racial barrier wall - with Sam Phillips and Sun Records help. Sun Records was publishing the Black Music. Hound Dog - was originally put out by Big Mama Thornton.
Elvis was singing and dancing like the Black musicians of the day. In fact, Colonel Parker thought he was a black man when he first heard him, and pursued him when he discovered he was white.
It's what made him so controversial - Blacks often thought he misappropriated their culture, while whites thought he was low class, and were appalled. The Grand Ole Opry had issues and never invited him back.
He moved and sang differently than any white singer before or during him.
The movie ELVIS really gets this across - they show Big Mama Thornton singing Hound Dog, and then we see Elvis singing it. They show the Black artists singing That's All Right Mama, then we see Elvis take a hold of it. We see Elvis go into a Black Gospel Revival tent and discover how they move to the music, and he lets it take hold of him in the same way.
**
I'm not sure how to explain the difference between song-writing and remastering/crafting the song into something new and musical, or the arrangement, production of the song. I've been listening to Elvis's recording sessions on Apple Music. And during them, he changes emphasis on words, where the notes fall, the pitch. There's another documentary - with his rehearsals and recording sessions for the first Vegas Show he did in 1970 - during which he rearranges and remasters the song That's All Right Mama, changing where the percussion lands, adding three-part harmony, bringing in back up singers and a full orchestration. So the song has in a way completely and utterly changed.
It's a beautiful piece of magic. I watched Paul McCartney and Lennon and Harrison do it with Get Back in the Get Back documentary. Where they get the lyrics, but they are working on the sound and rearranging and producing it.
My co-worker, Lando, explained this process to me in detail once. He has a sound room in his house, along with equipment, and he explained that anyone can write a song - but what's important in the composition of it - is getting the arrangements right. Also you can sell it to singers - but you have to understand their voices and what they are looking for and if it is something they sing. Then there are the singers who will sing anything and change it for you - who get the phrasing, who can find the emotional center of the song. This was also explained in another documentary I saw once - Frank Sinatra was brilliant at it - he knew how to find the emotional center of a song, and phrase it, or act it if you will. Not everyone can do it.
Elvis was a master at this. He could take mediocre material and make it a hit and sound great. As Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen put it in the documentary - Elvis could go up and down the note register just to entertain himself. He also knew when a song worked and when it didn't, and intuitively knew what emphasis to put on each note.
He borrowed heavily from the singers around him, and was eclectic in his tastes - in that he borrowed from Motown and the so-called race records (actually he collected mainly Fats Domino, Gospel, Big Mama Thornton), and from the white country and popular artists. But mainly from the Black - he listened to that radio station. He lived in a poor black nieghborhood as a child, and in the white projects, but worked as a truck driver, and electrician on Beal Street in Memphis. He knew BB King. And felt Fats Domino was the King of Rock n Roll.
Another bit that the movie brings out - Elvis was in part inspired by comic books. Captain Marvel in particular. A lot of his inspiration for his stage outfits and costumes and presence on stage came from comics.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 08:51 am (UTC)Linda Ronstadt is another one who can. Not a songwriter herself, but a brilliant interpreter of pretty much anything you give her to sing.
Trailer on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDMYAsu5PvI
I have the DVD, but it's apparently downloadable also.
Wonderful film, highly recc'd.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 04:44 pm (UTC)I'm only interested in discussing Elvis at the moment in regards to music. Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 04:52 pm (UTC)No, it most likely had nothing to do with Germany. The problem is you haven't listened to enough of Elvis to figure out how close in music style he was to Cash in some respects. Like Elvis, Cash blended Blues, Country and Gospel. Both did easy listening country. I know, because I listened to all of their songs.
Elvis and Cash both sang the music your mother seemed to love. But they blended a lot of it. The reason both are universal is because they blended various styles - and crossed the genres. People who didn't like Rock, liked Elvis. People who loved Blues and Rock liked Elvis. People who hated Country loved Elvis. People who hated Country loved Elvis. Martin Sheen points out that both men and women loved him, prior to that the guys had their favorite singers, and the gals had theirs. He kind of brought folks together during that time period and far after.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 06:18 pm (UTC)"Wooden Heart" (1961) was a product of Elvis' army years, when he was stationed in Germany. It was adapted from an old German folk song, "Muss I Denn" ("Must I Then"). I can still remember my mother singing the song in the original German. It always made her happy. Now that I think about it, Elvis' version probably reminded her of her childhood, which was an ocean away.
I'm not saying she didn't appreciate Elvis is all his wide ranging splendor (from Willie Mae Thornton to "It's Now or Never")--she did. But there was a personal connection there too.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-25 07:21 pm (UTC)No. It was a song written for a movie, GI Blues. She may have seen the movie. But it's a song that it is part of puppet show.