Record Collecting: Presley, Elvis

Collecting Elvis's albums — especially if the collector is primarily interested in the music,
with little concern for the artifact and its attendant value — can be both a very frustrating
and a positively rewarding experience. Presley recorded a body of work in the '50s that
totals over one hundred completed masters (90+ for RCA Victor in less than two years
before Uncle Sam got their boy), which leaves the casual listener with the impression that
Elvis Presley singlehandedly invented rock & roll! But with Sgt. Presley's return from
service in 1960, he began to build a second legacy, that of the most wasted talent of his
generation. The gist of this argument is that the man returned as "king of the whole wide
world" — there were over a million advance orders for his first single, even though Elvis
hadn't entered a recording studio in almost two years — and he threw it all away for the
almighty dollar (which he could have had anyway) by turning his back on his rockabilly
and R&B roots and accepting a series of contracts to star in a procession of mind-numbing
B-movies for a succession of hack producers and directors.

Not counting the dreadful soundtracks that resulted from these films, the excessive "live"
albums that dogged his career in the '70s, and the ubiquitous repackages (they are so
plentiful and with so little meaning that they can be referred to as "nonalbums"), the
number of actual studio albums Elvis Presley released during his lifetime depends on how
we define certain terms, but two dozen — a mere two dozen — is a reasonable tally. Were
a novice to buy each one of these, he or she would have only the vaguest idea as to the
heights of creativity Elvis achieved with seeming abandon when his heart was in the
music.

If you add the five gold record collections and a few of the more intelligent compilations of
the '50s material, there would be thirty or so albums, providing a much more complete
overview. What you wouldn't have is any conceptual sense of Presley the artist — a real
feel for the development of Elvis as a stylist and interpreter, and you wouldn't have any of
what many consider his crowning achievement, the performances from June 1968 that
were edited down to 30 minutes for his NBC-TV special during that year's Christmas
season.

Many of the finest chroniclers of this period remain more or less "purists" in the sense of
blues and folks purists, denying the work that transgresses certain boundaries that may
seem arbitrary to the more casual devotee. The reasoning of far too many of these writers
is along the lines of "Well, Elvis was great with Sun — the best — but he sold out when he
went to RCA." A less pure view extends the magic through his first sessions with Victor,
when the rockabilly fever still coursed through his veins, but it was downhill by 1957 when
he "sold out to the girls." An even more tainted perspective accepts the whole of the '50s
but draws the line at Presley's "selling his soul to Hollywood." All of these arguments hold
water and do, in fact, require serious consideration, but they also miss much of the point
(and nearly all of the music).

Exactly who Elvis Presley saw himself as remains a blank. His lower-class background
almost certainly left him with the sense that one does one's job as best one can, with as
little griping as possible. Elvis never displayed the artistic aspirations John Lennon's art-
school background or intellectual bent provided him. Whether Elvis himself believed he
"achieved" anything is up in the air. His working-class background left him prouder of a
record's sales figures than of its artistic work.
Which brings us back to his albums: One can hardly go wrong by picking up any of the
'50s output. Elvis Presley's output was consistently fun, entertaining, and energetic and
often emotionally compelling. The Complete Sun Sessions, even with its botched sound
(RCA's laudable but ultimately incomplete "digitally restored mono") is an extraordinary
collection; Elvis's Sun recordings stand as the Rosetta stones of rock & roll and modern
country & western. Elvis Presley for LP Fans Only and A Date with Elvis duplicate the Sun
material with some of his best rockers from 1956-57. The beginner is pointed toward the
first two gold record sets, which contain the obvious hit oldies as well as the not so well
known, such as the smoldering "One Night" and the rousing "I Need Your Love Tonight."

1960's Elvis Is Back! captures him at his secular best; almost pornographic at times, it is
nonetheless moved by gospel undertones. His Hand in Mine is his most religiously moving
album, in no small part because the gospel music sounds like a rock & roll band. Within a
year, that emotional involvement and the sense of joie de vivre were replaced by the
more stunted professionalism of Something for Everybody and Pot Luck with Elvis, good if
unexceptional albums. From the same period, Elvis Golden Records—Vol. 3, capturing
most of his hits from 1960-62, is a marvelous album, a model in selection and
programming.

Recommending albums from this period is easy; even after-the-fact releases (i.e., after his
death) continue to amaze. Stereo '57 (Essential Elvis — Vol. 2) offers Elvis in binaural
stereo from the January 1957 sessions that produced several hits. RCA generously filled
the disc out with mono masters to give the consumer a more complete version of the
sessions. The out-of-print but easily found six-LP gold box, A Golden Celebration, which
collects a veritable trove of treasure from 1956-61, is essential to both the fan and the
historian.

From Elvis in Hollywood

Elvis was out of uniform in March and laying down vocals for his first big musical
production in April. The confections that make up the soundtrack for GI Blues were the
most trite collection of songs in his career, with the slight but affecting "Wooden Heart"
the standout. The soundtrack for 1961's Blue Hawaii called for the music to have a
Hawaiian flavor and, while Presley's vocals are excellent throughout, much of the material
is of a throwaway caliber. Of course, any session that produces "Can't Help Falling in
Love" is memorable, but said sessions also gave us "Rock-A-Hula Baby," which was a
worldwide hit despite being as bad as the title suggests! Within a matter of months,
critical fans would look back at this album as a high point.

1962's Girls, Girls, Girls — an even lamer attempt at a Hawaiian backdrop — did produce
a nice cover of the old Drifters number as the title tune, plus "Return to Sender," an
excellent mid-tempo R&B-ish hit. But too many of these sessions produced such
memorable accomplishments as "Shake That Tambourine (My Little Dancing Queen)" from
1965's Harum Scarum, or from earlier that year, the title tune from Girl Happy, mastered
with the tape so fast that Elvis is hilariously high-pitched and barely recognizable. In
1964's Kissin' Cousins, Elvis portrayed two identical cousins, singing both their
voices/accents on the single and inspiring authors Roy Carr and Mike Farren to note that
at the same time "in another galaxy, the Rolling Stones issued 'Not Fade Away.'"

During this time (1960-61), Elvis also cut a number of tracks for lesser, nonmusical films,
including several affecting ballads for Wild in the Country. In 1963 Elvis teamed up with
the luscious Ann-Margret, recording some of his most spirited singing in years for Viva Las
Vegas. Had RCA collected the best of these sessions, along with the standouts "Summer
Kisses, Winter Tears," "King of the Whole Wide World," and "Follow That Dream," a
surprisingly solid album could have been issued. Alas, these tracks were scattered to the
winds, showing up on EPs, B-sides, and budget albums over a period of ten years.

This is not to say soundtracks do not hold some notable positions in the Presley history. It
Happened at the World's Fair has the distinction of being the first Elvis album to be
deleted; Fun in Acapulco, the first soundtrack padded out with "bonus songs" (superior
recordings from studio sessions that should have been collected on sensible, listenable
studio albums); Roustabout, a "pooper" inexplicably reaching the top of the charts in the
Year of the Beats; Frankie and Johnny, his first new album not to make the Top Ten (this
one barely scraped into the Top 20, a portent of sorts); or Double Trouble, his first new
album not to make the Top 40 (and boasting album art that is almost as dumb as the
music).

With the distance of time, a lot of this material takes on a certain pathetic charm. This is
not to imply that Elvis was ever nasty or unlikable; quite the opposite. Despite the terrible
songs (cranked out by a series of hacks chained to Hill & Range, Presley's visionary
publisher), the uninspired arrangements, and the nonexistent production qualities, Elvis
(and on occasion, the band) come across as hard-working, even charming, but completely
out of his element, with no evidence of control or charisma. For that reason, listening to
such albums as Spinout, Clambake, or Speedway (the latter wasting Nancy Sinatra's
kitschy panache) can be positively surreal, especially for the novice who only knows Elvis
through his hits and the classic '50s sides.

If one needs to delve into this period, an easy rule of thumb is that the further into the
decade the soundtracks go, the less likely they are to please. Several offer light fare, but
are well crafted and produced: GI Blues, Blue Hawaii, Fun in Acapulco, and Girls, Girls,
Girls. These are the albums that made Elvis accessible (and acceptable) to parents way
back when. Of course, no article on Presley's soundtracks is complete without at least
mentioning my nominee for Elvis's most golden of turkeys, the final installment in his
justly famous Hawaiian trilogy, Paradise Hawaiian Style.

From Memphis to Vegas

Between 1964 and 1968, Elvis recorded just enough studio material to fill one complete
album, excluding 1967's How Great Thou Art, a polite (and slightly surreal) reading of
traditional religious material. Several interesting singles were cut: "Big Boss Man," "Guitar
Man," and "U.S. Male" now stand as experiments in a raunchy country & blues sound.
Presley's return from the cold began in earnest with those "live" sessions in front of a
handpicked audience in the summer of 1968. With both his future and his past on the line,
Elvis sang with enough passion to scare the meek and enough humor to cause the jaded
to pause. Unfortunately, these extraordinary sessions have been given short shrift by
RCA, with most unreleased and the rest scattered through a variety of compilations. The
collector must turn to the bootleg market, where excellent albums (known as the Burbank
Sessions) collect all four hours in glorious mono taken from exceptionally clean tapes,
untouched by a corporate engineer!

Presley returned to Memphis, recording thirty-odd songs in Chips Moman's America Sound
Studios in 1969, leading to his artistic and commercial resurgence ("In the Ghetto" and
Suspicious Minds) and what may be his single greatest album, From Elvis in Memphis
(seek out the Mobile Fidelity "Original Master Recording"). Returning to the more familiar
haunts of Nashville in 1970, he completed another three dozen tracks that were disbursed
over several albums, including That's the Way It Is. Purporting to be the soundtrack from
the documentary of the same name, it contains eight sides of Elvis at his most delicious
ease. Elvis Country was hurt by the presence of snippets of "I Was Born 10,000 Years
Ago," the album's subtitle and a failed attempt by the engineers to give the album a
unifying theme ( Elvis as concept-album artist).

During this time, Elvis's two best live albums were issued. One-half of the imponderably
titled From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis (later issued as a separate album,
Elvis in Person at the International Hotel) captures Elvis while the exhilaration of conquest
was still evident. On Stage — February 1970 is a bit more tame, but provides him with a
chance to cover a number of then-contemporary hits, which he carries with aplomb. As far
as the live ones after that...Well, you had to be there.

In 1973, Elvis returned to Memphis and cut 30 new songs. Unfortunately, the material was
issued as three ten-track albums. Raised on Rock, Good Times, and Promised Land all
have something to offer, but the lesser material dilutes the impact of the strong,
producing more evidence of Presley's growing mediocrity. There was enough quality
material to issue two fine albums of twelve tracks each, which would have restored
Presley in the sight of the critics and record reviews and could only have sold better.

1975's Elvis Today is often cited by writers as Elvis's uncertain return to his Sun origins. It
really isn't that much different than 1973's trio, except the lesser tracks are a bit more
substantial. By 1976 Elvis was recording at home in Graceland, cutting what would be the
final recordings of his career. Filled with bathos and showing little rock & roll vitality,
these remain interesting nonetheless, implying he had somewhat accepted his age and
combining old-fashioned, melodramatic soul with contemporary country/pop.

While critics tend to pounce on Elvis for the albums from this period (excepting From Elvis
in Memphis and the more diffuse From Memphis to Vegas 2-fer), That's the Way It Is and
Elvis Country are almost as good as the Memphis stuff and highly recommended.
Definitely weaker but still worth a listen are Promised Land, Good Times, and Elvis Today.
If you enjoy these, take the plunge and buy the rest of the '70s studio albums; even such
throwaway compilations as Love Letters from Elvis, Elvis Now, and Fool contain gems,
including spirited — and humorous — versions of "Got My Mojo Workin'" and "Don't Think
Twice."

Since Elvis's death in 1977, the market has been inundated with an array of repackages,
most of them artless, pointless, and (a fan might wish) profitless. Notable exceptions
include Reconsider Baby, an interesting presentation of Elvis as a White blues singer, and
the 1987 RCA Memphis Sessions, a collection of most of the completed 1969 masters onto
a two-album set. It is readily recommended.