1950s

Could 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Have Been Wrong?

/ TY
Cover of 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong

Cover of 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong

When I order a new Elvis CD on Sony’s Follow That Dream Records collectors label, I usually pick up one of their older releases as well. This month’s release was an upgraded Classic Albums edition of 1972’s Elvis Now. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out Thomas’ great review of Elvis Now over on Elvis Today.

My backfill purchase this time to go along with Elvis Now was a 2007 entry in FTD’s Classic Album series, 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong: Elvis’ Gold Records – Volume 2. RCA released the original LP album version in December 1959, near the end of Elvis’ stint in the US Army. The original consisted of the following songs:

Side A
I Need Your Love Tonight (1958)
Don’t (1957)
Wear My Ring Around Your Neck (1958)
My Wish Came True (1957)
I Got Stung (1958)

Side B
One Night (1957)
A Big Hunk O’ Love (1958)
I Beg Of You (1957)
A Fool Such As I (1958)
Doncha’ Think It’s Time (1958)

I’ve actually never bought this specific album in any form until now. When I bought The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Complete 50s Masters set in 1993, I assumed it contained all of the tracks from this album.

Turns out, I was wrong. When I researched the albums for my recent marathon of Elvis songs released during his lifetime, I found that RCA released two slightly different versions of “Doncha’ Think It’s Time” back then.

The first version was the actual single (a splice of takes 47, 40, and 48), and it’s the one I had on The Complete 50s Masters. For whatever reason, they released a second version (a splice of takes 40 and 39) on the 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong album. The second version was the one I was missing.

I don’t try to keep up with each of the thousands of song variations released since Elvis’ death – I pick and choose on those – but I do feel it is important to have all of the ones released while he was alive. I still have variants of four other songs to track down, including one on an FTD release that is no longer available (I waited too long to backfill that one).

The original 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong album is a strong follow-up to 1958’s Elvis’ Golden Records. It contains several classic performances, including “One Night,” one of the best recordings of his career. Other highlights include “Don’t,” “A Big Hunk O’ Love,” and “A Fool Such As I.” The only weak spots are “My Wish Came True” (which needs a Jordanaires & Millie Kirkham mute button) and the lightweight “I Got Stung.”

Outtakes

The FTD edition of 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong contains 88 tracks on two CDs. Compared to other Classic Albums releases I’ve bought, I have to say that I love the way FTD presents the outtakes on this release.

Instead of in the somewhat random fashion of other releases, FTD instead presents each one chronologically in order of recording. Each take, even false starts, gets its own track. That means you get to hear the same song several times in a row, which to me is the entire point of this kind of collectors label release.

Okay, so it’s not always a good thing. In the case of “I Got Stung,” you get to hear it 23 times in a row, which is about 22 times too many. For most songs, though, this is usually a great way to hear how Elvis and the band worked until it was just right. To be fair, even “I Got Stung” is better on the last take.

Unfortunately, they were apparently a lot faster to turn off the tape when recording Elvis in the 1950s versus the 1960s and 1970s. When a take is blown, someone usually cuts the tape quickly, so missing for the most part is a lot of the in between song banter that makes this kind of release so much fun.

Incidentally, most of the outtakes presented here are from Elvis’ June 1958 session in Nashville, which took place only three months after his induction in the Army. The weekend session was the only time he formally recorded while in the service.

Bonus Tracks

FTD adds “Ain’t That Loving You, Baby” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” to the album for this release. “Ain’t That Loving You, Baby” gets 11 takes, including some versions at superspeed.

Beyond the masters, the best tracks for me on this album were actually the three that made up the 1958 Elvis Sails Extended Play album. This was a “talking album only” that consisted of three interviews conducted with Elvis while he was in the Army, shortly before leaving for Germany. It reached #2 on the EP charts.

It contains one of my all-time favorite Elvis quotes. A reporter asks the probing, in-depth question of, “Elvis, what’s your idea of the ideal girl?”

Elvis doesn’t miss a beat, answering, “Female, sir.” The press members erupt in laughter.

In a more serious segment, Elvis talks about his mother, who had passed away only weeks before:

My mother, I suppose since I was an only child that we might have been a little closer […] and Mother was always right with me all my life. And it wasn’t only like losing a mother, it was like losing a friend, a companion, someone to talk to. I could wake her up any hour of the night, and if I was worried or troubled about something, she’d get up and try to help me.”

Though the outtakes are occasionally interesting, it was Elvis Sails and the LP variant of “Doncha’ Think It’s Time” that made this release worthwhile for me.

So, were 50,000,000 Elvis fans wrong? Of course not. This is a great album, whether you bought it in 1959, 2007, 2010, or any other year.

How To Spend An Extra Day [The Film Frontier blog]

/ TY

“The only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one.”
–Elvis Presley

Finally, February is over and spring is almost here.

Though I’m no fan of February, it does have one redeeming factor: Leap Day. I spent part of 2008’s extra day watching Superman Returns. February 29 is Superman’s kinda-sorta birthday, after all. It has been nearly a year since I last watched this movie, and I continue to be impressed by it. I hope that both Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh will return for a sequel within the next two or three years. I have seen rumors on both sides, but no confirmation either way.

I also watched some Star Trek episodes on Leap Day. No real connection there, I just felt like watching. I watched the original versions of “The Apple,” “Mirror, Mirror,” and “The Deadly Years.” Turns out that “The Apple” is also this weekend’s episode of Star Trek: Remastered. This is not an episode I could watch twice in the same weekend, though.

No Star Wars on Friday, but I did sneak in an Elvis movie – Harum Scarum. Definitely not one of his best, but interesting to me as an Elvis fan since I  had not watched it in a long time.

When I was a kid, the local UHF syndicated station seemed to show Elvis movie marathons nearly every Saturday afternoon. Coming from a family of Elvis fans, I spent a lot of time watching them. I will not lie to you and tell you that Elvis made the best movies, but most of them do have a quirky fun about them. He had a real gift for comedy that a lot of the mainstream really does not know about. Check out Viva Las Vegas, for instance.

Elvis made 31 scripted movies, but some of them seemed to turn up on those Saturday afternoons more often than others. Harum Scarum and Easy Come, Easy Go, for instance received a lot more airplay back then than, say, Jailhouse Rock or Change of Habit.

When the UHF station was not playing Elvis movies, it filled Saturday afternoons with Godzilla and other monster movies instead. I watched a lot of those, too. My favorite of these was Godzilla vs. King Kong-mostly because of the epic nature of such a bout. Elvis never made any monster movies, but it sure would have been cool to see him take down Godzilla with a karate chop and then nurse the beast’s wounds with a song in Elvis vs. Godzilla. You know, maybe I watched too much TV as a kid.

Hey, I wonder if Quantum Leap fans use Leap Day to celebrate their franchise? There’s even an Elvis connection to Quantum Leap. The last episode before the series finale featured Sam leaping into the body of none other than Elvis Presley, on the brink of being discovered. Though filled with inaccuracies regarding Elvis, it is still a fun episode.

One neat bit of trivia is that when Sam looks in the mirror to see the face of the body into which he has leaped, Elvis is portrayed by Michael St. Gerard – who had also played him on the short-lived ABC television series Elvis. He also appeared as Elvis in the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls of Fire. St. Gerard actually looks enough like Elvis that my local paper once accidentally put a small picture of him next to an article about the real Elvis, with the caption: “Presley.”

Due to an unforeseen circumstance, I had the day off on Leap Day this year, though I probably would have requested it off anyway. It only seems fair that Leap Day should be a worldwide holiday for everyone.

Does your employer or school really deserve an extra day of your life? It is the perfect day to catch up on time, life, and movies.

We will start the Leap Day Holiday movement right here on The Film Frontier. We will all work really hard on it – every four years or so.

General comments on SUNRISE [Elvis reflections]

/ TY

I was 24 when I wrote this item back in 1999. This is part of a series of archival Elvis writings — informal pieces originally written for family, friends, other purposes, or just me. They reflect how I was engaging with Elvis’ music in the years between The Elvis Beat and my blog writing.

Sunrise (1999)

  • I haven’t had time to compare Sunrise with The Complete 50s Masters to see if the quality is the same, better, or worse. My initial reaction when I played it for the first time a few months ago, though, was that the tracks sounded slightly better than the ones on The Complete 50s Masters. I could’ve been fooling myself, though. I’ve done that before.
  • The first four songs on Disc 2 are, of course, Elvis’ historic first acetate recordings. The first three had been released before, but “It Wouldn’t Be The Same Without You” was included for the first time here. That’s actually one of the main reasons I bought the set, because I wanted to have the remaining pre-professional recording. I believe that’s the last of them.
  • Track 10 on Disc 2 starts mid-song. No explanation was given in RCA’s liner notes. It is, after all, an alternate, so it may be that the beginning of the song did not survive or was unusable. Although I’m not sure RCA considers anything “unusable” anymore, as you’ll find later on Disc 2.
  • Tracks 12 and 13 on Disc 2 are acetate recordings of moderate sound quality.
  • Tracks 14-19 on Disc 2 are all live acetate recordings. The sound quality is, to say the least, horrible. I’m not sure why RCA chose to release these particular tracks, other than an excuse to slap a “previously unreleased” star beside more songs. The horrendous sound quality makes them of little real value. Clearer live versions of nearly all of the tracks from the same time period were already available. Oh well.

Tracklist

Disc 1

  1. That’s All Right
  2. Blue Moon Of Kentucky
  3. Good Rockin’ Tonight
  4. I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine
  5. Milkcow Blues Boogie
  6. You’re A Heartbreaker
  7. Baby, Let’s Play House
  8. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone
  9. I Forgot To Remember To Forget
  10. Mystery Train
  11. I Love You Because
  12. Harbor Lights
  13. Blue Moon
  14. Tomorrow Night
  15. I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’)
  16. Just Because
  17. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone (slow version)
  18. Trying To Get To You
  19. When It Rains, It Really Pours

Disc 2

  1. My Happiness
  2. That’s When Your Heartaches Begin
  3. I’ll Never Stand In Your Way
  4. It Wouldn’t Be The Same Without You*
  5. I Love You Because (alternate take)
  6. That’s All Right (alternate take)
  7. Blue Moon Of Kentucky (alternate take)
  8. Blue Moon* (alternate take)
  9. I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’) (alternate take)
  10. I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine (alternate take)
  11. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone (slow version) (alternate take)
  12. Fool, Fool, Fool
  13. Shake, Rattle & Roll
  14. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone* (live)
  15. That’s All Right* (live)
  16. Money Honey* (live)
  17. Tweedlee Dee* (live)
  18. I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine* (live)
  19. Hearts Of Stone* (live)

*Previously unreleased

10 favorite Elvis albums & songs [Elvis reflections]

/ TY

I was 23 when I wrote this item back in 1999. This is part of a series of archival Elvis writings — informal pieces originally written for family, friends, other purposes, or just me. They reflect how I was engaging with Elvis’ music in the years between The Elvis Beat and my blog writing.

What are your 10 favorite Elvis albums and why?

  1. That’s The Way It Is
    Elvis at his musical best. Songs such as “Just Pretend” and “I’ve Lost You” could easily be hits today if RCA took the proper marketing steps.
  2. The Memphis Record
    The best compilation of Elvis’ incredible 1969 Memphis Sessions, and many tracks are mixed better than their counterparts on ELVIS: From Nashville to Memphis – The Essential 60’s Masters I.
  3. Elvis In Person At The International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada
    This is his best live album, containing definitive versions of some of his classic hits as well as some terrific new songs.
  4. Elvis On Stage – February 1970
    Another impressive live album. Unfortunately, only a handful of Elvis’ live recordings from this year have been released by RCA so far.
  5. ELVIS – NBC TV Special
    Most notable for containing his finest song, “If I Can Dream”, and also includes some stirring live performances.
  6. Elvis Country – I’m 10,000 Years Old
    Although the “I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago” interludes between each song are somewhat annoying, this one has some great recordings such as “Tomorrow Never Comes” – one of the best songs of his career that is unfortunately often overlooked.
  7. From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee
    This album is certainly one of his finest when considered as a whole. It has a definite theme to it, unlike many of his other albums. Gems such as “Solitaire” and “Never Again” can only be found here.
  8. Today
    A remarkable album that is notable for being 15 years ahead of its time, since many of the songs sound like 90s country music. “Bringing It Back” and “Fairytale” are not to be missed.
  9. ELVIS: Walk A Mile In My Shoes – The Essential 70’s Masters
    Overall, the 1970s is a severely underrated musical era for Elvis, so I felt this compilation should be included to represent that. Unfortunately, the collection was assembled in an uneven fashion. A 10 or 15 disc “Complete 70s Masters” would have been much better, even if split across multiple releases.
  10. Elvis’ Golden Records
    A good overview of his 1950’s hits with RCA.

10 favorite Elvis songs

  1. “If I Can Dream” (1968)
  2. “Mystery Train” (1955)
  3. “Always On My Mind” (1972)
  4. “Baby, What You Want Me To Do” (1968)
  5. “One Night” (1957)
  6. “Baby, Let’s Play House” (1955)
  7. “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” (1960)
  8. “Jailhouse Rock” (1957)
  9. “Trying To Get To You” (1955)
  10. “Just Pretend” (1970)

Disney goes Elvis [The Elvis Beat newsletter]

/ TY

I was 22 when I wrote this piece back in 1997 for The Elvis Beat #16, which turned out to be the final issue of my official Elvis Presley Fan Club newsletter.

To be released later this year, the new MGM/Walt Disney movie All Shook Up will feature a child who wants to be like Elvis when he grows up. “All Shook Up” was a number one hit for Elvis in 1957.

TRAIN still in station [The Elvis Beat newsletter]

/ TY

I was 22 when I wrote this piece back in 1997 for The Elvis Beat #16, which turned out to be the final issue of my official Elvis Presley Fan Club newsletter.

Last Train To Memphis, the movie version of Peter Guralnick’s definitive Elvis biography, has been put on hold, according to Elvis World magazine.

MGM videos re-released [The Elvis Beat newsletter]

/ TY

I was 22 when I wrote this article back in 1997 for The Elvis Beat #16, which turned out to be the final issue of my official Elvis Presley Fan Club newsletter.

MGM is re-releasing 18 Elvis videos on July 8 in “The Elvis Commemorative Collection.” All of the videos are digitally remastered and include their original theatrical preview trailers. Jailhouse Rock, Viva Las Vegas, Elvis: That’s The Way It Is, Elvis On Tour, and Elvis: The Lost Performances are among the titles.

Unfortunately, despite the effort to digitally remaster the films, the videos will only be available in the standard “pan & scan” format rather than widescreen/letterbox. Over one-third of the theatrical picture is lost when movies are adapted for viewing on television sets unless the widescreen format is used.