ELVIS

[NileQT87]

Yeah... That's definitely among the lesser (and tackier) tribute songs (and there have been hundreds of songs that have at least mentioned him or are completely about him--I'm not kidding).

My favorite song about Elvis has to be Lisa Marie's Nobody Noticed It--it's heartbreaking and personal. Two of her songs mention her dad (the other being Lights Out). She's also done two duets.

Nobody Noticed It: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nn04Qnl0uE
Lights Out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhvD09dXrs
Don't Cry Daddy (duet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2agB2S9x2Q
In The Ghetto (duet): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWg2vLEyRZc

Anyway...

It's quite striking to me that as far as celebrity deaths go, Elvis' is the one to which all others are measured. And as far as iconic mega-stars go, Elvis is also the one whom all others are measured against. I've noticed him being mentioned constantly in the news these last two days (both for comparison reasons and the Michael/Lisa Marie connection).

 

[trekkiedane]

^AFAIK ELVISs is the only death-cult that was ever portrayed in Doonesbury.

 

[Aurian]

I love Elvis. I even like his movies.. even though they were crinchworthy..

 

[NileQT87]

Live A Little, Love A Little, Change Of Habit and Jailhouse Rock are ones I like. And I have soft spots for ones like Viva Las Vegas, Girls! Girls! Girls, King Creole, The Trouble With Girls (And How To Get Into It), It Happened At The World's Fair, Blue Hawaii, Stay Away, Joe, etc... The only ones even I have trouble with are Kissin' Cousins, Fun In Acapulco and the Shelley Fabares trilogy (okay, Girl Happy has the redeeming factor of Elvis in drag and some songs). As much of a bad rap Harum Scarum gets, it has the BRILLIANT performance of So Close, Yet So Far.

Of course, That's the Way It Is and Elvis On Tour technically count as movies, which blow the rest out of the water for the simple fact that it's Elvis being himself and at his best.

Overall his best dramatic performance is, IMO, Jailhouse Rock. He was quite natural in Change Of Habit as well. Live A Little, Love A Little is seriously one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Elvis' biggest strength was actually his comic timing. Comedy and action were overall his strengths as an actor (besides the singing and choreography).

Did you know that he choreographed that entire Jailhouse Rock dance sequence himself? The choreographer that was supposed to do it basically just let him do whatever he wanted since he had never been choreographed professionally before (Elvis never had a professional voice, music or dance lesson in his life) and the other dancers were made to match what Elvis planned to do.

Elvis had an almost 3-octave vocal range (D2 to C#5). I've heard him referred to as a lyric baritone. Here's a comparison of his highest and lowest notes (behold the power): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ0Rhm59vsY

At the time, J.D. Sumner, Elvis' bass singer, was the lowest bass in the world and could sing three notes below the piano (often leading J.D. to make airplane landing sounds while Elvis spread his arms out on stage).

Elvis' vocal range:

 

[TGTheodore]

I love Elvis. I even like his movies.. even though they were crinchworthy..

CRINCHworthy?

--Ted

 

[Timby]

I love Elvis. I even like his movies.. even though they were crinchworthy..

CRINCHworthy?

--Ted

English isn't her first language. Hush.

 

[Aurian]

I love Elvis. I even like his movies.. even though they were crinchworthy..

CRINCHworthy?

--Ted

English isn't her first language. Hush.

Thanks JKTim . A careful googlesearch told me it's supposed to be cringeworthy.

/has english as her 3rd language.

 

[Smiley]

One of my favorite Elvis tributes is in the song "Just Like New" by Wynonna.

 

[NileQT87]

Mine's got to be (besides the Lisa Marie ones) Cher's cover of "Walking In Memphis". Awesome music video, too. I like Cher.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0mL2gzy8dE

She was another who was inspired to become a performer by Elvis (whom she saw in concert when she was a young girl).

Another one of the best song tributes to him is "We Remember The King" by Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgPsUfGTf6s

Sadly (and ironically), Jerry Lee Lewis is the last survivor of Sun Records' Million Dollar Quartet. Bet nobody would have expected that crazy Jerry Lee would outlast them all back in the '50s.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

I like the Junkie XL remix of "A Little Less Conversation".

 

[NileQT87]

The Junkie XL remix sucks. The original version has its balls intact (I won't forgive the remix for removing the "Hah!").

The real version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzbiR412Cy8

Groovy.

Okay. It's not all that different, but the original is still way better. As for the remix, this fanvid almost redeems it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFovT8z1JFI... My favorite Elvis movie (yes, yes... It's pure cheese. Deliciously hot and funny cheese.). Com'on. You know the scene (if you've seen the movie). "Hey! My back don't go that far down!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPiZiFZf2AM... Let's not even get into The Walls Have Ears. Poor Elvis.

I e-mailed that actress, Celeste Yarnall (who is now a pet nutritionist), whom he sang that song to after she gave an amazing interview with George Klein (radio DJ who went to high school with Elvis--you can spot him in Jailhouse Rock) on the Sirius Elvis station several Elvis Weeks ago. Wonderful lady. She e-mailed me back.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

The Junkie XL remix sucks. The original version has its balls intact (I won't forgive the remix for removing the "Aah!").

The real version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzbiR412Cy8

Groovy.

I actually like it very much; very groovy, thank you for recommending it. But the 'Aaaaah' at 1:10 is absolutely horrible; my ears are still ringing -- that wasn't the 'aah' you were talking about, right?

 

[NileQT87]

It's all about that epic "Hah!" scream in the middle. Raunchiest and hottest part of the song along with the "Hey!"

Speaking of getting low, down and dirty... It doesn't get much better than the absolutely orgasmic My Babe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdro4tMT1FA

"She don't, she don't, she don't... Oh, God!"

Or how about Polk Salad Annie (always a very dynamic performance): 1970 | 1970 (rehearsal) | 1972

When you've listened to as much of Elvis as I have, it's those little vocal differences and even flaws with a truckload of personality that make all the difference. It's the stuff you only get from a genuine live performance.

Take for example, the '69 laughing version of Are You Lonesome Tonight?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anzKcrHC-6s

I love when his wonderful, adorable personality pops out so strongly as with something like this. One of the greatest laughs ever, too!

The informal, down-to-Earth and unpolished performances can leave some beautiful gems. Of course, he could do more polished studio material, too. The thing about Elvis is that his studio material wasn't pieced together on a computer or altered extensively beyond a little echo and a few other archaic tricks. He didn't need any alteration. Most of what is on the record was a singular performance done with the singers and musicians all playing at once. Those studio masters aren't scrubbed clean of personality or flaws either. Sometimes musicians hit bum notes, sometimes the chair squeaked and sometimes the back of a guitar case turned into a drum. The feel of a performance was more important than the technical perfection of it (and I repeat, the man had a 3-octave range that could hit both operatic notes and bluesy grunts--and he never oversang).

And he pretty much treated the stage like his living room. And he was the only special effect or 'dancer' on that stage. No pyrotechnics, backup dancers or anything of that nature. Just him.

 

[Kail]

I like the Junkie XL remix of "A Little Less Conversation".

I'm an old school Elvis fan, and I loved it too.

 

[Whoa Nellie]

"Stuck on You". Great song, one his best vocals.

--Ted

Elvis Presley - The one and only King of Rock and Roll



My three favorites:

Stuck On You
I Got Stung
Wear My Ring Around Your Neck

Warmest Wishes,
Whoa Nellie

 

[barnaclelapse]

My ten-year-old brother went through a huge Elvis phase this past year. I think it kind of came out of his love for the underrated Disney movie Lilo and Stitch. Still, he absorbed the dozen or so movies my mother bought him, a couple of books, a few albums and just about anything he could get his hands on.

It was kind of funny.

Me, I'm kind of a casual fan. I enjoy some of his work, and I've seen a few of the movies (Jailhouse Rock was pretty good), but I've never been a fanatic, and he's hardly my favorite singer to come out of that Sun Studios era.

 

[Davros]

DEVO does a great cover of Don't Be Cruel.

 

[Goliath]

Okay--I'll be frank. I'm not a fan. I don't own a single Elvis recording. The last time I listened to anything Elvis-like was when I watched a bunch of Dread Zeppelin videos on YouTube.

But I don't hate his music, by any means. I do enjoy it, when I hear it.

I'm mostly posting in this thread to talk about how I organized the North American Conference on Elvis Studies at McMaster University in 2003.

This was a sham academic conference, in which grad students presented joke papers discussing Elvis's role in their research.

In my case, I had to explain how Elvis recorded "Hound Dog" to raise funds for the Republican side in the Irish Revolution, fifteen years before he was born. That took some ingenuity, I can tell you.

The trophy for the winning paper was a huge plaster bust of Elvis himself, spray painted gold and silver.

To this day, the King looks down protectively on the department's offices.

The popularity of this event, among a group composed largely of non-fans, more than twenty-five years after his death, really speaks to Elvis's iconic status. There are very few people who achieve that level of lasting fame in our culture.