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| From | Andrew Hickey <stealthmunchkin@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Elvis : one more thing |
| Date | Tue, 26 Oct 2004 22:51:09 +0100 |
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On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 09:28:31 -0400, Jake Beamer <weirdpop@gmail.com> wrote:
> Okay. But am I wrong in thinking, as I thought most of the naturalized
> world did, that the point of Elvis was he brought R&B (and yes,
> country and his awful showtune renditions) ALL to the white populace?
> BLUES for chrissakes, which was originally (oh god) a BLACK man's
> music and whites didn't want to hear it from some black guy but they'd
> hear it from a greaser-trucker who had no prior music experience but
> loved his mama?
No - that's *not* the point of Elvis (and what does 'no prior music
experience' mean in this context? Everyone has to start somewhere).
When you listen to those early Elvis recordings, between 54 and about
57 (I like a lot of the later stuff, but for different reasons) the
point is that he's just making *music*. Not 'white' music, not 'black'
music, music. Is Blue Moon a black R&B song? Because that may be the
best of the Sun recordings. How about Harbor Lights? I Love You
Because?
The great thing about those records, the truly inspiring thing, is
that they don't fit into any box. It's just the sound of someone who
has an incredibly good voice, who obviously loves music of all types,
in all genres, just doing whatever feels good. It's the kind of music
every true music-lover wishes they could make - music that flat-out
ignores genre boundaries and stamps all over them.
Part of Elvis' music was blues, definitely (but it's not as if no
white person had ever done a blues song of one type or another before
- that had been going on for thirty or forty years even then), but
there's a *ton* of other stuff in there - he was covering Arthur
Crudup, Bill Monroe, the Ink Spots, Hank Williams, Rogers & Hart, Roy
Brown, Dean Martin, all pretty much interchangeably
> And I just remember reading credits to a lot of his big hits, MANY of
> his big hits, and I just didn't see his name associated with many of
> them at all.
No, he didn't write his hits (I believe he only wrote one song in his
life, though he's credited on more). But he was a performer, not a
songwriter. And honestly, once he started having hits (and the
businessmen around him started controlling the material), most of the
actual songs were dreck (with the obvious honourable exceptions of the
Leiber/Stoller and Pomus/Shuman stuff). They were hits not because of
the song, but because of the singer - do you honestly believe that
Teddy Bear, Wear My Ring Around Your Neck and so on were hits because
of the song?
Even when the song itself was good (Suspicious Minds or Guitar Man for
example), Elvis' performance elevates the track (just compare those
two to their originals, which have note-for-note identical
arrangements, just different vocals - Elvis' are clearly the better
record).
There is nothing wrong with being a non-writing performer, any more
than there is with being a non-performing writer - and frankly I think
the world would be better with more of both...
--
Andrew Hickey and Holly Matthies headline
International Pop Overthrow, the Cavern, Liverpool
Monday October 25
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