For Diehard Elvis Fans

[JSngry]

And what if we equal the worse sides of Elvis (that no doubt were there and did not take a JSngry to dig out) with Frankieboy the Eternal Mobster (or should I say Mobster's Darling) and Make-Believe-Boy-Who-Lends-Respectability-To-The-Carefully-Hidden-True-Face-of-Organized-Crime? I can't see this as being any less seamy than what Elvis can be accused of.

Dude - America loves it's mobsters. Don't kid yourself.

America, otoh, does not love it's rednecks other than as cash/vote crops. The rednecks, however, love themselves, far too often for the wrong reasons, Elvis being one of them.

Come visit and see for yourself!

[Big Beat Steve]

Dude - America loves it's mobsters. Don't kid yourself.

Doesn't really speak for America. Or does this tie in with what you say about America becoming one big jail and a certain mindset being produced by a certain music?

Any guarantee that - if there had been no Elvis - this tendency of America becoming one big jail would NOT have happened just as much with mobster-dictated Las Vegas lull-in lounge music as dispensed by Frankieboy et al? :crazy:

[JSngry]

Dude - America loves it's mobsters. Don't kid yourself.

Doesn't really speak for America. Or does this tie in with what you say about America becoming one big jail and a certain mindset being produced by a certain music?

Any guarantee that - if there had been no Elvis - this tendency of America becoming one big jail would NOT have happened just as much with mobster-dictated Las Vegas lull-in lounge music as dispensed by Frankieboy et al? :crazy:

See, real mobsters know that it's good business to have an illusion of freedom. That way, people can more or less conduct their nice little insignificant personal business as they think they see fit. The businessmen make their's and everybody stays happy.

That's the good old America that is now on the verge of forced extinction. The new guys are ready to plantationize everything. No freedom on a plantation, especially the delicious illusory kind.

[Dmitry]

BTW, I still don't get the Wagner and concentration camp thing. What was that meant to signify?

Simply that America is on the verge of becoming one big jail for all but a few, and that the mindset that resulted from Elvismusic is a primary tool of the enslavers.

And please note that I did not make an exact analogy. I said it was almost like.

Am I not being fair to Wagner?

If I understand this correctly, you're saying that the music of Wagner precipitated Nazism almost as much as Elvis have precipitated America the way it is today?

[JSngry]

Made a significant contribution to the mindset of the way it is quite possibly on the verge of becoming.

Alarmist, perhaps, but perhaps not. "Too big to fail" is not a guaranteed benevolent proposition, or even a probably benevolent one, and in the face of that, Tea Partiers seem more than ready to act out on their proclivities to give themselves up to them that mean them no good.

Sounds like Elvis to me!

[John L]

Sam Phillips was telling a bunch of hillbillies to play and sing as black as possible. The outtakes are even embarrassing, as they reveal Elvis et al virtually engaging in minstrelsy, calling each other "nXXXXr" and the like. But the results are still rather amazing. Elvis et al couldn't sound black no matter how hard they tried. But the very effort of trying led them to something new. Sure, it was a variant of the "hillbilly boogie" music that had already become popular. Yet, it was somehow different, maybe more rural. Whatever, it is a sound that is still strangely compelling for many today.

What's compelling is that they proffer up the admittedly intoxicating and seductive notion that you don't really need a skill set to become a person of note, you just need to play at it. And hey - it works, not least of all for the reason that the notion of being something other than we really are without really getting in there and doing the soul-work needed to effect a real transformation is one of the oldes tempations in the book.

Is that the same intoxication that led Bill Monroe to change the way that he played Blue Moon of Kentucky after hearing Elvis' cover for Sun? Is that the same intoxication from Elvis' Sun recordings that inspired Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, and Charlie Feathers to play Rockabilly? Has their success made us worse off as well?

Sometimes, there is more to the picture than meets the eye. Sometimes, special things come in very simple packages. That does not negate the importance of commitment and hard work for creating profound art. The exceptions don't negate the general rule.

Edited December 28, 2010 by John L

[seeline]

I've never liked Elvis myself, but that said... the vitriol here is way, way overdone, imo. (As is the racial aspect, which becomes really ugly in comments like the one about Wagner and concentration camps.)

Maybe this thread should be in the "politics" section? (Not that it should be there per se, but the insistence that Elvis = politics and all the stuff about Southern rednecks makes me think that the ax being ground has about zero to do with music.)

I honestly have to say that I can understand why J.A.W. temporarily locked this thread...

[danasgoodstuff]

I fail to see that Elvis, the actual person not the myth, is in any way responsible for the Southern Strategy, the Tea Party or any such thing. And while the SS is indeed a cynical and manipulative thing, it's just a by product of the end of one party rule in the South, which was, overall, a good thing (and my wife's a Dem committee person).

About the music - lets talk about this supposed lack of 'pocket', I just don't hear it that way. I do hear some sonic similarity twixt elvis/scotty/bill and other trios of their rough timeframe - Nate Cole's, Amahd Jamal's, etc.

I think the htread whas stayed pretty polite, esp'ly considering what I was tempted to say.

[JSngry]

Is that the same intoxication that led Bill Monroe to change the way that he played Blue Moon of Kentucky after hearing Elvis' cover for Sun? Is that the same intoxication from Elvis' Sun recordings that inspired Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, and Charlie Feathers to play Rockabilly?

Intoxication causes all sorts of behavior, not all of it rational. Some of it is, however, driven by the marketplace, and Monroe's move could/should at least be considered in such terms. It would be naive not to.

As for the rockabilly cats, would have happened anyway, maybe even better (well, actually, it did, but...psychos never really have a chance in The Marketplace). But of the names you mention, I think that Perkins was too bashful for his own good from jump to ahve any long-term importance, Buddy Holly was somebody who I respect (ok, "respect") but personally have little to no use for, although his combination of perpetually juvenile lovestruckness and wholesome/harmless energy certainly makes him a logical candidate for Elvis-influence, and Charlie Feathers, uh...ok. Charlie Feathers. Why not?

[zen archer]

Would it not be ironic if say the parents of JSngry conceived him while "Baby Let's Play House"

played on the radio.

[JSngry]

I fail to see that Elvis, the actual person not the myth,

The "actual person" is meaningless. The myth killed the actual person long before the actual person actually died, and the myth is all that exists, and has existed, for as long as really matters.

Mo myth = No Elvis, just Elvis Presley, a guy who made some popular records for RCA.

Him we can talk about (and I still am not enamored, but not to the same degree), except for that he doesn't exist. Not now, not really, and hardly ever.

[Dmitry]

Made a significant contribution to the mindset of the way it is quite possibly on the verge of becoming.

Alarmist, perhaps, but perhaps not. "Too big to fail" is not a guaranteed benevolent proposition, or even a probably benevolent one, and in the face of that, Tea Partiers seem more than ready to act out on their proclivities to give themselves up to them that mean them no good.

Sounds like Elvis to me!

Tea Party, Nazis, Elvis, Wagner, the mob; all that is missing is a pair of superb tits, and you got yourself a screenplay, kid.

[JSngry]

Would it not be ironic if say the parents of JSngry conceived him while "Baby Let's Play House"

played on the radio.

Whose version?

Made a significant contribution to the mindset of the way it is quite possibly on the verge of becoming.

Alarmist, perhaps, but perhaps not. "Too big to fail" is not a guaranteed benevolent proposition, or even a probably benevolent one, and in the face of that, Tea Partiers seem more than ready to act out on their proclivities to give themselves up to them that mean them no good.

Sounds like Elvis to me!

Tea Party, Nazis, Elvis, Wagner, the mob; all that is missing is a pair of superb tits, and you got yourself a screenplay, kid.

A pair of superb tits and an agent....

[JSngry]

(...which becomes really ugly in comments like the one about Wagner and concentration camps.)

That comment, sir, was made in the Johnny Mathis thread, which remains open and was never locked.

[AllenLowe]

I like Elvis.

Everything else is Crow Jim and racialism.

[JSngry]

Everything else, eh?

Sure....

[Big Beat Steve]

Mo myth = No Elvis, just Elvis Presley, a guy who made some popular records for RCA.

Which is what many of those who (to a greater or lesser degree) like to listen to Elvis MUSIC (especially YOUNG Elvis music) are primarily interested in (and that's what started THIS thread, BTW). The "Elvis" myth is fodder for those who believe in watching parades of Ugly-Bloated-70s-Elvis-Lookalike-Wearing-Ugly-Liberace-Lookalike-Garb-Impersonators on stage. Apart from that, it's nothing more than chicken dung to those interested primarily in the MUSIC.

Those interested in the REAL rockabilly music subculture today for the most part have no use for Southern White silliness, especially outside the US of A. Which is borne out a.o. by the fact (if screenings on the subject are ANYTHING to go by) that the above impersonator thing still seems to be a big thing in those Southern circles, evidently because those who believe in that myth have long grown far too old and potbellied to take in and "reenact" the young mid-50s Elvis zoot suiter (well, of sorts) image. 70s Fat Elvis Liberace lookalikes are far easier to identify with. Sad. But irrelevant to those truly interested in the 50s Sun era music.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Which is what many of those who (to a greater or lesser degree) like to listen to Elvis MUSIC (especially YOUNG Elvis music) are interested in (and that's what started THIS thread, BTW). The "Elvis" myth is fodder for those who believe in watching parades of Ugly-Bloated-70s-Elvis-Lookalike-Wearing-Ugly-Liberace-Lookalike-Garb-Impersonators on stage.

No, what started this thread was a link to an article about a forthcoming box set of every Elvis RCA master ever recorded, and how what an important accomplishment that is, albeit one for a specialized market. If that's not playing directly from the myth, I don't know what is.

Everything else has just been gravy.

Edited December 28, 2010 by JSngry

[Big Beat Steve]

True, this amounts to the umpteenth rehash of something that has been around the block a zillion times. I was more aluding to the thread opener's statement how his offspering found the 50s Elvis music particularly fascinating.

Those repackagings actually leave me dead cold, myth or not.

Yet I can only say to each his own and one man's meat is another man's poison, because the umpteenth rehash of KOB or that incessant drooling about the umpteenth remastering of one and the same small bunch of Blue Note CD's is nothing short of perpetuating a myth (and milking a by now pretty much worn-out cow), too. A myth that apparently can only be sustained anymore by this kind of self-fulfilling marketing prophecies, because those who appreciate the music for the music itself and out of their own initiative have had all the music for a long time so by now it seems to be a matter of shoving these musical myths down the throats of others who listen to the music because "it is something to listen to if you want to be in the knowand real hip". Just like those cases of clients asking the collectible record store to round them up a cross-section of Blue Notes because they have just finished having their loft refurbished and need those BN's as the finishing furniture touch. Wonder if THIS kind of myth can really be that much healthier than the myth surrounding Elvis.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[MomsMobley]

Big Boat Steve-- later (but pre-physical infirmity) Elvis is a superior all-around musician than early. I could play you at least three dozen tracks '68-'74 equal or superior to ANY music of the period, and equal to or superior to anything E. ever did.

From The Hills of Georgia...

The GREAT Ricky Nelson-- to name another (underrated) giant influenced by Elvis-- DESTROYS every 5th-4th-4rd-2nd-1st rate "break beat" bullshit touted as transgressive revelation by the Right Rev. Sngry

Who VERY ** clearly ** has NO interest-- no ability?!-- to LISTEN.

I thought, at least, he was a much better section player than that.

BTW, re: Guralnick, he's good for little but chronology and a little basic context; it's nice he worked to clear that up but he's WAAAAAAY too po' faced everywhere else.

Moms Is At The Lincoln Park Inn

[.:.impossible]

An embarrassing wealth of knowledge.

Glad to see you around again Dmitry. Happy New Year!

[A Lark Ascending]

The exaggerated reverance for Elvis seems to be part of a general human need for ancestor worship. People often kick against that in their youth but most eventually end up revering some (or many) people from the past. And the past is so complex that it is much easier to enter it via grand personalities.

You see the same thing here - people falling over themselves to declare their undying attachment to 'Bird', Ellington, Bach, Ayler, Miles, Hendrix or whoever. And the lavish boxed set industry plays off that human need for ancestor worship.

As for your Doomsday scenario for the USA (or is it Western civilisation or even all civilisation) I think you are wandering around the board with an 'End is Nigh' placard. What you are possibly seeing is the end of America's period as the undisputed dominant force in the world, but that's just part of a natural cycle. There will undoubtedly be unpleasant consequences but we in the Old World went through that a century back and are still here beating the Aussies at cricket. Who knows - maybe China is preparing a 21st Century version of Marshall Aid to help you out.

In the end those of us who have been stung by the thrill of music latch on to musicians past and present for reasons I suspect we only dimly comprehend. There's some mileage in academic debate, carefully researched, properly referenced, as to who is more significant than who. But most of these online debates - and this one is no exception - amount to little more than personal likes/dislikes asserted as universal truths (or lies!).

Relax. Elvis can do you no harm.

[Big Beat Steve]

Big BEat Steve-- later (but pre-physical infirmity) Elvis is a superior all-around musician than early. I could play you at least three dozen tracks '68-'74 equal or superior to ANY music of the period, and equal to or superior to anything E. ever did.

I wouldn't even disagree with you from a point of view of the "musical content". Unfortunately this later period also yielded a lot of MOR dross.

And I admit a lot of that just does not fit my STYLISTIC preferences. But again, one man's meat is another man's poison.

The exaggerated reverance for Elvis seems to be part of a general human need for ancestor worship. People often kick against that in their youth but most eventually end up revering some (or many) people from the past. And the past is so complex that it is much easier to enter it via grand personalities.

You see the same thing here - people falling over themselves to declare their undying attachment to 'Bird', Ellington, Bach, Ayler, Miles, Hendrix or whoever. And the lavish boxed set industry plays off that human need for ancestor worship.

As for your Doomsday scenario for the USA (or is it Western civilisation or even all civilisation) I think you are wandering around the board with an 'End is Nigh' placard. What you are possibly seeing is the end of America's period as the undisputed dominant force in the world, but that's just part of a natural cycle. There will undoubtedly be unpleasant consequences but we in the Old World went through that a century back and are still here beating the Aussies at cricket. Who knows - maybe China is preparing a 21st Century version of Marshall Aid to help you out.

In the end those of us who have been stung by the thrill of music latch on to musicians past and present for reasons I suspect we only dimly comprehend. There's some mileage in academic debate, carefully researched, properly referenced, as to who is more significant than who. But most of these online debates - and this one is no exception - amount to little more than personal likes/dislikes asserted as universal truths (or lies!).

Relax. Elvis can do you no harm.

A lot of good and valid points you made there, Bev.

[Dmitry]

An embarrassing wealth of knowledge.

Glad to see you around again Dmitry. Happy New Year!

Embarrassing is right. I think I got shafted. My Tea Party indoctrination was to the tune of Lenny Breau playing Blue Moon of Kentucky.

Happy New Year to you as well, mate. Hope things are going well down South!

[JSngry]

I was more aluding to the thread opener's statement how his offspering found the 50s Elvis music particularly fascinating.

That statement was not made by the thread opener.

Just like those cases of clients asking the collectible record store to round them up a cross-section of Blue Notes because they have just finished having their loft refurbished and need those BN's as the finishing furniture touch. Wonder if THIS kind of myth can really be that much healthier than the myth surrounding Elvis.

No any healthier at all. There aren't nearly as many immediate ramifications, but no, it's not healthy at all.