But they both sound like guys getting ready for a good time they’ve had plenty of times before. The original version, by Roy Brown, is good, the Wynonie Harris version better. “Good Rockin’ Tonight” (1954):Įlvis’ second Sun single.
HILLBILLY ROCK SOUNDS LIKE PINK CADILLAC FREE
You want an Elvis song a room of people are most likely to respond to today, free of irony? This is it. Elvis built his legend fusing country, blues and gospel - you know, helping create rock 'n' roll - but this tempest of longing and recrimination (first line: “We’re caught in a trap”) is a grown-up soul music all his own. It sounds more contemporary, even, than the remixed “A Little Less Conversation,” which came more than 30 years later. Not so on “Suspicious Minds,” which is Elvis’ most modern hit. It can be difficult to reconcile for those of us who still delight in Elvis’ Sun sides, but sometimes modern ears struggle to hear that music clearly, as more than a time capsule. Steve Sholes’ production - from Floyd Cramer’s cocktail lounge piano to Chet Atkins’ guitar to Bill Black’s tiptoe bass line, creeping like Peter Lorre past a corpse in the lobby - is night-dark perfection. “Heartbreak Hotel” is utterly distinctive, not at all a harbinger of Hound Dogs and Teddy Bears instead, it’s a noirish environmental portrait inspired by a real-life suicide, an evocation of “gloom” populated by “broken-hearted lovers,” a crying bellhop, a dress clerk “dressed in black” - people so lonely “they could die,” including the singer himself. “Heartbreak Hotel” (1956):Įlvis’ first single for RCA was the big one, the song that really introduced him to the world. That “mmmmm” transition from the second to the third verse and the faint chuckle as he comes out it? The in-song equivalent of Marc Gasol (himself an Elvis fan) giving himself a little slap on the butt during a game. At his best, Elvis sang like genius athletes often play, with casual command and self-aware delight. But when he does, it’s as easeful a vocal as he ever recorded. Fontana popping from the jump and the Jordanaires having perhaps their finest backup vocal moment, “Don’t Be Cruel” positively swings before Elvis really gets ahold of it. This Otis Blackwell-penned song was the other side of the same 45 as “Hound Dog.” With Bill Black and D.J. Essentially acting as his own producer, he swapped out words, souped up the tempo and created, as cultural critic Greil Marcus wrote, “a sound for which no one was prepared.” Little wonder it topped the pop, R&B and country charts simultaneously. But don’t buy the myth that her original was superior to Elvis’ cover.
Thornton stood something like 10 feet tall and could drop whole armies with a stare when she sang a song, it stayed sung. But the song is synonymous with Elvis, whose version sold 10 million copies and spent 11 weeks atop the pop chart. “Hound Dog” was first recorded by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton and was a No. Elvis’ rendition - faster and somehow more haunting than Parker’s original - augured big changes. The song’s first line, “Train I ride, sixteen coaches long … ,” had turned up in tunes by the Carter Family and Leadbelly, among others. Elvis reinvented it in the same room two years later for his final Sun single, imbuing the song with a deeper Americana. “Mystery Train” (1955):Ī 1953 number recorded by bluesman Junior Parker and the Blue Flames, and produced by Sam Phillips for Sun Records. It clocks in at under two minutes and sounds so simple, so inevitable now. And while you can argue whether Elvis was the first to blend pre-existing styles into this new thing called rock 'n' roll, his synthesis of country and blues here sounds more effortless and more complete than any of his contemporaries, or his inheritors. It’s nothing more than “the great wedding ceremony,” the product of four men messing around in a small room on Union Avenue and remaking global culture. Originally written and recorded by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in 1946, this is Elvis’ first single, recorded at Sun Studio on July 5, 1954. More: Eternal Fame: Join us over the next week as we celebrate the legacy of Elvis 1. To celebrate his music, here are our picks for his 40 greatest recordings: In Memphis, especially, Elvis the revolutionary artist, the “sing all kinds” boundary smasher and the versatile vocalist shouldn’t be forgotten. As the years pass, it’s perhaps too easy for Elvis’ image to obscure his artistry. Forty years after his death, Elvis Presley remains a global icon.
0 kommentar(er)
