I watched a fascinating documentary about Elvis Presley last night on BBC4. I have to admit that I know practically nothing about his music although I was aware that his early material was heavily indebted to blues and Black popular music. What little I had heard and seen always gave me the impression that he was incredibly kitsch and effectively ended up becoming a parody of himself. The documentary was framed along the context of his attempt to revive his career in the late sixties in the wake of bands such as The Beatles and the emerging counter-culture of the time. Effectively, it concerned attempts to make Presley sound relevant.
What was interesting was that anything that he seemed to do which was "good", appeared to have been contrary to the advice of his manager, Col. Tom Parker. I was not aware how influenced Elvis had been by another popular singer of the day called Roy Hamilton nor the level of respect with which he had held him. The whole programme was a revelation to me as most of this was new as far as I was concerned. An attempt to cut and paste Presley with the more "modern" Memphis sound appeared to have been an artistic success yet Parker prevented any attempt at a follow up due to a dispute over royalty rights. Ultimately, Presley ended up performing endless gigs in Las Vegas , initially with critical acclaim before becoming totally bored by the process.
It was a fascinating programme, in my opinion, because this was all new to me. What was interesting was that although his career was successfully revived, it struck me that he never managed to come up with a permanent solution to sounding "modern." He was a talented singer and ended up fronting what was effectively a really tight big band including backing singers. By this point the musical production behind him was very professional and well played although often undone by some incredibly corny material such as a mish-mash of popular American theme including "Dixie." With the hindsight of fifty years, these latter performances are probably played by better musicians than he had had backing him previously but seem almost like a pastiche and irrelevant if you consider what else was happening in popular music at the time of the late sixties / mid seventies. (Thinking about bands / musicians like E,W&F, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, NY Loft scene, etc.) Instead of making Presley relevant, he was recast as decidedly middle-of-the-road.
Not knowing this story before, I was left wondering whether any other manager has ever been so detrimental to a musician's artistic output. Some of the clips from Presley's films were used as examples as to how Parker's crass and overbearing demands for royalties ensured that no decent songwriters would associate themselves with Presley. Given Presley's inability to write his own material, this meant employing some decidedly second rate songwriters which subsequently had a detrimental effect on his popularity after the early 1960's. No one believed in the material he was given to perform.
This was a really good documentary and a fascinating insight into how an attempt to make a musician's work more commercial can backfire. As a fan of jazz and blues, the earlier material which kick-started his career definitely shares an affinity with some blues artists I enjoy. After that and excluding the brief flirtation with Memphis, the documentary was a salutary lesson in letting a non-musician making artistic decisions. In every case cited in the documentary, whenever Presley rejected the advice, the consequence was to the betterment of his work. Having been totally unaware of a lot of his work, I felt this documentary was very interesting even if the music did make me wince more than once.
What was interesting was that anything that he seemed to do which was "good", appeared to have been contrary to the advice of his manager, Col. Tom Parker. I was not aware how influenced Elvis had been by another popular singer of the day called Roy Hamilton nor the level of respect with which he had held him. The whole programme was a revelation to me as most of this was new as far as I was concerned. An attempt to cut and paste Presley with the more "modern" Memphis sound appeared to have been an artistic success yet Parker prevented any attempt at a follow up due to a dispute over royalty rights. Ultimately, Presley ended up performing endless gigs in Las Vegas , initially with critical acclaim before becoming totally bored by the process.
It was a fascinating programme, in my opinion, because this was all new to me. What was interesting was that although his career was successfully revived, it struck me that he never managed to come up with a permanent solution to sounding "modern." He was a talented singer and ended up fronting what was effectively a really tight big band including backing singers. By this point the musical production behind him was very professional and well played although often undone by some incredibly corny material such as a mish-mash of popular American theme including "Dixie." With the hindsight of fifty years, these latter performances are probably played by better musicians than he had had backing him previously but seem almost like a pastiche and irrelevant if you consider what else was happening in popular music at the time of the late sixties / mid seventies. (Thinking about bands / musicians like E,W&F, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, NY Loft scene, etc.) Instead of making Presley relevant, he was recast as decidedly middle-of-the-road.
Not knowing this story before, I was left wondering whether any other manager has ever been so detrimental to a musician's artistic output. Some of the clips from Presley's films were used as examples as to how Parker's crass and overbearing demands for royalties ensured that no decent songwriters would associate themselves with Presley. Given Presley's inability to write his own material, this meant employing some decidedly second rate songwriters which subsequently had a detrimental effect on his popularity after the early 1960's. No one believed in the material he was given to perform.
This was a really good documentary and a fascinating insight into how an attempt to make a musician's work more commercial can backfire. As a fan of jazz and blues, the earlier material which kick-started his career definitely shares an affinity with some blues artists I enjoy. After that and excluding the brief flirtation with Memphis, the documentary was a salutary lesson in letting a non-musician making artistic decisions. In every case cited in the documentary, whenever Presley rejected the advice, the consequence was to the betterment of his work. Having been totally unaware of a lot of his work, I felt this documentary was very interesting even if the music did make me wince more than once.
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