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Elvis Presley - Young Man With The Big Beat 5 CD Box-Set

Published by Elvis CD Collectors Gold in CD · 28/12/2015 16:26:00
Tags: ElvisPresleyYoungManWithTheBigBeat5CDBoxSet

Elvis Presley - Young Man With The Big Beat 5 CD Box-Set

1956 marked turning points for young Elvis Presley. On January 10 - two days after he turned 21 - he left his Memphis home for Nashville for his initial RCA Victor recording session (Victor having purchased his contract from the legendary Sun Records), laying down his first pop hit, chart-topper 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

In '56, he became a teen heartthrob across America but, to his dismay, was denounced from pulpits and in the media for his unleashed music and gyrating stage movements.

By year-end, he'd starred in his first film, Love Me Tender, singing its theme and three other songs.

As the year began, songwriters weren't yet tailoring their tunes for him, and he was largely relying on covers. Comparing earlier acts' versions of his '56 songs we see what an innovator he was. He turned Eddy Arnold's 1952 waltz 'When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again' into pure rockabilly. 'Love Me' (on the 45 EP and 33 LP Elvis) has the rare distinction of making the pop top 10 without being released on a single. An early Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller composition, it had previously been done as a shuffle by Willie & Ruth (in R&B), Jimmie Rodgers Snow (in country) and Georgia Gibbs (in pop), though nobody's version dented the charts. Elvis' tastes were so eclectic that there's no telling whose rendition he'd heard (maybe even all of them), but he slowed it to a dirge and melodramatically milked its lines for every drop of emotion like no one before him. People might assume that he'd gotten 'Hound Dog' (another early Leiber/Stoller venture) from Big Mama Thornton, but the box's time line says that he picked it up from Freddie Bell when they played Vegas simultaneously.

The second studio disc closes with Love Me Tender's title track (an adaptation of the folk song 'Aura Lee'), 'Poor Boy', 'Let Me' and 'We're Gonna Move.' Elvis and Vera Matson (wife of the film's music director, Ken Darby) are credited with writing all four. But according to recently published Ain't No Grave: The Life And Legacy Of Brother Claude Ely by Ely's great nephew Macel Ely II, 'Move' simply secularized Pentecostal preacher/singer Claude Ely's roaring hymn 'There's A Leak In This Old Building'.

Elvis' record library included Ely's platters. And back in Mississippi, Gladys Presley had taken her young son to guitar-slinging Ely's emotion-drenched services with their gyrating worshipers. Macel Ely states that Elvis' stage movements were part of the Holiness church he grew up in, though amid this box set's interviews Presley says he didn't learn them from anyone but rather created them on his own.

The live disc's three shows come from a Louisiana youth center, an Arkansas auditorium and Vegas – talk about reflecting a career in transition. All their songs are on studio recordings and the audio isn't always the greatest, but we get to hear Elvis' playful side. As his mid-‘50s girlfriend Wanda Jackson once said, aside from his career, 'In those days at least, Elvis hardly had a serious bone in his body, at least outwardly'. Take the line 'Who learned a lesson when she broke my heart?' from 'I Was The One' (the flip to 'Heartbreak Hotel' – or 'Heartburn Motel' as Elvis refers to it). In various live versions, the object of his affection variously breaks his leg and his neck. Talking between songs in Vegas, he sounds genuinely honored that Ray Bolger and Phil Silvers have come to see him and takes a discreet pot shot at Roy Acuff, who hadn't exactly been encouraging when young Elvis did his life's only appearance on Grand Ole Opry.

The outtakes disc's 17 tracks include 12 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy' takes and 12 of 'Shake, Rattle And Roll', with pianist Shorty Long noodling with 'Yellow Rose Of Texas', 'Shave And A Haircut' and whatever else before 'Clawdy' takes. We hear a brief discussion of the optimal drum riff.

Given how few interviews he did throughout his career and his not having been a letter writer, we don't have a lot of Elvis in his own words, so the interviews are especially welcome. He speaks admiringly of Frank Sinatra and recalls a cherished car. The boy from the housing projects is happy that his mother can now go into a store and buy whatever she wants. As for the controversy he unintentionally generated, Jackson once told Goldmine, 'He was terribly hurt. He just couldn't believe that people thought of him as being vulgar.' But in these interviews he reserves his anger for the naysayers' trashing of the screaming girls in his audience. He's tough-skinned and open-minded about people not liking his music. It's the ugly potshots at his fans that he won't accept. The human being emerging from the interview tapes seems like a pretty decent guy.

Young Man With The Big Beat : The Complete '56 Elvis Presley Recordings

Tracklisting

Disc 1

Blue Suede Shoes
I'm Counting On You
I Got A Woman
One-Sided Love Affair
I Love You Because
Just Because
Tutti Frutti
Trying To Get To You
I''m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)
I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')
Blue Moon
Money Honey
Heartbreak Hotel
I Was The One
My Baby Left Me
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
Shake, Rattle And Roll


Disc 2


Rip It Up
Love Me
When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
Long Tall Sally
First In Line
Paralyzed
So Glad You're Mine
Old Shep
Ready Teddy
Anyplace Is Paradise
How's The World Treating You
How Do You Think I Feel
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
Hound Dog
Don't Be Cruel
Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)
Too Much
Playing For Keeps
Love Me Tender
Let Me
Poor Boy
We''re Gonna Move

Disc 3

Recorded At The Venus Room, Frontier Hotel,
Las Vegas, May 6

Heartbreak Hotel
Long Tall Sally
Blue Suede Shoes
Money Honey
Little Rock, Arkansas, May 16
Heartbreak Hotel
Long Tall Sally
I Was The One
Money Honey
I Got A Woman
Blue Suede Shoes
Hound Dog

* Recorded At The Hirsch Youth Center, Louisiana
Fairgrounds, Shreveport, Louisiana, December 15 [Recently discovered, previously unreleased concert in Shreveport, Louisiana : Elvis' last Hayride Show]

Heartbreak Hotel
Long Tall Sally
I Was The One
Love Me Tender
Don't Be Cruel
Love Me
I Got A Woman
When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
Paralyzed
Hound Dog


Disc 4 : The Outtakes

First RCA Session Outtakes

I Got A Woman : take unknown
Heartbreak Hotel : take 06
I'm Counting On You : take 13
I Was The One : take 02

The Complete February 03 Sessions

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 01
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 03
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 04
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 05
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 06
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : takes 07, 08, 09
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : take 10 (master)
Lawdy, Miss Clawdy : takes 11, 12
Shake, Rattle And Roll : takes 01, 02
Shake, Rattle And Roll : takes 03, 05, 06, 07
Shake, Rattle And Roll : take 08
Shake, Rattle And Roll : takes 09, 10, 11, 12, 12 (undubbed master)
The Complete Warwick Hotel Interview

Disc 5 : The Interviews

The Complete TV Guide Presents Elvis interview
Colonel Parker Interview
The Truth About Me
The Truth About Me Interview
Victrola Radio ad 1
Victrola Radio ad 2



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