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Elizabeth Howard began hosting and producing the Short Fuse during the pandemic years. Those days when we were shuttered in our rooms. Displaced. Disoriented. Since then she has hosted 33 conversations, created a YouTube channel for online Short Fuse reading groups, and held live events at P&T Knitwear in New York, the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, and at the Portsmouth Athenaeum in New Hampshire. You can find all of the Short Fuse conversations on the Short Fuse website.Dell'Aria Cafe is at 232 East 111th Street in East Harlem. An authentic cafe with roasted Italian coffee ... and conversation.Jasmine Rice LaBeija is a Drag Queen, who can often be found performing in New York City.Rev. Michael Curry is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. He spoke at the memorial held for Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.Ann Kjellberg is the founder of Book Post. Bill Marx is the founder and Editor of the Arts Fuse, the online journal of arts commentary and criticism.Kyle Dacuyan is a poet and the director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery.Valena Beety is the author of Manifesting Justice and works with Tasha Shelby.Frank Young is the artist who created the collage for this episode.
Get ready for a crazy musical ride on our latest episode. The experiment: Each host picked an GenX album they love, made the rest of us listen to it, and then we talked about it. This is a totally new thing for us so it could have been amazeballs or a total disaster (hint, it wasn't a disaster). From dissecting tracks to digging into behind the scenes trivia to just sharing personal stories about why these albums meant so much to us, we're dishing it all out. And trust us - you will NOT want to miss it.our album selectionsChris: The Replacements, Tim (The new Ed Stansium mix)Lori: Yaz, Upstairs at Eric's Courtney: Annie Lennox, DivaEve: The Go-Gos, Beauty and the Beatepisode linksReplacements documentary about Ed Stasium's muscular new mix of 'Tim'The Go-So's DocumentaryWham DocumentaryThe Replacements Documentary (longer one)An Open Letter to the Pair of Gen-Z Men in the Northeast Regional Quiet Car Loudly Discussing Pitchfork's 100 Best Albums of All TimeConnect with usSubscribe to GenX Stories in your favorite podcast appBuy some kickass merchWrite us a reviewVisit our siteJoin our Facebook GroupFollow our 80's inspired InstagramSend us an email
Colin and Tyler are presented with a challenge this week in comprehending the lyrics to Thank God I Do by Lauren Daigle. Undoubtedly popular, the song peaked at number 1 on the Billboard US Christian Songs chart. Thank God I Do says "you're my safe place, my hideaway, my anchor, my saving grace," but who is the "you" of the song? Tune in to hear the discussion. Lyrics I've seen love come andI've seen love walk awaySo many questionsWill anybody stay?It's been a hard yearSo many nights in tearsAll of the darknessTryin' to fight my fearsAlone, so long, aloneI don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouI'd probably fall off the edgeI don't know where I'd go if You ever let goSo keep me held in Your handsI've started breathin'The weight is lifted hereWith You, it's easyMy head is finally clearThere's nothin' missingWhen You are by my sideI took the long roadBut now I realizеI'm home, with You, I'm home I don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouI'd probably fall off thе edgeI don't know where I'd go if You ever let goSo keep me held in Your handsI don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouI'd probably fall of the edgeI don't know where I'd go if You ever let goSo keep me held in Your handsYou're my safe placeMy hideawayYou're my anchorMy saving graceYou're my constantMy steadinessYou're my shelterMy oxygenI don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouThank God, I doI don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouI'd probably fall off the edgeI don't know where I'd go if You ever let goSo keep me held in Your hands I don't know who I'd be if I didn't know YouThank God, I do --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worship-review/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worship-review/support
Free Tasha Shelby is the website where you can learn more about Tasha's case. To support Tasha:Governor Tate Reeves: C Governor's office, call 601-359-3150/ email governor@govreeves.ms.gov.Lynn Fitch, Mississippi Attorney General: 601.359.3680/P.O. Box 220, Jackson MS 3920Valena Beety is a law professor, an innocence litigator, and a former federal prosecutor. She has exonerated wrongly convicted clients, founded the West Virginia Innocence Project, and obtained presidential grants of clemency for drug offenses. She served as an appointed commissioner on the West Virginia Governor's Indigent Defense Commission. She is currently a professor of law at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O' Connor College of Law and the deputy director of the Academy for Justice, a criminal justice center at the law school.VTasha Mercedes Shelby is a writer and an advocate for incarcerated women. Tasha was wrongly convicted of a crime that did not occur on June 16, 2000 in Biloxi, Mississippi. In her twenty-two years of incarceration, she has earned her GED, taken classes at Millsaps College through the Prison to College Pipeline, and developed as a writer and as an artist. She continues to fight her wrongful conviction and you can learn more about her struggle at Free Tasha Shelby.Alex Waters is the technical producer, audio editor and engineer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. He writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living. He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com with inquiries.
El programa "T'agrada el blues?" d'aquesta setmana presenta el darrer disc de Fantastic Negrito (Barrington, Massachusetts) bluesman original
‘Tis holiday season across the land,And the best celebration of all is at hand!Cardboard Boxing Day's here, so we get to play—Building cardboard creations all through the day!But not everyone's ready for when this day ends . . .Macho wants to keep making creations for friends!He's constructing a whole Cardboard NeighborhoodAnd he's taking a lot more time than he should.He won't stop pasting and painting and priming!He won't stop drawing and cutting and rhyming!He won't listen when friends say the holiday's through!He won't even stop for the Cardboard Kaiju!The Kaiju has come for her annual dinner—She can't wait to get all that old cardboard in her!She loves to bite boxes, crunch cartons galore,Degustation of corrugation makes her heart soar!But Macho won't give her his cardboard to gobbleAnd the hungry Kaiju is starting to squabble!Her tummy's growling, she's feeling frustrations—It's her job to munch up all the creations!So what do we do when it's time to be done,But we aren't ready to stop having fun?Can Macho be macho enough to let goSo the Kaiju can have a good time, also?It'll take being brave, and grateful, and kind,But if Macho can do it, soon he will findThough happy things ending can give you the blues It feels good to share things with friends—and Kaijus!Happy Holidays, everyone—enjoy the show!
Face & Go - So einfach war die Zutrittskontrolle noch nie! Vor kurzem hatten wir das Vergnügen auf der „SO!APART“-Messe unser neues Produkt zum ersten Mal vorzustellen… Und heute präsentieren wir es Ihnen! Wir haben einen Weg gefunden, den Zugang zu Türen - im eigenen Zuhause, einem Unternehmen, Hotel etc. - so einfach wie nur möglich zu machen. Wie TAURUS das geschafft hat? Durch unsere neueste Zutrittskontrolle: Face & Go. Sie ermöglicht nicht nur Flexibilität, sondern erspart Ihnen auch die Sorge, ihre Schlüssel zu verlieren. Also: Treten Sie ein und nur nicht das Gesicht verlieren! Apartmentservice: Website: https://www.apartmentservice.de/ SO!APART: https://www.so-apart.de/ Anett Gregorius auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anett-gregorius-7bb9378a/?originalSubdomain=de TAURUS auf Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taurus_sicherheitstechnik/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taurussicherheitstechnik/ TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/J8knNg3/ ‘ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/42142129/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa3sn0cWS5G_J1hMzE1Vl5Q Website: https://www.taurus-sicherheitstechnik.at --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/taurus-sicherheit/message
This special episode of Technecast was made for the Techne-funded 'Cultivate' conference, hosted at Kew Gardens, London, on November 10. The episode, 'There Are More Spaces Still to Come', is a 'Cultivate' special feature produced by Techne student Judah Attille, one of the conference organisers. In conversation with Judah, multidisciplinary artist Shenece Oretha speaks about sonic interventions and knowledge production in her installation, In Counter Harmony, staged in the Tin Tabernacle Kilburn and created for Brent Biennial 2022, In the House of my Love. Cultivate aims to reflect on the many areas we strive to cultivate – as Techne researchers, as practitioners, as communicators, as individuals, and as part of wider communities. Cultivate is a student-led event seeking to provide opportunities to put these forms of cultivation into action. The breadth of topics includes land use and misuse; plants and interactions with nature; cultivating skills, networks, and research; and creating space for the practical and caring aspects of cultivation. The conference is structured around panel discussions on the themes of cultivating knowledge, networks, and wellness. This event aims to provide a momentary space to not only reflect on the ‘effort' and ‘work' aspects of cultivation, but also on those aspects that nourish and help. Shenece Oretha (she/her, they/them) is a London based multidisciplinary artist sounding out the voice and sound's mobilising potential. Through installation, performance, print, sculpture, sound, workshops, and text she amplifies and celebrates listening and sound as an embodied and collective practice. Recent works include: In Counter Harmony, Brent Biennial, 2022 Ah So It Go, Ah No So It Go, Go So! Curated by Languid Hands for Cubitt Gallery, 2022 Notes on Play, a response to the British Library Sound Archive, 2021 Hyper Functional, Ultra Healthy | Shenece Oretha: Listening Wholes, Somerset House Studios, 2021 Judah Attille (she/her, they/them) is an independent filmmaker and Techne PhD candidate based at UAL Chelsea. Her interest in the sonic register of research output has benefited from a series of Techne audio editing and podcast workshops that consider sonic technology and sonic aesthetics, hosted by Techne alumna and Technecast founder Jo Hutton. In her collaborative practice experience with other Techne students, Technecast has offered Attille a unique platform for building and sharing knowledge bases between institutions within and beyond the Techne research community. In Counter Harmony excerpts courtesy of artist Shenece Oretha and Metroland Cultures Brent Biennial 2022. Special Thanks to Shenece Oretha for her contributions to post-production on There are more spaces still to come Photo Credit: Detail from In Counter Harmony, Tin Tabernacle, September 2022, by Judah Attille A transcript of 'There Are More Spaces Still to Come' can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nkty5iuZTCn4XHA24rW25WeMJ8LNZYke/view?usp=share_link A transcript of Shenece Oretha's 'In Counter Harmony' can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uU2X05AwbF8VdzF4EEyjyHWMV7-ARQhr/view?usp=share_link
The coaching transition can be hard, as you have to budget time, money, or both with a steep learning curve & avoid potential pitfalls. Niki & CJ help you learn how to make the coaching transition to become a good coach. Also, learn the correct pronunciation of CJ's last name! Coaching Transition - Let's Go So, you want to be a coach!? Awesome. You'll have to move from your current non-coaching state & bring coaching into actuality. Of course, there's the leap of faith method, where you quit everything, metaphorically burn all your ships, and decide you'll be a coach one way or another. Let's try another path, a more deliberate path, where you learn from the wisdom and mistakes of others. Even if coaching become your primary means of income - you find yourself coaching at a big box gym or CrossFit gym, you have to ensure you coach, learn, and avoid burnout. If you're in this position, we can't recommend enough our (completely free) Coaching Kickstarter eBook. Check it out! Avoiding Pitfalls During Your Coaching Transition Whatever path you follow, you must coach. Coach your spouse, your friends, your mom, your kids. Just coach. You need the reps, just as someone who wants to lift needs to get started - even if they have a 1" bar with concrete plates, no lifting shoes or belt, and are searching correct form during the workout. Begin. You need a deliberate learning method. This not only includes the basic academic knowledge - anatomy, physiology, principles of programming, physics - but also a way to reflect on and learn from every coaching session. Just as a novice may not be all that strong but can enjoy the rapid growth of a linear progression, a beginner coach can similar improve quickly through deliberate practice. Ensure your business model is sustainable - and sustainability primarily means in terms of money and time. CJ, for example, knew he had four months of runway before he or his wife would have to begin to earn additional money outside coaching. Similarly, someone who keeps their main job and coaches in their free time will either need to put a time-limit on this practice or ensure that their combined main job and coaching job does not lead to burn out (too much time) or resentment (not charging clients enough). A major pitfall is going professional too early. Example include buying or renting a huge gym space, getting a professionally-designed website, or purchasing some administrative or backend support when you only have a couple paying clients. As you grow as a coach, a more professional website, a bigger space, and other marks of an established, professional coach will come - but don't do the coaching equivalent of buying a treadmill when you've never run a day in your life. Start today, keep learning, know your coaching VIP, and - seriously - download that Coaching Kickstarter eBook. GET STARTED with one-on-one online coaching FOR FREE! Get your FIRST MONTH FREE on all strength and nutrition coaching plans. No discount code needed and includes a 10-day, no obligation trial. https://bit.ly/2MKeOoh Special offers from BLOC and our partners: https://barbell-logic.com/offers/ Connect with the hosts Matt on Instagram Niki on Instagram Connect with the show Barbell Logic on Instagram Podcast Webpage Barbell Logic on Facebook Or email podcast@barbell-logic.com
Mark Goldsmith, author of From Madison Avenue to Rikers Island: The Making of a Social Entrepreneur, is founder and CEO emeritus of Getting Out and Staying Out, a nonprofit that provides educational, vocational, job readiness, counseling, and other services to young men who have been incarcerated. Prior to his nonprofit work, Goldsmith was an executive in the cosmetics industry for more than 35 years, rising through the ranks at companies including Revlon, Yves St. Laurent, and Almay before starting his own company, Inventory Management Systems, specializing in trading excess inventories of well-known brand names for media time at similar values.John Gonzalez was raised and grew up in New York City (Washington Heights). He got involved with the wrong people, which changed the course of his life, and led him into the Criminal Justice System, from 1999-2005 on multiple occasions. He met Mark Goldsmith in 2005 and got involved in Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO) which changed his life. John went from Rikers, to 116th Street, where GOSO, was located. With Mark Goldsmith's support he was able to find employment, get married and begin a new life. He bought his first house at age 23 in Portland, PA. He is now operations manager for a trucking company, in charge of 30 trucks in the Northeast, and has maintained his sobriety and a clean record since 2007.Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO). The vision of GOSO is world where neither a person's race nor contact with the legal system determines their future. The mission of GOSO is to partner with people impacted by arrest and incarceration on a journey of education, employment and emotional wellbeing and collaborates with NYC communities to support a culture of nonviolence.Alex Waters is a technical producer for the Short Fuse Podcast. He is a music producer and a student at the Berklee College of Music. He has written and produced music and edited for podcasts including The Faith and Chai Podcast and Con Confianza. Alex writes, produces and records music for independent artists, including The Living. He lives in Brooklyn can can be reached at: alexwatersmusic12@gmail.com
This week's text is a review of Shenece Oretha: Ah So It Go, A No So It Go, Go So! at Cubitt. It's also the last show of Languid Hands' curatorial fellowship programme at the gallery, so i am rly happy n glad to be writing about this show, and hope i've made it clear that I LOVED THIS SHOW!!! read the text version here: thewhitepube.com/art-reviews/sheneceorethacubitt/ & as per, thank you to our friends on patreon for supporting the writing :)
Genjo Marinello Osho gave this Teisho on the third full day of Spring Sesshin, 2022. This talk examines how we get stuck in our ego perspective and how to free ourselves by finding our ground of being. (Note: Case 37 is not published as a podcast as it will be transcribed and published in the Spring issue of Plum Mountain News.)
Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr. play a new game: GoJo or GoSo? Gordie Gronkowski joins Mojo, Chris Gronkowski and K-Funk to plan Mojo's bachelor party. The guys also try to find a missing Joba. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr. play a new game: GoJo or GoSo? Gordie Gronkowski joins Mojo, Chris Gronkowski and K-Funk to plan Mojo's bachelor party. The guys also try to find a missing Joba. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Stu and Mike Golic are joined by Montana Head Coach Bobby Hauck after his team upset #20 Washington. Bobby explains what the win means for the program, his fantastic post-game celebration and his plans if any one of his players says "we want Bama!" Plus, Stu makes Golic do a lot of work in another edition of GoSo.
Stu and Mike Golic are joined by Montana Head Coach Bobby Hauck after his team upset #20 Washington. Bobby explains what the win means for the program, his fantastic post-game celebration and his plans if any one of his players says "we want Bama!" Plus, Stu makes Golic do a lot of work in another edition of GoSo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Stugotz and the Shipping Container give some TV recommendations, plus Stugotz is joined by a special guest to play a new game he created called GoSo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Join Lori and Agatha Kulaga as they discuss how it's possible to build a socially responsible business while still being profitable. Selling amazing baked goods is the core of what she does, but her focus is also on creating opportunities for people from marginalized communities. Stay tuned as she shares how her values made an impact on the success of her business! Here are the things to expect in this episode: Agatha shares how she came from a social work background before starting her business. How did she use her business as a tool for social change? The various communities and nonprofits she works with. Entering a program for entrepreneurs who wanted to incorporate impact into their business. The impact of openly communicating your values to customers and clients. And more! About Agatha: Agatha Kulaga is the CEO & Co-founder of Ovenly. A lifelong baker turned entrepreneur, with a background in social work research and advocacy, she firmly believes in the power of business for social change. She continues to build a bakery empire while focusing on scaling progressive business practices and leading the company's retail and wholesale growth and expansion. It's no surprise she's been recognized as one of New York's most “badass” leaders in food by Zagat and as one of the Cherry Bombe 100. You can find her in Food & Wine, New York Magazine, Food 52, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Vogue, to name a few. She also co-authored Ovenly: Sweet & Salty Recipes from New York's Most Creative Bakery. Kulaga is an avid speaker for ethical entrepreneurship, mentor, consultant, and advisory member for Women in Hospitality United and The Center for Employment Opportunities. Her favorite color is butter yellow and her favorite treat is the Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie. Connect with Agatha! Website: https://www.oven.ly/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ovenly/ Foundations mentioned: GOSO: https://www.gosonyc.org/ Connect with Lori Kranczer! Website: https://www.everydayplannedgiving.com/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/positiveimpactphilanthropy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorikranczer/
Today’s episode is brought to you in partnership with Beam, my go-to company for anything and everything CBD. I absolutely love the holiday season, but it also can bring on a lot of anxiety for me and this year is no exception. Beam helps me stay calm, cool, and collected and stay present. Check out all of their products at beamtlc.com to find the perfect gift for anyone on your list and use code Freckledfoodie15 for 15% off your order Join the Freckled Foodie Family on Patreon here! Book me for a Cameo here! Donat to the GOSO holiday gift drive here Follow Brittani Lancaster: Instagram: @brittanilancaster Youtube: Brittani Lancaster TikTok: Brittani Lancaster Follow me: Instagram: @freckledfoodie Website: freckledfoodie.com TikTok: freckledfoodie Twitter: @freckledfoodie Youtube: Cameron Rogers / Freckled Foodie Pinterest: Freckled Foodie This episode was edited by Tim Flanzbaum
#028: Did you know that statistics show Black males are far more incarcerated than any other ethnic group or gender? It is no longer a secret that the Black community is overpoliced resulting in 5 times more likelihood of incarceration or negative interactions between young Black men and the police. Young Black men are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.In this episode of Beyond the Culture with Dr. David M. Walker, we have Dr. Jocelynne Rainey. Dr. Rainey is the President and CEO of Getting Out and Staying Out, which is a non-profit organization that has helped over 10,000 formerly incarcerated and justice-involved young men achieve education, secure meaningful employment, and acquire emotional wellbeing. Dr. Rainey discusses the importance of creating equity among young Black men by giving them opportunities after they've been disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system. Listen in to learn how you can invest in the formerly incarcerated to help them become better people in their community. Quotes: · “The work that we do is really about giving them opportunities after they've been disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system.”- Dr. Jocelynne [10:46]· “No one should be penalized forever for their worst deeds.”- Dr. Jocelynne [39:27]What you will learn in this episode: · [3:17] Dr. Jocelynne shares her opinion on the election of Kamala Harris as the first-ever African American vice president of the United States. · [6:00] Get to know Dr. Jocelynne's background in education, personal life, and her role with the Getting Out and Staying Out organization (GOSO). · [9:53] How GOSO helps formerly incarcerated young men by giving them the necessary resources like education and jobs to ensure their success.· [15:53] Dr. Jocelynne talks about her passion for connecting young men with the labor market. · [20:35] The importance of having deeper conversations around policing and prison cultures to bring forth real change. · [24:35] The negative impact of over-policing Black communities.· [28:54] Why there's an advantage in taking some funding from the police and investing in more credible messaging to deal directly with the community.· [32:58] The work that needs to be done around race, poverty, and education to impact the criminal justice system. · [36:30] She talks about her regret in not questioning fairness when she was a young leader.· [38:26] The importance of investing in formerly incarcerated young men and help them to become better people. · [41:05] The power of doing what you love in helping make a difference in the world around you. Relevant Links:Website: https://www.gosonyc.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GOSONYC/ Books: Incarceration Nations by Baz Dreisinger The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
This week, we ask a very important question: how FAR would you GO? So join us as we discuss the brilliance of Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, and William H. Macy in the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. Did Buscemi and Stormare ever get pancakes? There’s only one way to find out as we ask if Fargo holds up!
Episode eighty-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis Presley, and the way his promising comeback after leaving the Army quickly got derailed. This episode also contains a brief acknowledgment of the death of the great Little Richard, who died just as I was recording this episode. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Muleskinner Blues” by the Fendermen. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Resources Apologies for the delay this week — I’ve been unwell, as you might be able to tell from the croaky voice in places. Don’t worry, it’s not anything serious… No Mixcloud this week, as almost every song excerpted is by Elvis, and it would be impossible to do it without breaking Mixcloud’s rules about the number of songs by the same artist. My main source for this episode is Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, the second part of Peter Guralnick’s two-volume biography of Elvis. It’s not *quite* as strong as the first volume, but it’s still by far the best book covering his later years. I also used Reconsider Baby: The Definitive Elvis Sessionography 1954-1977 by Ernst Jorgensen. The box set From Nashville to Memphis contains all Elvis’ sixties studio recordings other than his gospel and soundtrack albums, and thus manages to make a solid case for Elvis’ continued artistic relevance in the sixties, by only including records he chose to make. It’s well worth the very cheap price. And Back in Living Stereo, which rounds up the 1960s public domain Elvis recordings, contains the gospel recordings, outtakes, and home recordings from 1960 through 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Errata I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn’t record it for a few more days. I also say that the Colonel had managed Gene Austin. In fact the Colonel had only promoted shows for Austin, not been his manager. Transcript ERRATUM: I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn’t record it for a few more days. Before I start this week’s episode, I had to mark the death of Little Richard. We’ve already covered his work of course, in episodes on “Tutti Frutti” and “Keep A Knockin'”, and I don’t really have a lot to add to those episodes in terms of his importance to twentieth-century music. We can argue about which of Elvis, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard was the most important artist of the fifties, but I don’t think you can make a good argument that anyone other than one of those three was, and I don’t think you can argue that those three weren’t the three most important in whatever order. Without Little Richard, none of the music we’re covering in this podcast after 1955 would be the same, and this podcast would not exist. There are still a handful of people alive who made records we’ve looked at in the podcast, but without intending the slightest offence to any of them, none are as important a link in the historical chain as Richard Penniman was. So, before the episode proper, let’s have a few moments’ noise in memory of the force of nature who described himself as the King and Queen of Rock and Roll: [Excerpt: Little Richard, “Ooh! My Soul!”] Now on to the main podcast itself. Today we’re going to take what will be, for a while, our last look at Elvis Presley. He will show up in the background of some other episodes as we go through the sixties, and I plan to take a final look at him in a hundred or so episodes, but for now, as we’re entering the sixties, we’re leaving behind those fifties rockers, and Elvis is one of those we’re definitely leaving for now. Elvis’ two years spent in the Army had changed him profoundly. His mother had died, he’d been separated from everyone he knew, and he’d met a young woman named Priscilla, who was several years younger than him but who would many years later end up becoming his wife. And the music world had changed while he was gone. Rockabilly had totally disappeared from the charts, and all the musicians who had come up with Elvis had moved into orchestrated pop like Roy Orbison or into pure country like Johnny Cash, with the exception of a handful like Gene Vincent who were no longer having hits, at least in the US. Elvis had, though, continued to have hits. He’d recorded enough in 1958 for RCA to have a tiny stockpile of recordings they could issue as singles over the intervening two years — “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck”, “Hard-Headed Woman”, “One Night”, “I Need Your Love Tonight”, and “A Big Hunk O’ Love”. Along with those hits, they repackaged several single-only recordings into new albums, and managed to keep Elvis in the spotlight despite him not recording any new material. This had been a plan of the Colonel’s from the moment it became clear that Elvis was going to be drafted — his strategy then, and from then on, was to record precisely as much material for RCA as the contracts stipulated they were entitled to, and not one song more. His thinking was that if Elvis recorded more songs than they needed to release at any given time, then there would be nothing for him to use as leverage in contract negotiations. The contract wasn’t due for renegotiation any time soon, of course, but you don’t want to take that chance. This meant that Elvis didn’t have long to relax at home before he had to go back into the studio. He had a couple of weeks to settle in at Graceland — the home he had bought for his mother, but had barely spent any time in before being drafted, and which was now going to be inhabited by Elvis, his father, and his father’s new, much younger, girlfriend, of whom Elvis definitely did not approve. In that time he made visits to the cinema, and to an ice-dancing show — he went to the performance for black people, rather than the one for whites, as Memphis was still segregated, and he made a brief impromptu appearance at that show himself, conducting the orchestra. And most importantly to him, he visited the grave of his mother for the first time. But two weeks and one day after his discharge from the Army, he was back in the studio, recording tracks for what would be his first album of new material since his Christmas album two and a half years earlier. We talked a little bit, a few weeks back, about the Nashville Sound, the new sound that had become popular in country music, and how Chet Atkins, who had produced several of Elvis’ early recordings, had been vitally responsible for the development of that sound. Many of the Nashville A-team, the musicians who were responsible for making those records with Atkins or the other main producer of the sound, Owen Bradley, had played on Elvis’ last session before he went into the Army, and they were at this session, though to keep fans from congregating outside, they were told they were going to be playing on a Jim Reeves session — Reeves was one of the country singers who were having hits with that sound, with records like “He’ll Have to Go”: [Excerpt: Jim Reeves, “He’ll Have to Go”] So with Chet Atkins in the control booth, the musicians were Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland — the great guitarist who had briefly replaced Scotty Moore on stage when Elvis and his band had split; Floyd Cramer, who had been playing piano with Elvis on record since his first RCA session, Buddy Harman, who had doubled DJ Fontana on percussion on Elvis’ last session from 58, on drums, and Bob Moore, who had played bass on those sessions, back on bass. And of course the Jordanaires were at the session as well — as well as having sung on Elvis’ pre-Army records, they were also part of the Nashville A-Team, and were the go-to male backing vocalists for anyone in Nashville making a country or pop record. Scotty and DJ were there, too, but they were in much reduced roles — Scotty was playing rhythm guitar, rather than lead, and DJ was only one of two drummers on the session. Bill Black was not included at all — Black had always been the one who would try to push for more recognition, and he was now a star in his own right, with his Bill Black Combo. He would never record with Elvis again. The session took a while to get going — the first hour or so was spent ordering in hamburgers, listening to demos, and Elvis and Bobby Moore showing each other karate moves — and then the first song they recorded, an Otis Blackwell number titled “Make Me Know It” took a further nineteen takes before they had a satisfactory one: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Make Me Know It”] Elvis’ voice had improved dramatically during his time in the Army — he had been practising a lot, with his new friend Charlie Hodge, and had added a full octave to his vocal range, and he was eager to display his newfound ability to tackle other kinds of material. But at the same time, all the reports from everyone in the studio suggest that these early sessions were somewhat hesitant. The best song from this initial session was Pomus and Shuman’s “A Mess of Blues”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “A Mess of Blues”] But it was a song by Aaron Schroeder and Leslie McFarland that was chosen for the first single — a mediocre track called “Stuck on You”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Stuck on You”] Such was the demand for new Elvis material that the single of “Stuck on You” backed with “Fame and Fortune” was released within seventy-two hours. By that time, RCA had printed up 1.4 million copies of the single, just to fulfil the advance orders — they came out in sleeves that just read “Elvis’ 1st New Recording For His 50,000,000 Fans All Over The World”, because when they were printing the sleeves the record company had no idea what songs Elvis was going to record. By that time, Elvis had already made what would turn out to be his only TV appearance for eight years. The Colonel had arranged for a TV special, to be hosted by Frank Sinatra — The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. Most of that special was the standard Rat Packisms, with Sinatra joined by Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra had not been at all complimentary about Elvis before he’d gone into the Army, and in later years would continue to be insulting about him, but money was money, and so Sinatra put on a grin and pretended to be happy to be working with him. The train trip to Florida to record the TV show was something Scotty Moore would always remember, saying that at every single crossroads the train tracks went past, there were people lined up to cheer on the train, and that the only comparisons he could make to that trip were the funeral journeys of Lincoln and Roosevelt’s bodies. Scotty also remembered one other thing about the trip — that Elvis had offered him some of the little pills he’d been taking in the Army, to keep him awake and alert. Elvis, Scotty, and DJ were friendly enough on the train journey, but when they got to Miami they found that during the week they were in rehearsals, Scotty, DJ, and the Jordanaires were forbidden from socialising with Elvis, by order of the Colonel. The TV show was one of a very small number of times in the sixties that Elvis would perform for an audience, and here, dressed in a dinner jacket and clearly attempting to prove he was now a family-friendly entertainer, he looks deeply uncomfortable at first, as he croons his way through “Fame and Fortune”. He gets into his stride with the other side of his single, “Stuck on You”, and then Sinatra joins him for a duet, where Sinatra sings “Love Me Tender” while Elvis sings Sinatra’s “Witchcraft”. Watching the footage, you can see that by this point Elvis is completely comfortable in front of the audience again, and frankly he wipes the floor with Sinatra. Sinatra is trying to mock “Love Me Tender”, but Elvis takes Sinatra’s song completely straight, but at the same time knows exactly how ridiculous he is being: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, “Love Me Tender/Witchcraft”] There’s a passage in Umberto Eco’s book about writing The Name of the Rose, where he talks about the meaning of postmodernism. He explains that an unsophisticated writer like Barbara Cartland might write “I love you madly”. A sophisticated modernist writer would recognise that as a cliche, and so choose not to write about love at all, having no language to do it in, and mock those who did. And a postmodernist would embrace and acknowledge the cliche, writing “As Barbara Cartland might say, ‘I love you madly'”. This, crucially, means that the postmodernist is, once again, able to talk about real emotions, which the modernist (in Eco’s view) can’t. By this definition, Sinatra’s performance is modernist — he’s just showing contempt for the material — while Elvis is postmodernist, sincere even as he’s also knowingly mocking himself. It comes across far more in the video footage, which is easily findable online, but you can hear some of it just in the audio recording: [Excerpt: Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, “Love Me Tender/Witchcraft”] A week later, Elvis was back in the studio, with the same musicians as before, along with Boots Randolph on saxophone, to record the rest of the tracks for his new album, to be titled Elvis is Back! Elvis is Back! is quite possibly the most consistent studio album Elvis ever made, and that second 1960 session is where the most impressive material on the album was recorded. They started out with a version of “Fever” that easily measured up to the original by Little Willie John and the most famous version by Peggy Lee, with Elvis backed just by Bobby Moore on bass and the two drummers: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Fever”] Then there was “Like a Baby”, a song originally recorded by Vikki Nelson, and written by Jesse Stone, who had written so many R&B classics before. This saw some of Elvis’ best blues vocals: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Like a Baby”] The next song was a huge departure from anything he’d done previously. Elvis had always loved Tony Martin’s 1950 hit “There’s No Tomorrow”: [Excerpt: Tony Martin, “There’s No Tomorrow”] That had become one of the songs he rehearsed with Charlie Hodge in Germany, and he’d mentioned the idea of recording it. But, of course, “There’s No Tomorrow” was based on the old song “O Sole Mio”, which at the time was considered to be in the public domain (though in fact a later Italian court ruling means that even though it was composed in 1897, it will remain in copyright until 2042), so Freddy Bienstock at Hill and Range, the publishing company that supplied Elvis with material, commissioned a new set of lyrics for it, and it became “It’s Now or Never”. Elvis did several near-perfect takes of the song, but then kept flubbing the ending, which required a particularly powerful, sustained, note. Bill Porter, who was engineering, suggested that they could do a take of just that bit and then splice it on to the rest, but Elvis was determined. He was going to do the song all the way through, or he was not going to do it. Eventually he got it, and the result was extraordinary, nothing like any performance he’d given previously: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “It’s Now Or Never”] That would go to number one, as would another non-album single from this session. This one was the only song the Colonel had ever asked Elvis to record, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” That song had been written in 1926, and had been a hit in several versions, most notably the version by Al Jolson: [Excerpt: Al Jolson, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”] But the Colonel had two reasons for wanting Elvis to record the song. The first was that, while the Colonel didn’t have much interest in music, he associated the song with Gene Austin, the country singer who had been the first act the Colonel had managed, and so he had a sentimental fondness for it. And the second was that it was the Colonel’s wife Marie’s favourite song. While the studio was normally brightly lit, for this song Elvis made sure that no-one other than the few musicians on the track, which only featured acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, were in the studio, and that all the lights were off. He did one take of the song, on which the Jordanaires apparently made a mistake. He then did a false start, and decided to give up on the song, but Steve Sholes, RCA’s A&R man, insisted that the song could be a hit. They eventually got through it, although even the finished take of the song contains one mistake — because the song was recorded in the dark, the musicians couldn’t see the microphones, and you can hear someone bumping into a mic during the spoken bridge: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”] Despite that flaw, the track was released as a single, and became a massive success, and a song that would stay in Elvis’ repertoire until his very last shows. During that one overnight session, Elvis and the band recorded twelve songs, covering a stylistic range that’s almost inconceivable. There was a Leiber and Stoller rocker left over from “King Creole”, a cover version of “Such a Night”, the hit for Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, the old Lowell Fulson blues song “Reconsider Baby”, the light Latin pop song “The Girl of My Best Friend”, a Louvin Brothers style duet with Charlie Hodge — in one session Elvis managed to cover every style of American popular song as of 1960, and do it all well. In total, between this session and the previous one, Elvis recorded eighteen tracks — three singles and a twelve-track album — and while they were slicker and more polished than the Sun recordings, it’s very easy to make the case that they were every bit as artistically successful, and this was certainly the best creative work he had done since signing to RCA. All three singles went to number one, and the Elvis Is Back! album went to number two, and sold half a million copies. But then, only three weeks after that session, he was in a different studio, cutting very different material. His first post-Army film was going to be a quick, light, comedy, called “GI Blues”, intended to present a new, wholesome, image for Elvis. Elvis disliked the script, and he was also annoyed when he got into the recording studio in Hollywood, which was used for his film songs, to discover that he wasn’t going to be recording any Leiber and Stoller songs for this film, for what the Colonel told him were “business reasons” — Elvis seems not to have been aware that the Colonel had made them persona non grata. Instead, he was to record a set of songs mostly written by people like Sid Wayne, Abner Silver, Sid Tepper, and Fred Wise, journeymen songwriters with little taste for rock and roll. Typical of the songs was one called “Wooden Heart”, based on an old German folk song, and with a co-writing credit to the German bandleader Bert Kaempfert (of whom we’ll hear a little more in a future episode): [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Wooden Heart”] Now, one should be careful when criticising Elvis’ film songs, because they were written for a specific context. These aren’t songs that were intended to be listened to as singles or albums, but they were intended to drive a plot forward, and to exist in the context of a film. Taking them out of that context is a bit like just writing down all the lines spoken by one character in a film and complaining that they don’t work as a poem. There’s a habit even among Elvis’ fans, let alone his detractors, of dunking on some of the songs he recorded for film soundtracks without taking that into account, and it does rather miss the point. But at the same time, they still had to be *performed* as songs, not as parts of films, and it was apparent that Elvis wasn’t happy with them. Bones Howe, who was working on the sessions, said that Elvis had lost something when compared to his pre-Army work — he was now trying, and often failing, to find his way into a performance which, pre-Army, he would have been able to do naturally. But when you compare his performances from the Elvis is Back! sessions, it’s clear that the time in the Army wasn’t the problem — it’s just that Elvis had no desire to be singing those songs or appearing in this film. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “GI Blues”] Elvis told the Colonel that at least half the songs for the film soundtrack had to be scrapped, but the Colonel told him he was locked into them by contract, and he just had to do the best he could with them. And he did — he gave as good a performance as possible, both in the film and on the songs. But his heart wasn’t in it. He was placated, though, by being told that his next couple of films would be *proper films*, like the ones he’d been making before going into the Army. These next two films were made back-to-back. Flaming Star was a Western with a rather heavy-handed message about racism, starring Elvis as a mixed-race man who felt at home neither with white people nor Native Americans, and directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to direct Dirty Harry. Elvis’ role was originally intended for Marlon Brando, his acting idol, and he only sang one song in the film, other than the title song which played over the credits. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Flaming Star”] And then he made Wild in the Country, which featured only a very small number of songs, and had Elvis playing a troubled young man who has to get court-ordered psychological counselling, but eventually goes off to college to become a writer. There’s quite a bit of debate about the merits of both these films, and of Elvis’ acting in them, but there’s no doubt at all that they were intended to be serious films, even more so than Jailhouse Rock and King Creole had been. After filming these three films, Elvis went back into the studio for another overnight session, to record another album. This time, it was a gospel album, his first full-length gospel record. His Hand in Mine was possibly the purest expression of Elvis’ own musical instincts yet — he had always wanted to be a singer in a gospel quartet, and now he was singing gospel songs with the Jordanaires, exactly as he’d wanted to: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “His Hand in Mine”] So in 1960, Elvis had recorded two very different, but hugely artistically satisfying, albums, and had made three films, of which he could reasonably be proud of two. Unfortunately for him, it was the film he didn’t like, GI Blues, that was the big success — and while Elvis Is Back had gone to number two and sold half a million copies, the soundtrack to GI Blues went to number one and stayed there for eleven weeks, and sold a million copies — an absurd number at a time when albums generally sold very little. His Hand in Mine only made number thirteen. The same pattern happened the next year — a studio album was massively outsold by the soundtrack album for Blue Hawaii, a mindless film that was full of sea, sand, and bikinis, and which featured dreadful songs like “Ito Eats”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Ito Eats”] There would be a couple more films in 1961 and 62, Kid Galahad and Follow That Dream, which tried to do a little more, and which weren’t as successful as Blue Hawaii. From that point on, the die was cast for Elvis. The Colonel wasn’t going to let him appear in any more dramatic roles. The films were all going to be light comedies, set somewhere exotic like Hawaii or Acapulco, and featuring Elvis as a surfer or a race-car driver or a surfing race-car driver, lots of girls in bikinis, and lots of songs called things like “There’s No Room To Rhumba in a Sports Car”. When Elvis got a chance to go into the studio and just make records, as he occasionally did over the next few years, he would make music that was as good as anything he ever did, but starting in 1962 there was a routine of three films a year, almost all interchangeable, and until 1968 Elvis wouldn’t be able to step off that treadmill. After 68, he did make a handful of films in which, again, he tried to be an actor, but after twenty or so lightweight films about beaches and bikinis, no-one noticed. As a result, Elvis mostly sat out the sixties. While the music world was changing all around him, he was an irrelevance to the new generation of musicians, who mostly agreed with John Lennon that “Elvis died when he went into the Army”. We’ll pick up his story in 1968, when he finally got off the treadmill.
Episode eighty-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” by Elvis Presley, and the way his promising comeback after leaving the Army quickly got derailed. This episode also contains a brief acknowledgment of the death of the great Little Richard, who died just as I was recording this episode. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Muleskinner Blues” by the Fendermen. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Resources Apologies for the delay this week — I’ve been unwell, as you might be able to tell from the croaky voice in places. Don’t worry, it’s not anything serious… No Mixcloud this week, as almost every song excerpted is by Elvis, and it would be impossible to do it without breaking Mixcloud’s rules about the number of songs by the same artist. My main source for this episode is Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, the second part of Peter Guralnick’s two-volume biography of Elvis. It’s not *quite* as strong as the first volume, but it’s still by far the best book covering his later years. I also used Reconsider Baby: The Definitive Elvis Sessionography 1954-1977 by Ernst Jorgensen. The box set From Nashville to Memphis contains all Elvis’ sixties studio recordings other than his gospel and soundtrack albums, and thus manages to make a solid case for Elvis’ continued artistic relevance in the sixties, by only including records he chose to make. It’s well worth the very cheap price. And Back in Living Stereo, which rounds up the 1960s public domain Elvis recordings, contains the gospel recordings, outtakes, and home recordings from 1960 through 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Errata I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn’t record it for a few more days. I also say that the Colonel had managed Gene Austin. In fact the Colonel had only promoted shows for Austin, not been his manager. Transcript ERRATUM: I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn’t record it for a few more days. Before I start this week’s episode, I had to mark the death of Little Richard. We’ve already covered his work of course, in episodes on “Tutti Frutti” and “Keep A Knockin'”, and I don’t really have a lot to add to those episodes in terms of his importance to twentieth-century music. We can argue about which of Elvis, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard was the most important artist of the fifties, but I don’t think you can make a good argument that anyone other than one of those three was, and I don’t think you can argue that those three weren’t the three most important in whatever order. Without Little Richard, none of the music we’re covering in this podcast after 1955 would be the same, and this podcast would not exist. There are still a handful of people alive who made records we’ve looked at in the podcast, but without intending the slightest offence to any of them, none are as important a link in the historical chain as Richard Penniman was. So, before the episode proper, let’s have a few moments’ noise in memory of the force of nature who described himself as the King and Queen of Rock and Roll: [Excerpt: Little Richard, “Ooh! My Soul!”] Now on to the main podcast itself. Today we’re going to take what will be, for a while, our last look at Elvis Presley. He will show up in the background of some other episodes as we go through the sixties, and I plan to take a final look at him in a hundred or so episodes, but for now, as we’re entering the sixties, we’re leaving behind those fifties rockers, and Elvis is one of those we’re definitely leaving for now. Elvis’ two years spent in the Army had changed him profoundly. His mother had died, he’d been separated from everyone he knew, and he’d met a young woman named Priscilla, who was several years younger than him but who would many years later end up becoming his wife. And the music world had changed while he was gone. Rockabilly had totally disappeared from the charts, and all the musicians who had come up with Elvis had moved into orchestrated pop like Roy Orbison or into pure country like Johnny Cash, with the exception of a handful like Gene Vincent who were no longer having hits, at least in the US. Elvis had, though, continued to have hits. He’d recorded enough in 1958 for RCA to have a tiny stockpile of recordings they could issue as singles over the intervening two years — “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck”, “Hard-Headed Woman”, “One Night”, “I Need Your Love Tonight”, and “A Big Hunk O’ Love”. Along with those hits, they repackaged several single-only recordings into new albums, and managed to keep Elvis in the spotlight despite him not recording any new material. This had been a plan of the Colonel’s from the moment it became clear that Elvis was going to be drafted — his strategy then, and from then on, was to record precisely as much material for RCA as the contracts stipulated they were entitled to, and not one song more. His thinking was that if Elvis recorded more songs than they needed to release at any given time, then there would be nothing for him to use as leverage in contract negotiations. The contract wasn’t due for renegotiation any time soon, of course, but you don’t want to take that chance. This meant that Elvis didn’t have long to relax at home before he had to go back into the studio. He had a couple of weeks to settle in at Graceland — the home he had bought for his mother, but had barely spent any time in before being drafted, and which was now going to be inhabited by Elvis, his father, and his father’s new, much younger, girlfriend, of whom Elvis definitely did not approve. In that time he made visits to the cinema, and to an ice-dancing show — he went to the performance for black people, rather than the one for whites, as Memphis was still segregated, and he made a brief impromptu appearance at that show himself, conducting the orchestra. And most importantly to him, he visited the grave of his mother for the first time. But two weeks and one day after his discharge from the Army, he was back in the studio, recording tracks for what would be his first album of new material since his Christmas album two and a half years earlier. We talked a little bit, a few weeks back, about the Nashville Sound, the new sound that had become popular in country music, and how Chet Atkins, who had produced several of Elvis’ early recordings, had been vitally responsible for the development of that sound. Many of the Nashville A-team, the musicians who were responsible for making those records with Atkins or the other main producer of the sound, Owen Bradley, had played on Elvis’ last session before he went into the Army, and they were at this session, though to keep fans from congregating outside, they were told they were going to be playing on a Jim Reeves session — Reeves was one of the country singers who were having hits with that sound, with records like “He’ll Have to Go”: [Excerpt: Jim Reeves, “He’ll Have to Go”] So with Chet Atkins in the control booth, the musicians were Hank “Sugarfoot” Garland — the great guitarist who had briefly replaced Scotty Moore on stage when Elvis and his band had split; Floyd Cramer, who had been playing piano with Elvis on record since his first RCA session, Buddy Harman, who had doubled DJ Fontana on percussion on Elvis’ last session from 58, on drums, and Bob Moore, who had played bass on those sessions, back on bass. And of course the Jordanaires were at the session as well — as well as having sung on Elvis’ pre-Army records, they were also part of the Nashville A-Team, and were the go-to male backing vocalists for anyone in Nashville making a country or pop record. Scotty and DJ were there, too, but they were in much reduced roles — Scotty was playing rhythm guitar, rather than lead, and DJ was only one of two drummers on the session. Bill Black was not included at all — Black had always been the one who would try to push for more recognition, and he was now a star in his own right, with his Bill Black Combo. He would never record with Elvis again. The session took a while to get going — the first hour or so was spent ordering in hamburgers, listening to demos, and Elvis and Bobby Moore showing each other karate moves — and then the first song they recorded, an Otis Blackwell number titled “Make Me Know It” took a further nineteen takes before they had a satisfactory one: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Make Me Know It”] Elvis’ voice had improved dramatically during his time in the Army — he had been practising a lot, with his new friend Charlie Hodge, and had added a full octave to his vocal range, and he was eager to display his newfound ability to tackle other kinds of material. But at the same time, all the reports from everyone in the studio suggest that these early sessions were somewhat hesitant. The best song from this initial session was Pomus and Shuman’s “A Mess of Blues”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “A Mess of Blues”] But it was a song by Aaron Schroeder and Leslie McFarland that was chosen for the first single — a mediocre track called “Stuck on You”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Stuck on You”] Such was the demand for new Elvis material that the single of “Stuck on You” backed with “Fame and Fortune” was released within seventy-two hours. By that time, RCA had printed up 1.4 million copies of the single, just to fulfil the advance orders — they came out in sleeves that just read “Elvis’ 1st New Recording For His 50,000,000 Fans All Over The World”, because when they were printing the sleeves the record company had no idea what songs Elvis was going to record. By that time, Elvis had already made what would turn out to be his only TV appearance for eight years. The Colonel had arranged for a TV special, to be hosted by Frank Sinatra — The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. Most of that special was the standard Rat Packisms, with Sinatra joined by Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra had not been at all complimentary about Elvis before he’d gone into the Army, and in later years would continue to be insulting about him, but money was money, and so Sinatra put on a grin and pretended to be happy to be working with him. The train trip to Florida to record the TV show was something Scotty Moore would always remember, saying that at every single crossroads the train tracks went past, there were people lined up to cheer on the train, and that the only comparisons he could make to that trip were the funeral journeys of Lincoln and Roosevelt’s bodies. Scotty also remembered one other thing about the trip — that Elvis had offered him some of the little pills he’d been taking in the Army, to keep him awake and alert. Elvis, Scotty, and DJ were friendly enough on the train journey, but when they got to Miami they found that during the week they were in rehearsals, Scotty, DJ, and the Jordanaires were forbidden from socialising with Elvis, by order of the Colonel. The TV show was one of a very small number of times in the sixties that Elvis would perform for an audience, and here, dressed in a dinner jacket and clearly attempting to prove he was now a family-friendly entertainer, he looks deeply uncomfortable at first, as he croons his way through “Fame and Fortune”. He gets into his stride with the other side of his single, “Stuck on You”, and then Sinatra joins him for a duet, where Sinatra sings “Love Me Tender” while Elvis sings Sinatra’s “Witchcraft”. Watching the footage, you can see that by this point Elvis is completely comfortable in front of the audience again, and frankly he wipes the floor with Sinatra. Sinatra is trying to mock “Love Me Tender”, but Elvis takes Sinatra’s song completely straight, but at the same time knows exactly how ridiculous he is being: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, “Love Me Tender/Witchcraft”] There’s a passage in Umberto Eco’s book about writing The Name of the Rose, where he talks about the meaning of postmodernism. He explains that an unsophisticated writer like Barbara Cartland might write “I love you madly”. A sophisticated modernist writer would recognise that as a cliche, and so choose not to write about love at all, having no language to do it in, and mock those who did. And a postmodernist would embrace and acknowledge the cliche, writing “As Barbara Cartland might say, ‘I love you madly'”. This, crucially, means that the postmodernist is, once again, able to talk about real emotions, which the modernist (in Eco’s view) can’t. By this definition, Sinatra’s performance is modernist — he’s just showing contempt for the material — while Elvis is postmodernist, sincere even as he’s also knowingly mocking himself. It comes across far more in the video footage, which is easily findable online, but you can hear some of it just in the audio recording: [Excerpt: Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, “Love Me Tender/Witchcraft”] A week later, Elvis was back in the studio, with the same musicians as before, along with Boots Randolph on saxophone, to record the rest of the tracks for his new album, to be titled Elvis is Back! Elvis is Back! is quite possibly the most consistent studio album Elvis ever made, and that second 1960 session is where the most impressive material on the album was recorded. They started out with a version of “Fever” that easily measured up to the original by Little Willie John and the most famous version by Peggy Lee, with Elvis backed just by Bobby Moore on bass and the two drummers: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Fever”] Then there was “Like a Baby”, a song originally recorded by Vikki Nelson, and written by Jesse Stone, who had written so many R&B classics before. This saw some of Elvis’ best blues vocals: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Like a Baby”] The next song was a huge departure from anything he’d done previously. Elvis had always loved Tony Martin’s 1950 hit “There’s No Tomorrow”: [Excerpt: Tony Martin, “There’s No Tomorrow”] That had become one of the songs he rehearsed with Charlie Hodge in Germany, and he’d mentioned the idea of recording it. But, of course, “There’s No Tomorrow” was based on the old song “O Sole Mio”, which at the time was considered to be in the public domain (though in fact a later Italian court ruling means that even though it was composed in 1897, it will remain in copyright until 2042), so Freddy Bienstock at Hill and Range, the publishing company that supplied Elvis with material, commissioned a new set of lyrics for it, and it became “It’s Now or Never”. Elvis did several near-perfect takes of the song, but then kept flubbing the ending, which required a particularly powerful, sustained, note. Bill Porter, who was engineering, suggested that they could do a take of just that bit and then splice it on to the rest, but Elvis was determined. He was going to do the song all the way through, or he was not going to do it. Eventually he got it, and the result was extraordinary, nothing like any performance he’d given previously: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “It’s Now Or Never”] That would go to number one, as would another non-album single from this session. This one was the only song the Colonel had ever asked Elvis to record, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” That song had been written in 1926, and had been a hit in several versions, most notably the version by Al Jolson: [Excerpt: Al Jolson, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”] But the Colonel had two reasons for wanting Elvis to record the song. The first was that, while the Colonel didn’t have much interest in music, he associated the song with Gene Austin, the country singer who had been the first act the Colonel had managed, and so he had a sentimental fondness for it. And the second was that it was the Colonel’s wife Marie’s favourite song. While the studio was normally brightly lit, for this song Elvis made sure that no-one other than the few musicians on the track, which only featured acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, were in the studio, and that all the lights were off. He did one take of the song, on which the Jordanaires apparently made a mistake. He then did a false start, and decided to give up on the song, but Steve Sholes, RCA’s A&R man, insisted that the song could be a hit. They eventually got through it, although even the finished take of the song contains one mistake — because the song was recorded in the dark, the musicians couldn’t see the microphones, and you can hear someone bumping into a mic during the spoken bridge: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”] Despite that flaw, the track was released as a single, and became a massive success, and a song that would stay in Elvis’ repertoire until his very last shows. During that one overnight session, Elvis and the band recorded twelve songs, covering a stylistic range that’s almost inconceivable. There was a Leiber and Stoller rocker left over from “King Creole”, a cover version of “Such a Night”, the hit for Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, the old Lowell Fulson blues song “Reconsider Baby”, the light Latin pop song “The Girl of My Best Friend”, a Louvin Brothers style duet with Charlie Hodge — in one session Elvis managed to cover every style of American popular song as of 1960, and do it all well. In total, between this session and the previous one, Elvis recorded eighteen tracks — three singles and a twelve-track album — and while they were slicker and more polished than the Sun recordings, it’s very easy to make the case that they were every bit as artistically successful, and this was certainly the best creative work he had done since signing to RCA. All three singles went to number one, and the Elvis Is Back! album went to number two, and sold half a million copies. But then, only three weeks after that session, he was in a different studio, cutting very different material. His first post-Army film was going to be a quick, light, comedy, called “GI Blues”, intended to present a new, wholesome, image for Elvis. Elvis disliked the script, and he was also annoyed when he got into the recording studio in Hollywood, which was used for his film songs, to discover that he wasn’t going to be recording any Leiber and Stoller songs for this film, for what the Colonel told him were “business reasons” — Elvis seems not to have been aware that the Colonel had made them persona non grata. Instead, he was to record a set of songs mostly written by people like Sid Wayne, Abner Silver, Sid Tepper, and Fred Wise, journeymen songwriters with little taste for rock and roll. Typical of the songs was one called “Wooden Heart”, based on an old German folk song, and with a co-writing credit to the German bandleader Bert Kaempfert (of whom we’ll hear a little more in a future episode): [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Wooden Heart”] Now, one should be careful when criticising Elvis’ film songs, because they were written for a specific context. These aren’t songs that were intended to be listened to as singles or albums, but they were intended to drive a plot forward, and to exist in the context of a film. Taking them out of that context is a bit like just writing down all the lines spoken by one character in a film and complaining that they don’t work as a poem. There’s a habit even among Elvis’ fans, let alone his detractors, of dunking on some of the songs he recorded for film soundtracks without taking that into account, and it does rather miss the point. But at the same time, they still had to be *performed* as songs, not as parts of films, and it was apparent that Elvis wasn’t happy with them. Bones Howe, who was working on the sessions, said that Elvis had lost something when compared to his pre-Army work — he was now trying, and often failing, to find his way into a performance which, pre-Army, he would have been able to do naturally. But when you compare his performances from the Elvis is Back! sessions, it’s clear that the time in the Army wasn’t the problem — it’s just that Elvis had no desire to be singing those songs or appearing in this film. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “GI Blues”] Elvis told the Colonel that at least half the songs for the film soundtrack had to be scrapped, but the Colonel told him he was locked into them by contract, and he just had to do the best he could with them. And he did — he gave as good a performance as possible, both in the film and on the songs. But his heart wasn’t in it. He was placated, though, by being told that his next couple of films would be *proper films*, like the ones he’d been making before going into the Army. These next two films were made back-to-back. Flaming Star was a Western with a rather heavy-handed message about racism, starring Elvis as a mixed-race man who felt at home neither with white people nor Native Americans, and directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to direct Dirty Harry. Elvis’ role was originally intended for Marlon Brando, his acting idol, and he only sang one song in the film, other than the title song which played over the credits. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Flaming Star”] And then he made Wild in the Country, which featured only a very small number of songs, and had Elvis playing a troubled young man who has to get court-ordered psychological counselling, but eventually goes off to college to become a writer. There’s quite a bit of debate about the merits of both these films, and of Elvis’ acting in them, but there’s no doubt at all that they were intended to be serious films, even more so than Jailhouse Rock and King Creole had been. After filming these three films, Elvis went back into the studio for another overnight session, to record another album. This time, it was a gospel album, his first full-length gospel record. His Hand in Mine was possibly the purest expression of Elvis’ own musical instincts yet — he had always wanted to be a singer in a gospel quartet, and now he was singing gospel songs with the Jordanaires, exactly as he’d wanted to: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “His Hand in Mine”] So in 1960, Elvis had recorded two very different, but hugely artistically satisfying, albums, and had made three films, of which he could reasonably be proud of two. Unfortunately for him, it was the film he didn’t like, GI Blues, that was the big success — and while Elvis Is Back had gone to number two and sold half a million copies, the soundtrack to GI Blues went to number one and stayed there for eleven weeks, and sold a million copies — an absurd number at a time when albums generally sold very little. His Hand in Mine only made number thirteen. The same pattern happened the next year — a studio album was massively outsold by the soundtrack album for Blue Hawaii, a mindless film that was full of sea, sand, and bikinis, and which featured dreadful songs like “Ito Eats”: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Ito Eats”] There would be a couple more films in 1961 and 62, Kid Galahad and Follow That Dream, which tried to do a little more, and which weren’t as successful as Blue Hawaii. From that point on, the die was cast for Elvis. The Colonel wasn’t going to let him appear in any more dramatic roles. The films were all going to be light comedies, set somewhere exotic like Hawaii or Acapulco, and featuring Elvis as a surfer or a race-car driver or a surfing race-car driver, lots of girls in bikinis, and lots of songs called things like “There’s No Room To Rhumba in a Sports Car”. When Elvis got a chance to go into the studio and just make records, as he occasionally did over the next few years, he would make music that was as good as anything he ever did, but starting in 1962 there was a routine of three films a year, almost all interchangeable, and until 1968 Elvis wouldn’t be able to step off that treadmill. After 68, he did make a handful of films in which, again, he tried to be an actor, but after twenty or so lightweight films about beaches and bikinis, no-one noticed. As a result, Elvis mostly sat out the sixties. While the music world was changing all around him, he was an irrelevance to the new generation of musicians, who mostly agreed with John Lennon that “Elvis died when he went into the Army”. We’ll pick up his story in 1968, when he finally got off the treadmill.
Episode eighty-two of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" by Elvis Presley, and the way his promising comeback after leaving the Army quickly got derailed. This episode also contains a brief acknowledgment of the death of the great Little Richard, who died just as I was recording this episode. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Muleskinner Blues" by the Fendermen. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more---- Resources Apologies for the delay this week -- I've been unwell, as you might be able to tell from the croaky voice in places. Don't worry, it's not anything serious... No Mixcloud this week, as almost every song excerpted is by Elvis, and it would be impossible to do it without breaking Mixcloud's rules about the number of songs by the same artist. My main source for this episode is Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, the second part of Peter Guralnick's two-volume biography of Elvis. It's not *quite* as strong as the first volume, but it's still by far the best book covering his later years. I also used Reconsider Baby: The Definitive Elvis Sessionography 1954-1977 by Ernst Jorgensen. The box set From Nashville to Memphis contains all Elvis' sixties studio recordings other than his gospel and soundtrack albums, and thus manages to make a solid case for Elvis' continued artistic relevance in the sixties, by only including records he chose to make. It's well worth the very cheap price. And Back in Living Stereo, which rounds up the 1960s public domain Elvis recordings, contains the gospel recordings, outtakes, and home recordings from 1960 through 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Errata I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn't record it for a few more days. I also say that the Colonel had managed Gene Austin. In fact the Colonel had only promoted shows for Austin, not been his manager. Transcript ERRATUM: I say that by the time “Stuck on You” had come out, Elvis had already made his TV appearance with Sinatra. In actual fact, he was still rehearsing for it, and wouldn't record it for a few more days. Before I start this week's episode, I had to mark the death of Little Richard. We've already covered his work of course, in episodes on "Tutti Frutti" and "Keep A Knockin'", and I don't really have a lot to add to those episodes in terms of his importance to twentieth-century music. We can argue about which of Elvis, Chuck Berry, or Little Richard was the most important artist of the fifties, but I don't think you can make a good argument that anyone other than one of those three was, and I don't think you can argue that those three weren't the three most important in whatever order. Without Little Richard, none of the music we're covering in this podcast after 1955 would be the same, and this podcast would not exist. There are still a handful of people alive who made records we've looked at in the podcast, but without intending the slightest offence to any of them, none are as important a link in the historical chain as Richard Penniman was. So, before the episode proper, let's have a few moments' noise in memory of the force of nature who described himself as the King and Queen of Rock and Roll: [Excerpt: Little Richard, "Ooh! My Soul!"] Now on to the main podcast itself. Today we're going to take what will be, for a while, our last look at Elvis Presley. He will show up in the background of some other episodes as we go through the sixties, and I plan to take a final look at him in a hundred or so episodes, but for now, as we're entering the sixties, we're leaving behind those fifties rockers, and Elvis is one of those we're definitely leaving for now. Elvis' two years spent in the Army had changed him profoundly. His mother had died, he'd been separated from everyone he knew, and he'd met a young woman named Priscilla, who was several years younger than him but who would many years later end up becoming his wife. And the music world had changed while he was gone. Rockabilly had totally disappeared from the charts, and all the musicians who had come up with Elvis had moved into orchestrated pop like Roy Orbison or into pure country like Johnny Cash, with the exception of a handful like Gene Vincent who were no longer having hits, at least in the US. Elvis had, though, continued to have hits. He'd recorded enough in 1958 for RCA to have a tiny stockpile of recordings they could issue as singles over the intervening two years -- "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck", "Hard-Headed Woman", "One Night", "I Need Your Love Tonight", and "A Big Hunk O' Love". Along with those hits, they repackaged several single-only recordings into new albums, and managed to keep Elvis in the spotlight despite him not recording any new material. This had been a plan of the Colonel's from the moment it became clear that Elvis was going to be drafted -- his strategy then, and from then on, was to record precisely as much material for RCA as the contracts stipulated they were entitled to, and not one song more. His thinking was that if Elvis recorded more songs than they needed to release at any given time, then there would be nothing for him to use as leverage in contract negotiations. The contract wasn't due for renegotiation any time soon, of course, but you don't want to take that chance. This meant that Elvis didn't have long to relax at home before he had to go back into the studio. He had a couple of weeks to settle in at Graceland -- the home he had bought for his mother, but had barely spent any time in before being drafted, and which was now going to be inhabited by Elvis, his father, and his father's new, much younger, girlfriend, of whom Elvis definitely did not approve. In that time he made visits to the cinema, and to an ice-dancing show -- he went to the performance for black people, rather than the one for whites, as Memphis was still segregated, and he made a brief impromptu appearance at that show himself, conducting the orchestra. And most importantly to him, he visited the grave of his mother for the first time. But two weeks and one day after his discharge from the Army, he was back in the studio, recording tracks for what would be his first album of new material since his Christmas album two and a half years earlier. We talked a little bit, a few weeks back, about the Nashville Sound, the new sound that had become popular in country music, and how Chet Atkins, who had produced several of Elvis' early recordings, had been vitally responsible for the development of that sound. Many of the Nashville A-team, the musicians who were responsible for making those records with Atkins or the other main producer of the sound, Owen Bradley, had played on Elvis' last session before he went into the Army, and they were at this session, though to keep fans from congregating outside, they were told they were going to be playing on a Jim Reeves session -- Reeves was one of the country singers who were having hits with that sound, with records like “He'll Have to Go”: [Excerpt: Jim Reeves, “He'll Have to Go”] So with Chet Atkins in the control booth, the musicians were Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland -- the great guitarist who had briefly replaced Scotty Moore on stage when Elvis and his band had split; Floyd Cramer, who had been playing piano with Elvis on record since his first RCA session, Buddy Harman, who had doubled DJ Fontana on percussion on Elvis' last session from 58, on drums, and Bob Moore, who had played bass on those sessions, back on bass. And of course the Jordanaires were at the session as well -- as well as having sung on Elvis' pre-Army records, they were also part of the Nashville A-Team, and were the go-to male backing vocalists for anyone in Nashville making a country or pop record. Scotty and DJ were there, too, but they were in much reduced roles -- Scotty was playing rhythm guitar, rather than lead, and DJ was only one of two drummers on the session. Bill Black was not included at all -- Black had always been the one who would try to push for more recognition, and he was now a star in his own right, with his Bill Black Combo. He would never record with Elvis again. The session took a while to get going -- the first hour or so was spent ordering in hamburgers, listening to demos, and Elvis and Bobby Moore showing each other karate moves -- and then the first song they recorded, an Otis Blackwell number titled "Make Me Know It" took a further nineteen takes before they had a satisfactory one: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Make Me Know It"] Elvis' voice had improved dramatically during his time in the Army -- he had been practising a lot, with his new friend Charlie Hodge, and had added a full octave to his vocal range, and he was eager to display his newfound ability to tackle other kinds of material. But at the same time, all the reports from everyone in the studio suggest that these early sessions were somewhat hesitant. The best song from this initial session was Pomus and Shuman's "A Mess of Blues": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "A Mess of Blues"] But it was a song by Aaron Schroeder and Leslie McFarland that was chosen for the first single -- a mediocre track called "Stuck on You": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Stuck on You"] Such was the demand for new Elvis material that the single of "Stuck on You" backed with "Fame and Fortune" was released within seventy-two hours. By that time, RCA had printed up 1.4 million copies of the single, just to fulfil the advance orders -- they came out in sleeves that just read "Elvis' 1st New Recording For His 50,000,000 Fans All Over The World", because when they were printing the sleeves the record company had no idea what songs Elvis was going to record. By that time, Elvis had already made what would turn out to be his only TV appearance for eight years. The Colonel had arranged for a TV special, to be hosted by Frank Sinatra -- The Frank Sinatra Timex Show: Welcome Home Elvis. Most of that special was the standard Rat Packisms, with Sinatra joined by Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. Sinatra had not been at all complimentary about Elvis before he'd gone into the Army, and in later years would continue to be insulting about him, but money was money, and so Sinatra put on a grin and pretended to be happy to be working with him. The train trip to Florida to record the TV show was something Scotty Moore would always remember, saying that at every single crossroads the train tracks went past, there were people lined up to cheer on the train, and that the only comparisons he could make to that trip were the funeral journeys of Lincoln and Roosevelt's bodies. Scotty also remembered one other thing about the trip -- that Elvis had offered him some of the little pills he'd been taking in the Army, to keep him awake and alert. Elvis, Scotty, and DJ were friendly enough on the train journey, but when they got to Miami they found that during the week they were in rehearsals, Scotty, DJ, and the Jordanaires were forbidden from socialising with Elvis, by order of the Colonel. The TV show was one of a very small number of times in the sixties that Elvis would perform for an audience, and here, dressed in a dinner jacket and clearly attempting to prove he was now a family-friendly entertainer, he looks deeply uncomfortable at first, as he croons his way through "Fame and Fortune". He gets into his stride with the other side of his single, "Stuck on You", and then Sinatra joins him for a duet, where Sinatra sings "Love Me Tender" while Elvis sings Sinatra's "Witchcraft". Watching the footage, you can see that by this point Elvis is completely comfortable in front of the audience again, and frankly he wipes the floor with Sinatra. Sinatra is trying to mock "Love Me Tender", but Elvis takes Sinatra's song completely straight, but at the same time knows exactly how ridiculous he is being: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, “Love Me Tender/Witchcraft”] There's a passage in Umberto Eco's book about writing The Name of the Rose, where he talks about the meaning of postmodernism. He explains that an unsophisticated writer like Barbara Cartland might write "I love you madly". A sophisticated modernist writer would recognise that as a cliche, and so choose not to write about love at all, having no language to do it in, and mock those who did. And a postmodernist would embrace and acknowledge the cliche, writing "As Barbara Cartland might say, 'I love you madly'". This, crucially, means that the postmodernist is, once again, able to talk about real emotions, which the modernist (in Eco's view) can't. By this definition, Sinatra's performance is modernist -- he's just showing contempt for the material -- while Elvis is postmodernist, sincere even as he's also knowingly mocking himself. It comes across far more in the video footage, which is easily findable online, but you can hear some of it just in the audio recording: [Excerpt: Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, "Love Me Tender/Witchcraft"] A week later, Elvis was back in the studio, with the same musicians as before, along with Boots Randolph on saxophone, to record the rest of the tracks for his new album, to be titled Elvis is Back! Elvis is Back! is quite possibly the most consistent studio album Elvis ever made, and that second 1960 session is where the most impressive material on the album was recorded. They started out with a version of "Fever" that easily measured up to the original by Little Willie John and the most famous version by Peggy Lee, with Elvis backed just by Bobby Moore on bass and the two drummers: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Fever"] Then there was "Like a Baby", a song originally recorded by Vikki Nelson, and written by Jesse Stone, who had written so many R&B classics before. This saw some of Elvis' best blues vocals: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Like a Baby"] The next song was a huge departure from anything he'd done previously. Elvis had always loved Tony Martin's 1950 hit "There's No Tomorrow": [Excerpt: Tony Martin, "There's No Tomorrow"] That had become one of the songs he rehearsed with Charlie Hodge in Germany, and he'd mentioned the idea of recording it. But, of course, "There's No Tomorrow" was based on the old song "O Sole Mio", which at the time was considered to be in the public domain (though in fact a later Italian court ruling means that even though it was composed in 1897, it will remain in copyright until 2042), so Freddy Bienstock at Hill and Range, the publishing company that supplied Elvis with material, commissioned a new set of lyrics for it, and it became "It's Now or Never". Elvis did several near-perfect takes of the song, but then kept flubbing the ending, which required a particularly powerful, sustained, note. Bill Porter, who was engineering, suggested that they could do a take of just that bit and then splice it on to the rest, but Elvis was determined. He was going to do the song all the way through, or he was not going to do it. Eventually he got it, and the result was extraordinary, nothing like any performance he'd given previously: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "It's Now Or Never"] That would go to number one, as would another non-album single from this session. This one was the only song the Colonel had ever asked Elvis to record, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" That song had been written in 1926, and had been a hit in several versions, most notably the version by Al Jolson: [Excerpt: Al Jolson, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"] But the Colonel had two reasons for wanting Elvis to record the song. The first was that, while the Colonel didn't have much interest in music, he associated the song with Gene Austin, the country singer who had been the first act the Colonel had managed, and so he had a sentimental fondness for it. And the second was that it was the Colonel's wife Marie's favourite song. While the studio was normally brightly lit, for this song Elvis made sure that no-one other than the few musicians on the track, which only featured acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, were in the studio, and that all the lights were off. He did one take of the song, on which the Jordanaires apparently made a mistake. He then did a false start, and decided to give up on the song, but Steve Sholes, RCA's A&R man, insisted that the song could be a hit. They eventually got through it, although even the finished take of the song contains one mistake -- because the song was recorded in the dark, the musicians couldn't see the microphones, and you can hear someone bumping into a mic during the spoken bridge: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"] Despite that flaw, the track was released as a single, and became a massive success, and a song that would stay in Elvis' repertoire until his very last shows. During that one overnight session, Elvis and the band recorded twelve songs, covering a stylistic range that's almost inconceivable. There was a Leiber and Stoller rocker left over from "King Creole", a cover version of "Such a Night", the hit for Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, the old Lowell Fulson blues song "Reconsider Baby", the light Latin pop song "The Girl of My Best Friend", a Louvin Brothers style duet with Charlie Hodge -- in one session Elvis managed to cover every style of American popular song as of 1960, and do it all well. In total, between this session and the previous one, Elvis recorded eighteen tracks -- three singles and a twelve-track album -- and while they were slicker and more polished than the Sun recordings, it's very easy to make the case that they were every bit as artistically successful, and this was certainly the best creative work he had done since signing to RCA. All three singles went to number one, and the Elvis Is Back! album went to number two, and sold half a million copies. But then, only three weeks after that session, he was in a different studio, cutting very different material. His first post-Army film was going to be a quick, light, comedy, called "GI Blues", intended to present a new, wholesome, image for Elvis. Elvis disliked the script, and he was also annoyed when he got into the recording studio in Hollywood, which was used for his film songs, to discover that he wasn't going to be recording any Leiber and Stoller songs for this film, for what the Colonel told him were "business reasons" -- Elvis seems not to have been aware that the Colonel had made them persona non grata. Instead, he was to record a set of songs mostly written by people like Sid Wayne, Abner Silver, Sid Tepper, and Fred Wise, journeymen songwriters with little taste for rock and roll. Typical of the songs was one called "Wooden Heart", based on an old German folk song, and with a co-writing credit to the German bandleader Bert Kaempfert (of whom we'll hear a little more in a future episode): [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Wooden Heart"] Now, one should be careful when criticising Elvis' film songs, because they were written for a specific context. These aren't songs that were intended to be listened to as singles or albums, but they were intended to drive a plot forward, and to exist in the context of a film. Taking them out of that context is a bit like just writing down all the lines spoken by one character in a film and complaining that they don't work as a poem. There's a habit even among Elvis' fans, let alone his detractors, of dunking on some of the songs he recorded for film soundtracks without taking that into account, and it does rather miss the point. But at the same time, they still had to be *performed* as songs, not as parts of films, and it was apparent that Elvis wasn't happy with them. Bones Howe, who was working on the sessions, said that Elvis had lost something when compared to his pre-Army work -- he was now trying, and often failing, to find his way into a performance which, pre-Army, he would have been able to do naturally. But when you compare his performances from the Elvis is Back! sessions, it's clear that the time in the Army wasn't the problem -- it's just that Elvis had no desire to be singing those songs or appearing in this film. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “GI Blues”] Elvis told the Colonel that at least half the songs for the film soundtrack had to be scrapped, but the Colonel told him he was locked into them by contract, and he just had to do the best he could with them. And he did -- he gave as good a performance as possible, both in the film and on the songs. But his heart wasn't in it. He was placated, though, by being told that his next couple of films would be *proper films*, like the ones he'd been making before going into the Army. These next two films were made back-to-back. Flaming Star was a Western with a rather heavy-handed message about racism, starring Elvis as a mixed-race man who felt at home neither with white people nor Native Americans, and directed by Don Siegel, who would go on to direct Dirty Harry. Elvis' role was originally intended for Marlon Brando, his acting idol, and he only sang one song in the film, other than the title song which played over the credits. [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, “Flaming Star”] And then he made Wild in the Country, which featured only a very small number of songs, and had Elvis playing a troubled young man who has to get court-ordered psychological counselling, but eventually goes off to college to become a writer. There's quite a bit of debate about the merits of both these films, and of Elvis' acting in them, but there's no doubt at all that they were intended to be serious films, even more so than Jailhouse Rock and King Creole had been. After filming these three films, Elvis went back into the studio for another overnight session, to record another album. This time, it was a gospel album, his first full-length gospel record. His Hand in Mine was possibly the purest expression of Elvis' own musical instincts yet -- he had always wanted to be a singer in a gospel quartet, and now he was singing gospel songs with the Jordanaires, exactly as he'd wanted to: [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "His Hand in Mine"] So in 1960, Elvis had recorded two very different, but hugely artistically satisfying, albums, and had made three films, of which he could reasonably be proud of two. Unfortunately for him, it was the film he didn't like, GI Blues, that was the big success -- and while Elvis Is Back had gone to number two and sold half a million copies, the soundtrack to GI Blues went to number one and stayed there for eleven weeks, and sold a million copies -- an absurd number at a time when albums generally sold very little. His Hand in Mine only made number thirteen. The same pattern happened the next year -- a studio album was massively outsold by the soundtrack album for Blue Hawaii, a mindless film that was full of sea, sand, and bikinis, and which featured dreadful songs like "Ito Eats": [Excerpt: Elvis Presley, "Ito Eats"] There would be a couple more films in 1961 and 62, Kid Galahad and Follow That Dream, which tried to do a little more, and which weren't as successful as Blue Hawaii. From that point on, the die was cast for Elvis. The Colonel wasn't going to let him appear in any more dramatic roles. The films were all going to be light comedies, set somewhere exotic like Hawaii or Acapulco, and featuring Elvis as a surfer or a race-car driver or a surfing race-car driver, lots of girls in bikinis, and lots of songs called things like "There's No Room To Rhumba in a Sports Car". When Elvis got a chance to go into the studio and just make records, as he occasionally did over the next few years, he would make music that was as good as anything he ever did, but starting in 1962 there was a routine of three films a year, almost all interchangeable, and until 1968 Elvis wouldn't be able to step off that treadmill. After 68, he did make a handful of films in which, again, he tried to be an actor, but after twenty or so lightweight films about beaches and bikinis, no-one noticed. As a result, Elvis mostly sat out the sixties. While the music world was changing all around him, he was an irrelevance to the new generation of musicians, who mostly agreed with John Lennon that "Elvis died when he went into the Army". We'll pick up his story in 1968, when he finally got off the treadmill.
Lo bo mira na Dios? Skritura: James 1:2-8 (buletin aki)
Bo fe a wordu prueba? Skritura: James 1:2-8 (buletin aki)
Ok, Corona/ Covid, whatever you name is, it's time to screw offYou're about to kill everyone's data plan when they're merely just trying to wank offYou've come into our life so agressive and stole a lot of what we loveI'm telling you, There's soon a lot babies coming cause Zellers just sold out of rubber glovesSeriously though, no March Madness? The utter SADNESSNo playoffs to watch the biggest shots and the most devastating hits? I feel like sports said no as my prom date cause I'm ugly with bad zitsI just cant believe of all the cancellions and poof, The regular seasons disappearedStuck at home with no sports to watch with my girlfriend who might dump me now cause she'll find out in a little weird. We're all locked in here with self isolationBut wth no TOILET PAPER practicing self constipationNow, I know this is certainly not a laughing matterThe seriousness does make my heart go a little pitter patterBut who doesn't need to smile and share a little laughter?And what's with all these donkeys buying all this TP?can't you read the newspaper or turn on the fu%&ing tv?Karma's a bitch so you'll soon know how it feelsWhile the rest of us just relax, Netflix and hopefully chillBut seriously, Please don't take the young, the old too harshly as they have so much more to giveWho else is going to show these millennials how to live?I guess selfishly I just wanted to see LeBron get the 4th ringAnd was hopeful to hear that fat lady singWe wanted to watch an epic race for the elusive Stanley CupAnd feel the shaking of the house during of a big goal when the crowd eruptsI know we need to slow down to ensure this all doesn't spread and move fasterBut seriously, why did you have to take The Masters?Red jacket, Green jacket, I give a shitBut I guess it helps me to remember when ordering local takeout to leave a nice tipI'm guessing we're going to look back at this as a pivotal point in our collective historyMainly why 3ply costs $49 dollars is a mysteryAnybody else out there prepared to get bored?Snap hooking our social life onto the gallery without saying FOUR!!We've lost sports of all sorts, feeling curfuffeled while out of sortsSimilar to those who like to swim in acid wash cut off Jean shorts. I'm as confident in this passing as giving Jordan the last shotNow please anti vaxers, get your flu shotWe might miss a cup, The Larry Obrien or a golf tournament here and there which could result in me shedding a tearsBut on the bright side, that just makes the Raps still champions right into next yearI cant wait to cheer, yell, bet and watch again but not from afarThere's a lot to be said about getting beers and wings and all meeting at the barIt's really sports that we miss, it's like a piece of connective tissuemanufactures those bonds and tens to solve a lot of issuesThe collective beauties it all brings togetherLike taking jump shots or swinging the sticks in terrible weatherIt just makes everything bettergas prices so lowBut,we got nowhere to goSo, if you will now Mr. Arsehole virus, please take a seat. We know we know you like to be the star of the showWe'll give you your Emmy and Oscar if you'll just promise to goWhen that is? nobody knowsBut when that times comes we'll be ready to to rock and rollSTAY SAFE MY FRIENDS
Success and how you define it. Part 2 of the GOSO special features Xavier, another member of the program, Chief Program Officer, Geoffrey Golia, and Senior Program Director, Julia Friedman. David and Xavier discuss the unique momentum and energy we bring to this world. Do you take it or give it? Do you wake up with momentum on your mind? These fundamentals are key to achievement and fulfillment. We also explore the external societal forces that limit the achievement of formerly incarcerated young men. GOSO is about leveling the playing field for these young men and helping them find their own version of success. If you'd like to learn more about GOSO and its program, you can check out their website: https://www.gosonyc.org/. Enjoy episode two!
Are you successful? How can we measure success? Today, in Part 1 of a two-episode special, we look at success from a different angle. David visited a program called GOSO, Getting Out And Staying Out, to discuss what it means to “measure” success and how we can think differently about it. GOSO empowers and assists young men who have been involved with the criminal justice system. The program is reshaping their futures through educational achievement, meaningful employment, and financial independence. The members of GOSO have found success in reforming their lives outside of the criminal justice system. In this first episode, we sit down with the CEO of GOSO, Mark Goldsmith, and TK, a member of GOSO and gather their views of success and learn what it means to relatively measure success. If you'd like to learn more about GOSO and their program, you can check out their website: https://www.gosonyc.org/. Enjoy!
Matthew 8-28-9-8 -NIV- - 28 When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. 29 -What do you want with us, Son of God-- they shouted. -Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time-- 30 Some distance from them a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 The demons begged Jesus, -If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.- 32 He said to them, -Go-- So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. 33 Those tending the pigs ran off, went into the town and reported all this, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. 34 Then the whole town went out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region. 1 Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. 2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, -Take heart, son- your sins are forgiven.- 3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, -This fellow is blaspheming-- 4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, -Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts- 5 Which is easier- to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'- 6 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.- So he said to the paralyzed man, -Get up, take your mat and go home.- 7 Then the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe- and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.
Charlamagne Tha God spoke about my podcast to felons at GOSO, Get Out Stay Out. Dont forget to download, subscribe and rate. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/prosandcons/support
On Episode 112, Guest Sam WhiteOut (viral sensation) joins Jams to talk about his work with GOSO, prison reform, and true effective policing.
Recording of a teisho given by Roshi Philip Kapleau on the last day of the June 1975 sesshin and played on Founder’s Day, August 19, 2018. The post Teisho by Roshi Philip Kapleau, June 1975 Sesshin, Day 7: Mumonkan #36 “Goso’s ‘No Words or Silence'” appeared first on Rochester Zen Center.
Listen to trailblazer Mark L. Goldsmith, as he talks about his years of working as an executive in the cosmetic industry to the co-founder of Getting Out & Staying Out (GOSO), to opening a new program in Harlem, with host Danny Tisdale, on The Danny Tisdale Show.Mark L. Goldsmith first visited Rikers Island, over 15 years ago, as a volunteer for the “Principal for the Day” program at Horizon Academy, the jail's high school. As a former executive in the cosmetics industry, Mr. Goldsmith brought to his day on Rikers more than 35 years of experience in the corporate world – techniques for success he continues to apply to his work with guys at Getting Out & Staying Out (GOSO), the mentoring program he founded to guide young men aged 16 to 24-years-old and upon their release from Rikers. Since that time, Goldsmith has developed GOSO into an organization that now helps more than 1,500 young men each year to achieve educational goals and jobs that lead to careers. Mr. Goldsmith has been recognized for his decades of leadership and his stalwart commitment to using his life experience to help young people stay out of the criminal justice system at GOSO with the Encore.org Purpose Prize and a Richard Cornuelle Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In September 2017, Mr. Goldsmith attended the White House's Summit on Reentry Services, upon direct invitation from the administration. There, GOSO was extolled as a reentry program to be replicated throughout the country.For more information visit http://gosonyc.org/team-goso/mark-goldsmith/SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: www.youtube.com/harlemworldmagazine.comwww.facebook.com/harlemworldmagazine.comwww.harlemworldmagazine.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/theharlemworldmagazinepodcast)
In the latest episode of Beyond the Margin, host Michael Shields welcomes to the studio Across the Margin’s own GOT Guru, Geoffrey Golia, and writer and Thrones-buff Krissy Trujillo, to dig into all things Game of Thrones. Geoffrey has been Across the Margin’s Game of Thrones expert for the past two seasons, utilizing his profound expertise to deconstruct and make sense of the episodes. He is the host of the trivia night A Trivia of Ice and Fire: Presented by the Upjumped Sellswords and the foremost GOT authority you will likely encounter not named George R.R. Martin. Krissy has contributed articles to Across the Margin centered around film (“For Your Consideration: La La Land”), television (“My Dearest Gilmore Girls”), the LGBTQ community in America (“Safe Spaces”), and of course Game of Thrones (“Queen of the North”).On this episode Michael, Geoffrey, and Krissy meticulously dissect the Season & premiere (“Dragonstone”), consider a handful of fan theories and their plausibility, propose where they feel the series may be heading in its final two seasons, and much, much more. Jumping off topic to conclude the podcast, Michael asks Geoffrey to let the listeners in on his day job, where he works at Getting Out Staying Out, an incredible Not-for-Profit that works to reduce recidivism in New York City and aid men aged sixteen to twenty-four at Rikers Island Correctional Facility to become productive members of the community (learn more about GOSO here!) Join us as Beyond the Margin explores a world rife with backstabbing, dragon fire, and where the night is dark and full of terror...Subscribe to Across the Margin: The PodcastCheck out Across the Margin for further amazing stories & much, much more! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Genjo Marinello Osho gave this Teisho on Dec. 2nd, 2014 the third day of Rohatsu Sesshin. This talk explores Case 36 of the Mumonkan, where Zen Master Goso asks: how do you greet a person of the Way without words or silence? Integrating the universal and the personal how do we live this life?
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