*when JFK was shot?
*when the Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show?
*when 9/11 struck?
...because there are only a handful of shared experiences when time stood still--where the world was collectively stung (for me, John Lennon's murder was another moment that stunned so many).
Or this one: Where were you when Elvis Presley died? It was 40 years ago today. While I prefer to celebrate Elvis' birthday rather than his departure, August 16, 1977 created a strange feeling I'll never quite get over. I was driving with my first wife Mina, our friend Gunther and our dog Noodles across Texas--something like a 600 mile trip from Seguin to El Paso to see Mina's family. Trying to find anything on AM radio in West Texas, we stumbled across an Elvis song on the box, followed by a second (hmmm...) and then a third; something was going on!
In honor of the often brilliant, sometimes laughable music the man from Tupelo and then Memphis unleashed, here are ten favorites:
10. "Marie's the Name (His Latest Flame)" (1961): Presley in his tough guy voice but holding back a rainstorm of defeat. Barely two minutes long, no guitar solo and cool, speedy piano on the "though I smiled, the tears inside were burning" bridge. This was in an era when rock tunes were short and left you craving for more, unlike an endless fadeout by Pink Dirge or somebody.
9. "A Big Hunk O'Love" (1958): Of the batch of songs Elvis taped before shipping off to the U.S. Army, this one gets the nod over the riotous "Wear My Ring (Around Your Neck)." It's more sexual ("You're just a natural born beehive/filled with honey to the top/but I ain't greedy, baby--all I want is all you got!"), musically clever, and where else can you find Elvis going into falsetto for "let's rock!"? As John Trudell would say in his insightful song about the subversiveness of the 1950s' new hero, Elvis was our "Baby Boom Che," adding, "I oughta know, man--I was in his army."
8. "If I Can Dream" (from Elvis [NBC Television Special], 1968): In some ways, a better piece of socio-political commentary than "In the Ghetto," which appeared a few months afterward. Elvis is raw, exciting and driven and for the first time in several years, relevant and up-to-the-moment.
7. "Trying to Get to You" (same album as above, only recorded earlier--June 1968): From the session that practically invented the "Unplugged" format, although electric guitars are evident. Originally one of his best Sun recordings (taken from a 1954 record by an R&B group called the Eagles), Elvis calls for the bridge again in an unexpected final move, driven by his muscular, hoarse and thrilling vocal delivery. This delivers! If I had witnessed this in person, I would have been screaming myself, along with the young ladies sitting up close.
6. "Such a Night" (from Elvis Is Back! 1960): He was a huge fan of Clyde McPhatter & the Drifters and comes through with a more rollicking version than their original R&B chestnut--he is in superb voice after returning from the army, emphatic and busting loose. And at the end, the drummer doesn't want to stop.
5. "Suspicious Minds" (1969): So much schlock has hit the Number One position on the Billboard charts over the years (and the validity of those charts can be questioned), so it's truly transcendent when something worthy leaps all the way to the top. The slow part in the middle is so heartfelt, setting up the power that's still to come; if this weren't a sad song, one would call it triumphant. Once again, Elvis is utterly contemporary, and it might have been the finest rock or soul single in 1969, a year overflowing with them.
4. "Promised Land" (1974): Cut in 1973 when Elvis rented the famed Stax studio in Memphis, the home of tough, tough R&B by Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd and so many others. This romp begins with what sounds like a clavinet (the keyboard Stevie Wonder plays on "Superstition"), pounding drums (Ron Tutt?) and James Burton's hard-riffing guitar--this version is on par with Chuck Berry's 1964 original. Hearing Elvis blaze through it in a recording period that was starting to reek of wimpiness (Really? "Spanish Eyes"?), the glory of this track reminds me of the reviewer, perhaps in Rolling Stone, who wrote something like, "Lock Elvis in the studio and tell him that he can't come out until he's made an album that rocks from start to finish." This single will suffice.
3. "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" (1956): As Mr. P. went through his career, his ballads became more and more sappy (Sun founder Sam Phillips saw Elvis in Vegas in 1969 and told him, "that 'Memories' song has got to go!"), yet this one finds him at his apex, where the slow pace took nothing away from his command. Not a great song but a phenomenal record, where the guitar intro alone sucks you in the way the Beatles would eight or so years later. Elvis phrasing is remarkable here as he sings the bridge ("I thought I could live without romance") with noticeable differences the second time through in interesting fashion.
2. "All Shook Up" (1958): Outrageously good and so simple--sounds like just a piano and a cardboard box backing him up. The way Elvis plays with the slapback echo exhibits some savvy use of basic studio technology; the last time he sings, "she touched my hand," he doesn't even hit all the syllables, letting the echo take over to fill in the phrase.
Needless to say, I have a blast singing that part when it's on the car radio.
1. "Mystery Train" (1955): His final (fifth) Sun single, captures a roaring train feel from Scotty Moore on electric and Elvis on acoustic. He takes the Junior's (Junior Parker) Blue Flames tune into a seizmic dimension, and his triumphant wail at the end caps off his 16 months at Sun with a bold and confident farewell. He didn't necessarily go on to better things--just different things.
Honorable mention: "Santa Claus Is Back In Town" (from Elvis' Christmas Album, 1957)--a leering blues that most white singers couldn't touch at that point; Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" (recorded at Sun, 1954); "U.S. Male" (1968); Dylan's "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" (recorded 1966); "Merry Christmas Baby"--from the otherwise vapid 1971 holiday album Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas; "How Great Thou Art"--from the 1967 gospel album of the same name; "Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)" (1956). And of course, many more that balance the groundswell of songs on pleasant, ineffectual soundtrack albums that for me are painful to sit through (as are many of the songs--"No Room to Rhumba In a Sports Car" or "Steadfast, Loyal and True." Ouch).
Read This! The most revelatory article following Elvis' death was written by Lester Bangs, and you must read it if you haven't already. It was titled, "How Long Will We Care?" and ran in The Village Voice just after Presley's demise. It's been recently collected in Shake It Up: Great American Rock Writing from Elvis to Jay Z (Library of America, 2017). Bangs' life-affirming, remarkable piece talks about the splintering of the rock audience and so much more in a style that goes beyond eloquent.