Rating My CD's: Ain't No Room for a Guitar Man

20. Elvis Presley -- Elvis 75


[Yes, this should be filed under P for Presley. I don't care. Over the decades Elvis has shed his surname.]

When Elvis died in August of 1977, a bereft fan asked his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, what they were supposed to do now. "Why, nothing son," replied Parker, "It's just like when he was in the army!"

Elvis fans act under an obligation to treat Parker as the villain of Elvis' saga, the grasping Svengali who trapped the King behind walls of money and pills. But time has proven him right. Thirty years has passed since the King's death, and a minor industry still labors to ensure that we never forget him, that we never quite put another onto his throne. As with the Beatles, repackages of the same hit songs reappear with predictable regularity. Considering that such made up most of his albums for the last decade or so before his death, it's hard to say hat Elvis' career arc has greatly changed. Like the villain in Gibson's Count Zero, his actual corporeal existence is largely secondary to the corporate life of his money.


Consequently, our culture remembers far more of the icon and far less of the artist. Part of this comes from the bias towards singer-songwriters; a man who doesn't write his own tunes seems like less of an artist. Elvis only co-wrote a few of his famous songs, and relied on the songwriting team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller for most of the rest. Inevitably, we ask "why couldn't Elvis write his own songs?", never "why couldn't Lieber and Stoller perform the songs they wrote?" We know Elvis brought something to those songs, but because that something didn't come from a literary wellspring, we cannot trace it, and fear we are being played.


For myself, who was but nine months old in August of 1977, Elvis was a series of images, a Rosetta Stone translated via the 60's and all their sad children into the popular culture I grew up in him. At eight years old or thereabouts, I snarkily insinuated that Elvis was my father's favorite artist (because, you know, that was a million years ago). Dad brushed the King off his cuff with hardly a bother: "I'm not that old."

And despite my great fondness for all things 1950's, Elvis was never one of those things. Better to dig Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash and Muddy Waters, "authentic" artists, who never failed to meet the expectations the hip had of them. Elvis was too grandiose, too complicated, too mysterious for my understanding. How had such a man become so much to so many? What was it?

Lester Bangs, who survived Elvis by only six years, and whose writings so strongly influenced my earlier efforts at musical criticism, didn't know. Elvis, in Bangs' estimation, as in Peter Guralnick's was utterly sold-old by the end, utterly devoid of artistic merit. And yet:

The only credible explanation is that Elvis was from another planet, like in Superman or the New Testament. Elvis never even had to move a muscle, not even in his face -- he always, from day one up till almost the very end, had that glow.

I don't know exactly what that means, but after listening to this disc almost on a repeated loop these last several months, I know it means something. There's a profound immediacy to these songs, jarring to the one that takes the moment to hear it, even after nearly sixty years and every biggerbetterfasterlouder trend that's raged in the landscape Elvis labored to build.

Like Johnny Cash, whom I compared to Elvis in my last review of him, Elvis seemed to put every essence of himself into every note he sang. His voice has an odd sweetness, a powerful range of expression even if his actual vocal range stayed in the same lush octave. I should be gagging on the schmaltz of songs like "In the Ghetto" or "Trouble" or "Always on My Mind" or "Love Me",  but for some reason I don't. Somehow, Elvis sells it.

There are songs on here I don't like. "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" goes on a bit too long. I rarely have the patience for "How Great Thou Art", which may be a reflection on my unfamiliarity with Gospel as a genre. And "An American Trilogy" is a titanic wreck: a loud, overwrought juxtaposition of patriotic songs where Elvis' earnestness embarasses rather than reassures the listener.

But far more happy surprises emerge. "Little Sister" and "Guitar Man" growl with all the feral R&B punch of the 50's songs, which precede them. "Polk Salad Annie" a cut from the recently-rereleased On Stage CD, powerfully demonstrates how good Elvis' stage persona could be when he worked it. Yet "Suspicious Minds" may be my favorite of the non-50's songs, a gloomy, burning powerhouse that builds to a surprisingly singable catharsis.

Even in 1972, with his Comeback sinking around him, Elvis could still record Dennis Linde's "Burning Love" and make a quintessential moment of it: ragged yet bashful, corny yet strangely irresistible. All of which may be old hat to Elvis' still-numerous fans. But for such a one as me, drawn in by the 1950's ur-Rock songs at the start of the album, it was a welcome surprise to discover that the King was, at root, a vastly talented performer.

I get it now.

Grade: LL