Elvis' popularity in '77

Anything about Elvis
More than 100 Million visitors can't be wrong

Moderators: Moderator5, Moderator3, FECC-Moderator, Site Mechanic


User avatar

Rigs
Posts: 380
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: Bright light city
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 6 times

Re: Elvis' popularity

#399599

Post by Rigs »

TALLHAIR 2 wrote:... It was worse, he still sang Teddy Bear at age 42.
With a few exceptions, his concerts during the final years,
only had a handful of really good performances during
each show. And dont give me the excuse: "the fans
wanted Shook Up, Bear Or Hound Dog". I didn't.
None of my friends, at the concerts, wanted to hear
these 50 seconds throwaways either.
The problem here is, that a lot of people who visited Elvis' concerts were what you might call avarage fans. People who grew up, only knowing the hits. And the come to see Elvis do the hits.
And there's nothing wrong with playing your hits, the majority of the audience demands it.
I've been to a number of concerts like Paul McCartney, The rolling Stones, U2, etc. And I wouldn't want a show that didn't feature any of the hits.
The big difference with these acts is that they respect their older work, they perform them with relatively speaking the same enthusiasm as the newer material.
With Elvis you always had the feeling that he didn't respect his old material and therefore most of the time never performed them seriously (with a couple exceptions.)
An artist like Elvis shouldn't have filled his concerts in the 70's with the amount of covers like he did. He had enough new material an amazing back catalogue he could choose from, instead of playing hits made famous by other persons.

How different would it be if he had performed his oldies seriously. In a sort of B stage setting with only him and a small rhythym section. Full versions, with a vintage arrangement.


Opinions are like a-s-s-h-o-l-e-s: everyone has got one

User avatar

rocknroller
Posts: 7087
Registered for: 20 years 10 months
Location: scotland
Has thanked: 33 times
Been thanked: 95 times
Age: 55

Re: Elvis' popularity

#399611

Post by rocknroller »

TALLHAIR 2 wrote:... It was worse, he still sang Teddy Bear at age 42.
With a few exceptions, his concerts during the final years,
only had a handful of really good performances during
each show. And dont give me the excuse: "the fans
wanted Shook Up, Bear Or Hound Dog". I didn't.
None of my friends, at the concerts, wanted to hear
these 50 seconds throwaways either.
And I don't recall him reaching out for help, fighting
his drugs problem. When offered help, he told the
guys to p*ss off, and mind their own bizniz.
Look at him stumble his words on stage. Or the way
his body doesn't respond to his mind anymore, both on
and off stage. He was only 42... remember?
Yes, ofcourse its a tragedy. And recently, when they
showed some In Concert footage on tv, with near tears
in my eyes, I had to explain to my 13 year old son,
this was the same person he'd seen doing Suspicious
Minds, earlier in the evening... His facial expression,
in reply, said it all: one of total disbelieve.


i could not agree more.


If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious sh*t

Image

Image


Rob

Re: Elvis' popularity

#399624

Post by Rob »

TALLHAIR 2 wrote:And recently, when they showed some In Concert footage on tv, with near tears in my eyes, I had to explain to my 13 year old son, this was the same person he'd seen doing Suspicious Minds, earlier in the evening.
Unfortunately, this is nothing less than the sad truth. Sometimes it hits me like a ton of bricks when I see a very handsome dude hit the stage on January 14, 1973, then watch him struggle to get through a show in Omaha only 4 years later (and only forty-two years old).

We (19,000) of us were sure glad to see him in Louisville in May 1977, but something was definitely wrong. In less than three months, he would be gone.



User avatar

bajo
Posts: 5816
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: N-6450
Has thanked: 1749 times
Been thanked: 1365 times

#399653

Post by bajo »

Still sad, but would 19.000 file under: Popular? I thought that was the question asked?
We know the tragedy! But was Elvis still popular in 1977?
Statistics tend to lean to the answer: Yes!
But, I might still be wrong!
I recall when we were sailing in to Jacksonville early 1977, Moody Blue was to be heard on the radio along the coast as we came all the way from Japan.
Then on a local FM station I heard: And this weeks number one ladies and gentlemen...and Moody Blue started playing!
I might have dreamed it! But, it was in fact true. Elvis must have had some fans around there who found him popular enough to bring Moody Blue to no 1.
To me, that is popular!


"If you love me let me know, if you don't, ....move it!"


Pete Dube
Posts: 7712
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: South Carolina
Has thanked: 82 times
Been thanked: 530 times

#399672

Post by Pete Dube »

In the decline years of 74-77 I was 14-17, so I remember that period well. Elvis' career was stuck in neutral. He was still an extremely popular live performer, but he was filling venues mainly on the strength of past glories and his reputation as a great entertainer - not as a rock icon, but as the top dog of the entire pop music world. He was no longer the major record seller he once was, but nobody was writing him off as a has been. As Burning Love showed, with the right song/performance he could top the charts at will! The problem was he seemingly wasn't interested in cutting hit pop chart material, but was more comfortable mining the modern country/adult contemporary niche he established for himself in the early 70's, and catering to the Vegas market of his fan base. But this was a bit of a double edged-sword, as it was a big part of the reason he wasn't considered hip by the rock oriented critics and the rock-minded youth of the time.

The quality of the shows didn't really become a problem until '76, the same year that his weight went through the roof and his face took on the sickly, weak-eyed look that would stay with him to the bitter end. He was still capable of delivering relatively great shows during this time, but they became increasingly fewer and farther between.

My recollection of what I felt about his mid-70's albums (Good Times; Promised Land; Today) was that they were good, solid records, but each could've used another rocker or uptempo tune or 2 to strengthen them and pick up the excitement level. Basically for me at the time I wished he did more stuff like Promised Land; If You Talk In Your Sleep; You Asked Me To; I've Got a Feelin' In My Body; Talk About The Good Times; T*R*O*U*B*L*E and I Can Help, and less of the weaker or filler quality ballad stuff (Woman Without Love; Mr. Songman) and schmaltz (Spanish Eyes).

Another problem was that pop disc jockeys by & large seemed to have turned their backs on him after '73. I've Got a Thing About You Baby and Moody Blue were both obvious commercial pop records that should've received lots of airplay and gone top 20 on the pop charts. Instead they were only modest top 40 hits (#39 and #31 respectively). Prior to Elvis' death Way Down had peaked in the upper 30's and T*R*O*U*B*L*E #35. Both these singles should've charted better. So in the case of these 4 singles Elvis did his part, but the industry seemed indifferent.



User avatar

jetblack
Posts: 4614
Registered for: 19 years 6 months
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Has thanked: 5782 times
Been thanked: 5176 times

#399727

Post by jetblack »

Colin B. Wrote:-
In the UK, the top 10 hits referred to were [mostly] back-catalogue things.

The songs referred to here were the 1976 releases of 'Girl Of My Best Friend' and 'Suspicion' which both reached Number 9 in the UK Chart. They were equally matched and bettered by Elvis' recent material - 'My Boy' in 1974 reached Number 5, 'Promised Land' in 1975 reached Number 9, 'Moody Blue' in 1977 reached Number 6.

The TV advertised 'Elvis 40 Greatest Hits' was one of the biggest sellers of the decade re-entering the charts a total of 9 times between 1975 and 1978.

We in the UK couldn't seem to get enough of Elvis during the latter part of the 1970's.

Andy



User avatar

midnightx
Posts: 23517
Registered for: 20 years 4 months
Location: The Long and Winding Road
Has thanked: 1364 times
Been thanked: 3459 times

#399733

Post by midnightx »

Kris P wrote:
midnightx wrote:Just imagine if he had lived and had to ride his career wave through the aftermath of the CBS Special.
Had he lived, I doubt the special would have been released. More likely, Smith-Hemion would have probably tried to capture some better material on the August tour.
That is debatable. CBS wasn't going to spend a fortune filming additional shows. Would there have been a guarantee that EP would have delivered better performances? That is doubtful. It would have been more of the same appearance-wise and performance-wise. The CBS Special as is or with some additional performances from future below average shows would have caused considerable problems for EP. There was no reason for Parker to expose his client and his client's horrid condition to a international audience just for $750,000. That has to arguably be Parker's worst career move for EP.




Pete Dube
Posts: 7712
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: South Carolina
Has thanked: 82 times
Been thanked: 530 times

#399810

Post by Pete Dube »

midnightx wrote:
Kris P wrote:
midnightx wrote:Just imagine if he had lived and had to ride his career wave through the aftermath of the CBS Special.
Had he lived, I doubt the special would have been released. More likely, Smith-Hemion would have probably tried to capture some better material on the August tour.
That is debatable. CBS wasn't going to spend a fortune filming additional shows. Would there have been a guarantee that EP would have delivered better performances? That is doubtful. It would have been more of the same appearance-wise and performance-wise. The CBS Special as is or with some additional performances from future below average shows would have caused considerable problems for EP. There was no reason for Parker to expose his client and his client's horrid condition to a international audience just for $750,000. That has to arguably be Parker's worst career move for EP.
Midnightx -
According to Carr and Farren's book The Illustrated Elvis, CBS executives were so shocked (horrified was the word used) by Elvis' appearance/performance when they viewed the footage that they wanted to scrap the special, and re-shoot at some later date when/if Elvis got back in shape.

If memory serves, the producers caught one of Elvis' April spring tour shows. On that tour Elvis wasn't as heavy/bloated as he was in June, and his overall performance level was somewhat better with some shows even quite good for the period. Perhaps the producers and maybe even Parker felt that the challenge of a tv special would inspire Elvis to lose more weight in the roughly 2 month interim between the spring tour and the June tour?




epf

Re: Elvis' popularity in '77

#399820

Post by epf »

Angles wrote:My question based on this is "how popular was Elvis in '77?". Was he widely regarded as being past it and insignificant? Was his music unpopular? With the benefit of hindsight we fans can pick out recordings in the last couple of years of his life which we find to be noteworthy but what was the general opinion?
I think in short: YES!
Still selling out when he played... still have reasonable chart success.. i call that popular. Was he at the heigths of his succes? No. At the lowest point? NO!
Arguably by his own standards, he was in trouble though. And while he was dying already years before 77, as a popular product he was still valid.

Btw, i don't like the throwaway versions of 50's songs.... but... he admitted himself he was not ashamed of those tunes, nor should he be. They were played because the audience wanted them. I think it was his way of negotiating with the audience, so in return he could perform songs he could put his feelings into.

In the 90's i went to a concert of TAFKA Prince and i was very disappointed. I thought it was a bad concert, bad sound, bad performance. But the concert was sold out. So popularity does not equal quality or critical aclaim, even though he (Prince) was not big on the charts as he used to be.

In general, one could say that some big stars are finally eaten alive and/or overshadowed by their own succes. When you look at Elvis in that regard, he put up one hell of a fight!




Pete Dube
Posts: 7712
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: South Carolina
Has thanked: 82 times
Been thanked: 530 times

Re: Elvis' popularity

#399898

Post by Pete Dube »

Rigs wrote: I've been to a number of concerts like Paul McCartney, The rolling Stones, U2, etc. And I wouldn't want a show that didn't feature any of the hits.
The big difference with these acts is that they respect their older work, they perform them with relatively speaking the same enthusiasm as the newer material.
With Elvis you always had the feeling that he didn't respect his old material and therefore most of the time never performed them seriously (with a couple exceptions.)
But none of those acts have material with lyrics that, by post-
Beatles standards, are a bit corny. I love 50's rock&roll, but some songs do have corny lyrics. It's the performances that make them classics. Jailhouse Rock is really a novelty song lyrically. It's the tremendous performance of Elvis and the band that makes it a classic. Blue Suede Shoes is also a bit on the corny side lyrically by modern rock standards. I think the modern period Elvis (69-77) sensed this to a certain degree, which is why he started delivering most of these tunes in an abbreviated, tongue-in-cheek manner from about '71 on. In 69-70 his enthusiasm level was still high, and he kind of got around the lyric issue by contemporizing the arrangements and doing them in a revved up manner.



User avatar

midnightx
Posts: 23517
Registered for: 20 years 4 months
Location: The Long and Winding Road
Has thanked: 1364 times
Been thanked: 3459 times

#399960

Post by midnightx »

Pete Dube wrote:
midnightx wrote:
Kris P wrote:
midnightx wrote:Just imagine if he had lived and had to ride his career wave through the aftermath of the CBS Special.
Had he lived, I doubt the special would have been released. More likely, Smith-Hemion would have probably tried to capture some better material on the August tour.
That is debatable. CBS wasn't going to spend a fortune filming additional shows. Would there have been a guarantee that EP would have delivered better performances? That is doubtful. It would have been more of the same appearance-wise and performance-wise. The CBS Special as is or with some additional performances from future below average shows would have caused considerable problems for EP. There was no reason for Parker to expose his client and his client's horrid condition to a international audience just for $750,000. That has to arguably be Parker's worst career move for EP.
Midnightx -
According to Carr and Farren's book The Illustrated Elvis, CBS executives were so shocked (horrified was the word used) by Elvis' appearance/performance when they viewed the footage that they wanted to scrap the special, and re-shoot at some later date when/if Elvis got back in shape.

If memory serves, the producers caught one of Elvis' April spring tour shows. On that tour Elvis wasn't as heavy/bloated as he was in June, and his overall performance level was somewhat better with some shows even quite good for the period. Perhaps the producers and maybe even Parker felt that the challenge of a tv special would inspire Elvis to lose more weight in the roughly 2 month interim between the spring tour and the June tour?
It rings a bell. CBS was definitely very concerned about what they had in the can. However, it isn't as though the spring shows were much of a revelation. EP was still a mess, wearing the brutal Mexican Sundial jumpsuit on most nights, overweight, obviously on drugs and singing erratically at best. They knew what they were getting into. The cost of filming two shows was not cheap and considering they had already laid out those costs as well as EP's and Parker's guarantee, they were in the hole for some big dollars. The whole episode is baffling from all angles.




likethebike
Posts: 6013
Registered for: 20 years 10 months
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 47 times

#399971

Post by likethebike »

A comparison to the modern touring version of the Rolling Stones is an unfair one as tours for them and many later icons are relative rarities. Elvis was on the road constantly from 1969 to 1977. It was much easier to burn out on some of his earlier hits.

Pete Dube’s point is also a good one. While I wouldn’t classify the lyrics of many of Elvis’ ‘50s hits as corny (the aforementioned “Jailhouse Rock” is a very clever lyric) but they were definitely songs for young men. And Elvis in 1977 was definitely aware of age creeping on him and didn’t have the same concerns he had at 21. Any enthusiasm would have had to have been synthetic.

“Hip” by the way is not synonymous with popular. Often times it’s the antithesis. Was Maureen McGovern’s super smash “The Morning After” hip?

I don’t know many 40 year-old artists that are “hip” with teenagers ever. Maybe with some college kids digging the old stuff but nowhere near the level of contemporary current artists. How many 17 year olds are even going to comprehend a record like “Separate Ways” a song not about losing a girlfriend but a wife and child?

Sinatra didn’t exactly burn up the charts in this decade either but like Elvis his CELEBRITY was unquestioned. They were two of the biggest stars in the business.

One of Elvis’ problems as a record seller during this decade was that his records largely appealed to an adult audience. This was not the record buying force then that it is now. They probably bought a lot of those copies of “The Morning After” but they weren’t the driving force on the charts. Additionally, Elvis did not use a lot of the advantages of many contemporary artists of that decade and since which include song placement in movies and television appearances. In that environment, Elvis did fairly well. While few of his albums were chartbusters, he was a consistent seller. 1970’s “That’s the Way it Is” was only certified Gold in early 1977 showing the way his work sometimes outlasted the charts.

Elvis’ live shows were starting to get some bad word of mouth around 1977 but he was still a star of the first order. Elvis’ popularity though was a secondary concern to his depression and substance abuse problems.




Buffalo Wings
Posts: 256
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: Here, Right Now. No. Really!

#400051

Post by Buffalo Wings »

I always felt Elvis constantly reinvented himself when it looked like he was down and out. The 80's would have been great for him. Maybe a jeans wearing Elvis going on MTV's Unplugged, getting back together for a one off album reunion with Perkins, Orbison, Cash, etc like the surving members I think did at one point? Working with new younger artists, a duet album, etc....I really think he would keep surprising us just when you thought he wasn't cool anymore. He proved it during his lifetime and there's no reason not to believe he couldn't anymore.

Regards,
Buffalo Wings
aka "Beatle Bob"
:)


"Broadsword calling Danny Boy, over?"

User avatar

drjohncarpenter
Posts: 107019
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: United States of America
Has thanked: 11700 times
Been thanked: 33645 times
Age: 89

#400178

Post by drjohncarpenter »

Kris P wrote:Here is the Billboard Top Box Office chart from April 1977 ... All other acts from 1956 could only dream of having the same 'success' and cultural cache Presley had maintained and still had circa 1977.
One can only assume that at least CBS thought Elvis was still a major draw in 1977.
If believing in Billboard attendance charts makes one feel better about Elvis' place in 1977's popular music world up until August 16, more power to ya.

As already pointed out, the frenzy surrounding Presley's sudden, shocking death was what drove CBS-TV to air their program in October.


.
Dr. John Carpenter, M.D.
Stop, look and listen, baby <<--->> that's my philosophy!

User avatar

KiwiAlan
Posts: 11660
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Been thanked: 16 times

#400316

Post by KiwiAlan »

jak wrote:Most of the older fans will tell you they felt a little embarrased saying they were Elvis fans back at that time.Elvis certainly had his huge fanbase but I think he was surely out of fashion with the general public.Fo that I think you only have Elvis to blame.I believe he was his own worst enemy.He allowed himself to become somewhat of a parody of his former self while seemingly never trying that hard to stop it.
Jak
So very, very true on all counts.

His stage shows had just become that...a parody of an Elvis Presley Las vegas concert.


When you get to the point where you really understand your computer, it's probably obsolete

User avatar

bajo
Posts: 5816
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: N-6450
Has thanked: 1749 times
Been thanked: 1365 times

#400320

Post by bajo »

So, the question remains: Was Elvis popular in 1977?
Does attendance and no1 C&W singles and albums count for beeing popular in the US?
I've lived to believe it was! Do I have to change my mind?


"If you love me let me know, if you don't, ....move it!"

User avatar

Joe Car
Posts: 11590
Registered for: 20 years 11 months
Location: Canada
Has thanked: 41 times
Been thanked: 499 times

#400323

Post by Joe Car »

I think the reaction of the people on August 16/1977 and the days that followed, even till today, answers the question. I think in 1977, Elvis got taken for granted more because he had toured for 7 years straight, and had been around for a long time. I don't know if this has been mentioned, but he also had to fight off competition as a bunch of newer and younger performers had emerged on the scene.


Post Reply