Wear my ring around your neck 1972 live version

[OnTourCam]

Hey guys
was listening to this song today and it got me thinking imagine this live in concert Elvis would of nailed it and the band would of loved it.

I reckon play this song then go into big hunk of love 2 classic songs

if only Elvis had of done more rehearsing of old songs there was so many he could of done even get rid of cc rider it was good dont get more wrong but imagine him opening up with say any day now ..... or even wearing that loved on look

oh well we can dream
Cam

[bajo]

I don't know why Elvis didn't like to do his old hits. As if he felt forced to do them! And they never really got off the way "we used to know them"! He rushed them much too often, imo!
As with the '68 special he really brought his old hits to a new level! But, from Vegas in 69 and onwards only a few really came off really well, imo!
I was surprised when I first heard A Big Hunk O' Love live! That is one I actually really like the 70's rendition of!
The pairing of Tiger Man/Mystery train from In Person is also a great favourite of mine! Trying To Get To You is another. The medley from Recorded Live On Stage In Memphis '74 also have some sparkle!
I wish he would have searched in his own recordings for more concert performances. If not only rockers but many of his own beautiful ballads, like Young And Beautiful, Loving You, It Hurts Me, The Thrill Of Your Love, Don't to mention a few.
But, I think he went for the ones easiest to remember the lyrics to, and easiest to tease away?

[likethebike]

Elvis was 35-42 years old in the '70s and these were young men's songs for the most part. "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck" is almost exclusively a teen song without the philosphical underpinnings and angst of something like Dion and the Belmonts' "Teenager in Love". I'm kind of played he never performed it live in the 1970s. A 38-year-old man singing "They say that going steady is not the proper thing" would have been unseemly.

On songs like "Hound Dog" I don't think Elvis liked pushing his voice almost to a fraying edge like he did in the 1950s.

[VOC]

Didn't Elvis rehearse this song at least for March 1975 Vegas run??

I think Tunzi's sessions book states this, would have been interesting to hear a 1970's version...

[TONY]

A perfect opening number in Vegas would haven...."Viva Las Vegas"! He could have come out to the extended intro of this song. Would have been a winner. But, hey, I never tire of "C.C. Rider" though.

[Ben]

I never tire of "C.C. Rider" though.

I do, i usually skip See See Rider and I Got A Woman/Amen but sometimes i feel like playing the whole concert to get the feeling more of being there

[Ricky]

Didn't Ricky Van Shelton have a minor hit with this on the country charts? It always remind me of how Elvis could have done it in the 70's.

[KiwiAlan]

A perfect opening number in Vegas would haven...."Viva Las Vegas"! He could have come out to the extended intro of this song. Would have been a winner. But, hey, I never tire of "C.C. Rider" though.

What! The casinos would have booted him out of town.

Look at the lyrics.

It was probably wriiten into contracts to not sing a song that said:-

"""Viva Las Vegas with you neon flashin'
And your one armbandits crashin'
All those hopes down the drain"""

[Rob]

A perfect opening number in Vegas would haven...."Viva Las Vegas"!

And they should have had a huge pool in front of the stage as well. Then he could have closed the show with "The Lady Loves Me."

Wouldn't that be neat?

[Scott]

A perfect opening number in Vegas would haven...."Viva Las Vegas"!

And they should have had a huge pool in front of the stage as well. Then he could have closed the show with "The Lady Loves Me."

Wouldn't that be neat?

No, Tony's right.

Viva Las Vegas, given the TCB treatment in '69, would've sounded great.

There were many songs Elvis could've opened with; it's a shame he stuck with C.C. Rider for so long ...

[Scott]

A 38-year-old man singing "They say that going steady is not the proper thing" would have been unseemly.

What, as opposed to a 42-year-old man singing "I'm itchin' like a man on a fuzzy tree ..." ?

Artists are expected to sing their old hits; Elvis was no exception.

[Spellbinder]

A 38-year-old man singing "They say that going steady is not the proper thing" would have been unseemly.

What, as opposed to a 42-year-old man singing "I'm itchin' like a man on a fuzzy tree ..." ?

Artists are expected to sing their old hits; Elvis was no exception.

I remember seeing Marty Wilde in concert in the 80s. When he reached the relevant part of the song he simply kept his mouth firmly closed and refused to sing the title, Teenager In Love.

[likethebike]

"All Shook Up" actually has clever passages. "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck" doesn't. It's pure exploitation, not better than a standard movie rocker. It stands up as it does because the young Elvis performs it with vigor and wit something the 40 year-old Elvis could not muster on such a confection. Elvis had a broad enough catalogue of hits that he could omit a few (not as many as he did but a few). I'm sure there were some scattered fans out there anxious to hear Elvis sing "Do The Clam" and "Kissin' Cousins" but it's just as well he didn't do them.

When Dion does "Teenager in Love" today he goes into a big speech about how being a young and a teenager is a state of mind. He talks about how some of the questions you ask as teens never really go away. It works, it turns it from an embarrassment to an uplifting experience.

"Viva Las Vegas" is not depressing it's thrilling. The line about all those hopes crashing down the drain is contrast. You can be either a king or a peasant with one roll of the dice. The song has one of the four or five best lyrics Elvis ever got to sing. It really captures the decadent backwards appeal of the city.

As for "See See Rider" it's a powerful opening. The show wasn't meant to be consumed in 100 doses. I'm sure the people that saw the show liked it just fine. As painful as JD's bass rumblings are to endure on "I Got A Woman" when you hear them on record, maybe they weren't that way in person where there is a sense of connection with the performer on stage. Just like Led Zeppelin rambling on in "Dazed and Confused" for 30 minutes!!! seems boring on record but in the audience there's a whole different vibe. Your ears are not the only thing engaged.

[ritchie valens]

wonder why elvis liked cc rider so much?
what bout these songs these would have been cool live.
treat me nice
doncha think its time
like a baby
i beg of you
the songs he rehearsed in ttwii
baby lets play house,don't money honey
fool such as i
lots more could have been done.
the set list for opening night aug 1974 was neat to hear songs like down in the alley.
rick nelson refused to do the same songs over and over.
you'd think e would have done more.
what he liked to do instead if doing songs the fans heard a billion times over.

[Liverbobs]

Elvis didn't want to be known just as a rock n roll singer but the audiences wanted to hear his 50's hits, so it must've been a dilemma for him, probably that's why his 50's stuff were sung at 100 MPH, he's pleased the audience by singing them and left him to do what he wanted to do!

[Richard Palmer]

A 38-year-old man singing "They say that going steady is not the proper thing" would have been unseemly.

What, as opposed to a 42-year-old man singing "I'm itchin' like a man on a fuzzy tree ..." ?

Artists are expected to sing their old hits; Elvis was no exception.

I remember seeing Marty Wilde in concert in the 80s. When he reached the relevant part of the song he simply kept his mouth firmly closed and refused to sing the title, Teenager In Love.

Yes, but isn't that because he expected the audience to sing it for him? No doubt he also sang "Rubber Ball". Surely he wasn't worried that there may have been people in the room who genuinely thought he was constructed from latex?

[Erhan]

"I got A Woman" repeated almost every concerts till the begining of his career lot more then other songs...

[Tony Trout]

wonder why elvis liked cc rider so much?
what bout these songs these would have been cool live.
treat me nice
doncha think its time
like a baby
i beg of you
the songs he rehearsed in ttwii
baby lets play house,don't money honey
fool such as i
lots more could have been done.
the set list for opening night aug 1974 was neat to hear songs like down in the alley.
rick nelson refused to do the same songs over and over.
you'd think e would have done more.
what he liked to do instead if doing songs the fans heard a billion times over.

In regards to Rick, yes he did refuse to do the old songs...but, sadly, this didn't last very long because by the mid-1980s he was back to the "teeny-bopper" image (calling himself "Ricky" instead of "Rick" and he was singing his old songs again-something he vowed he would never ever do).

Not to turn this into a Ricky Nelson thread but I picked up a new (to me, at least) biography on Rick and the Nelson family called, "Lonesome Town: The True Story Of America's Favorite Family". It's a very revealing look into the lives of Ozzie, Harriet, David & Ricky and gives a heartbreaking look at Rick's final years and the plane crash that took the lives of he and his girlfriend/fiance' Helen Blair and the members of the SCB (Stone Canyon Band): Bobby Neal (guitarist); Andy Chapin (Pianist and also formerly of Steppenwolf); Pat Woodward (electric and upright bass); Rick Inveld (drums) and road manager Clark Russell.

If you don't have a copy, get one...it's a great read!!

[Rob]

rick nelson refused to do the same songs over and over.
you'd think e would have done more. what he liked to do instead if doing songs the fans heard a billion times over.

Which is precisely why Elvis never made it to stardom. If only he would have been more like Rick Nelson. He might have made something of his career.

Such a pity.

[Dan_T]

I remember seeing Marty Wilde in concert in the 80s.

Oh God,you poor man,explains alot actually,still having nightmares?

[Ben]

I remember seeing Marty Wilde in concert in the 80s.

Oh God,you poor man,explains a lot actually,still having nightmares?

oi leave Marty alone i like him

[ColinB]

I remember seeing Marty Wilde in concert in the 80s.

Oh God,you poor man,explains a lot actually,still having nightmares?

He keeps dreaming that as Marty takes his final bow, his syrup falls off........................

[frus75]

It's true that an artist is always expected to sing his greatest hits. But, as Hound Dog-Don't Be cruel were almost always featured, there are other trademark elvis hits, blockbuster songs associated with him, and even with an "adult" feeling and/or lyrics that were less performed :

In the ghetto
Suspicious minds (abandoned in 74)
Burning Love
It's now or never
Crying In The Chapel
Are You Lonesome tonight...

I mean, when you go to a Tom Jones show, he "has" to sing delilah or it's not unusual, but he "has" to sing as well "sexbomb" and "kiss". Going to an Elvis november 70 show, or a vegas 71 show, I would have expected to hear all or most of his recent hits from 68-70....

[likethebike]

Sinatra didn't always perform his signatures and unlike Tom Jones, Elvis had too many massive hits to have to include any. If you listen to some Sinatra shows from the early '60s and it's almost all covers.

I think it should be remembered that the shows we are talking about here took place over a very compressed period of time chronologically. It seems longer because Elvis' career ended at an early age. Dumping "Suspicious Minds" for instance is an example of Elvis trying to bring some variation to the show. In 1975, "Wonder of You" and "Burning Love" were both resurrected for that reason.

Elvis not including contemporary material to the show was never a problem. So a comparison to Rick Nelson is invalid. There always plenty of recent material in the show. Performing mandatory hits was also not a problem, the problem is that many of them were tossed off. However, a mistake we make here is assuming that because he no longer found "Hound Dog" interesting he would automatically find something like "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck" or "I Need Your Love Tonight" interesting.

Elvis naturally liked fast tempos so that exacerbated the problems with material he didn't care about

[ekenee]

And besides the hit singles he didn't do, he could have tried some of his cool album tracks.
Songs such as:
Paralyzed
Have I told you lately
Party
You're so Square
Mean woman blues
Like a baby
Suspicion
I need you so
Blue eyes cryin' in the rain
They remind me too much of you.
I'll never know---at the paino
How the web was woven--at the piano
I will be true---at the piano
and of course........He's your uncle not your dad.