Moresha wrote:drjohncarpenter wrote:Moresha wrote:And off course Elvis was not the great ballad singer like he would become later ...
I couldn't disagree more.
Many of Elvis' 1950s ballads rank with his very greatest recordings.
I think that Elvis in the 50's was a lesser ballad singer than in his later career. I'm not talking about his songs, but about his vocal ability in the 50's. How do you think I Believe would have sound if he recorded it in 1969. He was a greater singer in 1969 than in 1957, but his greatest songs for me he recorded in the 50's. But that is only my opinion.......
In certain respects he was a greater singer in 1969, but in other respects in 1957. When talking about two different eras of Elvis, when he's at the top of his game both times, it's not simple enough to say he was a better singer in this year etc. Ok, take a song like Long Black Limousine, his yearning vocal, after years of mis-guided soundtracks, in that very first song recorded at American Sound perfectly encapsulated all the complexities of the lyric, of the country boy lost to the city. I seem to recall Guralnick saying something similar. Elvis in 1957, wouldn't have bettered that song.
Yet go back to a song like Jailhouse Rock from '57. Do you really thing that Elvis in 1969 could have achieved that rasping, rocking vocal he did some 22 years earlier. Sure, he gives it a damn fine effort in live versions in August that year, but his voice simply would not achieve that masterful qualities it had when he was still a young man. And if you want to talk about ballads, songs like Young and Beautiful and Is It So Strange from 1957, wouldn't have been bettered by a 1969 Elvis. The youthfulness, the vulnerablity, the naivety almost and the higher voice in Young and Beautiful especially, simply couldn't be replicated in '69.
