I'm just catching up with this thread now. It's a kick to hear those who "were there" as I came along just at the end, but grew up in a family of fans going back to the '50s.
I really agree very much with LTB on these points. It's been very liberating to throw off the yoke of the 'Rolling Stone" school of thought on what rocks. In fact, baby boomers come off rather juvenile by some of this residual inablity to appreciate the beauty to be found in an Elvis ballad like "Somebody To Lean On" or "It Hurts Me" or "Love Letters."
likethebike wrote:
On the other hand a fan coming in ten or twenty or thirty years later doesn't have that shared baggage or the stake in the initial rock revolution. Actually, many fans born after say 1965 may have been rocked to death. When they hear "There's Always me" they hear a brilliant pop song, there is no sense of betrayal or retrograde unless you're a died in the wool rocker. For a person like myself, who was introduced to "Can't Help Falling in Love", "Jailhouse Rock", "It's Now or Never" and "Don't Be Cruel" all at the same time, there was no need to learn or appreciate a new or different aesthetic. It was the Elvis aesthetic already in whole. They were all cool Elvis songs. Being a little boy, I liked the uptempo songs better but to me they were all good.
Rockin- The main issue I take with hardline original fans like Lennon and Carr and Farren is the natural assumption that pop is bad or somehow inferior. Tracks like "Are You Lonesome To-Night?" and "It's Now Or Never" may have been pop tracks but they were great pop tracks. That Elvis is singing in a different style does not translate into a lack of commitment on his part. Even some vintage fans like Paul Williams, who was a little young but sentient in 1956, who recognize the intention still dismiss the work because it is not work that they enjoy. "Most of his hits were ballads" wrote Williams dismissively.
I notice a growing sense among younger generations oldies acts like Frank Sinatra and Johnny Cash have enduring value that bodes well for the hope that Elvis will yet be fully rehabiliated. The old "rock" generation would cringe at a song (let alone his appearance) in songs done for "Aloha" like "It's Over" and "You Gave Me A Mountain" but having lived a little, and maybe hit some rough patches, it would be interesting to know how often they reach for punk rock or new wave as they raise their kids - or go through divorce or (gulp) get fired.
What person over 35 can watch "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" in TTWII and still bark: "this is too Vegas" or watch him do "Lead Me, Guide Me" from EOT and not be moved? No one I want to really know.
The "King of Rock'n'Roll" mantle also tends to obscure just how wide-ranging he truly was and if anything, the title switches the conversation to rock too easily when we should be talking about a great singer who brought us some great music.
