Johnny Cash quote

[Jazzmoose]

Next, we'll discuss Buddy Holly.

Watch it!

[Jim R]

The real drag, though, were the background vocalists (especially those cats in the checkered suits on the Sullivan show). Ouch.

The Jordanaires were a very legendary Southern Gospel group. quite apart from their long association with Elvis. Whether or not you can get into that type of thing or not (and for me it\'s a tste I\'m still acquiring - slowly).

All I\'m saying is that to know them only from Elvis is to not really know them at all, if not necessarily that to know them is to love them....

And also, post-comeback Elvis used the Sweet Inspirations, not a group to dismiss. But I don't think you're including them.

I think I should have been more specific. There's one performance in particular that just makes me cringe, and as I recall (i can't seem to find it on Youtube right now), it was "Hound Dog" on the Sullivan show. I don't really have any problem with them on "Peace In The Valley", or "Love Me", or any others I recall seeing.

[JSngry]

Cool.

But hell, the way he used them was so often derivative it's own self. It's like, the guy had...energy, but was basically bereft of ideas of his own. That's not gonna be too much of a hero to me, musical or otherwise.

[AllenLowe]

well, the gospel stuff is central to Elvis's sense of musical self, let us say - the whole Southern quartet thing lay heavily on his sound - Elvis's whole vocal sound was uncannily like a lot of the old style Gospel leads, and in putting that up front in a rock and roll setting he was truly unique. But Jim's not alone; a lot of people do not find his sound compelling, and I didn't really put any time into it until I was writing my first book - but then it was like a revelation, slow but clear.

No one else put that vocal sound in a pop setting; it's a heavy and weighted sound, hard to apply, but for me it works. As for Scotty, it like something I used to call the virtuousity of style; not complex but a matter of invention and then nuance - being the first to come up with a particular and compelling musical angle.

The vocal thing, once again, is unique, but I have heard it not only in some of the post-War white quartets, but also in some things by Harmonica Frank from the early 1950s (he was white) - and also Barbecue Bob (who was black) had a certain throaty vibrato that tells me there was something new going on musically that Elvis grabbed and ran with -

Edited April 5, 2009 by AllenLowe

[fasstrack]

I'm not looking to convince anybody that I'm right and they're wrong. I just want to every now and then let whoever know that, no, not EVERYBODY feels the love, just because.

I have always felt the same way about Elvis. I've heard the vast majority of his work, and I have rarely been moved or impressed.

Agreed. A collection of continually recycled mannerisms. But he did have a nice body of work, due mostly to good songwriters. The best thing about him to me was the raw animal magnetism. I guess that's sort of as gift, but I'm neither a woman nor gay, so who cares? Musically he's underwhelming. Not in Sinatra's neighborhood as singer and certainly not as actor, and his arrival and prominence was sort of the beginning of the end of the real quality period in American pop music. If Tony Bennett were to tell his real feelings, I bet he'd be less than pleased about what went on, the lowering of musical standards. When subtlely went out the window it lowered the bar.

Also, a bit off-topic but related, that's when my instrument started going downhill in perception by the public. They saw it as something to strap onto a handsome buck, or something easy to learn a few chords on and become a 'star'---and all the work put in by some real players---giants---became a poor relation. We haven't recovered yet and good guitar players still catch hell.

But I liked I'll be home for Christmas and Heartbreak Hotel a lot.

Finally, since this started out about Johnny Cash, to me he had a cry in his voice and a pain that was much more real to me than Elvis ever did. Elvis seemed too dumb to have much of an emotional range. Maybe I haven't heard the right records.

Edited April 5, 2009 by fasstrack

[Alexander]

Finally, since this started out about Johnny Cash, to me he had a cry in his voice and a pain that was much more real to me than Elvis ever did. Elvis seemed too dumb to have much of an emotional range. Maybe I haven't heard the right records.

Elvis may have been naïve in the beginning and pretty much a follower in terms of his personality, but I don't think the guy was dumb. On the contrary, he always seemed like he was inwardly laughing at his "Tennessee Truck Driver" image. I think his biggest problem was that he was a follower, not a leader, and that he allowed himself to be led by a man who screwed him six ways from Sunday. Elvis's best body of work, in my opinion, is the stuff he did in the late 60s and early 70s, right after his comeback and right before his Vegas period. That, to me, sounds like a guy who FINALLY knew what he wanted to do and got to do it. Once he was free of the soundtrack material and the custom written stuff (much of which was very good), Elvis was able to choose the songs that allowed him to express himself. One of my all time favorite recordings of that period is "Long Black Limousine." To me, it sounds like Elvis is singing his own epitaph...

[Alexander]

And I don't mean to dismiss Cash. He's also one of my all-time favorites. When I first began exploring country, I started with him.

[Jim R]

As for Scotty, it like something I used to call the virtuousity of style; not complex but a matter of invention and then nuance - being the first to come up with a particular and compelling musical angle.

Allowing for a certain amount of subjectivity and personal taste here, I won't directly challenge that, but frankly I'm not sure exactly what you're giving him credit for.

Was he really the first to do anything? That's a sincere question. I was born in 1956, so I obviously didn't live it when it was happening (the early years, that is).

One of the reasons I decided to try to give Elvis' music a chance (again) some years ago was that I had read some comments about Moore's greatness, and being a guitarist and guitar enthusiast, I thought I could have missed something that I could still get some mileage out of. I tried, but I didn't find anything of note. To me, he was a guy who looked solid behind Elvis with his blond L5 (and later with the even flashier Super 400), knew when to change chords, and didn't try to play anything too difficult when he soloed. Very safe and even (dare I say) mundane to my ears. Of course, I never really got around to listening to any early "rock" guitarists (including Chuck Berry) with any real level of discretion until I had thoroughly checked out most of the blues and r&b greats, including guys who were sort of on the edge of being "popular" (albeit with a slightly different audience in general), like Bill Jennings with Louis Jordan, Billy Butler with Bill Doggett, and others. Maybe my attitude toward Moore is somewhat unfair in this respect, but really, just trying to appreciate him for the player he was and the position he was in, I just don't see what the fuss is (was) about. Maybe I should emphasize that I don't see what it IS about... I can imagine what it WAS about (the fact that he was playing to a lot of audiences who had not heard black music).

[fasstrack]

FWIW: I just endured 35 minutes of corn on a country awards show that was on after 60 Minutes. And I'm shutting it off.

[AllenLowe]

re: Scotty -

the original strain of rock and roll guitar lineage is basically (with some oversimplification) Blind Blake, Ike Everly, Merle Travis, than Scotty/Carl Perkins. It was the creation of a sound, an approach, a way of keeping time and a tonality that separated white guitarists from the basic black blues approach. Scotty put it there when it wasn't there, and that means a lot, musically and historically.

grab a guitar and try to play like Scotty - I'm willing to bet you cannot reproduce the tone, timbre, and phrasing and with any degree of musicality - it can be mimicked, but he had a very personal sound and touch -

as for fasstrack saying, re Elvis:

"his arrival and prominence was sort of the beginning of the end of the real quality period in American pop music"

I think this is extremely wrong minded, and of a piece with the lack of appreciation of Scotty Moore - this is a very different side of American music than that which I think, with all due respect, you really have any sympathy for. It is really a part of he whole process of blues-based and vernacular songwriting as changed by mass communication, basically - and it is songwriting out of a blues/folk/country/hillbilly tradition as reconstructed by pros and as slicked up by pros. SOme of it sucks, some of it excellent, but it exists by a different technical measure, a different way of writing music and lyrics. In a way it is even more difficult than the Great American Songbook, because the genius of people like Otis Blackwell and Leiber and Stoller (and Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan) was creating so much out of so little. Beatles, too; Chuck Berry, Doc Pomus, Gerry Weil -

and yes, Elvis wasn't a songwriter, but neither was Sinatra; he was no more dependent on those writers than Frank.

as for "corn", there is a world of country music that is much more than that - just for a start: Buck Owens, Merle Travis, George Jones, Webb Pierce, Bob Carlisle, Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family, Johnny Cash, Warren Smith, Carl Perkins, Hank Williams, Hank Penny, Bob Dunn, Bob Wills, Bill Willis, Tammy Wynette, Merl Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Carl Smith, Jean Shepard, Tex Ritter, the Shelton Brothers, the Allen Brothers, Riley Puckett, Lefty Frizell, Fran Hutchison, BF Shelton, Louvin Brothers, Dr. Humphrey Bate, Clarence Ashley. Dave Macon, Sam McGhee, Gene Autry (pre 1935) -

not trying to be obnoxious, but it's really like someone listening to Kenny G and deciding that jazz is simple and boring - as with jazz, you won't get it second hand, you gotta hear all those guys, and than you'll have a sense of where Elvis comes from -

Edited April 6, 2009 by AllenLowe

[fasstrack]

re: Scotty -

the original strain of rock and roll guitar lineage is basically (with some oversimplification) Blind Blake, Ike Everly, Merle Travis, than Scotty/Carl Perkins. It was the creation of a sound, an approach, a way of keeping time and a tonality that separated white guitarists from the basic black blues approach. Scotty put it there when it wasn't there, and that means a lot, musically and historically.

grab a guitar and try to play like Scotty - I'm willing to bet you cannot reproduce the tone, timbre, and phrasing and with any degree of musicality - it can be mimicked, but he had a very personal sound and touch -

as for fasstrack saying, re Elvis:

"his arrival and prominence was sort of the beginning of the end of the real quality period in American pop music"

I think this is extremely wrong minded, and of a piece with the lack of appreciation of Scotty Moore - this is a very different side of American music than that which I think, with all due respect, you really have any sympathy for. It is really a part of he whole process of blues-based and vernacular songwriting as changed by mass communication, basically - and it is songwriting out of a blues/folk/country/hillbilly tradition as reconstructed by pros and as slicked up by pros. SOme of it sucks, some of it excellent, but it exists by a different technical measure, a different way of writing music and lyrics. In a way it is even more difficult than the Great American Songbook, because the genius of people like Otis Blackwell and Leiber and Stoller (and Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan) was creating so much out of so little. Beatles, too; Chuck Berry, Doc Pomus, Gerry Weil -

and yes, Elvis wasn't a songwriter, but neither was Sinatra; he was no more dependent on those writers than Frank.

as for "corn", there is a world of country music that is much more than that - just for a start: Buck Owens, Merle Travis, George Jones, Webb Pierce, Bob Carlisle, Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter Family, Johnny Cash, Warren Smith, Carl Perkins, Hank Williams, Hank Penny, Bob Dunn, Bob Wills, Bill Willis, Tammy Wynette, Merl Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Carl Smith, Jean Shepard, Tex Ritter, the Shelton Brothers, the Allen Brothers, Riley Puckett, Lefty Frizell, Fran Hutchison, BF Shelton, Louvin Brothers, Dr. Humphrey Bate, Clarence Ashley. Dave Macon, Sam McGhee, Gene Autry (pre 1935) -

not trying to be obnoxious, but it's really like someone listening to Kenny G and deciding that jazz is simple and boring - as with jazz, you won't get it second hand, you gotta hear all those guys, and than you'll have a sense of where Elvis comes from -

Read Alec Wilder's book. And I'm really getting weary of you lecturing me about guitar and guitar players. I'm playing 44 years, since I'm 10 and went through a lot of styles and hung with a lot of different type players before settling into jazz. Let me tell you. I know more about the traditions you speak about and have more respect for them than you are showing me with these comments. I wouldn't tell you about things on your instrument, I would ask. I don't really care about Elvis. At all. I care about what happened to the standard for my instrument. And I care about songwriting, having written music my entire life. The game changed, people---many very gifted, like Stevie Wonder and others came along, but along with the cream came a lot of dross and non-musicians, not at all literate and very defensive about things they put down as 'technical' b/c they are over their heads. I've worked with people like that and it's no joy. Soul, humanity, or anything else that is magical in music are not mutually exclusive with knowledge. Very few people have ears that good to go by the seat of their pants alone---otherwise classics would be written every five minutes.

I only reacted to what I saw on a dumb commercial award show before. It has nothing to do with respect or dissing any of the people you mentioned. It just was lame---that 35 minutes---so I shut it off.

And this is just my opinion. I'm entitled to mine, you're entitled to yours. But please get off the guitar soapbox, with all due respect. You're really getting on my nerves.

[AllenLowe]

likewise I'm sure - I just don't wanna hear the same cliches about these kids today and it sure ain't like the old days when we knew more than three chords and when musicians were musicians and when you could tell the girls from the guys and we sure paid our dues -

Edited April 6, 2009 by AllenLowe

[fasstrack]

Allen: My solution to us getting on each other's nerves is to put you on ignore---for now, not forever. It's just that these little squabbles are probably not all that interesting to others, and I don't come here to fight with people. We both have strong opinions and are seemingly easily set off. Certainly your opinions are at least as valid as mine (not about guitar IMO, I told you why, but any others). I've had bad experiences on the Web in the past and it's nothing personal, I'm sure you're cool in person and I do like your passion, just trying to learn from my mistakes and trying not to bore people. Beefs tend to hijack discussions and no one wins. And I like this space the best so far and don't want to be party to any bad vibes. Sorry if I caused any here.

All the best and I hope you understand. Maybe we'll open it up again. Right now I just see where it's going and prefer to 'head it off at the pass', OK? (Sorry, couldn't resist one dumb movie cowboy cliche.....)

Edited April 6, 2009 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

well, if I could see your post, I might say, good idea -

agreed - (I'm telepathic) -

[fasstrack]

Not sure what you said. If it's conciliatory you know how to find me........

[7/4]

Get hotel room you guys...Allen has a running tab at one place.

[fasstrack]

Get hotel room you guys...Allen has a running tab at one place.

SEE?!!

[7/4]

Let us keep our sense of humor intact on rainy days.

Allen's gonna think I'm picking on him now...

Edited April 6, 2009 by 7/4

[AllenLowe]

it's ok - just turned 55 so I get my AARP discount -

[Jim R]

As for Scotty, it like something I used to call the virtuousity of style; not complex but a matter of invention and then nuance - being the first to come up with a particular and compelling musical angle.

Allowing for a certain amount of subjectivity and personal taste here, I won't directly challenge that, but frankly I'm not sure exactly what you're giving him credit for.

Was he really the first to do anything? That's a sincere question. I was born in 1956, so I obviously didn't live it when it was happening (the early years, that is).

One of the reasons I decided to try to give Elvis' music a chance (again) some years ago was that I had read some comments about Moore's greatness, and being a guitarist and guitar enthusiast, I thought I could have missed something that I could still get some mileage out of. I tried, but I didn't find anything of note. To me, he was a guy who looked solid behind Elvis with his blond L5 (and later with the even flashier Super 400), knew when to change chords, and didn't try to play anything too difficult when he soloed. Very safe and even (dare I say) mundane to my ears. Of course, I never really got around to listening to any early "rock" guitarists (including Chuck Berry) with any real level of discretion until I had thoroughly checked out most of the blues and r&b greats, including guys who were sort of on the edge of being "popular" (albeit with a slightly different audience in general), like Bill Jennings with Louis Jordan, Billy Butler with Bill Doggett, and others. Maybe my attitude toward Moore is somewhat unfair in this respect, but really, just trying to appreciate him for the player he was and the position he was in, I just don't see what the fuss is (was) about. Maybe I should emphasize that I don't see what it IS about... I can imagine what it WAS about (the fact that he was playing to a lot of audiences who had not heard black music).

re: Scotty -

the original strain of rock and roll guitar lineage is basically (with some oversimplification) Blind Blake, Ike Everly, Merle Travis, than Scotty/Carl Perkins. It was the creation of a sound, an approach, a way of keeping time and a tonality that separated white guitarists from the basic black blues approach. Scotty put it there when it wasn't there, and that means a lot, musically and historically.

grab a guitar and try to play like Scotty - I'm willing to bet you cannot reproduce the tone, timbre, and phrasing and with any degree of musicality - it can be mimicked, but he had a very personal sound and touch.

My impression of Scotty has always been that of a humble gentleman, and I don't desire to drag him through any mud. So, I think I'll just say that I find your lineage an odd set of dots to connect; and as far as trying to reproduce the tone, timbre, and phrasing of any guitarist... you and I both know that is always difficult even when we're talking about a relatively simple player. I honestly have never had any desire to copy any aspect of his playing, because I don't think there's a whole lot going on there. He's pleasant to listen to, a decent rhythm guitarist, and was a nice simple backdrop- allowing the spotlight to remain on the energy and iconic good looks of Elvis.

Edited April 6, 2009 by Jim R

[AllenLowe]

I wasn't trying to be glib, only pointing out that sometimes the simple is not so easy to replicate -

and I know it seems an odd "set of dots" but it is pretty exact - Blind Blake was the prime ragtime/picker influence in the 1920s and early 1930s; Ike Everly, the Everly Brothers father, was known to have developed a picking style out of Blake (and there are later Newport recordings of Ike that show the debt to Blake); Merle Travis developed his Travis picking based in large part on the admitted influnence of Ike, whom he knew; Travis revolutionized country guitar with this complex thumb and line style; Scotty's playing was really a simpliifcation of this Travis picking, more single line, but alternating with chording - Carl Perkins picked up same - and basically, that is the early sound of Country/Hillbilly rock and roll guitar. Some went in other directions, but the Sun Records crew really caught everybody's attention, from Mike Bloomfield to Keith Richards -

Edited April 6, 2009 by AllenLowe

[ghost of miles]

I've heard it -all the Sun stuff, all the hits, too many of the soundtracks, the gospel stuff, the comeback and beyond things, pretty much all of it, and I remain unimpressed and unmoved. Obviously I am in the minority on that, but oh well about that. I grew up Southern, like plenty of "white" artists, and have no problem whatsoever with "hillbillies" or Pop or Country music, so I'm not demographically predisposed to reject Elvis on principle. I just don't connect with Elvis at any level and personally find all the fuss about him....puzzling. Sociologically it makes some sense, but musically...nah. Not for me.

But to those for which it does, hey, party on!

Jim, I'm in your camp on this one--I have the Sun disc and a couple RCA "best-of" compilations, but I've just never connected with Elvis Presley as an artist. For better or worse, I'm much more interested in him as a cultural phenomenon than I am in him as a musician, which is why I read both volumes of Guralnick's bio. Something obviously was happening, but this particular Mr. Jones still don't get it, really... again, no disrespect to the many, many who did get something from his work, and his popularity obviously cleared the way for later artists with whom I have felt a connection.

For those interested, Lester Bangs wrote a fairly good eulogy to Elvis that appears in his book PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS.

[ghost of miles]

Hey Allen, re: a comment you made upstream about Memphis and a young Frank Strozier, Memphis/Nashville early 1950s seems to have had a lot of interesting crossover with local jazz guys (Newborn family, etc.) showing up on R and B/jump blues records. Do you have that Bear Family box, A SHOT IN THE DARK: NASHVILLE JUMP?

[AllenLowe]

I don't - I will add that the strangest thing I ever heard was on an old Howlin' Wolf Memhis session - on one cut (would have to go find it) there is a classic bebop piano intro; than into a Wolf blues. The pianist is listed as unidentified, but it has to be Phineas Newborne -

[AllenLowe]

(those icons have nothing to do with anything - I put 'em there because I'm on fasstrack's ignore list; it's ok - I'm on Stevie Wonder's and Al Hibbler's too)