Friday, June 08, 2007
ELVIS! The Late 60s Funk Of The Memphis Flash
"The Original Elvis Presley Collection No. 29:
Live A Little, Love A Little / Charro! / The Trouble With Girls / Change Of Habit"
All logic suggests that this scrappy hodge-podge collection of late 60's Elvis odds 'n' ends should suck like nothing else on earth. For a start, it's No.29 in a series of god knows how many, and it ain't like this is a 'Now! That's What I Call Elvis' deal, I mean, the guy put out alotta good stuff, but you gotta figure that by No. 29 they're probably scraping the bottom of the jelly jar somewhat, the really top-draw stuff having been served up over the course of the first dozen or so LPs, though now I think of it the whole enterprise looks so damn cheap that I'm not sure any of the LPs in this particular series are likely to be Solid Gold All Killer No Filler 50000000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong sorta affairs. No, this whole thing stinks of the very worst sorta ultra-cheap mondo-exploito rip-off pile 'em high & sell 'em low quality-control free Presleydelia that has been churned out relentlessly ever since The Flash danced his last, shamelessly mugging Elvis freaks for their every nickle & dime and damaging their hero's reputation in the ugliest of manners. The Colonel would be proud. Just dig the luh-hame sleeve design; random, unsympathetic and entirely artless 80s 'graphics', ELVIS spelt out in some godawful 'wacky' font, pictures of a coupla original 7" sleeves (themselves pretty horrible)...I mean, it's the worst. And that's before you get to the track listing.
The soundtracks to 4 rubbish late-60s Elvis movies carelessly shoe-horned onto one CD, which I picked up the bargain bin for £3. Doesn't scream QUALITY, does it? And yet...against all odds, the 29th Elvis Collection actually contains Some Really Great Music. I mean, don't get me wrong; 80% of it is pure, unadulterated shlock. I'm talking garbage like you've never heard. 16 tracks of swill. But making up the 20-strong tracklisting are THREE (Count 'em!) bone-fide smashers and 1 runner-up which at least has the decency to open with an absolutely MONSTER drum break. In order of appearance...
.1. A Little Less Conversation (from Live A Little, Love A Little)
The JXL remix was a stinker, an example of lowest-common denominator big-beatery whose attempt to make 'update' Elvis for a generation of clubbers was entirely uneccessary due to the fact that the original 1968 'A Little Less Conversation' is pretty much a perfect pop/funk floorfiller already. Rehabilitated into the Elvis canon by David Holmes on his excellent Oceans 11 OST, this is a real gem, and it's only a shame that Elvis didn't get the chance to do more up-tempo, late 60's styled RnB like this.
.2. Clean Up Your Own Back Yard (undubbed) (from The Trouble With Girls)
Elvis does sizzling country-funk. An excellent low-slung Memphis groove, some sleazy slide-geetar and Elvis bitching about how he wishes alla these 'backporch preachers' and 'drugstore cowboys' would just stay the hell off The King's back, making it easily the hippest lyric he ever delivered, especially the 'You tend to your business, I'll tend to mine' refrain, which brings to mind Elvis's TCB: Takin' Care Of Business motto. Close in feel & spirit to Tony Joe White's swamp/country material, I've DJ'd this back-to-back with Aretha Franklin's version of The Weight and they go together aces. Would have fitted perfectly on those excellent 'Country Got Soul' comps they put out a coupla years back.
.3. Change Of Habit (from Change Of Habit)
It's a film about Nuns! Nuns wear smocks called 'habits'! Habit is another word for habitual behaviour! So it's like, Change of "Habit", yeah?! I've never caught the movie, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess it ain't exactly Black Narcissus in Nun Movie terms (Idea for future post: Top 10 Nun Movies). Inexcusable punnery aside, this Song From The Movie Of The Same Name opens with a huge, totally unexpected fuzz-bass riff, which is then joined by full-fat funky drums, and then...becomes a slightly better than average Elvis track. But while it lasts the break is killer, hands down the straight-up funkiest moment on any Elvis cut, and will be familiar to fans of DJ Format who looped it on 'Here Comes The Fuzz'.
.4. Rubberneckin' (from Change Of Habit)
More up-tempo pop/RnB in the late 60's style, wherein The Memphis Flash lays out his 'philosophy', which is to 'Stop, look and listen.' This sounds oddly like the Green Cross Code Man's philosopy, but that's not important right now. Paul Oakenfold remixed this a coupla years back, and inevitably it was utter pish, but the original - cut from the same cloth as 'A Little Less Conversation' - is stompin' floorfiller which rattles along excitedly with great gospel backing vocals and OTT brass. And it sounds like Elvis is getting a kick out of it too, which you can't say for most of the material on this CD.
Live A Little, Love A Little / Charro! / The Trouble With Girls / Change Of Habit"
All logic suggests that this scrappy hodge-podge collection of late 60's Elvis odds 'n' ends should suck like nothing else on earth. For a start, it's No.29 in a series of god knows how many, and it ain't like this is a 'Now! That's What I Call Elvis' deal, I mean, the guy put out alotta good stuff, but you gotta figure that by No. 29 they're probably scraping the bottom of the jelly jar somewhat, the really top-draw stuff having been served up over the course of the first dozen or so LPs, though now I think of it the whole enterprise looks so damn cheap that I'm not sure any of the LPs in this particular series are likely to be Solid Gold All Killer No Filler 50000000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong sorta affairs. No, this whole thing stinks of the very worst sorta ultra-cheap mondo-exploito rip-off pile 'em high & sell 'em low quality-control free Presleydelia that has been churned out relentlessly ever since The Flash danced his last, shamelessly mugging Elvis freaks for their every nickle & dime and damaging their hero's reputation in the ugliest of manners. The Colonel would be proud. Just dig the luh-hame sleeve design; random, unsympathetic and entirely artless 80s 'graphics', ELVIS spelt out in some godawful 'wacky' font, pictures of a coupla original 7" sleeves (themselves pretty horrible)...I mean, it's the worst. And that's before you get to the track listing.
The soundtracks to 4 rubbish late-60s Elvis movies carelessly shoe-horned onto one CD, which I picked up the bargain bin for £3. Doesn't scream QUALITY, does it? And yet...against all odds, the 29th Elvis Collection actually contains Some Really Great Music. I mean, don't get me wrong; 80% of it is pure, unadulterated shlock. I'm talking garbage like you've never heard. 16 tracks of swill. But making up the 20-strong tracklisting are THREE (Count 'em!) bone-fide smashers and 1 runner-up which at least has the decency to open with an absolutely MONSTER drum break. In order of appearance...
.1. A Little Less Conversation (from Live A Little, Love A Little)
The JXL remix was a stinker, an example of lowest-common denominator big-beatery whose attempt to make 'update' Elvis for a generation of clubbers was entirely uneccessary due to the fact that the original 1968 'A Little Less Conversation' is pretty much a perfect pop/funk floorfiller already. Rehabilitated into the Elvis canon by David Holmes on his excellent Oceans 11 OST, this is a real gem, and it's only a shame that Elvis didn't get the chance to do more up-tempo, late 60's styled RnB like this.
.2. Clean Up Your Own Back Yard (undubbed) (from The Trouble With Girls)
Elvis does sizzling country-funk. An excellent low-slung Memphis groove, some sleazy slide-geetar and Elvis bitching about how he wishes alla these 'backporch preachers' and 'drugstore cowboys' would just stay the hell off The King's back, making it easily the hippest lyric he ever delivered, especially the 'You tend to your business, I'll tend to mine' refrain, which brings to mind Elvis's TCB: Takin' Care Of Business motto. Close in feel & spirit to Tony Joe White's swamp/country material, I've DJ'd this back-to-back with Aretha Franklin's version of The Weight and they go together aces. Would have fitted perfectly on those excellent 'Country Got Soul' comps they put out a coupla years back.
.3. Change Of Habit (from Change Of Habit)
It's a film about Nuns! Nuns wear smocks called 'habits'! Habit is another word for habitual behaviour! So it's like, Change of "Habit", yeah?! I've never caught the movie, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess it ain't exactly Black Narcissus in Nun Movie terms (Idea for future post: Top 10 Nun Movies). Inexcusable punnery aside, this Song From The Movie Of The Same Name opens with a huge, totally unexpected fuzz-bass riff, which is then joined by full-fat funky drums, and then...becomes a slightly better than average Elvis track. But while it lasts the break is killer, hands down the straight-up funkiest moment on any Elvis cut, and will be familiar to fans of DJ Format who looped it on 'Here Comes The Fuzz'.
.4. Rubberneckin' (from Change Of Habit)
More up-tempo pop/RnB in the late 60's style, wherein The Memphis Flash lays out his 'philosophy', which is to 'Stop, look and listen.' This sounds oddly like the Green Cross Code Man's philosopy, but that's not important right now. Paul Oakenfold remixed this a coupla years back, and inevitably it was utter pish, but the original - cut from the same cloth as 'A Little Less Conversation' - is stompin' floorfiller which rattles along excitedly with great gospel backing vocals and OTT brass. And it sounds like Elvis is getting a kick out of it too, which you can't say for most of the material on this CD.
All in all, well worth a punt, and proof if proof were needed that great music can be found in the most unlikeliest of places. The oddest thing about 'The Original Elvis Collection: No29' is that while 4 groovy tracks outta 20 might not sound like a great ratio, it's still about 4 tracks better than you could reasonably expect from it - it's something of a fluke, really, and there's no reason to assume that Collection No.30, fer instance, will contain any essential, and certainly no funk or 'break' orientated, Elvis music whatsoever...but on this evidence I might just give it a try.
Labels: Breakbeats, Funk
¶ 12:23 PM
