Happy Elvis Presley Day?

presley

There has been a movement to get January 8 to be a national day in honor of Elvis Presley. In 2012, some members of Congress signed a resolution to name the day in honor of the King of Rock and Roll, but other activities distracted the legislators from following through.

Of course, Elvis fans chose the date because Elvis was born on January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi. But almost as importantly, January 8 is also the date in 1946 when the eleven-year-old Elvis, hoping for a bicycle or a rifle, was instead given a guitar. For his birthday, his mother Gladys took him to the hardware store where she bought him the instrument that would inspire his musical career and change history.

So, while the fiscal cliff and other matters distracted Congress from giving us an Elvis Presley day in 2013, we can still recognize that boy and his guitar here. One of my favorite Elvis Presley performances with a guitar is “One Night” from his 1968 “Comeback” TV special.

Elvis’s “One Night” was a slightly cleaned up version of Smiley Lewis’s recording of “One Night (of Sin),” a song that, depending on the source, is about an orgy or a trip to a whorehouse and was written by Dave Bartholomew, Pearl King, and Anita Steiman. “Colonel” Parker and the record company had reservations about the steamy song that Elvis liked, so the lyrics were cleaned up a little, including the change of “One night of sin is what I’m now paying for” to “One night with you is what I’m now praying for.”

The “clean” version was a hit in 1958. Although Elvis also recorded the original “dirty” version, it was not released until 1992. For a comparison of the two versions, check out this article on Crooked Timber. Below you can hear Smiley Lewis’s take on “One Night (of Sin).”

Although Elvis’s cover using the original lyrics was decades from being officially released, in his 1968 performance, he goes back to the original song in both attitude and some of the lyrics, singing the original lines “The things I did and I saw / Would make the earth stand still” instead of the clean version’s “The things that we two could plan / Would make my dreams come true.” And whereas Lewis’s take on those lyrics is slower, more regretful, and bluesy, Presley’s 1968 performance is steamy, funny, and steeped in joyful sexuality.

Elvis’s 1968 stage presence is a long way from an eleven-year-old with his first guitar. Music writer Greil Marcus has described the performance, “No one has ever heard him sing like this; not even his best records suggest the depth of passion in this music.” (Mystery Train, p. 126.) He adds, “It was the finest music of his life. If ever there was music that bleeds, this was it.”

This performance alone should earn the King an Elvis Presley Day.

What is your favorite Elvis Presley guitar performance? Leave your two cents in the comments?

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    Blue Christmas & the Elvis TV Special

    In what is now known as “The ’68 Comeback Special,” what was originally conceived as a Christmas special ended up with only one holiday song, “Blue Christmas.”

    Elvis Presley ChristmasIt was the Christmas television special that never was. Peter Guralnick explained in his wonderful two-volume biography of Elvis Presley how Elvis’s famous 1968 “Comeback Special” started with the idea of a holiday special. But it turned into something completely different.

    By the late 1960’s, Elvis had become largely irrelevant to the current music scene.  In recent years he had spent his time in a wasteland of movies of declining quality.

    For a change in strategy, Colonel Parker negotiated a deal with NBC for a TV special around the holidays.  And Parker envisioned it as a Christmas special.

    Elvis Presley 1968 Comeback SpecialBut Elvis and Steve Binder, the director of the program, had something else in mind. They designed the special in a way to reestablish Elvis as a relevant music artist.

    The special featured several big set productions and an outstanding closing number written just for Elvis.  But the centerpiece of the special featured Elvis in black leather singing out the raw blues of his early work — both in stand-up and sit-down segments.

    Binder recorded two sit-down sessions with Elvis on June 27, 1968 for the December TV special.  Both versions of “Blue Christmas” are available on DVD. In one of the sessions, Elvis also sang “Santa Claus Is Back in Town,” but it was not used in the show.

    The special, promoted as “Elvis” but now known as The ’68 Comeback Special, was a turning point in Presleys career. It relaunched him as a relevant music artist who would soon record such great songs as “Suspicious Minds.”

    “Blue Christmas”

    In the special, which was broadcast on December 3, 1968, Binder agreed to allow only one Christmas song in the show.  The song was “Blue Christmas,” which Elvis had first recorded in 1957.

    Elvis’s 1957 rock and roll performance defined “Blue Christmas.” But the song had been recorded almost a decade earlier in 1948 by Ernest Tubb. One of the most recent covers of the song was released by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band with a horn section on a fun version of “Blue Christmas.”

    One can see why Binder allowed this one holiday song in the 1968 special.  “Blue Christmas” is steeped in the blues, and Presley knocks it out of the park.

    Watching the performance  feels like being in the living room jamming with the greatest singer in the world. The King had returned.

    Bonus Ranking: See where “Blue Christmas” ranks among the top depressing holiday songs of all time here.

    Bonus History Trivia: This week in 1957, Elvis was at Graceland celebrating the holidays when he received his draft notice on December 20, 1957.

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