by Leonardo Masi
(translation by Sara Matteoli)
I had two possible themes for my the music post today. I had to choose between the sixty-fifth birthday of David Bowie (born January 8th, 1947) and the seventy-seventh birthday of Elvis Presley (January 8th, 1935) (picture on the left, from flickr). For those like me who grew up in the worship of English music of the magical decade 1967-1977, the decision was simple: Bowie!
But then I took my laptop and entered a cafe where Elvis’s songs were being played (see flickr photos on the left). I knew all of them, because my father used to listen to them when I was three years old, and he still does. At the time of psychedelia my father had had already two children and worked a lot. It was too late to turn to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin; he preferred to remain with the Everly Brothers or Duane Eddy. The Beach Boys were good, but recently I have discovered that he did not know those of Pet sounds. At most, the Bee Gees. This is for me the empirical evidence of the split that had opened in the mid-Sixties between the fans of the King of Rock and the new music of Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix. The Woodstock guys had very eclectic tastes; they could appreciate also Ravi Shankar, the Celtic folk and blues. But Elvis was just another world, although we must not forget that, behind the costumes’ revolution of the Sixties, lay the great sensual appeal of the “Pelvis” in his TV appearances during the Fifties.
Elvis represented anything but the protest of that time. In 1960 he left for military service giving great publicity to American patriotism. Then he returned and began his career in Hollywood, filming unpretentious movies. Luckily enough, he got bored of that, and in 1968 he prepared his great comeback. And he was really great. It is from here that we can start, because Elvis’s songs belonging to the 1968-1970 period, in my own view, please those who love good music. For goodness sake, no concept album, no twenty minutes’ suite and no moog: Elvis’s songs were still radio-songs. Sure, he also sang a few covers of the new groups (Something by The Beatles or Words by Bee Gees). But his master’s touch was the reinterpretation of the origins of rock and roll from the point of view of black music, with arrangements that recall the aesthetics of Motown, and also with tributes to soul and country music. Elvis could even sing gospel very well.
During the concert that marked his comeback in 1968 with a television special show, Presley said: “Rock and roll is basically gospel, or rhythm & blues. It sprang from that, people have been adding to it.”
The famous Elvis’s comeback show was a concert that foreshadowed the unplugged of the MTV era. On a small stage, he and with five other musicians (four guitars and “minimalist” percussion made on a guitar case) created a kind of acoustic jam session during which Elvis revisited the old songs, happily playing with the public and with the colleagues on the stage. The following year a very beautiful record arrived, I think the most beautiful of Presley’s career: From Elvis in Memphis, with classics such as In the ghetto (a small concession to social protest song) or Any day now, written by Burt Bacarach. And then still other successes as Suspicious Minds or Burning Love, the famous concert in Hawaii. Then unfortunately the concerts became too many, the pace was unsustainable, and there followed his fast physical ruin, and finally his death, on August 6th 1977.
Was the 1968 restyling a success? Unfortunately, not entirely: the young audience was already lost, but perhaps even the average listener of Pink Floyd with time will learn to like From Elvis in Memphis. Today I love listening to Elvis’s songs in this space where I’m writing: it is music that has a very positive effect. Now I can write a bit about David Bowie.
