Tag: Elvis Presley

Derby Faces Some “Kentucky Rain”

kentucky derby book At Churchill Downs this morning, heavy rain led organizers to cancel morning training for today’s 138th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race. Handicappers and others wondered how the muddy track and possible additional rain may affect the horses in the race. But the skies cleared and sun came through by the time of the race, which was won by I’ll Have Another, who with 14-1 odds overcame the favorite Bodemeister.

When I think of “Kentucky Rain,” one song comes to mind. “Kentucky Rain” was written by country star Eddie Rabbitt and Dick Heard, but made famous by Elvis Presley. While there are a ton of Elvis performances on YouTube, they do not appear to include any live footage of Elvis singing this hit. But here is a good video that someone put together with images from the King’s career.

According to Ernst Jorgensen’s Elvis Presley: A Life in Music – The Complete Recording Sessions (p. 275), Elvis first recorded “Kentucky Rain” during RCA sessions on February 19, 1969 at American Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis started the song around 7:30 p.m. in the evening, and the musicians found the song challenging as they worked to add a little edge and a little brightness to the sound. They worked on the song for three hours, took a short break, and returned to the song for several more hours at 11:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m. The hard work paid off, and afterward everyone involved believed the song about a man searching for his lost love could be a potential single.

Additions that helped make the song a classic was the backing vocals and piano playing of a future star named Ronnie Milsap. During the recording session, Elvis turned to the young musician and asked, “Hey Milsap, can I get a little bit of thunder over there on the piano?” So, Milsap supplied the thunder for the song in a technique he would later use on his own 1980 rain song, “Smoky Mountain Rain.”

Jorgensen’s book says “Kentucky Rain” was released in February 1970 (but Wikipedia claims the song was released January 29, 1970). The song went to number sixteen on the pop charts. For Elvis, the song was his fiftieth gold record. For Ronnie Milsap, it was the beginning of a great career. Similarly, for songwriter Eddie Rabbitt, it signaled to his parents that maybe he would amount to something. For me, who was a young kid at the time, it is one of the new Elvis releases I remember hearing on the radio. I still love hearing it today.

[Thanks to @jonniebwalker for pointing out that Milsap played piano as well as sang on “Kentucky Rain.”]

What do you think of “Kentucky Rain”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Happy Birthday Elvis: Clean Up Your Own Backyard

    Elvis Presey Trouble with Girls On this date in 1935, Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. His simplified life story is that an awkward young boy grew into a young man who rocketed to stardom in the 1950s with his musical talent and then went to Hollywood where he lost his way making second-rate movies. Eventually, the story goes, the man found his musical roots in a television special, but then lost his way again in a spiral of excess and over-medication.

    But one’s life cannot be simplified into a few sentences. The general story line is inaccurate on a number of levels, including the general assertion that Elvis made no decent movies or music during the time he made films. While a number of the films are only interesting because of Elvis’s presence and there is a lot of cheesy music like “Do the Clam,” the King was still capable of hitting one out of the park now and then during this period. Several songs you know originally came from his movies, like “Can’t Help Falling in Love” from Blue Hawaii (1961).

    The clip below is a song you may not have ever heard if you have not seen the movie, The Trouble With Girls (and How to Get Into It) (1969). The film itself is among his more interesting and unusual movies, despite the title that makes it sound completely generic. Unlike other Presley vehicles, The Trouble With Girls does not feature him in almost every scene (he’s in about one-third of the film), and at various times before production Glenn Ford and Dick Van Dycke were slotted to play Elvis’s role as Walter Hale. His character is the manager of a traveling chautauqua, which is a school that provides education combined with entertainment. You may read more about the unusual movie at this fan site.

    The musical highlight of the movie is where Elvis performs “Clean Up Your Own Backyard.” The bluesy song is an excellent vehicle for Elvis, and the lyrics about hypocrisy is a good lesson for all of us. Before we judge Presley’s life, “Clean up your own backyard / You tend to your business, I’ll tend to mine.”

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    Buy from Amazon

    Conrad Murray Convicted of Michael Jackson Homicide

    Michael Jackson Ben

    A jury convicted Dr. Conrad Murray of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, who died on June 25, 2009. The judge will set a sentence that may range from probation to four years in prison.

    As in the case of Elvis Presley’s death, during recent weeks it has seemed that the way Michael Jackson died overshadowed his talent. But of course, Jackson’s own legal troubles and accusations against him had already put a stain on his life and career. Reading about how Jackson regularly took propofol intravenously to put him to sleep, one cannot help thinking about the troubled life starting with his difficult childhood where he was physically and emotionally abused. For today, though, it does not hurt to think about the music and the talent before it was tarnished by the sexual abuse allegations and the way he died.

    “Ben” was the title track on Michael Jackson’s second solo album, released in 1972 while he was still with the Jackson 5. As far as I know, it is the only song from a killer rat movie to be nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award. There will be those who say that Dr. Murray is a killer rat, but it appears more that he was just another piece of an ongoing tragedy.

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    Is That All There Is?: Jerry Leiber, Rest in Peace

    Leiber and Stoller Hound Dog On August 22, 2011, Jerry Leiber, part of the great song-writing team with Mike Stoller, passed away at the age of 78 from cardiopulmonary failure.

    Leiber’s impact on your life may be best summarized by this list of songs he co-wrote, mostly writing the lyrics while Stoller handled the music: Big Mama Thornton and Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” Elvis’s “Jailhouse Rock,” Dion’s “Ruby Baby,” The Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby,” The Coasters’ “Yakety Yak,” The Searchers’ “Love Potion No. 9,” Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is?,” Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” (written w/ Ben E. King and also recorded by John Lennon), Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem” (Leiber and Phil Spector), George Benson’s “On Broadway,” and Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.”

    Take away Leiber’s work and you have to imagine Elvis without “Jailhouse Rock,” or the movie Stand By Me without the song — or Reservoir Dogs without “Stuck in the Middle With You” (not for the faint of heart).

    Although many may not recognize the name, the above songs and others will be there for generations. Rolling Stone has a nice article about Leiber’s career.  A career that included forming a partnership with Stoller that put them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

    Rest in peace Mr. Leiber, and thanks for the songs, including this advice from “Is That All There Is?”:

    For I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you,
    When that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath, I’ll be saying to myself,

    Is that all there is, is that all there is?
    If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing;
    Let’s break out the booze and have a ball,
    If that’s all there is.

    UPDATE (Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011): After the above story was posted, we learned that we lost another great songwriter. Nick Ashford died of cancer at the age of 69. Like Jerry Leiber, Ashford was famous for writing great songs with a partner, Valerie Simpson, who eventually became Ashford’s wife too. Their songs included Diana Ross’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “Reach Out and Touch,” Ray Charles’s “Let’s Go Get Stoned” and “I Don’t Need No Doctor” (covered here by John Mayer and John Scofield), Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” (covered by Whitney Houston too), and one of my favorites, the Marvelette’s “Destination Anywhere,” which was featured in the movie The Commitments. Ashford & Simpson had success as performers too, including a hit with a song that has a title that described Ashford’s songwriting talent: “Solid (as a Rock).”

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    Elvis Presley Death Roundup

    On today’s date in 1977, the 42-year-old Elvis Presley went into hiding to escape the spotlight and live his life in peace. Well, either that or he died. Below is a roundup of some of the stories on the anniversary of his reported “death.”

    – The Washington Post blog reprints an article from 1956 about the young Elvis.

    Elvis Gold Suit

    – Events at Graceland are covered in several articles. Doug Stephan’s Good Day has a piece about the annual pilgrimage to Graceland. The Los Angeles Times also addresses the journey to Graceland (“Elvis…spurs fresh tears”) and notes some other Elvis anniversaries around the corner. Illustrating Elvis’s international appeal, AlJazeera also has a post about Graceland and the anniversary.

    – In the memory category, Boomitude presents a couple of fun podcasts of Billy Bob Thornton discussing his memories of Elvis’s death (“If Elvis could be gone, boy, bad stuff can really happen, can’t it?”) and reviewing his favorite Elvis songs. A memory of a different sort is recalled in in the Orange County Register, where Patricia Bunin uses the anniversary to recount her first kiss, which was from Elvis.

    – The Baltimore Sun uses the anniversary to ponder what books Elvis would be reading today. Taking the idea further, the International Business Times discusses “Five Stocks Elvis Might Have Enjoyed,” using his song titles for guidance. The same publication also has “10 Things You Might Not Have Known About the King.”

    – The Oakland County Daily Tribune has a long feature story on an Elvis-themed party store.

    – Politics seems to creep into everything these days, so here is the Huffington Post writing about Michelle Bachmann mistakenly wishing Elvis happy birthday on the day he died.

    – In the song category, the Christian Science Monitor ranks his five greatest songs with “Hound Dog” and “If I Can Dream” in the top five. Blogness on the Edge of Town, consistent with its Bruce Springsteen focus, features a collection of Elvis Presley songs covered by Springsteen. The website also features an audio clip of Springsteen discussing his Presley memories.

    – Every anniversary of Elvis’s death I try to re-read Lester Bangs’s beautiful essay from the Village Voice in 1977, “Where Were You When Elvis Died?” Check it out if you have never read it. “But I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis.”

    Finally, here is an obligatory great Elvis performance. Not long before Elvis died, he played the piano and sang after playing racquetball. The two songs — the last songs he would ever sing — were Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Unchained Melody.” Although Elvis was in bad shape toward the end of his life, we often forget that he could still belt out a song.

  • Longing for the Freedom of My Chains: Dobie Gray’s “Loving Arms”
  • Chuck Jackson Was There Before Elvis: “Any Day Now”
  • Lisa Marie Presley and Elvis: “I Love You Because”
  • Townes Van Zandt Covered an Elvis Song About a Shrimp?
  • Did Elvis Perform “If I Can Dream” Facing a Christmas Stage As In Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” Move?
  • Morgan Wade: “Run” (Song of the Day)

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