Fit for a King

Elvis had many looks - thin Elvis, fat Elvis, army Elvis. But when you think of early 70s Elvis - the Vegas Years - you picture him in your mind's eye in that iconic white jumpsuit (with the collar turned up. Natch). A sartorial nightmare in the wrong hands, you would have thought: why, who else would be crazy enough to walk down the street in 1972 wearing a heavily sequinned all-in-one jacket/trouser combo verging on the utterly ridiculous; your chances of being run out of town on a rail would, on a scale of 98 to 100, be, well, pushing 100.

Unless, that is, you were the Osmonds. Ever wondered how many white jumpsuits you could fit on a stage at any one time? Five, seemingly. Sometimes six, though long haired (underage) lovers from Liverpool don't really count.

...

When the insanely talented brothers released Crazy Horses, their fifth long player, this was, for my money, the best song on the album. And, as I found out only recently, the intro is the perfect soundtrack to brush your teeth to. I kid you not. 

The Osmonds - Hold Her Tight (1972)

P1LEY

I is for Elvis

Ian Pile - Piley to his mates - needs no introduction on this blog. Suffice it to say he is one half of the excellent Mondo & Piley monthly PODROPHEN1A podcast which you can find here . I was thrilled to receive this email in my inbox last week:

Hi John,

Hope you are well. Please find attached a pic of me with the first album bought with my own money.

Had numerous albums before this (Bugs Bunny, Sooty, Pinky and Perky, few 'Top of the Pops' albums), but all purchased as presents or nagged a parent into buying! Mum was a 'middle period' Elvis fan. The films and soundtracks mostly. I was an avid Top 40 listener on Sundays, and was diggin' the mid/late 70s Elvis singles (Moody Blue, Way Down). So much in fact that I recorded them off the radio (is there any higher praise than that?!). Anyway this rockier style didn't feature on anything my mum had, so i trooped up to Woolworths in Hadleigh to see what i could find. The recent RCA albums were all out of my league pricewise (I did get them all in the following few years), so was drawn to the cheapy MFP/Pickwick/Camden spinner rack. There were a number of Elvis albums less than half the price of the RCA ones so decided to get one of those instead. In my innocence i picked US Male purely because it had the most recent picture of him on the cover. So obviously this would be more recent tunes!!

I had no idea these were all just rehash after rehash of old tunes. Turned out most of 'em were on my mum's albums anyway! Still, the great news was it had Burning Love on it. Still to this day one of my all time favourite Elvis songs. 

Cheers mate!

Ian

ELV1S: BURN1NG LOVE

Three Faced

It's called 'Doing a Swede' - named after the young man who thought it would be a hoot to have your photograph taken holding the first album you ever bought with your own money; whilst at the same time doing a rudimentary version of the Dance of the Seven Veils.

Anyway, as you can see, Mr. Swede lost his cherry to Marc Bolan, I took the Sweet behind the bike sheds and Alyson, well...it would appear Alyson let Mr. Presley into her boudoir after lights out. Allegedly.

If you still have your first 33 and you don't mind sharing a Polaroid of yourself in the kitchen clutching said artefact (looking only mildly silly), then now's the time to say 'There's no time like the present' and ping the image over to Medd Towers.

I'd particularly like to hear (and see) regular (and irregular) readers' debut platters. So Mondo &Piley, C, Martin, Mark, Skirky,  Rol and anyone else out there who can still locate that first piece of black plastic they bought in 19 Seventy/Eighty, come on down. 

Elvis Unplugged

Remember him this way

On the back of The Swede's excellent blog post yesterday, I went in search of other Musicless Videos. The idea of somebody taking the soundtrack off a music video and overdubbing a few rudimentary sound effects (sometimes nothing more than the sound of a pair of squeaky shoes being scraped along a wooden floor, some out of tune yukelele strumming and a few breathless oohs and aahs) really appeals to my inner ten year old.
Anyway, without further ado, here's Elvis throwing a few shapes and not much else. I think it's hysterical.

Not this way

The Magnificent Seven

Mark, Landlord at The Station Hotel, was still buzzing when I arrived for the Open Mic last night. The BBC had only just left after being with him for the best part of the day. His Elvis memorabilia collection, which he takes on the road collecting money for charity, is getting a bit of a name for itself: to the point that Radio York ran a feature on it in their breakfast show, and TV’s Look North gave it a coat of looking at during their early evening news. Unfortunately I hadn't come with an Elvis tune, but my seven song set went down pretty well all the same:

* No Gold Or Silver
* Leeds, 1972
* Hey Hey Hey (A Song For You)
* Fool
* When The Sun Comes Up
* Days Like This
* On A Battlefield Far Far Away

Taking care of business

Lot #96. I can't believe Mark let me hold this

Ellie May with her present from daddy

Mark has just come back Memphis. He paid his respects to Elvis. He also came back with his 1973 Gold Omega digital wristwatch. And his autograph. And Priscilla's autograph. He even picked up a limited edition replica of a guitar that Elvis played, as a present for his daughter. It goes without saying that Mark spent some serious money on these auction items. I like fans. I hope Mark's bank manager does too.

Quarry St. kids in leather take Hamburg

Creole was sharp but his guitar was acoustic, go Johnny go, use your electric

A proper fairy tale

Although Elvis did meet The Beatles (in August 1965, many years after John was in Hamburg), this photograph is a fake. But it makes you smile doesn't it? Talking about fake photographs, a friend of mine is currently researching the Cotttingley Fairies: now that's an enchanting story. But not content with just turning it into a three minute folk song, PP Woodlands has plans to to take a full blown musical production of 'Away with the Fairies' to the West End later this year. I'm there.

Dapper Dans

Prompted by Pete Paphides, aka Mr. Caitlin Moran, I've dug out these examples of sartorial elegance from the back pages of Melody Maker. It's from January 20, 1973 (priced at 8 new pence, or 50 cents if, per chance, you were buying it in the USA) and has Eric Clapton on the cover pictured at his comeback gig at London's Rainbow Theatre the previous Saturday.

Looking rather fetching in his white suit, a look also favoured by Messrs. Presley, Lennon and Hopkirk, Clapton would have been looking out at a crowd not sporting Cream or Blind Faith tee shirts (back then rock and roll merchandising was still in short trousers) and nor would his disciples have been wearing anything with a designer label. No, what Clapton would have seen was three thousand guys and gals dressed in garments like these:


Or, more likely, these (note the subliminal cigarette advertising):


Just as well the term fashion victim hadn't been coined back then; there are two pages full of embroidered loons, velvet loon jackets, Danish clogs, male clogs, brushed denim dungarees, genuine RAF overcoats, shaggy pile jackets, cavalry boots, velvet caps, square neck vests...I could go on, but I think you get the picture. As Paphides says, these are historical documents. If you want to know what was going on (or to see what the natives used to wear) during a particular time frame, look no further than back issues of the British music press.