“From the very beginning, [Elvis] was a conscious creative artist. He knew what he wanted to achieve.” – Peter Guralnick

Well worth the time: Conan O’Brien talks to music historian/Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick about Elvis. Of course, they both dis the movies in the 60s, and I have made myself clear numerous times about my feelings about that (here’s just one example), but that’s a typical thing, seems to be the accepted view of things. I am determined to help change that, in my own small way. But that’s a minor disappointment. This is a rich and fascinating conversation, by two men who really know their topic. And better than know it, they love it.

Listen to how people talk when they talk about Elvis. Listen to the familiarity, the affection, the sadness at what-might-have-been. It’s an extraordinary connection he had with his fans. Guralnick talks about Elvis’ earliest recordings, the very beginning, in 1953, 1954. And while Elvis may not have been able to play the guitar (he really couldn’t, not then), and while there may have been better singers (there were), what he had was the ability to communicate.

And that is something that cannot be taught. Or, perhaps it can. Harry Connick sure gave it a try in his most recent coaching gig on American Idol. Those kids may be able to hit high notes and fly up and down the scale, but they do not know what they are singing about, they don’t care either (a sin, in the Religion of Art), and have no idea that what their job is, what their job REALLY is, is to communicate. In order to do that, you need to know what you are singing, and why. It’s very simple. Sorry you missed the memo. (I think of Taylor Hicks singing “Living for the City” as though it was a party song, as though “whoo-hoo, gonna have a great time in the city tonight” was the message of the song. The song is a raging furious indictment of racism, bigotry, and oppression. Take that smile off your face, Hicks. I can’t watch that performance without getting angry.)

You think Etta James is great just because of her voice? You’re wrong. It’s because of her ability to communicate WITH her voice. Plenty of people have good voices. Dime a dozen. Listen to the great performances. Watch Judy Garland sing “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on her TV show, and watch what it means to communicate. You don’t even need to know the backstory, that JFK had just been shot, although knowing that is fascinating context. But even without that, her emotions and her need to say something are poured into her tiny quivering frame and it takes everything she’s got, every bit of her life experience, her career experience, her show-biz chops, to get it OUT of her. Without falling apart. Falling apart, though, is not her job. She would fail if she fell apart. The need to communicate something is larger than her need to have a small private experience of grief and loss. She knows that. So watch.

What she does with her voice is extraordinary, but you could turn the sound down on that performance and watch it as a silent movie and STILL get what she was trying to communicate.

I wrote a bit of a manifesto on this topic. Interestingly enough, it started with an American Idol “performance” and led to Elvis Presley.

It’s called It’s Got To Cost You Something. If you are not willing to pay the price, in gesture, commitment, openness, then you have no business asking us to take time out of our lives to watch you.

More than anything else, I would say that if you want to be a performer, then you must be willing to leave something of yourself up there on that stage. And you have to know that you won’t get it back, but also, that there is more to give. Give it away. You won’t get it back. But give it away. That’s your job.

Elvis knew that from the start.

If you have the time, please watch this fascinating conversation between Conan and Guralnick. It’s a goldmine.

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19 Responses to “From the very beginning, [Elvis] was a conscious creative artist. He knew what he wanted to achieve.” – Peter Guralnick

  1. Tracey K. says:

    fascinating quote by Guralnick, considering the hell he gives Elvis now for his movie songs and 70’s song choices.

    • sheila says:

      Sure, I guess, but I think they are two different things. I always felt that Guralnick really GOT that aspect of Elvis that they discuss in depth here: Guralnick understood that his success was not a mistake, a fluke, or a right place at right time thing – It was a conscious dream that Elvis kept in his sights at all times. That made him fearless, that made him keep coming around Sun, hanging around, bothering Marion Keisker. Guralnick really understands that. Many people do not. They still want to think of Elvis as some idiot savante.

      I never doubt Guralnick’s love/appreciation for Elvis and what it was EP accomplished in the culture. Guralnick couldn’t have written those books without feeling the way he does in that quote.

      Anyway, the entire clip is worth watching.

  2. Tracey K. says:

    I do agree with you, and I really enjoyed the clip. I just wish they weren’t so hell bent on buying into the mythology of “Elvis sang sad songs in the 70s. That means he was clinically depressed.” I don’t necessarily think it was that pat. And I do think Elvis put out a lot of great stuff in the 60s…”It Hurts Me”, “Crying in the Chapel”, etc.

    But I do think Guralinick IS one of the few critics to really take Elvis seriously, personally and musically. I probably didn’t express myself clearly; I do see that Guralnick recognized that Elvis was consciously creating his own success. I just thought of that quote when Guralnick started downplaying Elvis’s musical choices in the sixties and 70s. I just think there is still a certain line with music critics regarding Elvis that they wish his whole career could have been like his Sun Records output, and that’s not realistic, or fair to Elvis.

    I don’t agree with everything he said but it was definitely a worthwhile clip!

    • sheila says:

      Well, you know I agree with you there about Guralnick’s take on the majority of the 60s/70s – he makes no bones about his preference for the 50s Sun artist Elvis. And he has a huge blind spot about the movies and Elvis as an actor. But he does say here, not in so many words, but he does say that that’s his preference. He gives the ballads their due, which many people don’t – they wish Elvis had worn black leather forever (which, of course, would have made him into a joke). He talks about that one ballad in Viva Las Vegas – he’s written about it before, EP’s performance of said ballad, and how absolutely beautiful it is. I think Guralnick isn’t nearly as “guilty” of that kind of thinking as many others are – and this quote in the subject line is why Guralnick has done so much for “rehabilitating” Elvis’ reputation, as an artist as a man.

      There’s way more here than trying to limit Elvis to his 50s glory. This is a conversation about his whole life, the gospel. Guralnick know that it is emotion that puts a song across and he says Elvis had that to the end.

      Lester Bangs got it, though, when he said imagine if Elvis had come out of the Army and still tried to act like a bad-ass? It would have been a joke. He would have immediately made himself into SCHTICK.

      I think a lot of these mostly male critics love the 50s Elvis best because it validates them and who they want to be. No shame in that, but it is a shame when stuff like the gospels, Elvis’ acting, or Elvis’ ballads are treated dismissively!

  3. sheila says:

    Additionally, I was thrilled that Conan brought up how disheartened he was by Elvis’ passivity. Why did he put up with so much shit? Why didn’t he put his foot down? This is a common (and understandable) reaction to the Elvis story when you know it. I’ve written a lot about that – Elvis’ passivity and where it came from – and I also think it’s the key to understanding him. If you don’t grasp Elvis’ passivity and accept that it was as much a part of him as the sexpot rebel – then you will be constantly disappointed and frustrated by Elvis’ behavior.

    Conan and Guralnick have a wonderful conversation here about that passivity – such an important element of the Elvis Story and not often gone into with such depth. I’m so glad it was addressed!

    I think Elvis’ passivity came out of his culture and class – he was a poverty-struck Christian Southern boy, whose good manners were second nature. Also second nature was a deep respect/awe of authority figures – Elvis did not question that there were certain people you were deferential towards: people in uniform, people who knew more, people who were older than him, women, the United States government. This was not an act for him. Maureen Stapleton met him and said he “yes ma’am-ed” her to death, and it was completely genuine.

    The passivity – which led him to do what the Colonel told him – ALSO had a lot to do with how accessible he was as a performer – and THIS is what it is often missed in conversations about EP’s frustrating passivity. He did not fight what WAS. Maybe that came from his God-fearing nature, and also his sense of how lucky he was, how blessed (literally).

    But just in terms of artistry: The “passivity” translated into extraordinary openness onstage or in recording studios. You can hear it in the multiple takes of one song. He let the song take him. He was open to it – he didn’t fight it or try to change it. Often his producers would keep demos from other artists away from Elvis because if Elvis heard a demo he just wanted to do it like the demo. Ha.

    His passivity was one of his greatest assets as a singer/performer. It was also his Achilles heel as a man. Such as we all are made!!

    • Tracey K. says:

      i think you make an excellent point. ..his passivity came out of his “culture and class.” He was NICE GUY with consideration and manners.

      • sheila says:

        Right – it was a genuine part of who he was. His character.

        His talent/drive kept him coming back to Sun Studios – but he also never wanted to seem too big for his britches. It was against his cultural code, his Mama’s code.

  4. Fiddlin Bill says:

    American Idol is something of a cultural tragedy, because it conveys the false idea that musical genius is easy to find and discern. There’s a winner a year, and some good 2nd placers. Viewers are baited and switched: they do get a winner, but often the hidden truth is like that guitar-neck tossed in the gutter in “Blow Up.” Bob Dylan would never win American Idol. Robert Johnson? George Jones? Merle Haggard? Even Anita O’Day, or Maria McKee? Ella would surely win, because she had the most wonderful voice of the last 200 years. Not Billie. Any of the Beatles? Jagger might. Kelly Clarkson won because someone had to. Ten years after, she’s now a pretty serious singer, who might not win.

    • sheila says:

      Yeah, I thought the Harry Connick show was FASCINATING. Because he clocked what I have felt so often – these kids don’t connect to the lyrics, and they don’t even know that that is their main job. It’s rare to find people in a specific industry who have such a grave misunderstanding of what the job actually is. Harry Connick was GREAT in his critiques.

  5. “Passive” is one way to put it…The word I would use is “watchful.” As in, be sure to wait for your moment. Because, where Elvis came from, if you push it just a little too hard, you get kicked in the face. Whatever we call that particular quality, it leaves some people when they become successful, or at least works itself out in more aggressive ways–not least a desire to “strike back”. Elvis stayed watchful and I think that raw aggression is what the white-boy-dominated narrative wishes he had shown more of.

    It’s funny but you almost never hear this particular complaint from anyone who actually shared Elvis’ cultural and socio-economic background. (Other complaints perhaps but hardly ever that one.) Then again, they were the folks who put all those movies in the black and bought all those ballads (not to mention all those gospel records.) Elvis had good reasons, beyond basic decency, for never turning his back on them!

    Can’t wait to listen to the audio btw!

    • sheila says:

      Yes, it’s really interesting!!

      I agree with your words about his watchful-ness – it almost helped that people underestimated his intelligence, because he could work on things in stealth-mode.

      But that is different than passivity. That was the part of him that really really wanted to do A Star is Born, and caved to pressure from the Colonel to not do it unless such and such demands were met. By that point, he had lost the fight. He gave up on himself. He was unable to stand up for himself.

      The flipside of the negative aspect of that passive nature was that he was open and submissive and susceptible – in ways that helped make him the expressive artist he was. Everything was natural to him.

      But Conan and Guralnick discussing Elvis’ passivity – why didn’t he say No when people asked him to do things he didn’t want to do – I think also his good manners made him dread confrontation.

  6. Dan says:

    //That was the part of him that really really wanted to do A Star is Born, and caved to pressure from the Colonel to not do it unless such and such demands were met. By that point, he had lost the fight. //

    I recall reading a similar story recently, that Elvis was strongly considered for the Dean Martin role but the Colonel got in the way. Too bad – we can only wonder what it would have been like to see those two icons on screen together

    • sheila says:

      There’s also another missed opportunity from early on – 1957 – when Robert Mitchum came to Elvis personally and asked him to play his brother in an upcoming movie, two brothers in a chain-gang. Elvis was only 22, and new to the whole thing, and really wanted to do it but knew he’d have to check with the Colonel. Of course it didn’t happen – but I still like to dream about the two of them playing brothers onscreen!

  7. Clementine says:

    Double Ditto….Sheila. Before Elvis ……Robert Mitchum personified ……’doin’ it my way’! The thought of Robert Mitchum and Elvis Presley on the big screen….as brothers. Double …….Eye Candy….to me! So sad…..what could have been.

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