{"id":67988,"date":"2013-06-04T09:38:10","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=67988"},"modified":"2013-06-04T11:15:29","modified_gmt":"2013-06-04T15:15:29","slug":"from-the-very-beginning-elvis-was-a-conscious-creative-artist-he-knew-what-he-wanted-to-achieve-peter-guralnick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=67988","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;From the very beginning, [Elvis] was a conscious creative artist. He knew what he wanted to achieve.&#8221; &#8211; Peter Guralnick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"465\" src=\"http:\/\/teamcoco.com\/embed\/v\/52830\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Well worth the time: Conan O&#8217;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 (<a href=\"http:\/\/mooninthegutter.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/31-performances-ripe-for-rediscovery-20.html\">here&#8217;s just one example<\/a>), but that&#8217;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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to how people talk when they talk about Elvis.  Listen to the familiarity, the affection, the sadness at what-might-have-been.  It&#8217;s an extraordinary connection he had with his fans.  Guralnick talks about Elvis&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=41653\">earliest recordings<\/a>, the very beginning, in 1953, 1954.  And while Elvis may not have been able to play the guitar (he really couldn&#8217;t, not then), and while there may have been better singers (there were), what he had was the ability to <i>communicate<\/i>.  <\/p>\n<p>And that is something that cannot be taught.  Or, perhaps it can.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nextavenue.org\/blog\/why-harry-connick-jr-couldnt-sit-idle-during-idol\">Harry Connick sure gave it a try in his most recent coaching gig on <i>American Idol<\/i><\/a>.  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&#8217;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 <i>communicate<\/i>.  In order to do that, you need to know what you are singing, and why.  It&#8217;s very simple.  Sorry you missed the memo.  (I think of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BrfFiosdzgk\" target=\"_blank\">Taylor Hicks singing &#8220;Living for the City&#8221;<\/a> as though it was a party song, as though &#8220;whoo-hoo, gonna have a great time in the city tonight&#8221; 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&#8217;t watch that performance without getting angry.)  <\/p>\n<p>You think Etta James is great just because of her voice?  You&#8217;re wrong.  It&#8217;s because of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MqqcRu70HiQ\" target=\"_blank\">her ability to <i>communicate<\/i> WITH her voice<\/a>.  Plenty of people have good voices.  Dime a dozen.  Listen to the great performances.  Watch Judy Garland sing &#8220;Battle Hymn of the Republic&#8221; on her TV show, and watch what it means to communicate.  You don&#8217;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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pMFfvvR9JXI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>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.  <\/p>\n<p>I wrote a bit of a manifesto on this topic.  Interestingly enough, it started with an <i>American Idol<\/i> &#8220;performance&#8221; and led to Elvis Presley.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=43682\">It&#8217;s Got To Cost You Something<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;t get it back, but also, that there is more to give.  Give it away.  You won&#8217;t get it back.  But give it away.  <i>That&#8217;s your job<\/i>.  <\/p>\n<p>Elvis knew that from the start.<\/p>\n<p>If you have the time, please watch this fascinating conversation between Conan and Guralnick.  It&#8217;s a goldmine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well worth the time: Conan O&#8217;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&#8217;s just &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=67988\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[2095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67988"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68001,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67988\/revisions\/68001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}