EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (RCA Records)
In a city where the cliches of “oldies” and “the blues” can so oversaturate us that we’re numb to what was truly trailblazing about Memphis music back in the day, the vision of Baz Luhrmann has been a welcome kick in the pants. His 2022 film, Elvis, helped a new generation reimagine Elvis Presley’s transgressive power, and this year’s documentary from Luhrmann, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, is working similar wonders. While working on his 2022 film, Luhrmann and his team uncovered long-hidden film negatives and footage in the Warner Brothers vaults, originally captured for the documentary films Elvis: The Way It Is (1970) and Elvis On Tour (1972), as well as previously unseen 8mm footage and never-before-heard audio of Presley speaking about his life.
Just the music tracks from these sources are a revelation; whether or not you’ve seen the film, the EPiC soundtrack album alone (in LP, CD, or streaming form) brings a fresh perspective to an artist who’s perrenially resurrected. With the music punctuated by Presley’s reminiscences in all their disarming intimacy, the Las Vegas icon, as captured in concert recordings, is given more humanity right off the bat. That’s only compounded by the power of his band.
The 2019 release of the massive box set, Elvis Live 1969, was an early reminder of just how energized the band was when The King first began his series of Las Vegas residencies, all snarky comments about the artist’s Vegas period aside. From the start, he featured ace guitarist James Burton and those vocal ringers from American Sound Studio, The Sweet Inspirations, among many other stellar players. By the early ’70s, that band’s rocking, soulful pedigree, despite some changes in the intervening years, was more assured than ever, and that’s what’s heard in this soundtrack.
Sure, the intro of “Also Sprach Zarathustra/An American Trilogy” remains a kitschy product of its time, but the primal drums that follow are so potent, you’d scarcely believe you were hearing a version of “That’s All Right.” The frenetic pace is matched by “Tiger Man,” and that rollicking live energy, inspiring growls and other impassioned vocals from Presley, continues throughout on the uptempo numbers.
Yet the real revelations are the remixes. I for one have nothing against using studio trickery to pair vocal performances from bygone decades with more contemporary beats and bands. When Mark Ronson floated Bob Dylan’s vocals from “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” over a dance track by funkmeisters the Dap-Kings, the results were pure ear candy, and, because it’s such a finely crafted merging of a 1966 song with 2007 sensibilities, it holds up nearly 20 years later. The same can be said of the brilliant remixes on the EPiC soundtrack, for which Luhrmann recruited the likes of Jamieson Shaw, Jonathan Redmond, and Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production, among others. “Wearin’ That Night Life Look,” Shaw’s mashup of four different Presley tracks, with their verses and choruses flown in over a slightly modernized big-beat mix, is the album’s dynamically crafted and very danceable highlight, worth the price of admission alone. Meanwhile, PNAU utterly, intriguingly transforms “Suspicious Minds” (not included on the LP). Bono’s cameo is tolerable, as he recites a poem he wrote in 1995, set to music by composer Elliott Wheeler, closing with the words, “Elvis ate America before America ate him.”
Stax Killer B’s: 14 Fabulous Flip Sides (Craft Recordings)
Meanwhile, Craft Recordings continues to dig out the obscure Stax content, as they have previously with Stax Singles 4: Rarities & the Best of the Rest, Written in Their Soul: The Stax Songwriter Demos, and Stax Revue: Live in ’65! This year’s historical gem is Stax Killer B’s: 14 Fabulous Flip Sides, and it’s full of revelations.
While this LP is also derived from archives, like EPiC, the tracks are presented just as they were released half a century ago or more. They were final masters at the time and, despite not being deemed sufficiently marketable to rate the A-side of a single, the intervening years have made these also-rans sound brilliant in their own right.
You’re hit with a one-two punch right away, as The Bar-Kays’ “A.J. the Housefly” storms out of the gates with horn punches and Michael Toles’ tough guitar bringing a compelling party vibe, only to give way to one of the subtlest grooves concocted by Booker T. & the M.G.s, “Soul Clap ’69.” Then come the vocalists, led by the great Johnnie Taylor, aka “The Soul Philosopher,” who delves into domestic relationships (his specialty) with “Love in the Streets (Ain’t Good as the Love at Home),” followed by the startlingly vulnerable “It Hurts to Want It So Bad” by Mel and Tim.
Never heard of Mel and Tim? There are plenty more unsung artists to discover here, such as The Newcomers, Margie Joseph (whose disturbing “Punish Me” was written by — you guessed it — two men), and, of course, the inimitable Jones and Blumenberg. One of the great powerhouses on the record is Little Sonny, the rare bluesman in the house of soul, whose “They Want Money” is like a howl of pain from the depths of ’70s inflation. But the standout track may be one that wins you over with tenderness: the solo artist Stefan’s take on John Fogerty’s “Long as I Can See the Light,” itself a celebrated B-side by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Stefan’s version, in a Bobby Manuel production that foreshadows more of his work in the producer’s seat to come, starts with a sparse piano-and-voice delivery that builds into a classic plaintive swell of horn- and organ-driven soul.
All told, it’s a staggering roundup of quality productions that only cements Stax Records’ place in the history of the world’s great production houses. Tellingly, the Soulsville artists included here don’t really need a contemporary dance remix to stay relevant: these tracks are plenty funky already.
