Elvis Presley – Discography 1960 - 1963

This entry is to close out my Elvis Presley "discography series," but in fact, I made very few changes to what was released during this time. In my opinion, RCA et al did a decent job during these four years of releases. The only changes I make are to replace the 1961 Flaming Star EP with a single (the additional two songs were unnecessary re-releases), redo the third volume of the Golden Records series and add my revised version of the “lost” album, both from 1963.

1960

• SINGLE: Stuck on You / Fame and Fortune (March)
• ALBUM: Elvis is Back (April)
• SINGLE: It’s Now or Never / A Mess of Blues (July)
• ALBUM: G.I. Blues (September)
• ALBUM: His Hand in Mine (November)
• SINGLE: Are You Lonesome Tonight? / I Gotta Know (November)

1961

• SINGLE: Surrender / Lonely Man (February)
• SINGLE (add): Flaming Star / Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (April)
• EP (delete): Elvis by Request: Flaming Star and 3 Other Great Songs (April)
• SINGLE: I Feel So Bad / Wild in the Country (May)
• ALBUM: Something for Everybody (May)
• SINGLE: (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame / Little Sister (August)
• ALBUM: Blue Hawaii (October)
• SINGLE: Can’t Help Falling in Love / Rock a Hula, Baby (November)

1962

• SINGLE: Good Luck Charm / Anything That’s Part of You (February)
• EP: Follow That Dream (April)
• ALBUM: Pot Luck (May)
• SINGLE: She’s Not You / Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello (July)
• EP: Kid Galahad (August)
• SINGLE: Return to Sender / Where Do You Come From? (October)
• ALBUM: Girls! Girls! Girls! (November)

1963

ALBUM: Elvis’ Golden Records, Vol. 3 (January)

SIDE A

1.       Stuck on You

2.       Fame and Fortune

3.       It’s Now or Never

4.       Are You Lonesome Tonight?

5.       I Gotta Know

6.       Surrender

SIDE B

1.       I Feel So Bad

2.       Wild in the Country

3.       (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame

4.       Little Sister

5.       Can’t Help Falling in Love

6.       Good Luck Charm

RCA released Elvis’ Golden Records, Vol. 3 in August 1963. I would have pushed it up as a January 1963 release and changed the track listing a bit, as well as organized the songs in chronological order. Removed from the album are “Anything That’s Part of You,” which only made it to #31 on the charts; as well as “She’s Not You,” which was released only seven months prior. Instead, I included “Wild in the Country” (a #26 hit) and “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (a #2 hit that had been inexplicably left off). I decided to use this alternate cover I found on the web.

• SINGLE: One Broken Heart for Sale / They Remind Me Too Much of You (January)
• ALBUM: It Happened at the World’s Fair (April)
• SINGLE: (You’re the) Devil in Disguise / Please Don’t Drag That String Around (June)

ALBUM: For the Asking (August)

SIDE A

1.       (It’s a) Long Lonely Highway

2.       What Now? What Next? Where to?

3.       Ask Me

4.       Echoes Of Love

5.       Western Union

6.       Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers

SIDE B

1.       It Hurts Me

2.       Blue River

3.       Memphis, Tennessee

4.       Love Me Tonight

5.       Never Ending

6.       Slowly But Surely

In 1991, RCA released The Lost Album (later re-released as For the Asking: The Lost Album), including songs from recording sessions in 1963. Most of the tracks were supposed to make up a new studio album. But instead, it was decided that another “greatest hits” package would sell better. From the 15 songs recorded during the sessions, I didn’t include the three that were used for singles during this year: “Witchcraft,” “Please Don’t Drag That String Around” and “Devil in Disguise.” I then organized the track list keeping a mix of up-tempo songs and ballads. I think this ends up being a really good album that never quite was but should have been. For a cover, I found a version online and edited the track listing.

• SINGLE: Bossa Nova Baby / Witchcraft (October)
• ALBUM: Fun in Acapulco (November)

If you want to review my previous Elvis discographies, click on the links below:

Elvis Presley’s Debut Album on Sun Records

Elvis Presley’s 1950s Discography with RCA

Elvis Presley Discography, 1964-1968

Elvis Presley Discography, 1969-1977

The Yardbirds - "Solo Flights"

 

Happy New Year!

In 1966, the Yardbirds' management encouraged band members to bring attention to the group through success in solo projects. The first to do so was singer Keith Relf, who issued two singles, although the highest they appeared on the charts was #50. 

Guitarist Jeff Beck also recorded a track, although it was nearly a year before it was issued, and by that time he was out of the group.

Jimmy Page joined the Yardbirds in June 1966. Although he didn't release a solo single as a member of the Yardbirds, Page had issued a single the previous year. 

I can find no solo recordings by other members of the group. If there were plans for recordings by Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty or even soon-to-depart Paul Samwell-Smith, they may have been canceled after Relf's dismal showing on the charts. I mean, if the lead singer can't get a hit song, how do you expect any of the other members to do so?

I wondered if I took the solo material by Relf, Beck and Page, along with an added soundtrack cut by the band from '66, we could compile a new "Yardbirds" album.

SIDE A

1. Stroll On (The Yardbirds)

2. Knowing (Keith Relf)

3. She Just Satisfies (Jimmy Page)

4. Mr. Zero (Keith Relf)

SIDE B

1. Beck's Bolero (Jeff Beck)

2. Shapes in My Mind (Keith Relf)

3. Keep Movin' (Jimmy Page) 

4. Blue Sands (credited to Keith Relf)

We start the album with "Stroll On," a song the Yardbirds recorded for the film "Blow Out," in which they appear performing the song. Although the writing of the song is credited to the Yardbirds, it's actually a re-write of "Train Kept A-Rollin'," which the band had recorded the previous year.

The next track is "Knowing," one of four songs from Relf's two solo singles. This is followed by Page's "She Just Satisfies" and Relf's "Mr. Zero" which closes the album's first side.

Side B opens with "Beck's Bolero," which is based on Maurice Ravel's "Bolero." Also featured on the song are Page, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones and Nicky Hopkins. Beck would later say that two or three other songs were recorded at the same session. Sadly, they've apparently been lost, erased or misfiled.

This is followed by tracks by Relf and Page. The last track, "Blue Sands," is an instrumental that first appeared on the B-side of Relf's second single. Although credited to Relf, apparently he doesn't appear on the song at all. It was, in fact, recorded by a British group called The Outsiders. I included it only because it had been credited to Relf, so theoretically, it would have been included in an album if one had been issued at the time.

This compilation results in a very short album, actually more likely an EP. But it is a nice way to package up some loose ends of Yardbirds-related songs. If you want to expand it a bit, there are a couple of tracks by The All-Stars featuring Jeff Beck (that also include Page) that were recorded in 1965.

Three of the Relf tracks can be found on the album All the Falling Angels - Solo Recordings & Collaborations 1965-1976. As far as I've been able to find, the song "Blue Sands" appears to only be available on the original single. "Beck's Bolero" is available on Beck's Truth album. The two Page tracks can be found on the album Session Man: Vol. 1.

For the cover, I chose a stock image of five biplanes, added the band and record company logos, and added the title.

Arthur Lyman -- The Exotic Worlds of Arthur Lyman

The "big three" of tiki exotica music are Les Baxter, Martin Denny, and Arthur Lyman. A few years ago I got two double-CD compilations of works by Baxter and Denny titled The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter and The Exotic Sounds of Martin Denny that were released in 1996. Both featured cover art by Mark Ryden. I play them as background music for our home tiki bar.

However, there wasn't a similar release for Arthur Lyman, and I felt it was lacking from the collection, so I created one myself.

DISC 1

01 - Isle of Golden Dreams

02 - Ebb Tide

03 - Black Orchid

04 - Afro Blue

05 - Jungle Drums

06 - Akaka Falls

07 - Blue Hawaii

08 - Fire Down Below

09 - Aloha No Honolulu

10 - Jungle Fantasy

11 - Harbor Lights

12 - Bolero

13 - Hawaiian War Chant

14 - Bahia

15 - Jungle Jalopy

16 - Bwana A

17 - Beyond the Reef

18 - Caravan

19 - Hawaii Tattoo

20 - Ke Kali Nei Au

DISC 2

01 - Sweet Leilani

02 - Koni Au I Ka Wai

03 - My Tane

04 - The Limbo Rock

05 - Pele

06 - La Paloma

07 - Sweet Someone

08 - Theme from Adventures in Paradise

09 - Mapauna

10 - Quiet Village

11 - Taboo

12 - The Moon of Manakoora

13 - Midnight Sun

14 - Return to Paradise

15 - Whispering Reef Lullaby

16 - Taboo Tu

17 - Misirlou

18 - Ringo Oiwake

19 - The (Jungle) Cat

20 - Yellow Bird

In deciding what tracks to include by Lyman, I searched through various "best of" collections but focused mainly on songs featuring titles about the South Pacific or exotic locations. Both the Baxter and Denny compilations include 40 tracks each, with 20 tunes per disc. So, in keeping with the format, I chose 40 songs of Lyman's music.

The collection begins with "Isle of Golden Dreams," originally released in 1958 on Lyman's Hawaiian Sunset LP. It's a rather slow, "dreamy" piece that I thought would allow the listener to drift into the mood. All the instrumentals presented here can transport you to a mythical tropic island with their use of vibraphones, marimbas, ukuleles and exotic bird calls. I ended the collection with probably Lyman's best-known tune, "Yellow Bird." I recommend you shake up a mai tai and relax.

For the cover artwork, I wanted to use another painting by Mark Ryden like the ones used for the Baxter and Denny compilations, but I couldn't find anything suitable. So, instead, I chose an image of a velvet painting by Robb Hamel, cropped it, and added titles. The title I chose, to go along with the other two compilations, was The Exotic Worlds of Arthur Lyman.

Led Zeppelin - Post Breakup Albums

For the first five albums, the tracks were left in the vault whenever Led Zeppelin had additional songs that didn’t fit. But with the recording of Physical Graffiti, instead of cutting songs that didn’t fit they decided to instead expand to a double album and include unused songs from the past to fill it out.

However, I wondered how things might have turned out if the band had gone its usual route and, after the band's end, continued issuing albums of leftover tracks into the 1980s.

So first, I had to cut Physical Graffiti down to a single disc:

SIDE A

1. Custard Pie
2. Trampled Underfoot
3. In My Time of Dying

SIDE B

1. Kashmir
2. Ten Years Gone
3. Sick Again

To keep both sides around 20 minutes, I was forced to cut “In the Light” and “The Wanton Song.” I like both songs, so it wasn't easy—and that's essentially why Zeppelin chose not to cut them and turned the album into a double.

Then, knowing what we know now from compilations and the remastered albums with bonus tracks, I worked backward and created three new albums that could have been released following Led Zeppelin’s breakup.

TRIANGULUM

SIDE A

1. Ozone Baby
2. Darlene
3. Bonzo’s Montreux
4. Wearing and Tearing

SIDE B

1. In the Light
2. 10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod)
3. The Wanton Song

If the first side looks familiar, that's probably because it's the same track list and order as the second side of Coda, including three outtakes from In Through the Out Door and John Bonham's drum track from 1976. The second side here has my two Physical Graffiti outtakes as well as a long instrumental outtake from Presence. I chose Triangulum as the title because the Triangulum Galaxy apparently has a lot of hydrogen, which is the gas that filled the Hindenburg. How's that for random? For a cover, I used a chart by German astronomer Johannes Hevelius from 1687 of the constellations of Pavo, Ara and Triangulm Australe and surrounding constellations, and added titles. 

CLOUD SERENADE

SIDE A

1. Walter’s Walk
2. The Rover
3. Down by the Seaside
4. Friends (Bombay version)

SIDE B

1. Black Country Woman
2. Houses of the Holy
3. Four Hands (Bombay version)
4. Boogie with Stu
5. Night Flight

Here we have an all-“new” album featuring outtakes from the fourth album and Houses of the Holy, as well as Page and Plant's experiment with the Bombay Orchestra where they re-recorded two Zeppelin tracks. For a cover, I used this image of a bunch of zeppelins from Dissolve, cropped it and decided to leave off any titles as the band often did with album covers. Assume that the band name and album title would have been a sticker on the plastic wrap. I chose the title because I thought the zeppelins looked a bit like clouds.

ALBION REVISITED

SIDE A

1. Sugar Mama
2. Jennings Farm Blues
3. Poor Tom
4. St. Tristan’s Sword
5. Key to the Highway/Trouble in Mind

SIDE B

1. Baby Come Home
2. Bron-Yr-Aur
3. Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?
4. La La
5. Medley: I Feel So Bad/Travelling Riverside Blues/32-20 Blues/Diving Duck Blues/Fixin' to Die/That's All Right (Mama)

These tracks include outtakes from the first three albums, but primarily from III, including also "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" which was originally released as a b-side to "The Immigrant Song." The last track has not actually been officially released but is available on various bootlegs and on the web, sometimes titled “Blues Medley.” For cover art, I used a stock photo of the abandoned English village of Tyneham and added titles. Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain and is sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. So I titled the album Albion Revisited yet showing a ruined, abandoned town, which I thought was sort of symbolic.

And there you have it: three albums of outtakes arranged close to reverse chronologically. I think the release of these would have been better than the somewhat haphazard way the tracks popped up over the years. I also think it would have been interesting if these had been released each year beginning in 1982 as it would have continued the band's album releases into the mid-'80s.

 

 

Sweet - "The Sweet" and "Ballroom Blitz"

After releasing their debut album Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be in 1971, The Sweet issued a big batch of singles before releasing their second LP Sweet Fanny Adams three years later in 1974. In between those two albums, a couple of compilation albums were issued, and their discography in North America and the UK rarely matched. The result is kind of a chaotic mess, so I devised to rectify that with two imagined albums.

THE SWEET

SIDE A

1. Little Willy

2. New York Connection

3. Wig-Wam Bam

4. Poppa Joe

5. Be with You Soon

SIDE B

1. Block Buster!

2. Need a Lot of Lovin’

3. Man from Mecca

4. Alexander Graham Bell

5. You’re Not Wrong for Loving Me

In the U.K., a compilation album titled The Sweet's Biggest Hits was released in December 1972, and it's very strange in that it includes five tracks that had appeared on Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, which had just come out the year before. Imagine how ripped off a fan must have felt if they wanted all the band's songs up to that time, but had to buy two albums that shared tracks!

In the U.S. and Canada, a compilation album titled simply The Sweet was released in July 1973. It was self-titled because it was actually the band's debut LP in North America. Surprisingly, it only shares three tracks with the British compilation. 

In putting this "new" album together, I took tracks the band released prior to early '73 that would have been better than either compilation. It's made up of the A and B sides of five singles released mostly in 1972, plus one outtake ("Be with You Soon"). And the tracks are all more bubblegum than glam. For a cover and a title, I chose to take the one used for the U.S./Canada compilation, removed song titles and enlarged the group photo a little.

THE BALLROOM BLITZ

SIDE A

1. Ballroom Blitz

2. Restless

3. Someone Else Will

4. Burning

5. Teenage Rampage

SIDE B

1. Miss Demeanor

2. Rock and Roll Disgrace

3. Own Up, Take a Look at Yourself

4. Burn on the Flame

5. Hell Raiser

This The Ballroom Blitz album I would expect could have been released in late 1973. Now we can see (and hear) the band moving to a harder rock glam style. "Hell Raiser" is the only track that appeared on one of the compilation albums (North America). I chose "Ballroom Blitz" as both the lead-off track and the album title since it was such a big hit. And I used a cover of the single for the album cover.

These two albums pick up all the miscellaneous tracks between Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be and Sweet Fanny Adams. And if you go with the British version of Desolation Boulevard, you'll be all caught up through 1974. 

There are loads of Sweet compilations from which to get these tracks. One comprehensive source is Sensational Sweet Chapter One: The Wild Bunch box set.

The Black Keys - "Hot Spares"

The Black Keys have issued 10 albums (plus a collaborative album), and are about to release their 11th album next month. So this seemed to me to be a good time to collect all of their single B-sides, non-album singles, soundtrack cuts and bonus tracks onto one album.

1. Ohio - non-album single
   
2. Chop and Change - The Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack
   
3. Keep My Name Outta Your Mouth - Brothers (Deluxe Edition)
4. Black Mud Part II - Brothers (Deluxe Edition)
   
5. Her Eyes are a Blue Million Miles - Covered, a Revolution of Sound: Warner Bros. Records (Captain Beefheart cover)
   
6. The Way I Feel When I'm with You - B-side of "Your the One" single
   
7. Can't Find My Mind - Never Give Up Your Hallucinations compilation and He Put the Bomp compilation (Cramps cover)
   
8. Something on Your Mind - B-side of "Strange Times" (Dino Valenti) (Karen Dalton cover)
   
9. The Wicked Messenger - I'm Not There soundtrack (Bob Dylan cover)
   
10. If You Ever Slip - The Hottest State soundtrack
    
11. Stay All Night - Waxploitation Presents: Causes 1 compilation (Junior Kimbrough cover)
    
12. Flash of Silver - B-side of "'Till I Get My Way"/"Girl is on My Mind" single
    
13. Evil - B-side of "Set You Free" single
    
14. Summertime Blues - B-side "10am Automatic" single (Eddie Cochran cover)
    
15. No Fun - B-side of "The Moan" single and on the vinyl version of The Big Come Up album (Stooges cover)
16. The Moan - non-album single
17. The Baddest Man Alive (with KZA) - The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack
    

I kicked off the set with "Ohio," a non-album single and homage to their home state that seemed like a good song to start things off. The album is heavy with cover tunes - seven in total -- and range from Captain Beefheart to Eddie Cochran and Cramps to Bob Dylan. There are four tunes from soundtrack albums, including "The Baddest Man Alive," recorded with KZA and used here to end the album.

The result is a nice 17-track compilation album that features both originals and cover tunes. I didn't include remixes, alternate versions and live tracks that have appeared in various formats as I just didn't think they were essential. 

For the cover artwork, I took inspiration in that the Black Keys are from Dayton, Ohio, once a big tire manufacturing town, and used a photo of a big tire fire. And continuing with the theme, I thought Hot Spares made a good title.

Max Frost and The Troopers - The Complete Recordings

Max Frost and The Troopers was a fictitious band with a complicated history. But who recorded songs attributed to the band? Was it an existing band using a pseudonym or a faceless group of studio musicians? And just how many tracks can we consider to be "Max Frost and The Troopers" songs?

1. There Is a Party Going On
2. You Might Want Me Baby
3. Shape of Things to Come
4. Lonely Man
5. Shine it On
6. It's Wrong
7. Captain Hassel
8. Fifty Two Per Cent
9. Try to Make Up Your Mind
10. Let Your Mind Run Free
11. She Lied
12. A Change is Gonna Come
13. Love to Be Your Man
14. Free Lovin'
15. Psychedelic Senate
16. Fourteen or Fight
17. Wild in the Streets
18. Listen to the Music
19. Sally LeRoy
20. Shelly in Camp
21. Paxton Quigley's Had the Course
22. Sittin' in Circles
    
23. Max Frost Theme
    

Some believe the music recorded under the name of Max Frost and The Troopers was actually by a group called 13^th Power, which recorded one single in 1967. 13^th Power was apparently the same group that went by the name The Mom’s Boys and recorded songs that appear on the soundtracks for the films "Riot on the Sunset Strip" and "Freakout USA."

However, others think Max Frost and The Troopers were actually the band Davie Allan and the Arrows, which also recorded songs for soundtracks to movies issued by the same studios. A third theory is that Max Frost and The Troopers was a mixed group of members from both 13^th Power and Davie Allan and the Arrows, as well as various studio musicians.

Max Frost, played by Christopher Jones, was the main character in the May 1968 movie "Wild in the Streets." Frost is a rock star who rises to become president of the United States after the voting age is dropped to 14. The soundtrack to the movie was credited to Max Frost and The Troopers. 

However, the first recordings issued that were credited to the band were two tracks on the soundtrack to the film "Glory Stompers," which came out in November 1967. Both films were produced by American International Pictures, which focused on low-budget horror and exploitation movies targeted at teenagers.

It’s unclear whether the studio decided to recycle the name Max Frost from the fictitious band on the "Glory Stompers" soundtrack, or if the songs on the "Glory Stompers" soundtrack were a way to give the group some rock cred before "Wild in the Streets" came out.

Two of the Max Frost songs on the "Wild in the Streets" soundtrack had previously appeared as a single a few months earlier credited to 13^th Power. The soundtrack versions are re-recordings but seem to have the same vocalist, Paul Wibier, who wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the soundtrack. One of the songs he didn’t write was "The Shape of Things to Come." It was written by the Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and the song became a hit, rising to No. 22 on Billboard and remaining on the charts for nine weeks. Now considered a classic psychedelic / garage rock anthem of its era, the song sounds as if it’s a collaboration of The Yardbirds and The Grass Roots with a little Doors thrown in as well.

Considering it was a fictitious band that was featured on screen, you might expect that "Wild in the Streets" was the end of Max Frost and The Troopers. However, American International Pictures distributed the film "Three in the Attic" in 1969 with a soundtrack by Chad and Jeremy. But the studio didn’t have the rights to issue Chad and Jeremy songs on records. So they resurrected Max Frost and The Troopers, rerecorded one Chad and Jeremy song “Paxton Quigley's Had the Course,” and issued a single with the track “Sittin’ in Circles” on the flip side. And these songs may have indeed been recorded by Davie Allan and The Arrows (or studio musicians, or a combination – who knows?)

The original soundtrack for "Wild in the Streets" contained just 10 songs. In 2014, Captain High Records released an expanded version with 19 tracks, including "Paxton Quigley's Had the Course," but curiously not "Sittin’ in Circles." If we take the Captain High compilation, and add "Sittin' in Circles" as well as the two tracks from the "Glory Stompers" soundtrack plus another B-side, we have the complete 23 recordings of Max Frost and The Troopers.

But full disclosure: I'm actually still searching for the two B-sides of "Sittin' in Circles" and "Max Frost Theme." So my "complete recordings" is incomplete. If anyone out there has mp3 files of these two songs, I'd be thrilled to have them.

For cover art, I took inspiration from the first line of "Shape of Things to Come" ("There’s a new sun, rising up angry in the sky...."), found this photo online taken by Giuliano Maiolini, cropped it and added titles.

UPDATE: June 2022: I managed to get an mp3 of "Sittin' in Circles." Just one more to go.

Elvis Presley - Discography 1964-68

With Elvis Presley's birthday coming up this week, we dive into his 1960s output and see if we can bring some semblance of order to his messy discography. 

There were a number of problems with Elvis’ discography, especially beginning in the early to mid-1960s. One issue was a reduction in the quality of the material. Elvis’ management had set up publishing companies to bring in additional revenue, and most of the songs Elvis recorded were from writers contracted to the companies. Also, much of the material was written to coincide with (bad) movie scripts and was more focused on a scene in a film rather than simply being a good song. Finally, there was the sheer amount of songs (Elvis was making two to three movies with soundtracks every year) being recorded that led to over-saturation.

In hindsight, all of these problems could have been avoided with better direction and planning by Elvis, his managers and RCA Records. Here, I look at the years 1964-68. These are the years Elvis didn’t record any studio albums (except one gospel LP), only releasing soundtracks and singles. All told, RCA released 28 singles, 11 soundtrack albums, three soundtrack EPs and one gospel album during those five years. It was simply overload. And if you can believe it, Elvis starred in 15 movies during those five years. Fifteen! I wanted to look at each of these years to see what could have been released and what should have remained in the vaults and on the screen.

1964

Three Elvis movies were released in 1964: Kissin’ Cousins, Viva Las Vegas and Roustabout. Viva Las Vegas, with co-star Ann-Margret, had the strongest music of the three, but crazy enough is the only one that didn’t have a soundtrack album. I rectified that here and would argue that that should have been the only one of the three full soundtracks released. The other two films could have been promoted with singles at the time, and then the best songs of both movies used to make one album at the end of the year. 

You can almost always find some lost song on an Elvis album that you wonder why it wasn’t a big hit. For me, “Catchin’ on Fast” could have been a really good pop song if it had better production and had Elvis put more energy into his vocals (he reportedly was fighting a cold during recording). I used this song for the album's title. Included in this collection is “I’m a Roustabout,” a song written for the film, but not used and not even released until 2003. 

It should be noted that although the song “Do the Clam” from Roustabout was released as a single, it’s such a stupid song (and did so poorly on the charts) that I saw no reason to include it for this album. Neither the covers for Roustabout nor Kissin' Cousins seemed a good fit for this collection, so I created a new one using a portrait of Elvis taken about 1964 and added titles and a record company logo.

SIDE A

1. Roustabout

2. Poison Ivy League

3. Little Egypt (Ying Yang)

4. There's a New Day on the Horizon

5. Hard Knocks

6. I'm a Roustabout

SIDE B

1. Kissin' Cousins

2. One Boy, Two Little Girls

3. Once is Enough

4. Anyone (Could Fall in Love with You)  

5. Catchin’ on Fast

6. Tender Feeling

1965

Elvis again had three films released in 1965, but one of the films, Tickle Me, used songs recorded much earlier (apparently in a money-saving move). For the other two films, Girl Happy and Harum Scarum, we again create a compilation of the “best” songs. The song “Hey Little Girl” would seem to be the lost gem of this mix, until you see how the song is used in the film where Elvis sings to a pre-teen girl and then it just seems creepy. For an album cover, I didn't think any of the song titles made a good album title. So I ended up using a fairly generic title, A New Day, and redid the Girl Happy cover.

SIDE A

1. Harem Holiday

2. Hey Little Girl  

3. Golden Coins

4. So Close Yet So Far (from Paradise)

5. Animal Instinct   

6. Wisdom of the Ages

SIDE B

1. Girl Happy

2. Wolf Call 

3. Do Not Disturb 

4. The Meanest Girl in Town  

5. Puppet on a String

6. I've Got to Find My Baby

1966

In 1966, Elvis released yet again three movies (are you seeing a pattern?): Frankie and Johnny, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, and Spinout. It’s fairly obvious that Team Elvis hoped that Paradise, Hawaiian Style would duplicate the success of Blue Hawaii from five years earlier. Given the island/beach-themed material, it seems best to keep that soundtrack album as is (it was also the best-selling of the three). 

That leaves us with the other two soundtracks to make one decent album. The album kicks off with the rocking "Stop, Look and Listen," which seems to borrow heavily from Ray Charles' "What'd I Say." And I decided to use that song as the title of this album. Outside the U.S., the Spinout album (and movie) was called California Holiday (I guess "spinout" doesn't translate well). I considered using that title, but it didn't really do much for me (and this coming from a Californian). For the cover, I used the one for Spinout and changed the words.

SIDE A

1. Stop, Look and Listen

2. All That I Am

3. Never Say Yes   

4. Am I Ready

5. Spinout

6. I'll be Back  

SIDE B

1. Frankie and Johnny

2. What Every Woman Lives For

3. Down by the Riverside / When the Saints Go Marchin' In

4. Shout It Out

5. Hard Luck

6. Please Don't Stop Loving Me

 

1967

The obligatory three Elvis films of 1967 were Easy Come, Easy Go, Double Trouble and Clambake. Elvis also released a gospel album titled How Great Thou Art. This album can stand on its own, so I went about condensing the three soundtracks into one album. But even with two soundtrack albums and one EP, finding enough decent songs to fill this compilation wasn't easy. They were really scraping the barrel at this point. Plus they filled out the soundtracks with "bonus songs" that we used on the Guitar Man album (see below). 

Since we're combining three albums into one, finding a good cover wasn't easy. I decided to use this publicity photo of Elvis (an alternate shot was used for the Clambake album cover), and came up with a new title: Night and Day, influenced by the song "City by Night"

SIDE A

1. Easy Come, Easy Go

2. You Gotta Stop

3. I'll Take Love 

4. Double Trouble

5. Baby, If You'll Give Me All of Your Love

6. Could I Fall in Love

SIDE B

1. Long Legged Girl (With the Short Dress On)

2. City by Night

3. There Is So Much World to See

4. A House That Has Everything

5. Hey, Hey, Hey

6. You Don't Know Me

7. The Girl I Never Loved

 

1968

In late 1967/early 1968 there actually seems to have been an attempt to record a regular studio album for the first time in five years. I tackled that here, calling it Guitar Man, and I still think it should have been released at the time. Also, the soundtrack to Elvis’ TV comeback special came out in December of 1968, and that too we should assume would still have been released. In between, there were again three Elvis movies (Speedway, Stay Away Joe and Live a Little, Love a Little) that we’ll use to squeeze the best songs onto one album.

1967 and 1968 (before the comeback special) were the worst years of Elvis’ career sales-wise. From 1956 through 1966, new Elvis albums had always made it to at least the Top 20 of the charts. But sales steadily deteriorated until the Speedway soundtrack went no higher than 82. However, in my opinion, there are actually better song choices from 1968 than there were from the previous year, including "A Little Less Conversation" and the pseudo-psychedelic "Edge of Reality," which I used for the title of this album. I used a publicity photo to create a new cover and enhanced the color to make it a little bit "trippy."

SIDE A

1. A Little Less Conversation

2. Almost in Love

3. Stay Away 

4. All I Needed was the Rain

5. Goin' Home

6. Edge of Reality

SIDE B

1. Speedway

2. There Ain't Nothing Like a Song

3. Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby

4. Who Are You? (Who Am I?)

5. Let Yourself Go

6. Wonderful World

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So in the end, we’ve taken 10 soundtrack albums and three soundtrack EPs and and condensed them down and produced five stronger soundtrack compilation albums, added a new soundtrack (Viva Las Vegas) and left one intact (Paradise, Hawaiian Style). We also leave two other albums intact (How Great Thou Art and Elvis NBC TV Special) and create one new LP, Guitar Man. And I would have severely curtailed the number of singles released as well. Had this plan been followed, Elvis'  discography could have looked like this:

1964

• SINGLE: "It Hurts Me" / "Kissin' Cousins" (February)
• ALBUM: Viva Las Vegas (May)
• SINGLE: "Viva Las Vegas" / "What'd I Say" (May)
• ALBUM: Catchin' on Fast (November)
• SINGLE: "Little Egypt (Ying Yang)" / "Roustabout" (November)

1965

• SINGLE: "Puppet on a String" / "Girl Happy" (March)
• SINGLE: "Crying in the Chapel" / "I Believe in the Man in the Sky" (April)
• SINGLE: "Hey Little Girl" / "Harem Holiday" (October)
• ALBUM: A New Day (November)

1966

• SINGLE: "Frankie and Johnny" / "Hard Luck" (March)
• ALBUM: Paradise, Hawaiian Style (June)
• SINGLE: "Love Letters" / "Come What May" (June)
• SINGLE: "All That I Am" / "Spinout" (September)
• ALBUM: Stop, Look and Listen (October)
• SINGLE: "If Everyday Was Like Christmas" / "How Would You Like to Be" (December)

1967

• ALBUM: How Great Thou Art (February)
• SINGLE: "You Gotta Stop" / "Easy Come, Easy Go" (March)
• SINGLE: "Long Legged Girl" / That's Someone You Never Forget" (May)
• ALBUM: Night and Day (October)
• SINGLE: "You Don't Know Me" / "Clambake" (October)
• ALBUM: Elvis' Golden Records, Vol. 4 (December)

1968

• SINGLE: "Guitar Man" / "Hi Heeled Sneakers" (January)
• ALBUM: Guitar Man (February)
• SINGLE: "Let Yourself Go" / "Speedway" (May)
• SINGLE: "A Little Less Conservation" / "Edge of Reality" (September)
• ALBUM: Edge of Reality (October)
• SINGLE: "If I Can Dream" / "Almost in Love" (December)
• ALBUM: Elvis (NBC TV Special) (December)

Would this have given Elvis’ career a more positive trajectory? Well, this exercise would do nothing to change the movies. But it certainly would have made his discography simpler and easier to follow and allowed better focus on the best musical material Elvis produced during this period.