@tcbcast
An unofficial Elvis Presley podcast, created by Justin Gausman & Gurdip Ladhar, hosted by a rotating team of Elvis experts. Posts are by Justin. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tcbcast-an-unofficial-elvis-presley-fan-podcast/id1342810565
"For Justin Gausman, who co-hosts TCBCast, a podcast devoted to Presley, one of the movie’s triumphs is that it makes the singer’s 'artistic process legible and accessible to anyone.'"
Thanks Elias Leight from WSJ, and thanks Baz & co. for rehabilitating Elvis's image as a creative force.
Though without question, he did love his mama. There's nothing incomplete or room for misunderstanding about that haha.
And that stereotype was helped along by the way that Colonel & the industry around him attempted (and to some degree succeeded) to squeeze him into that "all-around family entertainer" box.
...true that they could see that in him, while ignoring or downplaying the multitude of ways in which he obviously did not strictly fit that image because he was so *weird*, to the point that the "positive" stereotype of Elvis became just as wrong & widespread as the "negative" stereotype of him.
This is what makes how Elvis became such a symbol to conservatives in the 1970s onward so fascinating to study. "He's a good clean humble boy who loves his mama, country & God" is a wildly incomplete misunderstanding of Elvis Presley as a human being, but just enough surface level elements appear...
What sucks is that it's so well-researched (which people just reading and taking at face value will praise) that when you know what's missing, it comes back around to feeling calculated to laser-target precision, and disingenuous.
Just to be clear by Luhrmann-Parker thing, I mean letting the unreliable narrator spin his story for the unsuspecting reader. Which is fine in fiction or if made clear, but we all thought Peter knew better than that for what is presented as pure non-fiction, fact-based biography.
...and there's usually a counterpart section of Alanna Nash's book - or Hank Snow's or Leiber/Stoller's, or Scotty Moore's, or at worst, even Peter Guralnick's earlier tomes, as examples - that bears out the real reason an inconvenient event is sidestepped in "TC&TK"
...glimpse behind the curtain to admit that some of it doesn't add up, usually when Parker's bullshittery builds to a point where Peter can't spin it. He invariably takes a "nobody knows why he'd do this" angle instead of considering the possibility that Parker sometimes *was* a liar & a schemer...
There's some of that in this - effectively giving Parker the autobiography he never wrote (the first half is titled "How Much Does It Cost If It's Free" as an allusion to this idea) but never fully explained; it's as if PG decided to do the Luhrmann-Parker thing but there's only rarely the...
And genuinely we do think folks should come to their own conclusions after having read it for themselves. Our takeaways won't be the same as everyone else's. Also - LOVE libraries - incl. ones that nowadays offer digital loans. More said "buy" as a hedge - maybe wait for a steep discount haha.
It is available on Kindle/as an ebook. There is value to having the transcripts of the letters, regardless of anything else. It's not all letters from the Colonel; many are from Elvis, Vernon or other business partners and will be a good resource going forward. There'll just always be an asterisk.
...but leaving out inconvenient details - including ones previously detailed in Peter's own prior works - doesn't give anyone a more well-rounded view of either man. We were looking forward to this about as much as anyone possibly could and we were left puzzled, frustrated and disappointed.
Although it's well-written and will surely garner initial praise from literary critics, applying the most basic and gentle scrutiny, putting events and Peter's pro-Parker spin into greater context, the arguments fall apart. Elvis was profoundly at fault for much wrong in his career...
We were disappointed by Peter Guralnick's new book "The Colonel & The King" We were open to a sympathetic read on Elvis' manager - someone we've never viewed as a simple villain - but instead we got omissions, misleading interpretations & internal contradictions.
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For Song of the Week, Bec spotlights Elvis's friendship with Dottie West via her song "If That Isn't Love" while Justin uses Elvis's home recording of "San Antonio Rose" to explore Bob Wills' influence on rock and roll!
On this week's episode, we discuss our favorite songs with girl's names in the title!
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Fun fact: Terry's "Suspicion" managed to break through to mainstream success at a moment in 1964 when the Beatlemania was dominating the US pop chart. RCA's response was a far-too-delayed release of Elvis' prior 1962 version off "Pot Luck."
Past us filled in from the TCBCast archives with a bonus episode on Terry Stafford's 1964 hit cover of "Suspicion" and his subsequent album which is comprised largely of songs from Elvis's songwriters that Elvis either also recorded or likely was pitched!
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This week's TCBCast had us exploring the histories behind Elvis's version of Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" and the legendary "Trouble" from 1958's "King Creole."
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I may have momentarily turned into a 13 year old again watching this. You can bet we are going to be doing an episode on this when the film drops in May!!!
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Oh right!!! DERP. Sorry, having an off night haha!
I mean, it's definitely worth a watch to say you've seen it! As you'll hear us talk about in Pt 2, ultimately, Elvis's films are all somewhat entertaining & there's *something* to enjoy about each a little. This one just happens to miss a lot of marks other Elvis movies pass with flying colors.
Screenwriter Jo Heims works from a "story by" credit from author Marc Brandel, which led me to digging up the original novel "The Choice" which bears almost no resemblance to the final film, save some names and vague idea of someone wanting to kill somebody else.
Directed by Norman Taurog for MGM and co-starring Annette Day, Yvonne Romain, John Williams, Monty Landis, Leon Askin, Norman Rossington, Chips Rafferty and The Wiere Brothers, this "comedy" is infamous for its bumbling jewel thieves, slapstick gags, and waiting patiently for the age of consent.
This week's episode was all about the 1967 film "Double Trouble" - frequently cited among the worst of Elvis's narrative feature films.
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Episode’ll come when it’s good and ready, as always! Wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ll send you a DM on Patreon re: resources!
If you need any extra resources as you head that direction, please feel free to reach out. We’d be thrilled to share what we’ve got access to e.g. things like Ken Sharp’s remarkable, but out of print and now terrifyingly expensive, “Writing for the King.”
This was a fantastic read Andrew, on both subjects! I had the realization this morning that back on episode 82 you said you’d be revisiting EP in roughly around 100 episodes, and late 1968/early 1969 is getting awful close in the current chronology!! I may have gotten a little giddy 😂
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First of my new newsletter is up. This will hopefully be a weekly thing where I blather about stuff I used to talk about on my blog. This week -- Elvis' first album and Crisis on Infinite Earths #1