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Elvis is such a rip off. So much so that I created A tribe to bring all of the people together that hate him. He is one of the most notorious rip offs of blues and I think it is appropriate.
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Mon, July 18, 2005 - 8:23 PMDon't confuse the man with the myth. He had some great music in his time. You can't blame him for picking the best songs. Sun Records had some of the all-time greats of many different genres hanging around. Of couse, he is going to pick some good ones. He wasn't Pat Boone for God's sake.
Chuck Berry is the king of rock and roll but Elvis was still pretty cool.
It was the bullshit parade better known as the "British Blues Invasion" that was the real rip-off. Clapton ain't my God, dude!
That's America...take something great homogenize, repackage, and exploit. Clean, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat...
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Wed, August 3, 2005 - 8:28 AMLMAO!!!!! VE, that's awesome! Thank you, thank you very much!
Shawn -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Fri, August 12, 2005 - 8:25 PMIronically you're bagging on the two guys who did more to popularize blues-based music among a white audience than anyone of their respective generations. Some of Elvis' early recordings (Mystery Train, That's all Right Mama, All Shook Up, Hound Dog and Heartbreak Hotel) are a soulful as anything ever laid down on wax.
Clapton's work with John Mayall and the Blues Breakers (Have You Heard is THE cut that inspired the "Clapton is God" graphitti in England and I must say it the single best blues guitar solo I've ever heard), Cream and Derick and the Dominoes is unparalleled in the blues guitar cannon. I agree that Delany Bramlett did the world a disservice by encouraging Eric to sing as he is now a mediocore singer instead of a great guitar player.
Hendrix and B.B. King both embraced Clapton as a brother and I can't think of any blues of any significance that doesn't fit with the spectrum represented by these two.
Again, I could be wrong, but if these four guys aren't reponsible for some of the very best blues tracks ever laid down, then why do I keep playing them over and over.
As an addendum, my favorite Little Milton (who just died) album contains a cover of Elvis' Feel so Bad which is one of my favorite tracks.
Of course it's just possible that YOU are the one who doesn't understand the blues... whitey. -
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Sat, August 13, 2005 - 8:48 AMRobert, Robert, Robert...posts like yours just make me sad. You can polish a turd but it remains a turd none the less. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Tue, August 16, 2005 - 9:30 PMPosts like this make me sad. Anyone who doesn't get these guys probably doesn't get the blues.
I put together B.B. King's first concert in front of a predominately white audience back in the sixties. B.B. was an extremely kind, generous and open gentleman who welcomed and embraced anyone who had a genuine interest in his art form. His take was that these men were worthy practioners of the art around which he based his life.
Of course, he was only acknowledged as the greatest living bluesman, so he was probably not qualified to render an opinion. Since your own career as a bluesman has eclipsed his by such a great degree, your take is clearly superior.
Name calling, by the way is the refuge of one who realizes that he has already lost the argument. -
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, August 18, 2005 - 7:40 PMThere are none so blind as those that refuse to see. I have seen B.B. King too. He is without doubt a creative, talented, and. for all appearances, kind person. His body of work speaks for itself. He still has a swinging band and probably will until he drops dead onstage in the far distant future. I just don't remember him being appointed the greatest living.
Now I realize we can reduce this to a pissing match when all I want to do is talk about the blues. I love them more than most. How can you not feel it when you have Little Walter in your ears saying, "Sometimes I wonder why can your love be so cold?
Sometimes I wonder why can your love be so cold?
I guess you don't love me, gonna pack my things and go.?"
However, Riley King is no fool. He is in the music business. They don't call it a business for nothin'. How does it hurt him to hang out with an Eric Clapton or Bono. He has a string of clubs and I'm sure many other investments. He is a savvy business man. But he is also a major exception. There are many, many people with talent and even a few who share his genius but very few with his bankroll. That is a crime. Why should Eric Clapton get to prey on the blues and get the same stature? His playing, while good at times, is hardly ground breaking. Does he deserve to get $3800 a ticket? www.stubhub.com/ tickets
Before anyone jumps my shit, yes, I like Clapton too, but this isn't about Clapton. If he can get people gullible enough to pay that much then good for him. I have nothing against him. He has written and recorded some great tunes. He's kind of become a walking billboard but it does help support the rock star lifestyle.
I just want to see blues cherished before it disappears. It is our gift as America to the world. You can call it what you want jazz, blues, field hollers, Gospel, rock and roll, Zydeco, country (or any of the multitude of other genres that I can neither remember or name right now) but American music was born of the suffering of people of African heritage.
It is precisely this paradox that makes America beautful in my mind. In order to enjoy this exciting, painful, swinging music we have to humble ourselves in seeing that the pain is real and no joke. It is no standing at the crossroads bullshit. It was "My life is not my own. Now what do I to maintain my sanity and dignity." This is where some people tune out. It isn't about doom and gloom either.
Blues music is about the full spectrum of emotion. Love and Loss. What else do we have in life? Material things come and go but our sense of who we are as a person. Who we are as a people. That remains. We laugh, we cry, we hate, we love. That is the blues.
Of course, I'm always up for a good 'big leg woman' tune too.
Robert if I hurt your feelings, I apologize. If we can get people to talk about blues music instead of Eric Clapton, Los Lonely Boys, and Elvis Presley this could be a fun tribe.
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Clapton bashing is lame
Tue, December 6, 2005 - 6:36 PMI don't agree AT ALL with the assertion that Clapton is "preying" on the blues. How silly. There is such a thing as modern blues-- and believe it or not-- a lot of white players figure greatly in it.
Besides, who anointed *you* as the blues purist to draw the line between who plays the blues and who does not?
Eric Clapton-- bless his heart-- has done more for the blues than you seem to realize or would ever give credit for. Does he "deserve" to get $3800 a ticket for people to see him play? It doesn't matter if he does or not-- people pay it, and it is not your place to criticize him for it. You should separate your resentment for that fact from your snap judgments about his worth as an artist.
Besides, playing the blues doesn't mean having to live your life like it was one long struggle. Many a great blues artist has pissed his life and talent away in struggles with drugs, alcohol (Jimmy Reed, etc.) and/or labored in obscurity. What good does that do? Clapton uses his clout and fame to draw attention to the blues, his first true love. Bashing him for that comes across as nothing but resentment and envy over his success.
BB King himself is on record (Scorcese's "The Blues" DVD) as saying that he is thankful to the young, white blues artists in England like Clapton for bringing attention to the blues. Before people like Clapton, blue music and musicians floundered here in the US. Were you aware of that fact? It took people like Clapton to make Americans embrace their own blues musicians. The Beatles made fun of the US press and Americans in general when they asked if they could see Muddy Waters and the reporters thought Muddy Waters was a place. Muddy wasn't a household name back then, you know.
Finally, you say you want to "finally see the blues cherished before it disappears". Well, I have news for you-- the delta blues that started it all (which came from a mix of African folk music and field music) has already largely disappeared as a continuing form of art and entertainment, at least in everyday culture. That doesn't mean that people don't refer back to it or that it will ever die. Many other styles of blues have sprung up out of it and the blues is always exploring and changing ever so slightly. In that way the blues lives, just as it always has and just as "blues purists" probably criticized Chicago Blues in the 60's.
Blues lovers are usually cool, accepting people and I don't know of any real blues musicians who would ever stoop to snobbery like that.
I also agree with the others that Elvis was an original talent who indirectly did a lot for the music that influenced him.
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 12:19 AMIn fairness to Elvis he was a poor white boy born and raised in a black section of Memphis. He played the music he liked and patterned himself after the musicians he respected/enjoyed. Later after making it big he and his music changed, but everyone changes.
Elvis' early music was black music, both in sound and in heart, black being more a matter of culture than of birth.
That said fat Elvis, jumpsuit Elvis, and Vegas Elvis suck ass musically and is the epitome of homegenized whitebread-mayo-and-velveeta American culture. -
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 7:19 AMSpeaking of stinky cheese, I say we grab Pat Boone and make a human sacrifice to appease the angry gods of all decent music.
That will be a step in the right direction towards making up for the Elvis lounge act years. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 7:29 AMLOL,
I will also add Kenny G to the list. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 7:36 AMHow about we drag Yani around town behind a horse like in the old west? -
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:03 AMI think you are being too kind to them. :)
It's funny, there is the world's best music store here in Chicago called the Jazz Record Mart owned by the same people that own the Delmark label. Over 10,000 square feet, so it's not like space is an issue, anyway, they have a sign over the K section indicating what a hack Kenny G is and that if you ask about his recordings they will kick you out of the store. I love it. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:09 AMYou should get a picture of that and post it. LOL! -
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Unsu...
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:17 AMI should. It would give an excuse to go there. I haven't been in over a year because it is downtown and parking is such an expensive drag in this city.
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:12 AM -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:48 AMSaquaro, great link! My favorite part:
"but when kenny g decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great louis’s tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that i would not have imagined possible. he, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that louis armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician."
Sums it up for me. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 8:54 AMYeah Hum :),
About nails it, doesn't it? -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, November 10, 2005 - 9:26 AMI'm damn glad he's never heard me play.
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, December 29, 2005 - 4:55 PMIt's an injustice that white musicians have been able to make so much more money playing blues-based music than the blues' black originators. Some black musicians can appreciate white musicians playing the blues, others maybe resent this cultural vampirism or 'minstrelsy'. That's why Jayne Cortez is "taking the blues back home".
But, maybe the blues isn't something you DO, it's something you GET. It's contagious. When something like the blues infects your soul it can be very difficult to say to yourself, "I can't let myself be influenced by this because I'm white". The proof is in the pudding. Good music is impossible to fake. You either feel it or you don't. I can't stand John Mayall, but I love the Pretty Things. Can't stand BB King, love Howlin' Wolf. Go figure.
Duke Ellington supposedly said, "If it sounds good, it IS good". But what sounds good to me may sound like crud to you. Technical proficiency is a bugaboo: that Clapton solo may be technically pristine, but musically, artistically, I'll take Joseph Spence, note-for-note, anyday. -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Thu, December 29, 2005 - 6:29 PM"It's an injustice that white musicians have been able to make so much more money playing blues-based music than the blues' black originators."
What? How many white blues artists have "made" it? I'm not talking about white dudes that cover a few blues songs in another style, shit everyone's done that. I'm talking about a bluesman - & Clapton don't count. He may have started out as blues but made it big on rock & roll. Same thing with Presley. I can only think of 2, Popa Chubby and Jonny Lang. Any others? Ok, Susan Tedeschi. Kenny Wayne Shepherd is in the same category with Elvis & Eric. Stevie might count; he also had a lot of crossover into rock but most consider him a bluesman.
That makes 4. Feel free to add any others. We might be able to come up with a few more names, but I'm sure 4 people did not bleed all the money from all the black bluesmen since Johnson.
It's a given that if you take a blues song and shine it up and add a back beat it'll be more of a commercial success, that just means these are really great songs that crossover to many genres. And it's not just evil whitey that does it, were you sleeping during Kanye West's new hit? -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Fri, December 30, 2005 - 4:24 PM"don't agree AT ALL with the assertion that Clapton is "preying" on the blues. How silly. There is such a thing as modern blues-- and believe it or not-- a lot of white players figure greatly in it."
Couldn't agree more. We owe them for helping to keep it alive.
Heard any of the new Crean stuff? I watches a special on PBS. Fantastic shit!
I saw Kim Wilson last week with Eli Fltetcher on guitar. That didn't suck.
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Sat, January 28, 2006 - 4:30 PMTo those who stuck up for Elvis, Right On!
Elvis was not a rip-off artist of the Blues, his biggest influences were Gospel, Country and Dean Martin.
He loved music, and he sang what he loved.
Elvis was a brilliant visionary who could hear a mixture of musical genres that might not have ordinarily have been put together before.
Any of Elvis' early Sun recordings, and anything he did before he went into the army was full-on, kick-you-straight-in-the-ass Rock 'n Roll. Anyone that doesn't feel the heat from these records must be dead.
Elvis was blasting with so much energy, I'm amazed the recording tape could capture him.
He was a unique artist that sadly has been replaced by a myth.
Most of you said it best, so I won't repeat your words second hand.
The biggest rip-off of the Blues right now is Jack White from The White Stripes.
This is the biggest piece of shit that you should be complaining about, not Elvis, or B.B. or Clapton.
I'm so tired of reading in music mags that "Jack White plays the Blues with all of the authority of seasoned Delta Bluesman." I kid you not, I've read this.
If your gonna get a lynch-mob together and hang posers and rip-off artists, go hang Jack White.
-Eric -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Sat, January 28, 2006 - 7:33 PMGood post Eric,
Thank You! -
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Re: I hate Elvis Presley
Sat, January 28, 2006 - 8:24 PMVery well stated, Eric. Thanks!
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