Bowie & The King

As you probably know January 8^th is the birthday of both Elvis Presley and David Bowie. Elvis would have been 87 yesterday, and David 75. Because of this, I spent yesterday evening watching documentaries about the two of them on BBC 2. Firstly, I didn't used to be a great fan of Elvis. I was too young when he released his great rock n roll records in the 50s, and by the time I started taking a big interest in music around 1964 Elvis’s career was in the doldrums. I think this was due to the greed of his manager Tom Parker. 

Elvis was reduced to making a series of sub-standard films containing inferior songs. Because Elvis didn’t write his own songs, he was relying on good songwriters to work with him. Parker would demand 50% of the song royalties, so consequently no decent songwriter would offer their work to Elvis. I think that is why I didn’t like Elvis in the early to mid-60s. I was more into The Beach Boys and the British bands who all wrote their own material. However, there was an improvement in about 1968/69 when Elvis tried to reinvent himself and came up with great songs such as In The Ghetto and Suspicious Minds. Luckily for me, that was the period that last night’s documentary focused on. I think it was called The Rebirth Of Elvis. Elvis made a TV show in 1968 which has come to be known as The Comeback Special. It was directed by Steve Binder who realised that in rehearsals Elvis was quite brilliant when jamming with other musicians informally. Therefore, the show included a sit-down session where Elvis sang and actually played the guitar and improvised. There is a great version of Baby, What You Want Me To Do? , a Jimmy Reed song. Also, in the show Elvis sang If I Can Dream which was powerful, emotional, and inspired by the death of Martin Luther King a few months earlier.

Elvis & Roy Hamilton.

One interesting thing I learned from the documentary was that Elvis admired a singer I had never heard of before called Roy Hamilton, and wanted to make records in his style. He wanted a more soulful ballad sound. I have shared a video below of Roy Hamilton singing a song live called The Secret Path Of Love. I urge you to listen to it, and I’m sure you will agree that the similarity to Elvis is uncanny. They only ever met once in Memphis at American Sound Studio. Elvis admired Roy so much that he gave him a song that he was going to record himself called Angelica. 

Elvis, Lightning Bolt.

That studio was owned by Chips Moman who had previously worked at Stax Records. Working with Chips Moman Elvis produced what many people consider his greatest album From Elvis In Memphis. The Colonel as usual didn’t get on with Chips Moman, he had other plans to make lots of money from Elvis and arranged long term residencies in Las Vegas which started well, but ultimately killed Elvis because of the punishing schedule of working seven nights a week. Despite the sad ending I enjoyed watching the documentary and learned a lot from it.

Bowie, Lightning Bolt.

Immediately after that, I watched a film about David Bowie which concentrated on the period leading up to the Ziggy Stardust era. I didn’t learn much from this because I was a huge Bowie fan back in the 70s. I still enjoyed watching it, and the music was great. It showed how important Mick Ronson was to Bowie’s success. Before he became world famous, Bowie’s publishers would offer the songs to anyone who wanted to record them in order to generate some income. I found it very amusing that Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits fame got to number 12 in the UK charts with Oh You Pretty Things. That song was inspired by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his ideas about the Homo Superior when he postulated the idea of the Übermensch or Superman in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I bet Peter Noone had never heard of Nietzsche. 

Elvis, Black Star.

Bowie during the 70s was so prolific he also helped the careers of others. Even Lulu had a hit with The Man Who Sold The World. He gave one of his best songs All The Young Dudes to Mott The Hoople, rejuvenated the career of Lou Reed by producing Transformer, and worked with Iggy Pop on Raw Power which was very influential on the emergence of Punk Rock. His influence can be seen even today in people like Lady Gaga. So, apart from having the same birthday, can we see any other links between Bowie and Elvis? I know David Bowie was a huge fan of Elvis. In 1972 he flew to New York for a long weekend just to see Elvis perform at Madison Square Garden. Elvis recorded a song called Black Star which was about dying, and Bowie’s last album recorded just before he died was called Blackstar, coincidence? 

Bowie, Blackstar.

Elvis called his backing group The TCB Band which stands for ‘Taking Care Of Business’. The logo was a TCB with a lightning bolt. Elvis often wore a necklace with this design, and it was on the side of his tour bus. It is very similar to the lightning bolt design that Bowie had on his face during the Aladdin Sane period, coincidence? I have heard that Bowie wrote Golden Years with Elvis in mind, but that might be just a myth. I can’t think of any more possible links between the two, but if you do, let me know. Cheers.