One last poll: FAVORITE #2 OR #3 HIT BY ELVIS?

[NightTrain]

Poll question: One last poll: FAVORITE #2 OR #3 HIT BY ELVIS?

What the hell, let's expand the man's repertoire a bit!

[B Calm]

1. You still left out Old Shep

[NightTrain]

2. And I'll continue to leave it out until I create a poll titled...

..."Favorite #47 Hit By Elvis?" :eyes:

[B Calm]

5. OK, so you hate dogs!

[Magrittes Pipe]

3. Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel...

...but LOVE ME! :loveya:

[Taverner]

4. How about "She Loves You"?

OH WAIT, that was put out by musicians who actually had TALENT!

[NightTrain]

9. Spoken like a true SMILE fan!

:eyes:

[Taverner]

11. Hey I got a deal for ya - I'll explain why SMiLE was genius if

You tell me what was so great about Elvis?

[johnnie]

13. Actually Elvis was talented

He played multiple instrument including guitar, drums, bass, piano. When the Beatles met him they were surprised at how good he was (he was playing bass).
He also had an uncanny sense of musical arrangement and did many of his own arrangements for songs.
A good story was from his bass player Jerry Scheff who tells when he went for the auditions he and his wife were laughing about it. He came home and was blown away by how good Elvis was and he was praying he would get the gig. Jerry is no hack either.

[ForrestGump]

15. johnnie speaks the truth

Elvis was phenomenally talented as a singer and as a stage performer, as well as being a thoroughly charismatic man on stage and off. What fewer people know is what Johnnie's pointed out: Elvis was backed by some of the best musicians in the business (and jammed with other stars along the way, from Tom Jones and James Brown to Mama Cass and the Beatles) and they were uniformly in awe of his abilities as a musician. Sure, he wasn't about to outdo any of these or other dedicated musicians with his technical prowess, but he knew exactly the sound he wanted to capture and all agree that he had an incredible sense of rhythm and timing.

John Wilkinson, his rhythm guitarist from 1969 to 1977, told of how he was having trouble playing the chord changes to one song until Elvis sat down and showed him how. A more widely known fact is that Elvis played the classic bass line for "Baby, I Don't Care" (from Jailhouse Rock) when his bass player, unused to the Fender electric bass, threw the instrument down in frustration. Elvis also played piano on many studio cuts and live both in the '50s and the '60s. He may have used the guitar primarily as a prop in the '70s, and made jokes about his ability to actually play it, but the man could play that guitar -- what he lacked in extensive technical skills he made up for with timing and passion. Check out the 1968 Tv Special...and, don;t forget, Elvis was one third of the legendary Sun sound: his guitar, Scotty Moore's lead guitar, and Bill Black's stand-up bass.

"I Feel Fine" was the song that Elvis, with assistance from one James Paul McCartney, played on bass during that meeting in August of 1965.

[johnnie]

17. Good to see you Forest

Hope all is going well.

[terrya]

6. "Viva Las Vegas" is my favorite Elvis song.

But that's not in your poll.

[hickman1937]

8. Yikes. Owe me a coke.

[hickman1937]

7. Come on, put in Viva Las Vegas!

You know we love it!

[NightTrain]

10. I'm saving it for my upcoming poll, "Favorite #21 Hit By Elvis?"

Come on people, I didn't create the Billboard Hot 100 chart; I'm just going by it, fer chrissake!

[SarahB]

12. Burning Love

[ForrestGump]

14. Ooo...tough choices

I went with "Burning Love," too, just because. Really, though, there's some tough competition: "Love Me" is a true classic (hipsters Leiber and Stoller were chuckling away to themselves over what an awful joke of a song they'd written but then they heard Elvis' version and saw the light). Actually, "Love Me" was never released as a single but the EP that it was on sold so well that the song somehow earned a #1 on the singles chart. Heck, they all are classics. "In The Ghetto" seems to be one of those songs that people who say that they 'don't like Elvis' still like and "Crying In The Chapel" (recorded in 1960 for a gospel LP but cut and released five years later) even knocked the Beatles off the #1 slot at the height of their charting powers.

Hunka hunka, baby...

[Dancing_Dave]

16. "Suspicious Minds" by a long shot!

Though I liked the Fine Young Cannibals 80's remake of it even better. Now THAT was truly a great song!