Category Archives: Reissue

Alice Cooper: DaDa

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Alice Cooper’s last album for Warner Brothers

By 1983 Alice Cooper had fallen back off the wagon and was recording albums that he’d later claim he couldn’t remember. 1981’s Special Forces had brought him back to a stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll sound that recalled his earlier peaks, and 1982’s Zipper Catches Skin retained the same direction while sounding more labored. 1983’s DaDa, his last album for Warner Brothers (and his last album before a three-year hiatus) reunited him with Bob Ezrin, who’d produced Cooper in his glory years. The album opens promisingly with the menacing “Da,” a looming synthesizer instrumental punctured by thumps of percussion and a spooky doll’s voice. The spoken word lyrics sound as if they’re snippets of confessional dialog lifted from a 1940s psychological thriller.

The doll’s eerie “da-da” vocalizations point to the album’s family themes, with a teenage son calling out his abusive father on “Enough’s Enough,” and the family’s dark human secret essayed in “Former Lee Warmer.” There’s a not-quite-heartwarming story of a shopping mall Santa, the Devo-esque dizziness of “Dyslexia,” and the over-the-top patriotism of “I Love America.” Whatever else Alice Cooper was doing (or drinking) his sense of humor never left him. On the darker theatrical side are the dominatrix sister duo and middle-eastern flourishes of “Scarlet and Sheba,” the vampire horror of “Fresh Blood,” and the alcoholic nightmare “Pass the Gun Around” that closes a chapter in Cooper’s career. Collectors’ Choice’s domestic reissue includes a four-panel booklet that features new liner notes by Gene Sculatti, but no bonus tracks. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Alice Cooper: Zipper Catches Skin

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Alice Cooper sounding a bit labored in 1982

A year after the stripped-down attack of Special Forces, Alice Cooper produced another album in the same vein; though this time with added theatrical flair and the return of guitarist Dick Wagner. Cooper continued to assume new identities, such as the famed swordsman of “Zorro’s Ascent” and the put-upon son of “Make That Money (Scrooge’s Song).” Some of the performances seem labored, and Wagner’s distinctive guitar riffs feel as if they were grafted onto the songs to add flash. The stagey ballad “I Am the Future” might have worked well as a production number, but with Cooper descending back into alcohol addiction there was no tour. What works well is Cooper’s humor on “No Baloney Homosapiens,” “I Like Girls” and “Remarkably Insincere.” And on “Tag, You’re It” he indulges his longtime love of cheesy cinema with a song full of slasher-film clichés. If there was no 1970s legacy with which to compare this, one might stumble upon this and think it’s a long-lost power-pop album from a surprisingly talented lyricist. It’s all quite listenable, and even fun as it passes by, but it’s not nearly as memorable as his earlier (and some of his later) works. Collectors’ Choice’s domestic reissue adds the UK-only 1982 single “For Britain Only,” and its four-panel booklet includes new liner notes by Gene Sculatti. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Alice Cooper: Special Forces

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Alice Cooper stripped of his late-70s bombast

Nearly a decade after the original Alice Cooper band broke through with School’s Out, and five years after the solo Alice Cooper re-emerged with Welcome to My Nightmare and Alice Cooper Goes to Hell some retooling was in order. Cooper’s albums of the late 70s had become bombastic, and his 1980 release Flush the Fashion mistakenly embraced a modern-rock sound that failed him. By 1981 he was ready to recapture his earlier glory. Gone were the new wave synthesizers brought by Roy Thomas Baker and back were guitar, bass and drums to give punch to Cooper’s tough singing. What synths remain were slithering and insinuating, or in the case of those which introduce “Seven and Seven Is,” quickly pushed aside by slashing rhythm guitars. Covering this Love song was a canny tip of the hat to punk-rock’s mid-60s garage-rock roots.

This isn’t a full one-eighty from Flush the Fashion, but in the punk rock movement Cooper had clearly found kindred confrontational spirits. His then-current preoccupation with military and police matters provides the album’s major lyrical strand, though it’s set to the sort of clever wordplay that had made his earlier hits and stage show so alluring. The accoutrements of power and forces – guns, ammo, holsters – are dressed-up in suggestive sexual double-entendres that leave their meaning to the listener’s imagination. Cooper revisits “Generation Landslide” (from 1973’s Billion Dollar Babies) without the finesse of the original, and at times, such as on “Don’t Talk Old to Me,” Cooper sounds like a ranting alcoholic, which was apparently a real-life role into which he was about to lapse. Cooper’s secondary fascination with horror films is highlighted in the ornate “Skeletons in the Closet,” on which trades the raw rock ‘n’ roll for synthesizers and spooky imagery.

None of this content generated a social shock or commercial reaction in 1981, but either did it sound out of time. The staccato rhythm of “You’re a Movie” may be tied to the new wave sounds of early MTV, but there’s enough muscle in the band’s playing to keep this from being completely dated. Collectors’ Choice’s domestic CD reissue adds “Look at You Over There, Ripping the Sawdust From My Teddybear,” a song Cooper trimmed from the original vinyl release. Its electric piano and funky rhythm do indeed sound out of context, but it fits lyrically and fans will be happy to get this extra period track. The disc is delivered in a standard jewel case with a four panel insert that includes new liner notes by Gene Sculatti. This isn’t Alice Cooper at his pinnacle, but neither is it the sound of a one-time enfant terrible simply hanging on. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Chris Bell: I Am the Cosmos (Deluxe Edition)

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Expanded reissue of Big Star founder’s posthumous solo album

Big Star founder Chris Bell, like his band, is an enigma whose mystery has endured even as his details have been dispensed in retrospective bits and pieces. At the time of his greatest achievement, Big Star’s #1 Record, he and his band’s fame extended only to the rock literati. By the time the Big Star cult began to build, stoked by the reissue of their first two albums in the summer of 1978, Bell was only months away from death, at the age of 27, in a single vehicle car crash. At the time few had sought out his artistic details or inspirations, and musical archaeologists piecing together the strands of Big Star originally had to work from scant materials: the iconic Big Star album, a solo single of “I Am the Cosmos” b/w “You and Your Sister,” a few fanzine articles, and reminiscences of his friends and family.

Interest in Big Star continued to grow, but with Alex Chilton avoiding the press and Bell no longer living, details had to be divined from bits and pieces added retrospectively to the group’s legacy. Chilton released an EP, Singer Not the Song, in 1977, the long-delayed release of Big Star Third came in 1978, along with Bell’s single, and Chilton then released a string of solo albums that diverged further and further from his work with Big Star. It would be another eight years until the first two Big Star albums would appear on CD in 1986, and another six years until additional archival material was made available. In 1992 the floodgates opened with Ryko’s release of Big Star’s vintage radio performance, Live, and Chris Bell’s mid-70s solo album I Am the Cosmos.

The genesis of Bell’s solo recordings lay in the same aftermath from which Chilton bred Big Star Third. Bell had departed Big Star after the failure of #1 Record in 1972. From all reports, including Rob Jovanovic’s Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, Bruce Eaton’s Radio City 33-1/3, and Bob Mehr’s lengthy essay in this deluxe reissue, Bell took the failure of #1 Record harder than anyone else, and by the sound of his solo recordings, he didn’t seem to have ever fully recovered. Recording in Memphis, France and England in 1974, and continuing to tinker with the recordings at Ardent for several more years, the results aren’t as anarchic as Chilton’s post-Big Star sessions, but they’re often as edgy. Most of the adolescence and winsomeness of Big Star had been rubbed out of both singer-songwriters by this point.

Several of Bell’s post-Big Star performances sound stressed, as if he’s striving to find meaning among ruined expectations for #1 Record and a mental state that wasn’t always sunny. The recordings can fatigue listeners’ ears with the high-end of Bell’s voice and the piercing splash of cymbals, but there are moments of musical art that match anything he’d achieved before. The album’s title track, presented in both its finished form and a slower version that extends over five minutes (two minutes longer than Ryko’s 1992 edit), can be read simply as a plea to a departed lover, a reassessment of the musician’s attachment to his former musical mates, or as a metaphysical song to Bell’s own youth. It’s a powerful song whose interpretations deepen with time.

Another of the album’s aces is the ballad “You and Your Sister,” featuring Alex Chilton on backing vocal. Here the yearning in Bell’s lyric and voice, framed by a pair of delicately fingerpicked acoustic guitars, underlined by deep bass and filigreed by a string quartet will stop you in your tracks. Two alternate versions, both present on Ryko’s 1992 edition, show how the song developed. An earlier take from 1974 is busier, with double-tracked vocals and a mellotron in place of the strings; a demo, also from 1974, lays out the song’s emotion in a stark acoustic performance that’s equally as effective as the final production. The inward searching and outward seeking heard here, along with a general restlessness and sense of despair echoes throughout the album.

“Speed of Sound” features lushly strummed acoustic guitars, accompanied by bass, volume-flanged electric guitar, and primitive moog behind a lyric of romantic defeat, disappointment and devastation. An alternate version recorded during the same sessions is sung deeper and more wounded than the master take, and without the moog the focus stays squarely on the vocalist’s pain. Bell reunited with his former Big Star rhythm section of Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens for “I Got Kinda Lost” and “There Was a Light,” the former a guitar-driven rocker, the latter a mid-tempo piano-and-guitar ballad. Bell’s growing relationship with Christianity is heard in “Better Save Yourself” and “Look Up,” and by 1976, his last known track “Though I Know She Lies” finds his voice is remarkably restrained; it’s hard to tell whether he’s comfortable or defeated.

Bell shopped the tapes around, but even with several top-notch singles and strong album material he was unable to get anyone to release his solo album. Chris Stamey issued “I am the Cosmos” b/w “You and Your Sister” as a single in 1978, but the rest of the material sat in the vault for another fourteen years. It wasn’t until Ryko issued a CD in 1992 that Bell’s post-Big Star voice was widely heard. Rhino Handmade’s 2-CD reissue includes all of the material on Ryko’s original CD and adds a dozen extras that include pre-Big Star tracks from Icewater (“Looking Forward” and “Sunshine”) and Rock City (“My Life is Right”), alternate recordings and mixes of album cuts, early demos, and Bell’s contribution to the Keith Sykes Band on “In My Darkest Hour.” The set closes with a moving acoustic instrumental, “Clacton Rag,” showing off the emotion of Bell’s guitar playing.

The discs are delivered in a six-panel digipack alongside a 32-page booklet featuring an extensive essay by Bob Mehr and track notes by Alec Palao. Casual fans will be satisfied with the original Ryko single disc, but anyone trying to build a more detailed picture of Chris Bell will want to listen to and study the extra tracks, historical notes and photos presented here. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Stream selected tracks from I Am the Cosmos

Elvis Presley: Clambake

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Three great tracks and some all-time clunkers

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1967’s Clambake was Elvis’ twenty-fifth film and the third to co-star Shelley Fabares. Unlike the bulk of Elvis’ Hollywood-recorded soundtracks, this one was waxed in Nashville with a host of Music City A-listers, including drummer Buddy Harman, guitarist Charlie McCoy, pianist Floyd Cramer and steel guitarist Pete Drake. Also on hand were Elvis long-time associates, Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires. By this point the soundtrack songwriters were etched in stone, with contributions from Sid Wayne, Ben Weisman, Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett and Joy Byers. The soundtrack’s best cuts come from the few outside writers: Jerry Reed, credited as Jerry “Reed” Hubbard, contributed the super fine “Guitar Man,” Elvis struts his stuff on a cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” and Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” blows the regular soundtrack writers’ material out of the water.

After the success of “Do the Clam” (from the soundtrack of Girl Happy), the RCA brain trust must have thought releasing “Clambake” as a single would typecast their star as a seafood singer. That’s too bad, as it’s a catchy tune even if Elvis does have to sing “mama’s little baby loves clambake clambake.” Elvis rarely sounded less than professional on his soundtracks, even as he was dodging or hurrying through sessions, but you can always hear him engage a second gear for the better material. He doesn’t quite sleepwalk through the worst material, though a few vocals sound like first takes for which Elvis refused to soil himself with a second pass. Clambake features some of the most embarrassing lyrics Elvis was ever asked to sing (key evidence: “Hey Hey Hey”), and adding children on “Confidence” didn’t help.

This may be the most schizophrenic of Elvis’ soundtrack albums, featuring several highpoints that match the quality and artistry or his non-soundtrack singles. but intermingled with awful songs that could only have been contractual obligations. Just when “The Singing Tree” has robbed you of hope, Elvis closes with a superb, stone-country cover of Rex Griffin’s “Just Call Me Lonesome” that has him intertwined in Pete Drake’s steel guitar. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 30-minute running time suggests that Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive, especially if you pick out the hot tracks and skip the rest. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Frankie and Johnny

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Elvis is taken for a ride on a riverboat

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1966’s Frankie and Johnny was Elvis’ twentieth film, and co-starred Donna Douglas who was then starring on television’s Beverly Hillbillies. The soundtrack was recorded in Hollywood with the usual mix of West Coast studio players (including guitarist Tiny Timbrell), and longtime Elvis associate Scotty Moore. The Jordanaires are replaced here by the Mello Men on background vocals, and a brass section (trumpet, trombone and tuba) was brought in to give a New Orleans edge to several of the songs. The songwriters included many of the usual crew, such as Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett, Ben Weisman, Sid Wayne, Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman, and the trio of Florence Kaye, Bernie Baum and Bill Giant.

Many of the album’s songs are meant to evoke the era of river boats and music calls, but they’re campy, faux-Dixieland theatricality doesn’t survive the transition from film to soundtrack album. Elvis sounds as if he’s being forced to march along to “Down by the Riverside,” though he loosens up for the second half of the medley with “Saints Go Marching In.” Pomus & Shuman’s “What Every Woman Lives For” would be a more appealing blues if the message wasn’t so retrospectively sexist (though, to be fair, it is Elvis singing, and it’s possible that every woman does live to give him their love). The revival “Shout it Out,” though lyrically light, gives Elvis a chance to rock it up, and the blues “Hard Luck” features Charlie McCoy on harmonica.

Several of the tracks feel under-arranged, as if producer Fred Karger was in a hurry to get these tracks finished. Perhaps when you have the film’s director Fred De Cordova (of Tonight Show fame) waiting on you and you’re asking Elvis to sing mediocre material, you get what you can get. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 27-minute running time suggests that the earlier import two-fer or Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Girl Happy

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Elvis catches an ocean’s worth of memorable pop songs

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1965’s Girl Happy was Elvis’ seventeenth film, the second of three with the word “Girls” in the title, and the first of three featuring co-star Shelley Fabares. Though the beach party plot was nothing new, Elvis generated some sweet chemistry with Fabares, and seemed more interested in the soundtrack than he had on the previous Roustabout. The soundtrack was recorded in Hollywood with the usual mix of West Coast studio players (including guitarists Tiny Timbrell and Tommy Tedesco), Nashville transplants Floyd Cramer and Boots Randolph, and longtime Elvis associates Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires. The songs were penned by the usual crew of Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett, Sid Wayne, Ben Weisman, and the trio of Florence Kaye, Bernie Baum and Bill Giant. Unlike Elvis’ previous outing nowever, the lightweight songs are quite surprisingly memorable.

The film opens with Doc Pomus and Norman Meade’s exuberant title theme, and even the throwaway lyrics of “Startin’ Tonight” can’t dim it’s rock ‘n’ roll energy. Elvis and the Jordanaires just about run out of breath on Joy Byers’ “The Meanest Girl in Town” with Boots Randolph adding a wailing sax solo. The calypso “Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce” is cleverly written, the ballad “Do Not Disturb” gives Elvis a chance to do some romancing, and “Puppet on a String” is sweet and tender. The film’s performance centerpiece, “Wolf Call,” is just as much fun on CD as it was in the fictional club scene, and makes you wish that Gary Crosby had really been in Elvis’ band!

“Do the Clam,” one of the album’s two hits (the other was “Puppet on a String”), will have you dancing the sensation that didn’t quite sweep the nation, and the CD includes the original soundtrack bonus, “You’ll Be Gone.” Recorded in 1961 the latter song is one of Elvis’ few co-writes, and was tacked onto the album despite not having been used in the film. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 24-minute running time suggests that the earlier import two-fer or Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue very attractive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Roustabout

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Mediocre soundtrack songs and a 21-minute running time

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1964’s Roustabout was Elvis’ sixteenth film, and had the unenviable job of following the smash Viva Las Vegas. Though the plot was formulaic, Elvis spiced things up by performing his own stunts. The soundtrack was recorded in Hollywood with the usual mix of West Coast studio players (including guitarists Billy Strange, Barney Kessel and Tiny Timbrell, and wrecking crew drummer Hal Blaine), Nashville transplants Floyd Cramer and Boots Randolph, and longtime Elvis associates Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires. The songs are mostly penned by Elvis soundtrack stalwarts, including Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett, Ben Weisman, Sid Wayne, Joy Byers and the trio of Florence Kaye, Bernie Baum and Bill Giant. Unfortunately there’s little here befitting a King.

The film’s carnival-related songs, “Roustabout,” “It’s Carnival Time,” and “Carny Town” are novelties that fail to transcend their ties to the film. The rest of the album isn’t much better, with throwaways like “It’s a Wonderful World” leaving Elvis bored. The best of the lot are a cover of the Coasters’ “Little Egypt” and Joy Byers’ throw-back rock ‘n’ roller, “Hard Knocks.” Elvis seems to connect with Byers’ lyrics of growing up poor, and Hal Blaine really stokes the beat. This was Elvis’ last #1 album until 1973’s Aloha From Hawaii: Via Satellite, and Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 21-minute running time suggests that the earlier import two-fer might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Viva Las Vegas

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Elvis and Ann-Margret burn up the Las Vegas strip

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1964’s Viva Las Vegas was Elvis’ fifteenth film, and remains a favorite among fans for the electricity generated between Elvis and co-star Ann-Margret. For once Elvis was matched by an actress who could sing and dance with the same heat he brought to the screen, and the film featured some of the best songs that had been written or corralled for an Elvis film vehicle. With all that going for it, it’s anyone’s guess why RCA so completely fumbled the soundtrack’s release. At the time of the film’s debut the title track was issued as a single, backed with Elvis’ smoking cover of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say,” and a four-song EP whose cover is reproduced for this CD. The rest of the soundtrack’s songs were scattered among numerous Elvis albums over subsequent months and years, with several (including two duets with Ann-Margret) held in the vaults until after Elvis’ death. Ann-Margret’s two solo numbers finally turned up on a Bear Family box set of her recordings.

It wasn’t until 1993 that a soundtrack album appeared as part of a two-fer pairing Viva Las Vegas with Roustabout. An even more complete version was released in 2003 by the collector’s imprint Follow That Dream. Sony’s new budget-priced reissue includes the same twelve titles as the two-fer, but still omits Ann-Margret’s solo tracks (“Appreciation” and “My Rival”) and the Forte’ Four’s “The Climb.” Those omissions aside, what’s here is top-notch, from Pomus and Shuman’s terrific title song through the sassy closing duet “The Lady Loves Me.” In between are many highlights featuring brassy blues, tender ballads and fiery vocal performances. Elvis sounds like he was having a lot of fun singing these tunes, and the dance dynamic between he and Ann-Margret begat great foot-stompers like “C’mon Everybody” (unfortunately missing the half-tempo coda from the film).

A medley of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” and “The Eyes of Texas” show Elvis could add a spark to standards, and two tunes that didn’t make the final film, the guitar rocker “Night Life” and the late-night Ann-Margret duet “You’re the Boss,” make good additions to the official soundtrack. A third non-film tune, the Latin dance tune “Do the Vega,” is more of a throwaway. The audio is reproduced in super-wide stereo with Elvis’ vocals sharp and clear at center stage. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 31-minute running time suggests that the earlier import two-fer or Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Presley: Fun in Acapulco

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Elvis’ movie music travels South of the Border

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1963’s Fun in Acapulco was Elvis’ thirteenth film, and though set in Acapulco, Elvis’ scenes were all filmed in Hollywood. The soundtrack was likewise recorded in Hollywood with a combination of West Coast studio players (including guitarists Tiny Timbrell and Barney Kessell, and legendary Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine), Elvis regulars (Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana, and the Jordainaires), a horn section (Anthony Terran and Rudolph Loera) and the backing vocals of the Amigos (who’d previously appeared on the soundtrack of Girls! Girls! Girls!). As one might expect, the emphasis here is on Latin sounds and though the songs aren’t particularly deep, Elvis seems to have a lot of fun in this setting. The album spun off a hit with Leiber and Stoller’s “Bossa Nova Baby,” a song previously recorded by Tippie & The Clovers for the Tiger label with no chart success.

Soundtrack stalwarts Ben Weisman, Sid Wayne, Roy Bennett, Sid Tepper and Don Robertson contribute songs that give Elvis something with which to riff. They’re not always memorable, but neither are they the lackadaisically written sore thumbs of Elvis’ worst soundtracks. You won’t be brought up short by a baby shrimp saying farewell to his parents, for example, and the fuzz guitar and sensual vocal of “Slowly But Surely” is a great way to close the album. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet, no bonus tracks, and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 30-minute running time suggests that the earlier import two-fer or Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]