TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast Justin Gausman

This week Justin and Olivia are exploring the recordings (both final masters and alternate dubs that were considered) where Elvis sang with himself, starting from "I'm Yours" in the early 60s, working their way up through the very dense 1969 recordings, and well into the 1970s. There's both more than you'd think, and not enough! They ponder what sort of creative choices were made to lead Elvis to lay down these special vocals. It's a very unique angle (and frequently exquisite listening) from which to examine Elvis' music!
For Song of the Week, Olivia digs into the absolutely massive treasure trove of outtakes from the multiple different versions Elvis recorded of the title track from 1957's "Loving You" plus a few minor later live versions and covers, while Justin puts on my detective hat to try to solve some mysteries about the obscure home recording "Apron Strings," made while Elvis was in the Army.
Special thanks to David "Ghosty" Wills of the "We Say Yeah" podcast for some additional info on Cliff Richard's recordings of "Apron Strings"!
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy. 

Gurdip and Justin put their heads together for an interesting and provocative thought experiment: what Elvis songs would they pick if they had to remove 5 songs from each decade of his career? Would they just pick our least favorites - or consider the historical, social and cultural ramifications of each decision? Plus, are some periods of Elvis' career easier to prune than others? 
And then in the second part of the episode, Justin's joined by Olivia as they look at streaming data from a popular digital music platform to examine what the least listened-to Elvis songs (of ones originally released during his lifetime) are in modern times - the ones that at least one contingent of Elvis fans themselves seem to have inadvertently given away that they'd prefer not going out of their way to listen to.
For Song of the Week, Justin knocks out "This is Living" from the soundtrack of Elvis's 1962 boxing-musical-drama Kid Galahad, while Olivia similarly picks an early 60s movie song, the sweetly-sung lullaby "Big Boots" from 1960's G.I. Blues. 
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy. 

Gurdip returns this week for a lively discussion about the soundtrack to Elvis' 1968 film "Speedway," which co-starred Nancy Sinatra, who features on two tracks, making her one of the few artists to ever appear on an album with Elvis during his lifetime.
The guys dig a bit into the recording sessions (which, minus Sinatra's contributions, were primarily done at MGM's soundstage instead of at RCA Studio B as usual) and how this move affected the production quality of the album, the poor choice of promotional single material, unfortunate timing of the film & soundtrack's release, and ponder how Elvis' final soundtrack LP for a fictional film managed to, like the first movie album from 11 years earlier, end up with nearly half the songs featured not even appearing in the film itself. 
The guys also catch up on a bunch of listener emails, and then for Song of the Week, Gurdip selects Elvis' unique 1957 interpretation of the spiritual "I Believe," while Justin goes much lighter, picking "Poor Boy," recorded for and featured in his first feature, Love Me Tender.
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy. 

Justin is joined on this episode by longtime guest and inquisitive mind Olivia Murphy-Rogers, who Gurdip, Ryan, Bec & Justin are pleased to announce is joining the TCBCast crew!!
Justin and Olivia explore the concept of the "fool" in Elvis' music - song titles, lyrics, and at critical moments in his life from his childhood in Tupelo to his final television special. Justin continues the theme with his Song of the Week, Elvis' 1971 version of "Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)" and they look at the history of both the song (which dates back to the 1940s) but also the phrase itself. Olivia's Song of the Week, by contrast, is the final "studio" recording Elvis laid down in the Jungle Room in 1976, a cover of Jim Reeves' crossover hit "He'll Have to Go."
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy. 
(Note from Justin: We're already aware we somehow missed "Love Me, Love the Life I Lead"! Sorry!")

Justin and Bec pull out all the stops for a thorough exploration of the remaining Nashville studio sessions from 1970: June 6, 7 & 8 as well as the brief September 22, 1970, session where Elvis laid down four more tracks to polish off "Elvis Country" and prepare a single. As they begin to sense the material's strength (and Elvis' interest) waning, they ponder whether the "marathon" approach may have done more harm than good in the long run. There are still numerous highs, like much of the material that landed on the country record, but there's also... "Life."
This episode's main topic is extra jam-packed so there's no Song of the Week this week, just a buttload of fun and thoughtful discussion about the huge pile of music Elvis & the band laid down that year, and how it was released throughout the rest of 1970, 1971 and even sprinkled a bit into 1972. 
Want to hear a wonderfully curated collection of Elvis' 1970 session material? We highly recommend Sony's "From Elvis in Nashville" 4-disc box set from 2020, as of this posting still available physically, digitally and on streaming, and most of the final masters can be heard on the streaming versions of the albums "That's The Way It Is," "Elvis Country," and "Love Letters from Elvis" with a handful more on "Elvis Now." 
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy. 

Gurdip's on vacation and between day jobs and personal emergencies, timing isn't lining up just yet Part 2 of the Nashville sessions, so Bec and Justin got together for a quick spur of the moment episode and managed to rope in John Michael Heath of EAP Society for a loose Elvis discussion among the three. The team discusses John & his father's Elvis artifacts in their collection, favorite Elvis movies, the 1969 American Sound Sessions and the 1970 Nashville Marathon both come up, as well as John's recent acquisition of Memphis photographer William Speer's non-Elvis collection of decades worth of photos.
For Song of the Week, John revisits a 1969 track previously featured as SotW (early in our run by Gurdip's nephew Roman) to give his heartfelt interpretation of Elvis' reading of Johnny Christopher's "Mama Liked The Roses." Justin's Song of the Week similarly focuses on a surprising, unexpected alternate interpretation of the December 1973 Stax recording "Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming" direct from the mouth of its writer, Rory Bourke, as well as a mini-SOTW side discussion on a January 1974 Las Vegas one-liner Elvis sang of the Rory Bourke co-write, Charlie Rich's "The Most Beautiful Girl."
If you'd like to hear more from John and Jamie Kelley, please visit youtube.com/EAPSociety or EAPSociety.com for details on their upcoming "Spring Festival" event in Iowa.
If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy.