This Just In ...

Goodnight everyone and have a hunka hunka weekend!

Posted by Kevin Fischer on Aug. 13, 2010

ELVIS, Nostalgia

It's Friday night. Time to unwind with our regular Friday night feature on This Just In.

The weekend has finally arrived.

The sun has set.

The evening sky has erupted. 

Let's put controversy and provocative blogs aside for the rest of this work week and smooth our way into Saturday and Sunday.

Tonight....







Monday marks the 33^rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. To join the celebration of Elvis Week, This Just In devotes its weekly Friday night music piece to some tunes from the King that true fans will recognize and might be new to many who aren’t as ardent followers. I hope you’ll enjoy our selection.

We begin with one of Elvis’ early RCA recordings. Note the great boogie woogie piano. And the cool lyrics.

Elvis could do it all.  Check out this number mixed with a bluesy, jazzy, rockabilly, country sound.

Again, from those very early years.

The King of Rock and Roll could do a tender ballad like nobody else. The flip side of “Good Luck Charm”….


 

Almost time to say goodnight, and Elvis sure tries, but seems to have some difficulty. I do believe I detect some cha-cha or tango.


 

That’s it for this week.

Goodnight.

Sleep well.

Have a great weekend.

We end with a big movie production number. From irishelvisfanclub.com:

“Elvis' twentieth movie was ‘Frankie and Johnny’. Elvis reported for pre-production on May 11, 1965 and he was released on June 24, 1965. The film premiered in Baton Rouge, Lousiana on March 31, 1966. Co-stars Donna Douglas, Sue Anne Langdon and Nancy Kovack attended. It was the #48 movie for the year of 1966, grossing over $2,000,000. The single ‘Frankie and Johnny’ peaked at #25 in an 8-week run on the chart. The soundtrack album spent 19 weeks on the chart and peaked at #20.

‘Frankie and Johnny’ was a remake of a 1936 Republic Pictures film starring Helen Morgan as St. Louis casino singer Frankie and Chester Morris as Johnny the gambler. The story of Frankie and Johnny is a blend of fact and fiction. The story goes that in 1899 in St. Louis, Missouri a Frankie Baker shot her man Al ‘Johnny’ Britt when she found him in a bar with another woman. Missouri artist Thomas Hart Benton was commissioned in 1934 to paint a series of murals in the state capitol and he chose to depict what he called a ‘Social History of the State of Missouri.’ One of the murals is the barroom scene of Frankie shooting Johnny. Elvis' movie, although an United Artists film, was shot on the MGM lot and for inspiration MGM had a reproduction of the Missouri mural displayed during filming.

Frankie and Johnny were perhaps the inspiration for ‘He Done Me Wrong’, a 1904 song written by Hughie Cannon and sung by Mae West in her 1933 movie as ‘She Done Him Wrong.’ It has been recorded in various forms over the years with the title ‘Frankie and Johnny’  by such artists as Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Brook Benton, and Sam Cooke. Elvis' version was arranged by Alex Gottlieb, Fred Karger and Ben Weisman for this movie.

Elvis plays Johnny, a riverboat entertainer that has a big gambling problem. Donna Douglas is Johnny's girl, Frankie. A fortune teller tells Johnny how he can change his luck. Enter a new lady luck played by Nancy Kovack and the cat fight begins.”

 
 

For more about Elvis, go to this outstanding web site.