ELVIS – THE CAMDEN COLLECTION – 50 Years Later

C’mon Everybody
CAS 2518
Released: July 1971
Chart Position 70
RIAA Certification (2004)
Gold (500,000 units)

Side 1
1: C’mon Everybody**
2: Angel**
3: Easy Come, Easy Go**
4: A Whistling Tune**
5: Follow That Dream**

Side 2
1: King Of The Whole Wide World**
2: I’ll Take Love**
3: I’m Not The Marrying Kind**
4:This Is Living**
5: Today, Tomorrow And Forever**

With the stockpile of recent soundtracks and unreleased studio recordings now nearly sold out, Colonel and RCA turned their attention to four soundtrack EPs for Camden’s two upcoming albums. They were Follow That Dream, Kid Galahad, Viva Las Vegas and Easy Come, Easy Go. As none of the tracks had previously appeared on an album, many people would have heard them here for the first time.

The songs from Follow That Dream and Kid Galahad were very similar and quite strong, as they were recorded four months apart for films produced by the Mirisch Company. In fact, one of the songs, A Whistling Tune, had originally been recorded for Follow That Dream before being shelved and re-recorded for Kid Galahad. Likewise, the Viva Las Vegas tracks were also strong.

Unfortunately, by the time Elvis laid down the tracks for Easy Come, Easy Go in September 1966, the quality had dropped. However, it would have been the first time most people had heard the songs outside of the film, as the original EP, released in March 1967, failed to chart and sold only 30,000 copies. It ended up being Elvis’s last commercial EP in the United States.

In Australia, RCA decided not to release C’mon Everybody (the back cover of I Got Lucky advertised that it was “available on import”). Instead, they opted to release Elvis (SP-106-G), a 19-track compilation that included all 10 songs from C’mon Everybody, along with two from Elvis Sings Flaming Star, one from Let’s Be Friends, five from Almost In Love and one of You’ll Never walk Alone.

The stunning cover featured a cropped version of the Elvis: That’s The Way It Is promotional poster, and the back was the Back Cover of C’mon Everybody, without the title (but with the word ‘ELVIS’ instead). and song titles were added.

Released in January 1972, and on the Victor label, it featured a gatefold sleeve (another live shot) and some sources indicate that it was advertised on television (Presley’s “first budget television special record anywhere in the world”, according to Postscript). Weekend, April 13, 1972).

I Got Lucky
CAS 2533
Released: October 1971
Chart Position 104
RIAA Certification (2004)
Platinum (1,000,000 units)

Side 1
1: I Got Lucky**
2: What A Wonderful Life**
3: I Need Somebody To Lean On**
4: Yoga Is As Yoga Does**
5: Riding The Rainbow**

Side 2
6: Fools Fall In Love**
7: The Love Machine**
8: Home Is Where The Heart Is**
9: You Gotta Stop**
10: If You Think I Don’t Need You**

Completing tracks from the soundtrack EPs of Follow That Dream, Kid Galahad, Viva Las Vegas and Easy Come, Easy Go (noting that Sing You Children from Easy Come, Easy Go had appeared on You’ll Never Walk Alone), I Got Lucky had a very similar feel to C’mon Everybody. To bring the album to 10 tracks, Fools Fall In Love was added, recorded at the How Great Thou Art sessions in May 1966 and released as the B-side of Indescribably Blue in January 1967.

Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies Volume 1
CAS 2567
Released: June 1972
Chart Position 87
RIAA Certification (2004)
Platinum (1,000,000 units)

Side 1
1; Down By The Riverside and When The Saints Go Marching In
2: They Remind Me Too Much Of You
3: Confidence
4: Frankie And Johnny
5: Guitar Man

Side 2
1: Long Legged Girl (With The Short Dress On)
2: You Don’t Know Me
3: How Would You Like To Be
4: Big Boss Man
5: Old MacDonald*

Featuring tracks from It Happened At The World’s Fair, Frankie And Johnny, Double Trouble and Clambake, along with two songs not from the film, Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies Volume 1 was Camden’s first album not to include previously unreleased songs. , or had not already been released on an album.

The most notable were Guitar Man and Big Boss Man, which were recorded in September 1967 and marked the beginning of Elvis’ musical comeback. Although both tracks had appeared on the Clambake soundtrack, they were not included in the film, but rather were ‘Bonus Songs’ tracks that were included to complete some of the shorter soundtracks. As such, when this album was released in England, it was renamed Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies – Plus TWO Recent Hits. Additionally, in some countries (e.g. Japan), the album was simply titled Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies.

The remaining tracks were a mixed bag, and although some had been released as singles and charted, none could truly be considered “hits.” It seems that whoever put together the track listing for this album took very little care, with Old MacDonald and Confidence in particular among the poorest songs of Elvis’ film career. Interestingly, Frank Sinatra had also recorded Old MacDonald (as Ol’ Mac Donald) in 1960 and High Hopes in 1959, a song from which Confidence borrowed heavily. Additionally, Long Legged Girl (With The Short Dress On) made her second appearance in Camden, having previously been in Almost In Love.

Burning Love And Hits From His Movies Volume 2
CAS 2595
Released: October 1972
Chart Position 22
RIAA Certification (2004)
2 x Platinum (2,000,000 units)

Side 1
1: Burning Love**
2: Tender Feeling
3: Am I Ready
4: Tonight Is So Right For Love
5: Guadalajara

Side 2
1: It’s A Matter Of Time**
2: No More
3: Santa Lucia
4: We’ll Be Together
5: I Love Only One Girl

In an attempt to increase sales, the Colonel took the strange step of including Elvis’s latest single, Burning Love / It’s A Matter Of Time, on Camden’s next album. The single had been released just a couple of months earlier, peaked at No. 2, and was Elvis’s biggest hit since Suspicious Minds in 1969. It was to be the last US Top 10 single released during his lifetime.

If record buyers expected more of the same, they would have been disappointed, or at least confused, and to this day many believe that the film’s tracks were selected in the same haphazard manner as its predecessor. However, closer examination reveals that more thought was put into this album than others in the series.

The songs, with the exception of Guadalajara and Santa Lucía (which are sung in their original form), are traditional melody adaptations of popular tunes and classical works from North America, South America, and Europe. Details on each of the songs (and the Elvis film they appeared in) are below:

* Tender Feeling: Melody: Oh Shenandoah. 19th century American folk tune. Composer unknown (Kissin’ Cousins)
* Am I Ready: Melody: To A Wild Rose, Op. 51 from ‘Woodland Sketches’, USA, 1896. Composer: Edward MacDowell (Spinout)
* Tonight Is So Right For Love: Melody: Barcarolle (Belle nuit, ô nuit d’amour) from The Tales Of Hoffmann, French, 1880. Composer: Jacques Offenbach (German) (G.I. Blues)
* Guadalajara: Mariachi song, Mexican, 1937. Composer: José Guízar Morfín (aka Pepe Guízar) (Fun In Acapulco)
* No More: Melody: La Paloma (The Dove), Spain, circa 1860. Composer: Sebastián Iradier Salaverri (aka Sebastián Yradier) (Blue Hawaii)
* Santa Lucia: Traditional Neapolitan song, Italian, 1849. Composer unknown. Translated by Teodoro Cottrau (1849) (Viva Las Vegas)
* We’ll Be Together: Melody: Carmen Carmela. 19th century Spanish-American folk song. Composer unknown (Girls! Girls! Girls!)
* I Love Only One Girl: Melody: Auprès de ma blonde (Next To My Girlfriend), French, 1704 during the reign of Louis XIV. Composer: André Joubert du Collet (Double Trouble)

The combination of the single Burning Love and these songs drawn from traditional tunes makes it one of Elvis’ most interesting (and strange) releases. It may have been a big artistic misstep to include the single here instead of putting it on an album of new songs, but for what it is, it’s still a solid collection, for the most part.

In another attempt to boost sales, the first pressing of the US version of the album came with a “Limited Offer of an Extra Special Photo Inside.”

The album ended up peaking at number 22 on the Billboard chart, the highest achieved by any Elvis Camden album.

Separate Ways
CAS 2611
Released: December 1972
Chart Position 46
RIAA Certification (2004)
Platinum (1,000,000 units)

Side 1
1: Separate Ways**
2: Sentimental Me
3: In My Way
4: I Met Her Today
5: What Now, What Next, Where To

Side 2
1: Always On My Mind**
2: I Slipped, I stumbled, I Fell
3: Is It So Strange
4: Forget Me Never
5: Old Shep

Like its predecessor, Camden’s final album, Separe Ways, featured Elvis’s single at the time, Separe Ways/Always On My Mind, which had been released just weeks earlier. The single, which was still in the charts when the album was released, peaked at number 20. The four new songs from Camden’s final two albums were recorded in March 1972, along with three other tracks.

Most of the rest of the album contained a series of lesser-known ballads recorded between 1956 and 1963. The only uptempo track on the album, I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell, was from the film Wild In The Country. and two other tracks recorded for the film, In My Way and Forget Me Never, were also included. All songs were previously released and appeared on albums.

Reissues

Separe Ways was Camden’s last album under the original contracts. The tracks used in the series were later re-released in various forms, most notably in 1975, when another budget label, Pickwick Records, reissued all 10 albums. They featured the same cover photographs as the original RCA versions, although in some cases the art was altered.

Pickwick also issued Double Dynamite, a two-disc, 18-track compilation, with a 20-track version released in the UK (released in Australia as The Elvis Explosion). Other variations and compilations using the same tracks continued to be released around the world well into the 1980s, and all albums were issued on CD or digitally at one time or another. Over the years, other Elvis albums have been released on the Camden label; however, these original albums remain Camden “canon.”

Conclusion

As a body of work, the Camden albums represent an important part of Elvis’s recording history and their contribution should not be underestimated, as they contain:

96 individual tracks (95 x studio; 1 x live). The first release of a live Elvis recording. 19 unreleased songs. 58 unreleased tracks on one album (US). Almost 4 hours of music. The last Top 10 single released during Elvis’s lifetime. 16.5% of all Elvis studio recordings between 1954 and 1972. Tracks from all the years that Elvis recorded for RCA up to that point, with the exception of 1958, 1964, 1970 and 1971. Songs from 21 of the 26 film soundtracks Elvis recorded in the 1960s (with the exception of Roustabout, Girl Happy, Harum Scarum, Paradise, Hawaiian Style and Speedway)

Additionally, according to RIAA certifications, an impressive 21,500,000 Camden albums have been sold in the US alone. If you also consider that, according to Graceland, approximately 40% of Elvis’ record sales come from outside the United States, Camden’s total sales worldwide would exceed 30,000,000! Additionally, Elvis’ best-selling album in his history and, to date, his only RIAA Diamond-certified album is the Camden version of Elvis’ Christmas Album.

It’s true that, for the most part, these albums don’t contain the best-known material recorded by Elvis (and for the price you wouldn’t expect them to), but there are very few songs (less than 10%) that could be considered ‘bad’. ‘ (although these songs ruin the reputation of the entire series).

What record buyers received for their $1.98 ($2.98 for You’ll Never Walk Alone onwards) was an album with 9 or 10 songs that represented a cross-section of Elvis’s vast catalog and, in Overall, it ranged from good to excellent. Through Camden’s albums, many fans first heard songs that have become their favorites and which then led them to delve deeper into Elvis’ music and history. That’s $1.98 (or $2.98) well spent!

Author’s note

I remember the exact date I became an Elvis fan. Friday, January 8, 1982. It was the Christmas school holidays here in Sydney, Australia, and I was up late, flicking through the five (!!) available television stations, when I stumbled upon a double feature: Jailhouse Rock and Love Me Tender. – is played to commemorate Elvis’s birthday. I started watching and I was hooked. During that weekend, one of the radio stations, 2UE, played Elvis’s top 40 Australian hits, which I recorded on a cassette tape (It’s Now Or Never was number 1), and my passion for Elvis began.

Over the next few weeks, other Elvis films appeared on television, notably Kid Galahad and Follow That Dream. I recorded the songs on a cassette tape (we didn’t have a VCR) and loved them as much as the top 40 hits on my other tape.

At the same time, I discovered that our newly opened Safeway Hypermart, the largest in the southern hemisphere! (now Woolworths) had a great selection of cheap records and cassettes, including quite a few Elvis ones priced between $2.99 and $4.99. These were all released under license through Summit Records Pty Ltd, a small budget label based just a few suburbs away, in Dee Why. My first purchase was the A Date With Elvis cassette (I chose it because it was only $2.99 and included songs from Love Me Tender and Jailhouse Rock), however once I saved enough money I repurchased I Got Lucky (as I had Done before). some songs by Kid Galahad and Follow That Dream) and Elvis Sings Flaming Star (the title was one of the top 40 songs I recorded off the radio). Each one was only $3.99.

From there, my Elvis collection began to grow; Camden albums and some 60’s soundtracks were among my first purchases due to their affordability. I loved most of these lesser-known songs as much as the hits, and I still do today, although I now have all of Elvis’ master recordings and quite a few box sets, FTD, etc.

Information provided by Antonio Gte González. “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” https://www.facebook.com/groups/146836475332645/?ref=share

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