BLUE HAWAII
– Postcard production and… the beginning of the Presley formula-
(part 6)
Elvis Presley “Blue Hawaii”… Unlike “Aloha Oe,” “Ku-UI-Po,” the next ballad recorded that day, didn’t have quite the same history. It was a new song after “Hawaiian Sunset,” written for the upcoming film. It was by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George Weiss. “When we heard Elvis was doing ‘Blue Hawaii,’ I turned to one of the Aberbach brothers * and said, ‘Do you need more songs?’ ” recalled Luigi Creatore (quoted in David English and Pal Granuld’s phenomenal book, The Making of Blue Hawaii ). “‘Yes, if you have a Hawaiian song,’ he said. I remember George (Weiss) and Hugo (Peretti) and I were having lunch in a hotel cafe when a waitress came up to us. We asked her where she was from. ‘I’m from Hawaii,’ she said. Then I asked her, ‘How do you say honey in Hawaiian?’ and she said, ‘Ku-UI-Po.’ I said no and I said to the guys, ‘Hey, that’s a good title for a song.’ (laughter). And so we wrote ‘Ku-UI-Po.’ Then I sent it to the Aberbach brothers and it ended up in the movie .”
The song was recorded without major corrections after nine takes, and a moment later the entire band was already poring over the composition “No More”. A modernized version of the 19th-century Spanish song “La Paloma”.
The author of the original version was the Spanish Sebastian Iradier (or rather Sebastian de Iradier y Salaverri, because that was his real name). A Basque composer who became famous mainly as the creator of the habanera. Originating in Cuba and then popular in Spain, a type of music and dance characterized by, among other things, a strong accent on the first part of the bar.
The most popular example of a habanera was the aforementioned “La Paloma”, written by Iradier around 1860, just after his return from Cuba.
Less than twenty years later, in 1879, the composition was registered with the Copyright Office in Madrid under the title “Cancion Americana Con Acompaniamento De Piano”. Soon after, the piece began to gain international popularity and over time became one of the most covered and recorded pieces in the world! It is estimated that to this day there have been well over a thousand different versions and interpretations of it. Ironically, Sebastian Iradier died in oblivion without having any idea about all this.
Over the years, the song “La Paloma” has been included in the repertoire of classical musicians (currently successfully performed at concerts by Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra), as well as rock bands and pop musicians. In the 1970s, the most popular interpretation was by the French singer Mirelle Mathieu. In Poland, on the other hand, the song – with Polish lyrics by Miros?aw Lebkowski and Stanis?aw Werner – was performed by the band Tercet Egzotyczny, founded in 1963.
In the movie Blue Hawaii, Elvis sang it with English lyrics by Don Robertson and Hal Blair. “In January 1961, I got a letter from Freddy Bienstock of Elvis Presley Music in New York City about some material for Elvis to use in a scene in the movie ‘Blue Hawaii,’ ” Don Robertson recalled in an interview with Ken Sharp (published in Writing For The King). “It explained that because of the great success of the ballad ‘It’s Now Or Never’ (adapted from ‘O Sole Mio’) they wanted to give Elvis another adaptation of an old Italian or French folk song (they were in the public domain). Of course, with English lyrics. Then I remembered one of my favorites from my childhood, ‘La Paloma.’ So I asked Hal Blair for help, and we started working on it.
I didn’t have a copy of the song so I had to work it out from memory, which turned out to be a blessing because it gave it a unique quality. Completely different from the song I remembered from my childhood.
Hal and I spent most of our time in my office in Hollywood. I was sitting at the piano and he pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. We proceeded in our usual way. We would both come up with bits of lyrics and then rehearse them together. I would come up with an arrangement, trying to imitate Elvis’ singing style. The lyrics and the arrangement evolved until we had a song that we thought would suit Elvis and, we felt, he might like .”
And it clearly appealed to him, because in a later interview the singer called “No More” his “favorite habanera ,” and when asked by Albert Hand, editor of “Elvis Monthly” magazine, what his favorite song from the “Blue Hawaii” soundtrack was, he chose Robertson and Blair’s composition without hesitation. “
‘No More,’ ” the singer declared. “I love the music, I love the lyrics. I love everything about it .”
The song was recorded only on the sixteenth take . ** As Elvis made the recording over and over, he not only paid attention to the suggestions and hints of Paramount producer Joseph Lilly, who after the first take suggested that the tempo of the song be “a little slower ,” but also referred to the interpretations proposed by Don Robertson on the demo tape he had sent (recorded at RCA’s Sunset Boulevard studio in Los Angeles). “The fact that the arrangement on Elvis’s recording followed my demo almost note for note, including my vocal phrasing, was both a satisfying confirmation to me of the effectiveness of my demo tape and a confirmation to Hal and me that we had hit the nail on the head with our song ,” said Don Robertson, who had been watching Elvis work from behind the control room glass that March evening.
At the end of the first day of work on the soundtrack for the new film, Elvis and his studio band recorded the dance track “Slicin’ Sand.” An energetic, beachy composition by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett.
Paradoxically, it took Presley another few dozen minutes to record the master version and achieve a satisfactory result, and required at least nineteen, mostly complete takes.
Finally, around midnight (session documents show exactly 11:50 p.m.), the session ended. Work on the next songs did not continue until the next day.
Elvis returned to the studio, where a band consisting of the same musicians and vocalists he had worked with the previous day was waiting for him, at around 1 p.m.
Shortly thereafter, the entire group threw themselves into work on the future title track.
“Blue Hawaii,” because that’s what we’re talking about, is still associated by many with Elvis Presley and the highest-grossing film in his entire filmography. Few people remember, however, that the song was written several years earlier, with a completely different artist and a completely different Hollywood production in mind.
Well, in the second half of the 1930s, Leo Rabin, an American composer and lyricist, together with Ralph Rainger, a composer of film music, wrote the aforementioned piece for the 1937 musical comedy “Waikiki Wedding”.
It was sung on screen by the leading actor, the unforgettable Bing Crosby. That same year, his performance was also released as a single (released by Decca), along with the Oscar – winning song “Sweet Leilani”. Both songs soon hit the charts, where they spent several weeks in high positions. “Blue Hawaii” reached number five.
In the following years, Rabin and Rainger’s composition was used with varying degrees of success by many great artists of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Suffice it to mention Patti Page, Frank Sinatra and Andy Williams.
Still, the most memorable version was that of Elvis Presley, who recorded it after seven takes.
- Julian J. Aberbach was an Austrian music publisher who, together with his younger brother Jean, founded the Hill & Range publishing house. The Aberbach brothers worked not only with Elvis but also with Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Edith Piaf
- In fact, the master version of the song “No More” was composed of the complete thirteenth take and a working fragment of the ending, which, due to the fact that the numbering was continued (not given a new, separate one), was number sixteen
- The song “Sweet Leilani” won an Oscar for Best Original Song
Article written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo, EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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