Them's The Breaks #2987 - Elvis Presley Edition!

So this looks like a pretty terrible record, right? Just another generic El Pres Is Dead cash-in LP from those erstwhile hawkers of A1 mondo trasho compilations over at Camden Records...awful sleeve design...rubbish photo...no hit songs yadda yadda yadda. However - and this would have been a pretty redundant post had there not been a 'however'...I mean even more redundant than it already is - I was actually really stoked to pick this up for a couple of quid the other weekend. Heresforwhy.

I've written about The Funk Of The Memphis Flash before a couple of times, most expansively here at Mof Gimmer's Electric Roulette. Elvis was essentially a synthesist; overt hoodlum sexuality aside, Presley's most significant contribution to pop music was his innate, entirely effortless ability to fuse various root forms of southern rock and roll; gospel, blues, country, soul etc. Elvis did it all, and continued to internalise and adapt contemporary styles as they developed during the course of his career, with 60s-70s funk/soul no exception. Crate diggers looking for breakbeats in unusual places have long known that there are a handful of super-funky Elvis tracks, nuggets of sampleable gold packed with clattering drums and fuzz bass lines, that would come as a surprise the casual Presley fan. David Holme's use of 'A Little Less Conversation' on the Oceans 11 soundtrack (and the subsequent JXL re-mix, exponentially lamer than the original Presley track) served to shine some light on this particularly dusty corner of the Elvis archives - a classic reminder that there's treasure everywhere.

And so it proves with the 'Please Don't Stop Loving' LP, which despite being generally as dismal as the sleeve suggests, manages to contain a couple of gen-u-inely brilliant RnB tracks (the up-tempo floorfilling smasher 'Rubberneckin' - also laterly subject to a diabolical dance re-mix, and the sizzling, southern-fried country soul of 'Clean Up Your Own Backyard'), and one kitschy movie theme song ('Change Of Habit'...from a movie about, yep, nuns) which begins with a phenomenal fuzz-bass & drums break, fat enough to be sampled by DJ Format. Enjoy!