UNDERRATED ALBUMS # 14

‘Gimmicky though its premise is, this record achieves a compellingly authentic sound, and the sheer chutzpah of its performances, especially on the more surprising titles, make it a concept album to treasure.’

 

Gravelands (1998) by The King

During the late 1990s, before the DJ and TV presenter Jonathan Ross had floated off in a cloud of egomania all the way up his own sphincter, he used to co-host a very entertaining Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2 with his friend and producer, Andy Davies, who chose most of the records played. It was whilst listening to this show that I first heard one Jim Brown, a Belfast postman and part-time Elvis Presley imitator. Under the soubriquet, ‘The King’, he had just released an album of classic songs by dead pop stars which, with inspired gallows humour, was titled Gravelands. The record mainly featured the kind of material that would have passed the real Elvis by: which is to say that he very probably wouldn’t have ever heard such songs, let alone recorded them himself*1.

The record opens with two of the three songs which were recorded by the original artists after Presley’s death in 1977: Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’ and Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ (the third is Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’ which closes the set). What is immediately evident is the quality of Brown’s voice and the playing of his band. The voice is rich enough to fool many people into thinking it actually is Presley and the musicians sound like they’re a real band as opposed to session players. Compared to the rather murky tones of the late Ian Curtis, Brown’s voice is a model of clarity and he really lets his tenor go at the end of the Joy Division number in arresting style.

Tim Buckley’s ghostly ‘Song To The Siren’ is then given an eloquent reading and you begin to mournfully wonder at just what great things the later period Presley might have been capable of if he’d only had the gumption to break out of his bubble. The King’s approach to the songs, by the way, is reasonably straightforward – we’re not talking deconstruction here. The version of the traditional Irish ballad, ‘Whisky In The Jar’, for instance, is a slightly more modulated following of Phil Lynott’s arrangement for Thin Lizzy, which adds a fiddle solo to good effect. The production sound (by Bap Kennedy & Martin Smith in the exotic environs of Garage Studios, East Grinstead) sometimes lacks a little atmosphere and depth, but given what was probably a small budget, the band do an excellent job of setting the scene for the main attraction of Brown’s voice.

‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ works well with its backing singers and guitar solo and everyone certainly seems to be enjoying themselves on ‘Blockbuster’, which comes complete with siren. One of Chinn & Chapman’s string of Glam Rock hits, it’s refreshing to hear Brown’s deep facsimile mannerisms instead of The Sweet’s shrill histrionics. The eclectic turnover of genres continues with a comfortable pass at Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rolling ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ before the daring selection of John Lennon’s ‘Working-Class Hero’. The fiddle is back on this and, of course, The King body-swerves the ex-Beatle’s effing and blinding, just as the real Presley would have done - in the unlikely event of him ever recording such a song (although his substitution of ‘godamned’ instead of ‘fucking’ may well have also been too profane for Elvis). If ever there was a real working-class hero, then Presley certainly fitted the bill and Brown’s selection and execution of the song is inspired.

The album’s only song from the 1950s – except for the unlisted ‘phantom track’ at the end, ‘That’s Alright, Mama’ - begins mildly enough, until Brown announces, ‘Hold on fellers, it just ain’t coming’, whereupon the band crank up the riff of Eddy Cochran’s ‘Something Else’ a’ la The Sex Pistols. ‘Yeah, that’s better!’ proclaims The King and they’re away. Of course, Cochran did his best to sound like Presley while they were both alive, and this works wonderfully well with Brown whooping it up in very satisfying style. The Small Faces’ ‘All Or Nothing’ isn’t quite such a success, largely because Steve Marriott owned that song and always will do.

 

Presley himself might have wondered what the hell he’d been given if he’d ever perused the Marc Bolan’s nonsense lyrics for T. Rex’s ‘Twentieth Century Boy’, but Brown and the band attack the song with gusto. The next two choices are songs which you can easily imagine Presley actually recording: Otis Redding’s posthumously released ‘Dock Of The Bay’ and the evergreen soul standard, ‘Piece Of My Heart’. Brown handles these classics - both of which feature saxophone - with aplomb.

The following three selections are audacious: ‘No Woman, No Cry’, ‘Voodoo Chile’ and ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’*2. Bob Marley’s breakout hit works just fine with a Dylanesque harmonica solo and Brown - cleverly noting a melodic similarity between the songs - quoting from ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ at the end. Any guitarist covering the posthumous # 1 by Jimi Hendrix has to be on the top of his game, as is Brown’s man here. Brown’s ad lib, ‘You can stick pins in me anytime, baby’ will make you smile and you can imagine Presley in some alternative universe going through his karate routine with the lyric: ‘Well, I stand right next to a mountain / Chop it down with the edge of my hand’.

AC/DC’s rock juggernaut charges along at a fabulous rate and is considerably enhanced by delirious crowd encouragement (there’s also crowd noise at the beginning and end of ‘Piece Of My Heart’). I don’t know if this is an actual live recording – I suspect the audience is overdubbed. In any case, it does suggest that the album may well have been more atmospheric if the experiment had been sustained across the whole programme.

The razzamatazz of ‘New York, New York’ provides a fitting finale before ‘That’s Alright, Mama’ is presented as an afterthought – and you’d need exceptionally good ears to distinguish it from the original. But then, gimmicky though its premise is, this record achieves a compellingly authentic sound, and the sheer chutzpah of the performances by Brown and the band, especially on the more surprising titles, make it a concept album to treasure.

On the follow-up album, Return To Splendor (2000), Brown and co. sound even more assured. It’s a convincing companion piece and if the song selection is a little more conservative, then the more adventurous choices are well worth the price of admission (i.e. The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’; The Doors’ ‘L. A. Woman’; The Sex Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’ and a particularly lascivious version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’).

Sadly, neither album charted and The King subsequently abdicated his way back into obscurity, although he seems to have maintained quite a busy career back in Ireland. Apparently, he contributed some soundtrack work to a 2008 film called Lonely Street.

Elvis Presley imitators are ten a penny, but the originality of these albums by The King puts Jim Brown and his band into a different league. Elvis fans will be impressed by the uncanny vocals whilst music lovers in general will thrill to the audacity of the project and the poignancy of hypothesising of what might have been had Presley not allowed so much of his talent to be squandered.

 

N. B.

*1 – Following his stint in the US Army, Presley rarely had much active input in the material he recorded outside of the odd Gospel album. Cosseted and secluded by manager, Colonel Parker and his ‘Memphis Mafia’ of buddies, sycophants and parasites, aligned with record company RCA’s priority of keeping him churning out albums which were almost as pathetically poor as the thirty-odd films they soundtracked, Presley had pretty much ceded all creative control over his career. It had become all but impossible for writers attempting to pitch their songs to him directly; instead a complex system of preferment via the entourage and RCA’s A & R department prevailed, sometimes involving bribery, sometimes sheer luck. Michael Guralnick’s forensic two-part biography, Last Train To Memphis – The Rise Of Elvis Presley (1994) and Careless Love – The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley (1999), is particularly illuminating on this tragic and tawdry waste of Presley's potential.

*2 – Google ‘Jim ‘The King’ Brown – ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ and find a very good, professional video of him and the band performing the song in a cabaret scenario.