#16 Elvis Presley: King Creole (soundtrack)

Creole? Certainly. King? Well...

Topped the charts:

14th September 1958 (for 7 weeks)

7 weeks total

Two years into Elvis’ global domination, and we arrive at studio album number 7, film soundtrack number 3 and who knows how many amphetamines to keep the poor man going. By any standard this is an immense workload, and there’s no doubt that the effects of quantity over quality are starting to set in.

King Creole is one of Presley’s better cinematic efforts. There’s still the whiff of danger around him that had mostly been lost in the music, channelling Dean and Brando as a rebellious young hoodlum with a heart a mile wide. That would finally be done away with altogether after his stint in the army over the next two years. He’s very good here, coming off the success of Jailhouse Rock, never sexier on screen.

Musically, as expected from the film title, we find Elvis in full-on New Orleans jazz mode, and the results are more of a mixed bag. While the appropriation of Black music worked for his rock n roll era thanks to his passion for the music, there’s less of a sure footing here as it all just sounds a bit safe and straight-jacketed. N’awlins brass features on several of the tracks, but the likes of Dixieland Rock and New Orleans colour defiantly inside the lines and feel distractingly…well, white. It doesn’t help that other tracks like Lover Doll and the title track feature male voice harmony that sail worryingly close to barbershop. Presley still gives everything, which makes one wish the arrangements would unbutton their top button, even occasionally.

Even having Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller returning to write some of the songs after their gigantic success on Jailhouse Rock can’t lift most of the proceedings out of the mediocre. For plot reasons, Elvis sings a high school anthem penned by the pair (Steadfast, Loyal and True) which makes sense in the movie, but here feels plodding and square. When your soundtrack is barely long enough to qualify for an LP, filler like this has no place.

There are only two occasions where the old Presley and his arrangers achieve lift-off. Lead single Hard Headed Woman, where the rising, roaring horns blast to a guitar rocker that recalls both Little Richard in its Tutti Frutti beat and Check Berry in its hair-raising guitar runs. Aside from that, Trouble finds Elvis sounding like he might fight you or fuck you, he just hasn’t decided yet- when he elongates “I’m eeeeee-vil”, you believe him. He would return to this in his 1968 Comeback Special which is the definitive version, but in the meantime this recording more than hold its own.

We’re still very early into Elvis’ career, but it’s a shame to say that the rot is already starting to set in.

Score 5/10

Tracklisting:

1.      King Creole

2.      As Long As I Have You

3.      Hard Headed Woman

4.      Trouble

5.      Dixieland Rock

6.      Don’t Ask Me Why

7.      Lover Doll

8.      Crawfish

9.      Young Dreams

10.  Steadfast, Loyal and True

11.  New Orleans