TCBCast Bonus - Terry Stafford: "Suspicion" (1964) Album Discussion
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Release Date: 04/01/2025
TCBCast 370: "The Colonel and The King" Book Review & Discussion
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Gurdip, Justin, Ryan, and Olivia all gathered round to discuss their thoughts on Peter Guralnick's new book, "The Colonel and the King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley, and the Partnership that Rocked the World." Full spoilers within. We recommend people buy it to make their own judgment. It is available through most major retailers - you can learn more about the book and where to buy it here:
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TCBCast 369: Exposing Elvis Photoshops (feat. Kirsty Garland) + Elvis De-volution?
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
The TCBCast gang is waist-deep in preparing to discuss Peter Guralnick's new book but Gurdip and Justin snagged listener Kirsty Garland who currently runs the "Exposing Elvis Photoshops" pages on Facebook and Instagram for a quick episode. They dig into why Kirsty decided to take on the effort of debunking and providing sources for badly digitally manipulated photos of Elvis that have seemed to proliferate in the wake of Elvis's resurgence in popularity, her thoughts on why so many pages create them, and also her feelings about the coming onslaught of AI Elvis images. Naturally, there's...
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TCBCast 368: I Got Lucky (1971) Album Discussion + Some Felton Follow-Up
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
After an intensive two week deep dive reassessing the work of producer Felton Jarvis, Justin comes up for air only to find one Gurdip Ladhar waiting patiently at the surface. Gurdip eases his way into the water, bringing along a favorite comfort Camden, 1971's "I Got Lucky," a collection of songs mostly comprised of movie material previously only available on Extended Plays (and one excellent non-movie single B-side!) But we're not quite done with Felton yet - the last two episodes provoked some great responses long and short from Elvis fans of all kinds, and we tackle some of the...
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TCBCast 367: Felton Jarvis & Elvis, Part 2: "My Boy"
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
After setting the stage by understanding producer Felton Jarvis's career leading up to his early collaborations with Elvis, we continue to investigate and interrogate the fan belief that he was singularly to blame for the "syrupy" overdubs that diminished the "pure" unfinished tracks. Helped along by a 1980 interview done between Felton and Jerry Flowers of RCA in which the producer talks about his career retrospectively, Justin and Bec trace Felton's journey as Elvis hires and hand-picks him to be his exclusive producer, taking Felton away from RCA and other artists so that Elvis can, as a...
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TCBCast 366: Felton Jarvis & Elvis, Part 1 - "Stand By Me"
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Intrigued by the premise presented by the recent Sony box sets like "Sunset Boulevard" describing Elvis's undubbed recordings as "pure," Justin decided to investigate the story behind the man who has borne most of the heavy criticism aimed at the production on Elvis's music, Felton Jarvis, who was Elvis's main producer from 1966-1977. While we've previously touched on Felton's work as a producer in our "Elvis and His Producers/Elvis as a Producer" episode, realizing we may not have given him a fair shake, on this episode Justin and Bec investigate Felton's early work at National Recording...
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TCBCast 365: Ain't Gonna Tell You No Stories: The History Behind "Frankie and Johnny"
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Olivia Murphy-Rogers joins Justin for an extra-special episode of TCBCast as they trace the real history behind the song "Frankie and Johnny," the title track of Elvis's 1966 film. They learn who Frankie Baker was, the man who "done her wrong," the song she couldn't escape, and the identity of the most likely songwriting candidate to have penned the original folk lyrics - on the very day of the true murder. The duo also react to the news about Sony's upcoming "Sunset Boulevard" box set recently announced that will encompass studio recordings from 1972, 1975 and rehearsals from 1970...
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TCBCast 364: The "Fun in Acapulco" Sessions & Album
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Justin and Bec put on their sombreros, pour margaritas and head South of the border for an exploration of the January 1963 movie soundtrack sessions that gave us the "Fun in Acapulco" album. With its unusual genre stylings that evoked more Latin-flavored stylings, traditional Mexican songs and the whole Acapulco nightclub destination scene of the early 1960s, "Fun in Acapulco" offered Elvis Presley a chance to dabbled in the types of songs he might never have otherwise done but takes the challenge head on, such as "Guadalajara," "Marguerita" and "Vino, Dinero Y Amor." Of course, while they...
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TCBCast Jukebox Bonus - Billboard Top 10: May 26, 1958
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Justin was recovering from his madcap trip to the Hawkeye State, so we took a brief hiatus but will be returning next week with a "Fun," summery feeling sessions-and-album discussion (hint hint). Enjoy this blast from the past in two ways: Justin & Gurdip's 2021 bonus discussion of the Billboard Top 10 from May 26, 1958, which offers up iconic rock and pop tracks, from Elvis's "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck" and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" to less-well-remembered hits like The Four Preps' "Big Man". But the guys ended up going deeper when Justin start pulling in the top...
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TCBCast 363: Lilo and Stitch (2025) Discussion
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Justin and Bec give their reactions to watching Disney's live action remake of the 2002 animated classic "Lilo and Stitch," which prominently featured Elvis's music. The remake does, too, so we primarily center our discussion initially around how Elvis is used; but since Bec had never seen the original before, she gave it a watch after having gone to see the reworking in theatres, and the duo compare notes on things that were different, what worked and what didn't. For Song of the Week, since the "Blue Hawaii" album is seen prominently in the new "Lilo and Stitch", both hosts decided to pick...
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TCBCast Bonus: "Baz Luhrmann's EPiC" Title Reveal Reactions (feat. Jamie Kelley of EAP Society)
TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast
Justin was in Iowa on a non-Elvis trip but decided to swing up to see Jamie Kelley in his natural habitat: the EAP Society set! However, the set was undergoing major changes for their upcoming Season 4, so while nothing was filmed, the duo stepped outside and recorded an off-the-cuff discussion about Baz Luhrmann's announcement of the official title for his upcoming film utilizing Elvis footage, "Baz Luhrmann's EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert," the subsequent press information released by Sony after Baz's presentation at Sony Music Vision, and what it all potentially means for the fandom...
info_outlineGurdip's back!!! ...kinda? April Fools!
Originally released back in May 2022 on our Patreon, Gurdip demanded to have his say about Terry Stafford and his famous cover of "Suspicion," so Justin obliged and they sat down not just with the single, but Terry's full 1964 album.
Released on the Crusader Records label to capitalize on Stafford's surprise Top 5 success with his hit recording of the same name, "Suspicion" featured an array of Elvis-likes from original Brill Building songwriters behind some of Elvis's early '60s material, including Doc Pomus, Ben Weisman, Fred Wise, and Sid Wayne. As you'll hear, evidence strongly suggests that many, if not all, of the songs included were pitched to Elvis for consideration, with several even getting recorded.
Justin also guides us a little further past the album to Stafford's post-Suspicion career, including later singles and more significantly as a songwriter himself, with such hits as Buck Owens' "Big in Vegas" and George Strait's "Amarillo by Morning."
Joe W. Specht's short-but-thorough biography "The Life and Music of Terry Stafford" was immensely helpful to finding more information on Stafford's story. It's available as of this posting through Texas State University's website here: https://digital.library.txstate.edu/handle/10877/7519
No foolin' - This "TCBCast Jukebox" is one of our all-time favorites we've done. If you enjoyed this, we've also done bonus episodes about Elvis's musical contemporaries such as Ann-Margret, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, The Platters, Dean Martin, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and many more, with more on the way as exclusive bonus content. Please consider joining up over at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy.
While we're out this week, Justin and Bec will be back next week with a discussion about "G.I. Blues" - revisiting it, its soundtrack and recording sessions for the first time since literally our third-ever episode of TCBCast!