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…Elvis? |
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by Kevin McMahon
Ask
any fan of psychedelic music to name some of their favorite artists, and you
might expect to hear the Mothers of Invention, the Amboy Dukes, Donovan, Pink
Floyd, or any number of other pioneers of the musically weird. One answer you probably wouldn't expect is Elvis Presley.
But strangely enough, Elvis does share some peculiar ties to the world
of the psychedelic and bizarre. In film
and in imitation, the King of Rock N Roll defends his crown from those who
would otherwise ignore his presence.
While Presley himself
is not really considered to have contributed to the causes of surrealism, his
likeness pops up in curious associations almost as if it were somehow directed
from some underground chamber far below the foundations of Graceland.
Look no further than
the cult favorite Bubba Ho-tep, in
which Elvis (played by Bruce Campbell) isn’t dead, but living out his years in
our time at a Texas nursing home. A
wholly original concept, the bizarreness really gets going when the spirit of
an ancient Egyptian mummy begins stirring up trouble, and only Elvis and his
cohort can solve the mystery. And it is
worth mentioning that this cohort of Elvis’ just happens to be president
Kennedy, post Dallas 1963.
These strange
encounters with Presley in the annals of psychedelia are infrequent, but do
appear often enough to arouse our curiosity.
None may be more unexpected than the circumstances around one of the
foremost Elvis impersonators, who still performs in the role professionally
today. Rick Saucedo is his name, and
he’s been in the business of suiting up as the King for more than 30
years. “I started doing Elvis when I was
seventeen, but didn’t give a lot of thought to it as a career,” Saucedo explains. “It didn’t become apparent until after he
died, that my show was in greater demand.”
So what’s the
connection between Saucedo’s Elvis and the psychedelic 60s? Well, in this case it was actually more like
the late 70s. That’s when this Elvis aficionado
briefly let go the costume and the assumed persona and the covers, to record an
album of his own self-penned music. And
not just any music, but something very special, indeed. “I traveled a lot in the 70s and being on the
road gave me time to experiment with chords and writing music,” he notes. It also helped that one of Saucedo's primary
musical influences at this point – besides the King – was the Beatles, even
after the height of their popularity.
And more than just writing
music, he was also taking up guitar, bass, sitar, banjo, keys and drums – all
healthy ingredients in concocting a psyched-out record.
Titled Heaven Was Blue, the album was recorded
and released in 1978, seemingly a decade too late for much of the taste it
reflected. Still, what Saucedo managed
to get on tape is a unique take on Americana-styled folk music, but one with a
deceptively conveyed dark side. Side One
features four shorter tracks which range from the rockabilly History Makin’, Country Shakin’ and
harder driving Ka Mon We’re Gonna Rock
All Night Long to the more introspective, loner-folk Reality and In My Mind,
which together open the album with a hint of the darker things to come. ”I didn’t care for the music of the time,”
says Saucedo of the album. “I wrote it
for my own satisfaction.”
Saucedo’s Elvis: his true gems aren’t the rhinestones
It is on the album’s
second side, that we glimpse the truly unexpected behind the veil of this
would-be Elvis. The whole length is
occupied by the opus title track – an 18+ minute voyage far below the
optimistic attitudes that accompany most folk melodies. The song opens with a mellow acoustic jangle
and returns here several times throughout.
But as the track progresses, we’re treated to additional melodies, some
wonderful acoustic and electric guitarwork, and Saucedo’s own vocals which
alternate from boyish octaves to a deep, echoing chant (which would sound
perfectly at home with Coven or Erkin Koray).
The mostly acoustic instruments resonate a purely American, almost
Appalachian quality. But the change in
melodies suggests an elaborate structure, the type of which is known only to
prog and symphonic pieces.
Saucedo again refers
to the Beatles influence, but also cites a different source for the lyrical
components: “They were based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe,” he
reveals. “Also, I was getting into Pink
Floyd at that time.” The Beatles, Pink
Floyd, and Poe? There may not be a more
potent recipe for out-of-this-world, mind-blowing mercilessness.
Not only is Poe evoked in the lyrics… but
in the artwork, too
Despite the decidedly
different phases of his career, Saucedo seems content to promote all aspects
with equal pride. Unlike other artists
who’ve made sea-changes and hope to ignore their past incarnations in the
belief that doing so will make them disappear completely, Saucedo doesn’t shy
away from any of his past output. After Heaven Was Blue, he recorded six more
albums of original material in various styles.
Today he carries on with live performances and also a weekly radio
program. But it was the psychedelic
foray of this country rocker that keeps the story such a novelty.
Aside from putting
together folk sounds in such a non-folk composition, Saucedo’s most significant
contribution to psychedelic and progressive music may come from the album’s
challenge to our assumptions of such music.
Because Heaven Was Blue is
about the last thing we might expect from someone who’s made a career (if not a
whole institution) out of impersonating Elvis, we’re left to reexamine our
basic expectations – our prejudices – of the simple ingredients that comprise
so grand a finished product. And that
inward questioning is what is at the core of all truly progressive music.
Learn More: www.ricksaucedo.com, http://heavenwasblue.bravehost.com/
Progressadelic featured the title track to Heaven Was Blue on our
9/26/09 program. See the full playlist here.
Text Copyright 2009, Kevin McMahon
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