Girls! Girls! Girls!

Review – ELVIS DOUBLE FEATURES: KID GALAHAD/GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! [The Elvis Beat newsletter]

/ TY

I was 18 when I wrote this review back in 1993 for The Elvis Beat #5, my official Elvis Presley Fan Club newsletter.

Elvis Double Features: Kid Galahad/Girls! Girls! Girls! (RCA), recorded by Elvis Presley, October 1961 (Kid Galahad) and March 1962 (Girls! Girls! Girls!), Radio Recorders Studio (Hollywood). Released: 1993 (CD).

RCA continues its effort to release every Elvis song on CD with the commencement of the Elvis Double Features series, which covers Elvis’ film songs from the 1960s.

Unfortunately, those songs were, with only a few exceptions, the weakest releases of his career. The Elvis Double Features CDs are designed to fill in the gaps left on the new ELVIS: From Nashville To Memphis – The Essential 60s Masters I boxed set, which will not contain music from his movies.

Six of the 23 songs on this first disc are from one of Elvis’ better 1960s movies, Kid Galahad, in which Elvis appeared as a boxer. Although the Kid Galahad soundtrack is slightly superior to the Girls! Girls! Girls! songs which make up the remaining selections on this album, there are actually only two above-average songs from this movie – “I Got Lucky” and the excellent “King Of The Whole Wide World,” featuring the complete Boots Randolph sax solo. The other four Kid Galahad songs are typical and boring movie songs.

Seventeen songs from Girls! Girls! Girls! appear on this album, leaving one to wonder how there was time for any spoken dialogue in the movie. Actually, there are a few songs worth listening to in this portion: “Girls! Girls! Girls!,” “Where Do You Come From,” “Return To Sender,” and “Thanks To The Rolling Sea.”

Only two of the others hold any promise – “Because Of Love” and “Plantation Rock.” The rest can be forgotten.

Songs:

  1. “King Of The Whole Wide World”
  2. “This Is Living”
  3. “Riding The Rainbow”
  4. “Home Is Where The Heart Is”
  5. “I Got Lucky”
  6. “A Whistling Tune”
  7. “Girls! Girls! Girls!”
  8. “I Don’t Wanna Be Tied”
  9. “Where Do You Come From”
  10. “I Don’t Want To”
  11. “We’ll Be Together”
  12. “A Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You”
  13. “Earth Boy”
  14. “Return To Sender”
  15. “Because Of Love”
  16. “Thanks To The Rolling Sea”
  17. “Song Of The Shrimp”
  18. “The Walls Have Ears”
  19. “We’re Coming In Loaded”
  20. “Mama”
  21. “Plantation Rock”
  22. “Dainty Little Moonbeams”
  23. “Girls! Girls! Girls!” (End Title Version)

Rating: 4 out of 10