TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast

Gurdip, Ryan, Bec, Olivia and Justin all are at different stages of reading Lisa Marie Presley & Riley Keough's new book, but the team was able to get together to record a brief initial impressions bonus episode. We strongly recommend the book. There are spoilers in this episode but not for the whole book. Please be aware that there is discussion of sexual abuse from ~7:00-13:40. If that may be up...

As you'll hear in our intro discussion, Justin and Bec have pushed out their TTWII Rehearsals episodes just a bit due to some extenuating circumstances, but still got together for a discussion about the lightweight, wholesome 1970 budget release on the Camden label, "Let's Be Friends," which compiled a mix of late-60s tracks (and one inexplicable 1962 recording).  For Song of the Week, Justin soak...

Gurdip and Justin wrap up their coverage of the March & April 1960 recording sessions that resulted in "Elvis is Back!" and three number one singles and the guys ponder whether these may have been the best sessions Elvis ever undertook. Then after the main topic, Gurdip taps out and Ryan Droste hops into the ring for a bit of Elvis news regarding the upcoming Oprah special with Riley Keough on Oct...

Gurdip and Justin delve into the landmark 1960 recording sessions in which Elvis declared that he was indeed back, both literally from the Army as well as on top of the charts, with the sessions giving him three massive US number one hits in "Stuck On You," "It's Now or Never" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"  As many of our listeners know, Elvis is Back is perhaps Gurdip's favorite Elvis album eve...

It's a fairly light episode this week, with Justin and Bec discussing the latest in Elvis news, including Graceland's big "Presley for a Day" tour announcement, briefly reacting to the Guitar Man Sessions FTD, Bec's latest Elvis book pick-ups and more. For Song of the Week, Bec spotlights Elvis' cover of the obscure Ivory Joe Hunter song "It's Still Here." Meanwhile, Justin cracks into the Guitar...

Olivia & Justin continue their exploration of how "Viva Las Vegas" was made, on the 60th anniversary year of its release! The duo spends a good chunk of time on the filming schedule, deleted scenes, pondering why certain creative choices were made, and also digging a bit into post-production aspects like editing, scoring and marketing. The most critical resource by far for this episode was the exc...

We've talked so much about Elvis' recording sessions that it's fairly easy to understand how an Elvis record came together. Less clear to many, however, is how an Elvis movie was made. Olivia got super curious to learn the ins and outs of filmmaking, so Justin & Olivia decided to center the discussion around the making of one of the most celebrated and successful movies to star Elvis, 1964's Viva...

John Heath of EAP Society joins Justin for an extensive (but still HIGHLY abbreviated!) discussion about the history of the music industry in Memphis before and during Elvis' career, from early blues recordings made by Ralph Peer to Sam Phillips' Sun Records, from indie labels inspired by Sun's success to the monumental Stax Records, how Chips Moman's American Sound came together, and up through E...

Justin is joined by John Michael Heath of EAP Society (youtube.com/EAPSociety) to give their first impressions of the new Sony Legacy box set, "Memphis" which released today, August 9, 2024.  Marketed as "a comprehensive collection" of 111 recordings of Elvis made in his adoptive hometown from his time at Sam Phillips's Sun Records through to Chips Moman's American Sound, the iconic Stax, live at...

Justin was out last week, so we've pulled this from deep in the archives buried in the back of the TCBCast salt mines: Gurdip and Justin's 2022 review of Pat Boone's landmark 1963 Elvis tribute record "Pat Boone Sings Guess Who?" No, we're not joking!  This may be the most we're ever gonna talk about Pat Boone at one time so we crammed in a few of his other hits into the discussion on top of this....

Ryan & Justin convene to revisit one of their all-time favorite live Elvis albums, "On Stage 1970," which was conceived as an album full of new songs, compiled from a mix of Vegas shows from February 1970, padded out with a couple leftovers from the August 1969 engagement. Both of the guys had the album early in their respective fandoms and have a huge appreciation for this period of Elvis's caree...

Gurdip was really feeling the season, so in between prepping for next week's meaty episode with Ryan on "On Stage 1970", Justin and Gurdip had a breezy little classic TCBCast-style discussion about the Elvis songs that evoke memories or give them vibes of warm summer days.  The guys also quickly tackle two Songs of the Week, with Gurdip giving "Once is Enough" from "Kissin' Cousins" the second cha...

After 5 1/2 years, TCBCast returns to the subject of books about Elvis as a full episode! Gurdip and Justin did an early episode of the show about some of their favorite reads on the life, career and phenomenon of Elvis, but this time Bec gets to open up her extensive Elvis library to talk about her favorites, and Justin gets to talk about some of the ones he's read and appreciated most in the int...

Originally recorded in August 2022 as a TCBCast Patreon exclusive, Bec and Justin sit down with the 1993 NBC TV movie "Elvis and the Colonel: The Untold Story," starring Rob Youngblood as Elvis and Beau Bridges as Colonel Parker, directed by William Graham, the real director behind Elvis's own 1969 movie "Change of Habit."  Recorded a mere two months after the release of Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, watc...

Justin, Bec and Gurdip managed to coordinate a quick but fun Song of the Week, news & listener message episode (though naturally recorded JUST before "In The Ghetto" off the "Memphis" box dropped). The gang briefly discusses the Memphis Recording Service "Las Vegas On Stage February 1973" box set, Bec pleads forgiveness for a "verbal typo" on her most recent episode, and then examine a provocative...

Justin and Olivia are joined by guest host Chris Jones (former host of the wonderful "Hall of Songs" podcast, you can find him as @jonesca17 on social media) to explore the surprisingly heartfelt and thought-provoking world of songs that either reference or are about Elvis, explicitly or implicitly. Spanning a wide array of genres, eras and artists, each of us pick five of our favorites to examine...

This episode begins with a TCBCast-mini-style intro with Gurdip and Justin discussing the passing of singer-songwriter Mark James and the news of Sony's "Memphis" box set, out August 9, 2024.  Then, Gurdip taps out and Bec taps in for a fun exploration of some of our favorite deep cut Elvis concert rarities - the songs he almost never pulled out, from ones done only once (like Oh Happy Day or Rubb...

Gurdip and Olivia sit down for a super fun discussion picking one song from each of Elvis' narrative films (from Love Me Tender through Change of Habit) from within the movie itself that they especially enjoy, not including those just on the soundtrack or recorded for but cut from the final film. They also discuss the title, cover design and release date for Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough's n...

Special guest Darin Evans joins Gurdip and Justin for a brief exploration of what each think were Elvis' best 5 singles, considering the strength of the A & B-sides, overall success and (naturally) personal taste. For Song of the Week, Darin piggybacks off Justin's choice of "Kissin Cousins No. 2" last week and goes for "Kissin' Cousins," the upbeat single from the 1964 movie which featured Elvis...

Bec crashes an episode with Gurdip and Justin covering the 1971 Camden "C'mon Everybody," a compilation collecting a handful of tracks that at the time of its release had previously only been available on the Extended Play soundtracks for Follow That Dream, Kid Galahad, Viva Las Vegas and Easy Come, Easy Go. It turns out to be one of the breeziest, enjoyable Camdens and the gang has a ton of fun d...

Bec & Justin bask in some nostalgia for their days as younger Elvis fans at the turn of the 21st century, reflecting on the major mainstream BMG Elvis releases from 1999 and how those releases influenced the crew's perspectives on Elvis' creative journey. From period retrospectives "Suspicious Minds: The 1969 Anthology," "Sunrise," "The Home Recordings," "Burning Love" and "Tomorrow is A Long Time...

Ryan, Bec and Justin conclude their discussion on 1962's "Girls! Girls! Girls!" losing their minds just a little bit at the twists, turns and amount of songs about fishing in the back half of the movie, but have a ton of fun discussing such famous scenes as "Return to Sender," "Song of the Shrimp" and "The Walls Have Ears" as well as pondering the deleted sequence "I Don't Want To." Ryan has to bo...

Justin, Ryan and Bec begin to unpack the 1962 Paramount rom-com "Girls! Girls! Girls!" starring Elvis, Laurel Goodwin, Stella Stevens, and Jeremy Slate, directed by Norman Taurog (his third Elvis picture) and written by Edward Anhalt from a story by Allan Weiss.  It was filmed in Hawaii, but that's not where it was supposed to be set - and the last minute change (following the blowout success of "...

It's not everyday that new Elvis audio from the 1950s surfaces, but this past week that very thing did happen, as European label Memphis Recording Service released newly discovered audio from Elvis's November 22, 1956, concert in Toledo, Ohio, recorded originally by local radio DJ Ron Ross. Subsequently, the original mono audio was also uploaded to YouTube by another fan who had sourced the audio...

This week Justin and Olivia are exploring the recordings (both final masters and alternate dubs that were considered) where Elvis sang with himself, starting from "I'm Yours" in the early 60s, working their way up through the very dense 1969 recordings, and well into the 1970s. There's both more than you'd think, and not enough! They ponder what sort of creative choices were made to lead Elvis to...