TCBCast: An Unofficial Elvis Presley Fan Podcast

Bec's back this week after an extended illness, and so we're diving into the history behind two classic Song of the Week picks: first up is "Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do," the upbeat boogie-woogie showpiece featured at the beginning and the climactic ending of 1957's "Loving You." Then, Bec climbs her way up to Marty Robbins' dramatic semi-autobiographical "You Gave Me A Mountain," which Elvis famously covered in the film "Elvis On Tour," and the TV specials "Aloha From Hawaii" and "Elvis in Concert," but took influence from Frankie Laine's hit version rather than the songwriter's.

The duo also discuss a wide array of miscellaneous topics, including rare live Elvis tracks, Bec plays a round of Elvis trivia, and... it's really finally happening... TCBCast's planned summer 2027 meetup in Memphis.

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.

Hello TCBCast listeners! We took a short break for Justin's birthday, but illness and scheduling conflicts struck, however new TCBCast is incoming ASAP! To hold you over, we wanted to share a bit of some of the great backlog of bonus content exclusive to our Patreon, where we've featured over 50 episodes on a wide variety of similar Elvis-related movies, TV shows, short films, and other programs, including a recently released episode on part 1 of the miniseries "Elvis & Me" from 1988, with more on the way!

This archival mini-episode from 2023 features Gurdip and Justin picking right up where they left off with the first and only season of the 1990 ABC TV series "Elvis: Good Rockin' Tonight" starring Michael St. Gerard, Millie Perkins, Billy Green Bush, Jesse Dabson, Blake Gibbons, Kelli Williams and Jordan Williams.

Back on episode 85 in 2019, the guys had watched and reviewed the first two episodes, but now have revisited the entire rest of the series with a fresh lens: pondering, in the post-Baz Luhrmann Elvis era, how the 1990 series' slower pacing, more granular focus and acute attention to historical accuracy holds up. And what does Gurdip, who saw the show in its original airing, think of Ronnie McDowell's singing in this series now?

Episode 3, "The Locket" is all about Elvis and his fictionalized girlfriend "Mattie," and also depicts Elvis' first appearance at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis. Sadly, since that time, the episodes have been pulled from YouTube and other public-facing streaming services - perhaps now is the time for Elvis fans to collectively demand it finally be released officially!

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.

Justin is joined this week by musician Matthew Zeiss, professionally known as ZEISS, who is also the director of the forthcoming documentary "Moody Blue: Between the Lines," which was announced with a trailer during Elvis Week 2026 and is set to premiere in August 2027.

Featuring new interviews with Glen Hardin, Jerry Scheff, Estelle Brown, Larry Strickland, Brent Maher, Layng Martine Jr, Letitia Henley Kirk, Shirley Dieu, archival interviews with James Burton and Mark James, and more yet to be announced, "Moody Blue" the documentary will explore Elvis' creative process in the less-commonly-explored late 1970s, including the abandoned 1977 Nashville session.

Zeiss & the TCE band have also recorded new interpretations bringing their own influences and love of Elvis' music to the known demos selected for that session like "Energy," "By Day by Day" and "That's What You To Do Me," as well as covering several studio tracks from the Jungle Room sessions to craft one possible imagined alternate "Moody Blue" album.

But come to find out, they would never have undertaken either project to begin with if not for an episode of TCBCast... the guys also talk plenty about numerous songs and demos Elvis was pitched, considered recording, or were written for him, including a fascinating rarely-discussed Mark James song that has also been uncovered by Zeiss, which the "Suspicious Minds" writer had explicitly told author Ken Sharp that he intended as Elvis' first possible disco hit.

The duo also geek out about EPiC, mull over future Elvis projects such as EPE's announced hologram show, where tribute acts and AI-generated songs often fail at capturing the soul of Elvis' music despite technical accuracy, and much more.

The trailer for Moody Blue: Between the lines is viewable on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbKD6X7Zc3U

Moody Blue, ZEISS' album, can be heard on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/album/21XXQzTPXyLNE6SlGnzdEc

Following immediately on the heels of our discussion on Elvis and "Coat of Many Colors," John Michael Heath relates the story behind Kris Kristofferson writing his religious-themed 1973 #1 hit "Why Me Lord." Then, to help us understand Elvis' cover better, explores the relationship between two of Elvis' favorite gospel groups, The Statesmen Quartet and The Blackwood Brothers Quartet, and in particular the friendly rivalry between their respective bass singers, Jim "Big Chief" Wetherington and J.D. Sumner (the latter of whom famously featured on Elvis' live performances of the song) as well as Elvis' admiration of both men.

Then for his Song of the Week, Justin ponders the heartwrenching story told within Curly Putman's country classic, "Green, Green Grass of Home," the cinematic inspirations that gave Putman the premise, and of course Elvis' version recorded in 1975, though the song is perhaps most well known to the wider public through Tom Jones' hit 1966 recording.

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.

In this special two-part episode of TCBCast featuring John Heath, Justin and John reflect on the life and music of Dolly Parton, yet their main focus is on the discrepancies between the legendary story of Elvis seeking to record "I Will Always Love You"... and history.

Source interviews, articles and books, as well as verifiable facts about how Colonel Parker's music publishing involvement was handled - and subsequently ignored - during the relevant time periods before and after the critical July 1973 Stax sessions, provide corroborating evidence (including from Dolly herself as well as credible accounts within Elvis' circle) that the dramatic story the world has become familiar with and has been repeated endlessly on social media was not as it seems...

..Yet the true story, and the real song Elvis wanted to record, is also much more revealing about how Elvis and Dolly were deeply connected by their real life experiences of extreme poverty, a strong religious background, their generous spirits, and flashy senses of personal style.

This episode is being split into two parts, part 1 focuses on this story, part 2 will be Songs of the Week; as you'll understand by the end, there's simply no tidy way to transition tonally from the closing of this part of episode to the accompanying Songs of the Week, and in fact Justin and John took a short couple minutes break to reset tonally so that they could tackle "Why Me Lord" and "Green Green Grass of Home" with as much enthusiasm as possible. Keep an eye out - those will be in your feed soon!

The clip of the Elvis-y vocal interpretation of "I Will Always Love You" featured midway through the show is by Torben Otten.

Some of our most critical sources for this episode include: Alanna Nash's Revelations from the Memphis Mafia, Peter Guralnick's Careless Love and The Colonel & The King, Dolly Parton's Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, Dolly on Dolly edited by Randy Schmidt, Norbert Putnam's Music Lessons: A Musical Memoir, INTERVIEW magazine (1989), Playgirl (August 1978) and Playboy (October 1978) magazine interviews with Dolly Parton, Alan Fortas's Elvis from Memphis to Hollywood, Elvis Information Network's Ask Marty Lacker column, the ASCAP and BMI repertoire websites, and Keith Flynn's website.

Gurdip and Bec open the episode reflecting on the passing of actress and singer Shelley Fabares, who starred in three films with Elvis - Girl Happy, Spinout and Clambake - and sadly passed away on August 22, 2026. They also take time to remember beloved country singer-songwriter-actress Dolly Parton, who also passed away on August 25.

For the main topic, they're looking back on the final official US Camden LP, 1972's "Separate Ways" which both of them owned in various formats over the years. Meant to emulate the success of "Burning Love and Hits From His Movies Volume 2" which paired a recent popular single with a hodgepodge collection of assorted other recordings, "Separate Ways" gave listeners who were unable to find the single otherwise the title track and "Always On My Mind" but is otherwise largely comprised of tracks from the early 1960s, with a couple 50s songs sprinkled in.

Gurdip's Song of the Week invites everyone to "Come Along" as he spotlights the song featured over the opening credits of the 1966 film "Frankie and Johnny." Meanwhile Bec goes for the breezy "Where Do You Come From," which was recorded for the "Girls! Girls! Girls!" soundtrack (but not featured in the film) and eventually selected as the B-side to the much more famous "Return to Sender."

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.

On this episode, Bec has been hard at work compiling information, sources and versions of songs in order to tell the history behind one of her all-time favorite Elvis songs: "What Now My Love." Originally written by French musician Gilbert Bécaud and lyricist Pierre Delanoë, "Et Maintenant" became beloved around the world both in its original language, and with its localized English lyrics by Carl Sigman. With research assistance from friend of the show Helene de Roux, Bec explores what nuances are lost in translation and what strengths are found in Elvis' interpretation to match the power and passion of Bécaud's original performance, as well as numerous other versions by artists across a multitude of genres and backgrounds.

But before that incredible story, Justin and Bec also discuss the latest Elvis news hot off Elvis Week, with EPE's announced hologram show in Vegas, rock critic Dave Marsh's passing, and upcoming FTDs. Sadly, this episode was recorded JUST before the news broke about Shelley Fabares' passing, as well as Dolly Parton, so those will be addressed in the next episode.

Plus, in his Song of the Week, Justin makes the case that 1970's "Cindy, Cindy," once relegated to the 1971 "Love Letters from Elvis" album has been overlooked as one of the finest, purest rock and roll recordings of Elvis' 70s era, with that song's history easily showcasing the interplay between black gospel and hillbilly folk music in the South that provided the musical blueprint for rock and roll.

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.

Justin and Olivia are joined for our special Elvis Week episode by John Humphrey, drummer for alt-rock/post-grunge/metal band Seether ("Broken," "Remedy," "Fine Again," and more) as well as The Nixons (most famous for their 1996 hit "Sister"), who turns out to be a massive, nearly life-long Elvis fan with just as much enthusiasm and appreciation for digging deep on Elvis' music to match any TCBCast guest we've had before.

The duo naturally pick John's brain all about his love of collecting Elvis albums, his thoughts on recent projects like EPiC and the 2022 film, Elvis' impact on rock music long after his death, which of Elvis' drummers is John's favorite, lessons learned navigating fame and the music industry from Elvis' precedent, what his bandmates think of Elvis, the most treasured item in his personal collection, and much more.

Please check out seether.com for upcoming tour dates (as of this show's release, their fall 2026 tour spans across the United States) and to learn more about where pick up their music and merch. Thanks again to John for generously sharing his passion, enthusiasm, insights and time with us to remember Elvis. We hope all of our listeners have a peaceful, reflective and joyful day celebrating Elvis' legacy and impact on music, popular culture and our lives.

Gurdip joins Justin this week for a more unusually meta conversion, pondering how their Elvis fandom has waxed and waned over the years, how doing TCBCast has sustained and grown their interest in Elvis' life and career, how the internet has changed the way fans interact with each other, challenges that can make fandoms (of all types, of any interest) frustrating, and how to get back into the groove and nourish your appreciation and curiosity for learning about the subjects you love most.

Plus, the guys catch up on a bunch of wonderful listener emails prompting interesting discussions about how TCBCast hosts do their research, Elvis' mid-60s slump, the strengths and weaknesses of King Creole, and finally, near the end of the episode, the duo randomly decide to dip into their personal lists of all-time favorite Elvis movies - both subjective personal favorites they love to revisit, and the ones they think are the best.

TCBCast's resident doo-wop king, Gurdip Ladhar, has been lured from hiding with the promise of getting to discuss Elvis' finest doo-wop-inspired records, as Gurdip, Bec and Justin discuss their top 5 each and ponder whether or not Elvis' cross-genre habits can be neatly put inside the boundaries of what was less of a genre and more a retrospective label applied to describe common fads in songwriting and arrangements for vocal groups within rhythm & blues and pop music that converged most prominently and popularly in the 1950s-1960s.

For Song of the Week, Bec builds a "House of Sand," looking into the upbeat and lightweight production number from 1966's "Paradise Hawaiian Style." Then finally, Justin tackles the history behind Elvis' version of "Your Cheatin' Heart," first released on the "Elvis for Everyone" album in 1965 despite being recorded in 1958, which doo-wop version of the song inspired Elvis', and why Hank Williams' landmark original posthumous hit remains one of the finest country records of all time.

If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation 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.