Diva/Mensch pair for Oct 9, 2024

What a year at the Grammys, 1967. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Bobbie Gentry and "Ode to Billie Joe," Aretha Franklin and "Respect," The Fifth Dimension and "Up, Up, and Away," the original cast recording of Cabaret, Boulez conducting Wozzeck, Bernstein conducting the Mahler 8, the list goes on and on.

Here are my picks for that year:

Diva: Elvis Presley, How Great Thou Art

Mensch: Glen Campbell, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"

Elvis's sacred album is so slick and overblown, such an Elvis Presley Product, it should have been called How Great I Art. My favorite detail is how his vocals have that "recorded in a freaking echo chamber" aura but the other tracks (the instruments, the choir) all sound normal. Whatever, Reverend Presley.

"By the Time I Get to Phoenix," on the other hand, is the kind of song that welcomes you in and makes you grateful for it. Campbell is such a wonderful singer.