Elvis Presley: A Listener\'s Guide

313 " Page


ELVIS PRESLEY: A LISTENER'S GUDE
ELVIS PRESLEY: A LISTENER'S GUIDE

312 " Page







Jules Archer, "Stop Hounding teenagers," True Story, Dec 1956, 22.
Nicholas Slonimsky, ed, Lexicon of Musical Invective. Critical Assaults of Composers since Beethoven's Time (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965), 229.
Ernst Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. The Complete Recording Sessions (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998), 5.
Archer, "Stop Hounding teenagers," 20.
Jock Carroll, "I Like Elvis Presley," Weekend Magazine, September 8, 1956, 10.
Robert Matthew-Walker, Heartbreak Hotel: The Life and Music of Elvis Presley (Chessington: Castle Communications, 1995), 72.
Paul Simpson, The Rough Guide to Elvis (London: Penguin, 2002), 232.
"Review Spotlight On…," Billboard, Aug 7, 1954, 39.
Herm Schoenfeld, "Album Reviews," Variety, March 14, 1956, 50.
It is still unsure whether this was an aborted serious attempt at recording the song, or just the musicians fooling around in a jam-like way.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 17.
"Review Spotlight On…," Billboard, Nov 6, 1954, 50.
Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley (London: Abacus, 1994), 179.
"Review of New C&W Records," Billboard, May 14, 1955, 47.
Joe Specht, "I Forgot to Remember to Forget: Elvis Presley in Texas – 1955," Journal of Texas Music History (2003): 3. https://digital.library.txstate.edu/
handle/10877/2735
Greil Marcus, "Elvis Presley, Philosopher King," Village Voice, April 5, 1975, 64.
I say "possible exception" of Blue Moon not because it is anything less than brilliant, but because it is so unusual that it is hard to view it as a ballad in the traditional sense.
Ken Sharp, Writing for the King (Salogruppen: FTD, 2006), 12.
James Baxter and Annette Baxter, "The Man in the Blue Suede Shoes," Harper's Magazine, January, 1958, 46.
"Passing in Review," Motion Picture Daily, February 14, 1956, 8.
"Review Spotlight On…," Billboard, May 12, 1956, 94.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 39. Whether this information about this song comes from interviews with Elvis's musicians, newspaper reviews of Elvis's early live appearances, or elsewhere, is not clear.
"Review Spotlight On…," Billboard, May 12, 1956, 94.
"The Music Goes On & On & On," Variety, June 13, 1956, 51.
Jack Gould, "TV: New Phenomenon," New York Times, June 6, 1956, 67.
Jack Gould, "Elvis Presley: Lack of Responsibility is Shown by TV in Exploiting Teen-Agers," New York Times, November 16, 1956, X13
"Presley Termed a Passing Fancy," New York Times, Dec 17, 1956, 28.
Jane Newcomb, "The Ants in Elvis' Presley's Pants", Exposed, December 1956, 55.
Archer, "Stop Hounding teenagers," 22.
Carroll, "I Like Elvis Presley," 7-11.
John S Wilson, "Elvis Presley: Rocking Blues Shouter," New York Times, January 13, 1957, X16.
Steve Allen, Hi-Ho Steverino: My Adventures in the Wacky World of TV (Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 1992), 172.
Steve Allen, "Steve Allen Defends Appearance of Presley," Sarasota Journal, Jun 28, 1956, 2.
Allen, Hi-Ho Steverino, 174.
"Review Spotlight On…" Billboard, July 21, 1956, 44.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 55.
Baxter, "The Man in the Blue Suede Shoes," 45.
Ibid, 46.
Molly Ivins, "Elvis Presley Dies; Rock Singer was 42", New York Times, August 17, 1977, 43.
Bosley Crowther, "The Screen: Culture Takes a Holiday", New York Times, November 16, 1956, 22.
Gus Dallas, "Love Me Tender," Motion Picture Daily, November 16, 1956, 6.
"Mr Elvis Presley's First Film," The Times, December 11, 1956, 5.
See: http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list10.html#S1543
Herm Schoenfeld, "Jocks, Jukes and Disks," Variety, October 3, 1956, 62.
Sharp, Writing for the King, 19.
ibid.
See Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 64.
Wilson, "Rocking Blues Shouter", X16.
Archer, "Stop Hounding Teenagers," 24.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 76.
Herm Schoenfeld, "Jocks, Jukes and Disks," Variety, March 27, 1957, 50.
For a selection of the other versions of these songs, check out the Essential Elvis: The First Movies CD
Will Friedwald, "Elvis Today," American Heritage, 25.
H.H.T., "Elvis Presley Meets Success in Loving You," New York Times, July 18, 1957, 19.
Erskine Johnson, "Elvis Presley Says New Film Is Faintly Autobiographical," Pittsburgh Press, February 24, 1957, 7.
"The Curious History of Lon Chaney," The Times, August 25, 1957, 12.
"Review Spotlight On…" Billboard, March 23, 1957, 58.
Friedwald, "Elvis Today," 25.
Jules Archer, "Stop Hounding teenagers," 22.
Fred Hift, "Loving You," Variety, July 3, 1957, 6.
Ken Burke and Dan Griffin, The Blue Moon Boys: The Story of Elvis Presley's Band (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006), 101.
See Sharp, Writing for the King, 120.
H.H.T, "Double Feature on the Loew's Circuit," New York Times, November 14, 1957, 41.
"Bitter Film Essay on American Suburbia," The Times, 20 January, 1958, 3.
"Review Spotlight On…" Billboard, September 23, 1957, 63.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 96,
"Elvis Presley's Christmas Album Seen Masterpiece of Miscasting (sic)," Ottawa Citizen, December 13, 1957, 30.
"Presley 'Poison' to Vancouver Air," Variety, December 4, 1957, 57.
Ibid.
Mike Gross, "Jocks, Jukes and Disks," Variety, June 18, 1958, 44.
Ken Sharp, Writing for the King, 58.
Barry Keith Grant, Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011), 86.
Bob Bernstein, "Elvis Acts, Songs are Solid in 'King Creole,'" Billboard, May 26, 1958, 7.
Powe, "King Creole," Variety, May 28, 1958, 6
R. G., "King Creole," Motion Picture Daily, May 21, 1958, 5.
Howard Thompson, "Actor with Guitar", New York Times, July 4, 1958, 15.
"King Creole," Monthly Film Bulletin, September 1958, 115. For further information on the British critical reaction to the film, see: Andrew James Caine, "'Calculated Violence and Viciousness': The British Critical Reaction to Elvis Presley's King Creole," The Velvet Light Trap, No. 48, Fall 2001, 34-46.
"Mr Elvis Presley as a Screen Personality," The Times, September 1, 1958, 3.
May Mann, "I Predict a New Elvis," Tv and Movie Screen, June 1959, 53.
L. H. Swainson, "Elvis Presley to Return," The Age, February 2, 1960, 12.
Howard Thompson, "Wagner Steps Up Work In Movies," New York Times, January 21, 1961, 18.
"Idols Team Up on TV," Life, May 16. 1960, 103.
Tube, "The Frank Sinatra Timex Show," Variety, May 16, 1960, 9.
"Discourse from the Billboard Sales Department," Billboard, July 11, 1960, 36.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 127.
Peter Guralnick, Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (London: Abacus, 1999), 66.
"Spotlight Winners of the Week," Billboard, April 25, 1960, 35.
John S Wilson, "Elvis Returns and Diana Swings, New York Times, May 8, 1960, X16.
ibid
See Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 131-135.
See Guralnick, Careless Love, 70.
Source: http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list10.html#S1574
Bosley Crowther, "Screen: Elvis – A Reformed Wriggler," New York Times, November 5, 1960, 28.
Ibid.
Tube, "G I Blues," Variety, October 19, 1960, 6.
William Werneth, "G I Blues," Motion Picture Daily, October, 19, 1960, 1.
Ibid, 9.
"Mr Presley Sheds Some Mannerisms," The Times, November 10, 1960, 7.
A H Weiler, "Flaming Star Opens," New York Times, December 17, 1960, 19.
"Mr Elvis Presley on the Prairie," The Times, February 10, 1961, 18.
Archer, "Stop Hounding Teenagers," 24.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 142.
"Spotlight Winners of the Week," Billboard, December 5, 1960, 5.
Army Archerd, "Just for Variety," Variety, September 30. 1960, 2.
Bosley Crowther, "Screen: Presley is a Problem Again," New York Times, June 10, 1961, 12.
Bosley Crowther, "Hacked by Hollywood," New York Times, June 18, 1961. X1.
Tube, "Wild in the Country," Variety, June 14, 1961, 6.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 84-89.
"Mr Elvis Presley's Latest Film," The Times, June 21, 1961, 15.
Sharp, Writing for the King, 45.
Gerald Kloss, "Top Pops," Milwaukee Journal, June 25, 1961, 14.
Herm Schoenfeld, "Jocks, Jukes and Disks," Variety, June 21, 1961, 46.
Mike Gross, "Jocks, Jukes and Disks," Variety, May 10, 1961, 74.
Army Archerd, "Just for Variety," Variety, August 7, 1961, 2.
Tube, "Blue Hawaii," Variety, November 29, 1961, 6.
"Anglo-Italian Contrasts and Amities," The Times, December 8, 1961, 17.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 156.
Elvis would even pair this song up with Get Back in a medley in live performances from 1970-72.
"Life Guide," Life, October 6, 1961, 22.
"Spotlight Singles of the Week," Billboard, August 14, 1961, 41.
Sharp, Writing for the King, 59.
"Late Pop Spotlights," Billboard, April 7, 1962, 6.
Fran Smith, "On the Screens: Movies and TV," Boys' Life, June 1962, 62.
Howard Thompson, "Presley in Florida," New York Times, August 9, 1962, 17.
"A Disappointing Miscellany of New Films," The Times, June 8, 1962, 6.
"Spotlight Singles of the Week," Billboard, March 10, 1962, 27.
Patrick Humphries, Elvis The #1 Hits: The Secret History of the Classics (London: Ebury Press, 2003), 100.
Bosley Crowther, "Screen: A Ferocious Elvis Presley," New York Times, March 7, 1963, 8.
Ibid.
"A Commplace Batch of Films," The Times, November 30, 1962, 15.
Ken Sharp, Writing for the King, 119.
"Spotlight Singles of the Week," Billboard, July 28, 1962, 23.
"Music Man Track, Elvis Luck, Wade's Hits Top Current LPs," Variety, July 4, 1962, 86.
Don Wedge, "Presley on Rise Again (Natch)," Billboard, September 1, 1962, 18.
Source: http://davidneale.eu/elvis/wbt/
Simpson, The Rough Guide to Elvis, 263.
Matthew-Walker, Heartbreak Hotel, 100.
"MGM May Peg Pic on Col. Parker," Variety, Feb 19, 1962, 10.
For more details, see Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 175-6.
"Billboard Spotlight Picks," Billboard, February 9, 1963, 24.
Howard Thompson, "Presley in Acapulco," New York Times, February 20, 1964, 22.
Ibid.
Howard Thompson, "Elvis Presley Teams with Ann-Margret," New York Times, May 21, 1964, 42.
Howard Thompson, "Elvis Presley Stars in 'Roustabout,' a Movie About Carnivals," New York Times, November 11, 1964, 38.
"No Half Measures with Bette Davis," The Times, March 12, 1964, 16.
George Morris, "George Sidney: A Matter of Taste," Film Comment, Vol XIII, No. 6, Nov-Dec 1977, 56-60.
Army Archerd, "Just for Variety," Variety, August 5, 1963, 2.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 154.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 183.
Howard Thompson, "On Local Circuit," New York Times, April 2, 1964, 28.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 186.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, April 11, 1964, 98.
Michael Fessier Jr, "Elvis Hits $20,000,000 Gross Jackpot, Sells 49,300,000 Singles, 11-Mil Albums," Variety, January 15, 1964, 47.
Ibid, 50.
Ibid.
Thompson, "Elvis Presley stars in Roustabout," 38.
Fran Smith, "On the Screen," Boys' Life, November 1964, 17.
Mark Feeney, "Elvis Movies," The American Scholar, Vol 70, Issue 1, 58.
H.H.T, "'Girl Happy at Forum has Elvis Presley Singing Again," New York Times, May 27, 1965, 28.
Army Archerd, "Just for Variety," Variety, June 30, 1964, 2.
Sharp, Writing for the King, 99.
Richard Williams, "Presley: A Force of Nature," The Times, September 4, 1971, 7.
"Singles Review," Billboard, February 20, 1965, 14.
Vincent Canby, "Presley Shares Billing," New York Times, December 16, 1965, 63.
Sharp, Elvis Presley: Writing for the King, 157.
Sharp, Writing for the King, 140.
Ibid.
Rick Altman, "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre," Cinema Journal, Vol 23, No 3, 7.
Miles Kreuger, Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 184-5.
Howard Thompson, "Neighborhoods Get 'Frankie and Johnny,' New Presley Film," New York Times, July 21, 1966, 20.
Simpson, The Rough Guide to Elvis, 343.
A H Weiler, "Presley Shares Bill with Marco Polo," New York Times, December 15, 1966, 60.
See Archer, "Stop Hounding Teenagers," 24.
Jorgensen, "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music," 215.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 215.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, May 25th, 1967, 76
Matthew-Walker, Heartbreak Hotel, 110.
"Christmas Spotlights," Billboard, November 29, 1966, 16.
John Russell Taylor, "Fundamental Things in Film," The Times, August 10, 1967, 5.
Carol David, "Double Trouble Typical Presley," The Blade, July 14, 1967, 17.
Bosley Crowther, "Presley With Scenery," New York Times, May 25, 1967, 54.
"Spotlight Singles," Billboard, May 6, 1967, 20.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, June 10, 1967, 82.
Howard Thompson, "'Easy Come, Easy Go' with Presley in Neighborhood Houses," New York Times, June 1. 1967, 56.
Ibid.
See Guralnick, Careless Love, 242-3.
Howard Thompson, "The Screen: Raquel Welch in 'Fathom,' and Adventure Feature," New York Times, December 14, 1967, 61.
"Elvis Chases a New Image," Showtime, October 1967, 7.
Ibid.
Friedwald,"Elvis Today," 27.
"Monkees, Makeba, Johnny Mathis, Elvis, Lovecraft, 'Live for Life,' Orbison, Hobbits Top New LPs," Variety, November 22, 1967, 44.
Renata Adler, "Screen: Elvis on the Stock-Car Circuit," New York Times, June 14, 1968, 43.
"Aretha, 'Speedway,' Dionne, Rawls, Rosko, Webb, Markham, Butler, Blues Bands Top New LPs," Variety, June 26, 1968, 42.
"Spotlight Singles," Billboard, January 20, 1968, 57.
Graeme Andrews, "Rock 'n' Roll Romping Again in UK Spearheaded by US Attack," Billboard, May 4, 1968, 1.
"Spotlight Singles," Billboard, October 7, 1967, 12.
Sam Zolotow, "Comedy Book at Helen Hayes," New York Times, March 16, 1956, 20
Louis Calta, "Stay Away Joe Nearing Stage," New York Times, March 14, 1957, 34.
See Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music and/or Guralnick: Careless Love.
Robert Shelton, "Rock Star's Explosive Views Have Vintage Quality," New York Times, December 4, 1968, 51.
Ibid.
Roger Greenspun, "'A Fine Pair' and 'Charro' on Double Bill in Neighborhoods," New York Times, September 4, 1969, 51.
Roger Greenspun, "Trouble With Girls," New York Times, December 11, 1969, 63.
Ibid.
"Top Singles of the Week," Billboard, November 19, 1969, 48.
"Elvis Cuts a Song of the Ghetto," The Afro-American, May 3, 1969, 10.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 332.
Peter Guralnick, "Records," Rolling Stone, August 23, 1969, 34.
"Spotlight Singles," Billboard, September 6, 1969, 110.
James E Perone, "From Elvis in Memphis (1969)," in The Album: A Guide to Pop Music's most Provocative, Influential and Important Creations, Volume 1, ed. James E Perone (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012), 224.
"Billboard Album Reviews," Billboard, June 7, 1969, 51.
"Baez, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Elvis, 'Midnight,' Cowboy, & Lady Dead, Kaleidoscope Top New LPs," Variety, June 11, 1969, 72.
Don Heckman, "Zeppelin, Elvis, Butterfield – Three Styles of Rock," New York Times, December 7, 1969, D42.
Albert Goldman, "A Private Bag of Mixed Beauties," New York Times, December 14, 1969, D44.
Guralnick, "Records," 35.
Mike Jahn, "Elvis Presley to Make Personal Appearances," New York Times, December 4, 1968, 51.
James D Kingsley, "Presley Faces Toughest Challenge in Las Vegas," Billboard, August 9, 1969, 4.
Eliot Tiegel, "Elvis Retains Touch in Return to Stage," Billboard, August 16, 1969, 47.
Cub Koda and Bruce Eder, "Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada," in The All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, ed. Vladimir Bogdanov (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003), 605.
Don Heckman, "Presley – Has the Rocker Become a Crooner?" New York Times, March 12, 1972, HF15,
Don Heckman, "Presley's Back, The Nice are Leaving," New York Times, August 30, 1970, 92.
"Spotlight Singles," Billboard, July 25, 1970, 64.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 304.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, December 5, 1970, 63.
Richard Meltzer, "That's The Way It is," Rolling Stone, February 4, 1971, 56.
Ibid.
Peter Guralnick, "Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old)," Rolling Stone, February 4, 1971, 49.
Ibid.
"Bee Gees, Presley, Bowie, Pretty Things, T.Bennett, Quicksilver, Nice Top LPs," Variety, January 20, 1971, 48.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, January 23, 1971, 58.
Neil McCormick, "Elvis Presley: Seven Magnificent Albums" Daily Telegraph, August 4, 2007. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/
rockandjazzmusic/3666968/Elvis-Presley-seven-magnificent-albums.html
Jon Landau, "Love Letters from Elvis," Rolling Stone, July 22, 1971, 39.
Ibid.
Bill Wilson, "No Story – Just Songs – in Elvis' New Film," Australian Woman's Weekly, October 28, 1970, 3.
Murf, "That's The Way It Is," Variety, October 28, 1970, 17.
Ibid.
Robert Blair Kaiser, "The Rediscovery of Elvis," The New York Times Magazine, October 11, 1970, 28.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 317.
"Top Singles of the Week," Variety, November 1971, 78.
I feel compelled to add a personal note here. My late Dad attended Jackson's concert at Newport that year. He was in the Navy at the time and found himself at Rhode Island. Quite how he ended up at the jazz festival when he really didn't like jazz is anybody's guess, but he was there all the same. Jackson's performance didn't turn Dad on to religion, but she became and remained one of his favourite singers.
"Billboard Album Reviews," Billboard, February 12, 1972, 41.
Don Heckman, "Presley – Has the Rocker Become a Crooner?" New York Times, March 12, 1972, HF15.
Ibid.
See Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 334-5.
See Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 343.
"Radio Action & Pick Singles," Billboard, April 7, 1973, 70.
"Album Reviews, " Billboard, November 11, 1972, 73.
Lester Bangs, "Burning Love," Rolling Stone, January 4, 1973, 64.
"Album Reviews," Billboard, November 6, 1971, 38.
"Top Album Picks, " Billboard, July 14, 1973, 62.
Vincent Canby, "Screen: Elvis on Tour," New York Times, June 7, 1973, 54.
Chris Chase, "Like a Prince from Another Planet," New York Times, June 18, 1972, D14.
Chase, "Like a Prince from Another Planet," D14.
Don Heckman, "Presley, Talents Richly Intact, Shifts Emphasis to Rock/Gospel," New York Times, June 11, 1972, 63.
"Elvis, John & Yoko, Sugar, J.Butler, Report, Delphonics, Silver, Alpert Top New LPs," Variety, June 28, 1972, 50.
Bob Palmer, "Elvis: Everybody gets enough of what they want to get what they need," Rolling Stone, August 31, 1972, 36.
Phil Gelormine, "Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii," Billboard, April 14, 1973, 16.
John O'Connor, "Presley Pure Showbiz in Aloha Hawaii (sic)," Variety, April 5, 1973, 91.
Jon Landau, "Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite," Rolling Stone, March 29, 1973, 55.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 361.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 366.
See: http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list2.html#S1194
"Top Album Picks," Billboard, November 10, 1973, 76.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 515-7.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 516.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 379.
"Top Album Picks," Billboard, January 18, 1975, 70.
Robert Hilburn, "Time for Elvis to Quit, Suggests a Thoughtful Fan," Milwaukee Journal, January 28, 1975, 1.
Robert Matthew Walker, Heartbreak Hotel, 142.
"Top Album Picks," Billboard, July 6, 1974, 49.
Vick, "Record Reviews," Variety, August 29, 1974, 10.
May Mann, "Don't Believe Those Rumors About Me!" Movieland and TV Times, December 1974, 28 & 65-66.
Jorgensen, Elvis: A Life in Music, 385.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 388.
Dave Marsh, "Today," Rolling Stone, July 3, 1975, 54.
Ibid.
Jeff Kline, "The King is Here," Lakeland Ledger, April 28, 1975, 1a & 7a.
Toni Dewar, "Elvis Due More Respect," Lakeland Ledger, May 1st, 1975, 4a
James Reston, "Elvis Review Reviewed," Lakeland Ledger, May 3, 1975, 6a.
Ibid.
Duke, "Elvis Presley Show," Variety, December 5, 1975, 28.
Robert Matthew Walker, Heartbreak Hotel, 145.
"Aretha, Aerosmith, Andrea, Van, Presley, Players, Kool, Phillips, Braxton, Mottola, REO Top LPs," Variety, June 6, 1976, 60.
Toy, "Concert Review," Variety, April 27, 1976, 10.
Harper Barnes, "Gold-Spangled Elvis: Flashes of the Old Fire," Rolling Stone, May 20, 1976, 102.
Greg Oatis, "Elvis Presley Appears in Three Roles: As Symbol, Balladeer, And In Parody Of His Past Performances," Toledo Blade, April 25, 1977, 13.
William P Day, "Critic Scuffs Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes," Toledo Blade, April 26, 1977, 33.
Arlene Richards, "To The Editor of the Blade," Toledo Blade, May 4, 1977, 20.
Toni Jasinski, "Reporter Owes Toledo Apology," Toledo Blade, May 4, 1977, 20.
Cynthia A Reed, "Concert Review Too Personal," Toledo Blade, May 4, 1977, 20.
Roso, "Presley Vidspec Proves Disturbing: Singer Went to Pot in Last Days," Variety, October 12, 1977, 80.
Molly Ivans, ""Elvis Presley Dies; Rock Singer was 42," 43.
John Rockwell, "Presley Gave Rock It's Style," New York Times, August 17, 1977, 1.
"Presley Changed Face of Culture Paving Way For 60s Revolution; Reactions Pour in From All Over," Variety, August 24, 1977, 50.
Todd Everett, "Elvis Presley, 42, Discovered Dead in His Memphis Manse, Possibly of a Heart Attack," Variety, August 17, 1977, 18.
Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A life in Music, 407-8.
Guralnick, Careless Love, 638.
From an interview for the For Elvis CD Collectors website, date unknown. http://www.elvis-collectors.com/askernst4.html
The fan comments come from the very active For Elvis CD Collectors forums: http://www.elvis-collectors.com . No link is given here to the actual discussions in question in order for anonymity to remain.
Geoffrey McDonnell "Review – Elvis: New Haven '76 FTD CD," For Elvis Fans Only [online]. Available at: http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/reviews/review_elvis_new_haven_1976.shtml
See note 290.












Shane Brown was born in 1974, and lives in Norwich, UK. He has a PhD in Film, Television and Media Studies from the University of East Anglia. He released his first novel, Breaking Point, in 2013.

Follow the author on twitter: @shanebrown74

















Copyright © 2014, by Shane Brown


The front cover photo is from the book 'Elvis: Caught In A Trap' by Arjan Deelen and Laurens van Houten. Used with permission.
© 2002 Deelen / Van Houten

Front Cover design by Steven Cardoza






























ELVIS PRESLEY:

A LISTENER'S GUIDE



SHANE BROWN
















Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I need to thank Arjan Deelan, without whose encouragement this book would never have been written.

I have been kicking around Elvis Presley forums for around a decade or so now, most notably For Elvis CD Collectors (FECC), but also, at various points, the Too Much Monkey Business Forum as well. A number of members on those boards have made available vintage magazine and newspaper articles for other members to enjoy, and the likelihood is that, if I make reference in the following work to a piece that wasn't in Billboard, Variety, The Times or The New York Times, then my source was probably one of the two forums I have mentioned. I'm not going to try to list here all the people who have made these articles available as I would, no doubt, inadvertently miss people out. However, this book would not have been possible (at least in its current form) without the access to those vintage articles and cuttings and so I thank each and every person who has made them available – and a thank you also goes out to anyone who has provided me with page numbers and sources etc.

Likewise, the above forums have some very talented writers and researchers on them. We may not always get on, but that doesn't mean that their work is not appreciated. I have not consciously used facts and figures they have provided without crediting them, but no doubt some have inadvertently fed into this work – information is often stored in our minds, but it's often difficult to remember where we read it. So, again, a thank you to anyone who has contributed to the threads over on FECC and TMMB and widened our knowledge through their contributions.

Some people have also helped in the writing of this book by commenting on and challenging reviews that I have written in the past on forums or elsewhere. At the time that those reviews were published over the last six months or so, this book was not mentioned as I didn't know if I would ever get to finish it - so many things get started and never finished! So, once again a thank you goes out to anyone who contributed to those threads as well.

Finally, thank you always need to go to the friends and family who help keep me (relatively) sane on a day to day basis, and who seem to know just the right amount of encouragement to give (and distance to keep!) from these projects. Many thanks to Netty White for her help in the final stages of this book.















As always, this book is dedicated to my parents.























CONTENTS

Introduction 11
Chapter One. Good Rockin' Tonight: 1953-1955 17
Chapter Two. Rip It Up: 1956 33
Chapter Three. All Shook Up: 1957-1959 57
Chapter Four. It Feels So Right: 1960 81
Chapter Five. Put The Blame On Me: 1961-1962 103
Chapter Six. A Dog's Life: 1963-1966 129
Chapter Seven. Stand By Me: 1966-1968 159
Chapter Eight. Saved: 1968-1969 183
Chapter Nine. Where Do I Go From Here: 1970-1973 207
Chapter Ten. The Last Farewell: 1973-1977 257
Coda. Reconsider Baby: 1977-2014 289
Bibliography 299
Index 309














INTRODUCTION

When Elvis Presley first walked into Sun Studios in 1953 in order to pay to make a record, he is reported to have told employee Marion Keisker: "I sing all kinds." What is quite clear from listening to the four tracks he recorded in the summer of 1953 and January 1954 is that Elvis was stretching the truth somewhat. He was a ballad singer and, at that stage, not a particularly good one. Over the next twenty-four years, however, he would live up to his boast to Keisker and, with the notable exception of jazz, would successfully record tracks in every genre of popular music.
If Elvis didn't sing all kinds in 1953, we know for certain that he listened to, and was influenced by, all kinds. The songs he sang even during his early years at Sun come from a huge variety of sources. There was the country of You're a Heartbreaker, the blues of Milkcow Blues Boogie, the pop of Harbor Lights, the movie song I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine, and even the Great American Songbook classic Blue Moon. His musical heroes ranged from Bill Monroe to Mario Lanza, and covered everything in between. In a 1956 magazine interview, he talks knowledgeably about the lyrics of standards such as Body and Soul, Let's Do It, Love for Sale and All of Me. Over time, Elvis would learn how to fuse all of these seemingly incompatible, disparate genres together. For example, he would take gospel songs such as Where Could I Go But to the Lord and Amazing Grace and infuse them with elements of the blues. Conversely, on stage in the 1970s, he would have a gospel quartet back him on rock 'n' roll songs. Rock 'n' roll might have catapulted Elvis to stardom in the mid-1950s, but it was his willingness and compulsion to sing anything and everything that resulted in his longevity.
As the celebrations for what would have been his 80th birthday in January 2015 approach, we are in a position where we know virtually everything there is to know about Elvis Presley. It sometimes seems that everybody who ever came into contact with him has written a book about their time with him. We know details of what Elvis did on each and every day of his life. We know what he liked to eat, what records were in his collection, which women he had relationships with, and the details of the prescription drug routine that ultimately contributed to his early death. We know what songs he recorded and when, we know which musicians played at what sessions, and which jumpsuit was worn at which concert. The collector's label Follow that Dream (FTD) has made available well over two hundred hours of previously unreleased outtakes and live concerts over the last decade and a half. And yet, amongst all of this, there is one thing missing: a discussion of Elvis's musical legacy that does not start and end from a rock viewpoint.
Elvis may have been crowned the "King of Rock 'n' Roll" but, in reality, he only lived up to that title for a relatively short period of his career. From 1960 onwards, rock 'n' roll was not the dominant genre of music that Elvis recorded. Despite this, virtually every book concentrating on Elvis's music (and there aren't many of them) comes from the viewpoint that his rock 'n' roll recordings are most important and everything else is of barely passing interest. There is a good reason for this. Many of those who have critiqued Elvis's work grew up at the same time as Elvis and, as such, were highly disappointed when Elvis produced singles such as Separate Ways or Hurt rather than those along the lines of Burning Love and Promised Land. Those who viewed Elvis as a rocker seemingly felt betrayed by the direction his recording career took in the last seven years of his life in particular – and that sense of betrayal was (and still is) understandable.
However, those of us born after the event (I was three when Elvis died) have never felt the same disappointment about his move into country and easy listening music during the 1970s. To us, the apparent betrayal never happened because we didn't follow the Elvis story in a linear fashion. The Elvis soap opera had come off the air by the time we came to the music, and we already knew how the story ended. The rock critics, whose views have dominated work on Elvis's music, could not forgive Elvis for straying from their preferred genre. But those of us not following the story in real time have never quite grasped why genre mattered as long as it was performed well.
No doubt there will be cries from the rafters that this modest tome is an anti-rock view of Elvis's music. It isn't. Instead it is a re-evaluation of Elvis's musical legacy which benefits from being written nearly four decades after he made his final, sad recordings. Many other important artists have had their works re-evaluated over time. Film director Alfred Hitchcock is a key example. Many of his films were welcomed with lukewarm reviews and dismissed as pure entertainment with little or no artistic worth. Now those same films often top polls listing the greatest films ever made. Another example: in 1861, Prosper Mérimée wrote of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser: "I believe that I could write tomorrow something similar, inspired by my cat walking down the keyboard of the piano" – which is one of the kinder contemporary reviews, I might add. 150 years on, Tannhäuser is still performed regularly and viewed as one of the great operas.
Without looking again at artistic works of the past, we would not learn to appreciate them. We certainly wouldn't be claiming Hitchcock to be one of the greatest of all film directors, and we wouldn't be regarding Beethoven, Wagner or Stravinsky as great composers. More importantly with regards to this book, we also wouldn't be looking at Elvis's great rock 'n' roll records of the 1950s as the remarkable, game-changing, historically important masterpieces that many of them are. Instead, we would still be viewing them as conservative America did at the time they were recorded. Most would agree that would be ludicrous, and yet Elvis's music after that initial period has never really been re-evaluated, and there seems to be almost a fear of doing so. We still view it now as the rock critics did back then, and to do that is to do Elvis Presley a huge disfavour. There is more to Elvis Presley than rock 'n' roll.
In some ways the re-evaluation has already started and been under way for some time. Elvis's music is often being reissued in a way very different to its initial release. In the 1990s, three boxed sets were released highlighting Elvis's work of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s respectively. Each one, by and large, sequenced the music according to session rather than according to original album release. There was good reason for this: Elvis simply wasn't an album artist. He recorded songs, not albums. The albums were simply a way to distribute those songs in retail-friendly packages, but they also tended to do the singer a disservice and were akin to forcing a square peg into a round hole. The problem was that reviewers were critiquing albums of songs that were often put together in a haphazard fashion and with no unifying theme or genre. Great songs sat alongside bad songs, rock songs were mingled with gospel songs, and classic singles often found themselves headlining budget albums of poor quality material from the movies. Critics were faced with erratic groupings of ten or twelve songs, but Elvis rarely intended them to be heard in that way. He saw each individual song as the end result, not each album. He would be eighty if he were alive today, but he would have surely loved iTunes, a way of distributing music where each song can be bought individually without the cumbersome trappings of an album's worth of extra material.
In 2013, Sony released a 3CD collection called Elvis at Stax, which pulled together Elvis's recordings made at Stax studios in 1973. In many respects, the suggestion from the label that this was classic Elvis was a stretching of the truth, but it was also clear that these songs could be appreciated better in this way than spread over the three original albums (Raised on Rock, Good Times and Promised Land) where songs were seemingly picked at random and the packaging was beyond lame. What is perhaps most interesting is that the reviews of the set were largely positive and this is an indication that a new generation of critics are willing to put past prejudices aside and view these recordings with an open mind and with fresh eyes (or, rather, ears).
And that is exactly what this book sets out to do. Session by session, Elvis's musical legacy will be discussed at length, not from the point of view of someone who loves rock, but from the point of view of someone who loves rock and jazz and country and folk and show tunes and classical music. My background isn't rooted in music, but in film. But one of the most exciting things for me is that the film discipline doesn't, by and large, acknowledge a hierarchy of genres. To most film researchers, an appreciation and analysis of a daytime soap opera is as important and as relevant as an appreciation of Citizen Kane. My main aim here is to bring that mentality to a discussion of Elvis's music for what is the first time in a full-length work. I want to look at this music without the prejudices of the past, and discuss each song on its own individual merits, whether it's an original rocker from the 1950s or a 1970s cover of a song by Perry Como. This book will not judge a performance on its genre, but on its quality. Hopefully, this will open up a new discussion on Elvis's musical legacy in which the traditional views can be challenged. It's about time.
At the same time as stating what this book is, it's also worth stating what it isn't. It's certainly not a biography – for Elvis's life story you need to find yourself another book (preferably Peter Guralnick's excellent two-volume biography). This book also isn't exhaustive. My main aim here is to discuss the "masters". While reference will be made from time to time to alternate takes and concert recordings released on the collectors label, to write about all of these would result in a book five times this length and would, ultimately, be extremely tedious to read.
With regards to the early years, live recordings have an entry and are discussed in detail only if the sound quality allows for a meaningful discussion. Elvis wasn't recorded professionally in front of an audience until 1968 – prior to that, the only live recordings we have are from radio broadcasts and often badly-damaged acetates. While it's wonderful to finally have audio evidence of Elvis performing Little Mama and Hearts of Stone in 1955, the sound quality is so bad that there are not separate entries for these recordings within the relevant chapter. With regards to professional live recordings made after 1968, the discussion of these will first and foremost centre on the material from these dates released during Elvis's lifetime. Tracks released later from the same shows or seasons will often also be discussed, but not exhaustively. Finally, I have done my best to write a book that works in two different ways - when read from beginning to end and when dipped in and out of. That's a difficult manoeuvre, and I'm sure I'm not always successful in achieving it, but that, at least, was the plan.
Ultimately, of course, this is a book of opinion and not fact. I don't pretend that the comments on the following pages are the right or wrong way to view these songs, they are simply my way of looking at them. My aim here is not to persuade the reader to agree with me. In fact, part of the fun of reading a book such as this is vehemently not agreeing with the writer – and if my comments produce a strong reaction then that's not a bad thing. Hopefully, though, it will cause those already familiar with the Elvis legacy to contemplate reconsidering the merits of particular songs and sessions and, for those readers less acquainted with the Elvis canon beyond the greatest hits, I hope it will make you want to explore the music further.













CHAPTER ONE
GOOD ROCKIN' TONIGHT: 1953-5


Over the years, a number of myths have flourished with regards to the music of Elvis Presley. These include the notions that Elvis recorded nothing of worth in his final years, and that everything he recorded at Sun Studios in the mid-1950s was pure gold. Neither are true. While there is much pure gold to be found in the Sun sides, Elvis was, understandably, learning on the job, so to speak. He was still finding out who and what he was musically, and he was trying to find a way to incorporate his numerous musical influences into his work without simply imitating them. When he succeeded, the results were pure magic, but when he failed (which was mostly during the early ballad numbers) the recordings are less than compelling. The Sun sides are historically important and contain some great music but, as with so much of Elvis's career, the quality is inconsistent, varying widely from song to song.


Summer 1953 and January 1954: Private Recordings

The earliest recordings made by Elvis Presley were four sides that he paid to record at Sun Studios back in the summer of 1953 and January 1954. Legend has it that he entered the studios to make a record for his mother but, as Ernst Jorgensen points out, more than likely "what moved him was his burning unexpressed desire to make music and to become a star." A couple of years later, in an interview with True Story magazine, Elvis would deny this. When asked if he paid to make the record in the hope it would be the "first step toward a career as a singer", he answered: "Shucks, no. It was plain old curiosity. I just wanted to hear how I sounded."
The first track Elvis recorded was My Happiness, and the choice of song is telling. The melody had been written twenty years earlier, but coupled with different lyrics. The incarnation of the song that Elvis sang had first been recorded around 1947, but the number is ultimately one that can't be defined as being within a single genre. Over the years it would be recorded both by country singers and those associated with the Great American Songbook – not many songs were recorded by both Red Foley and Ella Fitzgerald! Oddly, Elvis's version manages to combine both approaches. His simple guitar accompaniment is from the country tradition, but the vocal is pure crooning. Elvis himself would state that his version was based on a recording by The Ink Spots, but there is no evidence that they recorded the song.
Like so many of Elvis's early recordings, this one has often been romanticized when previously discussed. For example, Robert Matthew-Walker writes that "the nineteen year old's voice is fully formed, entirely unique and leaps from the old, worn grooves with a force that is literally astonishing." This is simply not the case; there is nothing remotely "fully-formed" about this recording. It's a tentative little performance, and there's little doubt that anyone hearing it blind would neither recognise the singer nor believe he was bound for a huge singing career. That's not to say there aren't some interesting touches, most notably the change to the melody the second time Elvis sings "any place on earth will do." The recording might have made its debut on an album called The Great Performances, but My Happiness is merely pleasant rather than great.
Less attractive is That's When Your Heartaches Begin. Recorded on the same day, there are moments when Elvis's version of the Ink Spots classic is unintentionally amusing. The track starts off in the same vein as My Happiness but then Elvis seemingly attempts to imitate the original when he sings "love is a thing you never can share". The final word of that line is half spoken and half sung, but in an accent that is not Presley's own. Following this is a lengthy recitation, also spoken in an affected manner. Both the singing and the spoken section are clearly modelled on The Ink Spots original. Despite this largely unsuccessful attempt at the song, he would return to it at a jam session in 1956, in the studio in 1957, and then again during the rehearsals for the 1968 NBC TV Special.
If Elvis chose two songs that would stand the test of time for his first disc of private recordings, he did quite the opposite when he returned to Sun to cut a second disc on January 4, 1954. Both numbers, I'll Never Stand in your Way and It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You, are all but forgotten songs now. These are both very much in the same style as the previous recordings. I'll Never Stand in your Way contains the better vocal of the two, but suffers from a seemingly out-of-tune guitar which, at times, sounds more like a ukulele. Meanwhile, It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You is country songwriting-by-numbers and, other than Elvis's more passionate performance of the bridge section, is unremarkable from the point of view of both material and performance.
It's hard to understand when listening to these first recordings just what prompted Sam Phillips, head of Sun Studios, to call Elvis into the studio in June 1954 to try a new ballad entitled Without You. After all, there seems to have been no commercial appeal in Elvis's singing at this point. Elvis had no luck with Without You either, but Phillips put him in touch with local guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black and ten days later they returned to the studio to try again.


July 5 & 6, 1954: Studio Session

Approximately one year on from his first visit to the studios, Elvis now found himself in his first real recording session, this time with Scotty and Bill. Little did the musicians realize that history would be made that night. However, the magic didn't happen straight away.
The first two songs that were recorded found Elvis still in ballad mode. It seems unclear whether Harbor Lights or I Love You Because was recorded first. Harbor Lights finds Elvis in stronger voice than on the private recordings, and seemingly more confident, perhaps because he was no longer alone but working together with others. In its own way the recording is rather appealing with its slightly Hawaiian feel (despite the song's British origins) and Elvis's yearning vocal, but Sam Phillips saw no commercial potential, and the song would go unreleased for more than two decades.
Less successful was the country standard I Love You Because, which is taken at far too slow a pace. Elvis includes a misjudged spoken section which, as before, seemed to find him impersonating one of his idols - although which one is hard to determine. When the song was released a couple of years later by RCA, two takes were spliced together and the spoken section cut out. Even so, this is a rather lumbering attempt at the song that is not helped by Scotty Moore's fussy guitar work that is a constant distraction behind Elvis's vocals. Elvis tries his best, but his inexperience shows through, not least in his phrasing and the fact that he takes breaths not just in the middle of lines but in the middle of words (a habit he never got around to correcting).
Eventually, the magic occurred. The three young musicians started fooling around with Arthur Crudup's 1946 song That's all Right and Sam Phillips knew he had struck gold. Listening to Elvis's version back to back with Crudup's original shows that he didn't transform the song quite as much as historians would have us believe. While Elvis did change elements of the melody and replace many of the lyrics, the tempo of the two recordings isn't all that different, and Crudup's version certainly has many elements within it that would later become associated with rockabilly and rock 'n' roll. Paul Simpson states that Elvis's scat of "dee dee dee dee" is probably borrowed from Crudup's recording of My Baby Left Me, but it was actually present and correct in his original version of That's all Right. Elvis cuts a whole minute off the running time of the song and, in many ways, makes it more commercial by making the structure more conventional and by simplifying the melody. What was new and exciting was the rhythm and the way that Elvis managed to take the yearning vocal sound he had used in Harbor Lights and somehow infuse it with a harder edge so that he sounded both confident and vulnerable at the same time.
Elvis achieved even more of a transformation with the next song, Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky. Elvis might not have been a trained musician, but with his natural musical ear and instinct it didn't matter. Here he took a formulaic country song in waltz time, speeded it up and reworked it into straightforward 4/4. Listening to Monroe's original today is like going back in time seventy years, with the recording having relatively little in common with the type of country music popular today. Presley's version was made just eight years later and yet still sounds fresh and vibrant. He might have adjusted That's all Right for his own means and created something new and relevant, but Blue Moon of Kentucky is the recording from this first session that really demonstrates how capable Elvis was of taking a song and changing it until it sounded like a completely new composition.


August 19, 1954: Studio Session

By the time of this session, Elvis must have realized that his life might be about to change forever. His first single was a local smash, and one can only imagine the pride Elvis must have felt from reading the review of his first record in the influential Billboard magazine. The anonymous reviewer writes how Elvis "comes thru with a solid performance on an r&b type tune and then on the flip side does another fine job with a country ditty. A strong new talent."
Despite the review, Elvis didn't try to repeat the formula. Instead he tried his hand at the most unlikely of songs: Blue Moon by Rodgers and Hart. Blue Moon is one of the very few songs by the writing team that was not written for a specific show or film, and yet it became an instant standard of the Great American Songbook. Sam Phillips didn't release Elvis's Blue Moon at the time of recording (it would eventually be released in 1956) and yet it remains one of his most remarkable performances. Elvis slows the song right down, but only sings the first two verses – the bridge and the final verse were not recorded. Scotty Moore and Bill Black create a sparse, eerie, clip-clopping country-style background as Elvis sings close to the microphone with his voice completely surrounded in echo. In between each verse, he vocalizes with a strong and yet ghostly falsetto that is enough to send shivers down the spine. Herm Schoenfeld wrote in Variety in 1956 that "an echo effect and some falsetto piping almost succeeds in making the song unrecognisable."
Most of Elvis's cover versions can be traced back to an influence from an earlier recording, but the mystery as to where he got the idea for his version of Blue Moon has never been solved. It is a stunning recording, totally mesmerizing, and as good as anything Elvis ever recorded. It is also unique within the Elvis canon – he seemingly never attempted to sing another song in quite this way again.


September 10, 1954: Studio Session

By September 1954, Sam Phillips needed material for a follow-up to That's all Right. As with the session that produced that record, not everything went smoothly at first, not helped by Elvis kicking things off by trying yet another ballad. The recording, Tomorrow Night, has something of a bizarre history. The master take had space left in the middle where a guitar solo was to have been overdubbed. That never happened, and the song went unreleased for nearly eleven years. It finally appeared on the hotchpotch 1965 album, Elvis for Everyone, but that version was overdubbed not just with more instruments but with backing vocals too. Stripped of the overdubs, but with the space for the guitar solo edited out, the song was released in 1987 on The Complete Sun Sessions. Finally, the Sun master was released in its original form in 1992 on the King of Rock 'n' Roll 5CD boxed set. As with Harbor Lights, Elvis's vocal is actually rather good, but the arrangement on the master is mundane. Some might baulk at the suggestion of a Sun recording being toyed with, but the song is actually much more effective in the 1965 overdubbed version. Considering the vocal and the overdubs were recorded ten years apart, the results are almost seamless, and the bluesy harmonica solo (filling the gap originally left for the guitar solo) is a lovely addition.
Elvis next turned his attention to a song by country songstress Martha Carson. The number, Satisfied, was never completed, and any takes that might have been recorded have been lost. This is devastating not just because one listen to Carson's original demonstrates just what a good fit the number would have been for Elvis, but also because this is the earliest known example of Elvis attempting a religious or gospel number.
Next up was another country number, I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin'), which finds Elvis in a seemingly more confident mood, doubling the tempo for the final section of the recording. It was an audacious move for the still inexperienced singer. The vocal within the ballad section has shades of Blue Moon (and would be the last time Elvis would record a ballad in a recording studio for nearly a year and a half), but, at under thirty seconds, the up-tempo section seems too short and under-developed. With another minute added to the running time, Elvis, Scotty and Bill would have had a chance to stretch out more. As it is, it seems almost unfinished, and certainly a lost opportunity.
With Elvis finally hitting his stride in the session, he next turned his attention to a song by one of his idols, Dean Martin. I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine was recorded by Martin in 1950 in an arrangement that drew upon Dixieland jazz influences. He then used a big band swing version of the number in the 1953 Martin and Lewis film Scared Stiff. Ernst Jorgensen states that Elvis drew upon the latter performance for his own record, but neither of Martin's renditions actually seem to be musically related to Elvis's version. Patti Page's 1950 recording is slightly closer when it comes to phrasing but, even so, her arrangement has nothing to do with country music. As with Blue Moon, then, it is hard to figure out how or why Elvis came up with the arrangement that he did. Elvis's version is pure country, and he seems to be gaining momentum with each and every song he recorded. His vocal is rather playful, especially when Scotty and Bill drop out each time he reaches the line "at a time like this, who keeps score."
Phillips released I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine as the B-side of Elvis's second single, and yet Just Because, another song recorded in the country genre at the same session, may have been an even more commercial choice. The three young musicians seem to be having a ball with the twenty-five year old song, with Elvis attacking the vocal with wild abandon, repeating words and subtly changing the melody as he repeats the chorus after the instrumental.
The final song of the session was Good Rockin' Tonight, the only song from the date that ranks amongst Elvis's best recordings. As with That's all Right, an old rhythm 'n' blues song was updated for the mid-1950s market. Elvis's transformation of the song is startling. Not only does he adjust the structure of each verse of the song by repeating the first line, he also ups the tempo, gives the song a new rhythm, and then attacks the vocal with a power and rawness that is nowhere to be found in Roy Brown's original from 1947. Brown's vocal sounds square in comparison to Presley's. Whereas he holds the last note of each line, Elvis cuts them off as quickly as possible, thus giving the song more energy. He also adds the "we're gonna rock" refrain, which is completely missing in the original. That's all Right might be referred to more often as the song that changed everything for Elvis but, in many ways, Good Rockin' Tonight was even more significant – a track which proved the earlier recording wasn't a fluke and, more importantly, that Elvis could not only repeat the formula but build and improve upon it. Once again, Billboard were impressed: "Elvis proves he is a sock new singer", they wrote. "His style is both country and r&b and he can appeal to pop." Elvis was right after all. He did sing all kinds – at once.


October 16, 1954: Live Recording

Considering Elvis's wasn't recorded live professionally until the late 1960s, it is something of a miracle that so many of his early concert performances survive today. Many of those from the Sun era are unfortunately in very poor quality and from damaged acetates, and thus suffering from a great deal of distortion that makes enjoying the performances almost an impossibility. Thankfully, this is not the case for all the recordings. For instance, Presley's October 16, 1954 performance at the Louisiana Hayride survives in remarkably good sound.
Elvis sounds a little green in his introductions but, once he starts singing, any nerves appear to vanish. He sings both sides of his first single, and That's all Right in particular demonstrates just how great a showman he was even in these early days. He makes several minor changes to the studio version, accentuating each word of the line "she ain't no good for you" and even using alternate melody notes in other parts of the song. During Blue Moon of Kentucky we can hear that Elvis's hold of the audience was already in place, with fans screaming out at various points. Again, he changes the melody slightly in places, but the song doesn't seem to work as well in a live setting as That's all Right. At one point during the first half of the performance, Elvis sounds as if he is trying to increase the tempo slightly and inject more energy, but Scotty and Bill are either unwilling or unable to keep up – or oblivious to Presley's intentions altogether.


Late 1954: Studio Session

Recorded in November or December 1954, Elvis's third single for Sun was also his weakest. Milkcow Blues Boogie re-used the device of changing tempo mid-song that had been used on I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin'), but this time the durations are reversed. It is the slow section which only lasts a few seconds, and the upbeat section (which starts after Elvis literally stops the song) that makes up the bulk of the record. However, rather than being used as a musical device, here the tempo change is used for humorous purposes in order to fool the listener into thinking they are going to listen to a traditional blues when, in fact, the record is another of Elvis's transformations of an older song. It's all done well in its own way, but the song doesn't have the drive, the intensity or the modern feel of the earlier A-sides.
Yet more problematic is the B-side, You're a Heartbreaker, possibly the most dated of all the up-tempo Sun recordings. On Blue Moon of Kentucky, the singer had taken an old-fashioned country song and transformed it into something modern (even timeless). With You're a Heartbreaker, however, the transformation isn't completed. It isn't a bad record, but it sounds more in line with 1940s country music than the new sound that Elvis was helping to pioneer.


January 6 and 19, 1955: Demo Sessions

While in Texas for a live show, Elvis, Scotty and Bill took time to record two songs on January 6, 1955 for KDAV radio as a promotion for their performance. Years later, an acetate was found of the recordings, and it was issued on CD in 1992. More recently, another radio demo recorded nearly two weeks later was also found and released. The discovery of these performances give us the chance to hear in decent sound Elvis singing two covers that were a regular part of his live shows at the time.
Over the years, one of the biggest criticisms of Elvis's career was his work ethic and the erratic quality of his recordings – two issues that often went hand in hand. There were times when Elvis was totally engaged in the music-making process, but others when he seemed intent on doing the least amount of work possible in order to achieve the bare minimum of what was required. While these issues would be more problematic during the 1960s and 1970s, these radio demos from 1955 show that this character trait can be traced back to the very beginning of his career.
We have two versions of Shake, Rattle and Roll on these demos – one from January 6, and one from January 19. Despite the recordings being made within two weeks of each other, there is a vast difference in the quality and commitment of the performances. The arrangement owes a big debt to Bill Haley's version of the song, and isn't all that different from the recording of the number that Elvis would make for RCA in 1956. However, the January 6 recording is much tamer, and the pace is slightly slower. While this was a demo rather than a studio master, Elvis appears to be on autopilot, something which is even more apparent when comparing it to the January 19 version. Here, he is far more engaged. He interacts with the band, encouraging them to pull out all the stops, and Scotty Moore's guitar solo is probably his best on record up until this point, aided and abetted by Elvis's harder edged, driving vocal.
Fool, Fool, Fool (recorded on January 6) is more interesting as it is the only Elvis recording of the song known to exist. This is the nearest he came to a straight blues number during the sun years. His style seemed to be developing all the time. By this point many of his mannerisms were already in place, including the infamous "hiccupping" sound. The recording is more informal than a studio master, with laughter being heard during the first verse. This is therefore a wonderful window into what Elvis and his small band probably sounded like when they were jamming in private, away from live audiences and away from Sam Phillips who was always looking for the next hit single.
Other concert recordings from around this time show that a number of other songs had entered Elvis's live repertoire, including Hearts of Stone, Tweedle Dee, Money Honey and Little Mama. That the sound quality is so poor is heartbreaking, not least because, with the exception of Money Honey, Elvis never made professional recordings of these songs.


February, 1955: Studio Session

Back in Memphis, Elvis returned to the studio to record another single. Recordings were made of I Got a Woman (by this point also a regular song in Elvis's live repertoire) and Trying to Get to You, but these have been lost. The surviving song from the session became the A-side of the next release.
Baby Let's Play House was another milestone recording for Elvis. If Milkcow Blues Boogie and You're a Heartbreaker can be seen as a temporary stalling of his development as an artist, the new song was a huge step forward. No doubt encouraged by the reaction he was receiving from audiences, Elvis was now completely at ease with the sound he had developed for himself over the previous few months and was perhaps even getting an idea of where things were leading. Baby Let's Play House is irrepressible. Elvis sounds as if his energy and high spirits are almost uncontainable as he vocalises around the word "baby" at the beginning of the song. Slowly but surely the songs were becoming more than just recordings, they were starting to reflect and even encapsulate the change in teenage culture that would envelop America during the mid-1950s. As Peter Guralnick writes, "when he changed [the] original lyrics from 'You may have religion' to 'You may drive a pink Cadillac' ('But don't you be nobody's fool'), he defined something of his own, not to mention his generation's, aspirations."
Elvis's growing importance and stature was also being recognised elsewhere. A browse through the pages of Billboard magazine shows that, despite still being signed to a local record label, Elvis was mentioned in virtually every other issue. In May 1955, they referred to Baby Let's Play House as a "highly distinctive country effort", and that was an understatement.


March, 1955: Studio Session

A month after recording Baby Let's Play House, Elvis got around to recording the B-side, I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone. As with previous releases, this had a country flavour. This session marked a couple of firsts in Elvis's career. Not only was the band augmented by a drummer, Jimmie Lott, but also the song they were attempting was an original, written by local musicians Stan Kesler and Bill Taylor. Elvis tried the song in two ways, fast and slow, with the fast version being chosen for release by Sam Phillips (the slow version would be released thirty years later). While a competent, enjoyable track, it pales in comparison to what had been achieved just a few weeks earlier. There was nothing new here, the song itself wasn't top-drawer, and Elvis was simply going over old ground.

March 19, April 30 and August 20, 1955: Live Recordings

On March 19, Elvis played Eagles' Hall in Houston, a performance which finds him in great form. Despite the poor sound, with substantial distortion, it's clear that Elvis and the band are on fire, with the performances of Good Rockin' Tonight and Baby Let's Play House easily as good as the studio recordings. Joe W Specht writes that "Elvis's voice is up front. His breathing is reckless, almost slobbering into the microphone, with the audible squeals of girls in the background. Scotty and Bill are off mic, but they are still a formidable presence with Moore's cranked-up guitar breaks and Black's steady, thumping bass." This recording is also notable for providing us with the earliest surviving recording of I Got a Woman, a song that Elvis would continue to perform until his very last concert. Elvis even seems particularly buoyant during his dialogue – perhaps a little too buoyant considering the off-colour joke: "this one's called Little darlin' you broke my heart when you went away, but I'll break your jaw when you come back."
In much better sound is a performance from Gladewater, Texas on April 30, 1955. Sadly only one song survives, but it's another that Elvis never got around to in the studio. Tweedle Dee is a pure nonsense song, written by Winfield Scott, who would go on to write Return to Sender and others, but the performance is notable for Elvis's fun vocal and that it includes an early appearance of Floyd Cramer on piano.
Also in good sound is a recording from August 20, 1955. Here, Elvis is heard singing Baby Let's Play House, That's all Right and a Chuck Berry cover, Maybellene. The arrangement of Maybellene is rather frenetic and even fussy compared to some of the other songs Elvis was performing at the time. He never got around to recording it in the studio.



July 11, 1955: Studio Session

At the start of this recording session, Elvis was persuaded by Sam Phillips to try his hand at a second song co-written by Stan Kesler, I Forgot to Remember to Forget. While the resulting performance is considerably more sedate than most of Elvis's Sun recordings, the sound was becoming more refined – another sign that Elvis was developing as an artist.
This recording date, Elvis's last fully-fledged session for Sun, is best remembered for the other two tracks that were completed, Mystery Train and Trying to Get to You. Mystery Train had been a local hit for Sun a couple of years earlier, but Elvis's version has little in common with Junior Parker's original. While both versions use a train-like rhythm to underpin the arrangement, Parker's recording chugs away as a slow blues while Elvis's goes full steam ahead at a much faster pace. Once again, Elvis transforms the song by speeding it up, simplifying the arrangement (in this case less instruments) and completely changing the phrasing, most notably once more cutting off the last note of each line as soon as possible. The result is stunning, and is one of Elvis's great recordings. It may well be that, in his final years, Elvis returned to Parker's original version. In concert from around 1975, the trombone section of the orchestra would provide a train-like sound in between each line in the second verse. This isn't present in Presley's single (thankfully), but it is present in Parker's original – played by a saxophone instead of a trombone. It's hardly an asset to the song, and lacks subtlety. Sometimes less is more.
The Eagles (no relation to the later country-rock group) had released Trying to Get to You on the Mercury label in 1954. This time not so much work was required to make it suitable material for Elvis (although he had attempted it several months earlier). His arrangement is sparser, and his voice has a harder edge, but otherwise the structure is the same. Mystery Train and I Forgot to Remember to Forget were obvious choices for the fifth single, with Trying to Get to You earmarked as the A-side of the sixth - but the sixth Sun single was never to happen.


November, 1955: Studio Session

Elvis must have felt quite unsettled in the autumn of 1955. Bob Neal (Elvis's current manager) and "Colonel" Tom Parker were vying for overall control of the singer, and Parker was in talks to get Elvis signed up with a major label. While all of this was going on, a session took place at some point in November in order to try to get a flip side for the next single. Elvis and the band worked through a number of takes of When It Rains, It Really Pours. No master was ever completed, but the takes that were issued decades later display little of the Sun magic. The arrangement is virtually non-existent, and the blues number just plods along with Elvis's vocal having none of the lightness and energy that listeners were used to. Whether it was just that the song wasn't working out, or whether the unsettled business arrangements had temporarily robbed Elvis of his mojo is unclear. In the end it didn't matter. Within days, Parker had negotiated a lucrative contract with RCA and thus effectively won his war with Bob Neal over Elvis's management. Elvis had a new label and new management. The Sun years were over, and Elvis's life would never be the same again.

The recordings that Elvis Presley made at Sun Studios are, rightfully, seen as extremely important ones both for him and the history of pop music and popular culture in general. Greil Marcus writes that "not a note is false. Nothing is stylized. The music is clean, straight, open, and free. …The music he left behind when he moved to RCA deserves close attention not simply because it represents all that Elvis and those that he has sung for have lost…but because this is unquestionably great music." However, they only scratch the surface of what Elvis could and would offer. With the possible exception of Blue Moon, Elvis didn't master the art of the ballad while at Sun. Just as importantly, his recordings in the country genre got better as Presley got older, culminating in the remarkable 1970 recording sessions that produced the Elvis Country LP. There are no slow, traditional blues here – it would take until 1960's Reconsider Baby for Elvis to fulfil his potential in that area, and his best blues recording came about more than a decade after that. With the exception of the abandoned attempt at Satisfied there is no gospel music in the Sun era either and, unlike later in his career, he didn't incorporate elements of a gospel sound into his other work.
Ultimately, the Sun recordings are all about sound – new rhythms and vitality transposed onto older songs, and new ways of using the voice. However, to suggest that these are Elvis's best recordings (as many have) is missing the point. This was the beginning, not the end. Elvis's innovations became the tools with which he would work in the future and create works of far more emotional depth than he ever did at Sun. As a nineteen year old, Elvis simply hadn't lived yet – and for a man whose style and influence came partly from the blues and gospel music, the need to have lived through what he was singing about was essential. In the coming years, Elvis would discover for himself what love and loss were, and he would draw upon those experiences time and again, adding a gravitas to his music that simply isn't present in these early, yet exciting, innovative and historically important, Sun sides.




















CHAPTER TWO
RIP IT UP: 1956

1956. A new year brought with it a new record label and, effectively, a new manager in Colonel Tom Parker (although Bob Neal was referred to as Elvis's manager in a number of magazine and newspaper articles throughout 1956). Despite the move to a larger label, and the fact that he had just been crowned "the most promising country male artist of 1955," it's unlikely that Elvis had any idea of the success and turmoil the following few years would bring. First thing on the agenda was a visit to the RCA Studios in Nashville in order to record his first single for the label.


January 10-11, 1956: Studio Session

This was Elvis's first time back in the studio after the shambolic attempt at When It Rains, It Really Pours at Sun a couple of months earlier. If his failure to come up with the goods on that occasion had rocked Elvis's confidence in any way, it didn't show on his first RCA session. Sensibly, he started with a song he was more than familiar with, I Got a Woman, which he had been singing in concert since at least March 1955, and had attempted to record in the studio a month before that. However, the arrangement that he had been using on stage had to be adapted to include the extra musicians (Chet Atkins on guitar and Floyd Cramer on piano). The eighth take became the master, and starts with a slurred "weeeell" as Elvis launches into the Ray Charles classic. This certainly isn't the best version of the song that we have – that would probably be the Little Rock performance from a few months later – but it is a very assured effort from the young singer and his musicians considering what was riding on the session and the fact he was recording in an alien environment.
Later in the session, Elvis returned to another song he had been performing live for a number of months, Money Honey. By this point, Elvis was in full control and the track rocks with considerably more force than I Got a Woman, aided and abetted by Floyd Cramer's piano work which underpins each verse. But it's Elvis that makes the recording so successful. His familiarity with the song and its lyrics allowed him to concentrate not just on singing but on telling the story in a way far more effective than he had previously in a studio setting.
In between the recording of I Got a Woman and Money Honey, Elvis turned his attention to what would be his breakthrough single, Heartbreak Hotel. The previous year, Elvis had promised Mae Axton, co-author of the song, that he would record it. Axton told author Ken Sharp that the song was based on a line in a newspaper clipping and took around twenty minutes to write. Elvis's version sticks relatively closely to the demo version he was given featuring the DJ Glenn Reeves on vocals. Clearly he didn't feel the need to transform the song in a major way for his own recording in the way he had some of the covers during the Sun years. The structure and rhythm were kept from the demo, along with some of the phrasing used by Reeves. The major changes were that the song was speeded up slightly, an instrumental section added and, overall, the sound is harsher, particularly in the transition into the final chorus.
Intriguingly, like so much of Elvis's output, the recording really doesn't fit into any particular genre of popular music. It has elements of blues, and elements of rock, but then Floyd Cramer's piano solo in the instrumental break is almost jazzy in nature. Lyrically, it's one of the most morbid songs Elvis ever recorded and, a little like the earlier Blue Moon, the master take has an almost eerie feel to it. This is an effect partly provided by the fact that so much reverb was added to Elvis's vocals that it makes him sound as if he is singing within an aural fog (and that's not a negative in this instance). The song transcended boundaries; it was a number that spoke to the teenagers of 1956 but could also have provided part of the soundtrack for a 1940s film noir.
Beyond the seminal recording of Heartbreak Hotel the most noteworthy thing about this session is just how much Elvis's ballad singing had progressed since September 1954 when he last recorded such a number in the studio. Going by the live recordings from the Sun era, it seems unlikely that he had honed his ballad-singing skills on stage, thus making the leap in quality even more surprising.
Two ballads were recorded at this first RCA session, I'm Counting on You and I Was the One. The former is perhaps more important in that it was the first song Elvis recorded by Don Robertson, who would go on to write some of his best ballads, most noticeably There's Always Me. Part of the improvement is to do with the fact that these songs have a more solid arrangement than the Sun attempts. On I'm Counting on You, for example, the song benefits from a triplet beat, underpinned by Floyd Cramer's chugging piano pattern, plus the fact that Elvis now had the chance to blend his own voice with backing vocalists (on this occasion, Ben and Brock Speer and Gordon Stoker). The result is a much beefier sound than on, say, Tomorrow Night or Harbor Lights.
On I Was the One, Elvis's voice is the strongest it had yet sounded in the recording studio. Despite this, on both songs Elvis's vocal seems overly-affected at points, almost as if he is doing an impression of himself (most noticeably in I Was the One). This was picked up on in an intelligent article for Harper's Magazine in 1958 in which James and Annette Baxter write that "from some fathomless and unstudied depth [Elvis] has managed, in a whole series of songs, to call forth irony. …The throbbing sentimentality is at once wholly fake and sterling pure; listen for it in I'm Counting on You or Trying to Get to You." It probably wasn't fake at all, but simply that Elvis was still on the journey of working out who he was as an artist and developing his own sound.

January 28 – March 24, 1956: Stage Show TV Performances

January 28th 1956 saw Elvis making what was, in all likelihood, his TV debut (rumours persist that he appeared on the Roy Orbison Show in late 1955, but this has never been confirmed). The unlikely vehicle for his first TV appearance was Stage Show, hosted by bandleaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. The show had been on air just a few months by the time of Elvis's first appearance, but ratings had not been good. Elvis appeared six times between January 28th and March 24th, singing two songs on each show. The choice of songs seems a little strange in hindsight, being mostly made up of covers rather than his current releases. On the first show, for example, he performed a medley of Shake, Rattle and Roll and Flip, Flop and Fly before launching into I Got a Woman. Heartbreak Hotel had been released a couple of days earlier, and it still remains unclear as to why it wasn't performed until the 3rd show. Even so, Elvis got to make his TV debut with two numbers that he had been performing for virtually all of his career up until that point and, perhaps more importantly, that the audience were already familiar with.
Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey made for stiff, starchy, old-fashioned hosts, and therefore Elvis's appearances had even more of an impact. Even in the first show (where he appears to be chewing gum!) he seems more relaxed and genuine than the more-experienced hosts. I Got a Woman from that first show rocks with considerably more ease than the slightly stiff studio recording from a couple of weeks earlier.
Heartbreak Hotel was finally performed on the 3rd show, but did not go according to plan. Elvis was used to fusing genres together, but having the Dorsey big band joining in was a step too far. The band lost its timing slightly, and the end of the song was a mess. Even so, Elvis took it all in his stride and didn't panic, despite his relative lack of experience and the fact that the show was going out live. What is perhaps most interesting about the first TV outing of Heartbreak Hotel is that the arrangement gives us a kind of foreshadowing of the sound achieved two years later for the King Creole soundtrack. In particular, the trumpet solo by the great Charlie Shavers is similar in style to that heard at the beginning of New Orleans, for example. There was no reason why the two genres couldn't work in tandem as they did in the soundtrack, but ultimately it was likely to be lack of rehearsal that caused the problems on the February 11th TV appearance.
The remaining shows went off without a hitch, however, and Elvis's confidence seemed to grow week by week – as did the sales of Heartbreak Hotel. Meanwhile, a number of reviews were positive, including Motion Picture Daily, who wrote that "Presley, in one of his return visits, picked up the Stage Show audience and carried it away."


January 30-31 and February 3, 1956: Studio Sessions

It seems almost impossible to comprehend now, but these sessions were booked for the most part through panic by RCA's A&R man Steve Sholes because the powers that be at RCA were not convinced about the quality and sound of the recordings made a couple of weeks earlier. Just two days after his national TV debut, therefore, Elvis was in the studio and the pressure was on.
An arrangement had been made between Sholes and Sam Phillips for Elvis to cover Blue Suede Shoes, the original of which was by Carl Perkins on the Sun label. Elvis launches into the song with almost wild abandon, eschewing the pauses that followed each line of the verse in Perkins' version in favour of a more energetic, driving performance. This was a much harder sound than anything Elvis had recorded before, and he yells out encouragement to the band and they respond in kind, with Scotty Moore putting in two scorching guitar solos during the instrumental breaks.
The next song found Elvis back on very familiar territory. His first single had been That's all Right, a cover of a song by Arthur Crudup. Now he set about updating another Crudup recording, My Baby Left Me. Once again, Elvis makes the blues number, first recorded in 1950, palatable for the teenagers of America. The result is probably the nearest Elvis got to re-capturing the Sun sound after he moved to RCA. He sings in a higher register than normal, resulting in a kind of cry-like quality to his vocal that makes his reading of the lyrics all the more believable. When it was released as the B-side of his second RCA single, Billboard called the song "a real blues with that wild r&b infusion so well calculated to hit the all-market pay-off."
Also written by Crudup was So Glad You're Mine, one of Elvis's most appealing recordings from this period, and yet ironically held back until the second album later in the year. Here, Elvis changes the arrangement so much that it's hard to recognise it as the same song Crudup had recorded around a decade earlier. That was a slow blues whereas Elvis's is a mid-tempo rocker that he attacks with a voice that seemed to be getting both edgier and stronger all the time. The lyrics are often nonsensical (quite how a girl can be "long and tall" and "shaped like a cannonball" is anybody's guess), but that's just missing the point. As with so many of the Sun recordings, these upbeat numbers often weren't about lyrics and meaning, but about sound and feel.
In between the two Crudup covers, Elvis recorded One-Sided Love Affair, but the track has dated more than other Presley performances from this period. While it's pleasant enough, Elvis and the band seem to be trying almost too hard to make the song take off. Elvis's voice is so full of mannerisms that it becomes almost annoying. Ultimately, the problem here is that the song itself comes across as cutesy and bland.
Of similar nature is I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You). According to Jorgensen, Elvis had performed this live during his years at Sun but, as at the time of writing, we have no aural evidence of this. It was a song that Elvis learned from a recording by Roy Hamilton, another of his idols, but he manages to shake off the rather square rhythm of the original and give it a rhythmical bounce not all that different from his version of I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine. Once again, it's an enjoyable performance, but pales into insignificance when compared to what he had achieved with the two Crudup songs earlier in the same sessions.
The sessions were concluded with the recording of three covers, Tutti Frutti, Lawdy Miss Clawdy and Shake, Rattle and Roll. Of these, Lawdy Miss Clawdy is by far the best, and was a song that Elvis would return to in the 1968 TV special and then again on stage during the 1970s. The 1956 studio version is kicked off with Shorty Long's rendition of the memorable triplet-time piano introduction (which is heard again just before the repeat of the last verse), and then it's plain sailing all the way once Elvis begins his vocal. Still, this is a relatively straightforward cover of Lloyd Price's original. Sure, the introduction is an improvement on Price, and the arrangement is less cluttered – partly because there are no horns on Elvis's version – but there was nothing new here, and the recording was always destined to be nothing more than an enjoyable album track. Tutti Frutti and Shake, Rattle and Roll were even more straightforward covers. The second song had the same feel to it as the radio demos from 1955, although one verse was excised due to its suggestive lyrics (earlier takes contain the lost verse). Meanwhile Tutti Frutti was pretty much a carbon copy of Little Richard's original.
Eventually, the January and early February studio sessions would be combined with leftovers recorded at Sun to make Elvis's first album, imaginatively called Elvis Presley. The album has become a classic, not necessarily for the music within it but for what it stood for, and for the raw black and white photograph of Elvis on stage, and the pink and green lettering, that would make up one of the most iconic album covers in music history. The musical content isn't quite so exciting. With songs such as Lawdy Miss Clawdy and Shake, Rattle and Roll still in the can, it seems almost absurd that a number from nearly two years earlier, the awful I Love You Because, was released here. Elvis's style had changed, and his confidence had grown so much, that it sounds like a different singer when compared to much of the album. Other unreleased Sun sides were also given an airing, but at least Just Because, Trying to Get to You and I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin') all had more merit than I Love You Because. The songs chosen for Elvis's albums would be a problem that would plague the singer for the rest of his life. As with his first album, songs would seemingly be picked at random and sequenced in a similar fashion. This was an issue that reached its peak during the 1970s, but it's quite clear that it was present even as early as 1956

April 3, 1956: The Milton Berle Show TV Performance

Watching Elvis performing on the U.S.S. Hancock on The Milton Berle Show is a very different viewing experience to the Stage Show appearances. Berle took time out to do a skit with Elvis (as his twin brother), and clearly made him feel at home in a way that the Dorsey brothers probably hadn't. Berle was, first and foremost, a showman, and he may well have seen something of a kindred spirit in Elvis. Elvis's performances are a little more playful than those on the Stage Show appearances. In the first verse of Blue Suede Shoes, he reinstates the pauses that were on the Carl Perkins version, before tearing through the rest of the song in his normal style. Heartbreak Hotel was performed more seriously, but Presley's good mood shone through even this, the most morose of songs. Elvis's rapport with Milton Berle, and the fact he seemingly felt more relaxed on his show, would result a couple of months later in one of Elvis's most infamous performances.


April 14, 1956: Studio Session

The story of the journey to Nashville for this session is almost legendary, with Elvis and his band on a flight that very nearly didn't make it. When they finally arrived at the studio, the weary musicians were forced to pose for photographs before setting about the business of recording the A-side for the next single. The song, I Want You, I Need You, I Love You was derivative of many other ballads of the day, not least Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me. The mix of a song that wasn't top rate, and Elvis and the musicians still suffering from the after-effects of their flight, and tiredness from their recent schedule, resulted in a decidedly mediocre recording that Elvis, deep down, must have been unhappy with. It's hard to pin down exactly what is wrong with it, other than the fact it simply doesn't feel right. In many ways, it feels somehow "manufactured", as if all of the items on a checklist of how to make a hit had been brought together to do just that. For a singer such as Elvis who relied so much on feeling and, often, spontaneity, such a situation was fatal. Nonetheless, the song was a hit, but even the normally-positive Billboard magazine review referred rather cynically to the song's "coin-pulling charm."


May 6, 1956: Live Recordings

One of the few real misfires of 1956 was Elvis's two-week engagement in Las Vegas. The audiences weren't ready for him, and he wasn't ready for them. There was one good thing to come out of it though: the recordings made during Elvis's final performance are the clearest sounding document we have of Elvis on stage prior to the late 1960s. Four songs were caught on tape, including Long Tall Sally which he wouldn't record in the studio for another few months. Perhaps surprisingly, Elvis sounds in good spirits and appears to have refused to tone down his act for the Vegas audiences – either that or he decided to do exactly what he wanted just because this was the last show. There are no big surprises here, just a good quality, clear record of what Elvis sounded like on stage and away from the TV cameras.


May 16, 1956: Live Recordings

The show Elvis performed in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 16th, 1956, had appeared on a number of bootleg albums before it finally got an official outing in 2002 on the Today, Tomorrow and Forever boxed set (reissued in 2014). The sound quality may be rather harsh, but this is a wonderful historical document of the Presley show at exactly the point when his fame was sky-rocketing.
The sound he was creating was getting harder all the time (check out the drum solo in Blue Suede Shoes), and songs such as Money Honey and I Got a Woman take off in a way they never did in their studio incarnation. It's interesting to hear that Elvis's extended play around the word "well" on I Got a Woman, which was a feature of his 70s concerts, was already present and correct at this early stage. Elvis was getting more confident not just in his singing, but also in his on-stage dialogue and the way that he makes jokes within the songs themselves, something not present on earlier live recordings. Hound Dog, which he had learned during his time in Las Vegas, was already a highlight and had a prominent place at the end of the show.


June 5, 1956: The Milton Berle Show TV Performance

Elvis was again relaxed during his second visit to The Milton Berle Show – even I Want You, I Need You, I Love You sounded less stiff. However, that performance was barely commented upon the next day as all attention in the newspapers focussed on Hound Dog.
Even now it seems something of a strange decision for Elvis to have opened his segment with a new song that he hadn't even recorded in the studio yet. For the most part, the performance has little of the manic intensity that the studio version would have. However, after a couple of minutes, he stops the band and slows the song right down for two verses, complete with "bump and grind" movements. This was already a part of his live act, but America went into shock. In hindsight, this was probably just Elvis having a bit of fun on a show where he felt relaxed. The whole thing may have been tongue in cheek (Elvis is smiling throughout it), but a serious miscalculation had been made with regards to what kind of entertainment middle America was happy to have beamed into its living rooms.
A week after the show, Variety wrote that the "rat-tat-tat of the press raps against the rock 'n' roll cycle is now reaching unprecedented proportions," and they weren't kidding. New York Times columnist Jack Gould wrote on the day after the broadcast that "[Elvis] is a rock-and-roll variation on one of the most standard acts in show business: the virtuoso of the hootchy-kootchy. His one speciality is an accented movement of the body that heretofore has been primarily identified with … the burlesque runway." Gould spelled out what he was really trying to say later in the year when he talked of Elvis's "striptease behaviour" on the Milton Berle Show. The effect of the criticism was two-fold. On the one hand, Elvis's detractors voiced their opinions louder, claiming him to be a bad influence on teenagers. On the other hand, Elvis's fans also voiced their opinions louder.
A New York Times article from December 1956 quotes the Rev. Charles Howard Graf as stating that Elvis, "using innuendo and suggestion, by curl of lip and shake of hip, represents the revolt from the tried and true." Meanwhile, Jane Newcomb asked "how many of [his] discs have sold as a result of orgiastic wiggling – and how many on the basis of legitimate singing?" Elsewhere, over the coming months, Elvis did his best to play down the controversy over his on-stage movements. He told True Story magazine that "kids like music, and I give it to them. How can that be bad?"
Several writers came out with defences of Elvis and his recordings. In September 1956, Jock Carroll wrote a lengthy article for Weekend magazine entitled I Like Elvis Presley. A few months later, John S Wilson wrote in the New York Times that "the fact that Mr Presley has chosen to express himself in the particular way that he does … suggests that he is tuned to his times with that same catalytic precision that Frank Sinatra, in the Forties, and Benny Goodman, in the Thirties, were tuned to theirs." However, even with some journalists on his side, changes would need to be made ahead of the next television appearance.


July 1, 1956: The Steve Allen Show TV Performance

Considering the controversy surrounding Elvis at the time, it was hardly surprising that he was told to tone down his performance for the Steve Allen Show. However, the producers went further, setting up a situation where Elvis would appear in a tuxedo singing Hound Dog to a basset hound. A visit to forums on the web shows that many fans are still mortified by Elvis's appearance on the programme. However, it is worth taking a step back and putting this into context.
The Steve Allen Show was a variety show, but the emphasis was on comedy – often rather wacky comedy at that. Whether Elvis's appearance on the Milton Berle Show had kick-started a backlash or not, it is likely that his performance with Steve Allen would have been geared towards comedy first and serious musical performance second. Allen later wrote that "when I booked Elvis, I naturally had no interest in just presenting him vaudeville-style and letting him do his spot as he might in concert. Instead we worked him into the comedy fabric of our program." In many ways it made perfect sense for the comedic element to play on Elvis's reputation as a corrupter of teenagers. The joke wasn't as much on Presley as on middle America and their worries about his influence.
Beyond the fact that Elvis's next TV appearance after the Berle performance was always going to be awkward and closely inspected, it's clear that Allen and Elvis had no rapport at all – quite the opposite of Elvis and Berle. Allen's humour was often rooted in satire, whereas Berle's was much broader and, in all likelihood, closer to Elvis's taste at that time. In the end, both men involved Elvis in comedic sequences where his background and his music were part of the joke. In Berle's case it was the skit where he played Elvis's brother, and in Allen's case it was dressing Elvis up in clothes he would never wear. It's easy to see why he would have felt that Berle was laughing with him, whereas Allen was laughing at him. Whether that was the actual case or not is something we shall probably never know for certain.
Allen, a fine musician, composer (he is said to have written 14,000 songs!) and multi-instrumentalist himself, supposedly didn't have much time for rock 'n' roll, but whether he was the musical snob the Elvis appearances caused him to be accused of by fans is still up for debate. Days before the show was aired, Allen wrote to the Sarasota Journal in defence of Presley's appearance on his forthcoming show. Attacking a journalist for the newspaper who had claimed Elvis had no talent, Allen wrote: "Who is to say that Elvis has no talent? You say it, and a few million other people might be found to support you, but I am sure that additional millions will rise to his defence and say he has oodles of talent." Decades later, in his autobiography, he talks about the reasons why he didn't book Elvis for regular appearances in the same way that Ed Sullivan later did. He says that "the reason, primarily, was that I didn't think it reasonable to continue to have to construct sketches and comic gimmicks in which Presley, a non-comic, could appear. Ed's program, having a vaudeville-variety format, was a more appropriate showcase for Elvis' type of performance. …Elvis had a terrific time with us and lent himself willingly to our brand of craziness." That Elvis had a "terrific time" is unlikely, but at least Allen was honest enough to state that his show and Elvis were not a good fit.


July 2, 1956: Studio Session

Just twenty-four hours after singing the song to a basset hound live on TV, Elvis finally hit the studio to record his next single, Hound Dog. He had been singing the song on stage for well over six weeks, but the arrangement in the studio was a little different to the concert version. Firstly, there was to be no slow section at the end of the record version, and, secondly, the instrumental section featured the vocals of The Jordanaires. Elvis would go through no less than thirty-one takes before being satisfied. This is, of course, one of Elvis's most iconic recordings, and quite possibly the most aggressive record he ever made. He repeats the two verses over and over again; meaning is unimportant. Billboard called it a "highly charged rhythm opus," but that is something of an understatement. It is a complete barrage of sound attacking the listener from start to finish, and arguably a cry of both fury and determination from the singer following weeks of criticism as a result of the Milton Berle Show appearance.
The next song was Don't be Cruel, which would be released as a double A-side with Hound Dog. The two songs could hardly be more different. While still an upbeat number, Don't be Cruel has what Jorgensen describes as "a natural grace that sounded almost effortless" – and it's hard to disagree with that. If Elvis sounded at his most defiant in Hound Dog, then he was at his most alluring here, coyly inviting the listener to "come over here and love me." What's more, rather than just planning to "play some house," this is an Elvis that wants to call the preacher and get married. If Hound Dog was a representation of the young people of America in 1956 yelling at the world around them and refusing to conform, Don't Be Cruel was quite the opposite. It's a cute love song with a shuffle beat and a light and airy vocal from Elvis that demonstrates his growing versatility – a versatility that didn't go unnoticed by a number of writers. James and Annette Baxter would not only state that "Elvis Presley may be a better musician than most people dare to admit," but also that he "can shift without apparent strain from the blasting stridency of Hound Dog to the saccharine ooze of I'll Never Let You Go covering, when called upon, every transitional pose between."
The versatility praised by the Baxters would come to the fore with the final track recorded at the July 2nd session, Any Way You Want Me. Elvis had already demonstrated his abilities at both hard and soft rock, but now he turned his attention to a ballad that was more challenging vocally then any he had recorded so far in his career. Elvis's vocal goes from unsure and vulnerable at the beginning of the verses before soaring with power and emotion in the final two lines, switching between the two vocal styles with ease. His swoop from the majesty of the climax of the bridge to the quiet beginning of the final verse an octave lower shows just how much of a force to be reckoned with his talent was by this point.




August 24 and September 4, 1956: Studio Session

Back in March, when he had finished his final performance on Stage Show, the Dorsey Brothers had announced that Elvis was going to Hollywood for a screen test. A few months later, Elvis found himself in a western called The Reno Brothers, which would eventually be renamed Love Me Tender. As a newcomer to the screen, and with no acting experience, what Elvis needed was a knowledgeable, high-class director. Robert D Webb had directed only a handful of films prior to Love Me Tender, the most memorable of which was Beneath the 12-mile Reef, an adventure film from a couple of years earlier that had starred Robert Wagner. He was not the solid, sympathetic director that Elvis needed.
The day after Elvis's death in 1977, Molly Ivins wrote in the New York Times that Love Me Tender had opened to "unanimous jeers from the critics" – and she wasn't kidding. Bosley Crowther, never the most flattering of critics, memorably wrote that "the picture itself is a slight case of horse opera with the heaves, and Mr Presley's dramatic contribution is not a great deal more impressive than that of the slavering nags." While Crowther had quite a way with words, there are better and worse westerns out there, but there is no denying that Elvis's performance was rather wooden, and the film was doomed from an artistic point of view from the moment it was decided that songs should be included. With this decision, the film lost any credibility it might have add outside of the Elvis fan base – 1940s-sounding country ditties had no place within a film set during the American Civil War. Motion Picture Daily was as honest about Presley's first film as Crowther, but took a different tack, stating simply that "the legion of Presley fans aren't likely to be concerned about his dramatic abilities."
Meanwhile, the British press reacted to the film by saying that Elvis "sings with a kind of outsize mandolin, with jerks that suggest a species of St. Vitus's dance and a breathlessness natural to the end of a cross-country race. There is some attempt to keep his style tied down to the 1860s, but it has a way of escaping, and certainly the ecstatic moans set up by the muslin-dressed maidens at the county fair whenever he waggles his knees indicate that time has somehow slipped forward a matter of 90 years or so."
The songs themselves are an innocuous bunch, and Elvis must have been uncomfortable recording them on a huge sound stage with a group of musicians whom he didn't know. We're Gonna Move uses an old gospel song as its basis, but is reworked into a straightforward 40s-style country number which is, literally, about a house that's falling to bits. There is still a gospel element to the song as Elvis's voice blends with those of Red Robinson, Jon Dodson and Charles Prescott, but the number is a huge step down in quality from the Hound Dog session just a few weeks earlier. Two other songs were in a similar style. Let Me and Poor Boy both have a kind of hillbilly hoe-down feel to them, and are pleasant enough but, understandably, are unremarkable. What is perhaps most notable is how good Elvis's voice sounds here. His voice is more flexible than ever before (particularly in Poor Boy). Here is Elvis doing an upbeat number but with a beautiful smooth tone, especially in his higher register.
Of course, the main song here is the title number, Love Me Tender. This is Elvis going back to the territory of those early Sun ballads – just a basic accompaniment, a simple song, and that voice. The song itself is of no great merit, but it is sung with beauty and sincerity. The way his voice merges with those of the backing singers during the chorus can be seen as a precursor of the sound he would achieve on the Peace in the Valley EP at the beginning of 1957. Herm Schoenfeld of Variety wrote that "instead of the frenetic, note-breaking style which has characterised Presley's other vocals, he makes an effort to sing in a legit ballad style. The result is not too striking, but the Presley fans will undoubtedly go for it."



September 1-3, 1956: Studio Session

Aside from the soundtrack albums of the 1960s, Elvis would rarely go into the studio for the specific purpose of creating an album. However, that was exactly the agenda when he entered the Radio Recorders studio in Hollywood at the beginning of September 1956. A new single and a second album was needed, and Elvis knew the pressure was on again in this, his most intensive studio session so far.
The Jordanaires were now a regular part of both Elvis's studio recordings and live performances, and were really the last part of the puzzle in putting together the Elvis sound that is still so recognisable today. Their unobtrusive, yet essential, vocalising gave Elvis's recordings a much fuller sound. The first song recorded at these sessions, Playing for Keeps, is a case in point. Their voices alternate between providing Elvis with support during the verses and giving him something to bounce off during the bridge. The song itself was written by Stan Kesler, composer of I Forgot to Remember to Forget and I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone, but is a more accomplished composition than either. Elvis's vocal manages to be both tender and determined at the same time; finally, his ballad singing was catching up with the standard of his rock 'n' roll and country recordings.
This is even more obvious in the next song, Love Me. Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller had written Hound Dog, which reached #2 on the Billboard charts, so it was no surprise that new songs by the pair were sought out. While Leiber has stated that "[Love Me] was originally written as a send-up of country music," the song had been taken seriously by most of the artists who had recorded it thus far, including another of Presley idols, Billy Eckstine. Elvis slows the song right down and strips back the arrangement to the bare essentials, transforming the number from a send-up of country music to an aching plea for a young love to be reciprocated. His voice is as exposed as the emotions he is conveying, and Mike Stoller regarded the recording as "genuinely touching."
In a similar vein is How the World's Treating You, a country standard written by Chet Atkins and Boudleaux Bryant. The sound achieved isn't all that different from Love Me, and Elvis gives a performance that is remarkably mature but also manages to encapsulate the desolation felt when young love fails. The stark arrangement allows us to hear every nuance of Elvis's vocal.
In between the two heartbreak ballads, Elvis attempted a much jauntier number, How do You Think I Feel. While not disastrous, the recording is certainly underwhelming, and "passable" at best. It took seven takes to get the master, but the finished result only goes to show the erratic nature of Elvis's attitude to his work. Two months earlier, he had waded through over thirty takes of Hound Dog to get the result he wanted, but here he was willing to allow the release of a take that is rhythmically awkward and seemingly unfinished.
More successful in the country style was the first song cut the next day, When My Blue Moon turns to Gold Again. This, in many ways, is a cross between the country songs he had recorded at Sun and the lighter shuffle of Don't be Cruel. As would happen so often, Elvis only sings the verses he was familiar with, and so we hear the same words over and over again. Therefore, while the result is pleasant (and an improvement over How do You Think I Feel), the number goes nowhere fast. There is no shape or structure to the recording, and no climax to the song.
With Elvis disapproving of many of the new songs brought to the session, the next move was to draw on numbers he had been performing live. However, even then, Elvis seemed less than inspired. While he tears into the opening lines of Long Tall Sally, the energy doesn't last long, and this seems like a pale imitation of the live version captured at Little Rock, for example. There is something of a "that will do" mentality here. While the song was only ever going to be an album track, there is a lack of commitment.
Far better covers of recent rock 'n' roll hits were delivered in the final hours of the session. He attacks Ready Teddy in particular in a way that makes it a precursor of the style he would utilise the following year on Jailhouse Rock. If Elvis sounded just a little bored on Long Tall Sally, he sounds quite the opposite here and fully-engaged in the song.
He also puts in a good, if not great, performance on Rip It Up, the last song to have been recorded. Again, he seems fully committed to the Little Richard cover, but a more intense sound could have been produced had he sung it in a slightly higher key, and thus putting more strain on his voice during the verses in particular.
The problem with all three of these covers, however, is that they really don't add anything to the original versions. As he had shown at Sun, Elvis had a knack of taking a song and turning it into something new and original and exciting. The problem with these three Little Richard songs is that they were already new and original and exciting in their hit versions, and Elvis fails to bring something extra to them. This kind of material was fine on the concert stage, but highlights the problems that were occurring in finding Elvis appropriate material for the recording studio.
Back on the second day, he had returned to country material with the tearjerker Old Shep, a song he had also sung live – in a talent show more than a decade earlier. Here Elvis digs deep into his reserves and comes up with a performance that is as compelling as it is morose. At over four minutes, it would be the longest studio recording he made until well into the 1960s. As with the ballads recorded the previous day, Elvis's voice blends beautifully with that of the Jordanaires and, no matter what one's view is of the material, it is difficult to deny that this is a great performance.
Paralyzed was up next, and came from Otis Blackwell, the same songwriter as Don't be Cruel. While Elvis sings it well, it's clear that this is an attempt to replicate the earlier track. The same kind of shuffle rhythm is present here, and Elvis's voice is as light and airy as on the track recorded in July. It's pleasant and enjoyable, but also has a second-hand vibe to it.
Too Much is better. However, even this seems a little heavy-handed. The song is written over a twelve bar blues chord progression (as were many rock 'n' roll songs), but chugs along at possibly too slow a pace. The number lacks any real structure (it is verse after verse, there is no bridge here) and gets monotonous. Scotty Moore's guitar solo in the instrumental break has been praised over the years but, fine though it is, there are moments when it lacks coherence and sounds as if the guitar player is about to lose control.
A much better choice of single would have been Anyplace is Paradise, but it was, alas, released as an album track. As with Too Much, this is written over the blues chords, but it is taken at a slower pace and has a sparser arrangement. Elvis gets to show off his vocal prowess within the blues genre, demonstrating that it was a natural fit for him. His phrasing incorporates some uncharacteristically impressive breath control, as he reaches out over two or three lines at a time in some places. The whole thing is underpinned by Bill Black's terrific bass work, and the two instrumental breaks give the song room to breathe, with Gordon Stoker on piano playing the hell out of his chance to shine.
On the final night of recording, Elvis would return to the style of ballad he had already tackled with Playing for Keeps and Love Me. First in Line is a lovely song, but the whole thing is drowned completely in a quagmire of echo, and makes it almost impossible to appreciate either Elvis or the musicians. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
Elvis's second album, entitled Elvis, would use eleven of the cuts from this three-day session, along with So Glad You're Mine. There is nothing to challenge the dizzy heights of Trying to Get to You or Blue Suede Shoes from the first album, and yet there is nothing here as dire as I Love You Because either. Whereas Elvis Presley was wildly uneven in tone and quality, its follow-up was surprisingly coherent. Sure, some numbers, such as How Do Think I Feel and Long Tall Sally are nothing more than filler, but at least the sound throughout the record was consistent, and it was a good a summation as any of how Elvis Presley sounded in the second half of 1956.
In his article on Elvis in the New York Times in January 1957, John S Wilson praises a number of cuts on the album. He refers to So Glad You're Mine as "an excellent, practically unalloyed sample of country blues", and Anyplace is Paradise as "another basically strong blues." Later he writes that between the two albums "the improvement in his diction, in the use he makes of his strong natural voice, and in the thoughtfulness of his presentations is very marked. All these suggest that the horizons are from limited."


September 9 and October 28, 1956, and January 6, 1957: Toast of the Town TV Performances

Elvis returned to television screens for the first time in over two months on September 9 for the first of his three appearances on Toast of the Town, better known today as The Ed Sullivan Show. On this first show, Elvis performed four numbers, including both sides of the Don't be Cruel/Hound Dog single. If he had nerves being back in front of the television cameras, he didn't show them. His rendition of Love Me Tender was as well-executed as the studio recording and served as a reminder to those watching that Elvis was far more than just a rock 'n' roll singer.
His second appearance on the programme, on October 28, shows Elvis much more relaxed. He suppresses laughter as the audience reacts to his performance of Don't be Cruel, and uses alternate lyrics for the final verse of Love Me Tender this time around. Three of the songs were the same as on the previous show, but he substituted Love Me for Ready Teddy, thus continuing to promote the key songs from the second album.
On his third and final appearance on the show, Elvis managed to squeeze in seven songs into his allotted space, helped by the decision to include a sequence of shortened versions of his biggest hits. Too Much was also performed on this show, and is far better than the heavy-handed studio version. Even so, Elvis and his musicians still struggle to make the song take flight. Also better than the studio recording was a sprightly take on When My Blue Moon turns to Gold Again. This was the show when Elvis was filmed from the waist up in order to placate his critics. However, they might have been silenced anyway given the sequence of events at the end of Elvis's appearance. Elvis's final song was the gospel number Peace in the Valley, which he would record the following week. This in itself might have turned some heads, but then Ed Sullivan himself joined Elvis on stage and declared that he was a "fine, decent boy." It was a significant step for Elvis on the road to acceptance by middle America.





September 28, 1956: Live Recordings

Elvis's appearances at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show were released by RCA back in 1984, but their interest is limited due to the poor sound quality. This material may be of historical value, but it's difficult to enjoy the sixteen songs recorded due to the distortion. Elvis's live repertoire hadn't altered much either in recent months. Only Love Me Tender and Reddy Teddy had been added to the set-list.


December 4, 1956: Jam Session

On a visit to Sun Studios in December 1956, Elvis soon found himself involved in a lengthy jam session with current Sun artists Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash – later dubbed The Million Dollar Quartet. A photo of the occasion shows that Cash was there, but he is absent on all of the recorded sections released so far – perhaps he left before the tape machine was switched on. A definitive release of the material by Sony in 2008 shows that around forty different songs were covered during the hour or so that was recorded, but most of these are just half-remembered snatches of mostly-forgotten songs. Elvis sings lead vocal for most of the tape, however, and hidden amongst the chattering, laughing and one-liners are some highly interesting moments. For example, Elvis belts through the blues number Reconsider Baby that he would record three and a half years later. One listen shows that his phrasing of the number changed little during that time. He also turned his attention to Paralyzed once again, this time taking it a slower pace, and thus making the song considerably more appealing and more of a mid-paced rocker than a Don't be Cruel clone.
Many of the songs tossed around between the three (or four?) performers are the gospel songs that they were familiar with from their youth. They belt through Down by the Riverside and When the Saints go Marchin' In – and Elvis would also record a version of the latter at his home on a tape recorder around the same time. I Shall Not Be Moved is given a longer treatment than most, and one can only wish that Elvis had returned to the hymn at a later date for a proper studio recording. One song that Elvis nearly returned to in the studio was Brown Eyed Handsome Man. The jam session shows just how great a fit the song would have been for Elvis, and it was pencilled in for a studio date in 1967 which was ultimately cancelled at the last minute. There are also early renditions of Is It So Strange and Peace in the Valley, both of which Elvis would record in early 1957.
Perhaps the highlight of the recorded portion of the session is Elvis's story about the first private demo back in 1953, and his new rendition of That's When Your Heartaches Begin – partly imitating The Ink Spots once again and partly giving the song a makeover with a stronger rhythm that makes it part crooning and part rock 'n' roll. He clearly loved this song and repeats a number of times that the song could be a big hit if done right. It's almost as if he is trying to convince himself that he was the man for the job. At his very next session he would attempt the song again, and the result would be the flip side of one of his biggest hits, All Shook Up.


December 16, 1956: Live Recordings

Elvis returned to the Louisiana Hayride for the last time in December 1956, and gave an energetic farewell to the show that had allowed him to hone his performance skills during the early days of his career, and helped propel him to stardom. The recording of the concert, released in 2011, is better than some of the tapes that exist from 1950s Elvis live shows, but is still muffled and therefore not particularly enjoyable beyond the historical value.
1956 was a year when he had hit the big time, gone to Hollywood, appeared on TV, and caused more controversy than any popular entertainer before him. At the same time, there had been constant reminders of, and references to, his first recordings, such as Playing for Keeps, written by the composer of two of his Sun sides. He had also utilised songs from his early live repertoire when choosing numbers to record for his first two albums. And then he had returned to Memphis, visited Sun Studios and taken part in a jam session, the songs of which in themselves looked both forward and back. 1956 had changed everything for Elvis and, as he entered 1957, he would, for the first time, know that his future was secure. For now.














CHAPTER THREE
ALL SHOOK UP: 1957-9

During his years at Sun, one of the songs in Elvis's live show was I'm Sitting on Top of the World. At the beginning of 1957, he was doing just that. Not only had his rise to the top of the charts the previous year been meteoric, but 1957 had begun with a sensational performance on Toast of the Town that had resulted in Ed Sullivan declaring him "thoroughly all right." The year might have started well, but it would end with a devastating event: the receipt of Elvis's draft notice. Although his entry into the army would be delayed for a few months to allow the completion of King Creole, on 10th June 1958, Elvis would enter the recording studio for the last time for nearly two years.


January 12-13, 1957: Studio Session

In an interview on the set of Love me Tender (but published in December 1956), Elvis stated his wish to record some gospel songs: "I hope it won't be too long before they let me cut some hymns and spirituals – songs like Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; In a Garden (sic); and Just a Closer Walk With Thee." In early 1957, he would get his wish, although none of the songs he mentioned in the interview would be recorded for what would become the Peace in the Valley EP.
The first song of the session was the inspirational number I Believe, which had been a massive hit for Frankie Laine. Like a number of recordings from 1957, Elvis's version would be marred by an abundance of mannerisms (for example on the line "I believe above the storm the smallest prayer can sshhtill be heard") that again makes one wonder if he was subconsciously imitating one of his heroes. Elsewhere, the master take even contains a rare example of Elvis singing out of tune ("someone will come to show the way"). Quite how that got past Elvis or those in the control room is a mystery. Presumably it was only noticed at a later stage, and by then it was too late. Mistakes notwithstanding, this is still a nice performance, but pales into insignificance when compared to the other songs that would make the EP.
Elvis had performed Peace in the Valley on Toast of the Town just the week before, but the studio version would include the second verse, and other adjustments would be made to the arrangement. The result is sublime. Elvis's warm vocal nestles against the harmonies of The Jordanaires (who get given a chance to shine on their own during the choruses), and the number is underpinned by Gordon Stoker's stately piano accompaniment.
Even better is the third song recorded for the EP. Take My Hand, Precious Lord is one of the best ballad performances by Elvis during the 1950s. Even to a steadfast atheist such as this author, this is gut-wrenching, moving music. At times, Elvis barely raises his voice above a whisper, and at others it sounds as if he is about to use the full power at his disposal but then holds back at the last minute. With the master being the fourteenth take, the shaping of the vocal line must have been fully planned by this point, but it sounds perfectly natural and completely spontaneous. This performance is the antithesis of the hard rock 'n' roll style that had come to the fore in Elvis's work of the summer and autumn of the previous year, and shows just what a great, truly versatile singer he was even at this relatively early stage. It's hard to believe that such a mature recording was made by a man who had just turned twenty-two.
The final song of the EP would be recorded the following week, but Elvis did come into contact with another gospel-related number at the January 12th session. After recording I Believe, he turned his attention to another ballad, Tell Me Why. The song was completed relatively quickly, but was deemed to be unsuitable for release as the melody bore a resemblance to the hymn Just a Closer Walk With Thee. Jorgensen states that Parker was "worried lest Elvis's newfound respectability be subjected to charges of plagiarism." However, this doesn't make sense. Even if the song did use part of the melody from the hymn (and that is open to debate), it was around a hundred years old, and the composer unknown, and so no accusations of plagiarism could or would have been made thanks to the song's public domain status (as was the case when Love Me Tender used the melody of the folk song Aura Lee). Nonetheless, Tell Me Why would remain unreleased for eight years – a shame as it contains another great performance from Elvis, relishing the challenge of the wide vocal range and once again switching from near whisper to full volume with apparent ease.
The remaining ballad from the session was Elvis's attempt to get the sound and feel that he wanted for That's When Your Heartaches Begin. During the jam session at Sun Studios the previous month, he had spoken passionately about the song and how he thought it could be a hit with the right arrangement. The arrangement that Elvis eventually used was rather dramatic in nature, particularly during the bridge section when D J Fontana's triplet figure on drums propels the song forward. Elvis's vocal is miles better than back in 1953, but he still seems to be unable to find his own voice for this particular number. The song is still reminiscent of the Ink Spots recording; Elvis can't seem to pull away from that. That's not to say that this attempt is a disaster – it is, in fact, a fine performance – but it also must have seemed to Elvis that this was the song that got away.
Aside from the ballad material, four upbeat numbers were also recorded, some with more success than others. One song, I Beg of You, was abandoned, with Elvis returning to it a month later.
Two of the upbeat songs would end up being used in Elvis's second movie, Loving You. Mean Woman Blues is classic Elvis, an out-and-out rocker built over that ever-dependable twelve-bar blues chord progression with an on-fire vocal from Elvis and blistering work from his musicians.
Got a Lot of Livin' To Do is less successful. As 1957 progressed, so would Elvis's use of mannerisms – like the hiccupping sound he had used to such effect back on tracks such as Baby Let's Play House. In Got a Lot of Livin' To Do, the mannerisms spin out of control and the end result sounds like somebody doing an impression of Elvis rather than the man himself. It all starts off fine, with a driving introduction that is almost Jerry Lee Lewis-like in nature. However, Elvis hiccups and sputters his way through each chorus, with the last line always completely and utterly unintelligible - and for no apparent reason.
If Paralyzed had been a clone of Don't be Cruel, then All Shook Up would be a refinement of it. It may well be the most radio-friendly record that Elvis ever made, instantly recognisable from the first notes of the song. The whole thing sounds completely effortless, with Elvis's voice remarkably smooth considering this is an upbeat number. In many ways, All Shook Up is the opposite of Got a Lot of Livin' To Do in that there is no fuss and no gimmicks, just a brilliantly realised pop song. Variety wasn't quite so enthusiastic, though, stating that Elvis had "gone from the sensational to the merely terrific."


Jan 15-18, 21-22 and February 14, 1957: Studio Session

Just a few days later, Elvis found himself on the huge Paramount sound stage, to record the soundtrack for Loving You. Because of the nature of the film, a number of different versions of each song were recorded (as would also be the case for Jailhouse Rock). The versions discussed here are those originally released on record back in 1957.
(Let's Have a) Party was a straight-forward, good-spirited, rocker about, well, having a party. Elvis puts in a terrific performance, but the song is too short, which was presumably the reason for the song not being released as a single in America. However, despite being under ninety seconds in length, it was released as an A-side in the UK (with Got a Lot of Livin' To Do as the flip), and reached the #2 spot.
Also ludicrously short (at 72 seconds) was Hot Dog, a contribution from Leiber and Stoller. There are elements here of both Elvis's harder rock 'n' roll sound and the style he was utilising during the Sun years. Sadly, it's over almost before it has begun.
Considerably more substantial was Lonesome Cowboy. The opening of the song is remarkably dramatic, but when the main section of the song kicks in, it turns into a pastiche of a western theme tune. In many ways this looks forward to the song Elvis would record for the opening credits of Flaming Star. The arrangement, however, harks back to that used for Blue Moon at Sun, with a clip-clopping sound underpinning it.
Teddy Bear would become one of Elvis's greatest hits, and a song he would perform at nearly every concert from 1972 through to 1977. Sadly, it's also a song that hasn't dated particularly well. Although attractively performed by Elvis, it's more suited to being sung by a fifteen year old than a twenty-two year old. Once again, Elvis makes extensive use of his vocal mannerisms, in this case the "hup" sound, but it doesn't mask just how daft the lyrics are. In his 2005 article, Elvis at 70, Will Friedwald referred to the song as "ephemera" and as representing "the most forgettable aspect of his legacy." I'm not sure that is necessarily true. Many would cite the mid-60s soundtracks as most forgettable. However, if Friedwald is referring just to Elvis's hits, then he has a point.
The record version of the title song of the film would be recorded a few weeks later, and the film would hit cinemas in the summer of 1957. This time, cinema audiences had the chance to see Elvis in colour for the first time, but that added attraction didn't make the reviews of the film any better. The review in the New York Times tells how "Elvis grunts his melodies (with a few audible lyrics), studiously shaking his hair over his eyes, whacking his gee-tar and writhing away as if he had just sat down on an anthill." While such reviews were to be expected, they were a little unfair this time around. Elvis had told the Pittsburgh Press that he would be "more natural in this role," and it was true, his acting certainly had come on leaps and bounds since his wooden effort in Love Me Tender. Meanwhile, The Times in the UK was a little kinder, stating that this "unambitious colour-film directed by Mr Hal Kanter must be reckoned successful. It does the same service to Mr. Presley as the first talking pictures in which he appeared did to Mr. Maurice Chevalier 25 years ago."


January 19, 1957: Studio Session

In the midst of the series of recording dates for the Loving You soundtrack, Elvis and his band returned to the Radio Recorders studio to finish off the Peace in the Valley EP and to put down a handful of other songs. They started off with the final song of the EP, the ballad It Is No Secret (What God Can Do). Elvis gives a reverent performance, but his vocal once again is inflected with mannerisms. The song fitted in well with the other three numbers, but the resulting EP seems a remarkably sombre affair for anyone used to hearing Elvis's full-length gospel albums which all had their fair share of joyous, upbeat numbers. Billboard stated that "Presley pulls a monumental switch, and warbles four sacred tunes with sincerity and commendable reverence. …Sure-fire cover spotlights the rock and roll idol in an unusually well-groomed, reflective pose."
While the EP was of a high standard, the other songs recorded over this and the next session were or varying quality. The Faron Young composition, Is It So Strange, that Elvis had toyed with in the December 1956 jam session, was the best of the three other numbers taped on January 19. The song is reminiscent of some of the ballads recorded for the second album, but Elvis isn't in such good voice here. His vibrato is wider than normal and he doesn't negotiate the awkward, wide-ranging melody with the ease he would normally. The result is still pleasant enough, and oddly haunting, but Elvis must have known he could do better.
Another country song, Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, was given a mid-tempo arrangement that is adequate, but little more. This should have been a song Elvis could sing in his sleep, but for some reason it just didn't click. Outtakes released posthumously (and, more specifically, the studio dialogue) shows that Elvis seems to have simply not known quite what do with the song. The end result was a passable album track, but little more.
Even worse was a song that should have been an Elvis classic: Blueberry Hill. Elvis sounds thoroughly bored and, a little like When It Rains, It Really Pours from the final Sun session, the band just plods along without any real direction. Dudley Brooks's piano chugs away, but even that sounds heavy-handed. Elvis would return to the song occasionally on stage in the 1970s, and each time it would be an improvement on the studio master.


February 23-24, 1957: Studio Session

Elvis must have felt like he was forever making records in the first two months of 1957. This two day session was partly scheduled in order to finally get a version of the title song from Loving You that could be used for single release. Despite the main priority, Elvis didn't get around to that song until the second day. Instead, he opened the session with another ballad, Don't Leave Me Now – one of the very few songs in Elvis's career that was intentionally released in two separate studio versions during his lifetime. The version recorded on this occasion was for inclusion on the Loving You album. The song is very much in the style of Love Me and some of the other ballads Elvis had recorded the year before. While the result wasn't particularly remarkable, Elvis is in good voice and he makes effective use of his upper register
More problematic was I Beg of You. This was Elvis's second attempt at the song, after an abandoned effort back in the January 12-13 session. The song comes across as a lame attempt at repeating the success of Don't be Cruel. Quite how it took thirty-four takes to get the ineffectual master is something of a mystery. At best, it's a pleasant listen but thoroughly underwhelming. At one point Elvis belts out the bridge in a hoarse, rasping voice, but even that fails to kick-start the song into life.
Next up was One Night. Elvis had already recorded the number back on January 18th, when it was suggested that more songs might be needed for the Loving You soundtrack. However, the lyrics were deemed to risqué, and permission was sought from the songwriter to change them. The remake (the version we all know today) is a scorching blues belter that sounds as if it was recorded by a different singer to the one that had just failed to ignite I Beg of You. Despite the master being take ten, the cut has all the feeling of an impromptu jam session, aided and abetted by Elvis's words of encouragement to his fellow musicians at the beginning of the second verse.
Will Friedwald claims that Elvis was a crooner at heart. In 2005 he wrote that "he comes out of a very clear tradition of great male singers of the great American songbook, especially Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, Billy Eckstine, Dean Martin, and, to an extent, Frank Sinatra." Elvis showed this back in those first demos recorded at Sun in 1953, and had talked about his knowledge of the standard repertoire to Jules Archer of True Story magazine. However, nowhere was Elvis's crooning ability more apparent than in his cover of True Love from the film High Society. Not only did his recording of the song demonstrate just how much he understood this music, but also how good he was at singing it. He even takes the unusual step of singing the verse – considering Elvis barely knew half the lyrics to some of the songs he recorded, it is telling that he knew every word of this one. If he was going to record any song by Cole Porter then this was a good choice. Unlike some of Porter's sprawling melodies, this one was completely conventional, and worked like a dream with the most subtle of instrumental accompaniments, and the warm vocals of The Jordanaires.
Much more typical was Elvis's cover of I Need You So by Ivory Joe Hunter. The arrangement is very similar to that used on Don't Leave Me Now and, while Elvis's vocal is passionate, the result is still somewhat indistinguishable from any of the other ballads in this style that he was recording at the time.
The next day, Elvis finally got around to recording the single version of Loving You. Despite being the title song of his second film, the number would still only be released as a B-side (the innocuous Teddy Bear would be the A-side). While pleasant enough, the problem with the song is that it is one of Leiber and Stoller's less inspired efforts. In the hands of a mediocre singer it would have been impossible to make something of it, but Elvis's gentle and sincere vocal help lifts the material – something he would have to do more and more as his movie career progressed.
To close the session, Elvis and the band went back to When It Rains, It Really Pours, which had been attempted at the final Sun session. He attacks it in a way similar to One Night but, for some reason, it still sounds unfinished and unrealised. It would remain unreleased until 1965.
Elvis's numerous sessions over January and February 1957 had produced mixed results, from the mastery of One Night to the lumbering Blueberry Hill. For the first time in his career (but certainly not the last) his recordings had become inconsistent. The problem here was certainly not his voice, which seemed to be getting more flexible, but the struggle to come up with the goods time after time. After this session in February, Elvis would only return to the studio twice in 1957. Luckily for both him and RCA, he regained his momentum on those occasions and, it seems, his confidence.
The Loving You album would be released in July 1957, and was the weakest so far. The first side featured the seven songs included in the film (although with two running under ninety seconds, it was hardly an epic), and the second side featured just five songs, all billed as love songs, but whether Blueberry Hill really fits that description is somewhat debatable. The record is no classic, and it lurches from style to style and from the great to the mundane, but no doubt it placated fans at the time who were yelling loudly for new product. Meanwhile, Fred Hift wrote in his review of the film for Variety that "Elvis Presley shows improvement as an actor. …He comes across as a simple but pleasant sort."


April 3 and May 3 and 9, 1957: Studio Sessions

As with Loving You, Jailhouse Rock required that a number of the songs be recorded in different ways for different parts of the film. On the whole, the songs were a much stronger bunch than for either of the previous movies and, for the first time that year, Elvis finally hit his stride and recorded some of his finest work.
The introduction of Jailhouse Rock is one of the most recognisable in all of rock 'n' roll. While working on the song, drummer D J Fontana is said to have been "reminded of a swing version of the Anvil Chorus he once heard." The swing number in question had been recorded by Glenn Miller during World War II, but nothing within it seems to be related to the opening of Jailhouse Rock, despite the story having been repeated in numerous books over the years. No matter, those opening chords lead us in to Elvis's searing vocal, sung in his highest register, and full of contagious energy. The song itself is a masterpiece by Leiber and Stoller, the lyrics of which are not only highly amusing but also rather daring for 1957 – after all, number 47 does call number 3 the "cutest jailbird" he's ever seen. The track was not only one of Elvis's most iconic recordings, but it also supplied him with arguably the greatest moment in his movie career thanks to the memorable production number built around the song. It was even deemed great enough to be included in the 1994 compilation of great moments from MGM musicals, That's Entertainment III, thus finally acknowledging Elvis's contribution to the movies and placing him alongside such stars of musical film as Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Doris Day.
If Jailhouse Rock finds Elvis at his most vibrant and raucous, then Young and Beautiful takes him to the other end of the spectrum. Here Elvis gives a restrained performance, with his voice at its most vulnerable and exposed during the opening section where he is accompanied just by quiet chords on piano. Co-writer of the song, Aaron Schroeder had already seen his songs recorded by Rosemary Clooney, Nat "King" Cole and Tony Bennett, and the influences of those singers of swing and standards is clearly evident in the writing of Young and Beautiful. When the band joins in the song halfway through the first verse, the listener is given the impression that this is going to be more of a late-night song sung in a jazz club than a rock 'n' roll ballad. In a sense, it's both, with the arrangement smoothly making the transition from one style to the other at the beginning of the second verse when The Jordanaires join in. Elvis would return to the song briefly in one of the rehearsals taped for Elvis on Tour in 1972. However, it never made his concert set list - with the exception of a handful of brief off-the-cuff performances.
I Want to be Free is a ballad which finds Elvis once again making use of his vocal mannerisms, intentionally breaking words up ("I look out of my wi-in-in-in-dow") rather than singing them as a single word over separate notes. It's an odd stylistic choice, and yet it works.
Elvis re-recorded Don't Leave Me Now at these sessions, but it's difficult to see quite why or what the improvement was meant to be. Even more bizarre is that the February version was released on the Loving You LP with this later version released on the Jailhouse Rock EP – despite the fact that the LP came out after the recording of this session.
Baby I Don't Care was both better material and a better recording. The song itself followed the formula of many rock 'n' roll recordings of the time, but somehow Leiber and Stoller's music was always just that little bit more sophisticated than the average, and the lyrics a little bit edgier or more humorous. The throbbing bass guitar that opens the song and underpins the track is actually played by Elvis himself, once more showing what a versatile musician he was. His vocals, overdubbed later, are bubbly, energetic and infectious.
Jailhouse Rock was, without doubt, Elvis's best film to date. Aided by a decent script, and songs ranging in quality from good to great, Elvis himself seemed more relaxed in front of the camera and puts in a far better performance than in his previous two films. There was even a faint, if reluctant, movement towards praise in the New York Times review where it was admitted that "this time most of [Elvis's] singing can actually be understood." Even more surprising was the review in the UK's The Times. While hardly lavishing praise on Elvis's acting ability, the writer states that "the music of rock 'n' roll may be violent, but it is not altogether without melody, and in song Mr Presley becomes far more alive. It is a curious, spasmodic animation, it is true – but it is there." Praise indeed!


September 5-7, 1957: Studio Session

This session, the last of 1957, was set up primarily to record a Christmas album – something which Elvis was less than excited about. He instead was much more eager to record two Leiber and Stoller songs, Treat me Nice and Don't. Treat me Nice had been recorded for Jailhouse Rock back in the May sessions, but Elvis knew that he could do better and was convinced that the song could be a hit. The May version, available on the Essential Elvis CD is, to be fair, a bit of a mess from the point of view of the arrangement. There are too many things going on within it, and yet the sound is still surprisingly bare, and the overall impression is of an unfinished recording. The September version, the first song recorded at the session, works much better. It flows nicely in the kind of groove utilised on Don't be Cruel. This is one of the song's strengths – and one of its weaknesses (and something picked up on by Billboard in its review). The familiar territory allowed Elvis to put down a relaxed, playful vocal, and yet the song has a second-hand quality to it. At a time when Elvis was developing and growing as an artist, and branching out in the types of songs he was recording, Treat me Nice is simply going over old ground. It's a great record, but there is no progression in sound here.
In contrast, Don't, a new song by the same team remains one of Elvis's best ballads. Using a simple arrangement and some choice background harmonies by The Jordanaires, Elvis puts in another mature performance. It's bizarre to think that the generally mediocre ballad recordings from the Sun years were only three years earlier. If any track shows how much Elvis had progressed in a short time, it is this fine ballad.
More of a challenge was the rather angular melody of the Ivory Joe Hunter song My Wish Came True. Here Elvis utilises a female backing singer, Millie Kirkham, on his recordings for the first time, and her wordless, soaring soprano adds a new dimension to the now-familiar Elvis ballad sound. Despite Elvis's love of the song, and his determination to get it right (he tried twenty-eight takes at this session, but still wasn't satisfied and tried again the following year), My Wish Came True was never destined to be hit material and was only released as a B-side nearly two years after it was recorded.
The rest of the session was taken up with the eight songs required for the Christmas album – the remaining four tracks would come from the Peace in the Valley EP recorded earlier in the year. The first seasonal song recorded is also the most fondly-remembered: Blue Christmas. The arrangement adds more than just a touch of the blues to this country favourite. As was so often the case, Elvis only recorded two of the three verses of the song, but it really didn't matter – his confident vocal played perfectly off the answering phrase to each line provided by The Jordanaires and Millie Kirkham, and a classic was born. Elvis returned to the song during the recording of the 1968 TV show and also included it in a number of his concerts in the 1970s – no matter what the time of year.
It's hard to understand now, but Elvis's recording of White Christmas caused all kinds of controversy when released, most notably with songwriter Irving Berlin trying to get the song banned. Quite why is difficult to understand, for Elvis's version was based relatively closely on a recording by The Drifters from a few years earlier. The melody of the song is altered quite a bit, particularly in the second half of the track, but Elvis's vocal is warm and tender and he negotiates the now wide-ranging melody line with a smoothness rarely heard on his 50s recordings.
Here Comes Santa Claus gets a more traditional performance. Jorgensen states that the recording is "inoffensive and uninventive," however a close listen (particularly through headphones) allows for an appreciation of the subtle rhythmical changes employed in the backing by The Jordanaires in each verse, getting more and more complex and syncopated as the song progresses. That this seems so simple, and can be so easily taken for granted, is testament to both their work and to Elvis, who doesn't allow the more complicated sounds behind him to put him off his stride.
Two carols were recorded, Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem. Elvis sings both reverently, and with a sound that is similar to that achieved back in January during the taping of the gospel EP. Silent Night is spoiled a little bit by the unorthodox phrasing, taking a breath in the middle of the words "hea/venly" and "sa/viour" for no apparent reason. O Little Town of Bethlehem is beautiful. Using the gorgeous melody written by Lewis Redner (rather than the tedious setting to the folk song Forest Green), Elvis appears to relish a more complicated chord progression than he was used to in many of the songs he was recording.
In the same style as the carols was I'll Be Home for Christmas, another example of Elvis putting in a superlative performance of a standard. His voice, despite an overuse of mannerisms at some points, sounds wonderfully rich here, and his singing of the line "Christmas Eve will find me" is truly stunning, not just in its beauty, but also in the control of his voice.
Back on more familiar territory was Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me). This had a softer sound than most songs of this tempo that Elvis was recording during this period, making it a musical cross between Got a Lot of Livin' To Do and Don't be Cruel. He hiccups his way through the lyrics, his vocal bouncing along the infectious rhythm.
Leaving the best for last, Santa Claus is Back in Town was written by Leiber and Stoller while the session was in progress and has a hard blues sound that makes One Night sound like Love me Tender. Elvis's performance of the song shows off his natural ability within the blues genre, and is another track that makes one wish that he had made a decision to attempt a full album of blues material. His performance is hard-edged, playful and sexy, and Dudley Brooks's piano solo during the instrumental makes the package complete. If the lyrics of Jailhouse Rock were a little daring for the time, then Santa Claus is Back in Town is almost X-rated. The innuendo was there for everyone to hear. "Hang up your stockings/Turn down the light/Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight" didn't leave much to the imagination – and Elvis is clearly loving every word.
The resulting LP, Elvis' Christmas Album (I hope by this point that you are fully appreciating the imagination that went in to the naming of Elvis's albums), has become a classic, and possibly the best-loved of all seasonal albums. In 1970, the Christmas recordings were re-packaged for the Camden label, excising the gospel songs and adding two more recent tracks. In either incarnation, it is hard to find fault with such a perfect album. Elvis manages to be reverent with the material when called for, but also remains true to himself, not least in the completely and utterly raucous and sexual Santa Claus is Back in Town. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not everyone thought the same at the time of release. A reviewer in the Ottawa Citizen called the album "ludicrous and pathetic," and radio Station CKXL said that it was "one of the most degrading things we have heard in some time." Elvis was also "described as 'panting' through such hymns as Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem." However, this is music that has stood the test of time and remains one of the most essential of all Elvis albums.


January 15, 16 and 23 and February 11, 1958: Studio Session

Jailhouse Rock had undoubtedly been Elvis's greatest screen role so far, and this was aided and abetted by the film having an experienced director in Richard Thorpe. While it is impossible to cite Thorpe as having directed a single cinematic masterpiece, his career stretched back to the early 1920s and he had been at the helm of literally dozens of films. That experience allowed him to bring out the best in Elvis the actor. For Elvis's next film, King Creole, he would find himself with a director with the same amount of experience but a much better résumé.
Michael Curtiz had started his film career as a director in his native Austria during the silent period. After moving to America, he proved himself to be one of Hollywood's most versatile directors, being as at ease with dark horror films such as Doctor X (1932) and The Walking Dead (1936) as he was with musicals such as Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and Night and Day (1946). History hasn't been particularly kind to Curtiz. Despite directing cinematic masterpieces such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Casablanca (1942), his is not one of the names that many would immediately list as a great director of the classical Hollywood period – but that doesn't mean he wasn't. His work on King Creole managed to take Elvis's acting to higher levels, and the film is, arguably, the best that Presley made.
The film provided a huge challenge for Elvis musically as well as dramatically. It required him to fuse rock 'n' roll with traditional New Orleans jazz, and no doubt the singer could remember his one and only real encounter with jazz when the Dorsey big band completely lost the rhythm during the performance of Heartbreak Hotel on his third TV appearance. If that encounter was a disaster, the jazz-infused tracks recorded for King Creole were completely the opposite, and the soundtrack contains some of Elvis's best work.
The session began with Hard Headed Woman, a hard, driving rock 'n' roll number with clever lyrics. It would have been business as usual for Elvis, used to this kind of material, if it weren't for the fact that he was dealing with a much bigger band that now contained a horn section. Elvis could have been completely thrown by the new sound, but it's clear that, instead, he thrived on the challenge. It was still more rock 'n' roll than jazz, but the two different sounds merged better than anyone could have expected. Mike Gross of Variety wrote that the song "puts Presley back in the shook-up groove and he seems better at it than ever before." But that was just the beginning.
The next song up was the Leiber and Stoller number Trouble, a traditional blues for the first half before kicking into an up-tempo section. It's the horns that open the song with a slow, traditional-sounding introduction before Elvis growls "If you're looking for trouble, you came to the right place." Once again, Elvis is having a ball. The horns blast away behind Presley in the choruses and, instead of simply trying to cope with them, he gives them shouts of encouragement.
John Ed Buckner's glorious trumpet solo ushers in New Orleans, a tribute to the city in which the film is set. Half sung, half spoken, this is genre-less music: part jazz, part blues, part rock. Even the mediocre material is made to sound much better than it actually is thanks to the committed vocal and the vibrant arrangement.
Another song which sits in no-man's-land musically is Crawfish. Co-author of the song, Ben Wiseman, said that the song was "one of the best and most emotional songs I ever wrote for Elvis," and described it as a "folk song with a Creole sound to it." Originally, the track had an extended opening section sung by Kitty White, but this was cut from the record version and the track loses something because of it (and it's not like it wouldn't fit on the twenty-two minute LP!). The words are clever enough to be taken at face value or as an elaborate sequence of innuendo: "See I got him/See the size/Stripped and cleaned before your eyes/Sweet meat, look." Film scholar Barry Keith Grant referred to the song as "perhaps [Elvis's] most sexually provocative song." That might be going a bit far (clearly he's never heard Santa Claus is Back in Town), but this still stands out as one of Elvis's most unique songs, and one of his most interesting performances. However, not everyone agreed. Bob Bernstein wrote that the song was "so refined as to be ridiculous."
Perhaps the best of the jazz-infused rock 'n' roll numbers is Dixieland Rock. The material isn't dissimilar to Mean Woman Blues, but the added instruments make it sound completely different, not least through the instrumental sequence where John Ed Buckner lets rip with a blistering chorus. Sadly, at under two minutes, the whole thing is over far too quickly – another couple of verses would have made the song seem more substantial.
Completely different is the quiet, bouncy acoustic number Lover Doll. The song was released in two versions, with and without backing vocals by The Jordanaires. The one without works better in many ways, especially when heard alongside the other songs from the soundtrack. Next to the fuller sound of many of the tracks, the starkness of this unassuming little number is rather appealing. The song itself is nothing remarkable, but Elvis judges his vocal perfectly and makes the material seem better than it actually is.
Don't Ask Me Why was the first of the ballads to be recorded. It is similar in style to Don't Leave Me Now. There was nothing in the number to stretch either Elvis or the band, but the performance is decent enough. The same can be said for the mid-tempo ballad Young Dreams. Once again, this seems derivative of any number of ballads Elvis had recorded over the previous eighteen months or so. That didn't stop Elvis from trying something a little different, though, as he sings part of the repeat in a much quieter voice in order to add light and shade to the recording. It was hardly a subtle approach, but it shows how keen he was to do his best at these sessions. The final love ballad, As Long As I Have You, also has a second-hand air to it, this time being rather reminiscent of Young and Beautiful from Jailhouse Rock. The arrangement here is slightly fuller, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that the song was cut from the same mould.
What would become the title number of the film, King Creole, caused problems when it was first attempted on January 15. When tried again on January 23, however, the arrangement was simplified and the song took off. Elvis's performance is brilliantly judged. He sings the verses in his lower register, and then bursts into life with the last line of the verse and then through each chorus. The horns take a back seat here, allowing Elvis to take total control of the song, and again we can see how much he has developed – despite the frenetic pace of the song, each word can be heard and understood, which is a far cry from Got a Lot of Livin' To Do from just a year earlier.
Danny, originally viewed as a possible title song, was recorded on February 11th, however the track was eventually discarded and wouldn't be released until twenty years later (although Conway Twitty and Marty Wilde would both successfully record the song with slightly different lyrics). It's hard to pinpoint quite why, but the song just seems slightly at odds with the rest of the soundtrack. Elvis sings it well enough, but perhaps it is the different instrumentation that sets it apart somewhat (there are no horns here). Interestingly, the lyrics seem to tell the story of the character of Danny in the novel A Stone for Danny Fisher by Harold Robbins rather than his character in the film version. Much of the narrative of the book was excised from the movie, with the film starting approximately halfway through the story.
Also set apart from the rest of the soundtrack is Steadfast, Loyal and True, sung in the film by Elvis when he is asked to sing his school song. Never intended for record release, the song appeared on the King Creole album anyway.
King Creole was a huge artistic success for Elvis. Not only had he shown his musical versatility by combining two disparate genres of music, but also he had shown the world that he was a better actor than he was being given credit for. Variety wrote that "Presley does show himself to be a surprisingly sympathetic and believable actor on occasion." Motion Picture Daily wrote that Elvis "has come a long way from Love me Tender." Even the New York Times begrudgingly gave the film a decent review, declaring in the first paragraph that "Elvis Presley can act" and concluding that "acting is his assignment in this shrewdly upholstered showcase, and he does it."
Not everyone was praising the film, however. In Britain, the Monthly Film Bulletin declared it the "most unattractive Presley vehicle so far. [Elvis's] numbers offer only intermittent relief from the calculated violence and viciousness, and he can do little to balance the disagreeable story." The Times was less harsh, but still found Elvis's character in the film to be an "unlikeable character. The film has an unpleasantly calculating air about it, and in the same way Danny himself lacks positive, spontaneous generosity."
However, just as Elvis was managing to charm even the most unlikely elements of the US press, time began to run out. He and RCA knew that they were in a race to get a handful of singles recorded that could be released while he was away in the army and, even before work had finished on the King Creole session, Elvis was back in the studio to do just that.


February 1, 1958: Studio Session

Sandwiched between the sessions taking place for King Creole was this attempt to get some single sides recorded for release while Elvis was in the army. It's a rather strange, disappointing session. While he was firing on all cylinders when recording the soundtrack, here Elvis seemed lost and directionless.
The session commenced with Elvis trying to improve upon My Wish Came True, the Ivory Joe Hunter song he had attempted at the sessions for the Christmas album. However, this was abandoned, and then it took forty-eight takes to make something respectable out of Doncha' Think It's Time and, even then, the master was a splice of three different takes. It's hard to figure out quite what the problem was – he had done so many of these mid-tempo rockers by this point that this should not have caused difficulties. However, the rhythm of the lyrics was awkward and the recording fails to have the natural feel of, say, Treat me Nice.
Your Cheatin' Heart was better, but not much. As with Have I Told You Lately That I Love You from the year before, Elvis just seems unable to get this country standard off the ground. Perhaps it might have worked better at a slightly quicker tempo, but the whole thing seems uninspired, and went unreleased for seven years.
The final song was Wear My Ring around Your Neck. Even this was hard work. Elvis was a twenty-three year old man about to serve his country and must have felt curiously divorced from the juvenile lyrics about a girl wearing his ring around her neck "to show the world I'm yours by heck." The lyrics were hardly sophisticated, and there was little originality within the melody either. However, Elvis clearly tried his best to inject as much energy as possible into the number, no doubt trying to salvage something from the session. In the end, it's all too frenetic and a little bit silly, but still proved to be a hit.


June 10, 1958: Studio Session

By the time of this session, Elvis was already in the army but a session was needed in order to get more material for his forthcoming absence from the recording studio – in other words, this was the final chance given the disappointing session on February 1st. That session had ended with the slightly juvenile Wear My Ring around Your Neck, but the first song in June went one step further and was positively silly. I Need Your Love Tonight is, like most of the songs at this session, rather frenzied in style, and Elvis somehow seems to take the silliness of the lyrics in his stride. Had this song been submitted a few years later and ended up on a soundtrack session, no doubt it would be ridiculed, but Elvis was afire here and virtually everything he touched on June 10th turned to sonic gold.
A Big Hunk o' Love was even better. Here a harsher sound is employed, aided by Elvis singing in his higher register, and storming solos by Floyd Cramer and Hank Garland. Elvis spits the words out with force, and the whole thing has an air of Jerry Lee Lewis about it. The master was a splice featuring mostly take three, but take four, issued posthumously, is even wilder.
Ain't That Loving You Baby would go unreleased for six years, supposedly at Elvis's request, but his unhappiness with the recording is a bit of a mystery. It's a blues-based rocker very much in the style of So Glad You're Mine. Perhaps it's that formulaic quality that resulted in it being held back, but it was still a far better record than Wear My Ring around Your Neck. This doesn't have the energy or frenetic nature of the two previous songs, but Elvis still puts in a fine performance. Take four would be the master, but Elvis and the band continued for seven more takes in a different arrangement before calling it a day and moving on.
The song they turned to was another country standard, A Fool Such As I. While Your Cheatin' Heart never really got going at the previous session, here Elvis and the band find a nice swinging groove and the result is classic Presley. The song had already been recorded multiple times, most notably by Hank Snow, Jo Stafford and Tommy Edwards. It appears that Elvis's version was inspired most by the latter as he borrows some of Edward's phrasing. However, the arrangement seems in the main to be Elvis's own – Edwards' version chugs along over a triplet rhythm whereas Elvis swings within a seamless mix of country and rock 'n' roll.
I Got Stung returns to the frenzied sound of I Need Your Love Tonight and A Big Hunk o' Love. The sound in this session seems to have had an emphasis on hard, loud, straight ahead rock 'n' roll, and this final song was no exception. It took two dozen takes to get to a master, but it was worth the wait. Again, the lyrics were hardly great poetry – the "bee" metaphor would get a little tiresome in less capable hands – but it didn't matter. Once more, it was all about sound rather than meaning, just as it had been back at the first session at Sun.
It was almost as if it was meant to be. In his last studio recordings for over twenty months, Elvis had somehow come up with yet another variation on his sound, but while he was rocking harder than ever, pop music was about to turn towards an altogether softer version of rock 'n' roll while he was away.


1959: Private Recordings

Elvis didn't record a single song in a recording studio for twenty-one months, but that didn't stop him from making music in private, trying new songs and new sounds. The recordings he made on his own recording equipment while he was in Germany might be problematic from a technical point of view, with many suffering from severe distortion, but they are also a fascinating insight into the music Elvis was interested in pursuing away from the pressure of the studio.
Many of the songs Elvis toyed around with were ones that he would return to later in his career. There is an early version of Danny Boy here, with Elvis accompanying himself on guitar. The song would be recorded in a gospel-tinged arrangement at one of Elvis's last recording sessions, in February 1976, but here the song moves along at a quicker pace, with Elvis adding a substantial beat to the proceedings during the second half of each verse. He would return to The Fool in 1970, recording it for inclusion on the Elvis Country album. Here, however, he sits at the piano and gives the song something of a boogie-woogie feel, quite different to the country blues arrangement he would use a decade later. He also tries his hand at Soldier Boy, a doo-wop number that would be a key part of the Elvis is Back sessions when he returned home.
Elsewhere, the songs recorded (both released and unreleased) show us exactly what songs and what type of music Elvis enjoyed. There are country songs such as I'm Beginning to Forget You, I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You), Oh Lonesome Me and even Frankie Laine's Cool Water. There's a belt through There's No Tomorrow, which would soon be reinvented with new lyrics as It's Now or Never. Unsurprisingly, there are a batch of gospel songs, some he would later record professionally, and others that he would not. Finally, there are bursts of recent and current hits ranging from Doris Day's Que Sera Sera to Earth Angel by The Penguins and Return to Me, a hit for Elvis's musical hero, Dean Martin.
When Elvis returned to the recording studio in March 1960, it would be with a more mature sound, and a voice that was both fuller and more flexible. What's more, his influences and song choices would come from a wider range of singers than ever and, no doubt, much of that was in part due to the time he spent experimenting with new songs and new styles while in Germany.


















CHAPTER FOUR
IT FEELS SO RIGHT: 1960

Looking back now, it's quite clear that Colonel Tom Parker had a plan in place that was followed closely throughout 1960. The first thing was to get Elvis to record a new single and a new album in order to satisfy his fans. However, it was also recognised that those fans were getting older, and might not be as loyal as the years went on, and so a new Elvis audience had to be created: Middle America. Elvis hadn't been welcome in the living rooms of middle America four years earlier, but now he had spent two years in the army and that was all about to change. He was, after all, going to be welcomed back from the army by Frank Sinatra himself in a TV special.
According to producer Hal Wallis in a 1959 magazine article, the original plan was for Elvis's first post-army film to be Rodeo. Elvis did make the film, re-titled Tickle Me, but not until 1965. In the end, his first film after being in the army would be G I Blues, not a film aimed specifically at teenagers, but a traditional Hollywood musical where rock 'n' roll would take a back seat. According to The Age, there were two films planned: G I Blues for Paramount, and a film about a jazz musician called Solo for Twentieth Century Fox. It's unclear when Presley's association with Solo, based on Stanford Whitmore's 1955 novel, ended. By January 21, 1961, the New York Times reported that Robert Wagner would star in the film. However, the film was never made. Former musicals star Dick Powell had been set to direct, but after he was diagnosed with cancer, the project appears to have been abandoned.
After the family-friendly G I Blues, there would be a series of singles released that would not only please fans but also older generations too. Finally, the transformation into all-round respectable entertainer would be completed with the release of a full-length album of gospel music. It was a sensible plan, and one that would be implemented with almost military precision.


March 20, 1960: Studio Session

The first order of business at this initial session after Elvis's return from the army was supposed to be to record the new single, Stuck on You, but Elvis had other ideas. Instead of the single, he started work on a new song by Otis Blackwell, who had written, among other things, Don't be Cruel and Paralyzed. Make Me Know It was a solid mid-tempo rocker that was a sensible choice of material for the first recording. After all, it was safe, solid ground. Elvis's voice had changed, though. He had been experimenting with new sounds and styles while he was away, and his voice was now stronger, smoother and more flexible than it had ever been in the 1950s. All of this is obvious from one listen to this first song. The hard, frenetic sound of the June 1958 recordings is eschewed in favour of something much more mature that might not be so edgy but certainly fitted in more with the softer direction pop music had taken while Elvis was away. Despite this, Elvis and the band still manage to rock this relatively unassuming number, just without the wild abandon that had been present before Elvis had gone away.
Soldier Boy was one of the songs that Elvis had played around with while he was in Germany, and was an obvious choice for him to record professionally. Elvis's arrangement doesn't stray far from the original version by The Four Fellowes. However, where in the past he would have added a rawness to his voice in the bridge, here his voice is almost velvety on the first time through, and then more effortlessly powerful in the repeat. As with some previous ballads, Elvis seems all too willing to take a breath in the middle of words, but here one is so mesmerised by the sweet, full sound that almost anything else goes unnoticed.
It's easy to understand just why Elvis might have been reluctant to cut Stuck on You. While he had been cultivating new sounds and ideas, this was yet another rehash of the Don't be Cruel formula. It was always going to be a sure-fire hit, and perhaps the idea was to inform his fans as quickly as possible that he was the same old Elvis despite his time away. The song certainly fulfilled that duty, but it was also the only song in the session that didn't immediately show the progress Elvis had made as a singer during the last two years.
In contrast, the opening words of Fame and Fortune demonstrate the changes straight away, with Elvis singing in a stronger, purer voice than he had before. What is perhaps most remarkable about this song in the doo-wop tradition is the range of sounds that Elvis now had at his disposal. He could change from the beefy sound of the opening line to a silky-smooth higher register such as that employed on the line "but the touch of your lips on mine." Not only that, but the sometimes-annoying mannerisms used during the 1950s recordings had all but vanished as well, as had the wide vibrato that was often prevalent in the ballads. The post-Army sound was much, much purer.
A Mess of Blues harked back to the edgier sounds of the '50s sessions, but now the cry in Elvis's voice wasn't harsh as much as plaintive. With exceptions such as the strange choice of places to take a breath in Soldier Boy, Elvis's phrasing had matured too. Whereas before, the music was so often dominated by sound, now Elvis seemed to be taking an active interest in the lyrics too. While "whoops, there goes a teardrop" was hardly Shakespeare, there was a story being told, and the Jordanaires provide perfect backing with their train-like sound.
The title of the final song recorded seemed to sum up the session: It Feels So Right. This was a raunchier, slow blues-based number. The sexiness of One Night was somehow retained but without the rawness. Elvis didn't have to rasp and holler his way through such songs now; he could achieve what he wanted by seducing his listener instead. Elvis was back, and no-one could have asked for the first session to have gone any better.


March 26, 1960: The Frank Sinatra – Timex Show TV Performance

Frank Sinatra would win an Emmy for his 1965 solo TV special but, prior to that, his TV variety show never quite worked. Sure, there were nearly always fine moments, but it always seemed a little under-rehearsed and unorganised. The show dubbed Welcome Home Elvis was no different. It was a historic bringing together of arguably the two greatest singers of popular music the world has known, but it wasn't great television.
Other than a few lines in the opening number, Elvis's portion of the show was restricted to a performance of both sides of his new single plus a duet with Sinatra. The solo performances went fine, and Elvis seemed relaxed in front of TV cameras for the first time in more than three years. The duet, though, was hardly smooth sailing. Elvis was to sing Sinatra's Witchcraft while Sinatra sang Love Me Tender, and all to a swing arrangement by Nelson Riddle. Elvis clearly had problems reading the cue cards (although why he hadn't learned his few lines is a mystery) and looks very awkward as he leans forward to try to see the lyrics. In the end, it all went off without a major hitch, but it turned into a rather light-hearted effort than a serious duet, whether or not that was the intention.
Despite the awkward moments, Life magazine referred to the effort as a "bright, funny show." Variety was less impressed, however, stating that, during the duet, Elvis was "off-key and minus oomph." Meanwhile, Stuck on You was "undesirably funny, as if a mimic was doing a grotesque imitation of a curiously dated style."




April 3, 1960: Studio Session

The first studio session of 1960 had inadvertently been Elvis's most productive up to that point, with half a dozen songs being recorded within a single night. When Elvis and the band returned to the studio on April 3, no-one could have guessed that, within the same amount of time, twelve stunning tracks would have been taped, including two of his most memorable hits.
Elvis started off the night by turning his attention to Peggy Lee's hit Fever. Because of its roots in jazz, this was an unlikely choice of material, but the song's origins played perfectly into the plan to get Elvis accepted as part of the entertainment establishment. He did little to change Lee's arrangement, but slowed down the tempo a little and then gave what is possibly the sultriest performance of his career.
Attention was turned next to a blues number, Like a Baby. Again, this wasn't a new song but had already been recorded by both Vikki Nelson and Toni Arden. Elvis borrows from both records in his version, but it was mostly Nelson's phrasing that influenced his own - Arden's record was a weird mish-mash of styles, from the r&b song to the square Jane Froman-like vocal. Nelson's was more natural, but Elvis stripped the number back to a basic blues arrangement, altogether more convincing and authentic. As in the previous session, he switched from one register to another with ease and confidence, but here some of the rawness of the pre-Army sessions also returned.
Elvis then showed off his extended vocal range by tackling It's Now or Never, a song featuring new lyrics to the Neapolitan song O Sole Mio. He had already played around with a previous pop version of the song, There's No Tomorrow, while in Germany, and now Elvis knew he had a challenge on his hands to record a studio version of the wide-ranging melody. The resulting track sounds almost nothing like the pre-Army Elvis. The often out-of-control vibrato was successfully controlled, Elvis switched from singing with full power to barely a whisper like flipping a switch, and the climax allowed him, just for a moment, to sing like his hero Mario Lanza. Billboard magazine noted that "Elvis' delivery and the arrangement have a fresh, almost Neopolitan flavour. Actually it's something that's a little different for Elvis."
After a break, the session resumed with The Girl of My Best Friend. Rooted totally in pop (rather than r&b, country or gospel music), the arrangement wasn't a natural fit for Elvis, but was a style he would return to a great deal in the coming few years. Oddly, the original recording by Charlie Blackwell has more than a hint of r&b about it (and is not dissimilar in style from Nat "King" Cole's attempt at the genre, Send For Me), and that Elvis completely erased this feel from his own version shows just how determined he was at this time to try new things. This may be a mid-tempo song, but the whole thing is really quite a subdued affair, with Elvis giving a convincing reading of the lyrics. It's hard to imagine it being recorded any better than this, and yet the lyrics are still more suited to a teenager than a man in his mid-twenties. Rather strangely, the song became a top ten hit for Elvis in the UK sixteen years after it was recorded. In a not dissimilar style was I Gotta Know, recorded later at the session. Once again, this was pure pop and, while fun, little more than a disposable B-side.
Dirty, Dirty Feeling sees Elvis back on more familiar ground, but is actually one of the least interesting songs from the session. The number is one of Leiber and Stoller's lesser efforts, and Elvis does what he can with it, but there seems little of the care and attention afforded the previous few numbers and it was destined to be nothing more than album filler.
Thrill of Your Love is different yet again. For possibly the first time in the studio, Elvis manages to successfully take the sound of gospel music and insert it into secular material. Written by Stan Kesler (I Forgot to Remember to Forget), the number possibly got this treatment from Elvis because the lyrics can be read both as a traditional love song and as a gospel song. Elvis's vocal is exquisite, and the bluesy, gospel feel is aided by Floyd Cramer's piano.
Such a Night was filled with the kind of slightly suggestive lyrics that Elvis had so often relished in the pre-army days. However, Elvis's version is almost restrained when heard back to back with Johnnie Ray's version from a few years before. While Elvis sounds as if he is relating the previous night's events to a friend over a beer, Ray is re-enacting them, and his grunts, groans, oohs and aahs leave us with no doubt as to how that night ended. The Elvis recording is one that makes one realise that not all of the changes made to his performing style and voice while he was on his enforced sabbatical were for the better. We can only imagine how the song would have sounded if recorded back in June 1958, employing the frenetic sound used at that session.
The next song, Are You Lonesome Tonight, must have seemed as strange a choice for Elvis at the time as Fever. It had been around for decades, although hardly one of the great standards, and was supposedly suggested to Elvis by Colonel Parker himself. For the first time in his career, Elvis managed to pull off this type of song. He had tried twice before with That's When Your Heartaches Begin but never quite succeeded. Now, with a more mature voice and (thanks to the acting work) a more confident speaking voice, he managed to turn the dramatic ballad, complete with recitation (this time not at all awkward), into a classic. It's almost impossible to remember that this performance was by the same man who was so controversial four years earlier.
The Girl Next Door Went A'Walkin' was recorded as a promise to guitarist Scotty Moore, but the song is mundane and, while Elvis's vocal is good and the rhythm rather unique, the number runs out of steam long before the end.
Elvis had met Charlie Hodge while in the army, and here he brought his friend up to the microphone to record I Will Be Home Again as a duet. Once again, this is more straight-ahead pop music than any of the genres more associated with Elvis. Jorgensen writes that Elvis and Hodge's voices "[blended] together perfectly for the first time on record."
By this point, it was already past dawn, but Elvis had one more song that he had to get out of his system: the blues number Reconsider Baby. This retains the blues feel that One Night had achieved back in 1957 but also features a stunning solo by saxophonist Boots Randolph. On the one hand this sounds like a group of musicians letting off steam and yet, on the other, it's an absolutely perfect recording, with Elvis for perhaps the first time on record totally mastering a blues number. Peter Guralnick sums up the track by saying that "Elvis' voice soars, giving the blues a kind of harmonic freedom that recalls no-one so much as Little Junior Parker but in the end is Elvis' mark alone."
Not only had the album been completed, but also three single sides had been recorded. The session had been an absolute triumph. Elvis's new mature voice, together with the slightly augmented band, had brought the singer's sound right up to date. The sterling work of saxophonist Boots Randolph cannot be commended enough here, adding an extra dimension to every track that he appears on. The resulting album, Elvis is Back, would be released the following month, but would not contain any of the single sides, all of which would be held back for the Gold Records series of compilations. This still seems an odd choice, especially at a time when other artists were naming their albums after their most recent hits.
Billboard raved that Elvis was singing "better than ever," however, not everybody was quite so impressed. John S Wilson, who had praised Elvis's second album in the pages of the New York Times found the new album "less matured than subdued." He goes on to say "the vivacity that contributed to the surface excitement he once generated is largely missing from these performances, leaving them strangely drab and lacklustre." Even in 1960, therefore, there was disappointment from certain quarters not because Elvis was making mediocre music, but because he was no longer concentrating on the style that made him famous.


April 27-28 and May 6, 1960: Studio Sessions

Stories have long been told that Elvis was unhappy with the songs he had to sing in G I Blues, his first post-army film. While Elvis certainly lost his cool occasionally during the soundtrack sessions, this was, according to Ernst Jorgensen, more to do with the set-up in the studio and the speed at which he was being encouraged to record rather than the quality of the songs. Meanwhile, Peter Gurlanick relates how Elvis moaned about the songs on the telephone to Priscilla. However, one has to wonder quite why Elvis, the biggest star in the world at the time, didn't make a stand against the songs chosen if he really was that unhappy about them. The same issue was a problem time and time again over the next decade. Through studio chatter released on albums of outtakes we often hear Elvis bemoaning (or making fun of) the quality of the songs he is singing in the movie soundtracks, but clearly he didn't raise these issues with the people that mattered.
The G I Blues soundtrack was recorded over two sessions, one in April and one in May 1960. The May session included a number of re-recordings of songs deemed to have been completed in April but that Elvis was still unhappy with. Didja' Ever was the first song completed in April that was not re-recorded later. Within the film, the song served as the basis for a production number. This was clearly a song that Elvis would never have recorded outside of a soundtrack, and is a number that works much better on film than on record. That said, it is harmless enough, a humorous number in march time, although it does outstay its welcome a little.
If Didja' Ever would never have been recorded by Elvis under normal circumstances, the same cannot be said about Doin' the Best I Can. Far and away the best song and performance within the soundtrack, this was a number that Elvis liked enough to perform in concert the following year. Elvis performs this doo-wop track with real care and tenderness, mostly in his higher register, giving added vulnerability to the vocal. It would have sat quite at home on the Elvis is Back album.
The title number of the film is actually quite similar to Didja' Ever in style. Again the humorous lyrics are set to a march-time rhythm, but this time there is at least a decent chorus for Elvis to sink his teeth into. There is an effort to make the most of the faux-blues melody notes, but it's not really convincing in that department considering Elvis had only recently recorded a near-masterpiece like Reconsider Baby.
Tonight Is So Right For Love is an up-tempo rock version of the Barcarolle from The Tales of Hoffmann by the French composer Jacques Offenbach. The song was recorded with everyone under the impression that the melody was in the public domain, but this was not true for Europe, and so a new song had to be recorded at the next session for the European release. There is more than a little irony here as Offenbach himself had recycled the piece from his own failed grand opera, Die Rheinnixen. In many respects, this version of the song doesn't work as well as the remake, which was retitled Tonight's All Right For Love, and was set to the Strauss waltz Tales from the Vienna Woods. This second version simply seems more of a natural fit for the up-tempo treatment, although neither are exactly masterpieces within the Elvis canon. Over the coming years, a number of other songs based on classical themes or folk songs would be recorded for soundtracks: Today, Tomorrow and Forever was based on Liszt's Liebestraume; Am I Ready was based on To a Wild Rose by MacDowell; and No More was based on La Paloma by Spanish composer Yradier.
What's She Really Like was certainly more traditional fare for Elvis. A mid-tempo ballad, the song doesn't really take off in the way it perhaps should do, and the end result seems just a bit heavy-handed. While the full song would be recorded for the soundtrack LP, only a snippet was heard in the film – while Elvis was singing in the shower!
The film also called for a re-recording of Blue Suede Shoes. It's easy to criticise this recording, done in one take, but in all likelihood the song was probably never originally intended for release. It is heard on the jukebox at the start of a fight in the film and, again, only a few lines are heard. The recording is certainly far more casual than the classic 1956 recording, but then if the thought was that it would never be heard, no-one can blame Elvis and the musicians for just recording a safe take and ticking it off the to-do list.
Next up was Wooden Heart, which was used in the film in the famous sequence featuring a Punch and Judy show. Again, this was based on a traditional melody dating back to at least 1827. No-one could have imagined that this unassuming little number would end up being one of Elvis's most famous recordings, especially in Europe with the song hitting the number one spot in the UK.
Shoppin' Around, one of the re-recordings at the May session, was originally recorded by Joel Grey (yes the actor Joel Grey who played the Emcee in the film Cabaret). Thankfully, Elvis didn't choose to re-use Grey's arrangement (go find it on YouTube – it's a hoot), but instead gave the number an authentic 1950s rock 'n' roll vibe, making it one of the more accomplished recordings made for the soundtrack. True, Elvis's voice is missing the edge that was present in so many of the pre-army rock numbers, but his lighter delivery here works well given the lyrical content.
Despite nearly thirty takes, Elvis and the band hadn't even managed a decent master of Pocketful of Rainbows at the first session, but at the second attempt they achieved a fine recording in just two. The angular melody was something of a challenge for Presley, even with his wider post-army range, and the result still isn't as good as Doin' the Best I Can, but it was still something he could be proud of
Frankfort Special was a rocker with a train rhythm underpinning it, but was no Mystery Train. They had tried it at a ridiculous pace the week before but, at the second session, with the tempo slowed down, the song found a more natural vibe. Once again, the lyrics are more interesting than the music, but the whole thing is a rather attractive piece of fluff, that is aided and abetted by some sterling work from The Jordanaires.
The last song to be completed was the lullaby Big Boots. As would be so often the case during the soundtrack years, Elvis seemed to take most care over the least likely song. Here he sings this sweet little children's song with real beauty. In the end, one is left wishing that the central in-tempo section was longer so that Elvis could have made more of the surprisingly lovely melody.
It appears that G I Blues gets a hard time these days. The first film that Elvis Presley made after his two-year stint in the army, it is really quite unlike any other film within the Presley canon. It neither fits with the rock 'n' roll musicals of the 1950s, nor with the endless stream of travelogues that were made during the 1960s. Instead, it is the nearest Elvis got to making a classic Hollywood musical of the style popular during the 1940s and early 1950s. There is relatively little that is "rock n roll" about the film and, in fact, one could quite easily imagine a young Sinatra or Gene Kelly in the lead role of a film with a narrative about a soldier who finds himself making a bet that he can get together with a dancer, but then regretting the wager as he falls in love with her.
The plot is old hat, and variants of it had been the basis of romantic comedies and musicals for years. The music, meanwhile, does include some rock 'n' roll-light numbers, but the instrumentation within the film always reminds us of the 1940s musicals. Within the film (but not the soundtrack LP) horns and strings are overdubbed on the original Elvis studio recordings, presumably to give them a more adult sound and to make them more palatable to an older, Hollywood musical-style audience. Take the music played over the credits, for example: a swinging instrumental version of the title song. It's more Nelson Riddle than Elvis Presley. Likewise, the music that Juliet Prowse dances to in the Cafe Europa is jazz and swing-based, with there being nothing rock 'n' roll about it, other than the fact that much of it is built upon phrases from the Presley songs within the film. The adding of horns within the film to the likes of G I Blues and Shoppin' Around makes them sit in a weird place musically, and they oddly resemble the ill-fated attempt to add a big band sound to Heartbreak Hotel on Elvis's third appearance on Stage Show.
This is also one of the very few Elvis films to allow the co-star to perform a couple of numbers as well. The casting of Juliet Prowse as Elvis's love interest was a shrewd move. Her first film had been released just six months before the release of G I Blues. She had also appeared on Sinatra's TV show, and thus she was firmly associated in America with the "old school" of musical and not the new. And yet she had also provoked controversy (thus linking herself with Elvis's previous rebellious, dangerous persona), when she had danced for Khrushchev and he had declared her as "immoral", an event that made newspaper headlines.
But why was there a thought to even place Elvis in an old-fashioned musical? Where was the logic? The old-style musical had, after all, been dying rapidly as the 1950s wore on - until 1958 when Gigi came out of nowhere and won 9 Academy Awards. 1956 and 1957 had seen just a couple of old-school musicals released. 1958 saw South Pacific and Gigi released within just a few months of each other, and then followed a string of old-style musicals: Porgy and Bess, The Gene Krupa Story, Lil Abner, and For the First Time in 1959, with 1960 catching the tail end of the mini-cycle with Can-Can and Bells Are Ringing.
It is clear that both Can-Can and G I Blues were counting on riding the wave of the short-lived musical fad. It's no coincidence that Gigi, Can-Can and G I Blues were all set in Europe, as were For the First Time and Seven Hills of Rome from the same period. Of course, to today's audiences Gigi and G I Blues seem like oceans apart in style, budget and accomplishments - and they are - but that doesn't mean that there wasn't a plan to make G I Blues appeal to fans of both Elvis and the traditional musical that was back in favour.
And it worked.
Curmudgeonly Bosley Crowther in the New York Times even admitted that "Elvis is now a fellow you can almost stand." He also stated that the "older, quieter, people … will naturally like the pretty color and the occasional pleasant scenery of this film." The plan to make Elvis acceptable to everyone was working. Even so, the film didn't please everyone. Variety's review started that the plot was "creaky," the songs were "wobbly" and that Elvis was "subdued." While Motion Picture Daily declared that film was "surely the most entertaining of the Presley pictures," it also warned that "it should be noted that the theme of the picture plus a sub plot which deals with an illegitimate child make it questionable fare for youngsters." In the UK, The Times film critic stated that "even those most determined to condemn [Elvis] must, if they are at all fair-minded, have second thoughts after seeing G. I Blues."
As a film, it still holds up well. Presley shows a knack for comic delivery, and is remarkably charming in the lead role - and there is obvious chemistry between him and Prowse. The script is better than that for most Elvis musicals of the 1960s. If the film falls down it is through Norman Taurog's rather bland direction, especially the unimaginative staging of the musical numbers, which often consist of Elvis simply singing into the camera while holding on to his guitar. But these are relatively minor flaws for a film that was quite clearly attempting to do something different: in this case revive the struggling traditional Hollywood musical through Presley.
The format was never to be repeated - the next musical, Blue Hawaii, was a beach movie pure and simple, and one that was all about Elvis from start to finish, with no big-name co-star to detract from the star attraction. There was no big band instrumental over the credits this time, but Elvis singing the title number. There was to be no mistaking, Blue Hawaii was an Elvis film – a genre all of its own.


August 8 and October 7, 1960: Studio Sessions

When Elvis first went to Hollywood, it was to star in the western Love Me Tender for 20th Century Fox. Four years later, he was back at the same studio and making another western, Flaming Star. Directed by Don Siegel, this sombre film has often been claimed to be Elvis's best acting performance. Whether that is true or not is in the eye of the beholder, but the film is rather slow-paced and all too often seems more interested in being worthy rather than entertaining. It is certainly well made, but it should have come as little surprise to those involved that the box office was not going to match that of lighter fare such as G I Blues. Reviews at the time were relatively mediocre, too. A H Weiler wrote that "although it is not electrifying, Flaming Star makes a neat and satisfying adventure." In the UK, Elvis was said to give a "satisfactory contribution to a colour-film that is pictorially impressive."
As with Love Me Tender, there was an effort to insert songs into the film. However, two of the four numbers were cut after test screenings and Summer Kisses, Winter Tears was one of them. Originally intended to be sung by Elvis to a group of Native Americans around a campfire, the song supposedly resulted in laughter from preview audiences. The number certainly has that kind of "peace pipe" feel to it, but at the same time becomes almost a parody, and that was certainly not beneficial to a film such as Flaming Star that dealt with serious issues of race. The song itself was released in 1961 on an EP and, while Elvis sings it well, it's pretty banal stuff.
Britches and A Cane and a High Starched Collar are in much the same style as Poor Boy and Let Me from Love Me Tender. They are clearly written as an attempt to re-create the folk songs of the period in which the film is set – which asks the question once again: why didn't they just use folk songs? If Elvis was disappointed with the songs for G I Blues he must have completely despaired when he found he had to "yo-de-yo-de-yo" his way through such a silly song as Britches. At least the song was cut from the film. A Cane and a High Starched Collar, which remained, is just as daft – and quite why Elvis should be singing about being a "darling Jenny" is anybody's guess. Elvis does his best, but trying to insert songs into the film in order to placate the fans' desire to hear him sing undoes much of the hard work he had put into his acting performance.
The title song, Flaming Star, is the best of the bunch, and a decent western theme tune. It was recorded first as Black Star, but then the name of the film was changed and Elvis found himself back in the studio to do the whole thing over with the new name. The arrangement is well thought out, nicely reflecting the atmosphere of the film, and Elvis gives a good dramatic vocal.
The songs received a haphazard release. Flaming Star and Summer Kisses, Winter Tears appeared on an EP in 1961; Britches and A Cane and a High Starched Collar were released on LPs in 1976 and 1978 respectively, with Black Star finally emerging on a boxed set in 1991. It wasn't until four years later that they all appeared together as part of the Double Features series of CDs.



October 30, 1960: Studio Session

Some three and a half years after recording the Peace in the Valley EP of sacred music, Elvis finally found himself in a position to record his first full-length album of gospel music. His Hand in Mine would have a very different feel to the sombre EP. Here, traditional up-beat gospel songs would sit next to more serious sacred ballads, but the album would still have a consistent sound with Elvis essentially acting as the leader of the gospel quartet sound he had loved since his boyhood.
Milky White Way had been originally recorded by the Coleman Brothers in 1944, but Elvis based his arrangement on that by another group, The Trumpeteers. However, he manages to incorporate a blues element into the material, sliding between notes in some places, and even bending notes in others. Check out how he does this within the line "I'm gonna sit up and tell him my troubles/About the world I just came from" in the last verse. This is brilliant singing, and shows Elvis thoroughly in his element, merging gospel, blues and doo-wop sounds to make a two minute masterpiece.
Elvis's influence for the title song of the LP, His Hand in Mine clearly comes from the original recording by The Statesmen. However, once again, Elvis makes subtle changes. Doy Ott's lead vocal on the recording by The Statesman is square in comparison to Presley's. Ott moves from note to note with clarity – there are no slides here – and sings with relatively wide, but controlled, vibrato. Elvis does neither. There are a number of changes in dynamics within the recording (not present in the original) and, at times, Elvis is almost whispering into the microphone. There are also some startling switches from the sections in which Elvis sings in his bass voice to the sections where he sings in his higher register in duet with Charlie Hodge. While his range had no doubt grown over the previous couple of years, it's clear that Elvis hadn't quite got the control at the very bottom of his range that he has at the top – he would be much more confident in this area six years later on the How Great Thou Art album.
Elvis gives The Jordanaires a moment in the spotlight at the beginning of I Believe in the Man in the Sky, with the group singing the verse with the barest of accompaniment before Elvis enters to sing the chorus. His voice sounds glorious, and he uses all his range to navigate the tricky melody. This is quite unlike anything on the 1957 gospel EP. The sound is much lighter, the tempo quicker, and the song almost has a swing feel to it.
He Knows Just What I Need is more sombre and sedate and, in many ways, has a sound much more akin to that being used at the time by Johnny Cash on his albums of sacred music. It's possibly the least successful song on the album, but that makes it sound worse than it is. It simply hasn't got any of the magical moments that make the other songs so wonderful. In a similar vein is Mansion Over the Hilltop, but this is distinguished by Elvis's beautifully-controlled vocal.
In My Father's House begins with Elvis singing a full chorus not just with The Jordanaires, but as part of them. Elvis then sings a verse himself before handing over to The Jordanaires bass singer, Ray Walker, for a section before re-joining the group himself for the end of the number. It's brilliantly arranged, adding variety to the ballads on the album, and showing that Elvis was more invested in the music itself than hogging all of the spotlight for himself.
Three up-tempo spirituals were recorded next. Joshua Fit the Battle was a song Elvis had talked about recording back in 1956. Here he sings the number with a natural swing, aided and abetted by more sterling work from The Jordanaires, against whose voices Elvis's own nestles comfortably. Swing Down Sweet Chariot was in the same vein, although there is the smallest hint of rock 'n' roll intonation here, not least in the repeated use of the word "well" in between each section. Elvis would re-record the number in 1968 for the film The Trouble with Girls. I'm Gonna Walk Dem Golden Stairs again finds Elvis as part of The Jordanaires rather than as a soloist, especially during the choruses. Even in the verses, when Elvis is singing the melody while the group add a rhythmic vocal backing, the mix allows for him to totally blend in – and in the final chorus Elvis can hardly be heard as a soloist at all.
If We Never Meet Again and Known Only to Him see Elvis returning to ballad material, with both songs in waltz time. Both contain more of the same wonderful selfless musicianship that had dominated the session thus far.
Crying in the Chapel was slightly different. This was more of a pop song with an inspirational theme – in the same way that I Believe was. The number wasn't released until five years later, and became one of Elvis's few hits during the fallow period of the mid-1960s. Jorgensen writes that, remarkably "the recording log … says that no satisfactory master was completed." In other words, the song wasn't even deemed as fit for release at the time, something which only goes to demonstrate Elvis's search for perfection with regards to the project. There is, of course, another option – that Elvis didn't feel that the song fitted with the sound of the rest of the album. That is certainly the case; it has a slightly different feel. However, it is a fine, restrained vocal that deservedly has become one of the singer's best-loved songs.
To finish the album, Elvis and the musicians turned to Working on the Building. Of the upbeat material on His Hand in Mine, this is certainly the weakest. Unlike the other numbers, there appears to be relatively little thought within the arrangement, which becomes repetitive. The song was sequenced at the end of the album, thus meaning that an otherwise near-perfect record ended on one of the least effective songs.
Also recorded at the same session was Surrender, a follow-up to Elvis's hit It's Now or Never, this time with the song based on Torna a Sorrento. While it's an accomplished effort, it simply doesn't have the gravitas of the earlier song. Elvis sings well (although outtakes show us that he had considerable problems with the high-note ending), but the number has a second-hand feel to it. That didn't stop it hitting the #1 spot, but it is an early example of how a formula was latched on to in Presley's career in the 1960s in the hope it could be repeated with similar success.
Like Elvis is Back, His Hand in Mine was an artistic triumph for Elvis. There wasn't a single mediocre cut on the whole album, and it had all been recorded in a single night. Billboard raved. They called it a "fascinating set of performances," and stated that "the gospel message has never been put forth with any more greater effect and impact than here."


Autumn, 1960: Private Recordings

Fans had known about this tape of private recordings from the autumn of 1960 since at least 1997 when Ernst Jorgensen printed a list of the songs in his book Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. Two years later, some of the material finally got released, spread over two CDs, The Home Recordings and In a Private Moment. The quality is better than the similar recordings made the year before, but the material is mostly made up of snatches of songs rather than complete versions. It is the choice of material as much as the audio evidence itself that is startling. Here we find Elvis (and friends) tackling anything and everything from Make Believe from Show Boat to Lawdy Miss Clawdy. There's an early, short, run-through of a verse of Blue Hawaii and a rather nice sing through around half of She Wears My Ring which is much better than the studio version recorded thirteen years later. This is also our first chance to hear Elvis at the piano singing If I Loved You from Carousel, a song that would be the highlight of the private tapes recorded in 1966.


November 7-8, 1960: Studio Session

Just over a week after recording the His Hand in Mine gospel LP, Elvis was back in the studio to record the soundtrack for his next movie, Wild in the Country. The film featured Elvis as a troubled youth who discovers that he has a talent for writing. In many respects, this is Elvis's biggest disappointment when it comes to his film career. The film was based on a decent source novel by J R Salamanca, and the screenplay was written by the fine playwright Clifford Odets, most famous for having written the boxing drama Golden Boy. What's more, Elvis was to star alongside Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld and John Ireland, all respected actors and actresses. But somewhere it all went wrong.
In many respects the fault lies with screenplay. What should have turned out to be a James Dean-like role for Elvis ended up as a hackneyed, over-ripe and over-long melodrama which is one of the worst things Odets ever wrote. The dialogue is at times so riddled with clichés that one could be forgiven for assuming it was intended as a parody. The director, Philip Dunne, had been nominated for two Academy Awards, but both were for writing and not for directing. He had, in fact, only directed seven films prior to Wild in the Country, and none of them particularly remarkable. He therefore didn't have the skills to turn the film around or to get a good performance out of Elvis himself – who looks nearly as uncomfortable on screen here as he did in his debut movie four years earlier. Elvis had told Variety that he was "worried about the heavy dramatics" called for in the film.
In other words, Wild in the Country was a mess, and was poorly received by critics. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called it it a "seamy, sentimental lot of nonsense," and even questioned whether Odets had been involved in the scriptwriting at all. Less than a week later, Crowther wrote a second column in which he highlighted Wild in the Country as an example of everything that was wrong with the Hollywood films of 1961. He writes that "here is a costly picture that was written by Clifford Odets and directed by the experienced and literate Philip Dunne. By all the theatrical criteria, and even with Mr Presley in the cast, it should have been, at least, an honest drama, if not a particularly brilliant one." Instead, he refers to it as a "hackneyed fabrication." Likewise, Variety called the film an "artificial tale" and, of Elvis and Hope Lange, they said that "it's a credit to both they do as well as they do." It's difficult to disagree with these assessments. It appears that Crowther may have been correct in questioning the contribution of Clifford Odets. Peter Guralnick states the writer was fired just before filming began, leaving Dunne to finish/edit the script as well as direct the movie. However, the situation is likely to have been more complex than this.
Luckily, the songs recorded for the soundtrack were considerably better than the film they appeared in (or were cut from). All but one of the five songs were ballads. I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell was the sole rocker which, rather bizarrely, found its way on to Elvis's next studio album of non-soundtrack songs, Something for Everybody. To be fair, it's no better or worse than the rocking side of that album, but it does seem slightly under-cooked. While there are elements of novelty within the lyrical content as it continually plays on the title, it did deserve a somewhat edgier performance from Elvis than it actually gets. Perhaps it was just difficult for the singer to switch styles after spending six hours the previous evening taping some of the most understated singing of his career.
Lonely Man is a lovely ballad with a slight western feel that was created in part by the addition of Jimmie Haskell on accordion. As was becoming more and more common, Elvis utilised his higher register for much of the song, singing softly throughout. Although this "full" version of the song is pleasant enough, many believe that the so-called "solo" version, released three decades later, is better. Here Elvis is accompanied just by acoustic guitar, thus giving a more intimate feel, and allowing him to tell the story of the lyrics more convincingly.
Similar in style to the solo version of Lonely Man were two other ballads, In My Way and Forget Me Never. The latter may well have been based on the folk song Lorena, which had been recorded by Johnny Cash just a year before. The similarities may, of course, have been coincidental, but this seems unlikely. No matter what the origin, the melody, together with the sparse accompaniment of just a single guitar, somehow is reminiscent of the sound created by the eighteen year old Elvis at Sun Studios recording his first demos in the summer of 1953. In My Way is even more restrained, and almost has a stark quality – not least due to the lyrics which can be read as either being about the likely end of an affair or, more pessimistically, the impending death of the singer. There are just two short verses, sung simply by Elvis (there are no signs of mannerisms or theatrics here), and it's all over within eighty seconds. These two songs might seem unimportant when it comes to the Elvis legacy, but in many ways they reflect what Elvis sounded like on the private tapes that have emerged since his death. The difference here is that they are obviously recorded in studio quality. It's refreshing to hear Elvis sing a quiet, reflective ballad without any paraphernalia, other instruments or backing vocals – and even without a desire to create something even remotely commercial. Other than the private recordings, the only time we get to hear Elvis in this setting is with these recordings and those made over a decade later in what have become known as the "piano songs" recorded in May 1971.
The title song of the film gets the same treatment as the original full band version of Lonely Man. It's a pity in many ways, as it would probably have worked better in a solo arrangement. For once, The Jordanaires seem intrusive and get in the way of Elvis's delicate vocal. The Times suggested that the title song summed up everything that was wrong with the film, writing that "rendered by Mr Presley over the credits, it turns out to be not the rocking allegro furioso one might expect but a drab andante lacrimoso. And the same might be said for the whole film." The song was released as a B-side in the USA, but as a double A-side in the UK, getting more exposure than the flip, I Feel So Bad.
These sessions were the last in what had been a busy year for Elvis. He had returned from the army, recorded the Elvis is Back and His Hand in Mine LPs (both of which were artistic triumphs), and starred in three films, all of which were quite different to each other in nature. The following year would be the start of the long artistic decline that Elvis would eventually only dig himself out of with the taping of the 1968 TV special.












CHAPTER FIVE
PUT THE BLAME ON ME: 1961-2

While Elvis didn't suffer from a commercial decline during 1961 and 1962, his work began to suffer. The songs he was recording for his films quickly became more and more lightweight, and the material he was choosing for his non-soundtrack studio sessions was often old-fashioned and lacking the edge that he had brought to the Elvis is Back LP. A close examination of the recordings from these years shows that Elvis's work was suffering even before the so-called British Invasion, and that his artistic decline over the next seven years may well have happened with or without The Beatles.


March 12, 1961: Studio Session

Elvis found himself in the recording studio for two major sessions in March 1961. Later in the month, he would set about recording the soundtrack for his next film, Blue Hawaii. First, however, was the recording of his next studio album which would eventually be titled Something for Everybody. The album was divided in two, with ballads on the first side and up-beat numbers on the second.
The album opens with There's Always Me, which was easily Elvis's most dramatic ballad so far. Opening with a simple piano introduction, this was almost the opposite of the ballad singing that Elvis had mastered for the Wild in the Country soundtrack. While the first half of the song is under-stated, quiet and beautiful, by the time of the bridge Elvis is singing in a stronger voice, before returning to the quieter style and working towards a brilliantly-realised climax. The arrangement is superbly judged, most notably in the ending which could so easily have been over-the-top. Even more impressive was Elvis's keenness to not only tell a story, but for his character within the song to go through a complete metamorphosis in under 150 seconds. At the start, he is timid, shy and vulnerable, then he gains confidence during the middle section, and comes out fully determined to win his love by the end. It's a master class in ballad singing – if only the rest of the album was as exciting, and if only all his acting performances were this good.
The next track, Give Me the Right is a rock 'n' roll ballad that is distinguished by Millie Kirkham's wordless soaring soprano. This was more in line with some of the material recorded for Elvis is Back a year earlier. Elvis puts in a fine performance but, unlike There's Always Me, there was no progression in sound or style – it was simply more of the same. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if Elvis is Back hadn't been so good. However, as it was, this seems like a very professional, very slick, repetition of conquered territory.
It's a Sin was a country hit for Eddy Arnold back in the mid-1940s, and Elvis attempted to update the song with the Nashville sound of the early 1960s. While his vocal is stunning in its beauty, the number sits in no-man's-land. As with the rest of the album, it is brilliantly done, but what place did it have in relation to other pop music of 1961? As nice as it is, the track (like some others from the session) is rather square. The same could be argued about Sentimental Me, another update of a 40s ballad, but this time Elvis injects the number with the feel of a rock 'n' roll ballad, and indulges in his own flair for the dramatic with the repeated use of an extended pause at the end of each verse.
Starting Today opens with Floyd Cramer's arpeggio on the piano before Elvis enters with a lovely vocal. Written by Don Robertson (who had also written There's Always Me), the song fitted in nicely with the country/pop crossover sound popular at the time. Robertson stated later that he wrote the song with Elvis in mind, and it certainly fit his ever-more sweeter sound like a glove.
Gently brought the first side of the album to a close. It's an interesting number and a slight change of style in comparison to other ballads Elvis had recorded up until this point. It has a kind of folkish feel to it, something which is underscored by the lovely guitar work. Whilst Elvis's vocal seems a little heavy in its lower register during the verses, when he is joined by the Jordanaires during the chorus, the effect isn't dissimilar to the sound associated with folk groups of the period such as the Kingston Trio.
The upbeat, rocker side of the album opened with Elvis's version of I'm Coming Home, a song that had been released by Sun artist Carl Mann. Elvis keeps to the same arrangement as Mann's single, but the whole thing is tightened up a little. In the end, Elvis's version is rhythmically more together, and the musicians get a chance to stretch out during the lengthy instrumental.
The next track, In Your Arms, again sounds like a watered-down version of the sound perfected the previous year on a song like Make Me Know It. The song and Elvis were a perfect fit, but it all sounds so clean compared to what had gone before.
Put the Blame on Me is considerably better. While the lyrics sound more suited to an eighteen year old than someone in their mid-twenties, this has an interesting, bluesy feel to it, with the use of organ rather than piano giving it a sound that pre-dates that which would be popularised later in the decade by groups such as The Animals.
Sadly, one of the best tracks on the album would be followed by the worst. Judy has to rank as one of the most insipid songs that Elvis recorded during a non-soundtrack session in the 1960s. The whole thing sounds awkward, with Elvis switching back and forth between his sweet high register and the darker lower register, but lacking the ease with which he had done this on previous songs and sessions. What's more, the band don't seem to be quite together in places, and the song itself lacks any form of convincing hook. The verse prepares us for what we think is going to be an interesting and memorable melody, but it never arrives. Instead, we are faced with a wide-ranging lumbering melody that doesn't seem to be a natural fit for either the singer or the lyrics.
Luckily, I Want You With Me is much better. Written by Woody Harris, the song was recorded by Bobby Darin in 1958 but held back until the release of the For Teenagers Only LP in 1960, a mopping-up exercise of songs in the vault designed to keep Darin's younger fans happy while he concentrated on swing material in the studio. Darin's version, like many of the rock 'n' roll recordings he made prior to hitting the big time, sounds like a man trying to find his own style and his own voice. Whereas a rock 'n' roll song like Bullmoose, recorded nine months later, was unmistakably Darin in his comfort zone (with Neil Sedaka doing his best Jerry Lee Lewis impression at the piano), I Want You With Me found the singer not sure if he wanted to be Elvis or Ray Charles. Elvis, however, managed to help the song fulfil its potential. He unclutters the arrangement and lets rip into the song in a way that he rarely had since the June 1958 sessions.
While I Want You With Me, There's Always Me and Put the Blame on Me are performances up there with the best of those achieved the year before at the first post-army sessions, the rest of the album sounds like a watered-down version of Elvis is Back. The rockers didn't rock so hard, and the ballads weren't quite as convincing either. Something for Everybody was slick and professional, but it lacked the rawness and the sheer joy of music-making that helps to elevate the best of Elvis's work. One reviewer summed the album up by saying that "the ballads have a uniformly subdued, tender mood, without the customary groans and vocal wallops, and the rhythm side is a little less wild than Elvis used to make it." Meanwhile, Herm Schoenfeld wrote in Variety that "any of these dozen sides could turn up as single hits."
One other song was recorded at the session: I Feel So Bad, which would be released as a single While Elvis's version features a great bluesy vocal, the arrangement is virtually the same as Chuck Willis's original, which seems something of a let-down given Elvis's history of taking an original and turning it into something completely different. These kinds of "faithful" covers (the less generous would call them "copycat") were getting more and more common as Elvis's career progressed. Many of them went undetected for years, but now, with almost any song we want to hear being at our disposal thanks to the internet, it's much easier to trace Elvis's arrangements back to earlier versions. Nonetheless, the record was described in Variety as "a return to the lowdown country blues field with surefire impact."


March 21-23, 1961: Studio Session

Blue Hawaii presents us with something of a problem. Many blame the film for the string of travelogue/beach movies that followed and, to a certain degree, they have a point. Had the film not been so successful (as both a movie and a soundtrack), Elvis's Hollywood career might have taken another path – or it might have petered out altogether. After all, Flaming Star and Wild in the Country had hardly been box office gold, Elvis was now too old to for the characters he had played in Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, and so the musical comedy route was the obvious way to go. While many see it is as a great shame that Elvis didn't get the chance to stretch his acting muscles, the truth was that he could only handle certain roles, and then was only at his best when provided with good directors. Flaming Star might have been a good film, but that wasn't because of Elvis – it would have been a good film anyway, with or without him in the cast. The experienced cast and good director and script had, in fact, carried Elvis and pushed him to do his best. Wild in the Country had done the opposite. The script was both pretentious and condescending, the direction was leaden, and Elvis was awful. What Elvis quite clearly couldn't do was carry a serious drama by himself, either from the point of view of his acting skills or box office draw. Philip Dunne, director of Wild in the Country, is quoted as saying "I guess audiences just won't buy Elvis Presley as a straight actor. … It looks like Hal Wallis has the only right formula for Elvis Presley pictures."
Blue Hawaii saw Elvis back in musical comedy, and it was the best fit for Elvis at this time. He wasn't required to act beyond his capabilities, and the narrative and music were polite enough to continue his transformation into an all-round entertainer. Indeed, the Variety review of the film said that it "restores Elvis Presley to his natural screen element." Meanwhile, The Times in the UK wrote that "Mr Presley's style has sobered and matured, a change the middle-aged, at any rate, will welcome."
We shouldn't blame the film for the endless rehashes of the Blue Hawaii formula that came after. If the formula hadn't have been revived time and again over the next six years, we would no doubt view Blue Hawaii for the pleasant, if undemanding, film that it is. In fact, it's hard to see how Blue Hawaii could have been improved upon. It was, and still remains, one of the best examples of its type, and the same goes for the soundtrack.
The soundtrack contains a mix of well-known Hawaiian-themed songs, traditional Hawaiian numbers and new material. A number of the new songs were pastiches of the songs that were popularised three decades earlier by the likes of Bing Crosby, and Hawaiian Sunset is an example of that. Written by Sid Tepper and Roy Bennett, it's an effective little track, arranged in a higher than usual key so that Elvis could make use of his softer tone. His vibrato is wider here than on the Something for Everybody recordings, but he still keeps it in check despite almost singing falsetto at points.
By the same songwriters, and in the same style, is Island of Love. This is less distinguished, not because of Elvis but because the song itself isn't such good material, with the chorus lacking the substantial-yet-lilting melody of Hawaiian Sunset. The instrumental section is somewhat strange in that it sounds as if room has been left for a solo to be overdubbed later. That hasn't happened (whether or not it was intended), and so it is almost like listening to a backing track for twenty seconds or so. The version heard in the film cuts out the instrumental altogether.
Tepper and Bennett wrote three other songs for the film. The best of these is Beach Boy Blues, a kind of fake blues with fun lyrics when put into the context of the film itself. The melody of the verses is rather similar to No One Ever Tells You, a song that Sinatra recorded for his A Swingin' Affair album back in 1956. Elvis doesn't take the song too seriously, but still relishes singing the blues elements.
From watered-down blues to watered-down rock 'n' roll: Slicin' Sand is an inoffensive little romp that serves rock 'n' roll in a way that would make it palatable to conservative America. Again, Elvis takes it all in good humour and puts in a fun, if unremarkable, performance.
Then we have Ito Eats, which is a rather silly little calypso number that seemed to serve no purpose in either the film or on record. The most remarkable thing about it is that Elvis and the band persevered with it for nine takes – pride was still being taken in their work, no matter how daft the material.
The traditional Hawaiian song, Aloha Oe, barely features Elvis at all, although he sings the number well (partly in Hawaiian and partly in English) when he finally appears.
Ku-U-I-Po has the feel of a much older Hawaiian-themed song, but was actually new. It's a simple little ballad but, like Hawaiian Sunset, rather effective.
One song that definitely was traditional in origin was Almost Always True, a fun little upbeat number with a melody based on the children's song Alouette. The arrangement is amusing, with the amount of beats before the singing of the word "almost" getting more and more with each verse, and Boots Randolph plays the hell out of his lengthy solos.
No More was also based on an older piece, this time La Paloma by Spanish composer Yradier (who is remembered today only for writing La Paloma, it seems). No More is one of the best songs on the Blue Hawaii soundtrack. Elvis uses a more powerful voice here than on much of the session, making the most of the juicy (but tricky) melody and key change. The ending is remarkable, with Elvis singing softly in his highest register before moving seamlessly into a fuller, more powerful voice for the last note.
Can't Help Falling in Love was a song introduced in the film that would ultimately become a standard that would be recorded by dozens of singers. It, too, was based on an older melody, Plaisir d'Amour, which dates back to the late 18th century. However the relationship to the French song isn't a close one, with only certain phrases being reminiscent of each other. The melody of Plaisir d'Amour seems to have acted as inspiration for the new song rather than the absolute source for the musical element. Can't Help Falling in Love would become one of Elvis's best-loved songs. The original studio recording (issued as a single in November 1961) is stunningly executed, with Elvis's vocal, which is both powerful and intimate, nestled against the tasteful backing of the Jordanaires, and all performed over a relatively simple triplet beat. The song would be revived in a completely different arrangement for the 1968 TV special, and then would act (at a faster tempo) as the closing number for virtually all of Elvis's concert appearances from 1969 through to his death in 1977.
The flip-side of Can't Help Falling in Love was Rock-a-Hula Baby, marketed as Elvis's "twist" single. It might have essentially been a novelty song, but Elvis and the musicians are clearly having a ball, with some of the frenzied early takes sounding as if there was a beach party actually taking place in the studio.
Two of the weaker songs recorded for the film were Moonlight Swim and Steppin' Out of Line. The former is truly banal, a song that lingers long in the memory only because of how awful it is. It would have been bad enough with just Elvis singing it, but the overdubbed female vocals make it even worse. The effect is so sickly sweet as to be thoroughly nauseating.
At least Steppin' Out of Line doesn't make anyone want to throw up. However, it's a rocker with an awkward rhythm and uninspired lyrics. It was ultimately cut from the film but, in a bizarre twist so common within the Elvis release strategy, ended up on Elvis's next studio album, Pot Luck. The reason why this wasn't left in the vault is a complete mystery, not least because it is so badly recorded, with Elvis's vocal suffering from distortion throughout.
The songs that bookend both the film and the soundtrack are Blue Hawaii and the Hawaiian Wedding Song, both of which had been popularised during the early 1930s. As with the other ballads here, these numbers are as good a demonstration as any as to just how wonderful Elvis's voice was during this period. They also show that Elvis was once again obsessed with "sound." In the 1950s, the sound that Elvis was after centred on rhythm more than anything else. In 1961, however, he seemed obsessed in seeing just how beautiful he could make his voice sound. As a singer, he was nothing like the man who went in the army just three years earlier. That ever-more raucous quality was eschewed in favour of sheer beauty – listen to how he jumps to the final note of Blue Hawaii. Just a year before, he would have swooped up to the note, but here he moves to it cleanly, hitting the note dead on pitch. The Hawaiian Wedding Song uses Elvis's full vocal range and he manages it with total control. He even liked the song enough to revive it on stage during the last three years of his life.
These two songs in many ways sum up just what made the Blue Hawaii LP so enjoyable and consumer-friendly. It certainly wasn't made up of consistently good material, but Elvis's vocals are, like the scenery in the film itself, often breath-taking. Despite the inclusion of a song like Moonlight Swim, it is hard to find fault with Blue Hawaii when taken on its own terms. As a beach-set musical comedy it is pretty much as good as it gets. It was never intended to be an artistic triumph, but just a piece of lightweight, enjoyable fluff – and it certainly is that. That Elvis managed to create one of his classiest recordings, Can't Help Falling in Love, within this context shows just how much care and attention he was still giving each and every recording at this stage.


March 25, 1961: Live Recordings

Between the time Elvis came out of the army in 1960 and his return to concerts in 1969, he gave just three live performances to paying audiences. Two of those were on February 25, 1961 in Memphis, and the other was this performance at Pearl Harbor. The concert was released in 1980 on the Elvis Aron Presley boxed set. The sound quality is less than stellar, but still better than many of the live recordings from the Sun years, for example.
What is perhaps most noticeable amongst the tape drop-outs, distortion and screaming is that the sound Elvis was producing on stage was very different to the dulcet tones he was concentrating on in the studio. The emphasis here is firmly on rock 'n' roll, and songs such as All Shook Up are considerably edgier than the single versions. It's hard to realise that the guy belting his way through I Got a Woman here is the same one who had been crooning Blue Hawaii just a few days earlier. He yells at the band, encouraging them during the opening notes of Reconsider Baby.
The repertoire covered virtually all of the genres that Elvis had recorded over the previous seven years, from the rockabilly of That's all Right to the daft-as-a-brush rocker I Need Your Love Tonight to the semi-operatic It's Now or Never – and even Swing Down Sweet Chariot from the His Hand in Mine LP. What's also noticeable is that Elvis's between song patter was now considerably more refined and professional.
All in all, this is a case of what might have been had Elvis managed his career better during the next eight years. However, the movies took over almost completely, and the next time Elvis appeared in front of an audience would be in 1968 for the taping of his TV special.


June 25, 1961: Studio Session

This session was set up primarily in order to produce a new single, although five songs in total were recorded.
The sides finally selected for the single were actually the last two songs recorded. (Marie's the Name of) His Latest Flame and Little Sister both came from the writing team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. Ernst Jorgensen suggests that both Bobby Vee and Bobby Darin had tried their hand at both songs, but Darin certainly never attempted to record either one, despite Jorgensen writing that he hadn't "been able to come up with a satisfactory cut."
Elvis's recording of Little Sister retains some of the edgier sound that is so in evidence on the tape of the March concert. Hank Garland's guitar work gives the song a tough feel that, in many ways, pre-dates the sound that would hit America a few years later with the so-called "British Invasion." If Elvis had continued in this vein, with the harder sound and the snarling vocals, he may well have stayed current and relevant throughout the 1960s. The flip side of the single, His Latest Flame, had a softer sound, but still sounded more current than much of the material that found its way on to the Something for Everybody album. Musically, the song isn't as strong as Little Sister, but Elvis gets totally inside the lyrics, conveying the story they tell with aplomb. Life magazine wrote of the single that "anyone who thinks Elvis Presley is fading has another daydream coming" (although, it has to be said that the writer didn't seem particularly happy about that fact). Meanwhile, Billboard were confident that the "kids will be back buying records of these two sock sides."
Of the other songs recorded at the session, Kiss Me Quick is typical of the Latin-American flavoured pop songs of the time – a style that Elvis would turn to repeatedly over the next year or so. However, the song is no better or worse than those which would turn up in the movie soundtracks over the next couple of years. It's sung well, it's recorded beautifully, but it's almost plastic or clinical in its precision. There's no passion here, just a well-performed decent pop song.
I'm Yours is also undistinguished, with the song only of interest because of the use of organ instead of piano, and Elvis's own harmony vocal – which is pleasant enough. However, it's not helped by a clumsy spoken section that tries to replicate the success of Are You Lonesome Tonight but, instead, is just simply dull.
The remaining song, That's Someone You Never Forget is clearly the best. Written by Elvis's friend Red West, this is a fine number. Presented with a substantial ballad that he really cared about, and in those moments where his instinctive genius was allowed to blossom, Elvis was still capable of producing great results – but, instead, he was concentrating on bland songs such as the dismal Kiss Me Quick.


July 2, 1961: Studio Session

The next film was something rather different for Elvis – a comedy drama with just a handful of songs, but at least this time they weren't shoe-horned in to the action in an awkward way. The songs were a bright and breezy bunch that simply did what they needed to in the context of the film, but little else. Four were released on an EP, one was held back for four years, and another was cut from the film altogether and released in 1991.
Follow that Dream, the title number of the film, is an upbeat little song which is as pleasant as the lyrics are predictable. Co-writer Ben Weisman told Ken Sharp "that song had a powerful message. It's one of my favorites and also one of my top sellers." The "powerful message" point is a little bit of an exaggeration – while the notion of following a dream is admirable, the song is hardly In the Ghetto or If I Can Dream when it comes down to powerful messages. Elvis sings it well, but his style seems now to have veered from rock 'n' roll in the up-tempo numbers to pure pop.
The same came be said for What a Wonderful Life. The standard of the movie songs have clearly started dropping here. While the new songs for Blue Hawaii had featured some nice new ballads, including the masterful Can't Help Falling in Love, here Elvis was stuck with such inane lyrics as "It's a wonderful life, this life I'm living/It's a wonderful life, living the life I love." While no-one expects Shakespearean depth in a pop song, this seems to be nothing more than banal, song-writing by numbers. Elvis does his best and it's a fun track, but it all seems a bit forced.
I'm Not the Marrying Kind isn't the song with the same title that Dean Martin recorded a few years later, but another number with classic, life affirming words. Who can fail to be moved by the likes of: "So I say 'you know what?'/She says 'what?'/I say 'what?'" It tugs at my heart-strings every time I hear it.
OK, I'm being hard on these songs. They're a light-hearted bunch for a light-hearted movie, and they're an amusing listen. However, it's difficult to forget that just a week earlier Elvis was belting through Little Sister and putting in a performance of real emotional depth with That's Someone You Never Forget. No matter how nice the Follow that Dream songs are (and "nice" is a perfect description), one wonders quite what was going wrong with quality control.
Angel is the only ballad on the soundtrack and, to be fair, is a pretty decent effort. The arrangement is well thought out, with a Latin-American rhythm and some wonderful suitably ethereal singing from Millie Kirkham. Elvis is trying once again to make his voice sound as beautiful as possible, and does a good job of that, but that doesn't stop the end result being underwhelming.
Sound Advice, not on the EP, is rather more appealing than some of the songs recorded here. Again, this isn't great music, but it has a sweet, acoustic sound, the words are amusing, and Elvis doesn't take the song too seriously – which is useful when he had to try to make "boss" rhyme with "horse." The final song, A Whistling Tune, was cut from the film and re-recorded later in the year for the movie Kid Galahad.
Given the length of the songs on the EP, fans must have felt a little short-changed when they bought it. Despite this, and the drop in quality, Billboard still stated that the release had "four fine sides" and referred to I'm Not the Marrying Kind as a "breezy, slightly folkish ditty" – although that might be doing a disservice to "folkish ditties." What is particularly interesting about the short review in Billboard is that they seem to be unable to place most of the songs within a firm genre. Angel is a "soft, crooned effort" and Follow that Dream is a "rhythm effort". Only What a Wonderful Life is firmly described as a "rocker" (although that is certainly debatable). Elvis's music was slowly drifting into a strange no-man's-land that was neither pop or rock or country and, even more oddly, not a combination of them either as had been the case in the 1950s. This is an issue that will raise its head again in the 1962 and 1963 non-soundtrack sessions in particular, but it's interesting that it was being picked up on even at this early stage.
The film itself got mixed reviews. Fran Smith, in Boys' Life, states that Elvis "reveals more acting ability than usual." Meanwhile, Howard Thompson in the New York Times suggests that, compared to Follow that Dream's "serving of cornmeal mush, Blue Hawaii was caviar." He also gives objections to "Mr Presley's carefully exposed torso" (given his objection to the male body, one hates to think what he made of Ben Hur) and the repeated appearance of "an outdoor rest room." In the UK, The Times was a little kinder, saying that Elvis "is responsible for the film's better and more convincing moments."



October 15, 1961: Studio Session

Over the years, many fans and critics have voiced their disappointment at Elvis's move towards heavy ballads during the 1970s following his remarkable artistic achievements between 1968 and 1970. However, his switch in genres in 1961/2 has rarely received such negative attention. Part of this is because of the movies – all the blame goes on them for Elvis's artistic decline during the 1960s. This is partly true, but as we move session by session through the decade it becomes clear that Elvis's recordings outside of the soundtracks were becoming more and more ineffective as well.
Much of the reason for this was down to the songs Elvis chose to record. He seems to have developed a penchant for songs with a Latin American feel, for example. There would have been nothing wrong with that if the songs he chose to record in that genre were good ones. An album of Elvis singing the best songs by composers such as Antonio Carlos Jobim may well have been both an artistic and commercial success. However, for the most part, he was instead recording pale imitations written by songwriters with whom publishing deals could be made. Therefore, whereas Elvis could have been trying his hand at Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars he was instead trying in vain to bring to life such banalities as For the Millionth and the Last Time, recorded at this session in October 1961. While the song was cashing in on the Latin craze of the time, it still sounded out of date and irrelevant even when it was recorded. While that is such a contradiction to be almost an achievement, it was a sorry state of affairs for the man who had been paving the way for others just eight years earlier. At the grand old age of twenty-six, Elvis seemed to be musically lost, with each session producing blander and blander results.
Good Luck Charm, the A-side of the single recorded here, is better, but hardly cutting edge. Elvis sings it well, making it into a commercial pop song that would ultimate hit #1 in the charts. Billboard's description of the song as a "bright, medium tempo rocker" seems like a little stretch of the truth, for the song is certainly no rocker. Meanwhile, Patrick Humphries gives a more fitting assessment of the number in saying that it "could just as easily have been a hit for Bobby Vee, or Frankie Avalon, or Tommy Sands, or Fabian. …It is hard to escape the fact that this was little more than quintessential 60s easy listening music – indeed, the once edgy and confrontational Elvis here sounds like he could be singing in a cardigan." This does not mean I have anything against easy listening music, and will defend a number of Elvis's excursions into that territory later in the book. However, this song (and the later She's Not You) seem as manufactured for the charts as much as the latest boy band. There is no passion behind this music, just bland pleasantness, and, more than anything, that was the last thing Elvis's music was about.
Two ballads by Don Robertson were also recorded at this session. Anything That's Part of You is a lovely song with a slight country feel to it, thanks mostly to the arrangement. As with many of the 1970s ballads, Elvis portrays a sense of desolation here. However, rather than going all out for melodramatics, he strips the vocal right back, never raising his voice, and gets totally inside the lyrics. It seems rather unfair that such a fine, touching performance was relegated to the B-side of the single, while a piece of fluff such as Good Luck Charm got all the airplay.
The other Don Robertson song, I Met Her Today, has a more complicated melodic line that required some work to negotiate. This, too, is about the end of a relationship, but it's also about the beginning of a new one, making the lyrics rather unusual. The arrangement is a little clumsy, particularly the opening vocalising from the Jordanaires, and this may well have been the reason why it remained unreleased for nearly four years.
The final song, Night Rider, was another number written by Pomus and Shuman, who had composed Little Sister and His Latest Flame. However, this song simply isn't as good as either of those, and Elvis and the band fail to ignite this rocker, despite the best efforts of saxophonist Boots Randolph to kick-start it into gear. The end result is awkward and unconvincing and sounds more like a rehearsal than a master. They would try the song again a few months later, but it is this first version that would be included on the Pot Luck album, despite better tracks being left in the can.
While a session that produced a number one single can hardly be called disappointing, Elvis's choice of material was starting to become more and more square and out of touch with the pop charts of the time – something which would come to the fore particularly on the Pot Luck album which would be finished the following March.


October 26-27, 1961: Studio Session

A musical about boxing may well have seemed like a dumb idea to many at the time that Kid Galahad was made. After all, A Stone for Danny Fisher (the book that King Creole was based on) was about a boxer not a singer, and if that wasn't deemed as suitable musical material in its original form, it's hard to see why a rehash of an old Edward G Robinson film from 1937 would be. However, in 1964, the musical Golden Boy, based on the play by Clifford Odets (who had written the screenplay for Wild in the Country), opened on Broadway and ran for 568 performances. Boxing and songs weren't such an odd mix after all.
However, Kid Galahad is no Golden Boy. It's an enjoyable enough movie, but it's much more featherweight than heavyweight from a dramatic point of view. Bosley Crowther in the New York Times was surprisingly kind in his review, although he does comment on Elvis's weight and that he "does not make a very convincing pug." However, he does state that it's "moderately genial entertainment" and that "for a film about a singing prize-fighter (which is silly enough) it will do." Elsewhere, The Times states that "the film in general gives little evidence of any development of the actor" in Elvis.
The six songs recorded for the soundtrack have a little more substance than those that featured in Follow that Dream. The key song here is King of the Whole Wide World, which has Elvis launching into a committed vocal, and the number subsequently rocks with more abandon than, say, Night Rider did at the previous session. Elvis's voice finally has some edginess back in it, and he seems to genuinely be enjoying the chance to let rip on a meaty rock 'n' roll number. That the song was released on an EP was something of a waste, as it would have made a fine single A-side (especially in its unedited form) that would have bucked the trend of bland pop singles that Elvis was putting out.
Home is Where the Heart Is is a ballad that would have made a good flip side. Again, this is more substantial material than some of the more recent songs that Elvis had been recording. The lyrics were by Hal David, who would go on to have a successful writing partnership with Burt Bacharach. He says that "Elvis' rendition of Home is Where the Heart Is is beautiful and it's the only recording of that song, to the best of my knowledge." Elvis took twenty-one takes before he was satisfied with the result (there were 35 takes of King of the Whole Wide World), showing that he was still trying as hard as he could in the soundtrack sessions. One could certainly see these first two songs having a life outside of the soundtrack and, possibly, being recorded by Elvis even on a regular session.
The remaining songs are more lightweight fare, in a similar style to What a Wonderful Life from Follow that Dream. In fact, three of them all have roughly the same lyrical theme: I Got Lucky, Riding the Rainbow and This is Living. They were, if nothing else, upbeat cheerful numbers that Elvis gave committed renditions of, even if they are almost undistinguishable from each other and almost blur into one on the soundtrack EP. The final song, another written by Sherman Edwards and Hal David, was the rather bland, but pleasant, A Whistling Tune, which had been recorded for (and then cut from) Follow that Dream. This second recording is no better or worse than the first. It's a sweet little song, well sung, but nothing more.





March 18-19, 1962: Studio Session

This session was set up in order to complete the Pot Luck album and to produce a couple more singles. On the whole, this is yet another step down from what had come before at non-soundtrack sessions – in fact two songs from Kid Galahad were actually better than many of the numbers here.
At least the sessions started well with Something Blue an attractive ballad with an interesting lyric. Elvis is on good form here, convincingly telling the story of the song, and there is sterling work from his musicians, in particular Floyd Cramer.
Not all of the ballads were as successful. Just For Old Time Sake and I Feel That I've Known You Forever are similar to each other in that they are both ballads in waltz time. They both suffer from the same problem: they are corny numbers that sound as if they were written around forty years earlier. There is a second-hand feeling to both of them, and they give off the notion that there is an attempt here to replicate the Are You Lonesome Tonight formula (but without the recitation). However, Elvis manages to do nothing with the songs except put in a nice performance. These recordings had nothing in common with popular music in 1962, and how both of them ended up on the Pot Luck album is something of a mystery.
As to be expected during this era, another ballad has a Latin rhythm. Quite why Elvis was so keen on recording second-rate tracks such as Fountain of Love is unknown. There must have been better songs out there – and if he couldn't get them through his regular sources with publishing rights, then he should have been looking elsewhere. What's remarkable here is just how much care and attention he gives the song. His vocal range is really put to the test as he moves from his lower register into a semi-falsetto voice at the end. Like so much from this period, it's pleasant enough but ultimately pointless.
Not all the tracks recorded for the album were ballads, though. Gonna Get Back Home Somehow is an up-tempo song which, at last, brings some life and vitality with it. Elvis's vocal is stunning, and the arrangement is well thought out and arresting. It's a dark little number, with Boots Randolph adding some moody sax. Perhaps it could have done with some of the gutsier sound afforded Little Sister the previous year, but this is still a vast improvement on much of the rest of the session.
Easy Question finds us back in ballad territory, but this time Elvis puts in a superlative performance, adding a vaguely blues feel to the phrasing. It's hardly a great song, but it's rather appealing in its own way (certainly more so than the antiquated ballads and Fountain of Love) – undemanding on both singer and listener, but still rather commercial.
The final song to make it to the album was Suspicion. Many rate this performance (and it was a hit for Elvis in the UK in 1976), and it is good, but it hardly ranks among Elvis's greatest achievements. He negotiates the melody with ease during the verses and then sings in a fuller voice for the chorus. However, for this writer at least, the song lacks the required hook to draw the listener in. The chorus is a little melodramatic, and the switch between the light, sweet tones of the verses to the darker vocal tone is jarring. Once again, this is pure pop and lacks any elements of blues, country, rock or gospel music that were seemingly required to make a number essential Elvis.
The remaining three songs would be released as singles. She's Not You is, musically at least, a sequel to Good Luck Charm. It has a similar pop-shuffle vibe, although the lyrics are darker. However, once again, there is no emotion here and no passion. If the narrator of the song really is missing his previous girlfriend so much, then surely that passion should be there. Instead we get prettiness or, as Billboard wrote, Elvis's "best crooning style." Yes, the song was a hit but, once again, this isn't an essential part of the Elvis legacy.
More interesting is the flip side of the song, Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello. This is hardly one of the best songs by Leiber and Stoller, but the melody is different and the lyrics look at the end-of-an-affair story from a different angle as the narrator of the song notices his ex-girlfriend across the room in a bar or restaurant. It's novel enough to make the listener sit up and take notice, and Elvis gives a fine performance. The master take is a little too safe, perhaps, and the song works at a slightly quicker pace as in take 1, issued on the Collector's Gold boxed set in 1991.
Perhaps the best song from the session is the one that was held back from release for three years. You'll Be Gone is credited to Red West, Charlie Hodge and Elvis himself, and is said to be the only song that Elvis really had any input into (despite writer credits on others). It's another song that plays on Elvis's fascination with Latin rhythms, but this time the song is a dramatic beguine. Without a doubt, this is the most successful of Elvis's dalliances with Latin rhythms, with the exception of the entertaining Fun in Acapulco soundtrack. Elvis treats the number in the same way as It's Now or Never and Surrender, alternating tender passages with almost operatic singing. It's not a masterpiece by any means, but it's considerably more interesting than most of what was recorded at this session
It's difficult to view this set of recordings as "bad," because they're not. But they are, ultimately, dull or predictable for the most part. The beauty of Elvis's voice doesn't hide the facts that many of the songs are derivative of others he had already recorded and that Elvis was simply treading water as an artist. Like the movies he was making in Hollywood, there is very little of substance here. To make things worse, there were some very strange decisions as to what was released on the Pot Luck album. Kiss Me Quick was included (as the opening track!) and yet You'll Be Gone was unreleased until 1965. Likewise, the interesting I Met Her Today was held back but Just For Old Time Sake was released, despite sounding forty years out of date. The album could have been improved further by including one or both sides of the Little Sister/His Latest Flame single, but the policy was that hit singles wouldn't be included on the non-soundtrack albums. Elvis was in artistic decline by this point (although this had yet to hit single sales), but the release policy was making things worse than they already were. Despite these issues, Variety wrote that "the boy's still got his touch – in fact he's sounding better than ever."





March 26-28, 1962: Studio Session

Elvis's next film was Girls! Girls! Girls! and was the first to be a rehash of the formula used in Blue Hawaii. The setting was again Hawaii, and there was a mix of Elvis, girls and lots of songs. The film itself wasn't as good at Blue Hawaii. At 106 minutes, it was just too long and suffered from poor pacing – something which could have been remedied by the cutting of fifteen minutes of material. The September 1, 1962 issue of Billboard states that producer Hal Wallis had seen a preview of the film in London and that "audience reaction encouraged him to leave in more songs than he had originally planned." The soundtrack album itself worked a little better than the plodding film. Whereas the quality of the material wasn't as good as in Blue Hawaii, there was a nice mix of songs, including some styles that Elvis hadn't tried before.
Elvis was once again in fine voice, and this shows through on the plentiful number of ballads. The problem here is not how good or bad the recordings are, but that so many songs had a similar sound. Elvis's voice sounds beautiful on I Don't Want To (despite a wide vibrato), although the song itself is hardly top drawer – but at least it's better than some of the material recorded at the previous session for the Pot Luck album.
Somewhat better is Where Do You Come From. This would be released as the flip side to the single from the film, Return to Sender. The song is underpinned by a triplet figure from Dudley Brooks on piano, but this drops out during the rather dramatic bridge section, and therefore prevents the song from being repetitive. Once again, Elvis uses a wide vibrato that becomes more than a little distracting at times.
The vibrato is held at bay a little more in Because of Love, but here the material is really not up to par and there are signs here that Elvis was not quite as committed as normal in this session. There are moments when he runs out of breath, especially each time the line "because, because, because of love" appears, and it's surprising that Elvis let this take pass as the master. Also noticeable is the number of takes required for each song. There were 35 takes of King of the Whole Wide World at the Kid Galahad sessions but, here, most were deemed finished after less than ten.
A Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You is a clumsy title for what is in fact a rather pretty ballad by the writing team of Tepper and Bennett, who were getting more and more of their songs recorded by Elvis with each session. Sadly, their songs were rarely the best material, often barely passing muster. A Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You is better than most, though, most notably because of the interesting chord progression over which the melody is written. The lines "There would be this magic moment/One to last a lifetime through," for example, provide Elvis with a genuine climax to the song that he could build his performance around. By the same pair was Earth Boy, a song with a Chinese sound that may well have been written with the best intentions, but the pidgin English that makes up the lyrics makes for rather uncomfortable listening today.
Another ballad by Tepper and Bennett was Song of the Shrimp, an allegorical tale about the dangers of the big city. Yes, it is a song about a shrimp (something of an unusual subject matter), but the number is rather attractive and works well within the film itself. What's more, Elvis doesn't make a joke of it; he sings it totally straight and is in beautiful voice here. It's certainly a divisive song amongst fans, but it's an appealing little number if you can get your head around the subject matter.
The final ballads were both written for the same scene in the film. Mama is a pretty little piece with a Neapolitan feel to it. Running at around a minute, it was spliced with a version by The Amigos, a backing group used for the sessions, when first issued on record in 1970. We'll Be Together is considerably more substantial, and with a Spanish favour, based in fact on a public domain Mexican folk song called Carmen Carmela. The source song had been recorded a number of times during the 1950s, not least as part of the soundtrack of the 1958 film The Bravados. It had also received a lovely recording in 1960 by the folk duo Bud & Travis. Elvis's version is played considerably faster, but not so much that the attractive melody is lost.
The recording of eight ballads for one film soundtrack seems something like overkill, but the remaining material is remarkably wide-ranging. The title song is a cover of the Leiber and Stoller song recorded a couple of years earlier by The Coasters. The Coasters' version was essentially a novelty song, but Elvis and his musicians work it up into a straight-forward rock/pop number. It's hardly a masterpiece, but it could certainly have been a lot worse.
Return to Sender was the obvious choice for a single, and Elvis performs it in a style influenced by Jackie Wilson. It was a considerably stronger track than either Good Luck Charm or She's Not You, and reached the #2 position in America towards the end of 1962. Once again, it's a song that straddles both rock 'n' roll and pop, and even has a sprinkling of soul thrown in for good measure. Paul Simpson writes of the recording that it "was not just Elvis's last million-seller for three years, but the last great rock/pop single from a King who was on the point of losing his throne."
Two of the most interesting songs were also the most unlikely. We're Comin' in Loaded and Thanks to the Rolling Sea were written in a way to make them sound like traditional work songs sung by fishermen. Robert Matthew-Walker refers to the latter as a "Darin-like performance," and he's certainly not wrong. Just a few months later, Bobby Darin would record two albums (in one all-night session) of folk songs. The second album, Golden Folk Hits, was of straight-forward covers of the songs at the heart of the then-current folk revival. However, both We're Comin' in Loaded and Thanks to the Rolling Sea would have fitted rather snugly on the first album, Earthy. Elvis takes to this unusual material extremely well, and the a cappella take of Thanks to the Rolling Sea, first issued in 1980, is something of a revelation and makes one wish that Elvis had pursued folk-related material more often.
The Walls Have Ears draws once again on Latin rhythms, but this time the tango. It's a silly little song from the point of view of the lyrics, but Elvis puts in a fine performance and enters into the spirit of it all with his tongue fixed firmly in his cheek as he sings about flinging shoes and parting his hair with a chair.
The least effective material here are the rockers. I Don't Wanna Be Tied has moments when it sounds like it is really going to take off, but it's let down by an ineffective bridge section and the fact it's derivative of the other rock 'n' roll material that Elvis was recording at the time. Ultimately, the only real fire is at the very end, where Elvis lets rip in a slow, bluesy coda.
I Don't Wanna Be Tied sounds like a masterpiece compared to Plantation Rock. One of the lamest rock 'n' roll songs that Elvis recorded during his career, there was good reason why this was cut from the film and held back from release for a couple of decades.
Like the film itself, there was nothing particularly wrong or bad about the soundtrack, it just went on for too long. The emphasis on ballads meant they were getting repetitive and this ultimately took something away from the fine performances most of them received. For his next film, Elvis would find himself back at MGM for the first time since 1957, and the quality of both film and soundtrack would sink to their lowest level yet.


August 30 and September 22, 1962: Studio Session

At the time that Elvis was making It Happened at the World's Fair, MGM were "mapping [a] film titled Right This Way Folks, based in part on the showmanship expertise of Elvis Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, as a starring role for Presley." At least that project got changed on the way to the screen, and the resulting film, Roustabout, didn't turn into the Colonel Tom Parker story.
Elvis supposedly had a cold at the time the World's Fair soundtrack was due to be recorded, and so it was split over two sessions nearly a month apart. Only ten songs were required this time, but around half of those required were below par. The resulting LP was merely twenty minutes long, made up in part by mediocre material, and the sound quality was also a significant step down from that which had been achieved on recent Elvis sessions. Ernst Jorgensen explains that this was due to the MGM way of recording material for their films and, on record, the "result came out sounding dull and one-dimensional."
It Happened at the World's Fair was hardly the catchiest title for a film, and so there was no title song this time around. However, there was Take Me to the Fair which had been a working title. Once again we are in a landscape of blandness with this Tepper and Bennett song. While the writing pair might have been one that could be depended on to provide material for the movie soundtracks, their submissions were getting more and more predictable with each session. Relax, by the same writers, was nothing more than a rehash of Fever, and few people who bought the album could have failed to notice. Elvis sings both songs as well as can be expected, but fails to bring Take Me to the Fair to life, and Relax lacks much of the sultry nature he brought to Fever just a couple of years earlier.
One writer who could never be accused of being a hack was Don Robertson, who contributed two lovely ballads to this soundtrack. I'm Falling in Love Tonight is hardly a classic number, but it is distinguished by the use of organ rather than piano, and Elvis's tender performance. The other Robertson number, They Remind Me Too Much of You, may not be well known outside of the Elvis fan base but is still one of the best ballads from the movie years. Elvis gives a sweet, delicate performance of this song which remains one of Robertson's greatest.
There's not one but two children's songs here. One of them, How Would You Like To Be, is one of the most tedious tracks that Elvis ever recorded. At nearly three-and-a-half minutes, it far outstays its welcome, but I guess something had to make this an LP rather than an EP. Elvis tries his best, but even he can only "hop a little" and "tra la la" so much before the skip button is pressed. Cotton Candy Land, on the other hand, is quite different. This little lullaby is surprisingly dark, even menacing. Surprisingly, Elvis doesn't sing this in his quietest voice, but uses some power, especially in the opening verse. It's not necessarily what many would have been buying Elvis LPs for, but it is at least effective.
The remaining songs are a bland bunch. Beyond the Bend is suitably bright and breezy but, like the similar songs on the Follow that Dream EP, there is no substance. A World of our Own is nice enough, but is essentially writing team Giant, Baum and Kaye doing their best impression of a Don Robertson ballad. Meanwhile, Happy Ending is an awful song that finds Elvis in similarly awful voice, barely able to reach the low notes at the start of each verse, and lacking the vocal flexibility of his other recordings from the period. There is a period in 1965 where his voice sounds thicker than usual, without any of the delicacy that made some of his early 60s ballads so good. That sound is present here, particularly in the awkward melody that accompanies the words "a real good cry" at the end of the bridge. Perhaps it was the after-effects of the "cold," but then a new recording should have been made at a later date. The movie soundtrack sessions were fact becoming a production line rather than a place of artistry.
The single from the session was One Broken Heart for Sale which Billboard referred to as a "bright rocker with that Return to Sender bounce." However, this proved to be one derivative song too much, and the song stalled at #11 in the charts – finally record buyers were speaking with their wallets, demanding something better from Elvis. His next single would certainly deliver on that demand, but his resurgence would be short-lived.














CHAPTER SIX
A DOG'S LIFE: 1963-6

Whereas the quality of Elvis's recordings had been falling for over a year, it was around 1963 that this started to be reflected in both sales and reviews. The delayed reaction makes perfect sense – not only was product hitting the shelves several months (and up to a year) after it was recorded, fans and consumers in general were willing to give some slack when one film or album didn't quite hit the mark, but not so much when lacklustre releases became the norm. Quality picked up a little in 1963, up to and including the Viva Las Vegas recordings. After that, however, it was pretty much downhill all the way as regular sessions were avoided for nearly two and a half years in favour of churning out films and the soundtracks to go with them.


January 22-23, 1963: Studio Session

Neither the film nor the soundtrack of Fun in Acapulco is a masterpiece, but both are, indeed, "fun" and enjoyable entertainment. The Mexican theme allowed Elvis to finally get his obsession with Latin-American rhythms out of his system, but this time in a way that was far less bland than numbers such as Kiss Me Quick and Fountain of Love.
The first song recorded at the session was Bossa Nova Baby. Ironically, the song doesn't have a great deal in common with the sound of the bossa nova craze that was sweeping both the pop charts and the jazz world at the time. However, here the emphasis is on having a good time. Elvis manoeuvres his way through the fast-moving lyrics with ease, and he and the band sound as if they are having real fun making music for the first time since Rock-a-Hula Baby. The instrumental break is pushing the fun a little too far, and sounds like it was spliced in from a Tijuana Brass album, and the shouts and squeals don't help either, but as soon as Elvis re-enters, this little blip is forgotten and forgiven.
There were no ballads at all in the Fun in Acapulco soundtrack, and so Don Robertson (with Hal Blair) had to come up with more upbeat numbers this time around. I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here is hardly his best work, but Elvis seems to be relishing the change in material and the trumpets added to the band in order to provide a more Mexican sound. This is a rather under-stated little track, but there are some lovely moments, such as when Elvis sings the line "your troubles, like bubbles, will soon disappear in the air."
Also by Robertson and Blair is Marguerita, a lovely song that opens with a great instrumental by Anthony Terran and Rudolph Loera on trumpets. Elvis gives a performance that is both tender and dramatic, and he sensibly leaves more room than normal for instrumental passages, thus allowing the song room to breathe.
The Mexican theme seemed to bring out the best even within the song-writing teams most associated with formulaic or bland material. For example, Giant, Baum and Kaye came up with El Toro, a dramatic little number about a matador. Elvis tells the story with aplomb, with his performance switching between his most tender vocals and singing at full power.
Meanwhile, even Tepper and Bennett came up with the amusing The Bullfighter was a Lady, about Pedro the bull who falls for the charms of a female bullfighter and pays the ultimate price. It's very silly, of course, but Elvis sings it sincerely all the way through until the pun in the last line.
Tepper and Bennett also provided Vino Dinero Y Amor, which is nowhere near as good, and the recording is marred by the rather over-enthusiastic shrieks from The Amigos. Too much tequila, perhaps?
Mexico would have been better had it not been for the fact that the master take sounds like half of a duet (it is a duet in the film). In some of the other takes, Elvis sings during the "gaps", thus making the song considerably less awkward. As it is, the master sounds only half finished.
The remaining songs are a mixed bunch. Fun in Acapulco is slight, but attractive. Elvis had rarely sounded better, singing in a relaxed manner that fits in completely with the lyrics. Even so, he was still able to make the most out of the more interesting parts of the melody, thus spotlighting the more interesting chord progressions that accompanied such lines as "time to tell the guitar and sleepy eyed stars to be on their way." It's not classic Elvis, but it's hard to dislike.
You Can't Say No in Acapulco has an attractive cha-cha rhythm, but the song is undistinguished. Elvis sounds as if he hasn't quite learned the melody yet, and fumbles around some of the lines. The main problem, though, is with the song itself. The melody isn't strong enough, and there is no memorable hook to draw the listener in.
Guadalajara, a recording of a song written in the late 1930s, has Elvis singing in Spanish, and it's nice to have him tackling an authentic Mexican song. However, his vocal here is not the best and the result is clumsy and awkward.
The final song, No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car, has come in for some flack over the years, being highlighted as an example of everything that was wrong about Elvis's years in Hollywood. In reality, the song is completely daft, but at least that was the intention. For a jokey novelty song about the Latin-American craze, it's probably as good as can be expected. As for Elvis, singing about how a "pretzel feels" might not be his finest moment, but he seems to take it with good humour. The next time he encountered a pretzel in song would be in the infamous Yoga is as Yoga Does sequence of Easy Come, Easy Go – and the less said about that, the better.
There is no escaping that the soundtrack to Fun in Acapulco is pure kitsch. However, it's the right kind of kitsch and hugely enjoyable if you're in the right mood. None of the songs are absolute classics, but Elvis makes the most of them and his good humour shines through. Critics were kind to both him and the film when it was released. Howard Thompson told New York Times readers that "compared with the Beatles, Elvis Presley sounds like Caruso." He also states that the film "is far and away his best musical feature to date." The film has certainly aged well, thanks to personable performances by Elvis and Ursula Andress. Special mention should also be made here of Larry Domasin, the child actor who plays Raoul, Elvis's manager in the film – his fine, likeable performance makes him stand out as the only child actor in an Elvis film who doesn't become annoying!


May 26-27, 1963: Studio Session

This session was primarily organised in order for Elvis to record a new album and some material for single releases. The results were mixed but, despite the constant feeling here of going over old ground, the resulting album would have been more entertaining than Pot Luck. However, the album was never released. As part of the ever-increasing list of bizarre decisions regarding Elvis's career, this material was mostly used as bonus songs on soundtrack albums and B-sides.
The session started unconvincingly with the insipid Echoes of Love. Elvis sings it well enough, but he must have known that this was the flimsiest of material. The endless repetition of phrases within the melody and the backing make this nothing less than a bore. It might have just about passed muster on a soundtrack, but for a non-soundtrack session, this was a joke.
At least Elvis and the band sound as if they have woken up on Please Don't Drag That String Around. This upbeat number seems to follow the One Broken Heart for Sale sound quite closely – which is rather ironic given the poor chart showing for that single. However, it's fair to say this is a better song and performance. The chorus is more memorable, although the lyrics sound as if they are a combination of Teddy Bear and Wear My Ring around Your Neck. Elvis and the band make a good job of it, but there seems to be no shape to the arrangement – there's no increasing intensity with each chorus, and no climax to the song.
Devil in Disguise was much better, and was the single that returned Elvis to the top ten after the relative failure of One Broken Heart for Sale. This was a perfect number for radio – memorable from the very first listen thanks to the continued switch from slow to fast tempo throughout. Elvis sings it brilliantly, using his soft voice for the slow verses, and then using more power during the choruses. A year later, the song would be memorably used (without permission) along with other hits of the day by experimental film maker Kenneth Anger in his homoerotic movie Scorpio Rising.
Aside from the Fun in Acapulco soundtrack, one of Elvis's best excursions into Latin rhythms came with his lovely rendition of Never Ending. Unlike some of the previous songs he had tried in this vein, this number has a substantial melody that swells within each verse, and therefore Elvis was treated to something he could really get his teeth into. The chorus itself, repeating the title of the song over and over is something of a let-down in comparison, but Elvis's voice is as smooth as silk and he elevates the number with his lovely performance.
What Now, What Next, Where To is a title that could have been Elvis questioning his own career. The song is a medium-paced ballad with a touch of country within the arrangement. It's pleasant enough, but ultimately unmemorable. Finders Keeps, Losers Weepers has much the same feel. Elvis's performances are good enough, but it appears that less effort was being put into the recordings than usual. Of the twelve masters recorded here and released over the next few years, eight of them were completed in under five takes.
Witchcraft was a song that had been recorded eight years earlier by the little-remembered group The Spiders. Elvis's version shows that he still had the magic touch when he put his mind to it. As he had so many times in the past, he transforms the song by ditching the straight-forward rhythm of the original in favour of something more contemporary (there is a vague "twist" feel about it), and then adds the one thing missing from the original: sex. He sings the lyrics in a seductive voice, making it a kind of musical cross between Fever and Such a Night. Ultimately, it's not as good as either one, but it does demonstrate what Elvis could still do when confronted with better material.
Elsewhere, some of the remaining songs sounded just a little too like what had come before. Love Me Tonight, from the ever-reliable Don Robertson, sounds like a diluted version of There's Always Me but without the drama. Meanwhile, Slowly but Surely has a feeling not unlike Put the Blame on Me. Neither are bad recordings, but the session was back to relying on songs that were influenced by past glories. This is even more evident in Western Union, the lyric of which reads like a blatant rip-off of Return to Sender as Elvis sings about unanswered letters and phone calls. It would be almost embarrassing if it wasn't for the fact that Elvis takes the song seriously and puts in an appealing performance that almost makes one forget the second-hand quality.
Long Lonely Highway is somewhat different. The lyric is considerably darker than traditional Presley fare of the time. While in What Now, What Next, Where To, for example, Elvis is contemplating what his life has in store for him now he has split up with his girl, Long Lonely Highway has him contemplating death. The lyrics pass us by because of the upbeat tempo, but the thought of suicide is mentioned twice, firstly at the end of the bridge ("my drinkin water's muddy/so don't you tell me buddy/that I wouldn't be better off dead") and, even darker, at the end of the final verse: "If you read about me, tell her she's the one to blame", suggesting "if you read about my suicide/death" - a line that seems to foreshadow "all the papers told of how you lost your life" in Long Black Limousine. However, it seems as if Elvis completely misses the dark element. There is no menace, fear or depression in his reading of the lyrics, which seems odd considering their content.
Three songs from the session were basically left unfinished. Ask Me and Memphis, Tennessee would be re-recorded the following year, but Blue River was released anyway, being artificially extended for release as a B-side in 1965 in a mix that covered Elvis's vocal in distortion.
These may have been a mixed bag of recordings, but they were at least a livelier bunch than those that had been chosen for Pot Luck. They were eventually released as a coherent album under the title For the Asking in 1990. Recordings such as Devil in Disguise, Witchcraft and Never Ending showed that Elvis could still deliver when he wanted to, but he was generally too keen to take the easy route, crooning his way through a group of bland songs. Once again we can see that Elvis's career was already becoming irrelevant with or without the never-ending run of movies and the impending arrival in America of The Beatles.


July 9-11 and August 30, 1963: Studio Sessions

"Coming on a balmy day, with no pretensions of art, Viva Las Vegas, the new Elvis Presley vehicle, is about as pleasant and unimportant as a banana split." These kind(ish) words come from Howard Thompson's review of Viva Las Vegas in the New York Times. Whereas, a few years earlier, Elvis films were treated by the newspaper as contemptible rubbish, by 1964 they were being welcomed with at least partially open arms. A few months later, in his review for Roustabout, the same reviewer was bold enough to write that "there are worse things than an Elvis Presley movie – far worse." Some of the compliments about the stars of the film were somewhat back-handed. The Times wrote of Ann-Margret that "her screen personality is completely synthetic, calculated down to the last wiggle of a hip, but it is all put over with such hard professional confidence that somehow it exerts a cobra-like fascination on the beholder."
In many respects, the reputation of Viva Las Vegas has increased in the five decades since its release. For example, George Morris writes that the film is a "combustible fusion of [George] Sidney's kinetic style and the non-stop gyrations of its two stars, Ann-Margret and Elvis Presley. This is not only Sidney's best sixties movie; it is also the Presley and the Ann-Margret movie. Audaciously directed and outrageously performed, Viva Las Vegas gets its juices from the perpetual motion at work before – and behind – the camera."
Certainly, the film's popularity relies on the on-screen chemistry between Elvis and co-star Ann-Margret but, in many respects, this is a movie that is often viewed as better than it really is. The songs are a mixed bunch, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the film certainly has its faults – not least the condensed ending which seems like nothing more than an afterthought. However, according to Variety, the tight running time of the film may have been as a result of director George Sidney being asked to trim twenty minutes from the movie. Peter Gurlanick calls the film "Elvis' first legitimate musical," but that was actually G I Blues from 1960, as discussed under the relevant entry for those soundtrack sessions. If nothing else, however, Viva Las Vegas is thoroughly enjoyable fluff, and probably Elvis's best post-Blue Hawaii movie.
The title song has been used so often on film and TV documentary soundtracks over the years that it tends to be forgotten that it was released only as a B-side in America, reaching #29 in the charts. It did better in the UK, released as the A-side and getting to #17. The Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman song is given an infectious, party-like vibe – and an early take that has been released on the collector's label, FTD, demonstrates that it didn't come as naturally as it sounds. Elvis's vocal is full of energy as he sings this tribute to the city that would ultimately dominate the last eight years of his life.
The A-side of the single was a less than brilliant jaunt through Ray Charles's What'd I Say. It may be frenetic, but the various yelps and shouts throughout really do little to help. By the end you're not sure whether you're listening to a studio recording, or a tape made at a private party in a bar where a little too much alcohol has been consumed. It's all very unconvincing and lacks authenticity – compare it, for example, to Bobby Darin's take of the same song, recorded for his album Bobby Darin Sings Ray Charles. Elvis's version has none of the soul of the original, and it ends up simply trying too hard.
Night Life sadly isn't the classic Willie Nelson song of the same name, but an original number written for the film that, like the title track, pays tribute to Vegas. Here, though, the party-like atmosphere of Viva Las Vegas is replaced by a slightly seedier feel. Some of the lyrics are a little strange – watch out for those "long legged women who will take you for a trimmin'" (whatever that is – perhaps I'm just innocent, or uninitiated) – but, otherwise, it's a good bluesy little number that is brought to life both by Elvis's laid-back vocal and Billy Strange's guitar work.
C'mon Everybody isn't the famous Eddie Cochran song (there obviously was a shortage of new song titles in 1963), but a rather lame rock 'n' roll number. Elvis tries to inject some excitement into it, but it's all rather limp. It works a bit better in the film itself, although the overall arrangement is just too thin – and, as with the What'd I Say sequence, most of one's attention is taken up not with the song, but by wondering why Ann-Margret was unable to dance unless her mouth was wide open.
If You Think I Don't Need You is better and, like many of Ray Charles's recordings, sits musically between a big band number and soul. Elvis tries his best, but the result is distinctly average. Elvis sings in his higher register, something which normally adds more edge to his vocal, but here it provides a kind of whining sound that is less appealing.
By far the best recording in the soundtrack is also the least likely: I Need Somebody to Lean On. Here, Elvis is provided with a great song by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, but it is a torch song not far removed from the saloon songs that Sinatra sang in each of his full-length shows from the 1950s through to his last major concert in 1994. Accompanied by just a trio comprising of piano, guitar and bass, Elvis makes a rare flirtation with jazz-styled vocals. Given the results of this song (and his private recordings of Fools Rush In and It's a Sin to Tell a Lie in 1966) it's a shame he didn't decide to give over a whole album to the standard repertoire.
The two other ballads are both based on classical pieces of music. Santa Lucia is a traditional Neapolitan song dating back to at least the early 1800s. Elvis's version is performed with a simple acoustic backing. It's pleasant enough, but Elvis somehow gets ahead of the accompaniment about half way through, and remains ahead of the beat for the last half of the song. Today, Tomorrow and Forever is more substantial and better performed. The song is based on Franz Liszt's Liebestraume. Elvis's restrained performance is very nice indeed, although his vibrato seems a little out of control in places.
Do the Vega is a failed attempt at creating a new dance craze. It's surprisingly likeable as a piece of lightweight nonsense, and far better than Do the Clam, which would appear in Girl Happy in 1965.
The medley of The Yellow Rose of Texas and The Eyes of Texas is less palatable. It starts off reasonably enough but, by the end, Elvis sounds as if he is singing with a load of drunks – that's fine within the context of the film, but it should never have been released on record.
Three duets with Ann-Margret were also recorded. One of these, Today, Tomorrow and Forever, was discarded and the solo version issued on record instead. The duet was finally released on the 4CD box set of the same name. The solo version is undoubtedly the better of the two. While Ann-Margret is a fine duet partner on the other songs, her voice simply becomes annoying here, and gets in the way of Elvis's subtle performance.
The Lady Loves Me is a relatively simple comedy song that may outstay its welcome a little bit, running at nearly four minutes, but the chemistry between the two singers is obvious, particularly when seen in the context of the film itself.
Finally, the Leiber and Stoller number You're the Boss provides the perfect number for Elvis and Ann-Margret. Ernst Jorgensen calls the performance "wonderfully seductive," and there's no denying that. At the same time, though, it's remarkably restrained; neither performer sings at full power, instead wooing each other in what can only be described as aural foreplay.
The soundtrack is by no means a perfect set of songs, but there is more good here than bad, which makes the decision not to release the soundtrack as an LP somewhat unfathomable. Instead, the songs were drip fed to consumers through singles, EPs, budget albums and posthumous collections.


September 29-30 and October 10: 1963: Studio Sessions

One of the songs for Elvis's next film was entitled Once is Enough, and that sums up many people's view of Kissin' Cousins, both as a film and a soundtrack LP. The film was panned by the now-friendly New York Times, with Howard Thompson exclaiming "For Pete's Sake, El!" in his review, and going on to call it "tired, strained and familiar" before telling Elvis to "spruce up or leg it back to Acapulco." The director, Gene Nelson, manages to do nothing to elevate either the script or the musical sequences despite his own career as a dancer and actor which included a number of films with Doris Day, including Lullaby of Broadway, Tea for Two, and The West Point Story. Nelson never quite made leading man status, often playing second fiddle to the likes of Gordon MacRae. He was, in fact, a reliable and likeable actor and a fine dancer, but he was, at best, a workmanlike director and had little experience of directing on the big screen prior to Kissin' Cousins, having been at the helm of just two feature films.
For the first time, a whole album of material was recorded by the band putting down tracks for Elvis to overdub later. The aforementioned Once is Enough is one of only a couple of songs that pass muster. It's an agreeable upbeat rock/pop confection that is sung well by Elvis, but he sounds rather self-conscious being forced to make the most of such bland, clichéd lyrics as "if you live every sec/what the heck/Once is Enough." At least Boots Randolph makes the most of his saxophone solo, but when the instrumental break is the highlight of the song, then you realise things are bad.
Catchin' on Fast has a similar feel, but is a truly awful song, devoid of a memorable melody and lyrics that have any form of originality. Elvis sounds truly appalling, and struggles keeping in tune during the bridge (which he sounds as if he is still learning). The arrangement is just as bad, and the song just ends suddenly after less than eighty seconds – and brevity is about all the number has going for it.
Even the worst of Elvis's soundtracks have at least one decent ballad, and this is no exception. Anyone is a nice little song – quiet and unassuming, and sung very well by Elvis who sounds in better voice here, although he gets lost in the mix. However, a reality check is often needed when assessing these soundtracks. Compared to the rest of the material here, this sounds like a masterpiece, but it really isn't – it's just an average ballad in a style that Elvis had recorded in many times before.
The other decent ballad is Tender Feeling, based upon on the traditional song Shenandoah. However, while the melody is strong, the words are hardly Shakespeare, and the whole thing is marred by the jarring instrumentation which only serves to take away attention from Elvis's decent vocals.
One Boy, Two Little Girls is another ballad, but rather sappy despite being relatively inoffensive – although the twenty-eight year old Elvis singing about being in love with two "little girls" is just a tad strange. Elvis sings in his higher register and puts in a charming performance, although it's hard to understand why he bothered as nothing was going to make this a decent track.
Kissin' Cousins is a decent enough rock 'n' roll number, but completely irrelevant in 1963 – something which is not helped by the novelty of Elvis duetting with himself (he played two roles in the film). Jorgensen writes that "Elvis had to record two sets of vocals, one in his normal voice, and one with a mock-Tennessee twang." At least it's better than Kissin' Cousins No. 2, a song so insipid that the most interesting thing about it is the echo which swamps Elvis's vocal.
The remaining songs are some of the most embarrassing that Elvis ever recorded. Smokey Mountain Boy is set to a march rhythm and has no likeability factor whatsoever. Elvis tries hard to do something with this nursery-rhyme-like ditty, but fails miserably. There's Gold in the Mountains is worse. The verse is just about passable, but the chorus is appalling thanks to Winnifred Brest and Dolores Edgin, whose grating, squawking vocals drown out Elvis's own. Finally we have Barefoot Ballad – which isn't a ballad in either the sense of a slow love song or a song telling a story. Instead it's a "down-home country song" with lengthy sections about toes all sung with Elvis in "mock-Tennessee twang" mode.
It doesn't need to be said that this was the nadir of Elvis's career so far. One can only wonder why Elvis didn't put his (bare)foot down and demand better material. This wasn't just a group of bland songs, some of them were thoroughly ridiculous. Despite this, the ever-faithful Billboard said that the album had "fine work from the singer." However, a flick through the pages of the magazine during this period shows just how out of touch Elvis was by this point. A few years earlier, he was being mentioned in two or three articles per week but, by 1964, he was barely mentioned at all.
A telling article by Michael Fessier Jr in Variety shows exactly what was driving the never-ending sequence of movies. He quotes Colonel Tom Parker as saying "Look – you got a product, you sell it. As long as the studios come up with the loot we'll make the deal." The interview with Parker is possibly his most candid, and money dominates the conversation. "Another guy says he has a script which would cinch an Oscar for Elvis and wouldn't we do it for less money," Parker says. "I told him pay us our regular fee and if Elvis gets the Oscar we'll give him his money back. …So maybe we never win an Oscar – but we're going to win a few box office stars." Readers are told by Fessier that "once a deal is made the studio takes complete control of a film, the Presley camp having no say – so on cast, script or production costs. 'We don't have approval on scripts – only money,' says Parker. 'Anyway, what's Elvis need? A couple of songs, a little story and some nice people with him." It's a sad and sickening article, but one that gives us great insight into the mind of Parker. Elvis's artistry was clearly of no importance to him, just as long as the money kept rolling in and, most importantly, as long as Parker got his cut. Quite why Elvis went along with Parker's business decisions, seemingly without question, remains a mystery.


January 12, 1964: Studio Session

This short studio session produced three of the best tracks Elvis had made since 1960, but it would also be his last non-soundtrack recordings for over two years.
Elvis wanted to re-record two songs that he had attempted the previous May, with an eye to them being released as single sides. The Chuck Berry song Memphis, Tennessee was up first. D. J. Fontana and Buddy Harman launch into the song with a drum beat that could so easily have been extended into an opening vamp for the concert stage in future years. Alas, the song never became a concert regular, let alone an opening number. The studio recording is a remarkable fusion of powerful rhythm and plaintive vocal. As with Chuck Berry's original, there is no hard edge to Elvis's voice, with him instead using his higher register and concentrating on telling his story rather than turning this into an out-and-out hard rock 'n' roll number. However, this version is more vibrant that Berry's, and ultimately more moving. Berry's recording seems to work up to the final reveal that Marie is "only six years old," and that isn't the emotional centre of the song as much as it is the twist in the tale. Elvis approaches it in a different way (perhaps because it was a cover and the twist was already known). He is interested in the whole story and not just the end, grabbing the listener's attention from the very beginning and never letting go.
Ask Me is a ballad based on an Italian song, Io. The song might have had relatively little to do with what was in the charts in 1964, but Elvis's voice was sounding better than it had done for some time, and his silky smooth vocal helped take the song to the #12 position in the charts in America.
Elvis saved the best for last, however, when he recorded a new ballad entitled It Hurts Me that ranks as one of the greatest of all Elvis recordings. This fine song features a brilliantly-controlled performance that ranges from the dulcet tones of the opening lines to the powerful sounds that Elvis uses to act out the frustration and anger felt by the character at the centre of the song. Sung over a triplet beat, Elvis also manages to incorporate a soul element into his singing, something he had really only attempted previously on the verses of Never Ending the year before. Ten years earlier, almost to the day, he had been at Sun Studios cutting his second disc of private recordings in a rather stiff, plaintiff voice that seemed to be totally lacking in commercial potential. Now, that voice could be a wondrous instrument as It Hurts Me shows, but for the most part it was being wasted on second or third-rate songs (or worse).
Given some great material like It Hurts Me, and Elvis in a creative mood, brilliant recordings like this were the result. If only a full album of songs this good had been recorded in January 1964. That wasn't to be, however. These three fine recordings were ultimately wasted. Ask Me, the least commercial, was released as an A-side; Memphis, Tennessee ended up on the mish-mash that was Elvis for Everyone; and the sublime It Hurts Me was totally wasted as the flip side of Kissin' Cousins. The song remains one of the gems in the Elvis catalogue, but few outside of the fan base have ever heard it.


March 2-3, April 29, and May 14, 1964: Studio Session

It often comes as a surprise to people when they learn that the soundtrack album for Elvis's next film, Roustabout, hit the #1 spot in America. However, there appears to be a reason for this. In the States, this was the first album to be released after the successful Viva Las Vegas, which had no soundtrack of its own – and it appears that Roustabout did well off the back of that. In the UK, Kissin' Cousins was released first, and that LP did well instead of Roustabout.
Roustabout is a good, solid film. It's not Citizen Kane, but the plot is less flimsy than normal, Elvis's character is better written and plays off his former rebellious persona, and the supporting cast includes Leif Erickson and Barbara Stanwyck, who was currently experiencing a resurgence in her popularity following her appearance in the 1962 film Walk on the Wild Side. The New York Times called Elvis "surprisingly convincing" in his role, and referred to two of the songs as "a pair of nifties." Meanwhile, the reviewer in Boys' Life told its readers that the film was a "slambang tale of carnival life." The truth is that the film works better than the soundtrack album which, although it has a reasonable amount of decent numbers, often feels under-developed.
The title track of the album (which lasts barely twenty-one minutes) is a breezy little number which almost seems like a more finely-tuned version of Beyond the Bend from It Happened at the World's Fair. Elvis sings well enough, but is set far back in the original mix with The Mello Men ridiculously loud. An alternative title song was also recorded, entitled I'm a Roustabout, but was not released until nearly forty years later. The right decision was probably made to ditch the song – like Steppin' Out of Line, recorded for Blue Hawaii, it has an awkward rhythm which simply doesn't flow.
Little Egypt is a fun little song about a belly-dancer (you really should never be surprised about the subject matter of songs during the soundtracks of this period). Again, the sound is rather muddy, but it's difficult not to like this Leiber and Stoller song which is surprisingly effective even outside of the film.
Poison Ivy League is a clear sign that Elvis wasn't producing the stunning vocal quality that he did earlier in the year. The slow introductory lines of the song find him struggling to keep his pitch and his vibrato is very wide, suggesting a lack of vocal control. For once, the lack of ballad at the session might have been a blessing. Elvis's vocal tone would continue to suffer for the next couple of years, reaching its worst point during the Harum Scarum sessions. Interestingly, Mark Feeney singles the song out as a demonstration of how the "rebelliousness once displayed towards social mores is now simply redirected at highbrows and college boys. …Only twice [in film] does he play a rich boy (Blue Hawaii and Clambake), and in both cases he chafes at his wealth, attempting to break free and make it on his own."
It's a Wonderful World and Big Love, Big Heartache are two songs that have a similar feel to the title track. The first of these finds Elvis in better voice, but the second is both a poor recording and a poor song. There really is no melody line to speak of, Elvis's vocal seems uncertain, and he simply doesn't have the ability to switch from soft to more powerful singing as he had during the previous couple of years. Elvis had recorded worse, but there's nothing remotely memorable here.
If nothing else, Elvis got the chance to to return rockier material with this soundtrack. Wheels on My Heels, One Track Heart and Hard Knocks are all short and sweet numbers that provide Elvis with songs based around the basic rock 'n' roll chord progressions but, for the most part, it appears he simply couldn't be bothered to work them up into anything more than basic arrangements. One Track Heart has an effective tick-tock motif underpinning it, and Hard Knocks finds Elvis displaying some of the hard rockier edge to his voice that characterised his 1950s work, but he's not really serious about it, and it comes off as an enjoyable pastiche rather than a rock 'n' roll classic.
There's a Brand New Day on the Horizon is a reasonable number based on the tune for John Brown's Body. It seems that, by this point, the search for new material was so great that rehashed versions of older melodies were essential. It works OK, and Elvis sings it with some commitment, but there's no depth to it, and it's just a bright and breezy song.
Finally we have two short tracks whose lyrics are based around the theme of the carnival, Carny Town and It's Carnival Time. Both work fine in the film, but make for unexciting listening on the album.
The album is fun (and short). Elvis isn't in great voice, but it doesn't really matter too much considering the absence of any real ballads. However, no matter how enjoyable it was, the music from the film bore little resemblance to what was going on in the charts at the time. Elvis was fast becoming a name associated with the past rather than the present, and it would be a number of years until that changed.


June 10-12 and 15, 1964: Studio Session

For the most part, the Girl Happy soundtrack is as poor as that of Kissin' Cousins. The film is marginally better, but they were so interchangeable by this point that it's hard to tell. The New York Times reviewer felt the same way about the songs, pointing out that they are "as rhythmical as they are original." Interestingly, Boris Sagal, the director of the film, is quoted as telling Elvis to "stop back-to-back pic making, take time off and serious-study thesping."
The title track is as bland as most of the title tracks had become by this point. All of them seem to involve Elvis singing about falling in love with too many women at the same time and not knowing which to choose. The whole thing lacks any kind of excitement, which presumably was the reason that it was sped up around 8% for release. The result could have been part of a new album entitled Elvis Presley Sings Songs on Helium, but sadly the remaining songs for Girl Happy were recorded instead.
There are a few songs here that are actually worth taking the time to listen to. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die is not a great song, but at least the arrangement has a kind of smoky nightclub flavour, thanks to Floyd Cramer's piano playing. Elvis would recreate this atmosphere to better effect on City by Night in Double Trouble, but even so, Cross My Heart and Hope to Die is an enjoyable dabble at something a little different.
Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce is a better number than the title might suggest. With a vague calypso feel to it, the melody is actually rather pleasant, even if the lyrics are ridiculous. Sadly, the song is robbed of most of its charm by the ultra-dry recording but, even so, one can appreciate that there is a pretty tune lurking in the muddy sound somewhere.
Do Not Disturb is a ballad that took thirty-six takes to achieve what is essentially a mediocre recording. There are moments when Elvis sounds thoroughly bored – and perhaps he was. No doubt this was meant to be seductive in a Fever kind of way, but is more likely to send listeners to sleep.
Puppet on a String is the best of the ballads, with the melody based on the traditional lullaby Hush Little Baby. Elvis does at least seem to be engaging with the song, and it's the only track in the film that sounds as if it might have possibly made the grade should Elvis have been recording another Pot Luck-type album at around this time. Even so, Richard Williams referred to the number as "drivel," and that to hear Elvis singing it "is to hear a force of nature bound hand and foot by seductive silken threads."
The remaining songs are thoroughly dismal, and poorly recorded. The Meanest Girl in Town at least has some life to it. It's all rather manic, although Elvis seems to relish the rockier nature of the song, and for once the song does at least bare a resemblance in its style to some of the songs in the charts during the period.
I've Got to Find My Baby is simply horrible, with Elvis almost shouting his way through the cacophony of noise that makes up the arrangement.
Spring Fever is another of those songs where it appears the writers forgot to provide a tune (this was Giant, Baum and Kaye, and so that might actually have been the case). Elvis's voice sounds awful again here. His vocals started to have a thicker sound to them during this period, and this is one of the songs on Girl Happy where this features.
Wolf Call is literally a song about wolf-whistling in which Elvis gets to sing such masterful lyrics as "hoop-shoop-a-doo-wah" and "flip, flop a kay-eye," which are obviously borrowed from the works of Wordsworth. OK. Maybe not. This song has the added novelty of sounding like it was recorded under a mound of earth – which is probably where it should have stayed.
By the time he recorded Startin' Tonight it's clear that Elvis had given up. He simply spits out the words, barely bothering to sing them at all. It sounds almost as if he is having a dream and talking gibberish during the verses before yelling his way through the chorus with no attempt to make the song appealing.
And then there's Do the Clam. Billboard said that "from his forthcoming new film Girl Happy, comes a swinging new dance. Can't miss." Well, it could. And it did. Do the Vega was hardly the greatest attempt at a new dance craze, but Do the Clam was ten times sillier. It's rather funny, but unintentionally, and while Elvis tells us that "everybody's got that beat," that wasn't really the case as the single stalled at #21 in the charts – and how it got that high is perhaps something that could form the heart of someone's PhD thesis. In Australia, it reached #4 – let's move on.


February 24-26, 1965: Studio Session

In February 1955, Elvis had entered Sun studios to record three songs, one of which was the classic Baby Let's Play House. Ten years later, in February 1965, he was in RCA's Studio B in Nashville to record the soundtrack for Harum Scarum. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote of the film that "Mr. Presley wanders through the improbable whimsies of Harum Scarum with all the animation of a man under deep sedation, but then he had read the script, which has to do with a Hollywood star, a mythical Arab kingdom and some oil rights." That pretty much sums up the film, although it does still seem to fail to show just how low Elvis's Hollywood career had sunk by this point. Harum Scarum is a truly awful film.
The first track of the soundtrack album is probably the worst opener to any Elvis LP throughout his entire career (and that includes the insipid Take Good Care of Her from Good Times). The first line of Harem Holiday (also the name of the film in some territories) is so out of tune that it sounds like Elvis and the band are performing in different keys completely. One of the writing team behind the song told Ken Sharp that it "is a good song and it had some nice rhymes in it." While it's reassuring to know that at least the composer believed this to be true, there is little merit to be found in the number. Presumably Elvis felt the same way, as the finished result sounds more like a rehearsal than a master.
My Desert Serenade is better, although that's not saying a great deal. However, at least the material is better in that it sounds as if it was written by professional hack rather than an amateur and even contains a real melody. Sadly it sounds as if the choice of key is too low, but at least the performance is competent (even if Elvis still sounds slightly half asleep), and the arrangement is distinguished by the use of an oboe obbligato during the verses, although it's too low in the mix to really have much of an impact.
On a similar level is Go East, Young Man. The whole thing sounds just a tad childish but Elvis sounds more engaged here, and the backing vocals blend nicely during the choruses, something which raises the number above the average standard here.
Mirage is slightly better material from a musical point of view, but the lyrics are trite and predictable. The arrangement seems a little too fast for the melody, but Elvis makes the most of the appealing bridge section, seemingly grabbing the chance to finally sing a section of melody with some meat to it.
He sounds in better voice on Kismet. Once again, the song is hardly a masterpiece, but it's serviceable, and this kind of gentle ballad was something that Elvis was adept at making sound better than it actually is.
Shake That Tambourine bizarrely took around forty takes before Elvis and the musicians finally gave up and settled on a splice of takes 24 and 38. At least Elvis seems to sound fully awake for the first time here, but the song was hardly worth the hours spent on it.
Hey Little Girl, another upbeat number, starts off promisingly with a funky little piano riff, but the whole thing falls to pieces once Elvis starts singing and the actual song starts properly. For all of Elvis's grunts and shouts of "alright," few would be convinced that he was into this song to the extent that he is trying to suggest. The enthusiasm sounds fake, and probably was.
With Golden Coins we are back to ballad material, and once again Elvis makes the most of the pleasant melody of the verses, but the bridge is clumsy both from the point of view of the song and the performance.
By far the best song here is So Close Yet So Far. Under normal circumstances Elvis would have made a great job of this, but even here he makes hard work of it. In the first verse, on the line "then you slip away," he misses the note he is reaching for on "slip", but nobody seemed to notice when putting the album together. A much better take was included on the Collectors Gold boxed set, which not only features a more confident vocal, but a much better mix that gives the song a whole new lease of life.
Two songs recorded for the film but not included in the final cut are included as bonus tracks on the LP. Lucky us. Animal Instinct benefits from a funky arrangement with a nice use of jazz flute, but the song itself, like so many on this album, has awkward moments, especially in the bridge section.
Finally, we have Wisdom of the Ages, another mediocre ballad that Elvis does what he can with. Our interest is piqued thanks to the chord progression during the second half of each verse, but in the first verse the climax fails to materialise, and in the second verse Elvis (probably enthused at a slightly more interesting song) over-sings it, and the ending comes over as clumsy and sudden. The lyricist of the song, Florence Kaye, told Ken Sharp that "I wrote the lyrics to Wisdom of the Ages in 15 minutes." It's a good job she didn't get paid by the hour. She goes on: "My goal was to put depth into my lyrics so that the songs would resonate with Elvis and his fans." Well, that might have been the goal…
Without a doubt this was Elvis's worst album release during his lifetime, and he probably knew it. But the fault wasn't all his. The songs range from mediocre down to amateurish, the arrangements are uninspired, and the original mix of the material is muffled. Perhaps Elvis shouldn't be blamed for his lack of enthusiasm, but here was a man ten years into his career and seemingly unable or unwilling to demand better songs. What was clear, however, was that his fans deserved something better than this. Even so, to look on the bright side, the soundtrack LP is more enjoyable than the film itself – if only because it is sixty minutes shorter.


May 12-14, 1965: Studio Session

It was film scholar Rick Altman who came up with the line "when is a musical not a musical? When it has Elvis Presley in it." He had a point. Elvis's musicals rarely followed the format of a traditional movie of the genre. Often, he was the only person who sang in the film. There were no chorus numbers, often no production numbers, and the soundtrack albums weren't released and filed under "soundtracks" but as regular Elvis albums. This causes problems. While few of the soundtrack LPs were of top-notch quality, some of the others were particularly disappointing to fans simply because they weren't really Elvis albums at all. Because of the way they were marketed, consumers were almost forgetting that the songs they were about to listen to were recorded for the purposes of a film, and nowhere is that more evident than on the soundtrack to Frankie and Johnny, recorded in May 1965.
A quick search through fan forums and discussion groups today finds fans still bemused by the fact that Elvis was singing the likes of Petunia the Gardener's Daughter. Because of this, Frankie and Johnny is one of the most divisive albums in the Elvis catalogue. What is all too often forgotten is the fact that the film is a period piece, and many of the songs included are intended to replicate the style of performance seen on the show boats of the late 1890s.
Songs such as Petunia are meant to be bad. Miles Kreuger in his book on the musical Show Boat writes about how Marge and Gower Champion were miscast in the 1951 MGM film because they were clearly much better dancers than would have been seen on the show boats. The fact that they are of Broadway standard robs the film of realism. The same would be true if Elvis was seen singing sophisticated, well-written ballads with serious lyrics. These are songs that fit in with the film, just not with Presley's image or the expectations of his fans.
Considering the standard of the Harum Scarum soundtrack and the fact that Elvis's voice on those recordings has a horrible, thick quality to it, it is reassuring that Elvis is in better voice on the Frankie and Johnny recordings. As indicated above, this is a difficult album to critique, but (no matter what your view is of banjos and traditional jazz) nowhere does it plumb the depths of the previous session. The jazz sound makes for a much more appealing theme to the album than the oriental vibe on Harum Scarum.
It goes without saying that songs such as Petunia the Gardener's Daughter, Look out Broadway and Everybody Come Aboard don't necessarily work well on record, but these vaudeville/show boat style numbers are actually rather fun pastiches of the real thing (quite why vintage songs weren't used for these spots is something of a mystery – they would have been out of copyright and so publishing deals are not the reason), and Elvis and his fellow performers manage to provide appealing vocals. Unsuccessful though they are on record, they do come off better when seen within the context of the film. Of the other songs, perhaps Chesay is the weakest. Again, this is a pastiche, but this time of traditional Eastern European gypsy music. It's passable, but unremarkable.
The other numbers are better. In his book Elvis Presley: A Study in Music, Robert Matthew-Walker repeatedly refers to Elvis betraying the influence of Bobby Darin in his 1960s recordings, but nowhere is that seen more than in the title number of Frankie and Johnny. Like Darin, Elvis manages to instil a jazzy arrangement with rock 'n' roll phrasing, and makes a good job of it on the released master, sounding engaged in a way rarely heard on record since It Hurts Me. But it could have been so much better. Take 1 was released posthumously through collector's label Follow That Dream, and finds Elvis giving a much more energetic performance that is spoilt only because the final section is sung off-mic. By take 6, the released master, his performance had been toned down considerably. Perhaps Elvis had a lack of self-confidence in this style of music but, whatever the reason, the safe master is just a shadow of what could have been.
Elvis also sounds as if he's engaged on the only number approaching rock 'n' roll, Shout it Out. The arrangement is a pale imitation of the rock/jazz fusion that had been achieved in Dixieland Rock during the King Creole sessions, but it's still a fun, engaging little number.
Come Along plays over the opening credits of the film and is an effective way of setting the scene and preparing the viewer for a far more traditional musical than they might have been expecting. This is song-writing by numbers but, even so, the arrangement is competent, and Elvis seems to be enjoying singing in a slightly different style.
Of similar ilk is a medley of Down by the Riverside and When the Saints Go Marchin' In, but sadly the arrangement here is too tame by far, and neither Elvis nor the band have any room to stretch out and make this anything other than a missed opportunity.
Aside from the title number, the ballads come out best of all. What Every Woman Lives For may have somewhat dated (slightly chauvinistic) lyrics, but Elvis, as always, relishes the chance to sing a ballad with a decent melody. Beginner's Luck is better, starting with Elvis singing a cappella for the first couple of lines, before a guitar and then a small combo joins in. His vocal suffers from a slightly out-of-control vibrato, but it's a nice love song that is well performed. Please Don't Stop Loving Me is also rather pleasant, and is a gentle ballad sung over a triplet beat, with Elvis's voice very high in the mix. This doesn't do the performance any favours. Elvis still wasn't in great voice, and every breath and cracked note is not only audible but highlighted.
Finally, we come to Hard Luck, a blues-based song which benefits from some nice work from Charlie McCoy on harmonica. As always when faced with a blues number, Elvis rises to the challenge and gives his best performance of the whole session despite the song being dragged down by some banal lyrics: "Shove off, I said toodle-oo" – really? Is that the best that Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne could come up with when they wrote it? It's a shame, for it robs the song of the possibility of being one of the highlights of the movie years.
Frankie and Johnny will, no doubt, always be a divisive album and film, and yet, to this author, it's one of the most enjoyable of the post Viva Las Vegas movies. However, not everyone agrees with that summation. Howard Thompson wrote that "compared to some previous Presley turkeys, this one sheds feathers almost from the start."


July 26-27 and August 2-4, 1965: Studio Session

Paul Simpson sums up Paradise, Hawaiian Style rather well by saying "it was in Elvis's interests that as few people saw this turkey as possible." The same comment can, by and large, be applied to the soundtrack album, which switches back and forth between songs for eight year olds and songs that will send you to sleep. Clearly, the intention here was to try to recapture the success of Blue Hawaii – or, rather, cash in on the success of Blue Hawaii. Sadly none of the songs here come anywhere close to the best songs from that film, and some of them are so insubstantial that they make Ito Eats sound like Bohemian Rhapsody.
It's difficult to know quite where to begin. How about Elvis singing to a group of howling dogs in a helicopter? Well, that pretty much sums up A Dog's Life, a song whose only real purpose in life has been to provide the title for this chapter. That's a little unfair, a number of outtakes of the track, gathered together on the 1980 boxed set Elvis Aron Presley, are at least entertaining as Elvis gets the giggles singing such ridiculous lyrics as "I'd find me a pink little poodle/And lose my noodle over her." It was his dignity that was lost here, not his noodle.
Continuing with the theme of deep and meaningful lyrics, we have Datin', in which Elvis tells us that "datin' makes girls start wiggle walkin'." Or it could just be a stone in her shoe. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad that a talent such as Elvis's was being wasted on such complete drivel. However, Elvis was the one agreeing to record these songs when he should have been refusing and demanding better material.
Following on in the same vein is the tongue-twister Quennie Wahine's Papaya, a song that speeds up with each successive verse, but which is perhaps best speeded up by hitting the "skip" button on your remote control. However, at least these three songs are memorable, even if for all the wrong reasons. The same can't be true for the rest of the album.
Elvis does what he can (which isn't much) with the title number, but he is in horrible voice here, seemingly struggling with breath control on even the shortest of phrases. His voice once again has a strange, thick quality to it that is worlds away from the beautiful, malleable tone used to good effect in the ballads of just a few years earlier.
Scratch My Back does at least have an interesting bass line but, once the singing starts, the whole thing goes downhill rapidly. At least the lines "scratch me now a little lower/what a feelin', do it slower" have innuendo value. Meanwhile, Stop Where You Are is ridiculously inane, with lyrics that sound more like they were written by the average ten year old rather than professional writers. House of Sand is another painful rock-light number with no redeeming qualities whatsoever – other than it is forgettable.
This Is My Heaven is better than most of the songs here, and is a slow ballad in the Hawaiian style. However, Elvis's vocal is heavy, with a wide vibrato, without the higher register we have come to expect, and only accentuates how poor shape his voice was in here. Listened to back to back with a song such as Hawaiian Sunset, this is nothing less than painful.
Finally, we have Sand Castles, which is probably the best of the bunch here. It's a reasonable song, but would have been better recorded a few years earlier. Elvis tries his best but, again, the vocal quality he's aiming for simply isn't there and it's all a bit too heavy-handed.


February 16-17, 1966: Studio Session

After the mostly awful recordings of 1965, the songs recorded for Spinout were the first sign that things were starting to improve. There are no masterworks here, but at least there's nothing totally embarrassing either, and some of the songs are even worth listening to more than once. While the soundtrack was better, the film was not. A H Weiler wrote: "I'll Be Back [Elvis] chants in one number, which should be a welcome hint only to those juveniles whose motors he starts racing." Whereas Elvis films were, for a time, welcomed for their light-hearted escapism, now they were being viewed as for "juveniles" only, and becoming more and more derivative of each other.
When Elvis recorded the first song of the session, he must have despaired. Smorgasbord is easily one of the worst songs of the soundtrack, in which he compares the women at his disposal to the smorgasbord of the title. Written by Tepper and Bennett (there's a surprise), there's barely an effort made to make the song even remotely tasty. Elvis's voice still has the remnants of the vocal problems that had plagued his work for the previous fifteen months or so.
Tepper and Bennett did manage to come up with a couple of pleasant ballads, however. Am I Ready is based on the classical piece To a Wild Rose by Edward MacDowell. As with some of the previous soundtrack sessions, the sound quality is horribly muffled, but at least the melody is pleasant and Elvis does his best to put in a good performance. The first verse in particular sees him struggling to hold the long notes, and he often cuts them off earlier than expected.
All That I Am is like travelling back four years to Elvis's short-lived craze for Latin American rhythms. Ironically, this gentle little number is better material than most of the songs in that idiom that he recorded for Pot Luck. Elvis's voice is better here too, although not back to the pliant instrument of the past. Once again, one wishes that Elvis had found a dozen decent examples of the slow bossa nova songs that he clearly loved and recorded them for an album project. This was even chosen as the A-side of the single from the sessions, but only managed a lowly #41 in the charts.
Stop, Look and Listen was something of a rarity by this point in the soundtrack sessions in that it wasn't written specifically for the film. Instead, the song had been recorded a couple of years earlier by Ricky Nelson. Elvis's version retains some of the elements of Nelson's recording, but changes others. The most notable change is the pace. Nelson sings the song at a medium pace, but Elvis ups the tempo considerably. However, he retains elements of the backing vocals, most notably the screams and yelps. He also attacks the song with more vigour than Nelson, but there's something missing. Rather than sounding more energetic, it simply sounds as if Elvis is somehow desperate to try and inject the song with the natural rock 'n' roll feel of his best work. It's an improvement on virtually everything he had recorded since January 1964, but simply not good enough to be memorable.
In many ways, the title song has similar issues. The song itself is not as strong, not least because the endless references to cars and racing outstay their welcome long before the song is over. Once again, though, Elvis sounds energised, but it doesn't have that easy feel to it. It all seems just too forced.
I'll Be Back is no better or worse than much of the material Elvis was recording for non-soundtrack sessions back in 1963. It's a moderately-paced rocker, and Elvis sounds as if he is genuinely committed to the song. It would probably have made a more commercial single than All That I Am.
Bizarrely, the novelty rock 'n' roll number Adam and Evil is probably the best of the up-tempo songs. It might have worked better in a slightly higher key in order to add some intensity to Elvis's vocal, but the arresting drum motif at the beginning grabs the listener's attention from the start, and the song is different enough to keep that attention. This isn't a work of art, but it's fun and it's entertaining – and that's a distinct improvement over much of Elvis's work from the previous two years.
The remaining songs are nondescript, unexciting, bland movie songs, roughly of the standard of the previous films. Beach Shack is another calypso-styled number that could have been included in any number of Elvis's films. Once again, Elvis sounds as if he's trying his best, and the whole thing is performed with his tongue placed firmly in his cheek. Never Say Yes, however, sounds like a second-hand version of Not Fade Away, with verses clearly modelled on the Buddy Holly song that had been covered in 1964 by The Rolling Stones.
When the Spinout LP was released, it was the three bonus tracks that would cause more attention than the soundtrack itself. These were recorded in May 1966, at a session that would be the start of a road back to the top that would take Elvis nearly three years to complete, and would culminate in the Memphis sessions that would produce such classic recordings as In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds.


















CHAPTER SEVEN
STAND BY ME: 1966-68

The TV special that Elvis made for NBC in 1968 is more often than not referred to as the "Comeback Special," therefore giving the suggestion that this one special was behind the re-emergence of Elvis as a credible artist. Nothing could be further from the truth. In many respects, the road to the comeback actually started two years before, in 1966. The emergence of private recordings from the period show that, while Elvis had been spending all of his time in the studio recording lame material for the film soundtracks, at home he was trying out new styles, new ideas and new sounds.
While the string of soundtracks continued between 1966 and 1968, Elvis also started recording non-soundtrack material again, and this period is probably the most overlooked within Elvis's career. In 1966, Elvis might have been waded through a ridiculous version of Old MacDonald for the Double Trouble soundtrack, but he also recorded his first Grammy-award winning LP, How Great Thou Art, as well as batch of other, artistically challenging, secular songs. It's important to take this period seriously, for it is here that the Elvis comeback really began.

Various Dates, 1966: Private Recordings

The discovery of the private recordings made in 1966 was one of the most exciting finds in the years following Elvis's death. Unlike the earlier home recordings, here the sound quality is often excellent. Meanwhile, the range of material is telling, and sheds light on the styles that Elvis was toying with at this time.
Some of the numbers are more predictable than others. There are a significant amount of country songs here. The version of Tennessee Waltz issued on the Platinum boxed set contains one of Elvis's most beautiful vocals but is, alas, incomplete. Another take was released later, but Elvis spends much of the time joking around and it has none of the delicacy of the first-released version.
He also tries his hand at the Guy Mitchell hit, My Heart Cries For You, this time taking things seriously, with the exception of a forgotten line or two. Once he gets hold of the Ned Miller song Dark Moon, he is unable to let it go, just singing the song over and over and, once it ends, just kicking right back in with it again. It's similar to the way Elvis was unable to let go of One Night and Baby What You Want Me to Do at the recording of the TV show in 1968.
One of the most surprising aspects of the recordings are ones done using an early attempt at a karaoke-style LP. In 1959, the arranger Nelson Riddle released an album entitled Sing a Song with Riddle in which he conducts his orchestra through the arrangements he had written for artists including Frank Sinatra – but without the singer. "You are the solo star" reads the cover. So, here we have Elvis trying his hand at crooning the Great American Songbook with a full orchestra, and he makes a good job of it. Fools Rush In is a million times better than the country version he recorded in 1971, and It's a Sin to Tell a Lie finds him doing his best Dean Martin impression.
Elsewhere, Elvis started experimenting with new sounds and styles. He sings bass on Blowin' in the Wind, and groans along with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata – although why he does the latter is not quite clear. He also started working with close harmonies, pulling off interesting recordings of What Now My Love and Tumblin' Tumbleweeds.
Perhaps most remarkable is If I Loved You from Carousel. Here Elvis gives a powerhouse performance, accompanying himself on piano. He starts the song off quietly, letting the number grow naturally before providing a remarkable climax that lets us hear for the first time the vocal power that would dominate the studio recordings of the 1970s.
Of course, he was recorded singing gospel songs too, and it was gospel music that would provide the backbone of his first non-soundtrack studio session in over two years.


May 25-28, 1966: Studio Sessions

In hindsight, it seems strange that it took nearly six years for a follow-up to His Hand in Mine to be recorded. However, it made sense that Elvis's return to the recording studio for non-soundtrack material should be built around gospel recordings, and the resulting album would win him his first Grammy.
Following the extensive period of home recordings, Elvis could now show off a new, more mature, sound - just like he had in 1960. The first lines of How Great Thou Art sound like a different singer than the one who had crooned his way through 1961 and 1962, or sleepwalked his way through the later soundtracks. With a new producer, Felton Jarvis, in the control booth, Elvis demonstrated a deeper, darker tone than before. Beyond this, there was a sustained commitment not seen in the studio since the His Hand in Mine sessions. For that record he had placed himself within a gospel quartet setting, but for How Great Thou Art he became leader of a choir – not only were The Jordanaires present, but also The Imperials, Millie Kirkham, June Page and Dolores Edgin. One thing that is noticeable is the slightly muddy sound of some of the original mixes, but the beauty of Elvis's singing shines through nonetheless.
Elvis's version of the title song from the album is one of his great achievements. The arrangement is partly based on the recording by The Statesmen which featured on their album Songs of Faith from 1964. From this, Elvis borrowed the arpeggio figure that underpins the verse. However, Elvis's version is slower than The Statesmen's, and it has a slight swing in the chorus that is not present in their recording. Elvis's voice is fuller here, with considerably more power than had been present on record before. Here is the first example of the kind of vocal tone that would be present throughout the 1970s.
As with the Something for Everybody album, How Great Thou Art was broadly split into a ballad side and an upbeat side. In the Garden was the second track on side one and was one of the songs that Elvis said he would like to record in a magazine interview back in 1956. It's hardly the most commercial number on the album, being a morbid hymn, but once again Elvis manages to inject a slight swing into the track. Elvis's vocal doesn't have the same lightness of tone or flexibility of a few years earlier, and there are some lines here where he struggles to keep the vocal tone he is after. Still, while the non-religious might find the track a little morose and pedestrian, there's no doubting Elvis's sincerity and commitment.
Somebody Bigger than You and I is quite different. This is more of a pop-oriented inspirational song in the same vein as I Believe. Elvis's arrangement gives the song a triplet beat which is not present on most recordings. Here, Elvis sings in a lower key than normal – something he would do more and more often in the following decade. It's not the most subtle or controlled vocal of the album, but the triplet beat serves to break up the first side of the album rather effectively.
Farther Along returns us to similar territory to In the Garden. While Jorgensen states that Elvis was particularly fond of The Harmonizing Four's version of the song, it's clearly not that upbeat arrangement that he draws upon. Instead, the song is taken at a stately pace, with a slight country tinge. It's pleasant enough but, at over four minutes, it outstays its welcome despite the reverential vocal.
Stand By Me isn't the Ben E King hit, but a beautiful plea from the heart for patience and courage, and one of the highlights of the album. It's one of the simplest songs on the LP, and yet it manages to be one of those rare sacred songs that has meaning for believers and non-believers alike. Elvis is accompanied just by piano and the arrangement takes the form of Elvis singing a line that is then answered by the "choir." I wrote at the end of the chapter on the Sun recordings about how someone has to have lived and loved in order to get inside a lyric and tell a story, well Stand By Me is a key example of that coming into play. It's a song about vulnerability, and something that Elvis couldn't have delivered with this amount of passion and sincerity ten years earlier.
Without Him is a stately ballad in waltz time in an arrangement that borrows heavily from the version by The Statesmen. However, whereas their version begins with the chorus, Elvis's starts with the verse. Most noticeable, though, is the instrumentation, making striking use of the combination of organ and piano. The vocal is more tender than that by The Statesmen, but Elvis suffers from poor breath control here. Whereas the song is crying out for long passages to be taken with one breath, Elvis breathes after almost every other word, and it spoils the effect.
The second side of the album is, on the whole, much more buoyant, and starts off with the upbeat jubilee number So High. Elvis once again sings in a lower key than usual, possibly trying to emulate bass singer Jimmy Jones of the Harmonizing Four. The change of pace is welcome after the sometimes-morose first side, and Elvis puts in a fine performance, although the overall sound of the arrangement might have been less muddy had it been performed in a higher key.
Where Could I Go But to the Lord is a wonderful example of Elvis merging musical genres together. This slow number swings along gently but the vocal is instilled with a blues feel. This is a classic recording. Elvis's voice isn't anywhere near as supple as it was three or four years earlier, but here he gives a laid-back vocal and one can almost feel him relishing the opportunity to sing a song he clearly loved. He would revive the song at a brisker tempo for his TV special two years later.
Ernst Jorgensen gives a lovely account of how the unusual sound of By and By came about in his book Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. This is another upbeat number, and has an almost rock feel to it, despite the religious words. Elvis sounds as if he's having a ball – and he probably was.
Also with a rockier edge is If the Lord Wasn't Walking By My Side, aided and abetted by a dirty use of organ in the instrumentation. This is great music, with Elvis digging deep and giving a vocal that somehow remains reverent and yet uses elements of rock 'n' roll phrasing.
The next number was actually the first to be recorded. Run On is clearly based on the recording by the Golden Gate Quartet, but Elvis once again brings the song kicking and screaming into 1966, giving it a harder sound and yet also enjoying some of the "punchlines" at the end of each verse. It's by far the best of the upbeat numbers on the album, and it's a shame that it didn't become part of his live act in the 1970s, for it would have worked well in that setting.
The final song on the album (except for the addition of Crying in the Chapel from 1960) did get performed on stage at least once, in 1977. That version of Where No One Stands Alone isn't a patch on this one, however. Like Stand by Me, this is Elvis singing from the heart, and showing a vulnerable side to him rarely heard on record. His vocal is stunning, and it makes a fitting climax to the album.
The 1966 gospel recordings would have Crying in the Chapel tagged on the end – one of the few times when a hit single was used to help sell an Elvis album but, at this stage, he needed all the help he could get. Billboard were gushing in their short review of How Great Thou Art when it was released, finishing their comments by simply saying "it's great." And it was – so great that it was almost a miracle given the appalling records Elvis had been making over the previous three years. It's not even that Elvis is in great voice – he's not – but he commits himself totally to every song as if his life depended upon. His life might not have done, but his career certainly did. What's more, there were six secular recordings made at the same sessions, and one of them ranks among the very best of Elvis's achievements.
Of the fact that Tomorrow is a Long Time was first released as a bonus track on the Spinout LP, Robert Matthew-Walker wrote that it "sticks out like a Mozart quartet discovered beneath a pile of Austrian drinking songs." The song, written by Bob Dylan but based on an arrangement by Odetta, contains one of Elvis's greatest performances. With a basic, country-blues arrangement that last wells over five minutes, the song grows in intensity and is a fascinating recording. Elvis appears to be in much better voice here, with his vocal harking back in its beauty to the Nashville recordings of 1961 and 1962. He sings in his higher register here, portraying a mix of yearning and loneliness. Considering the obsession with editing Elvis's performances during the late 1960s and 1970s, it's a miracle that this one was released in its complete state. It would have made a fine single that would have shown that Elvis was still relevant and current. As it was, very few heard the song at all except the fans who were still loyal enough to be buying soundtrack albums. It was their first sign that something very special was brewing.
The single from the session was, instead, the more conservative choice of Elvis's cover of Love Letters. Elvis follows Ketty Lester's arrangement relatively faithfully, but his vocal is so good that one forgets the lack of originality. He would record the song again in 1970, but the second version has none of the finesse of this original.
Beyond the Reef is a Haiwaiian-flavour ballad that is essentially a trio sung by Elvis and his friends Red West and Charlie Hodge. In many ways, it replicates the sound that they had been playing around with in the home recordings. It's nice enough, but still seems like an informal recording rather than something intended for release. Indeed, it wasn't released until 1980.
Earlier in the session, Elvis had recorded The Clovers' hit Down in the Alley. It was typical Elvis to launch into a down and dirty blues number with innuendo-laden lyrics in the middle of a session that had been thus far dominated by gospel material. As with Tomorrow is a Long Time, the resulting master placed Elvis firmly within a current musical milieu for the first time in years. Whereas the Bob Dylan song saw him aligning with the folk sound, here he was recording a song that wouldn't have been out of place on an album by The Animals.
The remaining songs, recorded at the end of the session, were less successful. Come What May and Fools Fall in Love sounded three or four years out of date even when Elvis cut them. They're fun, upbeat rock/pop numbers, but lack importance when compared to everything else that had been achieved. The sessions were winding down and had finally run out of steam. However, Elvis had demonstrated for the first time in two or more years that he still had what it takes, and the road to the comeback had begun.




June 10-12, 1966: Studio Session

The main point in returning to the recording studio was to come up with a Christmas single. Things didn't quite go according to plan, however. Elvis failed to turn up to the first day of the session, citing a cold, and so his friend Red West put down scratch vocals on three ballads on to which Elvis would overdub his own vocals a couple of days later.
Indescribably Blue harks back to the beautiful ballads by Don Robertson that Elvis had recorded a few years earlier. Though it wasn't by Robertson, the new song still had the strong melody and sentimental and introverted lyrics. Elvis is in much better voice here than a couple of weeks earlier, with his voice back to the flexible instrument it had been in 1961. This is a stunning, dramatic performance that was released as the A-side of a single, but only reached #33.
There was a slight Hawaiian influence to the arrangement of Indescribably Blue, and that was carried over into I'll Remember You, by Hawaiian composer Kuiokalani Lee, who would die a few months later of cancer. Once again, Elvis gives a superlative performance of this beautiful ballad which, typically, not only ended up on the Spinout LP where very few people heard it, but was also heavily edited. Presumably the thinking was that Elvis fans struggled with songs that lasted more than three minutes (how Tomorrow is a Long Time escaped unscathed is a miracle).
The most fondly remembered song from the session was the Christmas song, If Every Day Was Like Christmas, which had been written by Elvis's friend Red West. It's a fine number that is an effective mix of elements of The Christmas Song in the verse and an inspirational chorus. It's beautifully sung and arranged, and yet failed to chart in the USA when released as a single. Billboard described it as a "beautiful sing-a-long holiday ballad with top Presley performance."



June 28-30, 1966: Studio Session

Despite all that Elvis had achieved in late May and early June 1966, he still had to return to the studio in order to record yet more soundtracks – something which must have been a disheartening experience. The film was Double Trouble, and the title was appropriate as there are two problems with this set of recordings. The first is the quality of the songs, and the second is the quality of the sound.
Double Trouble was not well-received by critics. John Russell Taylor of The Times wrote that "it has often seemed that Elvis Presley films are intended these days primarily for children. The main difference with the present example is that it seems to be intended for idiot children. …How can such a film have emerged from a major Hollywood company in 1967? The mind boggles." Carol Dain in The Blade wrote that "Toledo teenyboppers will find the latest Elvis Presley flick a welcome relief for a slow afternoon. Others would probably profit more from a dull day at home." Only Bosley Crowther of the New York Times (presumably mellowing with age) found the film "pretty fair and far better than the last three Presley clinkers."
It's hard to comprehend that the title song was written by Pomus and Schuman. It's an insipid example of songwriting-by-numbers from a pair who were capable of so much better. The whole thing isn't helped by the awful muddy sound and an arrangement that (thanks to the instrumentation) isn't quite sure whether it's rock 'n' roll or a TV sitcom theme tune. At least Elvis could relate to the lyrics: "Every time I think that I have finally got it made/Some losing cards are played/I just can't make the grade" must have really hit home considering the achievements of the previous month.
The best song on the soundtrack is also the least likely. City by Night has a jazz-tinged, late-at-night club vibe and Elvis at least musters up some enthusiasm for this song that sounds more like it was written for Sammy Davis Jr than Elvis. Sadly, though, Elvis isn't in good voice at these sessions and so doesn't make the most of this reasonable composition. The opening trombone solo by Richard Noel sets a suitably seedy atmosphere, but the mix is appalling and one can hardly hear the band at all in some sections, with Elvis and The Jordanaires too upfront. From what we can hear, Floyd Cramer is providing some tasty blues licks on the piano, but it sounds as if he is playing in the next room.
Long Legged Girl (with the Short Dress On) was the single that resulted from the session. It does, at least, have a bit of life to it, although Billboard's view that it's a "strong rhythm entry with traces of his earlier hit sounds such as Blue Suede Shoes" is perhaps pushing the boat out a bit far. It all seems a bit forced and faked, especially Elvis's supposed enthusiasm that has him yelling encouragement to the band at the beginning. The public failed to get as excited, and the single stalled at #63 in the charts.
I Love Only One Girl has a distinct second-hand feel, being a mediocre attempt at recapturing the "success" of Didja' Ever from G I Blues. It all works a bit better in the film, where the song is turned into something resembling a (cheap) production number, but on record it's a rather flat affair.
Elvis also gets the chance to sing Old MacDonald – on the back of a truck of chickens. The problem here isn't necessarily the song itself – both Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald managed to turn this kids song into something rather special – but the arrangement, new words and Elvis's lack of willingness to try to do something with the song means the track is one of the biggest turkeys in the Elvis legacy.
The remaining four songs are mediocre fare at best. Could I Fall in Love is a rather pleasant little ballad, but the recording is so full of hiss that it sounds like it was recorded in a rainstorm. Baby If You'll Give Me All of Your Love is a formulaic attempt at a rocker that isn't helped by the fact that Elvis sounds as if he is half asleep. The song only really comes to life in the unexpected bluesy coda.
There's So Much World to See is a relatively decent song – nothing new or exciting, but decent enough. Elvis gives a reasonable performance, but the decision to add strings to the track is odd indeed and only dilutes the attractive bluesy phrasing in Elvis's vocal.
Finally, It Won't Be Long is probably the best of the upbeat numbers here, although still nothing to get excited about. Ironically, the song was cut from the movie and only included on the soundtrack LP as a bonus track.
Not only are most of these songs dull compositions, but Elvis is in poor voice, and the sound quality is worse than on some of the recordings Elvis had been doing at home. Three bonus tracks from 1963 were added to fill out the LP. Even the ever-faithful Billboard showed signs of impatience: "Can you believe he even sings a version of Old MacDonald? Only Presley could get away with it." But he didn't. With the album reaching only #47 in the US charts (Elvis's lowest-placed LP up until that point), it appears that the patience of his loyal followers had finally run out.


September 28-29, 1966: Studio Session

"Let's forgive Elvis Presley for Easy Come, Easy Go, a tired little clinker that must have been shot during lunch hour. After all, the lad had just got married," wrote Howard Thompson in the New York Times. While it's nice that Thompson was willing to give Elvis some leeway, it's worth mentioning the film was shot long before Elvis's marriage took place. However, the newspaper's view of Elvis by this time had changed dramatically. Just over a decade before, Elvis was being condemned in the paper and viewed as a corrupter of the young. By 1967, his films were often welcomed as examples of undemanding fluff. Instead of moaning about Elvis's singing, Howard Thompson states the small amount of songs in Easy Come, Easy Go "is unforgiveable." Compared to the rapidly changing world around them, Elvis films by this point must have been as comforting to the 48 year old Thompson and 62 year old Bosley Crowther as a pipe and slippers. Sadly, this doesn't mean that the film or its soundtrack is any good – quite the contrary in fact.
The highlight of most of the soundtracks so far had normally been the main ballad, and so it seems senseless to have recorded the soundtrack for Easy Come, Easy Go without any ballads at all. The title song is possibly the best of the bunch. It does, at least, have a bit of life to it, even if the "girl in every port" lyrics had been over-used by this point. The sound quality is marginally better than that of Double Trouble, and Elvis might have been slightly more motivated thanks to the band now being expanded to include a substantial brass section. It's an enjoyable way to spend a couple of minutes, and is one of the better title songs from Elvis movies of the mid-1960s.
The Love Machine is a significant step down in quality. This mid-tempo number lacks any hook to lure in the listener, and Elvis sounds as if he is about to doze off during the choruses.
You Gotta Stop starts off better, with a slow introduction that makes one think that this is going to launch into a real rock 'n' roll number. But the introduction is the best thing about the song. The chorus does at least have a stop-start gimmick, but a decent tune would have been preferable.
We're back on firmer territory with the gospel number Sing You Children. It's nowhere near the quality of anything recorded at the How Great Thou Art session, but it's still a decent number and Elvis gives a committed vocal, and the arrangement makes fine use of the brass section.
I'll Take Love is professionally done, but is bland despite the rather fun rhythm that underpins it. She's a Machine was cut from the film but is actually one of the better songs here – not that this is saying much. Elvis opens the song with a rather menacing vocal, although this wears off as the track progresses.
Finally, we have the infamous Yoga is as Yoga Does, which Elvis sings as a solo on record but in a duet with Elsa Lanchester in the film. It's one of the most ridiculous things that he ever recorded, although one has to say that the songwriters must have had balls to submit a song with lines such as "You tell me just how I can take this yoga serious/When all it ever gives to me is a pain in my posterious." Elvis is said to have seen the whole sequence as an insult to both himself and his friend Larry Gellar and their beliefs.
The six-song EP of the soundtrack failed to chart, signalling that the formulaic films and the release of the soundtracks had to come to an end – but there would still be two more soundtrack albums to come.


February 21-23, 1967: Studio Session

1967. Another year, another soundtrack (well, three actually). Commercially, things were going from bad to worse. Indescribably Blue had been released as the new single and would reached #33, despite the fine recording. The Spinout single had only reached #40, and the Easy Come, Easy Go EP failed to chart at all. The only beacon of hope was the gospel LP, which was finally released in February 1967 and reached #18, eventually going double platinum.
Clambake wasn't the film or the album to turn the tide. It might not have been the worst script Elvis had been saddled with, but it looked the cheapest of all Elvis movies and was poorly put together. In the opening title sequence there are basic errors within the continuity editing and, in the finale "what do we see over [Elvis's] shoulder when the star drives Miss Fabares to the Miami airport and professes his true love? Mountains, real Florida mountains." Meanwhile, British magazine Showtime reported that Elvis "cannot go on making his turgid soap-operas for very much longer." It states that "the Colonel wants dramatic scripts for Elvis. ...But first, Elvis – who makes six million dollars a year and seems to eat most of it – needs to go on a diet."
The title song was at least reasonably catchy, and partly based on the nursery rhyme Shortnin' Bread. Finally, Elvis's voice was starting to sound more natural again – although that isn't true for all of the songs from these sessions – and he sounds genuinely enthused here (although the stories suggest that this was far from the reality). This was hardly commercial gold but, compared to some of the material here, it was a masterpiece.
Take Who Needs Money, for example. This duet with Ray Walker is genuinely appalling. To be fair, Walker hardly helps – and, due to technical deficiencies, it's clear that Elvis and Walker weren't even in the studio together. Elvis making a couple of comments to his invisible duet partner convinces no-one. That there's nearly three and a half minutes of this drivel only adds to the misery.
A House That Has Everything is better (but, let's be honest, anything would have been). Even so, it's undistinguished stuff. Will Friedwald, however, considers the song a "buried gem." He says that the song "is simple, direct, and beautiful, one of his most effective ballads ever, and he imbues it with a plaintive quality and a yearning that the finest male pop singers would have admired. …[The song] is one of the prettiest things Presley ever sang. It's worth at least half a dozen of the three-chord rock numbers he was cutting 10 years earlier." I'll have some of what he's having.
Next up is Confidence, an extremely tedious re-hash of High Hopes, a song that had been a hit for Sinatra seven years earlier. Elvis sounds awful here, with his voice remarkably husky. It didn't matter; very few people would have listened to the album without getting up to move the stylus over the track anyway.
Hey, Hey, Hey is a rock 'n' roll number about cleaning boats. This should be hardly surprising as the previous session provided us with a song about yoga and we have one about an impotent bull coming up near the end of this chapter. If you ignore the lyrics, this is serviceable stuff, but most will be wondering why Elvis was singing about "goop" and "elbow grease-y".
The Girl I Never Loved finally provides us with something worth listening to. This pretty ballad is nicely sung by Elvis, although the mix does everything it can to ruin the effect. However, Elvis's vocal is passionate and honest, and he sings the hell out of the crescendo at the end of each verse.
How Can You Lose What You Never Had is a relatively substantial bluesy mid-tempo song. Elvis isn't in great voice here, sounding husky once again, but it's arguably the best song recorded for the film, and the rather funky use of organ instead of piano is a nice touch. Of course, with the song being this good it was obvious that it would be deleted from the film.
Also recorded at this session was an attempt at the country standard You Don't Know Me. It's a pleasant enough version, but Elvis knew he could do better and re-recorded it a few months later for release on the LP.
The Clambake LP was almost schizophrenic in quality. On the one hand, listeners had to suffer an awful duet and a song about goop and, on the other, the bonus tracks included great recordings such as Guitar Man and Big Boss Man that were recorded in September 1967. Variety's classed the album as "another typical Presley outing", but their view that Confidence was viewed as a "standout" suggests that the nameless reviewer barely made it past track 1.


June 20-21, 1967: Studio Session

And so we finally come to the last of the formulaic movies. Speedway, the third Elvis film to feature him as a racing driver, is a cut above most of the post Viva Las Vegas movies. That doesn't mean it's a masterpiece, but it is good fun, the budget appears to be higher than usual, and Elvis actually gets to sing a couple of decent tunes. That doesn't mean that Renata Adler of the New York Times was impressed, though. "This is," she says, "just another Presley movie – which makes no great use at all of the one of the most talented, important and durable performers of our time. Music, youth, and customs were much changed by Elvis Presley 12 years ago; from the 26 movies he has made since he sang Heartbreak Hotel you would never guess it."
The title song is an appalling number, devoid of any melodic hook and so poorly recorded that Elvis is lost amongst a cacophony of sound in an arrangement that is perhaps so cluttered because something desperate was needed to disguise the quality of the melody and lyrics.
There Ain't Nothing Like a Song isn't much better, although Elvis does put in an energetic vocal. The problem here once again is as much rooted in technical deficiencies as in the song itself or the performance. Elvis's vocal has a muddy quality to it, and Nancy Sinatra's contribution to the final verse is obviously overdubbed.
Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby is at least better recorded, and this sweet little number receives a charming performance from Elvis. When it was released as a single, Billboard were enthusiastic enough to suggest that it was a "potent sales item," although it only went on to reach #71 in the US charts (and by this stage one has to wonder if Billboard were ever negative about any Elvis release). It did far better outside of the US, reaching #22 in the UK.
Who Are You is a ballad arranged as a gentle rhumba. It's ridiculously bland, completely inoffensive, and most memorable for an atypically gentle sax solo by Boots Randolph.
Five Sleepy Heads has at least got a decent melody – taken from Brahms's Lullaby. The song was ultimately cut from the film, although rumours continue that prints of the film with the song intact still exist. Despite the fact that this is a Big Boots-style lullaby, Elvis gives a lovely performance. It's inconsequential, but perfectly pleasant and really quite charming.
Let Yourself Go is the most substantial number to come from the session, and finally gives Elvis something to get his teeth into. The arrangement has a feel not dissimilar to Night Life, one of the songs excised from Viva Las Vegas. This was the first soundtrack song in years to have any chance of a life outside of the film. Sadly, it suffers from a poor instrumental break, but Elvis gives a committed performance and shows what he was still capable of when the material was good enough.
Suppose is a morose ballad that Elvis had taken a liking to. Earlier in the year, he had recorded a version at home and had Felton Jarvis arrange for it to be overdubbed for possible release. The overdubs took place, but the recording was ultimately discarded and not released until 1993. A new recording was made for the Speedway soundtrack, but the song was deleted from the film, although it remained on the album. It's a typical example of the maudlin ballads that often gained a hold over Elvis during this period. It's sung with care, but really and truly it's a depressing number with little commercial appeal beyond being a pretty ballad.
This leaves us with the most infamous of the Speedway songs: He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad, a song about income tax. In the film, the number has something of a surreal quality to it as a group of businessmen in the tax office suddenly begin a dance routine, complete with high kicks. It is a nod/homage/parody of the MGM musicals of the past and, while half-hearted, is at least a more imaginative staging of a song than Elvis walking along a beach singing to a girl. On record, the song sucks but, on film, it kind of works. In fact the worst thing about the routine in the film is not the song (which works in context, but should never have been released on record), but Elvis himself who looks thoroughly disgruntled and less enthusiastic than the rest of the cast.
As with Clambake, the soundtrack songs needed extra material to fill up an album. This time around, room was given over to Elvis's co-star, Nancy Sinatra, to belt out Your Groovy Self, a song that is far better than most of Elvis's own contributions to the album. The bonus songs provided by Elvis himself were a mediocre bunch, with Western Union dating back to 1963. Also included were Goin' Home and Mine, both of which are discussed later in this chapter. Variety viewed the soundtrack songs as a "solid group of contemporary numbers," and says the bonus tracks are "niftily handled by Presley." The public wasn't convinced and the album reached just #82 in the charts.

September 10-11, 1967: Studio Session

A session had been planned for August 22, but it was abandoned at the last minute. Billy Strange had been hired to make arrangements of a set of songs that ranged from the blues number Baby What You Want Me to Do through to the standard Ramblin' Rose, and had done so for a band that included two trumpets and two trombones. The session was rescheduled for September 10, but this time without Strange and without the additional musicians.
Country singer Jerry Reed had a record out at the time that Elvis had fallen in love with: Guitar Man. Elvis wanted to recreate the sound of the record for himself and so Reed interrupted his fishing trip in order to join Elvis in the studio for the first couple of numbers. Elvis's version of Guitar Man followed the Reed arrangement of the song very closely. Even so, Elvis's recording has a much cleaner sound than Reed's. There had been complaints ten years earlier about Elvis's diction, but here he proved that he was still firing on all cylinders when it came to rhythmic numbers and could spit out the rapid-fire lyrics with each word being clearly audible. Oddly, the song appeared on the Clambake album before being released as a single, although the importance of the song was shown in the fact that it was programmed as side one, track one, with the soundtrack itself not starting until track two. When the single was released, Billboard told its readers that "by popular demand RCA pulls this infectious rock number from Presley's Clambake LP, and this could easily prove one of his top sellers in some time." A few months later, the same magazine stated that RCA had "just scored its strongest Elvis Presley sales for many months with the rock-styled Guitar Man."
Billboard also raved about the first single to be released from these sessions, Big Boss Man, saying that it was a "wild rocker right in the top Presley selling bag." This is a hard, driving blues number that, in many ways, picks up where Down in the Alley from a year earlier had left off. Presley's voice was beginning to gain the roughness that would be so characteristic of his work during the 1968 TV special, especially when he reached into his upper register. It's an arresting performance that, sadly, still stalled at #38 in the charts.
After such an explosive start to the session, it's bizarre that Elvis then started work on Mine, a pretty-but-bland ballad from regular writing team Tepper and Bennett. When saddled with obligations as to what he recorded for the movies, Elvis was apparently groaning about quality, but, given free rein to record what he wanted at a session such as this, he still chose material that was no better than that submitted for the movies. It took over twenty takes to get the song right, but one wonders what took them so long. It's nice enough, but inconsequential.
Just Call Me Lonesome was a country standard dating back to the early 1950s when it had been recorded by Eddy Arnold and others. Elvis's version seems to be stuck in a time warp and must have sounded out of date even when it was first released on the Clambake album. In 1970, Elvis would record a whole album of country songs, but he would take them and mould them into his own style. With Just Call Me Lonesome, Elvis was not moving the song into his own style, but moving himself into an already-antiquated country style, and it is simply not as effective.
Perhaps Elvis could sense this, for the next song would be a rocking romp through Hi-Heel Sneakers, and a performance that would last almost five minutes. Here, Elvis moves back into the style of the first two songs of the session. As with Big Boss Man, Elvis added a rough edge to his voice, and the whole thing rocked with abandon, partly thanks to the contributions of Boots Randolph and Charlie McCoy on saxophone and harmonica respectively. It was an epic recording but, sadly, cut by nearly two minutes for record release, with the unedited version not being made available until 1993.
Elvis next returned to You Don't Know Me, the country standard that had been part of Clambake, but which Elvis wanted to redo for release on record. This time he managed to get what he was looking for with just one take. It's a lovely ballad performance, although it was a song that perhaps might have benefitted from a more contemporary, beefier arrangement – here, Elvis gives the song an arrangement very similar to the ballads he was recording four or five years earlier.
Elvis then next turned his attention to what was being viewed as a single for Easter. We Call on Him is a quiet sacred song that had originally been submitted for Easy Come, Easy Go but has much of the same feeling as the first side of the How Great Thou Art album. Elvis gives a committed, tender vocal and negotiates the difficult, wide-ranging melody well, although perhaps not with the ease he would have done half a decade earlier.
The A-side of the gospel single was You'll Never Walk Alone. The recording features Elvis at the piano and the song has a very different feel to the recent hit version by Gerry and the Pacemakers. While the master take is good, it pales in comparison to the unedited take 2, first released on the Platinum boxed set. Here, Elvis digs deep and gets completely lost in the music-making process, singing the end section over and over in much the same manner as he would with I'll Hold You in my Heart at the Memphis sessions in early 1969. He doesn't want to let go until he has wrung every last ounce of meaning out of the song and, by the end, sounds completely spent.
The fact that this take got set aside in favour of a spliced shorter version is a key example of how some of Elvis's best recordings were being ruined thanks to the editing process at this point. The editing of Hi-Heel Sneakers is another example, as was I'll Remember You from the previous year. The longer form allowed Elvis to stretch out artistically and invest himself fully in a song but, for some reason, these longer versions were deemed unsuitable for release.
The session ended with Elvis finally getting a master take of Singing Tree, a song he had attempted earlier in the session. This is a pleasant enough country song, but ultimately unimportant in comparison to some of the other material laid down on these two nights in September 1967. Elvis's harmony vocal is a nice touch, though.
As with the session in May 1963, this material would be released in bits and pieces through a mix of single sides and bonus tracks on soundtrack albums –something of a pity as there was the making of a fine album here.


October 1, 1967: Studio Session

Three weeks later, Elvis was back in the studio, this time to record three songs for the comedy western Stay Away, Joe, which was based on an acclaimed 1953 novel by Don Cushman.
It had taken well over a decade for MGM to get the story to the screen, having acquired the screen rights back in 1956. The book was made into a big-budget Broadway musical, produced by Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, two of the biggest and best producers on Broadway. However, while initial signs were promising, it soon became clear that the production was doomed to failure. In 1956, Bob Merrill was "weighing bids to supply the music and lyrics" to the show. At this point, Merrill was best known for writing novelty songs such as How Much is that Doggie in the Window, but would later go on to write the lyrics to Funny Girl. By March 1957, at which time the idea had gone from producing a stage musical to a screen musical and back again, Fauer and Martin had hired Bob Fosse in a "dual role" as choreographer and to play one of the leading roles. In the end, neither Merrill or Fosse would be involved with the musical, which would be re-titled Whoop-Up, that opened on December 22, 1958 and ran for just 55 performances. MGM had invested in the stage musical, presumably in the hope that they would recoup those costs and more with a big-budget musical of a stage success. When the stage show flopped, the screen version was shelved until it was finally revived for Elvis in 1967.
Only a handful of songs were required for the film, and three of them were recorded on October 1, 1967. The first was the title number – a raucous, but brief, hoe-down that was pleasant enough but had no life outside of the film.
The second song was better, a country blues called All I Needed was the Rain, which had a sound not dissimilar to the singles recorded a few weeks earlier. Elvis's vocal is lovely but, again, it's all too brief, and the lyrics meant that it was tied again to the film. Both songs were released on budget albums.
The final song recorded was Dominic. This wasn't released at the time – Elvis supposedly got Felton Jarvis to promise it wouldn't make it to record. It did appear in 1994, however, and is, basically, a song sung to an impotent bull. This is as dire and silly as it sounds but, considering the stage musical had a song that told the audience that "nobody throw those bull (sic) like my boy big Joe," it clearly wasn't a whole lot worse than what Broadway audiences were treated to a decade earlier.



January 15-16, 1968: Studio Session

With no soundtrack album being released in association with Stay Away, Joe, it was agreed that a song that could be played over the credits was needed and this could then be released on single in order to promote the film. This session in January 1968 was intended for that purpose.
The song chosen for the release was Stay Away, a re-working of the English folk song Greensleeves. Originally it was tried at an awkward, slow tempo that didn't work out. The up-tempo version which became the master is a little misleading – the song isn't actually any faster than the slow version. Instead, the instrumental backing was given a double-time feel while Elvis sang over the top at the same tempo as he had tried earlier in the evening. It's all pleasant enough and he clearly loved the melody, digging in deep during the chorus.
The other song that was recorded with Stay Away, Joe in mind was Goin' Home. This has a somewhat similar lyrical theme, although the melody doesn't have the sweeping quality of Stay Away. Elvis was in a strange mood at the session, barely able to concentrate on what he was doing and more interested in fooling around. It took some thirty takes to get the song right.
Also recorded here was Elvis's take on the Chuck Berry song Too Much Monkey Business. While some hold this country blues take on the rock 'n' roll song in high regard, there seems to be something lacking here and the number never really takes off. With Jerry Reed sitting in on the session once again, the song is underpinned by his unique guitar playing, but it's Elvis's vocal that seems uninspired. It's really quite understated, and doesn't build throughout the song.
Jerry Reed's U. S. Male was the final song recorded. This is in a talking-blues country style that is associated more with Johnny Cash than Elvis. Elvis gives a great performance, though, although the machismo of the lyrics has dated or become un-PC, depending on your viewpoint.

March 7, 1968: Studio Session

By the time Elvis entered the studio to record the four songs for the movie Live a Little, Love a Little, he must have thought his career was all but over. Despite making some great recordings over the last year, Big Boss Man and Guitar Man performed disappointingly in the charts, and the soundtrack albums were doing even worse. The Colonel had arranged for Elvis to star in his own TV show later in the year, but it must have seemed unlikely that this would hold the key to Elvis's resurgence – although it ultimately did.
For the Live a Little, Love a Little sessions a new approach took place. The four songs were arranged in advance by Billy Strange and, for the first time, Elvis was to record with a full orchestra. Rather than throwing Elvis, the orchestra seems only to have spurred him on.
Almost in Love sees Elvis returning to the bossa nova style that he had loved so much half a decade earlier. The key thing here, though, is that Elvis was now recording a song by one of the great songwriters in the style, Luiz Bonfá, who was best known for A Day in the Life of a Fool – a song that had quickly become a jazz standard. Strange's arrangement isn't as good as those by Claus Ogerman for Sinatra's first album in this style, for example, for the simple reason that, rather than retaining some of the jazz roots of the style, he moves it completely into lounge music. Bearing that in mind, Elvis's vocal is all the more remarkable as he negotiates the angular melody and manages to retain his own sound and style despite the almost-muzak arrangement he was saddled with.
Edge of Reality shows Strange more in his element. This slightly funky piece of sixties psychedelia is spoiled within the film thanks to the bizarre, and unintentionally funny, setting. On record, though, it takes on a life of its own, with the orchestral backing giving the song substance and something for Elvis to almost fight against with his vocal, meaning he has to sing in a stronger, more powerful voice. The song was the B-side of If I Can Dream in America, but became the higher charting side in Australia, reaching #2.
A Little Less Conversation has had a bizarre history. It was written by Billy Strange and Mac Davis for Live a Little, Love a Little and released as the B-side of Almost in Love at that time, with a different take being released on a budget album in 1970. It was then remade in a different arrangement for the TV special later in 1968 but not used or released. However, it was the TV special version that was remixed in 2002 by JXL and became a hit in over twenty countries. The original recording from March 1968 shows Elvis giving a much better performance than that which ultimately became the basis of the 2002 hit. That recording was in a different key, with Elvis singing in his lower register to start with and then shifting up an octave near the end to give the song more intensity. Sadly, though, the first half, in the lower key, is too heavy in tone and drags. In the original recording, Elvis doesn't shift up the octave, but doesn't start so low down either. It's a fine, funky recording that might well have become a hit had it been released after the airing of the TV special.
The final song, Wonderful World takes us back into the easy listening genre. It's a pleasant, bright and breezy song in waltz time, but unsubstantial compared to the other three recordings despite its sunny vibe.
These were the last recordings Elvis made before heading to Burbank for the June taping of his TV special. The special was originally intended to feature Elvis singing Christmas songs for an hour. Instead, he spent much of the special clad from head to toe in black leather and making his best music since 1960.
















CHAPTER EIGHT:
SAVED: 1968-9

The TV show that Elvis recorded in June 1968, and which was broadcast that December, is more often than not referred to as the "comeback." However, there were three parts to Elvis's comeback, and each one was just as important as the others. Had the TV show not taken place and been well-received, Elvis would not have entered the Memphis sessions of early 1969 with a new-found confidence that was essential for his return to the top of the charts. Without the Memphis sessions or the TV show, his return to live performing would not have had the necessary springboard to make it newsworthy. This chapter, therefore, deals with all three of the events that resulted in Elvis's return to the top of his profession in 1969.


June 20-29, 1968: Elvis TV Performances

There are already a number of good accounts of how the TV show morphed from one where he was to sing twenty festive numbers to one where he recaptured the rock 'n' roll performances of a dozen years earlier. It's not my place to recount that story here. Suffice to say that the show ended up having a strange structure in which production numbers were intermingled with live performances. The live sections had been recorded over two nights, June 27 and 29, with two performances on each night. On all four occasions, Elvis was seen wearing the now famous black leather suit and performing on a small square stage surrounded by a small audience. June 27 saw the recording of the "sit down" shows, in which Elvis was seated on stage, singing and sweating his way through some of his signature songs in an informal setting. On June 29, there were no other musicians on stage – just Elvis – but there was a band of around a dozen musicians behind the audience. Sections from all of these shows made it into the finished product which was punctuated with three production numbers and, finally, Elvis alone on the stage belting his way through a new song, If I Can Dream. Expanded versions of the show and album were released in the early 1990s and restore material that was cut either because of time considerations or censorship or both.
The show begins with Elvis staring into the camera and telling the viewer that "if you're looking for trouble, you came to the right place." As with much of the show, it's difficult to tell whether Elvis has his tongue in his cheek or if he is taking the song completely seriously. He belts his way through the first verse of Trouble before it segues into a new arrangement of Guitar Man, with both songs recurring later in the show during a lengthy production number. Elvis's performance of the song has a tougher edge than the studio version, and yet there is playfulness here also – and it's that mix of styles which best describes the whole show.
Elvis is then seen in the middle of the sit-down shows working his way through Lawdy Miss Clawdy, in a version that is far bluesier than he had recorded back in 1956. The sound here is more raucous, too. His voice has a rough edge to it that was really only ever fully present during the recording of the TV show. After the Lloyd Price cover, he launches into Baby What You Want Me To Do, a blues number that had been pencilled in for the abandoned session back in August 1967. The unedited tapes of these live segments show us that this was another case of being a song that, once started, Elvis didn't want to let go of. This wasn't anything knew – it had occurred on the alternate take of You'll Never Walk Alone and the private recording of Dark Moon, both of which were discussed in the previous chapter.
We then move into the stand-up shows, starting with a medley of Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog and All Shook Up. Sadly, while Elvis's performance is good, the arrangement is cheesy and takes away from the rawness of the vocal. Anyone who thinks that the arrangements went downhill when Elvis hit Vegas should take another listen to this medley and Jailhouse Rock, which suffers a similar fate shortly afterwards. The sound quality doesn't help during the medley, particularly as the feedback sounds like someone is vacuuming in another part of the studio at one point.
The ballads in this section work much better. Can't Help Falling in Love is treated to a lovely new arrangement, and it's a shame that it's not this one that finished Elvis's live shows from 1969-77. While the tender nature of the original is lost, the song, instead, becomes a passionate declaration of love that may well have not been coincidental considering Elvis's marriage the year before. Meanwhile, Love Me Tender eclipses the 1956 studio recording. While that version has Elvis singing all three verses in the same way, here the arrangement builds, giving the song more of a structure and allowing Elvis to give his performance a genuine climax.
The gospel medley that follows consists of Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child (sung by Jean King), Where Could I Go But to the Lord, Up Above My Head and Saved. This production number is a complete contrast to the live performances that precede it. Whereas they were stripped down, here Elvis finds himself surrounded by dancers (not that we can see these on record, of course). Sadly, on the original LP the number is edited down with a distinct lack of subtlety. Even so, it can't take away from Elvis's joyous performance, culminating in the remarkable Saved, in which Elvis sings, grunts, and almost yells his way through chorus after chorus. Yes, parts of the number are dated in the way they are presented, but this is the case for any TV special from the period (check our Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing from the same year if you don't believe me). What shines through is Elvis's love for this music, and he commits himself to it completely.
Attention then returns to the sit-down shows, as Elvis croons his way through a version of Blue Christmas. It's probably the most ineffective and unconvincing of the songs in the live segment of the show. It was only included at all as the Colonel was adamant that at least one seasonal song was included. When the special was repeated the following year, the much better Tiger Man was included instead. Here, Elvis lets rip and sings, rasps and growls through the song. There are rumours that Elvis tried this song out while at Sun, or sang it live while he was there, but it's unlikely that any version that may have once existed could compete with this one. When Elvis returned to live performing the following year, Tiger Man would be featured in an energetic medley with Mystery Train.
We then see Elvis powering through One Night, another of the songs in the sit-down segments that he seemed unable to let go of. The unedited concert sequences see him singing the song three times and, once he has started, he doesn't want to stop. This is a raw performance, but also a playful one; Elvis is clearly having a ball. It's odd that, when the song was sung in live shows over the coming years, it was almost always thrown away with little care or attention.
This section ends with Elvis singing a new song, Memories to a backing tack. However, a studio recording of the song was included on the album. Elvis sings it extremely well, often sustaining breath control over extended phrases but the lyrics are syrupy and saccharine.
The next production number is an ambitious telling of the story of the Guitar Man. The song is divided up into small sections which act as the links between the various chapters of the musician's road to success. Sadly, due to a mix of time restrictions and censorship issues, two of the songs involved in the extended medley were cut: a seedy reprise of Let Yourself Go, first heard in Speedway, and It Hurts Me, in many ways the "song that got away" from 1964. The extended version of the medley, including these songs, works much better. One of the most intriguing sections is a new "song" lasting a minute or so that opens the medley. Nothingville is mysterious and slightly surreal and it's a shame that it's just a snippet and that a full-length version was probably never written.
The medley works well as entertainment, but musically it is problematic. Once again, Elvis was saddled with rather cheesy orchestral arrangements that were so typical of television at the time. So, while his vocal of Big Boss Man is arguably grittier than the studio version, the orchestration drags it down. Let Yourself Go ironically works better, although the visuals associated with it in the show itself make for rather uncomfortable viewing. It's curious how the programme's makers thought they would get away with this "bordello scene" on a prime time television show. The arrangement of It Hurts Me also works reasonably well, but is unintentionally laughable when watched in the show as Elvis mimes (badly) to his pre-recorded vocal while karate-chopping his way through a bunch of bad guys. Little Egypt is also revived here, presumably a remnant of when the medley was conceived as a look back at Elvis's film career. That idea (along with the revival of How Would You Like To Be and Cotton Candy Land) had long gone out of the window by the time of recording, however. Rather cleverly, the medley ends with Elvis concluding Guitar Man (with new lyrics) during the stand-up show in black leather. It's a nice move (although it doesn't completely make sense), and ties the disparate parts of the show together well.
Finally, Elvis is seen in a white suit standing alone on the stage singing a protest song, If I Can Dream, written especially for the occasion. It's a wonderful moment – both musically and as a piece of television. The starkness of the set is a complete contrast to what had come directly before, and Elvis starts the song by standing motionless before his body movements get more and more animated. By the end, his arm is swinging back and forth as he rasps out the final lines of his plea for tolerance and understanding. In the months leading up to the special being recorded, both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had been shot and killed, and the song reflected the mood of a nation. It's a stunning, moving performance, and quite unlike anything he had done before – and quite unlike anything he would do again. He never revived the song on stage, despite the fact it would have made a great closing number. Like the complete show, it was a one-time thing that could never be repeated.
Ultimately, the TV show had seen Elvis making an hour-long musical statement, telling and showing America who he was both musically and as a person. It did the job brilliantly, not just showing Elvis as a rock, country and blues singer, but also showing him as the musical conundrum he was. The final number, If I Can Dream, was effectively Elvis baring his soul. His life depended on this, and he gave it his all.
Over the years, virtually all of the music and footage recorded for the special has been made available, most notably the concert sections in their entirety. There are some fine performances here, most notably a cracking take at Trying to Get to You which really should have been included in the original broadcast. There are also fine performances of Love Me and That's all Right. However, singling out particular songs doesn't make complete sense in this case. These performances only really work when listened to or viewed from beginning to end, as they seem to have a narrative of their own with Elvis coming on the stage as a nervous guy who hasn't been in front of an audience for years…and leaving triumphant.
Considering how much praise has been lauded on this TV show over the years, it seems surprising that it wasn't exactly received with glowing reviews at the time. Robert Shelton in the New York Times called parts of the show "unbelievably stagey." Unsurprisingly, the concert sections got the most praise. He writes that "today's rock generation will, more than likely, ask that the real, early Presley stand up. The slickness and hokum of the show are happily relieved when Mr Presley is just picking and joking with his musicians, when he lets body and voice serve as vehicles for spontaneous emotion to pass through them."
Most interestingly, Shelton suggests that the show should lead to another, stronger special in which Elvis goes "out of the studio and back to the streets of the black and white South that formed him: The churches of East Tupelo, Miss., where he sang; the truck-driving in Memphis; the early recording discouragements and the break-out as a sex symbol and musical volcano." It's a tantalising thought, but sadly a programme that never came to pass.


October 15 and November 25-27, 1968: Studio Session

With all hopes pinned on the possible success of the TV special, Elvis still had to go about his other work. It's unclear exactly when which elements of the two songs for the soundtrack of the western Charro were recorded, and so Elvis may have overdubbed his vocals on any of the above dates.
The theme song of the film was a big western theme tune, and Elvis clearly relished the challenge. The arrangement by Hugo Montenegro is very good, and allows the song to fit nicely alongside the other big western theme tunes of the day. Elvis's vocal, like the arrangement, is powerful and dramatic, and he attacks the song with confidence.
Also recorded here was Let's Forget about the Stars, a pretty little song with interesting lyrics about astrology and the perils of relying too much on the stars. It's difficult to know where it was intended to fit within the film, and it ultimately wasn't used. Still, Elvis gives a nice performance, and the song managed to stand on its own merits outside of the context of the film.
As a film, however, Charro was awful. The script was bowdlerised in between the first draft and the start of shooting, and the acting from most members of the cast is rather wooden. Elvis was, apparently, dismayed at the changes to the script, and he sleepwalks his way through the film, giving one of his worst performances. Roger Greenspun of the New York Times states that "he seems determined not to push himself in a role that could have used a stronger personality to fill the lapses in the story and the wide open spaces in the dialogue."


October 23, 1968: Studio Session

One of the films that seems to still divide opinion is The Trouble with Girls. The film revolves around a travelling Chautauqua and, eventually, a murder that takes place within it. In some ways, the film is a mess, clearly edited down from a much longer running time – and no doubt losing much of its narrative drive because of that. Despite this, Elvis looks stunning and, arguably, had never been so relaxed onscreen. There are long stretches of the film where he doesn't appear at all, but that doesn't matter. When he is present, he simply lights up the screen. Roger Greenspun stated that the film "is a charming though ineptly titled comedy with one fortunate murder, several pleasant songs, Elvis Presley, and a huge cast all of whom, down to the last extra, seem willing to act their fool heads off." He continues his enthusiasm throughout his relatively lengthy review, calling the movie "an immensely active film that seems virtually to live within the styles and language of the period." This is only true in part, as the songs in the film have little to do with the sounds of the 1920s.
The main number is Clean Up Your Own Backyard, a forgotten Elvis gem that is just waiting to be rediscovered. Lyrically witty and melodically interesting, this protest song of sorts harks back to the New Testament line "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The arrangement is superb, and Elvis's vocal seems to be a cross between the styles he used in Guitar Man and U. S. Male. Like the first of those songs, this requires some fast-talking during the verses before the attractive melodic hook of the choruses. Released as a single between In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds, the only logical reason for the number stalling at #35 in the charts is the association with the film. The Trouble with Girls is a title that sounds like a return to the tired Elvis formula films, and probably served to be the death knell for both the film itself and this classy track.
In a completely different style is Almost. This beautiful ballad seems as if it were written more for Sinatra than Presley. Sadly, the number isn't developed enough, and the arrangement should have been extended to incorporate a second run-through of the song (at least on record). The overdubs produced by Felton Jarvis after the recording are a disaster, almost drowning Elvis out at points, but the undubbed recording is lovely, with Elvis allowing a vulnerability into his voice, and the overall result is rather moving.
The other songs are, in many respects, only of passing interest. A re-recording was made of Swing Down Sweet Chariot, but the arrangement is largely the same as that used on the His Hand in Mine album. It's pleasant enough, but ultimately pointless, and this is no doubt why it wasn't released until 1983. A rather different mix, with a very different feel, was released in 2009, and has female group The Blossoms featured high in the mix.
The Whiffenpoof Song and Violet are literally over in less than a minute each, although Violet is of interest as it features the same melody as Love Me Tender. Finally, there is Signs of the Zodiac, but this is really Marilyn Mason's song, with Elvis chipping in lines here and there and joining in on the chorus. It's a rather tedious effort. But it's Clean Up Your Own Backyard that is the important song here, giving a nice foretaste of the sound Elvis would achieve in the mammoth sessions of January and February 1969.


January 13-16 and 20-23, 1969: Studio Sessions

The TV special finally aired on December 3, 1968 and, with If I Can Dream, Elvis scored his first real hit single in years. Around the same time, or shortly after, Elvis made the decision that his next scheduled recordings should take place at American Studios in Memphis rather than Nashville. Those sessions, recorded in January and February 1969 formed the second act of Elvis's comeback.
Producer Chips Moman pushed Elvis in a way that no-one had done since Sam Phillips (and possibly not even Sam). The recordings that resulted are, arguably, the best that Elvis made. Many would argue in favour of the Sun recordings, but the tracks cut in Memphis in 1969 are deeper and darker from a lyrical point of view. They are performances that only the older Elvis could give. Elvis now had life experiences to draw on and that shines through almost every song recorded here.
A few months earlier, one could have been forgiven for thinking that the bell sounding at the beginning of Long Black Limousine was a death knell for Elvis's career. Instead, it signalled the start of the sessions. Elvis bases his version of the song on the recording by O. J. Smith, or, at least, uses that as a starting point. As good as Smith's recording is, Elvis's is a tour-de-force. His voice retains some of the harshness utilised in the TV special, but there is something more than just "sound" going on here. Elvis had seen that there was a chance that his flagging career could be revived and he was determined to work at that chance with everything he had. Long Black Limousine tells the story of a girl from a small town who left the narrator behind to go and live in the city, boasting that she would return rich and in a "fancy car," only to fulfil her prophecy at her own funeral. Elvis gives everything. He knows this story, he knows the frustrations the girl felt, and he also knows that he could one day be her. By the end of the performance he sounds totally exhausted.
This is the Story might not have the same depth, but Elvis is again in stunning form. The song itself follows unusual chord progressions, particularly in the verses, and this provides a slightly awkward melody line which Elvis negotiates with ease (and the second take was the master). The lyrics might not be the most original, but Elvis still digs in deep and gives a performance that is totally sincere without becoming maudlin.
Elvis yells out the opening lines of Wearin' that Loved on Look, the effective mix of soul, funk and rock 'n' roll that would become the first track on the first album released from the sessions. As he worked on the third great song in a row, he must have wondered why he had been so content singing bland songs for so long. This was a track that was perfect for Elvis, and he's clearly having a ball, even adding his own "shoops" during the chorus almost as if he is singing to (and with) himself.
You'll Think of Me is different and unusual. It's a long song that is simple in structure. There are no real choruses, just verse after verse with a nice twist in the lyrics at the end. It's not the most commercial song from the sessions, but it does show Elvis being interested in more challenging material. As with Long Black Limousine he appears to be relishing the chance to get inside a character and tell a story.
A Little Bit of Green has a more relaxed feel than those recorded so far. Written by the same writing team as This is the Story, this is a nice mid-tempo ballad with a lovely melodic hook in the chorus that stretches Elvis's range to the limit. Once again, Elvis puts in a superb performance and is totally committed to the song.
I'm Movin' On is an old country standard that Elvis gives a makeover, injecting the song with an element of soul. While this might at first seem like Elvis using his old technique of transforming a song to suit his own style, he did at least have a version to base his own on here. The Box Tops had included a great rendition of the number on their third album, Non-Stop, and this was the one that Elvis used as the basis for his own. What's added in the Presley recording are his soul-filled vocals and the brilliantly-judged backing vocals during the choruses.
Gentle on my Mind was a much newer song, but it had already become a country standard by the time Elvis recorded it in 1969, with the number having received two Grammy awards in 1968. The recordings by John Hartford and Glen Campbell had been pure unadulterated country, but Elvis's version has, in many ways, a much heavier sound that mixes the country sound with elements of soul and even gospel – the latter thanks to the nature of the backing vocals throughout the song.
Don't Cry Daddy kept things in a largely country vein, and the song would provide Elvis with one of four hits from the two sets of sessions in Memphis. Views on the song vary depending on how much the listener can stomach the rather saccharine nature of the lyrics. Billboard called the song a "potent tearjerking ballad handled in standout style." Elvis sings the song beautifully and with sincerity, but to this author the song hasn't grown old particularly gracefully and is just too maudlin for its own good.
The same can be said about Mama Liked the Roses. However, this brings up the issue of association of where we first hear a song and if and when that matters in our appreciation of it. Many first heard this (as I did) as the final track of the Camden issue of Elvis' Christmas Album and, because of that, it holds a special place because of the memories of hearing that album when growing up. That doesn't make it any more or less maudlin than Don't Cry Daddy, but happy memories of childhood Christmases tend to result in us making allowances. The song itself, though, isn't a happy one as the singer remembers his now-deceased mother. Considering Elvis's close relationship with his own mother, it's hardly surprising that he wanted to record the number, and the fact it first appeared as the flip-side of The Wonder of You can hardly be seen as coincidental given the lyrics of both songs.
Inherit the Wind returned Elvis to rhythmical ballad material that had made up much of the session so far. The song was hardly top-drawer, especially when compared to some of the songs Elvis recorded at the session, but, by this point, Elvis seemed unstoppable and put in a great performance, almost snatching and biting at words at some points, most notably at the beginning of the final verse.
Similarly, My Little Friend is hardly a great song musically, but the lyrics about a man remembering his first love are interesting and often manage to capture the innocence and excitement of adolescence. It's a surprisingly adult song in many ways, if not explicitly then buried just beneath the surface: "I learned from her the whispered things/The big boys at the pool hall talked about." We all know what the narrator is talking about and probably also remember those overheard conversations of older kids as we grew up too. Elvis tells the story simply, and we believe every word.
Between 1968 and 1970, Elvis recorded a number of songs with a social conscience theme – something he never did in other periods during his career. Following on from Clean Up Your Own Backyard and If I Can Dream, In the Ghetto didn't, therefore, appear out of nowhere. Written by Mac Davis (who also wrote the maudlin Don't Cry Daddy), the track was described in one newspaper as a "message song of the disadvantaged in a Chicago ghetto." Elvis immerses himself totally in the story at the heart of the song. Peter Guralnick writes that "the singing is of such unassuming, almost translucent eloquence, it is so quietly confident in its simplicity, so well supported by the kind of elegant, no-frills small-group backing that was the hallmark of the American style – it makes a statement almost impossible to deny." Guralnick's description sums up the number far more articulately than I could ever dream of, and so let's move on by simply saying that this is Elvis at his very best.
Rubberneckin', by comparison, is far from being a message song and yet coincidentally turned up in Change of Habit, Elvis's last scripted film – and one that has a social message at its heart. The song itself is an infectious mix of rock 'n' roll, funk and soul that might not make a great deal of sense lyrically, but which Elvis attacks with abandon, seemingly letting off steam after over twenty takes of In the Ghetto.
This sense of simply playing around and making music at the same time is also apparent in both From a Jack to a King and Hey Jude. The former is a playful romp through Ned Miller's song, but it all seems inconsequential compared to almost everything else recorded at the session, and the overdubbed female voices really don't help matters.
Meanwhile, Hey Jude is an unmitigated mess. The number was held back from release until 1972 and some commentators suggest we shouldn't take the song seriously as it was just an informal or incomplete recording. Had it been released posthumously then it would be easier to take that view, however it was released during Elvis's lifetime in the guise of a finished master and so that's how it should be judged. That Elvis doesn't know the words doesn't help, but that's the least of the problems in a recording that sees the singer hitting a bum note at the same place in each and every verse. That Elvis thought that this was OK to release shows the lack of interest he must have had in his own career by 1972 and, arguably, a sign of contempt for his fans who were paying good money for a half-finished recording.
The next night, things were back on track. Without Love is a powerful ballad that Elvis infuses with a gospel feeling. It's a song that follows the format of so many Elvis "big ballads" during the 1970s, but here it is performed without the bombastic vocal and arrangement that would mar so many of the later recordings.
I'll Hold You in My Heart is incredible. Elvis takes this old country song and sings it over and over in the same manner as take 2 of You'll Never Walk Alone and Saved during the TV special from the year before. Elvis wrings every last drop of emotion out of the song and yet, surprisingly, none of its lengthy running time seems forced or contrived. Peter Guralnick raved in Rolling Stone, writing that "nothing could better exemplify the absorbing character of Elvis' unique and moving style. At the same time nothing could more effectively defy description, for there is nothing to the song except a haunting, painful emotionalism."
With I'll Be There, Elvis turned his hand to a pretty pop song written and originally recorded by Bobby Darin nearly a decade earlier. Darin's version suffers from a tinny, almost toy-instrument sounding instrumentation and an unusually forced and unconvincing vocal. Elvis once again doesn't know all the words, but shows Darin how great the song could be. He tears it up, giving it a natural flow that is completely missing from the original.
The session ended with the recording of the classic Suspicious Minds, a track that Billboard referred to as an "outstanding performance." This song of romance gone bad would ultimately become one of Elvis's most well-known and best-loved recordings. For a recording so artistically brilliant it was also remarkably commercial. The sudden drop to half speed during the bridge makes the listener take notice even on the first hearing and, while the fade out-fade-in ending could (and perhaps should) be viewed as a gimmick, it also meant that the song was instantly memorable and recognisable.
The sessions had finally come to an end, but that wasn't the end of Elvis's greatest set of recordings – another set of dates were pencilled in at the studio for the following month, and Elvis would pick up exactly where he left off.


February 17-22, 1969: Studio Session

Rather than seeming like the start of a new session, this seemed simply like a continuation of the previous one. The personnel were, by and large, the same, and Elvis, buoyant after the January recordings, was in good spirits and ready for work. However, before getting down to business there was time for a short jam with Elvis and the musicians working their way through a medley that included This Time (written by Chips Moman) and I Can't Stop Loving You, a song which would become part of Elvis's live act just a few months later.
Then it was down to the real work. The first song recorded was the rather clumsily-titled True Love Travels on a Gravel Road, a song that had been recorded the previous year by Duane Dee. Dee's version was strictly in the country genre but, as in the previous recordings in January, Elvis took the country element and mixed it with a generous helping of soul. He also gave the song a more driving rhythm than the original and ornamented the melody a little, giving a looser feel to the number overall.
Stranger in My Own Home Town had been written and recorded by Percy Mayfield in 1963, but here Elvis doesn't just alter the feel of the song but gives it a complete transformation. The length of Elvis's version is nearly double that of the original, with Elvis singing the same two verses over and over again, subtly changing the melody each time. Unusually, there is an instrumental introduction lasting a full verse, and then a number of instrumental breaks over which Elvis improvises partly off-mic and tells the band to "give it clout." Everyone seems to be having a great time and, more than almost any other Elvis recording, this portrays the great joy that music-making can bring.
Neil Diamond's And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind is quite different again. Here, Elvis gives a gentle, delicate performance, while also negotiating the huge vocal range that the song requires. The overdubbing of the female backing vocals and strings might be a little saccharine, but it can't hide the beauty of Elvis's vocal.
Power of My Love is an edgy rock number in waltz time that sees Elvis digging deep and giving a dramatic, almost threatening, performance. It seems almost bizarre that this great number, one of the highlights of the session, was written by Giant, Baum and Kaye – one of the most prolific (and bland) of all the songwriters of the Hollywood years.
Elvis continues with the same style of attacking vocal with After Loving You, a country song that had been recorded by both Eddy Arnold and Della Reese, although Elvis's version seems to be based on neither. As with Stranger in my Own Home Town and I'll Hold You in My Heart, Elvis seems unwilling to let go of the song, not unlike Reese's own recording of Someday, in which she repeats the last lines over and over.
Do You Know Who I Am sees Elvis firmly back in quiet, understated ballad territory in a song that lyrically seems like a distant cousin of Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello. In that song, the narrator has just spotted an ex-girlfriend across a crowded bar or in a restaurant. In Do You Know Who I Am he takes the opportunity to go over and say hello. Once again, Elvis gets to develop his story-telling skills, and gives a far more convincing acting performance here than in many of his movies.
The same can be said for Kentucky Rain, a rather more dramatic song with a strong narrative. Here, the singer is looking for the lover that left him without saying goodbye the week before. The song was the last of the Memphis sessions to be released as a single, and the only one not to reach the top ten in America, stalling at #16, and only reaching #21 in the UK. It's hard to figure out quite why the track did less well than its predecessors for it's a strong song and Elvis's performance is totally compelling. Indeed, James E Perone wrote that Kentucky Rain is "among the strongest 1960s' performances that Elvis gave" and that it has enough "genre-blurring vitality [that it] transcends many other releases from the 1960s."
Only the Strong Survive sees Elvis back in soul territory, covering Jerry Butler's U.S. hit single. Elvis puts in another strong performance here, but his version follows the original very closely, which is rather a shame when compared to the songs from these sessions where Elvis took a song and transformed it into something purely his. Even though it took nearly thirty takes to get it right, the arrangement barely moved away from Butler's own at all.
It Keeps Right on a-Hurtin' sees Elvis returning to country material. Here he gives the song a nice, easy-going feel that is less "straight" than Johnny Tillotson's original. In a similar style is If I'm a Fool (For Loving You), written by Stan Kesler, who had written two of Elvis's Sun sides. In comparison to other material recorded by Elvis at American Studios that winter, these are unremarkable, but they are still good country performances.
Any Day Now, written by Bob Hilliard and Burt Bacharach, has an awkward, hard-to-sing melody, but Elvis seems to manoeuvre around it with ease. The bridge of the song gives the appearance of dropping in tempo, but it's just an illusion created by the sparser instrumentation. Elvis's performance manages to retain some of the soul aspects of the number that were present in Chuck Willis's original, but also seems to merge them with a vocal that clearly draws on the influence of Tom Jones, who had released his own version on his Green Green Grass of Home LP in 1967.
Two songs were recorded on the final night of the sessions and, while neither are highlights, both are pleasant enough. The Fair is Moving On is another song that clearly draws upon the influence of Tom Jones, not least in the big, belting chorus. Meanwhile, Who Am I is an understated religious number which, while attractive, lacks any real commercial appeal.
The material from the Memphis sessions was spread over two albums, a number of single sides (including four hits) and budget albums, with Hey Jude escaping quietly three years later on the Elvis Now LP. From Elvis in Memphis, the first album released, is probably Elvis's greatest album and it received rave reviews. Billboard stated that "he's never sounded better, and the choice of material is perfect." Meanwhile, Variety referred to the release as a "tightly socked disk with adept Memphis backup."
The second album, now generally referred to as Back in Memphis, was originally issued as part of a double album also containing an LP of live performances from August 1969. From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis, the original, rather un-snappy title of the double album, also received very good reviews. The New York Times stated that the "new pieces become quickly and comfortably familiar." A week later, the same newspaper printed a second review, this time by Albert Goldman, author of a posthumous, controversial biography of the singer. Goldman admits that "this is Elvis Presley's year."
Despite the wonders of these sessions, some people still lived in the past, believing that nothing Elvis could do (even when it was this good) would match the wonders of his first recordings. Despite giving From Elvis in Memphis a glowing review, Peter Guralnick still wrote "And yet it's still not the same. …You can't recapture the innocent ease of those first sides, you can't bring back the easy innocence of new adulthood, whether for listener or singer. What is so striking about the sides cut for Sun Records, even today, fifteen years after their release, is the freshness of style, the cleanness and the enthusiasm."
The problem here is that Guralnick's yearning for Elvis's early style seemingly has little to do with Elvis himself. In fact, he has just spent two pages of a magazine praising his most recent work. No matter how much it might be denied, the comments he makes about the Sun sides here have little to do with their quality (wonderful though many of them are), and much more to do with Guralnick's yearning to recapture the wonders of his own adolescence. By 1969, Guralnick was a grown man, and not a twelve or thirteen year old boy who was, no doubt, captivated by Elvis's early records. By his own admission here, no matter how good Elvis was in 1969 (or after), it would simply never be good enough.
Much has been written about Elvis's work in the final seven or eight years of his life, and much has been said about the material he chose to record, the genre he chose to sing in, and the arrangements he chose to employ. Blame has been put on all those things when critiquing Elvis's final decade but they are often just a scapegoat. Even if the quality of those final years was as high as these masterful recordings in Memphis, they still wouldn't have been good enough for those critics who were not able to face the idea that they had to grow up, and that their idols had to grow up too and sing about more serious things than "playing house."
The Memphis sessions provided Elvis with three top ten singles. He had now conquered both television and the charts. All that was left was for him to return to live performing – the event that would be the third act of the Elvis comeback.






March 5-6. 1969: Studio Session

Change of Habit was the last of Elvis's scripted films. It tries its best to be more relevant to late '60s America but, despite its social conscience message, it was just too naïve to be taken totally seriously either then or now. That said, it's considerably better than many of Elvis's movies and, as in The Trouble with Girls, Elvis seems extremely relaxed and charming in front of the camera. Four songs were recorded for the film in March 1969, although only three of them appeared in the movie, joined with Rubberneckin' from the Memphis sessions.
The title track is a surprisingly decent rock number with a great bass line underpinning it. As with the film itself, the lyrics are a little too obvious, but Elvis is in great voice and he throws himself into the number with abandon.
Let Us Pray is musically quite similar, although here the lyrics are of a religious nature. Many of Elvis's gospel recordings transcend religion and manage to speak even to those that are not religious. That can't be said for this number. "Come praise the Lord for he is good" hardly allows for the listener to take their own meaning from the lyric and, while Elvis sings the number well, it's all just too in-your-face for those that are not believers.
Have a Happy is a return to the rather sappy movie fare of the past. It's all very pleasant, but the material is poor, especially when compared to what Elvis had been recording in the previous few months.
Finally, Let's Be Friends is much better. Written by the writing team behind A Little Bit of Green and This is the Story, the number has an attractive melody which Elvis sings with sincerity and tenderness.
And that was that. The movie years were effectively over. It must have seemed like an eternity as Elvis worked on movie after movie to see his contracts through to the bitter end. Now he could concentrate on his return to live performing – something which looked so promising for Elvis in the summer of 1969, but which would ultimately tie Elvis into the same kinds of long-term contracts that had ruined the 1960s for him.


August 21-26, 1969: Live Recordings

The day after the airing of the NBC TV Special, the New York Times announced: "Elvis Presley to Make Personal Appearances." Elvis's season at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, beginning on July 31, 1969, was to be his first live appearance in eight years (unless one counts the live segments of the TV show). The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Billboard raved that he "was a polished, confident and talented artist, knowing exactly what he was going to do and when." A week further on in to the season, they reported that "nine years away from live performing have not affected his affinity for interpretation, combining the visual affects (sic) of the flaying arms and slowly gyrating hips; of his gutsy attack on quasi-blues songs or his shifting into a romantic milieu for Yesterday or Love Me Tender."
The third and final act of the Presley comeback was a huge success, and it was hardly surprising that RCA were there to record a number of shows for a live album. Six days of shows were recorded, and then a live album was assembled from the tapes. Originally released as the first disc of From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis, the live album would eventually be re-released on its own as In Person.
The disc opens with Blue Suede Shoes, the number that Elvis used to open the shows. The Vegas setting is obvious from the first notes of the album thanks to the introduction by the Bobby Morris Orchestra. This is followed by an opening vamp from Elvis's core band before Elvis finally starts singing. His voice is strong (probably stronger than in the Memphis sessions earlier in the year), and he sounds confident and full of energy. The song is taken at a faster pace than the studio versions (and Elvis repeats the same two verses rather than using the others), and the whole thing is over in two minutes (including the introduction and the vamp).
The high energy continues with a cover of Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode. Again, Elvis misses out a verse, the second in Berry's recording, and substitutes it with a repeat of the third verse. Elvis would continue to use the song in slightly different variations over the coming years. It would be shorn of a verse by the time of the performance on the Aloha from Hawaii TV special in 1973, and would get the briefest of renditions in the final years, normally as part of the band introductions. The version issued on In Person is probably the best Elvis version that has been released. He rocks with abandon, spitting out the words at breakneck pace, and the band is as tight as a drum.
All Shook Up follows, at much the same pace as the previous two numbers. It doesn't really work so well at this speed, but Elvis had a penchant for speeding up his 1950s hits on stage during the following eight years, and that habit appears to have been formed even at this stage. It's a far cry from the shuffle rhythm of the studio recording, and it lacks charm.
Are You Lonesome Tonight gets a serious rendition from Elvis, with Millie Kirkham's almost-otherworldly soprano providing a lovely obligato. The performance is very different from the one captured on tape a couple of nights later in which Elvis gets a fit of giggles and laughs uncontrollably through almost the entire song. That version, referred to affectionately as Are You Laughing Tonight, was released in 1980.
Elvis introduces Hound Dog as his "message song" for the evening. The self-deprecating humour of these shows is often quite charming, but at other times just doesn't work on record. From this point of view, the live album released from these concerts doesn't always work due to the often sloppy editing. There are long moments of silence (do we really want to hear Elvis drinking water?), and other times where the on-stage humour needs the visuals to work or where a joke goes on too long.
Hound Dog doesn't receive the throwaway performance that it would in later shows, but it seems clear that, even in 1969, Elvis didn't really know what to do with the song. It was no longer the yell of frustration and rebellion that it was in the 1950s, and the first verse is repeated over and over, leaving out the "high-classed" second verse. This demonstrates the conundrum that Elvis would find himself in for the next eight years – songs that were huge hits a dozen or more years earlier were not necessarily relevant to Elvis in his mid-to-late thirties. His commitment now was often towards more recent songs of a more serious (and, in the coming years, more maudlin) nature. And yet it was clear that he had to include the "oldies" in his set. In 1969, the older songs generally got given proper attention, but they would later be used as a punctuation point in a show where Elvis could sing half-heartedly, catching his breath while handing out scarves to screaming fans. In these 1969 shows, it's great to hear Elvis singing Hound Dog live, but there seems little point to it. The arrangement has no real structure (it doesn't build to a big finish), and it simply does the job and little else. Not everyone agrees. Cub Koda and Bruce Eder write that the guitar work of James Burton "puts a new edge on Hound Dog, coming up with something different than, yet different to, Scotty Moore's approach to the song in concert 14 years earlier."
The same can't be said for I Can't Stop Loving You. Whereas the song was given a country flavour in the short jam session at the Memphis sessions earlier in the year, here it is given a full work-out and becomes a show-stopper, with a much more thought-out arrangement than many of the live versions of Elvis's own hits. Elvis's vocal is both sincere and playful and the big finish is stunning.
Elvis romps through the r&b classic My Babe, using the song as a vehicle to show off his stronger vocal abilities. A second version of the number was released in 1980, and this uses slightly different orchestration, but Elvis's vocal isn't as strong or controlled here, although it's nice to hear the different arrangement.
The medley of Mystery Train and Tiger Man is given a typically self-mocking introduction in which Elvis talks about the sound he had in the early days. The sound here is brought up-to-date, though, with an arrangement that rocks like hell and features some great work from Ronnie Tutt on drums, with his riffs effectively punctuating Elvis's vocals on Tiger Man.
The recent Bee Gees hit Words gets a relatively perfunctory run-through. Elvis's vocal is sincere and committed, but the arrangement would be slightly modified for the Vegas season a year later, and those performances are better.
In the Ghetto doesn't have the same impact in a live setting that it did in the studio. The arrangement is beefier, and something is lost. Elvis's voice isn't in such good shape here either, and he appears to be struggling with the low notes, with them having heavy vibrato and often threatening to go out of tune.
The highlight of the original album and the Vegas season in general is Suspicious Minds. This was Elvis's latest single at the time, and he turns it into a showstopper that lasts over seven minutes. Again, this lacks some of the vocal subtleties of the studio version, but here it doesn't matter, as Elvis starts the number relatively sedately and then slowly but surely works it up into a frenzy over its mammoth running time. This should be tedious, but it works superbly, and the excitement of the stage performance transfers well to record.
The original album ended, as did the shows, with Can't Help Falling in Love. Taken at a faster pace than both the original studio recording and that used in the previous year's TV special, the song becomes a closing credits theme song rather than receiving a fully committed performance. Soon the song would take on a new meaning, as Elvis would use the number in the vast majority of his live shows for the next eight years, and it would signal to the audience that their time with their hero was all but over.
Two more songs from this Vegas season were issued in 1970 on the album On Stage, primarily recorded in February 1970. Runaway, a cover of the Del Shannon hit, receives a fine performance from Elvis, who gives the song a slightly harder edge than Shannon. Years later, another performance was released, this time on a night when Shannon was in the audience. It's a nice moment when Elvis introduces him from the stage, and it's a shame that it wasn't this version that was released back in 1970.
The other song from 1969 on the On Stage LP is a rather bland take on The Beatles' Yesterday. It was originally performed with the "na na na" refrain of Hey Jude tagged on the end, but this is omitted on the original release. It's a pleasant enough rendition, but the arrangement is uninspired to say the least.
Over the last decade or so, a number of complete concerts from this Vegas season have been released by Sony both at mainstream level and on the collector's label. What these releases demonstrate is the remarkable consistency in both quality and choice of material within these shows. There is very little variation between shows, with the majority of the material consisting of full throttle performances of past hits as well as the covers already discussed. Occasionally, Elvis would try something different, such as attempting some of the songs recorded at Memphis earlier in the year. However, the live renditions of Rubberneckin', This is the Story and Inherit the Wind are relatively mundane compared to their studio counterparts. There was also a pleasant-but-unremarkable work through of Funny How Time Slips Away, but Elvis would make a much better recording of the song in the studio the following year. Reconsider Baby also gets a seemingly off-the-cuff performance which is good enough to make one wonder why it didn't remain part of the regular act.
These shows may well be the best performances that Elvis gave, but I would argue that they weren't the best set-lists. The concentration here is on rock 'n' roll. Sure, there are a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure, but only Are You Lonesome Tonight really gets a decent treatment. As we know, there was more to Elvis than rock 'n' roll. There are almost no nods to his country influences here, and no gospel material at all. By the following summer, he still wasn't performing gospel songs on stage (except for an off-the-cuff performance) but at least the gospel sound was much more prominent, especially in the backing of some of the ballads, such as Just Pretend, and country songs became part of the set list. At this stage in 1969, then, Elvis's set-list was remarkably restricted, and ultimately built upon the black leather segments of the 1968 TV special.
Restrictive set lists notwithstanding, Elvis's return to live performing was a huge success and, after years of having his career in the artistic and commercial doldrums, he was once again back on top. It had taken just over a year (from the filming of the TV special in June 1968 to the live performances of July and August 1969), but the effort had been worth it. Elvis now had his second chance – all he had to do now was build upon the foundation he had created for himself.












CHAPTER NINE
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE: 1970-1973

It had taken over a year, but Elvis was finally back on top and was now not just the King of Rock 'n' Roll but, arguably, the King of Entertainment. However, we are all too well aware that Elvis's time on top only lasted for a relatively brief period before a steep decline took place in both vocal quality and performance levels. RCA did a rather good job of hiding this for a number of years. The decline was first seen in early 1971, with a lacklustre season of shows in Vegas followed by a difficult series of recording sessions. However, because RCA generally released albums compiled from various sessions that sometimes took place over two or three years, this sudden drop in standard was rather diluted – although that doesn't mean the resulting LPs were anything but bland both in song choice and packaging.
The decline in Elvis's live shows was also well hidden despite a number of in-concert albums being released between 1969 and 1974. Only in Aloha from Hawaii does Elvis's voice sound tired and/or weak for much of the concert. What was noticeable to any avid viewer, however, was the difference between the filmed shows in August 1970 for the documentary That's the Way it Is and the Aloha concert thirty months later. The 1970 peformances show a performer at the height of his powers and thoroughly enjoying being on stage and making music. For all the glitz, glamour and professionalism of Aloha, Elvis was strangely subdued, and rarely engaged with the music or with the audience. It was perhaps the first sign to the outside world that something was wrong and that trouble was ahead.
This chapter, therefore, charts a period during which the first signs of the decline in Elvis and his powers became apparent. It's also a period in which Elvis shifted his musical interests from rock 'n' roll to middle-of-the-road big ballads, country music and easy listening. Many fans found this change in direction hard to deal with (and some still do, going by forums populated by both old and new fans). Perhaps those that had grown up over the years with Elvis's music somehow felt betrayed. Allowances had been made for all the awful soundtracks and the appalling songs that came with them, but now Elvis could sing what he wanted and so the change in styles must have seemed like a kick in the teeth for those fans who had stuck with him. In 1972, Don Heckman of the New York Times asked in a headline: "Has the Rocker Become a Crooner?" Many fans were asking themselves the same thing. However, as stated in the introduction of this book, my intention here is not to judge a song on its genre – to do so would defeat the object entirely. After all, to many of us who came after the Elvis story had reached its tragic conclusion, the change of genre was never a disappointment because it was always a part of the Elvis story to begin with, and accepted as such.


February 15-19, 1970: Live Recordings

In January 1970, Elvis returned to Las Vegas for a second season, and the opportunity was taken to record a second live album. This one, On Stage, was rather different to the first. Ten tracks were included, with all of them covers of hits of the last ten years or so. Eight of the tracks were recorded in February 1970, with two numbers added from the previous season.
See See Rider opens the album and, within a couple of years, would also be the standard opener for Elvis's concerts. However, in 1970 the song wasn't used as an opener, but appeared mid-way through the set. One can only assume that the song's place as side one, track one on the LP gave Elvis (or someone else) the idea that it would work well as a concert opener. Elvis turns the song, first recorded back in 1924 by Ma Rainey, into an out-and-out rocker, with some of his arrangement (most noticeably the backing vocals) clearly based on the Lavern Baker single from 1962. The song would become grandiose over the years, but here Elvis propels it through a crisp, clean arrangement in a performance that is by far the best recording of the number that would be made over the next seven years.
Release Me sees Elvis taking the well-worn country favourite and giving it a faster tempo and a bluesier edge. It's not entirely convincing, however. The changes Elvis makes to the melody don't seem entirely natural and, rather than learning the whole of the song, he repeats the first verse over and over. This only makes the track repetitive at a point when the listener wants it to become more varied both from the point of view of the arrangement and the lyrics.
Sweet Caroline is a relatively straight-forward cover of the Neil Diamond hit. While Elvis's vocal is good here, the arrangement would be updated for the August 1970 engagement, and it is that arrangement which seems to work better. It's pleasant enough, but insubstantial and Elvis brings nothing really new to the song.
The Wonder of You would become a huge international hit, and is really the song that heralded in the "1970s Elvis" with its less-than-subtle arrangement and orchestration and Elvis's big vocals. Perhaps it is because of the sentimental lyrics that the song has become possibly the most famous of Elvis's 1970s recordings, no doubt leading it to be endlessly requested for loved ones in radio phone-ins. Or perhaps it is the instantly memorable melody. Or perhaps just the fact that Elvis sings it well – and there is no denying that.
Elvis misses out half of the final verse, which reads "You'll never know how much I love you/My love is yours and yours alone/And it's so wonderful to have you/To have you for my very own." By omitting these lyrics, Elvis robs the song of any definitive meaning. It could now be a song dedicated to a lover, a friend, a parent, or even God. Sadly his performance and the arrangement also rob the song of subtlety. It may be great for a sing-along at the local karaoke bar, but it's hardly a refined piece of art like some of the songs recorded in Memphis twelve months before.
In the previous season, Elvis had taken his latest single, Suspicious Minds, and turned it into a showstopper. This time around, he did the same thing with Tony Joe White's recent hit Polk Salad Annie. Here, the song is given a big arrangement and became a vehicle as much for Elvis's movements as for his singing. White's version has Southern charm by the bucket loads as he wryly tells his story, but Elvis's rendition is almost meaningless. The words become almost superfluous as Elvis takes the song and submerges it in his flair for the dramatic on-stage movements and ever-growing cacophony of sound. Over the years, Polk Salad Annie would have its tempo increased and the orchestration would become more and more ridiculous, but here it is a brilliantly executed piece of theatre.
Unlike Polk Salad Annie, Proud Mary would have its arrangement improved over the next year or so, with the song finding a more natural groove by the time of the Madison Square Garden concerts in June 1972, for example. However, the slightly stilted February 1970 recordings are a fine example of how Elvis was beginning to meld musical genres together. It might have been a rock song, but the backing vocals by The Imperials and The Sweet Inspirations give it an edge that is gospel in nature – something which would be repeated in the coming years with other numbers such as Never Been to Spain and the revival of Lawdy Miss Clawdy.
Joe South's message song Walk a Mile in My Shoes was a perfect fit for Elvis. This time, Elvis merges country music with gospel, giving the song a more spiritual feel than in South's original. Strangely, the number would only be a mainstay of Elvis's live show for this season. It was revived for just three shows in August 1970 (at a slightly faster speed) before being dropped from the set list completely. In February 1970, the song was in a medley with In the Ghetto, but the latter was not included in the On Stage LP.
The original album concludes with a version of Let It Be Me, another song which was only used during this season. Elvis gives a committed performance, and once again brings an element of gospel music to the number. While similar in tone to The Wonder of You, the arrangement here is a little more subdued and subtle. Oddly, however, despite being a big ballad it doesn't seem a truly fitting end for the album – considering some of the showstoppers that had come before, it seems a pleasant final track rather than a proper climax to the listening experience.
On Stage was an album that appears to have caused some scratching of heads by critics when it was released in 1970. Don Heckman wrote that "Presley still sings better than most of his imitators, but the insistence upon presenting him with the kind of overstaged accompaniments that might be appropriate to a Las Vegas production of the Old Testament isn't exactly the best way I can think of to showcase his skills." The problem here is that Heckman is talking about the singer as if he didn't have a say in the way the songs were arranged. It's quite clear now, and from the direction that his on-stage performances took in the following years, that Elvis enjoyed the drama, pomp and circumstance that the Vegas-influenced arrangements had to offer. He had always had a flare for the dramatic anyway (Are You Lonesome Tonight is a good example), but now he seemed to be happy revelling in full-blown theatrics.
The big question is why it should matter that his style and tastes were changing. He may have only been thirty-five, but he had been in the business for sixteen years and, no matter what he did, he was unlikely to ever regain the following of the majority of teenagers, although they may well buy a single if it appealed. Besides, he'd changed his style before – and yet the perfect-but-bland recordings from 1962 and 1963, for example, are still not viewed with as much derision by many as Elvis's choice of material and style of performing in the 1970s. The style of vocal performance is, as we shall see, more problematic as the years progressed, but could it have come as that much of a shock to Elvis's real fans that he was turning more towards easy listening and MOR material? For the whole of the 1960s, rock 'n' roll had not been the focus of his repertoire. At least now he was singing contemporary adult music rather than songs about yoga or "goop."
Unsurprisingly, since Elvis's death, much more material has emerged from this Vegas season, although RCA didn't record any complete shows. These posthumous releases show Elvis in good humour, enjoying himself on stage, and singing with passion. The shows aren't quite as manic as they had been six months earlier, and the introduction of eight or so covers took the emphasis away a little from his own hits, although three of the covers would end up being as associated with Elvis as with the original artists. Elvis also worked into his act live versions of two more songs from the Memphis sessions, Kentucky Rain and Don't Cry Daddy. The former is more compelling than the latter, although it was Don't Cry Daddy that survived into the next Vegas season as well. Ultimately, this season shows a singer who was once again in transition, mid-way between the performer who sweated and rocked his way through the TV special just over a year earlier and the man who would return to the studio in June 1970 with a clearer, stronger voice and an emphasis on big, beefy ballads.


June 4-8, 1970: Studio Recordings

It had been two and a half years since Elvis had recorded in Nashville, and now he returned there for a mammoth recording session that would provide the basis for three albums and a handful of singles. The Memphis recordings from the year before had been approached in a rather different way than Elvis was used to, often using carefully worked out arrangements and leaving gaps for instrumental breaks that would be overdubbed later. Back in Nashville, Elvis returned to the way he had always recorded – working out the arrangements as he went along, and mixing up newly-submitted material with half-remembered songs going back decades. There would still be overdubbing later – lots of it in many numbers, including strings, horns and woodwind. The overall sound would reflect what he had been putting together for his stage performances over the last year – more dramatic and theatrical than before, but still merging country, rock 'n' roll, pop and gospel together in a way quite unlike anyone else.
The first track recorded was a new ballad, Twenty Days and Twenty Nights. What is instantly noticeable is that the "70s Elvis" voice had now completely taken over. The raw edge and slightly harsh sounds that had been present in Elvis's singing since the TV special in 1968 were now gone completely. In their place was a more polished, fuller vocal tone that was capable of producing a much more powerful sound. That said, the powerful element of Elvis's new voice is kept relatively in check on this first track. This is a well-crafted piece of adult contemporary pop, with an interesting (and rather difficult) melodic line and a story that Elvis tells with commitment.
Elvis gets to show off his new-found power more in the next number, I've Lost You, which would be released as a single the following month. This had been recorded (without success) by Matthews' Southern Comfort in the UK the previous year. That original version has rather a folky feel to it, but Elvis doesn't approach the song in the same way. Instead, this becomes the template for all the "lost love" big ballads that he would record and perform during the 1970s. Elvis sings the verses with tenderness, but then attacks the chorus with gusto, clearly relishing the chance to belt out the attractive, catchy melody. It was a far more commercial recording than Twenty Days and Twenty Nights, and Billboard predicted that the song would "hit hard and fast" (although, to be fair, they always seemed to say that). In this case, they were wrong. The song reached just #32 in the US charts, although it was a top ten hit in the UK – another pattern that would be repeated over the coming years.
It was then time for Elvis to reach back into his memory bank, and he launched into the gospel tune I Was Born about Ten Thousand Years Ago, completing the number in a single take. In many ways, the song encapsulates the joy of music-making that is so obvious throughout these sessions. Whether singing ballads or rock numbers, Elvis appears to simply be enjoying himself, and that is certainly the case here as he mixes elements of country and gospel together in a jam that would ultimately be chopped into small pieces on the Elvis Country album.
With The Sound of Your Cry, Elvis took the template he had created for himself with I've Lost You and took it to breaking point. This was another break-up ballad with a relatively straightforward verse before kicking into a big chorus with a strong melodic hook. With I've Lost You, Elvis had managed to sing the hell out of the big chorus without overdoing it, but he lost that self-restraint here. It has all the makings of one of those songs where Elvis gets lost in the moment and keeps repeating the same section over and over, seemingly unable to let go. However, it doesn't feel as natural as that here. It's hard to tell whether Elvis is lost in the moment on the takes where he belts out the chorus over and over – or whether he is desperately trying to make something out of a song that he knows deep down is not great material.
After a quick romp through Faded Love and a request for someone to find him the words so that he can record the song properly, Elvis turned his attention to Sanford Clark's hit from 1956, The Fool. This was a song that Elvis had tackled while stationed in Germany and had made a private recording of. That version has Elvis at the piano giving the number a kind of boogie-woogie feel. At the June 1970 sessions, however, the song was recorded in a style similar to Clark's original. The tempo and overall feel was much the same, although it rocked a little harder and Elvis filtered in some of the meanness in his voice that was used in songs such as Big Boss Man and U. S. Male.
Continuing in the country vein, the next two songs were the bluegrass numbers Little Cabin on the Hill and A Hundred Years from Now. Only the first of these was released during Elvis's lifetime, with the second appearing in the 1990s. Perhaps A Hundred Years from Now was just a little too loose to be considered a finished master (the version originally released was a splice of two takes), but that is part of the overall charm of both numbers. Neither were a highlight of the session, but it's great to hear Elvis just sitting back and singing songs he loved in a relaxed fashion and without the near-hysterics that had been present in the performance of The Sound of Your Cry.
The first night of recording ended with a romp through a new adaptation of Cindy, Cindy. This is lightweight fare but, once again, Elvis seems to be getting a kick out of singing a song he probably heard growing up. He again has a harsh, mean streak in his voice as he attacks each verse, but this is, ultimately, just the singer and the musicians letting off steam at the end of a night that had produced seven masters.
Seven masters were also achieved the following night. To start the evening off, Elvis turned his attention to Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water. Rather than keeping the relatively subdued tone of the original recording, Elvis instead made it into a powerful showpiece that could be easily transferred to his stage performances. However, rather unlike a recording such as The Sound of Your Cry, the arrangement here is cleverly and carefully built up from a tender opening to a rousing, gospel-tinged climax. Whether or not critics felt this was the kind of music that Elvis should be concentrating on, it's difficult to imagine how it could possibly be done better. When released as the final track of the That's the Way it Is album, the recording had applause overdubbed over the ending to make it appear as a live performance – a rather baffling, but not unusual, practice during the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
As with the first night of recording, Elvis seemingly couldn't stop himself from deviating from the planned songs from time to time, launching on this occasion into an extended jam built around Got My Mojo Working and Keep Your Hands Off Of It. Luckily, tapes started to roll within seconds and the jam was preserved for prosperity. Once again, the joy of music making is at the fore here – this is just Elvis sitting back and enjoying himself, but it remains one of the highlights of the June 1970 sessions, even if it was tucked away on initial release on the lacklustre Love Letters from Elvis LP.
How the Web was Woven was originally recorded by Jackie Lomax. That original version is rather unconvincing compared to Elvis's take on the song. He takes the song at a slightly statelier tempo, eschewing the more rhythmical backing of Lomax's version and turning the song into another big ballad. The structure of the song is slightly different to the quiet verse-big chorus nature of I've Lost You, and Elvis gives a well-controlled vocal.
It's Your Baby, You Rock It finds the singer in a more country vein with a relatively upbeat number (with regards to tempo, at least). The lyrics are slightly leftfield, and about a man who, earlier in his life, had dated his friend's now-current girlfriend. He gave his friend advice to stay away from her, but it was ignored, and now the friend has been hurt by the girl. The song is by no means a classic, but the lyrics are interesting and Elvis's vocal is expertly judged.
Also interesting is Stranger in the Crowd, a song that is arranged with something of a Latin American flavour. For once, Elvis is singing about the joys of love rather than the sadness of love gone wrong. Once again, the vocal is well-judged with Elvis making the most out of the catchy choruses and yet not over-using the extra power his voice now had.
Each of the three albums that were mostly made up of material from these sessions had its own unique sound, mostly due to the different arrangements and instrumentation used in the later overdubs. Love Letters from Elvis, the last and least of those albums, is rather unique in the Elvis canon in that the overdubs are of a nature that make the songs sound like elevator music for the most part. In the case of I'll Never Know, a perfectly pleasant but unremarkable quiet ballad, the (over-)use of woodwind and strings give the song a forgettable wishy-washy sound more suited to a second-rate lounge singer rather than Elvis. Elvis, for his part, gives a nice performance, but it's totally buried beneath the treacly overdubs.
The last song of the evening was a cover of another song that had become something of a country standard over the previous few years. Mary in the Morning gets a reworking in Elvis's hands, with the rhythmic flow of the verses slightly changed to make them more natural. As with I'll Never Know, this is more of a low key performance than some of the big ballads that Elvis had been recording at this session, and, at least this time, the result wasn't spoiled by the overdubs that came later.
The six masters recorded the following night were, in comparison to what had come before, disappointing. Following a jam released posthumously as I Didn't Make It on Playing Guitar, Elvis turned his attention to a country song entitled It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing). The song clearly has a title perfect for those with a love of innuendo but, in many ways, that's the most interesting thing about it. It's a pleasant enough ditty (recorded by a surprising number of country artists over the years) but both material and recording are undistinguished.
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me was a hit for Elvis when released as a single in late 1970, but the recording is lacking in subtlety. Elvis is in fine voice and the song showcases the power of that voice well – but that's almost all the recording is about. The song had been a substantial hit for Dusty Springfield, but Elvis brings nothing new to the number other than bombast – something which would occur more and more often as the 1970s progressed.
Just Pretend also shows off the power of Elvis's voice, but in a rather different way. The arrangement is dramatic, starting off quietly and building to a thrilling climax. What's more, Elvis manages to mix in some gospel tones via the backing vocals and the piano work of David Briggs. It's a riveting performance, and the song quickly became a fan favourite despite not ever being released as a single.
The remaining tracks from this third night of recording are the worst of the entire five day session. This Is Our Dance is pleasant enough, but the song is a rather blatant rip-off of The Last Waltz. As with I'll Never Know, the overdubs make the number even blander and forgettable than it already is. Meanwhile, Heart of Rome sees Elvis returning to the bombast of You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. This time, the verses are reasonably well sung, but the choruses are used just as an excuse to show off Presley's power. That's fine if the song is good enough to withstand the assault (and it really is an assault), but the material is second-rate at best.
Finally, we come to Life. This is one of the strangest songs that Elvis left us, being a number that somehow tries to tie the book of Genesis with Darwinism. It's hard to tell whether Elvis views this as a gospel number (which it really isn't), a message song (and it's not really that either), or just plain bizarre (and it definitely is that). That this dull, drawn-out, ridiculous twaddle was released as the A-side of a single (reaching #53) shows just how bizarre the release strategy of Elvis material was by the spring of 1971.
The next night started off by Elvis recording a song that, like a number of those from the previous night, was less than high quality material. It's not that When I'm Over You was a bad song, but it was thoroughly undistinguished, and it was clear that the best of the new material submitted for the session had already been used up.
At this point, however, Elvis started to draw on songs from the past that he knew and loved, and what began to emerge was the idea for a country-themed album. Elvis had already recorded two bluegrass numbers back on the first night of the session, as well as the country-blues of The Fool, and the new number It's Your Baby, You Rock It. However, it was when Elvis started fooling around with I Really Don't Want to Know, a country ballad written by Don Robertson, who had penned some of the best songs Elvis recorded in the early 1960s, that a real natural groove started to be found. Giving the song a slightly bluesy feel, Elvis found the number to be the perfect vehicle for his new richer vocal tones. He sings the song with passion and power, but refrains from belting out in the way he had done with some of the pop-styled big ballads from earlier in the session.
He then moved on to Faded Love, which he had toyed around with briefly a few days earlier. Now equipped with the full lyrics, Elvis adds a slightly hard edge, belting out the chorus in a performance that has all the joy of a jam session. Jorgensen writes that "Elvis and the band developed an oddly aggressive arrangement, more rock than country, and wholly their own." The number was robbed of some of its passion thanks to it being edited on initial release. However, the unedited version was first released in the mid-1990s, and is a joy from start to finish.
Elvis then moved on to Tomorrow Never Comes, a ballad that had been recorded a few years earlier by Glen Campbell. Elvis turns the song into a tour-de-force thanks to the clever arrangement that seems to draw equally on Running Scared by Roy Orbison and What Now My Love by Shirley Bassey. The song starts off quietly, but builds with each successive verse and chorus until Elvis reaches the very limits of even his impressive new powerful sound by the end. It's a stunning recording, and a song that would have worked so well on stage but, despite being rehearsed, it never made it into Elvis concerts.
Make the World Go Away is less impressive, and one of the weaker country tracks to be recorded on the fourth day of the sessions. That's not to say there is anything wrong here, or that Elvis's vocal is poor, but compared to the sheer gusto of the upbeat tracks and the passion of the other ballads, this seems to be relatively mundane and plods along in an arrangement that doesn't seem to really go anywhere. Slotted as the last track on the Elvis Country album, it makes for a rather unsatisfying climax.
By comparison, Elvis's take on Willie Nelson's Funny How Time Slips Away is remarkable. Elsewhere in the session, Elvis had been doing his best to use all the power his voice now had to offer, but here he is in relaxed mode, not only with his laid-back vocal but also with the leisurely tempo and the amount of time given to the instrumental break after the second verse. It's a masterful recording and a considerable improvement over the live rendition recorded the year before in Las Vegas.
Elvis then launched into a number which one would assume was a jam if it weren't for the fact that Elvis actually appears to have all the lyrics at his disposable. I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water was another song that was edited for release on the country album, but the full recording, lasting around five minutes, shows Elvis to be having a great time. He tells the narrative of the song in the first couple of minutes, but then sings the chorus over and over, ornamenting the melody slightly each time until he and the band finally run out of steam.
Two non-country songs were also recorded on this fourth night of the sessions. The Next Step is Love is a lovely track with lyrical content not dissimilar to the standard Beautiful Friendship. This is a relatively fresh take on the love song as Elvis sings about the joys of realising that a long-standing friendship has turned into something more. Unlike most Elvis performances, this is pure pop – there are no elements of country, blues or gospel here.
With eight tracks already recorded, Elvis finished off the evening by recorded a new version of Love Letters, a song he had already recorded and released four years earlier. The new take on the song, encouraged by pianist David Briggs who wanted to improve his own performance, lacks the beauty of the earlier version. Elvis sings it well enough but adds nothing new, and was probably simply tired after a productive night of music-making.
The final night of recording suffered, for the most part, because of two reasons. Firstly, there was, once again, a lack of decent material to record and, secondly, Elvis and the musicians were, understandably, getting weary. The first song of the evening, There Goes My Everything, continued the country theme of the night before. However, despite being released as a single B-side, and being a hit in the UK, the performance is relatively undistinguished for much the same reasons as Make the World Go Away from the night before. It's pleasant enough, and the vocal is committed and strong, but the arrangement is relatively pedestrian, lacking the relaxed vibe of Funny How Time Slips Away and the drama of Tomorrow Never Comes.
Next up was another country song, If I Were You. Elvis makes the most of the second-rate material, but the lyrics are hard to stomach. "If I were you I know that I'd love me" sounds conceited, and it's therefore difficult to have sympathy with the narrator in a song who is, essentially, unlikeable.
Only Believe, the only real gospel song of the five-night session, is not an improvement. Elvis sounds bored and the material is bland, although he did (for some unknown reason) try the song out once with Vegas audiences in January 1971.
Sylvia finds the singer on better form in another big ballad. Once again, the material isn't up to par but Elvis does at least seem to enjoy belting his way through the big chorus. However, there are better songs in this style from this week of recording and Sylvia is totally insignificant.
Finally, Elvis tried his hand at a new rocker, Patch It Up. It's a rather manic number, and it's almost as if Elvis and the band poured their last ounces of energy into the recording. It's less convincing than the live version recorded a couple of months later but, even then, it somehow failed to be the showstopper that Elvis seemed to want it to be.
The five nights of music-making had resulted in over thirty masters, and they were released over a series of single releases (none of which were as successful as those from the Memphis sessions the year before) and three albums. That's the Way it Is was an LP that shared its name with the concert documentary that would be filmed over the next couple of months. Although some songs appeared in both the film and the LP, the album was not thought of as a soundtrack as much as a tie-in. It contained many of the best of the big ballads from the sessions (How the Web was Woven, Bridge Over Troubled Water, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me) as well as three live recordings from the August 1970 Las Vegas season. Billboard referred to the album as finding Elvis in "contemporary mood" and declared that it would be a "certain smash."
Richard Meltzer in Rolling Stone, however, attacked the album with venom, being seemingly disturbed at Elvis turning his hand to more middle-of-the-road material. Meltzer states that he "never figured on seeing [Elvis] lying face down in a sewer with a bottle of Gallow Swiss-Up in his hand." The writer continues with a tirade that veers from near-offensive to downright ridiculous, with him declaring that "I'm sure if they redo Seven Brides for Seven Brothers there'll be a place for Elvis in it to sing I Just Can't Help Believin'" (the song was one of the live cuts included on the LP). Presumably this was Meltzer's idea of humour, but it appears no-one had informed him that some form of comedy element was a pre-requisite for humour and, more than anything else, it needed to make sense. Forty-five years on, That's the Way it Is is regarded as one of Elvis's best albums – and certainly one of his most coherent. Of course, it might just be coincidence that the Rolling Stone review of the album is mysteriously missing from their website. Or perhaps someone agreed with Meltzer's final line, "you're darn tootin' it's sad," and condemned the review to the junk files.
Peter Guralnick gave a much more positive review of Elvis Country – I'm 10,000 Years Old, the second album released from the sessions – but not before seemingly agreeing with Meltzer's view of That's the Way it Is when he talks about the possibility of Elvis's career sinking "beneath the accumulated weight of saccharine ballads." However, of Elvis Country, Guralnick states that it's the "singing, the passion and engagement most of all which mark this album as something truly exceptional, not just an exercise in nostalgia but an ongoing chapter in a history which Elvis' music set in motion." Variety's review was a little more subdued, referring to Elvis "wailing away on country ballads, country rockers and good old fashioned rock 'n' roll." Meanwhile, Billboard noted how Elvis was melding genres together. "This is a great album," they wrote, "wherein Elvis shows his country roots. Many of the tunes are arranged with gospel chord progressions, giving a true Southern flavour to the cuts." The album has remained once of Elvis's most popular. In 2007 in the Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick wrote: "His singing is full of zest and pleasure, inspiring remarkable performances from his musicians. On a racy I Washed My Hand in Muddy Water, a demonic piano lick is greeted with Elvis roaring, 'Oh yeah!' And everyone listening will know exactly how he feels. It is one of the finest country rock albums ever made."
The final album to be released was the aforementioned Love Letters from Elvis which, as previously stated, suffers not only from being an album of leftovers but also from what are probably the most inappropriate overdubs of Elvis's career. Jon Landau in Rolling Stone rightfully refers to the result as "muzak." However, what is most interesting about Landau's review is the final paragraph: "Put Elvis in the studio with a bunch of good, contemporary rockers, lock the studio up, and tell him that he can't come out until he's made an album that rocks from beginning to end. You'll get the best selling Elvis Presley album of the last ten years, and we'll get Elvis Presley doing what he's supposed to do."
This is clearly the problem. The rock critics of the 1970s had their own idea of what Elvis was "supposed to do," and it certainly didn't include him singing big ballads – or seemingly anything other than rock 'n' roll. Even when Elvis turned out a superb album such as That's the Way it Is, it wasn't good enough. It wasn't what Elvis was supposed to be doing. The idea that Elvis should have been avoiding any type of music seems ridiculous – not least because he was the one who declared from the very beginning that he sang all kinds.


July 15 – August 7, 1970: Rehearsals

Elvis's next project was a concert movie, That's the Way it Is. The documentary would film Elvis in rehearsal for his next Las Vegas season, and then a number of the concerts themselves. The film was released in late 1970 and garnered a fair amount of attention in the press at the time. In Australia, even Woman's Weekly ran an article on the release of the documentary, claiming that it captured the "essence of Elvis." Variety were also enthusiastic, stating that Elvis "explodes again on the screen." They also state that the film was "handsomely and inventively assembled by [Denis] Sanders." However, a great deal of material recorded for the film was not used at the time. Some of this was assembled for home video release in the early 1990s under the title The Lost Performances. Then, in 2001, a "special edition" of the film was released. Unlike most special editions, this wasn't an extended cut, but an entirely new film edited together in a more contemporary way. Both versions of the film have their good and bad points. The original version gives over too much time to interviews with somewhat eccentric fans, but the later version inexplicably removed the live performance of I Just Can't Help Believin', one of the highlights and most-loved songs of the filmed shows.
The filmed and taped rehearsals show an almost schizophrenic Elvis. For much of the time he is seen and heard goofing around, acting the fool and suddenly bursting into unannounced renditions of songs ranging from Froggy Went a-Courtin' to a slow (and rather blue) rendition of Stranger in My Own Home Town. Many of the rehearsals have the loose feel of a jam session but, when needed, Elvis steps up and takes charge, knowing exactly the sound that he is after. In an article printed in the New York Times Magazine in October 1970, Robert Blair Kaiser describes one of these moments which took place during a rehearsal on stage: "It is a surprise to see that he is the guy in charge, director, producer, arranger, everything. He is thinking out loud… 'Let's shorten that last part. I just can't help believing.' He sings this four times, in a whisper, facing his backup voices… 'The voices will do it four times, then the guitar will fuzz it: da da dum da!'" Moments like this are seen throughout the filmed rehearsals.
None of the rehearsal material was recorded with a view to release by RCA but, after Elvis's death, a significant amount of these recordings have been released. They are a mix of delightful near-perfect recordings and frustrating examples of Elvis being unable to take himself seriously. There is a great, loose jam built around Little Sister and The Beatles' Get Back which runs over five minutes and is, in many ways, better than the version recorded live on stage in August 1970. There's also a lovely laid back rendition of I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water which is far less manic than the studio recording. However, semi-serious renditions of older songs such as A Fool Such as I are infuriating due to Elvis fooling around at various points – and why these songs never made it into the stage act is something of a mystery. It certainly suited the thirty-five year old Elvis more than Hound Dog.
August 2014 will see a ten-disc release by Sony which will contain the audio for all of the shows recorded by them in August 1970, the original That's the Way it Is LP and, finally, a CD of rehearsals. Sadly, the tracklisting for that disc shows an emphasis on one-off rarities rather than performances that bear repeated listening. This is sad because, as Kaiser pointed out in his article, there is much joy to be had in seeing Elvis taking charge and working up an arrangement, and this could have been the focus of the rehearsal disc. Instead, listeners will be treated to Elvis fooling around with Froggy Went a-Courtin' and Cottonfields. Fun to hear once, but hardly highlights of these recordings.


August 10-13, 1970: Live Recordings

RCA recorded the first six concerts of Elvis's third Las Vegas season. Despite the high quality of the performances, only four tracks were released during Elvis's lifetime.
I've Lost You is a live version of the first single released from the June sessions. While a fine performance, the recording is marred by the introduction, during which the solo oboe (or cor anglais) gets out of time with the rest of the band – quite why this wasn't repaired when the track was released on the That's the Way it Is LP is unknown, especially considering that the overdubbing of live tracks was a common practice. However, even beyond this, the live version lacks something in comparison to the studio take. Part of this is linked to the faster tempo of the live version, which robs the song of some of its tenderness.
I Just Can't Help Believin', on the other hand, is an Elvis classic (and a #6 hit in the UK). The number is the antithesis of the belted-out ballads that would dominate Elvis's recordings during the 1970s. The arrangement is subtle and yet works up to a thrilling (but not loud or vulgar) climax. The performance manages to be as much of a showstopper as Polk Salad Annie, but in a completely different way. This isn't about on-stage movement or theatricality but, instead, centres on Elvis's vocals and his interaction with his back-up singers. Much time and effort had gone into making sure the song was as good as it could possibly be (see also the quote from Robert Blair Kaiser during the previous section), and the result is pure magic.
Patch It Up is almost the exact opposite. Here, Elvis rocks his way through the song but, despite all of the energy poured into it, it never quite takes off. Clearly, Elvis was hoping this would be another showstopper, but it doesn't happen, and the song was performed on stage just twice.
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', on the other hand, is another example of a great arrangement allowing Elvis to take a well-known song and make it entirely his own. With dramatic stage lighting, and a quiet, subdued opening, this is as much a great piece of theatre as it is a great piece of music. Elvis shows that he is totally in command of his audience, while the arrangement allows him to instil the song with elements of the gospel sounds that he loved so much.
After Elvis's death, other performances from this season slowly started appearing, but it took until 2000 for a complete show to be released (all six will be in the 2014 boxed set). The complete concerts show Elvis at the very height of his powers. He managed to take elements of the theatrics and bombast of Las Vegas and use them in his own way in his act, putting on a performance that was as much theatre as concert. More importantly, this was the season in which he found a way to incorporate all his different influences into his act. The gospel sound started to feed into even his rock 'n' roll numbers, and country music finally took its rightful place in the repertoire. If any concerts show just how wonderful a performer was, and the full range of his musical influences, then it's these.
These shows incorporate a number of the songs that had been recorded in June. Oddly, some of the tracks that were least successful in the studio worked better on stage, most notably There Goes My Everything and Make the World Go Away. Conversely, The Next Step is Love comes over as awkward and lacks the lovely laid-back vibe Elvis had achieved a couple of months earlier. The Beatles' Something is also given a fine outing here which is far better than the half-mumbled version from the Aloha from Hawaii concert that would get a release a few years later. Meanwhile, most of the older songs were still performed with commitment, and That's all Right made for an effective, and apt, new opening number.
It didn't get better than this. Elvis's next Las Vegas season, in January/February 1971 was a huge step down in quality, with some of the shows only lasting around forty-five minutes, and with Elvis on autopilot for much of the time. As was so often the case in his career, Elvis became bored and, after three Vegas seasons, needed another new challenge to keep him engaged. The problem was that his popularity was riding high in the early 1970s, even if his singles weren't always successful in the US charts. Elvis had nothing left to prove. It wasn't all downhill from this point, and there would still be a number of great moments to come, but, after this Vegas season, Elvis would seemingly never be as enthusiastic about making music again, either on stage or in the studio – and it showed.


September 22, 1970: Studio Session

This short session was organised to record two final songs for the forthcoming country album. Elvis arrived late and waded into the session with little of the enthusiasm or enjoyment that had been present in June. The first song was a cover of Anne Murray's country hit, Snowbird. Elvis's rendition is pleasant, but unremarkable. The arrangement is little different from Murray's, although Elvis's vocal is decent enough – and about the only time he sang without bellowing during the whole session.
Next up was the potential single side Where Did They Go, Lord, and Elvis here takes the "big ballad" template he had created for himself at the previous session and uses it with seemingly no interest in subtlety or finesse. Elvis barely contains himself during the quieter verses before belting out the chorus in a way that appears to be a mix of anger and frustration. In a strange way, it didn't seem out of place given the lyrics, but there is no attempt at artistry here – just a quick result.
The other side of the single, Rags to Riches, takes it even further. Elvis yells his way through the whole song, using the most bombastic of arrangements. Again, the result was oddly effective, but only really because Elvis was in such good voice. It's all over in a couple of minutes and the effect on the listener is shattering.
In between the two single sides, Elvis launched into a driving, manic (almost frantic) take on Jerry Lee Lewis's hit Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On. It's a remarkable recording, and has so little to do with Lewis's version that it sounds like a different song altogether. When released on the country album, the song fades out after three minutes, but the most interesting section was still to come. After the original fade, Elvis almost discards the words completely, instead grunting and groaning his way through verse after verse, using meaningless guttural sounds, just as a scat singer would, for nothing other than sheer effect – or perhaps to simply give an outlet to whatever frustrations had caused his seemingly bad mood (Jorgensen suggests that it was drug-related).
It's clear, even from just listening to the master takes, that something was definitely wrong with Elvis at this session. And yet, despite this, with the exception of the safe Snowbird, these recordings are striking and successful despite their bombast.




March 15, 1971: Studio Session

Despite the rather strange nature of the September 1970 session, no-one could really have foreseen the difficulties that 1971 would bring. The year started off with a decidedly lacklustre Las Vegas season, and that was to be followed in March by another marathon recording session which was supposed to yield a new gospel album, Christmas album, and over a dozen other cuts. In the end, only four songs were recorded in March, with the session being cut short due to Elvis being hospitalised with glaucoma. The four songs that were recorded saw Elvis focussing mostly on folk music – and the thought must have been that the country album could now have a logical follow-up with another genre-themed album. Sadly, that wasn't to be.
Elvis started the session with an attempted duet with Ginger Holladay, one of his backing singers, on The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. That didn't work out, and Elvis overdubbed his solo rendition at a later date. The track is a total disaster. The fragile nature of the song is completely lost, and in its place is a lumbering, heavy arrangement that Elvis steamrollers his way through. One can only imagine what the results would have been had Elvis tried this the previous year or, even better, at the Memphis sessions in 1969. Elvis must have eventually been happy with the results, as the song was released as the B-side to An American Trilogy, and even entered the set-lists for his live shows a number of times over the coming years.
Luckily, the remaining three songs were better. Amazing Grace was released on the new gospel album, He Touched Me, but a much more satisfying take eventually emerged in the 1990s on the Walk a Mile in My Shoes boxed set. The original version suffers from a rather bland and square arrangement which is serviceable but little else. The alternate take, however, benefits from a looser arrangement with an element of blues mixed in, both via Elvis's vocal and the piano work of David Briggs. Quite why it wasn't this version that was released at the time is something of a mystery for it is far superior to the uninspired master.
Elvis then turned his attention to two more songs in the folk style, both written by Gordon Lightfoot. For Lovin' Me and Early Morning Rain are delightful recordings, with Elvis giving low-key but committed vocals that are all the more remarkable given the amount of songs that would be cut at the next session with the singer using all the power of his voice to cover-up both his disinterest and vocal deficiencies. Early Morning Rain would become a concert regular, normally in shortened form during the band introductions. However, For Lovin' Me is probably the better of the two recordings. Here, Elvis manages to inhabit totally the character at the heart of the song who knowingly breaks women's hearts and seems to feel no remorse for doing so.
And then it was over. Elvis would return to the studio two months later and cut some of the most lacklustre and disappointing non-soundtrack recordings of his life.


May 15-21, 1971: Studio Session

Considering that Elvis was recording in the same studio, and with the same personnel, as the mammoth session from the summer before, everyone assumed that the results would be just as good. What hadn't been counted on was Elvis himself, who seemed disinterested in the recording process (particularly the idea of a Christmas album) and was not in the best of voice. Quite why Elvis's voice had a tired, thin quality at this session isn't completely clear – it could have been down to boredom, tiredness, or the fact he simply didn't want to be there. It could also have been the result of drug usage. Either way, it made sure that this large group of recordings was a significant step down in quality on the studio sessions of the year before.
The first night of recording got underway with Miracle of the Rosary, a new sacred song that was as uncommercial as it was bland. The most interesting aspect of the song is that Elvis taped his own harmony vocal. Elvis sings what amounts to a prayer with total commitment, but it's a strangely unlikeable song that suffers from an over-cooked arrangement. Oddly, this most religious of numbers wasn't even included on the He Touched Me album, with it being used on the hodge-podge Elvis Now collection instead.
Next up was the first of the Christmas songs. Despite it being the middle of May, a Christmas tree had been set up in the studio, and perhaps this helped to put Elvis in a suitable mood, at least to start with. It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You) might not be the best song out of all those recorded for the album, but it certainly is one of the more likeable – it has a pretty little melody, and the song builds nicely without getting overwrought. The problem here is Elvis's voice. For the first time at this session it becomes clear that he is having problems, with his wide vibrato making for a less than pleasant vocal tone.
If I Get Home on Christmas Day has similar vocal problems. This number has a more wide-ranging melody, and Elvis has problems finding his way around it. Vibrato is again an issue – so much so that he sounds more like an impersonator than Elvis himself at times. Whereas the overdubbed voices and orchestra had in the past been used to enhance a recording, here they appear to be used in order to mask Elvis's vocal deficiencies.
Things only got worse as Elvis turned to Padre, a song that he had cited as one of his favourites in a press conference back in 1958. The version he had loved so much had been by now-forgotten singer Toni Arden. Elvis's version is, to say the least, a bombastic mess that is taken at a faster pace than Arden's, although some of the rhythmical figures of the arrangement are retained. Elvis also borrows Arden's vocal phrasing which, during the chorus, is almost note for note the same as that used by Elvis. The problem is that Elvis sings the chorus at full volume and in a key that is clearly too high for him (at least at that time). On stage, he might have gotten away with it, simply through the sheer volume being produced. On record, however, it doesn't work – and one has a sneaking feeling that Elvis knew that. Rather than trying a different key or arrangement to try to improve things, he just belted his way through twelve painful takes instead.
Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees at least finds Elvis in a quieter mood. This was another new song, this time co-written by Elvis's friend Red West, who had written If Every Day Was Like Christmas. Some praise the recording, but it's slight and ultimately inconsequential, only standing out on the Christmas LP because Elvis puts in a nice, restrained vocal and sounds engaged and in better voice.
The next song, Merry Christmas Baby, is probably the only real Elvis classic recorded at the session. This slow blues has a jam-like feel to it, with Elvis shouting asides to the band and singing off-mic during instrumental breaks. It shows Elvis's affinity with the blues genre, and that the next album shouldn't have been a Christmas album but a blues one. Sadly, that was never going to happen. Unsurprisingly, the number was edited for release, but at least over five minutes were retained for the album, and it's worth the price of admission on its own. When released as a single, it was top of the pile of Variety's "Top Singles of the Week" who referred to it as a "straight blues number…in lowdown style."
Elvis finished the first evening's recording with a walk-through one of the most insipid of Christmas songs, Silver Bells. Elvis's performance is actually rather charming, but one has to wonder how he must have felt singing something so bland after cutting an epic seven minute blues masterpiece.
The second night of recording was another one of highs and extreme lows. Elvis started off with a jokey version of The Lord's Prayer (yes, you did read that right), which was just him fooling around and never meant to be released – but the material with which he chose to fool around demonstrates once again Elvis's strange state of mind.
It was then back to the Christmas album, and another new song, I'll Be Home On Christmas Day. This was one of the better tracks on the album, even if the song outstays its welcome. However, Elvis and the band create a rather nice laid-back bluesy feel and the vocal was stronger than most of the numbers from the night before. Sadly, the bluesy effect is partly lost by the obtrusive string and vocal overdubs which swamp the effective performance with a nauseous saccharine sheen.
On a Snowy Christmas Night was a new song, but more traditional in style – and certainly more upbeat in tone. Once again, Elvis's vibrato is slightly out of control, but the vocal is warm and sincere, and the number has the kind of strong melody that Elvis liked to get his teeth into.
Winter Wonderland suffers from a poor arrangement and an uninterested Elvis. The only time he appears to show any interest at all in the number is with the bluesy coda. This was music-making by numbers, without any enthusiasm or joy.
O Come All Ye Faithful is quite the opposite. The carol is given a complete makeover, with a quiet and sedate opening verse sung in close harmony with Elvis barely heard at all, becoming part of the choir rather than the leader (although the voices were overdubbed later). As the first verse ends, the drums kick in and the next verse is given a rockier feel while still being reverent. It's a remarkable and effective arrangement that is less noticeable for Elvis's vocal than for the imagination that has gone into it. It would be a highlight of the Christmas album.
The other carol recorded, The First Noel, would be one of the worst tracks on the album. The arrangement is almost non-existent, and Elvis is on autopilot, resulting in the song becoming nothing more than a poorly-sung dirge. Elvis again is in remarkably poor voice, and his vibrato is so pronounced here that it sounds like he recorded his vocal whilst operating a pneumatic drill.
The Christmas album was effectively wrapped up with The Wonderful World of Christmas, which would also serve as the ironic title of the LP itself, which has to be one of the most downbeat Christmas albums of all time. As with On a Snowy Christmas Night, the song might be new, but it's old-fashioned in style. Elvis sings it well enough, but it's not particularly memorable, and it's no surprise that none of the new songs recorded for the album became perennial favourites.
Mid-session, Elvis and the musicians had launched into a rendition of Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. Elvis only knew two verses out of the original four, and yet this "freewheelin'" jam session lasted eleven minutes, with the same verses being repeated over and over, with ample space also being given for the musicians to take their turn in the spotlight during the instrumental breaks. It's a fascinating performance, with Elvis totally engaged for possibly the only time that night. None of the world-weariness heard in some of the other recordings at these sessions is present here – Elvis appears to be having a whale of a time, and seems to be in good voice, adding to the evidence that the poor vocal tone elsewhere was as much due to boredom and lack of interest as much as anything else. Gone also is the bombast that ruins a number of the ballad performances at these sessions. Indeed, there are moments when Elvis is singing barely beyond a whisper. The words are almost immaterial here. Instead, the emphasis is on shaping and moulding the melody in a slightly different way each time it is sung, just as a blues or jazz singer might sing each verse of a song slightly differently.
For all its charm, Don't Think Twice was cut from eleven minutes on initial release to less than three (and this on an album that ultimately lasted less than twenty-five minutes in total). The beauty of the number is almost completely eradicated by the move. Since then, edits of four and eight minutes have been released, as well as the unedited jam which has appeared on the FTD collector's label. Perhaps the best of these is the eight minute version released in the late 1970s on the Our Memories of Elvis, Volume 2 LP. Here, the slightly ramshackle opening and closing sections are excised, but the listener still gets to hear the main section of the jam without interruption, and it is a joy.
The next evening saw just three songs completed. Elvis had apparently been interested in recording Help Me Make It Through The Night for some time but, as with The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, the recording is awkward and the arrangement lacks any finesse, and thus destroys the tenderness of the lyrics. Elvis isn't singing at full pelt here, but the performance is lifeless and lumbers along, resulting in a cut that was never going to be anything more than album filler.
Until it's Time for You to Go suffers in much the same way. The best recordings of the song (Buffy Saint-Marie, Bobby Darin, Mike Nesmith) keep the song soft and gentle and within the folk genre. Elvis, however, tries to make it into a big ballad and it just doesn't work. There's no charm or beauty here, although it was deemed a strong enough cut to be released as a single, and it flopped in the US.
At the end of the evening, Elvis finally turned his attention back to the gospel album. Lead Me, Guide Me is one of the best cuts on He Touched Me, and Elvis clearly loved the song. He manages to keep his vibrato in check here, and puts in a loose but committed performance, with his voice blending beautifully with The Imperials.
Also recorded on 17th May were short jams of Johnny B Goode and, tantalisingly, Lady Madonna, with the latter so good that one wishes Elvis had taken time out to cut the song properly the next night. Instead, the following evening started with a bland and pointless rendition of Fools Rush In. Elvis had recorded a lovely ballad performance of this standard privately back in 1966, but here he takes the upbeat country arrangement used by Ricky Nelson and does little more than add his own voice to it. It's inoffensive but ultimately a lazy recording with Elvis seemingly unwilling or unable to make the song his own.
Soon Elvis was back to work on the gospel album. The title number, He Touched Me, receives a lovely, heartfelt performance from Elvis. His rendition closely follows the arrangement of The Imperials version from a few years earlier – hardly surprising considering they were now acting as Elvis's backing vocalists. However, the saccharine, overbearing strings from their recording are, thankfully, not present in Elvis's. Even so, the vocal phrasing is often identical, even when lines are unfortunately broken up due to when breaths are taken. Why, for example, on the opening line, "Shackled by a heavy burden," is a breath taken before "burden?" It would be perfectly possible to take the whole line in one breath, and would make more sense from the point of view of the lyrics.
I've Got Confidence is a completely different type of religious number – a relatively new song with a rock feel to it. The Imperials had also recorded the track, but Elvis this time gives the song a harder edge that works much better. Elvis is in good form here, even if the vocal is a little ragged. As with Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On the previous year, Elvis uses various guttural sounds in between lines which, presumably, was a sign of his engagement with the recording process.
An Evening Prayer is completely different again. A few days earlier he had fooled around with The Lord's Prayer, in a light-hearted rendition that appeared to be paying tribute to Mahalia Jackson, whom Elvis much admired. With An Evening Prayer he does this again, but in a much more serious and committed fashion. Perhaps Jackson's most famous recording of the song was cut at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, and Elvis's version appears to be modelled on that. It's a stunning rendition, with less ornamentation of the melody than Jackson's, but equally heartfelt and totally moving.
The next night of recording was effectively split into two. To start with, the gospel album was continued. Seeing is Believing was a new song co-written by Red West which was very much in the same Christian rock idiom as I've Got Confidence. While the performance is decent enough, the song simply doesn't flow as well, and the chorus in particular doesn't have the necessary melodic hook.
A Thing Called Love was penned by Jerry Reed, who had also written Guitar Man and U. S. Male, and had sat in on those sessions. Elvis decided he wanted to sing the entire song in unison with Armond Morales, the bass singer with The Imperials. The resulting performance is passable but strange, with Elvis barely audible at all during some passages. It's still unsure just what effect Elvis was hoping to achieve, but sung as a solo and in a higher key the result would probably have been more memorable.
The second half of the night's recording found Elvis performing three songs, accompanying himself at the piano. It's Still Here, I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen and I Will Be True were all songs that Elvis had been toying with years. These three songs were a clear highlight of the whole week of recording. Away from the big arrangements, and a parade of songs Elvis didn't really seem to care about, something very special was captured on tape on May 19th. The sparseness of the arrangements only adds to the charm. Elvis still isn't in the greatest voice, but it doesn't matter. He is totally engaged with the songs, and seemingly lost in the music. Needless to say, the songs were unnecessarily tampered with on release, being edited and overdubbed. They are best heard and appreciated in their raw, untampered original versions, which can be found on the Walk a Mile in My Shoes boxed set.
The next night saw the agenda move away from the gospel album (despite the fact it wasn't finished) and onto secular material in the hope that some single sides could be recorded. I'm Leavin' was the first song up, and by far the best of the three recorded that night. For once, Elvis took the time to work out an engaging arrangement, and his vocal shows him at his most restrained. There is no belting or bellowing here, just a beautifully nuanced performance that should have been a hit – but wasn't. It's hard to work out just why the song stalled at #36 in the charts. Perhaps it lacked an obvious hook that could grab radio listeners, or perhaps it was just too esoteric for the average single buyers. One reason why Elvis's singles might have been unsuccessful during the 1970s may have been that he didn't use TV appearances to promote his latest record. Sure, some of them were performed at his concerts, but he never did the talk-show circuit or appear on the various variety shows of the period, and this must have had an impact on sales.
Two more single sides were recorded on May 20th, and neither were particularly successful. We Can Make the Morning is a reasonable song, complete with the kind of big chorus that Elvis was becoming more and more drawn to. However, the performance is ragged (not just from Elvis, but also the musicians and other singers), and the whole thing becomes another unimpressive, overblown big ballad. It's Only Love, on the other hand, might well have been an attempt at something a little different, but it seems too artificial and manufactured. The performance is just too stodgy and the number never takes off.
The final night of recording produced just one song, Love Me, Love the Life I Lead. On paper, it should have worked. Again, it was a song with a big chorus and lyrics that Elvis could identify with. However, despite twelve takes, this is one of Elvis's worst studio performances of the decade. Clearly sung in a key that was too high, Elvis belts, bellows and strains his way through the song in a fashion that is both unimpressive and unflattering.
The sessions had finally ground to a halt, and to say they had produced a mixed bag is putting it mildly. The resulting Christmas album is one of Elvis's most disappointing and depressing records, despite the fact that there were a few decent tracks included. Meanwhile, the gospel album was still incomplete, and another session would take place the following month in order for the remaining tracks to be cut.
The secular material would be released in a typically haphazard way, spread over a number of singles and two albums. We will come to the so-called Fool album a little later, but Elvis Now was released in February 1972 and to little acclaim. The title was a misnomer to start with. This wasn't a batch of recordings from the most recent sessions, but simply some of the new recordings bundled together with leftovers dating back to 1969's Hey Jude and 1970's Sylvia and I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago, which had already been released in part on the Elvis Country album. Gospel songs sat inexplicably next to secular material, and the effect was given that songs titles were pulled out of a hat and slotted onto the LP. Even the packaging was bland, complete with a rainbow on the back cover, which must have made sense to someone at the time.
Despite all of this, Billboard were typically upbeat about the whole thing, telling readers that it was a "strong new package" and would prove "a big chart hit." In reality, it was neither. Don Heckman of the New York Times was decidedly more honest, commenting on Elvis's problems with his wide vibrato by talking of "the now-quavery Presley baritone." Comment is also made on the "thick and overdone" production, and he concludes by saying that "it sure would be good to hear this still-gifted pop performer recover some of the fire and passion that were once so much a part of his music." Despite the title of Heckman's article, this is an honest review in which the author isn't as much condemning what Elvis is singing, but the lack of vitality and commitment within the performances.
Even so, RCA, Elvis, Parker and Felton Jarvis could have come up with a better album than Elvis Now. While it would never set the world alight, an LP containing the two Gordon Lightfoot covers from the March session, the three songs featuring Elvis at the piano, I'm Leavin', Until It's Time For You To Go and a long edit of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright would have made a worthy, if low-key, release. Only eight songs, yes, but the running time would have been the same as for the now-standard ten, and the result would have at least been relatively coherent and of good quality. Sadly, both of those attributes were set aside more and more over the coming years in favour of more releases and making a quick buck.




June 8-10, 1971: Studio Session

When the next set of sessions started on June 8, Elvis appears to have been in better voice and mood. The first night started off with him re-recording Until It's Time For You To Go, but it's unclear quite what he hoped to achieve as the arrangement used was almost the same, and there was very little change to the vocal line. Perhaps he thought he was in better voice and could do a better job but, in the end, it was the earlier version that was released.
Attention was then turned back to the gospel album, but the first song chosen was the wishy-washy pop gospel of Put Your Hand in the Hand. The performance is pleasant but slight, and one has to wonder why, in the fortnight or so between the sessions, someone hadn't been able to come up with better material than this.
Reach Out to Jesus is considerably better. This is a lovely ballad in waltz time that starts out with Elvis singing with The Imperials. When Elvis then sings a solo line ("are you growing weary with the struggle of it all") it has quite an impact. His voice is tender and vulnerable, and he is clearly deeply involved with the music. The arrangement is well-thought out, and builds up to a remarkable climax, with Elvis using all the power of his voice. This is singing, not bellowing, and all the more effective because the volume is only used for a small section of the song.
Ernst Jorgensen gives a sobering account of what happened over the next two nights when "the good spirits from the day before had faded." He writes how Elvis admonished the musicians and singers around him and then, eventually, walked out.
He is My Everything was recorded on the second night of the session, and is bland and unremarkable, with the song being nothing more than There Goes My Everything with different lyrics. There Is No God But God was even worse – an overly-simplistic song that is given an insipid arrangement and a vocal that appears to have been given little care or attention.
In order to fulfil the quota of gospel songs, Elvis turned to I John and Bosom of Abraham, songs that he knew well and had sung countless times in backstage jams. Finally, Elvis sounds fully-engaged and interested in what he is doing. These two short numbers are highlights of the finished album, and certainly He Touched Me would have been a more substantial entry in the Elvis cannon had it contained more material like this instead of bland nonsense like There Is No God But God.
On the final night of recording, Elvis tried another remake, this time I'll Be Home on Christmas Day. The choice of songs being remade must have been mystifying. On the one hand, Elvis clearly didn't want to be in the studio at all but, on the other, he still cared enough to want to try to improve on his perfectly reasonable efforts from a couple of weeks earlier. Remakes of Padre or We Can Make the Morning would at least have had a chance of improving on the originals.
He then turned to My Way, and a version that remained unreleased for over twenty years. Elvis would perform the song often on stage in the coming years with two different arrangements. Both arrangements are better than the dirge of this studio rendition. Elvis's voice sounds thin and nasally, but the performance goes nowhere anyway. It just drags on without any real shape or form. One can only be thankful it remained unreleased for so long.
Finally, the gospel album was complete. He Touched Me may have won a Grammy award, but it is still the weakest of the three gospel albums that Elvis recorded. The tone of the record is all over the place, from the inspired Reach Out to Jesus and He Touched Me to the insipid There Is No God But God. It was the best album to come out of the 1971 sessions, but that's not saying an awful lot.


February 14-17, 1972: Live Recordings

The first half of 1971 had seen a substantial drop in the quality of both live performances and studio recordings, and the second half of the year didn't get off to a better start, with Elvis giving another lacklustre series of performances in Las Vegas. The fans still lapped up everything the King threw at them, but more discerning viewers and listeners knew that something was not right. However, by the end of the year things were looking up – professionally if not personally. While none of the 1971 recordings had been big hits (in America), at least Elvis's on stage performances had dramatically improved by the time of the autumn tour, and the FTD release from the soundboard of the Boston concert finds Elvis in very good form indeed. Despite this, other elements of Elvis's life were in a mess, most notably the fact that Priscilla was filing for divorce. The news hit Elvis hard, but he found an outlet for his unhappiness in a series of songs of lost love that would ultimately come to define Elvis's final half-decade.
RCA arrived to record some of Elvis's shows in Las Vegas in February 1972 with a view to releasing a hybrid live/studio album in the style of That's the Way it Is. Elvis's stage performances were going through a period of transition. See See Rider, which had never even been an Elvis single, was chosen as the new opening number, with the grandiose opening section of Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra serving as the introductory music. Meanwhile, most of the songs recorded in Memphis in 1969 and Nashville in 1970 were dropped from the set list. In their place was a group of big, showy numbers (all of them covers), as Elvis's concerts became even more theatrical.
Interestingly, one of the new songs was written by Hoyt Axton, son of Mae Axton who had co-written Heartbreak Hotel. Never Been to Spain had been a hit for Three Dog Night, but Elvis's version is rather different thanks to the new, rather dramatic, arrangement. Starting off quietly for the first two verses, the song then suddenly receives a jumpstart when Elvis jumps up an octave for the third verse, using the full power of his voice. These well-thought-out arrangements were what Elvis's show would go on to lack within just a few years, with a cheap and cheerful by-the-book glitzy use of the orchestra replacing the well-judged, effective-but-restrained use here.
The same can be said for You Gave Me a Mountain, a song written by Marty Robbins that had been successfully recorded by Frankie Laine. The song is pure soap opera melodrama from the point of view of the lyrics – a man's mother dies in childbirth, so his father hates him, the man then goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit only for him to be released and find his wife is leaving him, taking their child with her. It's over the top and ridiculous in so many ways (but would make a great Hallmark movie – no doubt starring Lindsay Wagner), but Elvis makes this unlikely tale totally believable, and his renditions here (released after his death) and during the Aloha special are classics of their kind. Again, though, they are perfectly judged. Songs like this are like a highwire act – one step too far in the wrong direction and it's fatal. When Elvis revived the song in 1976 and 1977, the tempo was slightly quicker, the orchestra slightly brassier, and the vocal too bombastic. The appeal was gone.
The best of all the arrangements with regards to the new songs was An American Trilogy, which Elvis chose as his next single but which barely dented the charts in America, despite being a hit in the UK. This medley of Dixie, All My Trials and Battle Hymn of the Republic had already been a hit for Mickey Newbury in the USA, but Elvis's version was released first in the UK, which might account for the different chart placings (although Elvis's 1970s singles often did better in the UK than in America). The arrangement is, once again, superb, and it's clear Elvis believed deeply in the song. His performance on the single, recorded on February 16th, is note perfect and probably the best version taped. It's completely the opposite of Newbury's quiet, reflective recording. It's a big, grandiose showstopper, and a wonderful piece of theatre that would become one of Elvis's most beloved tracks – although, alas, it would also become the signature song of Elvis impersonators the world over. You can't have everything, I guess.
Elvis had been telling audiences for months that his new single would be The Impossible Dream, and finally he got around to recording it. The song came from The Man of La Mancha, and was a rare trip into the world of musical theatre for Elvis – a genre he had only really addressed within some of the home recordings from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. For various reasons, this recording would go unreleased for six years, but it is better than the one that would get released from a concert at Madison Square Garden a few months later. That one feels a little rushed, whereas here the song is allowed to breathe more, with it being taken at a more majestic pace. The song is also notable for being the only one to temporarily shunt Can't Help Falling in Love from its place as the closing number of Elvis's live performances.
It's Over is a quieter affair, and not the Roy Orbison song. It had been recorded by Glen Campbell among others, and Elvis sings the song tenderly, seemingly deeply involved with the rather poetic nature of the lyrics. It's a shame, therefore, that the low-key performance is spoilt by the overly-dramatic big finish that seemed to be a pre-requisite of nearly all songs Elvis sang on stage. Here the "ta-da!" moment is particularly ill-advised and seems totally out of place.
Also in a quieter mood was Elvis's version of the Perry Como song It's Impossible. This is nice enough, and the vocal is, again, rather restrained. However, the song is sickly sweet and almost dripping with syrupy lyrics. While there was nothing wrong with Elvis's move to MOR material, it was often his choice of songs in that vein which were problematic, and here he didn't choose wisely.
Finally, we come to A Big Hunk o' Love. Unusually for one of Elvis's 1950s hits, this rocker is given a substantial and impressive reworking for the concert platform. It's a pity that it wasn't released in this version as a single as it may well have been a hit all over again. It's the arrangement here that works so well. This isn't a throwaway number on stage like so many of Elvis's past hits. Instead, it's given a semi-Jerry Lee Lewis feel, and the two instrumental breaks allow the spotlight to briefly shine on James Burton and Glen D Hardin on lead guitar and piano respectively.
All in all, these recordings were impressive – especially when compared to what had (not) been achieved the previous year. Other songs were recorded as well, but the intention was never to produce a wholly live album. In fact, there is some mystery as to what the initial plan was for these recordings. Some state that an album called Standing Room Only would be released featuring these songs together with a batch of studio recordings made a few weeks later. However, other sources suggest that the live portion of that release would have been recorded on tour in April – although, by then, some of these songs were cut from the set list. Either way, the planned hybrid album was scrapped and only An American Trilogy and It's Impossible were released during Elvis's lifetime. The other songs would all be re-recorded in concert over the next year and released on future live albums. In nearly all cases, these Las Vegas performances were better than those eventually released.




March 27-29, 1972: Studio Session

The improvement in Elvis's performances and work ethic at the beginning of 1972 wasn't a coincidence. He had always responded well to a challenge, and the first half of 1972 saw a number of them. In April, film cameras would follow him as he went on tour for a second MGM documentary. Then, in June, he was to play Madison Square Garden in New York – a city that had not been kind to him in the past. But, before both of those, he had to enter the recording studio and, once again, the pressure was on. His last few singles had not performed well, and he needed a hit record.
For the session, Elvis chose to work with the same musicians he had been using for his live shows (with the exception of Emory Gordy on bass, who was working with Elvis for the first time). The atmosphere was relaxed and yet focussed, and Elvis worked through over twenty takes of a new song co-written by Red West. Separate Ways was another in a series of love-gone-wrong ballads that Elvis was being drawn to more and more. What is noticeable here, though, is that the song is more low-key in performance than many of the numbers he had recorded the year before (or performed on stage a few weeks earlier). Elvis doesn't bellow or strain his way through this lovely song. Instead, he focuses on getting inside the lyrics and delivers a stunning, restrained performance of a song that must have echoed his real-life situation now that his marriage had fallen apart. The song was released as the A-side of a single in the USA, and reached a relatively respectable #20 in the charts.
The next song up was the Kris Kristofferson's For the Good Times. Elvis puts in a quiet, laid-back performance here too, but the arrangement is bland and the recording doesn't grab the listener in the same way that Separate Ways does. In a strange turn of events, this studio recording wasn't released for over twenty years, but Elvis did start singing the song in his live shows.
Where Do I Go From Here is a title that, in many ways, reflected Elvis's career at this point. The writer was Paul Williams, a young composer who wrote a number of songs for the Carpenters (including We've Only Just Begun) as well as the soundtrack for the musical film Bugsy Malone. Where Do I Go From Here suffers from Elvis once again giving too heavy a sound to a what is actually a rather delicate number. Williams' original recording has a folky feel to it, but that's dropped in Presley's version, replaced by a rather clunky pop sound that doesn't really work. Elvis's vocal is also rather awkward. At times he sounds like he is running out of breath, particularly during the long lines in the verses, and at other times he seems to be stumbling over the lyrics as if he hasn't quite learned them properly. Rather than covering these inadequacies up, the string and brass overdubs only serve to make the song sound cluttered.
The next night saw Elvis recording one of his most fondly-remembered 1970s hits, Burning Love. However, despite encouragement from the musicians, Elvis wasn't even sure that he wanted to record the song at all. Despite this, after six takes, Elvis and his musicians had recorded his most convincing rocker of the decade. The arrangement was dynamic and yet uncluttered, and Elvis's vocal is relaxed and yet also manages to drive the song forward. He didn't know it at the time, but it was the hit he had been looking for, reaching #2 in the charts.
Fool, on the other hand, has to rank as one of Elvis's most boring recordings. Written by Carl Sigman and James Last (of all people!), this ballad is harmless but goes nowhere fast and the arrangement hardly helps, as it meanders along aimlessly. Someone must have thought that key changes were the way to inject something exciting into the number, but they just end up making the whole thing sound hackneyed. Despite the song's shortcomings, the ever-faithful Billboard magazine still referred to it as a "strong ballad effort in country-rock vein," when the number was inexplicably released as a single.
On the final night of recording, Elvis turned his attention to the far superior Always on my Mind. While the song would be the flip-side to Separate Ways in the USA, it would be the A-side in the UK – and in 2013 was voted the UK's favourite Elvis song in a nation-wide poll. Once again, the song benefits from a restrained performance and an arrangement that seems just a little reminiscent of I Just Can't Help Believin' in its use of a "fake" ending.
The other song recorded on the final night was It's a Matter of Time, which would be released as the flip-side of Burning Love. This is an unassuming little number with more than a hint of country about it. It's hardly Elvis's most memorable recording, but the vocal is committed and sincere, and the singer liked it enough to try it out on the concert stage eleven months later.
The sessions produced a batch of generally high quality recordings, including two decent-sized hits, but they were ultimately wasted. The Standing Room Only LP, which would have seen this material paired with some of the live recordings from February, was abandoned. Songs such as Burning Love and Separate Ways would end up on LP, but headlining albums that were otherwise filled with forgettable tracks from the movie years. While Billboard called Burning Love and Hits from the Movies a "bargain," Lester Bangs in Rolling Stone referred to the release as "a whole lazy susan of the same old shit." Don't hold back now, Lester.
The situation had, however, got ridiculous. For much of Elvis's career, his hit singles had not been included on albums at all – now they were, but they were on budget releases filled with substandard material from a decade earlier. The market was swamped with Elvis releases, and not many of them were very good. They even competed with each other – on November 6, 1971, Billboard found itself reviewing not only the Christmas album that had been recorded that spring, but also I Got Lucky, an LP which was a mish-mash of movie songs (including Yoga is as Yoga Does, which had obviously been crying out for an LP release) as well as other leftovers such as Fools Fall in Love.
While the better songs from the March 1972 sessions found their way onto budget releases, it was two of the weaker songs, Fool and Where Do I Go From Here, that were released on a regular album. That album had the wondrous title Elvis, and has been referred to ever since its release as the Fool Album. The rest of the tracks were from the March and May 1971 sessions, as well as one song from the Las Vegas engagement in February 1972. It's a bizarre release. On the one hand it contains the lovely "piano songs" from May 1971 but, on the other, it also features Elvis yelling and straining his way through Padre and Love Me, Love the Life I Lead. What's more, the album clocks in at less than twenty-five minutes, despite the fact that Don't Think Twice, It's Alright was edited down to less than three minutes. Despite all of this, the result was a step up from Elvis Now. Billboard stated that "Elvis sings softly and nicely and professionally," and refers to him as "mellowed."
While the Fool Album does contain its fair share of decent tracks, it is a very low key effort. It was the first album released after Aloha from Hawaii, and doesn't attempt to cash in on the success of either the show or the #1 album. Perhaps RCA's best move at that point would have been the release of a fifth volume of the Gold Records series. After all, the last volume had been released just prior to the 1968 TV Special, and so Aloha could have been used as a sensible punctuation point in Elvis's career. The resulting album could have shown Elvis as a contemporary artist and included songs such as If I Can Dream, In the Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, Kentucky Rain, Don't Cry Daddy, The Wonder of You and Burning Love. This was not to be, however, and Aloha from Hawaii was Elvis's last hit album during his lifetime.


March 30-31 and April 5, 1972: Rehearsals

As with 1970's That's the Way it Is, Elvis on Tour was to include footage of Elvis rehearsing as well as a collection of live performances. The rehearsals were filmed at the end of March and beginning of April. Relatively little from these dates has been released – perhaps most notably the FTD release Elvis on Tour – The Rehearsals.
It's clear that much had changed since 1970. The footage of rehearsals collected for That's the Way it Is showed Elvis as a dynamic, vibrant, enthusiastic music-maker. By March 1972, much of that had vanished. There is little of the fun and laughter that made the earlier material so charming. The rehearsals are far more workmanlike, and only occasionally does Elvis fool around in a jam-like fashion with a song such as El Paso. Despite this, the singer seems far more detached from the whole music-making process, and it's only when he stands around the piano with J. D. Sumner and The Stamps singing gospel songs that he really becomes involved.


April 9, 10, 14 & 18, 1972: Live Recordings

RCA recorded four performances from the spring tour that was filmed for Elvis on Tour. None of the recordings were released until after Elvis's death, and it was only in 2003 that a complete concert eventually escaped from the vaults on an official release. That concert, recorded on April 18 in San Antonio, finds Elvis in good form. The repertoire is much the same as the performances recorded at Madison Square Garden a couple of months later, but Elvis is more relaxed here. While he doesn't get involved in much patter between songs, the concert doesn't have the same sense of being rushed as that recorded in New York.
Elvis on Tour would go on to win a Golden Globe for best documentary, and yet the film is heavily flawed. It's almost as if directors Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel set out to make a rather dark movie about what it's like to be Elvis Presley, but then got nervous and converted it into a regular concert movie instead. The most interesting moments are when Elvis seems to forget he's being filmed backstage, and in the surprisingly candid snatches of much longer interviews with the star that are scattered through the film. Vincent Canby writes that he suspects the directors were "inhibited by the magnitude of their latest subject, Elvis Presley. Or perhaps – dare I say? – his minitude." What Canby goes on to say is that, away from the spotlight of the concert stage, Elvis comes away looking bland. He sums up by writing that "the camera never catches him in a truly candid moment. Close-ups do not reveal anything but, rather, they enshrine an ideal, like an official photograph of a President of a Pope." Watching the film today, it's hard to disagree with that. Even so, there are moments within Elvis on Tour that are remarkably dark, not least the obsessive nature of the fans – and we do get a glimpse of what life must have been like for the singer, running to and from concert venues into waiting cars for his own safety.


June 10, 1972: Live Recordings

Elvis had always had a strange relationship with New York. It was, after all, the city from where many of the attacks on him came after the performance of Hound Dog on The Milton Berle Show in 1956. The New York press had warmed to his succession of films during the 1960s, but had become harsher towards him again following the comeback. Despite this, there were few sign of nerves when Elvis performed at Madison Square Garden in June 1972. The shows were slick, professional, and delivered at an almost frantic pace. RCA recorded both the afternoon and evening shows on June 10, with the evening performance being released on album just ten days later – the first release of a complete Elvis show. The afternoon performance was released during the 1990s. With a couple of exceptions, the set lists were the same, but I shall concentrate on the evening show here.
By this point, Also Sprach Zarathustra had been established as Elvis's introductory music, preparing the audience for the spectacle that was to follow. Here it leads into That's all Right, delivered at a much quicker tempo and with a much beefier sound than in the 1950s. One of the original four verses is excised completely, and the whole thing (from opening riff to the end of the song) is over in just over two minutes.
With hardly time to take a breath, the band launches into Proud Mary, which receives a better performance here than in the previous recording from February 1970. The pace is quicker, and the song has found a more natural groove.
Never Been to Spain had been recorded a few months earlier in Las Vegas but had not been released. This version is impressive, but Elvis's vocal isn't so well controlled. He sounds out of breath at the beginning – and probably was. Once the louder section kicks in, things improve. During this section, Elvis is in total command, but the tempo seems slightly too fast and the song doesn't have the room to breathe that it hada few months earlier.
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is taken at a quicker tempo than the studio version from 1970. That version was bombastic enough, but this one is even more so. There is no sense here of Elvis giving a reading of the lyrics. Instead, the song is simply designed as a short, sharp punctuation point in the concert. The first four songs might well have been impressive to audiences at the concert but, on record, they are a barrage of sound with little evidence of light and shade, with the exception of the opening of Never Been to Spain. Individually, they are great performances but, put together on record, it's all just a bit too much.
Perhaps even Elvis realised this as, during the afternoon performance, he turned off the heat somewhat at this point by singing the relatively quiet Until It's Time For You To Go but, in the evening, he surges ahead with You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' – a performance that has plenty of intensity and power, but again lacks the light and shade of the 1970 recordings. But still Elvis hasn't finished, pressing on with a new arrangement of Polk Salad Annie that, again, speeds the song up and, in this case, excises the spoken introduction. Once more, the song has become about power and impact. The charm of the song has gone, and the number would become even more over-the-top in the coming years.
After no less than six loud, powerful performances on the trot, Elvis finally brings the intensity down with a sequence of early hits. Unlike the first half a dozen songs that, if nothing else, are arranged with skill, the hits featured here hardly have an arrangement at all.
Love Me gets a reasonable walk through, but one gets the impression that Elvis isn't taking the song completely seriously – even seemingly doing an impression of his earlier self during the line "If you ever go, darling I'll be oh oh oh so lonely."
All Shook Up is stormed through at a ridiculous pace, with the song over and done with in sixty-four seconds. Heartbreak Hotel is taken more seriously, with a reasonable, slightly bluesy arrangement.
The medley of Teddy Bear and Don't be Cruel was redundant even at this early stage. No doubt Elvis, now thirty-seven years old, felt he couldn't identify with earlier songs such as Teddy Bear, but the answer would surely have been to choose different hits to include in concert. At least he does concentrate on the medley here, unlike later renditions when it would be used as nothing more than a vehicle for him to mumble through while he gave out scarves to the middle-aged women at the front of the audience. The sequence of oldies comes to an end with a half-hearted rendition of Love Me Tender.
Elvis continues by introducing his version of The Impossible Dream. Once again, the song is taken at a faster tempo than in Las Vegas a few months before. The power of the vocal is impressive, but the song loses something at this speed.
Hound Dog is given a fun revamp here, with Elvis teasing the audience before grooving his way through a funky arrangement for a couple of verses and then kicking into the song as normal. It is just Elvis having a bit of fun with the audience, but it makes one wish that he had taken the time to work out proper new arrangements of some of his old hits.
Suspicious Minds is given a decent workout. The live renditions had always been taken at a faster pace than the studio recording, but here the tempo is ratcheted up again. As with some of the other songs, words have lost any real meaning – this is all about impact rather than emotion or even good singing.
Bearing this in mind, quite how For the Good Times managed to find its way into the set list is something of a mystery. It's nice to hear Elvis taking a song at a sensible pace and really singing rather than putting on a show, but there were low-key ballads recorded at the session at March that would have been a better choice for live performance.
An American Trilogy follows but, once again, the quiet intensity of the Vegas recording is lost – not helped by Elvis reacting to the crowd in the opening verse. Likewise, Funny How Time Slips Away has little in common with the 1970 studio recording. The lovely, laid-back feel of that version is gone thanks to Elvis simply walking his way through the song and, bizarrely, changing the lyrics and giving it a happy ending. A bombastic version of I Can't Stop Loving You leads into Can't Help Falling in Love, and then it's all over.
Much has been made over the years of the New York Times review of the concert in which Chris Chase referred to Elvis as "like a prince from another planet." However, a closer reading of the review shows that Chase rarely refers to Elvis's singing – instead, he concentrates on how he controlled the audience and the majestic nature of the performance. He compares him to a champion boxer: "He stood there at the end, his arms stretched out, the great gold cloak giving him wings, a champion, the only one in his class." A week earlier, Don Heckman had made not dissimilar comments in the same newspaper, referring to Elvis as a "solid professional," and of how he "moved through a series of tableau poses that would have imitated Charles Atlas." Neither writer says as much, but there is an impression here that Elvis's performances at Madison Square Garden were as much about leaving a lasting impression and making an impact, than giving the best demonstration of his vocal abilities – and the often bombastic, speeded-up arrangements suggest the same.
When the album was released, it too received largely positive reviews. Variety stated that it offered the singer in "excellent voice." Meanwhile, Bob Palmer in Rolling Stone declared that the album was a "damn fine record."
The original release suffered from an appalling, muddy sound. A new mix was released in 2012. Even this wasn't great, but was an improvement if nothing else. Over the years, there have been suggestions from fans that the original release was speeded up slightly. Now we have the two June 10 concerts together, we can see why. Nearly every song is quicker on the evening show – some by as much as fifteen to twenty seconds. That might not sound much on paper, but it makes a significant difference, especially when it applies to every song. The faster pace gives the album a frantic feel. The initial impact of listening to the show is impressive, but it's almost tiring. What works well on stage doesn't necessarily work well on record, and this is a case in point. I don't want to hear Elvis singing songs as quickly as possible, I want to hear him give them the time and consideration that they deserve, and he often doesn't do that here.

January 12 and 14, 1973: Live Recordings

If the Madison Square Garden release showed Elvis in rather intense, bombastic form, the Aloha from Hawaii concert showed quite the opposite. The performance was the basis of Elvis's first TV appearance since the 1968 special, and this time it would be broadcast live via satellite to much of the world (the first such transmission of a full-length entertainment show). Elvis prepared for the show by losing weight and introducing some new songs into his act. His late summer performances in Las Vegas had seen Fever, Steamroller Blues, What Now My Love and My Way added to the repertoire. For the Hawaii show itself, a couple of country covers were rehearsed alongside a revival of Something, which Elvis hadn't performed regularly for nearly two years. The main performance took place on January 14, but the so-called "rehearsal show" of January 12 was also recorded as a safety measure. It was finally released in 1988.
The main concert starts with Also Sprach Zarathustra followed by See See Rider. The song had gone through quite a change since Elvis's first recording of the number back in February 1970. Now, it had become part of the spectacle of the Elvis show, and was more grandiose in nature, with more participation from both the orchestra and backing singers. Elvis's vocal is OK, but it lacks the edge of the earlier performance, and doesn't have the power or the intensity of the previous year. In fact, his voice sounds thinner than usual and has a strange nasal quality, not unlike the 1971 studio recordings. He then moves into Burning Love, but again the voice sounds strained and his tone wavers on the long notes at the end of some lines.
Something is a huge disappointment, and is the first real sign that something was amiss that night. He meanders through the song, mumbling some lines and seemingly lacking any real commitment. Arguably, this was the biggest night of his career – if something went wrong, or if Elvis put in a poor performance, millions of people would see. Not only does he not seem fazed, he doesn't seem to care. His voice wobbles on the word "moves" during the opening line, and the number simply doesn't compare to the 1970 recording.
Things improve with You Gave Me a Mountain but, again, the vocal quality is thin and Elvis struggles keeping in tune during the opening lines. He seems to come alive during the chorus, but it seems almost artificial. Just eleven months earlier, a stunning recording of the song had been made in Las Vegas, but this isn't anywhere near that league. There's a sense of the singer being tired and on autopilot.
Elvis doesn't seem to take Steamroller Blues particularly seriously – probably a good thing considering the silly lyrics. Again he struggles during the quiet sections, though. It's only during the loud second half when the verses are taken up an octave that there is any real glimpse of the great performer and singer that Elvis was.
My Way is better, and the first real number in the concert where Elvis seems to be in complete control of his voice. This is a vast improvement on the leaden studio version, and the arrangement is powerful but also tender, especially during the second verse when a solo violin provides a lovely counterpoint to the melody. Finally, the singer sounds totally committed to what he is doing, and manages to deliver a song that had already become hackneyed with a level of authenticity.
Love Me is pretty similar to the version recorded in New York just a few months earlier, while Johnny B Goode sees Elvis coasting his way through the song in a version that doesn't rock as hard as that from 1969, but still has a certain relaxed charm.
It's Over is another song that had been recorded the previous year in Las Vegas. This time, the version is comparable with the earlier one. Elvis appears to have grown into the song and gives a lovely careful performance here. The climax of the arrangement is still overblown and out of place, however.
He barely pauses for breath before moving into a tossed away version of Blue Suede Shoes and then introduces I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry as the "saddest song I've ever heard." The arrangement is almost non-existent, but that works in its favour. The stripped back sound makes a nice contrast to the glitz, glamour and artifice of the rest of the performance and Elvis again proves that he doesn't need to bellow in order to deliver a good performance.
I Can't Stop Loving You follows, but this was the third time that the number had appeared on a live album in just over three years. The inclusion of the song in the show seems like laziness on the part of the singer. Sure, the performance is fine, but it adds nothing to those that had been previously released. Likewise, Hound Dog is nothing more than a brief throwaway.
The next really good performance comes with What Now My Love. The arrangement here follows the one utilised by Shirley Bassey and then Judy Garland. It clearly must have appealed to Elvis's sense of the dramatic as it starts off quietly and builds to a huge crescendo. The performance is superb, but adds nothing new to what had been done with the song by other artists.
Elvis then reprises Fever, which he had recorded back in 1960 for the Elvis is Back album. This version is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and works well. Welcome to my World, however, is a bore. The song and arrangement are bland, and Elvis seems uncommitted to the number, throwing away some of the lines as he interacts with the audience. Meanwhile, there are moments when it sounds like he is going to be blasted out of the room by the over-enthusiastic brass section of the orchestra.
Suspicious Minds is little different to the version recorded the year before in New York. Elvis then resurrects I'll Remember You, which he had recorded back in 1966. The inclusion of this lovely song was especially poignant as it was written by the late Kuiokalani Lee, and it was the cancer charity in his name that was to benefit from the concert.
A relatively bland run through a medley of Long Tall Sally and Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On leads into a majestic performance of An American Trilogy. It's pure showbiz, with Elvis standing there with a bejewelled American eagle on the back of his jumpsuit singing with patriotic fervour. It's probably the best performance of the song on record outside of the initial recording in Las Vegas the previous year.
Elvis then rocks his way through a convincing rendition of A Big Hunk o' Love before launching into the final Can't Help Falling in Love. He unhooks his cape and launches it into the audience as he sings the final lines of the number, strikes a few poses and then exits.
Some believe this to be the best performance Elvis ever gave, but others are less convinced. The problem here is that he rarely seems to give any more energy to his singing than is absolutely necessary. He seems to coast his way through a concert that should have seen him full of nerves. Billboard referred to the show as a "flashy performance." Meanwhile, Variety referred to Elvis as "schmaltz," but admitted that even non-fans "may have been impressed, however reluctantly, by the shameless, oldfangled showmanship of it all." Jon Landau in Rolling Stone believed that the "live recording magnifies the worst element of Elvis' stage show – the simplistic horn arrangements, poorly performed." However, perhaps Ernst Jorgensen sums it up best when he says that watching the show was "almost like watching Elvis Presley through a stained-glass window or a badly-focussed pair of binoculars. The sparkle in his eyes, the natural grace of his movements, and the joy that were all so visible back in 1970 – they all seemed to be missing."
After the show was over and the audience had gone home, Elvis went back on stage to record five more song for use in the US broadcast of the show. The four songs used in the broadcast featured Elvis in a portion of the screen alongside picturesque images of Hawaii. The result made for rather dull television but, oddly, these are some of the more appealing performances from the special. All of the songs were of a low key nature, with just Elvis and his band, and it's nice to hear him sing the quartet of numbers from Blue Hawaii and Early Morning Rain in a quiet and subdued fashion. It has become well known that tensions ran high during these recordings, but there is no sign of that in the finished product. Early Morning Rain is arguably better than the studio cut of the same song, while Blue Hawaii, No More, Ku-U-I-Po, and Hawaiian Wedding Song are some of the most charming performances Elvis gave during the 1970s.

Aloha from Hawaii might not have been an artistic success thanks to Elvis's rather subdued (even dull) performance, but it was still a historic event and another first in his career - and resulted in a #1 album. Sadly, however, it was the last real high of Presley's career. While there were still some fine recordings and performances to come, the quality of Elvis's live shows started on a general downhill trajectory. A few weeks after the Aloha show, Elvis was back in Las Vegas, giving a series of performances in which he almost sleepwalked through his hour on stage. Then, in the summer, he was back in the studio, struggling to record enough songs for even one album. Elvis's work became even less consistent than it already was and, by 1976, the singer's troubles became clear even to fans who had not seen him in concert when RCA released the From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee LP. The decline of Elvis's last four years would be fast, and remains shocking.
















CHAPTER TEN
THE LAST FAREWELL: 1973-77

Anyone who has listened to the soundboard recordings that exist from the January/February 1973 Las Vegas performances will be aware of just how uninterested Elvis seemed in singing. A couple of the shows pass muster, but the rest are a depressing listen. Elvis isn't as much bad as simply "not there." He goes through the motions, but little else. Things improved slowly through the spring, and the FTD release of the final show from Elvis's season at Lake Tahoe in May finds him in much better form, having fun and singing well. Despite this temporary improvement, it appears clear that there were problems with Elvis Presley in the first half of 1973 – and yet RCA demanded that he organise a set of sessions for mid-July and that two dozen songs were recorded.

July 20-25, 1973: Studio Session

The sessions took place at Stax Studios in Memphis not because Elvis wanted to utilise the famous Stax sound, but because it was convenient. The band was a mix of personnel from Elvis's stage performances and those who had taken part in the 1969 sessions in Memphis.
Stories abound of Elvis's strange, unprofessional and unpredictable behaviour during these sessions, and the go-to account is Ernst Jorgensen's book Elvis Presley: A Life in Music. On the first night of the sessions, Elvis arrived late and recorded nothing. On the second night he was again late, "his speech so slurred that he scarcely seemed awake." These accounts are as fascinating as they are sad, but they can also get in the way of the music itself. Most accounts of the music from this session suggests that Elvis is in poor form, that the results are lifeless, and that the singer sounds uninterested. But how many of these conclusions are actually due to what we know about the circumstances in which these tracks were cut, and how much is based on the end results? The sessions are certainly patchy in quality, and some performances are awful, but there are other moments when Elvis seems to be experimenting with new sounds (for him) and where he seems to be singing better than he did a couple of years earlier.
One of the most noticeable things about this session is the amount of upbeat material. For example, the first song recorded was If You Don't Come Back, a Leiber and Stoller song that had first been recorded by The Drifters ten years earlier. Elvis gives the song a funky reworking that turns the number into what is essentially a duet between Elvis and the female singers. It's hardly Elvis at his best, but credit must at least be given for trying something different. Too easily, the session could have been given over to another batch of big belting ballads, and yet none were actually recorded. If You Don't Come Back ultimately lacks any form of edge from Elvis himself, and his own lack of enthusiasm may well have played a part in that. However, the song should clearly have been recorded in a higher key. Many of the poorer vocals in Aloha from Hawaii and the after-show recordings find Elvis struggling at the bottom end of his range and, six months later, the same problem occurred. There was seemingly no power in this lower range, whether Elvis was enthusiastic or not.
Three Corn Patches, another Leiber and Stoller number, was an out and out rocker that refused to rock. The band sound nearly as uninterested in the song as Elvis himself. Bobby Wood's piano solo during the instrumental break is a case in point. The notes are there, the rhythm is there – it should be fun and exciting, but it's just limp. That everyone concerned waded through fifteen takes is a miracle, but the result is very poor indeed.
Take Good Care of Her is one of the few ballads from these sessions. It is notable for Elvis's restrained vocal but, again, the song never comes alive. Part of the blame rests on the material itself – the song is very bland indeed – but, at the same time, there seems to be little effort to work up a decent arrangement. There are moments when Elvis appears to get drowned out by the backing vocalists, and one has to wonder whether this was to cover up the deficiencies of his vocal.
On the same night, Elvis and the band tried their hand at another ballad, It's Diff'rent Now. The rehearsal of the song was taped, but the number was quickly abandoned. One listen to what was recorded shows Elvis struggling with the wordy lyrics, and it appears he was in no mood to put in the hard work required.
The next night saw an improvement, with three decent upbeat numbers recorded. Find Out What's Happening had, like If You Don't Come Back, been around for nearly a decade, having first been recorded back in 1964 by The Spidells. Elvis's version doesn't vary much from the original version although, once again, it is given a funkier sound, partly thanks to Bobby Emmons' work on organ. There is a strange tone to Elvis's vocal, as if he's not quite in the zone (which may well have been true), and the number suffers a little bit from its rather straightforward structure of verse after verse with no bridge to break up the monotony.
Just a Little Bit finds Elvis more engaged but, as with the previous song, it's the structure that drags the song down. Elvis's vocal is good enough, but the song goes nowhere.
The two most appealing numbers from these sessions were both written by Tony Joe White (composer of Polk Salad Annie). I've Got a Thing About You Baby is a charming little number with an attractive groove. It's nice to hear Elvis singing a happy love song for a change, and he sounds much more committed here. While his voice is a little on the thin side, it improves as the song continues and one can only wish he had recorded more songs of this nature.
The second Tony Joe White song was recorded the following night. For Ol' Times Sake is a lovely ballad that finds Elvis back in love-gone-wrong territory. Without the big sound of backing vocalists and extensive overdubbing, the thinness of Elvis's vocals is all too apparent. However, in many respects, they add poignancy to this song about a man begging his wife or girlfriend to find just one reason to stay with him. The subdued, almost fragile, nature of the song leaves the listener with the feeling of desolation – and proves that Elvis didn't even need to be in good voice in order to create fine music.
Raised on Rock, recorded on the same evening, was a song by Mark James, the composer of Suspicious Minds. There is nothing wrong with the song, but the lyrics make no sense coming from Elvis. He sings of listening to the music that his idols made when he was a kid, and then lists Hound Dog – his own hit. The song was a ridiculous choice of material for the man who wasn't raised on rock, but who helped create it in the first place.
Only one song was completed the next evening. Girl of Mine is a wishy-washy snooze-a-thon of a country song which makes Take Good Care of Her sound like a masterpiece. Elvis sounds half asleep, but it's difficult to blame him when faced with recording this.
And then, rather unexpectedly, the session was over. Elvis learned that his hand-held microphone had been stolen and left the studio and simply didn't return. The band continued work by laying down tracks for four songs, but only one of them would ever have a vocal added to it – and that wouldn't be until an even stranger session in September.


September 22-23, 1973: Studio Session

Elvis's summer residency at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas was yet another sign that the singer was in trouble. Whereas he was rarely against having fun on stage, his performances during this season were often self-indulgent and showed little regard for the audience. The closing show has been released on the FTD label and is a bizarre and disturbing listen. Elvis sang What Now My Love lying on a bed, sang the lyrics of Bridge over Troubled Water to the tune of Suspicious Minds and vice versa, and during Love Me Tender sang "Adios you Mother/Bye Bye Papa too/To hell with the Hilton Hotel/ And screw the showroom too." Perhaps we now know why Elvis only ever wrote one song.
He hadn't even managed to complete one ten track album in the July session at Stax, and so it was arranged for him to overdub his vocals to the four backing tracks laid down by the band after Elvis had walked out. The session was to take place in his Palm Springs home, but even this simple exercise didn't go well. Elvis had added yet more backing singers to his stage show, this time a group called Voice. With RCA's mobile recording truck set up outside his house, Elvis showed no interest in working on the tracks but, instead, produced a series of demos for his new group. In the end, Elvis completed just three tracks of his own over the two days.
Sweet Angeline was the only one of the four half-finished tracks from Stax that Elvis added his vocal to. Against all the odds, the recording is really quite lovely. This is the first time Elvis involved Voice on a recording, and it has to be said that their voices blend nicely with Elvis's own and the effect is rather beautiful, particularly during the second verse. Elvis's vocal sounds a little wavery during the quieter passages, but it doesn't detract from the overall effect.
I Miss You was a new song composed by Donnie Sumner from the new group. This simple song was recorded with just four instruments and backing vocals. It's testament to the idea that less is sometimes more. It's a pretty little number that deserves to be better known and receives an impassioned yet restrained vocal from Elvis.
Are You Sincere, a 1950s hit for Andy Williams, has gained more attention through the years. However, despite the same stripped back instrumentation, the number seems overly melodramatic, not helped by the overcooked recitation. It's pleasant enough, but one can only imagine what Elvis could have done with the song a dozen years earlier.
Raised on Rock pulled together these three songs and seven tracks recorded in July. It's a wildly uneven album with regards to quality, and yet it's also rather refreshing in that many of the songs are upbeat and have a funky soul feel to them. The packaging of the album was as bland as ever, although the photograph on the front does manage to make Elvis look rather like a lizard – which is an achievement of sorts. The album received little critical attention. Billboard referred to it as the singer's "most laid-back LP so far," but that was hardly praise considering the songs included. When the album was released in October 1973, it reached a mere #50 in the charts.


November 1973: Private Recordings

Around the same time as the release of Raised on Rock in October 1973, Elvis was rushed to hospital with breathing problems. Guralnick's Careless Love gives a concise, yet detailed, account of Elvis's health and drug problems at this time. Elvis's hospital stay would last for two and a half weeks, during which time he was "treated as an addict."
In November 1973, Elvis was recorded privately at girlfriend Linda Thompson's home. The songs captured on tape (in so-so quality) find Elvis accompanied just by himself on guitar, quietly singing his way through songs he had recorded between 1954 and 1973. Also included was a ramshackle attempt at Spanish Eyes, which he would record the following month in the studio. These are charming performances, and the complete opposite of the ever-growing pomposity of his stage show. These, together with the September recordings, show that a delightful album could have resulted from Elvis recording a batch of songs with just a few instruments. Sadly, it was never to be.


December 10-16, 1973: Studio Session

When Elvis returned to Stax studios in December 1973, it must have seemed that he had turned a corner. His health was improving following his stay in hospital, and his state of mind and mood seemed also to have moved in the right direction. He was certainly much more interested in the recording process than he had been five months earlier.
The sessions started with a new gospel song by the composer of Burning Love. I Got a Feeling in my Body retained the funky vibe of the upbeat numbers from the July sessions, but this time Elvis's enthusiasm was much higher, and he delivers a clean, crisp, energetic vocal which sounds like a different singer to that on much of the Raised on Rock album. Even the sound quality was vastly improved.
The next number found Elvis back firmly in what appeared to be his preferred genre, the broken-heart love song. It's Midnight, though, sounds thoroughly overdone. The verse simmers along nicely, but the chorus throws out all of that work as the singer belts his way through the big melody. This wouldn't have been so bad if the number wasn't also overdubbed with slick, sickly-sweet strings that take away any sense of quiet desolation. It's good for what it is, but without the overdubs and the big finish, it could have been so much better. Elvis had shown in the September sessions that a more intimate sound was something he could benefit from, but here he receives quite the opposite.
Waylon Jennings' catchy country number You Asked Me To started the second night of recording and, again, there is just too much going on. Elvis sounds much better on the unencumbered verses but, during the chorus, gets saddled with a ridiculous cacophony of totally unnecessary female voices that make it difficult to concentrate on Elvis's bouncy vocal.
Next up was a new song by friend Red West. If You Talk in Your Sleep returns things to a funkier style, and shows just how effective overdubbing could be when done properly. The orchestral arrangement is sassy, and if it dates the song a little, so be it. At least it has a purpose, and Elvis seems to enjoy singing a song which is rather different for him and provided him with quite a challenge given the vocal range. Forty years on, perhaps it sounds a little cheesy (or a bit too Starsky and Hutch), but that's also part of its appeal.
The next night saw Elvis recording two songs written by members of Voice. First up was Mr Songman – surely a title for an Elvis compilation CD if ever there was one. This is a quiet, pleasant, unassuming little country number which sees Elvis's voice blending nicely with those of his back-up singers. OK, the song itself is hardly the most exciting or original number in the world, and the lyrics don't quite make sense, but Elvis's vocal is appealing and this is a charming piece of album filler.
Somewhat better was the folky/country Thinking About You. This is quite different from many of Elvis's performance at the time – the chorus is catchy, and the song is about lost love, but there's no attempt to power his way through it. Instead, he gives a nuanced performance while still getting caught up in the moment – he can be heard ch-chunging his way through the song off-mic. What's more, even though this is a tale of lost love, it's still relatively upbeat. Instead of putting across the desolation of It's Midnight, here we are told that "life is fine, and I'm doing fine."
Love Song of the Year suffers from some rather clunky lyrics that don't totally work, but Elvis clearly gets caught up in this song too, and it's not hard to see why. The chorus has a big sweeping melody that Elvis loved so much and he sings it with commitment and enthusiasm. The solo violin in the opening and third verse is a lovely touch, and it's a shame it's discarded in favour of a multitude of backing vocals during the rest of the song which makes the number seem so overblown.
Help Me is a song that had been heavily featured in the film and soundtrack album of The Gospel Road by Johnny Cash. It's a country song with religious lyrics that fits Elvis like a glove. He gives the number a nice laid-back feel and refrains from making the delivery melodramatic.
My Boy most certainly is melodramatic, and is a song that Elvis had sung in concert during his latest Las Vegas season. A number of commentators have suggested that this is a classic example of everything that was wrong with Elvis during the 1970s, and yet it was a significant hit in a number of territories outside of the US. Yes, the words are over-dramatic, but so are those of You Gave Me a Mountain - a song that could have supplied the storyline for a daytime soap for years. The problem with My Boy lies as much in the overblown and cheesy overdubbed strings and (in particular) brass as much as with Elvis's performance. Whether the material is something you like or loathe, it's hard to think of a way that Elvis's performance itself could be improved upon.
Rather less over-the-top is Loving Arms. Even here, though, Elvis falls into the trap of over-singing, particularly in the line "dreaming of the arms that held me tight." Here he changes the melody, but his semi-operatic vocal here almost breaks the atmosphere he and the musicians have tried so hard to create.
Much more sedate and relaxed is Good Time Charlie's got the Blues. Elvis's vocal is crystal clear, and without the wide vibrato that can be heard in the more powerful numbers. There's also plenty of time here for the band to shine, with Elvis giving the song room to breathe at the end of each line and between verses. In this respect, it has a feel rather similar to I'm Leavin'.
Another of the highlights from the session is Talk about the Good Times, an upbeat country number with a revivalist feel. It's great fun, and Elvis appears to be having a ball. The number was cut by half a minute or so for release, which is a shame as it feels that the fade out is too quick and that an extra chorus is needed.
An obvious choice for single release was Elvis's romp through Chuck Berry's Promised Land. Despite the jam-like high spirits of the performance, it still only managed to make #14 in the US charts. Once again, though, a fine single wasn't promoted well by either the record company or the star. A few TV appearances on high-rating shows of the period would no doubt have done wonders for record sales. In the end, though, this is one of the singles that got away.
Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming is different again. This was a country-flavoured love song in waltz time with a strong melodic line that Elvis clearly relished singing. As with Talk about the Good Times, the ending of the song was heavily edited when another chorus could easily have been included. It's almost as if there was a fear that a listener might actually hear Elvis get carried away in the moment. The song has a strange structure anyway, with two verses followed by a chorus before moving straight into the bridge and back to the chorus – it certainly feels as if an extra verse should be present before the bridge. This is music that was never going to be earth shattering, but it's still good quality, country-tinged pop.
There's a Honky Tonk Angel is better still. This is another country number in waltz time, although the lyrics are considerably more adult, with "honky tonk angel" being American slang for a prostitute. The song is perhaps most famous for being recorded by Cliff Richard who then had the single withdrawn when he was told the meaning of the phrase. One listen to the Richard version shows just how good Elvis was at this type of song. He gives a plaintive rendition of the number, giving a low-key and yet emotional performance that is late Elvis at his very best.
The final night of recording yielded three songs. Jorgensen writes that "Elvis's voice sounded clearer and stronger than it had at the beginning" of the session. That may well be true, but sadly he failed to put it to good use, putting in some of the blandest performances of the entire session. If That Isn't Love is a syrupy country-flavoured religious-themed song in waltz time that is enough to put anyone off gospel music. Elvis may well have been committed to this type of material, and he sings it well, but, like Miracle of the Rosary from a couple of years earlier, this is the kind of gospel music that simply has no appeal to non-believers. Elvis had made three album's worth of gospel material that had universal appeal, and perhaps, at a push, this would have been palatable on such an album. However, sandwiched in the middle of a secular album it is thoroughly indigestible.
Spanish Eyes and She Wears My Ring suffer from being rather bland walk-throughs of already often-recorded songs. They are sung well enough, but Elvis adds nothing to either except his own voice. Forty years on, She Wears My Ring has lyrics that are remarkably dated, and Spanish Eyes is simply innocuous at best. Elvis would add the latter into his live shows for a brief period, employing a different arrangement that, at times, sounded as if Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass had been brought in to back him.
The packaging of the material from this session was among the worst of Elvis's career. The first album, Good Times, features a giant picture of Elvis's head singing into a microphone on the front cover, and seemingly picked eight songs at random and paired them with two leftovers from the July session. There was quite easily a decent country-flavoured album to have been drawn from these sessions and yet, instead, gospel sat alongside country songs, and the result has the effect of being thrown together even more than Elvis Now had. While one might expect the second album from the session to be a mopping up exercise, it's actually this first one that has that effect. Some of the worst material was included here, and the order of the songs on the LP made them seem even worse.
The second release, Promised Land, was decidedly better, bringing together a relatively coherent group of songs that is as pleasant as it is safe. The albums peaked at #90 and #47 respectively. It appears that consumers cared even less about new Elvis albums than the people who slapped them together. Promised Land received a good review in Billboard – one of the few publications that even saw the release important enough to give column inches to. "For the first time in quite a while," the review said, "Elvis uses his voice for all its beauty…This album deserves the word."
Not everyone agreed. In the Milwaukee Journal, Robert Hilburn wrote that the album was as "bland and directionless as all those soundtrack albums Presley cranked out in the 1960s. Unfortunately, the album is typical of the stuff he has been doing lately."


March 20, 1974: Live Recordings

After a difficult year, 1974 got under way with a relatively straightforward Las Vegas season. A few new songs had been added to the repertoire and, from the limited evidence we have from these shows, Elvis was in decent form. This was followed in March by a tour that culminated in five shows in Memphis, the first time Elvis played in his hometown since 1961. The occasion was big enough for RCA to record the last of these shows and issue an album of the concert in the summer.
Unlike the previous two live albums, this one featured an edited version of the concert. This resulted in a single LP rather than a double that would have been required to include the whole show, and it also meant that there was relatively little duplication of material from either the Madison Square Garden or Hawaii concerts from 1972 and 1973 respectively. Robert Matthew Walker wrote that "every title had been recorded by him at least once before," but this is nonsense. No less than twelve songs were new to a Presley live album at the time of release (if we don't include the 68 Special soundtrack) - and five of those twelve had not been recorded by Elvis before in any form. By editing the concert, the resulting album was stronger than the previous two live efforts, and Elvis was certainly in much better voice than during Aloha. A 2014 re-release has restored all of the cut songs back into the running order. While this is no doubt good news for those looking for a complete historical record of the show, it also means that the entertainment value is somewhat diluted. It is the original album order that will be reviewed here.
The album starts with Ronnie Tutt's opening riff before See See Rider (Also Sprach Zarathustra is omitted here) and this makes the listener believe that the emphasis this time is on the music, not the spectacle. See See Rider is far more convincing than during Aloha. It is obvious from the outset that Elvis is in great form - his voice has none of the nasally quality so obvious a year before.
Sensibly, some of the playfulness with the audience is left in the edit of the concert - another change from Aloha and the Madison Square Garden show where Elvis barely says anything. This dialogue in between songs hardly displays the finest wit, but it does show Elvis in good spirits and humanises him somewhat. Elvis eventually launches into I Got a Woman, which would now become the standard second number of most of his concerts. It segues into the spiritual Amen, which then ends with backing singer J. D. Sumner swooping down to the bottom of his range before Elvis gives the number a bluesy finish. Here, some verses of Amen are edited out. This was the first release of the song on a live album, although it had appeared in Elvis on Tour. Elvis is again in strong voice, and gives a committed, but playful, performance.
Love Me would have brought the 1974 listeners to more familiar territory as the song had already been on the two previous live albums. Despite this, Elvis does play around with the melody and this version is, arguably, stronger than the previous two outings.
Trying To Get To You is very nice indeed. Again, this was the first live appearance on record. The singing isn't exactly subtle, but it's great to hear one of Elvis's "oldies" receiving a full work out and not being simply a throwaway. The performance works brilliantly and the first four tracks seem to slowly and steadily build up in excitement towards a rock 'n' roll medley which is almost the point of no return. Presley and the band are as tight as a drum as they work through Long Tall Sally, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On, Flip Flop and Fly, Your Mama Can't Dance, Jailhouse Rock and Hound Dog. The ending of Hound Dog is ridiculous and over the top but, other than this, the medley was a nice addition to the Elvis concert repertoire.
The pace is turned down beautifully by the first of the songs (outside of those in the rock n roll medley) that would have been completely new to a 1974 listener. Why Me Lord features J. D. Sumner on vocals, turning this gospel song into a strange kind of novelty number. However, Elvis gives a rousing rendition of the choruses and this may well be the finest version of this that he ever performed (and thankfully without the jokes that would mar later versions).
How Great Thou Art is even more powerful than the 1966 studio version and far less over the top than the Elvis in Concert version from 1977. Elvis is completely focussed and shows himself to be in his best form since 1970. The performance went on to win a Grammy award, and deservedly so. No matter what your religion (or lack of) this is still a stirring rendition and the encore adds even more intensity.
I Can't Stop Loving You would be, along with Love Me, the most redundant song on the album if it wasn't for the verse of Blueberry Hill that is tagged on to the beginning, which is a nice touch. Yes, Presley is joking around here but it doesn't really distract from the performance, and the version of I Can't Stop Loving You may be more bombastic than the 1969 version but is still utterly compelling and one almost gets the impression during this (and other songs) that Elvis is proving to his home crowd that, despite the hospital visit of the previous year, he is in good form.
In an unusual move, a live version of Help Me was released before the studio version. The change of pace is welcome, the song is well sung and it is a pleasant enough number, even if the ending seems a little ragged.
An American Trilogy is different to previous versions - it is slightly faster and the phrasing is often different. The faster tempo means that song loses some of its more majestic quality, but this is still a good performance.
Let Me Be There had been a recent hit for Olivia Newton John and Elvis clearly loved the song. Even if the song itself is nothing special, the performance rises above the material and the pure upbeat country feel of it is a welcome diversion from the pure rock 'n' roll material that dominates the show. The encore (like that of How Great Thou Art) is a nice touch and it was great that it was retained on the album despite it being an edited show.
My Baby Left Me is a surprise. Rarely performed in concert, it is here given a fine performance - far removed from that of 1956 but, like the other rock n roll songs here, so great to hear it given the reverence it is due with a full and mostly serious performance.
Lawdy Miss Clawdy continues this theme and, as with A Big Hunk o' Love, completely reworked from the studio version for the live concerts. The arrangement works well, with the use of the backing singers throughout adding a gospel feel to this rhythm n blues classic.
By the time that Can't Help Falling in Love begins, one feels that they have been listening to something rather special - Presley giving one of his best performances since 1970 and, in hindsight, we can view this performance as almost his last hurrah. Yes, there would still be good performances to come but it would be difficult to find a concert after this that finds the singer in such good voice and spirits.
The album was released with little fanfare, and yet received a good review in Billboard, in which it is stated that Elvis gives a "charismatic performance" and that "his voice sounds much stronger than it has on recent studio product." The Variety review was less enthusiastic, finding the "charisma of live Elvis closer to dead," and refers to An American Trilogy as a condensed version, which is not true.

The second half of 1974 was a disaster. Returning to Las Vegas, Elvis attempted to give his show something of a reboot. Instead of See See Rider, he would open with Big Boss Man, while the rest of his show would largely consist of new material and live versions of the songs he had recorded at Stax the previous year. The change in repertoire was ambitious and, for once, it actually made it to the concert stage rather than being dropped at the last minute.
The opening show on August 19th is almost legendary among fans due to the unusual set list, with Elvis performing rare versions of Down in the Alley and Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues among others. However, the next night, the format of the show went back to normality, although a handful of the new songs remained. The accepted reason for this is that the audience were not enthusiastic, but audio evidence suggests that this was probably as much to do with Elvis's performance as with the new songs. From the moment he introduces himself as the "NBC peacock" (due to the design of his jumpsuit), it is clear that something was wrong. His speech is slurred throughout the show, and his performance lacks energy. He sounds tired – half asleep, in fact – and like a completely different man to the one who had sung in Memphis a few months earlier.
As the season progressed, Elvis's behaviour became more erratic. He didn't as much sing as bellow his way through his set list. The shows got longer, not because of more songs, but because of more dialogue. By the last week of the season, he was giving lectures on karate from the stage, and telling the audience just what was involved in a liver biopsy. On the final night of the season, things came to a head as he spoke about rumours that he had been "strung out" when he had, apparently, been suffering from the flu. Given Elvis's behaviour, it's unlikely many in the audience found his denial convincing. His speech ended with him threatening to pull the "tongue out by the root" of the person responsible for the rumours. The incident didn't go unreported. In Movieland and TV Times, May Mann wrote a surprisingly upbeat account of Elvis's outburst. The soundboard recording that appeared on bootleg back in the 1990s shows just how bizarre (and threatening) Elvis's behaviour actually was.
In the autumn another tour took place and Elvis's bizarre behaviour continued, although the dialogue this time around seemed to centre on the reports that Elvis had a paunch, which he claimed was in fact a bullet proof vest. At some shows, he appeared to have trouble concentrating, speaking and singing.
In January 1975, Elvis turned forty. He then returned to hospital with colon and eye trouble, although "underlying all this, was the hospital's renewed attempt to detoxify the artist." Eventually, after some time at home, Elvis returned to work, first to record an album and then to return to Las Vegas.


March 10-12, 1975: Studio Session

Elvis's only recording session of 1975 produced one of his best post-1970 albums. While the album, entitled Today (for no particular reason, it seems), doesn't reach the dizzy heights of, say, Elvis Country, it is a solid effort that is coherent in style and finds Elvis in surprisingly good form.
The first song on the album, T.R.O.U.B.L.E. is one of the most arresting openings of any Elvis albums, and was Elvis's first out and out original rocker since Burning Love back in 1972. Elvis enters into Jerry Lee Lewis territory here, spitting out the words at a breakneck pace. In many ways this is just as convincing as his cover of Promised Land and, arguably, benefits from a less cluttered arrangement than the Chuck Berry cover of fifteen months earlier. Despite the high quality performance, and the novelty of Elvis recording a new rocker, the song only reached #35 in the US charts when released as a single.
And I Love You So takes us back to more familiar 70s Elvis material and provides a winning combination of power and passion without the over-singing that was to mar the Jungle Room sessions of the following year and had been so problematic in the second half of 1974. If anything detracts from And I Love You So, then it is the overdubbing. The stripped back alternate takes are generally more pleasing than the master, which suffers from an overdose of strings. Elvis is totally committed to the song as evidenced by his careful breath control, delicately stringing long passages together with apparent ease.
Susan When She Tried returns to up-beat material - at least in tempo, if not in theme. This is pure country - even more so than some of the arrangements on the 1970 country album. Jorgensen writes that it was a struggle to convince Elvis to persevere with the song in the session but the effort is fully justified. Elvis is again in great voice and the song comes together perfectly in classic toe-tapping style.
The country theme continues with Woman Without Love. The song hasn't aged well, mostly due to the misogynistic lyrics, but it still follows on nicely from the previous number and, again, it is a pleasure to listen to Elvis singing so well with some beautiful phrasing. The waltz-time is reminiscent of There's a Honky Tonk Angel from the Stax sessions, and it suits Elvis' country style perfectly.
Shake a Hand finds Elvis returning to a song from the 1950s. He gives the song a sound that is a convincing mix of country and gospel, although the lyrics are not religious. Despite Elvis's committed vocal, he does relatively little with the arrangement, by and large sticking with that used in Faye Adams' original from 1953. With a little more thought and care, this could have been classic Presley but, more and more, he was content to simply add his own vocal to an earlier arrangement.
Pieces of my Life is a beautiful performance. It seems to be a kind of echo of the saloon songs of Sinatra in its introverted nature, sounding as if the singer is just talking to himself and regretting decisions he has made. It is well-known that Elvis listened to the song repeatedly after it was recorded and it is hardly surprising - it is clear from his performance that he is fully immersed in the story. Some may see it as simply an uninspired cover of the Charlie Rich version, but it is over a minute longer and much darker. If Rich is miserable over the mistakes he has made, then Elvis is in full-on despair. What's more, Presley's phrasing is considerably better than Rich's version, which suffers from too many lines broken up into small sections of two or three words making it sound affected. Elvis manages to take this away from being a cry-in-your-beer country song and turns it into a mini-autobiography.
Fairytale is perhaps the least well-performed song on the album and yet the song itself fits the tone of the record perfectly. The use of a fiddle gives this a pure country feel that is refreshing, but the number is sung in a key that is too high, and Elvis's vocal is strained. Ironically, the song became a regular in Elvis's concerts right up until his final shows in June 1977.
I Can Help is much better, and would have made a much better addition to the concert set-list. The performance is loose and fun, and there is something of a jam session feel running through this number, and even a feel that Elvis is about to break into laugher at some points. The bluesy finish also gives the impression that it was improvised as well - and makes a welcome change from a fade out ending. All in all, the performance is really good fun with Elvis in total command.
Bringing It Back has a country feel, but the material isn't up to par, and Elvis fails to lift this track above mediocrity. Still, it leads nicely into the final song of the album, Green Green Grass Of Home. It is interesting that Elvis does a pure country version of the song rather than trying to emulate the country/soul version that Tom Jones recorded and, it has been reported, Elvis loved so much. Again, his commitment is total and he puts in an emotional performance, aided and abetted by the short spoken section. A shame, however, that such a downbeat song concludes the album. I Can Help would have been a more fitting final song, thus bookending the album with upbeat numbers.
In many respects, Today is the forgotten album. It finds Elvis in fine form, but appears to have suffered from a lack of publicity from RCA at the time of release. To add to that, the artwork was again bland, with another typical live pose featured on the front cover. The album escaped with little fanfare, although Dave Marsh provided a review for Rolling Stone – a review that is full of contradictions. Of I Can Help, he writes "what does he do with it? He takes it to Vegas. Only a truly inspired – or truly arrogant – man would have had the thought, much less the courage, to carry it through." Elsewhere, he states that Pieces of my Life is "richer" than the original, and that Elvis's albums continue to "teach us what charisma means."
A jam of Tiger Man was also caught on tape at the same sessions, and was released on CD in the 1990s. The song is given a slower tempo than the on stage versions, and has a somewhat funky feel. Clearly not intended to be taken seriously (or even heard), it's still a nice little postscript to what would be Elvis's last session in a recording studio.

Vegas followed, and the audio evidence suggests that Elvis was in a good mood and had a relatively trouble-free season (especially when compared to his on-stage behaviour the previous September). After Vegas, there were tours to contend with. Many soundboard recordings from this period exist, and show that, while Elvis's performances were unambitious, they were mostly good-humoured and enjoyable.
Some critics were not exactly impressed, however. For example, in April 1975, Jeff Kline wrote a review in the Lakeland Ledger in which he called Elvis a "40-year-old, slightly overweight man," said that he looked "a little tired," and that, at one point, the concert became "passive." A few days later, the newspaper printed a letter from a fan, Toni Dewar, who had taken umbrage with the review. In her letter she writes: "I'm sure you must be extremely young, for only one with no maturity could treat a man of Elvis Presley's stature in show business with such complete lack of professionalism and taste." However, even that wasn't the end of the issue. Two days later, the newspaper printed another story in order to try to placate angry fans and to "free people from making more phone calls." Columnist James Reston reiterated that the original review was "in no way meant to imply the show was not good. It was. …He's singing better than ever before and his show is a very good one."
Such incidents in local newspapers were not rare in the final few years of Elvis's life. Part of the problem was that fans were just happy to see their idol on stage – the fact he turned up was enough for them, his actual performance appears to have been immaterial. Audio evidence of shows after July 1975 demonstrates clearly that Elvis's on stage performances got slowly and steadily worse over the next two years. Despite this, Variety gave the singer a good review when he opened in Las Vegas in December 1975, saying he was "looking healthy and sounding cheerful," and that his choice of repertoire was "good programming."
Up until this point there had only been limited evidence of Elvis's decline within the stream of LP releases. While the post-Aloha albums had not been stellar, they certainly had not showed signs of the erratic on-stage behaviour that had become all too frequent, and the LP covers generally contained a photo from a couple of years earlier, or one that had been touched up in order to make Elvis look better (or thinner). The first time record buyers really became aware of Elvis's decline would have been in May 1976, when RCA released From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee – an album that had been recorded in Graceland in February.


February 2-8, 1976: Studio Session

The above states "studio session," but that is slightly inaccurate. With Elvis unwilling to go into the recording studio, the recording studio was brought to him, and the "den" at Graceland (better known as the "Jungle Room") was converted into a makeshift studio space.
This almost desperate act had come about after planned recordings in Las Vegas in December 1975 had failed to materialise – not least because Elvis had not added new songs to his repertoire, with the exception of America the Beautiful. Numerous soundboard recordings from the season were made and, shortly after Elvis's death, performances of America the Beautiful and Softly as I Leave You from December 13, 1975 were released as single sides. The former was added into the repertoire to help celebrate America's bicentennial in 1976, while the latter had been one of the new additions back in August 1974, with the song sung by Sherrill Nielsen and the words spoken over the top by Elvis.
The first song recorded on February 2nd in the makeshift studio was Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall, a relatively straightforward country song in waltz time. Elvis sounds in decent voice, and puts in a good solid performance, although no doubt some vocal deficiencies (particularly the wavering vibrato) were covered up by the thick overdubs added later. Even so, some of the phrasing here is impressive, as Elvis takes in relatively long phrases in one breath. It's all a little bit melodramatic, but must have been seen as a solid start to the session.
The same can be said for another country song recorded the same evening, She Thinks I Still Care. However, here Elvis's voice sounds somehow thicker, and far older than his forty-one years. The vibrato starts to get out of control, especially during the bridge. If nothing else, however, Elvis sounds committed to the song.
Perhaps the oddest choice of song was The Last Farewell, which had been a recent hit for Roger Whittaker. If one can get past the idea of Elvis playing the part of an Englishman, it's actually done rather well. The overdubs are plastered on with a trowel but, for once, seem to fit the song and help to bring the number to life.
By the end of the first night of recording, three tracks had been completed, and all three were of reasonable, if unremarkable, quality. The next night, however, saw Elvis spend hours on Neil Sedaka's Solitaire. Sadly, the end result is an overwrought mess. Phil Cody's lyrics use the metaphor of playing solitaire in order to demonstrate how lonely the man at the centre of the song is. To get this across without it becoming melodramatic requires a stripped back sound, and a delicate, low-key vocal. This is where Elvis fails. Not only is the arrangement plodding and heavy-handed, Elvis himself is in poor voice (much worse than the night before). In order to cover up his vocal deficiencies, he belts out the chorus with little disregard for the lyrics, resulting in a complete misfire that seems to go on forever.
The following night, many of the same issues arose during the recording of I'll Never Fall in Love Again, which had been a hit for Tom Jones. During the verses, Elvis sounds as if he is singing with his cheeks padded out with cotton wool and, during the choruses, he simply can't muster up the power that he is looking for. There is plenty of volume, but the singing comes across as shouting and, once again, he sounds old and tired. The final, agonising "again," as he swoops back and forth from the climactic note sounds strained and pitiful compared to what he was achieving just a few years before.
The same night produced the rather better Moody Blue, a song that manages to mix a disco-type rhythm with a country sound. A close listen finds Elvis struggling with his breath, and the occasional moment when his vibrato runs amock, but it's all expertly hidden beneath the layers of strings. Somewhere among the vocal deficiencies, Elvis still manages to put in a very good performance, and the song became the title number of the final album released during his lifetime.
Also more upbeat is For the Heart, a country rocker written by the composer of Burning Love. Elvis's producer Felton Jarvis had been behind the controls when Teresa Brewer had recorded a country version the year before, and a comparison between the two recordings shows just how much Elvis was running on empty. Brewer's rendition is bright, airy and buoyant, but Elvis's never quite gets off the ground. The sound, both in arrangement and vocal, is just too heavy. As Elvis sings "had a dreeeeam" at the beginning, he fails to hit the higher note straight away, and so instead slides up to it – but that's not what was required here. He sounds as if he literally hasn't got enough energy to tackle the song (he even falls behind the beat at some points), and the end result is rather sad.
Hurt was a song that became a staple of Elvis's live appearance from March 1976 until his final shows in June 1977. Robert Matthew Walker writes that "the song is dated, and the accompaniment crude." This is true, but the thing that really makes this fail is Elvis himself. He had attempted a similar approach to Rags to Riches back in 1970 – a bombastic, over-the-top belt through an old 50s ballad with little or no interest in subtleties. He tries to do the same thing again here, but fails. The voice simply isn't there. There's plenty of volume, but no energy or even vocal colour to go with it. As with I'll Never Fall in Love Again, he slides up at the end in order to provide a climax, but it's a struggle to get there. The song worked well enough in a live setting, but on record it sounds painful.
Danny Boy is the complete opposite. Here, Elvis strips the song back to the bare essentials and gives the perennial favourite a gospel flavour. His vocal is quiet and sincere, and he manages to control his voice and his vibrato far more than he had done over the previous few nights. This was Elvis the artist at work, rather than Elvis getting through songs to complete a set of recordings as quickly as possible. The arrangement was careful and intimate, and the result is one of Elvis's last stunning recordings.
The next night saw Elvis attempt two more ballads, Never Again and Love Coming Down. The control that Elvis had achieved in Danny Boy is completely missing on both songs. In Never Again in particular, his vibrato is completely out of control. Love Coming Down is slightly better, but neither number is a great song, and Elvis's vocal doesn't bring out the best in them.
The final night of recording saw Elvis tackle another country standard, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Despite the rather strange production choices, this was one of the better recordings from the session, with Elvis seemingly in better voice and a more upbeat arrangement helping him to keep his vibrato in check.
From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee was released in May 1976. Finally, RCA had no choice but to release product that couldn't hide just how much of the glory had gone from Elvis's voice. Fans must have been shocked and disappointed at what they heard, and must have noticed the sharp decline in quality from the Today album. Even the front cover failed to hide Elvis's expanding waistline and aging appearance. For better or worse, the LP failed to produce much interest from critics, although Variety stated that "this one's mainly for Elvis aficionados."

As the year progressed, it became clear that, loyal fan base aside, very few people cared about Elvis Presley in 1976 – not critics, not the general record buyer, and not even Elvis himself. Vintage Elvis was much more commercial by this point than any of his new releases. A rag bag mid-price compilation called Pure Gold was released in 1975 and went double platinum. The year before, a compilation entitled A Legendary Performer far outsold any of the albums that resulted from the Stax sessions. Around the same time, a UK compilation, 40 Greatest Hits, sold by the bucket load and stayed in and out of the album charts for more than two years. In 1976 in the UK Suspicion and Girl of My Best Friend were released as singles and both reached #9 in the charts.
Despite continued worries about Elvis's health and state of mind, 1976 saw Elvis embark on what must have seemed like a never-ending touring schedule. At best, the shows were workmanlike, for most of the time they were merely passable, and, on occasion, they were disasters, with the singer seemingly half asleep and barely able to speak. Elvis's performance at Long Beach in April 1976 was described in Variety as "unambitious," and the singer appeared to be "indifferent." Most telling is that the writer states that "the most serious offense is attitude. Program has remained basically unchanged for years. Talk to the audience is minimal, while chatting to fellow performers onstage is excessive." Meanwhile, a review from the following month in Rolling Stone described Elvis as "weak," and "that you go to see him as much out of reverence for the past as from expectation for the immediate future."


October 29-30: Studio Session

Finally, time was made for another recording session, again at Graceland. The four completed tracks find Elvis in better voice than in the February recordings. The first song recorded was a melancholy number from the unlikely source of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Elvis's voice sounds clearer and doesn't suffer from the strange thick tone that marred the previous session. He puts in a good performance here, although the production is strange, with Elvis sounding like he is singing in a different room from the musicians at the start, before being brought more to the fore as the song progresses. The problem is that the experiment doesn't work, and obscures a perfectly decent recording.
If Moody Blue had been a cross between disco and country, Way Down crossed disco with rock. The track would turn out to be Elvis's last great recording, and one that would be a substantial hit after his death in August 1977, being his first single to be awarded Gold status since 1972. The song takes off in a way that For the Heart never managed, and Elvis appears to be enjoying himself. The final result is quite unlike anything else he recorded, and whether he would have pursued this style in future sessions is something we shall never know.
Pledging My Love is also impressive. This song had been a hit for Johnny Ace back in 1954. Here, Elvis gets completely lost in the moment. The released version might have only lasted under three minutes, but the unedited master runs nearer five, and there is something rather heartening hearing Elvis clearly enjoying the act of singing.
He'll Have to Go was the last song that Elvis recorded in studio conditions. As with Pledging My Love, he puts in a nice country version of a 1950s classic. It's clear that an album where Elvis revisited songs of the 1950s would have been a sensible option here. In concert around this time he was singing Unchained Melody and Little Darlin', and these older songs seemed to capture Elvis's interest and commitment more than others (with the exception of the jokey Little Darlin').
The session only produced four completed masters, leaving RCA with only half an album of material. A new session was set up for Nashville in January 1977, but Elvis never turned up. He never recorded in studio conditions again.


April 24-25, 1977: Live Recordings

With four tracks still needed for the next album, and Elvis unwilling to take part in studio sessions, producer Felton Jarvis had no choice but to record Elvis on tour in the spring of 1977, in the hope that a previously unheard song would enter the repertoire. Despite weeks of recording, only three new songs would be caught on tape.
Unchained Melody had been a part of Elvis's live repertoire for a few months. The performance featured Elvis playing the piano, something he only rarely did in concert. The finished recording is stunning. It presents Elvis in total command of his craft, with his voice sounding better than it had for some time. The almost rhapsodic arrangement works well and is grandiose without being totally over-the-top. However, much of the magic of the recording was created after the event through the overdubbing process. The original undubbed recorded is surprisingly ragged. For once, the overdubs had improved the original recording dramatically.
Little Darlin' is a throwaway version of the 1950s hit for The Diamonds. While this might have been fun in concert, and would have been suitable for a live album, the jokey performance had little place on the regular album where it ended up.
The final song released at the time was If You Love Me (Let Me Know), a rather innocuous song that had been recorded by Olivia Newton John. Let Me Be There had been a fun and infectious addition to the repertoire a few years earlier, but If You Love Me is bland beyond belief, and Elvis's performance (and the arrangement used) adds nothing to the subpar material.
All three songs would end up on the Moody Blue LP, released in June 1977. Despite the difficulties in putting it together, the album was a decided improvement over From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee – even the artwork was classier. It remains a surprisingly enjoyable album that paints a rather positive portrait of Elvis in his final years.

Despite the pleasant Moody Blue album, Elvis's concerts were getting more and more problematic. A whole CD was released on the FTD label of the recordings made during the spring tours, and the quality of performance is often shocking, with Elvis struggling for breath and mumbling his way through songs. His appearance was getting worse, as were the reviews.
Fans, however, still stuck by their man. Greg Oatis, in the Toledo Blade, wrote a decidedly unfavourable review of Elvis's concert in Toledo on April 23, 1977 (the night before Unchained Melody and Little Darlin' were recorded). He referred to the singer as a "parody of his past performances," and said that several couples sitting near him in the audience left early, "evidently disappointed." He states that Elvis was a "little pudgy," and that "the only standing ovation he got was when he quit singing."
The next day, a new article appeared in the newspaper saying the review had stirred a "hornets' nest of fans." It says that the objections were to Oatis writing that Elvis "has a bulge around his waist, that he can't play the guitar, that he mumbles at times, and that the old pelvis movement isn't what it once was." Interestingly, he also says that none of the callers said these comments were inaccurate, but "all said it was unfair to write those things about Elvis, and if he read them he would never come back to Toledo."
This, however, wasn't enough. A week later, the newspaper printed eight letters from unhappy fans. One wrote that "Elvis in Toledo was an honor. Mr Oatis' article was an embarrassment." Another thought the review was "thoroughly disgusting." Someone also thought that the article dealt "with the writer's personal opinion of …Presley." Clearly this fan didn't realise that a personal opinion was the whole point of a review.


June 19 and 21, 1977: Live Recordings

Despite all of Elvis's problems, a deal was made for a new TV special, which would be filmed on tour during mid-June. It was a disaster waiting to happen. The first show recorded (by both the TV cameras and RCA) was a complete mess, with Elvis slurring his words during his dialogue and barely able to sing with any commitment at all. The second show, recorded in Rapid City, was an improvement but the results were still poor.
Quite what would have happened to the TV special and the recordings had Elvis not died a few weeks later is unclear. Perhaps another attempt would have been made at a later date, in the hope that a better performance could be captured. As it was, the special aired in October 1977, with a double LP of the concerts being released at the same time. The first album featured the songs included in the TV broadcast, while the second featured other performances from the same shows.
Following the obligatory Also Sprach Zarathustra, we get the standard opening of See See Rider. This gets a solid performance with Elvis seemingly in good voice for the period. It's a shame about the microphone overload at various points but we can only assume that these technical faults were passed for issue as the performance from two nights earlier was particularly bad. It's only when the song is over that we get the first real signs of how bad Elvis's health really is. His speaking voice seems to be higher in tone than we are used to. He sounds nervous and appears to be having difficulty pronouncing some words (check out the word "television" for example).
The version of That's all Right that follows is somewhat refreshing. Elvis has returned the song to a somewhat more sedate pace than earlier concert versions, making it feel more authentic. There is still a slight whine to Elvis's voice, but it isn't so obvious in the fast songs here as in the ballads or when he is talking.
Are You Lonesome Tonight is sad. Other "laughing" versions of the song have appeared over the years from official and unofficial sources, but whereas the famous 1969 version shows Presley having a ball on stage, here he sounds simply embarrassed, and the humour sounds forced. The sung sections of the track are also difficult to listen to, with Elvis seemingly having trouble controlling his voice - both in pitch and volume.
The Teddy Bear/Don't be Cruel medley had been a throwaway item for years, and that hasn't changed here, with Elvis mumbling the words as he throws scarves into the audience.
There is a slightly "heavier" feel to the orchestration of You Gave Me a Mountain compared to the Aloha version, but this is the first sign of the Presley of old since That's all Right. Here Elvis seems to be much more in control both on the audio recording and for those of us "lucky" enough to have seen the video footage. This is followed by a throwaway Jailhouse Rock. Again, one of Elvis's signature songs is belted through at breakneck speed.
Many have praised this version of How Great Thou Art, but it is a difficult listen. There are signs here again of Elvis losing control of his own voice - in the change from the slow section to the up-tempo section it's hard to tell whether this is Elvis misjudging the amount of passion to put in the performance or whether he is really searching around for the right note upon which to end his slide. Either way, the word "art" in the change of tempo line is remarkably out of tune, as are various moments in the up-tempo passage. What's more, it all seems so overdone. Compare this to the 1974 Memphis version and you can see that the ease with which Elvis had sung it there has simply gone.
Conversely, one can only wish that Elvis had done a full version of I Really Don't Want To Know here. Not only is the song a welcome change from the regular set list, but Elvis sounds good and the bluesy harmonies from the Sweet Inspirations and the semi-gospel piano playing of Tony Brown is very attractive. Again, like That's all Right, it has a kind of back to basics feel with no contribution from the big orchestra.
There is more fine work from the Sweet Inspirations in Hurt but, although it's a competent performance, the song is almost a throwaway at this point. It's also faster than before, over and done with in 1 minute 50 seconds including the introduction and the elongated slide at the end of the song.
Following the throwaway Hound Dog (complete with aeroplane noises – and a prolonged wiggle of Elvis's backside if you watch the video), we come to My Way. The arrangement is not as attractive as that from Aloha where the solo violin provided a beautiful counterpoint in the second verse. Despite having breathing problems at various points, this is a solid performance. Elvis had sung it better, but it's certainly a highlight of the album, and especially poignant considering what was to happen a few weeks later. A virtually spoken Can't Help Falling in Love closes out the first disc of the album.
I Got a Woman, which opens the second LP, is both an embarrassment and tedious. Not only does the song segue into Amen, but Elvis also comes up with some bizarre dialogue about diapers (I kid you not) while half-heartedly attempting to gyrate. What listeners must have thought of it in 1977 is a mystery.
Love Me is another throwaway and is followed by If You Love Me - a rather bizarre inclusion considering the song was also included in the previous album, Moody Blue, in a somewhat better performance.
It's Now Or Never suffers from having Sherrill Nielsen singing O Sole Mio first. Elvis's performance is merely perfunctory but feels like a masterpiece following Nielsen's effort which is indulgent in the extreme. Elvis once again has trouble controlling his vibrato, and the arrangement is cheesy and over-the-top.
Trying to Get To You suffers in comparison to the 1974 version, but is still a reasonable performance nonetheless. It also varies widely in quality. At one point, Elvis seems to be struggling vocally and, in the next moment, he is soaring with great power.
The dialogue before Hawaiian Wedding Song is painful to listen to, with Elvis seemingly unable to tell his own jokes. The performance is little better. It is with a tender ballad such as this that he struggles most in these recordings. Much more vocal control is required to sing softly than to belt out a number like Trying To Get To You.
Elvis sounds so tired during Fairytale that it is heartbreaking to listen to compared to the studio version just two years before, and one has to wonder how it made it onto the LP. The same feeling is given during the reading of Little Sister which followed Fairytale on the inferior 19th June show. Three brief songs from Elvis's introduction of the band are featured next, with Early Morning Rain being the best of the three, but Elvis is unable to deliver the restrained vocal that is required for this difficult song.
The original double album concludes with And I Love You So. Elvis tries hard, but his vocal here is appalling. He struggles with his breathing, with his pitch, and with his vibrato.
Unchained Melody wasn't included on the album or on the TV special, but was released as a single shortly after Elvis's death. The video footage is as mesmerising as it is sad, and every second is spent willing Elvis to make it to the end of the song. He does, and it is a performance filled with bravado, but not even as good as the undubbed Moody Blue version.
These are difficult recordings, and the TV special shocked the world when it aired in October 1977. Variety gave a lengthy review of the programme, describing it as "disturbing, bewildering, yet somehow touching." The writer goes on by saying that "his appearance is that of a man gone physically to pot, his stomach quite literally so. His former smirk has become a leer and his attempts at gyrating his once famous pelvis would have been comical if not so pathetic." As harsh as these words might seem, they are a fair assessment of what is seen on screen. And yet, through it all, there is the feeling that Elvis is at least trying to do his best.
The double album Elvis in Concert has been in print since 1977, whereas the TV special of the same name has never been released on home video or DVD. It is unlikely that this will ever change.
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977, less than two months after these final recordings. The news shocked the world, but some of the newspaper reports of the event seemed to almost take pleasure in the event. Molly Ivans in the New York Times wrote that Elvis's "throaty baritone and blatant sexuality redefined popular music." By the end of the article, however, she was telling readers how his "penchant for peanut butter and banana sandwiches washed down with soda finally caught up with him. In one of his last appearances, his trademark skintight pants split open." John Rockwell, on the other hand, suggested that Elvis didn't invent rock 'n' roll but "defined the style." He goes on to say that "Elvis was a performer whom parents abhorred, young women adored, and young men instantly imitated."
Variety wrote of how Elvis "changed the face of youth culture in the placid 50s, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 60s, a logical precursor, probably a necessary precursor, to the Beatles." Louis Couttolenc, president of RCA records, was quoted as saying "the legend is lost to us, and all the hundreds of millions of people around the world whose lives were in some way touched by his music can only be greatly saddened by his death. We at RCA records are proud to have been associated with this great artist for the past 22 years."














CODA
RECONSIDER BABY: 1977-2014

In June, 1977, just a couple of months before his death at the age of 42, Elvis Presley released his last non-posthumous album. Moody Blue was a strange mish-mash of songs that had been recorded in various locations over the last three and a quarter years. The six studio cuts had been recorded at Graceland in February and October 1976 and, with it proving impossible to get Elvis back into the studio to complete the album, producer Felton Jarvis had taken a four-track recorder on tour, hoping to capture on tape decent performances of songs that Elvis had not recorded before. He knew this was unlikely to happen, and Jarvis would "discard virtually every recording he had out of fear that releasing performances this poor could only be detrimental to Elvis's career," but still managed to record three "new" Elvis songs. The album was completed by transposing a recording already issued in 1974 onto the new record.
Moody Blue was ultimately a strangely compelling record and, while Elvis is clearly heard to be an artist in decline, he comes across over the ten tracks as a man who was down but not yet out. Two months after the release of Moody Blue, Elvis was dead and, later that year, the seemingly never-ending stream of posthumous records would begin. However, if Felton Jarvis, his record producer, had struggled to release material of good enough quality during Elvis's lifetime, how would the world's view of the artist be changed in the decades to come as literally hundreds of hours of unreleased outtakes, private recordings and live concerts made their way into the market place, and would Elvis's name and legacy be damaged or changed as a result?
The first posthumous album was also, arguably, the most damaging. During Presley's last tour in June 1977, he was filmed for a CBS TV Special. That special, Elvis in Concert, would air in America in October 1977 and was accompanied by a double album of material from the two shows that were edited together to make up the TV special, including material which was deemed unfit for broadcast. Elvis's biographer, Peter Guralnick, describes the footage from the first of the two recorded shows as "almost unbearable to listen to or watch, the obliteration not just of beauty but of the memory of beauty, and in its place sheer, stark terror". The album itself is poor, with Elvis clearly struggling both for breath and for vocal tone, but it is the television special that has lived long in public memory, showing as it does an overweight, struggling, often seemingly-disoriented Elvis. It's worth noting that the album release used no pictures from the special, but images of a healthy looking Elvis from a few years before.
Other posthumous releases of "new" material followed over the next two decades, all of them more flattering than Elvis In Concert and mostly made up of live material, alternate takes, private recordings (often in poor sound), rehearsals and, occasionally, forgotten master takes of songs that had never been released before.
It appears that, at first, RCA was uncertain on how to proceed. Certainly, the releases in the first couple of years after Elvis's death were tentative steps at delving into the archives, often containing just a couple of unreleased recordings amongst an album of material previously available, as in the case of He Walks Beside Me from 1978. Perhaps most notable was Our Memories of Elvis, an album that aimed to allow listeners to hear how Elvis had sounded in the studio during the 1970s without the overdubbed instruments that were added later. A second volume soon followed.
There was also an attempt at doing the opposite. The Guitar Man LP took a batch of songs from Elvis's last decade and added completely new backing tracks to them in an effort to make Elvis sound more contemporary. It was an interesting exercise, but purists must have baulked at the idea of tampering with the King's music, despite the fact that it had been overdubbed, edited and looped for years.
The big change in approach really came about with the release of the Elvis Aron Presley boxed set in 1980, issued to celebrate twenty-five years since Elvis had signed with RCA. The release, consisting of eight LPs, was a revelation. It included the 1956 Las Vegas recordings as well as the sonically-troubled tape of the 1961 appearance in Hawaii. An album of alternate takes from the movie years was featured, as was an LP of performances culled from Las Vegas recordings made between 1969 and 1972. The piano songs from 1971 were included, as well as some singles that had not been included on American albums before, and a soundboard recording of Elvis on tour during June 1975. The Legendary Performer series had been issuing this type of material since 1974, and so this wasn't entirely a complete change of direction, but it was on a much grander scale.
Another set, A Golden Celebration, was issued in 1984 to celebrate what would have been Elvis's fiftieth birthday (in January 1985). This set was mostly dedicated to 1950s material, often in less than stellar quality. The soundtracks of the 1956 and 1957 TV appearances were included, along with some 1956 concerts in poor sound, and some outtakes from the Sun years. There was also an album's worth of home recordings that had recently been discovered, and some unissued material from the 1968 TV special.
Over the next fifteen years, as CDs began to eclipse vinyl, finally Elvis's musical legacy was slowly put into a logical catalogue for possibly the first time since Elvis moved to RCA. The slow but steady stream of alternate takes continued, mostly through the Essential Elvis series of albums, which had started in 1986 with a compilation of mostly unreleased takes from Elvis's first three films. Other releases concentrated on concerts and other material through individual releases such as The Alternate Aloha, An Afternoon in the Garden and the first official release of The Million Dollar Quartet. At the same time, the Elvis in the 90s series saw most of the non-soundtrack original albums appearing on CD in remastered form. The soundtracks were repackaged (and sometimes remixed) in a series called Double Features, and boxed sets were released centring on the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s respectively.
Then in 1997, Platinum: A Life in Music was issued, a 4CD set that attempted to tell the Elvis story primarily through alternate takes and unreleased material. Further 4CD sets of unreleased material appeared over the next few years, including Today, Tomorrow and Forever, Live in Las Vegas, and Close Up.
Suddenly, the Elvis legacy made sense. The three decades boxes presented the music mostly in chronological order and, away from the seemingly random track listings of the original albums, were able to show just how much great music Elvis made in all three decades.
In the late 1990s, a new subsidiary label was set up specifically for collectors. It was called Follow That Dream (FTD), named after Elvis's 1962 film. Since its inception, the label has issued well over a hundred releases (many of them double CDs) and nearly all containing a large percentage of officially unreleased material. Many of these releases have been in the "Classic Album" series. These are double disc sets, featuring the original album in its original running order, followed by bonus material, mostly made up of alternate takes.
To class many of the albums released in this series as "classic" is something of a misnomer. For example, Love Letters From Elvis, released in 1971, was arguably his weakest non-soundtrack album to date, is made-up of leftovers from a mammoth recording session the year before which had already yielded two albums, and is memorable less for Elvis's singing than for the peculiar overdubs which makes the album sound as much like elevator music as an album by the King of Rock 'n' Roll. Despite these shortcomings, the album has been treated to the "classic album" format in which a number of the songs are heard in five or six different alternate takes each.
A minor album in the Elvis legacy is therefore being elevated to "classic" status within this series - but does this in turn skew our view of Elvis's really classic work? While a reissue such as this is clearly intended for fans and only sold through selected outlets, these CDs still make their way into the mainstream through second-hand items being sold on websites such as eBay or Amazon Marketplace, or even through illegal downloads such as torrents. What is intended solely for the fan domain does not necessarily stay there.
What is most troubling here, though, is that virtually all of Elvis's non-soundtrack albums have now been given "classic album" status. Someone picking up one of these "classic albums" without prior knowledge of the contents is going to wonder what all the fuss is about. Surely they are going to question why Elvis is viewed as great at all if Elvis Now or From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee is classed as one of his "classic" albums?
If the treatment of the studio albums complicates our view of Elvis's legacy, then FTD's stream of live recordings from the 1970s does so even more. Ernst Jorgensen, the man primarily responsible for the label's releases (and the 1980s and 1990s reorganisation of the Elvis catalogue) has stated: "We will eventually release a show from every Vegas or Tahoe season, and most tours - of course limited by the fact that there's a lot that we don't have." This has resulted in a number of concerts being released that find Elvis in less than stellar form. An example of this was the 2003 release of Dragonheart, a soundboard recording of a concert from October 1, 1974. One fan wrote of the release: "one of the weakest concerts of 1974... I was surprised how flat his singing was, listen to Bridge over Troubled Water, he heardly [sic] can hold a note, it seems he is running out of air". Another fan writes that "the songs on this CD show Elvis' erratic behaviour, he's trying too hard a lot of the time and it's not working, his voice is all over the place [sic]." This is not to say that all fans felt the same way, and a number were quite defensive, with one writing: "I love the new Dragonheart release, and if you don't... fair enough, but keep your crappy comments to yourself."
But Dragonheart was the tip of the iceberg. Since then a number of other concerts showing Elvis in even worse form have seen the light of day officially. New Haven '76 comes from what one reviewer calls a "dreadful" tour and features a moment where "Assesing [sic] his own poor state Elvis says he'll do a medley of his records next, but whether he can or not is a different matter." Similarly, a fan says of the 2011 release of Amarillo '77 that "Elvis should have been in a hospital ... In other words: Elvis should not have stepped on stage in 1977. Then we would not have had this album and, that to say it mildly, that would not be such a great loss."
FTD is in a no-win situation. The vast majority of the concerts that it has access to were recorded during Presley's final few years and so those years are going to be over-represented. On one hand, many fans will continue to lap up every second of new Elvis material but, on the other, how are these releases affecting the way we and future generations will view Elvis and his recorded legacy?
While the FTD releases are aimed solely at the collector and even the poor performances can be seen as filling in part of the Presley story, with today's technology these recordings are not staying solely within the fan domain. Many have found their way onto YouTube, for example, and remain there in complete form. Just because fans are clamouring for every second of Elvis that survives on tape (and the record company in turn is clamouring for their money), does that mean that his every utterance, every flat note and every dreadful on stage performance should be at their disposal? The effects that these releases will have on how Presley will be viewed in the future is something we are unable to gauge at this stage, but we can start debating the rights and wrongs of them. The Elvis Presley story is a tragedy, but are these releases slowly but surely robbing him of his dignity?
While hard core fans have seen their needs largely met by FTD over the last fifteen years, at retail level the Elvis catalogue has fallen into a complete mess. Most of the hard work of the late 1980s and 1990s has been undone thanks to an endless stream of often pointless product from BMG and then Sony. At the time of writing there are well over eighty Elvis compilations available through Amazon and issued through official labels (rather than public domain labels). Meanwhile, many of Elvis's original albums are only available through buying boxed sets of three, five or twenty CDs. There is, of course, the FTD route – but the collector's label is so well hidden that many fans don't even know it exists or where to buy the releases from.
Just ten years ago, Elvis's popularity was riding high. A Little Less Conversation had been a major hit around the world. The Elv1s: 30 #1 hits compilation had also been a huge success. Multi-disc DVD issues of the 1968 TV special and Aloha from Hawaii had been released and had sold well. Now, sixty years since Elvis recorded his first single, and as we approach what would have been his eightieth birthday in January 2015, the opposite appears to be true. FTD is slowly but surely running out of steam and material and, much more importantly, Elvis product at retail level often lacks the same imagination as the artwork on the 1970s albums – not least within Elvis's entries in the Legacy Edition series. These should have been deluxe versions of Elvis's key albums, but have become nothing more than a series of twofers that have little in common with the non-Elvis entries in the series. Therefore, someone buying the Elvis Country Legacy Edition finds themselves with an extra disc containing Love Letter from Elvis instead of high quality material directly relating to the main album. This is a missed opportunity, and reeks of lazy programming. What's more, there wasn't even a release of any kind to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Elvis's historic first recording session. Presumably this was put on hold to make way for the release of Bossa Nova Baby: The Ultimate Elvis Party Album - obviously a far more important venture.
There have been some wonderful discoveries in the Elvis world since the singer's passing in 1977, from the private recordings made at Sun in 1953 and 1954 through to home recordings, rehearsals, live concerts, outtakes, jam sessions, and even forgotten studio masters. Meanwhile, his place in history is assured. Somehow, however, his core work – the hundreds of songs released during his lifetime – has somehow got lost in the milieu.
There has been little attempt by Sony in recent years to lure in new fans with attractive, imaginative product, perhaps because so much energy has been spent finding new material for the existing fans through the collector's label – something that provides a guaranteed amount of sales, unlike items aimed at the general customer. However, once people have purchased a greatest hits compilation, there is nowhere for them to go. One of the joys of discovering an artist is buying the various original albums one at a time. That simply isn't possible with Elvis, because most of them are not available individually at the time of writing. Sure, they can be purchased within multi-disc sets, but that's not quite the same (and these are often bundled together in a haphazard fashion), and they can also be purchased in their FTD editions (if the newcomer even knows about them). But does a new fan really want to spend £20 on what is essentially ten or twelve songs, even if each one does come in half a dozen versions?
Sadly, however, this is nothing new when it comes to Elvis – the music seems to get overlooked entirely. One look at the list of Elvis books in print shows this as well. There are numerous books of photos, some discussing his relationships with women, general biographies, Elvis cookbooks, and books about his jumpsuits. Very few books over the years have taken the music itself as a main theme, and discussed the music in a serious way.
This rather pessimistic message may seem a strange one with which to end this little book. However, writing this has reminded me just how many great recordings Elvis made. Sure, there were a fair share of stinkers too, but it's the great ones that really count. However, it has taken the effort of wading through all 700+ masters in the order in which they were recorded to totally realise this fact. In order to get the best out of the Elvis legacy, it has to be approached in a logical way and, sadly, for most of the last sixty years, logic has not been the criteria behind most Elvis releases.
For much of Elvis's lifetime, logic and artistic credibility was put to one side in order to make more money. Sure, of course he and Tom Parker had to make a living, but that doesn't mean that there should be a lack of care and attention behind the product that is hitting the stores. This was particularly the case in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, when budget albums competed with regular albums, and when regular albums were thrown together in such a haphazard fashion that it was difficult to tell them apart from the budget issues anyway. Part of the problem here lies with Elvis himself, who seemingly didn't know or didn't care that substandard and half-finished songs were appearing on his LPs.
But Elvis isn't here now, and the problems still occur. A recent UK release entitled Elvis Sings includes the private recording of Danny Boy from 1959 instead of the 1976 master, and the rejected studio master of My Way is included instead of a live version. These are mistakes that shouldn't happen, but the catalogue is so chocked full of alternate versions now that it appears even Sony have lost track of which rendition is the actual master take.
Even more than this, though, Elvis recordings are not, for the most part, available in a logical way. It appears that it was only during the 1990s, when the catalogue was completely overhauled, that this happened. I was in my late teens when the Elvis in the 90s series started appearing, and when the first of the three boxed sets appeared that were dedicated to the various decades of Elvis's career. More than anything, those boxes provide us with the best way of seeing just how wonderful and rich Elvis's legacy actually is. The 1960s set stripped away the soundtrack recordings, leaving five discs of largely fine material, bookended by the remarkable Elvis is Back sessions from 1960 and the Memphis sessions of 1969. The 1970s set was, to all intents and purposes, a "best of" (and a flawed one at that), but it presented more than five hours of mostly high quality music from the years when the singer was in decline – and viewed by many as down and out. The seemingly random track lists of the albums no longer mattered, and neither did the innocuous artwork that went with them. Elvis's legacy made sense presented in this fashion, and the glories of his work were there for all to see over those fifteen discs which made up the three sets.
Hopefully there will be a time soon when the music is again what Elvis is chiefly remembered for, and not his gyrating pelvis, his sideburns, his clothes, his eating habits, or his prescription drug use. The celebrations for what would have been his eightieth birthday seem as good a time as any for Elvis's music to take centre stage and be taken seriously once again. However, for this to happen his record label needs to get the catalogue into a sensible order once again, stripping away the endless greatest hits packages, and taking a "back to basics" approach, leaving behind the essential compilations, the original albums, and the best of the posthumous releases. Without this, negotiating the maze of Elvis's legacy (particularly with two hundred hours of alternate takes out there to obscure it) will all too often seem too much like hard work for future generations.
By working through Elvis's recordings session by session, this book has hopefully helped make sense of his work. In the end, this has been largely a book of opinion and not facts – both my own opinions and those of the contemporary reviewers quoted within these pages. Is my opinion important? That's not for me to decide, but hopefully it has been of interest. There is a certain enjoyment in reading what others think of the records we love and hate – and even more enjoyment in disagreeing with what we read.
Some will no doubt dismiss my views as "revisionist" because I don't believe that rock is necessarily any more important than easy listening or country or gospel. Some will say I'm trying to distort the established narrative of Elvis's work. That's not what I set out to do six months ago when I started work on this book. My primary intention was to demonstrate that there was more than one way to look at a legacy such as Elvis's. I hope I have achieved that. Either way, thank you for coming along for the ride.

Shane Brown
July 14, 2014.
 














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---. "Spotlight Singles of the Week." March 10, 1962, 27.
---. "Spotlight Singles of the Week." July 28, 1962, 23.
---. "Spotlight Winners of the Week." April 25, 1960, 35.
---. "Spotlight Winners of the Week." December 5, 1960, 5.
---. "Top Album Picks." July 14, 1973, 62.
---. "Top Album Picks." November 10, 1973, 76.
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Jahn, Mike. "Elvis Presley to Make Personal Appearances." New York Times. December 4, 1968, 51.
Jasinski, Toni. "Reporter Owes Toledo Apology." Toledo Blade. May 4, 1977, 20.
Johnson, Erskine. "Elvis Presley Says New Film Is Faintly Autobiographical." Pittsburgh Press. February 24, 1957, 7.
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Kingsley, James. "Presley Faces Toughest Challenge in Las Vegas." Billboard. August 9, 1969, 4.
Kline, Keff. "The King is Here." Lakeland Ledger. April 28, 1975, 1a & 7a.
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INDEX

4
40 Greatest Hits (album) 279
A
Abel, Robert 247
Ace, Johnny 281
Adams, Faye 273
Adidge, Pierre 247
Adler, Renata 173
Adventures of Robin Hood, The (film) 72
Afro-American (newspaper) 299
After Loving You 197
Afternoon in the Garden, An (album) 291
Ain't That Loving You Baby 77
All I Needed was the Rain 179
All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music (book) 303
All My Trials 241
All of Me 11
All Shook Up 55, 60, 111, 185, 203, 249
All That I Am 156, 157
Allen, Steve 43, 44, 45
Almost 190
Almost Always True 109
Almost in Love 181
Aloha from Hawaii (album) 207, 246, 255, 268
Aloha from Hawaii (TV) 203, 207, 226, 240, 246, 252, 255, 303
Aloha Oe 109
Alouette 109
Also Sprach Zarathustra 240, 248, 252, 268, 284
Alternate Aloha, The 291
Always on my Mind 244
Am I Ready 90
Amarillo '77 (album) 294
Amazing Grace 11, 228
Amen 268
America the Beautiful 276
American Heritage (magazine) 61, 302
American Scholar, The (academic journal) 144, 301
American Trilogy, An 228, 241, 242, 250, 254, 269, 270
Amigos, The 130
And I Love You So 272, 286
And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind 197
Andress, Ursula 132
Angel 114, 115
Anger, Kenneth 133
Animal Instinct 149
Animals, The 105, 165
Ann-Margret 135, 137, 138, 306
Anvil Chorus (from Il Trovatore) 66
Any Day Now 198
Any Way You Want Me 46
Anyone 139
Anyplace is Paradise 52
Anything That's Part of You 117
Archer, Jules 64
Arden, Toni 85, 230
Are You Laughing Tonight 203
Are You Lonesome Tonight 87, 113, 120, 203, 206, 211, 284
Are You Sincere 261
Arnold, Eddy 104, 177, 197
As Long As I Have You 74
Ask Me 134, 142, 143
Astaire, Fred 66
Atkins, Chet 33, 49
Aura Lee 59
Axton, Hoyt 240
Axton, Mae 34, 240
B
Baby I Don't Care 67
Baby If You'll Give Me All of Your Love 168
Baby Let's Play House 27, 28, 29, 148
Baby What You Want Me to Do 160, 175
Baby What You Want Me To Do 184
Bacharach, Burt 119, 198
Back in Memphis (album) 199
Baker, Lavern 209
Bangs, Lester 245
Barcarolle (from Tales of Hoffmann) 90
Barefoot Ballad 140
Bassey, Shirley 218, 254
Battle Hymn of the Republic, The 241
Baum, Bernie 128, 130, 147, 197
Baxter, Annette 35, 46
Baxter, James 35, 46
Beach Boy Blues 108
Beach Shack 157
Beatles, The 103, 135, 205
Because of Love 123
Bee Gees 205
Beethoven, Ludwig van 13, 305
Beginner's Luck 153
Bells are Ringing (film) 93
Ben Hur (film) 115
Beneath the 12-mile Reef (film) 47
Bennett, Roy 108, 124, 127, 130, 156, 177
Bennett, Tony 66
Berle, Milton 40, 42, 44
Berlin, Irving 69
Berry, Chuck 29, 142, 180, 203, 265, 272
Beyond the Bend 127, 143
Beyond the Reef 165
Big Boots 91, 174
Big Boss Man 173, 176, 177, 181, 186, 214, 270
Big Hunk o' Love, A 77, 78, 242, 254, 270
Big Love, Big Heartache 144
Billboard (magazine) 5, 21, 24, 28, 38, 40, 41, 45, 49, 62, 68, 73, 85, 86, 88, 98, 113, 115, 116, 121, 123, 128, 141, 147, 164, 166, 168, 169, 174, 176, 193, 196, 199, 202, 213, 220, 221, 237, 244, 245, 246, 254, 262, 267, 270, 299, 300, 302, 303, 306, 307
Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall 276
Black Star 95
Black, Bill 11, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 52
Blackwell, Charlie 86
Blackwell, Otis 51, 82
Blade, The (newspaper) 301
Blair, Hal 130
Blossoms, The 190
Blowin' in the Wind 160
Blue Christmas 69, 185
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain 279
Blue Hawaii 99, 110, 111, 255
Blue Hawaii (film) 94, 103, 107, 114, 123, 144, 154, 255
Blue Hawaii (album) 107, 108, 109, 110, 111
Blue Moon 11, 21, 23, 31, 34, 61
Blue Moon of Kentucky 21, 26
Blue River 134
Blue Suede Shoes 35, 37, 40, 41, 52, 90, 168, 202, 253, 299
Blueberry Hill 63, 65, 269
Bobby Darin Sings Ray Charles (album) 136
Body and Soul 11
Bohemian Rhapsody 154
Bonfá, Luiz 181
Bosom of Abraham 238
Bossa Nova Baby 129
Box Tops, The 192
Boy Like Me, A Girl Like You, A 124
Brahms, Johannes 174
Bravados, The (film) 124
Brest, Winnifred 140
Brewer, Teresa 278
Bridge over Troubled Water 214, 260
Briggs, David 217, 219, 228
Bringing It Back 274
Britches 95
Brooks, Dudley 63, 70, 123
Brown Eyed Handsome Man 55
Brown, Roy 24
Brown, Tony 285
Bryant, Boudleaux 49
Buckner, John Ed 73
Bud & Travis 124
Bugsy Malone (film) 243
Bullfighter was a Lady, The 130
Bullmoose 106
Burning Love 12, 244, 245, 246, 252, 263, 278, 299
Burning Love and Hits from the Movies (album) 245
Burton, James 242
Butler, Jerry 198
C
C'mon Everybody 137
Cabaret (film) 91
Campbell, Glen 193, 241
Can't Help Falling in Love 109, 110, 111, 114, 185, 205, 241, 250, 254
Canby, Vincent 148, 247
Can-Can (film) 93
Cane and a High Starched Collar, A 95
Can't Help Falling in Love 270, 285
Carmen Carmela 124
Carny Town 145
Carousel (stage musical) 99
Carpenters, The 243
Carroll, Jock 18, 43
Carson, Martha 23
Casablanca (film) 72
Cash, Johnny 54, 97, 101, 180, 264
Catchin' on Fast 139
Champion, Gower 151
Champion, Marge 151
Change of Habit 201
Change of Habit (film) 194, 201
Charles, Ray 33, 106, 136, 137
Charro 188
Charro (film) 188
Chase, Chris 250
Chesay 152
Cindy, Cindy 214
Cinema Journal (academic journal) 299
Citizen Kane (film) 15, 143
City by Night 146, 167
Clambake 171
Clambake (film) 171
Clambake (album) 175, 176, 177
Clark, Sanford 214
Clean Up Your Own Backyard 190, 191, 194
Clooney, Rosemary 66
Close Up (album) 292
Clovers, The 165
Cochran, Eddie 137
Cody, Phil 277
Cole, Nat "King" 66, 86
Coleman Brothers, The 96
Collector's Gold (album) 121
Come Along 152
Come What May 165
Como, Perry 15, 242
Complete Million Dollar Quartet, The (album) 54
Complete Sun Sessions, The (album) 22
Confidence 172
Cool Water 79
Cotton Candy Land 127, 187
Cottonfields 224
Could I Fall in Love 168
Couttolenc, Louis 287
Cramer, Floyd 29, 33, 34, 35, 77, 86, 104, 120, 146, 168
Crawfish 73
Crosby, Bing 64, 108
Cross My Heart and Hope to Die 146
Crowther, Bosley 47, 93, 100, 118, 167, 170, 301
Crudup, Arthur 20, 37, 38
Crying in the Chapel 97, 164
Curtiz, Michael 72
Cushman, Don 178
D
Daily Telegraph (newspaper) 222, 304
Dain, Carol 167
Danny 74
Danny Boy 78, 278, 279
Darin, Bobby 105, 106, 112, 125, 136, 152, 195, 233
Dark Moon 160, 184
Datin' 154
David, Hal 119
Davis, Mac 194
Day, Doris 66, 79
Dean, James 99
Dee, Duane 196
Devil in Disguise 132, 134
Dewar, Toni 275
Diamond, Neil 197, 209
Diamonds, The 282
Didja' Ever 89, 168
Dirty, Dirty Feeling 86
Dixie 241
Dixieland Rock 73, 152
Do Not Disturb 146
Do the Clam 138, 147
Do the Vega 137, 147
Do You Know Who I Am 197
Doctor X (film) 72
Dog's Life, A 154
Doin' the Best I Can 89, 91
Domasin, Larry 132
Dominic 179
Don't 68
Don't Ask Me Why 74
Don't be Cruel 45, 46, 50, 51, 53, 54, 60, 63, 68, 70, 82, 83, 249, 284
Don't Cry Daddy 193, 194, 212, 246
Don't Leave Me Now 63, 64, 67, 74
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright 232, 237, 246
Doncha' Think It's Time 76
Dorsey, Jimmy 36
Dorsey, Tommy 36
Double Features (album series) 95
Double Trouble 167
Double Trouble (film) 146, 167
Double Trouble (album) 159, 170
Down by the Riverside 54, 152
Down in the Alley 176, 271
Dragonheart (album) 293
Drifters, The 69
Dunne, Philip 100
Dylan, Bob 164, 165, 232
E
Eagles, The 30
Early Morning Rain 228, 229, 255, 286
Earth Angel 79
Earth Boy 124
Earthy (LP) 125
Easy Come, Easy Go 170
Easy Come, Easy Go (EP) 171
Easy Come, Easy Go (film) 131, 169, 177
Easy Question 121
Echoes of Love 132
Eckstine, Billy 64
Ed Sullivan Show, The See Toast of the Town
Edge of Reality 181
Edgin, Dolores 140, 161
Edwards, Sherman 119
Edwards, Tommy 77
El Paso 246
El Toro 130
Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits (album) 295
Elvis (1956 album) 52
Elvis (1968 TV Special) 19, 39, 69, 81, 84, 102, 110, 112, 159, 176, 182, 183, 185, 188, 191, 195, 202, 206
Elvis (Fool) (album) 236, 245
Elvis Aron Presley (album) 291
Elvis as Recorded as Madison Square Garden (album) 251
Elvis as Recorded at Madison Square Garden (album) 267
Elvis at Stax (album) 14
Elvis' Christmas Album (album) 68
Elvis Country (album) 32, 78, 213, 218, 221, 236, 302
Elvis for Everyone (album) 22, 143
Elvis in Concert (album) 287
Elvis in Concert (TV) 283, 287, 290
Elvis is Back (album) 79, 88, 89, 98, 102, 103, 104, 106, 254
Elvis Now (album) 199, 229, 236, 237, 246
Elvis on Tour – The Rehearsals (album) 246
Elvis on Tour (film) 67, 243, 246, 247, 268, 301
Elvis Presley (1956 album) 39, 52
Elvis Presley: A Life in Music (book) 17, 18, 23, 38, 46, 50, 59, 69, 87, 89, 98, 99, 112, 126, 127, 138, 140, 162, 163, 183, 218, 227, 238, 244, 255, 258
Elvis' Christmas Album (Camden album) 193
Elvis' Christmas Album (album) 71
Emmons, Bobby 259
Erickson, Leif 143
Essential Elvis (album) 68, 291
Evening Prayer, An 234
Everybody Comes Aboard 151
Exposed (magazine) 304
Eyes of Texas, The 138
F
Faded Love 214, 218
Fair is Moving On, The 199
Fairytale 273, 286
Fame and Fortune 83
Farther Along 162
Fessier, Michael Jr 141
Feuer, Cy 179
Fever 85, 87, 127, 133, 146, 252, 254
Film Comment (magazine) 135, 304
Find Out What's Happening 259
Finders Keeps, Losers Weepers 133
First in Line 52
First Noel, The 232
First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, The 228
Fitzgerald, Ella 18, 168
Five Sleepy Heads 174
Flaming Star 95
Flaming Star (film) 61, 94, 95, 107, 307
Flip, Flop and Fly 36, 269
Foley, Red 18
Follow that Dream 113, 115
Follow that Dream (EP) 114, 127
Follow that Dream (film) 113, 118, 119
Fontana, D. J. 59, 66, 142
Fool 244, 245
Fool Such as I, A 77, 224
Fool, Fool, Fool 27
Fool, The 78, 214, 217
Fools Fall in Love 165
Fools Rush In 137, 160, 233
For Lovin' Me 228, 229
For Ol' Times Sake 260
For Teenagers Only (Bobby Darin album) 105
For the Asking (album) 134
For the First Time (film) 93
For the Good Times 243
For the Heart 278, 281
For the Millionth and the Last Time 116
Forest Green 70
Forget Me Never 101
Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce 146
Fosse, Bob 179
Fountain of Love 120, 121, 129
Four Fellowes, The 82
Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing (TV) 185
Frank Sinatra - Timex Show (TV) 84
Frankfort Special 91
Frankie and Johnny 152
Frankie and Johnny (film) 151
Frankie and Johnny (album) 151, 153
Friedwald, Will 61, 64, 172
Froggy Went a-Courtin' 223, 224
From a Jack to a King 194
From Elvis in Memphis (album) 199
From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee (album) 256, 276, 279, 282
From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis (album) 199, 202
Froman, Jane 85
Fun in Acapulco 131
Fun in Acapulco (film) 129, 131
Fun in Acapulco (album) 122, 130, 133
Funny Girl (stage musical) 179
Funny How Time Slips Away 206, 218, 219, 250
G
G I Blues 89, 92
G I Blues (film) 81, 82, 88, 91, 93, 94, 136
G I Blues (album) 89
Garland, Hank 77, 112
Garland, Judy 66, 254
Gene Krupa Story, The (film) 93
Gentle on my Mind 193
Gently 105
Gerry and the Pacemakers 178
Get Back 224
Giant, Bill 128, 130, 147, 197
Gigi (film) 93
Girl Happy 146
Girl Happy (film) 138, 147
Girl Happy (album) 145, 147
Girl I Never Loved, The 172
Girl Next Door Went A'Walkin', The 87
Girl of Mine 260
Girl of My Best Friend, The 86, 280
Girls! Girls! Girls! 125
Girls! Girls! Girls! (film) 123
Girls! Girls! Girls! (album) 126
Give Me the Right 104
Go East, Young Man 148
Goin' Home 175, 180
Golden Boy (stage musical) 118
Golden Boy (stage play) 99
Golden Celebration, A (album) 291
Golden Coins 149
Golden Folk Hits (Bobby Darin album) 125
Golden Gate Quartet 163
Goldman, Albert 199
Gonna Get Back Home Somehow 120
Good Luck Charm 116, 117, 121, 125
Good Rockin' Tonight 24, 29
Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues 265, 271
Good Times (album) 14, 148, 266
Goodman, Benny 43
Gordy, Emory 243
Got a Lot of Livin' To Do 60, 61, 70, 74
Got My Mojo Working/Keep Your Hands Off of It 215
Gould, Jack 42
Grant, Barry Keith 73
Great Performances, The (album) 18
Green Green Grass Of Home 274
Green Green Grass of Home (Tom Jones album) 199
Greensleeves 180
Greenspun, Roger 189
Grey, Joel 91
Gross, Mike 72
Guadalajara 131
Guitar Man 173, 176, 181, 184, 186, 187, 190, 235
Guitar Man (album) 291
Guralnick, Peter 15, 28, 88, 89, 100, 136, 194, 221, 290
H
Hamilton, Roy 38
Happy Ending 128
Harbor Lights 11, 20, 21, 22, 35
Hard Headed Woman 72
Hard Knocks 144, 145
Hard Luck 153
Hardin, Glen D 242
Harman, Buddy 142
Harmonizing Four, The 162, 163
Harper's Magazine 35, 299
Harris, Woody 105
Hart, Lorenz 21
Hartford, John 193
Harum Scarum (film) 148
Harum Scarum (album) 144, 151
Have a Happy 201
Have I Told You Lately That I Love You 63, 76
Hawaiian Sunset 108, 109, 155
Hawaiian Wedding Song 110, 255, 286
He is My Everything 238
He Knows Just What I Need 97
He Touched Me (album) 228, 229, 233, 234, 239
He Walks Beside Me (album) 290
He'll Have to Go 281
He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad 175
Heart of Rome 217
Heartbreak Hotel 18, 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 72, 92, 185, 240, 249, 304
Heartbreak Hotel: The Life and Music of Elvis Presley (book) 18, 100, 110, 125, 142, 145, 152, 164, 267, 278
Hearts of Stone 15, 27
Heckman, Don 208, 211, 237, 251
Help Me 264, 269
Here Comes Santa Claus 69
Hey Jude 195, 199, 236
Hey Little Girl 149
Hey, Hey, Hey 172
High Hopes 172
Hi-Heel Sneakers 177, 178
Hilliard, Bob 198
His Hand in Mine 96
His Hand in Mine (album) 96, 98, 99, 102, 111, 161, 190
His Latest Flame 112, 117, 122
Hitchcock, Alfred 13
Hodge, Charlie 87, 96, 122, 165
Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me 40
Holladay, Ginger 228
Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees 230
Holly, Buddy 157
Home is Where the Heart Is 119
Home Recordings, The (album) 99
Hot Dog 61
Hound Dog 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 53, 185, 203, 224, 248, 250, 253, 260, 269, 285
House of Sand 155
House That Has Everything, A 172
How Can You Lose What You Never Had 172
How Do Think I Feel 52
How do You Think I Feel 50
How Great Thou Art 161, 269, 284
How Great Thou Art (album) 96, 159, 161, 164, 170, 171, 177
How Much is that Doggie in the Window 179
How the Web was Woven 215, 220
How the World's Treating You 49
How Would You Like To Be 127, 187
Hundred Years from Now, A 214
Hunter, Ivory Joe 64, 69, 76
Hurt 12, 278, 285
Hush Little Baby 146
I
I Beg of You 59, 63, 64
I Believe 58, 59, 162
I Believe in the Man in the Sky 96
I Can Help 274
I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You) 79
I Can't Stop Loving You 196, 204, 250, 253
I Can't Stop Loving You 269
I Didn't Make It on Playing Guitar 216
I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine 11, 23, 24, 38
I Don't Wanna Be Tied 126
I Don't Want To 123
I Feel So Bad 102, 106
I Feel That I've Known You Forever 120
I Forgot to Remember to Forget 30, 49
I Got a Feeling in my Body 263
I Got a Woman 27, 29, 33, 34, 36, 41, 111, 268, 285
I Got Lucky 119
I Got Lucky (album) 245
I Got Stung 78
I Gotta Know 86
I John 238
I Just Can't Help Believin' 221, 223, 225, 244
I Love Only One Girl 168
I Love You Because 20, 39, 52
I Met Her Today 117, 122
I Miss You 261
I Need Somebody to Lean On 137
I Need You So 64
I Need Your Love Tonight 77, 78, 111
I Really Don't Want to Know 217, 285
I Shall Not Be Moved 54
I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell 100
I Think I'm Gonna Like it Here 130
I Want to be Free 67
I Want You With Me 105, 106
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You 40, 42
I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago 213, 236
I Was the One 35
I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water 219, 222, 224
I Will Be Home Again 87
I Will Be True 235
I'll Be Back 155, 157
I'll Be Home for Christmas 70
I'll Be Home on Christmas Day 231, 239
I'll Be There 195
I'll Hold You in My Heart 178, 195, 197
I'll Never Fall in Love Again 277, 278
I'll Never Know 216, 217
I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin') 23, 25, 39, 46
I'll Never Stand in your Way 19
I'll Remember You 166, 178, 254
I'll Take Love 170
I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen 235
I'm a Roustabout 144
I'm Beginning to Forget You 79
I'm Coming Home 105
I'm Counting on You 35
I'm Falling in Love Tonight 127
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You) 38
I'm Gonna Walk Dem Golden Stairs 97
I'm Leavin' 235, 237
I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone 28, 49
I'm Movin' On 192
I'm Not the Marrying Kind 114, 115
I'm Sitting on Top of the World 57
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry 253
I'm Yours 113
I've Got a Thing About You Baby 259
I've Got Confidence 234, 235
I've Got to Find My Baby 147
I've Lost You 213, 215, 224
If Every Day Was Like Christmas 166, 230
If I Can Dream 181, 184, 187, 191, 194, 246
If I Get Home on Christmas Day 230
If I Loved You 99, 160
If I'm a Fool 198
If That Isn't Love 266
If the Lord Wasn't Walking By My Side 163
If We Never Meet Again 97
If You Don't Come Back 258, 259
If You Love Me (Let Me Know) 282, 285
If You Talk in Your Sleep 263
If You Think I Don't Need You 137
Imperials, The 161, 210, 233, 234, 235, 238
Impossible Dream, The 241, 250
In a Private Moment (album) 99
In My Way 101
In Person (album) 202, 203
In the Garden 57, 161
In the Ghetto 114, 157, 190, 194, 205, 210, 246
In Your Arms 105
Indescribably Blue 166, 171
Inherit the Wind 193, 206
Ink Spots, The 18, 19, 55, 59
Io 142
Is It So Strange 55, 62
Island of Love 108
It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing) 216
It Feels So Right 83
It Happened at the World's Fair (film) 127, 144
It Happened at the World's Fair (album) 126
It Hurts Me 142, 143, 186, 187
It Is No Secret (What God Can Do) 62
It Keeps Right on a-Hurtin' 198
It Won't Be Long 169
It Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You) 229
It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You 19
It's a Matter of Time 244
It's a Sin 104
It's a Sin to Tell a Lie 137
It's a Wonderful World 144
It's Carnival Time 145
It's Diff'rent Now 259
It's Impossible 242
It's Midnight 263, 264
It's Now or Never 79, 85, 98, 111, 122
It's Only Love 236
It's Over 241, 253
It's Still Here 235
It's Your Baby, You Rock It 215, 217
Ito Eats 109, 154
It's Now Or Never 286
Ivans, Molly 47, 287
J
Jackson, Mahalia 234
Jailhouse Rock 50, 66, 70, 185, 269, 284
Jailhouse Rock (film) 60, 66, 67, 68, 71, 74, 107
James, Mark 260
Jarvis, Felton 161, 174, 179, 190, 237, 278, 281, 289
Jennings, Waylon 263
Jobim, Antonio Carlos 116
John Brown's Body 145
John, Olivia Newton 270, 282
Johnny B Goode 203, 233, 253
Jolson, Al 64
Jones, Jimmy 163
Jones, Tom 199, 274, 277
Jordanaires, The 45, 49, 51, 58, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 83, 91, 96, 97, 102, 105, 117, 161
Jorgensen, Ernst 17, 18, 23, 38, 46, 50, 59, 69, 87, 89, 98, 99, 112, 126, 127, 138, 140, 162, 163, 183, 218, 227, 238, 244, 255, 258, 303
Joshua Fit the Battle 57, 97
Judy 105
Just a Closer Walk With Thee 57, 59
Just a Little Bit 259
Just Because 24, 39
Just Call Me Lonesome 177
Just For Old Time Sake 120, 122
Just Pretend 206, 216
Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello 121, 197
JXL 182
K
Kaiser, Robert Blair 223
Kaye, Florence 128, 130, 147, 150, 197
Keisker, Marion 11
Kelly, Gene 92
Kennedy, Robert 187
Kentucky Rain 198, 212, 246
Kesler, Stan 28, 30, 49, 86, 198
Khrushchev, Nikita 92
Kid Galahad (EP) 119, 120, 124
Kid Galahad (film) 115, 118
King Creole 74
King Creole (film) 57, 71, 72, 75, 76, 107, 118
King Creole (album) 36, 72, 75
King of Rock 'n' Roll
The Complete 50s Masters (album) 12, 22
King of the Whole Wide World 119, 124
King, Ben E 162
King, Jean 185
King, Martin Luther 187
Kingston Trio, The 105
Kirkham, Millie 69, 104, 114, 161, 203
Kismet 149
Kiss Me Quick 113, 129
Kissin' Cousins 140, 143
Kissin' Cousins (film) 138
Kissin' Cousins (album) 143, 145
Kissin' Cousins No. 2 140
Kline, Jeff 275
Known Only to Him 97
Kreuger, Miles 151
Kristofferson, Kris 243
Ku-U-I-Po 109, 255
L
Lady Loves Me, The 138
Lady Madonna 233
Laine, Frankie 58, 79, 240
Lakeland Ledger (newspaper) 275, 303, 305
Landau, Jon 222, 255
Lanza, Mario 11, 85
Las Vegas 41
Last Farewell, The 277
Last Waltz, The 217
Last, James 244
Lawdy Miss Clawdy 39, 99, 184, 210, 270
Lead Me, Guide Me 233
Lee, Kuiokalani 166, 254
Lee, Peggy 85
Legendary Performer, A (album) 279
Leiber, Jerry 49, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 86, 121, 125, 138, 144, 258
Lester, Ketty 165
Let It Be Me 210
Let Me 48, 95
Let Me Be There 270
Let Us Pray 201
Let Yourself Go 174, 186
Let's Be Friends 201
Let's Do It 11
Let's Forget about the Stars 189
Lewis, Jerry Lee 54, 60, 77, 106, 227, 242, 272
Liebestraume 90, 137
Life 217
Life (magazine) 303
Lightfoot, Gordon 228
Like a Baby 85
Lil Abner (film) 93
Liszt, Franz 90, 137
Little Bit of Green, A 192, 201
Little Cabin on the Hill 214
Little Darlin' 281, 282
Little Egypt 144, 187
Little Less Conversation, A 181, 295
Little Mama 15, 27
Little Richard 39, 51
Little Sister 112, 114, 117, 120, 122, 224, 286
Live a Little, Love a Little (film) 181
Live in Las Vegas (album) 292
Loera, Rudolph 130
Lomax, Jackie 215
Lonely Man 101, 102
Lonesome Cowboy 61
Long Black Limousine 134, 191, 192
Long Legged Girl (with the Short Dress On) 168
Long Lonely Highway 134
Long Tall Sally 41, 50, 52, 254, 269
Long, Shorty 39
Look out Broadway 151
Lord's Prayer, The 231, 234
Lorena 101
Lost Performances, The (video) 223
Lott, Jimmie 28
Louisiana Hayride 25, 55
Love Coming Down 279
Love for Sale 11
Love Letters 165, 219
Love Letters from Elvis (album) 215, 216, 222, 292, 303
Love Machine, The 170
Love Me 49, 50, 52, 53, 63, 188, 249, 253, 268, 285
Love Me Tender 47, 48, 53, 54, 59, 84, 185, 191, 202, 250, 261, 301
Love Me Tender (film) 47, 57, 62, 94, 95
Love Me Tonight 133
Love Me, Love the Life I Lead 236, 246
Love Song of the Year 264
Lover Doll 74
Loving Arms 264
Loving You 65
Loving You (film) 59, 60, 61, 63, 66
Loving You (album) 63, 64, 65
M
MacDowell, Edward 90, 156
Make Believe 99
Make Me Know It 82, 105
Make the World Go Away 218, 219, 226
Mama 124
Mama Liked the Roses 193
Man of La Mancha, The (stage musical) 241
Mann, Carl 105
Mann, May 271
Mansion Over the Hilltop 97
Marguerita 130
Marsh, Dave 274
Martin, Dean 23, 64, 79, 114, 160
Martin, Ernest 179
Mary in the Morning 216
Mason, Marilyn 191
Matthews' Southern Comfort 213
Matthew-Walker, Robert 18, 100, 110, 125, 142, 145, 152, 164, 267, 278
Maybellene 29
Mayfield, Percy 197
McCormick, Neil 222
McCoy, Charlie 153, 177
Mean Woman Blues 59, 73
Meanest Girl in Town, The 147
Mello Men, The 144
Meltzer, Richard 220
Memories 186
Memphis, Tennessee 134, 142, 143
Mérimée, Prosper 13
Merrill, Bob 179
Merry Christmas Baby 230
Mess of Blues, A 83
Mexico 130
Milkcow Blues Boogie 11, 25, 27
Milky White Way 96
Miller, Glenn 66
Miller, Ned 160
Million Dollar Quartet, The (album) 292
Milton Berle Show, The (TV) 40, 42, 45, 248
Milwaukee Journal (newspaper) 106, 267, 303
Mine 175, 176
Miracle of the Rosary 229, 266
Mirage 149
Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show 54
Mitchell, Guy 160
Moman, Chips 191, 196
Money Honey 27, 34, 41
Monroe, Bill 11, 21
Montenegro, Hugo 189
Monthly Film Bulletin 75, 304
Moody Blue 277, 280
Moody Blue (album) 282, 286, 289
Moonlight Sonata 160
Moonlight Swim 110, 111
Moore, Scotty 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 87
Morales, Armond 235
Morris, Bobby 202
Motion Picture Daily (trade journal) 37, 47, 75, 93, 301, 304, 305, 307
Movieland and TV Times (magazine) 271, 303
Mr Songman 263
Murray, Anne 226
My Babe 204
My Baby Left Me 20, 37, 270
My Boy 264
My Desert Serenade 148
My Happiness 18, 19
My Heart Cries For You 160
My Little Friend 194
My Way 239, 252, 253, 285
My Wish Came True 69, 76
Mystery Train 30, 91, 186, 204
N
Neal, Bob 31, 33
Nelson, Gene 139
Nelson, Ricky 84, 85, 92, 136, 139, 156, 160, 233
Nelson, Vikki 85
Nelson, Willie 136, 218
Nesmith, Mike 233
Never Again 279
Never Been to Spain 210, 240, 248, 249
Never Ending 133, 134
Never Say Yes 157
New Haven '76 (album) 293
New Orleans 36, 73
New York Times, The 5, 42, 43, 47, 52, 61, 67, 75, 82, 88, 93, 94, 100, 115, 118, 131, 135, 139, 143, 145, 148, 153, 155, 167, 169, 171, 173, 179, 188, 189, 190, 199, 202, 208, 211, 223, 224, 237, 247, 250, 251, 287, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307
Newbury, Mickey 241
Next Step is Love, The 219
Nielsen, Sherrill 276, 286
Night and Day (film) 72
Night Life 136, 174
Night Rider 117, 119
No More 90, 109, 255
No One Ever Tells You 108
No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car 131
Nobody throw those Bull 179
Noel, Richard 168
Non-Stop (Box Tops LP) 192
Not Fade Away 157
Nothingville 186
O
O Come All Ye Faithful 231
O Little Town of Bethlehem 70
O Sole Mio 85, 286
Oatis, Greg 282, 283, 304
Odets, Clifford 99, 100, 118
Odetta 164
Offenbach, Jacques 90
Ogerman, Claus 181
Oh, Lonesome Me 79
Old MacDonald 159, 168, 169
Old Shep 51
On a Snowy Christmas Night 231, 232
On Stage (album) 205, 208, 210, 211
Once is Enough 138, 139
One Boy, Two Little Girls 140
One Broken Heart for Sale 128, 132, 133
One Night 64, 65, 83, 87, 160, 186
One Track Heart 144, 145
One-Sided Love Affair 38
Only Believe 220
Only the Strong Survive 198
Orbison, Roy 36, 218
Ott, Doy 96
Ottawa Citizen 71, 304
Our Memories of Elvis (album) 290
Our Memories of Elvis, Volume 2 (album) 233
P
Padre 230, 239, 246
Page, June 161
Page, Patti 23
Paloma, La 90, 109
Paradise, Hawaiian Style 154
Paradise, Hawaiian Style (album) .................................................... 154
Paradise, Hawaiian Style (film) 153
Paralyzed 51, 54, 60, 82
Parker, Little Junior 30, 88
Parker, Tom 30, 31, 33, 59, 81, 87, 88, 126, 141, 181, 237, 307
Party 60
Patch It Up 220, 225
Peace in the Valley 53, 55, 58
Peace in the Valley (EP) 48, 58, 62, 69, 96
Penguins, The 79
Perkins, Carl 37, 40, 54
Petunia the Gardener's Daughter 151
Phillips, Sam 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 30, 37, 191
Pieces of my Life 273
Pittsburgh Press (newspaper) 62, 303
Plaisir d'Amour 109
Plantation Rock 126
Platinum: A Life in Music (album) 292
Playing for Keeps 49, 52, 55
Please Don't Drag That String Around 132
Please Don't Stop Loving Me 153
Pledging My Love 281
Pocketful of Rainbows 91
Poison Ivy League 144
Polk Salad Annie 210, 225, 249, 259
Pomus, Doc 112, 117, 137, 167
Poor Boy 48, 95
Porgy and Bess (film) 93
Pot Luck (album) 110, 118, 120, 122, 123, 132, 134, 156
Powell, Dick 82
Power of My Love 197
Presley, Priscilla 89
Price, Lloyd 39, 184
Promised Land 12, 265, 272
Promised Land (album) 14, 267
Proud Mary 210, 248
Prowse, Juliet 92, 94
Puppet on a String 146
Pure Gold (album) 279
Put the Blame on Me 105, 106, 134
Put Your Hand in the Hand 238
Q
Que Sera Sera 79
Quennie Wahine's Papaya 154
Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars 116
R
Rags to Riches 227, 278
Rainey, Ma 209
Raised on Rock 260
Raised on Rock (album) 14, 261, 263
Ramblin' Rose 175
Randolph, Boots 87, 88, 117, 139, 174, 177
Ray, Johnnie 86
Reach Out to Jesus 238, 239
Ready Teddy 50, 53
Reconsider Baby 32, 54, 87, 90, 111, 206
Recorded Live on Stage in Memphis (album) 267
Reddy Teddy 54
Redner, Lewis 70
Reed, Jerry 176, 180, 235
Reese, Della 197
Reeves, Glenn 34
Relax 127
Release Me 209
Reston, James 275
Return to Me 79
Return to Sender 29, 123, 125, 128, 134
Rheinnixen, Die (opera) 90
Rice, Tim 280
Rich, Charlie 273
Richard, Cliff 266
Riddle, Nelson 92, 160
Riding the Rainbow 119
Rip It Up 51
Robbins, Harold 75
Robbins, Marty 240
Robertson, Don 35, 104, 117, 127, 128, 130, 134, 166, 217
Robinson, Edward G 118
Rock-a-Hula Baby 110, 130
Rodgers, Richard 21
Rolling Stone (magazine) 195, 220, 221, 222, 245, 251, 255, 274, 280, 299, 302, 303, 304
Rolling Stones, The 157
Rough Guide to Elvis, The (book) 20, 125, 153, 305
Roustabout 143
Roustabout (film) 126, 135, 143, 144, 306
Roustabout (album) 145
Rubberneckin' 194, 201, 206
Run On 163
Runaway 205
Running Scared 218
S
Saint-Marie, Buffy 233
Salamanca, J R 99
Sand Castles 155
Sanders, Denis 223
Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me) 70
Santa Claus is Back in Town 70, 71
Santa Lucia 137
Sarasota Journal (newspaper) 44, 45, 299
Satisfied 23
Saved 185, 195
Schoenfeld, Herm 22, 106
Schroeder, Aaron 66
Schuman, Mort 167
Scorpio Rising (film) 133
Scott, Winfield 29
Scratch My Back 154
Sedaka, Neil 106, 277
See See Rider 208, 240, 252, 268, 270, 284
Seeing is Believing 235
Send For Me 86
Sentimental Me 104
Separate Ways 12, 243, 244, 245
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (film) 221
Seven Hills of Rome (film) 93
Shadows of Doubt: Negotiations of Masculinity in American Genre Films (book) 302
Shake a Hand 273
Shake That Tambourine 149
Shake, Rattle and Roll 26, 36, 39
Shannon, Del 205
Sharp, Ken 34, 113, 148, 150
Shavers, Charlie 36
She Thinks I Still Care 277
She Wears My Ring 99, 266
She's Not You 117, 121, 125
Shelton, Robert 188
Shenandoah 140
Sholes, Steve 37
Shoppin' Around 91, 92
Shortnin' Bread 171
Shout it Out 152
Show Boat (musical) 99, 151
Show Boat: The Story of a Classic American Musical (book) 303
Showtime (magazine) 171, 305
Shuman, Mort 112, 117, 137
Siegel, Don 94
Sigman, Carl 244
Silent Night 70
Silver Bells 231
Simon and Garfunkel 214
Simpson, Paul 20, 125, 153
Sinatra, Frank 43, 64, 81, 84, 92, 108, 160, 168, 172, 181, 190
Sinatra, Nancy 174, 175
Sing a Song with Riddle (Nelson Riddle album) 160
Sing You Children 170
Singing Tree 178
Sings of the Zodiac 191
Slicin' Sand 108
Smith, Fran 115
Smith, O. J. 191
Smokey Mountain Boy 140
Smorgasbord 155
Snow, Hank 77
Snowbird 226, 227
So Close Yet So Far 149
So Glad You're Mine 38, 52, 77
So High 163
Softly as I Leave You 276
Soldier Boy 78, 82, 83
Solitaire 277
Solo (abandoned film) 81
Somebody Bigger than You and I 162
Someday 197
Something 226, 252
Something Blue 120
Something for Everybody (album) 101, 103, 106, 108, 112
Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child 185
Song of the Shrimp 124
Songs of Faith (The Statesmen album) 161
Sound Advice 114
Sound of Your Cry, The 213, 214, 215
South Pacific (film) 93
South, Joe 210
Spanish Eyes 262, 266
Specht, Joe 305
Speedway 173
Speedway (film) 173, 174, 175, 306
Speedway (album) 175
Speer, Ben 35
Speer, Brock 35
Spidells, The 259
Spinout 156, 171
Spinout (film) 155
Spinout (album) 157, 166
Spring Fever 147
Springfield, Dusty 216
Stafford, Jo 77
Stage Show (TV) 36, 40, 47, 92
Stamps, The 247
Stand by Me 162, 164
Standing Room Only (aborted album) 242, 245
Stanwyck, Barbara 143
Startin' Tonight 147
Starting Today 104
Statesmen, The 96, 161, 163
Stay Away 180
Stay Away, Joe (film) 180
Stay Away, Joe (novel) 178
Steadfast, Loyal and True 75
Steamroller Blues 252, 253
Steppin' Out of Line 110, 144
Steve Allen Show, The (TV) 43, 44
Stoker, Gordon 35, 52, 58
Stoller, Mike 49, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 86, 121, 125, 138, 144, 258
Stone for Danny Fisher, A (novel) 75, 118
Stop Where You Are 154
Stop, Look and Listen 156
Strange, Billy 175, 181
Stranger in My Own Home Town 197, 223
Stranger in the Crowd 215
Strauss, Richard 240
Stravinsky, Igor 13
Stuck on You 82, 83
Such a Night 86, 133
Sullivan, Ed 45, 53, 57
Summer Kisses, Winter Tears 95
Sumner, J. D. 247, 269
Suppose 174
Surrender 98, 122
Susan When She Tried 272
Suspicion 121, 280
Suspicious Minds 157, 190, 196, 205, 210, 246, 250, 254, 261
Sweet Angeline 261
Sweet Caroline 209
Sweet Inspirations, The 210, 285
Swing Down Sweet Chariot 97, 111, 190
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 57
Swingin' Affair, A (Frank Sinatra album) 108
Sylvia 220, 236
T
T.R.O.U.B.L.E. 272
Take Good Care of Her 148, 259, 260
Take Me to the Fair 127
Take My Hand, Precious Lord 58
Tales from the Vienna Woods 90
Tales of Hoffmann, The (opera) 90
Talk about the Good Times 265
Tannhäuser (opera) 13
Taurog, Norman 94
Taylor, Bill 28
Taylor, John Russell 167
Teddy Bear 61, 65, 132, 249, 284
Tell Me Why 59
Tender Feeling 140
Tennessee Waltz 160
Tepper, Sid 108, 124, 127, 130, 156, 177
Terran, Anthony 130
Thanks to the Rolling Sea 125
That's all Right 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 29, 37, 111, 188, 226, 248, 284, 285
That's Entertainment III (film) 66
That's Someone You Never Forget 113, 114
That's the Way it Is (film) 207, 222, 246
That's the Way it Is (album) 215, 220, 221, 222, 224, 240
That's When Your Heartaches Begin 18, 55, 59, 87
There Ain't Nothing Like a Song 174
There Goes My Everything 219, 226, 238
There Is No God But God 238, 239
There's a Brand New Day on the Horizon 145
There's a Honky Tonk Angel 265, 273
There's Always Me 35, 103, 104, 106, 134
There's Gold in the Mountains 140
There's No Tomorrow 79, 85
There's So Much World to See 168
They Remind Me Too Much of You 127
Thing Called Love, A 235
Thinking About You 264
This is Living 119
This Is My Heaven 155
This Is Our Dance 217
This is the Story 192, 201, 206
This Time 196
Thompson, Howard 115, 131, 135, 139, 169
Thorpe, Richard 71
Three Corn Patches 258
Three Dog Night 240
Thrill of Your Love 86
Tiger Man 186, 204, 274
Tillotson, Johnny 198
Times, The (newspaper) 48, 62, 68, 75, 93, 94, 102, 107, 108, 115, 118, 135, 146, 167, 305, 306, 307
To a Wild Rose 90, 156
Toast of the Town (TV) 53, 57
Today (album) 272, 274, 279
Today, Tomorrow and Forever 90, 137, 138
Today, Tomorrow and Forever (album) 41, 292
Toledo Blade (newspaper) 282, 283, 301, 303, 304, 305
Tomorrow is a Long Time 164, 165, 166
Tomorrow Never Comes 218, 219
Tomorrow Night 22, 35
Tonight Is So Right For Love 90
Tonight's All Right For Love 90
Too Much 51, 52, 53
Too Much Monkey Business 180
Torna a Sorrento 98
Treat me Nice 68, 76
Trouble 72, 184
Trouble with Girls, The (film) 97, 189, 190, 201
True Love Travels on a Gravel Road 196
True Story (magazine) 11, 18, 43, 64, 299
Trumpeteers, The 96
Trying to Get to You 27, 30, 35, 39, 52, 187, 268, 286
Tumblin' Tumbleweeds 160
Tutt, Ronnie 204, 268
Tutti Frutti 39
Tweedle Dee 27, 29
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights 212, 213
Twitty, Conway 74
U
U. S. Male 180, 190, 214, 235
Unchained Melody 281, 282, 286
Until It's Time For You To Go 233, 238, 249
Up Above My Head 185
V
Variety (trade journal) 5, 22, 42, 48, 60, 65, 71, 72, 75, 84, 93, 100, 106, 107, 122, 126, 136, 141, 145, 173, 175, 199, 221, 223, 231, 251, 254, 255, 270, 275, 276, 279, 280, 286, 287, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307
Village Voice (magazine) 304
Vino Dinero Y Amor 130
Violet 190
Viva Las Vegas 136
Viva Las Vegas (film) 129, 135, 136, 143, 153, 173, 174
Voice 261, 263
W
Wagner, Richard 13
Wagner, Robert 82
Walk a Mile in My Shoes 210
Walk a Mile in My Shoes (album) 228, 235
Walk on the Wild Side (film) 143
Walker, Ray 97, 172
Walking Dead, The (film) 72
Wallis, Hal 81, 123
Walls Have Ears, The 125
Way Down 280
Wayne, Sid 153
We Call on Him 177
We Can Make the Morning 236, 239
We'll Be Together 124
We're Comin' in Loaded 125
We're Gonna Move 48
We've Only Just Begun 243
Wear My Ring around Your Neck 76, 77, 132
Wearin' that Loved on Look 192
Webber, Andrew Lloyd 280
Weekend Magazine 18, 301
Weiler, A H 155
Weisman, Ben 113, 153
Welcome Home Elvis See Frank Sinatra - Timex Special
Welcome to my World 254
West, Red 113, 122, 165, 166, 230, 235, 243, 263
Western Union 134, 175
What a Wonderful Life 114, 115, 119
What Every Woman Lives For 153
What Now My Love 160, 218, 252, 254, 260
What Now, What Next, Where To 133, 134
What'd I Say 136, 137
What's She Really Like 90
Wheels on My Heels 144
When I'm Over You 217
When It Rains, It Really Pours 31, 33, 63, 65
When My Blue Moon turns to Gold Again 50, 53
When the Saints Go Marchin' In 54, 152
Where Could I Go But to the Lord 11, 163, 185
Where Did They Go, Lord 227
Where Do I Go From Here 243, 245
Where Do You Come From 123
Where No One Stands Alone 164
Whiffenpoof Song, The 190
Whistling Tune, A 115, 119
White Christmas 69
White, Kitty 73
White, Tony Joe 210, 259
Whitmore, Stanford 81
Whittaker, Roger 277
Who Am I 199
Who Are You 174
Who Needs Money 172
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On 227, 234, 254, 269
Whoop-Up (stage musical) 179
Why Me Lord 269
Wild in the Country 102
Wild in the Country (film) 99, 100, 103, 107
Wilde, Marty 74
Williams, Andy 261
Williams, Paul 146, 243, 307
Willis, Chuck 106, 198
Wilson, John S 43, 52, 88
Winter Wonderland 231
Wisdom of the Ages 150
Wiseman, Ben 73
Witchcraft 134
Witchcraft (Presley) 133
Witchcraft (Sinatra) 84
Without Him 162
Without Love 195
Without You 19
Wolf Call 147
Woman Without Love 273
Woman's Weekly (magazine) 223, 307
Wonder of You, The 193, 209, 210, 246
Wonderful World 182
Wonderful World of Christmas 232
Wonderful World of Christmas, The (album) 236
Wood, Bobby 258
Wooden Heart 90
Words 205
Working on the Building 98
World of our Own, A 127
Y
Yankee Doodle Dandy (film) 72
Yellow Rose of Texas, The 138
Yesterday 202, 205
Yoga is as Yoga Does 131, 170
You Asked Me To 263
You Can't Say No in Acapulco 131
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me 216, 217, 220, 248
You Don't Know Me 173, 177
You Gave Me a Mountain 240, 252, 264, 284
You Gotta Stop 170
You'll Be Gone 122
You'll Never Walk Alone 178, 184, 195
You'll Think of Me 192
You're a Heartbreaker 11, 26, 27
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' 225, 249
Young and Beautiful 66, 74
Young Dreams 74
Young, Faron 62
Your Cheatin' Heart 76
Your Groovy Self 175
Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming 265
Your Mama Can't Dance 269
Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby 174
Yradier, Sebastián 90