Good Times
In the summer and the winter of 1973, two of Memphis' greatest music icons met - Elvis Presley and Stax Records. It was a meeting to whet the musical appetite.
Elvis had a glorious history in Memphis behind him. He not only launched his own recording career at Sun Records in the mid-'50s but also the rock'n'roll that swept the world. He then returned to reclaim his crown through the recordings he made at American Sound Studios in 1969. With some remarkable triumphs in the early seventies – including sellout shows at Madison Square Garden and the Aloha from Hawaii satellite show, Elvis was looking for new departures by at Memphis' hottest music house, Stax.
It was a marriage made in music heaven, one that sets the pulses racing even in retrospect. That the sessions fell far short of the creative collaboration anticipated may explain in part why the two Stax sessions of 1973 have been a consistently overlooked area of Elvis' catalogue. But that can't be the only reason. The uneven nature of the three albums issued along with Elvis' failure to conform to critical and popular expectations play the greater part in this neglect. It has long been time to recover and revalue those Stax recordings and restore them to their rightful place in the Elvis catalogue. In many respects, this was the last blast of Elvis as a substantial and creative artist. There were no mammoth sessions for the Elvis Today album of 1975, with Elvis recording exactly the ten tracks required. Many of these tracks were overly-familiar, giving the impression of a career struggling for creativity. After that it proved impossible to get Elvis to return to the studio, with RCA deciding to send its mobile recording unit to Graceland in the attempt to capture whatever Elvis felt like offering. Stax was the last great recording session of Elvis' career.
History is written in various registers. Indeed, it is said that history is written by the victors. But whilst Elvis was a victor if anyone was, it seems that much of the history of Elvis is written by his detractors. Elvis was never quite what others thought he ought to have been, friend and foe alike. He never was at the start, and so it continued throughout his career. It was never too much of an issue when Elvis dominated the charts. But when his songs started to place lower, critics were gifted the opportunity to say where he had gone wrong (or always was wrong). Too old to rock, too many ballads, 'showbiz' and schmaltz and so on. The fact that Elvis' music was poorly packaged and marketed also meant that the consistent artistic thread running throughout his career tended to get lost. This, I contend, is precisely what happened to the songs Elvis recorded at Stax studios Memphis in 1973.
The late sixties and early seventies were 'good times' for a congenial mix of country, soul, rock, blues and ballads as well as gospel, all within a certain pop sensibility. That blending of styles applies to Elvis Presley more than any other artist (listen how he put it all together on his version of Bridge Over Troubled Water). The oddest thing, however, is that Elvis seems always to be treated as a category apart, in a world of his own, Planet Elvis, with occasional forays into the temporal world. And so critics will rave about Dusty Springfield's Dusty In Memphis, as if it is the final word on the above soulful blend, whilst damning Elvis' From Elvis in Memphis in faint praise – an artistic exception to Elvis' general idling in pop and showbiz. This is a nonsense and a travesty. The marathon Nashville sessions of 1970 and 1971 show Elvis continuing to perfect this blending of country, soul, rock etc. Yes, he was pop oriented and yes he had returned to live performance at Las Vegas, with all the razzmataz that that entailed. Purists prefer their blending to be more tasteful and less commercial. So what Elvis did in these years tends to be put to one side. On From Elvis in Memphis, let it be said clearly and forthrightly that Elvis actually recorded at American Sound, singing live in the studio with the crack houseband. The critics' favourite Dusty Springfield did not. She attempted to sing at American but turned tail and ran. When she heard the band she turned white. One of the musicians turned to another and said 'she's not going to last long.' She didn't. The band laid down the tracks and Springfield sang over them, line by painstaking line, on her own in New York. She was a perfectionist, comes the defence. Elvis had a heavy cold when he recorded at American in the January and February of 1969, and you can hear the roughness in his voice. He sang through the imperfections to reach deep soul.
His voice was in much better shape in 1970, when Elvis delivered forty or so stellar recordings in the same vein. In 1971 he explored contemporary folk and ballads in greater depth. Elvis Presley was a leading artist in the late sixties, early seventies development of a contemporary country-soul-pop sound and I'm prepared to go further and state that he was the best, certainly in terms of vocal alone. And yet those who write the histories seem to have written Elvis out of the account, with critics being happy to leave him and his despised fans in their own world. Elvis is not usually included in accounts of the new country rock but he really ought to be, because he was a definite pioneer, going back to his recordings on Sun in 1954 and 1955 but also tracks like Long Lonely Highway and Devil in Disguise in 1963 and Guitar Man in 1967. And then the American Sound recordings of 1969 and the Nashville recordings of 1970 and 1971. What more does a man have to do to get artistic recognition? Elvis' genre-bending and stylistic-blending was pioneering in the 1950s and continued in unrecognised and undervalued ways throughout the rest of his career. It was apparent in his Guitar Man recordings of 1967 and 1968, received an emphatic statement at American Sound in 1969 (Suspicious Minds et al), and was developed further in the Nashville sessions of 1970 and 1971. Also earning a place on that list, and offering a unique sound to the blend, are Elvis' recordings at Stax studios Memphis in 1973. Elvis may have been written off as irrelevant to the contemporary music scene after The Beatles' arrival, but the fact is that he continued to develop his original synthesis in his own unique way. Elvis' contributions here were at least as good as any, and a site better than most. And yet Elvis is ignored, treated as a case apart. Part of this neglect can be attributed to the way music critics tend to write their histories in terms of a fall from grace and loss of innocence. Elvis' early recordings at Sun are treated as the stuff of myth and legend, a Paradise of such pristine purity as to make fall and corruption by way of experience all but inevitable. Many purists even dismissed Elvis' stellar recordings at RCA in 1956 as mechanic pop music off the conveyor belt. And so the story continues as one long inevitable and continuous fall. It's a nonsense, contradicted merely by listening to the recordings that Elvis continued to make. There are quality recordings to be had from every year of Elvis' career, with the possible exception of 1965. The sixties were a fallow period for Elvis. He lost his way in Hollywood as The Beatles et al took pop and rock into other areas. But Elvis continued to record quality: It Hurts Me in 1964, Tomorrow is a Long Time in 1966, Guitar Man in 1967, Big Boss Man in 1968, Suspicious Minds in 1969 and on into the seventies. But, retired from live performance, neglecting serious studio work, focusing on a series of 'sun'n'fun'n'girls'n'girls movies, Elvis seemed tame and lame and 'adult' in the worst sense of the word. The numbers still seemed to be on his side. People watched the films, and bought the soundtrack albums. But the public image Elvis had been saddled with served only to cloud the artist. Elvis remained a culturally dominant figure but was now openly identified with, and a prisoner of, outdated and out of style musical modes. Truth be told, he never really escaped. His triumphant return to live performance resulted in him being trapped on an endless treadmill of shows at Las Vegas.
It was easier to just give in. Whilst critics argue that Elvis did precisely this, they are simply wrong. Elvis may not have won the battles he needed to win, but he fought them more often than his critics ever allow. He may not have been very effective in that fight, but he continually grumbled about the way his songs were being messed around with. He didn't have control over the release of the music and seemed at times to have little idea which albums his songs ended up on. To have the likes of Guitar Man, Big Boss Man, and Tomorrow is a Long Time being issued as 'bonus' songs on lame soundtrack albums was a travesty. But Elvis had signed contracts on movies and albums and was obliged to keep churning out 'product,' to be used whatever way those slicing and dicing the music deemed fit. Elvis was still earning big money and so could easily have carried on in cruise-control. Critics charge that that is precisely what he did. But from the Grammy winning gospel album of How Great Thou Art n 1966 onwards, there are clear signs of Elvis re-asserting himself as an artist, revisiting his R&B roots (Down in the Alley, Come What May, Fools Fall in Love) exploring country (Just Call Me Lonesome) and contemporary country rock (Guitar Man). Elvis' comeback predates the '68 'comeback' Special. It may sound like a very big claim, but it is one that can be justified: Elvis started to record songs that easily stood comparison with the best of his fifties and early sixties' sides. If you don't believe it, then simply draw up a quick shortlist of favourite Elvis songs and I'll bet at least half of that number dates from after the mid-sixties. From Guitar Man onwards Elvis started to release songs in the country-soul-rock-pop-ballad genre that made the extent to which he had developed as an artist abundantly clear. The songs may not have been as world-changing as his fifties sides had been, but they represent something equally difficult to pull off, a continued creative synthesis that wasn't merely rehashing and recycling the past.
Elvis' recordings at American Sound in 1969 is often presented as a brief return to form that was to prove the last gasp of Elvis as a relevant artist. The sessions at American yielded the great hit singles Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, and Kentucky Rain, as well as stunning tracks like Long Black Limousine, I'm Movin' On, Only the Strong Survive, and many more. Critics will then write that the fire was lost with the adult-oriented recordings of 1970 and the return to live performance in Las Vegas. Such criticism is predictable, lazy, and wrong. Elvis was embracing contemporary arrangements more than he ever had, adding a punchy brass section to country, rock, and ballads, singing with soul, delivering songs with big bass grooves. Just compare the recordings from 1969 and after to the tracks before and the truth of that statement is clear. These may not have been the songs that Elvis changed the world with, but they are the songs that he poured his considerable soul into. And that is why these songs from the later period continue to resonate, and in way that Hound Dog does not. That's controversial way of putting it, and we can do without the juxtaposition. Even so, I'm willing to bet that when it comes to favourite Elvis recordings many and maybe even most people will opt for songs from the latter part of Elvis' career over the earlier part. The Elvis from 1967 still sounds contemporary in a way that the Elvis of the fifties and early sixties does not. And the man deserves praise as an artist for the way he not only got 'with it,' but got ahead of it and led the way. The country-rock-pop that sold in shedloads in the 1990s has its roots in Elvis with this key difference – Elvis' songs were emotionally charged, soul-drenched masterpieces.
As a serious chart performer, the real 'last gasp' of Elvis was heard in 1972, with his last near #1 hit, Burning Love, which hit #2. After that, Elvis' singles struggled to make the top forty. There were some top twenty hits, but the days when the Elvis single was guaranteed a strong chart position were gone. The critics seem to take a perverse pleasure in recording Elvis' declining performance as a chart artist. They neglect to mention that critically favoured peers such as Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis had long since disappeared as chart artists, some time in the mid-sixties. Elvis had hung on the longest and was still hanging on at the time of his death in 1977. But there is a certain delight in having one's story of the fall seemingly proven, with Elvis the king being cut down to size. Elvis starts to suffer from ill-health, starts to gain weight, stretching out those iconic jumpsuits that have now dated terribly. Not the least of the tragedies of Elvis was to have died in the decade which taste forgot. Elvis had been a very sharp dresser in his younger days, but opted for jumpsuits in his stage shows for pragmatic reasons. They had a certain flash and were easy to move around in. But it was not a good image to be trapped for all-time in. Case closed: Elvis' star briefly shone, and then began a long, slow, inexorable plummet to Earth. This is the Elvis tale told as a story of constant decline. But it's a morality tale rather than a true history based on the facts of the matter. The appeal lies in the simplistic narrative, of course, with the facts being fitted to the familiar rise and fall tale, the king flying too close to the sun and falling to Earth with a bump. The problem with the tale is that it has to turn the record studded with a series of achievements into one of continuous decline: to which one simply has to say: when there are successive exceptions to a rule, there is no rule at all.
I've mentioned the Grammy award winning gospel of How Great Thou Art in 1966, the country-rock and balladry of 1967-68 (Guitar Man, You Don't Know Me), the American Sound sessions of 1969 (Suspicious Minds) and the Nashville sessions of 1970 (That's the way It Is and Country) and 1971 (the folk inflected rock balladry of I'm Leavin'). It's for critics to up their game here, put aside the simplistic narrative of the fall. and start to properly evaluate the Elvis catalogue.
To that list can be added the recordings that Elvis made at Stax studios Memphis in 1973. The narrative of continuous decline to inevitable demise is not merely simplistic, it is demonstrably false, and survives only by ignoring some of Elvis’ most vibrant and compelling recordings, or by diminishing their quality in order to make them fit the story of decline. The decline narrative is helped immensely by the greedy and short-sighted strategy of RCA to release everything Elvis recorded in order to meet the three album a year schedule. It was a ludicrous schedule that guaranteed artistic and commercial suicide, and so it proved. The material recorded at the two sessions at Stax in the summer and winter of 1973 was released over a series of three albums in 1973, 1974, and 1975. Putting these recordings back together and selecting the cream of the crop, according to quality and coherence of sound nails the decline thesis flat. The game was far from over for Elvis in the mid-seventies: the Stax recordings show Elvis still developing as an artist, still enriching his musical profile. We had entered the songs of experience and Elvis was delivering performances of some considerable weight. In these recordings Elvis revealed himself to be a musical interpreter of great skill and, indeed, soul.
The decision to record at Stax was a bold one, one that couldn't have failed to set the imagination firing. Stax was the home of black soul in Memphis. Elvis being Elvis however decided to do things his own way. He chose to record with his own musicians rather than the house band, although some did play as individuals. There were two Stax sessions in 1973, the first in July, the second in December.
Elvis at Stax is very much Elvis at Stax, with Elvis imposing his own vision on the studio. That may disappoint many. "When you have these two huge icons from the same city, you want it to be more of a blend of those two forces," writes Memphis music historian Robert Gordon. "But this was more of a facility rental for Elvis … there weren't a lot of Stax players involved.
"On one hand, it's not the historic thing you might expect from a Presley/Stax combination, but on the other hand it does represent a time when Elvis was making an effort to declare his independence in a way. And that was a hard process for him."
Despite the unparalled triumph of the Aloha from Hawaii show in January 1973, Elvis was at something of a crossroads in both his career and his personal life. Elvis and his wife Priscilla were in the process of divorcing, and Elvis' spirits were down. Committed to a three-album a year deal, Elvis' recording company RCA were pressing him to deliver more 'product,' but Elvis was reluctant to leave Memphis to record (a mood that increased after 1973).
Stax, Memphis was having as hot a streak as American Sound in 1969, it was very much the place to be, with Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" soundtrack having been released the previous summer. Elvis loved the records coming out of Stax, says Marty Lacker: "He knew Isaac and the Staple Singers and Rufus Thomas and all those folks."
By 1973, Stax no longer rented the studio to outside acts, but felt the opportunity to host Elvis was too special to refuse. Isaac Hayes even gave up the time he'd booked in advance to allow Elvis record.
Elvis and Stax seem like a match made in music Heaven, encouraging Elvis to explore the soul dimensions of his musical identity. Elvis was certainly a soulful singer, and his recordings at American in 1969 certainly qualify as blue-eyed soul. Now he had the opportunity to add a soul sound via the crack Stax house band. That's not what happened. Elvis brought his own musicians, the likes of guitarist James Burton and drummer Ronnie Tutt from his touring band and a number of former American Sound players such as guitarist Reggie Young and bassist Tommy Cogbill). A number of the Stax musicians did, however, get to play, including the MG's bassist Duck Dunn, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and guitarist Bobby Manuel. But it was more of an Elvis sound than a Stax sound. Soul Elvis style. Which is fine. What was a problem was the fact that Elvis was not in good spirits in the first session of July 20-23. Elvis, it was apparent, was still distracted and depressed over his failed marriage. The material selected for the session also left something to be desired. If Elvis was uninspired, so were a lot of the numbers slated for recording. Even the weightier, funkier songs failed to galvanize Elvis into peak performance.
"He was one of my heroes growing up," Bobby Manuel recalls. "I was in awe of the guy, man." He had entered the session presuming that Elvis would be exploring the Stax catalogue. "Originally, we were told we were going to do some Stax-type material with him, Otis Redding's songs — which would've been incredible," Manuel says. "I'm not sure what happened with that plan. There were different songs brought in. People were trying to get him to cut other things. He had a lot of pressure on him, I think. I wish we could have done some of those (Stax) songs, though. I think he would've enjoyed that. In the end, I guess we thought it was gonna be one thing, and it turned out it was another.”
It wasn't confounded expectations that cast a pall over the summer session, though, but Elvis' somewhat distracted mood. Many of the tracks have an unfinished quality, good enough to be released, and pretty decent overall, but always giving the impression that Elvis could have bettered his performances had he worked – and been worked – harder. Indeed, the numbers for the first album had to be made up by a couple of tracks recorded at Elvis' Palm Springs home.
If the July session had failed to live up to expecations, it was an entirely different – and incomparably better – story when Elvis returned to Stax in December.
Whilst the divorce with Priscilla had been made final in October, Elvis' new girlfriend, former Tennessee beauty queen Linda Thompson, seems to have revived his spirits. He had also recovered his health after a long stay in Baptist Hospital that fall for pleurisy and pneumonia.
Elvis returned to Stax in December committed to recording something substantial. He threw himself into proceedings with great gusto. The soundscape was similar to the American recordings from 1969, only much looser and funkier.
Muscle Shoals veteran and bassist Norbert Putnam had worked with Elvis in Nashville in 1970, confirmed that Elvis was in the mood to record "He'd just gone through this horrible divorce. He'd gained a little weight and was not moving as quickly. But as soon we got into it, he quickly came alive." Putnam recalls Elvis taking control of the session. "He used his vocals to lead the band. When the King would get out there and get excited, it changed our dynamics. We really played to him."
Indeed, Elvis was in such good form that he would have the vocal nailed down before the band had hit peak performance, with the musicians asking for further takes.
The convivial atmosphere that had always marked Elvis' most creative sessions had returned. "The King would come in and tell stories and clown around with us until we were totally relaxed," Putnam said. "We'd forget he was the biggest rock-and-roll star in the world. Then he'd say, 'Let's record something.' We would start by 10 p.m., and by 3 or 4 a.m. we'd have half a dozen tracks done, including the vocals. We did something like 18 sides in a week's time, and it was great stuff."
If Elvis' performance had improved, then so had the material, with new songs from the likes of Dennis Linde (writer of Burning Love) and Jerry Reed (writer of Guitar Man) being recorded alongside quality material by Chuck Berry and Waylon Jennings.
Artists often get trapped by their success, losing their artistic nerve and creativity and preferring to stick with what 'works.' That no-one achieved fame and fortune on the scale of Elvis Presley is something that should be born in mind when criticising the directions his music took or, more to the point, didn't take. Few can imagine the weight of expectations bearing down on Elvis given the string of hits and gold records to his name. The traps drain energy and confidence from an artist, with a fear of failure overtaking a willingness to try something new. In no time at all, a successful artist can become struck in a rut, recycling the tried and tested until torpor takes over and routine hardens into shell that squeezes the life out of all it contains. We know that it claimed Elvis in the end. In his biography of Elvis, Careless Love, Peter Guralnick writes that Elvis “constructed a shell to hide his aloneness, and it hardened on his back. I know of no sadder story.” That shell wasn't entirely or even wholly of Elvis' own making. The music 'business' is hard and unforgiving, and not just in the need to sell records but in the need to impress or at least appease critics and live up to the often impossible image adulation brings. The truly amazing thing is that Elvis resisted the success trap as well as he did, surviving a weight and burden of expectation that was way beyond anything any other artist had had to cope with. Rather than record Elvis' triumphs on the way, far too many critics simply funnel the facts into the simple narrative of decline and fall. And in the process the many exceptions to the rule simply get written off transitory, short-lived successes. The truth is that Elvis not only resisted the natural process of increasing rigifity but managed to spring the trap on any number of occasions, to an extent that critics still don't recognize. It is easier, of course, to refer to the jumpsuited image of the seventies or the formulaic films of the sixties than it is to look below the surface at the music that was being recorded. At Stax Elvis exposed another aspect of his musical identity, something funkier and tougher, whilst being clothed in his trademark style. The choice of material and approach didn't conform to expectations, with Elvis doing things his own way, with songs and musicians he knew well. Almost twenty years after his breakthrough at Sun studios Memphis, Elvis was continuing to enrich and deepen his original synthesis of country, blues and pop, adding gospel, soul, and ballads to the potent mix. And yet critics seem more concerned with criticising Elvis for no longer being twenty-one. As Elvis grew up, so did his music. It's about time others did.
In 1973 Elvis had two recording sessions at Stax Studios, Memphis. The first session was in the summer, taking place between July 21 and July 24, the second between December 10 and December 16. In between, Elvis recorded a couple of tracks at his Palm Springs Home. All told, the sessions yielded enough material for three albums. And yet, for all that Elvis was productive, the sessions have never received much by way of acclaim, and nothing by way of comparison with the American Sound sessions in Memphis in 1969. Expectations were high. Stax was the home of black soul in Memphis, and Elvis had a number of Booker T's MG's on hand to back him up. The albums were critical and commercial failures, seeing Elvis disappear down the charts (or barely make it in the case of the Good Times album), with some critics telling him to retire if this was the best he could manage. That reception is a travesty. In restrospect, freeing Elvis from impossible rock'n'roll expectations, it is possible to see Stax '73 as Elvis' mature update of his original Sun synthesis of blues, rock, country, and gospel. The result might not have been Stax soul exactly, but it was certainly Elvis Soul. The problem, as ever, was both critical and popular expectations which could not but contrast the real Elvis with the artist they thought Elvis should be. Elvis himself was interested in recording some soulful country and ballads, and his efforts here can now be appreciated in a way that they couldn't at the time. Elvis, that is, anticipated the country rock/pop that went huge in the 1990s. He was a ahead of the game, and ahead of those whose tastes were stuck in the familiar and the conventional. A further problem, as ever, was RCA's determination to release everything that was recorded rather than select the very best and focus on promoting the one strong album over the long-run. To RCA, Elvis' music was merely 'product,' and Elvis was contracted to deliver three albums a year. This was a recipe for artistic devaluation, but also commercial failure. It inverted the principles of good marketing, which focuses on quality control and the long-run. Three albums a year means an album every three months, releasing each for a short-term gain before moving on. That's precisely how the Stax '73 material was treated, treating good and indifferent material alike as 'product' to be shifted, diluting quality, and diminishing the profile of the albums released. I was very young 1973 to 1975, still under ten, but I do remember the period well. Elvis seemed to be struggling to find a place in the contemporary world. The first album released was Raised on Rock (October 1973). It made little impact. There must have been high hopes for the single released from the album, which was listed as a double A-side. Raised on Rock was written by Mark James, the writer of Elvis' #1 smash hit from 1969, Suspicious Minds. For Ol' Times Sake was written by Tony Joe White, the writer of Polk Salad Annie. The single peaked at a disappointing #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 27, 1973. It also performed poorly in the UK, hitting #36. This was the only single released from the album, although I do remember hearing I Miss You on the radio. The album performed poorly and even failed to chart in the UK, which can only be considered a huge disappointment given that it was Elvis not only back in Memphis but recording at the home of black soul. The situation promised so much more. The second album released, made up (largely) of tracks from the second session of December 1973 fared little, if any, better. Indeed Good Times was the first mainstream Elvis release relegated to the 'cut out' or remainder bins. There were two singles, which were at least hits. I Got a Thing About you Baby, written by Tony Joe White, hit a modest US #39 and UK #33. And the French ballad My Boy, written by Jean-Pierre Bourtayre and Claude François, with English lyrics by Phil Coulter and Bill Martin, and which hit US #20 and UK #5. The third album, Promised Land, hit US #47 in the album charts and UK #21. The conventional wisdom holds that the material on Promised Land was the second pick from the December 1973 session, with the songs considered the strongest issued on Good Times. Whether this view is true depends on who was doing the selecting and why. Just as the Promised Land album fared better in the charts than the previous two albums, so too did the singles. The title track, a Chuck Berry cover hit US #14 and UK #9. Its flip side, "It's Midnight", reached #9 on the US Country Charts. If You Talk in Your Sleep hit a very creditable US #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 (August 1974) and a poor UK #40. Those are the bare facts and figures and they tell a fairly underwhelming story. For all of the promise of the Stax sessions, it seems clear that they were no American Sound '69, there seemed to be no great 'Elvis at Stax' album to match From Elvis in Memphis, and no great series of singles like In the Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, Don't Cry Daddy, and Kentucky Rain. But bare facts and figures reveal nothing in themselves. Rather than argue the merits of each album, Raised on Rock, Good Times, and Promised Land, I shall instead focus on the material, identifying the strongest tracks, blending tracks better according to style, and arguing that once the focus is on the strength of the Stax '73 material those supposedly disappointing sessions appear in new light. I repeat, Elvis Stax '73 constitutes a mature update of Elvis' original Sun synthesis, with the country and ballad influence now coming out strongest.
To repeat, the two Stax sessions of 1973 resulted in three albums of middling to good quality. Raised on Rock contains good material but lacks something in the execution. Elvis sounds uncommitted at times and some of the tracks sound like works still progress. At this point Elvis could really have benefitted from having a producer like Chips Moman at American Sound in 1969, someone who would have worked Elvis harder, driving him on to the performances he had within him. Good Times is a very fair album indeed, much underrated in my book, with three or four outstanding tracks. There are also a number of country ballads and standards which, although good in themselves, give the album a certain middle-of-the-road feel that detracts from the excellent material. Promised Land is an uneven album, with a couple of outsanding country rockers, meaty country ballads, but also some lightweight material, which is decent enough just a little inconsequential and detracting from the album.
Rather than review each album, I shall divide the material into two themed selections, ensuring that the tracks selected complement and enhance one another in a consistent and cogent style. I shall add the tracks which I consider to be the best from the July '73 session with the tracks from the December '73 session.
Stax Good Times 1973
01 Promised Land; 02 Raised On Rock; 03 Loving Arms; 04 It's Midnight; 05 I Got A Feelin' In My Body; 06 If That Isn't Love; 07 I've Got A Thing About You Baby; 08 For Ol' Times Sake [alt. take]; 09 You Asked Me To; 10 My Boy; 11 If You Talk In Your Sleep; 12 There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In); 13 Talk About The Good Times; 14 Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues. I maintain that these selections represent the stronger tracks of the Stax '73 sessions, stronger not simply in terms of quality - there is quality among the tracks not selected - but in terms of contemporary sound and feel. The tracks here offer a very substantial statement of the mature country rock and balladry Elvis was aiming for as a contemporary artist. My view is that these fourteen selections prove that he had succeeded in his ambitions.
01 Promised Land This is a suberb cover of the Chuck Berry classic, a turbo-charged rocker that rightly saw some good chart action. It offered proof that Elvis could still rock hard, and the impact of electric guitar and keyboards racing to the end makes for a thrilling ride.
02 Raised On Rock This was the first single from the sessions and big things were expected of it, having been written by Mark James of Suspicious Minds fame. Critics seemed more concerned with the anomaly of the King of Rock'n'Roll claiming to have been 'raised on rock,' the genre he was supposed to have created in the first place. Anomalies aside, it's a substantial medium paced rocker with a pulsating beat.
03 Loving Arms Warm and heart-wrenching rendition of the beautiful Tom Jans ballad, Elvis' expressive and emotionally charged version of a much covered song is outstanding. One of Elvis' best (at least, it makes my list of the best twenty Elvis songs).
04 It's Midnight Elvis delivers a towering vocal performance on this substantial country ballad. A hugely impressive track.
05 I Got A Feelin' In My Body Funky soul-drenched rock gospel, with Elvis rocking hard.
06 If That Isn't Love Exceptional gospel balladry, with Elvis delivering a powerful vocal of incredible emotional depth and intensity.
07 I've Got A Thing About You Baby A very catchy, mid-tempo swamp rocker written by Tony Joe White, this was considered strong enough to be a single release. It was a modest hit, but sounds wonderfully easy and breazy on the album.
08 For Ol' Times Sake [alt. take] A low-key Tony Joe White folk ballad, this was released as the flip to the 'Raised on Rock' single. It's a beatifully resigned song and receives a vocal to match. Soft and elegiac.
09 You Asked Me To Superb country rocker, with excellent guitar work from James Burton. The song was written by Billy Joe Shaver and Waylon Jennings and had been recently recorded by Jennings for his 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes, released in October 1973. Which is to say that if there is a criticism to be made, it is that a lot of the material lacks originality and would have been considered familiar at the time. That may go some way to explain the neglect at the time of release. Over time, however, it is possible to consider the tracks on their individual merits, and this is outstanding.
10 My Boy Powerful dramatic ballad drawing one of the great emotional performances from Elvis. The song is of French origins and had been recorded by actor Richard Harris in 1971, reaching US #41. This is strong material and Elvis delivers a vocal of great power and emotional intensity. The result was a very decent hit in the US, reaching #20, and a massive hit in the UK, hitting #5.
11 If You Talk In Your Sleep A contemporary soul number and something of a departure for Elvis. That new style seems to have been something Elvis had in mind at the July '73 sessions, (If You Don't Come Back, for instance). If it didn't quite come off then, it did here. The track is packed with dynamic shifts pulling the languid funky groove along in the teeth of forward momentum — horns, guitar, electric keyboard. All of which is enveloped by cutting strings and thick background vocals. All the while Elvis delivers a masterful vocal that is one part plea, two parts command. As a single, the track hit a very decent US #17. It's a very strong and contemporary recording and is long overdue being accorded due respect in the Elvis catalogue. It's a great track that rarely if ever receives a mention in the histories. The track is one of those inconvenient facts that contradict a conventional tale that has long been overdue revision. .
12 There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In) A substantial country ballad which begs, and receives, a towering vocal performance from Elvis.
13 Talk About The Good Times Written by Jerry Reed, this is Guitar Man rewritten in country gospel revivalist mode. It's nowhere near as well-known as Guitar Man, and perhaps typecast by its overtly nostalgic tones. But it's an infectious and upbeat country rocker that deserves to be better known.
14 Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues Simply one of Elvis' best ever recordings, with a guitar part and an overall mood that savours a little of Bread's Make it With You. The song unfolds in a gently sorrowful and shuffling way via understated percussion and simple guitar. As from the very start of his career, Elvis excels when it comes to heart-wrenching heartbreak. It's a slow and sorrowful beauty, and makes my selection for one of my most favourite eight Elvis songs.
I put the more substantial ballads and country ballads with this selection to make for the most impressive statement possible with respect to the Stax '73 material. I kept the more ostensibly country, middle-of-the-road, and easy listening material over for the second selection.
Stax Soul Country 1973
01 Take Good Care Of Her; 02 For Ol' Times Sake; 03 Find Out What's Happening; 04 If You Don't Come Back [alt. take 3]; 05 I Miss You; 06 Help Me; 07 Spanish Eyes; 08 Are You Sincere?; 09 She Wears My Ring; 10 Just A Little Bit; 11 Mr. Songman; 12 Love Song Of The Year; 13 Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming; 14 Thinking About You.
This is a fairly innocuous mix of country songs, easy listening and nice ballads. If there isn't anything here that is particularly outstanding, you can still see why RCA could issue all of it alongside the substantial material to make for three decent albums. It all depends on your approach to commerce and art. I would suggest that exercising quality control over against quantity makes the best artistic and commercial sense in the long run. The tracks in this set are decent but should never be allowed to become predominant at the expense of better material. At the same time, these selections are of a pretty decent standard. Rather than denigrate this material as the second pick of the Stax '73 sessions, I would describe them as adult-oriented songs which fit together to make a consistent easy listening album. If it doesn't do much to promote Elvis as a contemporary artist (the first selection does that), it's a decent selection.
01 Take Good Care Of Her A very good ballad of some vintage. Written in 1961 by Arthur Kent and Ed Warren and recorded by Adam Wade, it hit US #7 on the Hot 100 and #20 on the R&B charts. Johnny Tillotson, Dean Martin, and Sonny James also released versions in the sixties. Indeed, Johnny Mathis recorded a version the same year as Elvis, with Elvis hitting US Billboard Easy Listening #27 to Mathis' #40, with Elvis also scoring #4 on the Country charts and #39 on the Hot 100. Numbers aside, is the song any good? The simple answer is 'yes,' Elvis' rendition is very warm. My memories at the time, however, was that this was a terribly mournful way to open an album, setting the wrong tone for what was to come. I felt that the song needed to be better blended with material of a similar kind. It's good, though, and was considered substantial enough to merit single release.
02 For Ol' Times Sake A soft and slow folk ballad written by Tony Joe White. It receives a suitably delicate vocal performance from Elvis. It's very low-key, and Elvis delivers the material with applomb. From the July '73 session.
03 Find Out What's Happening This is one of those tracks from the July '73 session that fails to deliver on its promise. It's a decent shuffling blues, in the manner of Big Boss Man, but seems undecided between hitting with power or moving by grooving. It's one of those tracks that leads me to draw the conclusion that Elvis needed a stronger producer at the session, someone like American's Chips Moman, who would push Elvis to deliver the performance he was capable of. It's OK, but Elvis could have done better with this material.
04 If You Don't Come Back [alt. take 3] As above, it's OK but Elvis could have done better. In fact, I prefer alternate take 3 to the released version. There is a strangely lifeless and soulless sound to the production on the album versions of the July '73 material, and I'd suggest that people listen to the undubbed versions and alternate takes to get a sense of how much more soulful and vital 'raw Elvis' was.
05 I Miss You Also from the July '73 session, this is soft sentimental ballad, of the kind Elvis does very well indeed. Elvis has a voice that was made for sad and pretty melodies and this is a beauty. I remember it being played on the radio at the time. I think it may have been the late night show on local radio. I loved the track and came away with the impression that this was a single release, following up the likes of Always on My Mind. In later years I came to see that the song had never been released as a single, was never the hit I thought it had been, and had passed by almost entirely unnoticed. Which is a shame. If it is a tad too sentimental, and yet another song of regret for love lost by way of neglect - sad man at the bar crying into his beer as a result of self-inflicted misery due to careless neglect of significant other - then it's still a quietly beautiful song. Sentimental folk with tendencies to cry into their beers over self-inflicted misery grace of neglect of people they should have cared more for will love it.
06 Help Me Country gospel at its finest. In the manner of Why Me Lord? and Kris Kristofferson. It's the kind of material that can sound strange to non-US ears, or even to liberal ears, seeming to be very conservative and rooted in a certain time and place. Kristofferson is unusual in this regard, in being a liberal who affirms the messages contained in such God-fearing songs. This is a very good example of the genre.
07 Spanish Eyes Elvis delivers a very beautiful rendition of the familiar Latin ballad. What to make of it? This is Elvis retreading his early sixties Latin phase, and you could easily place this alongside tracks like No More. Elvis loved the Latin ballads, as he loved ballads generally. The only problem here is that the material was already well-covered and well-known, so the likelihood of such material having a great impact was minimal. At the time, it gave the impression of a career idling to nowhere in particular, very pleasant but inconsequential. Decades past such considerations we can now hear it as a very beautiful track and appreciate it for its intrinsic qualities as a good song.
08 Are You Sincere? As above. This is Elvis returning to his early sixties balladeering, with a song that is very much in the mould of Are You Lonesome Tonight? It's so incredibly outdated that it should never have worked. But it is material that could have been made for Elvis, who wraps his rich, warm vocals around it to deliver a beautiful rendition. Listening to it, it is impossible not to hear echoes of Elvis at the very start of his career nervously attempting I Love You Because, and appreciate what a truly accomplished ballad singer Elvis had become. Had this been number one for weeks like Are You Lonesome Tonight? I would not have been remotely surprised. But, as a very old and very familiar track, recorded previously by the likes of Andy Williams, it remained an album track. I could easily have selected it among the first pick of material.
09 She Wears My Ring It's a very good song but, again, a very well known song. Elvis, surely, needed new and unfamiliar material, something distinctively his own to offer a new public. He had done it in '69 with Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto. Such material is, of course, hard to come by. She Wears My Ring is a fine song, an English language adaptation of La golondrina, with lyrics by Felice Bryant and Boudleaux Bryant. Again, it sounds like Elvis returning to his early sixties balladeering, only with a more mature voice rendered richer and more rounded by experience. It had been recorded by Roy Orbison in 1961, also by Solomon Burke. The impression, again, is one of old-fashioned familiarity. It's good, but of its type.
10 Just A Little Bit This is another of those rhythm numbers from the July '73 that could have been better. It seems that Elvis was aiming at a slinky soulful groove, the kind he achieved in the December session with If You Talk in Your Sleep. The July recordings sound unfinished to me, like good first attempts needing greater work. It's an R&B number recorded by Rosco Gordon in 1959, also recorded by Little Milton and Roy Head. Elvis is coming to it late in the day and maybe trying to stamp his own mark on it. It's OK, but Jerry Lee Lewis' version recorded at the same time is much punchier.
11 Mr. Songman It's a lightweight sentimental singalong of no particular musical merit, but Elvis sings it so well as to render it irresistible. And the sentiment personifies something that Elvis represented to his many fans:
Here's another dime for you, Mr. Songman Sing the loneliness of broken dreams away, if you can Yes it's only me and you, Mr. Songman Take away the night sing away my hurt, Mr. Songman
It's a slight song, and a little corny in its tale of a road-worn entertainer, but it received a deeply felt, sympathetic reading from Elvis to become something very moving. Corny as heck, but no less true for being that.
12 Love Song Of The Year As a love song it's OK but unlikely to win any plaudits in any year. It's the kind of song that sounds better than it is owing to Elvis' affecting delivery.
13 Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming A decent country singalong with a memorable big-voiced chorus.
14 Thinking About You Amiable if unremarkable. It's a lightweight pop tune, the kind of which could fill a little slot on an album. The problem with such numbers is that three or more on an album can seriously weaken the impact of better material. That, I would suggest, was the fate of the three Stax albums.
In conclusion, the two Stax sessions of July and December 1973 generated a number of substantial tracks which offered a mature updating of Elvis' original Sun synthesis of blues, country, gospel, rock, and ballads. If Elvis doesn't rock with the old vitality, he now possesses a voice of real gravitas, allowing him to tackle stronger ballad and gospel material. There are sufficient tacks of quality from the recordings of 1973 to make for one very substantial album, positioning Elvis as a contemporary country rock/ballad artist. Instead, the lesser tracks were mixed with the better tracks to make for three decent but uneven and sometimes incoherent albums. It's impossible to aim for too great a precision with Elvis, for the simple reason that he had always combined disparate and seemingly contradictory musical influences. Only Elvis could have gone into Stax, the home of black soul in Memphis, and recorded Spanish Eyes and Are You Sincere? with half of Booker T's MGs. That's quintessential Elvis and you are fool if you try to make too much sense of it.
I shall end with brief comments on the tracks I left out.
It's Diff'rent Now Promising ballad but left unfinished.
Three Corn Patches A rocker written by Leiber and Stoller, but which Elvis is unable to swing. It savours a little of A Mess of Blues, but either the song or the performance is leaden. Elvis labours hard but the old swagger isn't quite there. It's another of those 'could have been better' rhythm tracks on Raised on Rock. Together, they make for a less than satisfying experience.
Girl Of Mine An innocuous pop singalong, it's a feelgood song and is effective enough for what it is. A track like this works best when slipped in between more substantial and intense material, as light relief. It's a bright and breezy song, written by Barry Mason, a Welsh songwriter who penned Delilah, and Les Reed.
Sweet Angeline Painfully earnest homage to the woman of one's dreams. I've never been persuaded that women are ever remotely excited by such pristine paeans of praise to their impossibly sweet beauty. It sounds like the kind of thing that a well-meaning but clueless man would sing thinking he's making all the right noises. It has a delicate beauty and is beautifully phrased by Elvis, and also has some gorgeous harmonies. I'll take it back, it's actually a very nice song with the kind of quiet qualities that are easy to miss. I really should find a way of including it. Elvis really was a fine singer, even his worst songs are beauties.
The material recorded at the two Stax sessions would be issued in the usual RCA way, which is to say thoughtlessly and haphazardly. The results of the July session were issued on the patchy Raised on Rock album, with a couple of the stronger tracks left over for single release (and later release on the Good Times album – I Got a Thing About You Baby and Take Good Care of Her). The material recorded at the December session was released on two separate LPs: Good Times in 1974 and Promised Land in 1975. It's often claimed that Good Times was the first pick of the session and Promised Land the second, but that doesn't seem true given the substantial quality of tracks like Promised Land, You Asked Me To, and There's a Honky Tonk Angel. It's often hard to discern how RCA selected material for the albums, give the company's tendency to see all of Elvis' music as 'product.' Indeed, the Stax albums themselves crowded out in the usual deluge of product which included budget albums, the first Legendary Performer release, another live album and the simply bizarre Having Fun with Elvis on Stage, which consisted of nothing but Elvis' between songs words in concert. (The mercenary genius that was Elvis' miscreant mismanager Tom Parker had discovered that RCA had no claim to Elvis' spoken words, so saw clean profit for himself on his Boxcar label at fans' expense. He should have been cut out of Elvis' 'business' early on).
Elvis at Stax is a curiously overlooked part of Elvis' career and it's hard to explain why. If the albums were commercial failures, they were still decent records. Even if the strategy of issuing everything as opposed to selecting the cream resulted in albums of uneven quality, both Good Times and Promised Land were very good albums, and certainly much better than either of the Elvis Now and Elvis Fool albums. In terms of individual songs, certain performances stand out as among the best of Elvis' career. I'm on record for stating that Loving Arms and Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues count among my most favourite twelve Elvis tracks. There are several other tracks of that quality at the Stax sessions, tracks such as You Asked Me To, Talk About the Good Times, If That Isn't Love and many more. Enough time has now elapsed for ephemeral considerations of commerce, popularity, and expectation to be put to bed and the material appreciated for its true quality. "Because Elvis had set such a high bar, the (Stax) sessions haven't always been considered among his legendary material," says Robert Gordon. "But when you listen now, it's sort of a revelatory experience." That's been my view for a long time. In fact, I remember listening to the Good Times at the time it was released and thinking it a beauty. I went off Elvis for a long time in the 1980s and slowly found my way back in the 1990s. Good Times was one of the albums I returned to first in reviving my lifelong love of Elvis' music. In fact, I'd say that Good Times, That's the Way It Is, Gold Records volume 4, and The Sun Collection were the four key albums in bringing me back to Elvis.
The recordings at Stax in 1973 would not be the last Elvis would make in Memphis. Refusing to enter the recording studio in 1976, RCA sent its mobile recording unit to Elvis' home in Graceland to record whatever Elvis felt in the mood to sing. Elvis' final recording session took place in the Jungle Room at Graceland. There's a harrowing truth and beauty to those final recordings, which do indeed sound like a man at the end of his tether saying goodbye to love. But it is the Stax tracks of 1973 which offer the last blast of Elvis as a creative artist, the last big statement of his original musical fusion before the fading away of the final years. I'm not sure it was a musical decline that followed so much as an exhausted Elvis being overtaken by 'events.' If it all has the mark of fate, destiny, and inevitability about it, that is because we are reading backwards from known fact. If we go back to Stax '73 and look at the music as music, paying no regard to critical and popular expectation, it is hard not to see a very good future on the horizon for Elvis. 'Country' artists in the 1990s sold millions of albums containing material of far inferior quality to the Elvis recordings at Stax. Elvis not only anticipated later developments, he did it all better than those who came after. It's time to challenge and change the story of decline and fall.