Love Letters from Elvis
Recorded June 4–9, 1970 Released June 16, 1971 Genre: Soft rock pop country gospel Length: 32:40 Label: RCA Producer: Felton Jarvis
Love Letters from Elvis is the fourteenth studio album by Elvis Presley. Released June 16, 1971, the album consists of songs recorded in Nashville a year earlier in June 4-9, 1970. That session had resulted in 35 masters, the best of which had been released on the That's the Way It Is and Elvis Country albums plus a number of singles. Love Letters From Elvis is therefore typically dismissed as a third pick from the leftovers of the marathon June session. Seeing possibilities for a third album from the June 1970, RCA set producer Felton Jarvis to work selecting, mixing, and overdubbing the remaining songs.
With that inauspicious background it is hardly surprising that the album was critically panned upon release, with little sign of a reappraisal in the decades since. One major, and inescapable, problem confronting the album is that it follows in the trail of its two illustrious predecessors That's The Way It Is and Elvis Country. Those albums had raised expectations to a level that the third pick of material simply could not meet.
Love Letters From Elvis is indeed what it is, a gathering together of the tracks from the June 1970 session that had yet to be released on album. Whilst third pick implies third best, as in mediocre, an examination of the album on a track by track basis yields a more generous view. It's far from being the greatest Elvis album, but it's a curious one, blending a little bit of That's the Way It Is with a little bit of Elvis Country some leftfield single releases that aimed for something big but missed and occasional bursts of energy. The addition of certain songs that had been held back for single release would have strengthened the album immeasurably.
I shall take each track contained on the album in turn.
Love Letters (E. Heyman, V. Young) 2:50
This is a soulful reworking of Elvis' cool and classy 1966 hit version. The pianist on the 1966 version, David Briggs, insisted that he could improve on his piano part, so Elvis duly obliged, singing in his new mature style. The vocal is rich and involved and the organ support gives this version a real gospel flavour. The 1966 and 1970 versions are like chalk and cheese, and which one you prefer depends on whether you like chalk or cheese. It is perfectly possible to like both. The 1966 version is icy in its purity, the 1970 version is warm and rich and bathed in gorgeous textures. The only qualification I would make is that Elvis is singing as a favour to his pianist and his vocal is a work in progress – good but not finished.
When I'm Over You (Shirl Milete) 2:30
This is a decent mid-tempo country number, with some nice guitar picking, an easy rhythm, and an appealing uplifting arrangement. It's not the greatest song in the world, but could have made a better opener for Elvis Country than Snowbird.
If I Were You (G. Nelson) 3:02
This is an amiable mid-tempo country stroll with a gently insistent beat. A point that is worth making is that not every track an artist records needs to be a world-beater. There's room for the pleasant and the understated, and this is a rather charming and catchy number. Had there been a slot available on Elvis Country, this track could easily have filled it and not seemed out of place, serving the same purpose as It Keeps Right on a Hurtin' does on Elvis in Memphis.
Got My Mojo Working / Keep Your Hands Off Of It (Preston Foster) 4:36
Loose as a goose and very thrilling, this is a jam edited and polished as best it could be release. There are added horns and backing vocals to give it the finished feeling, which is perhaps understandable. Personally, I preferred the full jam, raw and raucous, unadulterated and lively as hell. This polished version retains something of the edge and spontaneity. If only Elvis had recorded an Elvis Blues album!
Heart Of Rome (Blaikley, Stephens, Howard) 2:58
And now we come to the 'near misses.' Heart of Rome is a big voiced, semi-operatic, Neapolitan-style ballad in the tradition of It's Now or Never and Surrender. Elvis started the sixties having huge hits with ballads, singing in a new style, and it seems that he was attempting to repeat the trick with songs such as this. It's powerful and infectious, with Elvis singing at the top of his range. The track was considered good enough for single release, going out as the flip of I'm Leavin', but made little impact on the great public. The vagaries of the making of a hit record make for an uncertain science. This is one of those songs which, if it catches the public mood, could go big, or disappear off the radar. As it is, we can count it as one of the album's near hit singles.
Only Believe (Paul Rader) 2:49
Everything about this song suggests quality. Only Believe is an inspirational song written by evangelist Paul Rader and has the insistent gospel swing of Amazing Grace. Elvis puts his heart and soul into it and sings with great power and technique, evincing the perfect blend of emotion and control. The song could easily have found a place as one of the stronger cuts on the Grammy award winning He Touched Me, the material for which was recorded a year later in 1971. The song was issued as a single with Life.
This Is Our Dance (Geoff Stephens, Les Reed) 3:16
This is Our Dance is a warm and romantic waltz with a very light touch. It's a ballad that is perfect for a certain kind of mature crooner, and comes over as a genteel version of Engelbert Humperdinck's The Last Waltz. Whether that's a good thing depends on your own tastes. Some people like this kind of romantic ballad. And Elvis always said that he sang 'all kinds' of songs.
Cindy, Cindy (Weisman, Fuller, Kaye) 2:32
To my ears, the undubbed version is more thrilling than the released version, retaining more of the looseness and spontaneity and having more guitar. It depends. The overdubbed version adds a horn section which places it more in the brash sounds of the Las Vegas live act. It's a fine uptempo romp through a traditional number.
I'll Never Know (Weisman, Karger, Wayne) 2:25
This is a gentle ballad to the accompaniment of strummed guitar, soft strings and crooning choirs. As such, it savours a little of Mary in the Morning on That's the Way It Is. There's room on an album for a track such as this. Mary was the pick, but I'll Never Know could easily have been selected.
It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing) (Joy, Merritt, Hall) 2:48
An appealing plod with a distinctly country sound and a warm vocal. The track's merits would have been better appreciated had it been placed alongside the songs on Elvis Country. The simple truth is that Elvis had a wealth of strong cuts available for selection for the Country album, which meant that the decent and the amiable missed out. I repeat, a track like this could have filled a slot on Elvis Country in the same way that the gentle country of It Keeps Right on a-Hurtin' found a place among the strong meat of From Elvis in Memphis. Perception is everything when the focus is on the superficial. Critics praise From Elvis in Memphis and the Memphis '69 recordings to the skies, and rightly so. But the same critics also pan some of the material from Nashville 1970 whilst failing to see the continuities.
Life (Shirl Milete) 3:12
An oddball song and single release which comes from leftfield. Rather than do the easy thing and join critics in writing the track off, I class it as an ambitious – if pretentious – failure. This is a stab at some kind of pseudo-philosophical spiritual statement concerning life and love. To my ears, the melody savours a great deal of the saccharine Honey by Bobby Goldsboro. It was the kind of time when indolent imaginations could imagine pretentious 'spiritual but not religious' statements set to cloying melodies could yield a sizeable hit record. I'd have given anything to have seen Elvis top the charts with this philosophical peroration on the evolution of life and love. It would have stumped critics once and for all with its most unPresleyan lyric and offered proof positive that Elvis did indeed sing 'all kinds.' 'For life is love, And love is life.' Quite so. The song was coupled with the more traditional spirituality of Only Believe, peaking at #53 on the US Billboard Hot 100, #34 on the Country chart, and #8 on the Easy Listening chart. For what it is, I consider such positions as very creditable. The Billboard review characterises the song as "a gospel-oriented ballad that builds into a heavy production," which rather understates what it actually is. I don't think Billboard quite knew what to make of it. File under plain odd. And worth the price of admission alone.
And that, in sum, was the Love Letters From Elvis album. Taken individually, the tracks have a certain merit whilst suffering from certain limitations; gathered together in one place, the effect can be decidedly uninspiring – the album never quite takes flight. The Love Letters album, I would argue, could have been strengthened immeasurably by the addition of three tracks which were destined for single release.
The Sound Of Your Cry (Giant/Baum/Kaye) 3:16
This is a strong, dramatic ballad recorded June 1970, eliciting from Elvis a highly emotional and superbly controlled vocal. The song was immediately identified for its hit potential and left off album release. It comes over as something of a cross between the more restrained I've Lost You and the overblown You Don't Have to Say You Love Me and fits easily alongside those single releases. The song could easily have found a place on the That's the Way It Is album, injecting some overwrought emotionalism alongside the restraint. Issued as the flip side to It's Only Love in 1971 it reached #19 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, falling into obscurity thereafter until issued on the Elvis in Demand album of 1977. Something of a lost song, The Sound of Your Cry would have strengthened Love Letters from Elvis considerably.
Where Did They Go Lord? (Dallas Frazier) 2:30
Elvis returned to the studio in September 1970 in order to cut a couple of sides to complete the country album. He also had his eyes on cutting a new single. Where Did They Go Lord? is a powerful country gospel ballad which draws a truly inspirational performance from Elvis. It is a weighty song that would have beefed up Love Letters From Elvis, and made listeners more appreciative of the relief offered by the more genial numbers on the album. Balance and blend is all important to an album.
Rags To Riches (Jerry Ross, Richard Adler) 1:57
Where Did They Go Lord? was issued as the flip side to Rags to Riches, a single for which Elvis had high hopes in 1971. A huge #1 hit for Tony Bennett in 1953, Elvis' version owes more to R&B and Billy Ward and Jackie Wilson. Elvis puts in a powerhouse performance, entering with a climax and then raging on. For a ballad, Elvis' take rocks hard and is as aggressive as it is despairing. I felt it a certain #1 when I first heard it and played it over and again. On reflection, the power needed to be more tempered to allow a greater nuance in the emotions. The effect is exhausting. It could have been huge but instead became a modest US hit peaking at #45. Where Did They Go Lord? was first issued on album on 1978's He Walked Beside Me, Rags to Riches was first issued on album on 1977's Hits from the Seventies. They offer two more examples of good songs that tended to get lost in the vagaries of the Elvis catalogue and its release.
Sylvia (Geoff Stephens, Les Reed) 3:18
Sylvia seems perfectly fitted for release on the Love Letters album. It's a big emotional ballad that Elvis sings with force and passion. The problem is that Elvis' vocal is infinitely superior to the inadequate material. That Sylvia was overlooked for Love Letters should tell you how little the song was regarded; that it eventually turned up on the Elvis Now album of 1971 indicates how badly RCA blew the opportunity of releasing an Elvis 'folk' album drawing on his 1971 sessions. Simply put, Elvis' music was appallingly treated by his record company, making the worst out of the best.
Something (George Harrison) 3:37
Elvis first performed George Harrison's Something live on 10th August 1970 at Las Vegas. It's inclusion on Love Letters would have been a huge draw, functioning in the manner of the live inserts on That's The Way It Is.
I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago 3:30
This is a barnstorming country gospel whose potential was utterly wasted by being cut up and used as a linking thread on the Elvis Country album. It's repetitive use on that album became irritating halfway through the first side of that album, making it shop-soiled goods when it came to further release. It needed to be heard whole in the first place. As it was, the full version was soon released on 1971's Elvis Now. It should, of course, have opened Elvis Country instead of Snowbird, whilst Snowbird, as a sweet slice of pop country, really belonged on Love Letters From Elvis. But we can play this game forever. Love Letters itself probably belonged on That's the Way It Is – had it been good enough.
In the final analysis, Love Letters From Elvis is what it is, no more than that but no less. The album is a cross between That's the Way It Is and Elvis Country, containing tracks which, had there been any available slots, could have found a place on either album. It's a decent album of decent material but stands in need of serious strengthening. The addition of Where Did They Go Lord?, The Sound of Your Cry, Rags to Riches and either I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago or Snowbird would have made it a very decent album indeed. It's disappointing if judged as a mainstream release (which is what it was presented as), but not bad for what it is. As the third pick from a five day session, it is mightily impressive. The material is of no great distinction in the main, but never less than amiable, with the odd track of interest – the operatic ballad Heart of Rome, the curio that is Life, the gospel swing of Only Believe, and the terrific Got My Mojo Working.
One final point relates to the album cover: it's atrocious. Of all the great artists in the history of pop music, Elvis Presley has a claim to having been disgraced by some of the worst album covers in the history of pop music. In the 1970s most of his album covers were a picture of him in a jumpsuit and Love Letters From Elvis is no different, although it has three images, a main image with two lesser Elvises. I didn't care for the pink lettering and I didn't like backside of the album either, lots of letters containing the song titles set against a blue background. It looked cheap and naff and, frankly, when it came to selecting an Elvis album to buy I always passed this one up, for the cover alone.