The Nashville Marathon June 4-8 1970
When you look beyond the image and the hit records and examine Elvis' career in detail you are often left with the impression that no one was in charge. The recording and the release of Elvis' music was erratic. It seems so straightforward. Elvis was a recording artist who should have been in the studio recording music, then promoting it on TV and on stage. That's not how it happened. The huge success of the stellar first two albums in 1956 ought to have set the template. Instead of a steady stream of studio albums, though, there were movie soundtracks, Christmas and sacred albums, EPs, hits and Gold Record packages. Before 1970 Elvis had recorded precious few straight and strictly studio albums of secular non-film material – two in 1956, 1960, 1961, 1962, and then two in 1969. That sets some context for the importance of the Nashville session of June. The session produced material enough to fill three full albums, Elvis Country, That's the Way It Is, and Love Letters from Elvis. Add these three to the two from Memphis in 1969 and that makes five, half the total of Elvis studio albums since the beginning of his career.
The albums were consistent and coherent, too, with the tracks complementing one another to enhance the merits of each track. This was the exception rather than the rule in Elvis' career, with albums characterised by frankly bizarre song selections. Quality recordings such as Guitar Man, Big Boss Man and Tomorrow is a Long Time were wasted as 'bonus' songs on bland movie soundtracks that only diehard fans bought and played. (The same nonsense extended to the 'budget' albums, with lost treasures such as I Need Somebody to Lean On placed alongside the ludicrous Yoga is as Yoga Does).
The June 1970 session in Nashville was therefore hugely significant, music wise and career wise, cementing Elvis' return to the top and promising great things for the future.
The origin of the sessions which were to become known as the Nashville Marathon was business. Elvis was under obligation to deliver eighteen tracks to his recording company RCA, enough material for one album and two singles. A recording session was scheduled for the evening (and night) of June 4, 1970, with Felton Jarvis in charge as producer.
This was Elvis' first major recording engagement since the triumphant American Sound recordings in Memphis in January and February 1969 and Elvis' first time back in Nashville since 1968, some two and a half years earlier, when Elvis had recorded at RCA's Studio B. Tired of the same old routine and seeking to perk up his music with a change of direction, Elvis had abandoned Nashville for Chips Moman's American, which was on a hot streak of hit records. Elvis entered American in the January of 1969 in confident mood. The NBC TV Special, now known as the 'comeback special,' had aired Christmas 1968 and had been a huge success, exciting new critical and popular interest in Elvis. Elvis had restaked his claim to the crown and approached the sessions determined to win his former title. That drive and commitment in the studio generated some of the finest recordings of Elvis' career. The sessions produced four substantial hits with songs of high quality: Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, Don't Cry Daddy and Kentucky Rain, but the albums, too, were impressive: From Elvis in Memphis and Back in Memphis. The albums contained tracks that were of the same high standard of the single releases: Only the Strong Survive, Any Day Now, Gentle on My Mind, Long Black Limousine, Inherit the Wind, Stranger in My Own Home Town ... the list is seemingly endless.
Unfortunately, relations between Elvis' management and producer Chips Moman were strained and awkward, with disputes over publishing as well as over arrangements and overdubbing (Moman didn't like what had been done to Suspicious Minds prior to release, with the fade and return of the backing singers). Those strained relations meant that, despite the immense success of the American sessions, a return to Moman in Memphis was not considered.
The decision to return to RCA's Studio B in Nashville after the triumph of American in Memphis has puzzled people over the years. Some claim that the real reason is the fact that Chip Moman's Memphis studio had folded, meaning that there was no possibility of a return. A little research shows that American did indeed fold, but only in 1972.
That Elvis himself expressed no desire to return suggests that there may well have been other reasons for him to return to Nashville instead of Memphis. There was a clash of approaches and styles between the two camps. Moman was a strong producer, tough and and demanding and in control in the studio. He pushed Elvis in the studio and was relentless in pursuit of the best cut, best according to his own vision. Moman had a preference for strong material arranged, rehearsed, and played in a relevant and contemporary style. That approach was quite different to Elvis' looser, more spontaneous, freewheeling approach to recording. The merits and demerits of Elvis' approach became clear in the Nashville session of 1970. Elvis, motivated and inspired, takes control to deliver a series of stellar performances; the vocals and the playing by the band are vibrant and spontaneous and have a fluid, thrilling feel. Unfortunately, back in the hands of his management and its publishing deals, Elvis ran out of material, as he had throughout the recording sessions of the sixties. In later sessions in the seventies, the success of recording sessions would be dependent on the vicissitudes of Elvis' changing mood – Elvis would not always be as enthused as he was at the Nashville session of 1970. He needed a strong producer, a vision, discipline, a work ethic, and access to strong, original, and contemporary material.
For now, though, Elvis was on fire and the underlying flaws in the background.
It seems the interested parties were happy for a return to normality - RCA because of publishing differences with Chip Moman, Felton Jarvis because he would be in complete control of production, and Elvis because he was free to approach recording in his own idiosyncratic way. It wasn't quite a return to normality, though, for the reason that Elvis was fired up by his recent triumphs, ambitious and committed.
In June 1970, Elvis was in a strong position. The NBC-TV Special of 1968 had fired a resurgence which took him to American in Memphis and saw him cut two quality albums and four singles which became huge hits. His return to live performance in Las Vegas had also been a spectacular triumph.
In short, Elvis was in confident mood, ambitious for further success. He entered the Nashville session of June intent on following up the successes of Memphis in 1969.
I shall examine the material, the musicians, and the music in turn.
The Material New sessions, new musicians, new material. Or not so new. The main supply of material at Nashville was none other than Freddy Bienstock, again, the man who had consistently failed to find decent material for Elvis to record in the 1960s. This time, the songs he supplied would come from the catalogue of Carlin, the British company he'd just bought from his cousins, Jean and Julian Aberbach, themselves former Hill and Range employers. For all of the new optimism, that old problems concerning quantity of quality material could be anticipated.
The Personnel Elvis Presley: Vocals, Guitar James Burton: Guitar Chip Young: Guitar Charlie Hodge: Guitar Jerry Carrigan: Drums David Briggs: Piano Norbert Putnam: Bass Charlie McCoy: Organ/Harmonica/Marimba Al Pachuki: Engineer Felton Jarvis: Producer
Top: David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, Elvis Presley, Al Pachuki, Jerry Carrigan. Bottom: Felton Jarvis, Chip Young, Charlie McCoy, James Burton.
Given the change in location and producer, a radical change in sound was predictable. Whilst the studio setup was the same as in Memphis, with Elvis singing live with his rhythm group, the music recorded at Nashville was very different to American in terms of sound and feel and, in many respects, the character of the material. At American, the house band laid down the basic rhythm arrangement on three tracks, with overdubs added later. The recording setup and the sound of the studio, with Moman's use of reverb, gave the American recordings a thick and funky sound. The sound at Nashville's Studio B, however, was much cleaner, with ten tracks available for the initial recording and six for overdubs, allowing for greater separation of instruments and vocals. The funkiness which characterised the Memphis sound was removed as room ambience and immediacy were minimized; in its place, engineers had the new capability of adding or subtracting effects after the fact. That resulted in a cleaner sound. Put the Memphis recordings of 1969 back to back with the Nashville recordings of 1970 and it is as though they come from different eras, despite much of the material coming from the same country/soul/R&B/rock root.
Another consequence of the two and a half years absence from Nashville was a change in musical personnel. The changes gave Elvis the opportunity to assemble a new studio band, one that was hipper and more in tune with current developments. In the first instance, the new band at Nashville was just different to the crack house band at Memphis. Guitarist James Burton excepted, no member of Elvis' live band was part of the Nashville band, either. The soul-drenched Memphis sound was replaced by the slick Nashville country sound. The line-up of the 1970 Nashville band was entirely different to the last Nashville band Elvis had worked with in January 1968.
Throughout the 1960s Elvis had recorded with his fifties' crew of Scotty Moore, D.J. Fontana and the Jordanaires joining Nashville A-teamers Floyd Cramer, Bob Moore, Boots Randolph, Pete Drake, and Buddy Harman. (And Hank Garland until his injury in the early sixties). These were no longer present. The only survivors were Chip Young (rhythm guitar), David Briggs (piano), and Charlie McCoy (harmonica, bass, and organ). Chip Young had first worked with Elvis on the 1966 sessions that produced the Grammy award winning How Great Thou Art gospel album. Briggs, too, first played with Elvis at that session, playing on the hit single Love Letters. McCoy had contributed his distinctive harmonica on tracks such as Big Boss Man in 1967, although his association with Elvis goes back to 1965 with the Harum Scarum.
The musicians were slick but rootsy and their fluid and flexible style was perfect for a freewheeling Elvis.
The Nashville rhythm section was actually quite similar to the American house band. Both were 'white soul' bands, with the nucleus of the Nashville band being formed by the famous Muscle Shoals rhythm section. Both bands had played on a string of hit records in recent years. There were, however, key and clear differences, especially in the drum and bass sound. There were differences, too, between the individual musicians, with the virtuoso electric bass of American bandleader Tommy Cogbill being more subtle and sinuous than that of the Nashville band. Reggie Young's guitar playing was also more attuned to soul than James Burton's, whose playing came from rock'n'roll. The Memphis sound was supported by dueling keyboards (Bobby Wood playing piano, Bobby Emmons on organ); Nashville twinned electric guitars, with James Burton sparring with Chip Young. The major difference between American and Nashville, however, was in overall sound: the Memphis masters were rich, funky, and elaborately arranged; the Nashville recordings sounded clean and bright, full of snare drums and strummed acoustic guitars - and they sounded live.
The flexibility of both bands, however, made them perfect for Elvis' approach to recording, with their ability to take their cues from the singer and reproduce the sounds that he had in mind.
Elvis began recording at RCA's Studio B in Nashville on June 4, 1970. Elvis would report each evening at 6.00pm and work past midnight until the dawn hours. The session extended over five nights and resulted in 34 masters, 16 more than was required. Elvis reverted to his usual recording procedure, with Elvis singing along with the rhythm track. Extra instrumentation, orchestration, and back-up vocals were added in the following months. The saxophone that had been so prominent in Elvis' sixties' recordings was dropped in the seventies' band, replaced by an occasional horn section on certain tracks. Elvis had been plagued by the problem of ensuring quantity and quality of material throughout the 1960s, grace of the publishing priorities of the companies he worked through, namely Hill and Range. His manager Parker would work only with writers who were happy to sign half of their publishing over, with the result that good material by quality writers was denied Elvis. Elvis had had to fight hard to get classic tracks like Guitar Man and Suspicious Minds in the recent past, and the mind boggles thinking of the many classics that Elvis could have cut had there been a greater concern for art and no concern at all for an exploitative, short-term commerce. Neither for the first nor the last time the quality of the material to be recorded presented a problem. The older songs that Elvis recorded tended to be good, but that was because he was ransacking his own memory and taste. Some of the new songs were decent, but were made to sound much better than they were by Elvis' superb vocal. Far too many of the new songs were mediocre; that they sound as good as they do is testimony to Elvis and the superb playing of his band – their talents were worthy of much better material. The accent in the session was on ballads and country, with little by way of rock and blue-eyed soul other than Patch It Up, a powerhouse take on I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water, and the jam Got My Mojo Working/ Keep Your Hands Off Her. These tracks showed that the fire of the Memphis sessions were still alive and that Elvis' new band was more than capable of hitting with real power. More material in this vain would have established greater continuity with the American recordings, establishing a welcome continuity. The lack of rock, soul, and blues allows critics to portray the Nashville recordings as Elvis veering in the direction of adult-oriented easy listening. Here, one definite disadvantage of the overdubbing procedure revealed itself: the songs that Elvis recorded live with his band in the studio were handed over for further treatment at the hands of people whose approach was to bury the spontaneity in an overly finished sophistication – basically rather conventional backing vocals and orchestration. Listening to the undubbed takes of Elvis performing live in the studio with his band can be a real revelation, with the songs possessing a looser feel, one that was undeniably live. Much could be lost in the mixing and overdubbing. The delicate musical qualities of I've Lost You, for instance, are apparent in the undubbed version but are suffocated in the released version, making for something very stiff and formal in comparison.
The first day of the session set the tone and tempo for what was to follow. Elvis was in a good mood, was highly motivated and meant business. He was in freewheeling form, meaning that it was entirely possible that he would break from schedule into a jam or snatches of remembered songs. It was a mood that could be time wasting, with little work being done. It could also be highly creative, with one idea leading to another. In June 1970 Elvis was in creative mood.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 4, 1970 – Songs Recorded
Mystery Train / Tiger Man (jam) Twenty Days and Twenty Nights I've Lost You I Was Born about Ten Thousand Years Ago The Sound of Your Cry Faded Love (country version) The Fool A Hundred Years from Now Little Cabin on the Hill Cindy, Cindy
At 6 pm June 4, 1970, engineer Al Pachuki began setting the levels for each of the musicians on the sixteen-track machine that had replaced the old four-track that had been in service for Elvis' last Nashville sessions.
Mystery Train / Tiger Man (jam)
Elvis turned up on time and took his position in the centre of the recording studio. James Burton led the group in a basic rehearsal riff, which cut into Mystery Train. Elvis can be heard off-mike spurring the band on with enthusiastic shouts and singing. The band segues into Tiger Man, as per the vibrant medley performed in the Las Vegas show. James Burton's guitar licks are to the fore and the band are cooking: it's time to get down to business.
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights
First in line is Twenty Days and Twenty Nights, one of the new Carlin songs from Britain presented by Freddy Bienstock. The song was written by Ben Weisman and Clive Westlake. Weisman was a veteran Elvis writer, principally contributing songs for the movies. Free of the constraints of writing songs for scenes in movies, Weisman shows himself a capable songwriter. Clive Westlake is a Welsh songwriter noted for writing several Dusty Springfield classics including the immense All I See is You. Twenty Days and Twenty Nights is a very good romantic ballad in the contemporary style, low-key and understated rather than dramatic. It makes for a rather strange song to begin the session proper with, not least after the thrilling Mystery Train / Tiger Man jam. It's a song of regret and remorse in a very mellow mood. A quiet beauty in other words, and one which Elvis sings perfectly, his now powerful voice tempered to a soft and gentle tone.
I've Lost You
The second song recorded is another new Carlin composition, I've Lost You, written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley. This song is a beauty, very delicate and refined. In the undubbed version the classical qualities of the song are apparent, with a beautiful piano part threaded through the performance. The suitable softness of Elvis' vocal is also apparent. I've Lost You has the hallmark of quality and counts as a lost classic. It had been recorded a few months earlier by Ian Matthew's Southern Comfort, after Matthews had left Fairport Convention. It is swellingly melodic ballad concerning the heartbreak of separation and, as such, is the first of many such songs that Elvis would sing as the seventies progressed (Always on My Mind, Separate Ways, Fool, I Miss You and many more). Critics would say that Elvis sang far too many such songs, but the fact is the songs suited Elvis' talents and interests perfectly. And credit where credit is due. Where critics tend to dismiss 'sad' ballads of love and loss, such material makes vocal and emotional demands on a singer, and Elvis acquitted himself with applomb. 'There are so many words, you can't look away from that SOB for a minute, man,' he complained in the studio. But he got to grips with the song, focused on its many nuances, and worked hard to get it right. He got it right over seven takes.
I've Lost You is a quality song that was beautifully performed by Elvis. The decision to release it as a single may well have been a case of valuing art over commerce. It is a serious and sorrowful song on an adult theme, perhaps jarring with the new public image of Elvis as a thrilling live performer. There is also a case for arguing that the musical qualities of the song came to be buried in the mix and overdubbing, a 'conventional' ballad sound being laid over the intimate vocal and delicate piano motif, which is almost classical. As a single, I've Lost You peaked at a lowly US #32, which scandalously understates its true quality. A live version was to be released on the That's The Way It Is album. Between the two versions I prefer the live performance as being more impassioned, more suited to the strong beat and orchestration laid over the original performance. Of them all, though, I prefer the original undubbed version, where the true quality of the song, its quiet musical and lyrical beauty, is to the fore. I think this is a case of those trying to make a song fit a conventional mould coming to emphasise the mould more than the song itself.
I Was Born about Ten Thousand Years Ago
The two opening tracks had been serious ballads of lost love. As if trying to break the intensity and loosen up, Elvis launched into one the country gospel standard I Was Born about Ten Thousand Years Ago. Elvis and the band flew through the song and nailed it in one high-spirited take. It's the kind of song that requires a certain spontaneity and as such forms a complete contrast to the hard, painstaking work the ballads required at this session. Which is to note a certain collision of styles which singer and musicians cannot but have found taxing. To put it simply, country, rock, blue-eyed soul material, as recorded the previous year at American, is first nature to the Nashville band, in a way that the ballad material is not. More rhythm material could have been recorded, focusing only on the ballads of quality, rather than wasting energy and talent on the substandard (I will come to those in due course).
The Sound of Your Cry
Another Carlin contribution and another quality ballad, The Sound of Your Cry is a vocally and emotionally demanding song, impassioned and dramatic, and Elvis rises to the challenge. It's a power ballad with a strong rhythmic element and forces Elvis onto the front foot. In temper and tempo it is radically different to the two ballads which had opened the session and would seem a more obvious single release.
The song was written by Bernie Baum, Bill Giant and Florence Kaye, regular contributors to the Elvis soundtracks, but is on an altogether different level to the movie songs in being serious and substantial. The quality and commercial possibilities of the song were noted immediately and the song was kept off the albums for single release. It was coupled with It's Only Love and released as a single in 1971, but to little impact (#19 on the US Easy Listening chart). The single hit a miserable US #51, but sales were back to the previous low for an Elvis single, 1968's A Little Less Conversation. That 'Conversation' went on to become a global #1 smash in the 2000s suggests that the problems lie not in the qualities of the songs but in their reception. Like It's Only Love, The Sound of Your Cry would be rereleased as a single in later years, but has yet to receive the recognition it deserves. This really could have been a big hit.
After this energetic performance, Elvis and the band broke for a midnight meal.
It had been an impressive start, with Elvis recording four masters in as many hours, two of which were serious single material. Elvis was in fine form, in high spirits and singing well with the band, with energy to spare.
Faded Love (country version)
Returning from the break, Elvis opened with a song he remembered from his youth, the Bob Will's western-swing standard Faded Love. It wasn't scheduled, but indicated where Elvis' interests in the midst of a creative flow could go. He couldn't remember the words so asked for a lyric sheet. 'While we wait,' he said, 'let's do The Fool.' The session was taking another direction on the theme of country music Elvis-style.
The Fool
The Fool had been a hit for Sanford Clark in 1956 and is a blues/country/rock'n'roll melange that was perfect for Elvis. James Burton and Chips Young on guitar immediately launched into the delta-blues riff, redolent of Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightin' and Dale Hawkins' Suzie Q, on which Burton had played the stunning guitar, so loud and powerful as to sound like an entire horn section. The band quickly fell into the swing of it, and the master was wrapped up in just two takes. Again, the point is worth making that there are two musical forms running alongside each other at this session, the ballads, which were musically complex and vocally demanding, requiring Elvis and the band to work hard at phrasing and arrangements, and the country/rock material, which Elvis and his musicians perform with ease and fluidity.
That Elvis had long had The Fool in his sights as a potential recording is hardly surprising, since the song is entirely in the style of the synthesis he effected at Sun. The band take a bluesy approach to the song, with a strong beat and tough vocal. It's a standout track.
A Hundred Years from Now
Inspired – and veering further away from the Carlin demos - Elvis picked up an acoustic guitar and launched into the bluegrass terrain with which he had started his career at Sun, singing first Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs' A Hundred Years from Now followed by Bill Monroe's Little Cabin on the Hill. A Hundred Years From Now basically a frenetic, fast-paced, and energetic sprint and all the more thrilling for that. Elvis is in good spirits and the take – with added lyrics – is as loose as a goose.
Little Cabin on the Hill
Little Cabin on the Hill takes a very similar approach and the excitement generated is infectious. The performances are loose and spontaneous and what they lose in craft is more than gained in vitality. By this stage of proceedings the session had developed into a creative free-for-all away from the Carlin demos slated for recording. The looseness, however, injected a creative spark into proceedings, lightening the mood to allow the creative juices to flow. It was the way Elvis had always worked, singing gospel and other favourites before knuckling down to the work to be done. Elvis' bluegrass workouts were hardly the order of the day, but were a) thrilling in themselves; b) integral to the session's creative flow; and c) the sparks for further explorations of country material. The possibility for a new album in addition to the one being officially recorded was emerging.
Cindy, Cindy
The night ended with the reworking of another song from Elvis' youth, the traditional folk number Cindy Cindy, which Elvis hopped up in his trademark style. Once more, I would note the difference between the version that was released on the Love Letters From Elvis album and the undubbed version which is just Elvis and his musicians in the studio. The released version is polished and well-done, with all the rough edges smoothed out. But maybe it is those rough edges which give this song its vitality. The live feel of the undubbed version is compelling.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 5, 1970
Elvis gets back to business on the second night, cutting quality four tracks that would come to be released on the That's the Way It Is album.
Bridge Over Troubled Water
If Elvis felt that he could add to a well-known song, or better it, he had no reticence in offering his own version. He had done it, for instance, with Ketty Lester's Love Letters in 1966, with a very similar arrangement. If Elvis felt he had something distinctively his own to offer, he would offer it. Elvis would have found Paul Simon's Bridge Over Troubled Water irresistible, a big, dramatic ballad with gospel inflections that enabled him to show the soulful aspects of his voice. It was a vocally demanding piece, but the kind of challenge that Elvis valued as a singer. Whilst he could race through country/blues/rock, he took a studied approach to the ballads. David Briggs, the pianist who had accompanied Elvis on Love Letters in 1966, led the way as Elvis proceeded to deliver a soulful rendition of the Simon and Garfunkel classic. The vocal burns with emotional depth and power, exposing layers to the song that were perhaps unknown to the writer. Performed live in concert, Elvis would turn up the power – and the bombast – and add horns in a way that was impactful, but drowned something of the emotional force of the piano driven version in the studio. It's horses for courses: in Las Vegas, Elvis was performing for an audience, needing to keep their interest and entertain, not delivering a recital.
How The Web Was Woven
How the Web Was Woven is an interesting song, defining the That's The Way It Is sound in being a contemporary romantic ballad, one perfectly suited to Elvis as he marked out a new musical identity for himself. It's another Clive Westlake song, originally recorded by Jackie Lomax for the Beatles' Apple label. Like I've Lost You, it's a modern ballad that positions Elvis in the contemporary world. It's the kind of material Elvis needed more of. The danger he faced as a ballad singer was that a paucity of new material would force him to rely on standards, making him appear old-fashioned and unoriginal. The superbly controlled emotionalism of How the Web Was Woven demonstrated that Elvis, given the material, was more than capable of forging a new, and relevant, identity for himself. Anyone who thinks that carving a new identity as a ballad singer is easy should acquaint themselves with the travails of Scott Walker in the same period – it's not easy to avoid becoming trapped in and dated by standards – good new material is key. How the Web Was Woven is a medium-paced gently rhythmic number that was perfect for the job.
Got My Mojo Working/Keep Your Hands Off It
Breaking up the intensity of ballad performances, Elvis launched into an impromptu jam. It may have been much needed, to loosen the band up. From austere and controlled ballad performances Elvis next tackled the uptempo It's Your Baby, You Rock It. During rehearsals, Elvis launched into Got My Mojo Working and the band were quick to follow his lead. The jam was loose and frenetic, with Elvis introducing Keep Your Hands Off It into the mix. It's a thrilling ride rather than a polished performance, something that would be hard to place on a mainstream album without a lot of work that risked deadening the spontaneity that is its principal feature. Elvis can be heard on the tapes describing the song as 'mediocre,' 'the type of material that's not good or bad ... just mediocre,' the kind of thing he grew up on. It's hard to know what to make of the statement. Given Elvis' well-known love of blues and R&B he surely can't be dismissing the value of the music. Elvis could be very self-depricating and offhand in the studio, downplaying the things he would do. To my ears, it sounds like Elvis simply saying that this was the kind of music that he grew up with and knew so well that he could reproduce it effortlessly. Again, the stark difference between the hard work and close attention which characterised the approach to the ballads and the ease of performance evinced by the blues and country. That leads to two points worthy of consideration: 1) praise for Elvis' musical ambitions and ability in tackling material that was outside of his comfort zone; 2) regret that he and the band didn't do more country/rock/blues and blue-eyed soul, in the spirit of American Sound '69. But maybe asking for two stellar albums in one is asking too much (although that is precisely what we were treated to in the end).
Set in the middle of some sedate and sometimes average, if not exactly 'mediocre,' tracks on the Love Letters From Elvis album, Got My Mojo Working / Keep Your Hands Off It was sensational, leading to regrets that Elvis didn't do more in the same vein. (Whenever the question arises as to why Elvis didn't sing more blues, the response is always the same – it didn't sell).
It's Your Baby, You Rock It
It's Your Baby, You Rock It is a good slice of Nashville commercial country, a light and catchy uptempo number which savours a little of Moody Blue at the end of Elvis' career. It's an infectious and upbeat number and could easily have made for a single release, breaking up the steady stream of serious ballads.
Stranger In The Crowd
Stranger in the Crowd is an up-tempo rhythmic song with a propulsive beat and Latin feel. It was written by Winfield Scott who had written for Elvis before, notably with Otis Blackwell. Again, it is an example of the kind of quality contemporary material that Elvis needed to secure his new identity but which is also so hard to find. Not being a writer, Elvis was dependent on his publishing company to find material of sufficient quantity and quality – the tragedy is, obsessed with rights and commerce, they didn't.
I'll Never Know
This is a slight and somewhat inconsequential ballad, but sincere and heartfelt for all that, the kind of song that is easy to overlook but which can hit the right spot at the right time. Elvis was first and foremost a heart singer and I'll Never Know showcases that quality perfectly. It might not be the greatest song in the world, but it is the perfect vehicle for allowing us to hear one of the greatest voices in the world in all its softness and sincerity. It has a place in the Elvis catalogue and could easily have filled a little slot on the That's the Way It Is album.
Mary In The Morning
This is a beautiful ballad, rare and refined in sentiment and its delivery. Elvis sings with great sincerity against a backdrop of gently picked and strummed guitars. Whilst the released version adds orchestration to make the track more polished, Elvis' intimate vocal in the undubbed version is the real strength of the song.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 6, 1970
The third day was one of peaks and troughs and songs that could be either the one or the other and probably both according to taste. There were at least two songs of substantial quality recorded on this day, with another two which critics tend to dismiss as weak but which were themselves deemed worthy of single release at the time. All of which makes for a productive session, despite the seeming dip in quality.
I Didn't Make it on Playing Guitar
It Ain't No Big Thing (but it's growing)
The night began with Elvis picking up an acoustic guitar and launching into the mid-sixties country hit It Ain't No Big Thing. There had been no plans to record the song, so everyone was taken by surprise. By now there was a definite country theme running throughout the session, running alongside the business to hand with respect to the Carlin compositions. The band took their cue from Elvis and started to play the mid-tempo number. Elvis veered off into doing his own thing, banging away on acoustic guitar whilst shouting 'I didn't make it on playing guitar' over the jam that had instantly developed. Producer Felton Jarvis did his best to bring Elvis back to It Ain't No Big Thing before Elvis took off again, prompted by a line from Mother in Law. Elvis blamed the musicians, who responded to his every prompt: 'Don't take much to spark you guys off, man. Couple of words and you're off and running.'Returning to It Ain't No Big Thing, Elvis and the band nailed it easily, with the second take as the master. Such material came very easily to Elvis and the Nashville band. The song is fine enough, but Elvis was capable of much better and he knew it. There were further takes but to try to make the material more than it was was to waste creative energy better spent elsewhere.
You Don't Have To Say You Love Me
The dramatic Italian ballad You Don't Have to Say You Love Me is a vocally demanding song that required Elvis focus his attention. This was the kind of powerful and emotionally charged ballad that was interesting Elvis more and more at this stage of his career. It's possible that Elvis was much more interested in such material than the musicians and technicians he was working with. Producer Felton Jarvis' interests were rock'n'roll. Jarvis suggested that take two was good enough for the master. Elvis knew he could do better and pushed himself to do better. James Burton started playing the opening chords of Susie Q, but Elvis remained focused on meeting the challenge of the ballad, delivering an incredibly powerful performance on the third and final take. Released as a single, it went on to be a huge US and UK smash hit.
Just Pretend
This was another of the Carlin compositions and very possibly the best of the batch. Although written by British songwriters Doug Flett and Fletcher, the gospel-inflected vocal and arrangement make this song sound like pure southern soul. It's a soulful ballad that follows up similar material cut at American Sound, Without Love in particular. The song elicited a great soulful performance from Elvis, showing just what he was capable of when presented with the right material. And therein lay the problem – whilst Elvis and the band were in prolific form, the material was simply lacking. There were not enough good songs. Elvis and the band were on such good form that the session could have been far more productive than it was. But as work progressed, Elvis ran into the same old soul-destroying and decreative problem of insufficient and inadequate material. The frustrations are apparent as we hear an increasingly tetchy Elvis calling out. That was an issue for Elvis' publishing companies and his manager's exploitative approach to 'business.' It was an issue that would never be resolved and which constantly worked to undermine Elvis' creativity in the studio; the artist was effectively struggling within the constraints of his handlers.
This is Our Dance
It was at this point that the musicians started to lose patience and show alarming signs of revolt. This is Our Dance is a decent enough song for a certain kind of singer but is distinctly average and uninspiring for Elvis and his Nashville band. The heart of the singer and musicians wasn't in it and, after a couple of half-hearted attempts that broke down quickly, the musicians let their feelings be known. 'This isn't Lamar's song, is it?' guitarist James Burton asked sarcastically. 'If it is, I'm gonna kill him.' 'Definitely not,' said Elvis, more in defence of his friend than of the song. Freddy Bienstock in the control room knew the answer. This was yet more Hill and Range which Elvis was expected to churn out, publishing rights secured by those whose interest was in commerce rather than music.
In some respects, the problem is not just one of quality but also of the collision of styles. The Carlin compositions which Elvis was slated to record show a predominance of ballads. The band was slick and confident handling country, rock, and rhythm material, but had to work hard on the ballad material. The musicians acquitted themselves very well indeed. Some of the ballads were strong and contemporary, others were not. This is Our Dance is a rather sedate slow-time waltz, somewhat old-fashioned, in the manner of a genial rehash of Engelbert Humperdinck's The Last Waltz. Such a thing may have some appeal to some people. Robert Matthew-Walker describes This is Our Dance as 'another fine song,' with posthumous hit potential 'should this masculine, gentle, romantic style become popular again.' (Matthew-Walker Elvis Presley: A Study in Music 1979 p.88). It could be a long wait, but stranger things have happened.
A point worth making here is that there is a wide disparity in the critical appreciation of Elvis' American recordings in Memphis in 1969 and these Nashville sessions of 1970. This is Our Dance is not a well regarded track, with critics arguing that it takes Elvis into Engelbert Humperdinck territory. If that's precisely the nature of this kind of song, it is worth pointing out that Humperdinck was immensely popular at the time. If it's not the kind of material with which Elvis should have been following up the American triumph with, it needs remarking that not everything cut in Memphis the previous year was tough country soul/rock either. This is the Story, for instance, is mature but interminably turgid and lifeless, all earnestness with no depth or quality. This is Our Dance is at least light and charming. I wouldn't stake the reputation of the Nashville 1970 session on it, however.
Life
File this track under odd. It could be considered an abberation in the Elvis catalogue. The song has nothing in common with Elvis' kind of music, being a ponderous, pompous, and pretentious statement on life and the evolution of love. I'm inclined to be generous and praise the ambition if not the execution. Had MacArthur Park bombed, for instance, critics would undoubtedly be calling out its nonsensical lyrics and pretentions at grand statement. Life is working the same territory. It was a time of vague and general pseudo-philosophical statements of love and spirituality. Elvis may have dabbled with such messages in his personal reading but his songs were always more earthy, sticking to men and women and their simple desires and complex relations. I'm always inclined to be leniant when judging Life. It's a song that comes from leftfield in the Elvis catalogue. It's an attempt to get hip with that sixties-style hippiness and spirituality but makes about as much sense as other tracks in that vein. Elvis is clearly unpersuaded and unconvinced, and the problem was the melody as much as the strange lyrics. The song was another Shirl Milete contribution and Elvis recognized its similarity to other Milete compositions that he had recorded. He started to sing the words to My Little Friend, the Milete song he had cut the previous year in Memphis, to the tune of Life. He can also be heard complaining that 'the goddam thing is as long as life itself!' Caught in the publishing trap, Elvis abandoned hope and finished the song in due course.
Heart of Rome
The final song of the night's session was a big voiced up-tempo rhythm ballad in the vein of It's Now or Never and Surrender. Heart of Rome is a the kind of Neapolitan operatic ballad that had take Elvis to the top of the charts at the start of the previous decade, and he may well have had some such thing in mind at the start of the new decade (he went after it again with a high-powered take on Rags to Riches later in the year). Elvis threw himself into the song with gusto, progressing from a pedestrian approach to going full throttle by the end, with the band all the while doing its best to hang on. Elvis acquits himself well, but the song is not in the class of It's Now or Never or Surrender (or No More for that matter). The musicians sound totally uninterested, competent but uninspired. The material was becoming uncongenial. The track was still deemed worthy of single release, going out as the flip of I'm Leavin' in 1971, a very strong pairing.
Despite the shortage of quality material, Elvis and the musicians had delivered twenty masters in just three nights, two more than the RCA contract required. And there was one more night of recording still scheduled. Put another way, Elvis had recorded two album's worth of material in a few freewheeling sessions, despite the usual limitations of his publishing company. Imagine what he could have achieved with the right team around him.
The fault lines raised their head the next night of recording. It wasn't just the old problem of poor material but a problem of musical style and approach. The new Carlin compositions brought in by Bienstock European ballads, with lyrics, rhythms and chord progressions utterly separated from the country, R&B, and gospel Elvis and the musicians were steeped in. Two worlds were in collision here. The new material was musically complex and required more preparation than straightforward three-chord tunes. As good as they were, the Nashville musicians couldn't be expected to work up arrangements in a spontaneous fashion. The material needed proper preparation, rehearsal and arrangement. The remarkable thing is that Elvis and the band achieved so much in such an ad hoc fashion.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 7, 1970
By the fourth night, a country theme had started to take shape. The original plan to record eighteen songs was focused on the ballads in the Carlin demoes. Job more or less done, thoughts could turn to the country sides already recorded, with a view to adding to them to make a second album of country song Elvis-style. The country songs they had already cut were substantial enough to make the idea viable. Elvis and the musicians thus embarked on a new project. It was an idea that inspired all involved, with Elvis singing with great passion and soul, and the musicians playing with feeling and intensity. This was still hard work but a labour of love. The material was not merely familiar, it was loved by its performers.
The June 7 session was a return to the top form of the first two days, with Elvis and the band delivering excellent performances on quality material.
When I'm Over You
The session began with another average Shirl Milete song. If the question is asked as to why Elvis cut so many songs of little distinction by Milete, the answer is to be found in publishing deals. Average writers are happy to hand over a cut of their rights in return for having a major artist cut their songs. How many other artists of quality have recorded any of these Milete songs recorded by Elvis? The song average, not particularly bad but not remotely good. It's just a moderately uptempo country number, an upbeat rhythm for a downcast message. There is fine guitar from James Burton to organ accompaniment. It's OK.
I Really Don't Want To Know
A choice country ballad, cowritten by Don Robertson and a hit for Eddy Arnold in 1954. Elvis had recorded many Robertson compositions in the past, delicate, refined ballads like I'm Counting On You, There's Always Me, They Remind Me Too Much of You, Anything That's Part Of You, I Met Her Today. I Really Don't Want to Know is of a different quality, being a warm romantic ballad in waltz tempo. Elvis' performance is slow and soulful and is one of the best in his career.
Faded Love
Having finally obtained the words, Elvis returned to Faded Love, the song he'd attempted a previous night. Elvis and the band settle on an forceful arrangement, going on the front-foot to deliver a performance that owes more to rock than country.
Tomorrow Never Comes
Elvis' performance of Ernest Tubb's Tomorrow Never Come is one of the greatest of his career. The song is a vocally demanding piece, building in intensity to a dramatic crescendo. Elvis found the song tough but clearly worth the effort. At a breakdown Elvis sang the opening line of Roy Orbison's Running Scared, highlighting the clear parallels between the two songs. 'I'm starting to hate this song,' Elvis is heard to say, before committing himself once more. Elvis never actually recorded a Roy Orbison song, taking the view that you could never better an Orbison vocal. This is the nearest he ever got, and he proved himself more than capable of handling the semi-operatic requirements of the song. The result is a track that counts among Elvis' very best.
The Next Step Is Love
The Next Step is Love is a song that comes out of leftfield. It belongs to new style ballads that Elvis was slated to record but would be an anomaly in any company. It has nothing in coming with the American roots music that Elvis was now exploring. It's certainly a well-crafted song, more complex musically and lyrically than was Elvis' norm. The song's lyric savours a great deal of Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park, boasting unPresleyan lyrics such as 'We've yet to taste the icing on the cake that we've been baking with the past.' The song's dynamics, too, are complicated, making the wordy lyric even harder to handle. It's a hugely ambitious song, a Beatlesque psychedelic ballad in the style of Jimmy Webb. Whilst Elvis is often criticised for being musically conservative, sticking to the basics of what he knew, the record shows a willingness on his part to try and mix all kinds of styles. Although this song received little critical or popular recognition, it counts as one of Elvis' most interesting. I rate it so highly as to place it among my favourite eight Elvis songs.
Make The World Go Away
Elvis returns to country with Make the World Go Away, delivering an impassioned soul reading of the old Eddy Arnold hit. Elvis delivers a towering vocal performance which at several points threatens to overwhelm the constraints of the song. A critic could claim that Elvis' version of the genteel country ballad is painfully oversung. Pain there is, and drama, too, with Elvis singing as if the weight of world is on his shoulders. Job done, then. This is Elvis as soul singer. I recently had the delightful experience of meeting a young woman at a family reunion who not only announced that Elvis is her favourite singer but that Make the World Go Away is her favourite song. I was most surprised and delighted.
Funny How Time Slips Away
Elvis delivers a top-notch performance on the country ballad Funny How Time Slips Away, his vocal blending in seamlessly with the slow swing of the arrangement. Elvis sings with great ease. The musical accompaniment owes something to Ricky Nelson's 1966 version on his Country Fever album, which also featured great work from James Burton on dobro. Piano, organ, and percussion are also perfect. The track is a masterclass and another of Elvis' best ever.
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water is an absolute powerhouse of a performance, with Elvis and the band going even harder than they had on I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago and I Got My Mojo Working. The pace and power is on a par with anything cut at Memphis the previous year, leaving us to regret that Elvis didn't record more rock and rhythm material at the June 1970 session. Elvis really gets into the song and drives the band on for a full minute longer than the eventual fadeout on the released version. Peter Guralnick in Rolling Stone refers to Elvis' 'peculiar combination of hypertension and soul.'
Love Letters
The final song cut that night is Love Letters, which sees Elvis reworking his 1966 classic. Elvis' decision to revisit a former triumph was prompted by pianist David Briggs' insistence that he could improve on his piano playing on the 1966 version. The 1970 version tends not to be as acclaimed as the 1966 hit single. Elvis' vocal is rich and soulful, less pure and glacial, and the accompaniment is busier, with a gospel-style organ and swing. And if Elvis does seem to sing as a favour to his piano player, he does sing well, and it isn't difficult to imagine the possibility of a superlative version had Elvis been prepared to work longer and harder on the song. Robert Matthew-Walker is impressed with the track that emerges: 'The first version, so good in every way, is eclipsed by the later take' (Robert Matthew-Walker, Elvis Presley: A Study in Music 1979 p.87). I think that claim is a bit of a stretch, but, for all its unfinished quality, the new soulful version has a charm all of its own.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, June 8, 1970
The fifth and final night draws a conclusion that could serve as an epitaph on Elvis' experiences as a recording artist: excellent performances redeeming average material. Elvis had spent the sixties making the best of some decidedly poor songs sent his way on the movie soundtracks and it seems that his publishing company envisaged something similar taking place in the seventies. We could have made history, Leiber and Stoller would say of Elvis in interview, but Elvis' management just wanted to keep turning a buck. I'd say Elvis broke the constraints of his management enough times to have made history in any case, but he was forever having to fight his own side for his artistic integrity.
There Goes My Everything
Dallas Frazier's There Goes My Everything is probably the highlight of the last night's session. It's a gentle country waltz to which Elvis contributes a beautifully warm if sorrowful vocal. The session began with Elvis making a statement on the song that summed up his general approach: it 'doesn't have to be straight country.' It's country Elvis style and all the better for that. Elvis transforms this country standard with a distinctly soulful performance, his perfect baritone hitting the low notes perfectly. The track would be considered good enough for single release, reaching US #65, #9 Country and UK #6.
If I Were You
A good example of commercial Nashville, a style that was popular at the time. It's a medium tempo country ballad that is so well within Elvis' capabilities that its greatest challenge is to inspire effort. It's pleasant enough. The only other thing I find it necessary to say is that the undubbed version is more vibrant and vital than the released version, with the liveliness and feel of the musicians in the studio much more to the fore.
Only Believe
The song and its performance exudes quality but somehow the track never seems to take flight. Written by evangelist Paul Rader, the slow swing of this gospel has a touch of Amazing Grace about it, but the song seems merely to repeat itself rather than build to any great climax. Elvis' vocal is committed and sincere and the accompaniment is good. The song is something of a slow burner and repays repeated plays. It was rated highly enough to be coupled with Life and released as a single, peaking at #53.
Sylvia
Elvis and the musicians were still in peak form, but the material had bottomed out by this stage. There was nothing left. Sylvia is a distinctly average ballad that Elvis' impassioned vocal makes seem a whole lot better than it is. There are echoes here of the worst times of the sixties when Elvis' vocal prowess was being wasted redeeming poor quality material. With the likes of Sylvia we can do no more than praise the singer and dam the song. As he had proven this and previous nights, Elvis was much better than this, and those who provided such material were derelict in their duty to the man who paid their way.
Patch It Up
Perhaps the biggest mystery of all surrounding the June 1970 session is why this excellent rocker, written by Eddie Rabbitt and Rory Bourke, was left to the last, when the ver bottom of the pile had been scraped. It is also mystifying as to why, with a crack band that was on fire, more rock material wasn't attempted. Patch It Up is a turbo-charged rocker which ought to have been attempted much earlier than it was, when the band was red hot, generating a spirit that would have fired the rest of the session. As it is, Elvis and band deliver a blistering performance, proving that singer and musicians were still firing and full of creative energy. Had the right material been available, this session could have gone on forever. That indicates management failure rather than musical failure. It was the story of how Elvis' career was criminally mismanaged.
By the session's end, all involved must have been highly pleased. Elvis had recorded a massive total of thirty-four songs in five nights, a number of which were of outstanding quality. The fact that most of the songs were published under Elvis' name would have pleased Parker and Bienstock most of all, quality be damned. More important than 'business,' though, was the fact that Elvis had thrived in the creative flow. The June session was everything that Elvis had been struggling but failing to achieve since 1962. Elvis' studio work had been off the rails since the early sixties, with Elvis spending the rest of the decade trying to get back to serious studio work. It took quitting Nashville for American Sound Memphis in 1969 for Elvis to get some semblance of control back. June 1970 was not, however, an unqualified triumph, for the reasons that the old faultlines in terms of quality and quantity of material – and its source – were still apparent. For all that, Elvis had recorded enough quality material in five nights to fill two albums and release at least two singles. To fulfil the ambition of making an 'Elvis Country' album, a further session was scheduled for September.
RCA Studio B, Nashville, September 22, 1970
Elvis was due to record at RCA's Nashville studios on 21st September 1970, to deliver two tracks with which to complete the country album. That matters were taking a turn for the worse was indicated by the fact that Elvis arrived a day late and seemed distracted and out of sorts. He seemed distinctly uninterested and impatient when it came to recording. He was accompanied by Priscilla, who intimated to one of the musicians that there were 'reasons' for Elvis' tetchy behaviour. He took that to be a reference to drugs. From the very start of proceedings Elvis was pressuring producer Felton Jarvis to hurry since he intended to fly back to Los Angeles that night. It wasn't a mood conducive to good music.
Snowbird
For all Elvis' tetchy mood, he delivered a sweet rendition of Anne Murray's very pretty Snowbird. The song is so innocuous that Elvis and the band couldn't go wrong; the song is well within the capabilities of both. It's a good song, if unambitious and unoriginal.Snowbird has few supporters and many detractors. It's really a piece of pretty pop country, bright and breezy, but incredibly sweet when set alongside Elvis' other country choices at the session. Elvis, of course, had a sweet tooth when it came to music, and would go on to record Olivia Newton-John's Let Me Be There and If You Love Me Let Me Know. To his non-plussed musicians Elvis would simply say that he just loved the songs. Snowbird makes for a bright and breezy opening to Elvis Country, but bears absolutely no relation to what was to follow.
Where Did They Go Lord
Elvis was committed to this big-voiced gospel-inflected country ballad written by Dallas Frazier and Doodle Owens. Dark, despairing and prayerful, the song fitted Elvis' mood, and he roared its message out at full throttle. It's a great performance and something of a lost classic. It was released as a B-side to Rags to Riches in 1971, which proved not to be as big a hit as anticipated. It had to wait until 1978 for its first release on album, on the gospel He Walks Beside Me. In a career studded with oddities and anomalies, one of the greatest sources of frustration with Elvis is just how consistently many of the great tracks he recorded just went missing, falling into critical and popular neglect. Where Did They Go Lord? is a track that might just sum up everything that went wrong in Elvis' career.
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
It's incredibly difficult to know what to make of Elvis' version of this R&B classic. Recorded in 1955 by Big Maybelle, the song is best known in Jerry Lee Lewis' rock'n'roll smash hit version of 1957, when 'The Killer' staked his claim to be better than Elvis. Lewis would record many Elvis songs in the late fifties and early sixties, such as Don't Be Cruel and Heartbreak Hotel, but Elvis never dabbled with tracks associated with Lewis. He now takes on one of Lewis' most famous numbers and promptly demolishes it. There was a brief rehearsal to work out an arrangement but it was wild, with Elvis being concerned most of all to wind up proceedings. Elvis was a man in a hurry and he stormed through the barely arranged Whole Lotta Shakin' in just the one take. The vocal is manic and wired, not so much driven by as driving a pulsating drum and bass. More by accident and necessity than design it has a claim to be Elvis' heaviest ever rock performance. Whether you consider it to be any good depends on whether you seek strength or subtlety in a song – the swing is laid flat in this hard rock performance. Again, I prefer the hard-as-nails undubbed version to the released version. Hot damn, this is badass! Elvis seems to be singing tongues by the end. He sure sounds like a man in a hurry. He sounds like his soul is on the line. I've heard this track many times now. I still don't know if it is a wreck or a triumph. It's light years away from Snowbird.
Rags To Riches
It's a minor miracle that everyone – including the building – was still standing after the performance of Whole Lotta Shakin.' Elvis was still in roaring form when he threw everything he had left into a song he had wanted to record for a long time. Rags to Riches had been a huge #1 hit for Tony Bennett in 1953, but Elvis' interest lay in the R&B approach to the track: Billy Ward and the Dominoes and Jackie Wilson. Elvis beefed it up in a powerful, crescendo-laden approach that gained in impassioned desperation whatever was lost in subtley. Beefy and robust, it sounds like Elvis is trying to take fate by storm.
The four tracks recorded in September are excellent given the constraints under which they were cut. But the approach taken to recording could not but have worrying implications for the future. There were reasons for thinking that Elvis' triumphs may turn out to be short-lived. I shall come to the commercial fate of the great music recorded in 1970 shortly. I've mentioned, too, the problems with securing quality material in sufficient quality. The September session introduces something new: what Priscilla described as 'reasons.' In the June session, Elvis treated the complex new ballads he attempted as vocal challenges, which he relished tackling, ignoring his producer's attempts to settle early by driving himself on through endless takes until he was satisfied. In September he couldn't even be bothered to complete a master on the song he had long loved and long wished to record, before he departed for LA. It was left to producer Felton Jarvis to insert part of one take into the best but still flawed take. It was never an approach that Elvis had taken to recording. Elvis' behaviour was disconcerting and left everyone nonplussed. It was an indication of things to come. Elvis' regimen of medications would increasingly impinge on his life and recording career. Elvis had returned to the peak after a long and hard struggle only for the rot to set in almost immediately.
The Aftermath.
It was left to Felton Jarvis to finish the masters by overdubbing strings, horns, and backing vocals, completing the soundscape that would be heard on the albums and singles. Nashville arrangers Bergen White, Cam Mullins, and Don Tweedy were hired, along with musicians David Briggs and Norbert Putnam. The engineer's art in the sixties and early seventies lay in crafting a trademark sound via overdubbing, all the while preserving the distinctive feel of the original recording in the studio. This is what southern studios like American and RCA's Studio B excelled at. It became a lot art as the decade progressed. But for now, Elvis was in good hands. Jarvis set about crafting string, horn, and vocal arrangements to frame, complement, and enhance the original work of Elvis the artist.
Conclusion
There is a tendency to compare and contrast Nashville in 1970 with Memphis in 1969. There is a danger of falling into the trap of dualism and false antithesis here, dividing affairs into good and bad. Elvis histories have been plagued by the tendency of critics to opt for lazy narratives of decline and fall. Read enough of these accounts and it always seems that Elvis' career was in decline. For every triumph there is a fall and, it seems, in Elvis' case the triumphs are brief and the falls long and hard. The Nashville session of June 1970 is a triumph, if not an unqualified one. Those who cannot resist comparing it to the American recordings of 1969 cannot resist concluding that Elvis had exchanged the fire of Memphis R&B and soul for adult-oriented easy listening. This is a travesty of the truth. Memphis '69 functions in such narratives as Sun 54-55 does in purist accounts. There was no shortage of middle of the road material at American in 1969 – This is the Story, Little Bit of Green, I'll Be There, From a Jack to a King, Mama Liked the Roses, It Keeps Right on a Hurtin to name a few. There are, for all that, noticeable differences. In the first instance it's abundantly clear that the June 1970 Nashville session was a much more freewheeling affair than the previous year's sessions at American Sound in Memphis. Chips Moman adopted an austere and disciplined approach to recording at American. Elvis bristled at times, but it was an approach which brought out some top-notch, tough as teek performances from the singer. In 1970, Elvis was back with Felton Jarvis, a good producer, but one who, as Elvis' personal employee, was less inclined to challenge the artist who paid his wages. Chips Moman had pushed Elvis throughout the sessions in Memphis; Jarvis on a number of occasions settled for a master, with Elvis himself deciding that he had more to offer and pushing on. There was also a change sound. There was a shift away from the 'blue eyed soul' of the American Studio cuts. Much of this can be explained by the change of location and musical personnel. But there was also a change in material at Nashville, with much less R&B and rock and rhythm and more ballads and country. The performances are exceptional and Elvis was singing better in a new mature style. Elvis was hungry for a hit in 1969. At the end of the American session Elvis asked producer Chips Moman if they had any hits in the songs they had recorded. Moman responded in the affirmative, saying Elvis had just recorded the best and biggest hits of his career. The same cannot be said of the June 1970 session, no matter the quality of the performances delivered by Elvis and the musicians. Failure had made Elvis hungry for success again. With success achieved, he was interested in carving a new musical identity for himself. Examining the way that the June session developed, it becomes apparent that Elvis was succumbing to the pressure from his own management to accept lesser material again. At Memphis, Elvis and Moman were on the lookout for smash hits and found them in the likes of Suspicious Minds and In the Ghetto. There were plenty of songs of quality recorded in June 1970 Nashville, but nothing as original and contemporary as the leading tracks at Memphis 1969. As good as the music of the Nashville 1970 undeniably is, it remains a pity that Elvis was unable to return to American Sound, Memphis and deepen and develop his work with Moman and the Memphis musicians further. The 1969 collaboration yielded some of Elvis' best ever recordings, four hit singles, and the classic album From Elvis in Memphis. As to why there was no follow up, there is no doubt that politics and business – the need of Elvis' management to control Elvis the artist - took precedence over the real business of making music. The commercial constraints within which Elvis worked killed the creativity. Elvis was confined in an exploitative straightjacket. He escaped with the TV Special of 1968 and the Memphis recordings in 1969. But now that he was back in Nashville, normalcy would return, and this time there would be no escape.
If this conclusion sounds overly negative, there is a need to be clear as to the precise issues of concern. The five days of recording at RCA's Studio B produced some of the best songs of Elvis' career, with two albums which have a claim to have been Elvis' best. I'll state my preferences openly here: That's the Way It Is is my most favourite Elvis album, but Elvis Country may well be better. I listen to both albums far more than I do the more acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis, and I have no doubt that both albums are better than the second Back in Memphis album. But ... for all that there is to savour, there are no tracks to match Suspicious Minds, In the Ghetto, and Kentucky Rain. There are great tracks, certainly, boasting some of Elvis' greatest vocal performances. But there is nothiing kicking and contemporary to put him back at the top of the charts. That doesn't mean the music is worse, or better for that matter, only different. I've Lost You is a quality ballad – but it is not commercial. I Really Don't Want to Know and Funny How Time Slips Away are exceptional performances. But they do not fit the new profile Elvis promised to develop for himself in Memphis 1969. The Nashville Marathon offers real insight into Elvis the creative artist, how he liked to work, what inspired him, what made him tick. Elvis' own comment on There Goes My Everything applies generally to his own musical profile: it 'doesn't have to be straight country.' For Elvis, the songs he sang didn't have to be straight or strictly anything. Entering Sun studios to record, Elvis was questioned as to what kinds of songs he sang. He responded by saying that he sang 'all kinds.' Elvis sang all kinds of songs for every kind of people. He drew on country, R&B, gospel and rock 'n' roll, but absorbed all his influences within his own musical identity. Possessing a genuine multiplicity in music, Elvis was an authentic hybrid, forging all elements in a creative synthesis. That is why reducing Elvis to his influences is the surest way to misunderstand him. Elvis singing country, ballads or anything wasn't quite the same as others doing the same. Elvis bassist at the June 1970 Norbert Putnam put the point well when he said of Elvis:
'I came to understand, he expressed so many things with his voice…He was the greatest communicator of emotion that I ever knew, from beginning to end.'
Elvis was a heart singer, the best of his kind, and his kind was the best. A decade ago I wrote this in paying tribute to Elvis' version of The Twelfth of Never, and a decade on I stand by every word:
I can never quite put my finger on what it is that sets Elvis apart. People talk about pitch, range, etc, but I really don't think it is technical ability. There is a loss and a yearning in that voice, something that transcends the actual notes. You can hear singers who are technically flawless, but they lack that soulful or haunting quality. You can be impressed by them, but they don't move you. Singing is about the emotions and that's what Elvis delivers on. He strikes a human chord.
The Release of the Music
Over the five days of the session Elvis and his band recorded 34 masters. The quantity was impressive and although the quality of the songs was somewhat uneven, the performances of Elvis and his band were invariably good, and more often than not excellent. Even the lesser material could be released without disgracing the artist.
Most of the songs were released on three albums:
That's the Way It Is
Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old)
Love Letters from Elvis
Once you overlook the controversies of marketing and packaging, the slicing and dicing of the masters, and focus instead on the actual content of the three albums taken as a whole, the songs of 1970 reveal Elvis' increasing maturity as an artist.
One bizarre conceit that comes close to ruining the Elvis Country album is the decision to employ the cracking country gospel of I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago as a running theme throughout the album, linking the individual tracks. As a result, the beginnings and endings of each song are overlain with a raucous tune that destroys the particular mood and spirit of each. The repetition quickly becomes irritating and utterly destroys the textures and atmospheres of beautiful ballads such as I Really Don't Want to Know and Funny How Time Slips Away. Who did this? And why? We have some of the greatest recordings of Elvis' career, and yet are denied the opportunity to appreciate the full songs without interference. I can remember playing the Elvis Country album to a fan of classical music who knew little of Elvis but was open to my claims in praise of his genius. Just two or three repeats of the Ten Thousand Years track had her screwing her face up asking what the point of its continuous return was. Concept albums and linking themes are fine, if done well. This isn't done well, it is just a clumsy and unimaginative insert that suffers from rapidly diminishing, indeed decreasing, returns. I was once told that the key to giving a good presentation is to have a good beginning and a good ending – the use of Ten Thousand Years as a linking theme ruins the beginnings and the endings of each track on the album. Genius! And it is a conceit that not only sabotages each track on the album, but wastes a rollicking slice of red hot country gospel. Peter Guralnick writes of the mystery of using song which gives the album its title as a linking theme. In its 'fragmented' form the song 'gives promise of being one of his more exciting revival-styled numbers. If only it were put together again.' If only it had been butchered and wasted in the first place. The way in which Elvis' music was packaged and released is a master class in how to make the worst of the greatest material.
It is the controversies that generate the interest. Critics cannot resist playing the albums off against each other. It seems that there always has to be juxtaposition. If June 1970 is contrasted negatively with Memphis 1969, then the adult-oriented balladry of That's the Way It Is tends to be devalued in comparison with the authentic American roots of Elvis Country, with Love Letters from Elvis simply dismissed as an album of leftovers.
In The Complete Guide to the Music of Elvis Presley, John Robertson writes this about That's the Way It Is:
“The authority of Presley's singing disguised the fact that the album stepped decisively away from the American-roots inspiration of the Memphis sessions towards a more middle-of-the-road sound. With country put on the backburner, and soul and R&B left in Memphis, what was left was very classy, very clean white pop – perfect for the Las Vegas crowd, but a definite retrograde step for Elvis.” (Robertson 1994, p.87).
That view is a nonsense. Country was not put on the backburner at the June 1970 session at all. The critic here is focusing on the packaging and presentation of the material, playing off the white jumpsuited Elvis on the cover of That's the Way against the 'roots' image of a young Elvis on the cover of Elvis Country. Yes, That's the Way included four live tracks recorded at Las Vegas, but when Elvis attempted the complex, sophisticated, or low-key ballads of this album at Las Vegas they didn't go down well and were soon dropped. And to describe the soul-drenched, gospel-inflections of the likes of Just Pretend as 'clean white pop' is a mere prejudgement. Robertson moves next to review the Elvis Country album, praising the return to roots: 'for the moment at least, Elvis fans could assure themselves that their man was still in peak form.' (p.88). Such 'criticism' is predictable and lazy and clouds the truth in false controversy. There is no That's The Way It Is vs Elvis Country for the simple reason that the tracks were all recorded at the same time in the same session with the same musicians.
Where there is a problem is in the way the music was released and marketed, with That's the Way and Country issued just six weeks apart. The music was treated as disposable product that shipped direct to Elvis fans, with no attempt to broaden Elvis' appeal to non-fans.
Both albums made the top twenty and both went gold, but as mainstream releases this much was to be expected. Underlying problems were suggested by the fact that the accompanying singles failed to meet expectations. The problem was less quality than style. I've Lost You was a quality ballad that was simply too good, too refined for the charts, peaking at US #32. The follow up single You Don't Have to Say You Love Me was beefier, more rhythmic, more overblown, less subtle, and hit #11. I've Lost You had musical ambition and intelligence, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me had numbers - and it was numbers that drove the Elvis management. Go figure – with Elvis, the art always reduced to numbers. To this day it is this over-the-top sound that forms the dominant image of Elvis. In winning, you lose.
That's the Way It Is is a well-crafted album which selects songs which complement one another, weaving powerful and delicate ballads together with more rhythmic material. Here and there, with the likes of Stranger in the Crowd, How the Web Was Woven, and The Next Step is Love there are hints of new directions to be taken. It didn't quite come to happen in this new and contemporary way. Instead, the loss and separation of I've Lost You set the template for the Elvis ballad of the seventies. Elvis' interest was clearly in this kind of material. Commercially, it didn't make sense. Before long fans and critics alike were complaining of Elvis releasing too many sad ballads. They may have been quality songs, but none had the impact of Suspicious Minds. When Elvis hit the top of the charts again in 1972 it was with the storming swamp rocker Burning Love. It would be the last time that Elvis saw the top of the US charts. That doesn't make the direction taken wrong or the music bad. In many respects it represents Elvis' concern to record songs that he liked, regardless of commercial potential. Elvis had become the ballad singer he had always wanted to be. In terms of public reputation, however, it is the singles and the songs that people hear on the radio that people remember. Even critics, who are supposed to know better, succumb to such superficial judgement, concluding that Elvis was now a middle-of-the-road singer singing for middle aged matrons.That image stuck with him throughout the seventies.
But that's not quite how it was, or how it needed to be. Reviewing Elvis Country in Rolling Stone Peter Guralnick wrote that 'Elvis Presley has come out with a record that gives us some of the very finest music since he first recorded for Sun almost seventeen years ago.' He elaborates: '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. All the familiar virtues are there. The intensity. The throbbing voice. The sense of dynamics. That peculiar combination of hypertension and soul. There is even, for those who care to recall, a frenzied recollection of what the rock era once was, as Elvis takes on Jerry Lee Lewis’ masterful “Whole Lotta Shakin'” and comes out relatively unscathed. He has never sung better.'
That's high praise indeed, and was repeated in many other reviews at the time. That praise was with withehld from most appraisals of That's the Way It Is, which attracted scorn and derision for its adult-oriented sound. If anything shows the superficiality of the critics it is this, since the songs on both albums were recorded at the same June sessions. 'Elvis Country,' states Guralnick, 'is, obviously, a return to roots.' Immediately, Elvis' authentic American roots are set against his contemporary balladeering. For Elvis, though, there was no juxtaposition – Elvis never left his roots but continually drew upon them. You can here them plain in the ballad Just Pretend on That's the Way It Is. Elvis Country perceived as a statement of authentic roots music in a way that That's the Way was not. But the distinction is false. Just as the negative contrast of June 1970 with Memphis 1969 is false. In the June 1970 session Elvis gave free reign to the informal freewheeling jam-session spirit that the disciplined and austere Chips Moman found so distracting at Memphis. Elvis was a range rider who loved nothing better than to transgress boundaries and mix and match. Elvis took music from everywhere and stamped it with his own imprint.
In the end it is pointless to compare and contrast Memphis '69 and Nashville '70. Chips Momans' approach produced a series of strong, contemporary, and successful singles; the approach that Elvis took in Nashville 1970 produced something very different, but something that was also impressive. Debates can still be had over the nature of the material, in terms of which Memphis '69 and Nashville '70 have more in common than may be thought. But there was much less rock, R&B, and soul in 1970 and more ballads. Most of all, the hard edge and intensity had gone, the tracks with a kicking contemporary quality had gone, the fire and the hunger had gone. Elvis was back on top and was intent on using that position to become the ballad singer he had always wanted to be.
A brief comment on the Love Letters From Elvis might be in order. It is not a well regarded album. In its packaging, concept, and contents, John Robertson describes the album as an “unfortunate return to the cynical ways of the past.” It's hard to identify the cynicism here, though. It may well have been “another trawl” through the June 1970 session, and it may well have gathered together the lesser material of that session. But why not? Robertson describes the material as “lacklustre.” But among the collection are decent country songs that could easily have found a place on the Country album, a couple of nice ballads that could have slotted easily into That's the Way It Is, a storming blues jam, a couple of songs that were released as singles, and a soulful reworking of the title track. I write in more detail on Love Letters From Elvis elsewhere. Suffice to say, the material was decent enough to justify release, even if the album isn't remotely in the class of Elvis Country and That's the Way It Is.
We can argue about the selection of material. It's not all of a piece. If there is classic country there is also commercial country, even country-politan. Some of the ballads veer in this direction. It is simply impossible to generalize.
Beyond the material, though, it's soulfulness of the singing, the vocal command, and the commitment to the music which impress most of all. Elvis is 'on' and engaged. He is in such good spirits that you don't notice the usual batch of mediocre songs. On the best songs the result is exceptional.
The root of the recording session is the soulful gospel-inflected vocal, particularly the ballads, which predominate, but also on the occasional rhythm number. As in Memphis the previous year, this is Elvis as soul singer. But just as it is country the Elvis way, so this is soul the Elvis way, using his voice to express the full range of human emotions. He uses his considerable attributes to create a heart music which, while being ostensibly country or MOR balladry, puts us directly in touch with the human roots that feed life's experiences. And if that's not a definition of soul, I don't know what is.
It is this multiplicity, and the swagger with which he delivered it, that marked Elvis as different from the very beginning of his career, the quality that made him noted and notorious. How it was to see critics, inspired by his early music, coming down hard on the same transgressive qualities applied to an even wider range of music. Such people have more in common with Sun producer Sam Phillips than with Elvis. Elvis always transcended the limitations of the Sun vision (as did Roy Orbison). Phillips didn't care for Elvis' ballads such as the unearthly Blue Moon. Elvis carried on singing the ballads.
One of the most striking things about the session is Elvis' enjoyment, engagement, and playfulness, as well as his eagerness to range widely according to whatever ideas are being sparked in the creative process, a willingness to take risks. That was always the key to Elvis' best recordings, and was something that the constraints of recording and commerce squeezed out of his career.
Guralnick speculates as to what Elvis Country promised for the future. He claims that 'Elvis has never been exactly noted for his taste.' He praises Jerry Lee Lewis' sure instinct for sticking to exactly what he is good at. Elvis never knew his limitations and was always prepared to work beyond the boundaries. He was a transgressor. When he transgressed in ways in which cool cats and hipsters like Guralnick and Marcus approved, they hailed him as the greatest genius rock music had ever produced. But it seems that this was all a matter of accident rather than design. Elvis had neither good taste nor bad taste, he had his own taste. And he would carry on transgressing in ways that made complete sense to him and no sense at all to those concerned with distinctions, definitions, categories, and boundaries. Only Elvis could go to Stax studios in 1973, the home of black soul in Memphis and, with Booker T's MGs available, record the Latin ballad Spanish Eyes. Elvis, as Guralnick writes, was not noted for having discerning taste. It was a mighty fine recording all the same. Guralnick laments that 'Elvis has shown a distressing inability over the years to distinguish his strengths from his weaknesses.' Or maybe the truth is that discerning critics of impeccable music taste are themselves unable to see that the things which they consider to be Elvis' weaknesses were actually the key to the way he connected and communicated with the greatest public any artist has ever attracted. Elvis struck a very human chord, beyond implication, definition, and designation. Elvis didn't just sing 'all kinds' of music, he was all kinds, no matter what those who express taste and preference may think. Gurlanick concludes that 'the energy is still there,' before expressing his own preferences: 'if Elvis can only be persuaded to put out an album of blues now, too, we’ll have in capsule a picture of the genesis of rock & roll and what first went into the make-up of one of its few authentic geniuses, this brilliant and altogether original performer.'
Sadly, Elvis Blues never happened. And the truly annoying thing about it is that, as the Got My Mojo Working jam in the June 1970 session shows, Elvis could have cut such an album in no time at all.
His jam of the blues Merry Christmas Baby a year later produced the highlight of the Christmas album. The same with respect to Promised Land in 1973. The freewheeling approach that produced Elvis Country in 1970 could so easily have produced an Elvis blues album.