On June 4th Elvis went back into Nashville's Studio B to do some recording. The session featured Jerry Carrigan on drums, Norbert Putnam on bass, David Briggs on piano, Chip Young on guitar and Charlie McCoy on harmonica. From the TCB-band only James Burton was present. Five days later the musicians finished a bulk of 34 songs. Most of the songs weren't suited as a single, but they are none the less among the best Elvis ever put to vinyl. Most of the material can be found on "Elvis Country", "Love Letters From Elvis" and..."That's The Way It Is." In a recent interview Norbert Putnam gives some great insights to how these sessions went along:
"Typically, when Elvis would come to Nashville he'd record for five nights. The King would always come precisely at eight o'clock, two hours into the first union session, and then we'd usually clown around. Now the first session [has] run an hour overtime and Felton Jarvis starts squirming around. 'Elvis, we have to do something, we have to do something.' And he'd say, 'Ah, ah, OK. What are we doing?' And then they'd bring the songs out. Elvis usually hadn't heard any of the songs, had not chosen any songs. He would choose them at the record date¼ The sessions were really pretty unprofessional. I'm not kidding. About the sixth demo, you can see Elvis is resigned he's going to do this one. It's no better than the first one; it's no better than the second one. It's the same cut of cloth. He'd say, 'Hey guys, we got to do something. Play it again.' And they'd play it the second time through and Elvis is mumbling along. Maybe they'd play it three times [before] Elvis would say, 'Let's do it. Where's my mike?' Well, the band has not played this song. And Felton says, 'Rolling, Elvis.' We've just done this very careful reading the first time through and Felton says, 'You need to come in here and listen to this, Elvis.' We [the band] are going, 'let's pray to God he doesn't take that.' We go into the control room and they start playing it back telling him how great he is. We devised a little plan in order to get a second or third take. [While] it's playing back, I would go over to Elvis and punch him in the ribs. I'd say, 'Elvis, do one more for me. I've got a great idea for the bridge I'd like to put in there. I hate to ask you to do it again.' And he'd say, 'Hey guys, look, we got to do one more for Put.' So now we've got a second take. Next time, David goes over and elbows him. And then, 'Ah, let's do one for David.' Now we got three takes out of it. And sometimes James Burton. But then we're out of guys. Four was about it, no more than four takes. If we could have worked on these records a little longer . . . but we couldn't. The fact that the music turned out as good as it did is a miracle."
Listening to the songs you'll come to the conclusion, that Felton Jarvis used very traditional arrangements for the overdubs. Too bad, because by listening to outtakes from this session (RCA/BMG's "Essential Elvis vol. 4 - A Hundred Years From Now") you can hear these songs have a certain 'feeling', which partly gets lost in the overdubbing.
The day after Independence Day Elvis flies to Los Angeles to rehearse for his third Vegas engagement, which is being promoted as "Elvis' Summer Festival". Colonel Parker and his staff have stuffed the International Hotel with banners, posters and giant teddy bears and hound dogs. The hotel personnel was wearing straw hats at the time...a real circus alright. Reservations for tickets came from 36 US-states and 19 countries, 4 of which were behind the iron curtain!
"That's The Way It Is"-director Denis Sanders on his experience with Elvis: The subject of the movie is Elvis. Elvis on stage in Las Vegas with his incredible, record-breaking shows. But we went further than that. We tried to capture the ups and downs he experiences while putting together the show. We show him as a musician plus we bring the other side of the stage: the reactions of his audience. What impressed me the most - and what made my job a lot easier - was his professionalism. Perhaps blinded by his image and his income, people think he's a legend, but in reality Elvis is a working musician. Elvis is the captain of the ship. From the songs he sings to the lighting, the sound and the orchestra...Elvis makes all the decisions. When he's on stage, you'll never know what he's going to do next. Each show is completely different. Elvis is well prepared, but it is mainly his instinct that guides him. It was hard for me to turn the camera's away from him and focus on other parts of the show."
However, no matter how great the material was, Colonel Parker used the film as propaganda to sell Elvis to new audiences. As such, the movie focused on various ages, ethnic groups and others with the message that if you're like these people, you'll like Elvis. The movie even included silly things as two girls talking about how nice Elvis is and how even their cat likes Elvis! A Luxembourg Elvis convention was included only to demonstrate that Elvis had many fans in Europe...
The "soundtrack" of the movie RCA produced at the time wasn't much of a soundtrack as such. It contained only two songs that were actually from the movie ("I Just Can't Help Believin'" and "Patch It Up"). The other songs were either alternate live recordings from the August Vegas-engagement ("I've Lost You" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'") or studio cuts from June. The album was released in December 1970 and even though it received favourable reviews, it didn't climb the charts the way it was expected to do. This was due to poor marketing and planning by RCA. The album came right after the release of two budget-albums in November ("Elvis' Christmas Album" and "Almost In Love") and it preceded the incredible "Elvis Country"-album, released in January 1971. Because of this the highest chart position on Billboards' Hot LP Chart was number 21. Worldwide the album sold approximately 3.5 million units, up until the re-release in July 2000.
So here we have the long awaited and upgraded version of one of Elvis Presley's finest albums. The first striking thing of this release is the new and somewhat loud design (the yellow, orange and red rainbow on the cover kind of reminds me of the 1972 "Elvis Now"-album). Such a difference with the sober dark cover of the original album! However, most of the new artwork had already been published on the Internet, so the design wasn't that much of a surprise. Opening the package of the "deluxe edition" - a transparant plastic case with track information and logo's printed on it - you'll find three digipacks and a booklet. The digipacks are white and each contain one silhouette of Elvis on the front in black and white and a coloured picture of Elvis inside. The back shows a blown up picture of Elvis' blouse with the tracklistings, each digipack in a different colour. Some of you might like the new design, but I guess most of you won't. I for one do like the new packaging. It is very experimental and creative (like Elvis was musically in those days) and the booklet really gives you a good impression of the "groovy-ness" of those days (some of the backgrounds came straight out of my parents' wardrobe!). The booklet could have had more and better liner notes though. For instance, there is no note whatsoever why these recordings are as legendary as RCA/BMG claims them to be¼ Anyway, the most important thing of the package is of course the music. So here we go:
CD 1
The first disc contains the original album in it's original mix. Seven bonus tracks have been added from the same period, taken from the albums "Love Letters From Elvis" (Love Letters, When I'm Over You, I'll Never Know & Cindy, Cindy), "Elvis Now" (Sylvia) and the "Essential 70's Masters" box-set (Something & Rags To Riches). "The reason we've done it this way," explains Ernst Jorgensen (author of the book 'Elvis - A Life In Music' and producer of every new RCA/BMG Elvis Presley album since the late 1980's) "is that it is a remake of the classic album [¼] and we want people to be able to get the original album with it. That may not be what every collector wants, but that may be what a lot of other people who are not collectors would want." To me this seems like the right decision. Anything else I can say about a disc filled with familiar songs? Well, maybe this: the fade in of "I Just Can't Help Believing" is a little shaky and the track also has a minor dropout (from 0:57.631 to 0:57.638 seconds) on "is" of the first "this time the girl is gonna stay". I compared this version to the one on the "Essential 70's Masters" promo (no particular reason for that) and that version does not have a dropout. Another thing is, that the latter is also a little slower than the one on the TTWII-release. These issues were most likely caused by the use of different master tapes, because in spite of these minor mistakes the album sounds better than ever before.
CD 2
Six concerts were recorded by RCA during Presley's triumphant stand at the International Hotel (NOT the Las Vegas Hilton, like the booklet says) in Las Vegas, August 1970. The second disc presents one of those shows almost in its entirety (Elvis going into the audience has been edited out). "The best [concert] we've ever released" according to Mike Omansky, executive director of most new Elvis-releases. "The best Elvis Presley concert ever recorded", says Jorgensen, "I think it beats Aloha from Hawaii, Madison Square Garden and all the others."
The booklet states that "most of the performances are previously unreleased". This is true to some extent, but eleven songs from this show were either in the movie or on the soundtrack of "That's The Way It Is", on the video "The Lost Performances", on the "Elvis Aron Presley" box-set or the "Essential 70's Masters" box-set. So technically half of the songs are officially unreleased, twenty by RCA/BMG. It is however the first time we get to hear the complete show, and that's perhaps the most important thing. Plus the sound quality of the show is incredible: Dennis Ferrante's remixes are outstanding. The songs sound very much alive (unlike the live-songs on the original TTWII-soundtrack), which makes this CD very exciting to listen to. Let me lead you through the second disc song by song.
The disc begins with a fade in on a very funky untitled intro, but "That's All Right" opens Presley's performance on this night. A real rocking performance of his first SUN record and this time not played at warp 10, like in the movie or in Madison Square Garden two years later. After "That's All Right" we're launched right into "Mystery Train/Tiger Man". This song can be heard during the opening credits of the movie, for which it had been edited. A striking difference between this one and all other versions, is the way Ronnie Tutt plays it. The one on this album has a completely different drum-arrangement than any version I know. The band - as always - really rocks during James Burton's second guitar solo. When the song is done, Elvis welcomes the audience to the International and introduces himself as Fats Domino. Then he sings, "I found my thrill" (Blueberry Hill), without attempting to finish the song. The band however thinks he's serious and is in real trouble trying to find the right key! Then he introduces a song that he "can't play no more". He is in fact in trouble when he tries to hit the high note during the opening scream "You ain't nothing but a hound dog". We go straight into an okay version of "Hound Dog", but Elvis will never be able to catch the magic that song had in the fifties, or during the Las Vegas '69-shows for that matter.
"I did a movie. And the title song went like this", says Elvis before going into the 4th song of this disc. Yes, it's "Love Me Tender"-time. Almost seven minutes of Elvis kissing women in the front, second and third row: zzzzzzzzzz. After this, Elvis is badly in need of a drink, some Gatorade, which according to Elvis is supposed to "aid your gator; if you got a sick gator". The song that follows should be out on an album "by January of 1979": Just Pretend. I have yet to hear Elvis do a bad version of this song. Simply beautiful. "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" is up next. This is also a good performance, but maybe a tad too fast? The version Elvis cut in February 1970 (for the "On Stage"-album) has a much better groove to it.
"I just did a country & western album under the name of Glenn Campbell. One of the songs in the album is one of my favourite country songs": "There Goes My Everything". This song gets a very good treatment and is similar to the version on "The Lost Performances". The Bee Gees' song "Words" is next. What a difference in arrangement between this one and the version on the "In Person"-album! The new arrangement fits perfectly in the new musical direction Elvis had chosen, so it sounds bigger and more powerful than it did before. During the rehearsal part of the movie Elvis makes a fuss about the ending of this song. To him it never sounded right. So he rethinks the ending and decides he doesn't want it to slow down anymore. I wonder why he dropped this idea, because the ending on this disc is similar to the one on "In Person". "Sweet Caroline" is next and was taken from the movie. Simply magnificent.
Even though it was previously released on the "That's The Way It Is"-soundtrack, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" is definitely one of the highlights of the disc and the entire package. After the regular version Elvis picks up the song again right before "Baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you" - he also did this with songs like "Hurt" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" - and takes the song to a very powerful climax. If you listen to the bass guitar, it sounds like Jerry Scheff was playing with a busted speaker that night, but it cannot be heard on the bass intro of "Polk Salad Annie", so it has to be some sort of damage to the bass track of the master tape. The problem had been covered up on the soundtrack by cutting most of the treble from the bass guitar, but after some graphic equalising you'll find it on that source too.
What can I say about "Polk Salad"? Well, it's (of course) the ripping version from the movie, but I wonder what happened to the "what are you lookin' at back there?"-remark by Elvis during the intro. After "Polk Salad Annie" Elvis goes into the audience, which can partly be seen in the movie. It has been edited out of this album for obvious reasons. When he gets back on stage he performs four of his classic fifties hits "Heartbreak Hotel", "One Night", "Blue Suede Shoes" and "All Shook Up", which can all be seen either in the movie or on the "Lost Performances"-video except for the latter. You can hear that by August 1970, Elvis had already lost the enthusiasm to sing them. It seems that after "One Night" Elvis decided to change the set list, because instead of giving Elvis the key of A (for "Blue Suede Shoes") James Burton gives him an F chord (perhaps for "Love Me"???). The same problem occurs before "All Shook Up". "The same chord, ain't it?" Elvis asks Glen D. Hardin. When Elvis starts singing "Well I bless my soul, what's wrong with me", James is trying to find the right key. "Same chord", Elvis says, and they're off. It has been suggested on many websites and magazines that this version of "All Shook Up" is from the movie. This isn't the case however. In the movie-version Elvis giggles on the line "can't seem to stand on my own two feet", the version in this album doesn't have that. Another difference is that on the album Elvis says "ah well" right before "please don't ask me what's on my mind". In the movie he doesn't do this.
After "All Shook Up" Elvis asks Charlie Hodge for his "little stool". Charlie hands him his electric guitar and it seems like it's improv-time. Elvis strums "Little Sister/Get Back" which has been previously released on "Elvis Aron Presley" (the Silver box-set). It doesn't sound like it had been rehearsed all that well. The version released recently on the "Burning Love"-CD from February 14th 1972 is much better. "I Was The One" (previously released on the "Essential 70's Masters" box-set) is next but Elvis can't seem to remember the words and he quits the song after two verses. Too bad, because if done right, this song could beat "Love Me Tender" any day. "Love Me" follows "I Was The One" and is a very good version. Done like he did in the fifties (one bridge and one verse shorter though) and not as rushed as later versions would become. A hardly serious but very enjoyable version of "Are You Lonesome Tonight?", which can also been seen in "Elvis - The Concert", concludes the jamming segment of this show. It contains the familiar joke "do you gaze at your bald head and wish you had hair?", not to be confused with the famous laughing version from August 26 1969. Elvis omits the spoken part and goes right into the ending. Half of the band didn't get this, so the ending is a little clumsy. "Well, we got that out of the way, now we can go on with the show", says Elvis.
The show goes on with two tremendous highlights: "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Suspicious Minds". Vocally this version of "Bridge" is just as strong as the one released in the movie. Instrument-wise the latter has more finesse, but that's detail-stuff. "Suspicious Minds" was in the movie and is the most intense version vocally and musically released by RCA/BMG although the version on "An Afternoon In The Garden" comes close. The show ends with a very good version of "Can't Help Falling In Love", which was also in the movie.
CD 3 Disc three begins with some extra songs that Presley sang during the six recorded concerts, but which weren't part of the complete show on the second disc. A kick-ass version of "I Got A Woman" from the 11th of August opens this disc. After this you can hear Elvis greet the audience and the Hollywood-camera by saying "hello you big mother`...". He makes some suggestive movements and then comments "See you put that in the film". "I Can't Stop Loving You" is from one day earlier and a little messy. Elvis and the band still need to get the right feel with this song. Following "I Can't Stop Loving You" is a couple of seconds of "Toreador Song" from Bizet's "Carmen". Elvis alters the lyrics into: "Toreador-a, toreador, who that was with you on the floor".
"Twenty Days And Twenty Nights" taken from "The Lost Performances" is from the 12th of August. "It's not a very good song" according to Elvis, "and I don't really particularly dig singing it. But it's on the programme and they asked me to do it, so I hope you enjoy it." Of course some people of the press make a big fuss about this remark, but I doubt that it was a serious one. Who asked him to do it? It wasn't a fan-pleaser like his fifties hits were, plus it's like Denis Sanders said: "Elvis makes all the decisions". Anyway, I enjoyed the song a whole lot. There is some hesitance with both Elvis and the band during the opening of the song, but as the song progresses the musicians take this song way up high.
"The Next Step Is Love" and "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" are both from the 10th of August. The first is sung by Elvis with a little uncertainty during the opening of the song, especially during "¼shadows of a perfect day". When he gets through the first verse his performance is much better altogether. "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" is, like all other studio and live versions RCA/BMG released, very powerful.
"Stranger In The Crowd", "Make The World Go Away" and "Don't Cry Daddy/In The Ghetto" are from August 13 of which the latter two can be seen in "The Lost Performances"-video. "Stranger In The Crowd" is played with a lot of enthusiasm. Elvis gets lost in the words right before the first chorus. Otherwise it's a very strong performance; James Burton's guitar solo is actually better here than the one on the soundtrack. "Make The World Go Away" and "Don't Cry Daddy/In The Ghetto" are familiar performances, but very moving nonetheless.
Next up on this 3rd disc are some rehearsals from July 15th, the 24th, and the 29th, recorded at the M-G-M Soundstage in Los Angeles, and August 4 and 7, recorded at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Ernst Jorgensen: "These have a rougher sound to them, of course; it's Elvis and the rhythm group only [no strings, brass, etc.], just jamming around. It gives us wonderful insight into how Elvis worked. Musicians have said, time and again, that rehearsing with Elvis was a trip in itself, because you never knew what you'd end up playing. So there are definitely a few odd ones, like Elvis singing 'Cotton Fields'. It's just charming." To the avid Elvis collector most of these performances are nothing new since all of the July rehearsals included here can be heard on: "Get Down And Get With It" covering July 15, "The Brightest Star On Sunset Blvd" Vol. 1 & 2 regarding July 24 and "There's Always Me Vol. 4." that covers July 29.
Opening the rehearsal part of this disc are performances from July 15th. In the distance you can hear Elvis play the riff of the "Peter Gunn Theme". The band immediately responds, but Glen Hardin has some difficulty trying to find the exact riff. Off mike you can hear Elvis wail the horn-section part of the song. It's just some fooling around by the musicians and the song dies after only one minute. On this night Denis Sanders filmed "Love Me" and "How The Web Was Woven" among others. "That's All Right" can also be seen in the movie. Listening to Elvis doing "Cotton Fields" I wonder whether it was the original version Elvis remembered (by blues singer Leadbelly) or the 1969 hit-record of Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 1969 Elvis did some great versions of the Beatles' "Yesterday". The rehearsal of this song begins with Glen D. Hardin figuring out the key and chords. After about half a minute Elvis drops in, but he can't seem to remember all of the words. Closing the song is a snoring sound by Elvis, but the performance wasn't all that bad. Next is "I Can't Stop Loving You" which was included in the rehearsal part of "The Lost Performances"-video. Glen forgot the intro and Elvis has to sing it to him. This opens a very rushed and kind of messy rehearsal of the song. Like I stated before: it took Elvis and the band a while to get this song right. A relaxed version of "Such A Night" closes the rehearsals from July 15th.
Rehearsals of Presley's own classics were never really serious and always informal, as show "It's Now Or Never", "A Fool Such As I" and "Little Sister/Get Back" from July 29. "Now that you're here, too bad you're queer, my dear" are the alternate lyrics to "It's Now Or Never". Glen Hardin is the only one that knows all the chords to "A Fool Such As I", but James Burton is actually able to deliver a nice guitar solo. "Little Sister/Get Back" can be seen in the movie. The "Get Back"-part had been cut, fortunately. Elvis doesn't know the words to the first verse of the song and throws of James for the guitar solo. When James realizes he has to play a solo, Elvis cuts him off half way and says "forget it". From this night rehearsals for "Words", "I Just Can't Help Believin'", "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" and "Stranger In The Crowd" were filmed by Denis Sanders to be included in the movie.
Opening the rehearsals from July 24th is another stab at "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water". Another attempt - recorded 5 days later - can be found on the "Platinum"-box set. The version included here is actually more inspired than the one on "Platinum". "Johnny B. Goode" is up next. "That's a good number, boy", says Elvis after finishing the song. The performance of the song isn't that good though. This was caused by 'hard working' Ronnie Tutt, who didn't feel like working real hard on this song: he slows it down quite a bit, which makes the song kind of dull to me. Before Elvis says "let's do Mary In The Morning" he sings a tiny part of Roy Orbison's "Running Scared". "Mary In The Morning" is actually the first serious rehearsal of this entire disc and it's an acceptable run-through of the song. Elvis' voice sounds very soar in the higher register for such a tender song though. Finishing up the rehearsals at the M-G-M Soundstage in Los Angeles is "The Wonder Of You". It seems that the musicians forgot all about this song because Elvis remarks "I ain't giving anybody any hints tonight". Glen Hardin plays the intro for the band, then Elvis comments "pretty good. And the next song after that one¼". Elvis forgot some of the words Jerry Scheff forgot the ending and Ronnie Tutt, doesn't know the ending, but other than that it's a pretty good run-through for a first attempt.
M-G-M was present with their cameras on August 4th at the International Hotel-rehearsals. "Words" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" can be seen in the movie. From this night "Santa Claus Is Back In Town" and "Farther Along" are included here. Like any other basic slow blues in E the TCB-band played "Santa Claus Is Back In Town" very similar to for instance "Stranger In My Own Home Town" (on the "Essential 70's Masters"-box set) or early versions of "Reconsider Baby" (on "An Afternoon In The Garden" and the third disc of the "Collector's Gold"-box set). "Farther Along" is a little too low for Elvis, but he manages to pull off a good performance of this gospel song nonetheless.
On the 7th of August the Hollywood cameras were also present at the rehearsals. The movie shows "Polk Salad Annie", "Mary In The Morning" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". But this box set closes with probably the most inspired song of all the rehearsal tracks: "Oh, Happy Day". Just listen to Elvis letting himself go on "He taught me how to watch and pray. And He rejoiced every day". A real shame they didn't put this in the film!
I'd like to start my concluding remarks by quoting Ernst Jorgensen on the original TTWII-release: "the original album made at the time [....] is a funny soundtrack, because it actually has very little audio from the movie itself. You'd think they would have made a live album from a movie that was, basically, Elvis performing live... but they didn't." Some people of the press and fans on the Internet have said the same about the new release: it still isn't a real soundtrack of the movie. However, this wasn't the intention of this release: it's a remake or the orignal album (like all the other re-issues), with extra material from the RCA vaults from the same period.
Selling point of this box-set isn't the re-issue of the original album (the first disc), but it's the show from August 12 on the second disc. So is this second disc worth all the fuss ("the best concert we've ever released", "the best Elvis Presley concert ever recorded")? Well, first we have to keep in mind that Omansky and Jorgensen have to sell albums (even though I do believe they are sincere in their remarks). The show as a whole is very good, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the best concert Elvis ever recorded however. From all the shows released by RCA I'd say the "Aloha From Hawaii"-show is still number one, because the band is more together and Elvis is extremely focussed on his singing. The Aloha-concert also has a better mix of fifties rock & roll and 'serious' songs (with this I mean: less throw-away-versions of rock classics).
As for the third disc: it would have been more of a "Making Of"-disc had it actually contained some serious reheasals. Instead of looking for just "rare" songs - which are usually uninspired - maybe they should have looked for serious rehearsals, like "I Just Can't Help Believin'" or Bridge Over Troubled Water", so we could really hear how the songs progressed.
Even though I regret the fact that there still isn't a real soundtrack of the legendary movie available, this box-set is a very good substitute. There's always going to be people (like myself) thinking things should have been done differently, but it's great to have this stuff available for a wider audience and it's definitely the most surprising box-set RCA/BMG ever released. Hey, this is an essential piece in Elvis-history!
Any questions or comments about this review? Feel free to email me at m.schraven@kub.nl
Johnny Savage's review of Elvis the concert