Elvis Presley, The #2 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Eight

 

(Continued from Part Seven)

Meanwhile, Elvis continued to star in bad movies, making 27 films in the 60's.  The busy schedule that movies require kept Presley from doing something he actually did well--recording music.  As for the music chosen for the soundtrack albums, Gordon Stoker said that Elvis would back away from the studio microphone:  "The material was so bad that he felt like he couldn't sing it."  

So Elvis was held back, as are all artists who cannot write their own music, and they are dependent on others to write it for them.  Most artists are capable of rejecting songs they do not like; Elvis was not.  

The combination of those two factors left Presley unprepared to compete once the Beatles landed in America.  From 1964 through 1968, Elvis charted a Top 10 song just once out of 33 releases.  

The one winner was this one, which Presley recorded in 1960 but left it off his Gospel album His Hand in Mine because he didn't feel it was good enough.  Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires recalled how the song was recorded:

            We had been singing since 6 or 7 o'clock in

            the evening during that session.  At about 3

            a.m., Elvis said "Let's do 'Crying In The

            Chapel'".  Of course, the recording was 

            pretty much of a hit, so we had all heard it

            on the radio.  The song was recorded by a

            guy over in east Tennessee, and it got a

            lot of plays around Nashville.  Elvis liked

            the record and had it with him in the studio.

Presley underestimated his performance--"Crying In The Chapel" was a #3 hit in the United States that reached #1 in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Italy and Norway. 

 

Although "Crying In The Chapel" was a surprise hit, it didn't reinvigorate Presley's career like he had hoped; he wouldn't touch the Top 10 for three more years.  This song from Otis Blackwell and Winfield Scott was on the 1962 album Pot Luck, but like the one that follows, it was released as a single in 1965 due to its inclusion in the movie Tickle Me.  

"(Such An) Easy Question" reached #4 in Canada, #10 in the U.K. and #11 in the United States.

Presley and his friends invited the Beatles to Elvis's home in Bel Air, California in August, 1965.  

 

This song too was recorded in 1961 and featured on the 1962 album Pot Luck. "I'm Yours" was also released in 1965 and it became a Gold single and peaked at #2 in Canada and #11 in the U.S. (#1 Easy Listening).

In 1965, Presley released the album Elvis for Everyone!

Those soundtracks did continue to sell for a while even though they were bad:  Kissin' Cousins, Roustabout and Girl Happy all went Gold and Frankie and Johnny went Platinum.  But even those buyers soon figured out that Elvis' songs had lost the magic and no soundtrack album went Gold after Frankie and Johnny in 1966.

The Girl Happy soundtrack yielded one of Elvis' most popular songs, "Puppet On A String", a Gold record which reached #3 in Canada and #3 on the Easy Listening chart in the U.S. (#14 overall).

 

Elvis was beginning to run out of material for the reasons referred to earlier in our series.  He recorded this song in 1957 but it wasn't judged worthy at the time.  With little new material, Presley had no choice.  It was too short for a single release, but they got around the issue in production by repeating the concluding verse and chorus.  Elvis released "Tell Me Why" in December of 1965 and it reached #7 in Canada but only #33 in the U.S., as support from radio was declining on nearly a record-by-record basis.

 

Elvis is one of at least 256 artists to record this song.  "Frankie And Johnny" is the title song from his movie.  It climbed to #3 in Canada and #4 on the Easy Listening chart in the United States.

Presley released the single "Love Letters", a song first popularized in 1945 when Dick Haymes performed the song without lyrics for the movie of the same name.  It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song in that year.  Ketty Lester reached #5 with the vocal version in 1961 and Elvis' version hit #6 in the U.K. and #7 in New Zealand and Italy.

 

This song written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan was recorded during the sessions for Presley's album How Great Thou Art.  Elvis first heard the song from Charlie McCoy, according to the book Elvis Presley:  A Life In Music - The Complete Recording Sessions by Ernst Jorgensen.  McCoy worked on the Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde recording sessions for Dylan and when he played the 1965 Odetta album Odetta Sings Dylan before a recording session, Elvis "had become taken with 'Tomorrow Is A Long Time'." 

As Christmas approached in 1966, Elvis proposed to Priscilla and the two were married May 1, 1967 in Las Vegas.  

 

This song is a Swedish hymn that was translated into English by Stuart Hine in 1949 but gained considerable exposure when George Shea sang it on a Billy Graham crusade in 1957.  Eventually, the song found its way into hymnals. 

Presley booked a session in Nashville in 1967 to record new material and he released the album How Great Thou Art, named after the classic Gospel song that highlights the album, which reached #18.  Millie Kirkham, June Page, Dolores Edgin and Jake Hess and the Imperial Quartet were brought in to give the songs a fuller sound.

In 1967, Elvis won his first Grammy Award for Best Sacred Performance for the album How Great Thou Art, which has now topped three million in sales.  

 

Only when the "Clambake" Soundtrack did not sell later in the year did RCA executives realize there was a problem with the music chosen for Presley's movies.

Priscilla gave birth to Lisa Marie on February 1, 1968.   Elvis was about to star in the movie Live A Little, Love A Little, which was one of his last.  

Mac Davis wrote the original version of this song for Aretha Franklin, but when Billy Strange, who was Music Director for the movie, asked Davis about contributing a song, Mac realized that "A Little Less Conversation" was perfect for the scene where it would be featured.  Davis reworked the song with Strange and Elvis recorded it.

The single stalled at #69, but when it was remixed in 2002, the new version rose to #1 in the U.K., giving Elvis a record 18 #1 hits there.

"You'll Never Walk Alone" captured Presley at the piano delivering a passionate performance from the heart of a song he had always loved.  

 

Jerry Reed wrote and recorded the original of this song but let Elvis record it after producer Felton Jarvis desperately begged him for material.  After two nights of recording, there were only three songs that Jarvis felt he could use.  Presley was inspired by "U.S. Male" and turned it into an energetic recording.  The song was later included on the 1970 compilation album Almost in Love.

 

Seeing that his plan for Elvis to stay busy in films and away from recording in the studio was a dismal failure, Parker then shifted to television.  Elvis recorded a TV special for NBC called Elvis on December 3 in Burbank, California.  The performance, Presley's first since 1961, would come to be known as the '68 Comeback Special and featured Elvis in tight black leather singing and playing guitar in a style reminiscent of his early days.  The show earned 42% of the viewing audience.

One of the songs Elvis performed was a cover of this Jimmy Reed song from 1959--"Baby What You Want Me To Do".

 

The soundtrack album rose to #8, Elvis' first Top 10 album in three years, and has sold over one million copies.  The following is taken from a story of this next song on Graceland.com.  

1968 was a tumultuous year in the United States.  Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Presley's hometown (Memphis, Tennessee) on April 4.  On the heels of that tragic news came word that Robert Kennedy, the frontrunner for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination, was assassinated on June 6.  

Elvis was visibly affected by the news of Kennedy's assassination, which led to the song "If I Can Dream", a tribute to King that included direct quotes from him.  

While Presley was working on the television special, he saw news about Kennedy's death and spent an entire night with the show's director, Steve Binder, and his friends, talking about the assassinations and Elvis' hopes for the world.

It was an emotional night and Binder felt Elvis had an important message to give, so he went to the show's Music Director Billy Goldenberg and songwriter Earl Brown and told them about the discussion that had taken place at Binder's house.  

Binder wanted a powerful, meaningful song that would close out the TV special. Because the special was slated to air in December, the producers and Elvis' manager, Col. Tom Parker, had planned to end the show with a Christmas song, but Binder had other ideas. It wasn't long before "If I Can Dream" was born.

Brown came up with the song and Binder played it for Elvis to Presley's satisfaction.  Elvis recorded it on June 23 with several impassioned takes, even though many said his first was perfect.  

After the band and vocalists had left for the evening, Presley gave an even more amazing performance.  He ordered the lights turned off and let himself be completely affected by the music, eventually falling to his knees on the concrete floor.  

After he was finished, Presley went in the control room to hear the newly-recorded vocals.  He was so moved by the song and his experience recording it that he told Binder, "I'll never sing another song I don't believe in.  I'm never going to make another movie I don't believe in."  

"If I Can Dream", a Gold record that peaked at #12 was featured in the television special and is among Presley fans' most favorite songs.

Elvis' vocals were still sterling, and the television special reignited his career.  We have much more to come.  Join us for Part Nine!