ELVIS - BACK IN NASHVILLE

For Elvis Presley the start of 1971 saw him accepting an award which must have meant so much to him. He was named one of the 'Ten Outstanding Men' by the Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) and accepted his award at a special banquet held in Memphis. The award recognised young men who had made great achievements in their particular field and over the years recipients had included John F. Kennedy, Orson Welles and Howard Hughes, so he was in good company. During his acceptance speech Elvis said, "I learned very early in life that, 'Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain't got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend, without a song', So I keep singing a song."

The previous two years had seen his career take a dramatic turn with sessions in Memphis in 1969 and Nashville in 1970 producing hit singles, including In The Ghetto, Suspicious Minds, Don't Cry Daddy, Patch It Up, I've Lost You along with a run of successful albums, From Elvis In Memphis, Back In Memphis, Elvis Country and That's The Way It Is.

RCA Records were keen to stick with the apparent 'winning' formula of recording as many tracks as possible over a short period of time resulting in enough product for the following year.

And so it was that Elvis returned to RCA Studio B in Nashville for another series of sessions to fulfill his contract with RCA for a new Christmas album, a gospel album and a pop album along with songs for single release.

With the critical acclaim of the material recorded in June 1970 producer Felton Jarvis hired the same musicians, the cream of the current Nashville studio scene including Chip Young (guitar), Norbert Putnam (bass), Jerry Carrigan (drums), David Briggs (keyboards) and Charlie McCoy (harmonica and organ). James Burton, lead guitarist from Elvis' live band was also present.

Jarvis had been told that in no uncertain terms the Christmas album was a priority followed by the gospel album. In an effort to create a festive mood he installed a Christmas Tree with presents in the studio!

Elvis and the band convened at 6pm on 15 March for the first of several days planned recordings. Elvis was looking to create a different sound, more folk than country, and with this in mind a different group of backing singers were employed. Gone were The Jordanaires and The Imperials and in their place were the seven-piece vocal group The Nashville Edition featuring Dolores Edgin, June Page, Hurshel Wiginton, Joe Babcock, Mary Holladay, Ginger Holladay and Millie Kirkham, most of whom had worked with Elvis previously.

Elvis had arrived at the studio with a bad cold but despite this they managed to record four tracks, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Amazing Grace, Early Morning Rain and (That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me. All four fitted the folk idea that Elvis was keen on pursuing. First Time Ever was tried as a duet with Ginger Holladay but was later rejected. By the end of the session it was obvious Elvis wouldn't be able to continue so the remaining sessions were cancelled/postponed.

With studio time booked for the next few days Felton took the opportunity to record an album with James Burton. Released later in the year on A&M Records The Guitar Sounds Of James Burton included several Elvis related tracks, Mystery Train, Polk Salad Annie, Fools Rush In and Hound Dog.

Sessions resumed on 15 May and would run every night until the 22 May. Further sessions were held between the 8th and 11th June to finish the gospel album and re-record a number of tracks. In the weeks following, a number of overdub sessions were held to add additional backing vocals and strings.

During the May sessions, and after most of the Christmas tracks were in the can, Elvis wanted to return to more folk material and recorded several songs including a jam on the Bob Dylan song Don't Think Twice It's Alright, which ran for over 9 minutes. It was unclear if the idea of a folk album was still a serious consideration or just a passing thought. The mixed vocal group that had worked so well on the tracks recorded in March were replaced on this session by The Imperials, a style more suited to the religious material required.

The sessions were a success and they laid down over thirty tracks, enough for the Christmas and gospel albums and the remaining tracks for the planned pop album and singles. However, as we will see later, most of the remaining tracks would be spread over two albums with material from other sessions. There seemed no logic behind this and it was a missed opportunity to release an album of the best non-Christmas and non-gospel tracks from the sessions.

Meanwhile RCA still needed a new album to follow the release and success of both That’s The Way It Is and Elvis Country. Scheduled for a June release any plans of it being the folk album had been dropped and they turned to left-overs from the 1970 sessions. The album was also renamed. The original title had been Festival but it changed to Love Letters From Elvis, due to the inclusion of the 1970 re-recording of Love Letters.

There were some good tracks but these were mixed with some really sub-standard recordings. As Jon Landua wrote in his review for Rolling Stone Magazine, it sounds like 'a bunch of left-overs.' After the success and critical acclaim of the two previous albums this was a real let-down and its sales figures and chart position reflected this. Even worse than some of the material was the sleeve design, especially the reverse which featured different colour envelopes with the song titles on, more than likely another of the Colonel's ideas! Why Elvis didn't insist on having more input into his album covers never ceases to amaze me.

Several songs from the 1971 sessions were released as singles. Until It's Time For You To Go, We Can Make The Morning, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, I'm Leavin', It's Only Love along with the gospel and Christmas singles, He Touched Me, Bosom Of Abraham, O Come, All Ye Faithful and Merry Christmas Baby. Unfortunately none managed to make much of an impression on the charts. 

Released on 20 October 1971, Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas was the first album released from the sessions and Elvis' second collection of festive tunes. The album featured well-known festive songs including O Come, All Ye Faithful, The First Noel and Winter Wonderland along with contemporary material, I'll Be Home On Christmas Day and It Won't Seem Like Christmas Without You. It was certainly no match to the 1957 Christmas album but did have one saving grace, a great performance of the blues classic Merry Christmas Baby, originally recorded by Charles Brown back in 1948. Originally running to over 8 minutes it was edited down for release on the album. Christmas albums seldom chart and this was no exception. However, it did go on to sell over 400,000 over the following few years.

With a title of Elvis Now fans would have expected an album of new and contemporary material but the album title couldn't have been more misleading. It featured one track from 1969, Hey Jude, two more from 1970, Sylvia and I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago, the recent single that had coupled Until It's Time For You To Go and We Can Make The Morning with just five more songs from the recent sessions. Of the five new recordings Fools Rush In, Early Morning Rain and Help Me Make It Through The Night were highlights. Released in February 1972 it just scraped into the Top 50 and, like the Christmas album, only sold 400,000 copies at the time.

The gospel album He Touched Me was released in April 1972 to capitalise on the Easter market and, despite a poor showing on the charts, would go on to sell more than a million copies in America and gave Elvis his second Grammy Award in the gospel genre, the only times he ever won. If not as strong as both His Hand In Mine or How Great Thou Art, the new gospel album did have some excellent material. Unlike Elvis Now, all the tracks were recorded during the recent sessions and included, Amazing Grace, An Evening Prayer, Reach Out To Jesus and A Thing Called Love, written by Jerry Reed and recently recorded by Johnny Cash. He Is My Everything was a new version of There Goes My Everything and two tracks were given a great uptempo gospel hand-clapping feel, I John and Bosom Of Abraham.

It would be over a year before another album of material from the sessions was released. In the meantime there were two live albums, At Madison Square Garden and Aloha From Hawaii, the concert film Elvis On Tour and the number two single Burning Love, which suffered the embarrassing fate of being the lead track on the budget album, Burning Love And Hits From The Movies. Well done again Colonel Parker!! How one of his best singles in years was allowed to end up on a budget release with movie songs was typical of how badly managed Elvis career was.

Originally planned with the title Fool, to cash in on the success of the recent single, the next album used the well-used title Elvis and was another thrown together collection with no direction. Along with both sides of the new single there was a live recording of It's Impossible and from the 1971 sessions, Love Me, Love The Life I Lead, Padre, (That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me and an edited version of Dylan's Don't Think Twice , It's All Right, edited down to just under 3 minutes.  Desperate for material to include, RCA also added the three tracks featuring Elvis alone at the piano. I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen, It's Still Here and I Will Be True. Whether they were ever intended for release previously, and there is no question that they are worthwhile songs and deserved a release,  their inclusion here just shows the lack of interest and thought in Elvis releases. Once again a live image adorned the cover, something that had become the norm and in no way represented the material included. The results... poor sales and a low-chart placing once again.

It is a shame that most of the non-gospel/Christmas material was thrown away on Elvis Now and Fool. The idea of a folk album was definitely a step in the right direction for Elvis and would have made a better follow-up to Elvis Country than the 'throw-away' Love Letters album.

Many of the tracks were songs that Elvis would sing at home with his friends including Fools Rush In and I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen. These tracks, along with those by Dylan, Kristofferson, Lightfoot and McColl all deserved a better fate.

In the years following Elvis' death in 1977 many alternate and unreleased tracks have appeared on albums and box sets including Walk A Mile In My Shoes - The Essential 70s Masters, Platinum - A Life In Music and A Hundred Years From Now.

With the advent of the Follow That Dream label the archives would be plundered for almost every piece of recorded sound available from the session tapes. Before the start of the 'Classic Album' series there were releases like I Sing All Kinds and Easter Special which included many outtakes from the 1971 Nashville sessions. When the original albums were reissued as 2-CD sets on the FTD label they included even more alternate and unreleased material.

The latest release to feature material from 1971 is Back In Nashville, the follow up to the critically acclaimed From Elvis In Nashville set from 2020. Once again it is a 4-CD set presented in a slip-case with a booklet. The tracks have been mixed and remastered from the original sessions tapes by Matt Ross-Spang.

CDs 1 & 2 of the set feature the pop, country and folk songs along with the gospel and Christmas tracks. The other two CDs bring together a selection of outtakes/alternate versions. There are many highlights... Fools Rush In, Until It's Time For You To Go, I'm Leavin', Early Morning Rain, Merry Christmas Baby and the unedited version of Don't Think Twice It's All Right. The three tracks with just Elvis at the piano are also great and when listening it is a shame he didn't record an album featuring him alone at the piano.

Like the previous release, From Elvis In Nashville, there are a handful of unreleased tracks, He Touched Me, An Evening Prayer, I'll Be Home On Christmas Day (remake) and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face although many are incomplete takes. A 15-second fragment of Are You Lonesome Tonight? is listed as unissued but was actually included, albeit not listed, on the FTD classic album release of Elvis Now.

One of the selling points of last years Elvis In Nashville set was the decision, on the masters, to show Elvis and the musicians how they actually sounded in the studio, minus the additional overdubs added later. Unfortunately on Back In Nashville they have also removed the backing vocalists who were present in the studio with Elvis when the masters were recorded. I feel it was wrong to remove them as Elvis wanted backing singers present during the recordings and so they should not have been removed. I cannot understand the reasoning behind this.

Throughout the seventies Elvis' recorded output suffered from over-production that did him no favours but at least on this release, despite my comments above, it is good to hear the songs minus the overdubbed strings.

Once again the packaging is excellent. Presented in an 8x8 slipcase with the four CDs housed in an eight-panel wallet with images of relevant tape boxes. The 28-page booklet includes liner notes by Ernst Mikael Jorgensen and David Cantwell, comprehensive track listings detailing recording dates, chart positions and a wealth of photos, album covers, record company ads and memorabilia.

Although Elvis would work with many of the musicians again, 1971 was the last time he recorded in Nashville. Future sessions would be held at Stax Studios in Memphis, the RCA Studios in Los Angeles and, when his touring schedule became so time-consuming and his refusal to go into the studio, RCA recorded his final two albums in the Jungle Room at his Graceland home in Memphis.

Despite my comments about the way the material is presented on this new release it hasn't spoilt my enjoyment of the tracks and it is a worthwhile and great follow-up to From Elvis In Nashville.

With thanks to David Cox (LD Communications)