March 20, 1960—A little more than a month after receiving his sergeant’s stripes and three weeks after completing military service, Elvis Presley entered a Nashville recording studio to reclaim his position atop popular music’s throne.
For Elvis Is Back!, his first LP after returning to civilian life, he wanted to show he could do more than just rock ‘n’ roll, that he had a voice versatile enough to match his widely varying tastes in genres. He wanted to prove, for a new generation that was already showing an alarmingly fickle interest in their musical heroes, that he had staying power.
Only to some extent, The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll succeeded.
The first single from the sessions at RCA Studio B, “Stuck on You,” was rushed out within 48 hours after he ambled in with buddies/backup musicians Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana. It debuted at #84 on the charts but, to the relief of Elvis and manager Col. Tom Parker, it didn’t stay there long, rising to #1 within three weeks.
I never heard “Stuck on You” until about 10 years ago, but I immediately loved it. With a comfortable groove and sly, insouciant lyrics (“Gonna run my fingers thru your long black hair/ Squeeze you tighter than a grizzly bear”), Presley could sing it in his sleep.
But that wasn’t necessarily the music that Elvis wanted to play anymore. And maybe that’s why he reportedly was not that high on the song (supposedly referring to it as “Stuck in You”).
A musician has to be careful about changing musical direction. Too jarring a shift and you get booed by your original audience (Dylan at Newport), or suffer such a catastrophic fall that you never really get over it (Phil Ochs, dressing in a gold lame jacket a la Elvis late in his career).
I remember that, about 20 years ago, Bruce Springsteen said he wanted to be a professional musician into his sixties. That kind of wish means that if you change with age, your audience will go along with you. Had his own appetites and demons—and Col. Parker’s deeply flawed career management--not interfered, Elvis might have been able to achieve something similar.
It certainly started that way with Elvis Is Back! It’s not a radical change in direction, but it showed all the styles in which he could excel: not just rock ‘n’ roll but blues (“Reconsider Baby”), R&B (“Such a Night”), doo-wop (“Soldier Boy”), pop (“The Girl of My Best Friend”), and a cover of “Fever” that, in its quietly incendiary way, makes you ask, “Peggy Who???”.
Elvis set the tone in these sessions, not just as singer but as producer. Chet Atkins, manager of operations for Nashville at RCA, rounded up the various musicians, and for awhile he tried to steer the proceedings.
But the latter task became hard when Elvis showed up an hour late for his 6 pm slot, then ordered out Krystal burgers, then loosened up with gospel music. Then, and only then—several hours later—were Elvis and the boys ready to get down to the task at hand. After manfully trying to match this pace, Atkins shortly gave up, bid the boys goodnight, and waited for the results the next day.
"Colonel" Parker had already scheduled Elvis while he was still in the armed forces for a high-profile TV appearance within a week of the studio engagement: on the variety show headlined by Frank Sinatra. The Chairman of the Board wasn’t the Rat Packer that Presley liked the best musically—that honor belonged to Dean Martin—and, given comments that Sinatra made about rock ‘n’ roll three years before (a “rancid aphrodisiac…sung played and written for the most part by cretinous goons”), you’d expect the matinee idols of two generations to approach each other warily.
But each man had something the other wanted, and so they approached the “Welcome Back, Elvis” edition of Sinatra’s ABC-TV series with a professionalism that grew into mutual respect and, eventually, cordiality.
Sinatra, anxious to succeed on TV, was willing to pay Elvis $125,000—a record amount for a performer up to that time for appearing on a variety show—plus the cost of tuxes for Elvis and his band.
For his part, Elvis wanted to prove he could perform more mature fare. Many believed he could never again achieved the roaring success he had before his induction. If he couldn't prove them wrong, he certainly wanted to generate significant momentum toward a long-term career.
Sinatra provided a role model for reinvention. At the beginning of the Fifties, he was considered a washed-up teenybopper idol. Yet, in a few short years, in what still ranks as one of the great show-business comebacks, he had reached undreamed-of (for him, anyway) levels of esteem as a serious actor—and had managed to turn what seemed like a liability at the time—coarsening voice chords—into an asset that allowed him to project different textures of world-weariness and jauntiness into the Great American Songbook.
From the perspective of today, Elvis’ work at this time—which also included “It’s Now or Never” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”—ranks as among his best in the Sixties. Unfortunately, the soundtracks for the dreck into which Col. Parker was steering him—interchangeable Elvis-music-and-chicks flicks—outsold this better stuff.
Elvis was now in a time not just of personal, but professional uncertainty. (He still was not over the death of his mother, which had occurred when he’d been inducted into the army—and many observers of the King think he never did get over it.) Just as Sinatra had been, to an extent, eclipsed by rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis would soon be overshadowed by the British Invasion.
Yet by decade's end he would prove, as Ol’ Blue Eyes did, that he had more big comeback in him.
Only to some extent, The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll succeeded.
The first single from the sessions at RCA Studio B, “Stuck on You,” was rushed out within 48 hours after he ambled in with buddies/backup musicians Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana. It debuted at #84 on the charts but, to the relief of Elvis and manager Col. Tom Parker, it didn’t stay there long, rising to #1 within three weeks.
I never heard “Stuck on You” until about 10 years ago, but I immediately loved it. With a comfortable groove and sly, insouciant lyrics (“Gonna run my fingers thru your long black hair/ Squeeze you tighter than a grizzly bear”), Presley could sing it in his sleep.
But that wasn’t necessarily the music that Elvis wanted to play anymore. And maybe that’s why he reportedly was not that high on the song (supposedly referring to it as “Stuck in You”).
A musician has to be careful about changing musical direction. Too jarring a shift and you get booed by your original audience (Dylan at Newport), or suffer such a catastrophic fall that you never really get over it (Phil Ochs, dressing in a gold lame jacket a la Elvis late in his career).
I remember that, about 20 years ago, Bruce Springsteen said he wanted to be a professional musician into his sixties. That kind of wish means that if you change with age, your audience will go along with you. Had his own appetites and demons—and Col. Parker’s deeply flawed career management--not interfered, Elvis might have been able to achieve something similar.
It certainly started that way with Elvis Is Back! It’s not a radical change in direction, but it showed all the styles in which he could excel: not just rock ‘n’ roll but blues (“Reconsider Baby”), R&B (“Such a Night”), doo-wop (“Soldier Boy”), pop (“The Girl of My Best Friend”), and a cover of “Fever” that, in its quietly incendiary way, makes you ask, “Peggy Who???”.
Elvis set the tone in these sessions, not just as singer but as producer. Chet Atkins, manager of operations for Nashville at RCA, rounded up the various musicians, and for awhile he tried to steer the proceedings.
But the latter task became hard when Elvis showed up an hour late for his 6 pm slot, then ordered out Krystal burgers, then loosened up with gospel music. Then, and only then—several hours later—were Elvis and the boys ready to get down to the task at hand. After manfully trying to match this pace, Atkins shortly gave up, bid the boys goodnight, and waited for the results the next day.
"Colonel" Parker had already scheduled Elvis while he was still in the armed forces for a high-profile TV appearance within a week of the studio engagement: on the variety show headlined by Frank Sinatra. The Chairman of the Board wasn’t the Rat Packer that Presley liked the best musically—that honor belonged to Dean Martin—and, given comments that Sinatra made about rock ‘n’ roll three years before (a “rancid aphrodisiac…sung played and written for the most part by cretinous goons”), you’d expect the matinee idols of two generations to approach each other warily.
But each man had something the other wanted, and so they approached the “Welcome Back, Elvis” edition of Sinatra’s ABC-TV series with a professionalism that grew into mutual respect and, eventually, cordiality.
Sinatra, anxious to succeed on TV, was willing to pay Elvis $125,000—a record amount for a performer up to that time for appearing on a variety show—plus the cost of tuxes for Elvis and his band.
For his part, Elvis wanted to prove he could perform more mature fare. Many believed he could never again achieved the roaring success he had before his induction. If he couldn't prove them wrong, he certainly wanted to generate significant momentum toward a long-term career.
Sinatra provided a role model for reinvention. At the beginning of the Fifties, he was considered a washed-up teenybopper idol. Yet, in a few short years, in what still ranks as one of the great show-business comebacks, he had reached undreamed-of (for him, anyway) levels of esteem as a serious actor—and had managed to turn what seemed like a liability at the time—coarsening voice chords—into an asset that allowed him to project different textures of world-weariness and jauntiness into the Great American Songbook.
From the perspective of today, Elvis’ work at this time—which also included “It’s Now or Never” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”—ranks as among his best in the Sixties. Unfortunately, the soundtracks for the dreck into which Col. Parker was steering him—interchangeable Elvis-music-and-chicks flicks—outsold this better stuff.
Elvis was now in a time not just of personal, but professional uncertainty. (He still was not over the death of his mother, which had occurred when he’d been inducted into the army—and many observers of the King think he never did get over it.) Just as Sinatra had been, to an extent, eclipsed by rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis would soon be overshadowed by the British Invasion.
Yet by decade's end he would prove, as Ol’ Blue Eyes did, that he had more big comeback in him.
No comments:
Post a Comment