APRIL 3 - 4, 1960 Elvis Presley and his entourage: Elvis Presley, vocal and rhythm guitar; Hank Garland, lead guitar; Scotty Moore; lead guitar; Bob Moore on bass; Floyd Cramer, piano; D.J. Fontana on drums; Murrey Buddy Harman on drums and of course Homer Boots Randolph on saxophone. This altered the atmosphere considerably when they returned to the studio two weeks after the first session. The Colonels agenda, of course, never varied, nor, under the circumstances, was Steve Sholes side of the equation ever likely to change. But with much of the pressure off, and some of the most immediate questions answered, everyone could afford to feel a little bit more relaxed, and the singer himself could feel free to explore different sides of his musical personality. He didnt sound like anybody else, he had told Marion Keisker, he sang all kinds of music, he had insisted to her when he first entered the Sun studio at 18 and she had sought to categorize his music in some way. On this particular Sunday night in April, he more than bore out his boast, opening with a silky version of Peggy Lees Fever and, in the course of another all-night session, trying on blues, rhythm and blues, gospel (Stan Keslers Thrill Of Your Love was at least a reasonable facsimile), pop, and rock n roll for size. It was probably the most unusual, and one of the most ambitious sessions of his career, one that was characterized by a sheer, unchanneled (and unchannelable) exuberance, no matter what material he took on. There was a trio of songs at its heart, though, which perhaps best characterized its open-ended essence. Freddy Bienstock had first heard Elvis singing Tony Martins Theres No Tomorrow (a 1949 English-language version of the Italian standard, O Sole Mio) when he visited him in Germany the previous year. Upon returning to New York, he commissioned a number of new English-language versions for Hill & Range to copyright, and Aaron Schroeder and Wally Golds Its Now Or Never was the one that he presented to Elvis at Graceland several months later. Elvis was immediately knocked out by it - he loved the melody, he loved the drama, and he loved the vocal challenge it presented. When he recorded it that night, according to Bill Porter, he had trouble hitting the ending. Wed done a few takes, and he kept screwing up the ending, and I said, Elvis, we could splice the ending. Why dont you just do that?. We dont need to do the song all the way through. And he said, Bill, Im going to do it all the way through, or Im not going to do it. So he did. Are You Lonesome Tonight, which had been a hit in 1927 for Henry Burr, the most prominent ballad singer of his day, was an even more unlike choice of material, and an even more unlikely scenario. It was, in Gene Austins version, the Colonels wife Maries favourite song - and the one song that Colonel Parker, who had managed Austin for a number of years, ever asked Elvis Presley to record. It was cut at 3 or 4 in the morning with the lights turned down low and the engineer scrambling to get a level as Elvis launched into the lengthy and highly melodramatic recitation at its core. At the conclusion of the song Lamar Fike, who was the only one of Elvis retinue permitted on the studio floor, jumped up and declared, Itll sell 5 million. Play it again. Itll sell 7 million. Itll be the biggest goddam record you ever made. That should have been the end of the session (it was the ninth song of the evening, and only eight more were necessary to make an album, the Colonel had pointed out, with the sides they already had from the first session). Clearly it would have taken an express train to stop Elvis at this point, though, and, after recording the Colonels song, he still had one additional promise to fulfill. While he was still in Germany, Scotty had sent him a song, The Girl Next Door Went AWalking. It was by Thomas Wayne, for whom Scotty had produced a big hit in 1959 on his own short-lived Fernwood label, and, once the standard publishing arrangements had been worked out, Elvis felt honour-bound to record it. Then he did a duet with his Army buddy, Charlie Hodge, on the Golden gate Quartets I Will Be Home Again, a sentimental number they had frequently sung together in Germany. The final song was begun with less than an hour to go before the RCA secretaries started Coming in to the building. Everyone was grumbling that they were tired, they wanted to go home and clean up, they had 10 oclock sessions to get ready for, but Elvis had one more tune that he was determined to try. Reconsider Baby, which he had been fooling with off and on ever since it was a hit for its author, bluesman Lowell Fulson, in 1954, opened with the interplay of Elvis acoustic rhythm guitar and Boots Randolphs sax, went on to feature some of the most wide-open yet tightly controlled studio playing ever to come out of Nashville, and basically encapsulated everything that Sam Phillips had first heard in Elvis voice, and everything that Elvis had been striving for since that moment in the Sun studio when he had first connected with the blues. It was a moment of unmitigated triumph at the conclusion of a session that embodied every quality of the Elvis Presley success story to date - focus, grandiosity, tenderness, intensity, ease, and control - while at the same time suggesting something altogether new. The mix is pretty hot, and theres a little distortion on the sax, was Bill Porters perspective on the Lowell Fulson cut. I mean, there was nowhere to put it. Two takes, and that was it. We finished up about 7:15, 7:20, played the tunes back, and then they split.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:26:30 +0000
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