Saturday Morning Elvis Shuffle

“That’s What You Get For Lovin’ Me” – Macho heartbroken bitter country song. From his 1973 album called “Elvis” which is usually referred to as “The Fool” album. I love this album. And I love him here, too.

“Out of Sight Out of Mind” – Elvis singing at Sun Studios, with Carl Perkins listening. Part of the Million Dollar Quartet album, the secret recording of the accidental gathering of Elvis, Carl, Jerry Lee Lewis and (briefly) Johnny Cash at Sun Studios in December 1956. Elvis plays a bit of the song and you can hear Carl say afterwards, “Got a pretty tune!”

“It’s a Matter of Time” – An easy country ballad, included in the giant box set Walk a Mile In My Shoes: The Essential 70’s Masters. This is the kind of song hated by the rock-and-roll purists, smooth country Elvis. I love it.

“Trying to Get To You” – This is the live version from his concert in Memphis on March 20, 1974. It’s a great album, evidence yet again that Elvis’ decline was not a long slow protracted fall. It was QUICK. He’s in top form here. This is a song he did from the beginning. Hearing him as a young eager sexy boy cry out about traveling across mountains and valleys “trying to get to you” is one thing, and hearing him moan it as a grown man … it has a whole different ache to it.

“The Love Machine” – Oh dear. This is poor Elvis singing a song from Easy Come Easy Go in 1967 (a movie I actually find very entertaining, mainly because you get to see Elvis in scuba gear, as well as Elvis sitting in on a yoga class.) But this song is … unforgivable. My heart goes out to the guy.

“The Next Step is Love” – from the awesome That’s the Way It Is album. I love the orchestration of this song. It’s sappy a bit, but it’s very pretty. However, trying to picture Elvis and his lady-friend “walking barefoot through the misty meadows laughing at each other in the rain” is a bit of a stretch. Elvis isn’t a hippie. Elvis isn’t a nature-boy flower-child. He’s packing heat, first of all, complains that “women’s lib is ruining my women”, and eats bacon 24 hours a day. However, the song is pretty, I think.

“I Love You Because” – Recorded on July 9, 1954, only 4 days after hitting paydirt with “That’s All Right, this is a heartachey song with a country feel to it. It starts with Elvis whistling. It’s exciting to imagine how excited they all were during those early days.

“It’s No Secret (What God Can Do” – Elvis at his holy best. Recorded in Hollywood on January 19, 1957 it was released on Elvis’ Christmas album that year. The Jordanaires provide beautiful backup. It’s a real traditional churchy arrangement, simple and sincere. It’s all about Elvis’ voice and his conviction. With all the sexual aggression of some of his songs, I find Elvis at his most manly in the gospel stuff.

“Love Me” – Sexy Elvis. Another one of the major 1956 recordings, written by Leiber and Stoller. One of his biggest hits, it stayed on the charts for 19 weeks. He sang it on the Ed Sullivan show and it’s a tremendously weird performance, still unpredictable to watch. He forgets the words at one point, he doesn’t care.

“Where Do I Go From Here” – another one from “The Fool” album. Country, yes, but also Elvis-operatic. With a pop-soul feeling in the backup vocals. He feels these lyrics, man.

“When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again” – Perfect blend of arrangement, backup vocals, and Elvis. The Jordanaires support him entirely in what he is doing, and he’s great here. 1956. Listening to this, you can hear why the country music business loved him at first and then had to shuffle him aside. He was so much doing his own thing, and yet under a country umbrella, he couldn’t be classified. It’s his VOICE. This song is catchy, whimsical, sweet. Getting the Jordanaires on board was all Elvis’ doing. He was so smart.

“Kentucky Rain” – Recorded by Elvis in the historic 1969 sessions in Memphis (maybe the greatest recording sessions in the history of music, the songs that came out of those two weeks of recording boggle the mind). It was released as a single, not included in the album that came out of those sessions (actually, so much was recorded in 1969 that it required two albums to release it all). Kentucky Rain wasn’t on either of those albums, but Elvis loved the song and performed it live in every show he did. Country song, again, but with an odd Elvis spin on it. Beautiful piano by Ronnie Milsap.

“Lonely Man” – Recorded in 1960, this song was supposed to be in Wild in the Country, a movie that features Elvis’ best performance, but was left out. This is a beautiful heartfelt song. This is an “alternate take”. I get a little bit obsessed with all of Elvis’ “alternate takes”, because you can actually hear his work process. He was a perfectionist. The take chosen to be the single is always the best one. Not a surprise, but there’s lots of interesting things that happen in the alternate takes.

“Make Me Know It” -This is one of my favorite Elvis recordings ever. His voice is almost unearthly. This is a tough song, actually. The tune goes up, down, back up, down, quickly. It’s very specific. He keeps it swinging. Included on the brilliant “Elvis Is Back!” album, released after he got out of the Army. He’s in great voice here.

“I Can’t Stop Loving You” – recorded live in Vegas. Huge background vocals, jamming rock-and-roll piano (it has almost the same orchestration as “Blueberry Hill” – could be the same song), and Elvis in top form. This version ends with a woman screaming into the silence like a wild animal and it’s so loud and almost frightening that Elvis stops entirely. Is the woman forcibly removed? It sounds like she is going to storm the stage and either kiss him or kill him. Elvis starts laughing, the song moves on, big big finish. Guy was a showman.

“I’m Movin’ On” – Live version. The recorded version was released on From Elvis in Memphis (the first album that came out of that historic 1969 session). Written by Hank Snow, whom Elvis idolized and actually worked with in the earliest days of his career – 1954, 55 – he was under the Hank Snow umbrella and was added to jamboree shows (put together by the Colonel). Hank Snow was the main draw but Elvis quickly took over (rumor has it that Snow, a kindly man who loved Elvis, said after one show that he never “wanted to follow that s.o.b. again” – since Elvis ruined the audiences for other performers.) Elvis revered Hank Snow, and in another life would have liked to have a career like Hank Snow, so this is a bit of a tribute. The song builds, Elvis going nuts with every phrase. The band jamming with him. Great performance.

“After Loving You” – I have all of these compilations of Elvis singing at home, usually playing the piano, sometimes with friends joining in for big raucous sing-alongs. This song became a staple of Elvis’ live shows in the 70s. He clearly loves it, and listening to him sing over and over, “I’m no good I’m no good I’m no good” … Sincerity. Even here, at his piano in his home.

“Hound Dog” – This is from the “Elvis in Concert” album, which was his last televised concert and it’s very upsetting stuff to watch. Elvis is clearly ill. You want to put him bed for 3 months. He should not be onstage. The band rocks, and Elvis struggles sometimes to keep up. He is “sketching in” the lyrics here. The thing about Elvis, though, was that despite his prescription drug addiction – he didn’t smoke or drink and so his voice was never impacted by abuse, in the way that Whitney Houston’s was, a big part of her problem in the last years of her life. Her VOICE was gone. That had to be … unimaginably upsetting. Elvis never lost the voice. Listen to him sing “My Way” from this final concert. It’s an upsetting performance, again – sweat POURS off him, but the voice is still with him. The voice is still here, too. This live concert album was released in October, 1977, two months after Elvis passed away.

“An American Trilogy” – this is from the Aloha From Hawaii album, a live album of his concert in Hawaii, simulcast to every country on the damn planet via satellite, which was a huge deal, first time it was ever done. 1973. I’m not crazy about his vocals in this concert. His breath appears to be shallow. The voice isn’t supported. I can tell immediately that something is from the “Aloha” concert because Elvis’ voice is uncharacteristically shallow and thin-sounding. The American Trilogy was a medley very dear to Elvis’ heart, and he used it in all of his shows. It’s a compilation of “Dixie”, “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “All My Trials”. Beautiful flute, beautiful soulful backup from the Stamps. This was a showstopper. Elvis designed it that way. It was a personal statement for him: “This Is Who I Am.”

“Where Could I Go But to the Lord / Up Above My Head / Saved” – the over-the-top gospel medley production number from Elvis’ 1968 NBC special (known now as the comeback special). Words cannot describe how odd it is, how unique, how exciting, and how totally Elvis this number is. In his head-to-toe red suit? I saw that suit at Graceland.

Elvis’ Preacher Suit. I mean, he jams out with a tamborine, he walks down a stairway with three black church-lady singers, there are swoony trumpets behind him, and just when you think the number can’t get any bigger, or more extravagant … it does. Only Elvis could pull something like this off.

“Just For Old Time Sake” – included on the album with the uninspired title Pot Luck with Elvis. Recorded in 1961, Elvis was out of the Army and getting very busy with making movies. The formula hadn’t set in yet, and it would soon be apparent that only releasing soundtrack albums would be the way to go, the way to make the most money. But in 1961, Elvis was still recording new stuff. There’s actually some great songs on Pot Luck, including “Marie’s the Name of His Latest Flame” and “Little Sister”. “Just For Old Times’ Sake” is an achey echoey ballad.

“Double Trouble” – speaking of the movies! This is the theme song to Elvis’ movie Double Trouble, which has the unfortunate distinction of being the movie where Elvis is forced to sing Old MacDonald Has a Farm. I still think he’s funny in it, but there really isn’t anything to write home about in terms of the songs. But here’s the deal: he is singing the CRAP out of this bad song. I find this admirable. You can hear, too, how the movie soundtracks, unlike the RCA stuff from the late 50s, early 60s – MIX him wrong. They push his voice way way to the front so that he dominates the entire sound, and there is no blend with the orchestration. Elvis haaaaaaated that sound. When he started recording his own stuff again in the late 60s, he was determined to get back that good blend and was ferocious in comparing his own master with the released single. He was certain that they were messing with the mix, pushing his voice forward, isolating it. He was right, by the way. It put him into a rage. Do not mess with my music. He had had it.

“That’s All Right” – Elvis’ first single, but this is a live version from the 70s, with the Sweet Inspirations screaming backup, the pace picked up. I love hearing him revisit the songs he recorded as a young man. He is not just a Nostalgia Act. He goes back to those songs and actually rethinks them, enters them from his own current-day stance. It’s interesting to see what he comes up with.

“Frankie and Johnny” – from the movie of the same name (costarring, coincidentally, Harry Morgan). Frankie and Johnny was in 1966, a bad bad time for Elvis in terms of music. The British Invasion had swept him out of the picture, the Beatles were everywhere, and he was trapped singing “Frankie and Johnny”. Can’t have been easy. This movie is very confused. It has no idea what to do with Elvis. Elvis wanting to be a Broadway star? Really? But again, he’s the only reason to see it. He’s funny and charming.

“Dainty Little Moonbeams” – a weird deadly number from Girls! Girls! Girls! (a movie I actually love). Here, Elvis sings with two small Chinese girls (daughters of a friend of his). And the number is supposedly Chinese, with gongs and little block sounds, and oh God, why, why. Stop.

“Suspicious Minds” – That’s more like it. This is a live version from the That’s the Way It Is concert album. This song has its own feel. Elvis never really recorded another one like it. It doesn’t sound like anything else. He knew it was a hit from the get-go. Great backups from the Sweet Inspirations. A show-stopper live.

“One Night” – an Elvis staple. This is also a live version from That’s the Way It is. He originally recorded it in 1957. The song was thought too hot and sexy to touch, with its lyrics about “one night of sin” is all he was “paying for”. The original lyrics make it clear that the singer is in the AFTERMATH of a “night of sin”. The sin has already gone down. He saw and did things that one night that “would make the earth stand still”. Sexy stuff. RCA was worried. Elvis was already getting such bad press. So Elvis himself (who loved the song and was hellbent on doing it) rewrote the lyrics, and I have to say he did a fantastic job. “One night of sin is what I am now paying for” then became, in Elvis’ hands, “One night with you is all I am praying for”. Not too shabby, Elvy! And, excitingly, a thought-to-be-lost take of Elvis singing the original sexy lyrics was unearthed some years back, and blah blah, wow, I am a nerd. Elvis never got tired of this song, and I think his version in the informal “sit down session” section of the 68 comeback special is pretty much a high watermark for him in terms of live performance. It’s so intense you almost want to look away from it. But he always kicked the shit out of the song.

“Danny Boy” – Ouch, Elvis, ouch. If I am not mistaken, this version was recorded in the Jungle Room at Graceland in 1976, a bad time for Elvis. Elvis was holed up in his house, probably depressed, and stopped wanting to go to the recording studio. RCA was desperate so they moved the studio to Graceland. I am partial to the at-home recording of Elvis doing this song while he was in Germany, just him wailing and playing the guitar. The actual recorded version, from the mid-70s, has been slowed way way down. This is a tough song. Not for amateurs. Elvis pours his soul into it.

“Write To Me From Naples” – singing with his friends around the piano. Beautiful, man.

“Lawdy Miss Clawdy” – I mean, honestly, it still doesn’t sound like anything else. The world has still not caught up to what Elvis was doing with this song. Elvis is 21, aching, pissed off, horny, and scorned by the wild woman he lives with. Great piano that starts it off, unlike any other Elvis song. Scotty Moore’s guitar solo is classic. But it’s Elvis’ voice that makes this the bizarre and still-awesome performance that it is. He’s a kid, really. But he’s seen it all. At least his voice says he has. That’s the weird thing, the genius thing. Elvis lived with his parents at this point, and would continue to do so, he essentially never moved on from childhood. He was 21 years old but he wasn’t living a wild life (well, except for the becoming-famous part). He slept with lots of girls, but the girls he dates were always good girls who would pass “the Gladys Test” (ie: Mom would approve). He tried to be good and upstanding. His mama still cooked for him, and he called her every day from the road. But his voice in “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” makes you think he’s been living upstairs from a honky-tonk since he was 13.

“If That Isn’t Love” – from Elvis’ awesome mid-70s album Promised Land. Gospel and country, mixed together, Elvis passionate and sincere.

“I’m Coming Home” – Recorded in 1961, and released on the album Something for Everybody, another nothing nondescript album title. But I love this song. Lawdy Miss Clawdy-ish piano, insistent bass and drums, and Elvis wailing, his voice sure and true. He had been training that mother, working it, during his time in the Army.

“This Is My Heaven” – from the gloomy dead-souled movie Paradise Hawaiian Style, which has to be seen to be believed. Even Elvis can’t get it up for this movie, and he could get it up for anything. Not one good song. This is a “Hawaiian” number, and he sings it beautifully and gently, but the whole thing is just depressing.

“Stranger In My Home Town” – another one of the 1969 sessions songs. One of the best. It’s almost a soul song, with a bluesy heart. Elvis is freakin’ COOL.

“I Shall Not Be Moved” – Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis. It makes me sad that Elvis didn’t do more duets. He’s awesome with others. This is great stuff. You can FEEL the energy in that studio. You can hear Elvis clapping along with himself.

“I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” – this song is a big deal in the Elvis lexicon. Recorded in 1956, it eventually went to #1 (on the country charts as well as the Billboard Top Sellers charts) and it would be his second gold record. It was also Elvis’ second RCA release, “Heartbreak Hotel” being the first. RCA needed a strong follow up and this song was chosen. It’s a sincere and aching ballad, full of need. The story behind the recording is almost as good as the recording itself. The recording was slated to happen on Easter Sunday in Nashville, and Elvis was horrified. It was Easter. Working on Easter Sunday? But, good boy that he was, he went along with it, despite his feelings that it was wrong. He and the band were in Texas doing some shows, and RCA felt an urgent need to get Elvis into the studio, so the band was flown from Texas to Nashville. On route, the airplane ran out of gas and had to make an emergency landing. Elvis was rattled. He got off the plane, white as a sheet, and said he would never fly again. Of course he did, but he never enjoyed it. He walked into the studio that day, upset and shaken by his experience on the plane, as well as annoyed that he was working on Easter Sunday. They did 17 takes of the song, none of which satisfied anyone. Elvis was a perfectionist, and would drive the recording sessions on his own, making everyone do songs over and over. Often, one of the first takes would end up being chosen as the single, but Elvis’ process was such that he needed to keep trying, keep digging. This particular day was different, however. Elvis was off his game. Rattled. Emotional. He kept forgetting the lyrics. The tune is difficult, Elvis struggled to nail it down. Eventually, Steve Sholes let the band go, and ended up putting together a couple of the different takes and that would be the single. This was unorthodox and rather difficult to do with the technology of the time – but when Sholes presented the spliced-together takes to RCA he had done such a good job that nobody knew. It sounded like a single take. The song was a monster hit. RCA had 300,000 orders for it before it was even released, the largest number of pre-orders in music history at that time. And, if you listen to Elvis’ voice, you can hear the free-floating and hard-to-control emotion that was present in the young man during recording. He had thought the plane would crash (they all did), and he wanted to go to church and have a proper Easter Sunday. All of that turmoil is in his voice, and it gives the recording a palpable urgency. Even if you didn’t know the backstory, I think you could feel it.