But it was with the launch of the
Classic Album series in 2003 that FTD opened the doors wide to the
different studios where Elvis worked during his career, and let us
experience the recording sessions first hand. By releasing Elvis’
original albums in deluxe 7” size packaging together with an
accompanying booklet and most of the times a second CD full of
outtakes (many of them previously unreleased) we are offered a
fly-on-the-wall experience of how Elvis and his group of musicians
and singers develop the different arrangements of the songs in
question.
I, for one, love to put my headphones
on and time-travel to a recording session, listening to the laughter,
banter, tuning of instruments and discussions taking place among
Elvis and the musicians as they work out intros and make progress
with the songs. Let me illustrate with a few examples, taken from the
FTD classic albums Jailhouse Rock Volume 2, Blue Hawaii,
How Great Thou Art and Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of
Christmas.
Overall, Elvis seems to be in a good
mood during the Jailhouse Rock sessions. “How bad you want
me to get,” he laughs after the second take of “Young And
Beautiful” (jail version). The only time he seems irritated is
while recording the second version of “Don't Leave Me Now.”
“Seems like everybody is holding down, we can’t get any feeling
out of it this way,” he mutters after the first couple of tries of
the song.
Moving on to Blue Hawaii, the
FTD version of the soundtrack offers a fascinating insight into the
making of one of Elvis’ biggest selling albums. The first takes of
“Rock-A-Hula Baby” are worth the admission alone. When Elvis for
some reason stops singing 40 seconds into the second take, the band
just keeps going, seemingly unable to stop. “Hold it,” Elvis
shouts, then laughs, before launching into the third take, delivering
a wild and cooking performance. Another highlight is the making of
the movie version of “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” Elvis going
through 26 takes of the song (12 of them are included on the FTD
album). “Damn pants too tight,” he says before take 14. The
following takes shows Elvis having trouble with the slow tempo of the
song “I can’t hold a note worth a damn,” he sighs after
abandoning take 22.
“Slicin’
Sand” might not be called a classic, but many of the 12 takes
included are fun to listen to. One example is take 6 which has Elvis
throwing in an extra verse: “Sand in my toes, sand in my hair, sand
in my sandwich but I don’t care.” Elvis worked hard with “No
More,” going through take after take of the song. As they all sound
pretty similar, I was wondering about this, until I read today in
Ernst Jorgensen’s A
Life In Musicthat the writer of the song, Don Robertson, was invited to the studio
that day. Elvis obviously wanted to show him that he was serious
about the song.
Next in line is How Great Thou Art, recorded in May 1966. Getting a front seat in RCA’s Studio B in Nashville and being able to listen to Elvis’ new producer Felton Jarvis directing the session with his supportive comments and encouragement offers a great listening experience. The five takes of “Stand By Me” are good examples of this. Elvis can’t see the lyrics as the lights are turned down in the studio and mutters after an abandoned take, “That’s not the right lyrics, I’m singing another song. Give us just a little bit of light.” To me it then sounds like someone is rummaging around in a box of matches!
Next in line is How Great Thou Art, recorded in May 1966. Getting a front seat in RCA’s Studio B in Nashville and being able to listen to Elvis’ new producer Felton Jarvis directing the session with his supportive comments and encouragement offers a great listening experience. The five takes of “Stand By Me” are good examples of this. Elvis can’t see the lyrics as the lights are turned down in the studio and mutters after an abandoned take, “That’s not the right lyrics, I’m singing another song. Give us just a little bit of light.” To me it then sounds like someone is rummaging around in a box of matches!
A demanding song for Elvis was “Where
No One Stands Alone,” proof being the grand finale that Elvis
recorded a couple of times as a work part to be spliced to the rest
of the song. The ending always sends a shiver up my spine, and
apparently Felton Jarvis felt the same way, exclaiming at one point:
“It sounded great, Elvis. God, I was scared to death.” “By And
By” is one of the fast numbers, in fact so fast that Elvis mixes up
the lyrics. “We try to do our best when we wonder how to test,”
he laughs. “Sounded like you said what the hell is this,”
somebody in the studio shoots back as everybody cracks up. Hearing
Elvis sing “I come to the piano...” after the intro played by
Floyd Cramer (or is it David Briggs?) on the first take of “In The
Garden” is a funny moment. It's easy to imagine Elvis walking
towards the piano while singing this, making the pianist look up and
lose his way among the keys.
One of the last albums FTD released in
2011 was Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas. Elvis
seems to be having a good time from the start during the session that
took place in Nashville during two nights in May, 1971. While
producer Felton Jarvis and the musicians discuss the beginning of “It
Won't Seem Like Christmas (Without You)” featuring a celeste, Elvis
throws in a line of “Merry Christmas Baby.” David Briggs follows
suit, hammering away on the celeste. “I gotta hold you guys down,
man,” Elvis laughs. Admittedly, he sounds a bit annoyed when the
second take breaks down, complaining that the lyrics aren’t written
out, but then works hard through a couple of more takes before
settling on take 7 as the master. The previously unreleased take
number 5 is a highlight, with Elvis pushing the boundaries of the
song, the result a looser and less polished version than the master.
The FTD treatment of Elvis Sings The
Wonderful World Of Christmas also reveals a more intimate and
sensitive side of the 1971 Christmas recordings, with the help of
outtakes not being overdubbed in any way. One example of this is “If
I Get Home On Christmas Day.” When originally released in October
1971, Felton Jarvis had just about used every trick in the book when
it came to making overdubs on it, adding strings, horns and a lot of
backing vocals. Listening to the alternate takes, especially the
early ones, you can almost be fooled into thinking it’s another
song, it sounds so much more intimate.
As promised, those were some examples
from the Classic Album series that give you an idea of how Elvis
practiced his craft. I love the feeling of “being thrown” into
the studio like that, and on occasion, see the recording sessions in
a different light. For example, in his book Careless Love,
Peter Guralnick writes that Elvis “was no more at ease than he had
been at that strange session the previous September” while
recording the songs for Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of
Christmas. Maybe that was the case, but it’s not something I
found evidence of while listening to the outtakes provided by FTD's
treatment of the album.
To be continued on July 27 (Part 3) ...
To be continued on July 27 (Part 3) ...
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3 comments:
Love your blog. I thought you may want to take a look at my recent post about Elvis here: http://www.fairhopesupply.com/2012/07/its-been-35-years.html
Thanks for a great blog. But what does this mean?
“To me it then sounds like someone is rummaging around in a box of matches!”
Thanks for the praise, both of you! And for the link to a nice written post, Fairhope Sypply Co. Per, the sentence "To me it sounds like someone is rummaging around in a box of matches" refers to the fact that there was a candle on the piano, at least there was during the recording of "Love Letters," according to Ernst Jorgensen in his book A Life In Music. So I assume the candle was there when Elvis recorded "Stand By Me" as well, and therefore matches were required.
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