On the night of May 15 RCA's Studio B had been decorated for an early Christmas. A tree with beautifully wrapped empty boxes stood in the center of the room, but Elvis brought real gifts for the musicians and his own associates, gold bracelets engraved "Elvis '71." All the players from the June 1970 sessions were back, and again there were no backup singers present. With no personal changes and as few distractions as possible, Felton expected to be able to get all of Elvis' recording done in short order and save all the sweetening for later. As the group was getting started the old question of material came up, and there was some talk about the mysterious process new songs had to go through to make it to an Elvis session. But Elvis rendered the debate moot by choosing the first song himself: "Miracle Of The Rosary." Writer Lee Denson was an old Lauderdale Courts compatriot, and he'd brought the song directly to Elvis, who put it at the top of his agenda.
The evening of May 17 ended with a beautiful version of the new gospel song from Dorothy Akers, "Lead Me, Guide Me." The next day Elvis started with one of his choices, "Fools Rush In," but there was no real swing to the arrangement they came up with. Thereforth, with the Imperials present, Elvis turned back to the religious material. The Imperials of 1971, who backed Elvis in Vegas, were a very different group from the edition Elvis had worked with in 1966. Elvis' favorite, Jake Hess, had long since left the quartet he's founded, as had the very impressive tenor Shaun Nielsen. The quartet's piano and organ player, Henry Slaughter, had been replaced by Joe Moscheo, who started out as the business manager of the group. But they were a tight harmony group with many gospel awards to their credit; Elvis admired their singing, and he had little trouble completing their reverent signature song, "He Touched Me," in four short takes.
**The Complete Recording Sessions**
by Ernst Jorgensen |
