June 7: After an unpromising start with one more forgettable Shirl Milete song, a new idea began taking shape. The original plan to cut just eighteen songs could not have included any thought of a second album, but on the fourth night, all of a sudden, a country album began to emerge. They's already cut a handful of solid country tunes; now they began the project in earnest with a cover of Eddy Arnold's 1954 "I Really Don't Want To Know," cowritten by frequent Elvis balladeer Don Robertson. All at once Elvis seemed inspired, singing with a passion and soulfulness that recalled Memphis. The band fell in with equal feeling, their confidence and expressiveness growing along with his. Both singer and band were performing out of genre, improvising their own rhythms and phrasing on the spot, challenging each other. Then with scarely a pause Elvis returned to "Faded Love," the song he'd forgotten the words to on June 4th....and, as it happened, a Hill & Range number. This time Elvis and the band developed an oddly aggressive arrangement, more rock than country, and wholly their own.
They achieved another transformation with Ernest Tubb's "Tomorrow Never Comes," reaching back to another of Elvis' influences. The song's ascending arrangement was guaranteed to tax Elvis' vocal range, so Felton started the tape as the musicians rehearsed to capture as much as he could. After a second pass Elvis asked if they were recording; "I snuck up on you," Felton admitted. The going wasn't easy, and Elvis, annoyed with himself for forgetting the lyrics, sang the opening line of Roy Orbison's "Running Scared" instead, and announced "I'm starting to hate this song." Elvis always claimed you couldn't improve an Orbison recording, and he never covered any of the singer's records, but it was definitely Roy's semioperatic approach he was aping on this country standard. Felton kept pushing him for one take: "It's gonna be a gas, Elvis, really. Just hold on." "If it ain't, I'm gonna take some," Elvis snapped back, but once they had take thirteen (and a retake on the ending) down, they had something to be proud of.
*The Complete Recording Sessions*
by Ernst Jorgensen
This is for Dick & Marcia Tracy. "Tomorrow Never Comes" is Dick's favorite song. He has never said why he likes that song out of all the ones Elvis did. But he plays it all the time on the cd player in their new car, he knows which track it is and keeps going to it all the time.
(Photos Are From 1970) |
