1970 had been a great year for Elvis. Once again he had enjoyed rave reviews for his performances in Las Vegas, and his second Vegas season of the year in August 1970 had been filmed for the MGM documentary feature “Elvis – That’s The Way It Is”. The resulting album, (a mixture of live recordings, and songs recorded in Nashville during June 1970) was released in the US in November 1970, and reached No. 21 on the charts. Elvis had also scored three top twenty single hits on the US chart during the year, with his February 1970 recording of “The Wonder Of You” reaching the highest position of No. 9, and a further three singles released during the same year made the US top 40. 

1971 started on an equally high note when on January 16, at the Municipal Auditorium in Memphis, the Jaycees Awards named Elvis one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men Of The Nation. His acceptance speech included the lines, “without a song the day would never end, without a song a man ain’t got a friend, without a song the road would never bend, without a song – so I keep singing a song”. With yet another year of playing Vegas, recording and touring in front of him, his words couldn’t have been more appropriate.

RCA still had enough strong material in their vaults from Elvis’ 1970 sessions for the first album release of 1971 – “I’m 10,000 Years Old – Elvis Country”. The album was released in January 1971 and was hailed by Peter Guralnick in his review of the album for Rolling Stone magazine as, “ a record that gives us some of the very finest music since he first recorded for Sun almost seventeen years ago”. Most critics agreed and the album reached the No. 12 position on the US charts.

RCA and the Colonel were keen for Elvis to record more new material, so that they could continue to release new Presley recordings throughout the year, and capitalise on his continued success.  It was hoped that following the productive sessions at both American Studios in Memphis during January & February 1969, and RCA’s Studio B in Nashville during June 1970, they could record enough material during the spring/summer of 1971 to release three albums, and a number of single releases. The Colonel was keen for Elvis to record new Christmas and gospel material, as a it had been five years since his last gospel release “How Great Thou Art”, and a budget priced re-issue of his 1957 Christmas album had sold very well at the end of 1970.

The first session took place on March 15, with Elvis focusing on the folk songs of Ewan Macoll and Gordon Lightfoot, and only one gospel selection “Amazing Grace” was recorded. As “Amazing Grace” had been a recent hit for folk singer Judy Collins, it’s also likely that the folk influence was another factor in Elvis choosing this song for the session, even though the completed master was by no means out of place when released on the 1972 gospel album “He Touched Me”.  Elvis had been introduced to the songs of both Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot, on recordings by Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Odetta, and had made home recordings of this material during the mid sixties. He had also recorded a fine version of Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” during the May 1966 Nashville sessions that produced the “How Great Thou Art” album.

Here he recorded the two Lightfoot compositions “Early Morning Rain” and  “That’s What You Get For Loving Me” along with Ewan Macoll’s. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, which he attempted as a duet, but wasn’t satisfied with the results. He would return to the song later in the year.  Satisfactory masters were recorded for the rest of the chosen songs, but Elvis didn’t really stamp his own authority on them, as he had done with material first recorded by other artists in the past. One of the highlights of the session was an earlier bluesy take on “Amazing Grace”, (take 2) which producer Felton Jarvis thought was, “too funky”. The arrangement was toned down for the released master, (take 5) and this great alternate performance remained in the RCA vaults until the release of “Walk A Mile In My Shoes – The Essential ‘70’s Masters” in 1995.  Throughout the session Elvis suffered from eye problems that obviously affected his performance, and he was later diagnosed with secondary glaucoma.

Recording continued in May and the emphasis was now on recording the Christmas and gospel collections that RCA and the Colonel wanted to release. Elvis recorded for seven days between May 15 – 21, and the session started on May 15, with the intention of starting work on the new Christmas album. Christmas decorations adorned RCA’s Studio B, in an attempt to recreate a Christmas feel for the recordings, but the session started with a new gospel song titled  “Miracle Of The Rosary” that obviously appealed to Elvis and was completed in four takes. Five Christmas songs were recorded, with the undoubted highlight being a studio jam on “Merry Christmas Baby”, a 1949 hit for Charles Brown. The song was edited down for it’s release on the completed 1971 Christmas album “Elvis Sings The Wonderful World Of Christmas”, (released in October) but was still the highlight of that particular album, and illustrated what could be achieved given the right material. One of Elvis’ favourite songs, “Padre” was also attempted at this session, but despite trying twelve takes he couldn’t cut a satisfactory master.

The Christmas album was successfully completed on May 16, with a further six Christmas songs recorded. During this session Elvis performed an impromptu version of “The Lord’s Prayer”, and fortunately this was recorded by Felton Jarvis, and included on the 1996 CD release “A Hundred Years From Now – Essential Elvis Volume 4”.

Another great recording from this session that wasn’t part of the original schedule was the lengthy studio jam of the Bob Dylan song “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”. Elvis’ version was recorded at a faster pace than the Dylan original, and featured some great guitar playing from James Burton.

Studio technician Al Pachucki was cutting the master take of one of the Christmas songs from the session reel when Elvis and the band started on the Dylan song, and was immediately instructed to “get the tape on!” by producer Felton Jarvis. Fortunately, most of the performance was committed to tape.  

On May 17 Elvis turned his attentions to recording new pop material, and ran through sixteen takes of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through The Night”. Elvis had wanted to record both this song, and Kristofferson’s “Sunday “Morning Coming Down”, but neither song had been brought to the session by one of Elvis’ publishing companies, and it was certain that Kristofferson would not be interested in giving up any of his song-writing royalties, when there were plenty of top recording artists who would be prepared to record the song without imposing such conditions. Felton decided to proceed with the recording, and deal with the publishing issues at a later date.

Another folk song, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Until It’s Time For You To Go” was also recorded on May 17 with Elvis running through eight takes. The released master was taken from this session, after an unsuccessful attempt at a re-make on June 8. Once again Elvis was throwing in snippets of different songs in-between the scheduled recordings, and a short version of The Beatles’ 1968 hit “Lady Madonna” was also captured by Felton between takes at this session. The track was released by RCA in 1995 on the box “Walk A Mile In My Shoes – The Essential ‘70’s Masters”, and whilst Elvis couldn’t remember all of the lyrics, it does provide another interesting insight into what might have been.

May 18 started with the recording of another pop standard “Fools Rush In”, a song that had been a hit for both Ricky Nelson and Brook Benton, and another song that Elvis had performed at home during the mid sixties soundtrack years. It took twenty four takes before a satisfactory master was completed, and the finished version owed more to the Ricky Nelson recording, due to the fact that Elvis’ guitarist James Burton had also played on a number of Ricky’s sessions during the sixties, including the one that produced his version of the same song. Further progress was made on the gospel album, (which was taking on a more contemporary approach than Elvis’ previous gospel efforts) during the rest of the evening with three more gospel songs completed.

Work on the gospel album continued at the start of the sessions on May 19, with Elvis recording Red West’s “Seeing Is Believing” and Jerry Reed’s “A Thing Called Love” which was famously covered by Johnny Cash. The session ended with Elvis accompanying himself on piano and recording two Ivory Joe Hunter songs “It’s Still Here” and “I Will Be True” along with the traditional ballad “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen”. Elvis’ interest in both “I Will Be True” and “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen”, could be traced back to the home recordings he made during his army service in Germany during 1959, and whilst all three songs were excellent performances they weren’t really representative of what Felton or RCA was looking for in terms of Elvis’ next pop album release. Elvis however, was fully committed to these performances, and Felton knew that he had captured something special, despite the lack of commercial potential in these recordings. At the close of Elvis’ performance of “It’s Still Here”, Felton can be heard commenting, “Somebody will dig that”.       

Elvis turned his attention to pop recordings again on May 20, and three new songs “I’m Leavin’”, “We Can Make The Morning”, and “It’s Only Love” were recorded. “I’m Leavin’” was undoubtedly the best of the three new songs, and it produced a fine performance from Elvis. Both Elvis and the studio band thought they had another hit record on their hands when the recording was completed, but unfortunately when issued as a single later in the year the track was only a minor hit. “It’s Only Love” had been co-written by Mark James who had penned Elvis’ biggest hit since his 1968 comeback “Suspicious Minds”. Unfortunately, “It’s Only Love” wasn’t up to the same standard, but Elvis still gave a fully committed performance and ran through ten takes. During the recording of “It’s Only Love” Elvis sang two verses of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”, and again this was captured on the session tapes, and finally issued on “Walk A Mile In My Shoes – The Essential ‘70’s Masters” in 1995. Whilst this was very much an informal recording, and features very little backing from the studio band, there is enough included on the tape to suggest that Elvis could have produced a great version of this song had it been part of the schedule for the session, and it may well have provided him with yet another hit single had it been fully recorded

The song publishing problems were highlighted again on the final day of the sessions on May 21. Freddy Bienstock had submitted the song “Love Me, Love The Life I Lead”, but it had failed to impress Elvis who commented, “(I) don’t want to hear that Goddamn demo”. Despite his dislike for he song Elvis ran through twelve takes, but ended the session before he had completed a satisfactory master. Felton hoped that he would complete the song at a later date.

Recording continued between June 8 and June 10, and it would seem that the main reason for this was to complete the gospel album that Elvis had started during May. Six further gospel performances were completed over the three days. Elvis had also wanted to try “Until It’s Time For You To Go” again, and ran through a further ten takes on June 8, before deciding to stick with the original master. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was also re-visited on June 9, and here Elvis finally dropped the idea for a duet, and made repairs to his own vocal from March 15. A re-make of “I’ll Be Home On Christmas Day” which was first recorded on May 16, was attempted on June 10, and the session ended with Elvis’ version of the Frank Sinatra hit “My Way”. Unfortunately a satisfactory master wasn’t completed, and the recording was shelved. The song was added to Elvis’ set list during his 1972 Summer Festival in Las Vegas, and became part of his concert repertoire until his final tour in June 1977. A live recording was first issued on the soundtrack album to the 1973 satellite broadcast “Aloha From Hawaii”, whilst the 1971 studio version was finally issued on “Walk A Mile In My Shoes – The Essential ‘70’s Masters” in 1995.

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