I debated on whether to delve into a third reimagined discography
for Elvis Presley. But after digging into recording session details and other
info, I decided to give it a shot. Plus, his 89th birthday is tomorrow.
The primary problem with Elvis’
discography in the 1970s is the perplexing number of compilation albums, many
with no rhyme or reason in their song selection. These coupled with numerous live
albums and actual new material created a glut of music being released that
competed with itself and confused the public.
There’s an odd thing about album covers for Elvis during this time period. Apparently after more than a decade of sitting for professional publicity portraits for albums, movies and whatever else, Elvis refused to do any more. And therefore, the record company started using photos of Elvis performing on stage for nearly every album. I think this gives the false impression to the general public that Elvis released more live albums than he actually did. That’s not to say there weren’t more live albums than necessary in the 1970s -- there were five between 1969 and 1974. However, I assume RCA Records had a graphic arts shop and could have been a little more imaginative (Elvis Country is a good, rare example). So, I’ve attempted to find or create better covers for several of the albums.
FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
SIDE A
1. Wearin' That Loved on Look
2. This Is the Story
3. I'll Hold You in My Heart ('Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)
4. Long Black Limousine
5. A Little Bit of Green
6. I'm Movin' On
SIDE B
1. From a Jack to A King
2. Gentle on My Mind
3. Inherit the Wind
4. Rubberneckin'
5. You'll Think of Me
6. Without Love (There Is Nothing)
At first, I wasn’t sure this album needed to be tinkered with.
It’s one of the few of Elvis’ that is highly praised. But From Elvis in
Memphis and the follow-up Back in Memphis are made up of tracks from
two different recording sessions: Jan. 13-23 and Feb. 17-22. I thought it would
be interesting to put only January tracks on the first album and February
tracks on the second, and leaving all the A-sides of singles off the albums
entirely.
There’s something absurd about calling an album From Elvis in Memphis and showing him performing on a Hollywood soundstage on the album cover. So for this particular cover, I found an image already created and just added the title.
BACK IN MEMPHIS
SIDE A
1. Power of My Love
2. Only the Strong Survive
3. Do You Know Who I Am?
4. If I'm a Fool (For Loving You)
5. And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind
6. Any Day Now
SIDE B
1. Stranger in My Own Hometown
2. After Loving You
3. The Fair's Moving On
4. True Love Travels on A Gravel Road
5. Who Am I?
6. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'
The album was originally released as part of a two-record set
along with a live album from Las Vegas. And the following year, both albums
were released individually. When this came out, calling this album of leftovers
Back in Memphis didn’t make much sense. But in this new configuration,
all the tracks are from the February 1969 sessions, so this is now actually a
return to the Memphis studio following the previous recording sessions in
January. I’ve made this album longer than the original with the addition of two
extra tracks. I used some existing artwork I found to create this cover.
ELVIS IN NASHVILLE
I previously worked
on this album, and you can find a whole blog entry about it here. I'm adding an alternative album cover I liked, which I think is from the Follow That Dream series.
ELVIS COUNTRY
SIDE A
1. I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water
2. Snowbird
3. Tomorrow Never Comes
4. Little Cabin on The Hill
5. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
6. Funny How Time Slips Away
SIDE B
1. There Goes My Everything
2. It's Your Baby, You Rock It
3. The Fool
4. Faded Love
5. I Really Don't Want to Know
6. Make the World Go Away
7. I Was Born About Ten Thousand
Years Ago
The idea behind this album was to
take several country songs from the recording sessions and put them together
into a sort of concept album. This is one of the very few Elvis albums that
some actual thought was put into creating it, so I decided not to mess with it
too much. However, I don't think “Snowbird,” a very recent hit for Anne Murray, was the best way to start the album. So, I shuffled the songs a little. "I Washed My Hands in the Muddy Water" is a much more energetic and gripping opening track, especially the long, nearly five-minute version. Also, throughout the original album are snippets of the song “I was Born About
Ten Thousand Years Ago” and I think the album would have benefitted with the
song in its entirety also being included at the end, which I've done here. I used the FTD cover (which I prefer) for their alternate version of this album.
LOVE LETTERS FROM ELVIS
SIDE A
1. Cindy, Cindy
2. Love Letters
3. If I Were You
4. Got My Mojo Working / Keep
Your Hands Off of It
5. Only Believe
6. Heart of Rome
SIDE B
1. When I'm Over You
2. This Is Our Dance
3. I'll Never Know
4. It Ain't No Big Thing (But
It's Growing)
5. Life
6. Where Did They Go, Lord?
This album has pretty much all the
leftovers from the June 1970 recording sessions that don’t appear on Elvis
Country or my remade Elvis in Nashville. I thought “Love Letters,” a
remake of a song he recorded and released back in 1967, was a bad way to open the
album. “Cindy Cindy” is much more energetic, so I used that as the opening
track, and shuffled the rest. Finally, I added “Where Did They Go, Lord?” to
make the album longer and to end it with a song that’s a bit more powerful than
“Life.” I used some artwork I found online and did some altering in Photoshop to create the cover.
ELVIS SINGS THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHRISTMAS
There isn’t much you can do to change an album of holiday songs,
so I didn’t, not even the album cover.
ELVIS NOW
SIDE A
1. Help Me Make It Through the Night
2. Put Your Hand in The Hand
3. It's Only Love
4. I'm Leavin'
5. Padre
6. Until It's Time for You to Go
SIDE B
1. We Can Make the Morning
2. Early Mornin' Rain
3. It's Still Here
4. I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
5. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
6. Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)
This album needed some TLC. Although there were enough tracks from
1971 sessions to make a full album, for some reason it was decided to throw in
leftovers from January 1969 and June 1970. The result was a mishmash and
definitely not “now.” I removed the three older tracks and added four. I also
removed “Miracle of the Rosary” and moved it to the next album. As
released, Elvis Now was a short album and my version is a little more than five minutes longer. But I think the important thing is that it's now more contemporary. I found this burnt orange artwork online and thought it would make the perfect cover once I did a little altering.
AMAZING GRACE
SIDE A
1. Amazing Grace
2. Lead Me, Guide Me
3. He Touched Me
4. I've Got Confidence
5. An Evening Prayer
6. Seeing Is Believing
SIDE B
1. Reach Out to Jesus
2. He Is My Everything
3. There Is No God but God
4. I, John
5. Bosom of Abraham
6. Miracle of the Rosary
In 1972, Elvis released a contemporary gospel album titled He
Touched Me. Despite the sentiment of the title song, an album titled He Touched
Me just sounds wrong. So I’ve retitled it Amazing Grace and used the album
cover from a compilation album titled You’ll Never Walk Alone. The only changes I made to the track listing were removing "A Thing Called Love" (a non-gospel song that had no reason to be here) and adding the song “Miracle of the Rosary” (which was recorded during the same sessions and I’m not sure why it
wasn’t included originally).
BURNING LOVE
SIDE A
1. Burning Love
2. For the Good Times
3. Where Do I Go from Here
4. Love Me, Love the Life I Lead
5. Fool
6. Separate Ways
SIDE B
1. Always on My Mind
2. It's a Matter of Time
3. A Thing Called Love
4. I will be True
5. (That's What You Get) For
Lovin' Me
6. My Way
Looking back, many critics have chastised RCA for not having a new
album to feature Elvis’ last big hit, “Burning Love.” Instead, RCA strangely
attached the new tracks “Burning Love,” “It’s a Matter of Time,” “Separate
Ways” and “Always on My Mind” onto two horrible compilation albums of random
tracks Elvis had recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s beyond a headscratcher –
it’s something close to a crime. RCA kind of tried to rectify the mistake in 1999
with a Burning Love album that included most of the tracks of the time period,
but also included live tracks.
Perhaps the biggest problem was that Elvis only recorded seven tracks during the March 1972 sessions – not enough for an album, even a short
one. What I’ve done here is take all seven tracks recorded in March 1972 and
added "My Way," "Love Me, Love the Life I Lead," "I will be True," "(That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me" and "A Thing Called Love," all of which were recorded the previous year. For the album cover, I had fun throwing the kitchen sink at it -- different existing art, Photoshop maneuvering, fonts, etc.
RAISED ON ROCK
SIDE A
1. Raised on Rock
2. Are You Sincere
3. Find Out What's Happening
4. I Miss You
5. Girl of Mine
6. I've Got a Thing About You, Baby
SIDE B
1. For Ol' Times Sake
2. If You Don't Come Back
3. Just A Little Bit
4. Sweet Angeline
5. Three Corn Patches
6. Take Good Care of Her
The original version of this album had 10 tracks even though 12
had been recorded in the sessions of July 1973. Both “I've Got a Thing About You, Baby” and “Take Good Care of Her” were
left off for a single, and eventually included on the next album. I rectify the
issue by including all the tracks from the sessions. I've never understood the double title of this album, Raised on Rock / For Ol' Times Sake. Seems like people couldn't make up their minds. I stuck with just one title.
GOOD TIMES
SIDE A
1. Talk About the Good Times
2. Loving Arms
3. I Got a Feelin' in My Body
4. If That Isn't Love
5. She Wears My Ring
SIDE B
1. Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming
2. It's Midnight
3. My Boy
4. Spanish Eyes
5. Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues
It almost seems like someone was going with a theme or concept about "time" for this album. Or maybe it was just a coincidence of the words Good Time(s) being in two of the song titles. A total of 18 songs were recorded during sessions in December 1973, and they would be used to make up both the Good Times and Promised Land albums. I "fix" Good Times by including only tracks recorded during these sessions, and that means adding "Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming" and "It's Midnight." The titles of these two songs also refer to time and now maybe in this configuration of Good Times really is some type of loose concept album. Not my favorite album cover, but trying to find usable, non-perfomance photos for the right time period can be daunting.
HAVING FUN WITH ELVIS
SIDE A
1. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (jam – May 1971)
2. It's Diff'rent Now (rehearsal – July 1973)
3. Froggy Went A-Courtin’ (rehearsal – July 1970)
4. Lady Madonna (informal recording – May 1971)
5. It's My Way (Of Loving You) / This Time / I Can't Stop Loving
You (jam – February 1969)
6. I Didn't Make It on Playing Guitar (jam – June 1970)
SIDE B
1. The Lord's Prayer (informal jam – May 1971)
2. A Hundred Years from Now (rehearsal – June 1970)
3. I Shall Be Released (informal rehearsal – May 1971)
4. Allá en el Rancho Grande (rehearsal – July 1970)
5. Stranger in My Own Hometown (rehearsal – July 1970)
In 1974, Elvis' manager Col. Tom Parker had one of his more bumbleheaded ideas: release
an Elvis Presley album with no music. Having Fun with Elvis on Stage is
just Elvis on stage telling various silly jokes, asking for glasses of water
and chatting with the audience or band members. It’s considered by many to be
one of the worst albums ever released. Parker apparently thought that a record
without music meant that he and Elvis could keep all the profits, not realizing the
contract with RCA (that he’d signed and negotiated) stipulated that the record
company had the rights to anything Elvis recorded.
So, for this project, the obvious move might be to just ignore this album. But we now know from the many, many posthumous Elvis album releases
that several jam sessions and rehearsals resulted in songs that weren’t issued
while he was alive. And it occurred to me that you could create an album that
if not great would at least be a lot more interesting than banal stage banter. The photo I used is a bit out of focus, but I thought it was OK given that the songs here were not meant to be polished. I included the Boxcar Records logo.
PROMISED LAND
SIDE A
1. Promised Land
2. There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In)
3. Help Me
4. Mr. Songman
5. Love Song of The Year
SIDE B
1. If You Talk in Your Sleep
2. You Asked Me To
3. The Twelfth of Never
4. Thinking About You
5. Tiger Man [jam]
For Promised Land, we have only eight tracks left over from the December 1973 sessions that also produced the songs for Good Times (Elvis didn't record anything in a studio the entire year of 1974). So, I had to find two songs to fill out the album. I added "The Twelfth of Never," which was actually recorded during a rehearsal in August 1974, and a jam from March 1975 of "Tiger Man," which kind of makes a fun ending. But to use "Tiger Man," this album would need to be released probably no earlier than May 1975, five months after the real album was released. The sound quality of "The Twelfth of Never" is not quite up to snuff, but is OK. After searching high and low for Elvis photos I thought would work with the album title, I finally gave up and went a different direction and used this sunset (or is it sunrise?) over a field that I found online.
ELVIS TODAY
Ten tracks were recorded in March 1975 and all were used for the Elvis
Today album. So, nothing to change here song-wise and I left it as is, except for creating a new album cover. I have tried for the most part to avoid performance photos, but succumbed in this case as there aren't a lot of good non-performance photos from the end of Elvis' career to work with.
MOODY BLUE
SIDE A
1. Hurt
2. Never Again
3. Blue Eyes Crying in The Rain
4. She Thinks I Still Care
5. Danny Boy
6. The Last Farewell
SIDE B
1. For the Heart
2. Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall
3. Solitaire
4. Love Coming Down
5. I'll Never Fall in Love Again
6. Moody Blue
In February 1976, a recording session took place at Elvis’ Memphis home
Graceland. Elvis was becoming less and less interested in recording, so it was
hoped that the comforts of home might help. A dozen tracks were recorded, but
instead of using all 12 for a new album, two songs were held for a future single. For
this reimagined album, I used all the songs from the session, which required a
little change in the track listing. And since I’m including the song “Moody
Blue,” I decided to take the title for what was to be the
follow-up album. I wish I could find a better-quality version of this photo, but it kind of reminds me of the cover art for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits although that wasn't my intention.
LAST SESSION
In late October 1976, Elvis recorded four songs (“It’s Easy for
You,” “Way Down,” “Pledging My Love” and “He’ll Have to Go”), and that was it
before he died. Four tracks are obviously not enough for an album and I’m going
with the idea that they were used for two final singles that could be used on a
future greatest hits compilation album of some sort.
Between Jan. 1, 1969, and the day Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977, RCA released 14 studio albums, five live albums, seven compilation albums, 12 budget albums, two box sets and one all-talk album. That's 41 albums in less than nine years. Or to put it another way, that's more than four albums a year! Holy crap! There were also 35 singles released during that time. Oy....
So, finally, here’s my full reimagined discography for Elvis from 1969-77, free of endless compilations, repetitive live albums and gobs of singles. It still includes at least two (sometimes three) albums a year (other than 1976-77), which is more than enough.
1969
- SINGLE: “Memories” / “Charro” (February)
- SINGLE: “In the Ghetto” / “My Little Friend” (April)
- ALBUM: From Elvis in Memphis (June)
- SINGLE: “Suspicious Minds” / “I’ll Be There” (August)
- ALBUM: Back in Memphis (October)
- SINGLE: “Don’t Cry Daddy” / “Change of Habit” (November)
1970
- SINGLE: “Kentucky Rain” / “Let’s Be Friends” (January)
- ALBUM: Elvis' Golden Records, Vol. 4 (February): She's Not You; Return to Sender; One Broken Heart for Sale; (You're the) Devil in Disguise; Bossa Nova Baby; Kissin' Cousins; Cryin' in the Chapel; Puppet on a String; If I Can Dream; In the Ghetto; Suspicious Minds
- SINGLE: “The Wonder of You" [live] / “Walk a Mile in My Shoes" [live] (April)
- ALBUM: Elvis on Stage [live] (June)
- SINGLE: “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” / “I Just Can’t Help
Believin’" [live] (October)
- ALBUM: Elvis in Nashville (November)
- SINGLE: “I Really Don’t Want to Know” / “You’ve Lost That Lovin’
Feeling" [live] (November)
1971
- ALBUM: Elvis Country (January)
- SINGLE: “Rags to Riches” / “Where Did They Go, Lord?” (February)
- ALBUM: Love Letters from Elvis (June)
- SINGLE: “I'm Leavin'” / “Heart of Rome” (July)
- ALBUM: Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas (October)
- SINGLE: “Merry Christmas, Baby” / “O Come All Ye Faithful”
(November)
1972
- ALBUM: Elvis Now (February)
- SINGLE: “Until It’s Time for You to Go” / “We Can Make the
Morning” (February)
- ALBUM: Amazing Grace (April)
- SINGLE: “Burning Love” / “It’s a Matter of Time” (August)
- ALBUM: Burning Love (October)
- SINGLE: “Separate Ways” / “Always on My Mind” (November)
1973
- ALBUM: Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite [live] (February)
- SINGLE: “Steamroller Blues” [live] / “American Trilogy” [live] (March)
- SINGLE: “Raised on Rock” / “For Ol’ Times Sake” (September)
- ALBUM: Raised on Rock (October)
1974
- SINGLE: “I’ve Got a Thing About You, Baby” / “Take Good Care of
Her” (January)
- ALBUM: Good Times (April)
- SINGLE: “My Boy” / “Loving Arms” (May)
- ALBUM: Having Fun with Elvis (October)
- ALBUM: Elvis' Golden Records, Vol. 5 (December): Don't Cry Daddy; Kentucky Rain; The Wonder of You; I've Lost You; You Don't Have to Say You Love Me; I Really Don't Want to Know; Rags to Riches; I'm Leavin'; Until It's Time for You to Go; Burning Love; Separate Ways; Steamroller Blues
1975
- SINGLE: “If You Talk in Your Sleep” / “Help Me” (March)
- ALBUM: Promised Land (June)
- SINGLE: “Promised Land” / “It’s Midnight” (June)
- SINGLE: “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” / "Mr. Songman" (September)
- ALBUM: Elvis Today (October)
1976
- SINGLE: “Hurt” / “For the Heart” (March)
- ALBUM: Moody Blue (May)
- SINGLE: “Moody Blue” / “She Thinks I Still Care” (November)
1977
- SINGLE: “Way Down” / “It's Easy for You” (June)
- SINGLE: “Pledging My Love” / “He’ll Have to Go” (September) [posthumous]
- SINGLE: "My Way" [live] / "America" (November) [posthumous]
1978
- SINGLE: "Unchained Melody" [live] / "Softly As I Leave You" (March) [posthumous]
- ALBUM: Elvis' Golden Records, Vol. 6 (August) [posthumous] : Raised on Rock; I've Got a Thing About You, Baby; If You Talk in Your Sleep; Promised Land; My Boy, T-R-O-U-B-L-E; Hurt; Moody Blue; Way Down; Unchained Melody
Most of these tracks can be found on the box sets From Nashville to Memphis: The Essential '60s Masters and Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters. However, you'll have to find some tracks on the original albums or countless other compilations.
