Elvis' 1969 Memphis Renaissance

Elvis Presley’s 1968 landmark television special, Elvis, more commonly known as the “Comeback” special, was not only one of the most memorable high points in his career, but it also marked the start of an all-too-brief renaissance for the King.  Frustrated by his stifling film career, Presley was raring to break out of Tinseltown and bound back onto the live concert stage.  He would do just that one year after shooting the “Comeback” special and his 1969 Las Vegas debut brought rave reviews from critics and standing ovations from audiences. 

The seed for that onstage comeback also was planted in the 1968 TV special, when director Steve Binder boldly decided to put Elvis onto a small stage and have him improvise a couple of performances before live audiences.  Those live “pit” segments formed the heart of that special and provided its most electric moments.  Although Elvis was as nervous as one of Colonel Parker’s dancing chickens before taking the stage, he was exhilarated by the time he left it.  Binder’s daring experiment fired the King up and he determined to go back on stage before his leather suit, soaked with sweat, was literally cut off of him by designer Bill Belew. 

But Elvis was just as eager to resuscitate his flagging recording career after years of forcing down weak songs that were written for his movies.  He went at that effort with all the energy he had brought to Sam Phillips' Memphis Sun Records in 1954.  He returned to Memphis for this phase of his comeback, but this time chose Chips Moman’s American Sound Studios, a perfect place for Elvis to make a fresh start.  Just as he had done under Steve Binder’s guiding hand, Elvis worked new magic with Moman, produced his last great recording sessions, and enjoyed his last burst of chart success.

The sessions yielded 32 songs which resulted in two gold albums, From Elvis in Memphis, which reached number 13 on Billboard’s album chart, and From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis, a double album that included Elvis’ live LP from his return to Vegas, which peaked at number 12.  Elvis reached such heights only a few more times, notably with his live albums from Madison Square Garden in 1972 and Aloha from Hawaii, from his 1973 television special. 

Elvis also scored six top 10 singles, including his last number one, “Suspicious Minds,” and “In the Ghetto,” which reached number three, earning three platinum and three gold singles in all from his American Sound sessions.

It was a definite uptick for Elvis, giving him his first number one single in seven years and his first top 10 hit in four years, since “Crying in the Chapel” reached number three in 1965, a song he had actually recorded five years earlier.  “Suspicious Minds” would also be his final number one single.

Thus, it was a fleeting return to the top for Elvis, who soon lapsed into the same sort of routine rut on stage that he had found in Hollywood.  Still, the period was one of the most exciting and productive of his career and preserved some of the King’s greatest studio moments.  

This excerpt from Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll describes those last memorable sessions.

“While Colonel Parker arranged his Vegas resurrection, Elvis went back into the recording studio determined to again produce quality records and catapult himself out of both his banal movies and the bland music that had stifled him for years. And he turned away from RCA’s Nashville studio and toward his home town, Memphis, where he had broken musical barriers at Sun Records fifteen years earlier. He cast his eye on the small American Sound Studio run by producer Chips Moman, which had been turning out hits for various labels and had access to top musicians and songwriters. It was all too alluring for Elvis to pass up and offered just what he wanted—a break from his past and a return to his roots. Elvis began a ten-day session with Moman at American on January 13, 1969, with the buzz over what was quickly being called the ‘Comeback’ TV special still very much in the air. Elvis was determined to make good his vow to Steve Binder to take the reins of his career.

“These sessions brought new life and long dormant enthusiasm to Elvis’ work. He again drifted deeply into the music, often oblivious to his surroundings, lost in what he was doing. He spent hours in the studio, often simply jamming on songs he felt like singing, like Bobby Darin’s ‘I’ll Be There,’ and Moman seems to have had the good sense to let him follow his instincts and wait for the good stuff. His patience paid off. Elvis injected the sessions with the same energy he brought to his earliest recordings, turning out twenty-three sharp takes of Mac Davis’s ‘In the Ghetto’ and twenty-nine of ‘Only the Strong Survive,’ written by Jerry Butler, Kenny Gamble, and Leon Huff and recorded by Butler.  Moman accurately pegged Mark James’ ‘Suspicious Minds’ as a sure-fire hit, a song to which he also owned publishing rights. The combination of a new producer, new musicians, and a new location seemed to ignite Elvis’ creativity the way Sam Phillips once had, and Elvis lent these recordings all of the passion he always brought to his best work.

“The sessions yielded two albums that nearly reached the top ten and several top-ten singles, including a number one for ‘Suspicious Minds,’ while ‘In the Ghetto’ climbed to number three, ‘Don’t Cry Daddy’ to number six, and ‘The Wonder of You’ (a live track actually recorded later) to number nine, a success rate Elvis had not scored since the early 1960s, and which he would never achieve again. ‘Kentucky Rain,’ written by Eddie Rabbitt and Dick Heard, peaked at number 16, but Elvis’ urgent delivery of the song deserved a better fate. The two albums blended most of Elvis’ strongest musical influences, showing off his rock, country, R&B, blues, and even gospel chops. The sessions were among Elvis’ best studio work and Moman’s minimalist, sparse production complemented him perfectly. Like his encounters with Sam Phillips and Steve Binder, it was another instance of Elvis meeting up with the right partner at the right time.*

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* Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 7^th edition, 503–504; Ernst Jorgensen, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, 264–79. Also see Peter Guralnick’s liner notes to CD Suspicious Minds: The Memphis 1969 Anthology, and Robert Gordon and Tara McAdams, The Spirit of Home, liner notes to CD From Elvis in Memphis.

Channeling Elvis: How Television Saved the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll is available from Amazon in the U.S. http://tinyurl.com/mhyaouz & the U.K.: http://tinyurl.com/kyolbnm

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