Elvis Presley – A Man And His Music DD

He was able to make you feel like every performance was only for you.Presley sang his heart. He sang truth. He had a great look. He had a great voice. He had the magic. He was really singing well. He had great chops and he was doing good music. And I think he was very proud of himself at that point.

One night with you, you know, you hear him one time, baby. Next time you hear him, you know who it is. Well, get out of that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans. He made you want to put a guitar on. If you didn’t have a guitar, you’d make one. He was the first white man to take black soul music and do it.

You see, country music was always a part of of the influence on my on my type of music. Anyway, it’s a combination of of uh country music and gospel and rhythm and blues all combined is what it really was.

As a child, I was influenced by all of that. original, one of a kind, no one like him. Um, no one before or since, no one will ever be like him. He had a knack of words of the song they would sing would go up through his brain and then into his heart and then out his mouth to the people, you know, and that’s what people loved about him so much.

And there not a whole lot of singers that are like that, you know. Well, I never been to heaven, but I >> had a charisma and he had a charm that I’ve never seen on a on a male vocalist. I’ve seen that charm in female vocalist, but I’ve never seen it in a male vocalist. He was just a regular guy in my opinion who grew up being a superstar and his life was not real.

It was surreal life he lived >> on Jailhouse Rock. I remember if we’d have a delay because the leading lady was having her makeup fixed or there was and the crew wasn’t working, he’d go get his guitar and and play. It wasn’t that thing about, well, I never do that because that’s, you know, the football player who’ll never throw the football between scenes.

He would get at the guitar and and say, you know, this is what I do. >> I think he brought a lot of country to the four. It was in the beginning of country and rock and all of that kind of meshing together. The beginning of rock and Elvis was like a trailblazer along those lines because he performed like a rock star and yet he had that down home country quality that came from his um I think some of his gospel music.

Elvis Presley was a man of many gifts, but above all, he was a man of music. His earliest influences were the spirituals he listened to over the radio and in church as a young boy growing up in Tupelo and Memphis. I got home. >> Elvis loved gospel more than any other kind of music. And it was part of his childhood as it was also part of my childhood.

We knew a lot of the same gospel singers. We knew the songs. We’d sit around and harmonize. Of course, I’m from Kentucky, so that gospel soul and that tremendous spiritual quality really touched me very, very deeply. And I think Elvis had a great appreciation of uh gospel music and rhythm and blues. Obviously, he was the one that brought it to all of us.

>> I liked all different types of music when I was a child. You know, of course, the Grand Old Opera was the first thing I ever heard probably, but I liked blues and I liked the the gospel music, gospel quartets and all that. >> This is what he wanted to be. He wanted to be a male quartet singer. You probably didn’t know that he auditioned for two male quartets in Memphis and didn’t pass their audition.

>> They needed a baritone singer and Elvis auditioned for the part and Cecil turned him down. Elvis said all of his life that his first love is gospel music. I finally ran into one member of the first group he auditioned for and I said, “Junior Elvis didn’t pass your audition.” He said, “No, Gordon.” He said, “Tell you the truth, the boy sang good, but you give him a part.

” Before you you knew it, he was singing another part. You see, when you’re in a quartet, you’ve got to sing one part and stay on that one part. [Music] Elvis’s natural attraction to music crossed racial lines. He didn’t care if the singers were black or white so long as they were good. >> His influences, of course, as we all know, were really the black community.

>> No one had ever done that before. It was kind of a taboo issue. >> Bobby, you know, the Righteous Brothers had a lot of trouble getting our music played. They wouldn’t play. They said it was too rock and roll. Too hard rock and roll. But they were really saying it sounds black and we can’t play it. >> Come on back and let’s play a little house so we can act like we did before.

>> First time I heard him, I didn’t know if it was a black singer doing country or a country singer trying to sound black. I couldn’t figure that out. >> You know, we all went around scratching our heads. What is this guy got? What is he doing? Well, he’s doing the black music. That’s so fabulous. >> A lot of people in retrospect uh attack Elvis for stealing uh the black music and making it white.

I mean, basically Alvis Presley, I say, had a black soul with a white face. >> I don’t care if I die. >> He just knocked down doors for all of us other guys, you know, to walk through and work and still have a career. He was the first white palatable guy in early 60s. There was still white stations that wouldn’t play black music, you know, black artist.

And Elvis snuck through and parents maybe reluctantly said, “Okay, you can listen to him.” And then slowly but surely the walls broke down and a lot of the stuff he was doing was Little Richard and some of that stuff got crazy almost crazy. >> In 1954, Elvis’s racially ambiguous sound came to the attention of Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.

Phillips had his own ideas about the role Race played in the records he was producing. >> I didn’t want to do what the other R&B labels that were doing some great stuff. I wanted to do some gut bucket stuff and I wanted to get that black and white in there because black people and white people in the south outside the masters that ran the plantations uh where we were double first cousins.

The skin was just difficult, man. I just knew that uh there ought to be some kind of a coherent approach to where we could get the best of both hued into a beautiful thing called music in a groove and expose it to the people and let them make their decision. In addition to Elvis, Phillips signed a young rockabilly singer named Roy Orbison who enjoyed the casual seat of your pants atmosphere at Sun.

>> It was a great workshop to go in because you didn’t have a lot of help. There were no musicians and if you didn’t have guys in your band, you had no musicians. So, it was sort of you’re on your own. Do it if you’ve got the goods. You know, if you can make it, well, go ahead. But we had a great time because, you know, I’d finish a session or be hanging around and Elvis would walk in and uh some of the guys come in, we’d start talking and having a good time.

Of course, he was by then making films and things and coming in from Los Angeles. But then we’d wind up going maybe Elvis’s house or somebody’s house and have a party. >> Another Sun Records discovery was Carl Perkins, who wrote the rockabilly songs he sang. His best remembered tune was released shortly before a nearly fatal auto accident that put Carl in the hospital.

One day he happened to catch his friendly rival singing that very song on TV. It was a little something Perkins liked to call Blue Suede Shoes. >> I watched Elvis do his first network show from a hospital bed and they had me in a cast and he said, “I want to do my new record.” And uh he said one for the running for the show broke out of the cast.

I said there it goes. But I found out after Elvis died that they wanted Elvis to cut that song. They being RCA Victor right after my record came out. And he said that’s my friend. He’s got a hit. I’ll do it later. I love the song. Uh, I never knew that till >> By now, Elvis’s skyrocketing popularity had allowed him to switch from the intimacy of Sun Records to a marketkedly more prestigious label, RCA.

>> When he got with RCA, he began to happen. You know what I mean by that? When I say he began to happen, he he got hot. >> Even though RCA was a big step up from Sun, Elvis’s new record producers appreciated the sound Sam Phillips had been able to capture and figured if it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it. >> Thing that Elvis liked, I think there uh was the fact that the musicians were so good and the sound was good.

They had a lot of trouble trying to capture that sun sound early on. They used a lot of of tape echo which but they didn’t have the right uh method. If you listen to Heartbreak Hotel and those early RCA records, you could tell they were trying to capture the sun sound. One particularly morbid piece of news ended up inspiring songwriter May Axton to compose one of Elvis’s earliest RCA hits.

May had read a newspaper article about a guy who had committed suicide and he’d left him a note saying I walk a lonely street. That’s where she got the idea for Hartick Hotel. >> I remember clearly the very first time I ever heard an Elvis Presley record. It was Heartbreak Hotel. I remember hearing this amazing soul in this amazing voice.

There was something about that record. There was a hauntingness about Elvis’s voice that still to this day has never left me on Heartbreak Hotel. The charisma. He had the charisma. He had Jim Morrison. He was Jim Morrison of his day. You know, he had that kind of charisma. He was just a sex bomb.

A sexy man who had a great voice. Didn’t that man have a great voice? I mean, he could sing, you know, and uh the rhythmic arrangements were profound. That little band, that little band behind him, you know, without that trio behind Elvis Presley playing the way they played. Oh god, that music was just absolutely phenomenal. The arrangements were great.

The tightness of that band, that walking bass, and the cha, they were just right on top of it. And uh so Elvis had Elvis had all the charisma. When we started it was u rhythm and blues. Elvis changed that became sort of rockabilly. [Music] >> And then it was rock and roll. He changed the whole scene. [Music] >> Elvis’s embracing of rock and roll had a chilling effect on the music that had once inspired him.

Elvis almost single-handedly killed country music for a moment and you had all that rock and roll stuff begin to happen. And when Elvis took off, it was like that’s the kind of music everybody wanted. >> We were pioneers and and all, but we were all so caught up in it. It was brand new for us just like it was everybody else and really exciting.

It was the only music we wanted to make back then and even now. You know, >> Elvis wanted to combine the hard driving sound of rock and roll with the sweet harmony of gospel quartets. One such foresome was appearing with another singer, country music legend Eddie Arnold. >> I had an act on the bill with me by the name of the Jordan.

And Elvis came to the theater and introduced himself. And I learned later that he was really interested in the Jordinaires because he loved their four-part harmony. >> And you would have thought he would have come back behind stage to meet Eddie Arnold, but he didn’t. He came back behind stage to meet us.

And that was in 1955. And he said, “If I ever get a major recording contract, I want the Jordinires to work with me.” >> The Jordanires also got put down at first for being with him. And I’m sure he was complimented to a point for being with us. But I think it gave all of our fans a different perspective of both of us, the the group and Elvis.

>> The first session we did uh with the four Jordan was don’t be cool any way you want me and you ain’t nothing but a hound dog. [Music] There was a lot more going on inside the studios of RCA than just turning out hit songs. >> Well, usually we’d go in and um we’d fool around for an hour or two doing, you know, piddling and getting loosened up and usually Elvis would go over after a while and he’d sit down at the piano.

Now, he was not a piano player, but uh he did know chords. And he’d start singing things like How Great Thou Art or whatever. And uh and he’d holler at at the guys say, “Hey guys, come help me.” And so we’d all get into a little jam session doing kind of the gospel thing. The Jordanires would come over and and they knew all the lyrics, of course, you know, because they came from from that background.

And we’d do an hour or two of that before we ever really started the recording process. He was always honest with his work. Uh when he had to warm up a lot or sit and play the piano and we’d sing spirituals, we’d sing whatever. Uh he was getting ready physically to sing. >> He just had a good attitude about everything.

And he would get you in a good frame of mind before you recorded. And I think that’s the reason the recordings have been around as long as they’ve been. It’s so much gater. >> Even though he didn’t have any formal musical training, Elvis had a natural appreciation for the amazing range of the human voice. >> One thing that he did tell me was he just loved the sound of somebody’s voice that could get a bass timber.

>> He started doing this song and he said, “Can you do this down an octave?” And uh I think I found out later he didn’t know what an octave was. He just meant, “Can you do this low?” I said, “Well, yeah, I can.” So I was doing it with the guys on the other mic there now and then there’s a fool such as I.

And did it several times like that. Then he asked me to come over on his mic and I think he didn’t want them to be able to cut me out in New York. He had a little problem with that. You know, >> musicians knew what to expect when Elvis showed up at the recording studio. Once he got around to showing up, >> uh, a lot of waiting, you know, musicians getting there at say whatever 7 or 8:00, whenever they were called, then Elvis finally showing up, hours later, but doesn’t matter because he’s Elvis Presley.

>> He wouldn’t get there till late in the evening and uh, it was usually daylight whenever whenever we left. Not necessarily just playing music. There’s a lot of sitting around talking and laughing and storytelling and stuff, you know. Yeah, it was pretty much all all night. >> Everybody’s entitled to one stupid ass mistake.

>> Despite all the horsing around, Elvis knew instinctively what sort of sound he wanted and how to get it. I remember one time in the studio at RCAB they said Elvis would you step into the microphone said the band and the Jordanires are leaking into your microphone. Well, he was standing about 6 feet back and he said you just handle the knobs.

I’ll handle the singing. He didn’t want to be any closer to that microphone. He had an uncanny ear and feel for what he wanted on that record and he was going to get it. >> Elvis complained to us about certain things about the level of music on some of the recordings he did. You know, he felt that they brought his voice out too far.

We don’t know for sure who did it, if the colonel did it or the RCA people did it. There’s rumors that Colonel said, “No, Elvis has to be brought out a little further so we could hear him more than being buried in with the music.” But Elvis wanted it combined with the music. He should have really complained to RCA about it.

I mean, he talked to a colonel about it. He talked to us about it. So, but u he didn’t. Elvis did complain about the extracurricular activities of his backup singers when movie heartthrob Tab Hunter decided to make a record. Randy Wood, who was a great great guy and a great producer, said, “I’m going to get a terrific group to back you up.

” The Jordanires, they back up Elvis. Well, I was thrilled to death. So, the Jordanires backed me up and Elvis got really pissed over the fact that the Jordan who backed him up backed me up and we knocked him out of the number one slot. Despite all the frustrations, Elvis always managed to keep a smile on his face. [Laughter] >> He loved to laugh and when he’d get tickled, he just couldn’t stop him.

So many people said, “You know, I wasn’t a fan of Elvis Preston until I heard him laugh.” And when I heard that laugh, I knew what kind of man he was. Well, of course, we were with him. And when we heard him laugh, that that was the heart of the man. He laughed the best of anybody I’ve ever seen. >> The next step is love.

So, what are we waiting for? >> Elvis’s recording misadventures continued into his later years when he switched from state-of-the-art RCA studios in Hollywood to the somewhat more rustic American Studios in Memphis. American Studios was located in a in really a bad section of town because u you know people all around us were getting robbed and everything.

It was it was not a great section of town. And I remember um we had had a a rat infestation in the studio. I mean rats were falling out of the ceiling. >> They were all up in the rafters. You could every now and then you’d hear them. >> You look up and here goes a rat. I mean not a mouse, a rat going across the >> I believe it was the first night Elvis walked in.

There was a a rat fell off of the roof right in front of him and then he he jumped about 3 ft. And I never never forgot that. >> Some of Elvis’s most memorable experiences in the recording studio involve celebrities other than himself. >> We were rehearsing uh at RCA Studios in Hollywood for Vegas. You know, there’s always security at that point.

this big guy just walks in. Uh, and everybody’s kind of shocked. Who, you know, who is this guy? Nobody knew who he was and how did he get in here? And Elvis was really upset that somebody could just walk in like that. So the guy said, “Hey, Elvis, I’m Brian. You know, we’re recording over in the next studio.

” And Elvis said, “Yeah, I’ll come over.” And so, man, we were all like, “Oh, man. What’s going on here?” We went over and the guard said this is that was Brian Wilson. >> I never will forget Brian played him something had the playback gone and said, “Elvis, you think we got anything here?” And Elvis said, “No.” But see, that was the intuitive thing about Elvis.

He didn’t know who Brian was at that point because Brian gained a lot of weight. They had never met before anyway, but he knew that there was something special about the guy. >> Elvis’s search for just the right sound extended beyond the confines of the studio. He invited us up to his room when we were recording there and he played us a recording of some group or something that that he liked the sound of.

And he says, “Now, why don’t my record sound like that?” What’s interesting about about music and about all the people here, they find new sounds and they do things differently themselves. So, it’s like a new experience every day. The guy on the guitar will find a new lake or the guy on the piano will find something or the voices will add something.

And I hear all this and it inspires me to hear. >> By the early 60s, that inspiration was coming from a variety of places including Liverpool, England. When the Beatles came on the scene, it made an impact on him. No question about it. >> It was inevitable that the Fab Four and the King of Rock and Roll would eventually cross paths.

>> The Beatles first came to the United States, I think in ‘ 64, they wanted to meet Elvis and it never worked out. So in ‘ 65 when they came back again, Brian Epste and the Colonel got together and talked about seeing if they could arrange a meeting. The night they were supposed to come, Colonel had already give strict orders.

Don’t nobody leak this out. Don’t want nobody say nothing. Nobody tell them nothing about this happening. It’s a top secret. Okay, fine, Colonel. Yes, sir. Colonel, the night is supposed to happen. Probably a thousand girls outside the house. Now, we didn’t tell nobody. You know who told somebody? Had to be friendly. So, we got them.

There’s thousands of kids hanging all over the walls, climbing from trees, reporters. And we pull in and go into the driveway and all the boys get out and go into the door and Elvis was there greeting. Now some people say Elvis wasn’t there but Elvis was standing there. what I remember and a lot of the other guys remember Elvis Priscilla there to meet the guys and they were introduced and Brian Epstein and we all walked in to the living room >> and they came up there and and uh they were kind of stiff when they first got there because they’re in here they are

in front of Elvis >> and that’s where Elvis got up off the couch and he said well these guys were all going to sit around and look at me I’m going to sleep >> and they all started laughing said no let’s jam he says all right well let’s just break some stuff out so we went and got and stuff.

We brought it out and set it up and everything. And uh the next thing I know is the Beatles and Elvis are jamming together. And this went on for like hour and a half, two hours. He was playing the piano and he’s singing the Beatles songs and they’re jamming with him and they’re harmonizing with him and then it’s like they’re doing Elvis songs and he’s playing the piano and singing along with him.

And it’s like this was an opportunity that only an idiot would forget to take advantage of. So call me an idiot. I should have turned a tape recorder on because I wouldn’t have to be working for a living right now. I’d be a multi-millionaire. >> You could walk down Perugia to White Street and you could feel the vibration from Elvis’s base playing.

He always thought the bass player was the coolest guy on stage. And Paul McCartney later said, “Man, when I saw I was sitting there playing the bass, I knew I was in.” >> The Beatles were telling Ellis uh how much he influenced their music and and how much he influenced him getting started in the music business and how much they liked his music in in him.

And Elvis was telling them basically the same thing. Well, hey, you know, you guys are good. I like you, too. There’s a lot of songs you’ve done that I like, and one day I’m probably going to record some of them, which he did. Well, Elvis loved the Beatles music. I mean, let’s face it, he recorded three other songs.

Elvis believed in songs with a lot of good words and meaning, something behind him, like Michelle and Yesterday and Hey Jude and those songs, but he didn’t say anything bad about the Beatles. I mean, you know, there’s always stories about him putting the Beatles down and stuff like that. Overall, he respected them.

>> There was one memorable postcript to that historic jam session the following morning. >> John said, “Jerry, would you do me a favor?” And I said, “Sure.” you know, I mean, I was a Beetle fan. He said, “I didn’t have the courage to tell Elvis this last night, but he said, “See these sideburns? You know, I almost got kicked out of high school because I wanted to look like Elvis.

And if it hadn’t been for him, he said, I wouldn’t have been anything. It wouldn’t have happened, I think, is how he he worded it.” >> Even though Elvis was the king of rock and roll, Hollywood gave him the chance to become a ballad singer with his very first film, Love Me Tender. Up until that point, people weren’t convinced that it’s weird.

They didn’t think he they didn’t they weren’t sure he could sing ballads, you remember? I mean, they knew he could do all the other stuff, but Love Me, but he could always sang real >> just like a choir boy, you know, not like a great singer, just like somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, you know, just singing a sweet song. >> Other films led to other classic ballads.

I think Blue Hawaii is a few notches above the standard Elvis um formula musical and I I’ll tell you why. I mean, he gets to sing Can’t Help Falling in Love, which is probably one of the great ballads. >> I studied all his albums and I kind of got into his head what he wanted to hear. >> So, the songs that I wrote, I tried to stretch him a little bit instead of the typical rock and roll things.

He loved ballads. He loved singers like Perry Como and Dean Martin. So I wrote songs that could fit in that style and he liked them and he recorded most of them. >> I was never a great Elvis fan. I loved some of the tunes. I loved some of the slow ballads he sang. I thought they were really quite wonderful. Elvis sang that ballad or that song.

It brought all women and all men together. And Elvis’s great um legacy is that I think. >> I thought he was pretty good. I really did. Yeah. I thought he was pretty good, me being a ballad singer, but I noticed, you know, he could do those rhythm songs and he could really do them very, very, very well. >> Elvis lasted as long as he did because he went into every era.

>> He had gospel. [Music] >> He could sing jazz. baby tells you stay while >> he could sing anything cuz he was a lover of music. He sang honky tongue song. >> Frankie and me we are lovers. >> He sang ballads. >> I was the one who taught her to cry. >> Captured all the audiences. You know what whatever they like to hear.

In addition to being able to sing an impressive array of styles, Elvis had an impressive vocal range. >> Elvis had one of the strongest voices. Most people have an octave, maybe octave, half range, and that’s it. Elvis had almost three octave range cuz you’d take the first song, he’d go out there, he’d sing and hit maybe an Above middle C.

And then the second song, I Got a Woman, he’d go, “Well, well, well, well, well, that’s an E almost two octaves below middle C.” So that was almost three octaves right there that he was using in the first two songs. >> But even the king wasn’t above learning some new tricks. >> We were doing surrender. He took a break which was unusual for him.

He stepped over to me. He said, “You teach voice, don’t you?” I said, “Well, sometime you know.” He said, “Well, I want to go up real high on the end of this song.” And he said, “I I can’t I’m afraid to go for it because I don’t know how to say tonight.” Well, oo is the hardest vowel to say when you’re getting up out of your register, you know, it’s one of the easiest ones down low.

I said, ‘Well, sure. Come on. And I said, “Now, do what I do.” I said, “Bend over and put your hands on your knees.” And he did. And I said, “Now, can you throw up?” He said, “What?” I said, “Can you throw up?” I said, “Can you act like you’re throwing up?” And so he looked at me kind of funny. I said, “Well, do it.

” So he went I said, “No, go [Music] So he got that sound. I said, “That’s it. Just try to throw up and go for it.” He went back and recorded one time and got to night, you know, on that song. And Elvis when he teach when you tell him something like that that was going to be that he could use in his career like he was like a sponge.

He became his. By the time we started in Vegas had his tone placement, he had his projection. And not one time during touring did he ever have a sore throat from singing because he sang correctly. >> The eternal quest for just the right sound extended to the other musicians as well. >> You know the Jailhouse Rock movie and they said, “Well, guys, we need something sounds like prisoners breaking rocks on a chain gang.

” So Scott and I, we got in a corner. We was playing around with it. And I played that that lick da da and he played the guitar lick in between those and boy them producers come running that said what are you guys doing? What are you guys? I said well trying to do something like a prisoners breaking rocks. Great do it some more.

That’s exactly what we need. So it was a a sheer accident is what it was. and we were in the fancy sound recording stage and he liked to record at night and he could do unlike any entertainer I’ve ever known. He could do 14 songs in six versions and they go gold and platinum and we do it in one night.

It’s just unheard of. >> But while he was recording a song for Blue Hawaii, Elvis hit a snag. >> He asked me on the playback, “What about that right there? That’s a tough line.” And I said, “Sing it like Bane Crosby.” Just kidding him, you know. He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “I could love you longer and forever.

” He said, “Okay.” So, I won’t forget. We went back to the studio and I had the earphones on. I’m looking right in his face and and hearing him as as we put it down. And uh and he said, “I could love you longer and forever.” And looked at me and I said, “Yeah.” I thought it was great. [Music] Even though the movies may have varied in quality, they afforded Elvis the opportunity of working with new songs and new songwriters.

>> They were doing a movie called Loving You. We sat in the control room. So, he’s recording recording, but he wasn’t doing my song called God Allowed Living to Do, which he was supposed to record. So, I got scared. So what happened was in between the takes I ran out. He was playing his guitar next to a piano and I sat down and I started playing the blues with him and then he looked up.

He said, “Who are you?” I said, “My name is Ben Wiseman.” He said, “Wait a minute. Didn’t you write a song called God Lot God Live to do he says, “Hold a Ben.” And he got his musicians together and they recorded the song right on the spot. >> Loving You was amazing. the songs in loving you. Um tonight, what was that one? Awful lot of loving to do.

That was [Music] >> we listen to a lot of demos and the guy from Hill and Range I think it was publishing company would bring a stack of demos this high. At that time, demos were uh like 78 records almost, you know, and they’d play several and then we’d stop on one song sometimes and run it for a while and then decide, everybody would decide, no, we can do something better.

>> Elvis had an ear because a lot of times he didn’t really try to change a demo or something. If if a record sounded like a hit or a smash, he didn’t try to change it too much. He kind of stayed with the melody and stayed with it. He didn’t like the, you know, overdub tunes at all. He said, “Once you lose the feel of the record, you’ve lost the record. Let’s don’t waste time.

We’ll do the things as good as we can.” He always done a good job on whatever he tried to do. But he just didn’t like to waste a lot of time cuz he said, “You just lose it. You lose it after an hour or so. It goes downhill. Everything just falls apart.” And he was right. Elvis, he had different moves.

He’d kid around sometimes or sometimes very serious. Many times you would cut like as much as 32 takes just to get the right the right feel for it. >> Even when I was at the recording sessions at Paramount when he recorded the songs for the movie, he was always uh moving. >> Each scene called for a certain type of song and uh I would try to fit the song to fit the scene.

That’s why Elvis did 57 of my tunes. Also trying to come up with just the right tune to fit the scene was a young singer songwriter named M. Davis. >> All Elvis movies in those days was situation. You know, the situation led to the song and that’s that’s all the movies were written for was for the for the music really. >> You’ve lived and died and come to life again.

>> One of my real goals was to hear someone whistling a song I’d written. you know, someone that didn’t know me, just just walking around whistling it. And uh the first time it happened, I was at uh the Palamino Club. I was back in the men’s room and I heard a guy whistling the Bside of memories, which was a theme song I wrote for one of his movies called Charro.

And I recognized the melody and I went, “Hey, what are you whistling?” He says, “Cher or something like that. [Music] heard someone say once uh that Mac has written songs for some of Elvis’s uh um lesser movies, which boils it down to some 40 or 50 movies. >> Unfortunately, the composer’s tireless efforts to come up with appropriate songs sometimes resulted in tunes that just didn’t work outside the context of a motion picture.

Some songs are good for the picture, but they don’t they’re not good played on the radio. Like there was a song called The Walls Have Ears, which you had to see the movie to see the walls bouncing back and forth and you know things coming off of there and everything. You can’t see that on the record.

That was the only bad thing about having some of the recordings that uh was done on recording sessions for pictures. Staleway Joe was so funny to me. We was cutting that session and Elvis had a song in there where he had to sing to a bull. Move move your little foot doo. Well, when they played the demo, Scotty Moore looked over to Elvis and said, “Elvis, has it come to this?” Of course, now we know some of the tunes out of the movies weren’t that good.

And he knew that he he was no idiot at all. He knew the songs and uh but he he’d always tell us guys now we’ve got to do these songs whether we like them or not. It’s for a picture. It’s for a reason that they’ve written this into the movie. You know, there’s a reason for it. It’s all just we’re going to work as hard as we do on our single records and that’s what he did.

>> Elvis’s last real movie allowed him to indulge one of his first real loves, gospel music. He was going to do a movie called Change of Habit >> and it was about three nuns and he was a doctor’s movie. So I wanted to make sure that I got the right songs for him. So there’s a uh church in uh Westwood called St.

Paul’s Church and I went there with my wife and I listened to the to the songs and and to how they would pray and they would say one of the minister would say let us pray and let us pray was a wife. It was one of my favorite gospel songs I wrote for Elvis. So let us pray together. Sing together. Sing together. >> But even though gospel was one of Elvis’s childhood influences, he didn’t get around to recording a gospel album until the 1960s.

>> In 1966, Elvis recorded his first Grammy album called How Great Thou Art. And he selected each song. And it took him many months to do it because he knew that this album was going to touch many, many lives because of the nature of it being gospel. He said, “Larry, this album is going to do things that we don’t even know about. This is God’s music.

This is spiritual.” We sat around many, many nights at Gracland singing gospel music. You you I just couldn’t even begin to tell you how many nights that we would sing gospel songs nearly all night long. He’d get on one song and sing it two hours. He’d take a break, go back and sing it again for another 15 or 20, 30 minutes, and he’d sing every part and sing every part good.

>> I could feel that he was very partial uh to gospel music. But then he uh kind of fused them all together, the rock, the gospel, the country, and that made him set apart. >> M. Davis, who would also have a career fusing rock, gospel, and country, and who had come through for Elvis with some movie tunes, provided Presley with some of his bestloved latter-day hits.

>> I grew up with a little boy who lived in the ghetto, and I’d always wanted to write a song about it. Just one day, I started thinking about the ghetto as a as a title for the song. And the same same day, a friend of mine named Freddy Weller showed me a lick on a guitar that uh he was playing and I thought it sounded and I took it home that night and I wrote this song.

Matt Davis came in and played in the ghetto in person and we were in the in the control room and there was a couch in front of the board and uh M was playing his guitar and singing this song sitting on the back of that couch and Elvis and Chips was behind the uh control board and uh uh Elvis just shook his head when M got through with that song.

M was shaking like a leaf. He was scared to death. I like the Elvis at the in the ghetto Elvis. I mean, there was a soulfulness in that, you know, that opening line in the ghetto. I mean, the way he just dug in on that >> don’t cry, daddy. Uh, he had told me, Elvis had told me that the first time I went over to his house that he was going to record that, I played it to him over there. I’ll never forget him.

It got real quiet. You know, don’t cry, Daddy is pretty sad song. We got to the end of it and it was just real quiet. Elvis says, “I’m going to cut that someday for my daddy.” I went, “Okay.” And by golly, he did. He lived up to his word. >> Another young singer songwriter in the M.

Davis mold was Mark James, who penned what would turn out to be Elvis’s first number one song in nearly a decade. >> Suspicious Minds came from a song that I had written for myself. I had uh I was on Scepter Records and uh actually I recorded it in 1968. It wasn’t until years later when Elvis booked the studio for two weeks, Chips played it to Elvis.

He said, “Let’s hear that again.” And they must have recorded 40 or more songs. I mean, and I I I had heard that they were actually leaving the studio. And uh George said, “Hey, E, you forgot to catch Suspicious Minds.” And uh they went back in and recorded. It was the number one record in 27 countries.

I mean, it it was it was a great feeling and I was glad to be part of that, you know. >> Music legend Jimmy Rogers also shared one of his songs with Elvis. It was called It’s Over. >> After I wrote it, I recorded it and then Eddie Arnold recorded It’s Over and went to number one country. And then I get a call from the Colonel’s management company and asked me if if if I, you know, if I would mind if Elvis recorded my song, it’s over.

And I said, “Are you kidding? Of course I wouldn’t mind.” He sang it out. You know how he would get to the big finishes and just keep going and keep going with that voice. And uh he did it his own way, of course, and I I thought it was great. I still think it’s great. Another crowd-pleaser from Elvis’s Vegas years was actually a medley of three traditional songs.

It was called American Trilogy. >> The first night we did Trilogy in Atlanta, Georgia. James started with the intro and Elvis said, “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton.” [Applause] You know, they started with those those calls and the people and they stood and screaming and every hair I mean just just unbel I you know in the we we stood 30 seconds which can be like a year till they stopped slowed down and we continued on with the song.

Elvis loved dynamic songs, powerful songs, big endings, big singing hard big big buildups and that song had the big buildup. Let’s face it, it starts off so slow. I mean, it Elvis, that was Elvis’s song. He loved to do those kinds of songs. >> Glory, glory, hallelujah. His truth is mar. [Music] >> He had that wonderful way of laying back for a while and doing things very quietly and then all of a sudden boom, you would take it like an opera singer almost over the top.

>> They were arena shows, but in a sense you were in his living room. You know, you were there right there with him. He didn’t go out there. He did it. He entertained you, but I think you felt like you were just, you know, sitting in in his living room. >> People from every corner of show business were impressed with the power and emotion of Elvis’s performances.

>> I mean, Frank Sinatra made my way a very famous song. You know that. But when Elvis sang it, it was tearjerking. >> The thing I guess that sticks in my mind about Elvis, uh, you couldn’t fool him about feel. I mean, this guy knew soul and he knew feel. [Music] [Applause] >> One of the things that he would always say to me is, “Is it natural? Does it feel right?” And I’d always remember him saying, “That doesn’t feel right.

It’s got to be natural.” >> I like to mix them up. I like to do a song like Bridge Over Trouble Water or American Trilogy or something then and then then mix it up and and do some rock and roll some of the hard rock stuff. >> But finding that hard rock stuff was becoming increasingly difficult. >> It was hard for him to find two good rock songs to record.

Uh because rock songs were getting to become parodies of themselves. They they love the old stuff you did and they want you to do that kind of stuff, but you become a parody of yourself when you start doing it. I personally believe that Elvis really did knew that and really didn’t want to do that kind of rock and roll anymore.

I think it was really hard for him to get the songs that were best suited for him. I think there were just a lot of people pitching songs at him from the inner circle people to all all the influences around him made it real difficult for get to get what was best for him. >> It’s hard to find good material nowadays, you know, for everybody.

It’s very difficult to find any good hard rock songs. If I could find them, I I would do them. >> Others felt it wasn’t Elvis’s inability to find good rock songs so much as his lack of interest in singing them. I don’t think he wanted to do that rocky roll anymore. You know, he was a in his middle age.

He wanted to do songs that I think that he can use his voice on more. That’s why he loved doing, you know, Impossible Dream and all that, you know, Vegas kind of stuff cuz it could, you know, he was a great singer. you love. >> But regardless of his choice of songs and styles, Elvis continued to impress audiences, critics, and colleagues for the remainder of his life.

>> He loved music and I think he loved getting out and performing in front of people and and he became a much better singer in the later part, you know, before the very end of his life. There was a point in there where he was really singing well. He had great chops and he was doing good music and I think he was very proud of himself at that point too.

>> When he sang a song, he wasn’t sitting there going, “Oh boy, how do my nails look tonight?” You know, anything like that. He is that song was computing, you know, and he was putting it out there and that was part of his love for the audience. You know, Elvis always understood the power of entrance and the power of exit.

Not just the power of an opening song or the power of a closing song. Power first entrance. Oh, see what you have done. >> There’s hardly a song that uh he performed or sang or made famous or covered or did that is not not a part of your growing up memories. I mean, he means the same thing to me that I think he means to you or he means to everybody that still pays tribute to his music, to his style, to his soul.

He just had a charisma that very few people have. I think it’s something that just came from inside. >> Even a quarter of a century after his passing, Elvis’s musical magic continues to inspire new generations of fans and performers alike. >> Over the years, I must have talked to thousands of musicians. I always say, “Who influenced you?” You’d be amazed.

Even to this day, people will tell me, “Oh, Elvis, of course, and then so and so and so.” But he’s on everybody’s list. He just had a charisma about him and as an entertainer on stage and I think people really love that about him. His uh music and his soul lives on. >> He was a king of rock and roll will always be.

He’s what’s made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now. We all owe that to Elvis. >> With Elvis, it was completely and utterly natural. And I think the world recognized that. The the world of music recognized it. Um, this was a very unique human being and I I don’t think we’ll ever see that again. >> He copied nobody. There’s only one.

Everything you saw about him reflected only him. There was nobody in Elvis that appeared other than Elvis. [Music] He was the original cast of Elvis Presley. I mean that was it. It was nothing off Broadway about novice. He was he was what it was you know he was real. >> I think because he was so unique in his approach that that in itself will last him forever and and he was one of a kind and and for that the music business will always be indebted and and those of us who are out there now uh can only hope to come close to what he did.

Every dream that I ever dreamed has come true 100 times. I learned very early in life that without a song, the day would never end. Without a song, a man got a friend. Without a song, the world would never end without a song. So, I’ll keep singing a song.