{"id":9023,"date":"2026-02-27T12:41:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/elvis-presleys-elvis-country-different-planet-77689\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T12:41:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T12:41:04","slug":"elvis-presleys-elvis-country-different-planet-77689","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/elvis-presleys-elvis-country-different-planet-77689\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe was on a different planet\u201d: the making of Elvis Presley\u2019s Elvis Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published in Uncut Take 201<\/strong> [February 2014 issue], we look back to 1970 and Elvis Presley’s attempts to reconnect with the long-lost roots of his music; to create a remarkable album, Elvis Country. \u201cI was wondering,\u201d he says, \u201cif any of you guys would like to help me make a few phonograph records?…\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 201<\/strong> [February 2014 issue], we look back to 1970 and Elvis Presley\u2019s attempts to reconnect with the long-lost roots of his music; to create a remarkable album, Elvis Country. \u201cI was wondering,\u201d he says, \u201cif any of you guys would like to help me make a few phonograph records?\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A flamboyant black cape and carrying a lion\u2019s\u2011head walking stick<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a sleepy Sunday afternoon on the outskirts of Bonn. Last night, veterans of Elvis Presley\u2019s TCB Band packed out the city\u2019s Stadthalle as part of a European tour to celebrate what would have been the King\u2019s 78th birthday. Today, a couple of middle-aged men in pompadours from the local Elvis Presley fan club drift around the foyer of a hotel close to the venue.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, just a few feet away from them, sitting at the rear of the hotel\u2019s restaurant, two members of the TCB Band are reminiscing about a forgotten peak in Presley\u2019s career. James Burton was Presley\u2019s guitarist and right-hand man from 1969 until the singer\u2019s death in 1977. Sporting a thin moustache and a black Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame cap and jacket, he trades stories with bassist Norbert Putnam, a founding member of Alabama\u2019s iconic Muscle Shoals rhythm section. They met in Nashville, almost 44 years ago. A copy of the first record they played on together, Elvis Country, lies on a table between them \u2013 a photograph of the future King Of Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll, aged two, staring out at them from the front cover.<\/p>\n

\"Elvis<\/figure>\n

An unexpected third\u2011act peak<\/h2>\n

\u201cI was totally stiff with fright before that first session,\u201d laughs Putnam. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, because I\u2019d already had a very successful 10 years in the studio. But something told me, this is bigger than anything that you\u2019ve ever been a part of. I remember standing in the bathroom, just before I went out there, and I\u2019d look in the mirror and say, \u2018Dear God, guide my fingers. Don\u2019t allow me to be the one to screw up this up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When Elvis Presley entered the studio in June 1970, he did so as a man enjoying an unexpected third-act peak. The NBC TV special \u2013 the \u201968 Comeback \u2013 his record-breaking live return in Las Vegas, and a batch of sessions at Memphis\u2019 American Sound Studio resulting in the acclaimed From Elvis In Memphis album had successfully reinvigorated his career after a decade of artistic and commercial decline.<\/p>\n

These are remembered now as the final flare of Presley\u2019s majesty, but the Elvis Country sessions tell a different story: of a comeback with some distance left to run. As the surviving musicians who gathered in Nashville\u2019s RCA Studio B now testify, they found Presley energised, determined, ready to pull off whatever he set his mind to. \u201cHe was fearless,\u201d confirms Putnam. \u201cElvis didn\u2019t have any borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d made a great LP in Memphis\u201d<\/h2>\n

Elvis Country is a return to roots. Released in 1971 at the height of country rock, the material \u2013 bluegrass, rockabilly, honky tonk, covers of songs by his heroes Eddy Arnold and Ernest Tubb \u2013 was deeply personal to Elvis. \u201cMany of them were hits when he was just a kid,\u201d acknowledges the archivist who helps compile Sony Legacy\u2019s Elvis releases, Ernst Mikael Jorgensen. But astonishingly, it\u2019s an album that seems to have been created almost by accident, in the middle of recording something else altogether.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Elvis Country sessions, Presley had made a successful trip to the American Sound Studios in Memphis, which had yielded \u201cSuspicious Minds\u201d and the aforementioned From Elvis In Memphis, produced by Chip Moman. Moman encouraged Presley to work with material outside his normal range \u2013 including \u201cIn The Ghetto\u201d. \u201cThey\u2019d made a great LP in Memphis, and they should have cut there again,\u201d says Elvis\u2019 pianist David Briggs, speaking from his Nashville home. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think they could get along with Chips Moman. It was politics and business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elvis returned to Nashville, to RCA Studio B \u2013 where he\u2019d recorded 18 sessions since 1958 \u2013 and his regular producer, Felton Jarvis, very different from the demanding Moman. \u201cFelton wasn\u2019t a musical guy,\u201d says Putnam. \u201cFelton was a pretty good judge of material that normal people would buy, and he was fun. Felton never got in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember seeing him for the first time\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cFelton wanted to get it back up here where he could control it,\u201d adds Briggs. The success of From Elvis In Memphis had been noted, though, as Putnam recalls: \u201cFelton said, \u2018I want you on the next batch of Elvis sessions, \u2019cos it\u2019s got to be more like the American guys, and you guys are Muscle Shoals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Elvis Presley walked into RCA Studio B at 8pm on June 4 to be greeted by some familiar faces \u2013 James Burton, who\u2019d made his live debut with Elvis the previous year, David Briggs, harmonica player\/organist Charlie McCoy and guitarist Chip Young. There were some new ones, too: the rhythm section of Putnam and drummer Jerry Carrigan \u2013 both Muscle Shoals alumni. In effect, this was a new band waiting for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember seeing him for the first time,\u201d says Putnam. \u201cHe comes bursting into the studio, and he\u2019s wearing a long black cape, and he\u2019s carrying a walking stick with a lion\u2019s head with ruby eyes. And he walked in like Prince Leopold, and took his cape off and he tossed it. He stood up and said, \u2018I was wondering if any of you guys would like to help me make a few phonograph records?\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cHe burst out laughing\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cThen he burst out laughing, and he\u2019s telling four or five stories, making us all laugh. He reminded me of the kids I knew in high school. He never wore that cape again. Maybe he was dressing up for the new boys. In 1970, he was in great physical condition, he was still working out with his karate every day. I looked at him when he came in, and thought, \u2018He\u2019s the most beautiful man I\u2019ve ever seen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Working with Elvis was a unique experience for the musicians. \u201cElvis was on a different planet,\u201d Putnam explains. \u201cIn the control room would be all the Memphis Mafia and the publishing guys. And no matter how mediocre the first take was, at the end of it, they would leap into the air. They\u2019re saying, \u2018Gas, King! You\u2019re the King! Touchdown!\u2019 And we\u2019re all going, \u2018Boy, we could make this a lot better\u2026\u2019 But they all worked for him. Every man had a chore assigned. I remember one of them brought in a Halliburton briefcase. And inside was an arsenal of weapons. So he was obviously the security guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019d be putting on a show for the musicians\u201d<\/h2>\n

Putnam also remembers some of Elvis\u2019 more unusual studio practices. \u201cStudio B was a very traditional, open room. Screens were available, but most nights Presley sang into this mic with a long cable, and he\u2019d come out and stand in front of us, and he\u2019d be dancing. It was very difficult for the engineer. He wasn\u2019t interested in recording technique, whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like he was doing a live show for you,\u201d says Burton. \u201cHe\u2019d be putting on a show for the musicians.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Peter Guralnick\u2019s Elvis biography Careless Love, a rack of clothes was available for costume changes. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t changing clothes to impress you,\u201d Briggs says. \u201cHe was sweating and felt dirty. He was working hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was little evidence of how good that work would be when the sessions began. Elvis\u2019 publishers Freddy Bienstock and Lamar Fike started off by pitching the sort of tame material he\u2019d been singing before Memphis. \u201cThere\u2019s every reason to believe the country album wasn\u2019t planned,\u201d explains Ernst Mikael Jorgensen, who has heard every tape from the sessions. \u201cI think Felton thought he was going to go in there to record an album of pop songs. They started with two British power ballads \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve Lost You\u2019 and \u2018Twenty Days And Twenty Nights\u2019. But then Elvis jumps into \u2018I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago\u2019, in one take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s past midnight\u201d<\/h2>\n

Originally a gospel tune, the boisterous version of \u201cI Was Born\u2026\u201d would weave in and out of Elvis Country, an impromptu theme threading the record together. \u201cAfter Elvis has finished more demanding, big ballads, including 11 takes of \u2018The Sound Of Your Cry\u2019, it\u2019s past midnight,\u201d Jorgensen continues. \u201cAnd they start to play \u2018Faded Love\u2019 in a country version, and then they jump into \u2018100 Years From Now\u2019 and \u2018Little Cabin On The Hill\u2019 \u2013 bluegrass songs like he did at Sun, not serious, with Elvis on his own acoustic guitar, very spirited. And Felton panics. This is developing in a way that he never anticipated, and fast, so at the end of the reel he has to turn the tape over and record on the back, there\u2019s no time to get a new one. They did nine songs that first night.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a typical session, Burton remembers, \u201cElvis would only wanna sing a song three, four times at most. And after that, he\u2019d move onto something else. He was the greatest at taking the song and redoing it, putting his thing to it, his arrangement. His voice was so powerful, and we had all the freedom in the world to play what we wanted to play. I loved it when Norbert would break out the stand-up bass\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had all the freedom I needed\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cElvis would let you go,\u201d continues Putnam. \u201cHe never said, \u2018I\u2019d like you to play like this.\u2019 He would take the song and start getting in the mood to do it, then the light would come on and we\u2019d play to that emotion. And he loved it, didn\u2019t he? I\u2019d say, \u2018King\u2019 or sometimes we called him El. \u2018El, what do you think of the bass part?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI had all the freedom I needed,\u201d adds Burton. \u201cWe\u2019d rehearse a song, and after one time, we knew who was going to play the intro, who was going to play the turn-around, and we all picked out the little frills for each one of us\u2026\u201d
Over the next two nights, there was little sign this interlude was significant. But on June 7, the floodgates opened and six country songs poured out of Elvis. Eddy Arnold\u2019s 1954 hit \u201cI Really Don\u2019t Want to Know\u201d, another version of Bob Wills\u2019 \u201cFaded Love\u201d, Ernest Tubb\u2019s \u201cTomorrow Never Comes\u201d, Ray Price\u2019s \u201cMake The World Go Away\u201d, Willie Nelson\u2019s \u201cFunny How Time Slips Away\u201d and a riotous take on Charlie Rich\u2019s 1965 hit, \u201cI Washed My Hands In Muddy Water\u201d. \u201cHe puts this blues phrasing on \u2018I Really Don\u2019t Want to Know\u2019 that makes it wonderful,\u201d Jorgensen says, \u201cand then the whole spirit is created.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can\u2019t sing it all the way through, I\u2019m not going to do it\u201d<\/h2>\n

Presley had effectively hijacked his own session, using it to pay tribute to many of his favourite songs and formative musical idols. Eddy Arnold \u2013 pioneer of the \u2018Nashville sound\u2019 \u2013 was \u201cdefinitely a hero\u201d, Jorgensen explains, and points out that Arnold was there in the photo commemorating Elvis\u2019 signing to RCA. Grand Ole Opry patriarch Ernest Tubb was, Jorgensen says, a \u201cmighty man\u201d to Elvis: \u201c\u2018Tomorrow Never Comes\u2019 is a difficult song for Elvis to sing, you can hear him struggling all the way through the takes. But it\u2019s an Ernest Tubb song. And Elvis says, \u2018If I can\u2019t sing it all the way through, I\u2019m not going to do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Texan swing king Bob Wills personally also encouraged the young Elvis in 1954. Elsewhere, Charlie Rich, Presley\u2019s near-contemporary at Sun, and Willie Nelson complete the night\u2019s cross-section of country songs. \u201cThere\u2019s no talking, mostly first takes, one right after another,\u201d reveals Jorgensen. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say the excitement is building that night. What happens is, it flows so naturally. It\u2019s more like playing music than recording it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t treat \u2019em like country\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cThere was some plan,\u201d nods Putnam. \u201cI think he and Felton had considered doing a country LP. But it was a total surprise to us.\u201d At the session, Elvis would try to get the songs in one take, and the band would find ways of stalling him while Putnam or Briggs scrawled down arrangements in pencil. The songs, at least, they knew well: \u201cA lot of stuff we\u2019d played on the original sessions,\u201d laughs Briggs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he should have done it a long time before that,\u201d says Charlie McCoy. \u201cIt\u2019s so natural for him. OK, he grew up doing R\u2019n\u2019B, but his roots are as country as anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d Burton emphasises, \u201cwe didn\u2019t treat \u2019em like country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t go for the normal country arrangement,\u201d Putnam confirms. \u201cWe played them in the way that came naturally. Black music had influenced me heavier than anything, after I became a musician. And I needed to make the bassline more interesting than a country bassline. Jerry Carrigan and I had come up from Muscle Shoals, and you\u2019ll hear that R\u2019n\u2019B influence in songs like \u2018Make The World Go Away\u2019 \u2013 a little more soul on the bass and drums.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElvis made all the primal sounds that human beings exhibit\u201d<\/h2>\n

Burton: \u201cWhen I got out the dobro, for \u2018Funny How Time Slips Away\u2019, Elvis said, \u2018Come on, baby. Come on\u2026\u2019 You know like on \u2018Make The World Go Away\u2019, Elvis\u2019 vocal on that [croons delicately] and then the dobro thing really fit that song, and it was different to what you were expecting. And \u2018I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water\u2019, I had a little mud on my strings to get that scratchy sound. Ooh, and \u2018Faded Love\u2019, that was raunchy. Yeah, man. It\u2019s one of my favourite albums ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last country song they recorded on the June 7 sessions, \u201cI Washed My Hands In Muddy Water\u201d, shows the kind of music they were creating here. A tale of a Tennessee outlaw who can\u2019t wash himself clean of his crimes, it\u2019s rendered here as exhilarating rock\u2019n\u2019roll, driven by McCoy\u2019s blasting harmonica riffs and Briggs\u2019 urgent piano vamping, with Elvis himself giving full vent to his vocal abilities. Says Putnam: \u201cHe would dive down here and he\u2019d soar up there, and he\u2019d pant into the mic. Elvis made all the primal sounds that human beings exhibit, from blissful love to a primal scream, in one song.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musicians came home in the small hours of June 8, many stunned by what had transpired. \u201cIt was like you\u2019d just played four quarters of football and you won,\u201d says Putnam. \u201cEveryone\u2019s gone, and you\u2019re sitting alone in your car, and can you get home without hitting a tree? It was exhilarating exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n

They had completed 35 master takes in five nights<\/h2>\n

The evening of June 8, they went back to RCA Studio B. It was as if the previous night\u2019s session hadn\u2019t happened. The five songs they recorded \u2013 \u201cThere Goes My Everything\u201d, \u201cIf I Were You\u201d, \u201cOnly Believe\u201d, \u201cSylvia\u201d and \u201cPatch It Up\u201d \u2013 were the usual hotch-potch of mid-tempo ballads and love songs. They had completed 35 master-takes in five nights. Presley left Nashville shortly after. On August 10, he began what Colonel Tom Parker dubbed \u2018The Elvis Presley Summer Festival\u2019: a month-long residency at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, filmed as Elvis: That\u2019s The Way It Is, another triumph.<\/p>\n

At some point during his tenure in Vegas, the decision was taken to release a country album drawn from the Nashville sessions. On September 22, Elvis returned to RCA Studio B. Four new songs were added to the 35 they\u2019d cut back in June. Only two of those \u2013 Anne Murray\u2019s recent hit \u201cSnowbird\u201d and Jerry Lee Lewis\u2019 \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019 Goin\u2019 On\u201d \u2013 made the LP. But, as David Briggs recalls, the mood had gone: \u201cJames Burton wasn\u2019t on that session, and we got Eddie Hinton, which was my idea as he was a great rock\u2019n\u2019roll player. But when Elvis came in and had all these sorta corny songs like \u2018Snowbird\u2019, it\u2019s hard to make them anything that\u2019s groovy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was there! I was there!\u201d<\/h2>\n

Presley lacked enthusiasm for the material. Even before they began \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019\u2026\u201d he told his band, \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing it too long already.\u201d However, David Briggs remembers that their fierce, authoritative take of \u201cWhole Lotta Shakin\u2019\u2026\u201d would come to mean a great deal to Elvis later: \u201cThis was just before he died, in \u201977, when we were supposed to be recording an LP with just piano in Graceland.<\/p>\n

He used to like to listen to that up in his bedroom when I was with him. He played \u2018Whole Lotta Shakin\u2019\u2026\u2019 every day, \u2019cos he liked what Jerry Carrigan played on the drums. He wore me out, he must have played it 50 times. \u2018Listen to this, listen to this!\u2019 \u2018I was there! I was there!\u2019 We were just playing around on songs like that\u2026 we\u2019d just go, \u2018Jesus Christ!\u2019 and start jamming. It was a way of getting away from all that stuff he didn\u2019t like, the stack of bad songs that the Colonel had always agreed to do for somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elvis Country was released on January 2, 1971, with the evocative subtitle, \u2018I\u2019m 10,000 Years Old\u2019. It reached No 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 \u2013 the highest place an Elvis album would reach until his death in 1977. In his review for Rolling Stone, future Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick considered it among Presley\u2019s best \u201csince he first recorded for Sun almost 17 years ago\u2026 music that, while undeniably country, puts him in touch more directly with the soul singer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA shared frustration with the band\u201d<\/h2>\n

The surfeit of recorded songs would be spread through a further two albums, That\u2019s The Way It Is and Love Letters From Elvis. \u201cMostly it was just, \u2018everybody goes wild\u2019,\u201d remembers David Briggs. \u201cIt was like a big gang-bang there. The engineers were lazy, some of them, and they were too busy dancing in the control room rather than working on the EQ. It\u2019s probably 10 per cent of what it could have been. And that\u2019s Elvis \u2013 that\u2019s the part that sounds great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briggs also contends that 1970 was a pivotal year for Presley, both in the studio and during his ever-expanding Vegas residency. \u201cA lot of that stuff is when it started going bad. Maybe being so constricted in Memphis, when he did that great album, wore him out. Maybe he just didn\u2019t like to cut that way. Whereas before he\u2019d sing softer, more in control and didn\u2019t sing hardly any bad notes, that was the start of his going down with his vocals. Singing in Vegas could have been a big part of it \u2013 that brassy, hard singing above the orchestra.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cElvis never cared for perfection\u201d<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt was a shared frustration with the band, that it went too fast and they could have done better,\u201d counters Ernst Mikael Jorgensen. \u201cBut Elvis never cared for perfection, if the thing had the feel.\u201d Elvis\u2019 exhilarated vocal outbursts on Elvis Country set the template for the unchecked soul of his best \u201970s singing, and the bombast of the worst. \u201cHe was in better shape to pull it off as a vocalist in 1970,\u201d Briggs concedes. \u201cIt was more special working with him than anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Bonn, James Burton turns over the sleeve of Elvis Country and runs a finger along the tracklisting, before letting it rest on the title, \u201cI Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago\u201d. \u201cIf you go through all the generations of this guy\u2019s music in his life,\u201d he says, \u201che might well have been born 10,000 years ago. It was a natural, exciting thing, playing behind that voice. Playing all the hot licks, all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post \u201cHe was on a different planet\u201d: the making of Elvis Presley\u2019s Elvis Country<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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