Previous Page That “new sound, new look, new Elvis” made its big debut on a Frank Sinatra-hosted, Timex Watch-sponsored, ABC-produced TV special entitled “Welcome Back Elvis.” The slender Presley sported a fancy tuxedo just three years after swearing he’d never let the Steve Allens of the world tell him how to dress or how to perform. A lot changed in three years; now it was a look he was cultivating. Both songs from his new single debuted here (to a great response) and Presley even shared the spotlight with former rival Frank Sinatra as the duo performed a medley of each other’s respective hits. Elvis’s vocals and swanky getup wasn’t the only thing new about him. As Sinatra joked on the show, his sideburns seemed to be a thing of the past. They were cut for the Army and Elvis didn’t seem in a hurry to bring them back. And then there was the matter of his hips. The gyrations and gesticulations that captivated a younger generation and appalled an older one were much more subdued now. In fact, his whole performance seemed more in line with Bobby Darin than the Elvis Presley everyone knew so well. For comparison’s sake, look for Darin on American Bandstand from a few months before the Timex special (Youtube will have some clips) and see the similarity in style. Different though it was, his new look and style were warmly received by the live audience (and the ABC ratings). As a result, the always-insecure Elvis found the confidence to press on with his evolution and a week after the show, he was back in the studio with a new batch of songs to record. As with the March 20th songs, the rest of the recordings from the Elvis Is Back! album featured a mixture of smooth pop, soft ballads and classic blues numbers. Once they were all recorded, the biggest source of contention among Elvis, Parker and RCA was which songs to hold off the album for single-release. The studio wanted four songs (not counting Stuck on You/Fame and Fortune which had already shipped) to be withheld (two A-sides and two B-sides) but there were a lot more than four single-worthy songs to choose from. Elvis was partial to “Such a Night” (an up-tempo hybrid of blues, rock and pop). Parker liked “Soldier Boy,” whose title and obvious connection to the newly-returned veteran he thought would sell itself. RCA favored “Mess of Blues” and “I Gotta Know” (which they thought offered a good mixture of styles for better radio appeal), and those were the two that were selected as B-sides. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Unlike the much-debated B-sides, the A-sides to his next two singles were agreed upon by everyone: The two strongest cuts of the session were an Italian flavored love song that featured, arguably, Elvis’s best vocal performance of the session, and a slowed-down ballad with an unusual spoken-interlude… Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content 1960 featured a wealth of great material from a variety of artists and groups, but when the charts were finished after Christmas, the top-two best selling songs of the year belonged to the same man: Elvis Presley, with his songs “It’s Now or Never” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight.” The songs were unlike anything he’d recorded before, but their instant success solidified Elvis’s “new” sound as the new normal. Ironically, from the eighteen tracks that were recorded for the album and singles, the only song that really sticks out like a sore thumb is the most “classic rock and roll” tune of the bunch. Leiber and Stoller’s “Dirty Dirty Feeling” was actually written for Elvis to record for King Creole but he never got around to it (the Colonel and his feud with the songwriters likely played a part in that). It was recorded and included here simply out of obligation (they needed a twelfth song to finish the album). The arrangement and sound offer a taste of what Elvis’s 1960 output might have sounded like had he decided to stick to his “rockabilly” roots that first made him famous. It’s not a bad song, it’s just a thin and insignificant one, very different from the others in the wrong kind of way. Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party. YouTube privacy policy If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh. Accept YouTube Content Unfortunately, the LP was not a big hit, selling only 300,000 copies in its initial run. The singles were strong in sales because his target audience was still cash-strapped youngsters, but RCA hoped that Elvis’ more grownup image might make his LP appeal more to older buyers (with the money to spend on the more expensive records). And yet, on a personal level, Elvis considered it a triumph. It was one of the few LPs of his that he played on regular rotation at Graceland. In many ways, it was the first full album he recorded without any controversy or drama. His first LP was a mix of new material and leftover Sun recordings. His second was produced in such a rush they didn’t even have a full album’s worth of material to record; they were forced to lay down three Little Richard covers to fill it out. His soundtrack albums, though great in the 1950s, were still bogged down by the occasional throwaway “movie tune.” Even the beloved Christmas album had to be supplemented with nearly year-old Gospel tracks. Elvis Is Back! was the first studio album Presley recorded where the entire track-listing was approved by him, fine-tuned by him, and essentially produced by him too. Even though the credits list Steve Sholes as the producer, the man himself says Elvis was the one running the studio, demanding take after take until they got each song exactly right. Initial sales may not have been strong, but time has been good to it; today it’s regarded as one of the greatest albums in his catalog and a definitive LP of the 1960s. But sales are what matters and the GI Blues soundtrack would blow it away.
