Previous Page Elvis had always been a promiscuous person and had never been faithful to any girlfriend in his life. Getting married did not change that, either. Priscilla thought that having a child together might settle him down but it did not; it only widened the chasm between husband and wife. Elvis refused to be sexually-intimate with Priscilla after the birth of Lisa Marie, stating that he couldn’t be with a woman who’d had a child. It was a bizarre admission from a man known for many bizarre opinions. Nevertheless, Elvis tried to keep Priscilla happy in other ways. He showered her with gifts—jewelry and clothes—that he brought back to her from his various tours and Vegas shows (she wasn’t allowed to travel with him), but token gestures did not appease his wife’s bitterness toward her husband. Meanwhile, Elvis continued bedding every looker he wanted, while also maintaining extended relationships with other women. One such dalliance came with a woman named Joyce Bova, with whom Elvis had a four-year affair between 1969-1972, spanning almost the entirety of his marriage. They met when she was just a spectator at one of his first Las Vegas shows, and—as frequently happened with pretty spectators—she was invited back to his hotel room. Which led to a second visit, and then a third, etc. The relationship resulted in a pregnancy in fact, but Bova terminated it after hearing that Elvis would not sleep with a woman who’d given birth. Priscilla still sought some way to keep her marriage alive and when Elvis suggested she take up Karate with him, she jumped at the chance, eager to have something she could share with her husband. The hobby led to her training under Mike Stone, with whom Priscilla would begin her own affair. It would be this one affair—and not the hundreds of others which Elvis had—that would bring about the end of their marriage in 1972. 1972 is best-known for three major happenings in Elvis’s life, all within the first half of the year: The filming of the Elvis on Tour motion picture documentary, the end of his marriage and the instant emotional toll that took on him, and his triumphant concert at Madison Square Garden. The year began inauspiciously, as Elvis performed another January-February engagement in Las Vegas. New songs were added to the set-list, which would be carried over into the upcoming nationwide concert tour. “It’s Impossible” had been performed a time or two in 1971 but it would be a much more frequent number in 1972, and would often be sung back-to-back with “The Impossible Dream.” No formal studio version was ever recorded, which would be a common theme for many of these new Las Vegas additions. 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 “Never Been to Spain” was a recent hit for Three Dog Night, having peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot100 in December of 1971. Elvis liked the arrangement so much he kept it as is, albeit with his voice giving the song a different dynamic. The original song starts off like a blues number that explodes into R&B midway through. Thanks to The Sweet Inspirations and Presley’s massive and booming voice, Elvis’s version turned the song into a pseudo-Gospel/Opera hybrid. It was right up his alley for the time period. 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 It’s Over” was a 1966 song written and recorded by Jimmie Rodgers. It peaked at #37 on the Hot100 but reached #5 on the Easy Listening Chart. Rodgers version is light and folksy, but Elvis sings it with the same operatic-style that was quickly-defining his 1970’s live set. His marriage wasn’t “over” yet, and though it was crumbling, he was well in denial, so the same bitterness and depression that would soon consume his recordings are not present here. The live master is crisp and powerful.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwU7tfCWI4IToday “An American Trilogy” is known as an “Elvis song” but in early 1972 it was a top-25 song by its writer Mickey Newbury. Elvis wanted to record it and Felton Jarvis complied, thinking it would work as a B-side or maybe on a companion album to the upcoming tour. Elvis, however, got it in his head that the song had to be his next big single. Had Newbury’s original not been such a recent success it might have been worth gambling on it; Elvis’s version was powerful (the master from early 1972 is actually one of the weaker renditions Elvis did; the singer seemed to improve his performance every time he sang the song, and by 1974 it was chilling), although not particularly radio-friendly. Newbury was still riding a wave of popularity with his song, however, and releasing a competing version was at least bad timing. Elvis was insistent, however, and RCA acquiesced. Unfortunately, gone were the days when Elvis could confidently boast which of his recent recordings would be his next number-one hit. Elvis’s version of “An American Trilogy” went nowhere, peaking at #66 on the Hot100, his worst charting A-side since “Your Time Hasn’t Come Yet Baby” was pulled from the Speedway soundtrack in 1967. And yet, through persistent performing, Elvis eventually annexed Newbury’s song onto his own catalog and now it’s favorably remembered. He certainly did the epic nature of the lyrics justice. The song is, sadly, misunderstand, by many modern listeners who can’t get past the opening third. The song starts with a stirring rendition of “Dixie,” the South’s anthem, as it were. Because of that, people have assumed the song is racist or inappropriate. No. The song is a medley of three, which together tell the whole story of the Civil War. It begins with “Dixie,” then moves into the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (an anthem of the North, as it were). Then it transitions into “All My Trials,” which was a black spiritual hymn sung during the civil rights era of the ’50s and ’60s. Essentially that song is the plight of the African American the Civil War was (largely) fought over. After that, the medley returns to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and closes in strong style, symbolically showing the North’s victory and the victory of blacks in their civil rights movement. There’s nothing racist about the song at all: It is an American trilogy. 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 There were a number of songs Elvis wanted to record and release but securing the publishing rights proved impossible. One song was Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” that Johnny Cash hit #1 with a year prior. Another was “I’m Leaving it up to You” (a Dale and Grace hit from 1963 that both Linda Ronstadt and the Osmonds turned into 1970’s hits). When Elvis requested the songs he was met with skeptical looks from those in charge of securing publishing rights for him; they thought he was joking. Those weren’t “Elvis songs” as they knew of them. When he requested “I’m Leaving it up to You” he was told they found the song but didn’t send it over to him to record because they assumed he wanted some other song by the same name; The Dale and Grace song was “not an Elvis song” they presumed. He did sing the song in some live shows, but no formal recording was ever done. Bootleg recordings of his live version illustrate how he would have approached and “modernized” the song. it’s a shame he never recorded an official master, and that his musical interests were not nurtured; the day was fast approaching when it would be difficult to get Elvis to record anything. Elvis’s musical sensibilities were changing and those in charge of “handling” him found they were unable to get a handle on his new tastes. Soon enough however, it wouldn’t matter: Priscilla was about to walk away, and a gobsmacked Elvis would turn mostly to depressing songs of love-lost until the end of his life. Upon returning from Las Vegas, at the end of February, Priscilla confessed her affair with Mike Stone and told Elvis she was filing for separation. The news was a shock and elicited a sudden and wrong-headed decision by Elvis: According to Priscilla he “forcefully made love” to her, afterward saying “that’s how a real man treats his woman.” Priscilla left Graceland with Lisa Marie and Elvis was left alone. Five months later his new girlfriend Linda Thompson moved in.
