Previous Page Recording at Graceland had accommodated Elvis during his worst period, but Felton was confident that it had been a phase and that he could get Elvis back in a proper studio in 1977. He booked the Nashville Creative Workshop for January and collected enough material to fill out the still-developing album. Elvis actually made the trip to Nashville, but never left his hotel room. He sulked for a few hours and then returned to Memphis, never to record in the studio again. Nevertheless, the album needed to be completed somehow, and after Elvis refused even to step into the Jungle Room and record vocals to songs that were all but finished (the song “Fire Down Below” had been completely recorded by everyone except Elvis himself, but he couldn’t be bothered to take half an hour to record the lyrics), Jarvis had to try an alternative method to secure the final tracks needed to finish his album: He followed Elvis around to every concert, hoping he would suddenly sing something he hadn’t recorded before. Fortunately for Felton, Elvis did have a few new ones up his sleeve. “Unchained Melody” is one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over two-hundred artists recording their own takes on the song. For the first decade of the song’s existence several different artists tried singing it with very different styles, but when the Righteous Brothers’ 1965 take was released, the way to sing it was solidified: Soft, sparse and sanguine. When Elvis started playing it on tour in 1977, he lacked the ability to sing softly, he lacked the mood to sing sanguinely, and though the big production that accompanied him on stage rarely allowed for a “sparse” performance, there were times when Elvis would sit at the piano—as he had done on that magical New Years concert months before—and play something that felt like it was from the heart. That was how he approached “Unchained Melody.” Elvis’s version is wholly different from the silky-smooth Righteous Brothers version and all of its copycats. It’s bold, and operatic. Felton Jarvis of course ruined it with overdubs for the album version and unfortunately, the other live performance of the song (featured on the CBS show later in the year) was a far weaker vocal performance. If you can cut through the artificial orchestration in the album version, Elvis’s passion and ability—limited though it was in 1977—can be found. 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 “Little Darlin'” wasn’t all that new to Elvis. Though he had never officially recorded it, either live or in the studio, he started tossing it out there in a live setting here and there just for fun. Unfortunately, the version Jarvis captured is barely worthy of consideration. Elvis only half sings it, forgets the words and drops it in less than two minutes. It was in no way worthy or even appropriate for an official release, and Elvis obviously was not singing with the intent that it would be released, but Jarvis was desperate to find something “new” to put on the record. Another recording of it, from 1975, recently surfaced, and it was superior (as “superior” as a throwaway can be), but it’s possible Jarvis didn’t have access to it at the time. 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 “If You Love Me Let Me Know” was another Olivia Newton-John record that Elvis was smitten with, just as he’d been with “Let Me Be There” (the OLJ song he recorded in the Memphis, 1974 concert). He’d perform it live and would bounce along with the melody, enjoying the moment, but the recording that Jarvis captured for the album shows just how much Elvis was forced to rely on the other singers and musicians on stage to carry him through the performance. It’s a very busy recording, with the horns, guitars and drums all turned-up, along with the backing and harmony singers; together they completely swallow up Elvis’s vocals to the point where it’s hard to notice when Elvis isn’t singing (and there are several moments when he just drops out, not being able to sing and move at the same time anymore, and allows the harmony singers to carry on without him). 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 With those three live recordings captured, Jarvis now had nine songs, one shy of RCA’s minimum for a full album. Desperate to finish the record he scooped up “Let Me Be There,” from the aforementioned 1974 Memphis concert, and called it a day. It’s unclear why that song was selected; maybe it’s just that they were both Olivia Newton-John songs. On the other hand, the back cover of the album (to be titled Moody Blue) lists in the notes that the song was “recorded in Memphis” along with the Jungle Room recordings as “recorded at Graceland” so maybe the thought was there would be symmetry to another song recorded in the singer’s home city. But that’s a poor reason; the other live songs weren’t recorded in Memphis, and who really pays attention to where the songs were recorded on the back of the album anyway? There were other songs to choose from: Elvis had not had “America” released on an LP yet, and the 1975 live recording of the song had already been mastered for a single release. There was also the unfinished studio recording of “My Way” dating back to 1971 that could have been inserted. More than anything it was laziness that put the retread song on the record; laziness and an urgent need to get the album completed, no matter what. The album released in July, with special blue vinyl to match the album’s title and artwork (which again featured a terrible, out of date picture of Elvis—from 1972—in concert). On the strength of good “Moody Blue” and a good-enough “Way Down” single releases, the album performed well, and would easily have been another top-40 record, much like the previous Jungle Room record had been. Of course, there’s no way to know how his 1977 releases would have performed without the circumstances of his death. Having said that, Elvis did secure another gold record award for Moody Blue just before his death, so maybe it would have been a stronger release than recently (he hadn’t had a gold studio record since He Touched Me in 1972). There’s no way to know. On June 1st, Elvis signed a deal with CBS for the network to air a special highlighting Elvis on tour in the United States. CBS planned to film Elvis at two shows and the compile the footage into a special to be released in the fall. CBS was the first network to air Elvis Presley on television when the singer made an appearance on Stage Show in 1956. He would make several appearances on the show, in fact, and would more famously appear a trio of times on the network’s Ed Sullivan Show. When he returned from the army his TV appearances were nixed so not to compete with his many film releases. Elvis only appeared on TV twice in the ’60s: He appeared on the “Welcome Home Elvis” special on ABC at the beginning of the decade, and on the “1968 Comeback” special on NBC at the end of the 1960s. NBC also broadcasted the Aloha from Hawaii special. Other than those three, he hadn’t appeared on TV since the 1950s. Just taking the three post-army specials together, a picture is painted of a confident, slender, captivating bundle of musical talent. In 1960, he sported a trim tuxedo and crooned on stage with Sinatra, looking ready to usher in a second coming of rock super-stardom. Clad in the black leather of 1968 he looked like a feral panther finally let out of his cage, ready to reconquer the musical world that Hollywood had kept from him. His red white and blue jumpsuit of 1973 showed off a singer who had reached the absolute pinnacle, playing a concert to a literal global audience. What would CBS’ special present? The unmaking of a superstar. The first concert that CBS’s cameras captured was such a disaster that almost none of the footage was usable and the network threatened to cancel the whole endeavor. Elvis had put on some lackluster shows before, even terrible ones, but they had usually been confined to a Las Vegas setting. There’s a big difference between a bad show in front of two-thousand people and a bad show in front of a nationwide audience. Before the CBS show, the previous big events where people had gotten a good look at Elvis were the Aloha concert where he, though glassy-eyed and slurring, was at least fit and certainly looking worthy of such a huge moment. Before that was the Elvis On Tour feature film, where he was a little flabby in the face and neck, but still full of life. Of course, he looked perfect in That’s The Way It Is, and better than perfect in the 1968 Special. Though he had toured in almost every major city from sea to shining sea there was still a huge segment of the population that would be seeing the man for the first time in four years, and the sight of him would be shocking. Once the shock of his look faded, the sound of him would be just as remarkable. The Elvis that stepped onto the stage in the summer of 1977 was a rambling, incoherent mess of a man, meandering around the stage, mumbling through his lyrics, drenched in sweat, and forgetting words to songs he’d been singing for decades. His performance of “Are You Lonesome Tonight” is often pointed to as an example of how far he’d fallen. Going back to 1970, however, there’s plenty of recordings of the song where he plays around with the lyrics, but here he doesn’t just change the words, he stumbles over them and then abandons them. He squeezes his eyes shut, laughs nervously and tries to find the right lyrics in his mind but can’t. He does his best to shrug it off but it’s clear he’s not playing around, he’s saving face. It’s a sad sight. He laughs and smiles in the end, and you can still see that classic Elvis smile, but it’s half-concealed under so much extra skin it’s like a younger, healthier man wearing special Hollywood makeup. The other memorable performance was of “Unchained Melody,” which had been recorded for the Moody Blue album already but had not yet been released. Elvis’s performance here would be the first time anyone in the arena had heard it. It’s a different performance from the one Felton recorded and toyed with back in April. This one is rawer, less polished perhaps but no less powerful. Elvis sings it as the second to last song of the night on his second—better—concert. He starts by announcing to the audience what he’s doing in a long and rambling speech about how its an old song that’s not yet out yet (the Moody Blue record would come out about two weeks after the performance). He incorrectly says it’s a song called Unchained Melody “from an album called Unchained Melody” and then proceeds to belt out the lyrics while playing the chords on the piano. You can see him struggle to hit the big notes, the notes he once belted out effortlessly. He even sinks into the background during the final note, allowing the harmony singers to finish the song while he grinned and banged on the piano. The performance is as beautiful as it is sad. When the concert special was agreed upon, Elvis tried to get back in shape like he had done with the Aloha show but he just couldn’t pull it off anymore. A combination of being too far gone and too apathetic to change had swallowed him up. The CBS footage showed that 1977 was the year he had moved past the point of no return. He was a man who had lost his way and had he not died this year he would have died the next year, or the year after. Despite only being a man in his early forties he was in the twilight of his life. At some point soon all his mistakes and demons would have claimed him. It was almost destiny. Though the second show was an improvement over the terrible first, CBS was still waffling on whether or not to postpone the special until additional material could be recorded, preferably in a few months. Maybe the hope was to give him another opportunity to get in shape and sober up, but if he hadn’t gotten in shape for the first try he wouldn’t for the second. Elvis needed a challenge, and just having a few cameras pointed at him while he sleepwalked through his same old concert was no challenge at all. You can see from the CBS footage (clips on Youtube) what his live show had devolved into. A performance of “Love Me,” from the first show, features Elvis lazily walking around the stage, flicking scarfs at screaming loyalists. It’s a display that goes to show just how far into the realm of self-parody he had fallen. Elvis tossing his scarf into the crowd used to be a natural reaction in his performances. His shakes and gyrations would work the scarf loose and Presley would rip it off from around his neck and launch it into the crowd. It was never “a thing;” it was an involuntary reflex. Fast forward several years and now he’s too out of shape (and out of his mind) to do much of anything. He just lazily wanders the stage, throwing scarves at people, while lackey Charlie Hodge follows with another thirty draped over his arms. He keeps the stock well-supplied, as he drapes a new one over Elvis’s neck as fast as the king can toss them. The silk barely has time to collect a drop of sweat before it is handed off. It’s an empty gesture; it’s the pointless act of doing a thing just because “it’s expected.” I’m sure they’re worth a lot on eBay though. (they go anywhere from $200 to $1000) Two months later he would be dead.
