Ten steps to Elvis

1. No sadder story

Peter Guralnick, author of acclaimed Presley biographies Last Train To Memphis and Careless Love, said it: “I know of no sadder story.”

2. Elvis changed the world

In the beginning he was a poor white kid with little education and few career prospects. But he had a dream. An only child, he was visited by the spirit of something profound. Intuitively, he felt the future. A future that we’ve inherited.

As fate would have it, young Elvis got his chance and took it. By the time he was 22, he’d become one of the most famous people in the world. John Lennon later acknowledged Presley’s contribution. “Before Elvis there was nothing,” he said. But that fame was to be the agent of his destruction.

James Brown (the Godfather) observed that Elvis “taught young white America to get down.” But to conservative American society in the ‘50s, Elvis was worse than satanic. He was a delinquent who preached indecency. They predicted that his espousal of “nigger music” would wreck the civilisation they knew.

3. Elvis loved his mother

The most important person in Elvis’s life, by far, was not manager Tom Parker, his father Vernon, his wife Priscilla or even the daughter after whom he named his Corvair 880 jet, Lisa Marie. It was his mother, Gladys.

Born in 1912, Gladys Love Smith, as described by her sister Lillian was “hog-lazy” as a child. As a young woman she was crazy about “buck dancing”. She was also a regular church-goer, who enjoyed singing hymns. When she was 21 she met and eloped with the man who was to became her husband, and Elvis’s daddy, Vernon Presley. They had to get married in a different county because, at 17, Vernon was underage. He claimed he was 22.

Elvis, who was born in 1935 – his twin died at birth – went crazy with grief when Gladys died from acute hepatitis and liver damage in 1958.

Press reports state that after the funeral Elvis was confined to bed with a fever. He didn’t leave his bedroom for nine days. “He changed completely,” said his aunt Lillian. “He didn’t seem like Elvis ever again.”

4. An Elvis recording session

An eye-witness account of the recording session in 1956 of Presley’s version of Leiber and Stoller’s ‘Hound Dog’ illustrates how fastidious Elvis was about his work and how certain he was of the way he wanted his music to sound.

On July 2nd in RCA’s New York studios, he overruled an engineer who felt the drums were too loud and called for more guitar in the live mix. The team, which included D.J. Fontana, Scotty Moore and Bill Black, had run through 18 takes before his backing vocalists The Jordanaires reckoned they had the master. Elvis agreed it was good but insisted they try again. After take twenty-six the producer was happy. But not Elvis. He reckoned he could do even better. He’d been performing the song as the finale of his live gig and had even sung it on TV the night before the studio session when he appeared with Nipper, the RCA dog.

After more than 30 takes, Elvis listened, comparing and contrasting. He selected take 28 as the one to be released. (RCA say it was take 31 that was selected.)

After a lunch of sandwiches, Elvis and the band checked a demo of a new song. Within 20 minutes they’d begun trying out different arrangements of it. Elvis settled on the one he felt most comfortable with and got it down. That was Otis “Bumps” Blackwell’s ‘Don’t Be Cruel’.

He recorded a third song before he left the studio that evening. A ballad, it was the sexy slice of melancholia, ‘Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be)’. It had been some session.

5. Elvis recorded Dylan songs

Although one of the out-of-sorts Elvis’s sneering remarks was “My mouth feels like Bob Dylan’s been sleepin’ in it”, Dylan has said that Elvis’s version of his ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ (recorded in May ‘66 during the sessions for his How Great Thou Art gospel album) is his favourite cover version of any of his songs. Elvis copped the song, which Dylan himself had yet to record, from the album Odetta Sings Dylan.

Though no great fan of Dylan, who he reckoned was advocating a drug culture, Elvis would later have a shot at recording’ Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’. And there’s also a curious bass voice rendition of ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ to contend with.

6. The scale of the man’s achievements

No one-trick pony, Presley set out to embody American music – a startling and naive conceit, you might think. However bizarre it might seem in the light of the treadmill movies, the jump-suit overkill and the compulsive eating disorders, he managed to accomplish his artistic goals.His influences were catholic, from folk through bluegrass and country to gospel and blues, soul and r’n’b. He also enjoyed and admired artists as diverse as Mario Lanza, Hank Williams, Dean Martin, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup and Billy Eckstine. Over three decades, he took all of the influences he’d assimiliated from radio as a lonely, only kid and created a catalogue of recordings that re-pays constant re-examination.

7. Elvis is the ultimate king of blue-eyed-soul

Late one evening, after a few drinks, we lolled around discussing soulful singers, John Lennon, Joe Cocker and so on. As I considered the haunting beauty of Roy Orbison’s recordings I pronounced rashly, “The Big O must be the greatest blue-eyed-soul man.”

The late Denny Cordell arched an eyebrow quizzically and enquired, “What about Elvis?”

Oops! He was right, of course. But, for me, Presley was always in a different league. Top of rock’s Premiership.

8. That’s Someone You Never Forget

Having found that, because there are so many recordings to choose from, there’s always a fresh Elvis discovery to be made, I once asked Greil Marcus to name a track he’d been listening to and why.

“It changes all the time,” he admitted. “If you asked me two months ago I’d have said ‘Young And Beautiful’ (from Jailhouse Rock) but right now I’d say ‘That’s Someone You’ll Never Forget’.”

The song, credited to Elvis and Red West, was recorded in ‘61. It appears to have been inspired by Elvis’s memory of his mother. The sometimes overlooked recording is both eerie and angelic. You’ll find it on the album Pot Luck.

9. Having fun with Elvis

He can be weird, wild and wonderous (often all at the same time) but Elvis can also be fun. The more po-faced critics dismiss his movie recordings as unworthy. But there are some great party tunes to be found on the most unlikely albums.

Check ‘Drums Of The Island’, a bouncy adaptation of a traditional Hawaiian folk piece, which must have sounded sensational in the Jungle Room at Graceland. Also from Paradise, Hawaiian Style is ‘Queenie Wahine’s Papaya’, a tongue-twisting piece of nonsense that was a movie duet with little Donna Butterworth (who doesn’t appear on the final recorded version, fact fiends). Lounge lizards will no doubt be familiar with the happy-go-lucky ‘(There’s) No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car’ from Fun In Acapulco.

10. Elvis is dead

And many of the artists who were inspired to cover songs he’d made famous are too.

Johnny Thunders did a neat version of ‘Crawfish’. Michael Hutchence recorded ‘Baby Let’s Play House’. John Lennon cut ‘My Baby Left Me’ on his Spector sessions. He also kicked off The Plastic Ono Band’s ‘69 peace gig in Toronto with ‘Blue Suede Shoes’.

“Elvis died in the army,” Lennon had said in ‘77 when told of Elvis’s death. Philip Lynott’s response was to write ‘King’s Call’ in tribute.

For Elvis’s innocent courage, his early optimism and his hopeless compassion – for his enduring gifts – I hope he rests in peace.