Given the fact that he was arguably the single most important and influential American popular music of the second half of the 20th century, it is still incredible to realize that Elvis Presley was at the nadir of his career at the mid point of the 1960s, during a period of great political, social, and musical change that he and his contemporaries had helped to initiate the previous decade. But there he was making, at the behest of his manager Colonel Tom Parker, a lot of ridiculous B-movie musicals, along with songs that can best be described, for the most part, as rather lame. But in 1966, he teamed up with new producer Felton Jarvis to go back into the studio and cut what came to his fancy and not the Colonel’s. This new artist/producer combine, with the exceptions of the 1968 NBC special and the 1969 Memphis sessions (both of which were in the hands of others), would sustain the King right up to the bitter end. The recordings of the Elvis-sanctioned material, which were actually done in a number of phases between May 1966 and January 1968 at RCA’s Nashville studios, were finally released by RCA in 1999 under the title Tomorrow Is A Long Time.
The tracks:
TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS
GUITAR MAN
TOMORROW IS A LONG TIME
U.S. MALE
BIG BOSS MAN
LOVE LETTERS
INDESCRIBABLY BLUE
FOOLS FALL IN LOVE
HI-HEEL SNEAKERS
DOWN IN THE ALLEY
COME WHAT MAY
MINE
JUST CALL ME LONESOME
YOU DON’T KNOW ME
STAY AWAY
SINGING TREE
GOING HOME
I’LL REMEMBER YOU
It is a bit frustrating to have these eighteen songs slapped onto a compilation CD now, instead of having had them released on complete albums when they were new, since, in large part, this was Elvis at his best at a time when everything else he was doing clearly wasn’t his best. Some of the elements of sentimentality that he would display later in his 1970s shows are evident in tracks like “Indescribably Blue” (a #33 hit for him in early 1967), and the Don Ho favorite “I’ll Remember You”; but in general, this is a very rootsy Elvis collection that includes stuff few would have thought he’d ever do, including the Bob Dylan-penned country/folk title track (which Dylan himself considered to be among the best covers of his material), and country favorites like “Just Call Me Lonesome” and the Cindy Walker-penned “You Don’t Know Me.” Elvis also indulges in tougher R&B/blues material like the Clovers’ “Down In The Alley”; Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heel Sneakers”; Chuck Berry’s 1956 classic “Too Much Monkey Business”; and the Jimmy Reed classic “Big Boss Man” (which was a #38 hit for the King in November 1967). On the latter two, a young Georgia-born guitar picker by the name of Jerry Reed is featured; and Reed also gave Elvis two superb country/blues outings from his own pen in the form of “Guitar Man” (only a #43 hit in this original acoustic blues form in February 1968, but a bigger #28 hit in March 1981 in a remixed version that featured Reed’s electric guitar picking), and the pre-“rap” song “U.S. Male” (the latter a #28 hit in May 1968). There is also “Love Letters”, which is one of Elvis’ best ballads, a cover of a song that was a #5 hit for Ketty Lester in 1962, and which charted at a respectable #19 for the King in August 1966.
History has shown that when Elvis got himself material that he knew he could sink his teeth into, he was at his very best. At a time when he could only muster a big Top 10 hit with a gospel ballad he had actually recorded in 1960 (“Crying In The Chapel”, which hit #3 in May 1965), these songs, which for the most part ran the gamut of musical styles that he was interested in and which most defined him on a serious and personal level, were necessary antidotes to the sub-par movie musical dreck he was otherwise being forced to do. Unfortunately, RCA (likely at the behest of the Colonel) spread them out over soundtrack compilations during that period; and songs that should have been bigger hits weren’t, such as “Big Boss Man” (whose chart action was stymied because of its being a bonus track on the soundtrack of 1967’s Clambake, a low point in the King’s career).
Still, this collection does indicate where this would eventually lead Elvis to in a few short years, a period of explosive artistic success that lasted from the time he did the NBC special in 1968 to his Aloha From Hawaii spectacular of 1973. And it also serves as a reminder that, even when megastars of recent vintage like the late Michael Jackson and Garth Brooks are taken into consideration, Elvis at his best outdoes them all, which says a lot in our time, almost thirty-five years after his tragically untimely demise.
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