REVIEWS
ELVIS PRESLEY
ELVIS IS BACK! SESSIONS
Follow That Dream (4-CD Box Set)
*****
Among Elvis Presley’s studio albums, Elvis Is Back! has tended to be overlooked. Elvis Presley, Elvis and From Elvis In Memphis are all readily hailed as classics — which they are — while Elvis Is Back! gets lost in the shuffle. But it’s as much a classic as those albums, if more poignant, as it illustrates where Presley’s career could have gone.
The album was Presley’s long-awaited first release after his two-year army hitch. Remarkably, he recorded all the required 18 tracks in two 12-hour sessions, all of which were released on Elvis Is Back! and its accompanying singles (none of the single tracks appeared on the album). The 2011 Legacy Edition of the album paired it with Something For Everybody. The 2005 Follow That Dream edition presented it alongside 35 outtakes. This new release ups that number to 69, making this the most comprehensive look at the sessions to date.
A number of the outtakes have appeared on other releases, but this is the first time they’ve been presented in the order in which they were recorded, so you can hear a song develop. But there aren’t as many differences as you might expect. Compare takes 1, 12, and 19 of Otis Blackwell’s “Make Me Know It”; the musical backing improves, but Presley’s vocal is largely the same.
Though the high, final notes of “It’s Now or Never” were said to have given Presley some diffi culty as he worked on the song, he’s fine in all the takes here. And his affinity for the blues/R&B comes through strongly; he wraps up “A Mess of Blues,” “It Feels So Right,” and a steamy “Fever” with dispatch. Conversely, it took 10-plus takes to get through “Fame and Fortune” and “Soldier Boy.”
He takes care of the planned first single, “Stuck on You,” in three takes. Perhaps “Make Me Know It” would have been a better single choice, not least because Presley didn’t particularly care for “Stuck on You” (backup singer Gordon Stoker told this writer that Presley derisively referred to it as “Stuck in You”). But most of the songs showcase what a stronger, more confident singer he’d become since his rock and roll
