From Elvis in Memphis put Presley back on top

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music writer
• Published: Aug 14, 2009

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Elvis Presley’s career-resurrecting December 1968 TV special reminded the world why the truck-driving kid from Memphis exploded across popular culture in the mid-1950s. Freed from the increasingly silly movies he’d made throughout the ’60s, Presley and his screams-inducing television performance revealed his still powerful voice and presence.

Following the special’s success, Presley; his manager, Colonel Tom Parker; and RCA Records artist and repertoire man Felton Jarvis shook things up again via two weeks of recording sessions at Lincoln “Chips” Moman’s American Sound Studios in Memphis.

A big change from the slick Nashville and Hollywood studios Presley worked in during most of the ’60s, Moman’s studio on the poor side of Memphis had a great track record, including Wilson Pickett’s “I’m A Midnight Mover,” B.J. Thomas’ “Hooked On A Feeling,” the Box Tops’ “The Letter” and the soon-to-be-released Dusty Springfield album, Dusty In Memphis.

Presley plus an eclectic selection of songs by the likes of Mac Davis (“In The Ghetto”), John Hartford (“Gentle On My Mind”), Eddie Rabbitt (“Kentucky Rain”) and Burt Bacharach (“Any Day Now”) plus Moman’s hand-picked session musicians, a group known as the Memphis Boys, were a dynamic combination.

The recently released 40th anniversary edition of From Elvis In Memphis, produced by Sony BMG’s longtime shepherd of the Presley catalog, Ernst Jorgensen, gathers the two albums, four hits singles and other tracks recorded at Moman’s studio into a two-CD set.

“It’s wonderful to be given the privilege to take one of my favorite periods in an artist’s career and say, ‘Well, we need to do a two-CD package and we should not leave out any of the songs,’ ” Jorgensen said from Denmark.

“This is more fun than doing a love-songs compilation or hits compilation.”

Presley may be known as the king of rock ’n’ roll, but Jorgensen calls the singer’s Memphis recordings soul music.

“It’s white soul music and there were others who did white soul music,” he said. “Dusty Springfield is a soulful singer who happened to record at the same studio. You also can say that Delaney and Bonnie were white soul acts as were Joe South and Tony Joe White.”

Disappointing recording sessions just prior to Presley’s early 1969 Memphis sessions made it clear that something had to give.

“He’d been recording in Nashville for 10 years, so he needed new energy,” Jorgensen said.

In addition to the Moman studio’s reputation as a hot source for soul, rhythm-and-blues and pop hits — something Presley’s Memphis mafia boys were well aware of — Jorgensen believes the studio’s proximity to Presley’s Graceland mansion helped make the sessions fruitful.

“Elvis didn’t have to go to Nashville and stay at a hotel,”