ELVIS "WHERE NO ONE STANDS ALONE"

“WHERE NO ONE STANDS ALONE”

The How Great Thou Art album was recorded by Elvis at RCA Studio B in Nashville on May 25-28, 1966 and released in February 1967.

Not only was it the first non-film Elvis recording session since January 1964, but it was also the first Elvis session that Felton Jarvis produced on behalf of RCA, teaming with recording engineer Jim Malloy.

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From this point on, neither Steve Sholes nor Chet Atkins, who had hired Jarvis as a staff producer, had anything to do with the Elvis sessions. Some years later, at Elvis’s request, Jarvis would resign from RCA and work exclusively for him.

An album that shone like a diamond in the midst of Elvis’s Hollywood era.

With impeccable musicians, choirs and production.

Gospel in its pure state. A jewel, an island full of his broken soul, which earned Elvis the first of his three Grammy Awards, for Best Sacred Performance.

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And from this album the song “Where No One Stands Alone” sounds in my head, which Elvis, curiously, only performed live very emotionally, one time only, on February 16, 1977 at the Garrett Coliseum, Montgomery, Alabama, in the final stretch of his life.

Elvis on February 16, 1977 at the Garrett Coliseum, Montgomery, Alabama, in the final stretch of his life.

But the studio version, recorded on May 26, for me, is so beautiful, so heartfelt and careful, that perhaps it shows us even more of his pure soul in the intimacy of the studio. Impossible to hear them with the ears. Only your soul can hear them

Elvis tells us about a place where no one will be alone, and he asks God to take his hand and lead him to that place. For me, an absolutely autobiographical song. The projection of his soul in solitude. Elvis always felt alone, except when he was on stage. He always surrounded himself with his people, his friends, his family, all the women who filled his life. But nothing and no one, except the person who gave him life and who would leave too soon, was able to fill that enormous inner void that he always lived in his tormented soul.