ARTICLES ON THE LIFE OF ELVIS
ELVIS – LOVING YOU – let’s have a party – (part 8)
In mid-January, most of the material needed for the soundtrack of the film was ready. Between 12 and 16 January, as many as five of the seven premiere tracks were recorded on tapes.
The last two were recorded in the following days.
On Thursday, January 17, after recording a new version of “Mean Women Blues“, Elvis faced for the first time the ballad “Loving You” written by the then absolutely top songwriting duo, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
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” I always felt that [Elvis, author’s note] had a natural talent that developed up to a certain point and then stopped ,” Stoller said in an interview. “ It was almost like his films, whose scripts were never really good, but until King Creole they seemed to develop. But then they went down completely. They have become so hopeless. It was already hard enough to write the songs for ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘Loving You’. It just wasn’t that inspiring anymore .”
The aforementioned song was one of the two proposals of the legendary team that was selected for the soundtrack of Presley’s second film.
And since their earlier compositions, “Hound Dog” and “Love Me“, guaranteed Elvis million-selling sales and more gold records, the twenty-two-year-old singer went to work on the future title ballad with considerable enthusiasm.
“Loving You“, like several other songs recorded for the film, was also recorded in several different versions, the arrangements of which differed depending on where the song appeared on the screen.
Thus, one of the first versions of Leiber and Stoller‘s new ballad that Elvis sang that day was the so-called “farm version“, a version that Presley’s Deke Rivers was supposed to perform on the Jessup farm with only a simple accompaniment of an acoustic guitar.
Shortly after its recording, a veritable marathon began in the studio, with a very similar-sounding final version, the so-called end version.
The performance, developed in an almost identical way, differing from the previous one only in a slightly livelier pace and the way of playing the guitar (which remained the lead instrument all the time), was recorded this time for one of the last scenes of the new Paramount production.
According to the studio records, Elvis repeated the recording over and over again at least sixteen times (!) before he decided that it was suitable for use.
Much faster, because after only three short rehearsals, the basic version (or the so-called main version) of the described work was recorded on tape. Completely different from the previous ones. Definitely faster (slightly swinging) and a much richer arrangement (with great playing by pianist Dudley Brooks).
Looking back today, one can get the impression that the composition “Loving You” is the best example of how creative and full of artistic energy Presley was at the beginning of his career. There is probably no other song in his entire discography that would have so many interpretations and that he would sing in so many different ways.
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And yet it must be remembered that although on January 18 Elvis theoretically recorded the last of the seven songs used in the film – Leiber and Stoller’s dynamic rock’n’roll “Hot Dog“, this fact did not end work on the soundtrack. These, with breaks, continued practically until the end of January and almost throughout the next month.
And at that time, other film versions of the title ballad were also created.
However, it was not until February 24 that the work took its best-known form today. At that time, during a two-day session at the Radio Recorders studio, Elvis recorded his album version, which was released in June 1957 by RCA Victor on a single with the composition “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear“.
As a curiosity, it is worth recalling that at the beginning of the February session (February 23), Presley also recorded a song that most people associate primarily with his next film, “Jailhouse Rock“. In fact, however, “Don’t Leave Me Now” by Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman, because that’s what we’re talking about, was written and … recorded for the movie “Loving You“. ” Well, each scene required a certain type of song ,” Ben Weisman told David Adams. “ So I tried to match the songs to a particular scene. I analyzed it and read the script carefully. Then I made it to fit the scene. Thanks to this, I had a good chance to put my song in the film“ .
Unfortunately, the scene in which “Don’t Leave Me Now” was supposed to appear in the film was written out of the script at the last minute and the song was moved to another production (for which Elvis re-recorded it in a different form).
Interestingly, the version recorded in February, although ultimately not included in the film, was released by RCA on a CD with the soundtrack of the picture “Loving You“.
Information provided by EP Promised Land (Poland), Mariusz Ogliego.
