FLAMING STAR
– A Challenging Role for Presley –
(Part 5)
Black Star
Up until now, the stories written for Presley’s films have been tailored to his individual style and personality. His singing voice and his youthful exuberance ,” wrote the March 1961 article, “Elvis: Can We Afford Him Not to Sing?” “His critics have often wondered if he (Elvis, author’s note) could pull off a role that was completely unrelated to the man we know as Elvis Presley. A character wholly different from the teen idol. Without the singing voice and his famous moves .”
The answer to all these questions was supposed to be the western “Flaming Star”, in which, as the author of the text quoted above writes, “Elvis will sing only two songs, one of which will be the title recording “. At the same time, the journalist also noted that… “The producers of the film are so pleased with Elvis’ performance that they decided they could afford to cut two of the four songs he originally recorded .”
However, the filmmakers’ expectations regarding the new soundtrack were from the very beginning at odds with the expectations of the heads of RCA and Colonel Parker, Elvis’ manager, who were counting on another hit and, more importantly, well-selling Presley soundtrack.
So when Elvis showed up at Radio Recorders on Monday, August 8, 1960, he had to deal with not two but four new songs. The result of the aforementioned compromise between the film studio and the record company, which ultimately decided against releasing an LP in favor of an EP (extended play).
The recording was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and a group of seasoned musicians were hired to take part in the session, most of whom had previously worked with Elvis. Hilmer J. ‘Tiny’ Timbrell played guitar, Dudley Brooks played piano, Bernie Mattinson played drums and Jimmie Haskell played accordion. The only exceptions were Howard Roberts, a highly regarded jazz guitarist, and Michael ‘Myer’ Rubin played bass.
Vocal accompaniment was provided by The Jordanaires, consisting of Gordon Stoker, Hoyt Hawkins, Neal Matthews and Ray Walker, while the control room was occupied by sound engineer Thorne Nogar and 20th Century Fox producer Urban Thielmann.
Work on the new film material was initiated by a joint composition by Sid Wayne (lyrics) and Sherman Edwards (music), “Black Star”.
The song, which was also the title track (because it is worth recalling that at that stage of production this was the title of the film), turned out to be not only one of the first significant titles in the then output of Edwards – an American jazz pianist associated, like Wayne, with New York’s Brill Building, but also the only one from the entire soundtrack that “had any commercial potential “. The remaining songs, according to Ernst Jorgensen, were included in the script “only to support this moving story “.
“Black Star” was recorded after nearly fourteen attempts, of which, as the surviving documentation shows, only a few were played from beginning to end * .
Before Elvis and his band moved on to the next song, they recorded an even slower version – the final version of the above Wayne and Edwards composition. “The shorter version was intended to end the film ,” explained Piers Beagley of the Elvis Information Network in his article. “It was only forty seconds long, had a slower tempo and a richer arrangement .” And as some Presley experts have consistently stated, accordionist Jimmie Haskell managed to capture the unique atmosphere of a “country campfire ” in this “
musical miniature .”
The final version of “Black Star” (End Title) was recorded on the fifth attempt.
A few minutes later, the band was ready to delve into the lovely and somewhat unfairly forgotten ballad by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman and Jack Lloyd, “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears.” A song that, as one of its authors, Ben Weisman, claimed, was written with the idea of ??Elvis singing it to his on-screen partner in one of the love scenes. Paradoxically, the filmmakers had a different opinion and placed it in a scene in which Presley’s Pacer Burton sits around a campfire with other Indians from his mother’s tribe and smokes a peace pipe with them. “When this scene was shown during the preview, the audience burst out laughing. I don’t blame them, ” the composer said in an interview.
Recording the song proved to be an incredibly busy task, and took up a significant portion of the August session. Although it all started out quite normally… Laughing just before the first take began, “Elvis seemed to be in quite a good mood.”
However, after playing a few rehearsals that fell apart after only a few first bars, he began experimenting and searching for the right sound of the song, organizing a real marathon in the studio. Repeating the song twenty-six times in a row (!) he changed literally everything in it. From the way The Jordanaires sang to changing the key, arrangement and even the sound of individual instruments (before the sixth take he suggested to Hilmer Timbrell to strengthen and “sharpen” the guitar, and when this procedure did not bring the expected results, at the explicit suggestion of Charlie Hodge, he suggested speeding up the song and adding Indian drums to it).
Ultimately, only the twentieth take was chosen as the master version, in which “the guitar line was replaced by Dudley Brooks’ stunning piano .”
The effect achieved not only pleased everyone present that day at the Hollywood Radio Recorders, but it also arouses admiration among listeners to this day. On numerous internet forums dedicated to Presley, one can still find many flattering comments about the above ballad. Such as the one posted on the Elvis News website: “Beautiful, memorable, poetic, sad. I love ‘crazy professor’ Ben Weisman. His songs take you to places you never expect. That’s why I’m glad his collaboration with Elvis lasted so long .”
It is worth emphasizing, however, that the success of this song would not have been possible without Elvis’ absolute commitment to the process of its creation. Commitment and enthusiasm that were definitely lacking during the work on the next recording. Another proposal from Sid Wayne and Sherman Edwards.
“Britches,” in the unanimous opinion of nearly all Presley biographers, was a song so “absurd” that Elvis should never have sung it. Even if the movie script required it.
Apparently Elvis, from whom almost all creative energy had drained after the marathon of “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears”, was of a similar opinion and, intending to complete the recording as soon as possible, he abandoned the previous form of recording.
Instead of recording the song “live” with musicians present in the studio, as before, he took the opportunity to add his vocals to a previously prepared instrumental backing (recorded just as hastily, after only one take). “Although the use of the vocal overdubbing method proved necessary to complete ‘Baby I Don’t Care’ from ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ Elvis really didn’t care about it this time ,” wrote Piers Beagley. ”
He just wanted to add his vocals to the song without wasting his time .”
Much more interesting than the song itself, especially today – with hindsight – is the fact that between rehearsals, Presley several times intoned a song that would become his hit only in his next film. We are talking about the ballad “Lonely Man”, which was used in the soundtrack of “Wild In The Country” a few months later.
These short fragments, preserved on tapes and then recorded on various posthumous album releases, almost automatically raise questions about how Elvis knew this song so well at the time and for which film was this composition originally intended? Answers to these questions have been attempted by, among others, Keith Flynn, an authority on Presley’s recording sessions and co-author of the excellent book “Ultimate Elvis. The Complete And Definitvie Recording Sessions”, with whom I corresponded in October 2015. “You hear Elvis singing ‘Lonely Man’ in August, just before he recorded ‘Britches’, so he must have known it then ,” he wrote in the correspondence sent. “I think at one point the song was considered for the soundtrack of ‘Flaming Star’ but was ultimately removed. It is possible that Elvis even heard a demo tape of this song during the August recording session. I also assume that by October he had received the track list for ‘Wild In The Country’ and that ‘Lonely Man’ was again among them (this would explain the subsequent spontaneous performances during the recording of the new version of the title song for ‘Flaming Star’, author’s note). It seems that he liked the song because when he finally recorded it in November, he really gave it his all .”
After completing “Britches,” Elvis returned to his regular recording schedule and recorded six very short takes of “A Cane And A High Starched Collar” (of all the takes, only the last was complete), a Sid Tepper/Roy C. Bennett collaboration that Piers Beagley, quoted several times in this text, has described as “an old-fashioned dancehall tune .”
Thus, work on the soundtrack for Presley’s next film (not counting a few strictly film compositions, including the film version of “Summer Kisses, Winter Tears”, which was created after the final take of “A Cane And A High Starched Collar” was recorded) came to an end.
Visibly embarrassed by the quality of the recorded material, Elvis left the studio after nearly eight hours of recording…
- Of the fourteen takes, Elvis completed only a few: takes 1-6, 8, and 14. The master version that was intended for the soundtrack was glued together from the actual part of take 14 and the fifth take, a working part of the ending. In the documents, described as “Insert #1 – Ending”
Information provided by EP Promised Land, Mariusz Ogieglo http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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