After the tours were ended, Elvis returned to Graceland in October and, after only one day off, entered the Jungle Room to record for a much more demanding audience: RCA. In May the first album from the Jungle Room recordings was released, entitled From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee. Erroneously, the album cover had a subtitle reading “recorded live,” perhaps to indicate that the songs were cut outside of a traditional studio, but it only gave the impression (along with yet another generic picture of Elvis in concert) that the record was a “live album.” The record eventually reached #41, the best for a studio album since 1971’s Love Letters, and it also went gold with sales exceeding 500,000 copies, but much of its success came in the second half of 1977, when Elvis’s death produced a record store goldrush with buyers eager to buy anything with Elvis’s name on it, in case it might be worth something in the future. While Elvis was alive the album was as much of a disappointment as the TODAY album had been in 1975, or Promised Land before that.
Felton Jarvis only had two songs leftover from the previous Jungle Room session, so at least eight would be needed to finish the follow-up album. Unfortunately, after only two days of recording, Elvis had nothing left in the tank, and Felton was left with only four masters finished, barely half of a record.
“It’s Easy For You” was written specifically for Elvis by acclaimed composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his frequent collaborator Tim Rice. The inspiration was Presley’s breakup with Priscilla, the seeming-loss of control happening in his life and how it was easy for Priscilla to walk away, but not so easy for Elvis…
The lyrics are haunting and though Elvis’s voice isn’t nearly as strong as it was in the February session, he delivers the words with pained, passionate conviction. The song ended up being the album-closer on the final record of his life.
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“Way Down” would be the last rocker the king of rock ever recorded, and though the singer was clearly engaged with the material, it demonstrates why the so-called king was no longer equipped to be a “rock star.” The fast-spitting lyrics require precision in the delivery, or it becomes a jumbled mess. The 1975 recordings had shown that he was still capable of being a strong singer but when his voice was drug-addled there was nothing much he could do except slow-delivered ballads. That’s the problem here; while the band sounds phenomenal, the first verse is almost incomprehensible as Elvis slurs and mumbles his way through the words. He recovers slightly in the second verse and bridge, and though the song would be a hit on the country chart (reaching number-one), within the rock and roll community it was met with a shrug. Before Elvis’s death, the song was falling off the charts rapidly; his death reversed its direction however and it ended up peaking at #18.
Interestingly, RCA chose the third take as the master, despite it being weaker than later cuts where his voice was more confident and where the band was experimenting with a livelier arrangement.
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“Pledging My Love” was another old school country ballad that reached back to the beginning of Elvis’s career. After the Johnny Ace version 1954 was a hit, a few covers popped up throughout the rest of the 1950s before the song mostly disappeared. It was eventually recorded by Canadian band Billy Thunderkloud & the Chieftones in 1975 who turned it into a top-40 hit, but it was the recently-released Delbert McClinton version that served as the inspiration here. Elvis’s version is a little less flashy, as he bleeds his heart out for almost three minutes. The original cut ran for over five minutes, as Elvis repeated the lyrics over and over, eyes closed, in the zone. The song isn’t lightning in a bottle, but it does pack a lot of soul, which is more than can be said for much of his later recordings.
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The first three songs of the session had all been knocked out on the opening evening, so Felton Jarvis was confident he was on pace to finish the album properly with just a few more nights’ work. Unfortunately, “He’ll Have to Go” was the only song they completed the next day, and it has the distinction of being the last song Elvis recorded “in the studio.” It’s an old Jim Reeves hit that reached number-one on the country chart and #2 on the Hot100 in 1959, making it yet another out of date country song; the kind of material that Jarvis would have scrounged up merely as a way to get Elvis to record anything to fill out the record. Presley came downstairs in no mood to record, however. While the band was warming up a rock-number called “Fire Down Below” and trading jokes and laughs, Elvis entered the Jungle Room den, scolded them for being unprofessional, turned on his heel and went back upstairs. He came back a few hours later but only to brood over “He’ll Have to Go;”
“Fire Down Below” was never finished.
Elvis recorded “He’ll Have to Go” only half-heartedly, skipping over the second verse and instead opting to repeat the opening lines. The slow place, repetitive lyrics and long run-time make it an ill-fitting finale to the man who had produced such magic in recording studios for the past two decades.
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Part of the reason for Elvis’s extra depression lately was the deterioration of his long-term relationship with Linda Thompson. She and Elvis began dating only a few months after the separation with Priscilla and she quickly moved in after Priscilla moved out. Though Elvis had enjoyed several girlfriends on the side, Thompson was the closest thing he had to the all-important “wife to come home to” that he coveted so much. His drug addiction and constant touring had taken its toll and she craved a “normal life.” After months of dancing around the inevitable, Thompson finally ended the relationship around Christmas.
Much like with Priscilla’s separation, however, Elvis was in a worse mood in the months before the breakup than he was after it. His spirits lifted around Christmas time, as his early-December Las Vegas run indicated. He had already found a new sweetheart, twenty-year-old Ginger Alden, and had lost a tremendous amount of weight. He was now able to fit back into outfits made for him in 1974, including the Black Phoenix suit that he wore to his second New Year’s Eve concert.
Despite the disaster of the 1975/1976 show in Detroit, it had brought in a lot of money, and Col. Parker envisioned it as a new tradition. The sequel would take place in a more traditional arena, without the multi-tiered stage set-up or—thanks to Elvis’s recent weight-loss—wardrobe malfunctions. Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena hosted the show this time and what a show it was.
When the lights dimmed and Elvis stepped onto the stage, the crowd almost gasped at the man standing before them. Reviews of many previous concerts had been scathing, with Elvis’s lackadaisical delivery, bored mannerisms, bland set-list and of course massive girth taking up the bulk of the complaints. The Elvis who appeared in Pittsburgh, however, was slimmer, livelier, more vibrant, and put on a show with more passion and joy than he’d done in years.
For almost two hours, Elvis played nearly thirty tunes and rang in the new year with a stadium-wide rendition of Auld Lang Syne. He was focused, not scattered brained. He was happy, not snipping at the crowd. He was energized, not lethargic. He was reflective of his career and his hopes for the future and treated the audience to songs usual to his concerts as well as numbers he rarely if ever did live.
Home video recorders managed to capture a big chunk of it, and tech-savvy YouTubers have synced it up to the soundboard recording that was released in 2004.
The most shocking moment came near the end of the show when Elvis (at 43:00 minutes into the video on Youtube), sat down at the piano and called out for the band to play “Rags to Riches.”
The song was first recorded by Elvis in 1970 and released as a single in early ’71. It failed to chart at the time, and in fact was his first single of the 1970s (out of six released to that point) that failed to appear on any music charts upon release, but the song was a sentimental favorite of Elvis’s and he would occasionally piddle with it on his Graceland piano during downtime. It never appeared in any concert, however, nor was it ever even rehearsed.
But then suddenly, near the end of this magical concert, Elvis sat down at the piano and told the audience he wanted to play something for them. Knowing the band was out of the loop, Elvis walked them through the proper key, both before and even during the song, and then took off with the tune, belting the high notes with the kind of vigor and life he had not shown for nearly half a decade. The man who had to apologize to his band for falling short of the high note in “Danny Boy” was here hitting the big ending to “Rags to Riches” like it was the old days. After that, he closed with his typical final numbers and ended the show, grateful to the audience for their love, and satisfied he’d given his best performance since Madison Square Garden.
Unfortunately, the high that ringing in the new year had brought him did not last, and soon after returning home, the usual demons grabbed hold of him once more. His weight climbed back up, his mood fell back down, and the wondrous New Years 1976 show would remain only a brief respite.
Eight months later he’d be dead.
