We've now reached the final chapter of our look at Elvis Presley's hits of the 1970s that didn't reach anywhere from #1 to #10 on the Billboard pop charts.
Promised Land (#14)- This is also from the December 1973 Stax sessions, which were far better and more productive than the largely desultory July 1973 sessions at the same studio, and this cover of a Chuck Berry classic was one of the many highlights. Okay, it's not the Elvis of 1968 to 1970, but what it lacks in grit and roar it has in speed and intensity in spades, with a hint of rockabilly thrown in. The chart position here was well deserved.
My Boy (#20)- This is one of the lesser results of the December 1973 sessions, with Elvis going Middle of the Road with this Richard Harris song, and he also performed Al Martino's lounge hit Spanish Eyes at the same sessions. I guess Elvis wanted to record a diversity of material. I suppose he identified with this song as a result of his divorce from Priscilla, but he doesn't exactly dig deep in his soul for the performance.
T-R-O-U-B-L-E (#35)- This is from the sessions at RCA's Hollywood studio that produced the quite good Elvis Today album. One reviewer said that LP was a rockabilly revival album of sorts, but to me, this and the Billy Swan cover of I Can Help only really qualify for that label. Just like Promised Land, this is a barn burner and the playing really kicks you know what. According to legend, Elvis had bassist Duke Bardwell as part of his band for a time, but they never clicked, and he was soon let go and his bass parts from the majority of the Today album were wiped and replaced. But as T-R-O-U-B-L-E was released as an advance single, so Bardwell's part remained and was not "corrected".
Bringing It Back (#65)- Also from the Today album. The LP was generally a solid Elvis release, but this song, while not bad and generally sticks in the mind, is really nothing that special as a performance.
Hurt (#28)- Elvis's choice to cover this Roy Hamilton song was apt - by February 1976, he was in poor physical and mental shape. There's a picture from around that time where Elvis stares rather morosely into the camera. During that year, as well, Elvis had some of his worst concert performances — one documented on the bootleg recording Houston We Have A Problem. During the recording of the entire album From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Recorded Live (hardly live, actually, with all those overdubs of strings), Elvis had a concerning quaver in his voice, making him sound like a very old man. That quaver was also present in his concerts, but not that much on the studio recording of Hurt, sung in an operatic way. Still, while at least one reviewer called his performance of that song "apocalyptic" in the studio, it just sounds to me like he's bellowing and a bit out of breath. However, his performance of this song in late December 1976, as captured on the bootleg One Hot Winter Night in Dallas, was indeed at least partially apocalyptic, with Elvis almost demonstrating 1970-type power in effortlessly repeating the climactic ending. Too bad that didn't last.
For the Heart-This, the B-side of Hurt, is a great song and was later a big hit for the mother-daughter country duo the Judds. But Elvis's performance is not too great — that vocal quaver is sadly on full display with some moments of vocal greatness.
Moody Blue/She Thinks I Still Care (#31)- Elvis Presley's February 1976 session, held at his home Graceland, was not overly productive, but as was the case with his July 1973 session at Stax, one song was held over for a subsequent single and album, in that case I've Got A Thing About You Baby. Moody Blue was the one held over here, and was the title track of the last album Elvis released in his lifetime. It's a pretty good uptempo song, and enables Elvis to hide the quaver. The B-side, a cover of a country classic by George Jones, sadly, because it's a slow song, puts Elvis's quaver on full display. Too bad, because the song itself is wonderful.
Way Down (#18)- Again, a good song and some people think this is a late period Elvis classic. Sadly, Elvis sounds very quavery here, and that's a surprise, because it was recorded in October 1976 at Graceland, and the other songs recorded at that time had more solid vocals. And considering the circumstances of Elvis's death — he was found face down in his bathroom after suffering a possibly prescription drug-induced heart attack, some of the lyrics are scarily prophetic and close to the bone, such as, "all of my resistance/ lying on the floor" and "the medicine within me/no doctor could prescribe." I'm really surprised Elvis kept that latter lyric, as he omitted "I got my pills to ease the pain" from his version of Danny O'Keefe's Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues.
My Way (#22)- An apt choice thematically for Elvis's first posthumous single, and one of the highlights of the largely poor Elvis In Concert, recorded less than two months before Elvis died. While health may have been partially a reason for most of the poor performances, it's also the case that when Elvis performed a song he liked, he got past that and gave his all, as he also did for his performances of How Great Thou Art and Trying To Get To You on that mostly sad 2-LP set. My Way is a very solid and soulful vocal performance, better, in my mind, than the version from his 1973 Aloha From Hawaii concert, when he was in better health