Do you think Michael Jackson is anything like the King of Pop? He’s so not. But you have every reason to believe he’s the demigod of popular music — Elvis Presley, the real king, turned his career into such a Vegas joke that it’s hard to recall the great music he made.

 

I don’t mean the early hits, though they are an explosive blend of country and gospel — the pop music equivalent of the atomic bomb.

 

I mean the best record he ever made: From Elvis in Memphis, recorded in two months in 1969 and now re-released as a package of 36 songs for the ridiculous price of $12.99.  

 

To understand why “From Elvis in Memphis” is so great, we must first acknowledge the buffoon Elvis had become. The movies he made in the ‘60s were total junk, and the music that filled those soundtrack records was pure crap. The Beatles and Rolling Stones and a hundred other groups had the spotlight, and the killer music they were making stole the young audience. Elvis was left with blue-haired ladies, Southern men and some splinter demographics.

 

Worst of all, his manager didn’t give a damn — “Colonel” Tom Parker was a sharpie who would collect advances for his memoirs from several publishers. He would famously say, after Presley’s death, “I own half of Elvis alive, and I own half of him dead.” 

 

But it came to pass, in 1968, that Elvis took stock of himself. Although he hated personal confrontation, he did something the Colonel wouldn’t approve or understand — he gave a torrid, ass-kicking performance in Vegas that made for a great TV show.

 

And then he went to Memphis to make a record. 

Elvis is the hero of this piece, but "Chips" Moman is a close second. Moman founded and built the Memphis studio where Stax artists like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave recorded. He pretty much invented the horn-heavy “Memphis sound.” He co-authored “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man", recorded by Aretha Franklin, and played guitar on her classic “I Never Loved a Man.” In the late ‘60s, he was creatively on fire. As he’s said: “When we would get through with something, we’d say, ‘Let’s call home sick.’ Nobody wanted to leave the studio.”

 

Chips Moman produced the Elvis sessions. Recording was the easy part. But Elvis’s entourage was used to him walking in, listening to already-completed instrumental tracks, doing a few takes and leaving. They were puzzled — and not in a good way — by a guy exhorting Elvis to do better.

 

Moman was a little smarter than Elvis’ entourage: “Whenever I got ready to talk to him about how he was singing a song, I would turn all the monitors off and I would walk out into the room and go into the booth with him personally and just stand there and talk with him. And it was no problem.”

 

Quickly, the sessions became a delight. Moman placed Elvis in the center of the studio, surrounded by musicians. Recording together was like giving a concert — Elvis was energized. And, in song after song, he gave performances that defined him.

 

Some were from the Vegas show, some were old country hits, some were cover versions. The record was a total winner. For the first time in years, Elvis ruled the charts. His fans loved the classic stuff — this was sneering, gyrating, totally involved Elvis. And in songs like “In the Ghetto”, Elvis reached out to people who were not inclined to take him seriously. Get lost, Mick Jagger — the King is back!

 

Correction: The King was back. But not for long. Colonel Tom reasserted himself, and, in the summer of 1969, Elvis returned to Vegas with a lazy, uncreative act. Drugs followed, then torpor, then death.

 

Maybe it’s too simple to say that he’d had a brief revival in those few months of freedom in a studio in a Memphis ghetto. But for two shining months in a ghetto studio in Memphis, Elvis Presley recovered the source of his greatness. And with this recording, the King reclaimed his crown.

 

To buy “From Elvis in Memphis” from Amazon.com, click here.

 

To buy the MP3 download of “From Elvis in Memphis” from Amazon.com, click here.