Elvis Country

by Elvis Presley

Overview

Western swing, blues, countrypolitan, traditional country, gospel -- if it was music that even brushed the airwaves of a southern state, Elvis Presley at his best could make it his own, and Elvis was at his peak when he cut Elvis Country. Actually, Elvis Presley was positively on a roll at the time. A decade after the end of what were thought to be his prime years, he was singing an ever-widening repertory of songs with more passion and involvement than he'd shown since the end of the 1950s; he was no longer transforming the nature of popular music with every record and performance, but he was a major concert draw and tickets to his shows were in nearly as much demand as those for the far less accessible Frank Sinatra. What's more, his voice had achieved a peak of perfection as an instrument, acquiring a depth and richness, a beauty to go with its power at which even his best work of the early years had only hinted. And it all came together on Elvis Country, his greatest long-player of the 1970s, and one of his three or four best albums ever. Elvis threw himself into this record with every bit of the passion displayed on its better known, soul-oriented predecessor, From Elvis in Memphis, and it was even more personal; new or old, these were all songs he cared about. And he's a commanding and charismatic vocal presence, whether he's covering "Snowbird" (a then recent hit for Anne Murray), redoing a 1940s classic by Ernest Tubb ("Tomorrow Never Comes") in an arrangement akin to Roy Orbison's "Runnin' Scared," a Bill Monroe standard of the same decade ("Little Cabin on the Hill"), reprising Jerry Lee Lewis's "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" in a version dominated by the guitar and bass (and with scarcely any piano), or covering Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" as a slow blues. He doesn't necessarily supplant the originals (except for "Snowbird," where he does make you forget Anne Murray), but he gives you more than enough reason to listen, again and again, to everything here. And good as he is on the covers, nowhere is Presley better than on "It's Your Baby, You Rock It," the only new song on the album and as fine a record as he cut during this entire boom period in his career. Producer Felton Jarvis and a cadre of Nashville sidemen (augmented by James Burton) provided as good backup as Presley ever got, including a hard-rocking electric guitar and harmonica sound on Bob Wills's "Faded Love" and a gospel-style accompaniment to "Funny How Time Slips Away," and giving "Make the World Go Away" a lean, more urgent sound than Eddy Arnold's original hit. ~ Bruce Eder

Product Details

Release Date:	03/04/2022
Label:	Music On Cd
UPC:	8718627233870
Rank:	43842

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Elvis Presley   Primary Artist
The Imperials Quartet   Primary Artist,Accompaniment,Featured Artist
The Jordanaires   Primary Artist,Featured Artist
Klaus Schmalenbach   Director
Bobby Thompson   Banjo
Buddy Spicher   Fiddle
Michael Omansky   Director

Technical Credits

Shorty Hall   Composer
Preston Foster   Composer
Don Tweedy   String Arrangements
Lene Reidel   Digital Engineer
Arthur Leo Owens   Composer
Alice Joy Merritt   Composer
Alice Joy   Composer
Traditional   Composer
Paul Rader   Composer
Shirl Milete   Composer
Sunny David   Composer
Sid Wayne   Composer
Bergen White   Horn Arrangements
Bill Giant   Composer
Ken Howard   Composer
Bob Wills   Composer
Bill Monroe   Composer
Joe Balogh   Composer
Earl Scruggs   Composer
Ben Weisman   Composer
Ernst Mikael Jorgensen   Compilation Producer
Dolores Fuller   Composer
Elvis Presley   Harmony,Composer,Adaptation
Fred Karger   Composer
Don Robertson   Composer
Gene MacLellan   Composer
Johnny Bond   Composer
Geoff Stephens   Composer
Johnnie Lee Wills   Composer
Ernest Tubb   Composer
Charlie Hodge   Harmony
Dennis Ferrante   Digital Engineer
Lester Flatt   Composer
Naomi Ford   Composer
Neal Merritt   Composer
Dave Williams   Composer
David "Curly" Williams   Composer
Buddy Kaye   Composer
Willie Nelson   Composer
Al Pachucki   Engineer
Gerald Nelson   Composer
Richard Adler   Composer
Bernie Baum   Composer
Billy Jack Wills   Composer
Colin Escott   Liner Notes
Edward Heyman   Composer
Florence Kaye   Composer
John Wills   Composer
Les Reed   Composer
Roger Semon   Compilation Producer
Joe Babcock   Composer
Nora Fowler   Composer
A.L. Owens   Composer
Alan Blaikley   Composer
Hank Cochran   Composer
Dallas Frazier   Composer
Victor Young   Composer
Howard Barnes   Composer
Dalita Keumurian   Project Director
Cam Mullins   String Arrangements