Fame And Fortune

Among the many nice gifts I received for Christmas this year were two Elvis CDs containing rare outtakes, one titled '60-'61 Sessions and the other Elvis Presley - Vol. 3: Blue Hawaii Outtakes. I'll report on the CD containing the Blue Hawaii outtakes later (it's been around awhile, indicating a copyright of 1991), as I haven't yet had a chance to listen to it, being preoccupied by the '60-'61 Sessions disc containing 33 alternate takes from the years 1960 and 1961 that, according to the disc packaging, have not been released on the Follow That Dream (FTD) collector's label. More on this later.

The tracklisting on the '60-'61 Sessions is as follows:


01. Fame And Fortune (take 3)
02. Fame And Fortune (take 5)
03. Blue Suede Shoes (take 1)

04. Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (take 21, 22, and 23)

05. Surrender (take 3, 4)

06. Sentimental Me (take 3)

07. Swing Down Sweet Chariot (take 4)
08. There's Always Me (take 3, 4)

09. Fame And Fortune (take 9)
10. He Knows Just What I Need (take 9)
11. He Knows Just What I Need (take 10)
12. Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (take 24)
13. Put The Blame On Me (take 3, 4 and 5)
14. Starting Today (take 3)

15. Flaming Star (vocal overdub)

16. Summer Kisses, Winter Tears (take 26)

17, In My Father's House (work part, take 1)

18. Fame And Fortune (take 10)

19. Fame And Fortune (take 11)

20. Fame And Fortune (take 12)
The Complete Sessions:
21. - 27. Britches (take 1, 2 & 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, insert 1, take 1)

28. - 30. Milky White Way (take 1, 2, 3, take 4 & 5, take 6 & 7)

29. Wooden Heart (take 1, 2 & 3, 4)

Obviously the majority of the tracks are from 1960, confined to the first RCA Studio B Nashville session from March 20-21, 1960 ("Fame and Fortune"), soundtrack sessions for Paramount's G. I. Blues (April 27-28, 1960) and 20th Century-Fox's Flaming Star (August 8, 1960), and the His Hand In Mine Studio B Nashville session from October 30-31, 1960. The remaining four tracks are from the March 12-13, 1961 Studio B Nashville session that formed the basis of 1961's Something For Everybody ("Sentimental Me," "There's Always Me," "Put the Blame On Me," and "Starting Today"). Hence the contents of the disc are rather nicely confined to material recorded from March 1960 through March 1961, with the emphasis on material recorded March - October 1960. If one were to combine the outtakes on the '60-'61 Sessions with those on the FTD releases Fame and Fortune (2002) and Long Lonely Highway (2000) and those on the FTDs of Elvis Is Back! (2005) and Something For Everybody (2006) (excluding the singles), as well as most of the tracks on Such A Night: Essential Elvis Volume 6 (2000) and the first few tracks found on disc 2 of Collector's Gold (1991), you'd have an excellent representation of the first calendar year (March '60 - March ' 61) of the post-Army Elvis, a very good musical period indeed. To fill out the recordings for this year, one would also have to add the FTD releases of Wild in the Country and Blue Hawaii as well as the 1997 RCA Europe import CD of G. I. Blues, which includes several alternate takes. The unused "Black Star" as well as other soundtrack recordings from this period can be found on disc 1 of the aforementioned 3-CD box Collector's Gold. While the so-called "smoother" sound of Sixties Elvis starts to emerge with songs such as "Fame and Fortune," the excellence of the Elvis Is Back! (produced by Steve Sholes and Chet Atkins) and Something For Everybody (Steve Sholes) sessions is undeniable. (For a discussion of the Chet Atkins' "smooth" or "Nashville sound" emerging at this time which influenced the production of the music Elvis recorded during this period, I'll refer readers to an earlier post found here.) Obviously the "journey" of the Sixties Elvis begins with these fine 1960-61 recordings, but the excellence of his non-soundtrack recordings diminished in the mid-60s as the movies (and their soundtracks) began to take more and more of his time and energy: notice that he made four movies the first year after he was discharged from the Army. However, the worst of the movies Elvis made in the 1960s--in my opinion, Kissin' Cousins, released in 1964--was yet to be made, but unfortunately it was released the month following the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and the rest, as they say, is history. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the biggest hit record Elvis had from 1964 to 1967 was "Crying in the Chapel," recorded in 1960.