Well, we’ve been at this for more than a year now so it’s probably past time that it came up. We’ve talked about how Stax defined the “Memphis sound of soul” from the mid-1960s to the mid-’70s. But you may have heard about another musical revolution that went down around this same time and around this same town. Some crazy white boy from Memphis singing black rhythm and blues - you know, Elvis Presley?

So, this being the internet age, I “googled” together the terms “Elvis” and “Stax.” I picked out three sources from the dozens of returns, and found out some great stuff.

Elvis actually recorded at Stax studios - twice in 1973, in July and then in December.

Elvis’ first Stax session lasted the week of July 21 - 25 and resulted in about ten finished tracks, most by the Elvis band led by his great guitarist James Burton, but with Al Jackson, Jr., Duck Dunn and guitarist Bobby Manuel working out a few too. Dunn later recalled, “I was actually a little nervous. He was Elvis: You didn’t just walk up and talk to him. As far as being buddy-buddy with him, you didn’t do it.” The Burton band recorded eighteen more tracks during the December 10 - 16 sessions on McLemore Avenue.

These more or less thirty tracks were spread across three Elvis albums: Most of the July sessions ended up on Raised on Rock, including two tunes by the classic rock songwriting team of Leiber-Stoller. Elvis’ management split  the remainder between Good Times and Promised Land, which covers a Chuck Berry tune as its title track.

Oh, and according to MapQuest, the 926 McLemore Avenue street address of the original Stax studio is less than five miles from Graceland, Elvis’ Shangri-la.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.