The Commercial Appeal - Go Memphis
50 years ago this week, Elvis recorded 30+ songs in 5 days in Nashville
It was the summer of 1970, and Elvis Presley, riding high on the success of six record-breaking shows at the Houston Astrodome and his hit “The Wonder of You,” went to Nashville to record.
It was a productive visit, to say the least.
During what came to be known as the “marathon sessions,” Elvis recorded a staggering 30-plus songs in just five days at Nashville’s famed RCA Studio B.
From those June 4-8 sessions came most of the “Elvis Country” album, including the cuts “It’s Your Baby, You Rock It,” “The Fool” and the Willie Nelson-penned “Funny How Time Slips Away.” He also recorded “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” and a cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” both of which were included on the November 1970 album “That’s the Way It Is.”
This year’s Elvis Week, set to run Aug. 8-16 in Memphis, will pay special tribute to the marathon sessions.
A concert Aug. 14 on the Graceland Soundstage will reunite guitarist James Burton, bassist Norbert Putnam and pianist David Briggs, all of whom played on the Studio B sessions. The three also will take part in panels and other events.
That 1970 visit to Studio B was one of many Elvis made over the years, including in 1958, the year after the studio opened.
Just a few months after the marathon sessions, Elvis returned to Nashville. A March 16, 1971, story in The Tennessean with the headline “Elvis slips in unnoticed, almost,” describes “35 or 40 women” waiting in the parking lot behind RCA’S studio when a blue deluxe Mercedes arrived.
After Elvis went inside, a bank special investigator, a Metro homicide lieutenant and a Metro patrolman moonlighting as security guards stood outside — along with one determined Elvis super fan, a cocktail waitress named Shirley Hardison.
“I met him once. That man in there,” she said. “He could burp on a record and it would be music to me.”
During this same trip to Nashville, Elvis was admitted to Baptist Hospital for an inflamed right eye. He spent a few days there — during which the hospital was overwhelmed with phone calls and flowers and he had to be moved to another area of the building — before returning to Memphis.
The King ultimately recorded more than 200 songs at Studio B, including “Are You Lonesome Tonight,” “It’s Now or Never” and the gospel standard “How Great Thou Art,” which required only four takes, according to the Studio B website. The album “How Great Thou Art” was released in February 1967 and won a Grammy for Best Sacred Performance.
After two decades, RCA Studio B closed its doors on Aug. 17, 1977, the day after Elvis died. The studio was donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame and
Museum in 1992. Although Studio B is closed through June amid the coronavirus pandemic, these days it hosts school groups and visitors.
May was a big month for local filmmaker Waheed Alqawasmi — who announced plans for a fall production on his first feature, starring “The Sopranos” and “Goodfellas” star Lorraine Bracco. Later in the month, Alqawasmi, who heads Wafilms, announced the launch of his firm’s original content development fund, “which will finance the creation of original content to meet the demand from streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, and Hulu.”
In recent years, Alqawasmi’s Memphis-based company, Wafilms, has created commercials for such clients as Cheerios and Zappos shoes. Alqawasmi also worked for a while as a national creative director at the Fox television network, promoting such programs as “New Girl.”
The Wafilms fund — which will be “focused on creative diversity and quality” — is set to produce a variety of scripted TV shows and feature films. A statement announcing the fund — which did not cite specific figures — noted it would be “dedicated to financing creative ventures to spark new opportunities, benefit workers in the region’s entertainment industry and help businesses get back to business amid the COVID crisis.”
“Our aim is to be a little economic engine,” said Alqawasmi, a 33-year-old Germantown High School graduate who came to Memphis from Jordan when he was a teenager. “We want to help create new jobs and new opportunities as we work through this national health emergency and foster brighter days ahead.”
Memphis and Shelby County Film Commissioner Linn Sitler added that the announcement of Wafilms’ expansion “is wonderful and well-timed news.”
Wafilms announced that Bracco, an Oscar and Emmy nominee, would star in “Jacir,” the feature directorial debut of Alqawasmi to be filmed in Memphis.
Slated to be shot over 21 days starting in September, “Jacir” will star Bracco as an opioid-addicted ex-blues singer turned fearful ultra-conservative shutin who clashes with her new duplex neighbor, a shell-shocked Syrian refugee named Jacir (which means “benevolent”), played by Beirut-born actor and songwriter Malek Rahbani.
According to Wafilms, production on “Jacir” will proceed in conjunction with “Covid-related guidelines developed by the CDC, Film Unions, Health Departments, and Hollywood task forces to help ensure health and safety of crews, talent and clients on the job.”
“We have personal protective equipment, medics and producers who are trained in health and safety compliance to make sure everything we film is safe for crews, talent and clients,” added AlQawasmi.