Hello friends!
You might say I’m “all shook up” to share news about my latest
documentary film release, REINVENTING ELVIS: THE ’68 COMEBACK.
You can catch it this month and next in two ways: cinema screen
or home screen.
This
coming Sunday,
July 30, we’ll be in cinemas for a One-Day-Only event in theatres around
the world. Check
out the trailer here and click to http://reinventingelvis.com/ to see
where it might be playing near you.
Two weeks later, on
August 15, the
film begins streaming on Paramount+.
This is the true story of what really happened behind the
scenes during the making the legendary Elvis Presley Comeback Special.
It’s 1968 and the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll has been driven from his
throne by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and other young artists. Years of poor decisions
by his controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker, and enabled by Elvis himself,
have made him all but irrelevant. Elvis
uncharacteristically chooses to defy the Colonel when he collaborates with
rebel Director/Producer Steve Binder to create a television program that helps
him re-discover himself and resurrect his once great career. When it first
aired on December 3, 1968, nearly half of all TV viewers tuned in to NBC to
watch Elvis, dazzlingly clad in that
iconic black leather suit.
Told
from the unique perspective of Emmy Award®-winning television director Steve
Binder, the film is packed with backstage drama, humor, wonderful human
moments, fresh insight into Elvis the man and, of course, a lot of great music.
It’s an amazing story, one that I’m honored to have been chosen to tell.
I would
be remiss to not acknowledge the challenging times the entertainment industry
is currently facing. I served as both director and writer of this film and have
longstanding membership in both the Directors Guild of America and Writers
Guild of America. I support the WGA’s efforts to negotiate terms that reflect
the unique worth and contribution of creative talent, without whom the industry
would not exist. I fervently hope negotiators will soon come to terms and end the
strike which is so damaging to the livelihoods of thousands of people and to the industry at large.
John
Scheinfeld
From Harvey Kubernik …
REINVENTING ELVIS: THE '68 COMEBACK Set For Mid-August 2023 Release;
Elvis ... The '68 Comeback Special: A Multi-Voice Memoir
By Harvey Kubernik ©
Copyright 2023
Paramount+ in mid-August will debut a new
feature-length documentary REINVENTING
ELVIS: THE '68 COMEBACK that is told from the viewpoint of director Steve
Binder, who helmed the original Elvis ...
The '68 Comeback Special.
It will premiere exclusively on the service
Tuesday, August 15th in the U.S. and Canada and internationally on
Wednesday, August 16th in the U.K., Latin America, Brazil, France, Germany,
Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
Premiering days before the
anniversary of Presley’s death, REINVENTING
ELVIS: THE ’68 COMEBACK reveals what really happened behind the scenes of
this mesmerizing hour of television. When it aired on the night of December 3rd,
1968, the special became the most-watched television event of the year, and nearly
half of the entire TV-watching audience tuned in to see Elvis Presley, clad in
an iconic black leather suit, deliver some of the greatest performances of his
life, reinvigorating his career and changing the pop-culture landscape forever.
A media announcement from Paramount+ touts the
upcoming Presley celluloid endeavor:
Told
from the unique perspective of Emmy® Award-winning television
director Steve Binder, REINVENTING ELVIS: THE ’68 COMEBACK features interviews
with Elvis experts and recollections from those who attended the special
in-person, as well as all-new versions of iconic Elvis hits interpreted by
contemporary musicians, including superstar Darius Rucker, Latin GRAMMY® winner Maffio and America’s Got Talent finalist Drake Milligan, who previously
starred in CMT’s hit series Sun Records,
also streaming on Paramount+.
Prior
to its streaming debut, REINVENTING
ELVIS: THE ’68 COMEBACK SPECIAL will also screen for a limited time in
hundreds of movie theaters worldwide with more details to be announced soon.
The
world is filled with stories about Elvis and his historic 1968 Comeback
Special, but no one has ever told this story the way only I can tell it —
because I was there for every moment of it,” said Binder. “I’m so proud of this
film, because it presents Elvis as he really was, and looks at a specific
moment in time — when Elvis took control of his life, his career and his
legacy. There’s never been a television moment quite like this one.”
During 2007 I was a feature interview subject
for the Viva Las Vegas deluxe edition
DVD from Warners Home Video. In 2008, I penned the 5,000 word booklet liner
notes to the Elvis The ’68 Comeback
Special 5-CD box set issued by Sony/Legacy. I attended six Elvis Presley
concerts in Southern California between 1970-1977.
Elvis Presley had entered 1968, that
heartbreaking year, as barely a blip on the radar screen of a generation
wallowing in a purple haze. Luxuriating high above Sunset Blvd, he gave little
thought to the hordes marching up and down the neon Strip, content to placate
his remaining fans with star turns in such disposable drive-in fare as Charro and Live A Little, Love A Little.
Presley
was still issuing product of movie soundtrack albums but garnering nowhere near
the sales figures of a smash hit like Blue
Hawaii. It had been nearly six years since “Good Luck Charm” had topped the
Billboard 100, an eternity for an increasingly impatient, impetuous and
impertinent audience.
The arrival of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the
Rolling Stones, the Doors and all that followed in their wake, further
diminished the relevance of an artist who burned brightest when girls wore
poodle skirts and boys donned coonskin caps. His most recent single, a
carousing treatment of Jerry Reed’s hook-laden “Guitar Man” failed to enter the
Top 40.
Elvis hadn’t been on the small screen since The Frank Sinatra Timex Show for ABC
television, welcoming him back from the service in May, 1960. Parker shrewdly
maneuvered a sweet deal from NBC-TV’s Tom Sarnoff. Ostensibly a boiler-plate
Christmas special — Elvis bedecked in seasonal tinsel, singing treacle owned by
Elvis and the Colonel’s publishing company, natch — Parker parlayed the network’s
commitment to include financing for a feature film, which was becoming
increasingly harder to secure. The show, sponsored by Singer Sewing Machines,
was to be called, ELVIS.
What Colonel Parker hadn’t anticipated,
though, was appearance of a joker in the deck, in the form of television
director, Steve Binder, who, with his partner, engineer/music producer Bones
Howe, set Elvis off on a personal journey that bordered on a career
resurrection.
Dayton “Bones” Howe, came to Los Angeles from
Georgia in 1956, prompted by drummer Shelly Manne’s admonition that there was
gold (or, at the least, a possible career) in them there Hollywood Hills. Howe
settled in behind the mixing console at Radio Recorders, as tape recordist
under principal engineer Thorne Nogar on some the young Presley’s breakthrough
hits.
Over the next decade, Bones Howe became one of
the most celebrated engineers and then in the music industry, generating a
parade on Number Ones from Jan & Dean, Johnny Rivers, the Mamas &
Papas, the Association, and the Turtles. The West Coast sound was as much a
product of this soft-spoken, jazz-loving gentleman as it was the worship of
cars, girls and warm summer breezes.
“The first time I saw Elvis was at the Florida
Theater in Sarasota, Florida, when I was in high school. He was a young country
singer. He performed between movies,” Howe told me in a 2012 interview. “I
first did some work with Elvis in late 1956 and early ’57 in Hollywood at Radio
Recorders.
“Elvis drove out from Tennessee in a stretch
Cadillac with DJ and Scotty with the gear in the backseat. They came out to
record with Steve Sholes, the A&R guy who was responsible for signing them
on to RCA Records. He brought them to Hollywood to record them. RCA was doing
all their recording in those days at Radio Recorders. Elvis and the guys stayed
in Hollywood at the Roosevelt Hotel or the Plaza and later the Knickerbocker. I
did some sessions with Thorne Nogar. He was very good to me and took me under
his arm. I was a recordist and he asked me to do some sessions with Elvis.
Elvis could never get his name right so he called him Stoney.
“In Hollywood, I saw Elvis with his buddies. It
was the first time anyone ever heard of block booking a studio for a month. We
never had to tear it down. We could leave the studio at night. I worked on
‘Love Me’ and ‘Old Shep.’ I was around the session for ‘Return to Sender.’ Elvis never stopped moving in the studio. He recorded everything live. In those
days, you didn’t separate people, so everyone was in the same room. Direct to
mono when we started. The two-track that we did on Elvis had his voice on one
track and everybody else on the other track. When we started with Elvis, there
was no stereo. He could sing a ballad. He could imitate anybody. Mention a
singer and he would imitate them. Like Fats Domino. You would turn your back
and you thought Fats was in the room,” noted Howe.
“Elvis would come in with Hill & Range
music publishers and Elvis would record only their songs. They would show up
with a box of acetate dubs and my job on those sessions, aside of running the
tape machines was that I had a turntable there which was hooked up to the
playback system. I would take these dubs out one at a time and put them on a
turntable and play it outside to him. He would signal to me like running his
finger across his throat if he didn’t like the song and I would toss it to
another box. Or he would pat the top of his head. Meaning from the top again.
‘Play it again.’ And the guys would learn the song off the demo. There it all
was for me. All in a nutshell. Demo. Artist. Song. Record. The Colonel never
showed up or came to the studio. Maybe once to get some paper signed. Elvis ran
the session and Steve Sholes ran the clock. ‘OK, Elvis. That’s 2:14.’ ‘Sounded
good in here. Want to listen?’ Radio Recorders had the wonderful echo chamber
in Studio B. A live chamber in those days. Not tape reverb. I watched Elvis
become a huge star.”
Bob Finkel of NBC had recruited Binder to
direct their weekly pop music series, Hullabaloo.
TV specials featuring Leslie Uggams and Petula Clark solidified his credentials
for bringing projects in on time, on budget and with the glint of danger. Elvis
Presley was now in the capable hands of a talent to match his own. Finkel,
Colonel Parker and Binder all agreed that it would be a one-man show, no guest
stars, and RCA Records would have a soundtrack album for retail outlets.
Steve Binder was the right man at the right
moment. Precocious to a fault, the Los Angeles native left USC just before
graduating to apprentice under Steve Allen, who’s pioneering variety show
broadcast was a hothouse of innovation and imagination. Binder, barely in his
twenties, then took the helm of Jazz
Scene USA and later Hullabaloo, bringing live performances
by musical masters to a network audience. Viewed today, it is clear that Binder
understood the unique requirements of lighting and blocking that showcased
musicians in an optimal setting.
In October, 1964, Binder directed The T.A.M.I. Show, a groundbreaking rock
‘n’ roll circus, that triumphed under his whip and chair direction. Hosted by
Jan & Dean and starring James Brown, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys,
Chuck Berry, Lesley Gore, the Miracles, and Marvin Gaye, amongst many others,
this ninety minute feature culled from two days of production insanity, has
rightfully earned legendary status, a template for every rock concert film.
"Going back to The Steve Allen Show and Hullabaloo where I was collecting people all the way through my
career that I wanted to have in my team and work together with," Binder
explained to me in a 2008 interview we conducted.
"And in those days, technically, union
wise, unless you had a union card, you weren’t supposed to participate. I
learned together the difference between making records and television audio. It
was a perfect marriage. Even in lighting I would bring in rock ‘n’ roll guys
who did concerts with guys bred on television and movies. All of a sudden they
were learning about the contemporary music business.”
“Elvis and I hit it off,” underlined Binder in
our interview. “I didn’t feel like the awestruck audience to a super star — just
another guy my age. And we hit it off as friends when we were working. He’d
come to the office I shared with Bones on Sunset Boulevard every day. Everyone
on the team was treated equally, and Elvis joined us in that spirit. He did not
play star one day on the entire shoot. We all got to pick the music. My TV special
before with Petula Clark and Harry Belafonte was done at the same location at
NBC in Burbank.
“I used John Freschi and Bill Cole, who were on
staff there as lighting director and audio head, set designer Gene MacAvoy,
musical director and composer Billy Goldenberg and worked with Bones Howe. By
the time we got to Elvis we had a family.
“I told Elvis in no uncertain words I was not
going to do 20 Christmas songs. Elvis told me he was scared to death of
television. He told me he was only comfortable makin’ records. He had been away
from the public and was concerned they didn’t want him back. I told him ‘then
why don’t you make a record album and I’ll put pictures to it.’”
Writers Chris Bearde and Allan Blye were
recruited into developing the show’s script. Veterans of such whimsical
assaults on middle-class mores as Rowan
& Martin’s Laugh-In and The
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, they recognized a unique opportunity to walk
the razor’s edge with a network’s witting compliance. If the final draft swerved
just shy of Dada, it was through no lack of collaborative ambition with a
fully-engaged star.
‘“Guitar Man’ and ‘Trouble’ were the hooks for
the whole show,” Bearde detailed to me in the 2008 interview.
“We met
with Elvis and the outline was trying to describe his entire life. We then
figured we had to have something that had a guitar. Because Elvis was not just
Elvis. He was Elvis and a guitar. So we decided to weave the whole thing around
‘Guitar Man.’ It was the first ‘Un-Plugged’ show ever, and it was a very
dangerous thing; to put this guy in front of everyone without a bass. Elvis
didn’t need anything more than that. He was wired. He was an electric man. When
you saw Elvis in person everything became slow motion. He looked like this
caged animal ready to eat up the scenery and eat up the music and do his thing.
We had arena, road and Gospel medley segments.”
Goldenberg, a confederate from Binder’s job on
Hullabaloo, viewed his assignment as
a decidedly mixed blessing. A graduate of Columbia University and a protégé of
the Broadway Legend, composer Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls), he brought a rich harmonic sensibility to his work
that ill-suited the caterwauling punch of fifties rock ‘n’ roll. It was only
after Binder’s fervent pleading that Goldenberg agreed to meet with Elvis, let
alone compose a raft of charts under a mind-bending deadline.
“From the very first meeting I liked him,”
said Goldenberg in a 2008 phone conversation. “We had a great rapport. He
always looked after me and was supportive. The most interesting thing to me
once we started was the concept that developed. There was a movie soundtrack by
Quincy Jones, In Cold Blood, probably
the most interesting score I had ever heard at that point. It was a fusion of
that kind of country redneck sound but at the same time something very
classical underneath it all. Evil, sexual, and spooky. Elvis personified all of
those things. And the music had to as well.”
Goldenberg was given free rein to assemble an
all-star orchestra, drawing from both the NBC stable as well as distinguished
free-lancers. But his real coup was reeling in the fabled Wrecking Crew, a
pick-up team’s worth of studio hotshots who routinely delivered the goods on
countless hit recordings. Although back in 1968 they were session players from
the Hollywood Local 47 Musicians Union. Like their Detroit counterparts, the
Funk Brothers, these were seasoned jazz cats that could blend a savvy
professional’s hauteur with the laid-back charm of sunbaked Southern
California.
“This was like a film that had to be scored,”
reiterated Goldenberg. “The first thing I did was build a big medley around
‘Guitar Man.’ That was the test, actually. I went with that whole concept
sequence — trying to make it as dirty and black and provocative and still being
Elvis. We had the presence of those guitars that were very dark. His voice
invited you into the arrangements. I wanted it all to be seductive. Because
Elvis was the ultimate seducer. A starting point was definitely the work of the
bass guitar. Once I had that kind of bass thing going on and there was a
certain kind of mambo riff with it. It also touched on some of the Beatles’
darker stuff.”
In 1967 and ’68 keyboardist Don Randi was
doing recording sessions with Neil Young and Jack Nitzsche during Buffalo
Springfield, on dates with Love on Forever
Changes, and on the Monkees’ Head
soundtrack.
“Around the same period this Presley call
comes in from Billy Goldenberg,” reminisced Randi to me in 2008 inside his
Baked Potato club venue in Studio City. “I had done some soundtrack things
earlier in the sixties with him. I worked on another Presley film, Live a Little, Love a Little. We cut ‘A
Little Less Conversation’ with Al Casey, Hal Blaine, Larry Knectel the bass
player and me on piano. In 1962 Jack Nitzsche was the pianist in the lounge
band in an Elvis film Girls! Girls!
Girls! Barney Kessel was on that soundtrack and others, and he played
guitar earlier on ‘Return to Sender’ and ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.’
“I never felt Elvis was a man out of time.
What you have to understand is that his music never died. You know, at the
time, a lot of people were saying he didn’t have a hit record for a couple of
years; his career is over. I never thought that at all. It never would enter my
mind. Because I know, from the first time I saw him on Ed Sullivan to the days I got to work with him, that this guy could
go on forever. The only guy who will stop this guy from going on is himself.
“That night I got the Elvis call. I remember
one thing, it was on a Saturday and we all were making a fortune. Double scale.
Golden time. Big time. I know this was a little different for Elvis working
with us. Sometimes he sang live with us and sometimes he overdubbed. As a
matter of fact, he sat down at the piano with me a few times for me to
straighten out the part he had to sing on ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ We were on the
incidental and interstitial music that was all over the soundtrack. He worked
with us on the stuff. What’s more important than hearing Elvis in headphones is
that I got to hear him as a human being, having chats, going back and forth. He
had a musicality to him.
“Look, Elvis has innate musical skills. He did
not remind me of Brian Wilson or Frank Sinatra. They are all so different.
Which is a very interesting point. The individuality between those three people
are from completely different places. They are all fantastic on their own and
rightly so, because they worked that hard creating what they do and everybody
is an individual there.
“I guess we were all taking Elvis into a
different world. It was a completely different thing for him from the A band,
or the Memphis band. Just having the Blossoms on the sessions. Elvis loved the
Blossoms. He knew Darlene from her work with Ray Charles. Elvis was now playing
with the Wrecking Crew. Hal Blaine, Tommy Tedesco, Mike Deasy, Tommy Morgan,
Chuck Berghoffer, Frank De Vito, and vocal contractor BJ Baker.”
Drummer Hal Blaine had already enjoyed hit
record success with Presley on “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You,” “Return
To Sender” and “Bossa Nova Baby.”
“The ’68
Special was a great time. Elvis
was terrific and loved us all because a lot of us had worked with him before,”
divulged Blaine. “I was on the soundtrack of
Blue Hawaii and Girls! Girls! Girls! ‘Hello.
How are you doing?’ He was relaxed but sweated a lot. I had to hand him a
Kleenex when he was wearing that leather suit. Elvis was Elvis and he was a
phenomena. And that’s all there is to it.”
“There was a song that we did and he wanted to
show that he had an operatic type voice. Just a big voice. To me he was Elvis.
That’s all there is to it. He was a one of. People who generally become famous
are one of. He was also very handsome and all the ladies were crazy about him.
He was a decent guy. The Wrecking Crew could lock in with anybody. But with
Elvis you’re gonna sit up a little straighter, maybe. I loved DJ Fontana. I
hung with him a lot on the set.”
“Elvis decided to move into NBC physically for
the period we were in production. We cleaned out the Dean Martin dressing room
off of Stage 4,” said Binder. “When we finished rehearsals, Elvis would start
jamming with his friends around the baby grand piano and anybody who happened
to be there or invited in started jamming with him. So they would just play
acoustically, banging on chairs, piano tops, and Lance LeGault brought his
tambourines in. It went on for hours and hours.
“I thought, ‘this is like looking into a
keyhole of something that only very few people get to see behind the scenes.
I’ve got to get this on tape. I mean, this is better than what we are doing out
there with all the dancers and singers, the production numbers. This is
incredible; I am seeing the real Elvis now.’
“I was barred from coming into the dressing room
with any kind of equipment. I started taking notes and brought my little tape
recorder in and started recording what was going on. I kept it in my pocket so
nobody knew what was going on. And then I started transferring the information
I got onto paper. So I would remember what songs he sang and what he was
talking about. Finally, I pestered the Colonel so much and he finally said,
‘You can go on stage and re-create what you are seeing in here.’
“When I told Elvis what we were gonna do, he
was jazzed,” marveled Binder. “But he said, ‘If I’m gonna do it I wanna bring
in [guitarist] Scotty [Moore] and [drummer] DJ [Fontana].’ ‘Cause Scotty and DJ
were never a part of the special. Elvis wanted the audience closest to him and
Colonel Parker picked what he thought were the most attractive women to be
seated nearest.
“Then when it came time I handed Elvis the
paper with my notes which he physically brought out to the stage and referred
to in one of his takes. Right before he went out I got called into the dressing
room. ‘I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this.’ ‘What do you mean you don’t
want to do this?’ ‘My mind is blank. Steve, I don’t know what to sing and don’t
know what to say.’ ‘Elvis, just go out. This is not optional. I haven’t asked
you to do anything up to the point that you didn’t want to do. Now I am asking
you to go out there. I don’t care if you just say hello or goodbye and come
right back in five seconds. Just go out there.’ On the first take his voice is
totally dry and he needs to get some water before he begins. He even stops the
first eight bars in. His voice is cracking. And then you see and hear him
building his confidence. You can see it on his face. You can see it on his body
posture. He gets to the point where he doesn’t want to leave.”
Lance LeGault was a singer and performer in
his own right, a veteran of The Louisiana
Hayride, who Presley saw perform in Van Nuys, California at the Crossbow
music club. LeGault stunt doubled for Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls!, Kissin' Cousins, Viva Las Vegas, and Roustabout. When Elvis directed Lance
to grab a tambourine and join the “sit-down” band for their set, it was a
tribute to a friendship nurtured over long-haul bike rides and countless
backstage jams. Lance was like family.
“Elvis and I played a lot of music over the
years,” LeGault reminded me after we met at Dr Stanley Baker’s Chiropractic
office in Studio City. “He sang all the time. We didn’t go to lunch breaks; we
went to dressing rooms and jammed. Now, Elvis was very insecure when we started
and I think that’s why he called me up. Because Elvis had a charming
insecurity. But then he warmed up and relaxed, which didn’t take long. Look at
the opening of that sit-down part—he had an acoustic guitar. And then he traded
with Scotty and took the electric. And then it all became electric.”
It is a delicious irony that the most
packaged, pre-meditated image in pop culture could reclaim his most authentic
self in such a spontaneous fashion. Clearly scared to death, Elvis retreated to
his strengths, surrounded by musicians who understood and relished the same
impulse to simply sing and play. Elemental in its ferocity, the “sit-down”
section is a time-capsule that students of music, let alone Elvis fans,
cherish.
During the TV production, Elvis walked into
Western Recorders studio on Sunset Blvd. and was alarmed by the amount of
musicians and singers booked for the recording sessions,” proffered Binder.
“Elvis was stunned by looking at all these
musicians and singers. He came in his dark sunglasses and all of a sudden I was
in the control room with Bones. Someone came in, probably Joe Esposito and
said, ‘Elvis wants to see you.’ I went out, he had a very serious look on his
face… Something is not right. He said, ‘Come on outside with me.’ We went on to
Sunset Boulevard. ‘Steve, I’ve never sung with anything bigger than a rhythm
section in my life. I never sang with an orchestra in a recording studio. You
gotta promise me if I don’t like what’s playing here you’re gonna send
everybody home and just keep the rhythm section or I’m not going in there to
sing.’
“And I had to promise him, which I did. There
was great trust to begin with. First of all, he had never heard anything Billy
Goldenberg had done. So I promised him if he didn’t like it I would send
everybody home, the brass section and everybody and keep the rhythm section. We
walked inside and Billy has a conductor’s little stand, and he invited Elvis to
come up and Billy gave the downbeat to the opening song ‘Guitar Man’ and it was
total love at that point. Elvis couldn’t get enough.
“We were all there late one night in our
production office in Hollywood and watched the Robert Kennedy assassination on
the TV set—that was cathartic to all of us,” acknowledged Chris Bearde. “We all
sat around until 5:00 AM and Elvis told us his entire life story while playing
the guitar and picked, not strummed, talkin’ about ‘Tiger Man,’ and how guys
would throw punches at him so they could say they hit Elvis. He just rambled on
and we listened for all those hours. Part of the conversation went to his
background in Gospel singing and how he really was one of those white guys from
the south who really understood not just his own rockabilly background but the
music of the church.”
“We were in our office on Sunset Boulevard
rehearsing one evening and the television was on in Bones’ office and Bobby
Kennedy was assassinated,” added Binder. “And we stopped rehearsal and spent
the entire night about both the JFK and Robert Kennedy assassination, and
Martin Luther King before in April. Those are the kind of things that bond
people…
“Earle Brown was a choral director on The Carole Burnette Show and in a music
group, the Skylarks on RCA. I met Earle with Leslie Uggams. And I think ‘If I
Can Dream’ was the song like a lot of people who write great one time first
novels. I don’t think Earle realized what he wrote, and having Elvis Presley
perform it was the miracle of all miracles.
“I was convinced we had to close the show with
something powerful. Here we are with a black choreographer, Claude Thompson, a
Puerto Rican choreographer, Jaime Rogers, the Blossoms, they are right behind
Elvis on his side, and no one is saying anything. No one cares that we are
mixing races,” beamed Binder. “I went to Billy Goldenberg and Earle and said
‘Guys you’ve got to write an original song that says the inner dialogue that we
are hearing and feeling about Elvis Presley in these past few months. We’ve got
to make a statement that he makes. Color doesn’t matter. Race doesn’t matter.
He accepts everybody. I need that song. Go home and write the greatest song you
ever wrote.’
“The next morning Earle called and said ‘Can
Billy and I meet you at NBC an hour before Elvis comes in.’ I drove out to
Elvis’ dressing room where he would dress and shower, and we had a little
spinet piano in there and a baby grand in the main dressing room. So Billy sits
down at the piano, and the Earle and Billy now play ‘If I Can Dream’ for me. I
got goose bumps the first time I heard it. ‘You guys have done it.
Congratulations. Fantastic. I’m gonna convince Elvis Presley to sing this
song.’
“Realizing I had a shot with Elvis is really
saying something, I felt strongly by Elvis singing ‘peace and love’ after all
these 1968 assassinations it just seemed like the perfect song to say these
words, And I think Elvis was a great deliverer of that message. Billy did the
arrangement overnight and Elvis did five takes on the vocal. Colonel Parker did
subsequently publish ‘If I Can Dream’ from the program.”
“When it was time to do the Presley
pre-records this was the place because he was gonna sing live,” stressed Bones
Howe. “With his hand taped to the microphone and complete with knee drops in
front of the string section! He got all these violinists with their mouths
hanging open. With some artists you can kind of plug in what the record is
gonna sound like. But with Elvis you sort of were relaying on him to perform
this piece. And he did. The soundtrack album version, not the DVD version, is
the version that is the single. That’s him singing live in the studio. I gave
him a hand mike on a long cable. Because I knew he was not gonna stand in one
place. He’s gonna walk. ‘I’m the engineer. Don’t worry about it.’ He loved
being in the middle of a bunch of guys around him. They were like his audience.
Not many takes. Not more than four or five.
“He heard it for the first time with the
orchestra right then and there. He didn’t wear headphones standing in the
middle of the orchestra. It’s like being on a stage in Las Vegas. He nailed ‘If
I Can Dream’ when we did it on the show. He was a great performer.
“Elvis sang ‘Memories’ live but then I did a
track and he sang it afterwards. He wanted to sing it really, really softly.
And we turned the lights out in the studio after the orchestra went home. With
TV you have to have a track on everything. And I turned the lights off in the
studio and he just stood out in the studio and sang it all by himself in the
dark and we made two takes. And the second one is the one that is in the show.”
“When I played Elvis the edited 60-minute
version of the show in a projection room at NBC and at the first screening of
the show we had a lot of the staff that did the show, the entourage in the
room, it was packed,” recalled Binder. “When it was over Elvis told everybody
to get out of the room and he wanted to see it again with just me in the room
with him. Elvis said to me in that room, ‘Steve, it’s the greatest thing I’ve
ever done in my life. I give you my word I will never sing a song I don’t
believe in.’”
The Elvis
‘68 Comeback Special was shown on
December 3 at 9:00 PM. On December 4, when the ratings were released, NBC
reported that Elvis captured 42 per cent of the total viewing audience. It was
the network’s biggest rating victory for the entire year and the season’s
number one rated show. Reporter Hal Humphrey in a December 4th story
for The Los Angeles Times proclaimed
“Elvis still generates considerable heat with his singing.” Robert Shelton in The New York Times wrote “Rock Star’s
Explosive Blues Have Vintage Quality.” Writer and cultural critic, Greil
Marcus, in his 1975 book Mystery Train
hailed Presley’s ‘68 moment. “It was the finest music of his life. If ever
there was music that bleeds, this was it.”
In early November “If I Can Dream” was
released. By the end of the month it was Top 40 and eventually earned a number
12 slot on the singles chart in January of 1968. The soundtrack landed at the 8th
position on the album listings.
“‘I Can Dream’ should have been the theme song
of 1968,” declared author and keyboardist Kenneth Kubernik. “It’s right up
there with ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.” Sam Cooke and Presley in 1964 both RCA
artists and both songs recorded on Sunset Boulevard. ‘If I Can Dream’ reflects
the nature of the Pentecostal church Elvis’ mother belonged too. And Elvis grew
up in this sense, and the whole idea of having these world shaking individual
transforming experiences was part and parcel of Elvis’ own upbringing in the
world that he lived in. There was always this possibility of resurrection and
re-invention. It was always a part of his religious upbringing.
“Whether he was conscious or not, that when he
starts to sing a song like ‘If I Can Dream’ it doesn’t sound like it was just
selected by the producer of the show. It sounds like Elvis is dialing it in
like Sam Cooke convinced us with ‘A Change Is Gonna Come.’ This is the
revelation for me. And the fact that Billy Goldenberg made the arrangement bass
instrument oriented makes it come out of the bass note, actually an organ note,
which is again a church note. It was a freakish recording. I think they caught
lighting in a bottle on this.”
“Whenever I hear anything I did with Elvis I
get very sad,” Billy Goldenberg disclosed in our 2008 interview. “I will allude
to one more story. The music works for me. Elvis was a recording artist to
begin with anyway. He worked for years. I loved listening to all the new things
that he was doing. Because of problems I just felt he was dragged down. You
know, he entered the drug world and all of it. I don’t think that would have been
his decision. Because when I was with him he wanted to be Marlon Brando. He
wanted to do West Side Story which he
was offered and the Colonel turned down. I think Walk On the Wild Side and A
Star Is Born with Barbra Streisand.
“I then did the musical score for Elvis’ next
film, A Change of Habit. I noticed
when we started on the songs that Elvis was hoarse and crackly. Then I started
to put two and two together. I said, ‘Elvis, I need something from you.’
‘Anything.’ ‘Listen, you arrived here at all of our sessions hung over and I
know you’ve been out all over the Sunset Strip and your guys are taking you
away in a limousine and we got to do a recording session and it ain’t working.
So what I want you to do is give me one week of your time and promise not to do
that. Get a night’s sleep. You do not get hungover. You don’t go out with those
guys as much as you want to. I am telling you what to do. This is it.’
‘Anything you say.’
“And Elvis by the way was very docile. You
have no idea. Unfortunately he just wanted to do nice things for everybody. I
was very stern with him about this. He restrained himself for a week. And I
know that. We got results. We did it all. We rehearsed and he was fine. At the
end of the week I said ‘Go do whatever you want.’
“Later I went on the recording stage and Elvis
was there at every single one of those sessions. There were times when I was
really lagging and not making the schedule. My father had just died, and Elvis
would say, ‘Get on with it. Come on, my boy. You can do it.’ He was like being
a football coach for me. And that was my very first movie. So it meant a lot
but I was somewhere else. I did it.
“Afterwards he asked me to become his musical
director on the road because I had to turn down. ‘I’m not good for that.’ That
was the last time I saw him because the guys wouldn’t let me in when I went to
Vegas," lamented Goldenberg.
“I went to Las Vegas to see him and we went
backstage to say hello,” remembers Bones Howe. “We kibitzed a little about the ’68 Special and stuff. We hung out a
little. He said to me, just before he made ‘In the Ghetto,’ ‘I got to tell you
something. You’ve got the best feel for music of anybody I’ve ever worked
with.’ I said to him, ‘Maybe we can make a record together sometime.’ ‘That
would probably be a lot of fun.’ ‘Why don’t you talk to the Colonel about it?’
It never came about. But he went to Memphis and made all those great records.”
