In The King's Service
When Elvis called, Norbert Putnam was happy to answer
The Commercial Appeal, August 13, 2000
By Bill Ellis

Of all the bands that accompanied Elvis Presley throughout his career - the stripped-down Sun unit, the '60s Nashville studio band, Chips Moman's American lineup, the TCB stage band - none was so quick-study facile when the tape rolled as the Nashville players that producer Felton Jarvis assembled in 1970. Their first sessions at RCA's Studio B, from June 4 to 8, yielded a hefty 36 songs that would be released over the next several years as four singles (including the hit You Don't Have to Say You Love Me) and four albums (including "Elvis Country," "Love Letters From Elvis" and "That's the Way It Is," just reissued in a 30th-anniversary three-CD edition).

Bassist Norbert Putnam, a native of Florence, Ala., was part of that group, whose Muscle Shoals core also consisted of Fame's first round of studio pros - keyboardist David Briggs and drummer Jerry Carrigan - plus rhythm guitarist Chip Young, harpist Charlie McCoy and guitar legend James Burton.

Putnam, 58, became known for his own production work in the '70s with a slew of folk and country acts from Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie to Steve Goodman, Dan Fogelberg and Jimmy Buffett. Yet as a bassist he was always just a phone call away from Presley. He played on many sessions up to the singer's death in 1977 (well over 100 songs plus various overdubs, according to Ernst Jorgensen's definitive recordings chronology, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music).

"Of all the people I ever worked with - and someone once said, `Norbert, tell me who the great ones were,' " he says, "there's Elvis Presley and there's everyone else."

Putnam now operates a Memphis-based record label, CDMemphis.com, and its parent organization, Cadre Entertainment. He shared memories about recording with the King in a recent interview, memories that are included in the autobiography he is writing.

Sessions

Typically, when Elvis would come to Nashville he'd record for five nights. We'd work Monday through Friday. The King would always come precisely at eight o'clock, two hours into the first union session, and then we'd usually clown around. He'd gather everyone around him. He was this great raconteur and would just get started on stories. He loved to make you laugh, and we'd clown around until 10 o'clock.

Now the first session (has) run an hour overtime and Felton Jarvis starts squirming around. "Elvis, we have to do something, we have to do something." And he'd say, "Ah, ah, OK. What are we doing?" And then they'd bring the songs out.

Elvis usually hadn't heard any of the songs, had not chosen any songs. He would choose them at the record date. . . . The sessions were really pretty unprofessional. I'm not kidding.

One recording session (went) like this. We walk out into the main room and we had a record player there. And Freddy Bienstock and Lamar Fike, they were the two publishing guys. Freddy would start. He'd say, "Elvis, I want you to hear this song. Now this song was written by that girl, you know she wrote that number-one song for Dionne Warwick. And we've signed her to our own company. Elvis, she's written this song specially for you."

And he hands Elvis a lyric sheet. Elvis sits in the chair and (Bienstock) drops a needle into an acetate. The track starts to play. It's an Elvis Presley-type rhythm section, and the voice that comes in is a guy imitating Elvis's voice in Elvis's key.

I've got my legal pad. I'm writing out the chord progression and bass line 'cause I'm going to have to play this thing in a second. And - this is great - Elvis Presley is singing with the guy imitating Elvis Presley. The guy is going "ahhh" and he is going "ahhh."

Invariably, the song was a piece of crap. It was trite, it was dumb. Elvis sang the first verse - "The sky is blue and I love you" - and you can see Elvis; he's thinking this isn't as good as that song she wrote for Dionne Warwick. And you see Elvis's eyebrows start to (move), he's trying to pick up on us and we're not giving him any clues.

He got all the way through the chorus and starts on the second verse. And Elvis is still looking around. (Then) he went, "No." He said, "You son of a . . ." And he's wadding this thing and throwing it at Freddy. Freddy would run for the door. "How dare you bring a song like this!" (Expletives would follow). And we'd break up. We're all laughing and rolling on the floor. Elvis loves this, right? Not only has he run Freddy out of the room, he's got the rhythm section in (stitches).

He's going to repeat this act for the next three or four songs.

So here comes Lamar. Lamar goes, "Now Elvis, settle down. Maybe that wasn't the greatest song, but let me tell you . . ." And it's the same thing. "This song, now Elvis, this song was written by that guy out in California who wrote that great hit for so-and-so. I'm telling you, Elvis, this is a number-one record."

Elvis goes, "OK, let's hear that." So he gets the lyric sheet and here comes the band imitating Elvis's rhythm section, the voice imitating Elvis, and here's Elvis imitating the guy imitating Elvis. Now Elvis is really ready, so he gets through the first verse and he's getting a little antsy. He gets about halfway through the chorus, he leaps up, wads (the lyric sheet) up, starts throwing it. Lamar's running, everybody's laughing. This is Elvis's idea of a good time.

About the sixth demo, you can see Elvis is resigned he's going to do this one. It's no better than the first one, it's no better than the second one. It's the same cut of cloth.

He'd say, "Hey guys, we got to do something. Play it again." And they'd play it the second time through and Elvis is mumbling along. Maybe they'd play it three times (before) Elvis would say, "Let's do it. Where's my mike?" And he'd stand up and (engineer) Al Pachucki would run over with a little Shure RE15 microphone that's been wrapped in foam. Elvis liked a hand mike. It wasn't the world's greatest vocal mike but his rings didn't make any noise on it.

Elvis would get out there and we'd say, "Elvis, about the intro . . ." "Well, what's on the demo?" he'd say. "Well, that's (chords) one, four, five, six minor." "That's good." "How about the key, Elvis?" "That's a good key. Are we rolling?"

Well, the band has not played this song. And Felton says, "Rolling, Elvis." We play the intro safely and Elvis starts. He'd do a reading of this thing, reasonably good the first time through. And we'd hit the last chord and the control room would explode. People are leaping into the air, shouting noises and you'd hear the talk back: "Gas, Elvis. King, ah, great!"

We've just done this very careful reading the first time through and Felton says, "You need to come in here and listen to this, Elvis." We're going, let's pray to God he doesn't take that. We go into the control room and they start playing it back telling him how great he is.

I'm thinking Elvis Presley's got a couple of thoughts going through his head: "Do I lose face in front of all my buddies by doing a second take after they've all said it's perfect - Felton's going to take it - or do I go back and work on this some more?"

It was a little embarrassing some of the recordings that Elvis made in the last part of his life, because a lot of these songs were done in one or two takes. From 10 o'clock to maybe about 1 or 2, we'd hammer out six or seven songs. And usually that would happen for a couple of reasons. First of all, there's the cheering squad jumping up and down. (Plus) Felton Jarvis has just renegotiated his deal. He gets $750 per side. He wants lots of sides.

We devised a little plan in order to get a second or third take. (While) it's playing back, I would go over to Elvis and punch him in the ribs. I'd say, "Elvis, do one more for me. I've got a great idea for the bridge I'd like to put in there. I hate to ask you to do it again." And he'd say, "Hey guys, look, we got to do one more for Put."

So now we've got a second take. Next time, David goes over and elbows him. And then, "Ah, let's do one for David." Now we got three takes out of it. And sometimes James Burton. But then we're out of guys. Four was about it, no more than four takes. If we could have worked on these records a little longer . . . but we couldn't. The fact that the music turned out as good as it did is a miracle.

Elvis knew all those sayings about how Sinatra would walk in and do it in one take. A lot of people didn't know that Frank would rehearse those songs with his pianist for two months before he'd walk in front of the orchestra. And the pianist would bring the charts so Frank knew everything the orchestra was going to do.

So Frank made it look as though he strolls in and gives this impeccable performance and the orchestra plays four songs in 20 minutes and the session's over. Elvis didn't understand any of that. I thought that weighed on him, too. He's supposed to be the king of music.

Priscilla

(One) particular week I noticed I had been booked for a session. David Briggs was booked for it. And talking to people, we found out no one else was booked. I finally called Felton and he very quietly explained to me, "Well, it's going to be a little different from the other sessions, I'll tell you about it when you get here."

We went down there at six o'clock on a Monday evening fully expecting to see Elvis at eight. (We) walk into the control room, there's Elvis Presley all on time sitting with a big smile on his face with his arm around (wife) Priscilla (Presley). We'd never seen Priscilla at a session. I'd never met Priscilla.

Elvis jumped up, drags Priscilla across the room. "Honey, this is Norbert Putnam and David Briggs. David played that great keyboard part on yaddah-dah-dah and Norbert was the one that played that bass part on yaddah-dah. And these are the greatest musicians in the world," he said. And so we're standing there basking in the glory of the King - it was nice to hear him say that - and she's going, "Really, no kidding."

And then Felton says, "Priscilla, I'll take you out and show you the studio. (Elvis) wants to show you how he mikes it." And so the engineer takes Priscilla out in the studio. Elvis says, "Now look, here's what's happening. Priscilla has been bugging me to come up here and see a session. And you know our sessions are such chaotic situations I wouldn't want her to really see the way our sessions are. So I was trying to figure out a way to bring her up here. Norbert and Dave, we're going to pretend this week to overdub on that record that we finished two months ago."

This record's already being pressed, OK?

He says, "Now Put, I'm going to say to you, `Remember that song I want to change the bass part on?' And then you and I'll go out. And I'm going to play your bass. I'm going to play this part and I'm going to give it to you. And you're supposed to go, `Great.'

"Then we're going to put it on the tape, right? And Priscilla's going to think we're recording, see. Then I'm going to say, `David, do you remember that . . .' and we're going to do the same thing. We'll only work for a couple of hours. Then I'm going to take her to dinner and we're going to have a date. And you guys will be free by eight o'clock."

Well, this sounds like the perfect gig, you know? (But) I said, "Well, the record's finished. It's kind of sneaky."

Elvis said, "Look" - and I'll never forget the way he said this - he said, "Look, guys, I love this woman very much. And I never want her to know what goes on in our sessions."

Elvis Presley was obviously a control freak. He wanted to control (Priscilla), leading her on. And he wanted to be sure that Priscilla saw these sessions in the right light, according to his vision. But I'll never forget that he said, "I love this woman very much." And for the first time, I felt this man really does love this woman. So we had this little charade all week. And I don't know if Priscilla has ever been told about it.

I was driving home thinking that's pretty bizarre, Norbert, what happened to you this week. And then a little voice said, You know, you should consider this a great compliment that Elvis Presley decided to include you and David in on his charade. He had just invited us into a wonderful five-day period of his life that expressed a lot of love that he had for Priscilla. It was a charade based on love, and I thought, well, it wasn't all that bad. Plus, I made a lot of money (laughs).

Singing style

Elvis could do everything, from a very quiet sensual moan and groan to a high panic scream, and was willing to do it within the context of a three-minute song, with no inhibitions whatsoever. Elvis was willing to go for any part of the emotion.

He had a greater arsenal of sounds than anyone else was willing to do. Sinatra would sing very straight and very calm and hardly ever get on the dynamic scale going anywhere. Crosby (the same). Then here's Elvis doing a ballad or screaming a rock and roll tune. . . . He invented all these sounds and he had them sort of placed there the way an organ player might have his stops. And he knew where to pull these stops out and where to put them back.

Elvis started with something that was very intuitive, very primal, very natural. But as he went along in his career, he noticed that certain aspects of his sound had greater impact and he started to embellish them and overdo them a little bit. At the end of his career, when I listen to those records, he's taking (himself) almost into a Dean Martin act, really overdoing it.

The end

It was coming up July, or maybe it was the first of August (1977). And Felton called me. He said, "Hey, Put, could you come over Thursday and do a bass overdub?" I said, "Yeah, who is it?" "Elvis, of course." I said, "A bass overdub?" He said, "Well, he did this live track." They had been recording a concert and all of a sudden, in the middle of the show, Elvis decided that he wanted to sing Unchained Melody [heard on "Moody Blue"] and it wasn't on the bill or had been in rehearsal. He ran over, commandeered the piano, pushed Tony Brown - now head of MCA in Nashville - off his stool, sat down and started pounding. The band didn't known what to do so they just stood there. Now they knew that song but they didn't know if he wanted to play it (solo). And he gives a good performance.

"And what we want to do, Put," he says, "is we're going to re-create the track." So I go down there on Thursday morning and Bobby Ogdin is re-creating the piano part listening to the King. It wasn't all easy because when that song goes up to the bridge - (names chords) five to a four to a three-flat - Elvis couldn't find the three-flat. But he hit the right note.

I came down the hall and I could hear that piano and that voice. Ogdin was just finishing. He signed a card and left. They plugged me in and we start. I put a bass part over Ogdin's piano part - this is making a record backwards.

And I remember sitting in the booth talking to Felton. I said, "Well, how is the King?"

"Ah, Put, you can't tell him nothing," he says. "Yesterday, he was still eating a lot. He had sixteen banana splits."

I said, "Well, is it totally obesity?"

"I think so. The other day for breakfast, he had a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and sixteen biscuits!"

I said, "Well, can't anyone do anything about this?" 'Cause he was just blimping up.

"Ah, you can't talk about it. If you tell him anything, he fires you or he won't speak to you."

I thought, well, this is a sad state of events and I put my bass part on (Unchained Melody). He had scheduled later that day for other people to come in and they built it into an orchestral Hilton Hotel strings-and-brass thing as they would do.

I took my family a couple of weeks later to Hawaii. One day I get in a rental car and when I turn on the radio, they were playing this old Presley song. And I thought isn't that odd that they'd be playing the King. It was early RCA, I think it was Don't. And when that finished, they played another one.

I pulled my car into a little country store. I'm getting all this stuff and I'm standing in line. And there's one of the hippie kids who had come over from California; they camped on the beach. He's standing there all fidgeting around like he can't get out in time.

When he gets up (to the register) he throws down two or three things and says, "Hey, did you hear about old El?"

The cashier said, "No, what?"

"Checked out!"

I was floored. I'm still floored.


[home] [articles]