Although his name would become synonymous with rock n’ roll, Elvis Presley remained a country boy at heart. Born and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, Red Foley’s hillbilly hit “Old Shep” was the first song a 10-year-old Elvis ever performed live. Reared on country, gospel and blues music, Presley carried all of those influences with him throughout his illustrious career. He would find himself atop the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart 11 times — including with his own rendition of Jerry Reed’s “Guitar Man”, recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio B on this day (September 10) in 1967.
Elvis Presley Enlisted Jerry Reed Himself for This Cover
Guess who’s leadin’ that five-piece band / Well, wouldn’t ya know, it’s that swingin’ little guitar man.
So sang Jerry Reed on the self-penned “Guitar Man”, which mirrored his own professional journey to Nashville. Reed released the song as part of his 1967 album The Unbelievable Guitar and Voice of Jerry Reed.
“Guitar Man” was only a modest commercial success, peaking at number 53 on the Billboard country charts. But it caught the attention of Elvis Presley, who was determined to cut the song when he arrived in Nashville to record.
Rather than make “Guitar Man” entirely his own, Presley wanted to remain as faithful as possible to the original Reed version.
However, once he began recording, it was soon clear that the song was missing a key ingredient — Jerry Reed himself.
So Felton Jarvis, Presley’s producer at RCA Victor, set out to track down Reed, who had recently embarked on a fishing expedition on the Cumberland River.
“He said, ‘Elvis is down here. We’ve been trying to cut ‘Guitar Man’ all day long. He wants it to sound like it sounded on your album,’” Reed later recalled. “I finally told him, ‘Well, if you want it to sound like that, you’re going have to get me in there to play guitar, because these guys are straight pickers. I pick with my fingers and tune that guitar up all weird kind of ways.’”
“He Knew We Had It”
Thus, Jerry Reed walked through the studio doors looking “‘like a sure-enough Alabama wild man,” according to Jarvis.
“You know, he hadn’t shaved in about a week, and he had them old clogs on – that was just the way he dressed,” Jarvis said. “He comes in and Elvis looked at him and said, ‘Lord, have mercy, what is that!’”
Reed had to deal with some good-natured ribbing from Elvis Presley about his unkempt appearance. However, the King was much more concerned about his guitar picking than his five o’clock shadow.
“I hooked up that electric gut string, tuned the B-string up a whole tone, and I toned the low E-string down a whole tone, so I could bar straight across,” Reed said. “And as soon as we hit the intro, you could see Elvis’ eyes light up. He knew we had it.”
Elvis’ Final No. 1 Country Hit
Elvis Presley included “Guitar Man” on the soundtrack for the 1967 musical beach comedy Clambake, which he starred in alongside Shelley Fabares and Bill Bixby.
After a decade of churning out mostly unremarkable songs for forgettable films, Presley opened his famous 1968 comeback special with a medley of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Trouble” and “Guitar Man”.
He performed the number under dark, moody stage lighting, reinforcing the “dangerous” image he had earned at the height of his career.
Three years after the King’s death in August 1977, Felton Jarvis supervised a re-recording of “Guitar Man”, which again featured Jerry Reed’s distinctive guitar licks.
In March 1981, this updated version of “Guitar Man” spent one week atop the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, marking the final-number one country hit of Presley’s career.
Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
The post 59 Years Ago Today, Elvis Presley Interrupted Jerry Reed’s Fishing Trip To Record His Final Country No. 1 appeared first on American Songwriter.
Go To Source | Author: Erinn Callahan
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