When Graceland revs up its engines for this year’s Elvis Week, one event will feature some of the greatest players to ever back up the King. Elvis or no, any show with musicians like James Burton, David Briggs, Charlie McCoy, and Norbert Putnam on one stage would be notable, for they are some of the famed Nashville Cats, hitmakers for countless stars in their day. Naturally, that’s the crew Elvis would call on when he worked in Nashville, as he did for the legendary June 1970 “marathon sessions” in RCA Studio B that yielded over three dozen tracks, spanning four albums. On Friday, fans can hear those very players recreate some of those songs live.
Luckily for us, bassist Norbert Putnam, who Elvis called “Putt,” remembers those sessions like they were yesterday. He devotes a chapter to them in his book, Music Lessons: A Musical Memoir, but, needing to hear more details, I rang him up at his hometown of Florence, Alabama.
Memphis Flyer: Those few sessions in 1970 were prolific. They must have proceeded at a whirlwind pace.
Norbert Putnam: I think we recorded 39 sides and they kept 35, in five nights. And they named it the marathon sessions, which makes it sound like we were struggling the whole time. But it was easy. It was like falling off a log to work with Elvis Presley. A lot of times, Elvis would get it on the first take. He was so sharp. He was such a quick study.
I suppose you Nashville Cats were quick studies as well.
We were all trained to grab a legal pad and start writing when the demo started playing. As it played, I would note the bass part and the chords. We would have a chart, literally, in four minutes. And Elvis might play that vocal by the demo singer, sometimes four or five times. Then he’d turn around and say, “You guys have that? Well, let’s run it down.” [Jerry] Carrigan would count it off, and this band would play it flawlessly. Elvis would say,“‘How do you do that?!”
In your book, you say publishers would pitch songs to Elvis, and if he didn’t like one, he’d wad up the lyric sheet and toss it in the trash.
Oh, he loved to do that! And he did it in jest. He’d say, “Lamar, how dare you bring me such a piece of crap?”
So he had to be really into it before you would get around to actually tracking it.
Yeah, he didn’t record any songs just to please the publishers. And he never slowly worked his way up to the keeper vocal. He started off full blast. I’d see him just before the red light came on, and he’d be breathing like a fullback, like, “Gimme the ball!”
And he was standing in front of us, holding an RE15 mic, which is what he used on stage in Las Vegas, with a 30-foot cable on it. He’s got that in his right hand, he’s got the lyric sheet in the other, and he’s looking at us, and prodding us. It would be like, “Hang on!”
These were all night sessions, weren’t they?
The only bad thing about working with Elvis Presley was, he was nocturnal. He got up at 5 in the afternoon, had breakfast at 6. At 10 p.m., when he says, “Let’s record,” I have already been working for 12 hours! By 4 a.m., it was all I could to keep my eyes open. When we did “Merry Christmas, Baby,” I was just trying to stay awake.
Elvis sang it; then he starts singing it all over again, without stopping. Now I’m dying. It’s over seven minutes. He says to James Burton, “Take it, James,” and James starts playing. Two bars later, Elvis yells, “Wake up, Putt!” He’d probably been watching me with my eyes shut all the way through the song. But he continued to hire me!
The Nashville Marathon Sessions 50th Anniversary Concert takes place Friday, August 13, 7 p.m., Soundstage at Graceland; tickets are $78, $68, $58, and $48. For more on this and other events, visit graceland.com.
