BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 119
C U LT U R E & A RT S
recorded them both, and the single
went to number 2 in the American
charts. I was over the moon, and
Freddy was delighted that we had
come up with a double A-side smash
for Elvis. It turned out to be Elvis’s
last top ten hit.
I always felt that Elvis deserved
bigger and better production values on
his records, particularly the ballads.
He had a wonderful operatic tone in
his voice that could cope with, and
be heightened by, the sound of a full
symphony orchestra.
Clive Westlake
Ever since Jailhouse Rock back in
Wagga Wagga, Elvis had been in my
DNA, so it was a joy to look for songs
for him, and I’d already found a few:
Twenty Days and Twenty Nights, cowritten by Clive, and Just Pretend, by
Fletcher and Flett, as well as I’ve Lost
You and The Fair’s Movin’ On.
I’d listen to the demos that the writers
made: they often used a session singer
called Peter Lee Sterling who could
sound like Elvis, making it easier for
Elvis to imagine how his vocals might
work when he was in the studio.
And so, some 45 years later, having
had this idea in my mind and having
created my own original concepts
with symphony orchestras on two
hit albums – Classic Rock, with the
London Symphony Orchestra (we
recorded another eight albums), and
Hooked on Classics, with the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra (and two
more of them) – and having made four
albums with the legendary Michael
Crawford employing the talents of
both of those great orchestras, I came
up with the concept of taking Elvis’s
great songs, including both hits and
lesser-known album tracks, and
having them arranged for an album of
great quality and class for the RPO.
It took me 昀椀ve years of determination
and passion to convince the powersthat-be at Sony Music. Then I had
the thrill of meeting Priscilla Presley,
Elvis’s ex-wife and, as an actress
in Dallas and the Naked Gun 昀椀lm
series, a star in her own right, as
well as a smart businesswoman
who had overseen the opening of
Graceland as a museum. At the time,
she was performing in pantomime
at Wimbledon, so I invited her to
afternoon tea and told her about my
vision for Elvis.
Thankfully, she thought the idea was
great, and said it was something that
Elvis would have loved to do. So
between us we convinced Sony to let
me go into Abbey Road Studios with
the RPO, and try out my idea.
Well, it worked a charm and the
album If I Can Dream was born. It
went straight to number one, selling
more than a million CDs in the UK
alone. Worldwide, it has sold 5 million
copies (and counting).
We went on to make two more
albums with Elvis and the RPO, and
launched six tours with Elvis and the
RPO, including venues in the UK,
Europe... and back in Australia, where
my dream had been born all those
years before. Elvis may have left the
building, but his spirit lives on in our
hearts.
In 1972, just at the time I had It’s
a Matter Of Time in my head, the
president of Carlin, Freddy Bienstock
(Jean Aberbach’s cousin, incidentally),
made one of his frequent visits to
London and asked me to 昀椀nd new
material for Elvis. He was scheduled
to record in Memphis in the following
couple of months.
So, without Clive knowing, I quietly
borrowed the demo from his drawer
while he was on holiday, and I played
it to Freddy. I told him that Elvis
needed an up-tempo song to prove to
the world that he was still the King of
Rock’n’Roll. Freddy agreed, played
it to Elvis, and he loved it. Elvis’s
producer Felton Jarvis matched it with
Dennis Linde’s Burning Love, Elvis
recorded them both, and the single
Priscilla Presley and Don Reedman
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