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Suspicious Minds
Music & Lyrics: Francis Zambon

With a perfect eye for a hit, Elvis takes Suspicious Minds to No. one in the American charts in 1969. He does so with the same musicians who accompanied songwriter Mark James the year before. After the success of The King, James - whose true name is Francis Rodney Zambon - can boast success with many distinguished singers, among them Waylon Jennings (’70), Thelma Houston (’80), Fine Young Cannibals (’86), Dwight Yoakam (’92) in the film Honeymoon In Vegas, and now Helmut Lotti.

Helmut: ‘Elvis’s version of Suspicious Minds is so distinct, it is hard to change anything about it. That is why I decided to make the basically sad content more important. By means of a slow start, I respect the tone of the message and put more stress on the drama. Starting slowly is also correct from another point of view. It is a musical statement: with my tribute to Elvis I do not intend to make anything but a rock album. Elvis is so much more than a pure rock star.’

One Night with You
Music & Lyrics: Pearl King / Dave Bartholomew / Anita Steiman

Elvis's early success did not suffer through his military service in Germany. On the contrary, even though the young "god" was not in the country, he continued scoring hits, including One Night (With You), originally sung with an unmistakably double meaning. In the 1956 New Orleans version by Smiley Lewis it was still called One Night Of Sin (Is What I’m Praying For), but Elvis's entourage thought it wiser not to highlight those "sins". Having been censored into One Night With You meant the song could go on air and it easily got to number 1. Fats Domino (1961), Mud (1975) and others followed the King’s example, but Joe Cocker (1989), on the contrary, returned to the "sinful" version.

Helmut: ‘By adding a wind section, I gain some of the original ambiguity in a musical way. The brass sound pumps up the song, as if we were moving from Memphis to New Orleans, from Graceland to the Vieux Carré Rouge.’

The Righteous Brothers - not brothers but Californian friends - owe their first hit in the slow branch of blue-eyed soul to the genius of a producer Harvey "Phil" Spector, who placed them in 1965 in contrast to his characteristic "wall of sound". When co-author Barry Mann first heard the recording, he thought the single was playing at the wrong speed. But soon enough it became a classic song because of the numerous covers by really big artists, e.g. Cilla Black (1965), Dionne Warwick (1969), Isaac Hayes (1970), Human League (1979), Neil Diamond and Dolly Parton (1993) and of course, last but not least, Elvis Presley in 1971.

Helmut: ‘At that time Elvis could still - maybe again - rock like the best. But he also chose the role of entertainer with a big orchestra. He performed in the International Hotel in Las Vegas (now the Las Vegas Hilton) or Madison Square Garden in New York. That contrast is beautifully shown in his more or less jerky version of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. He sounds more staccato; whereas I chose to have the sound of the orchestra more rolling.’

In 1960, two years after Teenager In Love - their big hit together - the songwriting duo put A Mess Of Blues on the B-side of Elvis’s It’s Now Or Never. It was the first contribution by the legendary Doc Promus and Mort Shuman to Elvis’s oeuvre. Soon enough Promus/Shuman were granted a "royal warrant", when - in the early sixties - they wrote classics like Surrender, Little Sister, His Latest Flame, Suspicion, Viva Las Vegas and Kiss Me Quick.

Helmut: ‘When you hear the bass and the soprano singing together you may not realize what is happening; that is Elvis, you cannot change that. I was unable to resist the temptation, though, to work out an arrangement for strings, so that Kiss Me Quick somehow does get that Lotti stamp.’

Artie Glenn wrote Crying In The Chapel for his son Darrell. But it was Elvis who made it into pure gospel. He did it, as a matter of fact, during a nocturnal recording session, which gives the Jordanaires that lovely sleepy rhythm. Though it dates from 1960, it only became a number 1 hit in the U.K. in 1965, because before that Artie Glenn did not want to share the publisher’s rights. In the meantime, Little Richard (1963) had seen the light too. And later others like Don McLean (1974) and Aaron Nevile (1995) followed.

Helmut: I definitely wanted a gospel song on My Tribute To The King. After all, How great Thou Art of 1967 is the only single that got him a Grammy Award. How appropriate. Elvis was a skillful gospel singer, because he grasped the soul of gospel and still remained himself. So, when trying to cover the different periods in Elvis’s carreer, I certainly could not skip gospel. And Elvis gave Crying In The Chapel such a convincing rendition, that my version comes pretty close to the original. I have only added a small intro and a real pipe organ.

It was Colonel Parker himself who asked Elvis in 1960 to record the 33-year-old ballad. Though originally by Al "The Jazz Singer" Jolson, it was the favourite song of Parker’s wife in the version by Gene Austin. In his pre-war life, Parker had been the manager of country singer Austin. But Elvis made it into a worldwide success, partly due to his parlando intermezzo "The world’s a stage…", that was recorded with many obstacles. That philosophical elaboration taken from Shakespeare generated a great deal of parodies and reply songs (like Yes, I’m Lonely Tonight by Thelma Carpenter). But Are You Lonesome Tonight was also parodied by Elvis himself. Even though it has been released posthumously, it also became the "song of the giggles". When the King changed his text, he caused hilarity in Las Vegas.

Helmut: For Are You Lonesome Tonight I preferred the sound of Santa Lucia the way it was recorded on Classic I: a bit waltzing, a bit jazzy, a bit smaller too. That is why the Jordanaires have been replaced by strings on marimba. But the unmistakably biggest merit is Roby Lakatos, the gipsy violinist with Hungarian roots. The incredible beauty of his weeping gipsy violin!… It makes you go quiet. I bow to that, to so much wonderful, emotional class. It makes me intensely happy.

This composition from 1962 gave Schroeder and Gold unanimous approval. That was a change from It’s Now Or Never, a song which both signed without a blush, not acklnowledging the original songwriter of O Sole Mio, Eduardo di Capua. But that is a story Helmut Lotti has already told on Classic I.

Helmut: It became a bit higher and faster, but besides that I deliberately did not try to emphasize the swing of Good Luck Charm with a wind section. After all, it is another kind of swing, a relaxed swing which you should not pump up.

More than any other song on My Tribute To The King, Thank You bears the stamp of Elvis Presley. Aficionados will surely recognize references to a handful of Elvis classics. But the author is Helmut Lotti himself.

Helmut: When I played Thank You to an Elvis admirer, he thought Elvis had created it in the period he was married to Priscilla Beaulieu. Well yes, the chorus is pure Elvis; it could have been the Jordanaires. After all, my whole life I have been immersed in Elvis. The mistake is therefore maybe understandable, but also all the more flattering.

Clide McPatter & The Drifters add more than a hint to the suggestive lyrics. Johnny Ray sings it more languorously. When the Americans had to vote in that same year, 1954, they preferred The Drifters and the decent version of Such A Night. Later on, in 1960, after his military service, Elvis added some spirit to the narrow-minded music ethics.

Helmut: When an up-tempo rhythm is preferred, I choose Such A Night, because vocally it is very interesting. By singing it, you can show off. But in my ears there was also a wind section, which gave it a nicer, more swinging feeling.

Immediately after the release of the original song, sung by co-author Barry Mann in 1961, I Just Can’t Help Believing was an often-performed song from Bobby Vee to Wayne Newton. After Elvis’s version in 1970, it took a long while before anyone else interpreted the song. In 1983 Boystown Gang made it into a hit again and in 2002 Helmut Lotti adds his contemporary version.

Helmut: I knew that with today's recording technology, I Just Can’t Help Believing would surely sound different. But that is what is great about My Tribute To The King. I Just Can’t Help Believing gains in impact. I first heard the song when I was 17 years old and it definitely deserves to be better known.

At first, the composers Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden tried to have their song performed by the country duo The Wilburn Brothers. They refused, though, because it was "too depressing". But Elvis had also listened to The Condition I’m In of Roy Hawkins and, with shaking hips, sang it with his unmistakable, royal signature. Celebrities like Buddy Love (1957), Kevin Ayers (1974), Willie Nelson & Leon Russell (1979), John Cale (1984) or The Cramps (1986) acknowledged Elvis’s mastery by their own versions.

Helmut: Heartbreak Hotel was Elvis’s first number 1 hit, so I simply had to add it to My Tribute To The King. And I am proud of the result. When you listen to both Elvis’s and my Heartbreak Hotel, you do hear the difference. Elvis’s guitar playing is more aggressive, mine is rounder, less harsh, more me. Without listening to other performers, I did add a touch of blues, some jazzy colouring and easy symphonic music. I knew right away how I wanted it to sound. And, you know, I think Elvis himself would appreciate that approach.

Mac Davis became known as a songwriter thanks to In The Ghetto (1969) and Elvis later also performed Don’t Cry Daddy, Clean Up Your Own Backyard and Charro - all composed by Mac Davis. In The Ghetto, like many other Elvis classics, was later also beautifully performed by Dolly Parton (1969), Solomon Burke (1970) and Nick Cave (1984).

Helmut: In The Ghetto is the first song I performed on stage accompanied by guitar, on the occasion of an open house in my school. And even now, after so many years, I deliberately kept the arrangement very simple. Because of the lyrical character of Elvis’s best-known version, it almost became a sentimental song. An alternative version he made - with an extra bar and without chorus or strings - puts more stress on the drama and the story. Sometimes it is better to leave something out, like here, the first bars without drums. There is only guitar, bass and my voice. In Elvis’s version the chorus replies after every sentence: In the ghetto. With a weeping guitar - an arrangement I made - and a less prominent chorus, I wanted to create a more balanced, modern version, one that does justice to the rawness of the story.

If You Were Mine refers to Elvis in 1969, the album From Elvis In Memphis that covered marvelous songs like Any Day Now and You’ll Think Of Me or Only The Strong Survive. But it is the second song written by Helmut Lotti.

Helmut: You may think my songs are of no importance to Elvis admirers. But I do hope they are happy with this, because it sounds as if it were an alternative track by the King. It is indeed sung differently - lighter, my natural style - but the song as a whole breathes the same atmosphere.

Though at first it did not even seem to be worth an A-side, Et Maintenant has been part of the regular repertoire of hundreds of artists since 1962, both in a French or English version. Some examples: Shirley Bassey (1962), Sonny & Cher (1966), Judy Garland (1967), Lee Dorsey (1969), Elvis Presley (1973), Frank Sinatra (1980).

Helmut: Elvis immortalized What Now My Love so incomparably on Aloha From Hawaii, that I copied it entirely.

Otis Blackwell played an important role in those first rock ’n’ roll years. After writing a handful of songs which he recorded himself, he turned to songwriting mainly for others like Fever for Peggy Lee (1956), Great Balls Of Fire for Jerry Lee Lewis (1958) and All Shook Up for Elvis Presley (1956). For and with Elvis he also wrote Don’t Be Cruel (1956), Paralysed (1957), One Broken Heart For Sale (1963) and this Return To Sender (1962).

Helmut: At my first performance ever, in school, I sang Return To Sender while the single was playing. I was 15 and scored my first small success. On My Tribute To The King I simply return to my roots.

The hit Love Me Tender is the title song of Elvis’s first and - to many people - best film (1956). The story is set in the days of the American civil war. That is why the song is based on an original folk ballad from that time (1861); a ballad with the title Aura Lee, as performed by Frances Farmer for the film Come and Get It (1936). After Elvis, other performers stood in line, like Percy Sledge (1967), B.B. King (1982) and Amy Grant (1992) in the film Honeymoon in Vegas.

Helmut: In my teens, when I still participated in contests, Love Me Tender was sung all the time. But with such a song full of character and feeling, you did not stand a chance in that circuit. However it is hard to perform it in any other way than the moving way Elvis did. My arrangement is nothing but an evolution adapted to the needs of our time. Like My Tribute To The King as a whole it is my version, in the year 2002, of something timeless, Elvis Presley’s music.