Speedway (album)

Speedway
Soundtrack album by Elvis Presley
Released May 1, 1968
Recorded June 1967
Genre Soundtrack
Length 28:26
Label RCA Records
Producer Jeff Alexander
Elvis Presley chronology
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4
(1968)		 Speedway
(1968)		 NBC-TV Special
(1968)

Speedway is the thirty-second album by Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono and stereo, LPM/LSP 3989, in May 1968 — the May 1 date is disputed. Recording sessions took place at MGM Studios in Hollywood, California, on June 20 and 21, 1967. It peaked at #82 on the Billboard 200.

Contents

Content

By June 1967, while Presley was toiling at the sessions for this soundtrack, the recent release of the magnum opus by The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had the music industry in thrall. The Velvet Underground & Nico would build its influence through the decades, and Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane, the debut by The Doors, and I Never Loved A Man the Way I Love You by Aretha Franklin were all top-selling albums.[1] The Monterey Pop Festival had taken place just the past weekend some 300 miles up the California coast from where Presley was working. He was probably aware of some of the changes being wrought in popular music around him, but in his own increasingly isolated world he was most aware that there were more lousy soundtrack songs to record.[2]

Eight tracks were recorded at the sessions, with "Suppose," the only song that held interest for Elvis, dropped from the movie.[3] Two tracks were pulled for a single, "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby" with "Let Yourself Go" on its b-side, and both sides made the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 but bombed sales-wise.[4] "There Ain't Nothing Like A Song," rejected from the soundtrack for Spinout, was one of two songs that feature the lead vocals of Nancy Sinatra, here in duet with Presley.[5] All her vocals, and her "Your Groovy Self," the only time a track without Elvis featured on any of his releases, were recorded at a separate session on June 26, produced by Lee Hazlewood.[6] Three leftover tracks, including one from the May 1963 "lost album" sessions, were unearthed to round out the album.

Speedway took over the new low for chart position and album sales by Presley, shifting units numbered in five figures, jeopardizing his recording career.[7] Much to his relief, it killed the soundtrack formula, this being the final Presley dramatic feature film to have a full soundtrack album. His last five movies of the decade — Stay Away, Joe, Live A Little, Love A Little, Charro!, The Trouble with Girls, and Change of Habit — concentrated on Presley the actor, not Presley the singer, with minimal song requirements.[8] It is also the last Presley album to be released in both stereo and mono editions as mono was being phased out by the industry, thus making the rare mono pressing of Speedway (LPM-3989) a sought-after item among collectors[9] Three songs from this album appear on the 1995 survey of his 1960s soundtrack recordings: the two sides of the single, and the title track.

Personnel

June 26 session

Track listing

Chart positions from Billboard Hot 100

Side one

Track Recorded Catalogue Release Date Chart Peak Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 6/20/67 Speedway Mel Glazer and Stephen Schlaks 2:15
2. 6/20/67 There Ain't Nothing Like A Song Joy Byers and Bob Johnston 2:11
3. 6/20/67 47-9547 5/21/68 #72 Your Time Hasn't Come Yet, Baby Joel Hirschhorn, Al Kasha 1:51
4. 6/20/67 Who Are You (Who Am I?) Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne 2:49
5. 6/21/67 He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne 2:30
6. 6/21/67 47-9547b 5/21/68 #71 Let Yourself Go Joy Byers 2:58

Side two

Track Recorded Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 6/26/67 Your Groovy Self (vocals by Nancy Sinatra Lee Hazlewood 2:54
2. 6/20/67 Five Sleepy Heads Roy C. Bennett and Sid Tepper 1:39
3. 5/27/63 Western Union Roy C. Bennett and Sid Tepper 2:09
4. 9/10/67 Mine Roy C. Bennett and Sid Tepper 2:35
5. 1/15/68 Goin' Home Joy Byers 2:27
6. 6/20/67 Suppose Sylvia Dee and George Goehring 2:08

References

  1. ^ Miller, Jim, editor. The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, second edition. New York: Random House, 1980; pp. 254, 274, 284.
  2. ^ Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; p. 228.
  3. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 229-230.
  4. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 244.
  5. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 228.
  6. ^ Elvis Presley sessionography
  7. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 262.
  8. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 239, 243, 260, 261, 279.
  9. ^ Megocollector website

External links