''Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old)'' is the thirteenth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...

by American singer and musician

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...

, released on

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also ...

(LSP 4460) in January 1971. Recorded at

RCA Studio B RCA Studio B was a music recording studio built in 1956 in Nashville, Tennessee by RCA Victor. Originally known simply as "RCA Studios," Studio B, along with the larger and later RCA Studio A became known in the 1960s for being an essential fa ...

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and th ...

, it reached number 12 on the ''Billboard'' 200. It peaked at number six in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, selling over one million copies worldwide. It was certified Gold on December 1, 1977 by the

Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

. The lead single of the album, "

I Really Don't Want to Know "I Really Don't Want to Know" is a popular song written by Don Robertson (music) Howard Barnes (lyrics). The song was published in 1953. The best-known version of the song was recorded by Les Paul and Mary Ford in 1953, one of the top 100 songs ...

" backed with " There Goes My Everything", was released on December 8, 1970 and peaked at number 21 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, number two on the Adult Contemporary chart, and number 23 on the country singles chart.

Content

The bulk of the album came from five days of recording sessions in June 1970 which yielded 35 usable tracks. Presley performed every track "live", recording his vocal part in the same take as the band, as was standard practice for him. Eight tracks from the session were released two months earlier in November 1970 on the '' That's the Way It Is'' album. During the sessions, Presley and producer Felton Jarvis realized they had several

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whi ...

songs in hand and decided to record several more to create a full album of country material. Needing two more satisfactory tracks, Elvis returned to the same studio in September where he recorded "

Snowbird Snowbird is a common name for the dark-eyed junco (''Junco hyemalis''). Snowbird may also refer to: Places *Snowbird, Utah, an unincorporated area and associated ski resort *Snowbird Lake, a lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada *Snowbird ...

" and a manic, one-take version of "

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" (sometimes rendered "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On") is a song written by Dave "Curlee" Williams and sometimes also credited to James Faye "Roy" Hall. The song was first recorded by Big Maybelle, though the best-k ...

." Nearly every style of country music is represented: bluegrass,

honky tonk A honky-tonk (also called honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano ( tack piano) ...

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...

rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and b ...

countrypolitan The Nashville Sound originated during the mid-1950s as a subgenre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of the rough honky tonk music, which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s, with "smooth strings and choruses", "sophis ...

, and even the then-nascent "

outlaw An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill th ...

" movement. Snippets of the song "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" act as a bridge between each track. After this album, Presley would return to his usual practice of recording a seemingly random batch of songs on each trip to the recording studio, letting his producer assemble them into albums.

Reissues

The June 14, 2004,

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...

reissue included six bonus tracks from the same sessions. Three of them had been previously released on the LP ''

Love Letters from Elvis ''Love Letters from Elvis'' is the fourteenth studio album by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, released in 1971. The album was critically panned upon release, and failed to crack the top 20 of the Billboard album charts but did reach N ...

''. The others were the B-side " Where Did They Go, Lord?" (a track that made its first LP appearance on the 1978 compilation "He Walks Beside Me"), and the unabridged version of "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" later released on '' Elvis Now''. In 2008 ''Elvis Country'' was reissued on the Follow That Dream label in a special two-disc edition that contained the original album tracks along with numerous alternate takes. In late 2011, RCA Legacy (owned by Sony) announced a two-CD "Legacy Edition" set of the ''Elvis Country'' album. Enthusiasm was short-lived as fans quickly criticized the decision to pair the album with the leftover set that was 1970's ''Love Letters'' LP instead of compiling rarities from the acclaimed ''Elvis Country'' set. However, both albums originated from the same recording sessions. An unreleased Quadraphonic version is also known to exist.

Track listing

Original release

2000 reissue bonus tracks

2012 legacy edition reissue

Personnel

Sourced from Keith Flynn. * Elvis Presley –

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...

, acoustic rhythm guitar on "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" and "Little Cabin on the Hill", harmony vocals on "Snowbird" and "There Goes My Everything" *

James Burton James Edward Burton (born August 21, 1939, in Dubberly, Louisiana) is an American guitarist. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since 2001 (his induction speech was given by longtime fan Keith Richards), Burton has also been recognized ...

–

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the fe ...

dobro Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson (guitar company), Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. ...

Chip Young Chip Young (born Jerry Marvin Stembridge, May 19, 1938 – December 20, 2014) was an American session guitarist, and later record producer who worked primarily out of Nashville, Tennessee. Biography Chip Young was born Jerry Marvin Stembridge in ...

– acoustic

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., drum kit, bass guitar ...

Eddie Hinton Eddie Hinton (15 June 1944 – 28 July 1995) was an American songwriter and session musician, best known for his work with soul music and R&B singers. He played lead guitar for Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1969 to 1971 and after leaving th ...

– lead guitar on "Snowbird" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" * David Briggs –

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

on "Little Cabin on the Hill" and "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water" *

Norbert Putnam Norbert Auvin Putnam (born August 10, 1942) is an American musician, studio owner and record producer who was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019.Robert McFarland, Jr"Norbert Putnam."'' Delta Business Journal''. November 2004. Acce ...

–

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

Jerry Carrigan Jerry Kirby Carrigan (September 13, 1943 – June 22, 2019) was an American drummer and record producer. Early in his career he was a member of the original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and later worked as a session musician in Nashville for over ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

Charlie McCoy Charles Ray McCoy (born March 28, 1941) is a Grammy-winning American session musician, harmonica player, and multi-instrumentalist. In 2009, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Based in Nashville, McCoy's playing is heard on r ...

– harmonica, organ,

vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...

on "I Really Don't Want to Know" * Charlie Hodge – acoustic rhythm guitar except "Snowbird" and "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On" ;Overdubbed * Farrell Morris –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

and

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...

on "Snowbird", "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Make the World Go Away", "I Really Don't Want To Know", "Faded Love" and "Tomorrow Never Comes" *

Harold Bradley Harold Ray Bradley (January 2, 1926 – January 31, 2019) was an American guitarist and entrepreneur, who played on many country, rock and pop recordings and produced numerous TV variety shows and movie soundtracks. Having started as a session ...

–

electric sitar An electric sitar is a type of electric guitar designed to mimic the sound of the sitar, a traditional musical instrument of India. Depending on the manufacturer and model, these instruments bear varying degrees of resemblance to the tradition ...

on "Snowbird" *

Weldon Myrick Weldon Myrick (born Weldon Merle Myrick; April 10, 1938 – June 2, 2014) was an American steel guitar player.pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can ...

on "Little Cabin on the Hill" * Bobby Thompson – banjo (on "Little Cabin on the Hill") *

Buddy Spicher Buddy Spicher (born July 28, 1938 in DuBois, Pennsylvania; pronounced “Spiker”) is an American country music fiddle player. He is a member of The Nashville A-Team of session musicians, and is Grammy-nominated. He was nominated as Instrumenta ...

– fiddle (on "Little Cabin on the Hill") * The Imperials Quartet – backing vocals *

The Jordanaires The Jordanaires were an American vocal quartet that formed as a gospel group in 1948. Over the years, they recorded both sacred and secular music for recording companies such as Capitol Records, RCA Victor, Columbia Records, Decca Records, Vocal ...

– backing vocals (on "Funny How Time Slips Away", "There Goes My Everything" and "Make The World Go Away") * Joe Babcock – backing vocals *

Millie Kirkham Millie Kirkham (born Mildred Eakes; June 24, 1923 – December 14, 2014) was an American singer who was featured on many classic hit recordings from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. Early life Kirkham was born Mildred Eakes in Hermitage, Tenne ...

– backing vocals * Mary Holladay – backing vocals * Ginger Holladay – backing vocals * June Page – backing vocals * Sonja Montgomery – backing vocals * Dolores Edgin – backing vocals * Mary Greene – backing vocals * Temple Riser – backing vocals * Cam Mullins – string arrangements * Don Tweedy – string arrangements * Bergen White – horn arrangements ;Production staff * Felton Jarvis – producer

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Elvis Country (I'M 10, 000 Years Old) 1971 albums Elvis Presley albums Albums produced by Felton Jarvis RCA Records albums