‘Double Trouble’ (June 1966. 25 tracks, 54 mins).
Elvis’ 24th film and, along with ‘Easy Come, Easy Go’ from the same year, Elvis’ movie career was at rock bottom. Even Elvis self-depreciatingly said, “I wasn’t exactly a James Bond in this movie but then no one ever asked Sean Connery to sing a song while dodging bullets!”
What made it worse was that just one month earlier Elvis had started to redefine his musical roots at the important How Great Thou Art sessions. He had recorded Dylan’s ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’ as well as added an exciting R’n’B twist to ‘Down In The Alley’. Fifteen months later Elvis would be recording ‘Guitar Man’ with Jerry Reed and everything would change but here he was, yet again, recording sub-standard movie fare.
The day after the Double Trouble soundtrack session Elvis attended a Jackie Wilson concert and met with James Brown who was in the audience. These were two performers who were spearheading the new Soul movement that was dominating the charts along with The Beatles. And what song had the great Elvis Presley recorded the day before, ‘Old MacDonald Had A Farm’! I bet Elvis didn’t mention that to The Godfather of Soul!
At this point Elvis was still exploring his spiritual side and who could blame him? He told Self-Realization Centre leader Daya Mata at the time that he was sick of the infighting & turmoil in his life.
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