History:
"I had to leave town for a little while," sings Elvis in the opening line of his 1969 album From Elvis In Memphis, and although the words, as usual, weren't his own, he made them speak volumes. The King hadn't left anything but the stage and the Top 40, of course, but those were the most important places in the world to Elvis, a man for whom fame and its poorer but wiser counterpart, recognition, meant more than money.The album he cut in the ghetto of Memphis with producer Chips Moman would, of course, settle all those old questions, solidifying the comeback he'd begun with the previous year's NBC Christmas special. But, also as usual with Presley, his triumph pointed the way to more trouble: now a family man, he was being encouraged by ego and entourage to continue behaving like a rock star. The rules weren't written for such things back then -- another frontier Elvis was blazing, whether he knew it or not -- but Priscilla wasn't Gladys, wouldn't love him no matter what he did.
The problem Presley would have to come to grips with as "Suspicious Minds," "Don't Cry Daddy," and "In The Ghetto" returned him to the forefront of modern American life was how to stay mature and still be sexy, how to become Vegas' biggest draw without seeming like an old showbiz hack, and how to grow up in public when no serious demands had been placed on him since the age of seventeen. Elvis wouldn't have much trouble staying "relevant" among the tumult of 1970: good music is good music, he might have said, and the story within it only changes a bit. But he was still surrounded with admirers and even family members who would do anything he wanted, at any time, and how was a person supposed to mature like that?
Next... Elvis 1969 timeline
