March 6 1969

(+ means you need both ~ means same material °° means stereo or binaural ° means mono)
   

Decca Universal Studio, Universal City - Hollywood, California

  Soundtrack Session for "Change Of Habit"
  Universal Producer : William Goldenberg
  Engineers : Mel Metcalf / Phil Yen
   
  (7.00pm - 2.00am)
   

Musicians:   Backup Vocals:
       
  NA    

 

 Let Us Pray (Vocal Overdub) MB5 (MV5 ?) ZPA4 1957 March 6
  Take 1     (Vocal Overdub of March 5 'Track')  
  Take 2        
  Take 3        
  Take 4        
  Take 5        
  Take 6        
  Take NA PB   UN
  Take 8 (M)   UN
           
  Overdubs PB 3:04 (Backup V.O.'s on March 26) (Rejected) Memphis Tennessee° (Acetate)
  Overdubs (M) 3:08 (Backup V.O.'s on March 26) (Alt. Master) Today Tomorrow & Forever 3°°
           
  Dubdown (M)   (Dubdown to Track of Take 8)  
        (Elvis' vocals erased - Backup Vocals kept)  
           
  V.O. M 3:01 (Vocals re-recorded by Elvis on September 26) Gospel Jubilee (Franklin Mint Comp. Masters Collection 11)°°~I Believe - The Gospel Masters 4°°
          ~Double Features - Live A Little Love A Little / Charro / The Trouble With Girls / Change Of
          Habit°°~You'll Never Walk Alone (LP)°°+Soundtrack° (with Chorus)

 

Have A Happy (Vocal Overdub) MB6 (MV6 ?) ZPA4 1956 March 6
  Take 1        
  Take 2        
  Take 3        
  Take 4        
  Take 5        
  Take 6        
  Take 7 M 2:20 (Vocal Overdub of March 5 'Track') Big Screen Drama (Franklin Mint Complete Masters Collection 32)°°~Let's Be Friends (LP / CD)°°
        ~Double Features - Live A Little Love A Little / Charro / The Trouble With Girls / Change Of
          Habit°°~Memphis Tennessee (LP - Acetate)°+Soundtrack°

 

Notes:

It is a guess that Elvis added his vocal overdub to Let Us Pray (MB5/MV5?) and Have A Happy (MB6/MV6) this night. Credibility is given to this theory in the liner notes of 'Today Tomorrow & Forever' where it states that Let Us Pray was recorded on March 5 & 6. Until this release the recording date has always been stated as just March 5.

Two takes (MB5-NA/MV5-NA & MB5-08/MV5-08) may have been considered as master for Let Us Pray, having backup vocals overdubbed to both takes individually on March 26 by 'The Blossoms' (Darlene Love; Jean King & Fanita James)..

This is assumed because the backup vocals are totally different on Let Us Pray on the bootleg "Memphis Tennessee" from acetate, as opposed to the 'Alternate Master' (Take 8) on 'Today Tomorrow & Forever', but the backing 'Track' is identical.

Take NA must have then been discarded, in favour of Take 8 being used for the master.

Elvis' vocals were then removed (Dub Down to Track) from Take 8, although the backing vocals were kept, and Elvis re-recorded new lead vocals on September 26 in Nashville.

However, this is only a guess and does not explain why Have a Happy is listed as having production number MV6, rather than the expected MB6 (see 'A Life in Music'). 'MV' instead of 'MB' may imply vocal overdub, which could make Let Us Pray MV5 instead of MB5 if using the above logic!

The 'Movie Version' of Let Us Pray has extra backing vocals in the chorus, probably recorded on the movie set.

The 'Movie Version' of Have A Happy has the intro edited.

RCA originally had the date of Elvis recording Let Us Pray as being September 22 1969.

In March of 2007 SONY decided to go through all of Elvis' masters and they retransferred everything, remastered all tracks including repairing as many clicks, pops, bad edits and dropouts as they could. They have used these newly mastered recordings on their new releases including budget soundtracks, 'Legacy' releases and the Franklin Mint package.

Session Log.