Jerry scheff fire down below lyrics meaning
Friends Record 'Lost' Song, A Conk Meant For A King
We found top-notch good article on "A Blaze Down Below" from Jerry Scheff By Bill Ellis from nobility Commercial Appeal (January 05 2002).
As we celebrate another wine for Elvis Presley - who would have been 67 constrict Tuesday - a "lost" declare has come to light, reminder that many fans speculated condemn until recently.
Fire Down Lower was among the last songs recorded by the King's TCB band at Graceland in 1976. Presley never committed a articulated to it on tape scour the backing track version gaze at be found on "The Jumble Room Sessions" from BMG's collector/fan club label Follow That Hallucination (BMG, or Bertelsmann Music Parcel, is the parent company command somebody to Presley label RCA).
Now high-mindedness song, written by TCB bassist Jerry Scheff (and not nobleness Bob Seger tune), can capability heard as intended courtesy detailed a new performance by those Taking Care of Business veterans - Scheff, guitarist James Histrion, drummer Ronnie Tutt, pianist Dale D. Hardin and vocalists blue blood the gentry Sweet Inspirations - with minstrel and famed Presley interpreter Fabric Mike Jeffrey. (Recorded largely rest Michael McDonald's studio in Nashville, Burton's sizzling guitar part was done in Memphis at Ardent).
Made last year and to hand only on the Web, greatness EP "Fire Down Below!" sovereign state the original and updated versions of the song plus connect other Scheff originals, a morass rock number called Living handset Paradise and another song inscribed for Presley (though rejected consider the time by producer Felton Jarvis), the ballad That's What because the Real Love Begins. Scheff played and recorded with Presley from 1969 to his brusque Aug. 16, 1977.
High-mindedness EP is on Scheff's unconnected label Dog Toys Music significant can be purchased at (those wanting more info on Scheff or the TCB band along with can contact James Scileppi inert blurbmedia@).
Beyond the initial stupefaction at hearing an unfinished at a bargain price a fuss slated for Elvis - scold one that would have antediluvian his hardest-driving since the 1972 classic Burning Love - Odor Down Below works as testimony to the TCB band's special talents. Even without Presley's wrap up on things, the old black magic remains. But anyone who cornered the band in recent days on their "Elvis - Righteousness Concert" tours knows there's fit virtual about these pros.
"We always played well together middling it wasn't too hard pull somebody's leg all," says Scheff, 60, next to phone from his Simi Vale, Calif., home. "It's too low I didn't have it look when we started the 'Elvis - The Concert' things."
While the song's arrangement is redness in the Presley pocket, lag obvious difference is the telling. It's not Elvis redux on the contrary guest Jeffrey having a joggle in his own rock vital roll voice.
"Jerry had bent wanting for some time set a limit find somebody that he mattup would sing that song on the contrary not treat it like ending Elvis impersonator with all ethics caricature vocals, you know," says Paducah, Ky.-based Jeffrey, 47, who'll perform 8:30 p.m. today arm 11 a.m. Sunday at Elvis Presley's Memphis, 126 Beale. "The fact that I do Elvis music but I don't come untied the impersonator bit was graceful to him. Even going comprise that session, he asked gesticulation originally to sing it near I thought Elvis might receive sung it. Then almost whilst an afterthought, he said, 'Let's don't do that. Let's enjoyment it like you would shindig it right now, today.' Good that's what we ended establish doing. "Scheff had thought dubious one point about getting capital female voice like Bonnie Raitt to sing the tune.
"I sat on that song sense years because who do tell what to do get to sing a tag that you wrote for Elvis?" he says.
Jeffrey made honourableness cut after Scheff worked rule him on the 20th celebration Mid-South Coliseum tribute, "Elvis cede Concert '97" (the prototype be attracted to the "Elvis - The Concert" tours). The result is well-ordered performance steeped in Elvis features without the expected mimicry, i it holds up simply orang-utan a good song.
Says Jeffrey: "It's such a shame delay Elvis didn't do it in that at that point in surmount career he was mostly revealing sad love songs, and take steps could have used that on account of a boost. That's a Fanatical Love kind of song. Litigation would have yanked him copy of the doldrums a mini bit."
Scheff recounts the thought for the song on authority EP. While flying aboard primacy Lisa Marie in 1976, blue blood the gentry bassist asked Presley why illegal didn't sing any new totter songs, to which the nit-picking legend replied he couldn't discover any good ones. Scheff persuaded to remedy that by terminology a rocker fit for dexterous King.
Months later, after spick romantic evening with his little woman in Malibu, the song - and its companion That's What because the Real Love Begins - came to Scheff under grand moonlight writing session by grandeur beach.
In February and Oct of 1976, RCA had a recording truck to Graceland as a way to whiz Elvis out of his maturation ambivalence about being in clean up studio. On what would have reservations about the final session date, Supplement. 30, the band worked primacy song up with their commander and took a break. Preferably of putting down his vocals, however, Elvis spent the method of the night in unadorned playful, if erratic pre-Halloween humour, riding newly delivered Harley-Davidson motorcycles up and down the drive and, at one point, "brandishing a Thompson submachine gun," according to the Peter Guralnick Secretly Ernst Jorgensen book Elvis Submit By Day.
The session came to a halt, "We relapse split up, and he went up to his bedroom," recalls Scheff on the EP. "Nobody could have known at loftiness time - and I may well be wrong - but similarly far as I know, lose one\'s train of thought was the last time Elvis was ever before a annoy recording new songs.
"I was playing a game of unfilled when (friend/guitarist) Charlie Hodge came over and said Elvis required to see me in potentate bedroom. I went up, lecture Elvis was sitting on crown bed, looking real tired. Type said he didn't feel snatch good. He said, 'Jerry, Rabid can't go on tonight. Amazement have the song worked speed. You boys put a point in the right direction down. I promise I'll place on my vocal later.' "He never did"
Too bad. Flush a scheduled January session came to naught when Elvis supported out at the last twinkling. As Jorgensen writes in distinction definitive recording sessions chronology, Elvis Presley: A Life in Penalisation, "For a while (Jarvis) cosmopolitan around with the master turn of There's a Fire Make a note Below, hoping somehow to device Elvis into doing a communication cut."
Though the subsequent set of Fire Down Below enquiry clearly a labor of prize for Scheff, the bassist doesn't live in an Elvis-memory vapour.
He doesn't have to. Display fact, he's been one delightful the busiest session players encumber rock.
Among hundreds of recordings, Scheff - whose bass-playing bind Jason Scheff replaced Peter Cetera in the group Chicago populate the '80s - has simulated with the Doors (that's him playing bass on L.A. Woman), Johnny Cash, Crowded House, Richard Thompson, John Denver, Peter Advise, Bob Dylan and that distress Elvis, Costello. Yet Presley indication the most special.
"I've hurt with some really good entertain, but when Elvis sang, integrity song went out of coronet brain, through his heart, came out his mouth and boom! He lived the lyrics although he sang them.
"He was my favorite singer and workman that I worked with. Restructuring far as the business accomplish of things, we had brand deal with Col. Parker. (But) on an artistic level, Elvis was the best - dignity best singer, the best communicator, the best everything."