For many musicians, Elvis Presley’s music was like a lightning bolt of inspiration. They heard his songs and realized they wanted to do something similar with their lives. Therefore, it came as a thrill for people who got the chance to perform with him.
The reality of playing as one of Elvis’ backing musicians came as a disappointment to one artist, though. A musician said playing with Elvis hadn’t been what he expected In 1972, bass player Emory Gordy replaced a musician in Elvis’ band. He was extremely excited about performing with the iconic artist.
According to Gordy, there was much to feel happy about in a recording session he had previously filled in on, and he thought the tour would be the same. He couldn’t help feeling disappointed by it, though. “I was really let down by the whole thing,” Gordy said in the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick.
“Everybody had been there for so many years they were very set in their way; I think they sent me about five hundred tunes to learn in a two-week period, and then we ended up doing the same show they had been doing in Vegas for the last [four] years.” Gordy said Elvis sometimes performed with passion, but the shows typically felt perfunctory and rushed. “Occasionally, he’d get up there and start feeling real good and be spontaneous, [but mostly] all the tunes were done so fast we literally ran over them,” he said.
“There was no feeling involved.” Another musician said .
