Elvis Country (I'm 10,000 Years Old) is the thirteenth studio album by American singer and musician Elvis Presley, released on RCA Records (LSP 4460) in January 1971. Recorded at RCA Studio B in Nashville, it reached number 12 on the Billboard 200. It peaked at number six in the United Kingdom, selling over one million copies worldwide. It was certified Gold on December 1, 1977 by the Recording Industry Association of America.
The lead single of the album, "I Really Don't Want to Know" backed with "There Goes My Everything", was released on December 8, 1970 and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Western swing, blues, countrypolitan, traditional country, gospel -- if it was music that even brushed the airwaves of a southern state, Elvis Presley at his best could make it his own, and Elvis was at his peak when he cut Elvis Country. Actually, Elvis Presley was positively on a roll at the time.
A decade after the end of what were thought to be his prime years, he was singing an ever-widening repertory of songs with more passion and involvement than he'd shown since the end of the 1950s; he was no longer transforming the nature of popular music with every record and performance, but he was a major concert draw and tickets to his shows were in nearly as much demand as those for the far less accessible Frank Sinatra.
What's more, his voice had achieved a peak of perfection as an instrument, acquiring a depth and richness, a beauty to go with its power at which even his best work of the early years had only hinted. And it all came together on Elvis Country, his greatest long-player of the 1970s, and one of his three or four best albums ever.
Elvis threw himself into this record with every bit of the passion displayed on its better known, soul-oriented predecessor, From Elvis in Memphis, and it was even more personal; new or old, these were all songs he cared about. And he's a commanding and charismatic vocal presence, whether he's covering "Snowbird" (a then recent hit for Anne Murray), redoing a 1940s classic by Ernest Tubb ("Tomorrow Never Comes") in an arrangement akin to Roy Orbison's "Runnin' Scared," a Bill Monroe standard of the same decade ("Little Cabin on the Hill"), reprising Jerry Lee Lewis's "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" in a version dominated by the guitar and bass (and with scarcely any piano), or covering Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away" as a slow blues.
He doesn't necessarily supplant the originals (except for "Snowbird," where he does make you forget Anne Murray), but he gives you more than enough reason to listen, again and again, to everything here. And good as he is on the covers, nowhere is Presley better than on "It's Your Baby, You Rock It," the only new song on the album and as fine a record as he cut during this entire boom period in his career. Producer Felton Jarvis and a cadre of Nashville sidemen (augmented by James Burton) provided as good backup as Presley ever got, including a hard-rocking electric guitar and harmonica sound on Bob Wills's "Faded Love" and a gospel-style accompaniment to "Funny How Time Slips Away," and giving "Make the World Go Away" a lean, more urgent sound than Eddy Arnold's original hit.
Side one
1. Snowbird - 2:17
2. Tomorrow Never Comes - 4:07
3. Little Cabin on the Hill - 1:58
4. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - 3:10
5. Funny How Time Slips Away - 4:32
6. I Really Don't Want to Know - 2:59
Side two
1. There Goes My Everything - 3:10
2. It's Your Baby, You Rock It - 3:04
3. The Fool - 2:34
4. Faded Love - 3:19
5. I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water - 3:54
6. Make the World Go Away - 3:46
Personnel
Sourced from Keith Flynn.
- Elvis Presley – lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar on "I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago" and "Little Cabin on the Hill", harmony vocals on “Snowbird” and “There Goes My Everything”
- James Burton – lead guitar, dobro
- Chip Young – acoustic rhythm guitar
- Eddie Hinton – lead guitar on "Snowbird" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"
- David Briggs – piano, organ on "Little Cabin on the Hill" and "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water"
- Norbert Putnam – bass
- Jerry Carrigan – drums
- Charlie McCoy – harmonica, organ, vibraphone on "I Really Don't Want to Know”
- Charlie Hodge – acoustic rhythm guitar except “Snowbird” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”
Overdubbed
- Farrell Morris – percussionand timpanion "Snowbird," "Funny How Time Slips Away," "Make the World Go Away," I Really Don't Want To Know," "Faded Love," and "Tomorrow Never Comes"
- Harold Bradley– electric sitaron "Snowbird"
- Weldon Myrick– pedal steel guitaron "Little Cabin on the Hill"
- Production staff
- Felton Jarvis – producer
- Bobby Thompson – banjo (on "Little Cabin on the Hill")
- Buddy Spicher – fiddle (on "Little Cabin on the Hill")
- The Imperials Quartet – backing vocals
- The Jordanaires – backing vocals (on "Funny How Time Slips Away", “There Goes My Everything,” and "Make The World Go Away")
- Joe Babcock – backing vocals
- Millie Kirkham – backing vocals
- Mary Holladay – backing vocals
- Ginger Holladay – backing vocals
- June Page – backing vocals
- Sonja Montgomery – backing vocals
- Dolores Edgin – backing vocals
- Mary Greene – backing vocals
- Temple Riser – backing vocals
- Cam Mullins – string arrangements
- Don Tweedy – string arrangements
- Bergen White – horn arrangements
Notes
Released: January 2, 1971
Recorded: June 4-8 and September 22, 1970
Genre: Country, country rock, rock and roll
Length: 38:49
Label - RCA Records
