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By the time Elvis Presley walked into American Sound Studios in early 1969, guitarist Reggie Young had cut hit songs by the dozens.

Seminal records by the likes of Dusty Springfield ( Dusty in Memphis and its signature tune “Son of a Preacher Man”), Neil Diamond ( Brother Love’s Travelling Salvation Show ), B.J. Thomas (”Hooked on a Feeling”), the Box Tops (”The Letter”) and numerous others were all part of Young’s resume as a member of the American house band, also known as the 827 Thomas Street band after the studio’s Memphis address.

So Young can be forgiven if he wasn’t all that impressed upon hearing that the King of Rock and Roll - who hadn’t had a big hit in years - was coming to record with producer Chips Moman and his chart-ruling session players.

“But when Elvis walked in, everybody backed up a little bit,” recalls Young, 68, who, like many a Memphian, had first heard the singer on Dewey Phillips’s WHBQ-AM radio show “Red, Hot & Blue” back in 1954. The childhood awe crept in all over again. “It was very moving. He had an aura about him. I can’t explain it. When he walked in, everybody knew. I was amazed at the reaction I had myself.”

Nearly 36 years on, those sessions have entered Elvis lore as among his very best, three weeks of intense work that yielded such Presley classics as “In the Ghetto,” “Don’t Cry Daddy,” “Kentucky Rain” and “Suspicious Minds,” a No. 1 comeback for the King, called “one of popular music’s great, defining moments” by award-winning writer Colin Escott.

The American rhythm section will play material from those lauded sessions for Elvis birth week on Saturday, the day Elvis would have been 70. In a special concert produced by Danish fan club Elvis Unlimited, the group’s five living members - Young, pianist Bobby Wood, organist Bobby Emmons, bassist Mike Leech and drummer Gene Chrisman - will reunite for a “Back to Memphis” show at the New Daisy Theatre. They will be joined by three European vocalists, Stephen Ackles of Norway, Bobo Moreno of Denmark and Dutch singer Maarten Jansen.

The New Daisy show is one of two main events this birth week. Crowd-pleasing Presley interpreter Terry Mike Jeffrey will also perform a mess of Elvis tunes with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in a pops concert celebration beginning 8:30 tonight at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.

The American pros - who last played Memphis in 1994 at B.B. King’s Blues Club - should be at the top of their rubberneckin’ game since they just returned from a series of sold-out shows in the Netherlands and Belgium.

“They treated us like we were stars,” says Young, who like his American peers, has been based in the Nashville area for decades. “We were standing around looking at each other like, man, what is this about? It’s just total Elvis fans.”

The American group, a.k.a. the Memphis Boys, had an impressive run in its day. More than 120 chart records between 1967 and 1971, including nearly two dozen No. 1s, benefited from the magic touch of these musicians (which also boasted late bassist Tommy Cogbill).

“When we took a break and went to eat, we got in five different cars and went to five different places,” explains pianist Bobby Wood, 63, of the varied personalities that comprised the American band, which could shift with stylistic ease from soul to pop to jazz to country depending on the session. “We had nothing in common outside the studio. But in the studio, it was amazing.”

Wood defines their bond as one of musical feel. “In Nashville, people are more lyrically minded,” he says. “We didn’t really care what the words were saying as long as they didn’t get in the way . . . We were all melodic people and feel people - soul people.”

Elvis, who had heard the American feel all over the radio, came to the facility for some of the same, according to Wood. “He loved the Box Tops and B.J. Thomas and all the big records we were doing.”

As Southerners and men close to Elvis’s age (then 34), the band “shared a musical heritage that blended country, gospel and rhythm and blues,” writes Ernst Jorgensen in “Elvis Presley: A Life in Music.”

Yet things got off to an unpromising start when Presley showed up with his huge retinue of aides, pals and industry professionals. Blowups over publishing rights to some of the songs also threatened to stall the project. “There must have been 20 people in the studio, publishing people and all that,” says Wood. “Chips said to Elvis, ‘Hey, we don’t need all those people in the studio. We just need you to come in. Let’s get our heads together and do what’s best for Elvis Presley.’ That was the best thing that could have happened. I don’t think ‘In the Ghetto’ and ‘Suspicious Minds’ and ‘Kentucky Rain’ would have happened without that. Elvis later made the statement that he had never had so much fun and worked so hard and enjoyed (recording) as much in years.”

Young agrees. “The mood really changed when all his entourage left and it was just him and (producer) Felton Jarvis and Moman and the band. That’s when it got down to the nitty gritty, no hype. I remember Moman told him a couple of times, ‘Could you re-sing that line? It was a little flat.’ Felton was on thin ice. He would never say that to him. Elvis appreciated that, he was wanting to make a great record.”

That the aging icon did. He put on tape more than 30 songs, music that stands in most fans’ minds as a classic bookend to his first Memphis sessions at Sun in the 1950s.

Even A-list guitarist Young, who has performed with everyone from Presley’s one-time bassist Bill Black, B.B. King and Dobie Gray (that’s Young’s signature guitar riff on “Drift Away”) to Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks and Bob Dylan, says working with Elvis was nothing like anything else he’s ever done. “I feel blessed by being there,” says the six-string pro, who also got to back Presley a few years later at Stax (”totally different,” he says of the vibe there with members of the TCB band).

Wood offers this anecdote when asked to sum up playing behind Presley: “I won’t mention any names, but there was a young guy who had a few hits out of Nashville and his manager came over to me and said, ‘Well, how does it feel working with this guy?’ I said, ‘I give the same effort on everybody’s records. I give 100 percent whether it’s on a major artist or whether it’s on Tex Nobody. But let me say one thing. After you’ve worked with Elvis, everybody else is OK.”

The American Sound Studio house band performs for Elvis birth week on Saturday at New Daisy, 330 Beale. Doors open 7 p.m.; show at 8. Tickets: $45 at elvisunlimited.com, info@elvispresley.dk or at the door.

- Bill Ellis: 529-2517