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One of the byproducts of Elvis Presley’s personal demise was the decline — both in quantity and quality — of his studio output during the latter years of his life.

Following the ‘68 Comeback Special on television, Presley achieved a kind of creative and commercial high-watermark with the 1969 sessions at American Sound Studio in Memphis. After a live engagement in Las Vegas, he followed with an equally ambitious project, gathering a collection of top-tier Southern musicians to record in Nashville in 1971.

It would prove to be Elvis’ last great effort in the studio. What followed in subsequent years were a series of largely directionless, subpar or botched sessions, including a disastrous attempt at recording at the Stax studio in 1973.

As the ’70s wore on, sessions became more infrequent, and Elvis seemed to develop an almost pathological aversion to the studio. “It’s the ultimate form of self-rejection in a way,” says Presley biographer Peter Guralnick. “This was the one thing in which he found satisfaction, the one thing from which he drew real reward. And yet if you look in the last four years, he just had more and more trouble going to the studio — to the point, in the end, where he couldn’t.”

By early 1976, Presley hadn’t set foot in a studio in over a year. His label, RCA, had all but exhausted their existing material and was desperate for new tracks. Years earlier the company had suggested installing a recording setup at Presley’s Graceland home as a way of capturing his constant creativity. By the mid-’70s they insisted on home recording as a last resort to wring some material from him. “It was really hard to get him to record, so this was a way to lure him,” says Guralnick.

Installing RCA’s mobile setup in the den at Graceland (a.k.a. “The Jungle Room”), Presley cut sessions in February and October of 1976 that would prove to be his last.

Although Elvis’ longtime producer Felton Jarvis was there to supervise, the home setup didn’t exactly encourage Presley’s work ethic. “It was almost, not haphazard exactly, but pretty much serendipitous as to what he was doing during the course of the sessions,” says Guralnick. “He was there, but then he would disappear for hours at a time, he would go upstairs or wherever.”

When Presley finally did focus he cut an interesting grab bag of songs. The mix of material ranged from Irish folk standards (”Danny Boy”) to odd disco-flavored numbers (”Moody Blue”). Elsewhere, he worked up passes at new songs, “It’s Easy For You” an emotionally charged narrative penned for him specifically by Broadway tunesmiths Andrew Lloyd-Weber and Tim Rice, and the somewhat less enthralling Neil Sedaka weeper “Solitaire.” He also ran through some familiar country numbers like “She Thinks I Still Care” and “He’ll Have To Go” — the latter turning out to be the final song Elvis recorded.

Even during what was something of a personal nadir, there are unmistakable glimpses of Presley’s blinding talent as both a vocal stylist and interpreter of song. “I think there were clearly moments where he caught fire. Because I think the music continued to invigorate him,” says Guralnick. “There’s genuine feeling at times.”

Listening to the alternate versions, outtakes and studio banter from the recordings — which were released as a BMG Fan Club series compact disc, The Jungle Room Sessions — the element that seems most missing from Presley’s performances is his sense of self-direction. For Presley — one of the great instinctive producers of all time, shaping his songs through endless vocal performances and sheer will — a malaise had set in.

“This is someone who in his own way — as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller say — was a perfectionist of feeling,” Guralnick says. “He was looking for a specific feeling when he recorded. And at the end, there isn’t anything like that because he isn’t capable of that kind of sustained effort. I think he was just so down.”

Unlike Elvis’ sessions in 1956, 1961, or even as late as 1971, the accumulated personal problems — drugs, divorce, depression — had begun to sap not just his energy, but his self-belief.

“The precondition for any artist, whatever field, whether it’s music, writing, dancing or acting, is self-belief,” says Guralnick. “And, increasingly, at the end of his life, Elvis no longer believed in himself. He was disappointed in his failure to measure up to himself.”

Though Guralnick is generally loath to speculate on what Presley’s musical future would have held had he lived, the author does feel strongly that a turn toward gospel music could have offered him some creative salvation.

“He was so enthralled with gospel and so knowledgeable of it. Not just its historical aspects, both black and white, but also contemporary gospel. He couldn’t have the same kind of following as he had at his height in popular music. But I think he could’ve been highly successful had he been able to make that transition.”

The gospel aspect is a tantalizing possibility, but Presley’s passing in August 1977 scotched any such dreams of a new career path.

What remains from the final months of his life are the Jungle Room sessions — both an insightful and heart-wrenching look into the creative life of an artist heading for a tragic end.

–Bob Mehr: 529-2517