User:Eagledj/sandbox/Elvis' "Unchained Melody"

Presley's "Unchained Melody"
In the spring of 1977, Ogdin got a call from Presley's producer, Felton Jarvis, to meet at Nashville's RCA Studio A. The problem that Jarvis was trying to solve arose when Presley unexpectedly went off script and sat down a the piano during a live show in Saginaw, Michigan, and started singing Unchained Melody while accompanying himself. The orchestra was totally unprepared for it and remained silent because they had no written music. Elvis continued playing the piano but made mistakes and hit some wrong chords; nevertheless, Jarvis thought Elvis' vocal was "the best thing [he] had done in years". It was captured on 24 track tape to a remote truck. Fortunately, only two tracks had been used: Elvis' vocal and his piano. Jarvis had 22 tracks left to use. Working with engineer Al Patchucki, they removed Elvis' piano playing from the recording. He now asked Ogdin to come up with a smoothly-flowing, synchronized piano overdub to follow Presley's vocal and Ogdin obliged, using 2 tracks for a stereo effect. The new piano part created a musical framework for Jarvis to add additional musicians including bassist Norbert Putnam and many others; it amounted to creating a new band, one instrument at a time. The final product was released as a recording. Four decades later it was synchronized with archival footage of Presley's actual performance in Baz Luhrman's 2022 motion picture,Elvis.