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For many Southerners — or should we say, for many white Southerners? — hearing Elvis Presley sing “Dixie” was almost as good as The King personally delivering Moon Pies and RC Cola to the door.  They must have thought Presley’s timing to be impeccable.  His recording of  “An American Trilogy,” which included “Dixie,” was released in 1972, when the South was in the early stages of the debate regarding the playing of “Dixie” at high school football games, etc. So here was Elvis, declaring the anthem of his native region important, deserving of its rightful place with other great American songs.

“American Trilogy” opens with the first verse and chorus from “Dixie,” sung softly and slowly.  From there the trilogy moves on to the chorus from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a Christian hymn filled with imagery of Lincoln, heroic Civil War battles and slaves being freed.  The trilogy is filled out by a verse and the chorus from “All My Trials,” a song based on a Bahamian lullabye that became part of the soundtrack to the civil rights movement.  It had been recorded by the the likes of Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, The Seekers and Peter Paul and Mary.  That’s not the crowd one associates with Presley, but the blending of hopes and beliefs may have been the point of  Mickey Newbury when he constructed the medley in 1970.

Mickey Newbury had recorded his own version of “An American Trilogy” in 1970 and it charted briefly.  In his career, Newberry recorded several albums popular with fans of the “outlaw” movement in country music but none gained a wide acceptance with either the country or rock audiences.  Still, his songs were covered by an array of country and pop performers such as Andy Williams, Eddy Arnold, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Tom Jones.  Perhaps his most interesting song was one that Kenny Rogers and The First Edition recorded in 1967, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” with its druggy references and psychedelic instrumentation.  According to some, Jimi Hendrix said it was his favorite song.  Whatever, it was a big hit and no doubt paid some bills for both Newbury and Rogers, who then was light years away from the cocktail country music schtick that would make him famous by the late seventies.

In 1972, Presley had more new hits besides “An American Trilogy.”  This was also the year of “Burning Love” and “Always On My Mind.”  And Presley was hitting the road, no longer only performing in Las Vegas hotel ballrooms.  He was playing the hockey and basketball arenas of the nation, particularly those in Middle America.  But he also played New York City.  Madison Square Garden.  A live recording was assembled from the MSG concerts and it moved up the charts, all the while receiving a favorable review in Rolling Stone.  However, the reviewer called “An American Trilogy,” by then already a major part of Presley’s shows, pretentious.

“An American Trilogy” was one of the BIG songs in the Presley concerts and would remain so for the rest of his life.  As with his rendition of “How Great Thou Art,” Elvis would trot out all the bells and whistles in the pre-laser era for “An American Trilogy.”  It stirred the audiences.  By golly, it made audiences proud to be part of the South, proud to be American and maybe even less negative toward those “outside agitators” in the Civil Rights movement.  In their own way, maybe they were on to something.  In his second biography of Presley, Careless Love, Peter Guralnick said the song could have almost stood for an anthem of national reconciliation.

It’s doubtful that Presley had any such motives.  In his arena concerts, he gave his fans something from all sides of his persona. The rocker. The tease. The man who wanted to be loved tenderly. The boy who loved his mama. The good Christian. The patriot. But what his fans saw over the last five years of his life was not  Elvis,but an impression of Elvis Presley. Yes, the pipes were still there. He could still rock out. Just listen to his 1974 studio version of Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” or “Trouble,” a hit single the following year. There was ample reason he was called The King. But his concert appearances did not spark any enthusiasm once you got over actually seeing the guy.

However, he did end up adding to a civil conversation about “Dixie” as well as recording a slew of groundbreaking hits. Not bad, even for a Hunk of Burning Love.

Elvis Presley sings “An American Trilogy:” httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpM3pQDezrU

About Jeff Cochran

Jeff Cochran worked in advertising at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for 27 years before accepting a buy-out in the Summer of 2008. In the seventies/early eighties, he handled advertising for Peaches Records and Tapes' Southeastern and Midwestern stores. He also wrote record reviews for The Great Speckled Bird, a ground-breaking underground newspaper based in Atlanta.

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