Steve Sholes, who produced the session, said, “Roll the tape.” And I said, “But I haven't heard the song yet!” And he said, “Roll the tape, Bill!” and I look and the studio is totally black out there. I can't see a thing. I said, “You're kidding!” He said, “No, roll the tape!”. So, I roll the tape and I don't know what's going to happen. And a guitar starts off, and then a bass comes in, and Elvis starts singing. And I still can't see a thing in the studio. And I'm afraid to turn any mikes off because somebody may come in and start playing. All of a sudden, Elvis stops singing and just starts talking. And I say to myself, “This is awful!” because you don't normally put a lot of echo on dialogue. And I thought, next take I'll just turn it down, so we just did the take all the way through. If you listen to the dialogue, the echo matches the effect, because he says, “And the stage is bare, and I'm standing there…”. Later, I said, “How about that echo?”. Sholes said, “Screw the echo, that's a hit!”. And it was done in one take...
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Bill Porter, RCA`s foremost recording engineer and one of the creators of "The Nashville Sound", explaining to Michael Fermer how "Are you lonesome tonight" (1960) came into being, with the lights totally turned off, at Elvis´ insistance so as to create the best atmosphere possible, but without Porter knowing about it. (Published in MusicAngle.com)Elvis Presley
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Presley, Elvis
Pressel, Wilhelm von
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