Producer, author and bassist Norbert Putnam looks back half a century at a session with a difference – the near‑mythical Nashville Cats recordings with Elvis Presley
Interview: Joel McIver Photography: Getty, Ernst Mikael Jørgensen and Pål Granlund
“I tell young musicians that we recorded 35 tracks in five nights, and they tell me that’s impossible!” snickers Norbert Putnam, bassist with Elvis Presley from 1970 to 1977. The kids’ reaction is understandable: even by the prolific standards of the Seventies, when bands routinely released two or three albums a year, that’s a work rate that beggars belief. It really happened, though, and it’s a privilege to speak today with a musician who saw it take place.
We’re talking to Putnam – ‘Putt’, as the late King called him – because RCA, Elvis’s record label for the last 65 years, is releasing From Elvis In Nashville, a new box set. These recordings come from a sustained five-night session at RCA’s Studio B in Nashville in June 1970, plus an additional one-off event in September.
Alongside the house band, the Nashville Cats – of which Putnam was a key member – Elvis did indeed cut 35 songs, live and on peak form. These songs went on to form three albums, That’s The Way It Is (1970), Elvis Country (I’m 10,000 Years Old) (1971) and Love Letters From Elvis (also ’71). The songs have been remixed to get rid of subsequent overdubs and orchestration, getting us closer to the original feel of Elvis plus band in an efficiently creative space.
Although we know now that within a couple of years of the Nashville session, Elvis sank into a state of poor mental and physical health that culminated in his death in ’77 at the age of only 42, Putnam makes it clear that the great man was firing on all cylinders in 1970.
“You couldn’t see an ounce of fat on him,” confirms Putnam, now 78 and still taking occasional bass sessions. “He was working out, and he was doing karate. His bodyguard Red West was there, and he and Elvis gave us a few karate demonstrations. They were pretty impressive, believe me. Elvis used to lean forward with his index and middle finger out, and throw a punch right at Red’s eyes. He could stop one inch from Red’s face, which scared the shit out of everyone, ha ha!”
Elvis was famously fond of guns, as you’ll know if you’ve read any of the sometimes damning books about him, and it wasn’t long before the subject of
