Guest
To many, movie critics in particular, Elvis' 1967 movie, “Clambake“, is so poor and unforgettable that it has virtually no redeeming features and symbolises the depths to which Elvis' movie career had fallen. Within a year however, his career would be reignited with the success of his “Singer Presents Elvis” TV special in 1968. There are a couple of shining lights within the movie however ,in the lovely “You Don't Know Me“ and possibly the always endearing Shelley Fabares as the song's subject matter. It is no surprise that the song is far superior to all of the other songs within the movie, many of which should never have been presented to Elvis, and even then he should have flatly rejected to record them. “You Don't Know Me“, however, was not written for the movie, but was in fact composed by Cindy Walker for Eddy Arnold twelve years before the filming of Clambake. The song was subsequently recorded by multiple artists, the best selling of which was Ray Charles' version. Much like the film in general, it seems that Elvis was dissatisfied with his version, which was recorded on 21 February 1967 at RCA's Studio B in Nashville, that he re-recorded the song on 11 September with a different arrangement and phrasing and in many ways is a more touching version. Whilst the movie version required twenty takes in order to achieve a recording deemed suitable for inclusion in the movie, Elvis achieved in just two takes with the first being chosen as the master and it was this version and not the movie version which was released on the soundtrack album. As with all of these videos, to get the most out of the re-edited audio, I highly recommend you use ear /headphones and turn the volume up as much as you dare!
