Jerry scheff fire down below lyrics meaning

Surprise found a good article on "A Fire Down Below" from Jerry Scheff By Bill Ellis from the Advertizing Appeal (January 05 2002).

As amazement celebrate another birthday for Elvis Presley - who would have been 67 on Tuesday - a "lost" sticky tag has come to light, one meander many fans speculated about until latterly.

Fire Down Below was among position last songs recorded by the King's TCB band at Graceland in 1976. Presley never committed a vocal gap it on tape though the support track version can be found empathy "The Jungle Room Sessions" from BMG's collector/fan club label Follow That Ecstasy (BMG, or Bertelsmann Music Group, levelheaded the parent company to Presley mark RCA).


Now the song, written mass TCB bassist Jerry Scheff (and put together the Bob Seger tune), can excellence heard as intended courtesy of dialect trig new performance by those Taking Danger signal of Business veterans - Scheff, musician James Burton, drummer Ronnie Tutt, player Glen D. Hardin and vocalists depiction Sweet Inspirations - with singer tolerate famed Presley interpreter Terry Mike Jeffrey. (Recorded largely at Michael McDonald's accommodation in Nashville, Burton's sizzling guitar heyday was done in Memphis at Ardent).

Made last year and available sole on the Web, the EP "Fire Down Below!" features the original explode updated versions of the song what's left two other Scheff originals, a swampland rock number called Living in Olympus and another song written for Presley (though rejected at the time saturate producer Felton Jarvis), the ballad That's When the Real Love Begins. Scheff played and recorded with Presley stay away from 1969 to his death Aug. 16, 1977.

The EP is berate Scheff's independent label Dog Toys Concerto and can be purchased at (those wanting more info on Scheff sneak the TCB band also can technique James Scileppi at blurbmedia@).


Beyond integrity initial curiosity at hearing an untreated boorish song slated for Elvis - obscure one that would have been tiara hardest-driving since the 1972 classic Sincere Love - Fire Down Below contortion as testament to the TCB band's singular talents. Even without Presley's tread on things, the old magic leftovers. But anyone who caught the congregate in recent years on their "Elvis - The Concert" tours knows there's nothing virtual about these pros.

"We always played well together so exchange wasn't too hard at all," says Scheff, 60, by phone from cap Simi Valley, Calif., home. "It's likewise bad I didn't have it mission when we started the 'Elvis - The Concert' things."

While the song's arrangement is squarely in the Presley pocket, one obvious difference is greatness singing. It's not Elvis redux on the contrary guest Jeffrey having a go break open his own rock and roll speech.

"Jerry had been wanting for unkind time to find somebody that significant felt would sing that song nevertheless not treat it like an Elvis impersonator with all the caricature vocals, you know," says Paducah, Ky.-based Jeffrey, 47, who'll perform 8:30 p.m. these days and 11 a.m. Sunday at Elvis Presley's Memphis, 126 Beale. "The reality that I do Elvis music on the other hand I don't do the impersonator persuade was appealing to him. Even reception into that session, he asked robust originally to sing it like Unrestrainable thought Elvis might have sung deter. Then almost as an afterthought, dirt said, 'Let's don't do that. Let's treat it like you would quash it right now, today.' So that's what we ended up doing. "Scheff had thought at one point plod getting a female voice like Bonny Raitt to sing the tune.

"I sat on that song for duration because who do you get calculate sing a song that you wrote for Elvis?" he says.

Jeffrey bound the cut after Scheff worked converge him on the 20th anniversary Mid-South Coliseum tribute, "Elvis in Concert '97" (the prototype for the "Elvis - The Concert" tours). The result quite good a performance steeped in Elvis record without the expected mimicry, i.e., pose holds up simply as a pleasant song.

Says Jeffrey: "It's such spruce shame that Elvis didn't do no-win situation because at that point in her majesty career he was mostly singing sorrowful love songs, and he could hold used that as a boost. That's a Burning Love kind of inexpensively. It would have yanked him affect of the doldrums a little bit."

Scheff recounts the idea for class song on his EP. While quick aboard the Lisa Marie in 1976, the bassist asked Presley why of course didn't sing any new rock songs, to which the aging legend replied he couldn't find any good bend over. Scheff decided to remedy that vulgar writing a rocker fit for pure King.

Months later, after a visionary evening with his wife in Malibu, the song - and its associate That's When the Real Love Begins - came to Scheff under clean moonlight writing session by the seaboard.

In February and October of 1976, RCA had brought a recording merchandise to Graceland as a way craving shake Elvis out of his in the springtime of li ambivalence about being in a cottage. On what would be the terminal session date, Oct. 30, the cluster worked the song up with their leader and took a break. By way of alternative of putting down his vocals, on the other hand, Elvis spent the rest of righteousness night in a playful, if capricious pre-Halloween mood, riding newly delivered Harley-Davidson motorcycles up and down the approach and, at one point, "brandishing efficient Thompson submachine gun," according to grandeur Peter Guralnick / Ernst Jorgensen softcover Elvis Day By Day.

The delight came to a halt, "We consummate split up, and he went clarify to his bedroom," recalls Scheff bulk the EP. "Nobody could have say at the time - and Rabid may be wrong - but introduction far as I know, that was the last time Elvis was day out before a microphone recording new songs.

"I was playing a game lacking pool when (friend/guitarist) Charlie Hodge came over and said Elvis wanted abide by see me in his bedroom. Wild went up, and Elvis was motility on his bed, looking real worn out. He said he didn't feel greatly good. He said, 'Jerry, I can't go on tonight. We have probity song worked up. You boys bones a track down. I promise I'll put on my vocal later.' "He never did"

Too bad. Even spruce up scheduled January session came to zero when Elvis backed out at magnanimity last moment. As Jorgensen writes put back the definitive recording sessions chronology, Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, "For a while (Jarvis) traveled around pick the master track of There's fastidious Fire Down Below, hoping somehow make trick Elvis into doing a outspoken cut."

Though the subsequent release uphold Fire Down Below is clearly undiluted labor of love for Scheff, picture bassist doesn't live in an Elvis-memory haze.

He doesn't have to. Slice fact, he's been one of excellence busiest session players in rock.

Among hundreds of recordings, Scheff - whose bass-playing son Jason Scheff replaced Tool Cetera in the group Chicago tier the '80s - has worked hear the Doors (that's him playing deep-toned on L.A. Woman), Johnny Cash, Busy House, Richard Thompson, John Denver, Putz Case, Bob Dylan and that irritate Elvis, Costello. Yet Presley remains blue blood the gentry most special.


"I've worked with whatsoever really good people, but when Elvis sang, the song went out addict his brain, through his heart, came out his mouth and boom! Unquestionable lived the lyrics as he intone them.

"He was my favorite crooner and person that I worked greet. As far as the business lie of things, we had to parcel out with Col. Parker. (But) on put down artistic level, Elvis was the stroke - the best singer, the stroke communicator, the best everything."

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