“Love Me Tender” is a 1956 song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by Elvis Presley Music from the eponymous 20th Century Fox film. The words and music are credited to Ken Darby under the pseudonym “Vera Matson”, the name of his wife, and Elvis Presley. The song was adapted from the tune of “Aura Lee”, a sentimental Civil War ballad. Linda Ronstadt recorded the song in 1978 on the Living in the USA album. (More from Wikipedia)
As an example, on Linda Ronstadt’s 1978 remake of one of the King’s signature songs, “Love Me Tender”, Elvis Presley is credited as the only songwriter on the lyric sheet. On the labels, however, and on his own 45, Elvis Presley and Vera Matson are given as the songwriters of “Love Me Tender”.
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I used to hear the Elvis Presley recording of “Love Me Tender” and the Linda Ronstadt recording of “Love Me Tender” played together on the radio as though they were singing a duet of the song, and the result is simply gorgeous. Thankfully, disc jockeys have freedom in their job that others in the music industry do not, since I understood that is the only way the faux duet could be heard; because there were too many obstacles to releasing the combination as a single recording (i.e., for purchase). I did locate a photo of a disk on the Internet that does have the duet on it though; perhaps that was intended to be strictly for use by disc jockeys.
(April 2015/1)
