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”.
Actually, according to Wikipedia, Ken Darby was the principal songwriter of “Love Me Tender”; and Vera Matson is the maiden name of Darby’s wife. However, for a time songwriters had to concede 50% of the songwriting credit if they wanted Elvis Presley to record their song. Again, from Wikipedia: “When asked why he credited his wife as co-songwriter along with Presley, Darby responded, ‘Because she didn’t write it either’.”
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As a further wrinkle, the tune for “Love Me Tender” is an adaptation of a popular Civil War-era song “Aura Lea” (published in 1861), which had music by George R. Poulton and words by W. W. Fosdick. As with most old songs, “Aura Lea” is now in the “Public Domain”, meaning that the intellectual property rights for the writing of this song have expired; thus, Poulton and Fosdick did not have to be credited at all, nor did their heirs receive any compensation when “Love Me Tender” became a big hit.
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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.
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This is not to say that Elvis Presley was only a songbird – far from it. In the article on “Love Me Tender”, Wikipedia goes on to say: “As with nearly all his early RCA recordings, Presley took control in the studio despite not being credited as producer. He would regularly change arrangements and lyrics to the point the original song was barely recognizable. This, arguably, justified the co-writing credit in this case.
“Ken Darby described Elvis Presley’s role in the creation of the song: ‘He adjusted the music and the lyrics to his own particular presentation. Elvis has the most terrific ear of anyone I have ever met. He does not read music, but he does not need to. All I had to do was play the song for him once, and he made it his own! He has perfect judgment of what is right for him. He exercised that judgment when he chose “Love Me Tender” as his theme song.’”
(April 2015/1)
