Why didn't Elvis record more rock 'n roll and rhythm and blues?

Having read the recent excellent "Elvis in Vegas" wherein he seemed to pretty much take responsibility and control for at least the musical part of his career, one wonders why he didn't in fact record better material. Not just R+B. More Bachrach David. Or ask Jimmy Webb to write him a song. Or some of the current R+R in the 70's. Imagine Elvis taking a swing at the Who's "Let's See Action" or Mott's "One of the Boys"

 

why would he pick these two mediocre obscure songs, the second one by a minor group he likely never would have heard of?

 

IIRC, Springsteen jumped the fence at Graceland alone, sort of spur of the moment thing, hoping to somehow meet one of his heroes. He wasn't trying to pitch a song, although in 1977, allegedly he wanted his representatives to offer the Presley camp a shot at recording Fire, which could have been a sizable hit for Elvis (although it never would have happened because Springsteen never would have given away a piece of the publishing). Nevertheless, Springsteen claims a bodyguard appeared and walked him back to the gates.

 

Sha Na Na was a hit at Woodstock. A band whose shtick was all about being 1950s rockers and Elvis emulators. Jimi Hendrix dug them! Jerry Garcia dug them when they were on the Festival Express tour, the summer after that!

The problem was less that the 1960s counterculture youth rejected Elvis than that he rejected them- or at least their tastes in trappings, customs, and mores. Elvis did a lot of drugs- way too many; he eventually died from them. But he did 1950s type drugs, 1950s style. He took advantage of a lot of "free love", but that was 1950s style too- as part of the perks of stardom. He wasn't going to revamp Graceland to look like a Moroccan casbah, or start quoting Alan Watts, or start wearing patchwork blue jeans and sandals. His politics began and ended with the duty-honor-country patriotism of his pre-Tonkin Gulf Incident hitch in the Army, pretty much. Etc.

It was a complicated era. You know, Elvis shaking hands with Nixon in a photo op set up for the President's brand new officially inaugurated War on Drugs, getting the gift of a DEA shield to add to his collection of police badges. And the whole time, Th' King is flying higher than Keith Richard on his usual daily regimen of opioids, Quaaludes, and amphetamines. But he avoided psychedelics, and apparently didn't care enough for weed to buy a supply for himself. Although from what I've read, he was known to occasionally partake if one of his running partners passed it to him. But that was later on in the 1970s, after weed had caught on from coast to coast, and even Elvis's Memphis Mafia had taken it up.

As for the notion of Elvis not being popular with the youthful pop/rock audience in the late 1960s and 1970s, check the Billboard charts:

1969-- "In The Ghetto" (woke 1960s song about desperation of black urban youth) #3
"Suspicious Minds" #1

1970-- "Kentucky Rain" #16
"You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" #11

1972-- "Burnin' Love" #2

with the exception of "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me", I heard all of those songs played on Top 40 pop-rock singles radio, right alongside the British Invasion bands, Motown, Muscle Shoals and Memphis R&B, vocal groups like the Association, the Buckinghams, and the Rascals, etc.

 

Also, between 1967 and 1974, Elvis also released singles that covered Jimmy Reed ("Big Boss Man", 1967, #38); Jerry Reed ("Guitar Man", 1968, #43); James Taylor ("Steamroller Blues", 1973, #17), and Chuck Berry ("Promised Land", 1974, #14). Among others Elvis Presley singles discography - Wikipedia

 

In case anyone hasn't heard it yet, here's Mark Knopfler's take on the subject- "Back To Tupelo"