Good Times

The second of Elvis’s three albums recorded at Stax Studios, Good Times was mostly tracked in December 1973, with two tracks left over from the initial sessions in July. It feels ballad-heavy, though the prominent female backing vocals give it more juice than the pop-country material he’d been recording in 1971 and 1972. “I’ve Got a Feelin’ in My Body” and “I’ve Got a Thing About You Baby,” though, are genuinely startling — Elvis dives headlong into soul, and the results will make any listener wonder what might have happened had he ever entered the studio with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.