written by Jim Radenhausen, Pocono Record Writer
Posted Aug 25, 2017 at 12:18 PM Updated Aug 25, 2017 at 12:18 PM
Any songwriter would love to have his material covered by multiple artists. Don Mclean, the voice behind the iconic “American Pie,” hit the songwriter mother lode when Elvis Presley recorded a version of his 1970 song “And I Love You So.”
“Elvis recorded ‘And I Love You So’ because at the time he did it, most everybody that sang that kind of music had recorded that song,” said McLean, who performs Friday at Penn’s Peak, Jim Thorpe. “It probably had 100 recordings of it by then. So Elvis came, and once Elvis did a song, it transformed the song, and he was going out with Sheila Ryan at the time (later became the wife of James Caan), but he would sing it to her and it was kind of their song. Elvis sang it every night for the rest of his life. From 1976-1977, there are hundreds of recordings of Elvis singing that song.”
