'Frisco Mabel Joy is a 1971 studio album by singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. This was the second of three albums Newbury recorded at Cinderella Sound. The album includes the original version of "An American Trilogy", which Elvis Presley later performed in his Las Vegas shows with much success. "How Many Times " is a dramatically re-imagined version of a song first released on Harlequin Melodies, Newbury's RCA debut. Other standout tracks include "The Future's Not What It Used to Be", "Remember the Good", "Frisco Depot", and "How I Love Them Old Songs". The track "San Francisco Mabel Joy" was not initially part of the album, though it is included on some versions.
’Frisco Mabel Joy was collected for CD issue on the eight-disc Mickey Newbury Collection from Mountain Retreat, Newbury's own label in the mid-1990s, along with nine other Newbury albums from 1969 to 1981. In 2011, it was reissued again, both separately and as part of the four-disc Mickey Newbury box set An American Trilogy, alongside two other albums recorded at Cinderella Sound, Looks Like Rain and Heaven Help the Child. This release marks the first time that 'Frisco Mabel Joy has been released on CD in remastered form, after the original master tapes were rediscovered in 2010.
Frisco Mabel Joy
"An American Trilogy" is a 1972 song medley arranged by country composer Mickey Newbury and popularized by Elvis Presley, who included it as a showstopper in his concert routines. The medley uses three 19th-century songs:"Dixie" — a popular folk song about the southern United States.
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" — a marching hymn of the Union Army during the American Civil War; and
"All My Trials" — a Bahamian lullaby related to African American spirituals and widely used by folk music revivalists
An American Trilogy