Elvis Presley CD

When Elvis first broke on the national scene, nobody--not RCA, not Elvis' manager Colonel Tom Parker, and certainly not Elvis himself--had any idea how long his popularity would last. Most assumed that rock and roll was a passing fad and that Presley would soon be relegated to the "where are they now?" bin. Unsurprisingly, RCA rushed Presley's first album to market before Elvis had recorded enough new material for an entire record. The result, ELVIS PRESLEY, is a cut-and-paste job consisting of seven RCA recordings and five older tracks licensed from Sun Records, Presley's first label.

Still, this is a monumental record in the history of rock and roll, from its iconic cover (which The Clash later paid homage to on the cover of LONDON CALLING) to the twelve great tracks to its unprecedented sales figures (it topped the Billboard album charts for 20 weeks). The RCA material includes Elvis' arrangement of "Blue Suede Shoes" and covers of R&B hits "Money Honey," "Tutti Frutti," and "I Got a Woman." The record is short (29 minutes) and the material it contains is available on lots of other discs, but if you must have the record that started a revolution, this is the one to get.

Today it all seems so easy -- RCA signs up the kid from Memphis, television gets interested at around the same time, and the rest is history. The circumstances surrounding this album were neither simple nor promising, however, nor was there anything in the history of popular music up to that time to hint that Elvis Presley was going to be anything other than "Steve Sholes' folly," which was what rival executives were already whispering. So a lot was unsettled and untried at the first of two groups of sessions that produced the Elvis Presley album -- it wasn't even certain that there was any reason for a rock & roll artist to cut an album, because teenagers bought 45s, not LPs. The first of Elvis' RCA sides yielded one song, "Heartbreak Hotel," that seemed a potential single, but which no one thought would sell, and a few tracks that would be good enough for an album, if there were one. But no one involved knew anything for sure about this music. Seventeen days later, "Heartbreak Hotel" was released, and for about a month it did nothing -- then it began to move, and then Elvis appeared on television, and had a number one pop single. The album Sholes wanted out of Elvis came from two groups of sessions in January and February, augmented by five previously unissued songs from the Sun library. This was as startling a debut record as any ever made, representing every side of Elvis' musical influences except gospel -- rockabilly, blues, R&B, country, and pop were all here in an explosive and seductive combination. Elvis Presley became the first rock & roll album to reach the number one spot on the national charts, and RCA's first million dollar-earning pop album. [RCA/BMG's 2005 reissue included six bonus tracks.] ~ Bruce Eder

Includes six bonus tracks.

Additional Tracks

Personnel: Elvis Presley (guitar); Elvis Presley (vocals); Shorty Long (piano); Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore (guitar); Floyd Cramer, Marvin Hughes, Shorty Long (piano); Bill Black (double bass); D.J. Fontana, Johnny Bernero (drums); Ben Speer, Gordon Stoker, Brock Speer (background vocals).

Liner Note Author: Colin Escott.Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.112) - Ranked #55 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums Of All Time" - "...Revved-up country music with the most irresistibly sexy voice anyone had ever heard..."
Q (1/03, p.56) - Included in Q Magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever"
Q (12/00, pp.148,151) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...The likes of 'Blue Moon' and 'Heartbreak Hotel' still bristle with groundbreaking punkish enthusiasm..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.115) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[H]e'll remain ever youthful, a mind's-eye hip-twister..."