UK release date: November 1956
Topped the chart:
· 4th November 1956 (for one week)
1 week total
“Now, I don't know nothing about music. But I could see in that girl's eyes, he was a taste of forbidden fruit. She could have eaten him alive!” Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis (2022, dir: Baz Luhrmann)
As with most things, it all comes down to sex.
Obviously that’s what every blues and RnB song comes down to. With the arrival of Elvis, shagging goes mainstream into pop, and so we meet at year zero for modern music.
And yet, this absolutely should not be the case.
Even the original tracklist of Elvis’ debut album as intended for American audiences is all over the place. Having just paid an awful lot of money for a whole new sort of musical star, one gets the feeling that RCA Victor had no idea what to do with him. Launching Presley onto a national ticket with such a weird song like Heartbreak Hotel and then turning into a hit is…surprising to say the least. It’s a song that stands as almost avant-garde, stripped right back to its barest of bare bones to sound every bit as haunted as the nominal resting house. It absolutely has no right being a smash, despite the fact that it’s brilliant and felt like nothing on earth at the time.
Then, they follow it up with an album that sounds nothing like it.
That’s not even the version that we see here today. As was the custom in the pop world through to the release of Sgt Pepper’s in 1967, there was no sanctity for the “vision” of an artist for an LP, which meant songs were cut and swapped willy nilly for different regions. This is exactly what we have here: the UK and US versions of Elvis Presley Rock n Roll (or, more simply, Elvis Presley in the States) share just 7 tracks between them
In either flavour, Elvis Presley stands as a bit of a mess with very little thought to consistency or a sensible running order, jumping from the whitest of rock n roll into pure RnB cuts, through Johnny Cash-esque country and piano ballads. Let’s call it “range” to be kind.
So, with all that in mind, how is it that nearly 70 years later, this album is still one of the most exciting pieces of vinyl that you can slip onto the turntable? Perhaps even more so when it’s the butchered running order of the UK version?
I refer to my earlier statement: it’s all about sex.
White rock n roll stars had an amazing ability to strip the danger and sleaze out of the blues they were covering, as evident with Bill Haley, a sound so vanilla it might as well have a flake in it. Elvis was different, and certainly in his earliest days, he managed to import that edge over to his own sound. There are conversations to be had about cultural appropriation, certainly, and even by his second appearance on this chart Presley had been somewhat neutered, but at this point you might as well be listening to Prince. Tutti Frutti is notable by its absence on the British LP, but Shake Rattle and Roll’s “I'm Like A One-Eyed Cat/Peepin' In A Sea-Food Store” gets through while no one was looking.
Even a song that is literally about a young woman stepping on her partner’s shoes is completely transformed: Elvis’ downright pervy intonation and Energizer bunny hips make it sound like someone losing their virginity right there on the dancefloor.
And while we’re on the subject, has there ever been a better album opener than Blue Suede Shoes? As starting lines go, “It’s one for the money/two for the show” take some beating. Presley takes Carl Perkins’ fun original and launches out of the speakers with it, backed every step by his extraordinary backing band, with DJ Fontana’s drums whip-cracking behind Presley’s every utterance. It’s not about dancing anymore.
The seemingly arbitrary decision to switch I Got a Woman and I’m Counting On You pays off from here: where the American LP grounds to a halt for the piano ballad before starting up again, here we get to continue the energy through to Presley’s faintly ridiculous but oh-so-charming vaudeville ending to the former, before sitting one out to relax on the latter. As ebb and flow goes for the tracklist, it’s a huge improvement and would set the stage for rock to come.
From there, Elvis Presley brings together a collection of songs, each of which features at least one moment of pure delight. Every vocal tick and style Presley would adopt in his career can be found in One Sided Love Affair; the wordplay in I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone is sold with a smirk; the spidery guitar runs of Trying to Get to You pre-figure the mid-60s blues boom ten years early; the definitive take on Shake Rattle and Roll…
And on it goes.
The only question holding Presley back from greatness is whether it’s about anything? If you’re judging it on sheet music alone, absolutely not, this is just a hodgepodge of songs that sound good when sung by Elvis (what wouldn’t?). But it’s the man himself who brings it together through his sheer joy of just doing the thing. Through him, this is a hymnal statement to the excitement and joy of making music, something that was significantly harder to do in the mid-50s. It’s evident from his first recording included here, That’s All Right, where you can imagine him bouncing around the studio with utter glee, instantly finding chemistry with double-bassist Bill Black and guitarist Scotty Moore. Is that enough to justify a perfect score? Maybe not, but who cares when the joy runs this deep?
That’s All Right and Mystery Train, carried over from Elvis’ early Sun Studio days, highlight the album’s real legacy. As cited by Billy Bragg in his excellent skiffle history Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World, the lack of drums made it possible to perform these songs on washboards and tea-chest basses.
So, without Elvis Presley, no skiffle.
Without skiffle, no UK rock n roll.
Without UK rock n roll, no Quarrymen in Liverpool.
Without Quarrymen in Liverpool…say no more.
Score: 10/10
UK album reviewed tracklist:
1. Blue Suede Shoes
2. I Got a Woman
3. I’m Counting On You
4. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone
5. That’s All Right
6. Money Honey
7. Mystery Train
8. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)
9. Tryin’ to Get to You
10. One Sided Love Affair
11. Lawdy Miss Clawdy
12. Shake Rattle and Roll
Original US tracklist
1. Blue Suede Shoes
2. I’m Counting on You
3. I Got A Woman
4. One Sided Love Affair
5. I Love You Because
6. Just Because
7. Tutti Frutti
8. Tryin’ to Get to You
9. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)
10. I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')
11. Blue Moon
12. Money Honey
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