In November 1955, RCA Records bought Presley's contract,
singles and unreleased master tapes from Sun Records for $35,000. His first
full-length album came out six months later, with tracks drawn from both
the Sun sessions and from further recording at RCA's studios in New York
and Nashville. "There wasn't any pressure," guitarist Scotty Moore
said of the first RCA sessions. "They were just bigger studios with
different equipment. We basically just went in and did the same thing we
always did." On tracks such as "Blue Suede Shoes," that meant
revved-up country music with the most irresistibly sexy voice anyone had
ever heard. (Rolling Stone) |
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.
(by Bruce Eder , All
Music Guide)
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