Album Of The Week 18

As with every other album of the week, all we ask you to do, it pull out your vinyl, 8 track cassette, cassette, or CD. Or even stream it from your favourite streaming site, or even download it, whichever is your preference to listen, just give the album a listen, then give us your thoughts and feedback. We would love you to actually listen to the album, just to refresh your memory.
Thanks.

 ELVIS (1956)

(Also known as Elvis Presley No. 2)

LPM-1382 

Released: October 19th 1956

Recorded: January 30th, September 1st - 3rd 1956

Studio; RCA Studio 1 - New York, Radio Recorders Studio 1, Hollywood

Genre: Rock and roll, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, country

Length: 29 minutes 47 seconds 

Label: RCA Victor

 

Tracklist

A1     Rip It Up
A2     Love Me
A3     When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
A4     Long Tall Sally
A5     First In Line
A6     Paralyzed
B1     So Glad You're Mine
B2     Old Shep
B3     Ready Teddy
B4     Anyplace Is Paradise
B5     How's The World Treating You
B6     How Do You Think I Feel

Elvis / Elvis Presley No. 2 is the second studio album by Elvis, released by RCA Victor in October 1956 in mono.
Recording sessions took place on September 1, September 2, and September 3 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, with
one track left over from the sessions for Presley's debut album at the RCA Victor recording studios on January 30
in New York. It spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart that year, making Presley the
first recording artist to have both albums go straight to number one in the same year. It was certified Gold on
February 17, 1960, and Platinum on August 10, 2011, by the Recording Industry Association of America.

It was originally released in UK in 1957 as Elvis Presley No. 2 with a different front cover
(on His Master's Voice CLP1105). It was also catalogued as Rock 'n' Roll No. 2.

Content

RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes had commissioned two new songs for this batch of sessions, "Paralyzed" from Otis
Blackwell and "Love Me" from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the authors respectively of both sides of Presley's
summer hit of 1956, "Don't Be Cruel" backed with "Hound Dog," the first record to top all three of the Billboard
singles charts then in existence: pop, R&B, and C&W. Presley decided upon three Little Richard covers, and
selected three new country ballads respectively from regular Everly Brothers writer Boudleaux Bryant and guitarist
Chet Atkins, Sun staff musician and engineer Stan Kesler, and Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman. The latter two,
contracted to Hill and Range, the publishing company of Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, would write dozens
of songs for Presley through the 1960s. Also included was the song with which Presley won second prize at a fair
in Tupelo when he was ten years old, Red Foley's 1941 country song, "Old Shep."

With all but one track on the album recorded at a single set of sessions over three days in September, Presley and
his touring band of Scotty Moore, Bill Black, and D.J. Fontana, along with The Jordanaires, managed to recreate the
loose feel from Sun Studio days, mixing rhythm and blues and country and western repertoire items as they had on all
of his Sun singles. They reinforced this effect by including material echoing his very first Sun record: a blues
by Arthur Crudup, author of "That's All Right (Mama);" and a song recorded by bluegrass founder Bill Monroe,
"When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again." The sessions were attended by a few outsiders, namely his current girlfriend
at the time, actress Natalie Wood and actor Nick Adams, both of whom had starred in Rebel Without a Cause, Presley's
favorite James Dean film. Steve Sholes was the RCA man at the session, and handled the paper work and such, but
basically Elvis himself chose the songs, led the session, made all the decisions concerning which take would be the
master and so forth. Thus it would be fair to say that for most practical purposes, Elvis himself at this session and
throughout his career would continue to do most of the things that a regular record producer normally would do.

The piano player on this album is not registered in the official RCA archives, except for the song "So Glad You're Mine",
which was cut at a previous session in New York. In a 1984 interview conducted by Jan-Erik Kjeseth, Gordon Stoker of the
Jordanaires stated that he was the piano player on most of the songs on the album. In an article written by Kjeseth for
the Flaming Star magazine, it was argued that the piano player on "Love Me", "Old Shep" and "How's the World Treating You"
was Elvis himself. Ernst Jørgensen, writer of Elvis Presley - A Study in Music, seems to be of the same opinion.
Kjeseth also claims that Elvis played the piano on the single from this session, "Playing for Keeps". Again, Jørgensen
seems to be of the same opinion. Gordon Stoker played the piano on "Rip it Up" and "Anyplace is Paradise". RCA first
reissued the original 12-track album on Compact Disc in 1984. This issue, in reprocessed (fake) stereo sound, was quickly
withdrawn and the disc was reissued in original monophonic.
Reissues
RCA reissued an expanded edition of the album in 1999, and again in 2005. For the 1999 reissue, six bonus tracks were
added that were both sides of three singles, altering the running order. Four of the tracks were chart-toppers:
"Love Me Tender", "Too Much", and the double-sided classic "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel". Bonus tracks recorded
on July 2 at RCA Studios in New York City, in September at Radio Recorders, and "Love Me Tender" at 20th Century Fox
Stage One during the sessions for Love Me Tender. The 2005 reissue was remastered using DSD technology with the six
bonus tracks appended in standard fashion, in the following order: "Playing for Keeps", "Too Much", "Don't Be Cruel",
"Hound Dog", "Any Way You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)", and "Love Me Tender". This acclaimed latest remaster was
the handiwork of audio restorer Kevan Budd, who also drew praise for his 2005 remasters of Presley's first and third
albums (respectively, Elvis Presley and Loving You) as well as the 2004 upgrade known as Elvis at Sun. These rock-n'roll
tapes are believed to have been among those ignobly dumped into the Delaware River near RCA Victor's Camden, New Jersey
plant in the late 1950s.