''Elvis'' (also known as ''Elvis Presley No. 2'') is the second studio album by American

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

singer

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

. It was released through RCA Victor on October 19, 1956 in mono. Recording sessions took place on September 1, September 2, and September 3 at

Radio Recorders Radio Recorders, Inc. was an American recording studio located in Los Angeles, California. During the 1940s and 1950s, Radio Recorders was one of the largest independent recording studios in the world. Notable musicians recorded at Radio Recorder ...

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 would go on to spend 5 weeks at #1 in total. 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 cataloged as ''Rock 'n' Roll No. 2''. The original U.S. release inaugurated the practice (applied inconsistently for the first few years, but commonly afterwards) of crediting Presley only by his first name on album sleeves, though his full name continued to be used on labels.

Content

RCA Victor producer

Steve Sholes Stephen Henry Sholes (February 12, 1911 – April 22, 1968) was a prominent American recording executive with RCA Victor. Career Sholes was born in Washington, D.C. and moved with his family to Merchantville, New Jersey, at the age of nin ...

had commissioned two new songs for this batch of sessions, "

Paralyzed Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 5 ...

" from

Otis Blackwell Otis Blackwell (February 16, 1931 – May 6, 2002) was an American songwriter whose work influenced rock and roll. His compositions include " Fever" (recorded by Little Willie John), " Great Balls of Fire" and " Breathless" (recorded by Jerr ...

and " Love Me" from

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Lyricist Jerome Leiber (April 25, 1933 – August 22, 2011) and composer Michael Stoller (born March 13, 1933) were American songwriting and record producing partners. They found success as the writers of such crossover hit songs as " Hound Dog" ( ...

, the authors of Presley's summer hit of 1956, " Hound Dog," the first record to top all three of the '' Billboard''

singles charts A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include rec ...

then in existence: Pop, R&B, and C&W. Presley decided upon three Little Richard covers, and selected three new

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while ...

ballads respectively from regular

Everly Brothers The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly (February 1, 1937 – August 21, 2021) and Phillip "Phil" Everly (January 19, 193 ...

writer

Boudleaux Bryant Felice Bryant (born Matilda Genevieve Scaduto; August 7, 1925 – April 22, 2003) and Diadorius Boudleaux Bryant (; February 13, 1920 – June 25, 1987) were an Americans, American husband-and-wife country music and pop songwriting team. They ...

and guitarist

Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music ...

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

staff musician and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

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 Thomas Andrew Parker (born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk; June 26, 1909 January 21, 1997),

, 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 Tupelo , genus ''Nyssa'' , is a small genus of deciduous trees with alternate, simple leaves. It is sometimes included in the subfamily Nyssoideae of the dogwood family, Cornaceae, but is placed by other authorities in the family Nyssaceae. In ...

when he was ten years old,

Red Foley Clyde Julian "Red" Foley (June 17, 1910 – September 19, 1968) was an American musician who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II. For more than two decades, Foley was one of the biggest stars of the gen ...

's 1941 country song, "

Old Shep "Old Shep" is a song composed by Red Foley, with lyrics by Arthur Willis, published in 1935, about a dog Foley owned as a child. In reality, the dog, poisoned by a neighbor, was a German shepherd called "Hoover." Foley first recorded the song o ...

." 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 Winfield Scott Moore III (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016) was an American guitarist who formed The Blue Moon Boys in 1954, Elvis Presley's backing band. He was studio and touring guitarist for Presley between 1954 and 1968. Rock critic ...

Bill Black William Patton Black Jr. (September 17, 1926 – October 21, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader who is noted as one of the pioneers of rock and roll. He played in Elvis Presley's early trio. Black later formed Bill Black's Combo. Ear ...

, and D.J. Fontana, along with

The Jordanaires The Jordanaires were an American vocal quartet that formed as a gospel group in 1948. Over the years, they recorded both sacred and secular music for recording companies such as Capitol Records, RCA Victor, Columbia Records, Decca Records, Vocal ...

, managed to recreate the loose feel from

Sun Studio Sun Studio is a recording studio opened by rock-and-roll pioneer Sam Phillips at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 3, 1950. It was originally called Memphis Recording Service, sharing the same building with the Sun Records label ...

days, mixing

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

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) "That's All Right" is a song written and originally performed by blues singer Arthur Crudup and recorded in 1946. The song was rereleased in early March 1949 under the title "That's All Right, Mama", which was issued as RCA's first rhythm and bl ...

;" and a song recorded by bluegrass founder

Bill Monroe William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre take ...

, " 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 Natalie Wood ( Zacharenko; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and successfully transitioned to young adult roles. Wood started acting at age four and was given a co-starring r ...

and actor Nick Adams, both of whom had starred in ''

Rebel Without a Cause ''Rebel Without a Cause'' is a 1955 American coming-of-age drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Filmed in the then recently introduced CinemaScope format and directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social com ...

'', Presley's favorite James Dean film. Steve Sholes was the RCA man at the session, and handled the paper work and such, but Elvis himself chose the songs and led the session. The piano player on this album is not registered in the official RCA Victor 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".

Reissues

RCA first reissued the original 12 track album on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

in 1984. This issue, in reprocessed (fake) stereo sound, was quickly withdrawn and the disc was reissued in original mono. 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 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

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, ''

'' and '' Loving You'') as well as the 2004 upgrade known as ''Elvis at Sun''. These rock-n'roll tapes may have been among those possibly dumped into the Delaware River near RCA Victor's Camden, New Jersey plant in the late 1950s. In 2014, ''Elvis'' was reissued on the Follow That Dream label in a deluxe edition consisting of 2 discs packaged in a 7-inch sleeve. The first disc contains the original album plus every known outtake from the Labor-Day 1956 sessions. The second disc features a live concert held at Hirsch Coliseum, Youth Center, Louisiana State Fairgrounds on December 15, 1956.Sources: * *

Personnel

– vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, piano on "

", “

", “First in Line”, "How's The World Treating You", and 1997 bonus track " Playing For Keeps“ *

– electric lead guitar * Shorty Long – piano on “So Glad You’re Mine” * Gordon Stoker - piano *

–

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

D. J. Fontana Dominic Joseph Fontana (March 15, 1931 – June 13, 2018) was an American musician best known as the drummer for Elvis Presley for 14 years. In 1955, he was hired to play drums for Presley, which marked the beginning of a 15-year relationshi ...

– drums *

(Gordon Stoker, Hoyt Hawkins, Neal Matthews, Hugh Jarrett) - backing vocals

Track listing

Original release

1999 edition

FTD release

Notes *Chart positions for LPM 1382 from ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums chart; for singles from ''Billboard'' Pop Singles chart.

Charts

Weekly charts

Certifications

Notes

References

Jorgenson, Ernst. ''Elvis Presley: A Life In Music - The Complete Recording Sessions'', 1998. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Miller, Jim, ed. ''The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll'', revised first edition, 1980. New York: Random House.

External links

*
LPM-1382 Elvis Guide
part o
The Elvis Presley Record Research Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elvis (1956 Album) 1956 albums Elvis Presley albums Albums produced by Steve Sholes RCA Victor albums Albums recorded at Radio Recorders