Any Way You Want Me That's How I Will Be (Owens/ Schroeder) [2:16] *
Rip it Up [1:50]
Love Me (Leiber/ Stoller) [2:44]
When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again [2:18]
Long Tall Sally [1:51]
First in Line [3:21]
Paralyzed [2:24]
So Glad You're Mine [2:18]
Old Shep [4:10]
Ready Teddy [1:55]
Anyplace is Paradise (Thomas) [2:26]
How's the World Treating You [2:23]
How Do You Think I Feel [2:10]
Too Much [2:32] *
Playing for Keeps *
Love Me Tender (Maston/ Presley) [2:42] *
* bonus tracks added to CD reissue
Sales:
½ million
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½ million
Peak:
1 5 3
Singles/Hit Songs:
Don’t Be Cruel * (8/11/56) #1 US, #24 UK, #1 RB, #1 CW. Sales: 4 million. Airplay: 4 million
Hound Dog * (8/11/56) #1 US, #2 UK, #1 RB. Sales: 4 million
Love Me Tender (10/20/56) #1 US, #11 UK, #3 RB, #3 CW. Sales: 3 million. Airplay: 3 million
Anyway You Want Me, That’s How I Will Be * (10/20/56) #20 US, #12 RB
Love Me (10/56) #2 US, #7 RB, #10 CW
Paralyzed (10/56) #59 US, #8 UK
When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again (10/56) #19 US
Rip It Up (10/56) #27 UK
Old Shep (12/56) #47 US
Too Much * (1/26/57) #1 US, #6 UK, #3 RB, #3 CW. Sales: 1 million
Playing for Keeps * (1/26/57) #21 US, #8 CW
* bonus track on reissue
Notes: The 1999 CD reissue added the bonus tracks noted in the track listing. Everything from this album is also on the box set The King of Rock and Roll: The ‘50s Masters.
Awards:
Elvis
Elvis Presley
Review:
“If Elvis isn’t quite as important historically as the Elvis Presley album that preceded it, that’s only because it came second – musically, it’s a more confident and bolder work than his debut, and in any other artist’s output it would have been considered a crowning achievement. At the sessions for his first album, the singer and all concerned were treading into unmapped territory and not sure what they were doing or if they were ready for it – by September of 1956, when the three days of sessions behind the Elvis album took place, he was on top, a national phenomenon of a kind that hadn’t been seen in music since Frank Sinatra a dozen years earlier, and he had some more experience recording. And with that confidence came better singing” (Eder).
“The songs here were, for the most part, material that he knew well, with one new submission by Otis Blackwell. He slides through them seemingly effortlessly, transforming the 1940s country number When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again into a smooth rocker; roaring through the Little Richard numbers Long Tall Sally, Ready Teddy, and Rip It Up; returns to his blues roots with a killer rendition of Arthur Crudup’s I’m So Glad You’re Mine (a leftover, amazingly enough, from his first RCA session); and shows how refined his voice was becoming on the ballad First in Line and the sentimental favorite Old Shep” (Eder).
½ million
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½ million
