Personnel: Elvis Presley (vocals, guitar); Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore (guitar); Floyd Cramer, Marvin Hughes, Shorty Long (piano); Bill Black (double bass); DJ Fontana, Johnny Bernero (drums); Ben Speer, Gordon Stoker, Brock Speer (background vocals).

When Elvis first broke on the national scene, nobody–not RCA, not Elvis’ manager Colonel Tom Parker, and certainly not Elvis himself–had any idea how long his popularity would last. Most assumed that rock and roll was a passing fad and that Presley would soon be relegated to the “where are they now?” bin. Unsurprisingly, RCA rushed Presley’s first album to market before Elvis had recorded enough new material for an entire record. The result, ELVIS PRESLEY, is a cut-and-paste job consisting of seven RCA recordings and five older tracks licensed from Sun Records, Presley’s first label.

Still, this is a monumental record in the history of rock and roll, from its iconic cover (which The Clash later paid homage to on the cover of LONDON CALLING) to the twelve great tracks to its unprecedented sales figures (it topped the Billboard album charts for 20 weeks). The RCA material includes Elvis’ arrangement of “Blue Suede Shoes” and covers of R&B hits “Money Honey,” “Tutti Frutti,” and “I Got a Woman.” The record is short (29 minutes) and the material it contains is available on lots of other discs, but if you must have the record that started a revolution, this is the one to get.

(45 votes, average: 4.18 out of 5)

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