elvis compact 33s from europe 1961–1962 (spain and france)

Es­ti­mated reading time is 6 min­utes.

IN EU­ROPE, the com­pact 33 rpm single lasted into 1962, and like the rest of this won­derful world of ours, Elvis records were is­sued as Com­pact 33 Sin­gles and Dou­bles there that were not is­sued do­mes­ti­cally. The records below are al­most en­tirely from Spain with a couple from France.

Elvis com­pact 33s from Spain em­braced both for­mats and re­leased sev­eral in­ter­esting sin­gles with pic­ture sleeves and EPs with new artwork.

As I am clue­less about the im­por­tance and value of most Elvis records from out­side of the US, there is no price guide with these en­tries. I am just pre­senting a gallery of im­ages here for Elvis Com­pact 33s From Europe.

 

Compact 33 singles

C33 32020 NowNever Spain

Spain: It’s Now Or Never / A Mess Of Blues (32020, 1961)

Why RCA of Spain had reach back to the first-ever image that most people as­so­ciate with Elvis from his first new RCA Victor EP and LP album re­leases in 1956 will prob­ably re­main un­known. Graph­i­cally, the blue at the top and bottom bring out the po­tency of the black and white photo.

 

C33 32021 Surrender Spain

Spain: Sur­render / Lonely Man (32021, 1961)

For this new single, a photo from Jail­house Rock in 1957 was used. The de­sign is so boring it could have served as the in­spi­ra­tion for RCA of America for their Elvis re­leases for the rest of the ’60s.

 

C33 32033 HoundDog Spain

Spain: Hound Dog / Don’t Be Cruel (32033, 1961)

Spain reis­sued his biggest-selling record of the ’50s with anew pic­ture sleeve fea­turing a photo of Elvis on stage in 1957. Here he is wearing the gold jacket (he never wore the pants from that suit ex­cept for pub­licity) singing to a giant plastic hound dog, no doubt a ref­er­ence to Steve Al­len’s at­tempt to hu­mil­iate the boy on his tele­vi­sion show the pre­vious year.

 

C33 37 2060 BlueMoon Spain

Spain: Blue Moon / I Need You So (37-2060, 1961)

While Blue Moon was a sub­stan­tial hit for Elvis in Eng­land when is­sued by HMV in late ’56 (it was Top 10 on at least one weekly pa­per’s survey), its being re­leased on this format in the early ’60s seems rather odd, no?

Was there a tie-in with this song and some­thing else hap­pening in Spain at this time?

Will we ever know or will its re­lease for­ever be a mys­tery for the ages?

An­other ho-hum sleeve de­sign from the RCA graphics department.

 

C33_Wooden3_Spain

Spain: Wooden Heart / What’s She Re­ally Like (37-2076, 1961)

Like most of Eu­rope, Spain had the sense to issue the charming Wooden Heart as a single. Ap­par­ently, only RCA of America missed the boat on this one. Had it been re­leased do­mes­ti­cally and had a sim­ilar im­pact in the fifty states, it could have been one of Pres­ley’s biggest-selling sin­gles ever!

In­stead, Wooden Heart has the dis­tinc­tion of being the only multi-million selling single of Elvis’s ca­reer not to have been a hit in the US. Yet an­other Jail­house Rock photo used for the cover image.

 

C33 37 7908 LatestFlame Spain

Spain: His Latest Flame / Little Sister (37-7908, 1961)

Same photo (the bland Elvis of the early ’60s) and layout as the US re­lease. Note that the two ti­tles re­ceive equality in the choice and size of the print, im­plying its status as a double A-sided single.

Also note that the title is His Latest Flame (Marie’s The Name), es­sen­tially re­versing the order of the two phrases in the title. And be­cause of the way that the printer has placed the type, it could be read as (Marie’s The Name) Little Sister.

 

C33 37 2080 Rockahul Spain

Spain: Rock-A-Hula Baby / Can’t Help Falling In Love (37-2080, 1961)

Same photo (the bland Elvis of the early ’60s) and layout as the US re­lease. And Elvis was even blander for Blue Hawaii than usual. Note the promi­nence of the “Twist Spe­cial” blurb com­pared to the Amer­ican sleeve. One of my least fa­vorite im­ages of Elvis on a pic­ture sleeve found its way to Spain.

 

Compact 33 doubles

C33_GIBlues_France3

 France: G. I. Blues (1962)

This is a unique com­pact 33 double EP to France taken from the G.I. BLUES long-play album. Nice photo of Elvis and co-star dancer Juliet Prowse. (And do I call her Frank Sina­tra’s girl­friend or she of the legs-to-die-for?)

 

C332_Surrender_France

France: Sur­render / Lonely Man (1961)

This unique com­pact 33 double EP com­piles the two sides of the first single of 1961, Sur­render / Lonely Man, with the two new tracks from the Amer­ican ELVIS BY RE­QUEST extended-play album, Flaming Star and Summer Kisses, Winter Tears. The jacket photo and layout are the same as the Amer­ican pic­ture sleeve for the Sur­render single.

 

C33 JailhouseRock LPC 3140 Spain

Spain: Jail­house Rock (LPC-3140, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album of the same name (EPA-4114) from 1957.

 

C332 LPC3143 ElvisPresley Spain

Spain: Elvis Presley (LPC-3143, 1962)

This self-titled album ap­pears to col­lect both sides of two sin­gles: Wear My Ring Around Your Neck / Doncha’ Think It’s Time and (Now And Then There’s) A Fool Such As I / I Need Your Love Tonight. An­other photo from Jail­house Rock from 1957 graces the hum­drum cover.

 

C332_RipIt_Spain

Spain: Elvis Presley (LPC-3177, 196?)

The Spanish trans­la­tion for “Ar­rancalo” is “I tear it out,” so of course that means the song’s title is Rip It Up, which is the un­of­fi­cial title that this record goes by among col­lec­tors. “Amame” is “love me,” “cualquier lugar es el paraiso” is “any­where is par­adise,” and “el mundo te esta ob­se­quiando” is “the world like this re­galing.” I am going to go with King Of The Whole Wide World for that last one. An­other lack­luster cover design.

 

C332 33014 Sails Spain

Spain: Elvis Sings (33014, 1962)

Spain lifted the image from the Amer­ican EP album ELVIS SAILS (EPA-5157) for this com­pi­la­tion of ’50s sides. 

 

C332 33021 Creole Spain

Spain: King Creole, Volume 1 (33021, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album KING CREOLE VOLUME 2 (EPA-4321) from 1959. It fea­tures unique cover art taken from the movie poster (below).

 

C332 33022a Creole2 Spain

Spain: King Creole, Volume 2 (33022, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album KING CREOLE VOLUME 1 (EPA-4319) from 1959. It fea­tures unique cover art taken from the movie poster (below).

 

KingCreole_SpainPoster

This is the Spanish poster for the movie King Creole from 1958. The art­work for both of the two Spanish EPs above was taken from this poster. While hardly top o’ the line as graphics, the covers for the two EPs above are heads and shoul­ders above the pedes­trian covers on the Amer­ican EPs from 1958.

 

KingCreole MoviePoster

This is the Amer­ican poster for the movie from 1958. It is ar­guably the best poster to be as­so­ci­ated with any Presley vehicle. 

 

C332 33052 RR Spain

Spain: Rock And Roll (33052, 196?)

A com­pi­la­tion of ’50s using the now-famous photo that graced the cover the second Amer­ican LP album, ELVIS (LPM-1382) from 1956.

 

C332 33053 Ritmo Spain

Spain: The Rhythm Of Elvis Presley (33053, 196?)

Won­derful, col­orful de­sign using a photo of Elvis from the Dorsey Show in 1956. The multi-color graphics against the black and white photo gives the whole such a great Fifties feel. Easily one of my fa­vorite Presley sleeves of the ’50s!

 

C332 33054 RR2 Spain

Spain: Elvis (33054, 196?)

A com­pi­la­tion of ’50s using the now-famous photo that graced the cover the second Amer­ican LP album, ELVIS (LPM-1382) from 1956.

 

C332 33055 Loving Spain

Spain: Loving You (33055, 196?)

A com­pi­la­tion of ’50s using the now-famous photo that graced the cover the second Amer­ican LP album, LOVING YOU (LPM -1515) from 1957.

 

Elvis BlueHawaii MG 1500

HEADER IMAGE: At the time that RCA Victor was ex­per­i­menting with the Compact-33 format, Elvis was ex­per­i­menting with changing his image from surly rock & roller to n al­most goofily charming boy-next-door type for Hol­ly­wood. Here he is seen in a scene from 1961’s Blue Hawaii be­hind the wheel of a red 1960 MG Roadster.

 

Elvis 1957 goldsuit standup 1000

POST­SCRIP­TU­ALLY, I don’t have a lot to say about Elvis com­pact 33s from Spain. I ap­pre­ciate input from dealers and col­lec­tors of these records and sleeves on their values so that I could trans­form this into a useful price guide for other col­lec­tors. Most of the im­ages above were pro­vided by Frank Daniels.

 

Leave a Comment