Elvis – A Touch of Gold | a blog about elvis presley's music and records

an introduction to a blog about elvis’ records and music

MY BABYBOOK states that my favorite song in 1956 was “Sh-Boom.” As I turned five that year, that makes sense. But my aging brain tells me that “Hound Dog” has been my fave for as long as it has been translating my experiences into memories and storing them! [Continue reading]

a nutshell guide to the billboard record charts of the ’50s

I SWEAR I DID NOT COME CLOSE to the Publish button while working on this piece! Still, somehow managed to “publish” this incomplete article and have to deal with the fallout. And I wasn’t even planning on publishing this article on this blog—I was going to move it on over to my Rather Rare Records blog. [Continue reading]

quora is an unreliable source of information about records

I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT WIKIPEDIA and why it is an unreliable source of information about popular music and records. It seems that every time I look up anything about music and records, I find errors. Most are factual errors—titles, dates, catalog numbers, etc.—while some reflect the contributors not understanding the topic under discussion. [Continue reading]

is elvis’ “my happiness” single among the rarest and most valuable albums?

THIS ARTICLE IS AN ABBREVIATED VERSION of a longer piece that I published on the Sixties Music Secrets website. That article is titled “Are These Five LPs Among the Rarest and Most Valuable Records in the World?” It is the fourth installment of my Avid Record Collector column on that site, where I normally review albums from the ’60s. [Continue reading]

a little personal background information

WHEN REQUIRED TO POST A PROFILE on the internet, I usually write, “Mystical liberal likes long walks alone at night in the dark in the city in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig.” While this bit of irony works for some readers, others want a little more in terms of personal background information. [Continue reading]

oh, shit! someone died—someone I love

I WAS SITTING AT THE BAR ALONE, sipping bourbon. It was the middle of August, so normally I would be at my job with Luzerne County Roads & Bridges, patching potholes on the county road in Sweet Valley. But I had injured myself and so had a week off to get better. [Continue reading]

A FEW QUOTES

“[Elvis] came to the session, picked the songs, and if something in the arrangement was changed, he was the one to change it. Everything was worked out spontaneously. Nothing was really rehearsed. Consciously or unconsciously, everyone imitated him.” – Bones Howe

“You have no idea how great he is, really you don’t. You have no comprehension, it’s absolutely impossible. I can’t tell you why he’s so great, but he is. He’s sensational.” – Phil Spector

"I don’t think he ripped them off. I think once something has been exposed, anyone can add or take from it if they like. He was just so great, so popular, and so hot, and so anything that he played became a hit.” – B.B. King

“He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn’t let black music through. He opened the door for black music.” – Little Richard

"Elvis was a great man and did more for civil rights than people know. To say he was a racist is an insult to us all.” – Ernest Withers

"The only white boy that had soul—who could sing as good as any of them—was Elvis When it comes to singing, nobody had everything like Elvis. I’ll tell the world, Elvis was the greatest of all time." – Muhammad Ali

“The first time that I appeared on stage, I really didn’t know what all the yelling was about. I didn’t realize that my body was moving. It’s a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage I said, ‘What’d I do?’ And he said, 'Whatever it is, go back and do it again.' ” – Elvis Presley

"Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the 20th century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it’s a whole new social revolution [and] the '60s come from it.” – Leonard Bernstein