elvis compact 33s from south america 1961–1968

Es­ti­mated reading time is 6 min­utes.

IN SOUTH AMERICA, the Com­pact 33 single format lasted into 1964. 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.

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.

I have records from Ar­gentina, Brazil, and Uruguay listed below, but one country dom­i­nates the listing . . .

 

Compact 33 singles

C33 ShesNotYou wlp Argentina

Ar­gen­tine: She’s Not You / Just Tell Jim Said Hello (1962)

I have been un­able to lo­cate a pic­ture sleeve from any country for one of my fa­vorite Elvis songs of the decade, She’s Not You. I did find this white label promo from Ar­gentina, a form not as common in “second world” coun­tries as in the US and UK.

 

C33 Devil Brazil LC 16048

Brazil: Devil In Dis­guise / Please Don’t Drag That String Around (LC-16048, 1963)

This is the same pic­ture sleeve de­sign as that of the Amer­ican single of the same name (47-8188) from 1963.

 

C33 Bossa Brazil LC 16055

Brazil: Bossa Nova Baby / Witch­craft (LC-16055, 1963)

This is the same pic­ture sleeve de­sign as that of the Amer­ican single for I Feel So Bad / Wild In The Country (47-7880) from 1961.

 

C33 Bossa Uru 31A 0213

Uruguay: Bossa Nova Baby / Witch­craft (31A-0213, 1963)

RCA of Uruguay reached back for an image of Elvis for his last single of ’63, and found this an­cient photo? But wait, is that mas­cara and eye-liner? Or is the poor lad sleep-deprived from life on the road and living on pep pills?  (But you can’t use the word “bland” with this one . . .)

 

 C33 Suspicion Brazil

Brazil: Sus­pi­cion / Kiss Me Quick (1964)

Funny, but he doesn’t look sus­pi­cious in this photo. In fact, with the fake heav­enly back­drop, this sleeve could have been used for a Gold Stan­dard Se­ries 45 reis­suing two sides from the HIS HAND IN MINE album from 1961.

 

C332 ElvisPresley Argentina

Ar­gentina: Such A Night / Never Ending (1964)

RCA of Ar­gentina was so im­pressed with the heavily made-up Elvis image that Uruguay found that they re­cy­cled it six months later. “Una noche asi” trans­lates lit­er­ally as “One night so” while “de nunca ter­minab” means . . . “never ending.”

 

C33 SuchNight Brazil LC 16093

Brazil: Such A Night / Never Ending  (LC-16093, 1964)

Unique and in­ter­esting pic­ture sleeve: an­other photo of the bland early ’60s Elvis but this time used twice with a green-on-green de­sign. In­ter­esting, but not par­tic­u­larly good.

 

C33 Viva2 Brazil

Brazil: Viva Las Vegas / What’d I Say (1964)

Easily one of my fa­vorite Presley pic­ture sleeves ever! It could be the nice black and white photo without the clunky bor­ders that RCA of America seemed obliged to in­clude on every Elvis release.

Or per­haps it’s the clean, un­clut­tered look. or the way the yellow and blue print moves against the neu­tral background.

Or maybe it’s Ann-Margret.2

 

C33_Clam_Brazil_LC-16110

Brazil: DoThe Clam / You’ll Be Gone (1965)

This is the same pic­ture sleeve de­sign as that of the Amer­ican single for I Feel So Bad / Wild In The Country (47-7880) from 1961.

 

C33 CryingChapel Argentina

Ar­gentina: Crying In The Chapel / I Be­lieve In The Man In The Sky (1965)

Let’s see: RCA of Ar­gentina re­ceived the mas­ters for Elvis’s new single, a pair of gospel sides. So they thought, “What ‘look’ would be the most ap­pro­priate for this record?” And then they de­cided on a pub­licity photo for Jail­house Rock, where Elvis’s char­acter does some se­rious time for killing an­other man. Then gets out and is a mean sumbish to everyone around him. Then sees the Light and finds the Way. Makes sense . . .

 

C33_EasyQuestion_Arg

Ar­gentina: Easy Ques­tion / It Feels So Right (1965)

Elvis in the studio in New York in July ’56 recording Hound Dog and Don’t Be Cruel and Any Way You Wa-ah-ah-ah-ant Me seems like the per­fect photo for a pic­ture sleeve for Pres­ley’s best single in sev­eral years. Un­for­tu­nately, the A-side was three years old and the B-side five.

 

C33 LoveLetters Uru 31A 0922

Uruguay: Love Let­ters / Come What May (31A-0922, 1966)

What’s good enough for Ar­gentina is good enough for Uruguay.

 

C33 YourTime Brazil LC 16184

Brazil: Your Time Hasn’t Come Yet, Baby / Let Your­self Go (LC-16184, 1968)

What the hey is this doing here?!? There weren’t no such thing as a com­pact 33 single in 1968! It was not fun in 1968 being a fan and watching both sides of this fine single battle it out on the charts in an at­tempt to es­tab­lish one side as the A-side. And then fail to even reach the Top 50 on any major survey.

 

Compact 33 doubles

C332_Request_Brazil_

Brazil: Elvis By Re­quest (LPC-128, 1961)

This is the first Elvis Com­pact 33 re­lease in al­most every country in the world in which the format was man­u­fac­tured was this one. The pink border and print make this ver­sion so much more ap­pealing than the Amer­ican pressing with its bland white border and black print.

 

C332 ElvisPresley Brazil LCD 3004

Brazil: Elvis Presley (LCD-3004, 1962)

This is a reissue of the first Amer­ican EP album Elvis Presley (EPA-747) from 1956. 

 

C332 ElvisPresley2 Brazil LCD 3005

Brazil: Elvis Presley (LCD-3005, 1962)

This is a reissue of the first Amer­ican EP album ELVIS  PRESLEY (EPA-747) from 1956.  What sets this off from the pack is the blue and yellow let­ters stand out and com­ple­ment the black and white photo much more than the Amer­ican pink and green let­ters ever did (above)!

 

C332 Tender Brazil LCD 3006

Brazil: Love Me Tender (LCD-3006, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album LOVE ME TENDER (EPA-4006) from 1956. “Ama-me com ter­nura” trans­lates as “love me with tenderness.”

 

C332 Loving Brazil LCD 3009

Brazil: Loving You (LCD-3009, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album LOVING YOU VOLUME 1 (EPA-1515-1) from 1957.

 

C332 Golden1 Brazil LCD 3013

Brazil: Elvis’ Golden Records (LCD-3013, 1962)

This is a com­pi­la­tion pulled from the Amer­ican LP album of the same name (LPM-1707) from 1958.

 

C332 Creole Brazil LCD 3015

Brazil: King Creole (LCD-3015, 1962)

This is a reissue of the Amer­ican EP album KING CREOLE VOLUME 1 (EPA-4319) from 1958.

 

C332 Follow Brazil LCD 3026a

Brazil: Follow That Dream (LCD-3026, 1962)

This is es­sen­tially iden­tical to the Amer­ican EP album FOLLOW THAT DREAM (EPA-4368) from 1962. “Em cada sonho um amor” trans­lates as “In every dream a love.”

 

C332 Follow Uru 3AE 1045

Uruguay: Follow That Dream (1962)

Same photo (the bland Elvis of the early ’60s) and layout as the US re­lease. The Spanish trans­lates as “Follow That Dream” and “4 great songs of this great movie.” While I as­sume that “great ” stretches any­one’s credulity, this can be ar­gued to be Pres­ley’s finest light mu­sical comedy (were there any other kind?) of the ’60s.

 

C332 Galahad Brazil LCD 3047

Brazil: Kid Galahad (LCD-3047, 1962)

This is es­sen­tially iden­tical to the Amer­ican EP album (EPA-4371) from 1962. “Seis grandes can­coes” trans­lates as “six great songs.”

 

C332 Galahad Uru 3AE 3114

Uruguay: Kid Galahad (1962)

This is es­sen­tially iden­tical to the Amer­ican EP album (EPA-4371) from 1962. “Seis grandes can­ciones” trans­lates as “six great songs.”

 

C332 Viva Brazil LCD 3075

Brazil: Love In  Las Vegas (LCD-3075, 1964)

This is es­sen­tially iden­tical to the Amer­ican EP album (EPA-4382) from 1964. In Por­tuguese, “amor a toda ve­loci­dade” trans­lates as “love at full speed.”

 

C332 Viva Uru 3AE 3206

Uruguay: Love In Las Vegas (1964)

Same photo and layout as its Amer­ican coun­ter­part (EPA-4382), but the color se­lec­tion com­pletely al­ters the ef­fect! Com­pare this bold con­trast of red and white with the or­ange and blue of most ver­sions (like the Brazilian ver­sion above).

 

C332 Film Brazil LCD 3173

Brazil: Elvis And So (LCD-3173, 1971)

I have in­cluded one more item that re­ally doesn’t fall within the pa­ra­me­ters of this ar­ticle but is too cool not to list. “Da Trilha Sonora Do Filme” ba­si­cally trans­lates as the “sound­track to the film” while the title, “Elvis E Assim” trans­lates as “Elvis And So.”

 

Elvis 1957 goldsuit standup 1000

POST­SCRIP­TU­ALLY, I don’t have a lot to say about Elvis com­pact 33s from South America. 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.

 


FOOT­NOTES:

1   “After World War II, the world split into two large geopo­lit­ical blocs and spheres of in­flu­ence with con­trary views on gov­ern­ment and the po­lit­i­cally cor­rect society:
•  The bloc of democratic-industrial coun­tries within the Amer­ican in­flu­ence sphere, the First World.
•  The Eastern bloc of the communist-socialist states, the Second World.
•  The re­maining three-quarters of the world’s pop­u­la­tion states not aligned with ei­ther bloc were re­garded as the Third World.
•  The term Fourth World refers to widely un­known na­tions of in­dige­nous peo­ples living within or across na­tional state bound­aries.” (Na­tions On­line)

2   If while reading my ar­ti­cles on this site you get the im­pres­sion that I have a “thing” for the young Ann-Margret, well, you might be onto some­thing there. (I might also have the same thing for the older Ann-Margret.)

       

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