a blog about elvis presley's music and records
ELVIS AS A MYTHIC FIGURE has played a part in many Hollywood movies since his death in 1977. Most of these movies treat the man and the myth with respect, humor, and even irony. I am not referring to movies where a Presley track is used as part of the background music but where the “essence” of the Elvis myth/legend is integral to the plot. [Continue reading]
RCA 2458EX IS AN ODD RECORD, one of the oddest in the vast catalog of Elvis records. It was manufactured in the US expressly to be exported to the UK and sold there in 1974. Instead of the usual creamsicle orange label that was the standard for RCA records at the time, this weird record had labels that were as grey as the Incredible Hulk was in 1962! [Continue reading]
I AM THE BEARER OF BAD TIDINGS: My friend and co-author John Walker Ross passed away on February 9, 2021, and this is an obituary of sorts and a tribute. I stumbled over John’s blog The Round Place In The Middle several years ago and spent the day reading his articles. [Continue reading]
A SPECIAL EXPORT-ONLY pressing of the “My Boy” single was manufactured in the US expressly for sale in the UK. RCA Victor 2458EX was shipped to England in late 1974, apparently because British plants were unable to meet the demand for new product on their own. [Continue reading]
“FROM ELVIS WORMS to the Milky Way’s edge, these science stories sparked joy in 2020.” How could I resist that headline? Even though the tagline to this website is “a blog about Elvis Presley’s music and the records it can be found on” and this article has absolutely nothing to do with music or records, they had me at “Elvis worms.” [Continue reading]
FOLLOWING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION in June 1953, Elvis Presley set his sights on becoming a recording artist. On July 18, he visited the Sun Records studio on Union Avenue in Memphis. There he paid $4 for the privilege of recording two songs onto one disc. [Continue reading]
SALES OF PHYSICAL COPIES OF ALBUMS, both compact discs (CD) and good ol’ long-playing records (LP) certainly ain’t what they used to be. MRC Data recently tallied up those sales and provided the media with a Top 10 best-selling album artists of the first two decades of the 21st century. [Continue reading]
TAKING WIKIPEDIA TO TASK for the seemingly endless number of mistakes in their pop music entries is like shooting the proverbial moose in a barrel. I could even make it a daily endeavor and turn this blog into a non-stop rant about Wikipedian boners. [Continue reading]
SONGWRITERS ASSOCIATED WITH ELVIS that receive the most credit in terms of Presley’s successful career are usually two teams: Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller and Doc Pomus-Mort Shuman. But a third team was paramount in Elvis’s transition from sappy movie matinee idol of the mid-1960s to potent music and cultural figure in 1968-1969: Billy Strange-Mac Davis. [Continue reading]