what was the first elvis record that rca victor released?

Es­ti­mated reading time is 8 min­utes.

THE FIRST ELVIS RECORDS were five sin­gles that Sun Records re­leased be­tween July 1954 and Au­gust 1955. But what was the next Elvis record, the first one that RCA Victor re­leased? For some col­lec­tors, it would be the first record that RCA man­u­fac­tured that fea­tured at least one track by Presley, in­cluding var­ious artist albums.

So, which record was that? This ques­tion was put to me by long-time rock & roll fan, record col­lector, and wheeler-dealer Jerry Richards. Un­for­tu­nately, I had to give him a less-than-specific answer. 

This ar­ticle is one in a se­ries about col­lecting Elvis records from 1955 and early ’56.

Why should that be a dif­fi­cult ques­tion to an­swer? Be­lieve it or not, after all these years of tens of thou­sands of Elvis col­lec­tors sharing in­for­ma­tion about their records, we still don’t know ex­actly what hap­pened during those first few months after Presley be­came an RCA Victor recording artist.

Much (most? all?) of the pa­per­work that RCA Victor gen­er­ated about their early re­la­tion­ship with Presley was lost long be­fore fans and his­to­rians began trying to as­semble an ac­cu­rate time­line of events.

This in­cludes de­ci­sions that were made about where to re­lease a Sun recording (es­pe­cially pro­mo­tional com­pi­la­tion al­bums), when a record was shipped, how many records were pressed, etc.

As this pa­per­work was not backed up on mi­cro­fiche, it was lost forever!

So, to an­swer the ques­tion What was the first record that RCA Victor re­leased with an Elvis recording on it? we are left to our own devices.

 

Pressed between the pages

There are ba­si­cally three “tools” left for his­to­rians to use in their research:

•  records that were released
•  ar­ti­cles in old trade publications
•  mem­o­ries of even older people in­volved in the record industry

I can in­spect thou­sands of records and I can ac­cess thou­sands of is­sues of Bill­board and Cash Box on­line. From these sources, I can glean some information.

As for memories—no matter how well someone thinks they have pressed them be­tween the pages of their mind, I rarely rely on them for any­thing ex­cept conversation.

As someone once fa­mous once said: “It isn’t so as­ton­ishing, the number of things that I can re­member, as the number of things I can re­member that aren’t so.”

 

RCA Victor released these “first”

Through the years, Elvis col­lec­tors have con­sid­ered four records to have been the first record that RCA Victor re­leased fea­turing a Presley recording: one single, one set of EP records, and two LP records. This ar­ticle ad­dresses those four records along with four others we know were not the first but fit in the time frame—the reis­sues of the second, third, fourth, and fifth Sun singles.

RCA Victor en­joyed im­me­diate suc­cess with the first Presley platter, I Forgot To Re­member To Forget / Mys­tery Train (20–6357 and 47–6357), which was a reissue of Sun 223. The com­pany re­leased the other four Sun sin­gles (RCA Victor 6380, 6381, 6382, and 6383), which were al­most cer­tainly on store shelves around the country by the last week of January.

The records are listed below in the order in which I be­lieve they were shipped from RCA Victor to ei­ther radio sta­tions for air­play or to the public for pur­chase. The exact day of the month that each record was shipped is not known, so only the month and year are given.

This project began simply to an­swer the ques­tion What was the first record that RCA Victor re­leased with an Elvis recording on it? It grew into a se­ries of ar­ti­cles that even­tu­ally touched on re­lated records so, as I pub­lish this ar­ticle, there are at least twenty some­what re­lated ar­ti­cles in the series!

So, each of the four im­por­tant records ad­dressed below is the sub­ject of at least one sep­a­rate ar­ticle of its own. Each record below has a link to the pri­mary ar­ticle about that record (the afore­men­tioned Sun reis­sues do not). 

 

1.

I Forgot To Remember To Forget / Mystery Train

Cat­alog num­bers: 20–6357 (78 rpm) and 47–6357 (45 rpm)
Man­u­fac­tured: prob­ably late No­vember 1955
Re­leased: late No­vember or early De­cember 1955

It shouldn’t sur­prise anyone that the first thing RCA Victor did after signing Presley was to begin re­placing Sun 223, I Forgot To Re­member To Forget / Mys­tery Train, with RCA Victor 6357 fea­turing the same tracks.

I found cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence that this record was re­leased during the final days of No­vember, which is why it is listed first.

If pro­duc­tion went along normal lines, then the pro­mo­tional “Record Prevue” pressing for 47–6357 with white la­bels (see image below) was man­u­fac­tured be­fore ei­ther the black label 78 or 45. That would tech­ni­cally make it the first Elvis record that RCA Victor released!

To read more about this record, click here.

 

2.

E‑Z Pop Programming No. 5

Cat­alog number: none
Man­u­fac­tured: prob­ably De­cember 1955
Re­leased: De­cember 1955 or Jan­uary 1956

E‑Z Pop Pro­gram­ming No. 5 was a twelve-inch LP record with six­teen tracks by var­ious pop and country artists. As RCA Victor did not as­sign a cat­alog number to this record, it is often re­ferred to by its ma­trix num­bers, F70P-9681 (side 1) and F70P-9682 (side 2).

To read more about this record, click here.

 

3a.

That’s All Right / Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Cat­alog num­bers: 20–6380 (78 rpm) and 47–6380 (45 rpm)
Man­u­fac­tured: late De­cember 1955 or early Jan­uary 1956
Re­leased: late Jan­uary 1956

 

3b.

Good Rockin’ Tonight / I Don’t Care If The Sun Don’t Shine

Cat­alog num­bers: 20–6381 (78 rpm) and 47–6381 (45 rpm)
Man­u­fac­tured: late De­cember 1955 or early Jan­uary 1956
Re­leased: late Jan­uary 1956

 

3c.

Milkcow Blues Boogie / You’re A Heartbreaker

Cat­alog num­bers: 20–6382 (78 rpm) and 47–6382 (45 rpm)
Man­u­fac­tured: late De­cember 1955 or early Jan­uary 1956
Re­leased: late Jan­uary 1956

 

3d.

Baby Let’s Play House / I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone

Cat­alog num­bers: 20–6383 (78 rpm) and 47–6383 (45 rpm)
Man­u­fac­tured: late De­cember 1955 or early Jan­uary 1956
Re­leased: late Jan­uary 1956

 

7.

E‑Z Country Programming No. 2

Cat­alog number: none
Man­u­fac­tured: Jan­uary or Feb­ruary 1956
Re­leased: Jan­uary or Feb­ruary 1956

E‑Z Country Pro­gram­ming No. 2 was a ten-inch LP record with twelve tracks by var­ious country artists. As RCA Victor did not as­sign a cat­alog number to this record, it is often re­ferred to by its ma­trix num­bers, G70L-0108 (side 1) and G70L-0109 (side 2).

To read more about this record, click here.

 

8.

SPD-15 (untitled)

Cat­alog number: SPD-15 (599‑9083 through 559‑9092)
Man­u­fac­tured: De­cember 1955 through Feb­ruary 1956
Re­leased: Feb­ruary or March 1956

Record #4 is an un­ti­tled set of ten EP records that is known by its cat­alog number, SPD-15. Each EP is a seven-inch record with two tracks per side that play at 45 rpm. The set it­self does not have one over­riding cat­alog number; each record is re­ferred to by its in­di­vidual cat­alog num­bers, 599‑9083 through 559‑9092.

To read more about this record, click here.

 

Question answered?

This is prob­ably the cor­rect order in which the first RCA Victor records fea­turing an Elvis track were man­u­fac­tured. It may also be the order in which they were released . . . 

This ar­ticle about the first Elvis record from RCA Victor is one in a se­ries about col­lecting Elvis records from 1955 and early ’56. Click To Tweet

FEA­TURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page was taken on De­cember 1, 1955, at RCA’s recording studio in New York City. This photo was taken around the time that the records above were being planned or man­u­fac­tured by RCA. This was a pub­licity photo shoot and Elvis didn’t record a thing.

Postscriptually

The first four­teen ar­ti­cles in this se­ries are al­most com­pleted and listed below with links to each. The ar­ti­cles cover records in their chrono­log­ical order of re­lease. Should you ac­cess one of these ar­ti­cles and re­ceive an Error Page, try back a week later.

01  RCA Vic­tor’s “SPD” Series of Spe­cialty Records
02  What Was the First Elvis Record That RCA Victor Released?
03  The Biggest Country & Western Record News of 1955
04  The First RCA Elvis Record Was “I Forgot to Re­member to Forget”
05  The RCA Victor Car­toon Pic­ture Sleeves of the ’50s
06  The Elvis “This Is His Life” Car­toon Pic­ture Sleeve
07  RCA Victor 47–6357 Bootleg Pic­ture Sleeves
08  The “Record Bul­letin” Pic­ture Sleeve for RCA’s First Elvis Record Is a Fake
09  Did RCA Re­lease Other Ver­sions of Elvis’ Songs to Com­pete With Elvis’ Records?
10  A New Kind of Hit Re-run With Elvis Presley
11  Was “E‑Z Pop Pro­gram­ming 5” the First LP to Fea­ture an Elvis Track?
12  Was “E‑Z Country Pro­gram­ming 2” the First LP to Fea­ture an Elvis Track?
13  Was SPD-15 the First EP to Fea­ture an Elvis Track?
14  Is the Country & Western Jukebox Pro­mo­tion Kit a Fake?

More ar­ti­cles ad­dressing the early RCA Victor re­leases are planned. Each will con­tain the block­quote, “This ar­ticle is one in a se­ries about col­lecting Elvis records from late 1955 and early ’56,” like the one at the be­gin­ning of this article.

To find all the ar­ti­cles in the se­ries, copy the block­quote, paste it into the Find op­tion (the mag­ni­fying glass in the nav­i­ga­tion bar at the top of each page), and then press Re­turn or Enter on your keyboard.

Fi­nally, thanks to Paul Combs (Elvis Records), Frank Daniels (Frik­tech), Dave Reynolds (Elvis Rare Records), and Joe Spera (Elvis Presley Tapes) for their input in some or all of these articles.

 

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