TODAY’S QUORA QUESTION is “What was Elvis Presley’s first album?” Everyone who knows much of anything about Elvis thinks they know the answer: LPM-1254 with Red Robertson’s iconic photograph of Elvis in 1955. But that’s not the actual answer, as anyone who knows more than much-of-anything-about-Elvis realizes. Confusion exists because the term “album” has taken on non-format-related meanings in the intervening decades.
But first, here is some background information. In the early ’50s, there were two formats for albums: the 33⅓ rpm, long-play album (LP) and the 45 rpm, extended-play album (EP). Introduced in 1948 by Columbia Records, the standard LP included two parts:
1. a record
2. a cardboard jacket
The jacket normally had a photograph or artwork on the front cover and liner notes, photos, or advertisements on the back cover.
RCA Victor introduced the seven-inch EP album in early 1952. A standard EP included two parts:
1. a record
2. a cardboard jacket
The jacket normally had a photograph or artwork on the front cover and liner notes, photos, or advertisements on the back cover.
The term “album” has taken on several meanings since the release of Elvis’s first albums, including ones that have nothing to do with the format.
In the US, most LPs included a paper inner sleeve to protect the record as it slid in and out of the cardboard jacket. EPs rarely included a paper inner sleeve.
Record companies manufactured LPs in both ten-inch and twelve-inch sizes. By 1956, most of them had discontinued the ten-inch record but the twelve-inch album had grown steadily in popularity and sales (although sales of a million copies was unheard of).
The EP had not established itself as a very profitable format and was not as common as the LP.
That is, until March 1956.
This advertisement from the March 31, 1956, issue of The Billboard lists the three new Elvis albums with their suggested retail prices. Note that at the time the that this ad was composed, Heartbreak Hotel / I Was The One had not sold a million copies.
A red hot star is born
Then, in the fourth week of March 1956, RCA Victor shipped three Elvis Presley albums simultaneously. One was an LP, two were EPs. They were very similar packages:
• Each album had the same title.
• Each album had the same cover photo and design.
• Each album featured tracks from the same pool of recordings.
Knowing this, here is a list of those three records that make up the correct answer to the question, What was Elvis Presley’s first album? As they were shipped by RCA Victor on the same day, they are listed alphabetically by catalog number.
EPA-747, Elvis Presley
Released: March 23, 1956
Format: Seven-inch, 45 rpm extended-play (EP) album with two tracks per side (four tracks total).
Charts: There were no EP charts in the US in 1956. When Billboard introduced an EP chart in September 1957, EPA-747 made the Top 10 five times in 1958–1959.
Because the Billboard Top 100 tallied radio plays and jukebox plays along with sales, “Blue Suede Shoes” from this album made it to #24 on that chart.
Sales: EPA-747 sold 400,000 copies straight off, an unheard-of number for an EP at that time.
EPB-1254, Elvis Presley
Released: March 23, 1956
Format: Seven-inch, 45 rpm extended-play (EP) album with two records with two tracks per side (eight tracks total).
Charts: There were no EP charts in the US in 1956. When Billboard introduced an EP chart in September 1957, EPB-1254 made the Top 10 three times in 1958–1959.
Sales: EPB-1254 sold 150,000 copies. It may be the biggest selling two-record EP in the US.
LPM-1254, Elvis Presley
Released: March 23, 1956
Format: Twelve-inch, 33⅓ long-play (LP) album with six tracks per side (twelve tracks total).
Charts: This reached #1 on the Billboard LP chart, the first rock & roll album to top that survey.
Sales: LPM-1254 sold an unprecedented 360,000 copies in six weeks, making it RCA Victor’s fastest-selling pop LP up to that point. Domestic sales topped a million copies, making it one of the biggest-selling LPs of the ’50s.
Vee-Jay released The Beatles (VJEP‑1–903) during the height of Beatlemania in 1964. Known by the blurb on the front cover (“Souvenir of Their Visit to America”), Vee-Jay priced it the same as a single (99¢ instead of the usual $1.49) and sold more than a million copies.
RCA misplaced what?
EPA-747 and the other Elvis EP titles released in 1956 changed the way the industry looked at the format when each sold hundreds of thousands of units. Elvis – Volume 1 (EPA-992) even passed the million mark in domestic sales when its featured track, “Love Me,” made the Top 10 on the national pop charts!
Sales of EPs by established sellers like Fats Domino, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, etc, are not known. What is known is that no other EP aside from Presley’s has been certified by the RIAA for a Gold Record Award (250,000 sales).
RCA Victor issued its last commercial EP in 1967 with Presley’s Easy Come, Easy Go. Supposedly, it sold considerably less than 100,000 and the EP was discontinued as a viable commercial format in the US. Such was not the case elsewhere, as the Beatles released the two-record Magical Mystery Tour EP album in 1967 and sold more than 600,000 copies in a year!
The generations growing up in the past few decades have tended to use the term “album” to mean a vinyl LP only.
Because the EP was a defunct format in the states, Capitol combined the six tracks on the EP album with five sides previously released as singles and issued them as the Magical Mystery Tour LP in the US.
RCA Victor continued manufacturing the better selling Elvis catalog EPs until 1969, by which time even they were no longer selling enough to keep them in print.
The generations growing up in the past few decades have tended to use the term album in a very constricted sense for a vinyl LP only. Hell’s Belles, I have seen learned people restrict the term even more to have nothing to do with the format but instead refer to the presentation of the recorded material.
But that’s another story . . .
In the ’50s, there two formats for albums: the 33⅓ rpm LP album and the 45 rpm EP album. Three Elvis albums were released simultaneously using these formats. Click To Tweet
FEATURED IMAGE: The photo of Elvis at the top of this page is probably the most iconic photo in rock & roll’s history. It was taken by William “Red” Robertson on July 31, 1955, at a performance at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in Tampa, Florida.
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
I read recently that an RCA album released in 1955 in South Africa ( I think) contained two Elvis Sun tracks among other artists’ songs. I sadly cannot remember much detail. Even Elvis’s last EP, Easy Come, Easy Go, was different in the UK to elsewhere with only 4 tracks on the one I purchased in 1967.I daresay I may have been the only 13 year old boy in Leeds that bought it in the year of Sgt Pepper etc.I must say that I never thought of an EP as an album.
D
RCA Victor introduced the EP in 1952 and clearly marketed them as albums. Remember, the term album was purloined from collectors of photographs who kept their prints in book-like albums that are still manufactured today. The record industry picked up the term because the original phonograph albums were several 78 rpm records in binders that looked pretty much like photo albums.
Regarding Easy Come, Easy Go: in the UK, RCA lifted two tracks from that movie and issued it as a single: The Love Machine / You Gotta Stop. Fortunately, British record buyers had the good sense not to buy the record.
https://www.45cat.com/record/rca1593
Like you, I was probably the only kid in my school that bought Easy Come, Easy Go in 1967.
N
I also bought the single.Ex juke box without a middle.Leeds City Kirkgate Market was brilliant for a bargain.It was half price to a new one.I must be special.
D
Did you ever hear either side on the radio?
N
Not that I can remember.But I was only 12 in 1967 and the BBC then did not play much pop music then.I doubt it wil have got much air play.
D
Good morning! I am about to slither off to bed but I wanted to recommend a book: Elvis UK – The Ultimate Guide to Elvis Presley’s British Record Releases 1986–2002 by John Townson and Gordon Minto. Used copies are $100+ but worth every penny.
N
Dave, I believe the LP you’re referring to was actually New Zealand of all places! It was a comp LP with a track or two from Elvis Sun. I can’t remember which, how many, or name of LP. I think it recently made news from a massive eBay sale. Technically, it was the first album Elvis ever appeared on.
The album in question appears to be E‑Z Country Programme No. 2. This New Zealand album seems to be based on the promotional albums of the same names shipped to radio stations in the US (or vice versa?).
Here is an article from April 20, 2019: https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/112073443/rare-elvis-presley-record-found-in-old-pile-of-records-and-donated-to-museum
The article is filled with errors, all too typical of the slovenly work that so-called journalists publish on the internet and in newspapers and magazines every day.
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This is the album: https://www.discogs.com/Various-E-Z-Country-Programming-No2/release/11309190
One copy has sold on Discog for $130 and a second is currently for sale at $429.52. This is a far cr indeed from the $3,500 estimate in the article.
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Here are links to a pair of similarly titled promotional LPs shipped to radio stations in the US in November 1955:
https://www.elvisrecords.com/e‑z-country-programming-no‑2/
https://www.elvisrecords.com/e‑z-country-programming-no‑3/
Both the article above and Disogs claim it was released in 1955, but I find that hard to believe. RCA Victor didn’t release their reissue of “I Forgot To Remember To Forget” / “Mystery Train” until December 2, 1955. To believe this LP was issued in 1955, we have to believe that HMV in New Zealand got safety copy tapes of these two tracks from RCA Victor and manufactured and issued an LP all within a matter of four weeks.
Doable, but hard to believe. In fact, knowing the single was issued in December calls into question the November 1955 date assigned to the promotional version of the LP issued in the US. But that’s another story.
Thinking about the first album Elvis should have been the Sun sessions which of course was issued many years later and found its way into the Rolling Stone Top 20 of all-time albums.
D
Decades ago, some reviewer (probably in Rolling Stone) observed that if Elvis had died on his way to New York to sign his contract with RCA Victor in November 1956, all we would have would be the Sun sides. Had they been collected onto a single LP, Elvis and that one LP would be revered by fans and critics in the same manner Robert Johnson and The King of the Delta Blues Singers album are revered.
N
Rightly so too.
That all may be well n good, but then we wouldn’t have the two greatest trax the King ever recorded—Live: “Polk Salad Annie”; Studio: “Merry Christmas Baby” (complete version)!