ELVIS DIED WITH ONLY 28 GOLD RECORDS. That is, he collected only twenty-eight official RIAA Gold Record Awards during his career. He also moved to that mansion on the hill without a single Platinum Record Award on his wall! Neither he nor Colonel Parker nor RCA Victor showed any real enthusiasm for the awards while he was alive. Since his death, the Presley People have done an admirable job in getting RCA and the RIAA to make things right.
Working with the vast personal files of Colonel Parker, the RIAA certified and awarded 110 Gold and Platinum Record Awards to the Presley estate in 1992. Since then, another eighty-eight Awards have been added to the list. 1
There is a follow-up to this article titled “About Those Elvis Gold And Platinum Record Awards,” which you should also read.
There are many reasons for RCA’s lackadaisical attitude towards these awards, an attitude apparently shared by Elvis and his manager. And looking at the history of the Awards, this perspective was also shared by most of the record industry’s movers and shakers.
When the RIAA launched its “official” Gold Record Awards program in January 1958, it opened its doors to the American record industry. Any company could submit records for independent auditing and receive RIAA certification for a Gold Record Award. They offered the industry access to awards that were standardized and independently authenticated. 2
There is a follow-up to this article titled “About Those Elvis Gold And Platinum Record Awards,” which can be found here.
Gold record awards since the ’40s
Individual record companies had been handing out gold records since the ’40s, so there wasn’t a big rush to get records to the RIAA for their blessing. In fact, the industry essentially ignored the RIAA Awards for years. They picked up a little steam in the late ’60s; albums appeared with RIAA Gold Record stickers affixed to their covers. But the Awards didn’t really catch on until the ’70s. 3
At that point, record companies realized that the awards could be used promotionally: a Gold Record was proof that “millions” of people had already bought an album, so why shouldn’t you buy it?
But for the first ten years, most companies just didn’t see the awards as a big deal and didn’t actively participate. For example, in early 1958 RCA Victor could have immediately requested certification for Gold Record Awards for the following Elvis titles:
Heartbreak Hotel / I Was The One
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You / My Baby Left me
Hound Dog / Don’t Be Cruel
Love Me Tender / Any Way You Want Me
Too Much / Playing For Keeps
All Shook Up / That’s When Your Heartaches Begin
Teddy Bear / Loving You
Jailhouse Rock / Treat Me Nice
RCA Victor could have also submitted the extended-play album ELVIS, VOLUME 2, the only EP to sell more than a million copies in the US! Elvis’ JAILHOUSE ROCK would follow suit later in ’58. Several LPs probably qualified.
They could have.
But they didn’t.
And we will probably never know why.
Qualifying a 45 for a Gold Record
A 45 rpm single had to sell 1,000,000 (one million) copies within the United States.
That’s it.
Qualifying an LP for a Gold Record
A 33⅓ rpm LP album had to sell $1,000,000 (one million dollars) at the manufacturer’s wholesale price. The number of copies that an LP sold was irrelevant to the Award but was slightly more than 700,000 copies for a normal LP.
As the price of records rose, the number of records required to reach the million-dollar gold standard declined. In 1974, new standards for an album were established and an album had to meet two criteria:
• An album must sell $1,000,000 at the wholesale level, plus
• an album must sell at least 500,000 units.
By this time a “unit” consisted of either an LP or tape. While reel-to-reels and 8-tracks were still manufactured, they sold little and had a minuscule impact on sales tallies. But the cassette tape was catching on fast with music-lovers across the country.
Elvis’ RIAA Gold Records 1958-1975
Here are the records certified Gold by the RIAA prior to Elvis’ death in 1977. As noted, there were only twenty-eight, and this teeny-weeny figure had tongues a-wagging for years after Presley’s passing about how RCA must have lied about his sales through the years to account for so low a tally. This would be put to rest in 1992 with the aforementioned certification of 110 Gold and Platinum Record Awards.
The titles below are listed chronologically as they received their certification. Within each year, titles are listed chronologically based on their original release date. Album titles are in bold print.
1958
47-7280 Hard Headed Woman / Don’t Ask Me Why
1960
LPM/LSP-1382 Elvis
1961
LPM/LSP-1707 Elvis’ Golden Records
LPM/LSP-2426 Blue Hawaii
1962
47-7968 Can’t Help Falling In Love / Rock-A-Hula Baby
1963
LPM/LSP-1951 Elvis’ Christmas Album
LPM/LSP-2256 G.I. Blues
LPM/LSP-2621 Girls! Girls! Girls!
1966
LPM/LSP-1254 Elvis Presley
LPM/LSP-2075 Elvis’ Gold Records, Volume 2
LPM/LSP-2765 Elvis’ Golden Records, Volume 3
1968
LPM/LSP-1515 Loving You
LPM/LSP-3758 How Great Thou Art
1969
LPM/LSP-2328 His Hand In Mine
LPM-4088 Elvis (NBC-TV Special)
47-9741 In The Ghetto / Any Day Now
47-9764 Suspicious Minds / You’ll Think Of Me
LSP-6020 From Memphis To Vegas/From Vegas To Memphis
1970
LSP-4155 From Elvis In Memphis
47-9768 Don’t Cry, Daddy / Rubberneckin’
47-9835 The Wonder Of You / Mama Liked The Roses
1971
LSP-4362 On Stage – February 1970
1972
74-0769 Burning Love / It’s A Matter Of Time
LSP-4776 Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden
1973
LPM-6401 Worldwide 50 Gold Award Hits, Volume 1
LSP-4555 That’s The Way It Is
VPSX-6089 Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite
1975
CPL1-0341 A Legendary Performer, Volume 1
Exactly why RCA Victor, Colonel Parker, and Presley balked at building an impressive catalog of RIAA Awards through the years will probably never be known. Due to the auditing and certifications of 1992, we know that had RCA been diligent about the Awards (and about maintaining proper records about their records), Elvis might have left this mortal coil with 50-60 official Gold Records on his walls.
FEATURED IMAGE: Here is Elvis with former producer Steve Sholes showing off the RIAA Gold Record Award for the 1972 album ELVIS AS RECORDED AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN. Presley looks trim and fit, if over-tanned. Of course, there are those eyes . . .
POSTSCRIPTUALLY, I have to stress that the RIAA Awards did not carry a lot of weight in the industry until the mid-’70s, by which time Elvis wasn’t racking up the sales figures that he had previously. It’s possible that Elvis was prouder of getting a gold record from Argentina or South Africa, where people didn’t have the money to buy large quantities of records than he did from getting a redundant RIAA Award for a title that he already had an RCA award hanging on his wall. We’ll never know.
FOOTNOTES:
1 The stories of RCA’s “misplacing” thousands of pieces of paper documenting Presley’s sales through the year have been around since Elvis was alive! Apparently, most of the paperwork from the years following his death (1977-1979) are missing—years in which hundreds of millions of Elvis records were selling around the world! 4
2 Record companies could join the RIAA and pay membership dues and separate fees for the auditing and the actual physical Awards. Non-member record companies also had access to the Awards, but with significantly higher auditing fees.
3 These awards presented by a record company to one of its artists are now called in-house awards and for many records, these are all we have to go on.
4 RCA also “misfiled” all of the master tapes to Presley’s recordings of the 1950s. But that’s another story . . .
That’s a lot of hard info I’ve never seen put together in one place and much appreciated. I always assumed RCA was just under-reporting for tax purposes, hiding profit like the movie companies (supposedly) did. My guess on Elvis’s indifference is that once he had a few for the walls at home it just wasn’t that big a deal, but as you say, we’ll probably never know.
NDJ
Hey, I just added a new plugin for my Comments section and it dug up several old comments such as yours that had been “lost” in my WordPress files!
Glad you enjoyed: the assumption of under-reporting is just and may still be in effect.
AIn the days after Presley’s death, I was glued to the radio. Soooo many interesting interviews that would never ever ever have happened except for the unexpected demise of a deity.
One RCA exec talked about how the company continually under-appreciated (my term for “took him for granted”) Elvis: he said that in the 18 months prior to Elvis’s death, he had sold 150,000,000 units worldwide but that RCA’s accounting system was old-fashioned they weren’t aware that he was still their biggest seller!!!
Supposedly, all RCA’s data on Elvis sales for several years before and after his death have been “misplaced” and may never be tallied by the RIAA …
NU
Just as probable that the Colonel and Elvis didn’t want proof of, or questions about, his income. This makes clear there had been other ‘award gold record’ programs so this just wasn’t viewed as a ‘big deal’ by many.
I think this emphasis on awards, etc., has not had a positive impact on the music industry. We’re sacrificing/losing creativity and originality as industry execs focus on things like this. And as we’ve learned with book sales/awards, too often the author, family, publisher are the ones buying to ensure an award.
DA
Thanks for the comments.
Regarding Parker and Presley: Good point but I think it’s more likely that RCA would hide sales from them than them hiding those figures from the IRS, which is a federal offense. But anything is possible.
Regarding industry awards: While I have always considered the Grammys a joke, the RIAA Gold and Platinum Record Awards are the only standard of sales in the US that can be trusted. Whether we like it or not, fans will probably always wanna be able to say, “My guy’s got more Gold Records than your guy.”
Rockahula, baby!
N
Interesting!
Thank you for reading it!
Hi Neal,
There are a few things wrong with this article from a factual standpoint. First of all, the photo of Elvis receiving the in-house gold record for “Heartbreak Hotel” at the Nashville recording session for “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” was done on April 14, 1956, not April 11, 1956. Elvis was later photographed with this gold record back home in Memphis at the Audubon Drive home with his parents and local DJ Dewey Phillips. Later that month, Elvis was photographed again in Las Vegas with Colonel Parker and an assortment of individuals on stage. This photo was used for the cover of Cashbox magazine at some point in late May, 1956.
Also the photo of Elvis with a heavy set gentleman from August 1, 1972 is wrong. The guy in the photo beside Elvis is not Steve Sholes. The guy in the photo is George Parkhill, who worked for RCA. Steve Sholes had died in 1968, four years prior to the photo being taken.
As to your question regarding why more RIAA awards weren’t issued during Elvis’ lifetime. The answer is pretty easy. RCA was already issuing in-house gold records in most cases, so there really wasn’t any need to pursue the RIAA awards, although, at times it would seem that they were pursued. I should also point out that although you don’t show photographic evidence of it, Elvis did receive some RIAA gold records from Steve Sholes in late 1963 while Elvis was filming “Kissin’ Cousins.” These gold records would have been for the Christmas album and the soundtrack to “Girls!, Girls!, Girls!” I am aware of at least two photos taken. There are several more photos taken of the Houston event from March, 1970 when Elvis received his gold records for the three singles and the two albums. There is also a photo of Elvis’ producer Felton Jarvis, Chet Atkins and RCA executive Harry Jenkins holding gold records. Felton is holding a gold record for the “How Great Thou Art” LP, while Felton is holding one for “In The Ghetto” and Harry Jenkins is holding one for “Suspicious Minds.” I would imagine this photo also dates from sometime around 1970.
DARYL
Thanks for the corrections!
The April 11 error was a typo but I have no idea why I said Sholes instead of Parkhill!
As for RCA’s sporadic interest in RIAA Awards: who knows? The awards didn’t really take on a lot of meaning outside the industry until the ’70s, so there was little promotional value in them. But why pay for an award in 1960 for ELVIS (1382) but not ELVIS PRESLEY (1254). And in 1961, why one for BUE HAWAII but not G.I. BLUES? Like much of the inconsistencies in RCA’s (lackadaisical) handling of Presley through the decades, we will probably never know the facts and will spend hours in speculation …
NEAL
PS: Surprisingly, there is very little information on George Parkhill on the Internet, not even a Wikipedia entry .. .
Hi Neal, thanks for the articles on RIAA Certifications, they are very helpful and appreciated.
1. The Hound Dog/Don’t Be Cruel single is certified at 4million. There is an in-house award at Graceland for Don’t Be Cruel engraved with “Special Award for 5 million seller” containing 5 actual records pressed in Gold and framed. Is this for Worldwide Sales or USA Sales? I am unaware of the issue date for the award.
2. Are in-house awards for worldwide or USA sales?
3. The Elvis For Everyone LP rear cover contains the albums that have sold over $1million, is this worldwide sales or USA sales?
Thank you in advance for your answers – Anthony
A
1. Sales of “Hound Dog” / “Don’t Be Cruel” supposedly passed 5,000,000 in the US in 1956. RCA Victor “misplaced” thousands of pages of paperwork involving sales of Presley’s records, so there may never be an upgrade on the RIAA Platinum Award to the 5,000,000 sales level.
2. In-house awards can be for whatever the company wants the award to signify. In the 1950s, RCA Victor in the US gave Presley in-house awards for US sales alone.
3. The banner on the back cover reads “WORLD WIDE $1,000,000 L.P. ALBUMS,” so I’d guess the amounts are wholesale numbers.
Hope this helps!
N
Thanks Neal. What was the criteria for Gold, and post-1974, for Platinum RIAA awards for 45 EPs. Also were you aware recently RIAA reduced Elvis’s album total from 146.5 million to 139 million and GOLD certifications from 117 to 101? appreciate your site, lots of great articles i’ve enjoyed very much. – Anthony
ANTHONY
Thanks for the comment!
I am not aware of there being any criteria nor any awards for EPs prior to those given Presley’s estate in 1992.
I am not aware of the RIAA reducing Elvis’s stats nor can I find anything about that on the internet. Can you please supply me with your source?
Here is the best article on Presley’s probable sales total: For the Billionth and the Last Time
I am pleased that you are pleased with this site and my work. Let’s hope that continues because I still have a lot to write about.
Keep on keepin’ on!
NEAL
This is a very good question that I have often asked myself. The RIAA website lists the criteria for short-form albums / EPS (extended plays) as needing the same amount sold as a single or full-length album (500,000 for gold, 1 million for platinum, 2 million or more for multi-platinum and 10 million for diamond). However, all of Elvis’ extended plays were certified back in March 1992. As noted by Anthony’s comment already, the RIAA website (www.riaa.com) has removed 7.5 million in album sales from Elvis’ tally on the website to reduce it from 146.5 million down to 139 million.
Also, the RIAA website has reduced the number of gold albums Elvis had from 117 down to 101 along with the number of platinum and multi-platinum tallies. Elvis has 16 extended plays that are certified at a minimum of gold, 10 of which have reached platinum status. 2 of those platinum extended plays have reached 2X Platinum. So it breaks down as such:
6 Gold
8 Platinum
2 2X Platinum
Total of 16 extended plays were certified back in March 1992. The problem I’ve always noticed is if you extrapolate the RIAA rules as mentioned above for short-form albums / extended plays and apply them to the above tallies of the 16 extended plays that are certified, you don’t come up with the 7.5 million that was reduced from Elvis’ total. 6 gold would be equal to 3 million. 8 platinum would be equal to 8 million, and 2 2X platinum would be equal to 4 million. That should be a total of 15 million, which is twice as much as the 7.5 million that was removed from Elvis’ album tally.
This would seem to indicate that the extended plays that were certified back in March 1992 were certified as gold equaling 250,000, platinum equaling 500,000, and 2X Platinum equaling 1 million. If you extrapolate those set of rules you get 6 gold equaling 1.5 million, 8 platinum equaling 4 million and 2 2X Platinum equaling 2 million. 1.5 million + 4 million + 2 million equals 7.5 million. That’s how they came up with the 7.5 million for the 16 extended plays.
I don’t quite understand why those rules were used for the extended plays but it appears they were. I think the logic was back then that since a short-form album or extended play was roughly 1/2 of an album, it only needed 1/2 of the sales of a full-length album to become certified, even though that is not the way the criteria for short-form albums / extended plays is currently stated on the RIAA website for certification.
Now the question is was there a mistake back in March 1992 as far as the extended plays that are just now being rectified. This could go either way. For example, if those 6 gold extended plays did, in fact, sell 500,000 copies but were only certified at 250,000 and if those 8 platinum extended plays sold 1 million copies but were only certified at 500,000 and if those 2 2X platinum each sold 2 million copies but were only certified at 1 million that could mean that ultimately instead of Elvis losing 7.5 million, is going to regain that 7.5 million but also gain another 7.5 million.
Now the flip-side of this is if indeed the 6 gold extended play albums only sold 250,000 and the RIAA decides to revoke those certifications due to not meeting the current 500,000 threshold for either a short form album or a full-length album, then that would mean that the 8 platinum would become gold for having 500,000 in sales which would equal 4 million and the 2 2X Platinum would become 2 platinum which would equal 2 million total. This would bring Elvis’ total extended play certifications only down to 6 million rather than the previous 7.5 million.
Essentially, there are 3 ways this could go. Elvis could simply regain the 7.5 million was taken from him and his total album sales would go back to 146.5 million (including both full-length albums and extended plays) or he could gain that 7.5 million but also gain another 7.5 million due to the way the extended plays were certified back in March 1992. Or there is the possibility that the RIAA is going to apply the new standards for extended plays / short form albums and Elvis would regain 6 million of the 7.5 million that was removed.
The RIAA website has not shown anything that would indicate that they are separating full-length album sales and short-form / extended play album sales when compiling the top tally of album sales. In fact, there filter on their website still allows you to filter between singles or albums / EPs combined. I believe Elvis is the only one who is seriously impacted by losing extended play sales.
DARYL
Thanks for the comment—and a helluva comment it is! In fact, I am going to use it as part of an article and address all your points in detail.
For now, let me say this for the benefits of readers unfamiliar with the wacky history and ever-changing criteria of the RIAA Gold Record Awards: The RIAA introduced the Gold Record Award in 1958 to call attention to outstanding sales. The original award for singles required 1,000,000 copies sold in the US at the retail level. The award for LP albums required $1,000,000 in sales in the US at the manufacturer’s wholesale prices. Apparently, at this time the RIAA did not set any criteria for 45 rpm EPs (which is odd given the sales of Presley’s EPs on 1956-1957).
In 1975, the RIAA required that an album sell $1,000,000 at the wholesale level plus a minimum of 500,000 units (LPs and tapes).
In 1976, the RIAA introduced the Platinum Record Award requiring 2,000,000 sales for a single and $2,000,000 plus 1,000,000 units for an album (LPs and tapes).
In 1989, the RIAA lowered the requirements for a single to 500,000 sales for a Gold Record and 1,000,000 for Platinum.
The first time I saw EPs addressed at all was for the 1992 awards ceremony for Elvis Presley in 1992. At that time, EPs were certified as you surmised:
250,000 for Gold
500,000 for Platinum
1,000,000 for Multi-Platinum
If they have changed things since then, I am not surprised. If those changes have neither external nor internal logic, I am not surprised.
Keep on keepin’ on!
NEAL
PS: You might enjoy this book: The Billboard Book of Gold and Platinum Records
Hi Neal
help unconfuse me please.in one response above you mention,”I am not aware of there being any criteria nor any awards for EPs prior to those given Presley’s estate in 1992. Since then, they use the same standard as singles: 500,000 for Gold and 1,000,000 for Platinum.”
then within another response you wrote, “The first time I saw EPs addressed at all was for the 1992 awards ceremony for Elvis Presley in 1992. At that time, EPs were certified as you surmised:
250,000 for Gold
500,000 for Platinum
1,000,000 for Multi-Platinum”
are you saying that if Elvis had been certified for a GOLD EP when he was alive a GOLD EP was 250,000? but when he did receive GOLD certifications for an EP in March 1992 the criteria was 500,000? thank you again, Anthony
A
For the first instance you list above (”I am not aware”), I should have written, “Since then, they changed the EP to the same standard as singles …” Actually, there was no need to write that line at all and so I deleted it from my original comment (below).
I followed the 1992 presentation of 100+ RIAA Awards to Elvis’s estate. I was pleased to see that Elvis was finally getting Gold Records for his EPs, but I was flummoxed by the criteria: 250,000 for Gold! 500,000 for Platinum! What were they thinking?
Only three years earlier, the boneheads at the RIAA had lowered the qualifications for a Gold Record for a single from 1,000,000 to 500,000, which made almost no sense to me. And they made it retroactive, which made even less than almost no sense.
Why didn’t they just introduce a Silver Record Award for 500,000 singles sales and 250,000 album sales and leave the Gold standard alone? That makes more sense (to me) and would have been lots more fun (we would have seen thousands of new Silver Awards to all kinds of artists).
And think how many Elvis albums have sold 250,000 but will probably never reach the 500,000 mark.
Oh, well, they did what they did and I still don’t know when they raised the criteria for EPs.
So, did I answer your questions and de-confuse you?
Thanks for catching those errors. Please keep at it as I don’t want there to be misinformation on this site.
Best,
N