a blog about elvis presley's music and records
WHEN RCA VICTOR STRUCK GOLD with Elvis in 1956, the only medium that mattered to the people most likely to buy his records was the 45 rpm single. In the first twelve months after signing Presley in November 1955, the record company released an unbelievable sixteen singles in the United States! [Read more] “super rare version of 1957 elvis album found!”
COMING SOON!
TO A SCREEN NEAR YOU
An all NEW series of updated and rewritten articles about the Elvis Presley Gold Standard Series of 45 rpm singles and EP albums!
NEW discographies – NEW labelographies – NEW photos of some really rather rare records!
Plus an all NEW, up-to-date price guide!!! [Read more] “coming soon! a new series about elvis’ gold standard 45s”
RCA’S FIRST “EP” WASN’T WHAT YOU THINK! Three years before they signed Elvis Presley, RCA Victor introduced record-buyers to the 45 rpm, extended-play EP record. This new format was an extension of their 45 rpm single that had been launched in 1949. That format had been devised to sally forth into the marketplace and do battle with Columbia’s 33⅓ rpm long-playing LP album. [Read more] “RCA introduced the EP album during the “battle of the speeds””
BY JANUARY 1968, a new Elvis single was successful if it merely reached the Top 40 and sold 300,000 copies. This was a far cry from three years before when a new single reached the Top 20 and sold at least a half million copies. And that was a far cry from the dizzying heights of 1960 when a Presley hit sold in the millions!
ELVIS PRESLEY OWNED 1956! That year he ascended the heavens of popularity to become the most talked-about new personality in the last ten years of recorded music! By the end of the year, he had six #1 records on various charts, sold more than 12,000,000 singles, and was universally known, both derisively and affectionately, as “Elvis the Pelvis.” [Read more] “rca victor ads for elvis presley records in 1956”
THE MOST ICONIC IMAGE in rock & roll history was taken at the dawn of the genre’s rise to popularity. It is of a young Elvis Presley before most of the world had even heard his name, let alone his music. He is on stage, legs spread, his body pulled back from his new Martin D-28 guitar. [Read more] “the world’s most famous and iconic rock & roll photograph”
THAT’S CORRECT, all of the Elvis Sun EPs are bootleg EPs. Fortunately, most collectors seem to know that they are not legitimate, and few sellers advertise them as anything other than boots. But they are nice looking records and most serious Elvis collectors own them, so if you have been looking into them and wanting some information, look no further! [Read more] “all the elvis sun EPs are bootleg EPs”
HARD UP FOR NEW RELEASES while their cash cow was in the Army, in 1959-1960, RCA Victor issued three volumes of EP albums titled A TOUCH OF GOLD. I had always liked that title and had subsequently used it as the title for my second Elvis Presley price guide. [Read more] “the avid record collector’s price guide to A Touch Of Gold albums”
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a blog about Elvis Presley’s music and records
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.)
