Review: Elvis Presley - For LP Fans Only (1959)
Tracks: 1) That’s All Right; 2) Lawdy, Miss Clawdy; 3) Mystery Train; 4) Playing For Keeps; 5) Poor Boy; 6) My Baby Left Me; 7) I Was The One; 8) Shake, Rattle And Roll; 9) I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone; 10) You’re A Heartbreaker.
REVIEW
It is amusing that it took Elvis Presleyʼs induction in the US army to familiarize at least some of his younger fans with some of his oldest quality material from the early days at Sun Records. As part of RCAʼs strategy to keep the artistʼs legacy fresh in the public eye before his eagerly awaited triumphant return as a national hero, two short LPs of Elvis’ «leftovers» were released in 1959, featuring very, very heavily randomized selections of previously issued singles, occasional album tracks, and an even more occasional previously unreleased track or two. Neither of the two has any legitimate place in todayʼs world of carefully curated chronological compilations, but it is still useful to include both in this narrative, if only to (a) remember what a weird world it was back in 1959 and (b) have a pretext to gush over some of the early Sun-era singles without having to wait all the way up to 1976, when RCA finally did it more or less the right way by putting together The Sun Sessions.
At least they did a sensible thing by putting up ‘That’s All Right Mama’, the one that started it all, as track #1. Listening back on it today and comparing it to the Arthur Crudup original from 1947, I am actually startled at how little change Elvis and his mini-team of Scotty Moore and Bill Black introduced to the song — all they did was speed it up a bit (it was already a fast dance number in Crudup’s version) and put more emphasis on the bass than the guitars. If you ever wanted to join in on the «white man stealing the black man’s thunder» crusade, this, in fact, would be quite the place — there is plenty of that early rock’n’roll excitement in Arthur’s version already, except that the message is delivered by a whiny old black bluesman rather than an exuberant young white hillbilly; and while Moore’s guitar work does indeed smoothen the bluesy edges of the original and goes some way to «countrify» the recording, it is easy to understand why Elvis and the boys felt so nervous about putting the song out in public. Indeed, the role of ‘That’s All Right Mama’ in history should probably be defined as «the moment when white boys seriously got into black men’s music», not as «the moment when a completely new musical style was invented» — I don’t really see the fundamental differences between the two versions, at least not on a level when subtle changes in musical style and arrangement are converted into different types of emotional responses.
Where this revolution does properly occur, I think, is on ʽMystery Trainʼ, possibly the most essential early Sun-era track of them all, especially when you play it next to the original by Junior Parker. The musical source is a classic slow jump-blues tune in its own right, with a sweet, sorrowful vocal delivery delicately echoed by deep brass sighs and pretty guitar soloing; and equally commendable — if we really want to pay all our dues — is Parker’s proto-rockabilly sound on ʽLove My Babyʼ, the song that was actually chosen as the basis for Elvisʼ arrangement of ʽMystery Trainʼ. Both tracks are solid examples of early Fifties’ R&B, but neither could be called genuinely outstanding or innovative by the standards of their era.
The biggest difference is that while Elvisʼ ʽMystery Trainʼ has less soul in it than Parker’s version, it actually has mystery — as represented by the strange echo-laden sound that Moore and Black get from their instruments: an oddly reverberating rocking effect, where each new chord relentlessly pushes and propels you forward, and each new «hiccup» from the yet-to-be-crowned King awakens something dark and rebellious inside your brain. It is the kind of sound that would soon be picked up and amplified by rockabilly giants such as Gene Vincent, but while Gene would certainly make his own advances in terms of loudness, wildness, and sheer maniacal energy, I would not presume to say that the pure class of ʽMystery Trainʼ, its subtle combination of restraint with hidden menace, has ever been outdone by any guys in leather jackets.
To put it bluntly, Parker’s ‘Mystery Train’ is a chunk of drama, and Parker’s ‘Love My Baby’ is a round of entertainment, but Elvis’ ‘Mystery Train’ is an uprising. If we only think of rock’n’roll in purely technical terms — chord sequences, speed, instrumentation — then Elvis and his mini-team certainly did not invent rock’n’roll. If we think of true rock’n’roll as a force of defiance, shock, straightahead emotional brutality, then they almost certainly did, and ‘Mystery Train’ is their first ample proof of that invention. I could, perhaps, see the average white parent in 1955 enduring the psychological pressure of ‘That’s All Right Mama’; I could hardly imagine them keeping their cool to ‘Mystery Train’.
Strange enough, RCA executives thought that these two songs were quite sufficient for a shot of Sun-era rock’n’roll, and only threw in two more tracks from the early sessions, both of which are more in the country than in the blues vein — ‘I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone’ and ‘You’re A Heartbreaker’, the «softer» musical compromises, both of which are perfectly listenable but would have worked better if taken at a slower pace and recorded by the likes of Hank Williams. (There is actually a slow, bluesier version of ‘I’m Left’, allowing for Elvis to show a little more soul, but they probably decided to go along with a snappier, speedier take because all the kids wanna dance, after all).
Perhaps this selection was meant to introduce a little balance, since we also have two bona fide rock’n’roll numbers from the RCA transition era — sitting next to ʽThat’s All Rightʼ and ʽMystery Trainʼ we find the later recordings of ʽMy Baby Left Meʼ and ʽShake, Rattle & Rollʼ — for those who want to hear a more «modern» Elvis: louder, broader, angrier, and with an actual drum sound (which is very important for both of those songs). There is no more mystery angle in ʽShakeʼ, though — just relentless maniacal rockʼnʼroll, crowned by a couple of Scotty Moore guitar solos that sound like rapid shoot-outs in the streets between two equally talented and equally bulletproof gunslingers. There is a bit of it retained in ‘My Baby Left Me’, though, and it is interesting to note that, although this song was also pilfered from Arthur Crudup’s repertoire — in fact, it was really just the one hundred and tenth re-write of ‘That’s All Right’ — this time the differences are far more pronounced, starting with D. J. Fontana’s masterful transformation of Judge Riley’s original jazzy drum lead-in into a simpler, but instantly memorable and totally iconic thwack-thwack-boom-thwack snare-kick intro. The original lead-in reads: «Gene Krupa taught us all to be Superman». The Elvis lead-in reads: «TO BATTLE!». Make your pick.
Since the remaining four songs were all verbally covered or at least mentioned in the bonus track listings to Elvis’ first RCA albums, we shall skip them and mention instead that this particular point in Elvisʼ discography is also as good a time as any to remind the reader about some of the songs which Elvis had specifically pre-recorded in 1958 before his army stint in Germany to serve as true all-national reminders that the King would always be at the nation’s disposal.
Thus, right before For LP Fans Only, in late 1958, we had ʽOne Nightʼ (a «cleaner» re-recording of ʽOne Night Of Sinʼ) with ʽI Got Stungʼ as its twin A-side — ‘One Night’ is not one of my favs, but ‘I Got Stung’ is a totally hardcore two-minute stunner from Aaron Schroeder, as close to noise-rock as it could be at the time, at least in terms of production which combines a breakneck pace, a set of bumbling back vocals fusing together with the bassline, a minimalistic head-drilling piano riff whose primal power would not really be beat until at least John Caleʼs one-note piano part on the StoogesʼʽI Wanna Be Your Dogʼ, and a lead vocal part that is barely comprehensible — rapid, mumbly, slurry, delirious, and dangerous. One quick listen to this thing, and any fan worrying about Elvisʼ post-army future could rest easy... deluded, perhaps, but comfortably happy in said delusion. In between such a powerful single and such a mighty, if short, reminder of the original power of the King as this LP, it’s like nothing could go wrong, right?