Elvis (1956 album)

Elvis Presley’s second studio album, also called Elvis Presley No. 2, came out on RCA Victor on October 19, 1956, in mono. That year, it sat at number one on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart for four weeks, making Presley the first artist to have two albums hit number one in the same calendar year. In total, the album spent five weeks at the top. It earned a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America on February 17, 1960, and a Platinum one on August 10, 2011.

In the United Kingdom, it was released in 1957 as Elvis Presley No. 2 with a different cover, on His Master’s Voice CLP1105, and was also cataloged as Rock ’n’ Roll No. 2. The original U.S. release started the habit—applied unevenly at first but common later—of crediting Presley only by his first name on album sleeves, though his full name stayed on the labels. Recording sessions took place on September 1, 2, and 3 at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, with one leftover track from the January 30 sessions in New York for Presley’s debut album.

RCA Victor producer Steve Sholes ordered two new songs for these sessions: “Paralyzed” by Otis Blackwell and “Love Me” by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who had written Presley’s summer hit “Hound Dog.” Presley chose three Little Richard covers and three new country ballads from Boudleaux Bryant, Chet Atkins, Stan Kesler, and the team of Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman. The latter two, under contract to Hill and Range (the publishing company of Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker), would go on to write dozens of songs for Presley through the 1960s.

Also included was “Old Shep,” a 1941 Red Foley country song with which Presley had won second prize at a Tupelo fair when he was ten. Except for “So Glad You’re Mine,” all tracks were cut in a single three-day session in September. Presley and his touring band—Scotty Moore, Bill Black, D.J. Fontana, and the Jordanaires—recreated the loose feel of the Sun Studio days by mixing rhythm and blues with country and western material, just as they had on his Sun singles.

They reinforced this by including a blues by Arthur Crudup (who wrote “That’s All Right (Mama)”) and a song recorded by bluegrass founder Bill Monroe, “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again.” The sessions were attended by a few outsiders, including Presley’s then-girlfriend, actress Natalie Wood, and actor Nick Adams, both of whom had starred in Rebel Without a Cause, Presley’s favorite James Dean film. Steve Sholes handled paperwork, but Presley himself chose the songs and led the sessions.

The piano player on the album is not listed in official RCA Victor archives, except for “So Glad You’re Mine,” recorded earlier in New York. In a 1984 interview, Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires said he played piano on most of the album’s songs. In an article by Jan-Erik Kjeseth for Flaming Star magazine, it was argued that Presley himself played piano on “Love Me,” “Old Shep,” and “How’s the World Treating You,” and also on the single “Playing for Keeps.”

Ernst Jørgensen, author of Elvis Presley - A Study in Music, agreed with those claims. Stoker played piano on “Rip It Up” and “Anyplace Is Paradise.”

RCA first reissued the original 12-track album on compact disc in 1984, but that version—in reprocessed fake stereo—was quickly pulled and replaced with a mono issue. An expanded edition came out in 1999, adding six bonus tracks (both sides of three singles) and altering the running order. Four of those bonus tracks were chart-toppers: “Love Me Tender,” “Too Much,” and the double-sided “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” Those tracks were recorded on July 2 at RCA Studios in New York, in September at Radio Recorders, and “Love Me Tender” at 20th Century Fox Stage One during the Love Me Tender sessions.

In 2005, a DSD-remastered reissue appended the same six bonus tracks in standard order: “Playing for Keeps,” “Too Much,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Hound Dog,” “Any Way You Want Me (That’s How I Will Be),” and “Love Me Tender.” Audio restorer Kevan Budd handled this remaster, also praised for his work on Presley’s first and third albums and the 2004 upgrade Elvis at Sun. These rock ’n’ roll tapes may have been among those possibly dumped into the Delaware River near RCA Victor’s Camden, New Jersey plant in the late 1950s.

In 2014, the Follow That Dream label issued a deluxe edition with two discs in a 7-inch sleeve. The first disc held the original album plus every known outtake from the Labor Day 1956 sessions. The second disc featured a live concert from December 15, 1956, at Hirsch Coliseum, Youth Center, Louisiana State Fairgrounds. Personnel: Elvis Presley – vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, piano on “Old Shep,” “Paralyzed,” “First in Line,” “How’s the World Treating You,” and “Playing for Keeps”; Scotty Moore – guitar; Bill Black – bass; D.J.