Elvisly Yours

It was David Bowie who made the news on his 66th birthday, with his first single in eleven years suddenly all over the airwaves and the web, and an imminent album that nobody knew anything about.

However, it was also the birthday of Elvis Presley, born 8th January 1935 in Tupelo MS. I was too young to have my life changed by those early Sun singles and mostly remember first hearing the post-Army hits that were fairly safe and innocuous - Wooden Heart, Surrender, His Latest Flame. I liked them but they weren't especially important to me.

Over the years, though, I have backtracked to those revolutionary early 78s and also grown to love some of his later pieces - I Got Stung, Little Sister, Feel So Bad and many, many others. The three box sets depicted cover all of his fifties output as well as the bulk of his work over the following two decades.

L.
9.1.2013

Blip #893
Consecutive Blip #003
Day #1020

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Elvis Presley - Mystery Train (recorded 11 July 1955)
Elvis would have been 78 today, so I have picked a 78 r.p.m. record, one of the most influential ever made. Elvis Presley's version of  Junior Parker's Mystery Train was first released on the B-side of the countryish I Forgot To Remember To Forget, on Sun, though a shortened edit of it came out on RCA Victor the following year.
It had Presley on rhythm guitar, Scotty Moore on lead guitar and Bill Black on acoustic bass. Scotty Moore added the guitar riff from another Junior Parker single, as played by Pat Hare on Love My Baby, and quoted from Sixteen Tons by Merle Travis. Junior Parker and the Blue Flames adapted the song from a 1930 Carter Family hit, changing or misquoting the lyric, but their version in turn derived from an ancient Celtic ballad, bringing the roots of rock and roll back to Great Britain.

One year ago: Smokey, 1038 hr