THE ROOTS OF ELVIS PRESLEY

When Elvis Presley recorded That's All Right Mama on 5 July 1954 he changed the face of music forever, though he couldn't know it at the time. Of course his music did not appear fully formed out of nowhere and he barely wrote a song in his life. That's All Right Mama had been recorded by its author Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup nearly ten years earlier in Chicago and is just one of 21 recordings that provided source material for the aspirant rock and roller to be found on this instructive collection.

Elvis was equally at home with hillbilly, gospel and blues music, as well as mainstream pop, and it was his amalgamation and assimilation of these influences that led to the creation of rockabilly and to his incendiary success.

The earliest recording is the Jimmie Rodgers version of Frankie And Johnnie from 1929, which had been recorded by Mississippi John Hurt the year before for Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, and the most recent included here, although he continued to cover contemporary material throughout his career, is from 1950, by Ivory Joe Hunter. He went on to become a friend of Elvis' and wrote several songs for him, such as My Wish Came True. Elvis's musical tastes were wide and while few would argue with the merits of Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys or Wynonie Harris, some might query his love of Old Shep by Red Foley.

One of his rare composer credits turns up on Love Me Tender, alongside that of Vera Matson. This comes from the film of the same name about the American Civil War, starring Elvis, and so it was fascinating to discover that it had been adapted from a Civil War poem from 1861 which had been set to music as Aura Lee, and recorded by many artists including the Shelton Brothers in 1937.

Other CDs in this series have been sparse on information but, apart from a lack of composer credits, the sleeve notes here break down every track with pertinent details (a couple of songs are written about that do not appear on the final version of the CD). No serious student of Elvis can afford to be without a thorough collection such as this.

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