Elvis Presley - Young Man with the Big Beat (The Complete 1956 Masters)

	£		15
	$		20

RCA has come a long way in its presentation of their favourite son. Often ridiculed for their crass moneymaking reissues especially during the Eighties and Nineties - they upped their game big time for the Naughties and beyond on the quality front and began released a steady stream of reissues worthy of The King - the 18 UK No 1s CD Singles campaign and the Sony/Legacy Deluxe Edition reissues jump to mind. This 5CD Super Deluxe beauty is no different. Even in it's scaled down 'book' form (the more-affordable 2014 reissue) - there is a genuine classiness to this release and you have to tip a hat at the mega-company boffins because "Young Man With The Big Beat" is properly gorgeous to look at and to listen to. It's a full-on fan feast and about bloody time too. Here are the curled lips, greasy quiffs and gyrating hips...

Original released 27 September 2011 as a 12" x 12" full-priced (limited edition) 5CD Box Set on RCA Legacy 88697935342 (Barcode 886979353428) with various separated memorabilia inside the box - this 12 September 2014 mid-price reissue on RCA Legacy 88875006142 (Barcode 888750061423) comes in a 5CD 'Book Pack' with an 88-page attached booklet and breaks down as follows:

Disc 1 - The Original Masters - 40:19 minutes:
1. Blue Suede Shoes
2. I'm Counting On You
3. I Got A Woman
4. One-Sided Love Affair
5. I Love You Because
6. Just Because
7. Tutti Frutti
8. Trying To Get To You
9. I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)
10. I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')
11. Blue Moon
12. Money Honey
13. Heartbreak Hotel
14. I Was The One
15. My Baby Left Me
16. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy
17. Shake, Rattle And Roll

Disc 2 - The Original Masters - 54:49 minutes:
1. Rip It Up
2. Love Me
3. When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
4. Long Tall Sally
5. First In Line
6. Paralyzed
7. So Glad You're Mine
8. Old Shep
9. Ready Teddy
10. Anyplace Is Paradise
11. How's The World Treating You
12. How Do You Think I Feel
13. I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
14. Hound Dog
15. Don't Be Cruel
16. Any Way You Want Me (That's How I'll Be)
17. Too Much
18. Playing For Keeps
19. Love Me Tender
20. Let Me
21. Poor Boy
22. We're Gonna Move

Disc 3 - The Live Performances - 65:15 minutes:
1. Heartbreak Hotel
2. Long Tall Sally
3. Blue Suede Shoes
4. Money Honey (Tracks 1 to 4 recorded at The Venus Room, Frontier Hotel, Las Vegas, 6 May 1956)
5. Heartbreak Hotel
6. Long Tall Sally
7. I Was The One
8. Money Honey
9. I Got A Woman
10. Blue Suede Shoes
11. Hound Dog (Tracks 5 to 11 recorded at The Robinson Memorial Auditorium, Little Rock, Arkansas 16 May 1956)
12. Heartbreak Hotel
13. Long Tall Sally
14. I Was The One
15. Love Me Tender
16. Don't be Cruel
17. Love Me
18. I Got A Woman
19. When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again
20. Paralyzed
21. Hound Dog (Tracks 12 to 21 recorded at The Hirsch Youth Center, Louisiana Fairgrounds, Shreveport, Louisiana 15 December 1956)

Disc 4 - The Outtakes - 77:37 minutes:
1. I Got A Woman - Take Unknown
2. Heartbreak Hotel - Take 6
3. I'm Counting On You - Take 13
4. I Was The One - Take 2 (Tracks 1 to 4 are the First RCA Session)
5. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 1
6. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 3
7. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 4
8. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 5
9. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 6
10. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Takes 7, 8 and 9
11. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Take 10 (Master)
12. Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Takes 11 and 12
13. Shake, Rattle And Roll - Takes 1 and 2
14. Shake, Rattle And Roll - Takes 3, 5, 6 and 7
15. Shake, Rattle And Roll - Take 8
16. Shake, Rattle And Roll - Takes 9, 10, 11, 12 and 12 (Undubbed Master)
17. The Complete Warwick Hotel Interview

Disc 5 - The Interviews - 64:01 minutes:
1. The Complete T.V. Guide Presents Elvis Interview
2. Colonel Parker Interview
3. The Truth About Me
4. The Truth About Me Interview
5. Victrola Radio Ad 1

Packaging - the 86-page booklet is a fabulous thing. The opening two pages that contain the first plastic clip-in holder for the first 3 CDs has a stunning black and white of Elvis live in front of screaming fans - holding that mike leaning into the shot. But even that's trumped by an 'in studio' black and white of the band recording on the very next two pages - Elvis smiling at the huge silver microphone as the boys work out the arrangements - it's so classy and I'd love to buy it as a poster. From there on in it's one long line of beautiful images documenting each and every month of the year (almost day by day). You get colour too - snaps of bills, contracts, ticket stubs, Scotch Tape Boxes, Colonel Parker stationary, Cashbox reviews, Billboard awards, Look magazine, fanzines, Victrola adverts, "Love Me Tender" film premier, Elvis relaxing, playing football, on his motorbike... Musically there's American 7" single picture sleeves, the covers of 10 Extended Play EPs and 2 x US Album adverts. And as if that isn't enough it's all peppered with a dizzying array of foreign releases from the UK, Spain, Italy, New Zealand, Brazil and my personal fave - a 78" from Japan for "Heartbreak Hotel" that actually has its own Elvis Presley with Guitar label bag - wow! Whether we need to know that on Monday 28 November 1956 Elvis "dropped into Colonel Parker's home and about 11:30 pm went hom"' is debatable - but don't you just love the obsessiveness of it all.

The remasters are the magnificent VIC ANESINI versions that I raved about in the "Elvis Presley" Deluxe Edition - a remaster engineer who's not new to Presley's catalogue (has also done other prestigious artists like The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel and Carole King to heaps of praise). The first twelve tracks of both Disc 1 and 2 are the Mono-only albums of "Elvis Presley" (March 1956) and "Elvis" (October 1956) with the remainder of songs on both CDs being 7" single and EP tracks issued around those two albums. Disc 3 is entirely live and sounds amazingly clean. It opens with a sedate announcement from a Las Vegas Hotel where Elvis is in sparkling form (slyly cracking jokes) informing the crowd that "Long Tall Sally" tells a story that "is plum pitiful..." (Phil Silvers is in the audience). You can also hear how good Scotty Moore (on guitar) and the other boys in the band are. With its outtakes - Disc 4 at first appears to be dominated by only two tracks - endless versions of "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy" and "Shake, Rattle And Roll" - but on actually listening through it - you understand why. The makers are giving you a 'session' - you get to feel like you're eavesdropping on recorded history as Elvis and the boys get the take 'just right' (very cleverly done). The interviews are pure curio value and a fascinating listen. But in the end it's the music and its reach that you keep coming back to...

Fast approaching a distance of nearly 60 years - it's difficult for us in 2015 to even imagine the musical and cultural Atomic Bomb that was Elvis Presley in 1956. And this box set goes a long way to capturing that. Beginning with an opening salvo of "Heartbreak Hotel" on the 27th of January (which quite probably changed the fabric of the known universe) - RCA then bombarded the American continent with vinyl releases galore - 12 x 2-track 7" singles, 10 x 4-track Extended Play EPs and 2 x 12-track long-playing albums. They even took the then unprecedented step of releasing all 12 of the "Elvis Presley" debut album tracks on 6 singles on the same day - 31 August (RCA Victor 6636 to 6641) while the seventh became "Shake, Rattle And Roll b/w Lawdy, Miss Clawdy" (on RCA Victor 6642) - also put out on the 31st of August. Had Elvis Aaron Presley flatulated profusely into a Soda Pop bottle in 1956 - RCA would probably have tried to capture it, distill it and chart it. This box set is a sort of Uber Deluxe Edition celebration of that amazing year. It's beautifully done...