Elvis Presley Review

It is a compilation in everything but name and it is still one of the most important debuts ever released. The oldest material comes from the tiny studio that first recorded him, where the setup was a slapback echo, an upright bass and a guitar, and the sound of that room is the sound of the whole genre being invented. Blue Suede Shoes opens it with a false stop that has been copied a thousand times.

I Got a Woman is a gospel structure sung with a wink. Trying to Get to You is the great performance, a young man audibly enjoying his own ability. The ballads, Blue Moon in particular, are eerie rather than smooth, a falsetto floating over almost nothing. There is no songwriting to speak of because he did not write, and half the material is other people's hits. That is beside the point. The point is a twenty one year old with a voice nobody had heard before and a rhythm section keeping up by instinct.