1. Instrumental 2. Love Me Tender (Instrumental) 3. Jingle Bells (Instrumental) 4. White Christmas (Instrumental) 5. Reconsider Baby 6. Don't Be Cruel 7. Don't Be Cruel 8. Paralyzed 9. Don't Be Cruel 10. There's No Place Like Home 11. When The Saints Go Marchin' In 12. Softly And Tenderly 13. When God Dips His Love In My Heart 14. Just A Little Talk With Jesus 15. Jesus Walked That Lonesome Valley 16. I Shall Not Be Moved 17. Peace In The Valley 18. Down By The Riverside 19. I'm With A Crowd But So Alone 20. Farther Along 21. Blessed Jesus (Hold My Hand) 22. On The Jericho Road 23. I Just Can't Make It By Myself 24. Little Cabin Home On The Hill 25. Summetime Is Past And Gone 26. I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling 27. Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong 28. Keeper Of The City (Carl Lead) 29. Crazy Arms 30. Don't Forbid Me 31. Too Much Monkey Business 32. Brown Eyed Handsome Man 33. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind 34. Brown Eyed Handsome Man 35. Don't Forbid Me 36. You Belong To My Heart 37. Is It So Strange 38. That's When Your Heartaches Begin 39. Brown Eyed Handsome Man 40. Rip It Up 41. I'm Gonna Bid My Blues Goodbye 42. Crazy Arms 43. That's My Desire 44. End Of The Road 45. Black Bottom Stomp 46. You're The Only Star In My Blue Heaven 47. Elvis Says Goodbye Amazon.com
Fifty years after a 21-year-old Elvis Presley first shook the world comes a reissue of the famed Million Dollar Quartet recording, the off-the-cuff Sun Records jam session where Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash joined Presley for a loose-jointed romp through 46 songs. Except that's not quite right--Cash either put down his part off-mic or rolled out his big baritone-bass when the tape wasn't rolling (the more likely explanation). So that, as Colin Escott writes in his liner notes, technically makes this a $750,000 Trio. And while this new edition is billed as the "complete" quartet--since 12 more minutes surfaced on a tape of superior sound quality found in Elvis's private collection, and the session is now in its right sequence--it obviously isn't the whole thing. (The 12 extra minutes are essentially four short instrumentals and "Reconsider Baby" at the start, as well as bits and pieces at different points throughout the CD.) But what survives is nevertheless fascinating, of course, not only for the historical record but for the fervor the three bring to a handful of spirituals (their finest moment) and how young Presley--who is already recording for RCA, and has just been dropped by Sun--presents himself. His new notoriety brings out a cocky charm, as he devotes much of these renditions of "Don't Be Cruel" and "Paralyzed" to an imitation of Jackie Wilson imitating him (Elvis knows Wilson only as one of Billy Ward's Dominoes), and boasting that Pat Boone recorded a song that Elvis wouldn't even audition. This fly-on-the-wall voyeurism should appeal to any student of rock 'n' roll history. But serious Elvisphiles will especially enjoy hearing Presley talk about the seeds of recording "That's When Your Heartaches Begin," mimic Hank Snow on "I'm Gonna Bid My Blues Goodbye," and express bemused ire over Faron Young, who had sent him a song ("Is It So Strange") he hoped Elvis would record. "He didn't want to give me none of it--he wanted it all, you know," Elvis says with a chuckle, supposedly referring to the publishing/writing credit, something Elvis's manager, the iron-fisted Colonel Tom Parker, demanded. As the trio moves through a plethora of material--Christmas songs, gospel, blues, R&B, country, pop, Dixieland, cowboy, and bluegrass--they become the hammer, anvil, and steel, forging a new form of music. What you have here, then, is no less than the sound of it, taking shape. --Alanna Nash -- Danilo
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