Album Reviews

Elvis’s first post-Army album created a sensation when it was released just one month after he entered Nashville Studio B on March 20th, 1960, two week after his release from the Army. Unfortunately, for Presley and RCA Elvis Is Back!  wasn’t a big seller because it didn’t contain any hits. Presley had been away for two years.

Elvis’s first post-Army album created a sensation when it was released just one month after he entered Nashville Studio B on March 20th, 1960, two week after his release from the Army. Unfortunately, for Presley and RCA Elvis Is Back!  wasn’t a big seller because it didn’t contain any hits. Presley had been away for two years.

Yet the album, recorded over the course of two nights (along with six more omitted tracks including big hits like “Stuck On You,””Fame and Fortune,” and “It’s Now or Never”), has stood up remarkably well, in part because of the hurried “live take” excitement and of course, the caviar of Nashville studio musicians working under pressure and delivering. You’ve got Hank Garland and Scotty Moore, Floyd Cramer, Bob Moore, “Boots” Randolph and The Jordanaires!

While the opener, “Make Me Know It,” may have you thinking you’ve bought a teen album, Presley’s steamy take on “Fever” will change your mind. This track alone makes the album worth having, and of course Bill Porter’s recording is as good as anything you’ll ever hear on your system. You can hear Elvis’s jewelry rattle!

As for the rest, the musicianship is superb, Elvis is in great form, and the music will sound as dated as a 1958 Chevy Impala looks and handles, but you can’t beat those lines!

Elvis and the producer save the best for last. Elvis’s swaggering, gin-soaked take on Lowell Fulsom’s “Reconsider Baby,” with both Buddy Harman and D.J. Fontana drumming, and I think his acoustic guitar, propel Elvis from teen idol to adult icon.

Sonically, this is a Bill Porter wide screen beauty laid out cleanly in three dimensions.  This 45rpm mastering by George Marino at Sterling Sound is astonishing. Yes, the double 45rpm format is bound to yield a sonic improvement and I’d never bet against Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman at AcousTech, but this sounds so far superior in almost every way, it leads me to believe a tape closer to the master or the actual master was used, whereas the previous issue may have been cut using a copy or what was thought to be the master, but I’m only speculating.

If you’re familiar with the DCC Compact Classic or the Speakers Corner version, both pressed using the same stamper, but the former at RTI and the latter at Pallas and both excellent,  I think you’ll agree that this takes it to another level of transparency, three-dimensionality and especially transient precision. Those finger snaps on “Fever” that sounded so real at 33 1/3 now sound thick and congealed compared to Marino’s cut.  Amazing.

I’m glad Elvis is Back! is back again, sounding better than ever. Don’t miss it this time around.