Day 112: Elvis Presley - A Date with Elvis
Today is another one of those days when I’m googling “shortest albums of all time”, and I encountered some Elvis Presley. I’ve listened to a fair bit of Elvis, for some reason often when I’m going through a breakup, but A Date with Elvis is one that I haven’t actually heard before. I can say from experience, though, if you’ve had your chain thoroughly yanked by someone, staring at a ceiling and listening to “Devil in Disguise” on repeat does sort of work as a coping mechanism and I would strongly recommend.
Album cover courtesy of RCA Victor
If there ever was an artist who doesn’t need an introduction, it’s probably Elvis Presley, but nevertheless. Elvis was born is Tupelo, Mississippi in 1935, but he and his family moved to Memphis when he was a teenager. He was inspired by the gospel music he heard in church and he received music lessons from his pastor, but he didn’t start to pursue music professionally until 1954.
Elvis was originally signed to Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, which originally had African-American rhythm & blues artists, but later pivoted to focusing on having white artists performing R&B to white audiences. Many of the artists who Elvis covered or took inspiration from never got the credit that they deserved, while Elvis was propelled to global superstardom. An example of this is Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog”, which I only found out last year was not one of his original songs.
A Date with Elvis was released in in 1959 as a compilation album to keep him in people’s minds while he spent two years drafted in the army, unable to release new music or perform. He was drafted at the height of his popularity in 1958 and ended up serving in the 3rd Tank Division of the US Army in Frankfurt, which is also where he met his then 14-year-old (!!! !!!!!! !!!) girlfriend Priscilla.
By the way, if there’s been one recent moment where if felt like there is no hope for women, it’s when I watched the 2023 film Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, which Priscilla Presley said was a very accurate rendition of the early stages of their relationship, and then made the mistake of reading reviews.
It was shocking. A bunch of ladies who were fans of Elvis complaining that they made the relationship look predatory and the actress looked young. Well, yeah, obviously – the film depicts a 14-year-old girl in a relationship with an adult man! Maybe I’d let these ladies get away with it if it was the ‘50s or something, but in our lord’s year of 2023? I was once again reminded of the evergreen post by Twitter user @CALLHERDIARA, saying “i do not support all women. some of you bitches are very dumb!!!”.
As an album, A Date with Elvis is decent, but compared to some of his evergreen work, it’s nothing too special. It mostly consists of songs that he’d recorded before that had been released on a various EPs, along with five new songs that he released before he headed off to the army.
The album features some good early Elvis rock’n’roll songs, including tunes like “Baby Let’s Play House” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, along with a few more traditional ballads. There’s also “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care” that has the less flattering description of his partner being an absolute dweeb but Elvis being willing to look past it, which isn’t necessarily what a lady wants to hear, but whatever. I like the charming “We’re Gonna Move” and while it’s not necessarily the most noteworthy on the record, it’s still probably my favourite.
It’s good, but there’s better records from Elvis. I still enjoyed it, though. It’s a pretty unremarkable 6.5/10, but still a decent listen for his fans.