So on January 8th Elvis would have celebrated his 75th birthday (or he DID celebrate it, depending on who you ask). To commemorate the occasion, Sony Records put together a 4 disc compendium of hit singles, deep album tracks, live performances, and rarities, one hundred songs in total. Now everyone knows who the King was, and everyone and their mother probably has heard Hound Dog more times than you can count, so you might scoff at the idea of needing another collection of his songs. Well, that's where you're wrong.Sure, you'll find the before-mentioned Hound Dog, along with other well worn standards such as Blue Suede Shoes, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, All Shook Up, Jailhouse Rock and his cover of the Nine Inch Nails' song Hurt (OK, maybe not the last one). But you'll also find some lesser played gems like his first demo acetate that he made at Sun Records as a gift for his mother in 1953 (My Happiness) and other songs that never were released as singles and therefor got buried under the mountains of hits he had. The tracks are arranged in strict chronological order of recording dates over the course of Disc 1 (1953-1957), Disc 2 (1958-1962), Disc 3 (1963-1969), and Disc 4 (1970-1977), and show the progression of Elvis from his rockabilly beginnings at Sun studios to movie star to the overweight, tabloid news creating celebrity at the end of his life. Besides the four disc set, there is also a one disc offering for those who want a distilled version.
While big hits collections abound and can be easily had, this collection offers something else: a mixture of the comfortable with the obscure, a more well rounded package of music that will present a more complete picture of Elvis' catalog.
Elvis Presley - Polk Salad Annie : Elvis 75 (single disc release) or get the 4 disc box set Good Rockin' Tonight
Visit his official website, this release's label Sony Records, and become his friend posthumously on MySpace.
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