Illustration from Virginia Alexander's Appropriate Clothes for the High School Girl, 1920
When I decided to take the plunge and buy my first real Elvis Presley album, the choice seemed easy. What better place to start than the new deluxe reissue of Presley's first post-Army album Elvis Is Back!? Not only does the reissue include all the singles he recorded concurrently to the album (five number-one hits, including "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and "Surrender"), but it also comes with a second disc with Presley's second post-army album Something for Everybody. That album is a little uneven, but the singles and the Elvis Is Back! material blew me away from the first listen.
Even when the song is one that I've heard too many times to count (i.e. "Fever"), Presley's performances on Elvis Is Back! hold my attention. I find myself drawn more to the doo-wop and country influences on the record - my favorite tracks are the ones with backing vocals by the Jordanaires - but even the blues-flavored tunes are appealing, my favorite of those being the Leiber/Stoller-written "Dirty, Dirty Feeling". And, of course, the singles appended to the end of the album add a lot as well. My favorite of the bunch is probably "Fame and Fortune", the b-side of the #1 hit "Stuck on You". It's a ballad with a great, nuanced vocal by Presley and some cool backing by the Jordanaires, but it's most interesting because of how directly it speaks to Presley's situation coming out of the military and being confronted by his fame, which the song romanticizes nicely.
"Fame and Fortune" by Elvis Presley
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