The Sun Sessions



The Sun Sessions is a compilation of Elvis Presley recordings at Sun Studios in 1954 and 1955. It was issued by RCA Records in 1976, and had been issued and charted as The Sun Collection in the UK the previous year. It features liner notes by Roy Carr of the New Musical Express.

Making of the album
The album features most of the tracks recorded at Sun studio by Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Studios. Phillips signed Presley after hearing a song that he had recorded for his mother on his birthday. It includes "That's All Right" one of the few recordings regarded as "the first rock and roll record."

Phillips said that Presley was rehearsing with his band, Scotty Moore and Bill Black, when Presley started singing the song, a blues song written by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. Phillips said that the version of the song was what he was looking for when he signed Presley, and turned the tape recorder on.

Elvis recorded more than 20 songs at the Sun studio, including some private recordings. Of these, 15 appear on this album.

Missing songs:
 * "Harbor Lights"
 * "Tomorrow Night"
 * "When It Rains It Really Pours"
 * "I Got a Woman" (tape lost)
 * "Satisfied" (tape lost)
 * The earlier private recordings

In 1987 RCA released "The Complete Sun Sessions" which included the original 16 songs plus the omitted "Harbor Lights", Tomorrow Night", "When It Rains It Really Pours", plus 3 alternate takes of "I Love You Because" and 6 alternate takes of "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone (My Baby's Gone)".

Chart success
The Sun Sessions was released in March 1976 and reached #76 on the pop and #2 on the country charts.

The single "Baby, Let's Play House" combined with "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" reached #5 on the country charts in 1955. Also, RCA Victor saw that Elvis was rapidly building a reputation for his live performances. They offered Sun Records $35,000 to buy out Presley's contract.

The single "That's All Right" did not chart in the US when released in 1954, and it was never issued as a single in Great Britain during Presley's lifetime. In 2004, the song became the focus of attention when it was the subject of a great deal of publicity because of the 50-year anniversary. There was a special ceremony on July 6, 2004 featuring Isaac Hayes, Justin Timberlake and Scotty Moore which was beamed live to 1200 radio stations. The song went top five in the UK and Canada and also charted in Australia. The Sun Sessions was also re-released in 2004 (in Japan only) to celebrate the anniversary.

Reception and legacy
When The Sun Sessions was first released in 1976 by RCA Victor, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau hailed The Sun Sessions as "the rock reissue of the year", writing in that along with Chuck Berry's Golden Decade, its songs represented the wellspring of rock music. In 2003, the album was ranked #11 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2001, the TV channel VH1 named it the 21st greatest album of all time. Music scholar Michael Campbell called it "quintessential rockabilly" with Presley's voice "the magical element" drawing on country and rhythm and blues but confined to neither, while AllMusic critic Cub Koda said "what we ultimately have here is a young Elvis Presley, mixing elements of blues, gospel and hillbilly music together and getting ready to unleash its end result -- rock & roll -- on an unsuspecting world."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll included two tracks from the album: "Mystery Train" and "That's All Right." In 2002, The Sun Sessions were chosen by the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress to be included in its archives given their importance to the development of American popular music. This album is the very first Elvis album to feature "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine", which was only previously issued as a single. After more than 20 years, The Sun Sessions marked the song's official debut on LP.

Track listing
Note: The last six tracks are original Sun recordings, but were not released until 1956 on Presley's first album by RCA. They were never released on Sun.

Personnel

 * Elvis Presley - vocals, acoustic guitar, piano on "Trying to Get to You"
 * Scotty Moore - electric guitar
 * Bill Black - double bass
 * Jimmie Lott - drums on "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" (erroneously attributed to D.J. Fontana)
 * Johnny Bernero - drums on "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" and "Trying to Get to You" (erroneously attributed to D.J. Fontana)