Elvis Presley - Loving You (Classic & Great Album US 1957)

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Loving You is the third album by Elvis Presley, issued on RCA Victor Records in mono, LPM 1515, in July 1957 - the July 1 release date is unconfirmed. Recording sessions took place on January 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1957, at the Paramount Pictures Scoring Stage, and on January 12, 13, 19, and February 23 and 24, 1957, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood. These are the first sessions where Steve Sholes is officially listed as producer. It spent ten weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart.

The soundtrack includes seven songs composed expressly for the movie from writers contracted to the publishing companies owned by Elvis and the Colonel, Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music. An eighth song intended for but not appearing in the movie, "Don't Leave Me Now," was included on the album, and a new recording would appear on the soundtrack for his next film, Jailhouse Rock.

The previously released material comprises both sides the single taken from the soundtrack, Presley's #1 hit "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear" backed with the film's title track, "Loving You". Producer Hal Wallis liked "Teddy Bear" so much that he insisted it be included in the movie. Songs were added to bring up the running time of the album, including the swing era favorite "Blueberry Hill," covered by many had been recently a big hit for Fats Domino in 1956. "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" had been done previously by the Sons of the Pioneers as well as Bing Crosby with The Andrews Sisters. Cole Porter's last great standard, "True Love," written for the 1956 musical film High Society also made the album, either to feature a straightforward romantic song, or to give Presley and The Jordanaires an excuse for some close harmony singing. The practice of RCA augmenting soundtrack recordings with extra songs from non-soundtrack studio sessions to bring up the running time of the LP to acceptable lengths would become a commonplace occurrence with Presley soundtracks through the 1960s.

The album was reissued for compact disc in an expanded edition on April 15, 1997, appending eight tracks to the original album. All tracks derive from the same sessions, with three alternate takes, the remaining track from the Just For You EP, three single sides including "Tell Me Why" which would wait almost nine years to be released, and a remake of the Sun master "When It Rains It Really Pours," also released much later on the 1965 LP Elvis for Everyone. On January 11, 2005, Sony BMG reissued the album again, remastered using DSD technology with the six bonus tracks appended in standard fashion. A two-disc set was released on the Follow That Dream collectors label on January 12, 2006, with the bonus tracks and numerous additional takes.

Purporting to be the soundtrack to Elvis' second film, this album collects songs used in the film on one side with new material on the other. The weakness of a couple of the movie tunes and the fact that the new songs were leftovers from the sessions used to produce Elvis' first gospel EP and latest single add up to his weakest album offering, although any album with "Got a Lot o' Living to Do" is alright. If you think of Loving You as simply an Elvis Presley album rather than a somewhat misleadingly packaged soundtrack, it was actually one of his more coherent and cohesive long-players, assembled from sessions all conducted in the first two months of 1957. By this time, he was doing precious little that was wrong, and his range and control were growing geometrically -- thus, amid some powerful rock & roll, including "Mean Woman Blues" (which could almost have passed for one of his Sun tracks), "Teddy Bear," the electric guitar-driven "Got a Lot 'o Livin' to Do," Ivory Joe Hunter's "I Need You So," and a hard, brittle-textured outtake of "I Beg of You," the King does some brilliant ballad singing on "One Night of Sin" and "Is It So Strange," and belts out one of his great blues performances on "When It Rains, It Really Pours" -- which boasts a killer Scotty Moore guitar part -- and moves into Sons of the Pioneers territory with the hauntingly beautiful Western ballad, "Lonesome Cowboy." He doesn't do badly with "Blueberry Hill," either. 

01. 1/13/57    Mean Woman Blues Claude Demetrius 2:15 
02. 1/24/57 47-7000 7/11/57 #1 (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe 1:45 
03. 2/24/57 47-7000b 7/11/57 #28 Loving You Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller 2:12 
04. 1/12/57    Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman 2:31 
05. 1/15-18/57    Lonesome Cowboy Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett 3:07 
06. 1/15-18/57    Hot Dog Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller 1:17 
07. 1/22/57 Party Jessie Mae Robinson 1:26 
08. 1/19/57 Blueberry Hill Vincent Rose, Al Lewis, Larry Stock 2:39 
09. 2/23/57 True Love Cole Porter 2:05 
10. 2/23/57 Don't Leave Me Now Aaron Schroeder and Ben Weisman 1:58 
11. 1/19/57 Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? Johnny Russell and Scott Wiseman 2:31 
12. 2/23/57 I Need You So Ivory Joe Hunter 2:37 

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