I had a real deep Elvis Presely fixation as a li'l kid; I can still sing, verbatim, the Elvis entire catalog through G.I. Blues. Anyway, last night I was in the mood and listened to most of The King Of Rock 'N' Roll: The Complete 50's Masters box set which, obviously, led to me sussing out, AGAIN, the original versions of the songs Elvis, Scotty, and Bill chose to record. Being a record nerd, I'd done the comparison thing before, but last night's standouts were: Arthur Gunter's "Baby Let's Play House" (I'd forgotten the greatness of this track) and the blazing fast blues of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right."*

These two songs were recorded by Elvis and group during their Sun Records era. Once they were sold to RCA, their material remained strong, but was less raw. Still, cover songs/remakes were standard practice for singers at the time, and, in Elvis' case, there are a TON of original versions to dig up. It's SO fun to back track his early catalog; I'm always so impressed by the unmatched quality of late '40s and early '50s R&B and country.

*"That's All Right" was first recorded in 1946, and folks claim "Rocket 88" was the first rock and roll song?! I think here's a case suggesting "Rocket 88" was late to the game...