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Elvis Presley · S2 E7
Mystery Train
The last Sun single. The sound is fully formed. Every major label in America is calling Sam Phillips
July 11, 1955. Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore, and Bill Black walk into Sun Studio for what will be the last time, and Sam Phillips has one song left he wants them to try.
"Mystery Train / Tiger Man" (Elvis Presley, '68 Comeback Special, NBC, 1968). Elvis revisits his last Sun single thirteen years later, and the raw power is still there. The train that left 706 Union Avenue in 1955 never really stopped.
Junior Parker's Train
Junior Parker recorded the original 'Mystery Train' for Sun Records in 1953, a slow, eerie blues about a train that took his baby away. Sam Phillips produced both versions, two years apart, in the same room. Parker's version is haunted and resigned. Elvis's version is fast, defiant, and sounds like a man chasing the train instead of watching it leave.
Sources
Guralnick, Peter. "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley." Little, Brown, 1994.
Jorgensen, Ernst. "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music." St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Mystery Train, Elvis Presley (1955)
Scotty Moore's tremolo guitar creates a chugging rhythm that sounds like the train in the lyric, and Bill Black's bass holds the bottom down like railroad ties. Elvis's vocal is the most confident he has ever sounded on a Sun recording: no hesitation, no searching, just a man who knows exactly what he's doing. The whole thing runs just over two minutes, and not a single second is wasted. This is what two years of Sun Studio sessions produced: a band so locked in that the music sounds like it's been playing forever.
Sources
Jorgensen, Ernst. "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music." St. Martin's Press, 1998.
Guralnick, Peter. "Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll." Little, Brown, 2015.
TAP TO REVEAL: What did Sam Phillips do with the $35,000 he got for selling Elvis's contract?
The $35,000 Goodbye
In November 1955, Colonel Tom Parker brokers the sale of Elvis's contract from Sun Records to RCA Victor for $35,000, the highest price ever paid for a recording artist at the time. Phillips also hands over $5,000 in back royalties directly to Elvis. It's the end of five Sun singles, eighteen months of Saturday nights at the Louisiana Hayride, and the most important chapter in the history of American recorded music.
Sources
Guralnick, Peter. "Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley." Little, Brown, 1994.
The Sun Records Era: The File
I Forgot to Remember to Forget, Elvis Presley (1955)
The B-side of 'Mystery Train' and Elvis's first number one hit on the Billboard country chart. Stan Kesler and Charlie Feathers wrote it as a classic country heartbreak song, and Elvis delivers it straight, with none of the wildness that defines the A-side. It's the most traditionally country thing Elvis recorded for Sun, and the fact that it hit number one proved he could dominate the charts even when he wasn't reinventing the music. By the time it reached the top spot in November 1955, Elvis already belonged to RCA.
I Forgot to Remember to Forget, Elvis Presley (1955)
"I forgot to remember to forget her." Read the lyrics while you listen. This is Elvis playing it straight, delivering a country heartbreak song without any of the genre-bending energy of the A-side. The simplicity is the point: even doing the most conventional thing possible, the voice is unmistakable.
Which of these artists did Sam Phillips sign to Sun Records AFTER selling Elvis's contract to RCA?
Elvis Presley belongs to RCA now, and the man holding his contract is a carnival barker from the Netherlands who calls himself 'Colonel Tom Parker,' though he is neither a colonel nor named Tom Parker. Next season: the television, the screaming, and the moment a truck driver from Memphis becomes the biggest entertainer on the planet.
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To be continued
Season 3: The Rise
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