Elvis Presley - Sun Sessions (Remastered) (CD)

All Music Guide

There aren't many rock albums that feature music one can honestly say changed the world as we know it, but that is, if anything, a modest appraisal of the contents of Elvis Presley's The Sun Sessions. Elvis certainly didn't invent rock roll, and he wasn't even the first white guy to play it, but much as Louis Armstong did for jazz, Elvis created a distinctive new way to play the music that combined a number of influences with his own one-of-a-kind outlook and personality; also like Armstrong, Presley was one of the most naturally gifted performers his genre ever knew, and was the performer who truly brought the music to the people as no one had before or since, and the 16 tracks on this album capture the thrilling sound of Elvis first learning to put his ideas together in the recording studio. Collecting the ten sides Elvis released on Sun Records in 1954 and 1955 with six outtakes (several more would surface over the years), this album captures Elvis in his first flush of greatness -...- at once confident and curious, swaying between RB, country, and pop, and somehow bringing them together and finding a common ground between them that was his and his alone. Of course, it helps that Elvis also had Sam Phillips producing these sides, a fellow eccentric visionary with different but eminently compatible ideas about bringing together black and white music (not to mention a killer tape echo unit), and Scotty Moore playing guitar, whose slightly fractured guitar runs gave birth to the dominant rockabilly guitar sound. And beyond its historical importance, this music is fun; one can hear the thrill of discovery and experimentation on every cut, and if Elvis would sound stronger and more savvy with time, he never sounded freer or more excited with the possibilities of his own voice as he does on this material. Elvis was (with little room for argument) the single most important artist in the history of rock roll, and The Sun Sessions collects his first, and arguably most important, recordings into one convenient package. Who doesn't need this in their record collection? - Mark Deming, All Music Guide Read more Less