What Elvis Presley I wanted so much, to reach No. 1 of the sales lists, the May 5, 1956con Heartbreak Hotel (Broken Hearts Hotel). 69 years ago It was the first rock and roll to head sales lists and first single that raised a million dollars for the RCA Victor label.
The theme was 7 weeks first at Billboard Top 100; It was No. 1 on the country & western list and for 17 weeks, third in Rhythm & Blues. Achieved something extraordinary for the record businesssince it was located in the Top Five of the three categories simultaneously.
A real sales success and that put Presley in the Rock and Roll star category. With Heartbreak HotelIn addition, he got his first gold album.
An unexpected attraction
It was a dream debut with his new seal, RCA Victor. Presley had been climbing in sales from its previous record, Sun Records where he managed to reach the 24th place with the Carl Perkins classic, Blue Suede Shoes. The change decision was because Sun lacked national distribution that RCA did.
Heartbreak Hotel He recorded it on January 10, 1956, the seal launched it on January 27, and from the first day his young audience showed an unexpected attraction; only In the first week he sold 300 thousand copies and in the first year, more than a millionn.
The story tells that Elvis did not ask for the necessary authorization to record Broken Hearts Hotelan eight -bored blues of doubtful taste for the time. The problem arose when RCA executives heard how they were and said unanimously: “We cannot get this.”
Of course, for the seal the lyrics tried a simply terrible matter. No one could entertain singing about suicidebut there was something in Presley, in his way of carrying out the letter that evidently seduced everyone.
A tragic letter that nobody wanted to sing
The letter was written in 1955 by the composer and singer, in addition to an English teacher, Mae Boren Axton and singer -songwriter Tommy Durden. It is supposedly based on a news that appeared in the Miami Herald on a man who threw himself from a hotel window after destroying his documents. He had only left one note: “on the way to a lonely street.”
Elvis Presley already famous, after getting his first hits being very young. Photo: APApparently that news of suicide could never be found and The story took the figure of urban legend. A few years ago, Rolling Stone magazine suggested that this lyric could be based on the history of a painter and criminal Alvin Krolik, who in his autobiography included the phrase “This is the story of a person who walks through a lonely street”, but there is an important difference with which he inspired the lyrics, since Krolik did not commit suicide, but that he was killed in a failed attempted attempted.
Axton and Durden admitted that the radio singer -songwriter Glenn Reeves helped with the lyrics and was the first to record a demo with the song, although he gave up presenting it in his performances and did not even want to stay in the credits. Axton then contacted the Willburn Brothers, however both Doyle and Teddy Wilburn declined to record it and pointed out that they didn’t do it for “Strange, almost morbid”.
Axton was not one of the people who gave up easily and achieved, through the Presley manager, Colonel Tom Parker, to present Elvis the song during the Annual Country music convention, in Nashville, Tennessee. It was on November 10, 1955, at the Andrew Jackson hotel. Presley enthusiastically asked Axton ten times to sing to me until the letter and each final told her: “Great, mae, touch her again!”
Presley arrived at RCA’s studio, the Blue Moon Boys, with the Great Scooty Moore on guitar, Bill Black on double bass and the excellent drummer DJ Fontana while producer Steve Sholes added two sessionists of the company, the elegant guitarist Chet Atkins and pianist Floyd Cramer.
There were problems. For example, Presley moved too much as he sang and lost his voice. “To sing it well I have to move, it’s something that simply happens,” said Elvis. They then put microphones around them and their voice remained with excessive reverberation. The song was quite different from the original, to the point that Durden, who wrote the music, did not recognize it in that recording.
In the United States press he had a measured reception, with some generalities such as “powerful blues with a solid rhythm. Not so in the United Kingdom, where she was disqualified by New Musical Express magazine:” If you appreciate the good voice, I do not think you can listen to the complete theme, “he said shortly to go on sale Heartbreak Hotel. For its part, the BBC did not consider it suitable for entertainment and placed it in a restricted playlist.
Who is the true revolutionary?
Now, there is some kind of consensus in which both David Bowie and Prince were the first great oddities in rock by liberators, atypical and revolutionaries, however, we could say that they were traveling in the same group as Mick Jagger, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix, among others.
Elvis Presley’s case is different, because simply It arose from a world that was not even ready to understand it. “A Freaky prodigy in the heart of Mississippi, an unparalleled genie. Mike Edison, in his excellent essay Sympathy for the drummer.
Nothing less than Frank Sinatra, in statements to a European newspaper, in 1957, said of Elvis: “It encourages negative and destructive reactions in young people. It smells of filth and is pure imposture. He manages to make the martial music of all criminals with pins in the face of the earth. ”
Elvis briefly replied: “If I remember correctly, he was also part of a trend. I don’t know how he can call the current immoral and criminal youth.”
Heading to the top
Heartbreak Hotel Restricted its diffusion in the London BBC, it also found difficulties in the United States. Presley had to insist to sing it into the program Stage Showof the CBS record, where he debuted televisionly on January 28, 1956.
The unmistakable stamp of a star: Elvis Presley in a promotional photo of 1957. Photo: APHis drivers were the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsy brothers (musicians with one of the most important orchestras of the Swing era and catapulted a very young Frank Sinatra) who would have accepted their performance because he was a cheap artist: he only charged US $ 1.25.
The Dorsey were not at ease with that issue and only in their third intervention, on February 11, 1956, he was able to sing it in the Stage Showprior acceptance of the authorities of the CBS, rival of RCA Victor in record matters.
In Billboard Top 100, Heartbreak Hotel He entered the 68th place on February 22, 1956 and did not stop until first place. Despite the resistance of the BBC, the theme arrived in June of that year at second place in sales in the United Kingdom. Rock and roll was unstoppable.
From before even its launch in 1955 to 1977 was part of Elvis’s repertoire. Indeed, it premiered it in December 1955 during a tour in Louisiana Hayride and its last interpretation was on May 29, 1977, in the Civic Center, of Baltimore, that is, it was part of its material for 21 years.
Presley died on August 26, 1977, in Memphis.
