Roustabout (album)

Roustabout
Soundtrack album by Elvis Presley
Released October 20, 1964
Recorded March–April 1964
Genre Soundtrack
Length 20:05
Label RCA
Producer Joseph Lilley
Elvis Presley chronology
Kissin' Cousins
(1964)		 Roustabout
(1964)		 Girl Happy
(1965)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Roustabout is the twenty-first album by Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono and stereo, LPM/LSP 2999, in October 1964. Recording sessions took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California, on March 2 and 3, and April 29, 1964. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. It was certified Gold on 5/20/1988 by the R.I.A.A. The album would be Presley's final soundtrack to reach #1 and his last #1 album until 1973's Aloha From Hawaii: Via Satellite.

Contents

Content

Payments to Presley for each film amounted to between $225,000 to $1,000,000 up front, often half the budget for production, with a 50% share of the profits.[2] These movies were being shot in sometimes as little as three weeks, with the complete scoring and recording of the soundtrack albums taking no more than two weeks.[2] It fell to Colonel Parker's lieutenant Freddy Bienstock to ensure that the soundtrack songs fit into the profit equation with the publishing controlled by Elvis Presley Music or Gladys Music, the Hill and Range Publishing companies owned by Elvis and the Colonel. As a result, successful writers such as Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, Otis Blackwell and Winfield Scott, and Don Robertson lost interest in adhering to the needs of the grind.[2] It was interlocking self-promotion, causing one MGM employee to remark that the movies "didn't need titles. They could be numbered. They would still sell.[2]

Blackwell and Scott in fact submitted a candidate for the title track, "I'm A Roustabout" recorded on March 3, only to find it substituted by a song from a different team of writers.[3] This recording was eventually released by RCA on the top-selling 2003 compilation 2nd to None.[4]

Presley and his coterie of top session musicians gamely plowed through all of this, and eleven songs were recorded for the twenty-minute soundtrack LP. Four songs from this album appeared on the 1995 soundtrack compilation: "Roustabout," "Little Egypt," "Poison Ivy League," and "There's a Brand New Day on the Horizon."

Personnel

Track listing

Side one

Track Recorded Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 4/29/64 Roustabout Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 1:56
2. 3/2/64 Little Egypt Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller 2:15
3. 3/2/64 Poison Ivy League Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 2:02
4. 3/2/64 Hard Knocks Joy Byers 1:42
5. 3/2/64 It's a Wonderful World Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett 1:48
6. 3/3/64 Big Love, Big Heartache Dolores Fuller, Lee Morris, Sonny Hendrix 1:57

Side two

Track Recorded Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 3/3/64 One Track Heart Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 2:15
2. 3/3/64 It's Carnival Time Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne 1:32
3. 3/3/64 Carny Town Fred Wise and Randy Starr 1:19
4. 3/3/64 There's a Brand New Day on the Horizon Joy Byers 2:00
5. 3/3/64 Wheels on My Heels Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett 1:19

Chart positions

Chart (1965) Peak
position
Billboard Pop Albums (Billboard 200) 1
Preceded by
Beach Boys Concert by The Beach Boys		 Billboard 200 number-one album
January 2, 1965 – January 8, 1965		 Succeeded by
Beatles '65 by The Beatles

References

  1. ^ Allmusic review
  2. ^ a b c d Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; p. 198.
  3. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 198-199.
  4. ^ http://www.elvis.com/news/full_story.asp?id=457