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 1957 - "EIGHT" ELVIS Songs That Changed our Xmas World!..it would be a BLUE XMAS Without them...., +New+ Latest ELVIS XMAS TOTAL SALES ESTIMATES
  
REX
post Dec 29 2010, 07:33 PM
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post Dec 29 2010, 07:35 PM
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Delux Cover, with wide Red simulated leather binding.

Elvis' Christmas Album is the fourth album by Elvis Presley on RCA Victor Records, LOC 1035

A deluxe limited edition, released in October 1957, and recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood.

It has been reissued in numerous different formats since its first release.


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:37 PM
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It spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart

The first of two Christmas-themed albums Presley would record,
the other being Elvis Sings The Wonderful World of Christmas, released in the early 1970s.

(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293460174/gallery_21960_29_114547.jpg)

Billboard Issue 2nd December 1957 "Pop Sales Chart"

Showing first weeks chart entry of Xmas Album



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post Dec 29 2010, 07:38 PM
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According to the latest certifications by the Recording Industry Association of America

Elvis' Christmas Album has shipped at least 12 million copies in the United States

3 million copies of the original 1957 release on RCA Victor Records plus

9 million copies of a "budget" edition first released by RCA Camden in 1970

Making it the best-selling Christmas/holiday album of all time in the U.S




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post Dec 29 2010, 07:39 PM
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The original 1957 LP consisted of eight Christmas songs, and four gospel songs which had been previously released on the EP Peace in the Valley.

Peace in the Valley ~ catalogue EPA 4054, issued March 1957, peaking at #3 on the Pop albums chart and at #39 on the singles chart.

The two album sides divided into a program of secular Christmas songs on side one,

with two traditional Christmas carols and the gospel numbers on side two.

Those included two spirituals by innovator Thomas A. Dorsey, "Peace in the Valley" and "Take My Hand, Precious Lord."

Coincidentally, A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra released the previous month by that other 1950s singing icon, also divided into a secular and a traditional side.



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post Dec 29 2010, 07:40 PM
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While most of the songs selected were traditional Christmas fare, such as "White Christmas" and "Silent Night,"

Two new songs by regular suppliers of material for Presley were commissioned.

One was "Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)" and the other (selected by Elvis to open the album), was a blues-based rock and roll number, "Santa Claus Is Back In Town," written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

This writer/producer team was responsible for some of 1950s rhythm and blues and rock and roll's most finely-honed satire in their work with The Coasters

(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293460174/gallery_21960_29_17641.jpg)

4th week on BILLBOARD POP Sales chart - 2nd week at # "1"


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:41 PM
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Elvis had asked the pair to come up with another Christmas song during sessions for the album;

within a few minutes, they had the song written and ready for recording.

Originally titled "Christmas Blues", this slyly risqué number is given a full-throated treatment by Elvis who, aided by the gritty ensemble playing from his band, was determined to ensure that this Christmas album would not be easily ignored.

Much of the remaining program was performed in a more traditional manner appropriate to the solemnity of Christmas

Although Elvis' innate sense of occasion shone through on his left-of-centre reading of Ernest Tubb's 1949 hit, "Blue Christmas."

(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293460174/gallery_21960_29_104001.jpg)

Xmas Backlash ! ~ which just helped the fans become even more aware of ELVIS AT XMAS


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:42 PM
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The Bing Crosby holiday perennial "White Christmas," which appeared every year on the Billboard charts from 1942 to 1962...

...became the center of controversy upon the album's release, with calls by the song's composer Irving Berlin to have the song, and the entire album, banned from radio airplay.

After hearing Presley's version of his song, which Berlin saw as a "profane parody of his cherished yuletide standard",

he ordered his staff in New York to telephone radio stations across the US, demanding the song be discontinued from radio play.

While most US radio stations ignored Berlin's request, at least one disc jockey was fired for playing a song from the album, and most Canadian stations refused to play the album.

(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293460174/gallery_21960_29_33331.jpg)

BILLBOARD - 9th Dec 1957 Issue... Canada Radio Backlash...


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:42 PM
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The controversy was, ironically, fueled by Elvis' performance of the song in a style mirroring the version by Clyde McPhatter's group, The Drifters, which had been a Top 10 hit on the R&B singles chart in 1954 and 1955.

Unlike Elvis' recording, however, their version attracted virtually no adverse reaction, and certainly no reported opposition from Irving Berlin.

Part of the reason that The Drifters' version of White Christmas was less controversial was because that version was played only on black radio stations.

Most mainstream stations did not take interest in The Drifters' version back then, and would not until the 1980s





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post Dec 29 2010, 07:44 PM
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The other new composition on the album, "Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me)" was paired with "Santa Claus Is Back In Town", and issued as a UK single concurrently with the album's release.

The single reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart in November 1957.

No US singles were issued from the album until 1964, when "Blue Christmas" was paired with "Wooden Heart," and reached number 1 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart;

A pairing of "Blue Christmas" b/w "White Christmas" became a Top 20 UK hit in late 1964.



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post Dec 29 2010, 07:45 PM
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(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293460174/gallery_21960_29_31863.jpg)

Signed copy by Elvis "Loving You - Elvis Presley" (Auction Item)


"Santa Claus Is Back In Town"/"Blue Christmas" was a 1965 single release for the US market

Reaching number # 4 on the Billboard Christmas Singles chart.

"Blue Christmas" would re-enter the Christmas or Holiday Singles chart many times in the years that follow.

Two different EPs "USA" Elvis Sings Christmas Songs, EPA 4108 in December 1957, and Christmas With Elvis, EPA 4340 in December 1958, divided the eight Christmas numbers between them.

The former topped the newly established Billboard EP Chart, while the latter failed to chart.


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:45 PM
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This is the 54th holiday season since Elvis Presley recorded OUR XMAS HOLIDAY TUNES then went to trim that big Christmas tree in the sky, but he still has the most popular holiday album of all time.

(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1292376063/gallery_21960_16_84876.jpg)

20th December 1957: Elvis had picked this draft notice up in Person earlier..


Elvis' Christmas Album, originally released in 1957, has sold more than 12 million copies, allowing it to beat out Kenny G's 1994 smash Miracles-A Holiday Album. (So in addition to being the eternal king of rock'n'roll, Presley kept the mellow, but much-maligned, saxophonist from claiming the top spot.).

Presley's album logged three weeks at #1 in December 1957, before surrendering the top spot to Bing Crosby's holiday perennial Merry Christmas.

But Elvis returned to #1 the following week, in what seemed very much like a passing of the torch-or in this case, a Christmas candle.

The Bing-to-Elvis hand-off represented a move from old to young, from Tin Pan Alley to rock'n'roll, from "White Christmas" to "Blue Christmas.".

Christmas albums have been an integral part of the holidays for more than 60 years.


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:49 PM
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ELVIS HAS THE NUMBER # 1 XMAS ALBUM of all time, by any artist.

1. Elvis Presley, Elvis' Christmas Album, 12,000,000.


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:49 PM
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The original edition of this album, which spawned Presley's holiday perennial "Blue Christmas,"

topped the chart for four weeks and has sold 3,000,000 copies, according to the RIAA.


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:50 PM
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(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293634123/gallery_21960_29_91443.jpg)

Elvis signature, "Merry Christmas ~ Elvis Presley" dated ... 23rd December 1956 (Auction Item)


In 1970, RCA released a revised "budget" edition, which dropped four gospel songs from the original and added two songs,

including Presley's 1966 holiday hit, "If Every Day Was Like Christmas."

It has sold 9,000,000 copies, per the RIAA. This grand total combines the two tallies.. (last revised 2008)


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post Dec 29 2010, 07:52 PM
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(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293634123/gallery_21960_29_139054.jpg)

BILLBOARDS new Xmas 4 Song EP Chart (2nd Dec 1957 Issue)

Elvis with "SIX of the Top 9 releases.. including the just released Elvis Xmas EP (extended play)


THE SEASONAL tie-in has been a hardy staple of the music business ever since the invention of the gramophone record.

But Elvis's Christmas offering for 1957 proved to be one of the most controversial.

His rendition of the carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem" was appropriately respectful, but many critics were disgusted by his only slightly less reverent reading of "Silent Night."

Worse still, he dared to toy with a song so tied to the show-business conception of the festive season that it had taken on almost religious significance—the Bing Crosby hit "White Christmas."

Elvis added a slice of jazz flavour to the arrangement and scatted his way through a couple of choruses as if he was lazing in the sun on the beach in Malibu.




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post Dec 29 2010, 07:53 PM
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(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293634123/gallery_21960_29_97002.jpg)

A half page advert from the 9th Dec 57 issue of BILLBOARD


Such was the outrage that many U.S. radio stations barred their DJs from airing such an iconoclastic performance.

When Elvis turned from Jesus and Bing to saints, in the person of Santa Claus, no one batted an eye.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller threw together a raw blues tune called "Santa Claus Is Back in Town,"
which Elvis treated like gut bucket R&B.

The more light hearted "Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me" was closer to the breezy air of Teddy Bear,"

While "Here Comes Santa Claus" was pure pop.

Aside from the Leiber/Stolter offering, the real gem was "Blue Christmas."
a smoochy ballad with an appropriate blues feel, which belatedly became a mid-Sixties hit single in Britain.


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post Dec 29 2010, 08:58 PM
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(IMG:http://www.elvis-tkc.com/forums/uploads/1293634123/gallery_21960_29_122902.jpg)

BILLBOARDS new Xmas 4 Song EP Chart (9th Dec 1957 Issue)

Elvis with 4 of the Top 8 releases.. including the just released Elvis Xmas EP (extended play)


Besides the eight seasonal songs, RCA threw in four gospel recordings Elvis had issued as an EP earlier in 1957.

His first dabblings with the genre in the studio, they went some way toward defusing the bad press Elvis had attracted for the sexuality of his stage shows, without upsetting his hardcore fans.

"I Believe" had recently been a major hit for Frankie Laine, while "Peace in the Valley"” "It Is No Secret" and "Take My Hand Precious Lord" featured in the repertoire of most gospel performers.

Elvis was supported by the Jordanaires on these heartfelt recordings, which were
carried off with a hint of insincerity.

Surprisingly good sound on the CD release of this album—plus the bonus of some brief studio chatter leading into "Blue Christmas."



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phyllisnelvis
post Dec 29 2010, 08:58 PM
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My goodness This was a real eye opener for me. I had no idea the Canadian people felt this way. That was absolutely wrong. So glad to see someone had the balls to lay Elvis Christmas albums.
Great thread and a real Elvis history lesson here.
Have a wonderful day.
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colonel snow
post Dec 29 2010, 09:09 PM
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Did Irvin Berlin refuse the royalties he got from Elvis' sales for White Christmas? I think he got more than from other performers except Bing Crosby.



colonel snow


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