The Organising Principle Of Elvis '56 Is Simple: That'S The Year Presley Recorded These 22 Tracks (Including An Alternate Take Of "Heartbreak Hotel", The Opening Track, Recorded On January 10, 1956). It'S Also The Year That Presley Was To Become The Biggest Pop Phenomenon Since Frank Sinatra By Kicking Up A Fuss As A Red-Hot Regular On Tv Variety Shows. In The Studio, Presley'S First Recordings For Rca Drew From The Same Pool Of Rhythm And Blues Tunes That He'D Been Interpreting At Sun Records. 1956 Was The Year Presley Sang Great Songs By Otis Blackwell ("Don'T Be Cruel", "Paralyzed", "Ready Teddy") And The Leiber-Stoller Team ("Hound Dog", "Love Me"). He Also Essentially Swiped Carl Perkins'S "Blue Suede Shoes" And Tried To Do The Same With Such Other Contemporary Hits As "Lawdy, Miss Clawdy" And "Shake, Rattle, And Roll". Note That On The Same Day He Recorded The Galvanising "Heartbreak Hotel" Presley Also Cut A Most Sun-Like (And Wholly Appropriate) "Money Honey". The Compilation Chronicles A Remarkable Year In Which Every Song Rang True; The Booklet Includes Exquisite Period Photos Of Presley Taken By Alfred Wertheimer. A Video Of The Same Title That Chronicles The Year In Pictures Is Highly Recommended. --John Milward

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"Elvis 56" is filled with classics like "Heartbreak Hotel", "Hound Dog", "Shake, Rattle & Roll", "Don't Be Cruel" and "Love Me", as well as several equally excellent, if somewhat lesser-known songs ("Paralyzed", "Any Way You Want Me", "One-Sided Love Affair", and covers of Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and Arthur Crudup's "So Glad You're Mine").

This is a very enjoyable collection filled with good pop hooks and some fine musicianship (would have been nice with some more insightful liner notes and recording information). The only problem is that most Elvis fans probably already have most or all of this music.
But if you don't, and just want a bit of 50s rock n' roll, rockabilly and pop to keep your fingers tapping on the steering wheel on your way home from work, "Elvis 56" is a really fine purchase, although it's by no means a definitive early Elvis Presley retrospective.

9 of 11 found the following review helpful:

Elvis's Best Year in the 1950'sNov 28, 2005
By Anton Karidian
This CD is a good sample of much of the best of 1950s Elvis. Though it covers only 1956, that was his biggest year in that decade. This is mostly a combination of his original albums ELVIS PRESLEY and ELVIS, minus the Sun Studio recordings of 1954-55 that were on those albums (which you can get separately). At 22 tracks it's quite sizable, and emphasizes rock and blues along with a few slower ballads. It's also got a nicely-done booklet with many photos. There's not a lot of unusual material here if you've already got most of his '50s stuff, but of the alternate takes of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" and "Heartbreak Hotel," the latter is especially interesting. Sound quality is unusually clear, and the packaging is attractive. This album gives good evidence why the Beatles were huge Elvis fans in the '50s.

6 of 7 found the following review helpful:

The REAL ElvisFeb 22, 2006
By GoSox-BoSox
It's wonderful to hear these early Elvis recordings, when he was still raw and new and amazing, when he was still singing real music, before The Colonel turned him into a movie star singing songs like "Do The Clam". Even if you've heard all these before, and even if you already have most of them, this is still a great collection. Everything on this CD was recorded in the same year, and all I can say is that 1956 must have been amazing! (I was only 6 years old, so I can't really say much from personal experience.)

My only complaint isn't with the music, only with the liner notes, or rather the lack of liner notes. The booklet that comes with the CD is beautifully designed, with some very evocative photgraphs by Alfred Wertheimer - LordyLordy, Elvis was certainly somethin' to look at back then! But I would have enjoyed a little more discussion about the music - who wrote it, who recorded some of it before Elvis, how he took some of the repertoire of the black blues and R&B artists of the time and made it accessible to the white audiences of the time, what the rest of the popular music world was like at the time and how Elvis totally changed the landscape, and how that all really started in 1956. But unfortunately, that one run-on sentence I just wrote is more information than you'll get with this CD.

Yeah, well, liner notes would have been nice, but really it's all about the music. And the music on this CD is awesome!

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