"Dont Be Cruel" 1955 original Otis Blackwell / Elvis Presley only copy known
$
1,000
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Description
TO ALL POTENTIAL BUYERS, I am going to allow this to run for 30 more days then I will be ending this listing and ending all selling on Ebay.
Please keep in mind I have 100% positive feedback. Thank you and good luck.
I CAN SEND YOU A LINK SO YOU CAN HEAR THIS RECORD. EMAIL ME
December 25th 1955 Otis Blackwell went into the recording studios of Shalimar Music and recorded 5 songs. He sold them for $25.00 each. One of those songs was entitled "Dont Be Cruel". Shalimar music was associated with Elvis Presley who was only regionally known at the time and 7 months after Blackwell sold his songs to Shalimar, Shalimar brought a stack of records for Elvis to hear to pick the "B" side for Hound Dog. One of those records was "Don't be Cruel" that Blackwell had sold. When Elvis heard the song he picked it for the "B" side. That record that Elvis heard is in my hands. The Original or at least one of them. It is the only one known to exist at this time. It is not the same as Blackwells 1976 recording which can easily be found online. If you are interested in purchasing this record but you would like to hear it first, email me please. I can get you a link to the recording I made of the record in my posession so you can compare it with Blackwells rendition in 1976.
The 45RPM "Hound Dog"/ "Don't Be Cruel" was the record that made Elvis world famous and has sold over 6 million copies world wide. It has been certified 4 x platinum. It held the record for most sales for 36 years and according to polls "Don't Be Cruel" was Elvis's greatest hit. This record is the recording that Elvis listened to that started the ball rolling. You will probably never get the chance to own this again.
Otis Blackwell wrote "Don't Be Cruel," "Return to Sender," "All Shook Up and "Paralyzed," for Elvis Presley. He wrote Great Balls of Fire for Jerry Lee Lewis. He also wrote songs for Ray Charles, Otis Redding, James Brown, The Who, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, The Judds, Carl Perkins, and Peggy Lee, among numerous others.
If you would like some provenance this is probably as good as it gets..... Photographer Alfred Wertheimer, who was in the studio that day, detailed the session in his 1979 photo-journal, Elvis ’56: In the Beginning. According to Wertheimer, after about two hours and 30 takes of “Hound Dog,” the musicians listened to playbacks of the takes that were candidates for the "Hound Dog" master. “The engineer racked take twenty-eight,” remembered Wertheimer. “Elvis left his chair and crouched on the floor, as if listening in a different position was like looking at a subject from a different angle. Again he went into deep concentration, absorbed and motionless … At the end of the song, he slowly rose from his crouch and turned to us with a wide grin, and said, ‘This is the one.’”
(In Elvis Presley: A Life in Music, author Ernst Jorgensen lists take 31 as the “Hound Dog” master.)
Then Elvis listened to some acetates in search of a song to pair with “Hound Dog” on the RCA single release. After listening to “Don’t Be Cruel” twice, Elvis said, “That’s the one I want to try.” Wertheimer described how the arrangement was worked up in the studio. “Strumming his guitar with the sheet music still held in his hand, [Elvis] quickly found the melody. By the time everyone gathered around the piano, he had already memorized the lyrics. Elvis played his version on the keyboard to Shorty, who noted the changes on the sheet music, while the musicians played it for themselves and the Jordanaires harmonized a bebop.”
."Then Elvis listened to some acetates" as quoted in Alfred Wertheimer's 1979 photo-journal "Elvis ’56: In the Beginning" This comes from elvis dash history dash blog dot com forward slash hound dash dog dot html
Chances are only one acetate was ever made and from there they made tapes. This of course is not a guarantee but I believe it is reasonable as studio tapes were quite common at the time
SHIPPING WILL BE FREE by way of USPS PRIORITY MAIL, INSURED, with SIGNATURE DELIVERY, meaning you will have to sign for the package.
I WILL NOT SHIP ANY OTHER WAY.
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