Robert Baird

Forget if you can, the hips, the hair, the pills, and the whole grotesque circus his life eventually became and remember that Elvis Presley, who died 40 years ago today, was in the beginning a hillbilly cat who could genuinely sing.

As is the case with many artists, Elvis Presley's best recordings, particularly when it comes to his vocals, are his first; the ones he made for Sun Records in 1954–55. They have been repackaged yet again in a very attractive box, Elvis Presley, A Boy From Tupelo, The Complete 1953–55 Recordings, The difference here is that this set, according to the press release, contains, "every known Elvis Presley Sun Records master and outtake," as well as, "all the live and radio recordings known to exist." While time will tell if this is really the final word on his Sun period, this is a trove of new tracks for Elvis geeks and anyone convinced that the Sun Records recordings are one of the grails of American music.

The first disc opens with "My Happiness," which he made for his mother, and the other three early acetates that Elvis paid Sun to cut for him in 1953, and includes the well-known master takes of all the tunes he cut at Sun during the next two years. The second, and by far the most fascinating disc, contains all the outtakes from the Sun sessions. The final disc is all live recordings, most from the Louisiana Hayride radio show, as well as assorted live gigs from that same era. Sixteen of these live tracks are previously unreleased, although many have less than pristine sound. Taken from banged[up acetate discs, the Hayride recordings have always been notorious for their poor sound quality. But the time and money invested in rescuing them in 2011 and for this boxed set (which may be the one and the same given the annoying lack of specific information in this set's 120-page book) has added clarity and brought Elvis's voice out of the mix and into sharp focus.

The press release for this set trumpets the fact that this box took "more than 1500 hours of restoration work and nearly 200 hours of additional studio time," and for the most part the sound quality is audibly improved from prior releases. Again, given all that subsequently happened in his life, it's easy to forget that in the beginning Elvis was above all else, a truly great singer.

A dramatic illustration of that comes on disc two in the outtakes of "Blue Moon of Kentucky," where Elvis, uses a fluttery falsetto to wordlessly soar in the style of Slim Whitman behind multiple slow takes. For a moment on first listen I thought there was a Theremin in the background. "Otherworldly" is about the only word I can think of to describe it.

Like all Elvis reissues this set was helmed by Ernst Mikael Jorgensen, the keeper of the Elvis flame as it were, at RCA/Legacy. The appearance of each new Elvis reissue set begs the question: is that finally it? Or better yet: what's left to reissue? Unfortunately, I missed an opportunity to talk in person with Jorgensen when he stopped in New York City on his way to Memphis for the festivities marking the 40th anniversary of Elvis's death, but that's a piece I will soon be writing so stay tuned. There were no SoundCloud tracks available from RCA/Legacy to post with this piece, but I found a Hayride YouTube track that illustrates the results of the 2011 sonic restoration. While the sound is nowhere near studio quality, just listen to how nimble and elastic his young voice was!