About Elvis Is Back! (Speakers Corner) by Elvis Presley:
During the King’s artistically unproductive period of military service, no costs or efforts were spared (e.g. "A Date With Elvis", RCA LPM-2011), and no consolatory promises of things to come were left unsaid by the management in order to keep Elvis alive and well in the minds of his vast circle of fans. At last the great coup was landed: "Elvis Is Back" was what everyone was waiting to hear and American radio and television broadcasting stations made a gigantic medial feast of it.
With the ink scarcely dry on his demobilization papers, Elvis entered the studio in March 1960 and recorded a whole series of numbers which later became worldwide hits, such as "Are You Lonesome Tonight" and "It’s Now Or Never". Released as singles, these tender ballads created a sensation, while the LP with numbers such as "Dirty, Dirty Feeling", "Like A Baby" and "The Thrill Of Your Love" underlined Elvis’s enhanced qualities as a rock, blues and gospel singer. That his voice - despite everyone’s fears - had lost nothing of its erotic thrill is more than amply demonstrated in his rendering of "Fever" alone, which is accompanied merely by bass and percussion.
With its amazing array of varying styles, this must surely be one of Elvis’s most genial albums and was unrivaled right up until his great comeback in 1968 ("From Elvis In Memphis", RCA LSP-4155).
Musicians:
- Elvis Presley (guitar, vocal)
- Floyd Cramer(piano)
- Scotty Moore (guitar)
- Boots Randolph (saxophone)
- Hank Garland (bass, guitar)
- Charlie Hodge (harmony)
- Bob Moore (bass)
- D.J. Fontana (drums)
- Hoyt Hawkins, Neal Matthews, Gordon Stoker, Ray C. Walker (vocal)
March 1960 at RCA Studios, Hollywood, CA. and April 1960 in Nashville, TS., USA,
by Bill Porter
Production: Chet Atkins
About Speakers Corner
At the beginning of the 90s, in the early days of audiophile vinyl re-releases, the situation was fairly straightforward. Companies such as DCC, Mobile Fidelity, Classic Records and, of course, Speakers Corner all maintained a mutual, unwritten ethical code: we would only use analogue tapes to manufacture records.
During the course of the present vinyl hype, many others have jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of securing a corner of the market. Very often they are not so ethical and use every imaginable source to master from: CDs, LPs, digital files, MP3s – or employed existant tools from the 80s and 90s for manufacturing.
A digital delay is gladly used when cutting a lacquer disc because tape machines with an analogue delay have become quite rare and are therefore expensive. When cutting the lacquer, the audio signal is delayed by one LP revolution against the signal, which controls the cutter head, and for this a digital delay is very often employed. Of course, the resultant sound signal is completely digital and thus only as good as this delay.
We should like to emphasise that Speakers Corner Records on principle only uses the original master tape as the basis for the entirely analogue cutting of lacquer discs. In addition, the pressing tool is newly manufactured as a matter of principle. We have one digital recording in our catalogue (Alan Parsons / Eye In The Sky“), but even in this particular case we used the analogue tapes for cutting.
We only employ existing tools for manufacturing if an improved result is not forthcoming, e.g. the title Elvis Is Back, which was mastered by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray, or several titles from our Philips Classics series, which in any case Willem Makkee cut from the original masters at the Emil Berliner Studios in the 90s. It goes without saying that we only used the mother and that new tools were made for our production.
To put it in a nutshell: we can ensure you that our releases are free from any kind of digital effects – excluding the exception above – and that the lacquer discs are newly cut.
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