RCA Victor LOC 1035
Producer: None listed
Track listing: Santa Claus is Back in Town / White Christmas / Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) / I’ll be Home from Christmas / Blue Christmas / Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me) / O Little Town of Bethlehem / Silent Night / (There’ll be Peace in the Valley (for Me) / I Believe / Take My Hand, Precious Lord / It is No Secret (What God Can Do)
December 16, 1957
4 weeks (nonconsecutive)
Following his 10-week reign atop the Best Selling Pop LPs chart with Loving You, Elvis Presley was temporarily displaced from the Number One position by the Around the World in 80 Days soundtrack. But that was only until Elvis gave his fans a present that would become the first Christmas album of the rock era to top the chart.
Eight of the 12 tracks on Elvis’ Christmas Album were recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, California, on September 5-7, 1957. Presley’s guitar player Scotty Moore says those sessions weren’t too different from any others. “We were just recording some more songs,” he says. Also cut during those same sessions were the Number One single “Don’t” and the B-sides “My Wish Came True” and “Treat Me Nice.”
“It was fun to do,” Moore says of the sessions. “But we were all laughing about playing Christmas songs in Los Angeles in September.” To help set the mood, RCA A&R executive Steve Sholes had a fully decorated Christmas tree complete with presents underneath, set up in the studio.
For material, Elvis turned to some proven classics, including “White Christmas,” a song made famous by Bing Crosby, yet Elvis recorded the song using the Drifters’ arrangement, backed by the Jordanaires and Millie Kirkham, who was flown in for the sessions (despite the fact she was six months pregnant). Also featured were a version of Ernest Tubb’s “Blue Christmas” and “Santa Claus Is Back in Town,” which Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller reportedly penned in a matter of minutes in the studio at Elvis’ request.
The other four tracks featured on the album were recorded at Radio Recorders in January and were initially released in April on Elvis’ gospel EP, Peace in the Valley. The remaining cuts on Elvis’ Christmas Album would also be divided up to fill two subsequent EPs — Elvis Sings Christmas Songs, which topped the Best Selling Pop EPs chart in December 1957, and Christmas with Elvis, which was released a year later. While the EPs offered a low-priced value for the casual fans, the initial pressing of Elvis’ Christmas Album was aimed at the fanatic, as the deluxe edition contained 10 pages of color photos.
Despite the album’s commercial success, many radio stations banned the songs from their playlists because some program directors believed a suggestive performer like Elvis had no business singing religious songs.
Nonetheless, Elvis celebrated his fourth Number One album in less than two yeas as two of the songs on the album, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “White Christmas,” rang especially true: Elvis spent his first holiday at his new home, Graceland. And, as luck would have it, it snowed in Memphis that year.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of December 16, 1957
1. Elvis’ Christmas Album, Elvis Presley
2. My Fair Lady, Original Cast
3. Merry Christmas, Bing Crosby
4. Around the World in 80 Days, Soundtrack
5. Ricky, Ricky Nelson