User:ThesoundoftheShadows1965/sandbox

The Five Faces of Manfred Mann is the debut studio album by the English rock band Manfred Mann. It was released on His Master's Voice in mono, catalog number CLP 1731, in September 1964. The recording sessions took place over a six-month span at the EMI recording studios in London, England, starting from December 1963 lasting to June 1964. The album spent twenty-four weeks at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart.

The original 1965 US release on Ascot (a subsidiary of United Artists) Catalog Number: CLP 1093 has ten different tracks.

Content
Presley made appearances in four consecutive weeks on the Dorsey Brothers television program Stage Show in early 1956, on January 28, February 4, February 11, and February 18. RCA wanted an album in the stores fast to capitalize both on the nationwide TV exposure and the success of his first hit single on the pop charts with "Heartbreak Hotel", swiftly climbing to the top after its release on January 27. At the same time, there had only been two series of Presley recording sessions for RCA Victor by the end of the Dorsey stint, after which Presley and his band were back on the road. Those two sessions yielded an additional eleven tracks, almost enough to fill an entire LP, although some tracks had singles potential. In the 1950s, general practice dictated tracks having greater commercial potential to be released as singles, with tracks of lesser appeal placed on albums; as such, RCA Victor neither took all eleven tracks and simply made an album, nor placed the already released and briskly-selling "Heartbreak Hotel" on it. The rights to the Sun Studio tapes had transferred to RCA Victor with the sale of his contract, so five previously unreleased Sun songs, "I Love You Because", "Just Because", "Tryin' to Get to You", "I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')", and "Blue Moon" were added to seven of the RCA Victor sessions tracks to bring the running time of the album up to an acceptable length. Phillips produced the sessions at Sun, and no producer was officially listed for the RCA Victor sessions, leading to the belief that Presley himself produced them.

As the Sun tracks were mostly country-styled, Elvis and RCA Victor leavened the selections with covers of recent rhythm and blues songs. Two of these, "Money Honey" by Jesse Stone, known to Elvis from a version by Clyde McPhatter, and Ray Charles' 1955 hit "I Got a Woman", had been in Presley's live act for a year. A third was the frenetic announcement to the world of the existence of Little Richard in 1955, "Tutti Frutti". A rockabilly number that was believed to be a potential hit and could hold its own with the R&B material, "Blue Suede Shoes", was not initially released as a single from a promise by Sholes to Sam Phillips to protect the career of another Sun artist, Carl Perkins, the author of the song. Instead, it was diverted into being the opening track on the album.

On August 31, 1956, RCA Victor took the unusual step of releasing the entire album as singles, which undoubtedly kept the new single released simultaneously, "Shake, Rattle and Roll" backed with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy," from reaching the charts. However, "Blue Suede Shoes", released in single form as a part of this experiment by RCA Victor, kept the promise to Phillips and Perkins by waiting over eight months since the song's release on Sun, and made it to number 20 on the singles chart.

Personnel

 * Elvis Presley – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano (on "Tryin' To Get to You")
 * Scotty Moore – electric guitar
 * Chet Atkins – acoustic guitar on "I'm Counting on You" and "Money Honey"
 * Floyd Cramer – piano on January 10–11
 * Shorty Long – piano on January 30–31
 * Bill Black – bass
 * D. J. Fontana – drums except "I Love You Because," "Just Because," "Tryin' to Get to You," "I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')," and "Blue Moon"
 * Johnny Bernero – drums (on "Tryin' to Get to You")
 * Gordon Stoker – backing vocals
 * Ben Speer – backing vocals
 * Brock Speer – backing vocals
 * Doug Poindexter - percussion/guitar on "Just Because"