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The Tupelo Mississippi Flash

By ElvisNews.com / Kees, February 05, 2008 | Music

The UK based Proper Records label released a four CD box set entitled “The Tupelo Mississippi Flash”. Does it add to the many (UK) releases already available?

Design

The Proper Records label has a long line of experience releasing box sets, and this release shows it. The package comes as a cardboard box with four CDs in a slipcase and a fifty pages illustrated booklet in the same size. The latter describes the early years and the rise to fame based on the standard books by Peter Guralnick, Ernst Jorgensen, Alana Nash, Scotty Moore, Horace Logan and Peter Brown.
The CDs themselves are presented in cardboard slipcases with some good-looking images of our man with a sepia effect over them.

Content

The set contains no less than 115 tracks, starting at SUN and via the live performances we get the early RCA catalogue that is up for grabs in most of Europe. Browsing through the tracks all we miss are Elvis’ personal acetates which first drew Marion Keisker’s attention and made her mention this young guy to her boss Sam Philips and the rest is history. And this history is pretty well preserved on this four CD box set cover Elvis at SUN, on stage at the various country style road and radio shows ending with the great tracks our man recorded for RCA at the beginning of his career. For fans like us there is not very much more one can about a release like this, it simply covers some of the best years of Elvis’ recording career - from the SUN tracks to the snowy Christmas tracks from 1957 - and probably personal life.

Conclusion

O.k. it may not offer anything new to most fans, but a nicely designed box set like this with the additional informative booklet will probably find its way to new fans browsing through the budget basked. In those baskets the quality of a box like this will (hopefully) make the casual buyer pick up a set that could be the start of a nice collection.

Tracklisting:

CD 1:
That's All Right - Blue Moon Of Kentucky - Hearts Of Stone - That's All Right - Tweedle Dee - Money Honey - Blue Moon Of Kentucky - I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine - That's All Right - There's Good Rockin' Tonight - Baby Let's Play House - Blue Moon Of Kentucky - I Got A Woman - Tweedle Dee - I'm Left You're Right She's Gone - Baby Let's Play House - Maybelline - That's All Right - Heartbreak Hotel - Long Tall Sally - I Was The One - Money Honey - I Got A Woman - Blue Suede Shoes - Hound Dog - I Was The One - Love Me Tender - Hound Dog - I Want You I Need You I Love You - Hound Dog

CD 2:
That's All Right - Blue Moon Of Kentucky - Good Rockin' Tonight - I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine - Milkcow Blues Boogie - You're A Heartbreaker - Baby Let's Play House - I'm Left You're Right She's Gone - Mystery Train - I Forgot To Remember To Forget - Heartbreak Hotel - I Was The One - Blue Suede Shoes - Tutti Frutti - I Got A Woman - Just Because - I'm Counting On You - One Sided Love Affair - Tryin' To Get To You - I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry - I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darling) - Blue Moon - Money Honey - I Want You I Need You I Love You - Hound Dog - Don't Be Cruel - My Baby Left Me

CD 3:
I Love You Because - Lawdy Miss Clawdy - Shake Rattle & Roll - Love Me Tender - Anyway You Want Me - Rip It Up - Love Me - When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again - Long Tall Sally - First In Line - Paralyzed - So Glad You're Mine - Old Shep - Ready Teddy - Anyplace Is Paradise - How's The World Treating You - How Do You Think I Feel? - Let Me - Poor Boy - We're Gonna Move - Playing For Keeps - Too Much - All Shook Up - That's When Your Heartaches Begin - (There'll Be)peace In The Valley - It Is No Secret (What God Can Do) - I Believe - Take My Hand Precious Lord

CD 4:
I Need You So - Have I Told You Lately That I Love You - Blueberry Hill - Is It So Strange - Teddy Bear - Loving You - Mean Woman Blues - Got A Lot Of Livin' To Do - Lonesome Cowboy - Hot Dog - (Let's Have A) Party - True Love - Don't Leave Me Now (1) - Jailhouse Rock - Treat Me Nice - Young & Beautiful - I Want To Be Free - Don't Leave Me Now (2) - Baby I Don't Care - Santa Claus Is Back In Town - White Christmas - Here Comes Santa Claus - I'll Be Home For Christmas - Blue Christmas - Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me) - O Little Town Of Bethlehem - Silent Night

Login to give your opinion
Shaky wrote on February 06, 2008
And next year they can 'rip off' complete 50's masters box sets, using all the 58 tunes too!
Jerome wrote on February 08, 2008
How can they place Ready Teddy right after Old Shep? Don't they have any feeling?!..
Greg Nolan wrote on February 10, 2008
Well, shaky, in Europe anyway, this is now public domain material so it's fair game and therefore not actually theft. The Proper label has actually done some great oldies and R&B reissues based soley on the fruit of the public domain law. They are not really to be confused with the super-cheap, unheard of labels that have released Elvis p.d. material. PROPER, to their credit, actually take out advertisements and have been known to do liner notes, and okay packaging. It's not for me, but it's worth noting.
Tony C wrote on February 11, 2008
Maybe I'm missing a joke, but wasn't "Ready Teddy" after "Old Shep" on the 1956 "Elvis" LP?
Shaky wrote on February 11, 2008
I take your point Tony, but the cheap 'rip-off' CD's starting with Sun material and now featuring upto 1957 material will continue to water down the artistic atributes of Elvis Presley till we get cheap nasty packaging of all his work. I dread to see the plans for the 1958 stuff and eventually the 'Elvis is Back', '68 Special' and 'Memphis' sessions will all go down the toilet in this way!? Do we assume APPLE / EMI will be so content to see the Beatles work plundered this way when we get to those 1962/63 Abbey Road sessions?
Greg Nolan wrote on February 12, 2008
I know what you mean, Shaky, but lotsa luck to the Beatles in changing the very much entrenched public domain law, which is, with details aside, much older a concept in law and copyrights then this or that recording artist. The spirit of the law is generally sound, having been around for centuries, that once the artist and his immediate off-spring are "paid" (in 50 years time, presumably this is done), then the artwork eventually returns to the "commons," to the public domain. In theory anyway, there's no reason why such titles (no more than say, "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens, available in both a cheap paperback version and a bound leather version on quality paper) can't still shine and reach new people. After all, the RCA masters (the real ones) still are owned by Sony/BMG and they can still put out the best versions if they want to.... Yet there are bigger problems to worry about in the Elvis collector world (if one chooses), namely the death of the record store and the record collector habit becoming also a thing of the past with the rise of a generation of fans happy to listen to compressed audio computer files...