Michael Fremer

The high drama of Elvis Presley's god-like 1950's rise, followed by his '70s era musical death and resurrection is probably second only to that of his savior (who was not Colonel Tom Parker). Sadly the only Elvis some younger music fans know is the overweight Las Vegas has-been and not the man who single-handedly created the musical template for all who followed—from the biz created wannabes like Fabian and Frankie to the next-gen real deals like Bruce Springsteen and yes, Justin Bieber.

Elvis’s first post-Army album created a sensation when it was released just one month after he entered Nashville Studio B on March 20th, 1960, two week after his release from the Army. Unfortunately, for Presley and RCA Elvis Is Back! wasn’t a big seller because it didn’t contain any hits. Presley had been away for two years.

A YouTube promotional video for a George Harrison box set shows Living in the Material World being pressed at EMI's Hayes-Middlesex factory and at Capitol Records in 1973.

The Emil Berliner Studios Direct-to-Disc recording team supervised by Rainer Maillard, responsible for the D2D Brucker 7th symphony with Bernard Haitink conducting the BPO, shipped its entire disc cutting system exactly one year ago to Bamberg, Germany (the first time the gear had left Berlin) to record for Accentus Music at Konzerthalle Bamberg, Joseph-Keilberth-Saal D2D at 45rpm Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s symphonic cycle “Má vlast” (My Homeland), best known for including “Vitava” (“The Moldau”), with The Bamberg Symphony, conducted by its musical director Czech-born Jakub Hrůša.