RCA Records
1960
His Hand in Mine
About This Album
From rock & roll firebrand to pop crooner to gospel believer, Elvis' career went in many directions that his earliest critics could hardly have believed. Was it heresy or conversion or commercialism that had caused Elvis the Pelvis to record a gospel EP in 1957, and then a full LP in 1960, just months after he returned from his Army stint? The answer was, of course, none of the above. What the critics didn't understand was that Elvis wasn't just a cultural phenomenon but a cultural chameleon, a vocalist who took in a range of influences -- from Big Mama Thornton to Dean Martin to the Statesmen -- without ever considering the possibility of a contradiction. The same teenager who couldn't stop listening to black R&B was also in attendance at each one of the monthly gospel singing meetings held in Memphis during the early '50s -- and the teenage Presley was well-known to Jake Hess and the Statesmen for his exuberance and innumerable questions about the technical side of gospel quartet singing. Several years after his first rock success, during a single late-night-and-early-morning session in October, 1960, Presley recorded the material for his first full gospel LP, His Hand in Mine.
Track List

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