Heartbreak HotelElvis Presley
Heartbreak Hotel
1956
Elvis's first RCA single, all cavernous echo and empty rooms, the loneliest number one ever cut.
★ 9.6
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1956
Showing 23 songs from 1956
Hound Dog
1956
Leiber and Stoller wrote it for Big Mama Thornton; Elvis took it, sped it up, and set it on fire.
★ 9.5
I Walk the Line
1956 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
Cash slipped paper under his guitar strings for that snare tick, and hums to find each new key.
★ 8.8
Smoke Stack Lightning
1956 · From Moanin' in the Moonlight
One chord, no changes, Sumlin's guitar circling, and Wolf's howl answering the trains whose sparks named the song.
★ 8.5
Don't Be Cruel
1956
Blackwell gave Presley half the writing credit; the Jordanaires hum behind a vocal so relaxed it barely seems to try.
★ 8.2
Long Tall Sally
1956 · From Here's Little Richard
Blackwell built the lyric to run too fast for Pat Boone, and Richard shouted it out at Cosimo Matassa's J&M.
★ 7.8
Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)
1956
Cash suggested the phrase, Phillips talked him into changing one word, and Sun got its first million seller.
★ 7.7
Roll Over Beethoven
1956 · From Chuck Berry Is on Top
His sister Lucy monopolized the family piano for classical, so Berry wrote his rebuttal, with Johnnie Johnson answering back.
★ 7.7
Blueberry Hill
1956
Nobody in the room had the lyrics, so Bunny Robyn spliced three broken takes into Domino's biggest hit.
★ 7.6
In the Still of the Night
1956
February 1956, a New Haven church basement, and a song Parris had written on Army guard duty.
★ 7.5
Why Do Fools Fall In Love
1956
Herman Santiago built it from a neighbor's love letters; Lymon, thirteen, took the lead and the credit fight ran decades.
★ 7.3
I Put a Spell on You
1956
Intended as a blues ballad until the producer brought wine; Hawkins said he never remembered recording it.
★ 7.3
Be-Bop-A-Lula
1956
Cut in Nashville as a B-side, flipped by radio, and Cliff Gallup's guitar breaks took it to number seven.
★ 7.1
Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis Presley)
1956 · From Elvis Presley
Scotty Moore and Bill Black behind him in New York, and Presley made RCA hold the single for Perkins.
★ 6.9
Please, Please, Please
1956 · From Please Please Please
Syd Nathan hated it and fired Ralph Bass for cutting it, then rehired him when it reached R&B's top five.
★ 6.6
You Make Me Feel So Young
1956 · From Songs for Swingin' Lovers
A 1946 film tune reborn in Riddle's arrangement on the album that topped Britain's first LP chart, Sinatra audibly beaming.
★ 6.3
Brown Eyed Handsome ManChuck Berry
Brown Eyed Handsome Man
1956 · From After School Session
Berry wrote it after watching an arrest in California, then cut it in Chicago with Johnnie Johnson and Willie Dixon.
★ 5.9
Love Me Tender
1956
A Civil War ballad from 1861, reworked by Ken Darby and sung on Ed Sullivan weeks before the single arrived.
★ 5.9
Come Go With Me
1956
Airmen stationed in Pittsburgh, a demo cut in a DJ's basement, and bass singer Clarence Quick's nonsense-syllable hook.
★ 5.6
Honey Don'tCarl Perkins
Honey Don't
1956
Flipside of Blue Suede Shoes, cut at Sun with both Perkins brothers, and later Ringo's turn on Beatles for Sale.
★ 4.7
Jim DandyLaVern Baker
Jim Dandy
1956
Sam "The Man" Taylor blows the solo, Panama Francis drives the beat, and Baker makes a comic rescue swing.
★ 4.5
Oh, What a Night
1956
Vee-Jay released it in 1956 as doo-wop; the Dells recut it thirteen years later and reached the pop ten.
★ 4.4
Down in Mexico
1956
Leiber and Stoller's first single for the group, Stoller himself at the piano, climbed to number eight R&B.
★ 3.4