Elvis Presley Version
| "Mystery Train" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Elvis Presley | |
| A-side | "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" |
| Released | August 1955 (1955-08) |
| Format | 7" 45 rpm & 10" 78 rpm record |
| Recorded | July 11, 1955 at Memphis Recording Service, Memphis, Tennessee |
| Genre | Rockabilly |
| Length | 2:24 |
| Label | Sun 223 |
| Writer(s) | Junior Parker, Sam Phillips |
Elvis Presley's version of "Mystery Train" was first released on August 20, 1955 as the B-side of "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" (Sun 223). Presley's version would be ranked #77 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2003. It was again produced by Sam Phillips at Sun Studios, and featured Presley on vocals and rhythm guitar, Scotty Moore on lead guitar, and Bill Black on bass. Moore used a country lead break, and toward the end of the record is an echo of the 1946 "Sixteen Tons" by Merle Travis. For Presley's version of "Mystery Train", Scotty Moore also borrowed the guitar riff from Junior Parker's "Love My Baby" (1953), played by Pat Hare.
Victor released a pop version of the song by "The Turtles" with backing by the Winterhalter ork (Victor 6356) in December 1955. Billboard wrote that Presley's version had "cut a swath in the country field." Paired with "I Forgot to Remember to Forget", the record was in the Top 10 in Billboard's C&W listings.
RCA Victor rereleased this recording, actually an edit of the original tape, in December 1955 (#47-6357) after acquiring it as part of a contract with Presley. This edited version fades out at 2:24, while the original tape (and the very first Sun release) runs 3 minutes and 10 seconds. This version of the song peaked at # 11 on the national Billboard Country Chart.
Although "Mystery Train" is now considered to be an "enduring classic", the flip side of this record "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" reached the Billboard National Country music chart #1 position by February 1956, remained there for 5 weeks, and stayed on the charts for 39 weeks. The May 12, 1956 issue of Billboard listed "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" at the #1 "Country & Western" "Top Juke Box Hit Records" for the period Januarty-April 1956 with no mention of "Mystery Train". It was the first recording to make Elvis Presley a nationally known country music star.
Black, who had success with the Bill Black Combo, once said to a visitor to his house in Memphis, as he pointed to a framed 78rpm Sun Record of "Mystery Train" on the wall, "Now there was a record."
Presley's version of the song was also ranked the third most acclaimed song of 1955, by Acclaimed Music.
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