ELVIS PRESLEY DISCOGRAPHY (1961): “CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE – ROCK-A-HULA BABY”

CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE – ROCK-A-HULA BABY

EDITED 20-NOV-1961

SINGLE, RADIO RECORDERS

1. ROCK-A-HULA BABY

2. CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

Reference: 47-6968

Side A: Can’t Help Falling In Love

Recording: March 23, 1961, Radio Recorders studios in Hollywood, California

Author: Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore & George Weiss

Side B: Rock-A-Hula-Baby

Recording: March 23, 1961, Radio Recorders studios in Hollywood, California

Author: Ben Weisman, Fred Wise & Dolores Fuller

Publication date: November 21, 1961

Information

Recorded during the recording sessions for the soundtrack of the film Blue Hawaii (1961) that would go from March 21 to 23, 1961, Elvis would make two versions of Can’t Help Falling In Love: the one we can hear in the film and the that this single presents to us. Up to 29 takes would come to make Elvis of this theme, the last being precisely the one chosen as the master.

It appears on the Billboard Hot 100 list on December 4 and reaches number 2 on February 3, 1962 where it remains for two weeks. In the UK it reached number one in January 1962 for four weeks. As of July 31, 1969, Can’t Help Falling In Love becomes the theme that closed Elvis’s live shows, with a small exception during his first stay in Las Vegas in 1971, which he would do with The Impossible Dream. Can’t Help Falling In Love would be the last song performed live by Elvis (June 26, 1977, Indianapolis).

Rock-A-Hula-Baby, its B-side, debuted on the charts on December 4, 1961, reaching number 23 as the best position on the charts on January 7, 1962. The master take was number five. In England it did manage to be number one for four weeks.

The single is currently platinum.