Pot Luck

Pot Luck is the seventh studio album by Elvis Presley, released by RCA Victor in mono and stereo as LPM/LSP 2523 on May 18, 1962. It lands in that rich early-60s stretch where Presley was still cutting sharp, stylish pop records, even as his soundtrack career was starting to dominate the conversation. The album was recorded across several sessions: March 22, 1961, at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, then June 25 and October 15, 1961, plus March 18 and March 19, 1962, at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. A big part of the set comes from songwriting team Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the writers behind the chart-topping Surrender and the double-sided hit single (Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame backed with Little Sister. Two of the album’s standouts, Kiss Me Quick and Suspicion, were lifted for a Top 40 single almost two years later in April 1964, after Terry Stafford’s hit cover of Suspicion. The rest of the material draws from trusted Presley contributors including Don Robertson, Otis Blackwell and Paul Evans. Blackwell’s (Such an) Easy Question also returned as a single in June 1965, reaching #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and #11 on the Hot 100 during a period when Presley was focused mainly on films and soundtrack releases. Like Elvis Is Back! and Something For Everybody before it, Pot Luck comfortably reached the top ten on the album chart. Even so, all three were heavily outsold by the soundtrack albums G.I. Blues and Blue Hawaii, and that pattern would continue through the mid-1960s. The soundtrack records had the obvious advantage of the films as a promotional push, and Colonel Tom Parker also broke with standard record industry practice by refusing to include hit singles on albums, even though that likely would have boosted sales. The result was a shift toward Presley’s movie career, and he would not return to a non-soundtrack, non-gospel studio album for another seven years, until From Elvis in Memphis.