didn ’ t sound like his other record [ s ], and I ’ d better not release it , better go back and record it again .” Sholes countered that it had taken him two days to get this much , if he went back it would just be throwing good money after bad . Besides , they would have an opportunity for another session in New York at the end of the month , in between Elvis ’ first two national television appearances , on CBS ’ Stage Show hosted by Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey , which the Colonel had arranged . In the meantime , they needed to put something out right away .
They did . RCA released “ Heartbreak Hotel ” on January 27 – and , as if to bear out everyone ’ s worst fears , it failed at first to make any real impression . Worse still , Sun Records had put out a single by a new artist named Carl Perkins some four weeks earlier , which represented everything that Sholes had been hoping to get out of Elvis Presley ( bright , upbeat , dynamic rock ‘ n ’ roll ), and it was taking off like wildfire . So disturbed was Sholes that at one point he called Sun Records head Sam Phillips and asked him , as so many were asking Sholes himself , had he signed the wrong act ? No , said Phillips without hesitation , whose belief in Elvis would never waver , though his belief in RCA and the other big record corporations did not exist at all . “ I told him he hadn ’ t bought the wrong person . And I told him – and I happen to be the greatest admirer of Steve Sholes , he was a person of the utmost integrity , and how he could be that way when he was with a major label , I really don ’ t understand – I told him what I told him when he bought the contract in the first place , ‘ Just don ’ t try to make Elvis what he ’ s not .’” Which was advice that , however well-intended , Steve Sholes , a loyal company man , was probably incapable of taking .
The three days assigned to the New York session were , if anything , even worse . ( Read the more detailed account in “ The
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