FTD issued this book subtitled The HMV Years 1956-1958 recently. Is it worth buying?
Design
The design is very tastefull. A good balance between text and pictures makes it very easy on the eye and fontsize keeps the average age of an Elvis fan in mind.
Content
I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I expected merely a photobook with some notes. It is far from that. Of course the 438 pages are stuffed with photos, memorabilia, pictures of labels, covers, sheetmusic and so on. Besides that the book is extremely informative. The history of the HMV label is nicely documented and all releases on the label are present. Not only with numbers, dates and such, but also all songs are tackled with extensive background information. Who else recorded them, information about the recording by Elvis, about the authors… again, a wealth of information.
Two CDs with Elvis' music of those early years are always a pleasure to listen to, the demos on it being a nice bonus.
Conclusion
If the book had its own page on facebook I wouldn’t hestitate to hit that ‘Like-button’ big time! Both thumbs up!
