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A YouTuber has stunned Elvis Presley fans by uploading a previously unheard recording of the singer performing “I Forgot To Remember To Forget” on the Louisiana Hayride radio show. It’s very rare that something new turns up from this early period of Elvis’ career, so this is great news for fans, who are already eagerly awaiting the “A Boy From Tupelo” book/CD box set, due for release next month.

According to the YouTube uploader (amberola1b), the Silvertone wire recording is a “live tv recording that was recorded by the person who owned this wire recorder before”. He isn’t sure which programme or who the announcer is. With Horace Logan introducing Elvis, the source is certainly the Louisiana Hayride radio show, which Elvis was a regular on at the time. It’s impossible to say with absolute certainty on what date the recording was made, but Horace Logan’s comment about “I Forgot To Remember To Forget” doing “remarkably well across the country for the past several weeks” points to October/November 1955, as the song began making an impact on the country charts mid-September 1955. It also can’t be before October 1, as Buzz Busby and the Bayou Boys appear on the recording and they made their Hayride debut on that date. Unfortunately, the appearance of both acts doesn’t mean that we can pin down October 1 as the definite date of the recording, because both were on the Hayride several times over the next few weeks, including October 8, November 5, November 12, and November 26. Elvis also featured on October 29 and November 19, but it’s not clear whether or not Buzz also appeared on those two dates.

Allowances obviously have to be made for sound quality (Bill Black’s bass is barely audible), but it’s a great performance of what would soon become Elvis’ first number one on Billboard’s country charts.

Elvis Presley – “I Forget To Remember To Forget” (live)

If you want to go straight to the song, it begins at 6 mins, 25 secs.

Thanks to amberola1b for giving Elvis fans the opportunity to hear this rarity.

EDIT – Unfortunately, the video has now been taken down. Hopefully that means an official release with cleaned up audio will be with us soon.