Elvis Presley - It's Now or Never - From First Take to the Master

There are some songs which in any location throughout the world, you can mention and people immediately recognise the song and with whom it is associated. 'It's Now or Never' and Elvis Presley is one such example which is both his second best selling single and one of the best selling of all time.
The original studio master was recorded in RCA's Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee on 3 April 1960, and was just the ninth song he recorded after returning to civilian life from the army.
An article published in the NY Times suggests that having heard Tony Martin's rendition of 'There's No Tomorrow', a song based on Italian standard 'O Sole Mio', whilst stationed in Germany, Elvis decided he would also like to record a song based around that melody. Having pitched the idea to his music publisher Freddy Bienstock, he returned to his New York office with the intention of finding some songwriters to develop Elvis' idea, a task that Bienstock had been successful in many times previously.
On his return to New York, he found that the only songwriters in proximity were Aaron Schroeder and Wally Gold, and just half an hour after being given the task of doing so had written the lyrics to 'It's Now or Never'. These quickly written lyrics would give Elvis a song which would reach the top of charts throughout the world!
In 1960, "It's Now or Never" was a number-one record in the U.S., spending five weeks at number one and the U.K., where it spent eight weeks at the top in 1960 and an additional week at number one in 2005 as a re-issue, and numerous other countries, selling in excess of 25 million copies worldwide, Elvis Presley's biggest international single ever.
It's British release was delayed for some time because of rights issues, allowing the song to build up massive advance orders and to enter the UK Singles Chart at number one, a very rare occurrence at the time.
As with all of these videos, to get the most out of the re-edited audio, I highly recommend you use ear /headphones and turn the volume up as much as you dare!