Fun in Acapulco (album)

Fun in Acapulco
Soundtrack album by Elvis Presley
Released	November 1, 1963
Recorded	January 1963
Genre	Soundtrack
Length	29:30
Label	RCA Records
Producer	Joseph Lilley
Elvis Presley chronology
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3 (1963) Fun in Acapulco (1963) Kissin' Cousins (1964)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Fun in Acapulco is the nineteenth album by Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono and stereo, LPM/LSP 2756, in November 1963 - the November 1 date is disputed. Recording sessions took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood on January 22 and 23, 1963, and at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 26 and 27, 1963. It peaked at #3 on the Top Pop Albums chart. The album, along with the accompanying film, would be Presley's last release before the arrival of Beatlemania.

Content

The third of his tropical travelogue films for Paramount Pictures after Blue Hawaii and Girls! Girls! Girls! finds Elvis frolicing south of the border. The standard stable of songwriters for Presley delivered songs to match, with titles like "Marguerita," "El Toro," "You Can't Say No In Acapulco," and "The Bullfighter Was A Lady."^[2] Included as well was the old standard "Guadalajara" by Pepe Guizar from the 1930s. With the change from the normal routine, and with the addition of trumpet players Rudolph Loera and Anthony Terran, Presley engaged the material with greater enthusiasm than on recent soundtrack outings.^[2] Four of these songs would be included on the 1995 compilation of soundtrack highlights: the title track, "Mexico," "Marguerita," and the song released as the lead single, "Bossa Nova Baby."

"Bossa Nova Baby" arrived in stores one month prior to the soundtrack, coupled with the track "Witchcraft" by rhythm and blues songwriter and arranger Dave Bartholomew and a hit for The Spiders in 1956. The fact that the bossa nova craze of the 1960s was a Brazilian phenomenon rather than a Mexican one mattered little, as the single peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Compensating for the skimpy ten-track It Happened at the World's Fair album, the Colonel insisted on making Fun in Acapulco a good value.^[3] Two additional tracks, "Love Me Tonight" and "Slowly But Surely" were pulled from the aborted album sessions of May, 1963, and added here to bring the running order up to thirteen tracks.

Personnel

• Elvis Presley - vocals
• The Jordanaires - backing vocals
• The Amigos - backing vocals
• Anthony Terran, Rudolph Loera - trumpets
• Scotty Moore, Barney Kessel - electric guitar
• Tiny Timbrell - electric guitar, mandolin
• Dudley Brooks - piano
• Ray Seigel - bass
• Emil Radocchia - percussion
• D.J. Fontana, Hal Blaine - drums

Track listing

Side one

Track	Recorded	Song Title	Writer(s)	Time
1.	1/23/63	Fun in Acapulco	Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne	2:30
2.	1/22/63	Vino, Dinero y Amor	Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett	1:55
3.	1/22/63	Mexico	Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett	1:59
4.	1/23/63	El Toro	Bill Giant, Bernie Baum, Florence Kaye	2:42
5.	1/22/63	Marguerita	Don Robertson	2:42
6.	1/22/63	The Bullfighter Was A Lady	Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett	2:04
7.	1/23/63	No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car	Fred Wise and Dick Manning	1:53

Side two

Track	Recorded	Catalogue	Release Date	Chart Peak	Song Title	Writer(s)	Time
1.	1/22/63				I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here	Don Robertson and Hal Blair	2:53
2.	1/22/63	47-8243	10/1/63	#8	Bossa Nova Baby	Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller	2:02
3.	1/23/63				You Can't Say No In Acapulco	Sid Feller, Dolores Fuller, Lee Morris	1:55
4.	1/23/63				Guadalajara	Pepe Guizar	2:43
5.	5/26/63				Love Me Tonight	Don Robertson	2:00
6.	5/27/63				Slowly But Surely	Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne	2:12

References

1. ^ Allmusic review
2. ^ ^{a b} Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; p. 177-178
3. ^ Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; pp. 184.