Side 1: Love Me (Elvis Presley) / Anchors Aweigh (Tony Cabot) / That’s A Puente (Tito Puente)
Side 2: Rock me but Don’t Roll Me (Tony Scott) / Happy Face Baby (The Three Suns) / Prom to Prom (Dave Pell)
Envelope: This is the original mailer envelope which shipped a copy of the Perfect For Parties Highlight Album.1
Cover front: Paper, red, black and white. RCA Victor logo and number at upper right. Black and white photo of Elvis and of LPM-1382.
Cover back: Text, no photo. Has number, “SPA 7-37” at upper right.1 In some cases, the folding and cut of the cover, may make no reference to the catalog number on the back, or as seen in this example, a partial reference to the catalog number.
Disc: Black label, dog on top, with horizontal silver line. NOT FOR SALE on one line. HIGHLIGHTS (not HIGHLIGHTER) below PERFECT FOR PARTIES3
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-6S A2 / G2NH-7232-6S A1 B (Indianapolis pressing)4
Discovered in 2015, it had gone unnoticed for nearly 60 years! The matrix number is an indicator that this is a very limited pressing with this label from the Indianapolis plant. While more copies are likely to turn up, at least two copies are known to exist.
Disc: Black label, dog on top. One Side 1 with horizontal silver line. NOT FOR SALE on one line. HIGHLIGHTS (not HIGHLIGHTER) below PERFECT FOR PARTIES. One Side 2 without horizontal silver line. NOT FOR SALE on two lines and correct HIGHLIGHTER.
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-6S A2 / G2NH-7232-6S B1 (machine stamped) (Indianapolis pressing)
This is a real oddball. A transitional pressing with one error HIGHLIGHTS with line label on side one and on side two a no line label with corrected HIGHLIGHTER.
Disc: Black label, dog on top, without horizontal silver line. NOT FOR SALE on two lines.
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-6S C1 / G2NH-7232-6S B1 (Indianapolis pressing)
Disc: Black label, dog on top, with horizontal silver line. NOT FOR SALE on one line.
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-7S A2 B RCA / G2NH-7232-5S A3 A RCA (Rockaway pressing)
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-7S A1 1 D RCA / G2NH-7232-5S A1 F RCA (Rockaway pressing)4
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-8S A / G2NH-7232-5S A3 (Rockaway pressing)
Matrix numbers: G2NH-7231-8S A2 / G2NH-7232-7S A1 (Rockaway pressing)
Disc: White label promotional. (1970’s)6
The RCA Victor Record Prevue is a counterfeit bootlegged in the 1970s. SPA-7-37 was never originally released on the RCA Victor Record Prevue label. This bootleg can be found with no other RCA releases listed on back.
Advertisement Campaign
One consensus is that the Elvis Presley “Perfect for Parties” Highlight Album was a give away with the purchase of a RCA Records record player of a specific model. While that may be true, various advertisements and articles do not support that theory. It is likely that dealers may have stocked up on this EP on their own with purchases from the advertisements to create their own promotion. It is also possible that there was left over stock that was distributed to dealers to distribute through various promotions. Whatever the case may be, the “Perfect for Parties” Highlight Album was made available through mail order with coupons. Below is a one page advertisement offered the special $1.49 value Perfect for Parties Highlight Album (SPA-7-37) for only 25 cents. Along with that offer is an extra special offer for $1.00 to buy 7×7 color prints of all 20 album covers shown. The offer expired on December 31, 1956. These may or may not be the ones offered in the advertisement, however, Presleyana V describes a set of 15 EP front cover slicks offered to jukebox operators for display behind the glass on jukeboxes. Those slicks are valued at $500.
Closeup of the 25 cent special.
A closeup of the record cover in the advertisement compared against the actual release. There are many differences, the position of Elvis, the font, the position of the words, the order of the images, and the lace of art in the background.
The following promotional material is obtained from an October 1956 issue of Billboard. Ironically, it is a promotion for the promotion.
The Perfect for Parties EP highlights the RCA Victor November album release schedule at a promotional campaign cost of nearly $165,000 (est. as high as $5,447,000 in 2008 dollars). The disk with a limited press run that was not to exceed 500,000 units was mainly offered through consumer ads and not through dealers. This is a quote on page 17 in the November 17, 1956, Billboard, “The disks will definitely not be dispensed through dealers, but the sole aim of the promotion is to hypo interest in the line, which can be purchased only in shops.”
Another advertisement7
- Images from the collection of Christian (of France). ↩
- Images from the collection of Christian (of France). ↩
- Images and discovery from the collection of PIOTRULA (of Poland) ↩
- Matrix numbers from the collection of PIOTRULA (of Poland) ↩
- Matrix numbers from the collection of PIOTRULA (of Poland) ↩
- Images from the collection of Andreas Bauer, Hamburg. ↩
- Image from a collection of Internet images that date back to 1998. ↩