MUSIC #55: ELVIS PRESLEY – FUN IN ACAPULCO 1963 (ENGLISH OST)

Sorry guys, just haven’t been in the mood to sit and write reviews. The weather has been just too good (I just love spring and autumn) and I rather spend my evenings outside enjoying nature. Anyway, here I am, and I have to thank Mr Naidu of Bollywood DVD Restoration for reacquinting me with this album. The reason? There is a track in this OST which has been copied (yes, yet another) and reproduced in Hindi – the album is “JHUK GAYA AASMAN, and I will be reviewing this OST (can I really call it an “original” soundtrack?) next. To all Hindi music lovers: Can you spot the song in question???

Now to the Elvis album. Fun in Acapulco was Elvis’ 13th movie and premiered on 27 November 1963. Elsa Cardenas and Ursula Andress play his love interests in the movie. This movie is the third of his tropical travelogue films for Paramount Pictures after Blue Hawaii and Girls! Girls! Girls!, which finds Elvis south of the border - in Mexico.

For a review of the movie, check out THIS site.

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. Recording took place at Radio Recorders in Hollywood on 22 and 23 January 1963, and at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, on 26 and 27 May, 1963. The album peaked at #3 on the Top Pop Albums chart.

The the album used lots of brass instruments, mirroring the trend at the time when Herb Albert and his Tijuana band was immensly popular (and also keeping in line with the theme of the movie – Mexican), elements of mariachi music, another music genre made popular in Mexico and the Pasodoble or bull fighting music. My favourites include Fun in Acapulco, Marguerita, Bossa Nova Baby and Love Me Tonight.

My rating: Four stars.

Elvis Presley – Fun In Acapulco 1963: The Original Soundtrack

Side One

1. Fun in Acapulco

2. Vino Dinero y Amor

3. Mexico

4. El Toro

5. Marguerita

6. The Bullfighter Was A Lady

7. No Room to Rhumba in A Sports Car

Side Two

1. I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here

2. Bossa Nova Baby

3. You Can't Say No in Acapulco

4. Guadalajara

5. Love Me Tonight

6. Slowly But Surely

Trivia:

1. While some exterior scenes were shot in Acapulco, Mexico, Elvis's scenes were shot in Hollywood. He never went to Acapulco in his lifetime.

2. Elvis could not wait to finish filming Fun in Acapulco. Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he had met 1959, had just moved to Memphis from Germany and was waiting for him.

3. "Bossa Nova Baby" was released as a single one month prior to the soundtrack. The single peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

4. The bossa nova craze of the 1960s was a Brazilian phenomenon rather than Mexican. But the American public did not know better, so Paramount and RCA got away with it. And another thing, they don't even speak Spanish in Brazil! Brazil is the only country in South America that has Portuguese for its national language.

5. Fun In Acapulco was Ursula Andress’ first American movie. However, her first English speaking movie was Ian Fleming’s “Dr No”, as pearl diver Honey Ryder. Her character and sex symbol status was made famous by the scene where she rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. The scene made Andress the "quintessential" Bond girl.

6. Ironically, Dr No was also the first James Bond movie, starring Sean Connery as James Bond.