Heartbreak Hotel composer Mae Boren Axton
"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by American singer Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor. It was written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, with credit being given also to Presley.
A newspaper article about the suicide of a lonely man who jumped from a hotel window inspired the song. Axton presented the song to Presley in November 1955 at a country music convention in Nashville. Presley recorded it on January 10, 1956, in a session with his band, the Blue Moon Boys, the guitarist Chet Atkins and the pianist Floyd Cramer. "Heartbreak Hotel" comprises an eight-bar blues progression, with heavy reverberation throughout the track, to imitate the character of Presley's Sun recordings.
The single topped the Billboard Top 100 for seven weeks, Cashbox's Pop singles chart for six weeks, and the Country and Western chart for seventeen weeks as well as reaching No. 3 on the R&B chart, becoming Presley's first million-seller, and one of the best-selling singles of 1956. "Heartbreak Hotel" achieved unheard of feats as it reached the top 5 of Country and Western, Pop, and Rhythm 'n' Blues charts simultaneously. It was eventually certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Presley had first performed "Heartbreak Hotel" during a live show in December 1955 during a tour of the Louisiana Hayride; it gained popularity after his appearance on Stage Show in March 1956. It became a staple of Presley's repertoire in live appearances, last performed by him on May 29, 1977, at the Civic Center in Baltimore.
In 1995, "Heartbreak Hotel" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2004 Rolling Stone magazine named it one of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". That year it was also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". A rock and roll standard, "Heartbreak Hotel" has been covered by several rock and pop acts, including Willie Nelson and Leon Russell, who recorded a duet version that topped the Country charts in 1979.
RCA reissued "Heartbreak Hotel" on CD in 2006 on its 50th anniversary featuring the 1956 black and white EP cover.Background and writing
The song was written in 1955, by Mae Boren Axton, a high school teacher with a background in musical promotion, and Jacksonville, Florida-based singer–songwriter Tommy Durden. The lyrics were based on a report supposedly in The Miami Herald about a man who had destroyed all his identity papers and jumped to his death from a hotel window, leaving a suicide note with the single line, "I walk a lonely street". Songfacts.com says they were unable to locate the Miami Herald story.  They labeled it an urban legend. In 2016, an article in Rolling Stone magazine suggested that the story in reality originated from a report about a painter and criminal, Alvin Krolik, whose marriage had failed and who wrote a unpublished autobiography including the line "This is the story of a person who walked a lonely street."  Krolik's story was published in news media, and received further publicity after he was shot and killed in an attempted robbery in El Paso, Texas.  On August 25, 1955, the El Paso Times reported Krolik's death under the headline "Story Of Person Who Walked Lonely Street".Axton and Durden give different accounts of how the song was written. Durden's account is that he had already written the song and performed it with his band the Swing Billys before he presented it to Axton. Axton's account is that Durden had written only a few lines of the song and asked her to help him finish it. She says that the report of the suicide "stunned" her, and she told Durden, "Everybody in the world has someone who cares. Let's put a Heartbreak Hotel at the end of this lonely street". They were interrupted by the arrival of Glenn Reeves, a local performer who had previously worked with Axton. The duo asked Reeves to help with the song, but after hearing the title he remarked that it was "the silliest thing I've ever heard", and left them to finish it themselves. The song was written within an hour, and Durden recorded it onto Axton's tape recorder. Reeves returned, and after hearing the song he was asked to provide a voice demo for Axton in the style of Elvis Presley. Reeves obliged, but once again turned down the offer of a writing credit for his input.Axton approached the popular singing duo the Wilburn Brothers, and offered them the chance to record "Heartbreak Hotel". However, Doyle and Teddy Wilburn declined, describing the song as "strange and almost morbid". Axton, however, agreed to a publishing deal with Buddy Killen, a young Nashville bass player, who had recently set up his own publishing company called Tree Publishing. With a publishing deal in place, Axton arranged through Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker to present the song to Presley at the annual Country Music Disc Jockey Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was to be named the most promising male country star of 1955. Axton had been hired earlier in the year to publicise the Hank Snow Jamboree concerts at the Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, which included Presley in the line up. During one concert Axton observed the reaction of the audience to Presley's performance, in which a crowd of screaming fans chased him back to his dressing room and ripped his clothes off to take as souvenirs. Axton followed Presley's career closely after this incident, and met him at a July 28 concert in Jacksonville, this time interviewing him for the local media. According to author Albert Goldman, Axton made writing Presley's first big hit one of her ambitions.Rumors had been circulating in the press for several weeks that Presley, who had begun his career at Sun Records, was ready to move to RCA Victor to help launch him nationally. Axton played the demo to him in his room at the Andrew Jackson Hotel on November 10, 1955. Upon hearing the demo, Presley exclaimed "Hot dog, Mae, play that again!", and listened to it ten times, memorizing the song. After signing with RCA on November 21, 1955, Presley accepted Axton's offer of a third of the royalties if he made the song his first single on his new label. Presley performed the song for the first time in Swifton, Arkansas, on December 9, 1955, and declared to the audience that it would be his first hit.
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