{"id":535870,"date":"2026-03-21T02:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535870\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T02:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T02:07:08","slug":"on-the-charts-65-years-ago-elvis-presley-nabbed-his-5th-no-1-of-the-decade-with-a-song-based-on-an-italian-ballad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/535870\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Charts 65 Years Ago, Elvis Presley Nabbed His 5th No. 1 of the Decade With a Song Based on an Italian Ballad"},"content":{"rendered":"

The music industry had never seen anything like Elvis Presley when he released his breakout single \u201cHeartbreak Hotel\u201d in 1956. Even almost 50 years after his death, he still remains a singular force in rock-and-roll history with songs like \u201cBlue Suede Shoes\u201d<\/a> and \u201cHound Dog.\u201d With five straight No. 1 singles in the 1960s, Presley held the record for most consecutive Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers until 1966, when the Beatles eclipsed him with six straight. One of those songs, \u201cSurrender\u201d, started a two-week run atop the U.S. singles chart on this day (March 20) in 1961.<\/p>\n

This Song Marked Elvis Presley\u2019s Second Straight Hit Based on an Italian Ballad<\/p>\n

Reworking an early 20th-century Italian ballad for the 1950s pop chart may seem like a gamble. But for Elvis Presley, it had already paid off once.<\/p>\n

Six months earlier, Presley landed one of the biggest hits<\/a> of his career with \u201cIt\u2019s Now Or Never\u201d, an Americanized version of the 1898 Italian ballad \u201cO sole mio.\u201d So he followed a winning strategy on \u201cSurrender\u201d, a reworked rendition of the 1911 Neapolitan ballad \u201cTorna A Surriento.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer-songwriters Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman adapted the song for Presley\u2019s voice, and the King took \u201cSurrender\u201d to No. 1 in both the United States and the United Kingdom. One of 25 songs that Pomus and Shuman wrote for Presley, it has since been covered by Michael Bubl\u00e9, The Residents, and Italian opera-pop trio Il Volo.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: Elvis Presley\u2019s Backing Band Recalls His Strange Studio Habits During the Making of His First Concept Album]<\/a><\/p>\n

After the Beatles shattered Elvis Presley\u2019s record for most consecutive No. 1 hits, Whitney Houston passed them up in 1988 with her seventh straight chart-topper.<\/p>\n

Elvis Re-Enters the Charts<\/p>\n

Nearly 50 years after his death in August 1977, Elvis Presley continues to reach new heights. Thanks to last month\u2019s release of Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert, a documentary\/concert film hybrid directed by Baz Luhrmann, one of his classic hits is seeing new life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Presley\u2019s 1972 song \u201cBurning Love\u201d re-entered the\u00a0Official Singles Downloads\u00a0and\u00a0Official Singles Sales charts\u00a0in the United Kingdom this week at No. 73 and No. 78 respectively.<\/p>\n

This is the song\u2019s highest-ever ranking on either chart, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n

Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The music industry had never seen anything like Elvis Presley when he released his breakout single \u201cHeartbreak Hotel\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[24911,15762,88,216,2156],"class_list":["post-535870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1960s","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}