The best and worst Elvis Presley recordings

Hard to believe, but the same guy who recorded a masterpiece like "Mystery Train" also gave us the maudlin "Old Shep." Remember that one? It's a tear-jerker about a boy and his dying dog.

Elvis Presley put everything he had into both songs, and his version of "Mystery Train" eclipses even Junior Parker's original as one of the greatest rock 'n' roll recordings. But even the King couldn't breathe life into a dog like "Shep."

Elvis was like that: the ruler of all he surveyed in one song, a misguided crooner in the next.

On the 75th anniversary of his birth Friday, Presley remains a monumental and monumentally perplexing figure. When he finally found his voice at Sun Studios in Memphis in 1954 (after more than a year of failed attempts there under the tutelage of producer Sam Phillips), he became one of the key figures in rock 'n' roll, and the type of celebrity icon that comes along only a few times a century.

No artist of the last 60 years covered a wider range of music, from gospel and Tin Pan Alley tunes to raw blues and bluegrass. Presley put the music of lounge crooner Dean Martin and R&B shouter Arthur Crudup on the same plane, because he loved both.

He had great taste in songwriters and stylists (Rodgers and Hart, Hank Williams, Ray Charles, Roy Brown, Bill Monroe), except when he didn't. Careers have been ruined by covering songs such as "Do the Clam," co-written by Dolores Fuller, ex-girlfriend of B-movie director Ed Wood Jr.: "Everybody's got that beat/Well, listen to those happy feet." But for Presley it was just another in a string of top-40 hits.

Presley died at age 42 in 1977, but he left behind a trove of music that is continually recycled, refurbished, repackaged and resold to a public that apparently can't get enough of him.

The most recent collection is "Elvis 75: Good Rockin' Tonight" (RCA/Legacy), a decent four-CD overview of his career that nonetheless finds it necessary to include such trifles as the 2002 dance remix of "A Little Less Conversation."

Amid the hundreds of Presley recordings available, land mines abound. Though no collection should be without some of his music, there's plenty that should be avoided at all costs. Here are the dos and don'ts of Elvis music:

—Elvis at his best:

"Elvis Presley" (1956): Full-length debut remains a rock 'n' roll landmark, with every facet of the singer's music (except gospel) on display.