Elvis Presley's Australian Chart Hits 1956-2004

Earlier this year, BMG UK re-released all of Elvis' UK No.1 singles, all of which reached the Top 5, several even re-claiming the top spot on their charts. In fact the 1000th U.K. single was 'One Night'.

Those 18 chart toppers are now part of British chart history, but people have asked what were Elvis' No.1 singles here in Australia. Well earlier this year (2005), Chart Compiler David Kent released an Australian chart book, which detailed all of the songs that hit the National Charts from 1940 through to 1970. This, combined with his previous book from 1970 through to 1992 detailed the Australian charts for over 52 years.

Armed with this information, we were able to extract all of Elvis' chart hits.

And thus find out how many No.1's he's had in Australia. We now know that of the 120 chart hits Elvis has had in his 48-year chart career (1956 to 2004), 14 of those reached No.1. His first was 'A Fool Such As I' on May 19, 1959, and last 'A Little Less Conversation' on June 24, 2002.

Chart Feats:

The gap between Elvis' first and last No.1 record's is a span of 43 years, 1 month and 1 week. He has an accumulated total of 61 weeks at No.1 and has had 48 Top 10 singles from his 119 Top 100 chart entries. As of 2004 he has spent 1,771 weeks in total on the Australian charts.

Elvis Presley, Perry Como and Joe Loss are tied for third spot for each having had 14 Australian No.1 songs.

Bing Crosby has had the most Australian No.1's with 27, one ahead of The Beatles with 26.

The only current charting artists that could possibly compete for Elvis' 14 No.1's title are ...

... Madonna and Kylie Minogue, who have 9 No.1's each.

'It's Now or Never' was Elvis' longest running No.1 single with 7 weeks in 1960. It was also the No.1 song of 1960. Listed below are all of Elvis' No.1 singles. The year-end position is also given.

Elvis Presley's 14 #1 Hits in Australia

Title	Entry Date	HP	WI	Year End
(Now And Then There's) A Fool Such As I	18-Apr-59	1 (6)	24	#3	1959
Stuck On You / Fame And Fortune	16-Apr-60	1 (1)	15	#22	1960
It's Now Or Never	17-Sep-60	1 (7)	28	#1	1960
Are You Lonesome Tonight? / I Gotta Know	03-Dec-60	1 (6)	20	#4	1960
Wooden Heart	25-Feb-61	1 (4)	33	#3	1961
Surrender	18-Mar-61	1 (3)	18	#14	1961
Can't Help Falling In Love / Rock-A-Hula Baby	16-Dec-61	1 (5)	39	#2	1962
Good Luck Charm / Anything That's Part Of You	17-Mar-62	1 (6)	24	#3	1962
Return to Sender	08-Dec-62	1 (3)	23	#9	1963
Ain't That Loving You Baby / Ask Me	07-Nov-64	1 (3)	18	#7	1964
Crying In The Chapel / I Believe In The Man In The Sky	05-Jun-65	1 (6)	22	#5	1965
In The Ghetto	05-Jul-69	1 (4)	24	#11	1969
Suspicious Minds	25-Oct-69	1 (3)	22	#5	1969
A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Vs JXL	24-Jun-02	1 (4)	26	#3	2002

 View Elvis Presley: Australian Singles Chart 1956-2006

Elvis had a single in the Year End Top 10 for every year from 1959 to 1965. No other artist has achieved such a thing, the Beatles only having a Top 10 Year End hit in four of their charting years.

Most Charted Hits:

Bing Crosby has had 231 chart hits in his career; The Beatles have had only 51. Elvis has now had 119 singles make the charts. The total figures for all artists in the Australian charts have not yet been finalised, but probably Elvis would be within the Top 10 of most charted hits of all time. He has spent 1,771 weeks in total on the charts. Elvis didn't hit the charts with any singles between 1987 and 2001.

Elvis has had 48 Top 10 singles from his 119 Top 100 chart entries.

That means that 40% of his songs were Top 10 hits here in Australia.

Most Consecutive Decades to hit No.1:

Elvis is one of only 10 artists to have a No.1 hit single in 3 consecutive Decades.

Although he did hit No.1 in this current decade it wasn't consecutive to the other three, but he is the only artist to hit No.1 in four different Decades, the 50's, 60's, 70's and 00's. He was the second artist to ever have achieved this feat: (3 consecutive Decades) the first was Frank Sinatra. The other 8 artists are The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, John Farnham, Olivia Newton-John, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and U2.

The 1960's:

Elvis was second only to The Beatles in the 1960's for the artist with the most No.1's for that decade. He was also second in that decade for the artist with the most accumulated weeks for the decade.

Elvis amassed 49 weeks at No.1 for the decade, whilst The Beatles amassed 130 weeks. In third place was Roy Orbison, with 6 No.1's, and a total of 15 weeks at the top.

Elvis had the seventh No.1 single of the 1960's, but more importantly, he had the last No.1 of the 60's, and the first No.1 of the 1970's. His first No.1 of the 1960's was 'Stuck on You' (his smallest run at No.1), for a single week, but 'Suspicious Minds' hit No.1 in the last week of 1969, and stayed at the top until mid January 1970.

The other decade crossover songs were: 40's/50's - Lavender Blue - Burl Ives 50's/60's - Joey's Song - Bill Haley & His Comets 60's/70's - Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley 70's/80's - Video Killed the Radio Star - The Buggles 80's/90's - Love Shack - The B 52's 90's/00's - Blue (Da Ba Dee) - Eiffel 65

Accumulated Weeks at No.1:

Elvis has an accumulated total of 61 weeks at No.1. This places him in 8th position in Australian Chart history. The 7 artists above him (in descending order) are- Bing Crosby, The Beatles, Joe Loss, The Andrews Sisters, Perry Como, Vera Lynn and with 63 accumulated weeks, just two ahead of Elvis, is Glenn Miller.

Most Consecutive Years hitting No.1:

7 Years 1959 to 1965.

Elvis is tied in third place with The Andrews Sisters for the artists who have hit No.1 in the most consecutive years. Bing Crosby is at No.1 with 10 years, whilst The Beatles are in second place with 8 years.

Four Back-to-Back No.1 single releases 1960-1961:

Elvis is tied in third place with two other artists who have had four back-to-back No.1's: Abba and Dean Martin. The record is 7 by The Beatles, with Delta Goodrem in 2nd place with 6. Elvis' four back-to-back No.1's were:

- It's Now or Never - Are You Lonesome Tonight - Wooden Heart - Surrender

Biggest Gap Between First and Last No.1 Singles:

Elvis has the biggest gap between first hitting and last hitting the No.1 position. There were 43 years, 1 month, 1 week and 12 No.1's in-between '(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I' on 16-May-59 and 'A Little Less Conversation' on 24-Jun-02.

In second place with 36 years is Louis Armstrong.

Biggest Gap Between No.1 Singles:

Elvis has the biggest gap between No.1 singles. 'Suspicious Minds' spent its last week at No.1 on January 12th, 1970, and he didn't hit No.1 again for 32 and 1/2 years. In second place is Slim Dusty with 22 years, 5 months.

- Suspicious Minds - 12-Jan-70 - A Little Less Conversation - 24-Jun-02 ~ 32 years, 6 months, 2 weeks.

Longest Climb to No.1:

A Little Less Conversation - Elvis Presley 23-Nov-1968 (Peak Pos. No.64) 33yrs, 7 months.

Elvis holds the record for the song that took the longest period to climb to the No.1 position. 'A Little Less Conversation' originally charted in November 1968, reaching No.64, but it took 33 years and 7 months before it eventually hit the No.1 spot. There are only four songs in this category; the other three are 'Living Doll' (26 years, 6 months), 'Unchained Melody' (25 years, 3 months) and 'What a Wonderful World' (20 years, 1 month).

Posthumous:

Elvis is one of only five artists in Australian chart history to have had a posthumous No.1 single. The first was Janis Joplin in May 1971 (died Oct 1970). John Lennon in January 1981 (died Dec 1980), Louis Armstrong in June 1988 (died 1971), then Elvis became the fourth artist when 'A Little Less Conversation' went to No.1 in June 2002. Recently, Tupac Shakur (2Pac) became the fifth member of this elite group.

U.S. Male:

Elvis was the 79th American Male artist to hit No.1, the 119th American to hit No.1, and the 269th American performed song to make it to the top spot. This was achieved in May 1959, when his first No.1 was '(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such As I'. To this date, there have been 168 American Male's who have hit No.1, 365 American's hitting No.1, and 596 American performed songs making it to No.1.

Most Weeks at No.1:

'It's Now or Never' was Elvis' longest running No.1 single with 7 weeks in 1960.

It was the fourth song in Australian chart history to spend 7 weeks at No.1, and has gone on to be one of 40 singles to achieve 7 weeks at No.1. This put it in equal 85th place for the most weeks at No.1.

Unfortunately there are 84 songs above him that have spent more than 7 weeks at No.1, the most being for 'White Christmas' which spent 23 weeks at No.1 'It's Now or Never' is the 8th (out of 15) biggest song of the 1960's though, the biggest being 'Hey Jude' with 13 weeks at No.1

Chart information was compiled by Gavin Ryan for Elvis Australia and sourced from two books by David Kent.

Australian Chart Book 1940 - 1969 & Australian Chart Book 1970 - 1992 www.austchartbook.com.au

Chart information post 1992 was sourced from ARIA.

Used with permission. David Kent, Gavin Ryan & Elvis Australia.

No part of this document may be used without permission.

 Elvis Presley: Australian Singles Chart 1956-2006
 Elvis Presley: Australian Album Chart 1965 -2008

 Elvis Presley's UK No.1 Albums
 Elvis Presley's UK No. 1 Singles

 Elvis Presley: U.S. Billboard Album Chart
 Elvis Presley: U.S. Billboard Singles Chart

 Elvis Presley Biography
 Elvis Presley Family History : 1669-1935
 Gladys and Vernon Presley - Elvis Presley's Mother and Father
 Jessie D. McDowell (J.D.) Presley - Elvis Presleys Grandfather

 For a more detailed history of Elvis Presley see our pages; starting at Elvis Presley 1935-1953

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