On March 1, 1966 RCA Victor not only released the soundtrack album of Elvis' latest movie "Frankie And Johnny", but also a single with the title song and the ballad "Please Don't Stop Loving Me". On March 19th both songs entered Billboard's "Top 100" and enjoyed a run of eight weeks. "Frankie And Johnny" peaked at number 25, "Please Don't Stop Loving Me" made it to number 45. "Frankie And Johnny" was also listed on the "Easy Listening Chart". Here the song stayed for eight weeks, too, but became a top3-hit. In 1992 the RIAA honored the US sales with a Gold Award. Worldwide the single sold 1.5 million units, which translates to 225 million paid streams. Three years earlier figures like these would have shocked everyone, but by now Elvis, his manager and RCA Victor had to accept those lower numbers. Everybody still made money, but the singer's star was fading.

The single is not available on the streaming platforms, because the tracks can be heared on the album "Frankie And Johnny" (1966). In 2016 the complete Presley catalogue was restored and remastered by Vic Anesini for a boxed set of 60 compact discs called "The Album Collection". Sony Music Entertainment provides the streaming platforms with the same versions of the individual tracks, albeit in 24 bit/90 khz flac. That means, if the platform of your choice supports high resolution audio, you can enjoy the songs in the same quality Sony used to scan and master them. On Spotify, which has a market share of approximately 30% and is the only platform that publishes streaming figures, both tracks accumulate less than a million streams. Like most of Presley's movie tunes these two didn't pass the test of time and are irrelevant to the majority of the king's fans.

Elvis' body also wasn't what it used to be, therefore the Colonel refused to use the current promo photos. And so the sleeve of the single featured a 2 years old picture made to advertise "Kissin' Cousins". The backside advertised the album "Frankie And Johnny".

The traditional from the 19th century was also known as "Frankie And Albert". It exists in many different versions, but they all have in common that Frankie kills her lover Johnny (or Albert) because of jealousy. In some versions she lands in jail, in others she gets executed. Alex Gottlieb, Fred Karger and Ben Weisman adapted the traditional for Elvis, who recorded it on May 14, 1965 within six takes. "Frankie And Johnny" is one of my favorite movie tunes, because it differs from the usual ones and is performed very well. In 1972 CAMDEN used the track on the album "Elvis Sings Hits From His Movies - Volume 1".

 Without doubt this ballad by Joy Byers is one of the best songs of the movie and therefore a perfect promotion for the album. Elvis also must have been convinced of the quality, because on May 13, 1965 he invested 19 takes to get it right.