Looking Back

2003     Jan.     Feb.     Mar.     Apr.     Mai.     Jun.     Jul.    Aug.    Sept.    Oct.    Nov.     Dec. 

Febr 13,  2004

Ernst needs your help.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED! ELVIS' Sun Records--A message from Ernst Jørgensen

Here is your chance to be a part of history! Take a look:
 

Calling Elvis  (Rock Legend 1268)

Rock Legend is proud to present our finest release so far: CALLING ELVIS. This 70-minute CD gives the listener a comprehensive overview of all the Elvis telephone conversations that are currently known to exist, including several that have not been released previously.

It seems that the telephone medium made Elvis ‘open up’ more than in regular interview situations. Just compare the Hy Gardner interview – which can be heard in its entirety for the first time on this CD (longer and in better quality than on the ‘Word For Word’ 5 CD-set) – with any other interview from that landmark year, and listen to how he openly talks about being homesick in the five telephone conversations recorded during his tour of duty in Germany. Included among these five calls are all three conversations with Dick Clark (‘American Bandstand’), including the very rare third call from January 8, 1960, as well as the ultra-rare interview with Hawaiian discjockey Tom Moffet from January 9, 1959 (neither of which are available on ‘Word for Word’ or any other CD’s). Moffet got to talk to Elvis again two years later, on March 19, 1961, where Elvis talked about his love for Hawaii in some detail, and that interview is included too. The private telephone conversations with Arlene Cogan and Ron Pietrafeso from respectively 1970 and ’71 were recorded without Elvis’ knowledge, and both offer us offer us fascinating glimpses into the private life of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
 

The bonus-tracks include a never-before-released (not even on import), mega-rare radio broadcast about Elvis’ first concert in Canada on April 2nd, 1957. That concert took place in Toronto, and this great CBC report makes you feel like you are in the audience. Reporter Bill Beaty describes the concert live in wonderful detail, while you can hear thousands of screaming teenagers in the background. You can even hear the finale of the show, a fragment of a wild ‘Hound Dog’. A stunning piece of Presleyana!
Another recent discovery is an August 9th, 1975 radio-broadcast from Liberty Bowl Stadium in Memphis, where sports commentator Harold Johnson was reporting on an American Football game. Johnson spotted Elvis and immediatly asked him what he thought about the game. This clip was first released a couple of weeks ago on a CD-R titled ‘Touchdown’, but the sound-quality is much better on CALLING ELVIS. 
From the same year is a charming recording of Elvis receiving the ‘Sun Collection’ LP from a fan in the audience (Las Vegas, December 13, 1975). On the FTD release ‘Dinner At Eight’ you could only hear Elvis’ comments, but on this alternate soundboard source you can hear the full dialogue between Elvis and the fan that gave him the LP!  Yet another surprising discovery from Rock Legend!
The recording of a July 4, 1976 “End of Tour Party” concludes our release. On this hilarious recording you can hear ‘Elvis’ (producer Felton Jarvis) being interviewed by comedian Jackie Kahane, and Elvis/Felton answers questions about various bandmembers and members of the entourage. Felton does a great parody of Elvis, and despite the rather crude humor you get some interesting insights about life on the road. 

 

More than a quarter century after his death, The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll still speaks to our imaginations. Fresh and hitherto unknown information deepens our understanding of this very complex man, and CALLING ELVIS does just that. Because of the intimate nature of the telephone conversations, the listener gets unique insights into the man behind the legend, while the remarkable bonustracks offer us charming and amusing glimpses into his talent and personality.
All tracks were digitally remastered by the Czech audio wizard Otto Meszaros, who used more than 30 hours for the improvement of these tracks. Therefore, even those tracks that have been released before are now much better quality.
 

Just like its two predecessors, CALLING ELVIS is packaged beautifully in a deluxe, full-colour digipack with two “wings”. The packaging complements the CD very well, as it contains 18 rare photographs of Elvis -- from different stages in his career -- holding a telephone! It’s a true piece of art, courtesy of young Dutch designer Ron Landheer.
 

CALLING ELVIS is truly a “different” kind of release, as that it really gives you the chance to experience the REAL Elvis Presley... the man, not the legend.  It’s a CD that you cannot afford to be without! 

Thanks to Arjan Deelen.

Febr 12,  2004

The Impossible Dream

The name of the upcoming Follow That Dream release "The Man with the Golden Belt" has been renamed to "The Impossible Dream recorded live at The International Hotel, Las Vegas,
January 1971" (Catalog number 82876 59845-2).

The main body of the show is the Dinner Show of January 28th.
As the recording of the show has several flaws it has been necessary to replace certain parts with recordings from the opening night on January 26th, as well as fixing the intros of Johnny B. Goode and Something.

See our previous topic on this release.
 

1) 2001 Theme (Opening Night)
2) That's All Right (Opening Night)
3) You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
4) Love Me Tender
5) Sweet Caroline
6) You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
7) Polk Salad Annie
8) Introductions 1
9) Johnny B. Goode (Opening Night)
10) Introductions 2
11) Something
12) Release Me
13) Love Me
14) Blue Suede Shoes
15) Hound Dog
16) It’s Now Or Never
17) Suspicious Minds
18) The Impossible Dream

Musicians:
James Burton, Ron Tutt, Jerry Scheff, Glen Hardin, John Wilkinson, Charlie Hodge,
The Joe Guercio Orchestra.

Singers:
Kathy Westmoreland, The Sweet Inspirations, The Imperials.

Produced by Ernst Mikael Jørgensen & Roger Semon
Mastered by Lene Reidel at Tocano
Compiled by Eivind Haug
 

As we concluded in our article: "Some thoughts on the upcoming  April   FTD release" there were several reasons to release this dinner show from Jan 28th.

It seems that the people at BMG/FTD know exactly what is out on bootleg.
By using the dinner show from Jan 28th, they have given us unreleased material on the biggest part of this CD. They could also have used the midnight show of the 28th that was released on
Lean Mean and Kicking But, but fortunately they didn't.

It's not very likely they had very much to choose from, thats probably why they've used allready released songs as bonus material.
But, these bonus songs give us a nice overview of the first Las Vegas season.
It's certainly not a bad choice, we get songs like Snowbird, Make the World Go Away and Only Believe that are rarely sung by Elvis. Hopefully they did a good remastering job.

Why do I think BMG doesn't have much from 1971 in their vaults?
 
When you have a look at the tape legends and reels, you'll see there where 2 different sources. The first source: their own tapes. The other source : the tapes that came from Col. Parker.

Some tapeboxes (like the reel from the january 27th midnight show) are stamped:
All Star Shows, Box 220, Madison Tennessee 37115. These tapes clearly come from Col. Parkers office.
On the otherhand there are tapes (from the same show) that don't have these stamp, these were recorded by RCA themselves (or they were copied from tapes from Col. Parkers office).

In 1974 Col. Parker made copies from almost all the tapes that RCA posessed. This was done for the "Having With With Elvis  On Stage" Album.
When you listen to that lp, most of the recordings come from 1974 and 1973 ( Tours, Las Vegas
and Lake Tahoe).
Infact, we got 21 clips from 1974, 6 clips from 1973, 1 clip from 1970 and 7 clips from 1969.

In the later years more soundboards were made, some of them and came in other hands. 
Thats why we now have more sources from soundboard. 

The tapes that BMG has, are numbered as misc 0001, misc 0002 etc.

In 1978 when joan Deary made an inventory of what RCA had in there vaults, she re-numbered
the reels ( you can see her handwritting on both sides of the reels).

misc T0001 - is the opening night 1969 (which in fact is the show from august 3 1969)
misc T0002 - is the first part of the opening show of january 26 1970
misc T0003 - is the second part of the opening show januay 26 1970
misc T0004 - is the first part of the closing show  from february 23 1970
misc T0005 - is the second part of the closing show from february 23 1970
misc T0006 - is the opening show of january  26 1971(this tape was probably damaged and the
                    rest of the show was recorded on a another tape)
misc T0007 - is the midnight show of january 27 1971 (was recorded on the other side of the tape
                    from the 26th  probably because the tape was damaged and cut. The show was only
                    recorded until Hound Dog, the rest of that show is not recorded)
misc T0008 - is probably the dinner show of january 28th 1971 ( the new FTD)
misc T0009 - is The midnight show from january 28th (released on Lean Mean and Kicking But)
misc T0010 - is the dinner show of january 29 1971 (released on Snowbird)
misc T0011 - opening show from january 26 1972  (released on Opening Night 1972) 
misc T0012 - dinner show august 11 1972 (released on Blazing in to Darkness)
misc T0013 - midnight show august 11 1972  (released on At Full Blast)

As you can see, there is not much in the vaults from the early years at BMG.
There are however some more shows recorded in the early days.
We know that the following show were recorded:
Houston Astrodome Show of february 27 1970
Tampa september 13 1970 Lake Tahoe july 24 1971
Boston november 10 1971

These shows all came from the Col. Parker collection and where not found in the RCA vaults.

Conclusion:
Ernst and his team are doing a great job.
Allthough there is not much in the vaults they managed to create a nice compilation of
january 1971 on one cd and throw in some rare bonus songs (we allready have ) in the
best possible sound.