Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

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kevanbudd
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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby kevanbudd » Sun Mar 12, 2023 10:04 am

DarylR wrote:
Have not yet decided how big it will be. We have discussed the possibility that it may be anywhere from 100 (10 x 10) to 144 (12 x 12) square inches. Number of pages has yet to be determined. Currently in the process of acquiring 77 or 78 (can't remember the exact number) photos of Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in 1969. These are some of the best photos I've ever seen of him from Vegas 1969. It's not like we don't already have photos from that engagement. I've seen some of these photos in other publications and none of them were in this quality.



Thanks for the updates Daryl.

Personally I feel 12x12 books are too big and unwieldy and pushes up costs unnecessarily.
10x10 would be better for me.

Kevan Budd.


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John
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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby John » Sun Mar 12, 2023 10:57 am

DarylR wrote:
John wrote:
DarylR wrote:
Mister Moon wrote:
DarylR wrote:Up until now, there's only been known color recording session photographs from two recording sessions in the 1950s, those being the July 2, 1956 New York and the June 10-11, 1958 sessions in Nashville. Well, you can add at least two more session dates to that total.


Mmmm.

Are these never-before-seen photos, or previously-known photos ? ;)


These would be never-before-seen photos. Joe and I have been sitting on some of them (around 8 total) for a few years now and the other session (2 photos) we just came across within the last 6 months. I had never seen them before then but they are out there now.


colonel snow wrote:I prefer more documents instead of photographs. it looks to become a photo-book. I understand more photos is more sales.
The revealed overdub sessions in 1965 (2) - 1968 (1) - 1969 (2) are known. Nothing new on the horizon.
Thanks anyway for the update.


colonel snow


There's plenty of cool documents. No need to worry about that. Virtually all of the recording session AFM contracts, most of the ones from 1956-1960 feature Elvis' signature. In fact, I tracked down a copy of one of the contracts with a guy who had an original copy that had been stolen from him nearly 30 years ago. He told me the whole story about what happened. He had other memorabilia stolen from him as well at the timeincluding something signed by Marilyn Monroe but he was able to recover that from a pawn shop owner in New York or New Jersey. Never did locate the original of the Elvis contract but he did have a copy of it. He also sent me a copy of an Air Express Division Railway Express Agency, Inc. shipping invoice of the acetates that were shipped to Elvis shortly after the recording sessions were concluded. Apparently, Elvis didn't stick around for the acetates to be cut so that he could take them with him after the sessions. The invoice is dated and time stamped shortly after the sessions concluded and indicates that it came from RCA and went to Graceland and the package contained phonograph records.

As far as the overdub sessions colonel snow mentioned, the two from 1965 are the known "Santa Lucia" overdub session in New York in October 1965 and the unknown overdub session for "Wild In The Country." Joe and I have located the AFM contract for the March 1965 "Tomorrow Night" overdub session. Joe and I do have the RCA page for the "Santa Lucia" overdub session. The 1968 overdub session is the "Beyond The Reef" overdub session which again we have the RCA recording page. But the interesting thing about that one is that the backup vocals were not overdubbed on the same day as the instruments were. In fact, the backup vocals were overdubbed along with about three or four selections from another RCA recording artist at the time. The 1969 overdub sessions are the March 25, 1969 Nashville sessions and the August 7, 1969 Las Vegas "Suspicious Minds" overdub session are the two that we are missing AFM contracts from 1969. Again we have the RCA recording pages. We feel we have finally gotten the backup vocal overdubs done at American Sound Studio correct. We have both documents and photographic evidence. We have uncovered several undocumented overdub sessions from the 1970s, especially in the years 1970-1972. Joe and I didn't have this right, especially in Sessions III. I think we are still missing a few things, especially when it comes to some of the backup vocal overdubs done by the Imperials in 1970, but we have exhausted every possible avenue to try to locate the proper documentation to no avail. A family member of Joe's works for SAG-AFTRA and through connections there we still were not able to locate these missing contracts for the overdub sessions. I have a general idea of when some of the overdub sessions that we are missing featuring the Imperials were done but I have no way of proving it.

One of the other things we have located is some of the musician time cards from the 1960s and 1970s. We couldn't find any from the 1950s, unfortunately. Some of these, feature the signatures of the musicians, especially in the 1970s. This would include the time cards for the "Elvis Is Back" sessions (including both the March and April sessions and the overdub session for "It's Now Or Never"), the June and October 1961 Nashville sessions (in fact if you look in Sessions III, there is a document in there that pertains to the June 1961 sessions that makes reference to Scotty Moore listing members of the Jordanaires on the time cards though they were in AFTRA by then; the time cards indicate that he put "AFTRA" beside their names with question marks), the March 1962 Nashville sessions, the January 1964 Nashville sessions, the February 1965 Harum Scarum Nashville sessions, the February 1967 Clambake Nashville sessions, all of the June and September 1970 Nashville sessions, the March, May and June 1971 Nashville sessions, the 1972 Nashville overdub sessions, the last two nights of the July 1973 Stax sessions, the September 1973 Nashville overdub session, all of the December 1973 Stax sessions, all the Nashville January and September 1974 overdub sessions, the February and March 1976 Nashville overdub sessions, the January 1977 Creative Workshop Nashville cancelled recording sessions, and all the 1977 Nashville overdub sessions. Oh, one other thing, we did solve one of those mysteries that a resident "doctor" over on that other forum has been trying to figure out for a while with no success.I should also point out that there are a few surprises on the AFM contracts and the time cards compared to what we know already.

In Ernst's book and on the RCA recording pages, neither his book or the pages list session hours in several instances that come to mind (February 26, 1958 overdub of "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck," April 5, 1960 overdub session for "It's Now Or Never," the recording of "We'll Be Together" (also we have located the date as well as the session hours), the August 30, 1963 "What'd I Say" recording session, the February 26, 1965 Harum Scarum sessions, the July 26-27, 1965 Paradise Hawaiian Style sessions, the June 20, 1966 celeste overdub session for "If Every Day Was Like Christmas," the October 1, 1967 "Stay Away, Joe" sessions, the June 1968 Western Recorders sessions (at least when the sessions began), and the September 1973 Nashville overdub session). Joe and I have found proper paperwork to put session hours to these sessions.

Then there is the photographs. This is just a sample.

Roughly 48 photographs from the December 1, 1955 photo shoot at RCA Studios in New York by Popsie. Does anyone know how many he took that day.

3 Popsie photos taken on January 30, 1956 at the William Morris Agency offices in New York along with about 5 of the David B. Hecht color photos taken around the same time. This does not include the photographs we have of Elvis from the Dorsey Show appearances, which probably numbers upward of 30 photos.

11 Photos from the first Milton Berle Show appearance (April 5, 1956) along with a copy of the William Morris Agency contract agreement for Elvis's appearance.

roughly 100 photos taken by Don Cravens from the April 14, 1956 Nashville recording session. 12 at the airport, 3 singing autographs outside by the taxi, 16 of him being presented the gold record for "Heartbreak Hotel" in the recording studio and 69 of him in the studio recording.

35 photographs from the April / May 1956 engagement in Las Vegas along with a copy of the William Morris Agency contract agreement. Also have AFM contract for the Little Rock show on May 16, 1956.

At least 49 photos from the June 5, 1956 second appearance on the Milton Berle Show

About 65 photos from the July 1, 1956 Steve Allen Show appearance

92 July 2, 1956 RCA New York recording session photos

44 August 1956 Love Me Tender recording session photos plus countless photos taken on the set and of the premiere at the Paramount Theatre in New York.

28 September 1956 Radio Recorders recording session photos

37 photos from the September 9, 1956 first Ed Sullivan Show appearance

18 photos from the September 26, 1956 Tupelo shows along with a copy of the AFM contract

24 photos from the October 28, 1958 second Ed Sullivan Show appearance

7 photos from the December 4, 1956 Million Dollar Quartet informal studio jam

6 photos from the December 15, 1956 final Louisiana Hayride show performance along with a copy of the AFM contract for the show.

That's just from December 1955- December 1956...and that's not everything we have from that year. Have a bunch of photos from the meeting with Liberace in November 1956, the premiere of Love Me Tender at the Paramount Theatre (some in color),

Other sessions where we have a substantial amount of photos from the 1950s are...

Loving You sessions (53 photos)

Jailhouse Rock (32 photos)

King Creole (105 photos)

June 1958 Nashville sessions (89 photos)

I think when it's all said and done, this book will be about as close as you can get to being in the studio with Elvis. In fact, we found one individual who actually got to go into the studio and observe Elvis record and we got an exclusive on his story.

Here's a small bit from the book.

1971-05-20 (2).jpg

That all looks pretty amazing and it's apparent a lot of research has gone into it. Just how big will this book be?


Have not yet decided how big it will be. We have discussed the possibility that it may be anywhere from 100 (10 x 10) to 144 (12 x 12) square inches. Number of pages has yet to be determined. Currently in the process of acquiring 77 or 78 (can't remember the exact number) photos of Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in 1969. These are some of the best photos I've ever seen of him from Vegas 1969. It's not like we don't already have photos from that engagement. I've seen some of these photos in other publications and none of them were in this quality.

Please don't make it as heavy as ABFT. That's a wrist/neck/back breaker for old Elvis fans.


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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby Colin B » Sun Mar 12, 2023 12:42 pm

John wrote:Please don't make it as heavy as ABFT.
That's a wrist/neck/back breaker for old Elvis fans.


Agreed !

For that 'A Boy From Tupelo' book, I had to undertake a 'Charles Atlas' body-building course to get mine up & down from the bookcase !

Charles Atlas Course [Detail].jpg

I dare say few members will remember those old ads for the course !
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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby DarylR » Sun Mar 12, 2023 2:56 pm

kevanbudd wrote:
DarylR wrote:
Have not yet decided how big it will be. We have discussed the possibility that it may be anywhere from 100 (10 x 10) to 144 (12 x 12) square inches. Number of pages has yet to be determined. Currently in the process of acquiring 77 or 78 (can't remember the exact number) photos of Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in 1969. These are some of the best photos I've ever seen of him from Vegas 1969. It's not like we don't already have photos from that engagement. I've seen some of these photos in other publications and none of them were in this quality.



Thanks for the updates Daryl.

Personally I feel 12x12 books are too big and unwieldy and pushes up costs unnecessarily.
10x10 would be better for me.

Kevan Budd.


You're probably right about the 12 inch by 12 inch being too big. I know there were two books that Joe looked at for consideration / inspiration as far as dimensions / layout. I actually have both books. One is a book titled "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions" by Mark Lewisohn. It measures 11 1/4 inches x 11 1/4 inches with a thickness of 3/4 inch. The other is a book titled "The Complete Picture Collection Of Topps Baseball Cards." There are two versions that I am aware of this book. The first goes from 1951-1985 and the second is simply an updated version that goes from 1951-1990. I have the first one that goes from 1951-1985. It measures 10 3/4 inches wide by 14 1/4 inches tall. It's much thicker and heavier than the Lewisohn book. It's very similar to some of the large format FTD books such as "Something For The Girls," "Takin' Care Of Business In A Flash" and "Change Of Habit."

John wrote:
DarylR wrote:
John wrote:
DarylR wrote:
Mister Moon wrote:
DarylR wrote:Up until now, there's only been known color recording session photographs from two recording sessions in the 1950s, those being the July 2, 1956 New York and the June 10-11, 1958 sessions in Nashville. Well, you can add at least two more session dates to that total.


Mmmm.

Are these never-before-seen photos, or previously-known photos ? ;)


These would be never-before-seen photos. Joe and I have been sitting on some of them (around 8 total) for a few years now and the other session (2 photos) we just came across within the last 6 months. I had never seen them before then but they are out there now.


colonel snow wrote:I prefer more documents instead of photographs. it looks to become a photo-book. I understand more photos is more sales.
The revealed overdub sessions in 1965 (2) - 1968 (1) - 1969 (2) are known. Nothing new on the horizon.
Thanks anyway for the update.


colonel snow


There's plenty of cool documents. No need to worry about that. Virtually all of the recording session AFM contracts, most of the ones from 1956-1960 feature Elvis' signature. In fact, I tracked down a copy of one of the contracts with a guy who had an original copy that had been stolen from him nearly 30 years ago. He told me the whole story about what happened. He had other memorabilia stolen from him as well at the timeincluding something signed by Marilyn Monroe but he was able to recover that from a pawn shop owner in New York or New Jersey. Never did locate the original of the Elvis contract but he did have a copy of it. He also sent me a copy of an Air Express Division Railway Express Agency, Inc. shipping invoice of the acetates that were shipped to Elvis shortly after the recording sessions were concluded. Apparently, Elvis didn't stick around for the acetates to be cut so that he could take them with him after the sessions. The invoice is dated and time stamped shortly after the sessions concluded and indicates that it came from RCA and went to Graceland and the package contained phonograph records.

As far as the overdub sessions colonel snow mentioned, the two from 1965 are the known "Santa Lucia" overdub session in New York in October 1965 and the unknown overdub session for "Wild In The Country." Joe and I have located the AFM contract for the March 1965 "Tomorrow Night" overdub session. Joe and I do have the RCA page for the "Santa Lucia" overdub session. The 1968 overdub session is the "Beyond The Reef" overdub session which again we have the RCA recording page. But the interesting thing about that one is that the backup vocals were not overdubbed on the same day as the instruments were. In fact, the backup vocals were overdubbed along with about three or four selections from another RCA recording artist at the time. The 1969 overdub sessions are the March 25, 1969 Nashville sessions and the August 7, 1969 Las Vegas "Suspicious Minds" overdub session are the two that we are missing AFM contracts from 1969. Again we have the RCA recording pages. We feel we have finally gotten the backup vocal overdubs done at American Sound Studio correct. We have both documents and photographic evidence. We have uncovered several undocumented overdub sessions from the 1970s, especially in the years 1970-1972. Joe and I didn't have this right, especially in Sessions III. I think we are still missing a few things, especially when it comes to some of the backup vocal overdubs done by the Imperials in 1970, but we have exhausted every possible avenue to try to locate the proper documentation to no avail. A family member of Joe's works for SAG-AFTRA and through connections there we still were not able to locate these missing contracts for the overdub sessions. I have a general idea of when some of the overdub sessions that we are missing featuring the Imperials were done but I have no way of proving it.

One of the other things we have located is some of the musician time cards from the 1960s and 1970s. We couldn't find any from the 1950s, unfortunately. Some of these, feature the signatures of the musicians, especially in the 1970s. This would include the time cards for the "Elvis Is Back" sessions (including both the March and April sessions and the overdub session for "It's Now Or Never"), the June and October 1961 Nashville sessions (in fact if you look in Sessions III, there is a document in there that pertains to the June 1961 sessions that makes reference to Scotty Moore listing members of the Jordanaires on the time cards though they were in AFTRA by then; the time cards indicate that he put "AFTRA" beside their names with question marks), the March 1962 Nashville sessions, the January 1964 Nashville sessions, the February 1965 Harum Scarum Nashville sessions, the February 1967 Clambake Nashville sessions, all of the June and September 1970 Nashville sessions, the March, May and June 1971 Nashville sessions, the 1972 Nashville overdub sessions, the last two nights of the July 1973 Stax sessions, the September 1973 Nashville overdub session, all of the December 1973 Stax sessions, all the Nashville January and September 1974 overdub sessions, the February and March 1976 Nashville overdub sessions, the January 1977 Creative Workshop Nashville cancelled recording sessions, and all the 1977 Nashville overdub sessions. Oh, one other thing, we did solve one of those mysteries that a resident "doctor" over on that other forum has been trying to figure out for a while with no success.I should also point out that there are a few surprises on the AFM contracts and the time cards compared to what we know already.

In Ernst's book and on the RCA recording pages, neither his book or the pages list session hours in several instances that come to mind (February 26, 1958 overdub of "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck," April 5, 1960 overdub session for "It's Now Or Never," the recording of "We'll Be Together" (also we have located the date as well as the session hours), the August 30, 1963 "What'd I Say" recording session, the February 26, 1965 Harum Scarum sessions, the July 26-27, 1965 Paradise Hawaiian Style sessions, the June 20, 1966 celeste overdub session for "If Every Day Was Like Christmas," the October 1, 1967 "Stay Away, Joe" sessions, the June 1968 Western Recorders sessions (at least when the sessions began), and the September 1973 Nashville overdub session). Joe and I have found proper paperwork to put session hours to these sessions.

Then there is the photographs. This is just a sample.

Roughly 48 photographs from the December 1, 1955 photo shoot at RCA Studios in New York by Popsie. Does anyone know how many he took that day.

3 Popsie photos taken on January 30, 1956 at the William Morris Agency offices in New York along with about 5 of the David B. Hecht color photos taken around the same time. This does not include the photographs we have of Elvis from the Dorsey Show appearances, which probably numbers upward of 30 photos.

11 Photos from the first Milton Berle Show appearance (April 5, 1956) along with a copy of the William Morris Agency contract agreement for Elvis's appearance.

roughly 100 photos taken by Don Cravens from the April 14, 1956 Nashville recording session. 12 at the airport, 3 singing autographs outside by the taxi, 16 of him being presented the gold record for "Heartbreak Hotel" in the recording studio and 69 of him in the studio recording.

35 photographs from the April / May 1956 engagement in Las Vegas along with a copy of the William Morris Agency contract agreement. Also have AFM contract for the Little Rock show on May 16, 1956.

At least 49 photos from the June 5, 1956 second appearance on the Milton Berle Show

About 65 photos from the July 1, 1956 Steve Allen Show appearance

92 July 2, 1956 RCA New York recording session photos

44 August 1956 Love Me Tender recording session photos plus countless photos taken on the set and of the premiere at the Paramount Theatre in New York.

28 September 1956 Radio Recorders recording session photos

37 photos from the September 9, 1956 first Ed Sullivan Show appearance

18 photos from the September 26, 1956 Tupelo shows along with a copy of the AFM contract

24 photos from the October 28, 1958 second Ed Sullivan Show appearance

7 photos from the December 4, 1956 Million Dollar Quartet informal studio jam

6 photos from the December 15, 1956 final Louisiana Hayride show performance along with a copy of the AFM contract for the show.

That's just from December 1955- December 1956...and that's not everything we have from that year. Have a bunch of photos from the meeting with Liberace in November 1956, the premiere of Love Me Tender at the Paramount Theatre (some in color),

Other sessions where we have a substantial amount of photos from the 1950s are...

Loving You sessions (53 photos)

Jailhouse Rock (32 photos)

King Creole (105 photos)

June 1958 Nashville sessions (89 photos)

I think when it's all said and done, this book will be about as close as you can get to being in the studio with Elvis. In fact, we found one individual who actually got to go into the studio and observe Elvis record and we got an exclusive on his story.

Here's a small bit from the book.

1971-05-20 (2).jpg

That all looks pretty amazing and it's apparent a lot of research has gone into it. Just how big will this book be?


Have not yet decided how big it will be. We have discussed the possibility that it may be anywhere from 100 (10 x 10) to 144 (12 x 12) square inches. Number of pages has yet to be determined. Currently in the process of acquiring 77 or 78 (can't remember the exact number) photos of Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in 1969. These are some of the best photos I've ever seen of him from Vegas 1969. It's not like we don't already have photos from that engagement. I've seen some of these photos in other publications and none of them were in this quality.

Please don't make it as heavy as ABFT. That's a wrist/neck/back breaker for old Elvis fans.


That made me laugh. About 4 years ago around this time of year (late March 2019), I was home over the weekend on a late Saturday night and for some reason I had unhooked the speakers to my stereo system receiver in my bedroom about a month or two earlier. The speakers sit atop of my entertainment center in my bedroom. In the back right corner at the top of the entertainment center I have a hole drilled into the top so that I can run the wires down to the shelf that the receiver sits on. The shelves are adjustable and one of the shelves even has the corner of it cut off at an angle to allow for the cords to go down to the proper shelf with the receiver. I didn't have a step stool handy or a study chair handy in my bedroom to do this, as I needed to stand on the chair to figure out which wire I needed to hook up to which place on the receiver. Dummy me decided that using the office type desk chair in my bedroom would suffice. I got up there and I probably wasn't up there 30 seconds and the chair gave out on me. I came down on my right knee on hardwood flooring. Tore my meniscus and my PCL in my right knee. Missed about two months of work. It sucked. Luckily, I didn't have to have surgery though the meniscus requires surgery to repair it. It will not heal with just physical therapy. I can always go back if it ever bothers me for surgery. The reason I bring this up is because Joe always teases me about this and that it was one of Erik Lorentzen's books that fell on my knee. The thing is, I don't have that many of his books. I think I only have two. Those would be the "Jailhouse Rock" and the "King Creole" Frame By Frame books.

colonel snow, I saw a comment you left on this thread about not wanting to see all the AFM and the AFTRA contracts and the RCA recording pages (the latter where we need to use them in the absence of the AFM and AFTRA contracts) that Joe and I have accumulated. I assure you that the information on the contracts will match what we have listed for the sessions. There's a couple of reasons why I think it is important that we do include them in the book.

1. First and foremost, it validates what we say in the book. No more guesswork. If we don't know, we don't know. By taking that approach, I think we are a lot further ahead with the book. It has also allowed us to locate things that I personally never thought still even existed. We have jumped through so many rabbit holes. More often than not we have at least come up with something pretty cool and useful for the book.

2. By seeing the contracts, if you are an aspiring musician or singer, you can see how much work Elvis did in the studio and also how much they were getting paid back then and the importance of becoming a member of the respective union. I will say that I don't think we will be including all of the AFM contracts / Studio Orchestra Manager's Daily Reports for the films pertaining to the sideline musicians used in the actual film or the scoring of the film. That's another book unto itself. Joe and I have a ton of documentation pertaining to all the films sideline musicians and scoring sessions. I think the title of the book is Elvis Sessions IV, and the main purpose of the book is to show the sessions where Elvis was in the studio or overdubs that appeared on record. That said, there probably will be a few from film scoring sessions as some of those things have appeared on record.

3. The book will not go into detail about the posthumous overdubs such as the "Guitar Man," "This Is Elvis," "I Was The One," "Viva Elvis," all the various remixes and studio created duets, the RPO albums and the Baz Luhrmann "Elvis" biopic soundtrack. Many of these projects have not aged well. The subtitle of the book is "The Recorded Music of Elvis Aron Presley 1953-1977." Furthermore, it would have been extremely difficult trying to track down the recording session information for all of these projects. These albums and singles will still be mentioned in the discography and we briefly touch upon them in the beginning of the book. The book will include the August 1977 overdubs for the "Elvis In Concert" double album though. This was Elvis' final project.

4. I don't know if you understand how grueling it was to try and locate all of these contracts. You could have gone to all of the various AFM locals (Memphis, Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe, Miami, Hawaii, etc. and the AFM pension fund, RCA, EPE, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) and still not located all of these contracts. Never in a million years. The reason for this is because in theory, RCA was required to keep records of the sessions and who played and sang on them. But that only applies to sessions that they initially financed. When the film studios financed the recordings, RCA likely got the information for a AFM re-use payment contract but for whatever reason never transposed that pertinent recording session information onto their recording pages. That's why on the RCA recording pages for the film soundtracks, you don't see the session dates and hours, the studio names, the names of the musicians and backup vocalists, etc. You may see a date on them that refers to when RCA acquired the masters or session tapes. The acquisition of the tapes by RCA from the various film studios was facilitated by Colonel Parker. Even in some cases in the 1970s, they didn't properly fill out their own RCA recording pages, leaving out session dates, hours, musicians, and even the producer (in the instance of the Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite concert) even on sessions that they financed. Ernst did help us out but in many cases, we located better quality copies of the same contract that he had. If you went to any of the various locals of the AFM and the AFM pension fund, you would probably find some of the contracts but not all of them. In fact, from Nashville and Las Vegas, you probably wouldn't find anything prior to 1970. Probably the best local as far as record keeping that we dealt with was Los Angeles. We were only able to find a handful of contracts and mostly time cards from the 1960s from the pension fund. You would think since Elvis signed off on many of the contracts from 1954-1960, that Elvis' estate would have copies of those contracts and possibly others. Nope. The Country Music Hall of Fame only has the RCA recording pages and not the actual session contracts. The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame didn't have any. So how did we find as many contracts as we did? Joe and I were put in contact of an individual by a musician who literally collected original session contracts. Not just Elvis but practically everyone. He had many of the contracts from Nashville 1960-1962. That guy put us in contact with about ten of his friends who also collected contracts. That lead us to things such as the January 10-11, 1956 Nashville contract, the January 30-31 and February 3, 1956 New York contracts, the April 14, 1956 Nashville contract, the July 2, 1956 New York contract, the January 1964 Nashville contract, the February 1965 Harum Scarum Nashville contracts, the March 1965 Tomorrow Night contract, the May and June 1966 Nashville contracts, the March 1967 Nashville contract, the September 1967 Nashville contracts, the October 1, 1967 Stay Away, Joe contract, and the January 1968 Nashville contract. I do want to point out now that Joe and I will be required to redact some of these contracts due to privacy laws here in the United States. That said, some of the copies of the contracts we received were redacted when we received them. I remember hearing a while back that one of the FTD books had published some private information that should have been redacted. Likewise, in Ernst's "A Life In Music" book from 1998, he published the AFM reuse contract for the "Fun In Acapulco" album at the bottom of a page and you could clearly make out some personal information on some of the musicians, who were still living at the time. It's not so much redacting their name or address or how much they made during the session. It's mainly their social security number, which can lead to identity theft, if left visible.

5. I read many of the criticisms about Sessions III. I had helped Joe out on that book and after reading the comments about it, I felt we had to do it so much better if we ever did Sessions IV. When I helped Joe out on Sessions III, he had sent me copies of some of the AFM contracts he had gotten at that time as well as some of the Studio Orchestra Manager's Daily Reports he also got. This included copies of all of the AFM contracts from the January / February 1969 American Sound sessions in Memphis as well as the overdub sessions in March and May 1969. To me where it was really noticeable in Sessions III was the 1970 overdub sessions in Nashville. We had some of the contracts from those overdub sessions but not all of them. So I asked myself, why can't we try to see if we can locate as many of the AFM and AFTRA contracts pertaining to Elvis Presley's recording sessions as we can and put them in the book to further substantiate what we were saying in the book was accurate. This then also grew into how many recording session photographs can we find. And so the journey began.

6. Lastly, I just think the contracts (and the time cards) are very cool. Outside of photographs, other documents such as the RCA recording pages and various letters, tape legends and acetate labels (which we will also have in the book), the contracts (and time cards) are another tangible piece of recording session documentation and just as important, if not more, than the others. Would I have liked to have located more contracts? Definitely, but at the same time, I'm extremely proud of how far Joe and I have come in our research for this book.

Somewhere along the line, Joe and I acquired a copy of the RCA file on the "From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee" album which also had documents pertaining to the October 1976 sessions and the various sessions (Creative Workshop, overdub sessions, the April 1977 live recordings, etc.) in 1977. I was going to post some cool documents this morning but I was having some trouble with them. They were documents pertaining to Ron Tutt being reimbursed for having his drum kit flown in and for a car rental during the February 1976 Jungle Room sessions as well as a car rental by James Burton for the same sessions. Included was copies of both Tutt's and Burton's applications from Hertz for car rentals. The quality isn't the greatest and I don't know if we will use them in the book or not but I sort of found them a bit amusing.

In one of my previous posts, I started counting up recording session photos. Here's a few more...

25 photos from March / April 1960 (this includes Elvis' return home from Germany and press conferences)
23 photos from the Frank Sinatra Times TV Special
48 photos from the rehearsals from "G.I. Blues" sessions
8 photos from the October 1960 Nashville sessions
40 photos from around the March 1961 Nashville sessions (Elvis' meeting with Tennessee governor and state legislature days before the sessions and photo of Elvis with his cousin who was just hurt in an accident about a week before the sessions)
40 photos from the March 1961 Blue Hawaii sessions
66 photos from arrival in Hawaii, press conference and the benefit concert
3 photos for the June 1961 sessions (these are not really recording session photos; Joe used one of these photos on the back of one of his books many years ago. Anyone care to guess which photo and which book?
4 photos for the July 2, 1961 Follow That Dream sessions
4 photos for the October 1961 Nashville sessions
...and the list goes on.

Daryl
Last edited by DarylR on Mon Mar 13, 2023 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.




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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby colonel snow » Sun Mar 12, 2023 3:39 pm

To Daryl
My “comment” about less AFM contracts included was deleted immediately after re-reading it because I’m not the person who decides what’s in the book or not in the book.

With this description of the work that’s done to get all these documents to daylight I take my cap off!!.

It would be interesting to read more about overdub sessions for the movies / the musical sequences of the instrumental tracks in the movies etc but it’s out of the scope of the book. I completely understand because the book is about Elvis’ recording sessions.



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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby John » Sun Mar 12, 2023 4:00 pm

Goodness me, DarylR, I'm not going to quote everything you've posted above, but it's plain to see that you've spent a lot of time on this project and I look forward to reading the book.

Incidentally, any more information on Feelings, or We Had It All, or any other songs we don't know about?



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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby cadillac-elvis » Sun Mar 12, 2023 11:58 pm

John wrote:Goodness me, DarylR, I'm not going to quote everything you've posted above, but it's plain to see that you've spent a lot of time on this project and I look forward to reading the book.

Incidentally, any more information on Feelings, or We Had It All, or any other songs we don't know about?


Like Tigerman?



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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby DarylR » Mon Mar 13, 2023 6:20 am

cadillac-elvis wrote:
John wrote:Goodness me, DarylR, I'm not going to quote everything you've posted above, but it's plain to see that you've spent a lot of time on this project and I look forward to reading the book.

Incidentally, any more information on Feelings, or We Had It All, or any other songs we don't know about?


Like Tigerman?


As far as "Tiger Man" from 1954, no. Do I think it could have been attempted, absolutely yes.

Regarding "Feelings" from the February 1976 sessions, Joe and I did pursue any tapes that recording engineer Brian Christian had and he didn't have it. He did have some tapes. He had the "America God damnit" bit, the masters and some outtakes. Also prior to the master of "She Thinks I Still Care," Elvis sang the opening line to "The Last Farewell," which may imply that they rehearsed both songs prior to recording.

As for "We Had It All," Joe and I are very much aware of the claim by musician David Briggs that a recording of "We Had It All" by Elvis exists. Joe is also pretty good friends with David and has known him for many years and spoken to David many times. From what I understand, David is not in the best of health and recently they closed down his House of David recording studio in Nashville. Before they closed it down and removed all the tapes from the studio, Joe and I got a friend of David's with David's permission to go through the tapes to see if it was possible that David actually had it or not. We didn't find it. I do explain in my notes for the December 1973 Stax sessions David's claim about it existing and what all he told us. We did find a few things of interest amongst his tapes. He had the "Promised Land" organ overdub version and a version of "Amazing Grace" take 2 with backup vocals. What makes this interesting is that the backup vocals on the master of "Amazing Grace" are believed to have been overdubbed a few days after Elvis recorded it by the Nashville Edition along with "It Ain't No Big Thing (But It's Growing)." This would have been during some of the studio time that had been booked for Elvis but Elvis was ill but also before they began working on the James Burton solo album. There would be no reason whatsoever to overdub backup vocals on an alternate take unless Felton considered take 2 of "Amazing Grace" an alternate master.

As far as other things we located, we did locate an acetate of the stereo masters from "Follow That Dream," an acetate from the February 1967 "Clambake" sessions where you can hear someone (possibly Jeffrey Alexander and definitely not Elvis) singing guide vocals on some of the songs where Elvis added his vocal later.

We also found someone known in the Elvis world whose wife knew someone who worked as a sound engineer at WABC in New York and recorded the entire Madison Square Garden press conference audio. We were told that Geraldo Rivera has a copy of this recording as well.

Through a guy named Simon Postbrief, Joe and I got copies of the many acetates he had collected. Also got black and white photocopies of many of the acetate labels.

Through another collector, Joe and I got copies of the RCA recordings from two of the shows from February 1970. I believe they are the February 16 dinner show and the February 18 dinner show. You actually hear when they turned the recording equipment on and off sometimes in the middle of a song performance. There's nothing really interesting about the February 18 dinner show tape. I think they have released all the complete performances that were recorded. All that's left is bits and pieces of incomplete recordings.

The February 16 dinner show is very unusual. There's a very good reason why they only put out some selections from this show. First there's a major buzzing sound on the recording at various points. In fact, Elvis even commented that if it lasted the rest of the show, it would drive him insane. A couple of other interesting things. There's a false start that precedes the master of "Proud Mary." There's a funny bit of dialogue where Elvis said that he had just woken up from sleeping a few hours ago and ate breakfast just before the show. He then said that from time to time during the show, he gets a little aftertaste of bacon in his mouth. Lastly, in the middle of his performance of "Let It Be Me," he shouted "spotlight" and shortly afterwards he shouted "thank you." Kind of a buzz kill to the performance and obviously the reason why they have never released it yet.

Joe and I did also find many small interview clips with people who knew and worked with Elvis. I think they are from old radio shows. Also found several audience recordings of shows. These would include two recordings of the same show (one is more complete than the other) from August 1969. I want to say August 12. Another is the February 3, 1970 dinner show and there's another show from February 1970. Also found June 11, 1972 MSG and June 17, 1972 matinee show. Also found St. Louis June 1973.

Daryl R
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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby John » Mon Mar 13, 2023 7:23 am

cadillac-elvis wrote:
John wrote:Goodness me, DarylR, I'm not going to quote everything you've posted above, but it's plain to see that you've spent a lot of time on this project and I look forward to reading the book.

Incidentally, any more information on Feelings, or We Had It All, or any other songs we don't know about?


Like Tigerman?

I didn't ask because we all already have that one.


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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby kevanbudd » Mon Mar 13, 2023 9:18 am

DarylR wrote:
As far as other things we located, we did locate an acetate of the stereo masters from "Follow That Dream," an acetate from the February 1967 "Clambake" sessions where you can hear someone (possibly Jeffrey Alexander and definitely not Elvis) singing guide vocals on some of the songs where Elvis added his vocal later.

Daryl R


HI Daryl, another very interesting update,thank you.

Could you tell us the condition of the audio (if you have it) on the `Follow that dream` Stereo masters acetate?

Does it contain all song masters recorded?

Kevan Budd.



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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby DarylR » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:36 am

kevanbudd wrote:
DarylR wrote:
As far as other things we located, we did locate an acetate of the stereo masters from "Follow That Dream," an acetate from the February 1967 "Clambake" sessions where you can hear someone (possibly Jeffrey Alexander and definitely not Elvis) singing guide vocals on some of the songs where Elvis added his vocal later.

Daryl R


HI Daryl, another very interesting update,thank you.

Could you tell us the condition of the audio (if you have it) on the `Follow that dream` Stereo masters acetate?

Does it contain all song masters recorded?

Kevan Budd.


The quality of the acetate recording is really great. There's some pops and crackles that I am sure could be cleaned up. Nothing really noticeable about it. Yes, I do have it and I just listened to it about a minute ago. It runs 13 minutes and 39 seconds. 6 songs. Just the masters. Order of the songs on the acetate is:

1. Angel
2. Follow That Dream
3. What A Wonderful Life
4. I'm Not The Marrying Kind
5. Sound Advice
6. A Whistling Tune (with Ray Walker's whistling overdub)

Daryl R






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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby colonel snow » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:54 am

DarylR wrote:
kevanbudd wrote:
DarylR wrote:
As far as other things we located, we did locate an acetate of the stereo masters from "Follow That Dream," an acetate from the February 1967 "Clambake" sessions where you can hear someone (possibly Jeffrey Alexander and definitely not Elvis) singing guide vocals on some of the songs where Elvis added his vocal later.

Daryl R


HI Daryl, another very interesting update,thank you.

Could you tell us the condition of the audio (if you have it) on the `Follow that dream` Stereo masters acetate?

Does it contain all song masters recorded?

Kevan Budd.


The quality of the acetate recording is really great. There's some pops and crackles that I am sure could be cleaned up. Nothing really noticeable about it. Yes, I do have it and I just listened to it about a minute ago. It runs 13 minutes and 39 seconds. 6 songs. Just the masters. Order of the songs on the acetate is:

1. Angel
2. Follow That Dream
3. What A Wonderful Life
4. I'm Not The Marrying Kind
5. Sound Advice
6. A Whistling Tune (with Ray Walker's whistling overdub)

Daryl R


Could it be this acetate?

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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby colonel snow » Mon Mar 13, 2023 10:56 am

Does the scans of the “new” acetates reveal unknown recordings like BO Shoppin’ around – take 14 or The love machine – composite take DOVC take 11 / wp D1OVC take 4 in the past?
These tracks were unknown / not listed in books with recording sessions until the acetate was discovered at an auction.



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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby DarylR » Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:55 am

colonel snow wrote:Does the scans of the “new” acetates reveal unknown recordings like BO Shoppin’ around – take 14 or The love machine – composite take DOVC take 11 / wp D1OVC take 4 in the past?
These tracks were unknown / not listed in books with recording sessions until the acetate was discovered at an auction.



colonel snow


I can't answer your question about the acetate recording from "Follow That Dream" as we only got a digital file of it.

As to your other question, we didn't come across anything like that. From what Joe told me, the Simon Postbrief acetates actually came from Colonel Parker's collection of acetates. In fact, one of the acetate photocopies we got also features part of the sleeve and the acetate for "It's Now Or Never" is addressed to Colonel Parker on labels on the sleeve that say 20th Century Fox. In fact many of the photocopies of acetate labels feature a portion of the sleeve and sometimes there's a sheet attached to the acetate label sleeve which lists pertinent information about an album release such as catalog number, release date and track listing. One example of this is the acetate of the "From Elvis In Memphis" album. It lists the release date as being May 20, 1969. Some of the acetate sleeves also have handwritten information on them, including what songs are on the other side of the acetate, etc. There's things such as a mono mix of "Help Me Make It Through The Night". There's an acetate label indicating two different versions of "I, John" with two different female backing vocal arrangements. I think one of the acetates labels we got gives the indication as to when the Imperials overdubbed their vocal onto the master of "O Come, All Ye Faithful," despite the lack of session documents. Another acetate label gives a strong indication as to when the Imperials overdubbed their vocal onto both sides of the "Rags To Riches" / "Where Did They Go, Lord" single. One of the acetates from the June 1971 sessions tells us when the Imperials added their vocal and Elvis did the vocal repair on "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." I think Ernst had this off by a day in his book.

Joe and I got a really cool color photo of one of the December 1973 Stax acetate label sides from arranger Mike Leech before he died.

I personally got a drawing of how things were set up in the Jungle Room at Graceland for the sessions from sound engineer Ron Olson. Olson told me many stories. He was asked to help with the sound at the Madison Square Garden rehearsals at the New York Hilton. He was in the RCA truck at the December 1973 Stax sessions and for the March 1974 Memphis concert and he was at both the February and October 1976 Jungle Room sessions. He told me about how they had to move Elvis' piano into the Jungle Room and how RCA director of recording operations Larry Schnapf had chosen inadequate speakers for the sessions and how they had to go to Elvis' bedroom and remove Elvis' personal speakers and use them. He remembered Linda Thompson wearing a very revealing top during the October sessions and her and Elvis arguing over having a Halloween costume party. He told me that he did pick up copies of "Prince From Another Planet" and "Elvis At Stax." He sent us a couple of photos of him and Tom Brown with the RCA mobile recording truck. One of the weird things that he claimed was that there was a different version of the dirty "Hurt" that we already know about. I sent him a link to a YouTube video featuring the known version and he was adamant that there was another version as well.

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Re: Status of Elvis Sessions IV by JAT Productions

Postby colonel snow » Mon Mar 13, 2023 2:16 pm

DarylR wrote:
colonel snow wrote:Does the scans of the “new” acetates reveal unknown recordings like BO Shoppin’ around – take 14 or The love machine – composite take DOVC take 11 / wp D1OVC take 4 in the past?
These tracks were unknown / not listed in books with recording sessions until the acetate was discovered at an auction.



colonel snow


I can't answer your question about the acetate recording from "Follow That Dream" as we only got a digital file of it.

As to your other question, we didn't come across anything like that. From what Joe told me, the Simon Postbrief acetates actually came from Colonel Parker's collection of acetates. In fact, one of the acetate photocopies we got also features part of the sleeve and the acetate for "It's Now Or Never" is addressed to Colonel Parker on labels on the sleeve that say 20th Century Fox. In fact many of the photocopies of acetate labels feature a portion of the sleeve and sometimes there's a sheet attached to the acetate label sleeve which lists pertinent information about an album release such as catalog number, release date and track listing. One example of this is the acetate of the "From Elvis In Memphis" album. It lists the release date as being May 20, 1969. Some of the acetate sleeves also have handwritten information on them, including what songs are on the other side of the acetate, etc. There's things such as a mono mix of "Help Me Make It Through The Night". There's an acetate label indicating two different versions of "I, John" with two different female backing vocal arrangements. I think one of the acetates labels we got gives the indication as to when the Imperials overdubbed their vocal onto the master of "O Come, All Ye Faithful," despite the lack of session documents. Another acetate label gives a strong indication as to when the Imperials overdubbed their vocal onto both sides of the "Rags To Riches" / "Where Did They Go, Lord" single. One of the acetates from the June 1971 sessions tells us when the Imperials added their vocal and Elvis did the vocal repair on "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." I think Ernst had this off by a day in his book.

Joe and I got a really cool color photo of one of the December 1973 Stax acetate label sides from arranger Mike Leech before he died.

I personally got a drawing of how things were set up in the Jungle Room at Graceland for the sessions from sound engineer Ron Olson. Olson told me many stories. He was asked to help with the sound at the Madison Square Garden rehearsals at the New York Hilton. He was in the RCA truck at the December 1973 Stax sessions and for the March 1974 Memphis concert and he was at both the February and October 1976 Jungle Room sessions. He told me about how they had to move Elvis' piano into the Jungle Room and how RCA director of recording operations Larry Schnapf had chosen inadequate speakers for the sessions and how they had to go to Elvis' bedroom and remove Elvis' personal speakers and use them. He remembered Linda Thompson wearing a very revealing top during the October sessions and her and Elvis arguing over having a Halloween costume party. He told me that he did pick up copies of "Prince From Another Planet" and "Elvis At Stax." He sent us a couple of photos of him and Tom Brown with the RCA mobile recording truck. One of the weird things that he claimed was that there was a different version of the dirty "Hurt" that we already know about. I sent him a link to a YouTube video featuring the known version and he was adamant that there was another version as well.

Daryl R


There are more rareties circulating on acetate like It’s now or never – take 3 on 78 rpm. It’s unlikely this reference record from the late 60’s contains 3x FS only.

From the acetates you mention in your post more different scans are known; I don’t show these scans here otherwise it’s no surprise in your book.



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