GuyLambert wrote:ELVIS: THE LAST MYSTERY Without You was the record Sam Phillips asked Elvis to emulate at his key audition, but who was its anonymous singer? Maybe now, finally, he can be named…
Hi Guys:
I have a feature article in the latest issue of Mojo Magazine about a recent discovery I made re the mystery singer of Without You.
Available Tuesday, Aug 22 in the UK and will hit the States in about a month.
http://www.mojo4music.com/25650/mojo-287-dave-grohl-foo-fighters-nirvana/?platform=hootsuite
Well, what a nice surprise. I will have to seek out the new MOJO for your article alone!
From what I know, there are actually two stories about "Without You."
Sam Phillips recalls he picked up the demo in a late May 1954 from Peer-Southern Music in Nashville. But authors
Colin Escott and
Martin Hawkins maintain Phillips got an unpublished recording from someone at Nashville State Penitentiary, when he cut tracks with the Prisonaires on May 8, 1954.
*
* Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins,
Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'n' Roll (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992).
Sadly, the full demo of "Without You" has never been issued, although a small segment was aired on the 1987 BBC-TV documentary "I Don't Sing Like Nobody." It pops up on the internet from time to time, and FECC member
Keith has it on his site:
http://www.keithflynn.com/audio/withoutyouoriginal.MP3
There is still a glimmer of hope, however faint, that a reference acetate of Elvis trying "Without You" still exists. But we're now at the 63rd year of waiting, and nothing has surfaced. Maybe it's now half a glimmer.
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Found this in the comments of a YouTube video:
Marion Keisker:
No, it was just a demo of a record called, Without You. It was a single voice, apparently a black man playing a guitar and singing. So Sam immediately tried to contact the songwriter, whom I think was a woman in Nashville, and finally found her and said, “Who’s that artist, I want them to make that record, I want to release that record just as it is, I need to get another side and we’ll release it.” And this woman, whose name I don’t know, said that she didn’t know who the singer was. He had made the demo in a Nashville studio and they had called in somebody that sang this song, Without You.
Sam says, “Well, I give up. I sure wanted that.” And I said, “You know, that reminds me of the kid with the sideburns. I bet he could do that song.” And Sam said, “Oh I don’t even know his name, I don’t know how to get in touch with him.” I said, “I do!” and went under my blotter and pulled out the name and he says, “Well give him a call,” and I called him and said, “Mr. Phillips would like you to come over, he’d like to hear you, try you on a song.” I think I was still on the phone when Elvis came panting in with his guitar. He’d run all the way!
Sam didn’t like the way Elvis did Without You, and said he never recorded it. Sam says there never was such a record but I had a copy of it because I loved it so much that I made a copy! I have given it to a person who asked me not to identify him, because he doesn’t wish to be besieged by people. Obviously it’s a very valuable, one-of-a-kind record.
But it has been taped and included on the program they have been presenting at Memphis State. And every time it’s included in the medley of Elvis songs, people think that it is Elvis singing that song. Which is very strange because Sam rejected him as a possibility of doing that song. I said later, “This story has been taken out of context and used in many different ways, the only time it occurred was later when Elvis came back and listened to the song and he would beat his head and say, “Why can’t I do that, listen to that voice, listen to that tone!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6wkwkp2PIE