complete million dollar Quartet.

This Rolling Stone review states that the new Complete Million Dollar Quartet session "contains less than half of the two and a half hours' worth of Million-Dollar tape Sam Phillips allegedly recorded that day."

Is this accurate?


http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/elv ... ar_session

The heavens did not open, and the earth did not move. In fact, it was business as usual that day at Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio, in Memphis. Carl Perkins and his trio were rehearsing new material with a recent Phillips discovery, Jerry Lee Lewis, sitting in on piano and Johnny Cash just hanging around for fun. Sun alumnus Elvis Presley popped in to say howdy, and as musicians are wont to do, Phillips's fab four gathered around the studio piano for an impromptu jam. A couple of hours later they went home, each to his respective destiny.

But the passage of time, the accumulated force of history and the awesome shadow Presley has cast over popular music have conspired to make December 4th, 1956, a holy day on the rock & roll calendar. The Sun gods were, for the first and last time, all together in Phillips's rockabilly laboratory with the tapes rolling. A Memphis newspaper, which ran a photo of the event the next day, dubbed the four hillbilly hotshots "the Million-Dollar Quartet," and what had really been nothing but a casual sing-along immediately became legend.

This double album is the legend incarnate – all that purportedly remains of the tapes Sam Phillips recorded for posterity that day – and it is worth its weight in either rock & roll gold or Monopoly money, depending on how hungry you are for ragged harmonizing, incomplete takes of old gospel and country chestnuts and idle chatter from the principal architects of the Fifties teenage revolution. What's more, the Million-Dollar Quartet is not even a quartet here; Johnny Cash does not appear on The Complete Million Dollar Session, having apparently gone home shortly after the newspaper photographer did. Or before Phillips turned the tape machine on.

So how good is what we've got? As cosmic accidents go, this Million-Dollar meeting of the minds was a bit of a dud. Of the forty tracks listed on the back cover, few are actually complete songs; many are tentative stabs at familiar hymns, barroom laments and bluegrass balladry ("As We Travel Along the Jericho Road," "Crazy Arms," "Little Cabin on the Hill"). "Summertime Has Passed and Gone" is barely long enough for somebody to call out the title and strum an intro chord. In spite of their shared roots in both the sacred and the secular music of the postwar South, the $750,000 trio appears to have had trouble establishing any lasting rapport.

As a result, the guest of honor tends to dominate, to an almost overbearing degree. Presley plays most of the piano here (compared with the fireball fists of Jerry Lee Lewis, his playing is serviceable though spirited). He also takes nearly all the lead vocals and appears to call most of the song shots, meaning we get showbiz sugar like Rodgers and Hammerstein's "There's No Place Like Home" (albeit at an energetic rockabilly clip) sprinkled amid the down-home grooves. Elvis, it seems, was already schlock-bound.

Yet there is still much to marvel at here. Far more intimate and revealing than any of those jive I-was-Elvis's-bridge-partner-and-closest-friend memoirs, The Complete Million Dollar Session provides a rare post-Sun glimpse of the King momentarily free of the golden shackles of stardom and the manipulative grasp of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. His singing, especially on the gospel numbers, is natural and relaxed, minus some of the trademark mannerisms of his official RCA releases.

Obviously comfortable in the company of his then heirs apparent, Presley also speaks freely between numbers, dropping a few minor revelations in the process. "Ol' Faron Young wrote this song sent to me to record," he says wryly, introducing a brief but beautiful rendition of the weeper "Is It So Strange." "He didn't give me none of it – he wanted it all," no doubt meaning a piece of the publishing action.

Presley's description of "a colored guy" tearing up Las Vegas audiences with a house-on-fire rendition of "Don't Be Cruel" – in fact, a young Jackie Wilson, then with Billy Ward and the Dominoes – is alone worth the price of the album. "He tried so hard until he got much better, boy, much better than that record of mine.... I went back four nights straight and heard that guy do that," he says, imitating Wilson's bluesy smolder and big orgasmic finish.

"He sung the hell out of the song," Elvis says with admiration, adding with a laugh, "I was on the table lookin' at him, 'Get 'im off, get 'im off!'" Presley, on a roll, then rips into a slower, sassier version of his latest RCA single, "Paralyzed," revved up by Perkins and his trio.

Although he was Sun's biggest star at the time, thanks to "Blue Suede Shoes," Carl Perkins seemed content to keep the rhythm backfield in motion, stepping out with only occasional leadguitar breaks (most of the songs never get that far). Jerry Lee Lewis is not so easily cowed, though, boldly flashing his Killer instinct at every available opportunity. He sets up a competitive vocal pattern early on, echoing Presley's bassy swagger in gospel numbers like "Walk That Lonesome Valley" and "I Shall Not Be Moved" with his own hearty upper-register whoops and hollers. And halfway through side four, when Presley finally gets up to leave, Lewis swiftly commandeers the eighty-eights and – considering the leisurely pace of things so far – whips off five piano ravers in rapid succession, including a rousing "Crazy Arms" (his debut Sun single) and a soulful make-over of Gene Autry's "You're the Only Star in My Blue Heaven."

With that, the most famous Sun session of them all came to an end. The controversy and speculation surrounding it may not be over, however. This double album – attractively packaged and diligently annotated by Charly, the English label that has been systematically reviving the Sun catalog for the past decade – contains less than half of the two and a half hours' worth of Million-Dollar tape Sam Phillips allegedly recorded that day. Indeed, there was talk for a while in the late Seventies, until RCA squashed it, of a five-album set of Million-Dollar Quartet recordings. We may not have heard the last of this.

Frankly, another hour-plus of this goofing around would be too much of a good thing. For best results, listen to The Complete Million Dollar Session with lowered expectations, and revel in the little miracles, like Presley's gorgeous solo performance of "That's When the Heartaches Begin," the Ink Spots hit that he cut at Sun in 1953 as a birthday present for his mother and that led to his discovery by Sam Phillips. With his delicate acoustic strumming and velvety croon, it is quintessential Elvis. Then at the end, he says, "If they could get somebody to sing it right, have a guy with a real deep voice talkin' it off, I think it could sell." All he had to do was look in a mirror. (RS 520)



DAVID FRICKE

The Fricke piece is from 1988, so may be a bit outdated. As to whether there is more MDQ material, I don't think so, since it makes sense that Ernst and BMG would release all now. After all, we got 12 additional minutes not on the original release.

Just got this release. All I can say is this:

Get It Now!

The sound quailty FAR surpasses anything you've heard from this session. My only complaint is where they chose to separate the tracks

I agree the sound quality is amazing.

BTW, on the iTunes store you can listen to the snippets of all the tracks.

Anyone know the UK release date?

Amazon has it's release date as october 9th.

I had this cd in my mail today and to me it looks and sounds great.

I agree the sound quality is amazing, but i do wonder why at the beginning just after he segues out of Reconsider Baby, when Elvis is talking about Billy Ward, the volume is so low. you can barely hear him at the beginning. its not like that on the orig.

the million dollar question: can one hear Johnny Cash sing???

the million dollar question: can one hear Johnny Cash sing???

Yes! on any number of his records between 1954-2003

Can we hear him on the million dollar quartet tape?

not on your life, and I doubt we ever will, because to me the first few tracks sound like Clement or someone else is setting up mikes. I think this is all we're left with.

I agree the sound quality is amazing, but i do wonder why at the beginning just after he segues out of Reconsider Baby, when Elvis is talking about Billy Ward, the volume is so low. you can barely hear him at the beginning. its not like that on the orig.

Glad you noticed that - i was beginning to wonder if the Australian pressings were faulty.

Anyone know why the volume is muted?

Anyone know why the volume is muted?

It isn't muted! It's from a first generation "Tape" source, as opposed to an X-Generation source used for the original release of this session.

I also heard that on the "Original" release of this session, the volume was tweaked up and down, to give a balance to the volume.

This time we get it as it was originally recorded, with no gimmicks!

I also heard that on the "Original" release of this session, the volume was tweaked up and down, to give a balance to the volume.

This time we get it as it was originally recorded, with no gimmicks!

Some tough decisions have to be made when remastering 'informal' recordings like this.

Is 'tweaking' the volume an aid to listening pleasure, or a 'gimmick' ?

The volume may be low on the tape, but the guys were probably speaking normally.

So what is 'natural' and what isn't ?

There's no definitive answer !

I also heard that on the "Original" release of this session, the volume was tweaked up and down, to give a balance to the volume.

This time we get it as it was originally recorded, with no gimmicks!

Some tough decisions have to be made when remastering 'informal' recordings like this.

Is 'tweaking' the volume an aid to listening pleasure, or a 'gimmick' ?

The volume may be low on the tape, but the guys were probably speaking normally.

So what is 'natural' and what isn't ?

There's no definitive answer !

So you hear exactly what somebody would have heard had they stood in the place where the stationary microphone was located. Why would that be unnatural?

So you hear exactly what somebody would have heard had they stood in the place where the stationary microphone was located. Why would that be unnatural?

Well, the human ear/brain can pick up a lot more [or sometimes less] than a microphone does !

It can 'concentrate' on what it wants to hear and 'filter out' extraneous noise.

A microphone doesn't do that !

I wonder how many photos exist from this session? Can someone post them here or link pointing to a website?

Just picked up this incredible cd tonight! What a job by Mr. Budd, truly brilliant. As far as the cd itself goes, smashing as the English would say. Really loved It's So Strange as well as That's When Your Heartaches Began. I also thought Elvis' story of seeing Jackie Wilson was great, as listening EP recall how Jackie performed it, reminds me of how he performed Don't Be Cruel his final show on Sullivan. I swear I heard Johnny Cash sing a bit in Peace In The Valley. BTW, was this the first time EP met Jerry Lee? Also loved Jerry Lee's singing as well. Still, to hear Elvis in his fifties voice, with his youthful exhuberance, gave me shivers, and to be honest, I was choked up at the end when he said goodbye. Sad because of what the future held in store for him, sad because he would never know the freedom again that he had even in 56. Ernst, two thumbs up on a fantastic release!

This release really is a treasure trove, and a real treat to "sit in" on history being made. Elvis sounds very relaxed, and enjoying his time back at Sun. I also love the Jackie Wilson banter--that is incredible!

One thing I haven't done yet with this is listen to it with headphones on. I have listened only in my van and at home, and it's a bit frustrating to listen in that environment.

Picked this CD up yesterday!!! Agree with all the positive comments!
Sound great!!!

I see some of you wonder about the tape they used for the Million Dollar Quartet update. The truth is that this is Elvis’s private copy, located at Graceland awhile back. One third of the tape was badly damaged but has obviously been repaired by the incomparable Kevan Budd. One third of the tape sounded amazing, and the last third sounded very good. This is Elvis’s original tape I’m talking about, used for this upgrade. I think they used Carl Perkins’s copy for the original release, but I have to check that out to be sure. You see, they all got a copy each. It is possible that more was recorded that day. If so, it’s in the possesion of Sam’s family, or whoever he might have given his tape to.

Per

It is possible that more was recorded that day.

Based on what? Mr. Budd tell you that?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think more was recorded that day, but I wasn’t there, so I can’t be sure. On the other hand, why would Sam give Elvis and the other guys incomplete copies? Logic supports that he gave them what they recorded that day, no more, no less.

Did Ernst mention something about Elvis’s tape being slightly longer than the one they had from before? Do you recall anything about that, Doc?

Per

Anything is possible. There could be a whole other reel of tape.

Why would they not release it and not tell us?

Perhaps the first reel is terrible quality. Perhaps everyone is off mic.

I am only speculating but something doesn't seem right about this.

Reports have it that this session went on for 2-3 hours.

If so, that would mean that Sam took at least an hour to turn the tape recorder on.

Is that likely?

Maybe Sam kept a reel for himself. It could be in an attic or storage somewhere that no one even knows about.

Of course this is all speculation, but anything is possible.


RKS

If you have seen pictures of Sam in SUN studio the tapes was stacked all over the studio.
It was a big mess,maybe it got rcorded over by accident.
It is still being found undiscovered music on SUN tapes that has survived.

I have to agree with the above comment that more songs on a tape might be found, although at this point in time it is highly unlikely but I guess we could have said the same things about the alternates of "Thats All Right".

The only reason that I think there might be something out there is for the comments made by that reporter, I think his name is Robert Johnson in the article for the Memphis Press Seminar who reported on this event.

I don't have my album in front of me but I seem to remember that Mr. Johnson claimed that a number of songs were preformed at that session that was never heard on these tapes, I think 'Bluebarry Hill' was one of them.

With that said Mr. Johnson who was a reporter I am assuming does not make a habbit of getting facts in a article wrong, especially if indeed he wrote it the next day!

So how can we explain this? I think this fact does leave the door open, even though it might be a couple inches, for new tapes to be found.

Just my opinoin

Burning Love