Elvis Recorded "Tiger Man" At Sun --> Mystery Solved ?

[drjohncarpenter]

Johnny Bragg's recollections.
The funny thing is that the back side label of the 1953 " My Hapiness" acetate was "Softly and Tenderly" by The Prisonaires.

Also I do think Elvis might have made some public, unprofessional appearances between the 1953 Humes High talent shows and the June 1954 Sun Records audition.

More clarification is needed here.

- Marion Keisker often used whatever labels were around when preparing personal recordings. In Elvis' case, visiting in mid-July 1953, she must've grabbed one from a spare stack of Sun 189 labels. The disc was due out within a few weeks.

530800_Sun 189.jpg

- Elvis definitely did at least one public appearance between April 1953 and June 1954, and this key performance in May 1954 was noted on this topic.


- You don't cite a source for that Johnny Bragg story, but I'm pretty sure it comes from 1991's Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth of Rock 'N' Roll by Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins. Very important to include such information when posting quotes from it. Now, I've had this book since it was first published, but as I wrote, Johnny's story doesn't hold up very well to scrutiny.

[drjohncarpenter]

The book is from 2012 and could be easily upgraded with new information and pictures that have surfaced from the time of its release.

It is not complete overview of the early days (and never will be), because there always will be some new stuff turning up.

As for the 3rd private acetate the only document and proof we have is the receipt. Also logic and common sense may indicate that there was/is the 3rd private demo recording.

As for "Tiger Man" at Sun we have no evidence, paperwork, anything. But think of "Shake, Rattle and Roll". Elvis performed this song often during the Sun days (we even have live recording) and we even have two 1955 radio station acetates of it (KDAV and WJOI). However we have exactly no proof, documentation etc of the song being tried-out or recorded at Sun Studios. But the logic and common sense says given the fact that we have 1955 live or radio performances of it, Elvis probably must have at least tried this song at Sun.

Also take the "How Do You Think I Feel?" session tape. If we didn't have the recording of Elvis trying this song out at Sun, we wouldn't even probably consider it was tried out, no known live performances of the song in 1954-1955.

Also "My Baby's Gone" WHBQ acetate. No information before that of Elvis recording this slow version at Sun. And we wouldn't even imagine and consider Sam Phillips pressed the actual acetate and sent it to DJ Dewey Phillips and gave it a chance on the radio.

Sadly, we will never hear the entire September 1954 "Good Rockin' Tonight" session as it was recorded over with the Prisonaires recording session.

I would love if Elvis had covered 1955 Billy "The Kid" Emerson's "Red Hot". Good song and rhytm.

Many mysteries and many possibilities...

Agree with some of your points here, and they have been made in previous pages of this topic. Common sense and logic are indeed necessary when looking back on this era.

More clarification:

- There is no way FTD's A Boy From Tupelo "could be easily upgraded." Such an upgrade, of a 12x12, hardcover, 500+ page book narrowly focused on the 24 month pre-fame period of Elvis Presley, would never find a publisher willing to commit the resources to get it done. A profit would be nearly impossible. And nothing in terms of newly-found information or photos in the last eight years has been significant enough to even explore such an idea.

- The extant recording of "How Do You Think I Feel?" is not a session tape, but a reel run by Sam Phillips to create the "slapback" echo sound on Scotty Moore's guitar. This is why Elvis sounds so off-mic and Scotty's playing is so up-front in the mix. It's just a fluke that it was uncovered in the 1980s.

- We don't know the exact purpose of the acetate discovered in 1970 which contained the stunning recording of "I'm Left, You're Right, My Baby's Gone." It could have been for radio, but there is nothing definitive in this regard. So writing otherwise only muddies the history.

[Greg1995]

As far as I know the "My Baby's Gone" acetate had WHBQ stamp put on it, so it was indeed intended for radio airplay.

You say the May 15, 1954 audition for Eddie Bond's group at the Hi-Hat Club in Memphis is the only confirmed case when Elvis had appeared on stage between 1953 Humes High talent shows and the June 26, 1954 audition for Sam Phillips?

[drjohncarpenter]

Blue Moon Of Kentucky too, according to Keith Flynn:

"The released slow outtake of 'Blue Moon of Kentucky' as released by RCA on releases before 2010 comes from a copy of the 1983 pressing of Good Rockin' Tonight LP (Bopcat 100) and not from the initially turned over Sun Box #14. The master was never turned over. RCA had to use a tape transfer of the SUN 78 RPM single, until the master Sun tape was rediscovered."

I would be interested to know where the master tape was rediscovered... at SUN or RCA.

Some clarification:

The slow version appeared on Bopcat 100 in 1974, and again on the reissue, renumbered Bopcat 101, which came out circa 1983. The reissue eliminated all the non-Elvis tracks and added more Presley Sun-era recordings. On tracks like "Blue Moon of Kentucky," the music was now audibly coming from a tape source, much better quality.



The basic information was first published online in 2002, on the Master & Session site:

The released slow outtake of Blue Moon of Kentucky as released by RCA comes from a copy of the Good Rockin' Tonight LP (Bopcat 100) and not from the initially turned over Sun Box #14. The master was never turned over. RCA had to use a tape transfer of the SUN 78 RPM single.

Elvis Recordings.com.png

http://www.elvisrecordings.com/s540705.htm

As for where RCA got the tape copy of this outtake, it's unclear but likely private hands. Definitely not from Sun Records.

[drjohncarpenter]

As far as I know the "My Baby's Gone" acetate had WHBQ stamp put on it, so it was indeed intended for radio airplay.

You say the May 15, 1954 audition for Eddie Bond's group at the Hi-Hat Club in Memphis is the only confirmed case when Elvis had appeared on stage between 1953 Humes High talent shows and the June 26, 1954 audition for Sam Phillips?

My baby's gone - acetate.jpg

The Eddie Bond audition was remembered by girlfriend Dixie Locke, who went with her boyfriend, but waited outside because she was underage. It's in A Boy From Tupelo (FTD). Elvis no doubt sang and played his guitar in casual situations up to June 26, 1954, but nothing else professional is known, save his unsuccessful audition for the junior gospel group, the Songfellows, around the same time.


I don't recall that label image, but its authenticity is questionable.

Why would half a Sun label appear on it? We know what the genuine radio station acetate label for "That's All Right" looks like, thanks to super-collector John Heath, and it's posted just a few page back. It is much more basic. No WHBQ stamp. And why would Sam or Marion misspell Elvis' name at this point, mid-December? They got it right on the July disc, after all.

But the clincher is that we have the story of where and how it was uncovered, by the guy who found it, Cees Klop. He wrote an essay in 2012's Bootleg Elvis about it called "The Story Behind The First Bootleg Record."

Along with friend Robert Loers, he recounts how they visited the Select-O-Hits shop in Memphis, on 609 Chelsea Avenue. The book has several photos of them there, it's a huge mess of a shop, more like someone's backyard shed.

Select-O-Hits was run by Tom Phillips, the brother of Sam, and Cees and Robert first visited the place in 1967. It contained all kinds of tape reels, submitted demo tapes, 45s, and 78s from Sun Records after they closed up shop in the mid-sixties.

On their third trip in 1970, Klop was digging around in the back storage room and found the acetate of "I'm Left, You're Right, My Baby's Gone." Klop used this acetate for the bootlegs that appeared in 1970, and later donated it to a Memphis museum, where he says it was later stolen.

Cees makes no mention of a label like the above, but does recalls Tom saying "That's Elvis" when he brought the acetate up to the front to purchase it. The likely assumption is the disc bore a simple label like the acetate for "That's All Right." At the very least, we don't have enough information to state "it was indeed intended for radio airplay" at WHBQ.

Loers also contributes his essay, and makes an interesting observation about the Sun tape reels he found at Select-O-Hits:

That room was filled with hundreds of tapes with demo recordings and complete recordings ... Some of the tapes I got were incomplete as Sam was keen on cutting expenses on tapes. This meant that when he was not satisfied with a take, he ran the tape back and started recording all over again. One could become dizzy by just imagining the musical history he erased.

It may be noted someone previously on this topic wrote that such a thing was impossible, but as is clear, they were dead wrong.

[drjohncarpenter]

This being the case, one wonders how many other tapes are in private hands and containing what... there are always possibilities.

I would suggest that is what super-collector Sean O'Neal implied in that 2020 Facebook conversation with Greg1995:

Do you believe Elvis recorded 3rd private acetate?

No

Thanks for the answer, much appreciated!

I do believe there are other recordings. Just not personal.

[PiersEIN]

!	Message from: Moderator3
	I wasn't joking: https://www.elvis-collectors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1835939#p1835939

[drjohncarpenter]

fascinating.
helluva lot of time went into this.
thanks to you all.
be awesome if something ever surfaced from those sun sessions.

Thanks.

I indeed put a LOT of time into the original post, and in answering the many, many followup questions from forum members.

Sometimes I've had to answer certain questions a second, third or fourth time, sometimes from the same person!

But it's been worth it.

Maybe someday we'll all know as much as Elvis did back in the summer of 1970.

[tumblindice]

I indeed put a LOT of time into the original post, and in answering the many, many followup questions from forum members.

[drjohncarpenter]

All good questions. Do you have a Facebook account? Maybe you could ask him there on our behalf?

Done. I'll report back if he responds.

Meant to get back to this a long time ago, did Sean O'Neill ever reply to you on Facebook about his Sun acetate statements?