This session took place in the first week of November
1955 (week commencing Monday October 31).
Johnny Bernero remembers Sam calling
Elvis into the control room in the middle of the
session with Elvis emerging to announce that his
contract had just been sold to RCA, and the session
was over. The formal ceremony took place on November
21, but the deal was in place by November 15.
In the past it has been difficult
to identify the takes recorded in spite of the fact
that both the original tape notes and Sholes' detailed
session notes are available. In Ernst Jørgensen's A Life in Music the master is listed as take 9,
but a confusing note says "Take 10 is not an
official master, but probably the best take."
Now with the release by Follow That
Dream of the ultimate Sun collection - A Boy From
Tupelo, we get the complete session (apart from
a very small edit taking out a comment some may
consider offensive) for the first time from the
vocal slapback" tape they have.
The Memphis Recording Service release The Complete Works 1953-1955 also does not contain the offensive comment, so it is apparent that the session on that release is simply lifted from FTD's A Boy From Tupelo.
Regarding Take 1, "(In)Complete" in this context
means that the take is incomplete because the tape
only started running part way through the take,
but runs through the rest of the take and the ending
is complete.
It is also now clear that what we
got on Elvis - A Legendary Performer Volume 4 (and other
releases afterwards) is actually parts from Take
3, Take 7, Take 6 and then Take 5 in that order.
In March of 2007, Sony decided to go through all of Elvis' masters. They retransferred everything and remastered all tracks including repairing as many clicks, pops, bad edits and dropouts as they could. They have used these newly mastered recordings on their new releases since 2007 including budget soundtracks, Legacy releases, the 30 disc Complete Elvis Presley Masters collection and the Franklin Mint package. These 2007 remasters were not used
on FTD's A Boy From Tupelo, the masters were all
remastered again from scratch on that set.
Elvis At Sun - Restoration (Courtesy
of 'Master & Session')
We've had it for years without being
able to tell! Exceptionally poor compression has
hidden the fact that 'When It Rains, It Pours'
actually is from the dry reverb tape source. On
this recording only Elvis' vocals and acoustic guitar
were miked and sent to the mounted tape machine
to produce the typical Sun echo on the other tape.
The electric guitar didn't have to take this path
in late 1955 and the echo of Scotty's Echosonic,
purchased on May 24, 1955 (http://www.scottymoore.net/),
can be heard leaking into the dry reverb channel,
as can Johnny Bernero's drums and Bill Black's bass.
They certainly were miked through and recorded directly
on the primary console machine, mixed with the delayed
signal of what we have here. It is a revelation
to hear it as it is. Since it is the last recording
its inclusion does not distract the overall impression
at all. The unfinished dry reverb tape recording
of 'When It Rains, It (Really) Pours' can be
considered a bonus track more than anything else. |