“ Please Release Me” is what this
LP did!…and I am sure Elvis fans were grateful!
According to Cotten and DeWitt’s “Jailhouse Rock ” this is most
likely the first Elvis bootleg LP ever produced as it was released in 1970.
Supposedly the initial pressing was 1000 copies and it was subsequently
counterfeited in 1979, but I’ll get to the differences later on.
The cover is a simple pen and ink
sketch of Elvis. The back simply
has the track listing and rambling liner notes credited to Barry Silver…whomever
he is/was. This LP contains tracks
that had not been released to the public in any form at that time.
Side 1 starts off with cuts 1 and 2
“ Fame and Fortune ” and “ Stuck on You ” from Frank Sinatra’s “
Welcome Home Elvis Party ” which was taped March 26, 1960 and aired on ABC May
8, 1960. Cuts 3 and 4 are “ Teddy Bear ” and “ Got A Lot of Livin’ To Do
” from the “ Loving You ” film soundtrack.
Tracks 5 and 6 are “ Treat Me Nice ” and “Jailhouse Rock ” from
the “ Jailhouse Rock ” film soundtrack.
Track 7 is “ Cane and a High Starched Collar ” from the “ Flaming
Star ” soundtrack.
Side 2 continues with “The Lady
Loves Me ” duet with Ann Margaret and “ C’mon Everybody ” both from the
soundtrack for “Viva Las Vegas. ” “
Dominique ” is from the “ Stay Away Joe ” film soundtrack.
“ Baby What You Want Me To Do ” comes from the June 27, 1968 6 pm
show. As pointed out in
“Jailhouse Rock ”, all the versions on this side were unavailable on
officially released movie/TV soundtrack. The
last track is a five-minute radio tribute narrated by Red Robinson, first aired
in Vancouver, B.C. in 1966, which contains parts of Red’s interview when Elvis
played Vancouver in 1957.
Most all of this material has been
re-released on bootlegs and even official releases since this LP, however this
was the original release for all these tracks.
Many of these tracks turned up on subsequent boot LP titles such as “ I
Wanna Be A Rock and Roll Star ” and “ The Best Years ”. The film soundtrack songs sound like they were taken from
very clean film prints so the sound quality is very good.
This LP was counterfeited in 1979
most likely due to demand. The
differences are noticeable. The
original supposedly came from Holland, and as prior experience has shown, this
LP cover is printed on think stock as many European releases were.
The counterfeit, which apparently originated in the USA, is printed on
thick stock. The record labels are
similar, and though I don’t have a counterfeit to compare directly to, the
original has a yellow label with black text and credits “Aaron P.” under
which is typed “ Memphis, Tennessee ”.
The matrix numbers in the run-off-wax are type set on the original, the
matrix numbers on the counterfeit are hand-written.
The “Jailhouse Rock ” book states that the sound quality of the
original is slightly better than the counterfeit, which of course makes sense.
Ernie Boyes Jr.