ELVIS PRESLEY Acetate: Unreleased 78 from Sun Studio E

$

4,828

This is a 10", single-sided acetate of "Tomorrow Night" by Elvis Presley, recorded in 1954 or 1955 by Sam Phillips at the Sun studio. A very young-sounding Elvis is accompanied only by Scotty Moore on guitar. This was one of the first songs Elvis ever learned--Lonnie Johnson had originally recorded it for King in the late 40s. Elvis's version was never released as a 78. RCA first issued it on the LP "Elvis For Everyone" in 1965, but they added a vocal group (not the Jordanaires), a jazzy electric guitar, AND a harmonica to the original master. Harmonicas were big in 1965, and RCA was probably trying to pass the track off as a current recording. A few people saw through it, though: In his book "All American Elvis," published in 1976, Ron Barry correctly surmises that "All evidence points to this being a Sun master that RCA has yet to acknowledge," and he notes that "Presley's voice sounds very young, as on the session that produced 'Blue Moon' or 'That's All Right.'" The Sun master was finally issued by RCA in its original form in the 2-LP set, "The Complete Sun Sessions." The acetate is really beautiful: it has a Memphis Recording Service label, with the 706 Union address. Elvis's name, the song title and the word "vocal" are typed on the label. The word "slow" is written in pen and the numbers "51552" are written with a blue marker, with a correction on the last number. There are no matrix numbers etched onto the acetate. On the back, in grease pencil, are three notations: "A NON-RELEASE', 'DO NOT PLAY' (with the word 'NOT' heavily underlined), and 'SAVE THIS.' The notations are quite possibly Sam's, but I can't say for sure. The only sample I've seen of Sam's handwriting wasn't conclusive one way or the other: on the acetate, the "S" in the word "SAVE" was very similar to a capitol "S" in the sample, as was the connection between the "T" and "H", but the sample was in script and the writing on the disc is printed, so it was hard to tell with any degree of certainty. Logically, however, one might ask who else at Sun would have the authority to write such an injunction on an acetate. I have of course disobeyed the injunction and played the record. The surface is as smooth and shiny and satiny as it can be, there are no scratches or scuffs, there is hardly any surface noise at all, and the sound is absolutely amazing--just Elvis and Scotty reaching for perfection--a Sun treasure, a sleeping beauty that had to wait over 30 years before it was released in its original form. Graded E both visually and aurally.