FTD has announced the tracklist of the new 'Live A Little, Love A Little' Classic Album and it proves that a "BRAND NEW" previously unknown 1968 Elvis session reel has been found! This is the sort of news that all Elvis fans hope for. It is surprising that so little has been made of this discovery.
While the session only included four songs for the movie soundtrack, it did feature the wonderful 'A Little Less Conversation' and 'Edge Of Reality'. At last fans will get to hear TEN new session takes of 'A Little Less Conversation', FIVE new takes of 'Edge Of Reality' plus five new versions of 'Wonderful World' and five attempts at 'Almost In Love' - including a rehearsal.
It is worth noting that session song #2005 was previously "unknown" but is now revealed as the first attempt at 'Almost In Love' which Elvis in the end would finish as an overdub. This is one of the most exciting Elvis releases in a long while...
Tracklist
Wonderful World
Edge Of Reality
A Little Less Conversation
Almost In Love
Wonderful World - take 1
A Little Less Conversation - takes 1, 2
Edge Of Reality - takes 1, 2
Almost In Love (2005) - takes 1, 4-6
Wonderful World - takes 2, 3
Edge Of Reality - take 3
A Little Less Conversation - takes 4-9
A Little Less Conversation - take 10 (album master)
Almost In Love - high key version instrumental track, rehearsal
Wonderful World - take 7 (movie master)
Edge Of Reality - takes 5, 6
Almost In Love high key version - 2007 take and vocal overdub 2011 take 4
Wonderful World - takes 14, 15
A Little Less Conversation - takes 11, 12, 16 (single master)
Edge Of Reality - take 8 (master)
Almost In Love - track 2006 take 4 and vocal overdubs 2012 takes 2, 3 (master)
Wonderful World - takes 16, 17 (master)
This will be a good one ! I love it when tapes of unreleased material are found.
A great release to round out the year - sure to be my favourite FTD of 2015. I've always been a huge fan of ALLC (the first Elvis 45 I bought back in '68). Nice cover too.
Now this is what I call essential, exciting news in the Elvis world... unlike another run-of-the-mill 1976 soundboard. I find it strange that Ernst Jorgensen hasn't already announced where these outtakes were discovered. LALLAL was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie, so maybe there's hope for the soundtrack outtakes for "Speedway" (MGM) and "The Trouble With Girls" (MGM) to be found... or maybe they already have been. An update from Ernst or Roger would be appropriately fitting.
This new set is mastered by Vic Anesini and Sebastian Jeansson!!
Apparently, Ernst has said that no other MGM stuff has been found - just these.
But Ernst hasn't said anything about these newly discovered recordings either. And I'm not even sure that the MGM connection has anything to do with it. I'm only speculating, because speculating is all we can do at this time. Maybe these "new" tapes were found somewhere at MGM... maybe not. Maybe they were found somewhere in the RCA vaults... maybe not. Maybe the tapes were in private hands all these years... maybe not. Perhaps someone in-the-know will reveal the answer in the near future.
Personally, I think that Ernst has had these session tapes all along. We've had a couple of outtakes released way back in 1999 on Out In Hollywood (Wonderful World and Edge Of Reality) then another appeared on the Today, Tomorrow & Forever set (yet another take of Wonderful World). So I reckon he's just been hanging on to them for this release. I don't mind though, it'll be great to get this one. Thanks Ernst.
I have a bootleg CD titled "Edge of Reality", since 1995 (actually released in 1993) which contains quite a few of the outtakes above. So I guess these tapes have been available, officially or unofficially, for quite some time.
I gather from the last two reactions that (most of) the outtakes were already around, so I wonder what is true about the 'newly' and 'recent' found tapes. Maybe they finally laid hands on the original tapes again. So new for them.
Anyway, the old cds I don't have. Hence this is definitely a release worthwhile!
By the way, I love it when the old covers are used! I guess it's a sentimental journey on that point :)
On a side note - This new item now holds the distinction of having the fewest song titles (4) of any FTD so far.
The known outtakes from this soundtrack were on a tape that contained all the masters and a few takes that were considered as alternate masters. We also had that with King Creole where only the masters and alternate masters were kept. These masters and alternate masters were cut from the session tapes and re-assembled on another reel. So, the masters and alt. masters survived while the session-tapes were lost. That's why we had (always the same few) outtakes from LALLAL before. It's the false starts and bad takes tape that was now re-discovered.
Thanks for the info, Yoshi... that does make sense. Now, as for where the lost session tapes were found, perhaps Ernst will share that with everyone in the accompanying booklet. That would be a bonus of sorts.
Officially unreleased . . .
Edge Of Reality (takes 1, 2, 3, 5)... A Little Less Conversation (takes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12)...
Wonderful World (takes 1, 2, 3, 14, 16)... Almost In Love (takes 1, 4, 5, 6)...
Almost In Love (instrumental rehearsal)... Almost In Love (vocal overdub, take 4)
Yes, thanks Yoshi for putting me straight. I happily stand corrected.
How fitting that "Wonderful World" was the first song that Elvis recorded after the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. It truly was a wonderful world for Elvis during this time of his life, both personally and professionally (with the NBC-TV Special right around the corner).
Hi. Despite the nice overview, still some takes are missing. In this case, tapes 'newly' found, I would have collected all complete takes on disc 1 (for listening pleasure), and the ALL incomplete takes, false starts, talking, etc. put on disc 2, to give no room for any bootleggers anymore. Another missed opportunity again.
Hi schemies. Indeed there are take numbers missing, but that doesn't mean Ernst Jorgensen has access to them. Perhaps another tape is still missing... or... the take numbers that aren't included on this FTD don't amount to anything more than quick false starts. As it stands, there isn't enough material to warrant 2 CDs.
From another Elvis website - -
" Ernst Jorgensen has managed to find the session tapes for this movie, and so we believe we have a very attractive release here. The search also revealed that the vocal for 'A Little Less Conversation' used for the (Elvis vs. JXL) re-mix single, was not recorded for the TV special – it's actually take 2 of the song with the ending repaired. Unfortunately, these tapes were the only ones we found from the MGM movies. At this time we have exhausted our options to find these tapes – they would be in private hands if they survived. "
Looking into my crystal ball I see an FTD Triple Feature set... The Trouble With Girls/Charro!/Change Of Habit
