colonel snow wrote:AFM papers / contracts could be interesting when it’s limited in the book. It confirms the presence of the musicians at a recording session.
Are William Morris Agency contracts with the musicians included when on tour in the 70’s?
In my opinion it’s not necessary to include all contracts from every tour / engagement in the 70's.
No divorce papers etc because it has nothing to do with recording sessions.
colonel snow
Joe and I never really pursued the William Morris Agency contracts from the tours and engagements from the 1970s. Part of the reason is that on the recordings, Elvis introduced his rhythm section and backup vocal groups by name. Another reason is that from my understanding, these agreements were made out for each member of the rhythm section and the various backup vocal groups for each tour and engagement. We did locate copies of some William Morris Agency contracts, such as the first Milton Berle television appearance, the April / May 1956 Las Vegas engagement, the 1969 Las Vegas engagement and I think a few others.
That said, we do have the AFM contracts / paperwork for most instances in which Elvis was professionally recorded live from 1970-1977. These would include things such as TTWII - August 1970, February 1972 - Las Vegas, April 1972 tour, Madison Square Garden, Aloha (along with the AFM contract for the re-airing of the Aloha television special in 1977), Live On Stage In Memphis. We didn't really find much for Elvis In Concert, so we will have to rely on the information listed on the RCA recording pages. We never did find the orchestra reports for the August 1969 Las Vegas recordings. We were told that the reason the local AFM (local 369, I believe) didn't have them is because at the time Elvis did those shows in August 1969, the local 369 did not belong to AFM pension fund. This was voted on by their members in November 1969, approved and went into effect in January 1970. Local 369 was then required to maintain these records for perpetuity. We did find many of the weekly orchestra reports for the Las Vegas engagements from 1970-1976, though there are a few that we never did find. These would include the January and August 1971 Las Vegas engagements (though we did find documentation for the rhythm section for the January / February 1971 engagement) and the January and August 1974 engagements. Again we did find documentation pertaining to the rhythm sections in both of these instances as well. What is interesting about these documents is that they show the different acts that played in both the main showroom and the lounge and the musicians they used during their act. For example, after Elvis' January / February 1971 engagement, Ann-Margret was booked at the International Hotel and on the document listing Elvis' musicians that he used during his engagement are the musicians that she used during her engagement. One of the people listed is comedian Steve Martin. I believe there's a video somewhere where he talks about meeting Elvis.
For the Lake Tahoe engagements (1971, 1973, 1974, 1976), we did locate what are supposed to be the orchestra reports but they only list the members of the rhythm section, Joe Guercio, and the name of the orchestra that Elvis used (Al Tronti).
I don't necessarily agree with colonel snow about not including some of the documents pertaining to the divorce proceedings and the property settlement. There's some interesting things that we came across in those documents, such as Elvis stating that he was a registered voter in the state of Tennessee in 1973. I tried looking into finding out which party he was registered as, but in the state of Tennessee, you don't have to declare a party to vote in primary elections. Some states require you register for a party to be able to. If you are registered as an independent, you cannot vote in the primary election, though you can still vote in the general election. The other things that are interesting are some of the letters from the property settlement. One of the coolest things I ever found in researching this book is a letter dated from my birthday (March 18, 1977) in which Priscilla's lawyer writes to one of Elvis' lawyers asking about the payment of around $500,000 that was due to be paid to her in December 1976 from the property settlement of the house in California. Priscilla's lawyer was also asking for her copies of the stock certificate ownership in Elvis' music publishing company, Elvis Music. This agreement for the payment was made in December 1974. We have a letter from that date as well as letters from December 1976 and April 1977 over the payment, or lack thereof.
I think these kind of things are pretty cool and also show the frame of mind that Elvis was in just prior to the July 1973 Stax recording sessions and the January 1977 Creative Workshop cancelled sessions. You also get to read some things that are in Elvis' own words.
Daryl R