My Unhappiness

[cadillac-elvis]

After talking with Ed Leek dozens of times long distance by telephone I know what he would have said about this thread.

Sounds like you had a wonderful friendship with Ed Leek. And that's really nice. Let's park that there for the moment, if we can. What do you think about the acetate's trashed condition?

My late uncle-in-law (if there is such a relative) lol, was a very prestigious pediatrician, who partnered......

Nice alliteration.

Mike I just asked the spa guy on his video thread on youtube, about this evidence of the acetate being in terrible condition, and he just laughted at me, and said it was in good condition.

[maurice_colgan]

Rock Hudson at a relatives wedding here in Dublin.

As for the Ed Leek story it is well known and accepted by the vast majority of Elvis fans. Theories, insinuation, innuendo, and guesswork I leave to others.
The acetate disc is in fair condition considering the handling it had in 1953. I have the Jack White replica.

[maurice_colgan]

Thank you, Mountain Mist. I did not speak with Rock Hudson as I was not at the wedding, I was living In the England at the time. My uncle was the concierge at the famous Shelbourne hotel here in Dublin where all the movie stars stayed. He escorted Grace Kelly into the place in the 1960s. He usually drove Rock Hudson around when he was in Dublin.

Some People do not understand every celebrity story was not newsworthy back then.
I played chess with the 'Captain of the Titanic'.

Okay he was only a student actor Bernard Hill back in 1971. 'Star of, The Black Stuff, on TV.

You are welcome, Maurice and thank you, too.

Did your uncle share any of his thoughts on Rock Hudson?

Was Grace Kelly as beautiful as she appeared on TV? What were your uncle's impressions of Grace Kelly?

Uncle Stanley said that Elizabeth Taylor was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; however, she swore like a sailor, lol (which surprised me).

Uncle Stanley (Welsh heritage) did not speak of the Hollywood parties he attended (of course).

Hi Mountain Mist. I was not involved with that particular uncle so I only have second hand accounts.
Grace Kelly was beautiful I have a newspaper picture of my uncle in hotel uniform escorting her into the Shelbourne hotel in Dublin.
Liz Taylor was lovely but I preferred Gina Lolobridgida.

I have to be brief as I have some important stuff to see to this week. Cheers.

www.irelandtoo.com

[cadillac-elvis]

Mike I just asked the spa guy on his video thread on youtube, about this evidence of the acetate being in terrible condition, and he just laughted at me, and said it was in good condition.

Ha! Well, laugh right back. I like the spa guy and his videos. He's wrong on this.

On his own video he says (pointing at the young Ed leek's home): "After Elvis listened to himself on the record player inside that house, that record stayed here, that record never left this house that day..........and Ed said that he actually kept the record in the attic of this house". If that was true, it should be in pretty good condition. In fact, the My Happiness acetate is trashed, poorly looked after, just like the second one and in fact every acetate from the 50s in Elvis` collection - they are almost unplayable (My Happiness skips and had to be moved by hand when transferred), yet we are to believe the acetate was stored away by Leek since new.

It's not a few isolated clicks and pops but a full frying pan of eggs and bacon sound effects drowning out the music, especially at the start and that's after a transfer (moved by hand) on the finest equipment:

Playback of the raw uncleaned audio transfer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgBMidVmGB0

There are several long deep scuffs on `Heartaches` - the record jumped/repeated and had to be edited to repair this damage which makes the record unplayable all the way through without intervention, even if we ignore all the LOUD pops. If it wasn't a rare one off, on condition alone, you would throw it in the trash.

So, is the condition in keeping with an acetate that Ed Leek stored in his attic for 35 years from new. Or is more in keeping with an acetate, placed on Charlie's jukebox, and as Elvis said: "It's so thin, it's so thin you can't play it."

Mike, we are in the minority here. Perhaps we can convince the other 99% of the Elvis fans.
I see you posted on FECC and are getting the same response from the know it all's.
If people look at the evidence, the Ed Leek story makes no sense.
Even with the amount of pops on this record, Elvis' performance comes thru surprising good.
What I mean is I have heard so much worse. All you have to do is listen to some of those hayride acetates and
they are so horrible.

[cadillac-elvis]

And also going thru the trouble of making the record and not playing it for anyone??

Did he play it for Dixie Locke? She was the one who said he had record player.

And as you said, he didn't have to be talked into it.

Apparently he got quite a good response while doing, "Til I waltz again with you" at the school show.
I think that response really helped him make up his mind about being an entertainer.
Elvis himself said, he became more popular after that show.

[Jukebox]

I just asked the spa guy on his video thread on youtube, about this evidence of the acetate being in terrible condition, and he just laughed at me, and said it was in good condition.

The Spa Guy appears to be a very nice man with fantastic Elvis-related videos, but he isn't always accurate with his statements in the videos.
I've brought his mistakes to his attention several times in the past, but instead of swallowing his pride and admitting his mistakes, he claimed that he does it on purpose to draw more interest and discussion to the topic of his videos.

His response tells me that he has a little touch of narcissism about him.

[elvislady]

Rock Hudson at a relatives wedding here in Dublin.

As for the Ed Leek story it is well known and accepted by the vast majority of Elvis fans. Theories, insinuation, innuendo, and guesswork I leave to others.
The acetate disc is in fair condition considering the handling it had in 1953. I have the Jack White replica.

Great pic, Maurice, Thanks for sharing.

[cadillac-elvis]

Even with the amount of pops on this record, Elvis' performance comes thru surprising good.
What I mean is I have heard so much worse. All you have to do is listen to some of those hayride acetates and
they are so horrible.

Don't forget that if you were listening to the actual acetate, this isn't what you would hear. The record sounds OK under the pops but still not great as there is some constant swishing most likely caused by heavy wear, but as the transfer was done with the best equipment the voice still sounds pretty good. Alan Stoker, who did the transfer, described the transfer issue in some detail:

"The other side of “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” had more than one problem. There were two places that had some sort of needle burn or once around gouges that were could be seen on the disc even before playing it. I pointed those out to everyone in the session and we proceeded. While playing it through the first time, in addition to the once around gouges, the needle hung up three different times and repeated the prior groove. This was overcome by riding the needle through the hang ups with my thumb. I was able to do this in the first pass, amazing everyone. It’s too bad that the video for the transfer of “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” and the overcoming of those problems will likely not be seen. You can hear the once around gouges though, but I’m probably to only one that can tell where the hang-ups were."

The Hayride stuff is quite a bit different as for many of these we don't have a high quality transfer and some even arrived on low quality cassette tape. If the Hayride acetates had been transferred direct, some of them would sound quite a bit better.

But I was speaking relatively.....some of those hayride songs sound really bad without any restoration, so even with, I don't they would sound as good as the My happiness disc. If fact they were so bad that ernst had to edit them to make a song with complete lines of the song left out. Luckily we don;t have missing parts to the Elvis' personal discs. That is all I meant by "so much worse".

[Keith]

This is how we covered this mysterious demo session in Ultimate Elvis back in in 2014

To be honest, I must say, I've never fully believed Ed's story of how he got the acetate!

Although there has always been discrepancies in the versions told by the lead participants (Marion Keisker and Sam Phillips), the most credible one is that Sam wasn't in the office when Elvis came into the Memphis Recording Service on his first visit.

In fact, it was Marion Keisker, along with two friends, who was in the control booth when Elvis came in to cut his acetate. Part way through the song, however, one of the friends mentioned she was “getting goose bumps” listening to Elvis so Marion set a tape going, catching the last third of ‘My Happiness’ and all of ‘That's When Your Heartaches Begin’. It was these recordings she played to Sam later and made a note that Elvis had a good “ballad” voice. Unfortunately, the same tape was apparently used again for another artist at a later date, so nothing from this first visit exists on tape.

However, the story behind how Elvis’ first recording found its way into Ed Leek’s possession and how it all came to light many years later is an interesting, though somewhat confused one. Briefly, at the outset in 1953, having paid approximately four dollars to record the private disc, at some point later Elvis played it to Ed Leek, one of his friends from Humes High School (who later claimed that he had persuaded Elvis to record it in the first place), and somehow or other the recording ended up in his private possession for a great many years until the late 1980s when finally he agreed a deal with RCA for them to copy it and thereafter release it commercially.

For obvious reasons, when it was announced publically, there was an intense interest in this find and considerable debate as to its authenticity.

Apparently, Sam Phillips expressed doubts about it while Marion Keisker was convinced and ultimately signed an affidavit on October 10 1988, declaring that she believed it was Elvis’ first recording.

What purports to be the full story of how the acetate was found and shared was actually printed in the US magazine Goldmine (issue 211).

The story repeats the emphatic assertion by Marion Keisker (and supported by Leek who says Elvis told him it was Marion) that it was she who made the acetate in the first place and not Sam Phillips, as he long maintained. However, there is still some time discrepancy as to when Elvis actually left it in Ed Leek’s possession. Elvis made reference to his first private recording at the studio during the Million Dollar Quartet session on December 4 1956 - basically saying it was lost – but Leek professed to be confused by that as he asserted that Elvis would know full well where it was.

Leek also went on to say that he had tried to return the disc to Elvis at a concert in Chicago, probably in 1957, presumably without success.

On the other hand, a newspaper story from a US magazine in 1956 entitled ‘On The Record’ throws another element of uncertainty into the equation. Writing about Elvis’ first private recording – and quoting both Sam and Marion - the writer says the following: “He chose a slow ballad. In the recording, Elvis’ singing style changes very eight bars. He swings from a high, thin tenor to a resounding bass, but most of the time the voice sounds merely undecided. The platter is worn and cracked today. But to his parents, it is still a most precious possession, to be played only on special occasions.” This description of Elvis’ delivery is most accurate and surely has to be the result of having heard the actual disc. The reference to its sentimental value to the family is most pertinent too.

Keith

[cadillac-elvis]

I don't think anyone doubts that Marion recorded the disc. That has never been an issue.
And I don't think anyone believes Sam was there while this was being done.
And Marion admits she was not present during the second disc being made.
Sam made that one, and that's the one he remembers making.
but Sam had an ego, and I don't think for one minute he liked getting scooped by his assistant, so he added that
he was the one that made the first discovery.
I guess that's what happens when you go to lunch while Elvis Presley comes in to make a record.
Keith any idea who came up with the song titles for the second visit, ie. Casual love affair?
Has that quote been traced?

[DarylR]

I don't think anyone doubts that Marion recorded the disc. That has never been an issue.
And I don't think anyone believes Sam was there while this was being done.
And Marion admits she was not present during the second disc being made.
Sam made that one, and that's the one he remembers making.
but Sam had an ego, and I don't think for one minute he liked getting scooped by his assistant, so he added that
he was the one that made the first discovery.
I guess that's what happens when you go to lunch while Elvis Presley comes in to make a record.
Keith any idea who came up with the song titles for the second visit, ie. Casual love affair?
Has that quote been traced?

I thought I would revive this thread because I too think there are major holes in the ownership of the "My Happiness" / "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" acetate recording from 1953. Recently, Lisa Marie Presley's memoir that was finished by her daughter, Riley Keough, From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir was published and there's a great thing that Lisa said in the aftermath of Elvis's death.

That afternoon, once they took him away -- and this is something I've been upset about my whole life -- it turned into a free-for all. Everybody went to town. Everything was swiped, wiped clean--jewelry, artifacts, personal items--before he was even pronounced dead. You can still find things from that day coming up at auction.

This can be found on pages 59-60 of the book. Many years before her book was published, a highly respected friend of mine in the Elvis world always reminded me that Elvis never became more generous than the day that he died, implying that there was a lot of material stolen out of Graceland in the aftermath of Elvis's death. When I read the above quote in Lisa Marie's book, my mind immediately flashed back to what my friend had told me years ago.

Many years ago, my highly respected friend also told me that he spoke to RCA executive Joan Deary on many occasions before her death in 1999. She even wrote the introduction to one of his books. One of the things that she claimed when he spoke to her is that in 1980 when she went to Graceland to research for several future releases including things such as the Elvis Aron Presley silver box set, the This Is Elvis soundtrack and future volumes of the A Legendary Performer series, the "My Happiness" / "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" acetate was still in Elvis's estate's possession. From my understanding, this visit occurred around the time filming was being done at Graceland for This Is Elvis in 1980. She marked the recording as something to pursue down the road for a future release. When she returned to Graceland approximately 2-3 years later (1982-1983) and was looking for material for A Legendary Performer Vol. 4, the acetate was gone. Fast forward to 1988 when Ed Leek came forward with possession of the acetate and ironically (or maybe not so ironic) is that the acetate recording debuted on the 1990 home video and soundtrack release to The Great Performances. This Is Elvis was written and directed by Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt. Solt also wrote, directed, and was an executive producer on The Great Performances. Coincidence??? Methinksnot!!! I'm not accusing Solt of being the person who stole the acetate or anything such as that but at the same time I definitely do not believe Ed Leek's story. I do think there is some correlation between the disappearance of the acetate during the filming of This Is Elvis and its sudden discovery in 1988 and subsequent release on a project fronted by Solt. Maybe someone should reach out to Andrew Solt and ask him if he knows whether the "My Happiness" acetate was still in Elvis's estate's possession in 1980 when filming was done at Graceland for This Is Elvis? I'm sure the film staff went through Elvis's personal effects for research. Did Solt ever vet Leek's story to determine whether it was true prior to release on The Great Performances?

DarylR

[N880EAP]

DarylR -
Inventory of Elvis' upstairs (bedroom, etc.) was taken shortly after his passing (at Vernon's request). And everything was locked.
If it were located upstairs, it would probably be in that list.
If kept elsewhere, then what you are saying - in general - is entirely possible.
(Those days before Graceland was officially opened to the public, prior to 1982, were an entirely different realm (e.g., Aunt Delta, etc.).)

[cadillac-elvis]

I don't think anyone doubts that Marion recorded the disc. That has never been an issue.
And I don't think anyone believes Sam was there while this was being done.
And Marion admits she was not present during the second disc being made.
Sam made that one, and that's the one he remembers making.
but Sam had an ego, and I don't think for one minute he liked getting scooped by his assistant, so he added that
he was the one that made the first discovery.
I guess that's what happens when you go to lunch while Elvis Presley comes in to make a record.
Keith any idea who came up with the song titles for the second visit, ie. Casual love affair?
Has that quote been traced?

I thought I would revive this thread because I too think there are major holes in the ownership of the "My Happiness" / "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" acetate recording from 1953. Recently, Lisa Marie Presley's memoir that was finished by her daughter, Riley Keough, From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir was published and there's a great thing that Lisa said in the aftermath of Elvis's death.

That afternoon, once they took him away -- and this is something I've been upset about my whole life -- it turned into a free-for all. Everybody went to town. Everything was swiped, wiped clean--jewelry, artifacts, personal items--before he was even pronounced dead. You can still find things from that day coming up at auction.

This can be found on pages 59-60 of the book. Many years before her book was published, a highly respected friend of mine in the Elvis world always reminded me that Elvis never became more generous than the day that he died, implying that there was a lot of material stolen out of Graceland in the aftermath of Elvis's death. When I read the above quote in Lisa Marie's book, my mind immediately flashed back to what my friend had told me years ago.

Many years ago, my highly respected friend also told me that he spoke to RCA executive Joan Deary on many occasions before her death in 1999. She even wrote the introduction to one of his books. One of the things that she claimed when he spoke to her is that in 1980 when she went to Graceland to research for several future releases including things such as the Elvis Aron Presley silver box set, the This Is Elvis soundtrack and future volumes of the A Legendary Performer series, the "My Happiness" / "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" acetate was still in Elvis's estate's possession. From my understanding, this visit occurred around the time filming was being done at Graceland for This Is Elvis in 1980. She marked the recording as something to pursue down the road for a future release. When she returned to Graceland approximately 2-3 years later (1982-1983) and was looking for material for A Legendary Performer Vol. 4, the acetate was gone. Fast forward to 1988 when Ed Leek came forward with possession of the acetate and ironically (or maybe not so ironic) is that the acetate recording debuted on the 1990 home video and soundtrack release to The Great Performances. This Is Elvis was written and directed by Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt. Solt also wrote, directed, and was an executive producer on The Great Performances. Coincidence??? Methinksnot!!! I'm not accusing Solt of being the person who stole the acetate or anything such as that but at the same time I definitely do not believe Ed Leek's story. I do think there is some correlation between the disappearance of the acetate during the filming of This Is Elvis and its sudden discovery in 1988 and subsequent release on a project fronted by Solt. Maybe someone should reach out to Andrew Solt and ask him if he knows whether the "My Happiness" acetate was still in Elvis's estate's possession in 1980 when filming was done at Graceland for This Is Elvis? I'm sure the film staff went through Elvis's personal effects for research. Did Solt ever vet Leek's story to determine whether it was true prior to release on The Great Performances?

DarylR

DarylR, when I read your response I immediately remembered this story.....

I no longer own the article interview, so I am unsure of the publication. TV guide? Elvis man and his music maybe?

The interview was with Wink Martindale. He said when Elvis came on his Dance Party show he decided to film the
appearance on 16mm movie film. He had the whole interview....16 or 18 minutes or whatever it was.

He loaned it out to Solt for inclusion in "this is Elvis" and they used a portion of it.

He asked and tried but his precious film was never returned to him.

And thank you for reviving the thread. I had never heard the story about Ms. Deary seeing the acetate then later not seeing it.
Very interesting stuff. And you make alot of sense.

I still believe one other acetate was stolen during the 50's when fans were allowed to roam his home. And by that I mean

the house on Audubon drive. And one wonders if a third acetate was made by Elvis and is still out there in somenone's collection.

[Colin B]

... I definitely do not believe Ed Leek's story...

Agreed - he seems to have told different things at times.

[kevanbudd]

Early 1956 - Elvis says they "still have the record at home, it's so thin, we just don't play it now".(Robert Carlton Brown, interview)

Robert Carlton Brown, interview -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0BJxVhohro

In late 56 Elvis says he "lost the dub on it" (Million dollar quartet).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTXLjAJvESs

So from the words of Elvis It would appear he lost possession of the acetate sometime in 1956, though it's possible that the second acetate was conflated into the story (including magazines etc).

Kevan Budd.