On the FECC forum there was a discussion on Ernst Jørgensen's SUN project. Luckily for us Ernst Jørgensen has a little time off and posted several reply's which give some insight in what to expect. We used only his postings, for the complete dialogue, go to the For Elvis CD Collector's forum.

Dear All

One of the best things about Christmas is the fact that the nice people at Sony/BMG leave me alone for a few week weeks, and I have time to indulge in favourite subjects like this. There has actually been several in the past few weeks that I wanted to be part of, but I ran out of time.

Both The Doc and Piers have bee following the develepmont of the SUN project over the last few years and it seems that Doc has arrived at a bunch of questions, and Piers have the answers. Since neither the book nor the CD have been finalized I think it's great to have the opinions of the board on some of these issues, but certainly also to be able to explain what I think it can and should be. There is no doubt that our dreams - yours and mine - are much grander than this project can ever be, and I will appreciate being given the chance to communicate reasonable expectations instead of the inflated nonsense that acommpany several other releases in the biz.

There are many reasons why the book has been delayed, but none more important than the fact that my daytime job takes almost all my time (not a complaint). Another reason has been the release of 4 related publications: Rockin' Across Texas, Joey Kent's Hayride book and the two MRS releases. A little much on this one subject for such a short period of time. The last reason for the delay was the hope that if we researched a bit more we might come up with more information and photo material. WE got lucky and there are still a few more leads to pursue.

However the book is coming out at the end of 2008, and it will find it's final form over the next 3-4 months. So any and all suggestions are welcome and I will be happy to give you my comments through this board.

More later tonight

...

I understand the wish for surprises - and I would love to make them happen but the reality of my situation is that I know of no surprises that are available to me.

1) The SUN tapes have been researched endlessly by many people including Kevan and myself. We have had full co-operation from Shelby and John Singleton at SUN, The family of Sam Phillips, EPE and obviously Sony/BMG. You will get every little silly bit we have, but really only a few bits on HARBOR LIGHTS and WHEN IT RAINS are previously unreleased. I don't even have a rumor to pursue anymore.

2) AS for live recordings I can obviously not know whether somebody, somewhere has something we don't know about. The owners of the 6 track "LITLLE MAMA" acetate have NO plans for it's release and money is not a factor. The acetate of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" is a matter of money, but I have no way of paying the several hundred thousand dollar price for a recording that is not a lot different to other early "Shake" versions.

3) There will be 3 CD-es with the book, and they will be worth having because of Kevan's excellent work, but they are the bonus - the book is the main issue.

Doc Carpenter's tracklisting could very well be extremely close to the final - with or without the 4 acetate sides.

Tracklisting as posted by "Doc Carpenter":
The CDs should play out in chronological fashion, with live material on CD3:

CD1 / STUDIO
Harbor Lights [all takes]
I Love You Because [all takes]
That's All Right [all takes, including DRY master]
Blue Moon Of Kentucky [both takes]
Blue Moon [all takes]
Tomorrow Night
I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin') [both takes]
Just Because
Good Rockin' Tonight [all takes]
I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine [all takes]

CD2 / STUDIO
Milkcow Blues Boogie
You're A Heartbreaker
How Do You Think I Feel? [guitar slapback tape, Elvis off-mic]
I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone [all takes]
Baby, Let's Play House
I Forgot To Remember To Forget
Mystery Train
Trying To Get To You
When It Rains It Really Pours [all takes]

CD3 / LOUISIANA HAYRIDE
16 Oct'54:
That's All Right
Blue Moon Of Kentucky

06 Jan'55, radio appearance in Lubbock TX
Fool, Fool, Fool
Shake, Rattle and Roll

15 Jan'55
Hearts Of Stone
That's All Right
Tweedlee Dee

22 Jan'55
Money Honey
Blue Moon Of Kentucky
I Don’t Care If The Sun Don't Shine
That's All Right [includes steel guitar]

19 Mar'55, remote from Houston TX
Good Rockin' Tonight
Baby, Let's Play House
Blue Moon Of Kentucky
I Got A Woman
That's All Right

30 Apr'55, remote from Gladewater TX
Tweedlee Dee

25 May'55, radio appearance in Meridian MS
That's All Right

16 Jul'55
I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone

20 Aug'55
Baby, Let's Play House
Maybelline
That's All Right

... and anything else Ernst can find!

---

I'm trying to stay with one issue per reply, so if I stay with the audio for a little while, the additional elements the book will offer are the Steve Sholes notes on the actual boxes RCA received. These will all be included, but they are not a complete picture of Elvis' recording activities at SUN.

These notes have no mention of any tapes containing MILKCOW and HEARTBREAKER. Additionally some of the notes will open up for new discussions of what it is they really represent. It's all good fun, but as most elements of the project, it's NOT complete.
Sorry.

As for ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK. We all know that Elvis sang it, but I have not talked to any people I trust that can tell they heard. I heard the "pile of noise" that some people claims is Elvis singing the song. I can't tell you it's not true, but since you cannot hear what it is anyway, what does it matter?

...

I appreciate the great dialogue here - it is quite helpful. However it's also a bit ironic that I keep saying this is a book, and everybody starts going on about the music (not that I don't understand)
The other somewhat ironic element is that the good suggestions about book content, mirrors my headache of finishing the book. There is always some great interview I would still like to do, some collector I still want to persuade, or some showdate that still won't appear.

Historically, the back ground for the book is Ger Rijffs "Long Lonely Highway" and Lee Cotton's "Did Elvis Play In Your Home Town?".

Obviously Peter Guralncik and I took the "day-by-day" logic a bit further with our joint book. In most cases what has been done before help establish what needs to be done now. "ROCKIN ACROSS TEXAS" is a good reminder that more detail and more photos can be found if you put your mind to it, and you are willing to work hard. Stanley worked very hard for very long.

All of the virtues of the mentioned publications I will try to expand, but both Joey Kent's latest Hayride book, and the two MRS publications, remind me of something else: The problem of the endless repetition of erromous information that comes about when the material is simply rehashed without any critical review.
I obviously need not look no further than my own work to find the same problem .after all I did about 5 books on Elvis' recording career, and it's still not complete or 100% correct. I can also find countless pictures that have been captioned wrong by me over the years, but my aim with this book is to try and improve our common knowledge on the Sun period. Eventually I will be able to correct several misunderstandings, and without dount, I will also add new mistakes - not willingly. Somebody else will be able to point these mistakes out - starting the day after the release of the book.

At first I thought the book needed to included every known photo of Elvis from the period, but thankfully that's not possible anymore - I have too many. However, I do want to try and find EVERY show date, and I'm still about 10 short. There is no point in rewriting Guralnicks LAST TRAIN or Hopkins biography, but I will need to use some of their findings and viewpoints to create a text element that puts all the bits and pieces together. Where both Hopkins and Guralnick in their narrative were able to paint a full portrait of the young Elvis Presley, I do not have such talent. My mission is to create a source book of facts, photos, music, memorabilia, memories of those who were there, and try and link it together for those are bot already familiar with the basic story. Exactly how to do this is what's going to to be sorted in the next few months and I will enjoy reading your suggestions.

Just in case you were under the illusion that I have collected all this material myself, I will mention that without Hopkins, Guralnick, Lee Cotton, Rijff, Sean O'Neal, Kevan Budd, Sebastian Jeansson, Sherif Hanna, Bill Burk, Andylon Lensen, Trevor The Man and my two exceptional detectives Luca Fabris and Brian Petersen this would have been a much poorer project, and my life would have been nowhere as much fun as it has. Additionally dozens of people have made their photos exclusively available for this project - (I hope that this respected!!)

5 hours to the New Year. May 2008 be your greatest yet!

Ernst


You can read the complete discussion on the FECC Forum in the "For Ernst Jørgensen -> SUN Book Ideas!" tread in the All Elvis section.

Read EIN"s interview with Ernst Jorgensen about his Sun project

(News, Source: Elvis News/ For Elvis CD Collectors Forum /EIN)