Alabama Collector Plans To Auction Rare Elvis Recording (Elvis news)

Alabama Collector Plans To Auction Rare Elvis Recording (Elvis news)

Note: 

I understand that the previous information was not quite right.

The info Tuscaloosa News is correct.

A side is take 28 of Don't Be Cruel with an intro by Elvis. B side with no label is Elvis and a sound engineer creating the intro.

So there is no "Hound Dog on the B side.

Thank you Lori for the right information that you have given me!

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Years of collecting and selling vintage clothing, records and jewelry have given Lori Watts a discerning eye that's almost second-nature.

While preparing to organize an estate sale in Tuscaloosa late last year, a client pulled a small record from his collection of jazz records. He had never played it and didn't remember how he acquired it.

On the front was written "Elvis Presley — to Shelia Smith, Sept. 26, 1956, Tupelo, Miss."

"When he first handed me the record, I got chills," she said. "I knew immediately it was something special."

It turns out that the record is Take 28 of "Don't Be Cruel," recorded by Elvis Presley in New York City on July 2, 1956.

Elvis, 21 at the time, had made his first national television appearances that year after releasing "Heartbreak Hotel." The July recording session at RCA in New York is the first time Elvis took control of a session, producing "Don't Be Cruel" with "Hound Dog" on the B side. Watts took the record to Graceland in Memphis, where it was authenticated and will be featured in the August Graceland Auctions, the third auction of rare and authentic Elvis artifacts and memorabilia.

"The presented original acetate recording of Elvis' 1956 hit 'Don't Be Cruel' is certainly as significant as artifacts of this nature come," the auction catalog reads. "It represents a key moment in Elvis' development as an artist in control of his art form."

Watts, who owns This Ol' Thing Vintage Sales and Estate Services, has collected records her entire life, a fascination that began when she listened to her grandfather's jukebox as a young girl. She held the Elvis record in her hand and knew immediately that it was valuable.

"The client told me to take it and do the best I could," she said.

She first listened to the record, which begins with Elvis saying "Shelia, I'm going to play this record for you." She then researched the date, and learned that it fell after the New York recording session and the day of the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.

"That's the date of a very important show, a turning point in his career," she said. "He had left Tupelo as a kid, and was coming back as the king of rock 'n' roll."

An RCA photographer traveled with Elvis on a 27-hour train ride from New York to Memphis after the recording session. Photos show him on a train listening to acetate records.

"It could be this record in some of those photographs," Watts said.

While the record's origin was fairly easy to trace, the identity of Sheila was not. Watts found a potential Shelia who lived in Tupelo and had posted pictures of Elvis on Facebook, but she said she would have been a young child in 1956 when contacted by the authenticator.

The record's estimated value is between $3,000 and $5,000. The auction will take place in the Graceland Archives Studio on Aug. 13. Online bidding begins July 27 at gracelandauctions.com.

More info:

www.graceland.com/auction.aspx

Source: Tuscaloosa News