The Complete Ernst Jorgensen Interview

First off All, I would like To Make a Note on this one.

This Interview is not my own, It comes from a great Elvis Site called;

World Wide Elvis (http://www.worldwideelvis.com)

I Put It on my site because it is a great interview, and I love it.

I'm not making any profits with this interview, it's just for the fans.

Here is the Interview !!

MAY / JUNE 2000 - PART 1


Well, it's been two years since Ernst Jorgensen sat down with WORLDWIDE ELVIS for an interview. No doubt, everyone who's reading this knows who Ernst Jorgensen is but, just in case you don't - since the late 1980's, he has been the man responsible for producing all of the BMG releases on Elvis. He has heard everything that BMG has in their possession on Elvis and probably knows more about Elvis in the studio that anyone alive today. I first began corresponding with Ernst twenty some years ago when he had just released his first RECORDING SESSIONS booklet. Since then, many versions of this book have been printed but none can compare to his current book ELVIS PRESLEY - A LIFE IN MUSIC - THE COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS which was issued a few years ago and is the ultimate book on this subject. He also is the co author with Peter Guralnick of ELVIS-DAY BY DAY, a super book detailing most of what Elvis did throughout his life.
The interview below was taped via the phone on two days - May 29, 2000 and on June 1, 2000 from Ernst's home in Denmark.
It's impossible to list ALL of the people who e mailed me questions and it was imposible to ask Ernst ALL of the questions that were supplied (over 4,000!!!!! Yes, you read that correct! 4,000 questions were submitted) so of course I had to eliminate a lot of them. I had intended, like I did with the first lengthy interview Ernst did with WORLDWIDEELVIS.COM two years ago, to go over the interview and arrange the questions in order of years (50's, 60's, etc.) but decided that that would take more time and, as it is , it has taken weeks to get this up on my site.
If anyone wants to reprint the entire interview or onlya portion on their web site or in a magazine, book, etc. please feel free to do so. All I ask is that you give me (Paul Dowling and WORLDWIDE ELVIS) credit and mention my web site address! Thanks.
I must first and foremost thank the beautiful, lovely, sexy Kathi Faulkner for taking 14 hours of her time to transcribe these two interviews. I know this was a lot of work for her and I appreciate what she has done very, very much!! It took me weeks to do this two years ago so Kathi's help has been invaluable!! I'd still be working on the first ten minutes if I had to do this by myself!! Please excuse any spelling mistakes or whatever! These are my fault as, when I transferred the interview over to the website I had to make some corrections and I'm sure I missed things!! Enjoy!!

WWE: Hi Ernst. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this. I guess we'll start off with the FTD (FOLLOW THAT DREAM collectors label) release. We know what the next one is, but any idea what the ones after that will be?
ERNST: There are a number of things we'd like to do. We're still trying to sort out the practical problem with the musician's union so we would be able to release soundboards. At one time we announced that Lake Tahoe might be the next one. I'm not sure it will, but if we can, the next one, the October first release will be a soundboard. But it's only if we can sort out the things. We hope to have it sorted out for this release so the new one LONG LONELY HIGHWAY which is number five, well it was actually intended to be number six, but because we couldn't sort out the logistics with the union we had to postpone it. So I don't think we have any a firm planning for all releases coming down the line. We are learning as we go along as well, and the one thing that we did learn is that people really like Elvis in the 70's. It gives us a problem inthat we have actually reached quite a lot of outtakes from the 70's both on A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW and on RHYTHM AND COUNTRY and now on THE JUNGLE ROOM SESSIONS. Also various out takes over time on box sets so there's not a lot left. There's definitely one, two, maybe three CD's worth of 70's material in ways of outtakes. But on many of the songs in the 70's there were very few takes.

WWE: Because the backing was already done?
ERNST: No, basically, because I think they started recording when they basically knew they had it together. Where sometimes early on, there were certain songs from the 50's where you've got 19 takes of what they're trying out like "I've Got Stung," or his "Latest Flame" where it's really fun to see how the whole thing changes. But there will be more 70's material from the studio.

WWE: Of course if you can work out the live problems?
ERNST: We'll have soundboards as well. I'm sure we can work it out, it just takes a lot of time to figure out who the hell was playing on that June tour in 1975 and we have to sort that out with the union before we can release the stuff. There's a lot of things that we need to worry about that the bootleggers didn't worry about. It's not so much paying the copyrights and the royalties that's the problem; it's actually identifying the musicians who played--not the guitar player or the drummers. Elvis' own band we knew, but it's all these extras who played violins and trumpets and God knows what.

WWE: What if you put out a CD and missed a couple of them in the acknowledgements.
ERNST: I think it's not so much the acknowledgement, it's payment. These people need to get paid. If we can't clear the names of them then we can't get a clearance from the union to release the project. I know that we will sort it out eventually and I really hope it will be for the next release, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily the Lake Tahoe show that's going to be the first soundboard. It's a question all the time, especially when you go out with a soundboard and the bootleggers have been so busy in the past what, three, four, five years to make sure that we take one where those who bought bootlegs will say, "Oh God, we have that already." I have a terrible time keeping track on how many soundboard bootlegs are out there.

WWE: Who cares?
ERNST: Well, a lot of people must have cared, because some of them sold really well.

WWE: Well actually they do care. I don't care, but they do care. I mean people call me up and they would be content if you would put out a live soundboard every week. They'd probably buy it too.
ERNST: Some of them would probably buy a lot more. At this time, we have an arrangement with RCA to release four CD's a year, and that doesn't mean that we can't do double CD's or variations. Only time will tell. This is Michael Omansky's call at the end of the day. Just now we are learning from those that we are putting out and as long as this year keeps selling solid and there's no losses that RCA need to worry about or anything the series will continue.

WWE: Do you think there will ever be vinyl on a collector's label? Somebody had mentioned that at one time.
ERNST: I don't know that. This is not the deal we have. We have a deal for CD's. If it comes out on vinyl it might be through another company, actually, like maybe you!

WWE: Right. Well, the most important question somebody asked to ask you is when you visit New York, what do you have for breakfast?
ERNST: I have white toast and Swiss cheese and coffee and orange juice.

WWE: And a Danish?
ERNST: No.

WWE: No, Okay, that's a very important question that somebody was asking.
ERNST: Remember, that a danish in Denmark is called epia\ena bread. Everybody passes the blame to the next guy.

WWE: Michael Omansky will be glad to know what you have for breakfast.
ERNST: Yes, because he is paying for it every time I'm in New York.

WWE: How does it feel to have all the lavish benefits of working as a producer with RCA records, overseas flights, swiss cheese for breakfast at the Millennium, and have a great room in a hotel in New York City, etc. Michael's a character, isn't he?
ERNST: He's a funny man, because he's not a music man and I don't think he would find that wrong of me to say. He's a business man, who ended up working for companies instead of himself.

WWE: So we got that out of the way.
ERNST: I appreciate his concerns.

WWE: He's quite a character.
ERNST: Yep.

WWE: Let's start off with the SUN stuff. Why was the outtake of "I DON'T CARE IF THE SUN DON'T SHINE" from an original master tape as released on the SUNRISE CD released as an alternate take, when the fact the master take with two false starts.
ERNST: It was included there in the concext of which it arrived and it shouldn't have been labeled an alternate take, but if indeed the original tape copy of the master as opposed to what is out on the record, which is an RCA dub. So it should have been an original master tape copy as opposed to an alternate. It got lost in the last minute checking of the liner note and some people have actually noticed it has a different sound to the record. Even to the point where I'm thinking of repairing this one and using this one as the master in the future. It's a better generation, simply, than the RCA master.

WWE: Of course, one of the questions everybody asks, I'm sure they've asked you for years, have any other original Sun tapes, or copies been located?
ERNST: The problem with that is there is a general policy that Mike (Omansky) instigated actually with my support in that we don't give out information on that. Some people, quite rightly, are a bit annoyed with this, but it turned out that being open about what tapes were missing created so much trouble for us in that a lot of people started calling and knowing which tapes we didn't have and say, "I know who's got this." And we would spend hours and hours on the phone, lots of time and energy waiting for something that never happened. We never got one tape that way, and that's a problem for us. I will not mention any names of people, but a lot of people got over excited and say, "I know who's got the ELVIS IS BACK outtakes," and "I know who's got the SUN outtakes ." If it doesn't materialize after we've tried so many times, it's better for us to have a non-comment policy. We are, as you know and Mike probably told you as well, we're constantly acquiring tapes that never were RCA tapes in the first place. But also we keep tracking down people who have some of the missing tapes. We eventually find them, most of them.

WWE: Like the ELVIS IS BACK sessions, a lot of people ask if any of those tapes have surfaced yet.
ERNST: Anybody whose thought such a thing will know know that there's a few tapes there that some of the professors out on the website claims we didn't have. Anybody who makes an analysis will, of course, be able to conclude that we actually got a hold of the original stereo master or three track master or "COME WHAT MAY" so there's no reason to hide that. But going into detail on what tapes are still missing and what we have acquired in the last two or three years, we may have acquired as much as 60 or 70 tapes over a three-year period.

WWE: Have Steve Sholes' original extended notes on the 15 SUN tapes been recovered by now?
ERNST: Yeah, they've been recovered for a long time.

WWE: It says, "A sheet with brief notes was once remembered lost, but suddenly appeared in the book LIFE AND MUSIC. One would like to guess that all notes were stored in the same place."
ERNST: Yes. Right, but they're not detailed. The main mystery in all of those notes is that there is a tape called "That's All Right," plus two other selections. The big question is, were those two other selections Elvis or not, and if they were Elvis, what were they? That is one of the tapes that, according to the paper work, Bruce Hailstalk, the vault keeper at our old vault over at the Ave of the Americas he had. That is one of the tapes that, according to his notes, is destroyed.

WWE: There's always been a lot of echo on just one of the channels of "Harbor Lights," was this echo applied by RCA in '76?
ERNST: Nope. Original.

WWE: Original Echo. That brings up something I want to ask you. The song "First in Line." I'm sure it was definitely an RCA recording, right? But it's got that echo in there. It sounds weird.
ERNST: It does sound weird, but it's definitely from that session. There is no doubt about that. The notes, unfortunately, never gives you any information on technical things, but we have all notes on all recordings from the sessions. A lot of paper work has actually surmised separate from the tapes. And that is when you ask about whether Sholes' notes have been recovered. Yes, they have and they include more stuff than just the SUN stuff, but I in no way comprehend it either. It's just bits and pieces.

WWE: Okay, there's a longer running version of "MYSTERY TRAIN" that was released on a European budget CD in '87. This version runs longer than any known SUN or RCA release. It even seems to include the very last note played before the fade-out is over. Is there any information available on this complete "Mystery Train"?
ERNST: I don't know that tape, or that recording.

WWE: I'm sure people keep asking you about "HOUND DOG". How come BMG keeps using the worst sounding "HOUND DOG" tape available?
ERNST: Because I have never heard anything that's better than that and I still haven't heard anything that's better than that.

WWE: They bring up the one that's on the Rhino CD.
ERNST: Yeah, but I don't have that Rhino CD. Rhino could never have the better copy that we have. At least, in theory, that's what we believe. How could they?

WWE: I guess it's like what DCC does. You know, their releases, they change the sound.
ERNST: You can go in there and you can take the top frequences out and boost the middle and you can add reverb, or somehow track the reverb. You can change the sound on that if you like that better than the sound that Elvis wanted, that's fine by me, but remember that the RCA tape of "HOUND DOG" is not a third generation copy, it's an original. It's not a second-generation tape. And the reason we know that, is we figured out how they did it. They actually cut the masters out of the master reel and created the ELVIS' GOLDEN RECORDS VOL. 1. I've been as curious as so many others as to hear this RHINO record set but it's not available where I live and basically when people tell me stuff like that, there are people who like to give us some stick, so people say what do I know if it sounds so horrible and that this is not a horrible source, but it's a first generation. You don't spend a lot of time changing it, but I of course, if I found the CD I'd buy it and go home and check it.

WWE: Yeah, I'll have to get somebody to send it to you.
ERNST: Do you have it?

WWE: No. I've never heard of it. I've never heard it at all, but I've been hearing it for years. People tell me that. Is it true the latest BMG ELVIS' CHRISTMAS ALBUM from Japan was mastered from a recently found master tape? Wasn't that tape was found in 1990 as the sound quality is much better on his new release than it was on the '94 Christmas CD or the 50's Box.
ERNST: It's not much better. It's the same.

WWE: Yeah. Some quick questions. Are you going to release out takes from the Felton Jarvis Sessions in 1980 in the future on perhaps the FOLLOW THAT DREAM label?
ERNST: Yeah, possibly, yeah. It's not been decided yet, but there's no reason why we shouldn't. There's quite a handful of songs that were never released on the original album.

WWE: Here's one." Mr. Jorgensen wrote in his book LIFE AND MUSIC that take two of "WAY DOWN" is the master, but why does he and also RCA always say that the alternate version of this song released on PLATINUM and the JUNGLE ROOM SESSIONS is also take two?
ERNST: Because Felton Jarvis slatedtwo takes as take two. One, two, two, two. I know it's insane and we should at least give people an explanation so here it is. The explanation is that Felton couldn't count to three. Of course Felton could count to three, but he got confused, I'm sure.

WWE: Are there any plans for future HAYRIDE material. Of course, there are the rumored songs such as "Sixteen Tons" "Rock Around The Clock," "Little Mama."
ERNST: Yeah, they all come from my book and from Joe Tunzi's book so again all this material comes from this little lady in Big Spring, Texas who actually wrote down what Elvis sang on the show and that information has become available from Joe and me and from a few other people I'm sure. The Hayride material will be depending on how much we find and how good it is. We had fairly luke-warm reactions to the rough sounding Hayride material we put on SUNRISE. But again you could argue if it's not from the RCA main label, it could be for the collector's label, but it won't be until we have a smashing package. We're not going to just release it all again with inferior sounding cuts. What we find today is copies from acetates. What we need to find are copies from tapes.

WWE: RCA is suppose you put up a Hayride type CD in a year or two, right?
ERNST: Well there was a Hayride...if you go back to the preliminary release plan last summer? But that is not on the release plan anymore, but we can go back, if you want to I can give you an update on the release plan as it looks. THAT'S THE WAY IT IS three disc set out in July and August we have WHITE CHRISTMAS which is not really for the collectors, it's just a regular Christmas album from the main market. And also a cut down version, or at least, not from the music point, but the 50's box set at a lower price without the booklet and stuff. September is either two CD COUNTRY set which is not aimed at collector's either or a three CD GOSPEL set, which may have a few things on it that people don't have already. And then there's a planned gap of releases all the way until late summer, where there will be a Las Vegas box set.

WWE: So that's definitely coming out?
ERNST: That is coming out. I'm working on that now. There's also going to be a box set in the summer of 2002, for the 25th anniversary, and everything else is under discussion, which doesn't mean it won't happen or will happen. For instance, if I remember that paper where there was an ESSENTIAL 7 in January and there isn't anymore. I mean, it's definite, but there won't be an ESSENTIAL ELVIS in Janurary.

WWE: Michael's telling me that as far as the ESSENTIAL series that it might be no longer.
ERNST: Yeah, I think that's one of the decisions we made. Also, there doesn't seem to be enough interest in going further in the upgrades. We've done all the so-called great albums, and of course, you know the completests they're going to want to have the remaining albums as upgrades as well. But this is a commercial decision and I don't think there's room for an upgrade for "Fool", "Raised on Rock," "Love Letters," and "Today." So I think that series stops as well. You know it's always trying to adopt through the market place and we have the collectors label to at least take some of this pressure off from the fans. You can say that the LONG LONELY HIGHWAY CD that's coming out now could easily have been worked. ESSENTIAL ELVIS was supposed to be released and now half of the tracks were on my list of what was going to go on that CD. So for the collectors there is no loss. We just want to be very insistent on what it is we put through retail. We can't be coming running up every month with a stack of Elvis CD's and also get them to do something extra when we have a big one like THAT'S THE WAY IT IS or the Las Vegas box.

WWE: What about STANDING ROOM ONLY Will that ever come out?
ERNST: Under that title?

WWE: Yeah.
ERNST: I don't know. Nobody knows exactly what the album, what would have been. Joan (Deary) always told me it was meant to be a live album, not a combination of the March sessions, but when they started out recording it in Las Vegas, they actually planned to finish it as early as Knoxville on the tour. The equipment broke down in Knoxville, and then as this idea kept rolling along, suddenly came the idea of doing ELVIS ON TOUR instead, and the suddenly the idea came of Madison Square Garden, and then the ALOHA show. At no time were they ready to figure out what the hell would have been on STANDING ROOM ONLY. They only had the title and mark up art-work catalogue number, if I remember,LSP 4762, right? That doesn't mean we couldn't go in and inprincipal fabricate it. What would it have been, or what could it have been. But at this time, the 30th anniversary of ON TOUR is in 2002 so that may clash with whatever it is we're putting out that summer. Also since we are doing a THAT'S THE WAY IT IS- both Turner Entertainment and us -we will probably be waiting to see if Turner wants to do something about restoring THAT'S THE WAY IT IS. Then we may tie it in with something there. On another level, the material recorded for ELVIS ON TOUR will be made available at this stage, if not all of it. We're definitely going to take one of the concerts and mix it at some stage or some of the rehearsals, so it's not lost; we're just not ready for that yet.

WWE: Will ON TOUR being reissued on video with additional footage.
ERNST: There have been no decisions made in relation to ON TOUR at this time, because it's a commercial business and we need to know how well THAT'S THE WAY IT IS will do. Not until that time will decisions be made on what to do with ELVIS ON TOUR.

WWE: That's a good point. Was Madison Square Garden ever filmed professionally, any of the shows?
ERNST: No, but there are some pretty neat amateur photo stuff that I've seen that I've enjoyed, but I've never seen anything professional. I tried, at one time, to find a clip on CBS, but I never managed to, or they filmed one or two songs, but I could never find anybody who could confirm that at CBS.

WWE: Were all four shows recorded by RCA, or just two?
ERNST: No, only the two.

WWE: We might as well talk about THAT'S THE WAY IT IS because that's what a lot people ask about. What's the plan? I know it's coming out in July, but are they doing a T.V. documentary first and the DVD later, or the video, or how is that working?
ERNST: The current plan from Turner is that in January of next year they will have a 90 minute version, or 96 minute version, or whatever, on TV and at this time it is going to be premiered on their CLASSIC MOVIES channel in January. Around the same time there will be a DVD and a video, which will feature more material than the TV special. There will be, of course, this premiere showing in August at the Elvis week where everybody will get to see the film version or the TV version, whatever you call it. At this time there's been no decision whether to do a theatrical release or not. That is one possibility. Also, it is the possibility that some of the dating of the Turner element's may change.

WWE: The what? What was that now?
ERNST: It could get on network before that or it could get to theatres before that, but the current planning is for January.

WWE: Will it omit the interviews with the fans?
ERNST: Yep.

WWE: That's good.
ERNST: It will omit everything that today you will find tacky or dated. One thing is doing a film in 1970 - one thing I wanted to get out of that movie was the way that I feel that it misrepresents the people who likes Elvis music. Also, I do not need to see people prepare food, or get married. I joked to Todd Slaughter that finally I get him out of it. So there's no Luxembourg convention or anything like that.

WWE: That's good. Did MGM film the entire shows?
ERNST: The situation is that in the camera that you filmed with in the 1970's a roll of film would last eleven minutes, so after eleven minutes you had to take the reel out and put a new reel in. They had five cameras going at the same time and to cover the whole thing they would have had two times five cameras going. These are big monsters, as Elvis keeps telling everybody on the show, so there's no way they could have done that. So they have bits and pieces of all shows, but no show is complete. This was before the time of video. We can't even say that they did a bad job. That was in the nature of what they were doing.

WWE: Did both RCA and MGM have tape recorders running during a lot of the sessions, or was it just MGM?
ERNST: No. You can't say it was MGM or RCA. They were on all of the shows; there were two tape recorders going at the same time. What we did, like we always did with MGM, we split the tapes after the whole thing was over so they got one set and we got the other. It was all recorded by Felton Jarvis.

WWE: On the "THAT'S THE WAY IT IS" box set, are they going to put their regular CD "THAT'S THE WAY IT IS" version on there also.
ERNST: Yeah. One of the CDs, the regular album as it was mixed back then, just in a better quality with seven bonus songs on.

WWE: Why not release the three CDs with completely new material?
ERNST: Yeah, why not do it as a five CD, or why not as a four and a half CD, and why not? There are no answers really to the why nots? The reason we've done it this way is that it is a remake of the classic album and movie and we want people to be able to get the original album with it. That may not be what every collector wants, but that may be what a lot of other people who are not collectors would want.

WWE: Can you give us a better view of Felton Jarvis as a producer? Your mixes seem to be so much better. On much of the 70's work, the production by Felton seems very heavy handed and intrusive.
ERNST: Well, I think we have better equipment today. I also think we spend more time on mixing than they did back then. I hope that we become fairly good at it between Dennis Ferrante and myself. Also, by mixing outtakes, you don't have all the overdubs and it gives it a clearer sound and there is a number of techniques that's Felton used that I don't like personally. One of them is compression on the lead vocal, which makes it, to me, flat and nasal. Dennis came up with - I brought the problem to Dennis - I think the voice must be better than what we hear on the record. We spend a lot of time figuring out why it was. It seems that when they mixed back then, they put a compressor on Elvis' voice and then when they did the finish master, they compressed that as well. This is why the sound on what Dennis and I do is a lot more open, but also you need to play it louder. The reason for compression at that time was that it had to jump out at the radio. So today we only mix for audiofiles in principal so it gives us better options that to do this than Felton had at the time.

WWE: The songs "FOOLS RUSH IN" and "IT'S A SIN TO TELL A LIE" (from the IN A PRIVATE MOMENT CD)sounds much better than any other home recording released thus far. Why do they sound so much better? Is it possible they recorded in a studio after all?
ERNST: No, it's all home recording. It has a backing track that is pre-recorded and that gives you a better music situation and from one day to the next the quality could differ a lot, depending on where Red put the mic, or whether they were playing piano or not. That ruined it quite often.

WWE: Will you be putting out more material from the home recordings?
ERNST: We have very little left. There's one or two that will end up on the GOSPEL set, but apart from that I don't think we have very much any more.

WWE: What you've got is just not worth putting out?
ERNST: Yeah, it's just another version of the same song, just in poorer quality. We try to take the best version whenever we had it and we've also used most of the little bits and pieces that were in there.

WWE: Why has BMG still not released a professional live recording of Elvis "The Concert Tours"?
ERNST: Because that's not our decision to do that. We don't own the rights to that, the estate does, and the musicians do and it has never been possible to come up with a practical and financially agreeable way of doing this. There's been a lot of talk about this, but it just doesn't meet on this. I think it's very much, at this stage, a financial consideration that it just doesn't work. The musicians need to be paid and if the estate needs royalties, of course, and so do the musicians. There is no money in that project like that. We don't think an album like that would sell enough to cover the recording costs. The issue is not closed. It might come up again and maybe we do find a solution.

WWE: Lisa's supposed to be recording an album soon, right?
ERNST: Yep.

WWE: Of course, RCA had nothing to do with that.
ERNST: Nope.

WWE: Will a sound track of THIS IS ELVIS ever be released on CD?
ERNST: I don't think so.

WWE: For years, BMG has maintained that the original stereo mix of the studio version "I'VE LOST YOU" is no longer in the archives, prompting a remix of the original multi track masters for various projects such as the 70's box set. However, the Reader's Digest THE LEGEND LIVES ON CD set released in Canada, does feature the original stereo mix of the song. Could it be possible that BMG archives in other countries contain copies of master tapes that no longer exist in the U.S. archives?
ERNST: In principal, yes. What originals stereo mix of "I'VE LOST YOU"?. Wasn't it a MONO single? I'm pretty sure it was. And it wasn't on an album so there was no original stereo mix

WWE: I think that it might have been released in Germany in stereo as a single.
ERNST: Good question, but I don't know the answer to it. The principal of what you're asking could somebody have a stereo tape where we don't have it. Yes, that's possible. And it would be simple for us if we knew and it was on a recent release or something. Our colleagues would definitely send us a copy, but the CD is a copy in itself, of course. But Roger (Semon) and I have gone through all the stuff that DECCA used to have in England and there's nothing there. It's all copies.

WWE: What was that in the news a year or so ago about something being found in England?
ERNST: That was old production tapes, second or third generation tapes so there was no interest.

WWE: Oh, yeah, it just sounded good.
ERNST: It did sound good.

WWE: Aming fans, an of X-rated version of "HURT" has been circulating. It's been said that BMG does not have that version.
ERNST: I have the same version as the bootleggers have, because it's been circulating around but Felton Jarvis' wife Mary burned the tape in her garden after Felton died. She told me so, and I was in the house, and I saw the garden in which it was burned, and I believe Mary. If Mary said so, then that's what happened.

WWE: Does BMG have any plans to release more outtake material from Nashville '70 - '71 sessions?
ERNST: Yeah. I don't know whether BMG or the collectors label, but one of them will.

WWE: When will BMG finally release a comprehensive Blues compilation, updating the 1985 RECONSIDER BABY album?
ERNST: It's one of the things that pops up every time we do a new release plan and disappears again. It will happen one day. I think, actually, they're putting out one in England as a part of the series they do over there. My point is that I would like to have a few more rhythm and blues cuts for it. He did not do a lot of r & b material and I just don't...I'm hoping still that among outtakes and personal recordings whatever we will dig up that we could have some rarities that some people have never heard before. I feel it will happen at one stage, just not in the next twelve months.

WWE: You just want to get some more material to put on to make it more attractive?
ERNST: Yes.

WWE: The sound of the new JUNGLE ROOM CD seems to be so incredible, like nothing we've ever heard from BMG, or any outtake CD, or any general CD. It's so full of life it carries an unmatched clarity of instruments...just listen to the drums. Lene Reidel is credited on this CD released as the sound engineer. Can you explain if and how FTD releases are mixed and mastered differently, compared to general BMG releases?
ERNST: BMG has nothing to do with this material. Lene had put the album together. I mixed the material, actually, quite a long time ago.

WWE: I'm not really a 70's freak, but I kind of liked it.
ERNST: It's something that I didn't like three, or four, or five years ago. I can't even remember the engineer on it. WWE: It's pretty listenable.
ERNST: It might have been Dennis, but I'm not sure it was Dennis. It might have been some of the other guys.

WWE: With the gaining popularity of "Unplugged" and undubbed recordings, will BMG ultimately put out 70's songs along these lines like an undubbed thing type thing. Unplugged Elvis.
ERNST: No. I don't think so. I think what we're doing is we're putting things outtakes out undubbed, but the masters we try to maintain as the masters were. I mean there will be exceptions where we have the full version of this and that, or we do this and the other, but in general, no we're not changing the masters. I'm not against Joan Deary's MEMORIES OF ELVIS series, but it's nothing that I care so much for that we want to do it again.

WWE: Has anybody thought of compiling Elvis "unplugged" Collection tracks using just guitar and piano?
ERNST: I think unplugged is already an old fashioned term.

WWE: I think so too. It's like the old MTV thing.
ERNST: People are over it.

WWE: Why is "Let Me Be There" omitted from the Moody Blue upgrade?
ERNST: Because it's already available on the Memphis '74 album. For those reasons, to duplicate between them and every track we put on costus money and there seems to be no reason to do repetition. You could argue that if this cut wasn't available somewhere else, why would we leave it off, but it was already at the time, when they put out the album. It was like a last resort because they didn't have enough material and they didn't see any point in this duplication. I would have had the opposite question if it had it been on there.

WWE: Why were the DOUBLE FEATURES series deleted? Any plans of releasing new complete movie sound tracks including all outtakes and rehearsals?
ERNST: Basically, most of them sold very poorly. After a while, if they don't sell a certain number a year, you end up deleting them. Like, you delete records by John Denver, or Britney Spears, or who else. It's a business decision. I don't think there's any chance in the world of going out into the general market place with Elvis movie songs, unless they are hits from the movies. If anything happens it will be on the collectors label but there are no plans just now. We have been discussing this and we may come up with some proposals and see how they work and see if there is a general interest from the fans. What sometimes is a problem with us, between all the letters we get, there is millions of suggestions. Some of them actually represent a lot of the fans but some of them represent individual preferences.

WWE: Well, I guess that brings up the sales of FTD releases. I mean, has one sold more or better than the other?
ERNST: No. They have sold the same. I must say that when we are through with life-time sales, I think JUNGLE ROOM SESSIONS will have sold ten percent more than the rest of them.

WWE: Why aren't there any extensive liner-notes with the FTD releases?
ERNST: What we believe is that the collector's series as "Follow That Dream" is from those who really know about all of Elvis' music already and if they don't have our box sets or my book, then they should go and buy it. We don't want to write again and again the same information to people who already know it anyway.

WWE: What could you write that they haven't read?
ERNST: I get tired of reading the stuff that Peter and I have been writing eventually, because we've been through it so many million times; what can you say? I mean, here is Elvis, I wrote quite a bit of a chapter on that in my book, and Peter has touched this and we've done liner notes. I don't think we have a lot more to say about this and I'd be only too happy to pitch my own book. I don't think there's anything here that those who buy the records don't know already.

WWE: Have there been any movie outtakes found since the publication of your book?
ERNST: There's been basically outtakes of every source found since the publishing of my book so in every area we are improving ourselves and we keep on in a very stubborn fashion. The only thing, and I remember you and I getting a bit at odds over my very open statement, is that it surprises me, and it still surprises me that almost nothing comes through the network of the very informed men. People like you, Sherif, all those people who have the web-site, that so little material shows up that way is surprising to me.

(NOTE: Sherif Hanna is one of the biggest Elvis collectors of unreleased audio and video in the world!!)

WWE: So have you worked anything out with Sherif about "LITTLE MAMA"?
ERNST: No. That's all put on hold, because Sherif wants to do a project and is working very hard on that and I have no wish or desire to put out any LA. HAYRIDE material just now. It's not so long since we did SUNRISE, and as you were saying yourself, people really like this 70's stuff. I don't think a whole CD of the LA>HAYRIDE would necessarily be as well received as JUNGLE ROOM was.

WWE: By the way, have you found any information about anymore MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET tapes?
ERNST: No. I've been through this with Shelby and John Singleton a million times, and there's always this rumor that Johnny Cash has a tape, this, that and the other. I know a lot of people who know both Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash and none of them have ever heard anything that's not on the CD as it is, except for those bits that I've put out on the box when we had this little piece of "RECONSIDER BABY".

WWE: Of course the age-old question about the "PIED PIPER OF CLEVELAND film! That has just vanished, right?
ERNST: It's not just vanished. I think the story that came up a few years ago is that, again, some smart-ass trying to develop something that never existed. We are not giving up searching for it. We have friends at UNIVERSAL who are helping us track it down, but we haven't found anything.

WWE: Why haven't you tried to interview Bill Randall about the film? Or maybe you have.
ERNST: Well a lot of people have over time and nothing ever comes from it. At times I think he said that he has a copy, but he's never been willing to deal with anybody so at this time I don't think he has a copy, because there would have been times some years back when it would have been worth a lot of money. He's not going to get a lot of money for it today and ten years from now nobody's going to care.

WWE: What about the Roy Orbison kinescope?
ERNST: The Roy Orbison is funny in a way that you know about it, I know about it and this friend of ours Cooleyin Nashville knows about it, and I'm sure Sam knows about it. The problem is that none of us have ever heard it. Barbara Orbison, an extraordinary lady, said that there were so many things that Roy was proud of. He mentioned who had been on his TV show from the older days and you know his favorite moments with this and that and he loved Elvis Presley. She talked about how they had been talking about motor cycles and all that. She says that, my whole problem with this whole story is that, Roy loved Elvis so much that she cannot understand that if Elvis had been on Roy's T.V. show that he never ever mentioned it.

WWE: Well, people's memories are bad, but I agree with you. I remember when Danny Mayo (a man from Alabama who HAS a kinescope of Elvis on a Roy Orbison TV show from Odessa, Tx in either 1954 or 1955) called me up and he mentioned these things about the show. I only knew about it, because of a guy named Mick Perry in England who was a friend of Orbison's. I don't know whatever happened to Mick Perry, but I wrote to him for years. He told me about it in 1975 that Elvis was on the shows. I had no idea Orbison even had a show. Maybe most people didn't.
ERNST: Neither did I.

WWE: I know. But that was amazing when Mayo called me out of the blue, I think it was '81 or '82 and told me, not only, he told me the sponsor, the right station. It's like you just don't make that up. I don't know where he could have gotten the information if he didn't really have the material.
ERNST: The only thing is that I worry when Cooley describes Mayo as a complete lunatic.

WWE: I know.
ERNST: I mean, Cooley is some personality himself. We know how much Cooley loved Elvis and Cooley never heard it either. I have nothing more on that. I've been researching this for a long time. I know a lot more about what happened out there, but I've never been able to.... I've even gone through the newspapers out there for every single day of that year to see if I could see Elvis Presley guest on Roy Orbison's TV show or anything like that, but it's never mentioned in the newspaper.

WWE: Since your book, have people sent you information on more shows he did in the 50's?
ERNST: Nope. Not one.

WWE: Wow. How's the book doing by the way?
(NOTE: The book is ELVIS: DAY BY DAY) ERNST: Oh, it's doing really well. I get royalty statements every six months, but they're very happy with it and I think they're going to give it another big push for Christmas again.

WWE: Good. It's not ready for paperback yet?
ERNST: No, but my book (A LIFE IN MUSIC) is. The recording session book is coming out as a paperback later this year.

WWE: Does BMG have any information on the song "FEELINGS" that Elvis supposedly did in '76 or did he even do that song?
ERNST: Oh, he never recorded it, but they definitely rehearsed it according to David Briggs. Briggs remembers very vividly that none of the musicians liked the song so they were hoping he wasn't going to record it. I think "FEELINGS" was a very used song even in '76, wasn't it. Everybody knows.

WWE: Everybody did it, yeah.
ERNST: No one ever heard of the artist after that if I remember correctly. We have all the tapes from the sessions, except for the dirty "HURT" version and there's definitely no "FEELINGS" on it, so if it exists..... I really doubt it if it exists; Briggs was there. He would have told me, if it would have been there, because we discussed it at great length. I think Kathy Westmoreland is the one that started the story that "FEELINGS" was there. I think she just confused the situation. How would she know if Felton had recorded it at that moment or if they were rehearsing it? I don't think you would. I have no reason in the world to believe it exists. Someone told me the full version of "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL" exists. That I would find easier to believe than "FEELINGS" because if you remember Paul Lichter had a magazine at the time, just a few weeks after the session he printed the songs recorded. "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL" was actually on that list. There were thirteen songs, not just twelve.

WWE: Will you guys ever do anymore of THE ROCKER Series?
ERNST: No, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't do a straight rock and roll album, but the series in itself is history.

WWE: Will any other takes of "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" be released?
ERNST: This is getting too specific in that if there's good outtakes of any songs they will be released. If out takes are very, very poor, we are not going to release them. So in principal, everything is open. I can't remember how many takes there are of "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" so we're not holding anything back that we don't want to release, but if it's very poor we're not going to release it. Sometimes everybody plays bad, Elvis even sings bad so why would we want to release that?

WWE: Have you found any older takes from '56 such as "HOUND DOG".
ERNST: We keep finding material, and as I said early on, we don't make comments on what we find and we haven't found for the reasons I mentioned.

WWE: Will there be an album with studio jams?
ERNST: If we had a lot of studio jams, there would be. I don't know of very many studio jams, but of course you could put "Don't Think Twice," "Mary Christmas Baby," and oh God, what else, "Got my Mojo Working." Would that be enough for an album? I don't think so.

WWE: Why does Elvis' voice on "SURRENDER" sound like he's singing it through a telephone on ESSENTIAL ELVIS VOL. 6
ERNST: Because the engineer Bill Porter was out in the bathroom puking, because he had a bad stomach and that is what the Bill Porter tells everybody himself. He was so sick when they recorded that night that he had to go to the bathroom constantly.

WWE: Oh really, that's a true story, huh?
ERNST: It's a true story and he excuses himself in an interview for the album not being quite what it should be on all of the recordings, but I think the only one that really suffers, actually, on this album is "SURRENDER."

WWE: I never really noticed that.
ERNST: There is an interview with the Bill Porter where he tells about the story and he wanted to go home when Elvis pleaded with him to stay.

WWE: I've never heard of that before.
ERNST: It's a true story.

WWE: What will the Las Vegas box consist of?
ERNST: It will consist of some Tom Jones recordings in Los Angeles (laughing) It's just to pay hommage to one of the very, very successful elements of Elvis' career. We've done Las Vegas stuff, we have a lot of it, and we'd like to present it in a box with some great liner notes telling the story of Elvis in Las Vegas. We would like to have had the seventh disc of that set be jamming in Las Vegas with Elvis and all the people who attended his show, but somehow the tape must have gotten lost.

WWE: Didn't you tell me that there's supposed to be, or at least on paper, Elvis singing "LOVE LETTERS IN THE SAND" in rehearsal.
ERNST: Oh, on paper there is. The only thing that we don't know is a list of songs Elvis sang on a certain date at the rehearsals in Las Vegas whether there's a matching tape or not. We have people claiming opposites here. No, it does not exist, and yes, I know it exists, because I saw it or I heard it or something like that. The one thing that we have learned is that a fair number of rehearsals showed up on one tape or the other. We have no documentation that proves that all these rehearsals were recorded, but we have a lot of paper work on what was. We actually don't even know whether he sang them or not. We see a list of songs, but it doesn't say Elvis sang it or two lines of it. It was typed up by Tom Diskin his people. It could be a number of different things. It could be that he actually did sing during that particular rehearsal, or sometimes it could be the songs that Charlie Hodge and the others..Freddie Bienstock.. had to find the sheet music for. And then Elvis either sang it or didn't.

WWE: It's like the songs from the '68 TV SPECIAL that were written up, maybe but never sang them. Are you convinced that there's no more '68 material.
ERNST: No, I think every single piece except for the tape that you once had we have not bothered to put all of that tape out again, but in principal, everything else. Of course, there are a few studio outtakes, but the problem with those is they were recorded in sections songs, not from start to beginning. They took the first eight bars, and then the next eight bars, and it doesn't leave room for much variation or fun.

WWE: Is there a sound board from the Houston 1970's shows?
ERNST: No.

WWE: Whatever happened to re-release of LIVE AT THE INTERNATIONA HOTEL CD?
ERNST: Oh, I can't remember that we even had that. I think it was once printed, actually, and we were going to do it, but we never were. So it was printed by either mistake, or I don't know. There is no intention of doing that. I think the next thing we are going to do on that stuff is going to be the Las Vegas box.

WWE: Other people are saying that you have a sound board tape on both Indianapolis '77, and the New Year's Eve in '76.
ERNST: There's a lot of speculation on what we have on sound board, and again, because of a lot of interference from people who now want to sell those things or keep telling us stuff that never happened. We have decided not to comment really on whether we have one or the other soundboard. The reason why, I'll tell you, of Houston is that the sound boards really started taking place from '74 and onwards. That doesn't mean there isn't soundboards earlier than that, but there are always random. We are checking people and we are chasing people who have soundboards, not through the fans, but in general terms to see if somebody would have something. We have 250 or something sound boards, so you're not running out of material. Not for a very, very long time, but if we can get them at a reasonable price and they are from a period where we don't have that many, or that they include a very rare song we would like to do so. Those people that we have been in contact with who has sound boards that we don't have, mostly have sound boards where the repertoire is so predictable that it's not really interesting.

WWE: Have you seen the colorized version of "Love Me Tender"?
ERNST: No.

WWE: I just got a DVD of that from Hong Kong and it's nice.
ERNST: I've seen some of the material from "THAT'S THE WAY IT IS" from the new version of it, because I'm hired on the project and it looks fabulous and I think it's going to be great, great, great. Three or four weeks from now we are going to have all the material available and then it's time to figure out what's going to go in the show. I think it will be different from person to person what their favorites are going to be in this context. Some will enjoy the best performance of they may love the new version of "POLK SALAD ANNIE," if that goes in the movie or some will just love the rehearsal bits and pieces. It's very difficult and I think each one will pick their own favorite. The general quality with the fact that they are going back to original negatives here and the fact that they have an excellent film editor, Michael Soloman, to work this means that the overall quality is going to be very, very high. I was blown away by the picture quality of it myself.

WWE: Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to it myself. Will there be a lot of rehearsals?
ERNST: There will be rehearsals, there will, of course, be more rehearsals on the DVD than there will be in the show because it has to have a balance, but there will be plenty of rehearsals.

WWE: Anything interesting on the next FTD release- LONG LONELY HIGHWAY?.
ERNST: There will be some ELVIS IS BACK stuff nobody's heard of and outtakes of his "IT'S NOW OR NEVER" before. And on "Such a Night." There were definitely a number of songs that people have never heard outtakes, even if they bought every bootlegger that was ever around. And we'll keep it that way.

WWE: Okay. In your LIFE AND MUSIC book you note that "LOVING YOU" main version and farm version were first taped on January 21, 1957. Do these versions exist on acetate or master tape?
ERNST: We are still looking to find some missing elements of "LOVING YOU" as well as, on some other movies so everything is not clear yet, but a lot of the stuff we had at the time was from master tapes. The February 14th stuff from Radio Recorders, of course, have always been on tape, because there was even out on bootleg many, many years ago, and those were recorded actually in binaural. Remember?

WWE: Yes.
ERNST: You were actually offered binaural, butyou never bought it.

WWE: I remember those binaural things, yes, which is a pity. Did you guys ever find the Ann Margaret and Elvis "TODAY, TOMORROW, AND FOREVER"?
ERNST: Then we're getting back to RCA doesn't comment on whether they have tapes or not.

WWE: Do you think ELVIS IN CONCERT will ever be put out on video?
ERNST: It's a question for the Estate, but I have not heard that they are thinking of doing that at all. I've only heard the contrary.

WWE: Having gone through your LIFE & MUSIC book, which is absolutely fantastic, I noticed that there are several alternate and/or outtakes that have been assigned a serial number beginning with "WPA5". These include several alternate movie versions, in other words the remakes, of "I think I'm Going to Like it Here" and "The Bull Fighter was a Lady," giving that they have been assigned a master serial number will they soon be released?
ERNST: No. It's got nothing to do with it. It's part of cataloguing exercise and the numbers don't represent like they did in the older days that you could figure out what year they're from, but just when they've been cataloged.

WWE: Has an instrumental or vocal version of a song called "Second Rate Street" AKA "Freak Out" from "Easy Come Easy Go" been found? It appears in the session logs reproduced in Joe Tunzi's first edition of his session's book.
ERNST: It's not an Elvis song. I mean, there's a lot of material in Elvis' movies with funny titles, which are basically the instrumental things that he will sometimes hear during a movie and this is one of them. It was never an Elvis song and was never intended to be an Elvis song.

WWE: Okay. Why was the first verse of "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" from the first MILTON BERLE TV show left off the GOLDEN CELEBRATION box set, when it was originally released and all its reissue.
ERNST: The reissue is an exact duplicate of the original. That was a decision made and why on the original album, I have no idea. I wasn't around at the time.

WWE: Will BMG release the home recordings at Linda Thompson's house?
ERNST: Probably, but there are no current plans.

WWE: Wasn't that put out on CD?
ERNST: By us? It's out on God knows how many different bootlegs.

WWE: Will OUR MEMORIES OF ELVIS VOL. 1 & 2 will be released ever on CD?
ERNST: I don't think so. This is something that Joan Deary did at the time. I have nothing against it, but I think we have more important things to do.

WWE: I would like to know why "MOONLIGHT SWIM" on the re-mastered CD BLUE HAWAII is the worst quality than the rest of the songs.
ERNST: It is because over dubs were made with a technology they had back then. As soon as you overdubbed you would incur a lot of additional tape hiss and a lot of unpleasant noises so that is very unfortunate. You will find that on a handful of other recordings as well. A good example is the harmony voice that Elvis overdubs for"Could I Fall In Love" from DOUBLE TROUBLE It creates exactly the same problem that the smart observer has noticed.

WWE: I never noticed that before.
ERNST: No, but it is true. I may be exaggerating in the wording, but it has a slightly poorer quality than the other.

WWE: What "live" stuff is going to come out.
ERNST: The release plan we did talk about. We're quite open about the decisions we made, which is why it's silly when people start printing release plans even where they got them through Troedson or Carlos or whoever without consulting us. We may already know that some of these releases are not in the plan anymore, and we try to be quite open with what we have decided to do. We don't decide that much up front. We always have a bunch of ideas, but that doesn't mean the record is coming out. It's all the time weighing where are we now, what would fit now, what do we need now, from a financial point of view. Where are we hoping that we get more materials, or we should wait and put that out at a later date when we've gotten the rest, and so on and so forth.

WWE: The thing is it keeps going on, you keep getting more material. It's not drying out.
ERNST: That is changing some of the perspective both on RCA and "Follow That Dream" label that suddenly we've found these and now if we match that with all the others there's a CD and it suddenly becomes a priority release instead of what Elvis may have been there. Who wants Elvis at the Lousiana Hayride if there is no new songs on it?

WWE: True. Do you think the next "Follow My Dream" release will be a live show.
ERNST: I'm still hopeful. We're doing everything we can and so is the union and so is a number of people trying to help us out to get it organized and be ready to have the first sound board as the next release. It does not come with a promise, because of legal reasons and also because the union is colleagues of us. We have to make sure no one is breaking rules or abusing anybody. There's been a tendency that musicians are complaining that they don't get the money from RCA's use of the recording. Thank God we could prove is not true, but that does not mean that we should not be careful in the future to make sure that everybody gets paid. That is a complication with these sound boards, because we don't know all the players.

WWE: What if you miss a couple of people and they come back later?
ERNST: We can't put it out. We have to identify who's on the record to put it out; otherwise, people who were not on the record can sue us.

WWE: Right, but I mean it's like doing a book with a photograph you can never be 100% sure.
ERNST: Sometimes people pay a million dollars for a mistake. We're not going to do that. I'm not saying that this will happen in this context. We are hopeing for Joe Guercio to help us, we are hoping the Estate to help us, and between all of us, and some hard work, and some investigation, I really hope we will get it ready in time for the October release.

WWE: I know just from doing the book I did.. they were so concerned all the legal stuff and I had to get a letter from BMG. They were records from my collection, but they were worried about all kinds of stuff so I guess BMG is worried for the same reason.
ERNST: Yeah. ST. MARTIN'S PRESS were worried and BALLANTINE also on the other one. It's because the court or the legal system in America opens up with these ridiculous out of context law suits that should never take place. You sh ouldn't be able to just because somebody uses a photo claim a million dollars. No picture is worth a million dollars or anything like that. For anybody to get more than a few thousand dollars at the extreme for the abuse of a photo, I think, is totally out of context.

WWE: Yeah, but they do ask it and it is scary.
ERNST: I mean, it's like in America, you can sue because you die of cancer because you've been smoking cigarettes all you life. That's ridiculous when you bloody well knew it was.

WWE: You can't do that over there?
ERNST: No. It's only in America they have this sick system. It's also in America that you have the sick system that you can actually share the profits of a lawsuit with a lawyer then he suddenly becomes an interested party. It's illegal everywhere else. It's so difficult to change laws in America that I think most people in America hate the legal system.

WWE: No blockbuster news you can tell us?
ERNST: It's at an odd time in that we are not finished with the movie yet and the RCA stuff. Everything that's been decided is out there for people to see except the track listing for the GOSPEL set, if that comes out. There will be a handful of unreleased performances on that, nothing more. It will be a great set, but it's very much concept driven, as opposed to rarity driven.

WWE: Well, people like gospel.
ERNST: Yeah, I like gospel.

WWE: It's a big seller just like the Christmas stuff is.
ERNST: We've got a gold record for both of them. I have them hanging on the wall here. And the Christmas one has gone platinum, although we haven't yet gotten to certify it or maybe it's just 10,000 away, but it's very close. That's pretty amazing.

WWE: That is amazing. Every time they put it out at Christmas, doesn't that sell?
ERNST: It sells half a million, no matter what you do to it.

WWE: That's mind boggling.
ERNST: It's also a bit disturbing, right?

WWE: Yeah, it is. You can put out these collector label CD's and you're lucky to sell eight or ten thousand.
ERNST: That's also what we're aiming at selling. We're not aiming at selling 30,000. We do nothing, there's no advertising, nothing at all going on, other than working with a very small group of people making sure that those who really care about it can find it.

WWE: Are they all still available?
ERNST: Yeah.

WWE: All four of them.
ERNST: We will cut them out at some stage, but because it's been so difficult for all of the clocks to figure out what the market place is, I think basically when we started out and that included you and that included a lot of other people. There were a lot of people who didn't really believe in this, didn't think it was going to go very well, and some of the orders from some of the people on the first releases were almost jokes. Like they were telling us that this is never going to sell and these people have had to come back and order 20 times what they ordered in the first place, because they had no idea of what it was. We have been surprised, as well, with how positive the reaction has been. We know the bootlegger figures very well, we know the bootleggers, we know who they are, where they did them, and we thought we would basically sell the same, but we don't. I think Todd Slaughter was one of those people who said you are going to sell a lot more, because there are a lot of Elvis fans who will not buy a bootleg. I'm not that holy, if there's a bootleg with some stuff I've never heard, I get it and I think we're all like that with something we really care about. Apparently, the market is more than twice as big as the best selling bootleg ever. Not counting the great old days, but in recent ideas.

WWE: The 2000 or whatever they sell.
ERNST: There were a few that sold four.

WWE: That is a lot. It's surprising. I'm really surprised with the sales on this JUNGLE ROOM CD.
ERNST: Everybody's gone through that. There were a few supporters, most people were on the negative side, this is not going to work. We've had constant criticism since we put out the first one that we picked the wrong stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, and they basically still sell the same. I think we all agree that JUNGLE ROOM is going better than the previous one, but not a lot. As I said to you, probably ten percent.

WWE: I've sold five hundred or four hundred of this one but the other ones maybe 50. .
ERNST: Yeah, but for instance on the first one COLLECTOR'S CHOICE in American sold 450, they've sold 200 JUNGLE ROOM. There is some reaction. Also, you did say you have actually gone out marketing this stuff. You were on the radio with it.

WWE: If I could put out anything, I would just put live 70's material out. Just for my customers. That's what I would do.
ERNST: It's going to be interesting to see when we put out the first sound board if that is going to sell very well and last the same. We can put out sound boards a lot, but I don't want to do that. I want to cover the career and if people think that OUT IN HOLLYWOOD is not a good record that's fine, but it sold as many as the others. Then there will be another OUT IN HOLLYWOOD with a different title and we'll see if we can do a better track listing, but I'm one of the sick people who actually enjoy it.

WWE: Me too.
ERNST: I can sit there and listen to it and think it's a very nice record.

WWE: What I enjoy and what sells are two different stories. Actually, the JUNGLE ROOM CD is pretty good, but I listened to it once or twice and that's it. OUT IN HOLLYWOOD, I like the home recordings, I like the BURBANK. You know what I like.
ERNST: It's like we talked about, you and I could have the greatest party in the world if we heard 30 seconds of Elvis singing "SIXTEEN TONS," but there will be a lot of other people who will be like so what. He sounds something, but I loved it and this is why also that we had to put a stop to really dealing with too many of the fans on this stuff. I really wanted to find some of that stuff, suddenly you get people calling and saying we have some Hayride stuff, but it's $200,000. If I had not said that, they would have been reasonable with it. There's been some informed Elvis fans getting to them and telling them, "Ernst is looking for that, you can get a lot of money, let me help you and I'll get 50% and blah, blah, blah, blah" and then you end up in this kind of trouble. I, of course, want to hear it for myself like you do, but I want to share it. I'm in contact with several fans who, for years, have told me that they have this great version from a rehearsal or something else and yeah they want to talk about it and nothing ever happens. You get to a situation I really believe that some of these people actually have the recordings they're mentioning, but what good does it do when they want to keep it to themselves.

WWE: Exactly. They like to think they're the only ones.
ERNST: The driving force behind collectors label from Roger and my point of view is that it's fine that we can sit here and go crazy over an album and "TOO MUCH MONKET BUSINESS", but we should share it with all those people who have the same passion. Not just sit here and say "Oh God we're lucky, we'll call Joe Tunzi and tell him about it, so he can be envious." I don't get that. I don't like that attitude at all, of keeping things to yourself. Of course, we can't release every bloody outtake on Elvis, although there will be some people who would like that. We really try to put out everything that will put a smile to your face, or is funny, or is historically important and that's why I think the "Follow That Dream" label is really great. It doesn't work on normal commercial conditions; it doesn't have to live up to any commercial standards. It cannot loose money.

WWE: Did you like that little SUN Box set they came out with England, in reproduction?
ERNST: I didn't get high over that, but I think it was pretty cute.

WWE: I didn't get high over it either. They come over and put the 70's box set in vinyl?
ERNST: Are they?

WWE: Well, that's what that company tells me they're thinking about doing it. I think Roger has something to do with them, right?
ERNST: Yeah, you know he could, but I can't keep up with all of the other stuff that he's doing. I've got more than a ton of work. Especially, just now with the film; also, with all the other work there is to do completing the gospel set, start working on the Las Vegas box, a lot of the internal paper work or cataloging that needs to be improved and this film. It's like all these Elvis stuff they keep dumping. I don't even have the time to read it. I wish they would send me a highlight this is something you need to know, I can't spend the time reading through all that stuff.

WWE: There are other things to do in life.
ERNST: Yeah.

WWE: Well thank you Ernst.
ERNST: Yeah, I hope it will work out for you, and let me know.

WWE: It's always great. Like I said, your interviews are the most requesting thing on my site.
ERNST: Let me know when you are putting it on so I can enjoy it.

WWE: I will let you know.
ERNST: All right.

WWE: Okay, Ernst thanks a lot.
ERNST: Have a nice day.

WWE: Okay, you too, bye-bye.