Elvis Presley - Young and Beautiful - From First Take To The Master(s)

Elvis' 1957 movie "Jailhouse Rock", his first for MGM has become classed as a rock 'n' roll classic and it's legacy and historical importance is enshrined in the fact that the master reel has been preserved for posterity by America's National Film Registry in 2004.

The film contains seven songs and all but the first, "One More Day" performed by Mickey Shaugnessey, were sung by Elvis and four were written by rock 'n' roll songwriting legends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

The first song to be performed in the movie by Elvis was "Young and Beautiful" which was written by Abner Silver and Aaron Schroederwhich and was first heard immediately after the aforementioned "One More Day".

In addition to the version which would be used as a master by RCA for any subsequent soundtrack album, the movie screenplay also required three different additional versions which would fit into the plotline as the movie progressed and these additional versions would be achieved in different manners.

On the day of recording at Radio Recorders in Hollywood on 30 March 1957, Elvis had already finished recording the title song "Jailhouse Rock" and "Treat Me Nice" before beginning to record "Young and Beautiful" at around a quarter to three on that Tuesday afternoon. Elvis would conclude at around six in the evening, a full eight hours since the session began that morning.

After a mammoth twenty two takes, eight of which were complete takes, the final take was chosen as the master although RCA would choose a splice of takes eighteen and twelve as one alternate master and the complete take nineteen as a second alternate master. On completion of the record version Elvis moved onto the requirements that were necessary for the movie's soundtrack and the first order of business was to achieve a master recording of the first version to be seen in the movie which takes place in the prison cell occupied by Elvis' character Vince Everett. This version with minimal accompaniment and sung in a slightly different style was after two complete takes and the third was chosen as that the "MGM Jail Version Master".

The second version required by the movie screenplay was that which took place in the Florita Club where Vince decides to do an impromptu audition after being rebuffed by the club's owner. This master of this version was achieved in seven takes and was classified as "MGM Florita Club Version Master".

The final movie version is that seen at the movies finale as Vince overcomes his fear that his voice has not recovered after major surgery to his larynx after injury and is the best and most touching of the movie. This version was achieved by splicing of four different takes from those taped during the recording of the movie version and the exact process is detailed below.

The splicing of the first RCA alternate master was achieved by using from the beginning of take eighteen up to "forever young and beautiful" and the remainder by using take twelve from that point to the song's conclusion. The splicing of the movie end version, however, was far more complicated and required the splicing of four different takes and was spliced the following way :

Take twelve "Young and beautiful";
Take eight "And I love you so";
Take twelve from "You're lips so rare" to "shame the stars that glow";
Take eighteen from "so fill" to "forever young and beautiful"; Take twelve from "to me" to "oh take this";
Take 22 "heart";
Take 12 "I offer you" to "young and beautiful to"
Take eight for the final "me" and song conclusion.

In the seventies the Elvis performed the song three times in concert and all three, all of which are audience recordings, are included at the end of this video as well as the complete rehearsal version recorded during rehearsals for "Elvis On Tour". Audio of this particular version is taken from Amiga's recent "On Tour" boxset with audio that is superior even to that of the FTD version.

Details on the locations and dates of these live versions are included within the video.

The video is split into five parts as follows:

Part One : The Record Version which includes all 22 takes
and the alternate spliced master.

Part Two : The prison version with all three takes and the
master included with the video footage from the
movie using the RCA audio for optimum sound.

Part Three : The Florita Club version with all seven takes and
the master included with the video footage from
the movie using the RCA audio for optimum
sound.

Part Four : The spliced movie finale version with the video
footage from the movie using the RCA audio for
optimum sound.

Part Five : The seventies versions (as detailed above).