Jean-Marc Juilland has been involved in the audio restoration & remastering of several recent FTD releases, including 'Made In Memphis'. His newest creation is the July 2006 release 'I Found My Thrill', which features a very rare soundboard recording from Elvis' January-February 1974 Las Vegas season.

FTD's new July release 'I Found My Thrill' from Elvis' Jan 27th Dinner Show was recorded during his January-February 1974 Las Vegas season.

This was at the start of a year full of emotional turmoil for Elvis, a year where he never entered a recording studio and spent most of his time on the road. Almost every live recording we have previously heard focuses on the extraordinary August Las Vegas season, yet it was actually at the start of the year that Elvis added the new songs 'Help Me', 'Spanish Eyes' and 'Let Me Be There' to his set-list. 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling' was also back after a 2 year hiatus, and Elvis even started working on that old 'Polk Salad' again, having left it off the set-list for the whole of 1973!

The only real glimpse into this Elvis January season has been the sub-standard audience-recordings, fascinating if only for historical purposes.

For Elvis aficionados this new FTD will be an important release since it features an Elvis Las Vegas Season that has never been properly explored before.

Audio Engineer, Jean-Marc Juilland, had the job of remastering this particular concert for FTD and has very kindly agreed to answer some questions about the new release.

EIN - Thanks so much for agreeing to talk with EIN before the release of 'I Found My Thrill'. A lot of Elvis fans are keen to know a little bit about this particular release, as we have never heard a Soundboard before from this season. Can you tell us what was the reason for selecting this particular concert from Jan 27th?

JMJ - We didn't discuss this, but I think Ernst may have selected the main concert for a number of reasons. It is the earliest show to have been recorded from the soundboard during this Vegas engagement and it is a one-concert-only night (Sunday). So in some respects this is close to being an ‘opening night’ concert. Above all, this features a truly GREAT performance by Elvis, James, Ronnie, Glen & orchestra.

EIN - What about the extra tracks, who selected those? 'My Baby Left Me' from 28 Jan & 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' (Feb 1) are exciting bonuses.

JMJ - We did discuss the extra stuff. There are not too many bonus tracks on the CD, but I think they are very nice. So this is one case where quality was prioritised over quantity. It had to be so. Unfortunately only the first nights were recorded on soundboard. Because of this, we had to take the final track of the CD, the 'Blueberry Hill/I Can't Stop' medley, from audience recordings.

We must also cope with the fact that Elvis did almost the same set-list through this engagement. For instance, the opening show and the Jan. 27 show feature exactly the same songs in the same sequence. The only exception being "A Big Hunk O' Love" that is replaced by a reprise of "Let Me Be There" in the second night. "A Big Hunk O' Love" is dropped after the first night (and will hardly ever reappear live).

On the other hand, Elvis did 'My Baby Left Me' and started doing 'Trying To Get To You' on the third night. We selected the most interesting performances from those. 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' is dedicated to Sheila Ryan (much like Elvis dedicated the song to Linda during the previous engagement and will dedicate it to Ginger in Birmingham, Dec. 76). Apart from the fact that they feature the extra verse, I think most fans agree that the live renditions of this song are much better than Elvis' quite repetitive studio recording. This is a very good, deeply-felt performance.

EIN - Most soundboards unfortunately come from cassettes that have been badly recorded. What did you have to work with here & was it a challenge?

JMJ - Yeah, we only have cassettes (no Reel-2-Reel) from this engagement and they have various audio limitations. The main show is recorded hot and thus damaged by overloads, while most of the other shows have been recorded with extremely low levels and then you have the opposite problem that the music is buried in noise & hiss... So in effect it was already a challenge just to match the levels between the main show and the bonus tracks.

As you know, when you're dealing with soundboards, you basically can't do anything about the mix and in this case we are very lucky that the main show features an almost perfect mix of the various voices and instruments. As for most soundboards recorded before 1975, the frequency range is quite limited and the timbres pretty bland. So the main effort was to "bring the music out of the noise", keep the damaged low-end from intruding into the midrange and to filter the high-end noise & hiss without killing the music. Hopefully fans will think it was worth the extra effort.

EIN - It's good to hear a funky 'Polk Salad' back into the set and Elvis performing it with renewed enthusiasm and wasn't these versions of 'My Baby Left Me' & 'Trying To Get To You' (*since 1970) the very first time Elvis performed these classic songs in concert?

JMJ - Something interesting happens here, at his 10th Las Vegas season. He basically drops all of the most "reflective" numbers that he had been performing for the past two years, songs like 'It's Over', 'You Gave Me A Mountain', 'What Now My Love', 'My Way'. Even 'My Boy' although he had just recorded it at Stax. Instead he returns to songs that were first introduced in 1970, like 'Polk Salad Annie', 'Sweet Caroline' and 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling'. And he does truly excellent versions of these.

As you know, he introduces 'Let Me Be There' at this engagement. And as it is the first time Elvis is on stage with the new vocal trio he had formed, Voice. He has them do 'Killing Me Softly' every night, as he catches his breath back after 'Polk Salad'. You can also notice that the first 2 songs from Stax that make it to the stage are the 2 songs that were more or less conceived as "duets" with Shaun Nielsen : 'Spanish Eyes' and 'Help Me'.

Apart from that, there seems to be some renewed interest in Rock 'n' Roll. Considering that Elvis performed 'My Baby Left Me' only half a dozen times, between January and August 1974, we are very lucky that three of these rare performances are now officially released. The first performance of 'My Baby Left Me' from the Dinner show is done very fast and with a self-parody approach, "alla Hound Dog". The version from the Midnight show is still a bit in this vein, with Elvis imitating some Southernish accent, but it's much better.

He obviously takes 'Trying To Get To You' more seriously. This is a bit like a prototype performance, with Elvis giving instructions to the band while the song proceeds. It's very strange how apparently he didn't perform this song at all between 1970 and 1974. And then after this performance on the third night, he does it I think every night in every show. And as we know, he will basically do this favourite song right to the end.

EIN – I love those spontaneous on-stage Elvis moments, almost like a rehearsal - but unfortunately the fans are always going to complain about something. Maybe the biggest problem with this cassette was that J.D Sumner somewhat overloaded the recording during 'Let Me Be There'? I guess in these situations there is very little you can do?

JMJ - Yep, we have this problem with Elvis vocals as well. Basically when the system overloads it means it's not able to record a large amount of musical information. The sound literally "goes away" until the system "recovers". There's no way you can restore what is missing on the tape, you can only enhance the qualities that survive to help make people forget about the limitations. That's what we tried to do. The tape was mastered using some very sophisticated processing that helps listening without being bothered by the hard peaks and overloads, thus I think vastly improving the original quality. But people should remember it's still coming from a 30-year old badly recorded cassette.

EIN – Fans have been asking about the 'Blueberry Hill /Can't Stop Loving You' "composite", this sounds fascinating?

JMJ - This consists of little bits and pieces from February. Therefore, audience recorded shows. Essentially it consists of a couple of rare one-liners and 2 short performances of Blueberry Hill (only the intro to ‘I Can't Stop Loving You’) followed by a complete 'Blueberry / I Can't Stop' medley. It is during this engagement that Elvis started introducing ‘I Can't Stop’ with a part of ‘Blueberry Hill’. To be frank, I didn't like the idea of creating a montage / "mock medley" at first. Now that it is done, I think it kind of works in its own way. Let's hope it pleases some fans - that was the only reason we did it. I should thank Sebastian Jeansson for his very special help on this one and this project in general.

EIN – Another question was why the cover design suddenly changed. Did you get a chance to have any input into the whole design as well as the audio mastering? (Right: Original cover design featuring Elvis in 1973)

JMJ - The cover changed because the producers didn't want to use a photograph from the 1973 winter engagement to illustrate the 1974 winter engagement. Unfortunately this season seems to be like a "black hole" in Elvis' career. There doesn't appear to be one single professional-looking photograph of Elvis on stage in Las Vegas in January or February 1974! We had to resort to using a photograph from the March tour. The quality of the pic is limited but at least it features Elvis in his "Light Blue Flower Suit" that he wore in Vegas, and his happy smiling mood matches the concert as well. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Claude Baker in Canada for his input and for providing this shot.

EIN - I see that the art direction is, like 'Something For Everybody', once again credited to Ernst Jorgensen & Roger Semon. I think the FTD designs are getting better & better. The shot of Elvis and Sheila Ryan is particularly good & very appropriate for the cover since Elvis dedicates a song to her. (Right: 'I Found My Thrill' inlay)

EIN - I first noticed your work with FTD with your audio upgrade of the 'Sam Thompson' tracks on the last FTD 'Made In Memphis'. Those home-recordings always sounded pretty rough so I am sure fans were very pleased to at last get them in as good a quality as possible. They were even an improvement on the 'Elvis - By The Presleys' version just a year before - and you even corrected the speed. What got you involved in doing those?

JMJ - I've always liked the mature Elvis and this is a rare touching private moment in the mid-70's that we thought deserved some special treatment. Curing this tape of its whistles implied some crazy restoration work, and there's no way you can afford a professional engineer working in a $500 per hour studio to spend that much time on a couple of tracks, compared with a fan working on his own time. I think this kind of dedication is perfectly demonstrated by Kevan Budd's masterful restorations.

EIN - Do you know if 'I Found My Thrill' will make it for its release date next week? JMJ - We still don't know. But I can tell you that I'm very eager to check how the CD turned out...   (Right: Back cover photo)

IN - I'm sure that we are all looking forward to this one. Thanks so much for a quick pre-release chat and I hope we can do a proper interview once we see the Fans reactions!

JMJ - You're welcome, Piers.

Jean-Marc Juilland was interviewed by Piers Beagley for EIN, June 2006. - This interview & images Copyright, Elvis Information Network 2006.

Tracklist: 1: Also Sprach Zarathustra 2: See See Rider 3: I Got A Woman /Amen 4: Love Me 5: Let Me Be There 6: You've Lost That Loving Feeling 7: Sweet Caroline 8: Love Me Tender 9: Long Tall Sally etc Rock Medley 10: Fever 11: Polk Salad Annie 12: Spanish Eyes 13: Suspicious Minds 14: Introductions 15: I Can't Stop Loving You 16: Help Me 17: American Trilogy 18: Let Me Be There (reprise) 19: Can't Help Falling In Love 20: My Baby Left Me (Jan 28 MS) 21: Trying To Get To You (Jan 28 MS) 22: The First Time Ever I Saw You Face (Feb 1 MS) 23: 'I Found My Thrill' Medley - Blueberry Hill/I Can't Stop Loving You (splice, various shows) (Photo: Elvis on stage 1974, not taken from this FTD)

Click here for EIN's in-depth review of 'Made In Memphis'

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