The Elvis Tapes - Redacted!

I have a 12” LP of “The Elvis Tapes” on Redwood Records label RWR1001. For those who are not familiar with this release, The Elvis Tapes are a recording of a pre-concert press interview of Elvis Presley by Red Robinson, who was master of ceremonies at the concert at the Empire Stadium in Vancouver in 1957. In the sleeve notes, Robinson asserts that this recording is the complete, unedited version of the interview. So far, so good.


Now the point of this post. My copy of this pressing was the sample copy sent to the company that I worked for, Gallo Africa Ltd, by Redwood Music Inc, for evaluation and consideration for local release in 1976. The label is marked “Sample Copy Only - Not for Sale or Broadcast!”


On this pressing, the last section of side one has been redacted. This has been accomplished by pressing a series of diagonal grooves into the disc to make it impossible to play that section of the pressing. In fact, if one did allow a pickup to track into this area, it would probably severely damage the stylus. See the images below. The grooves have been pressed into the disc by a purpose made die of some sort, not cut by hand. This is a lot of trouble to go to when the alternative would obviously be to destroy the pressings in question and do a re-release without the offending section.


There are many versions of this release, spanning many countries. None are particularly valuable. However, I have not been able to find any reference anywhere to pressings with a redacted section. The version released by the Gallo subsidiary, Trutone Music, under the Trutone label, obviously did not contain this redacted section. Does anyone here have any knowledge of this? What is on the section that could not be allowed to be heard? Was any other release in any other country redacted? I would love to know the answers.


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Thats very interesting. Ive never seen anything like that before.

I suppose that even trying to play that on an old deck would have the needle flying all over the place and damage the rest of the record. They really have made that impossible to play and i wonder which part of the interview thay werent happy about.

I cant see a stylus making any sense of that at all even if you tried and barriered off the rest of the record. you would have to wreck a stylus but there isnt enough play time between grooves

I dont know if record label or producer research would bring up any answers. Red Robinson would know if he is still around. Redwood music may have a link if they are still around. 1957 and 1976 doesnt bode well for easy contacts

Might be worth sending a letter off :)

I dont know if it has any value if the info cant be retrieved. Its certainly an interesting oddity though and might be woth something to an Elvis collector

I can't find any trace of Redwood Music Inc. in Canada using a web search, but a company called Redwood Music Limited was registered in the UK in 1978 and is still registered here. Company House records show a London address, which is just a firm of solicitors and a 5th Avenue correspondence address given in New York. The accounts show annual cash assets of just under one million and liabilities of around £300 less than that. Go figure. Seems to be a vehicle for the collection of royalties. I doubt that there would be anyone at either address that has any knowledge of operations in Canada in the 1970's.

I dont know really. It depends on how interested you are in emailing the Elvis experts. If the interview is generally available on other pressings I would think few are genuinely interested in hearing what has been redacted for probably minor reasoning.

I doubt he has predicted the second coming or something like that. I wonder if permission wasnt given by Elvis, Elvis management or whoever. I dont know if the main body of the interview is interesting or worth having. from the general interview it may be possible to determine if it was going in a certain direction that just want going to be interesting or things just best not said on the record

Ive never seen a record redacted in this way. You cant even play the record without lifting the stylus before a set point...its a real sample copy not for the prized moving coil :) Its interesting but probably not valuable in the way you may like.

Martin, I'm not particularly interested in value. I'm just curious about the reason for the redaction especially since I can't find any info about it.

A laser turntable could possibly play it?

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Originally Posted by ff1d1l

A laser turntable could possibly play it?

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I don't think it would, but it could be mapped optically and reconstructed that way. You'd need an archive machine to do it though. Getting access to one might be possible, I don't know.

Someone, somewhere, knows what was on the pressing. I wonder if the original master still exists.