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Robin Pogrebin reports in today’s New York Times about a new company purporting to sell two-inch segments of the “master tape” from Elvis Presley’s Sun Sessions for $500 each.

They’ve said nothing about provenance, but they do have a pretty good excuse for cutting it up. They claim that the tape is no longer playable because of its age and because of water damage, and that it was played once, digitally recorded, and can now safely be sliced up and sold off. Tapes from the 1950s (and later) do routinely disintegrate; usually, the adhesive that binds the oxide to the tape backing gets gummy and keeps the tape from running through the machine smoothly. By “baking” the tape in a low-temperature oven for a few hours, you can get everything to stick together and un-gum just enough to play the tape smoothly. Once. After that, it’s often a goner.

Nice excuse for cutting it up, but there are a number of very good reasons not to believe them:

• They claim this is the original session tape. But if you look at the order of the songs on the tape, they’re not even in chronological order. They apparently want us to believe that they recorded “I’ll Never Let You Go” at the end of the tape in September, 1954, then recorded “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” the following April, before it on the tape. I’m sure they were frugal with recording tape back then, but there’s no way they could have known precisely how much tape later sessions would take up, such that they could start recording way into the reel and not record over anything.
• The tape that Bongiovi is holding up in the Times photo appears to be in perfect condition. If the condition were as bad as they claim, the tape wouldn’t look brand new. A bunch of the oxide would be missing, and you’d be able to see it in the picture. Especially if there was water damage, as they claim.
• Taking off my audio geek hat and putting on my law geek hat, take a look at the “Certificate of Authenticity”. Note that it doesn’t actually certify the authenticity of the tape. Instead, it states the opinion of Tony Bongiovi (who appears to be a business partner in this venture) that the tape is authentic. If it turns out to be a fake (and I believe it will), his liability, at least, is limited.
• Here’s the best part. Let’s say I buy one of these snippets, then start thinking the tape is a fake and sue Master Tape Collection. My case would depend on being able to prove the tape is fake. Where’s the evidence of the tape’s authenticity? Spread all over the world in two-inch segments. The opinion of the company’s tape authenticators will stand as the only opinion ever about the tape’s authenticity, because nobody else will ever be able to inspect the whole thing.

What’s really shameless is that the Elvis estate issued them a license to use his name and likeness. I mean, I have nothing against them making all the money they can, but being seen as impliedly authenticating a fake tape is not good for an organization’s image.