The date of this recording session is unknown, but it was held sometime between August 15 and 19 1954.

RCA received tapes from Sam Phillips in December 1955, and where no tapes existed they used dubs from SUN singles for their 'Masters' (See below).

With Blue Moon, one of the first true discographical dilemmas arrives. The sticker on the label reads "8/19 Wednesday Nite", but August 19 1954 was a Thursday. Perhaps Sam Phillips was simply re-using tape and the sticker refers to another session by a totally different performer from 1953, when August 19 was a Wendesday.

Some argue that Blue Moon could be from the first session (July 5) as whoever wrote on the box didn't know Elvis' first name, and couldn't spell his surname. Another credible source notes a session held on August 15th, which could be for Blue Moon.

It has also been thought that it is possible that Blue Moon was recorded at the next session (September - It's sound would be consistent with that theory), since it seems more than odd that Elvis' second full SUN session should have focused on a single song with virtually no commercial potential.

With the release by 'Follow That Dream' of the ultimate Sun collection - 'A Boy From Tupelo', we get the complete Blue Moon session for the first time.

According to the tape box notes the master should be Take 4 (or 'Track 4' of the tape), but since the tapes were re-analysed, each false start has now been associated a separate take, which now makes the master Take 9. This also means that the other released takes ('50's Box', 'Platinum', 'Sunrise' etc...) are listed wrong on their respective release.

Example of above - In the Outtakes section of Ernst Jørgensen's book, 'A Life in Music', the '50's Box' version of Blue Moon is listed as Take 2 and the 'Platinum' version as Take 3. The '50's Box' booklet says Take 1.

It is possible that Elvis could have recorded Tiger Man (King Of The Jungle) around this time too, as this session and the September sessions were arranged to prepare for a follow-up to SUN 209, the first single. While Elvis performed in Las Vegas in August 1970 he mysteriously introduces stand-alone renditions of Tiger Man as his "Second Record" and that "Not too many people heard it".

In March of 2007, Sony decided to go through all of Elvis' masters. They retransferred everything and remastered all tracks including repairing as many clicks, pops, bad edits and dropouts as they could. They have used these newly mastered recordings on their new releases since 2007 including budget soundtracks, 'Legacy' releases, the 30 disc 'Complete Elvis Presley Masters' collection and the Franklin Mint package. These 2007 remasters were not used on FTD's 'A Boy From Tupelo', the masters were all remastered again from scratch on that set.

Elvis At Sun - Restoration (Courtesy of 'Master & Session')

As could be heard on the outtake as released on 'Sunrise' back in 1999, the original SUN Blue Moon tape appears to be very worn. It was recorded at lower level as well and this does result in a lot of tape hiss that has been left intact on 'Elvis at SUN' in order to preserve the signal and ambience. On the other hand, the dropouts have been repaired. The result is a big improvement over the 'Sunrise' outtake and of course an even bigger improvement over the previous BMG master.