Jorgensen, Ernst (Mikeal) 1951(?)-

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JORGENSEN, Ernst (Mikeal) 1951(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1951, in Denmark; married; children: two.

ADDRESSES: Home—Denmark. Offıce—BMG, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

CAREER: Employed in the music record business, 1977—; BMG (music company), New York, NY, producer, 1988—.

AWARDS, HONORS: Award for Excellence finalist, Association for Recorded Sound Collections, 1999, for Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions; Grammy Award nomination for producing Elvis Presley box sets.

WRITINGS:

(With Erik Rasmussen and Johnny Mikkelsen) Reconsider Baby: The Definitive Elvis Sessionography, 1954-1977, Jee Productions (Baneringen, Denmark), 1984, Pierian Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1986.

Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Peter Guralnick) Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1999.

Also author of Presley Recording Sessions, published in Denmark.

SIDELIGHTS: Elvis Presley authority Ernst Jorgensen has been credited with helping to revive audience interest in the late musician through his work as a producer with BMG, the Denmark-based music company that owns Elvis's old record label, RCA. Jorgensen, who has been a fan of Elvis's since the 1960s, accomplished this by coproducing several new box sets of Elvis's songs, including The King of Rock & Roll, From Nashville to Memphis, and Walk a Mile in My Shoes, that have sold millions of copies; today, he continues to work on new Elvis CDs and videos for BMG. His diligent research into the daily life of Elvis, especially Elvis's innovative work as a performer, has also resulted in the highly praised books Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions and Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music.

After Elvis's untimely death at the age of forty-two in 1977, his reputation and legacy suffered for many years as audiences often remembered him more for the tragic, overweight, drug-addicted Vegas act he had unfortunately become than as the dynamic and innovative performer who greatly influenced rock and roll music. Beginning in the early 1990s, Jorgensen helped revise that image. As David Segal explained in a Washington Post article, "Jorgensen, then the top executive in BMG's Danish office, urged his bosses in Germany to demolish the slum that was Elvis's reputation and build a skyscraper in its place." The release of 1992's The Complete 50's Masters marked the beginning of a posthumous comeback for Elvis, thanks to Jorgensen. The five-disc set quickly went double platinum, far exceeding BMG's wildest expectations and paving the way for many more song collections in the future.

In addition to this success as a producer and repackager of Elvis material, Jorgensen has increasingly been acknowledged as the foremost scholar of Presley's life. The talent, idiosyncrasies, and ups and downs that were the performer's life have been of endless fascination to Jorgensen, and he has set out to find every recording, every photo, and every bit of documentation he can about Elvis's life. Inevitably, Jorgensen felt that he needed to write down what he had uncovered. This began with a series of self-published pamphlets that were originally printed in Denmark and would eventually become Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions. Unlike many biographies of Elvis, Jorgensen's book is mostly interested Elvis's artistic merits, not his sometimes controversial personal life. As Detroit Free Press reviewer Terry Lawson explained, the author only mentions the turmoil in Elvis's personal life when it directly affected his work as an artist, such as when his drug addictions interfered with his recording sessions. "He otherwise avoids passing judgment," said Lawson.

Elvis Presley, Lawson continued, is an "immaculately detailed yet refreshingly readable account" that makes clear to the reader that Elvis's forays into mediocre music and silly movies were the negative result of his manager Colonel Tom Parker's control over him. What is really amazing, says Jorgensen, is that Elvis was able to create any good music at all, given this handicap. It is also clear, as Jorgensen shows, that Elvis knew that many of his career choices were out of his hands; yet he never lost his understanding of—or gift for—creating great music, "something this excellent book makes tragically clear," concluded Lawson. A Publishers Weekly reviewer added that this "truly insightful book" gives "readers a glimpse of what it might have been like to be Elvis."

Jorgensen followed Elvis Presley with a book he cowrote with Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick titled Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music. Organizing the book chronologically like a diary, the authors researched Presley's life so thoroughly here that they are able to account for nearly every day of his life. The book includes details ranging from the complete story of how Elvis met his manager and what happened during his 1970 visit with President Richard Nixon down to tiny details such as what Elvis wrote on his first job application form. Calling Elvis Day by Day "a useful research tool," People contributor Ralph Novak felt that "this absurdly detailed chronicle of his life is surprisingly fascinating." And Booklist writer Benjamin Segedin concluded that Jorgensen and Guralnick's book is "essential for thoroughgoing Elvis collections."

Being a recognized authority on Elvis Presley has had both positive and negative effects for Jorgensen. Sometimes revered for his work in promoting and reviving interest in Elvis, Jorgensen has also been targeted by people Segal described as "Presley zanies," who have criticized the record producer for some of the decisions he has made when assembling new collections of Elvis recordings. In response to such criticisms, Jorgensen told Arjan Deelen in an Elvis Information Network interview, "I didn't mean to be a public person, for the fame and lack of fortune. . . . I speak, because I want to speak about the music of Elvis."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Billboard, September 19, 1998, Michael Amicone, review of Elvis Presley: A Life in Music—The Complete Recording Sessions, p. 26.

Booklist, June 1, 1998, Gordon Flagg, review of ElvisPresley: A Life in Music, p. 1702; September 1, 1999, Benjamin Segedin, review of Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music, p. 4.

Detroit Free Press, August 9, 1998, Terry Lawson, review of Elvis Presley: A Life in Music.

Entertainment Weekly, October 15, 1999, "The Week," p. 74.

People, October 18, 1999, Ralph Novak, review of Elvis Day by Day, p. 55.

Publishers Weekly, June 22, 1998, review of ElvisPresley: A Life in Music, p. 79; September 13, 1999, "Shake, Rattle & Roll," p. 74.

Washington Post, December 5, 1999, review of ElvisDay by Day, p. 12; October 12, 2003, David Segal, "The Elvis Hunter: On the Trail of the King with Ernst Jorgensen, the Man behind Presley's Latest Comeback," p. N1.

Washington Post Book World, August 9, 1998, review of Elvis Presley: A Life in Music.