The year 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the king's legendary sessions at American as well as his stage comeback in Las Vegas. Because Sony Music Entertainment / RCA saw no room for two large and therefore expensive boxed sets, it was decided to please the concert fans - the majority of the Presley disciples. The result was called "Elvis Live 1969", a set of a staggering eleven compact discs. It included everything RCA had taped for the "Elvis In Person" project.

The Memphis sessions were honored with a digital only release of all the masters and the majority of the available outtakes. Just a few false starts were skipped. While this solution might have been fine for digital natives, the king's fans started to complain in grand style. Sony soon realized, that these people were not just rejecting digital products, but also were able and willing to pay for two boxed sets in a row. They even demanded a physical release. Eventually it was decided to assign the task to Follow That Dream Records, Sony's own collector's label. In October 2019, several months after the original release, a physical boxed set hit the market. In March 2020 it was announced, that "American Sound 1969" was sold out and no further units would be produced. Of course that didn't affect the original release, the digital album was left in place and can be enjoyed through the various streaming platforms. On Spotify it was requested 10.5 million times. For a collection of outtakes this is quite solid, especially when considering that original releases like "Roustabout" or "It Happened At The World's Fair" clock in at not even half as many requests.

The boxed set followed the design of FTD's own "The VIVA LAS VEGAS Sessions" (2018) and "The FUN IN ACAPULCO Sessions" (2019). The compact discs were housed in a digipak, which looked like an old tape box. It was accompanied by a booklet of 28 pages, which featured background information and photos. Both items were stored in a cardboard sleeve, which featured a photo cover on the front and the track listing on the back. The set was produced by Ernst M. Jorgensen and Roger Semon, the remastering and mixing of the outtakes was done by Sebastian Jeansson. The audio quality was great and easily beat all previous releases of the material.

Because the physical set resembled FTD's original session boxes, many fans assumed to receive everything that had been recorded in January and February 1969. Of course it would have been great if Follow That Dream Records had added the missing bits and pieces and released "The Complete MEMPHIS Sessions", but that neither had been the original intension nor had the set been announced this way. The fans got what they had asked for: A physical edition of the digital release.

For the content of the individual compact discs just tap on the links:

CD 1    CD 2    CD 3    CD 4    CD 5