The title of this boxed set, released by Follow That Dream Records in August 2024, might be somewhat missleading as Elvis never released an album called "Guitar Man". The sessions we are talking about here simply were set up to fill the planned "Clambake" soundtrack album, because the movie featured no more than seven songs. FTD used the opportunity to include the short sessions for the "Stay Away, Joe" soundtrack, too.

Back in 2011 Follow That Dream Records had released a collector's edition of an imagined "Guitar Man" album to present the non-movie material of 1966/67 in a way, the songs could have been compiled if they had not been used to fill several soundtrack lps. The cover of the "The GUITAR MAN Sessions" booklet also imagines such an album. Below you can see the cover of the booklet as well as the design of the FTD release from 2011.

For "Guitar Man - The 67/68 Sessions" Follow That Dram Records stuck to the well known principle of packaging and put the compact discs in a digipak, that mirrors an old tape box. The digipak and the booklet are housed in a cardboard slipcase. Of course the set was not released through the streaming platforms and therefore can only be enjoyed by those, who still own a cd player.

The set begins with the master takes as well as Elvis' overdubbed home recording of "Suppose". They are followed by the sessions from September 10/11, 1967 and the ones from January 15/16, 1968. As an afterthought we also get to hear the original home recording of "Suppose" as well as the overdubbed master and the instrumental version, that was created to beef up the tape Elvis had sent to Nashville. The recordings on this set were newly mastered and mixed by Sebastian Jeansson and Vic Anesini, so it's no surprise that they sound magnificent.

 Just tap on the links to go to the details:

Masters    Sessions: September 10/11, 1967

Sessions: January 15/16, 1968   Overdub Session: March 20, 1967