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Announcement:
In 1980 Felton Jarvis, Elvis' record producer for the last decade came
to the remarkable idea to freshen up some of Elvis' recordings. The idea
was to add totally new backing tracks to Elvis' voice. This resulted in
the 1981 record release of 'Guitar Man'.
You hate it or you love it is probably the right thing to say about the
album.
Felton was convinced Elvis would have loved it. The original album
contained 10 songs (which all can be heard in a wonderful newly
remastered sound quality on this new 2 CD set). But Felton worked on a
bunch of other songs to see if they would suit the project.
This special 2 CD set contains many of those unreleased versions that
never made it to the record. Also included are some unreleased
unfinished versions of tracks that did make it to the final GUITAR MAN
album.
The title track 'Guitar Man' written and first performed by Jerry Reed
was obviously one of the tracks that had to end up on the album. Jerry
Reed was part of the original recording by Elvis in 1967 and now Jerry
Reed was back in the studio with Felton Jarvis to work on the new title
track for the 1981 re-release. Besides the guitar work he also recorded
a 'duet' version of the song. This version never made it to the album,
but it probably should have. Felton finished this track most likely for
his own pleasure or for Jerry Reed and it is one of the many highlights
of this set. This is just an example of one of the many surprises you
will find on this CD set. And all in wonderful sound quality.
This wonderful 2 CD set is full of unreleased tracks like: Blue eyes
crying in the rain, The fool, Susan when she tried, Help me, Funny how
time slips away and many many more.
Felton Jarvis sadly passed away early January 1981 even before the album
came out.
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