Elvis Presley's "Guitar Man"

Quite a big deal has been made about Elvis Presley's "lost" 1963 album, which has been packaged at least three different times. But no one ever talks about his "lost" 1968 album.

Elvis was producing three movies EVERY YEAR in the 1960s. Yikes. And all of those movies had a lot of songs, most of them pretty bad. Yet Elvis found time to continue to record music for singles, gospel music and soundtrack fillers that had nothing to do with the movies he was making. 

During studio sessions from September 1967 - January 1968, there were 11 tracks (minus soundtrack and gospel recordings) recorded that could have been used to create a pretty good LP.

SIDE A

1. Guitar Man

2. Just Call Me Lonesome

3. Singing Tree

4. Mine

5. Hi-Heel Sneakers

SIDE B

1. Too Much Monkey Business

2. You Don't Know Me

3. U.S. Male

4. I'll Remember You

5. Suppose

6. Big Boss Man

The album contains all of Elvis' later career hallmarks -- rock, pop, country, folk and many ballads. Timeline-wise, this would have been the last studio album before his comeback special. This album also has a heavy Jerry Reed influence. Reed wrote both "Guitar Man" and "U.S. Male," and played guitar on them as well as on two other tracks, "Big Boss Man" and "Too Much Monkey Business." As a result, the album has a very noticeable country rock feel throughout.

This album probably would not have done very well commercially if it had been released. Five of these songs charted as singles, but the highest, "U.S. Male," only made it to No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would take the TV special, now known as the "'68 Comeback" later in the year to make Elvis a music star again. But in retrospect, this album I think would have shown that he was still making good music before that (even if it was drowned out by the banal soundtracks).

All 11 tracks are available on the Elvis box set From Nashville to Memphis: The Complete '60s Masters. For the album cover, just a homemade touch-up job using existing artwork.