L Ray wrote: October 5th, 2025, 3:26 pm
John wrote: October 5th, 2025, 12:22 pm
L Ray wrote: October 5th, 2025, 10:21 am
FanFrom'61 wrote: October 4th, 2025, 5:28 pm
John wrote: October 4th, 2025, 12:08 pm
TCB-FAN wrote: October 4th, 2025, 11:25 am
It is...but does this mean FTD is winding down ?? "1999-2025" seems a bit too ominous.
I doubt it. There's still a fair bit of material that hasn't been released.
Such as?
Many many movie session box sets, for example. Paradise Hawaiian Style, Frankie and Johnny, Spinout and others.
I wouldn't be surprised to see the F&J sessions and PHS in the not too distant future.
Absolutely. The last two were excellent, Girl Happy and Harum Scarum!! Like stated we have to be happy with great sounding classic albums, Girls Girls Girls and some others because they don’t have the sessions. But there are those that they do have. I bet we will see a sound improved F&J soon!!
Looking forward into next year, I reckon Frankie & Johnny and then Paradise will be the last two individual soundtracks that will get the Sessions treatment in 2026, and no doubt, the vinyl equivalents would follow after. And whilst talking about vinyl, it would appear that FTD will re-release a few more of the early vinyl releases that are in demand.
After that, we move into a somewhat murky territory as to how FTD will deal with everything remaining from the Hollywood sessions and more to the point whether they will deal with them at all under the Sessions series. They might do compilations of a couple of soundtracks like Spinout/Easy Come Easy Go at the end of 2026 and Clambake/Stay Away Joe early 2027, although they could combine those four into one release if it does not mean too many CDs in one release, although maybe 5 CDs would cover those four movies.
That would leave Live A Little, Trouble with Girls, Change of Habit and Charro if they have the outtakes for Charro, but almost like a The Last Movies sessions for 2027. But I guess it all depends on how deep they want to go with the sessions series that covers those last few movies.
And we should not forget they haven’t done G I Blues or Flaming Star and there’s not enough material in Flaming Star to warrant an 8" box with a couple of CDs so that would have to be coupled with something, so perhaps Follow That Dream. And G I Blues might have been seen as a bit of a problem as we have already had two volumes from that movie under the Classic Album series - it does seem strange that they have not tackled G I Blues by now. But…. Well more on that a bit later, but another question is whether they will visit the Stax sessions - I don’t see how they can ignore them.
And that takes me to the FTD book/CD releases, and the G I Blues ‘but’. As FTD have visited the Paramount vaults for King Creole and Blue Hawaii, they might have a Making of G I Blues combo set already lined up that would include the sessions. I’ve also heard that they are working on another Elvis Celluloid Sell-out and that the report is that this would encompass Elvis’ five final movies as opposed to a follow in from the previous release which would have been 1962-63.
Soundboards is anyone’s guess, but along with one or two soundboards from whatever years they feel need doing, I definitely think we will see a Volume 4 of the Last Tours, and if FTD are looking at calling it a day at the end of 2027, I would like book/cd combo set that covers the CBS special Elvis in Concert that not only includes the two complete shows that were recorded in multi track, and possibly the original Elvis in Concert album too, but a recording of the very final concert in Indianapolis, even if it is a cleaned up audience recording. And I certainly do not see how they can hide behind the argument that such a release is not worthy because of Elvis’ health problems etc, as they haven’t held back on The Last Tours, so no excuse now.
There’s no doubt about it that if the end of 2027 is the final curtain for FTD, then that sounds like a lot of releases for the next 26 months, and is probably not completely exhaustive, but a few years back, FTD were averaging 12 releases every 12 months, so certainly achievable. I’m just trying to figure out why in the last year, they have scaled right back as so far this year, we have only seen 5 new releases with the re-issue of Good Times making it 6 and nothing further has been announced to go with it yet.
And if we do get day another twenty or so releases between now and the end of 2027, would that be enough for a Volume 3 of FTD World (subtitled 2026-2027).