Although slightly edited, the definitive release of these sessions can be found on Follow That Dream's limited edition The How Great Thou Art Sessions 5xCD set, where everything has been compiled and remastered from scratch, from the original 3-track tapes, and all masters and outtakes are presented in the best possible sound.
Some of the mono sessions as released on the
2001 bootlegs The How Great
Thou Art Sessions - Volumes 1, 2 and 3 sound
heavily compressed, as if they were taken from
an MP3 source. The stereo sessions on the same
releases however, actually sound better than the
same takes released by BMG, as they are clipped,
and too loud, on some of the BMG releases.
From this session BMG's remasters as released
on the 60s Box and Tomorrow Is a Long Time are more conservative and far better than Amazing
Grace or Peace In The Valley. However, 'Love
Letters' has better ambience on From The Heart or the first CD version of Gold Records Volume
4.
An edited (2:00) version of 'Love Letters',
with omitted verse ("I memorize ev'ry line,
and I kiss the name that you sign, And darlin,
then I read again right from the start, Love letters
straight,from your heart."), was released
in 1987 on the BMG Ariola release The Definitive
Love Album.
Take 2 of 'So High' is listed on FTD's Easter
Special but we actually get takes 2 and 3 which
isn't listed.
The master of 'Farther Along' is documented
as being just Take 3 but there is a splice used,
with one line from Take 2. The line used for the
master ("When death has come, and")
has been cut from the session tape and it is audible
when listening to Take 2 on FTD's How Great Thou
Art classic album, as well as the bootlegs containing
Take 2, where the line isn't there!
This line has been restored to Take 2 while compiling the FTD The How Great Thou Art Sessions set.
The line from Take 3 of 'Farther Along' was physically cut from the tape reel, disgarded, and replaced with the same line from Take 2, meaning the complete Take 3 now does not exist on tape.
Take 1 of 'Beyond The Reef' on There's
Always Me Volume 4 has the left and right
channels swapped.
Thanks to Adrian V Stokes regarding the edited
versions of songs on the BMG Ariola set of Definitive albums.
In March of 2007, Sony decided to go through all of Elvis' masters. They retransferred everything and remastered all tracks including repairing as many clicks, pops, bad edits and dropouts as they could. They have used these newly mastered recordings on their new releases since 2007 including budget soundtracks, Legacy releases, the 30 disc Complete Elvis Presley Masters collection and the Franklin Mint package.
