JohnnyB

I'm sitting at the computer reading some news, checking email and Facebook, and figured I could use some music to comb the kinks and gnarlies out of my brain waves. Fortunately, I chose this LP wisely: This is Metheny in pure acoustic solo mode with a range of guitar-based string instruments. The album opens with Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" played on Metheny's bespoke "Pikasso" 42-string guitar: He also plays on a nylon string classical and an acoustic baritone guitar: These tracks are amazing. He has an incredible way of creating instrumental covers of vocal songs that convey the emotions of the original compositions. His renditions took me through a range of emotions from nostalgia to melancholy to personal reflection to jubilation to a peaceful calm. And isn't just about everything we seek from good music? Pat conveyed it all in a 2-LP set. It ain't death metal, but I highly recommend it when you get into an acoustical mood. Technical notes: A few months ago I bought an Audio Technica low-output moving coil cartridge (LOMC). I've used it several times but I think this is the first time I used that cartridge with this album. It was a revelation. I could sense each note form from the metallic tone of the plucked string to the transfer of vibration to the guitar body to the swell of the air compressing and escaping to deliver the resonant aspect of the resulting tone. It reminds me of why I like well-tuned hi-rez audio; it delivers the emotional content of the music.

Yesterday I listened to Lou Rawls' first album, Stormy Monday, recorded and released in 1962 backed by the jazz pianist Les McCann and his trio. Lou and Les became acquainted with each other when they were both performing in the jazz club scene in Hollywood in the late '50s. They finally figured out a way to record together by having a late night/early morning session at the Capitol Records Building in Hollywood after their club gigs. For me, this is one of those "treasure albums," where a jazz-oriented singer gets paired with some charismatic jazz instrumentalists before the corporate suits get hold of them and turn them into an easy listening act. They did it to Nat King Cole, Diana Krall, and many others. Tony Bennett was a kick-ass jazz vocalist when he first started (still is). He, Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, Doris Day and others chafed under Mitch Miller's heavy-handed treacly middle-of-the-road production at Columbia and arrangement style and changed labels in desperation. This album is perfect as is, and shows what happens when talented people get together to make music without interference.

I used to have a recording of this album, retrospective of the Moody Blues' most signature songs released as a 2-LP album. I was working at a stereo store in 1975 and this was one of our favorite demo albums. I made a recording of all 40 minutes of the album on my Tandberg reel-to-reel and listened to it often. I really felt like it gave me a representative collection of their songwriting, musicianship, and variety of styles and themes. Then 12 years later I sold my reel-to-reel to help finance a move from California to Boston, and I had no way to play my open reel tapes. I went without from 1987 onward. In 2007 I bought a new turntable and started seeking out my favorite LPs. I tried really hard to find this one, but they seemed to be out of print or there were a few scarce vintage copies that had gotten pretty expensive. Then a week ago I realized, "Why not see if anybody's listing these on eBay?" Sure enough, there they were, and at prices $10 to $50 below what I'd seen before. I picked a VG+ to VG++ rated copy (and the seller proved to be honest; the black vinyl gleamed), and only $9.50 for the 2-record set in like-new condition. It arrived a couple days ago (fast response and shipping) and to took me on a time trip. These songs remind me of what was going on in the mid-'70s and what a skilful creative group they were. And my wife likes the Moodies, too. We caught them live in May, 2017 on their 50th anniversary tour of their "Days of Future Passed. Great stuff, well written, well-recorded, and well-played. And the music takes me all the way back to when I turned 14.

When ELO first came on the scene, to me they sounded like where The Beatles had been heading musically if they hadn't broken up, It looks like several people noticed it before me.

I've noticed that a couple of the non-Giles albums were mixed or supervised by George Martin when he was still alive. The whole first page is 180g pressings except for Al DiMeola's tribute album, which has the more ambitious 45 rpm set of 2 LPs. I have a few 12" 45 rpm LPs and the dynamics and low noise even have a leg up on the 33-1/3s (but then, even my 45s are 180g). The albums on screens 2-4 are a mix of used LPs and others of a different provenance, e.g. transfers from BBC broadcasts and other thematic collections from the vaults (such as "Rock'n'Roll Music"). My second job out of college was as a sales guy at a somewhat boutiquey stereo store. I was pretty familiar with Pink Floyd from my high school days, but I was unprepared for the creativity and sound quality. DSOTM and "Wish You Were Here" (especially "Money") were two of our favorites for getting a "Wow!" reaction from someone who just walked into the store. When I bought my turntable in March 2, 2007 after a long 20-year drought of digital-only, one of the first LPs I bought was a fresh remaster/repress of DSOTM. Thanks for the reminder; I may give it a spin today or tomorrow.

I bought the full "Beatles in Mono" remix/remaster/re-release in Sept. 2014. Since then I was so busy listening to them I hadn't known that Giles Martin had gotten busy remixing and remastering Beatles albums in multichannel mixdown proper stereo. Gorch has examples of these remastered-to-proper stereo albums. For a summary of titles, techniques, and reviews of these, go to this Beatles recent release LP summaries and reviews here. And if you're interested in shopping for and acquiring these multi-track 8-channel recordings, mixed down to authentic stereo by Giles Martin and pressed on boutique standard 180gram vinyl, Go Here. "A splendid time is guaranteed for all."

In other words, you have to be a Fool to open for The Knack!

George Martin was also incensed by Capitol Records hard left/hard right unnatural separation of instruments and voices, and calling it "stereo" when it was 2-channel at best. "Fabs mono recordings are the way to go. More detailed, muscular mix." Back in the Capitol USA days, the Beatles albums sounded so thin and nasal that I thought John Lennon or somebody in the mixing booth had lost his high frequency hearing. "Muscular mix" is spot-on. My initial reaction was "robust," which the Capitol LPs were definitely not. http://www.pannelldiscussions.net/2014/04/264-capitol-records-shameful-handling-of-the-beatles/

Sometimes I've just gotta have a Beatles fix. I was in 5th grade and 10 years old when they started getting airplay on top 40 AM and then had three appearances on Ed Sullivan in 1964. That summer they came out with the film and accompanying soundtrack of "A Hard Day's Night." "Revolver" sometimes gets credited as the first Beatles album all written by John and Paul without covers, but actually "A Hard Day's Night" was the first Beatles album with all Lennon-McCartney originals over a year earlier. It also features George Harrison's introduction of his Rickenbacker 12-string, which created a trend in rock and folk-rock to come, starting with The Byrds. Five years later the Woodstock concert film shows a lot of electric 12-strings on stage. I played the mono version with all Beatles songs rather than the USA Universal Abomination. I played it as an LP with a mono cartridge as originally intended, and it sounded so right.

I had another achey and out-of-balance day yesterday, but I needed to clean the kitchen and cook dinner for our little nuclear family of three. I burned through three LPs--a 2-record set of: Brian Wilson's Smile Sessions Concierto by Jim Hall: ... and jazz flautist Hubert Laws' "The San Francisco Concert:" It must have worked. I made baked beer-battered cod, a fresh Italian salad, and a side dish of lo mein for dinner, plus I poached 1/2 dozen eggs to make egg salad for lunch in the coming days. If you have any interest in The Beach Boys and Brian WIlson's "Smile" saga, that's a fun, well-made album.

Yesterday I woke up in a muddle. My balance was off and I had to use my cane for most of the day lest I do a faceplant. Finally, in the mid-afternoon I started coming out of my fog, saw a lot of cooking and work to be done around the house, and spun this one on my turntable to wake me up, sharpen my focus, put rhythm in my cooking, and made me feel much better the rest of the day: I bought this 2-record album when it came out in 2007, the same year I bought my turntable. I remember reading a rave review in Stereophile or The Absolute Sound. The collaboration of these two artists seemed unlikely and gimmicky, but the reviews were so unequivocally enthusiastic I ordered the album. It surprised the hell out of me. It is superb in every way. It was produced by T-Bone Walker, the LPs are 180g pressings, the record has a very low noise floor; it's dynamic, strongly rhythmic, and begs to be turned up, As for this unlikely pairing of artists, they are definitely on the same wavelength for this album. Their vocal harmonies are close, precise, organic, and engaging. They both cover the same vocal range and make close harmonies with vigor and accuracy. I couldn't find the review on Stereophile's website, but here's a comprehensive review on AllMusic. HIGHLY recommended.

There were so many suggestive albums back then ('50s/ '60s):

Every once in awhile, I have a need for a Dire Straits fix. I just spun their self-titled debut (around 1977) back-to-back with 1985's Brothers in Arms: In 1978 I was taking evening classes in computer logic and programming. "Sultans of Swing" was on the radio every time I drove to school. The night classes paid off. Two years later I moved to Silicon Valley and became a career technical writer/editor for 25 years. "Sultans of Swing" always takes me back to that life-altering time, and the introduction of Mark Knopfler and his mad finger skills on a Strat. Brothers in Arms was one of the first rock/pop albums recorded on a Sony 24-track digital tape machine. The transfer to vinyl sounds tremendous; it has all the detail and dynamics of digital, but smoothed out in the digital-to-analog transfer to vinyl. It's an incredibly good-sounding album, one I picked up at a used record store for 99 cents, way less than the reissues going for $20-50 at the time. The track, "Why Worry" has a sweetness and subtlety you don't often hear in mainstream pop/rock.

I've gotten some good classical guitar at thrift shops, including a couple of WIlliams albums, plus various members of the Romero family. I also have some Laurinda Almeido and Julian Bream as well. I got my current turntable in March 2007, just as the return to vinyl was taking off. I had lost most of my record collection to a flood, so I hit the used record stores and thrift shops to rebuild my LP library on the cheap. On my first try, I hit a St. Vincent De Paul and got a lucky strike--an LP of Mozart woodwind suites recorded and pressed by Everest Records, whose claim to fame was no-compromise stereo recordings made on a 3-channel Westrex 35mm magnetic tape machine, though this particular album was in mono, but I was so excited I didn't notice. The original Everest label was only around from about 1958-1962. Many of these (esp. the 35mm magnetic film recordings) are rather expensive items, and are also available as remasters/represses. When I got it home it was too noisy to listen to. Then, in 2015 I got a mono cartridge (to play my Beatles Mono reissue series) and then started digging out some used mono LPs, including the Everest one. To my surprise, played with the mono cartridge, all these old mono LPs were totally noise-free, including the Everest LP and a Segovia box set, plus the Vince Guaraldi Trio and several other mono records whose music I liked, but had been too noisy to enjoy. I also remembering the excitement of finding some chart-toppers such as the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack and some Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. Sliding them out of their sleeves were an easy reveal that these albums had been played to death--you could tell by the hazy glaze on the record surfaces. LPs in like-new condition have a jet-black, shiny gleam to them. And you're so right about the stacks of middle-of-the-road albums such as Herb Alpert and B-list Italian crooners such as Jerry Vale, Vic Damone, and Perry Como. Recordings of these artists found their way into massive stacks in just about every thrift shop I hit. I never knew a Jerry Vale recording in my life, and wondered what market he reached, how & why they bought up his stuff, and why and when his fan base had had enough and dumped ALL of their collections at every thrift shop I visited. One thing I found interesting was the first Tijuana Brass album. I bought it for the nostalgia: Observe the low-budget cover photo: He's sitting sideways in a straight chair, trumpet on the floor, a bota bag, tequila, salt shaker, kitchen knife, and a lime--about a $23 trip to the supermarket for the props, all background hidden by a huge photographer's backdrop of seamless paper. This album and its cover art was done on a shoestring. It turned out this album was recorded in Alpert's garage and I wouldn't be surprised if the cover photo was shot there too. The "Tijuana Brass" were a group of studio musicians led by Herb Alpert. Julius Wechter was the marimba player. When Alpert & Moss (A&M) started expanding, they formed a semi-comedy group, The Baja Marimba Band fronted by Julius Wechter. They also signed Brasil 66 led by pianist Sergio Mendes. Soon Mendes decided he needed his own studio and hired Harrison Ford to build it for him in his back yard. The TJ Brass and Brasil 66 traded band members back and forth as needed for live shows and recording sessions. Soon A&M signed The Carpenters and got the distribution rights from Island Records to repackage and distribute Cat Stevens in the U.S., and they were well on their way. By the late '70s they had signed The Police.

In that case, I took it wrong. I interpreted it that you implied that the music itself was bad or corny, which was not the case. I need to be more cautious of my reactions. I had a couple of strokes last July and I'm still trying to work my way through it. In this case I got lost in the fog. Instead of "rolling with the punches," I had a "swing and a miss." Ten months after the incident, I still feel like I'm trying to fight my way through a fog. One thing we have in common: I l-o-o-o-ve those Beatles mono remaster/repressings. I even bought an Audio Technica high output moving coil mono cartridge, and that delivered more fullness and dynamics. I have a few cartridges mounted to removable headshells making it easier to swap from stereo to mono, from moving magnet to moving coil, etc. I bought the whole set of individual albums, which were delivered on my doorstep in Sept. 2014, right around the release date. I figured the individual albums would be easier to handle than fishing them out of a box set. Speaking of ... A lot of my record collection is from nonprofit thrift shops and used record stores. I have found that very few if any people who buy mail order box sets--especially the ones from Time/Life and Readers Digest--play them at all. Once I was cruising a Goodwill and I found an entire bin of Time/Life's "Great Men of Music" series.This was a collection of the full set of 4-LP sets--14 slipcovers marked at $1 each! I snatched up every title they had--14 sets totaling 56 LPs--featuring Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Mahler, Ravel, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Copland, and others. I came to find that none of these box sets had been opened, let alone played, and Time/Life had reissued them from RCA Red Seal masters of the '50s/early '60s, which was state-of-the art at the time--open reel multi-channel tape running at 30 ips, making for great clarity and dynamics, featuring legendary conductors, orchestras, and soloists. Thinking back over the Sousa marches, I realized they were probably played only about twice a year at best--on Memorial Day and July 4th.

Dude, what's your damage, anyway?

Really??

For Memorial Day, I love spinning this LP of Sousa Marches. I got it from a used bin for $1.99 in great shape: ... and Side 2: This brings back fond memories. I was drum major in my senior year, and we played a Sousa march at every halftime at football games on weekends from September through November. It was a great feeling that I still experience whenever I hear any of these marches. And July 4th isn't too far away either.

Spun George Benson's 1972 album, "White Rabbit" on CTI, not his first album, but my first encounter with George Benson's music. It became a staple of my playlist through college. Here's the whole album. I love the Brazilian touches throughout this album, from the opening title track which makes great use of Brazilian percussionist, Airto Moiera, who plays shakers and other instruments he designed, and contributes well-placed wordless vocals. Rounding out the Brazilian connection, Benson plays a number titled, "Little Train," an improvisation of a signature Heitor Villa-Lobos composition, "The Little Train of the Capira." I followed it up with another Benson album that came along a couple of years later, "Bad Benson." It opens with a unique approach to "Take Five as reimagined by Phil Upchurch and George Benson: ... and if you want to hear the whole album (which is what I listened to) ...

I'll have to check that out. I'm a junkie for LPs with audiophile-grade sonics. In the meantime, I was sifting through my present collection so I could stand in the sweet spot and and listen while I sort the mail. I happened upon -- and played this to my delight: Nothing like grooving to a legend with a great rhythm section. This album was released in 1966, and it still had the original price sticker on it--$5.79, which in today's money comes out to $45.82. There's a personal tie-in for me because I'm a Metheny fan, and when he saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan on Feb.9, 1964, he picked up a guitar and started playing records. But in his case, he got a beater ES-175 from a pawn shop and started playing along with records in his dad's collection, in which some were by Wes Montgomery. Nothing like starting at the top. And in case you're interested, here's the full album I listened to:

Derek Trucks is 40; Jonny Lang is 39. Some young'un had to step in and continue to demoralize us.

YAHOO! The phono stage just arrived an hour or so ago. I wasted no time installing it and have already played several records. Right now I'm listening to the "Concierto" side and am really enjoying it. I was expecting a long, laborious break-in period, but I switched to my moving coil cartridge and instant magic ensued. I've already listened to some "quiet" LPs including Jim Hall's jazz version of "Concierto" and also Norah Jones' self-titled debut album. This phono unit it dead quiet. With the Schiit Mani, I'd get line noise when I'd try to gain-match to the moving coil cart. With the Vincent PH-8, there is no perceptible noise floor. I can move my line stage a 1/4 turn louder, and there is still no hint of hum or buzz. I'm going to be busy this weekend. I have over 2,000 LPs to dig through. 😁. Looking forward to it.

Good call. I love that album! In fact, I played it to try out the new cartridge and the match sounded so good I also pulled out the Angel Classical versions that I posted. And you're right on the lineup on Jim Hall's album, not only for the talent, but also the moody vibe that Paul Desmond, Ron Carter, Steve Gadd, and Chet Baker contribute to the interpretation. I really perked up when pianist Roland Hanna came in on it. I'll keep an ear out for him from now on.

Thanks for the info. I heard an Ortofon Red at an in-store demo and was impressed (it was feeding a Naim chain of electronics, and I knew the Blue would be better still). My turntable will be on the top shelf, the PHO-8 components will be placed two shelves down, with the PHO power supply and phono stage positioned side-to-side, with a high current power amp (Perreaux PMF-3150) on the bottom shelf. I plan to leave the PH-8 on throughout the weekend. In fact, I've been leaving my much smaller Schiit Mani on all the time and turn the downstream linestage all the way down when I switch cartridges or gain switches. I'll be using a fairly beefy Zu Audio power cord with the PHO-8 power supply.

How long have you had it? Do you have any tips for use? Do you use it for moving magnet cartridges, moving coil, or both? My previous phono pre didn't provide a good impedance for my LOMC I plan on switching frequently between my MM and LOMC.