Issue 127

In early summer 1969 I was living in Laurel Canyon when the sublet on the cabin I was renting ran out. I had been out of the Army for two years and was putting it behind me. The Army had trained me to be a medic but when I got to the DMZ the Army decided in its infinite wisdom to assign me to a reconnaissance platoon as a rifleman. Eight months later I was promoted to sergeant and became a squad leader, at the ripe old age of nineteen. This was an otherworldly experience for a boy from New York City, but as my hair grew longer those memories were mercifully receding in my rearview mirror.

Things were up in the air for me. I wanted to stay in Los Angeles. I was having fun, but now I had to move. A friend of mine, Paul, and his wife offered to let me stay with them. They had a big one-bedroom apartment on Argyle Avenue in the heart of Hollywood with a living room closet that was so big it was like a small bedroom.

Paul had a custom leather store on North Sierra Bonita, but no car or license. He was a draft dodger and living off the grid. If he tried to get a driver’s license, he would be flagged by the system and tracked down. And in those days driving in Hollywood without a license was out of the question for a long-haired fella. I personally got pulled over at least once every three weeks because of my long hair.

However, Paul needed transportation to and from the store and for various errands. Taxi service in LA was unreliable and expensive. I had a 1966 blue Chevy Corvair convertible (the car Ralph Nader called “unsafe at any speed”). The engine was in the rear and the trunk in front. If you hit anything head-on the front of the car crumpled like aluminum foil. Even so, the fact that I had a car cemented the deal. As it turned out the living arrangement was nice – with some cool perks.

The shop’s entrance was on Sierra Bonita, but it was part of a bigger building that housed a rock and roll club with its entrance on 7551 Sunset Blvd. We went to the shop in the early to mid-afternoons and stayed late. Because the club was open during those hours, that helped with foot traffic.

The club was called Thee Experience and it was owned by Marshall Brevetz, formerly a club owner and a concert promoter from Hollywood, Florida, later Miami. In early 1969 he was convinced by more than a few rock stars who had played at his Miami club that he should move to Los Angeles and open one there.

Advertisement for Thee Experience.

Marshall was a charming man. He looked around 50 years old but was supposedly only 29. He was a big-bellied short man who looked like he could have been one of the Marx brothers, or Bozo the Clown, with steel wool-like hair to match.

Marshall’s people would send musicians to Paul’s store and they would walk in and say, “hey, do you guys want to smoke?” “Sure,” Paul would say and into the back room everyone would go. I do not know quite how this arrangement was made or if it just evolved. In return, we were welcomed to the club any time we wanted and could just walk in. Marshall was smart and he did not want the smell of it in the club,  a sure way to get shut down by the LAPD or the LA County Sheriff’s Department.

The rock stars came by the store on some late afternoons after sound check, and almost every evening. Some of them became customers because Paul’s leathercraft was outstanding. Paul and the rockers would work out designs for fringe jackets, shoulder bags, leather pants and vests. These were truly remarkable items, one-of-a-kind, beautiful, very hip, and perfect for rock stars or well-off Hollywood freaks.

A unique thing about Thee Experience was that Jimi Hendrix’s face was painted across the whole front entrance to the club, so you would have to walk through Jimi’s open mouth to get in. One afternoon, one of the club’s employees wandered by and mentioned that Jimi was hanging out at the club, so I walked over. Marshall introduced me to Jimi, and I sat down with both of them, and rockers Lee Michaels (“Do You Know What I Mean”), and two guys from the Flying Burrito Brothers. We all were just sitting there chatting. Well for me, mostly listening.

Jimi Hendrix, 1967. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, attributed to Scanpix.

Occasionally, a beautiful girl would walk up to Jimi and say hello. He was very gracious and soft spoken. He was dressed in velvet pants with a matching short velvet jacket and a ruffled white shirt, very dapper in a rock star way. Many of these girls became tongue tied, and after saying “Hi Jimi,” could not think of what else to say. One girl got so flustered that she just lifted her blouse up to her neck for a moment, then giggled, turned, and ran away.

This was the first time I met Jimi and it was like he was holding court. He was in no rush to leave; he was comfortable and as time progressed more musicians came in and joined us and Jimi seemed to loosen up even more. By 6:00 we had a table with 16 people sitting there, all known musicians except for Marshall and me.

I was having mucho fun during this time, making hardly any money, but all my needs were covered. I was free-floating with no particular ambition, just unwinding and coming to terms with my stint in the Army. Late night at Thee Experience was almost always interesting. Whatever acts were playing in town would come by the club after their shows and jam with other (famous) musicians who were there just hanging out. No pay, but free drinks and maybe something else.

One night I saw The Butterfield Blues Band spontaneously jam with Janis Joplin. Thee Experience was a scene and these late-night happenings were below the public radar. That meant there no tourists or Valley people (suburbanites). I just was able to watch the musicians play, close up; the big table was right next to the stage and musicians like Gram Parsons would sit and take a break and have a drink and/or wait for a spot to open up. For the most part I don’t think these guys planned to be there, but as their evenings wore on someone would say, “Hey! Let’s go see Marshall!”

Jimi Hendrix stopped by a few times and once was joined by Buddy Miles. Jimi would just jam and play guitar, no theatrics, but he’d be smiling and laughing and chatty with the other musicians on stage. Usually, he would have to borrow someone’s guitar, which he played upside down because he was left-handed. Most musicians did not always walk around with a guitar and these jams were spontaneous. Jerry Garcia loved Marshall, and the Grateful Dead played at Thee Experience earlier in the year (1969) for almost nothing, probably to help put the club on the map. Jerry stopped by quite a few times when he was in LA. What impressed me was how good of a guitar player Garcia was. Can you imagine seeing Jerry Garcia playing with Steve Miller? How about with Pete Townshend? Yeah it was that kinda scene.

To name some of the bands that played Thee Experience: The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons, Joe Cocker, The New Yardbirds aka Led Zeppelin, Pogo who later became Poco, Black Pearl, Blues Image, Roxy Music, Lonnie Mack, Buddy Miles, the Youngbloods, Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Spencer Davis Group, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Grand Folk, er, Funk Railroad and this is just a partial list.

The Flying Burrito Brothers. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/A&M Records.

Then the unthinkable happened. Up in the Hills, four members of the Manson Family invaded a rented home at 10050 Cielo Drive. On August 8 and 9, 1969, Sharon Tate, 8-1/2 months pregnant, Jay Sebring, Roman Polanski’s good friend Wojciech Frykowski and his girlfriend Abigail Folger (heiress to the Folger’s coffee fortune) were in the house. Everyone there was brutally murdered. Tate’s husband Roman Polanski was not home; he was in Europe working on a film project. Steve McQueen and his girlfriend had also been invited that night but had changed their minds and opted for a quiet night at home. Quincy Jones was also invited but didn’t show.

Before the violence Charles Manson had represented himself as a singer/songwriter. He had tried to get a recording contract with various record companies to no avail. He thought he had a record deal with producer Terry Melcher, the previous renter of that house on Cielo who had lived there with Candice Bergen, Terry’s girlfriend at the time, and musician and housemate Mark Lindsay. Melcher had decided not to work with Manson, leaving Manson disappointed and vengeful.

The entire world was taken aback and it hit me and everyone extremely hard. Without knowing who was responsible at the time, the feeling I had was that it had been done by someone from the freaky Hollywood scene. This rocked Hollywood to its core. Sure, the area wasn’t free from crime but nothing as savage as this had ever happened. Everyone was in shock and then a few days later there were more murders.

The next night my sexy neighbor Sandy from Laurel Canyon came in and asked if I could drive her and Band of Gypsys member Buddy Miles to a club in West Hollywood. We got into my little Corvair and Buddy was so big that the car listed to the passenger side. It would have been amusing under other circumstances but we were subdued, still in shock.

Just like that, a snap of the fingers, and everything had changed. For me, Los Angeles was no longer a beautiful, warm place. At that point in time nobody knew who, why or anything else about the crime so the whole city was freaked out. I decided it was time to go back home to New York City.

I started making arrangements to leave and spoke to my sister Ellen. She volunteered to sublet her apartment on Third Avenue and 35th Street in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. My sister Ellen was a high-profile writer in the music business and traveled a lot. She also was in a relationship and stayed at his place when she was in Manhattan. It was a nice studio apartment with a red brick wall and working fireplace, and the rent was reasonable enough.

Within three days, I had my stuff together and flew back to the city. A few days later I called  Susan, a gal who I dated in LA who was in Hair at the Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Boulevard but had been brought back to NY by the producers and now was in the Broadway show. Those of you who read my stories in Copper about Hair and the Peace Parade know how that went.

I was only back a few weeks and started running into people I knew from LA, bumping into Michael Foster, a neighbor from Laurel Canyon, in the subway and Trudy (Sandy’s roommate from Laurel Canyon) on the street. Seems like other folks had the same idea about leaving Hollywood as I did.

One way or the other life moves you along, and even if you make plans you never know what is going to happen.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay/Peter Thomas.

Now that's how to cut a record! Audio Engineering, February 1950.

It wasn't a monster hit back in 1964, though Glen Campbell and Leon Russell played on it! Courtesy of Rich Isaacs.

We don't know what we want more – the speakers or the furniture. Magnavox ad, 1958.

A rare Barber and Howard tube stereo preamp. Almost no information about this is available online. From the Audio Classics collection.

Magical indeed. General Electric ad, circa 1946.

New records from deceased music icons are often filled with mixed emotions from fans: some will welcome any releases of previously buried or newly-discovered gems that captured the magic of the moment. Others are often highly critical of anything released that could be deemed artistically subpar, and which might tarnish the reputation and legacy of the artist. While the last few years have seen releases of posthumous new material from Prince, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and others, Elvis Presley’s catalog had been set in place by Elvis Presley Enterprises for some time. That’s why the 2018 release of a new Elvis Presley gospel album, Where No One Stands Alone, raised more than a few eyebrows, since it reportedly included never-before-heard Elvis performances.

As it turns out, producer Andy Childs and engineers Ed Seay and Tony Castle did a remarkable job of separating Elvis’ vocals from previously-recorded gospel songs and combined them with outtakes, alternate takes and brand new arrangements, instrumental accompaniments, and background vocals to create a new record. The process was not unlike the way George Martin and Jeff Lynne added new vocals and instrumental tracks from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to John Lennon’s 1977 vocal demo of “Free As a Bird” in 1995, to create a “new” Beatles recording.

To find out how it was done, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) recently sponsored a workshop named “Elvis is Back in the Building,” with Childs, Seay and Castle, moderated by Jim Kaiser of Belmont University.

Sony Legacy and Joel Weinshanker of Elvis Presley Enterprises originated the project. Childs, a veteran producer and singer/songwriter, was approached with the concept: if provided with alternate takes of Elvis Presley songs from the original 1960s and 1970s versions, could a new Elvis gospel record be created with modern arrangements? They wanted to build on the previous success of the album, Christmas with Elvis and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which reached Number 1 on the classical charts and which used a similar approach. The record was produced with the use of alternate-take Elvis vocals with the live orchestra and with the orchestra sometimes playing new arrangements over the original recordings.

Andy Childs believes it was his previous country music work with Sixwire and his experience with Southern gospel music that got him the gig. The project was green-lit in 2017. He and Elvis Presley Enterprises had to jointly select the songs. Childs narrowed the list to 20 songs that had sufficiently clean audio isolation and that lent themselves to contemporary arrangements that would be worthy of the project. 16 were finally chosen, and 14 made the record.

Of primary importance for Childs was to hear the original raw vocal 3-track Presley vocal recordings. Elvis almost never used a vocal booth and frequently cut vocals live with a band in the same room, holding his mic in his hand. Leakage and other sound issues could have made the isolated vocal tracks unusable for the intended project. Luckily, most of the isolated Elvis vocal tracks were of high-enough quality for the project. There was some background noise, and discussions with Ed Seay and Tony Castle to strategize the best way to enhance the vocals and remove noise commenced soon after.

Ed Seay considered this a “once in a lifetime” archival project and anticipated a high amount of scrutiny and criticism, especially from purists. He lamented that nobody makes records the old way anymore, where if Elvis had the band in a room and suddenly wanted to do a gospel song, they would just set the mics up, roll the tape and play it.

Childs’ concept for doing different approaches and different arrangements was to bring the Elvis tracks into the 21st century while still honoring the legacy of his vocals and performances.

Tony Castle got a call from Childs about doing the song “Crying in the Chapel.” Childs at first sent the isolated vocal stems (mixes) from the 3-track recording. Castle was knocked out by Elvis’ phrasing and how he approached the song. The audio leakage from the band on the stems was a concern but they were able to reduce it enough for the results to be acceptable.

In the original “Crying in the Chapel” stem, the isolated Presley vocal has upright bass and piano in the background and it progressively gets worse (louder) later in the song.

As the initial arrangement and performance was so strong, Andy felt it would be impossible to do the song better than it was done originally. Therefore, he approached it as he envisioned how Elvis might record the song today.

The challenge for Castle involved eliminating background sounds, primarily using iZotope RX 6 software and its spectral editor, which features a spectrogram visual display. This displays the harmonics of the instruments, which allowed targeting for removal of the piano and its inherent ambience, but without destroying or altering any of Elvis’ voice that might fall within the same frequency spectrum.

Other problems included the 4-second reverb on the original track. The old 3-track process, with its lack of available tracks for recording everything separately, necessitated printing the reverb on Elvis’ vocal on the same track as the original. It thus made Elvis’ voice sound like he was in a cave. Even more reverb was printed on Elvis’ vocals on some re-releases during the 1970s. (I sat in on several of these remix sessions that were engineered by my mentor, the late Dennis Ferrante, who remixed and restored the Elvis Presley 4-CD box set Walk A Mile In My Shoes. I can personally attest to how crucial it was to obtain the original 16 or 24-track multitrack tapes for that project, because of the sonic issues with the 3-track mixdowns that were routinely made by RCA Records in Memphis during that era.

Reverb removal software had to be used. A Zynaptiq program called UNVEIL was particularly useful for removal of reverb tails by softening and tapering them, since simply cutting off the tails would not sound musical. iZotope also had useful plug-in functions for targeting different portions of the reverb frequency range. The process involved removing the initial layer of reverb, then processing the result a second time for further work on reverb tails and other sonic aspects. Childs would receive the new track and suggest any further spots for reverb removal if needed, then take the track for further enhancement and for comping (mixing different takes together to create a new master “take”) to create a new track for the project.

For those spots where the background sounds could not be removed, Childs would have to adjust the arrangement to provide sufficient “camouflage.” For example, he would have to add background vocals or other instruments with parts in the same frequencies as the artifacts from the original track that could not be removed without altering Elvis’ vocal track.

When listening to the new isolated Elvis vocal track, it was remarkably free of the other instruments, and only retained some of the reverb tail from the original recording. It sounds like a remarkably pure Elvis Presley performance with him singing a cappella in a room.

Childs’ complaint about the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra record was that the room sound is present in Elvis’ vocals and then crossfaded out when he is not singing, which brings attention to the fact that one can hear that Elvis and the orchestra are not in the same space. Seay would find spots where nothing sonically was going on and reinsert room noise “spackling” (his term) into the track to create the illusion that Elvis was at least in the same building as the group. The result was that it sounded more natural and less like the vocal was “shoehorned” into the track along with the instruments.

Other changes included the elimination of the original background vocals and recording a new background vocal arrangement that was sparser and highlighted Elvis’ vocals, to give the song a more contemporary gospel feel.

The finished mix of the song indeed leaves more space for Elvis’ voice while the re-recorded piano, drums, and understated background vocals seamlessly blend with the half-century-old vocal recording.

Seay had to also create a new reverb using the now relatively dry Elvis vocal, a reverb that was close enough to the original but different enough to also blend with the new background vocals and instruments and sound like it placed Elvis in the same room with the other music and vocal tracks.

Tracking for the new vocals and instruments was done at Ocean Way Nashville recording studios. As the building used to be a church, Childs thought it would be appropriate to record an Elvis gospel record there, in addition to the fact that it’s one of Childs’ favorite places to record.  A big, stained glass window framed the entire project’s recording sessions.

Some of the other original songs, like “Bosom of Abraham,” were only two minutes long, so in order to create new and longer arrangements, having access to multiple takes was key for extending the songs, by adding extra bridges and verses that contained different nuances so as to sound credible as a total performance instead of an obvious cut and paste duplication from an earlier part of the same song (something that occurs frequently in EDM, electronic dance music).

Once the new arrangements were written, the comped Elvis vocal was digitally placed on a grid so that the band could follow a click track to insert their parts in time with Elvis. Ace veteran drummers Lonnie Wilson and Greg Morrow were thrilled to have the chance to play on a new Elvis record. They and the other seasoned musicians all apparently felt the weight of responsibility for doing their best on an Elvis Presley record, as he is still held in such high esteem even after his death over 40 years ago.

Childs also assembled a gospel singing choir of veterans from the Stamps Quartet and the Imperials, who had sung background on original Elvis recording sessions and tours. He coaxed them out of retirement; all were friends of Childs and leaped at the chance to participate in the project.

Presley typically preferred recording live in the same room as the band and with the background singers. However, since this was obviously not possible for the re-recorded background vocals, Childs recorded each singer with their own mic on individual tracks while separated by baffles for sound isolation.

For the female background vocals, Childs recorded Darlene Love and Cissy Houston, who both sang with Elvis in the late 1960s. He wanted to include them in the project, so they recorded their parts at the Power Station in New York, in deference to Cissy Houston’s age and difficulty traveling.

On “Stand By Me,” the original recording has a great deal of background vocals that repeat the phrase “stand by me” every time Elvis sings it. Childs’ modern take on it was to imagine Elvis singing it intimately alone to God, without the background vocals. Tony Castle’s job was monumentally challenging because of this objective: removing the background vocals while Elvis was still finishing a phrase, where there was minor overlap. Additionally, Elvis sang more softly as he ended a phrase while the background singers came in at full volume. To compound matters, the background vocals were on the same track as Elvis’ vocal!

The Brush Tool function in iZotope RX 6 was the key utility for removing the background vocals and harmonics while also avoiding tampering with Elvis’ vocal frequencies, in order to create a pristine Presley vocal track. Castle likened the task to “building an automobile without the wheels.”

The new version includes an introspective, jazzier piano part played by Dennis Wage, along with string synth pads to suit the now-lonelier-sounding vocal. Ed Seay also applied his room-sound “spackling” trick to put Elvis in the same room setting with the other instruments.

Childs wanted to create space in between Elvis’ vocal phrasings to draw out the emotional content within the new “Stand By Me” version and give it a less metronomic and more rubato rhythmic feel. The synth strings, guitarist Steve Mandel’s volume swells and other touches served to camouflage those original parts that could not be digitally eliminated by Tony Castle, as well as support the overall ambience of the song.

Lisa Marie Presley sang on “Where No One Stands Alone” – recorded at EastWest Studios in Los Angeles, right in the same spot where Elvis originally recorded the song. She asked Childs if he could sing her part first, so she could hear it as a reference in her headphones when she cut her track. Since Lisa Marie Presley is an alto, Childs wanted to bring out her lower register, so he arranged her harmony parts to be lower in pitch than Elvis’, while having her sing toward the top of her register for her solo lines. Her vocals were recorded with an old RCA 44-type ribbon mic with the intent on capturing a similar sound to what Elvis likely used on the original recording. Recording with her father, who died when she was nine, was an especially poignant and cathartic experience for her, and those emotions translated to her vocal performance, which holds its own with Elvis’.

Ed Seay did most of the mixing on the Carl Tatz Phantom Focus loudspeaker monitoring system at Nashville’s Loud Recording. Based on a triangular setup of the listener and the speakers, the listener is situated at the apex of the triangle for critical stereo listening while moving anywhere within the triangle’s sweet spot creates an immersive listening effect.

Where No One Stands Alone was released in 2018. Although Elvis had achieved many Number 1 albums and singles on pop and rock charts, Where No One Stands Alone became his first-ever Number 1 album on the Billboard Top Christian album chart. The album also reached Number 1 on the Billboard Vinyl Albums chart.

In the AES workshop, Andy Childs, Ed Seay and Tony Castle all voiced their awe of how great a singer Elvis Presley actually was, especially when you compare these recordings to today’s heavily comped (assembled from multiple takes) and Auto-Tune-laden vocal tracks, They noted that take after take had amazing, unique, emotion-laden and pitch-perfect performances. Listening to the vocals in isolation, it was astonishing to them at how unwaveringly Elvis nailed it every time. As the youngest of the three, Castle was particularly impressed that the guy who sang “Hound Dog” would have this level of vocal mastery and finesse for gospel singing, while also keeping the emotion in his performances so consistently powerful.

While pleased with the record’s chart success, Andy’s greatest satisfaction was in successfully making a new Elvis Presley record that simultaneously satisfied die-hard Elvis Presley purists and fans (whom he feared would be the most vitriolic critics) as well as turning on a new generation of listeners to one of the greatest singers in recorded history with material outside of his greatest hits. They indeed managed to get Elvis back in the building.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain, cropped to fit format.

Hard times often produce spectacular music, and 2020 was a year in which artists responded to this disorienting year with songs of joy, insight and poignancy.

This is a thrilling era for new music, as artists create inspired and compelling recordings that often live outside of the mainstream but command a significant and passionate audience. However, with more music being released than ever before, it can be daunting to sort through the tonnage to find the most compelling new work. Welcome to Be Here Now, where we will do our best to identify new artists and songs that you’ll want to hear.

Be Here Now is for those who want to hear new music but don’t get to discover as much as they’d like. We will avoid disposable pop and the perhaps-inaccessible fringe and identify artists who are making innovative, modern recordings. Some of these contemporary artists are inspired by those from previous eras. Here is a link to a Be Here Now Spotify playlist, which includes songs from all the artists mentioned in this column and many more.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2wP2igLLqtR2lE9xz2LZds?si=98TccKASQMWhi8C5s0DbYA

The playlist features one song per artist but the chosen artists are all worth exploring further, as they have all released rewarding albums that include many other great songs. There aren’t many one-hit wonders here.

Be Here Now features many exceptional artists, including Tame Impala, perhaps the most groundbreaking act of recent years. Led by mastermind Kevin Parker, they combine psych-rock, dance music dynamics and introspective lyrics. They headlined Coachella in 2019 and released the new LP, The Slow Rush earlier this year. It’s the successor to 2015’s Currents, one of the great records of the 21^st century.

Grammy-nominated Black Pumas repurpose classic soul sounds for today while a new generation of strong, unflinching female artists like Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten and Kathleen Edwards make haunting, personal, melodic recordings that linger. Bouncy, endorphin-spreading dance music is also thriving today and fresh tracks from Sault and Roosevelt encourage celebration, very much needed in the closing days of 2020.

Despite reports to the contrary, plenty of bands are making compelling guitar-based rock music, including the Strokes, whose new album is their best in years (see Copper’s review in Issue 114), the Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C., who aspire to be the only band that matters, and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, who craft punchy, compact songs that occasionally channel the Plimsouls. Considering all of the great singer-songwriters that have come before, it is remarkable how many contemporary artists are extending a genre that is over a half century old. Jason Isbell, perhaps the best singer-songwriter of the last decade, is included here as well. Laura Marling, who just turned 30, has penned deeply personal, evocative songs for nearly ten years.

Not all of today’s great music is easy to classify. Mildlife, an Australian outfit blends funk, prog, electronic and hints of jazz to create a futuristic fusion that demonstrates their virtuosity but keeps it fun and accessible. Yola is a powerhouse British singer who channels soul and country, and creates songs with huge hooks that run counter to the minimalist bent of so much contemporary music.

Here are two more bands on the Spotify playlist, U.S. Girls and Fleet Foxes:

And finally there is Avenue Beat whose song “F2020” (the “F” stands for exactly what it should) calls out this f’d up year. Over a jittery, syrupy track, they kiss off 2020 and look forward to 2021. Avenue Beat is ready to move on from this crazy year…and who isn’t? Fortunately, we have plenty of exceptional music to take with us to the other side.

Follow Cliff on social media:

Instagram: @cchenfeld
Twitter: @ChenfeldCliff

Header image of the Black Pumas courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/TenAtoms.

Spin-Clean offers its Spin-Clean Record Washer MkII vinyl record cleaning systems, which have their origin in the first Spin n’ Clean record cleaning device in the 1970s. Mark Mawhinney currently owns the company and talks about the origin and evolution of Spin-Clean over the decades and his experiences as an audio retailer. 

Don Lindich: Mark, I asked you for this interview because you are the owner and manufacturer of the Spin-Clean Record Washer MkII record cleaning kit ($79.99 – $149.99 depending on the model) and accessories, but your story is much bigger than the product itself, given your industry experience and other ventures. It is my understanding that the Spin-Clean goes back generations in your family. What can you tell me about your family history in the audio business?

Mark Mawhinney: My father owned a record store, Record-Rama, which opened in Pittsburgh in 1968. At age 10, I began working there on weekends. Then at age 15, before I could even drive, I started DJing [at] school dances, then weddings and parties.

I began my audio career at age 16 at a local hi-fi shop in Pittsburgh called The Listening Post. Later in the 1990s I opened Northern Audio Exchange, which was a consignment used-audio shop. Northern Audio Exchange morphed into Northern Audio a few years after that in a new location, where we began to sell new two-channel and home theater equipment. Then Music To My Ear, [which specializes in used and new vinyl, turntables and playback equipment], opened in Aspinwall about eight years ago and we moved to our current location on Babcock Blvd. in Ross Township about four years ago. We’re in the same building where Northern Audio is located, so that makes things much easier [in serving] the needs of our customers.

DL: I remember patronizing your Northern Audio Exchange used hi-fi store decades ago. Now you have a high-end specialty dealership and a record store that also sells popularly priced but high-quality components. Please tell us a bit more about your own experience in retail.

MM: I love retail because I love putting smiles on the faces of my customers. From designing a custom-home theater for a family that I know will now spend more time together, to selling an entry-level turntable to a high school student who is discovering vinyl for the first time, to hearing the success stories of how the Spin-Clean Record Washer brought new life back to cherished record collections, I take great satisfaction in helping others unlock the full fidelity of their music and entertainment experiences.

DL: You have been successful at a time when more and more brick and mortar retailers are going out of business every year. How have you managed to do this, especially since you have two stores serving two different markets?

A 2-channel demo room at Northern Audio.

MM: Despite the far-reaching effects of the pandemic, we have been extremely fortunate in that our businesses have flourished this year. In March of 2020, the world changed overnight, and everyone was stuck at home, going nowhere, with nothing to do. Listening to music, watching movies, and [even] cleaning vinyl all became very desirable things to do. As a result, we were able to offer our services and products to customers at a level not experienced in years.

 DL: What lines do you carry?

MM: At Music To My Ear, in addition to a vast selection of new and used vinyl and CDs we feature what we refer to as our entry-level-performance lines of audio. We sell electronics from Cambridge Audio, Rega and Music Hall. Plus, we carry the most popular selling turntables from Music Hall, Rega, and Mobile Fidelity. We also build and set-up all the turntables for our customers as a value-added service. For speakers, we offer Cambridge Audio and the Borea line of speakers from Triangle in France.

Plenty of records to choose from at Music to My Ear.

Upstairs at Northern Audio, we focus on our “attainable high-performance lines of audio,” by offering electronics from Rogue Audio, SimAudio, Luxman, Hegel, Parasound and Sophia Electric, with speakers from GoldenEar Technology, Harbeth and Fleetwood Sound Company.

Custom home theater design and home automation are also a big part of Northern Audio, and we feature all the top performing products from Sony ES, LG, Control4, Marantz and Triad.

DL: Let’s move on to Spin-Clean. Who created it, and how and when?

Limited-edition, 45th anniversary Spin-Clean Record Washer MKII "Clear" Deluxe Kit.

MM: [The first] Spin-N-Clean was originally created early in 1974 by Fidelitone, Inc. which was an accessories manufacturer out of Ireland. At my dad’s record store, Record-Rama, we had a Spin-N-Clean on the front counter and would demo it to everyone that shopped there. We sold quite a few just by demonstrating it. Not long after that we were notified that they were no longer going to manufacture the Spin-N-Clean, so dad negotiated to buy all the remaining inventory and molds, which he had shipped to Pittsburgh from Ireland. [We began manufacturing what then became known as the Spin-Clean Record Washer, now the Spin-Clean Record Washer MkII.] It has remained in our family ever since, and I took over the manufacturing of the product in 2010.

DL: After the advent of the compact disc in the early 1980s it seemed that vinyl records were fading away and would become a niche audiophile format. It was certainly surprising (and gratifying for many of us) to see vinyl come back and not only capture the attention of the general public, but actually outsell compact discs last year. How did the downtime caused by the decline in vinyl sales during that time affect Spin-Clean?

MM: Prior to the resurgence of vinyl about ten years ago, Spin-Clean [had] always sold steadily. Primarily, however, our customer base was that of the more hardcore vinyl aficionados, along with schools, libraries, and radio stations. [Then] when vinyl took off again, it seemed like almost everyone needed a vinyl record cleaner. We have been fortunate in that the Spin-Clean Record Washer MkII is an amazingly simple product to use that almost everyone can afford.

DL: Were there any challenges re-publicizing the product and ramping up production?

MM: I call this our “zero to 120 [miles per hour] time.” I was longtime friends with Chad Kassem who owns Acoustic Sounds in Salina, Kansas, and after sending him a Spin-Clean to check out, he called and in 2010 invited me to join him at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, where we could re-introduce and demo Spin-Clean to the world. We sold out all our units in a very short time and stirred up a lot of interest among the reviewers at the show. Soon after, Michael Fremer from Stereophile reviewed it and loved it, and from there Spin-Clean took off.

Within a short time we outgrew not only our local manufacturing facility, but also two [other] assembly and warehouse facilities. We then relocated our operations to one of the largest injection molding facilities in [the Midwest], and Spin-Clean has been calling Noblesville, Indiana its manufacturing home for the last decade.

DL: Any tips for owners on how to get the most out of their Spin-Clean?

MM: The beauty of Spin-Clean is that it has very few moving parts with no motor and little to maintain. So, the best advice I can give is just to keep the parts as clean and dirt-free as possible. Keep the inside of the basin clean by thoroughly rinsing it out after each use. The same thing goes for the Spin-Clean brushes. Rinse them out after each use (don’t allow them to be submerged in the fluid overnight if you can help it), and use a soft-bristled toothbrush, if necessary, to keep them dirt-free. Wash, dry, and keep your Spin-Clean Drying Cloths in a clean, static-free environment. And always make sure that you use the cloths to thoroughly dry your records before putting them into new anti-static sleeves [instead of standard paper sleeves].

DL: is there anything else you would like to add?

MM: In almost all of the videos we do for our social media channels, I end [them] by saying, “thanks for listening to the music.” I am grateful to all of our customers who love music and high-performance audio/video as much as I do. It has fueled my passion in this industry over the years. And I look forward to many more years of helping our customers unlock the true fidelity of the music and entertainment they love.

In a previous installment of this series in Issue 126, I discussed measuring the most important component of an audio system, which is the ear. It is most important because no matter how expensive or brilliant the rest of the system is, we need be able to hear it to appreciate it. In the rest of the series, I will discuss what I do in terms of measurements to improve the sound of my system.  It is by no means an exhaustive guide, and I have limited technical expertise, but other audiophiles with the same or higher level of technical competence (which is pretty much everybody) could benefit from this as well.

In my experience, the most problematic part of an audio system is often the room acoustics. Room acoustics cannot be looked at in isolation without considering the interaction with the loudspeakers. Therefore, it is perhaps more accurate to call this loudspeaker-room interaction. I am lucky since I have had expert help in this regard; I recruited a friend who is an architectural acoustics expert to design my sitting room. But even if this is not an option for most, there are often maneuvers that one can do to correct at least some of the problems.

The basic characteristics of the loudspeakers play an important role; the frequency extension, especially the low frequencies, and whether they can work well in a room with a particular set of dimensions, must be taken into consideration on initial purchase, since it is difficult to correct problems later that are related to overloading a room with bass. The dispersion pattern of the mid and high frequencies should also be considered. In general, the more controlled directivity of horns has less interaction with the room than the omnidirectional dispersion pattern of say, the MBL Radialstrahler omnidirectional driver. Often, the improvements audiophiles hear after changing speakers are the result of better integration with the room as opposed to the installation of better speakers per se. Having at least some understanding of these fundamental principles could save a lot of dollars, time and frustration.

Loudspeaker-room interaction is multi-factorial and is too complex to tackle without the aid of measurements. The first gadget an audiophile should acquire is therefore a tool to do acoustic measurements. In the past, such tools were expensive and usually only available to professionals.  However, one highly useful tool is now available to everyone. REW, which stands for Room EQ Wizard, is a freeware application with the power and the features of professional acoustics software worth thousands of dollars. I would urge everyone who finds the software useful to make a donation to support its continual development. You will also need a laptop computer (PC or Mac), and a calibrated USB measurement microphone with stand (or an analog mic and external audio interface).

I use a Steinberg UR22 (now obsolete) USB sound interface with a Behringer ECM8000 microphone. More expensive measurement microphones come with their own individual calibration files that enable the REW software to compensate for the microphone’s non-linearity, whereas the ECM8000 has a generic file, but it should be accurate enough for our purposes.

The setup is simple. In my case, using an external audio interface, the interface is first calibrated by feeding its input from the output. The software measures its frequency response and generates a calibration file to correct for any anomalies. The calibration file of the microphone is also uploaded. The file either comes with each individual microphone, or can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s webpage. For making actual measurements, the input of one channel is fed from the output in a loop as a timing reference. The input of the other channel is fed from the microphone, and the output goes to an input of your preamplifier.  You also need to have an SPL meter to calibrate the output of the microphone. A good old Radio Shack meter will do (at the time of this writing there’s one on Reverb for $30), and there are apps for your phone such as the AudioTools suite by Studio Six Digital that will do the same thing.

REW in action measuring room acoustics from the listening position.

Pink noise is played through your system to set the sound level, and it is recommended to set the loudness at the measurement point to around 75dB. You can use a higher volume level if the background noise in your listening room is high, but the software will limit the level based on the headroom of the setup.

The software has an automatic measurement function that relies on a logarithmic sine wave sweep.  The length of the sweep can be adjusted, and longer sweeps will allow more samples to be taken and improve accuracy. The sweep goes from 0 Hz to 22 kHz (for a 44.1kHz audio interface) or 24 kHz (for a 48 kHz audio interface). The software captures the measurements and performs a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to generate frequency and phase response plots. Then an inverse FFT is performed on the data to generate an impulse response, which mimics a short burst of sound such as a gunshot. This allows the user to see how the sound changes in the time domain.

This is very useful for me as I use an electronic crossover in my system, and the frequency response plot gives me a basis to set the levels of the individual drivers, which can then be fine-tuned by ear. The software also has an equalizer function, which gives the user data points to enter into their DSP equalizers (if they have one).

Frequency response of one of my speakers.

It is important to understand what causes frequency response non-linearities. Peaks and dips in the bass and low-mid frequencies are often the result of standing waves due to room modes (the sound waves bouncing back and forth between two walls, and between the floor and ceiling), which cause areas of frequency cancellation and reinforcement (nodes and antinodes) in the room, especially in the bass region. As such, moving the speakers and/or the listening position can ameliorate some of these problems by moving either or both away from the areas of cancellation and reinforcement.

Adding sound absorption will damp the room’s peaks. The REW software has a room simulator; you can enter the dimensions of your room, the positions of the speakers and the listening position, and it will predict the peaks and dips in the frequency response. You can play around with the speaker and listening positions to try and optimize the frequency response. Note that using equalization to tame the peaks might work for a narrow spot in the listening position, but will worsen the non-linearities elsewhere. The higher the frequency that needs equalization, the narrower the sweet spot.

Cancellations due to the reflected sound from the loudspeakers arriving out of phase to the direct sound will also result in frequency dips. The reflections usually come from the side walls and the ceiling, and the reflected wave creates areas of cancellation with the primary wave, causing the phase shift. The software allows “windowing” of the impulse response (looking at different time periods after the impulse), which enables the user to see the effect of the direct sound that arrives first, and the effect of the reflected sound that arrives later. The software can then generate minimum-phase plots that show the regions in the frequency response that are susceptible to phase cancellations. These dips are not amenable to equalization, since increasing the level of the direct sound will also increase the level of the reflected sound. Therefore, one would need to use room treatments such as diffusion to disperse these reflected sounds.

Another measurement I find most useful is determining the time delay of each driver (the time it takes for the sound from the driver to reach the listener). Any difference in the time delay between drivers results in phase cancellations where the frequencies between the drivers overlap (a phenomenon known as comb filtering, since the graph looks like the teeth of a comb). At 7,000 Hz, the crossover point between my tweeter and midrange, the wave length of sound is 48 mm. That means a 24 mm misalignment would result in cancellation of this frequency. However, a smaller amount of misalignment distance still results in phase shift, and recent psychoacoustic experiments have shown the brain to be very sensitive to modifications in the phase spectrum¹_. The scale of perception of phase shift is equivalent to a 2 – 4 dB difference in amplitude, and affects the frequencies one octave higher and lower. Moreover, since our perception of the position of a sound source in three-dimensional space depends on the brain analyzing phase differences (arrival-time differences) of the sound that reaches each ear, poorly-aligned drivers could affect imaging.

The time delay measurements allow me to physically time-align the drivers of my speakers down to a resolution of 1 mm. Unfortunately, most commercial loudspeakers do not allow users to change the alignment of the drivers. Don’t assume the drivers are already time-aligned; they often are not. I had conversations with Greg Timbers, the long-time loudspeaker designer for JBL, who was unceremoniously let go by his private equity overlords in 2016 after 43 years of service. He was responsible for such classics as the 43XX studio monitors, the L250, the K2 Series and the Everest Series, as well as the design of numerous transducers. He told me that when he was there, the engineering department at JBL was often overruled by the product design department for aesthetic reasons. After my recording partner removed the tweeters of his Everest DD67000 speakers, Greg Timbers’ masterpiece, from their cradles and time-aligned them with the midrange drivers under Greg’s instructions, the imaging vastly improved.

The author with Greg Timbers and his Everest loudspeakers in 2016. Greg recently told me that he had completely redesigned the Everest with a new horn and bass enclosure. He made the prototype of the horn with his 3D printer!

For those readers who are open to digital sound, the use of a digital crossover with EQ functions makes a lot of sense. You can customize the crossover frequencies, add filters and introduce time delay for driver alignment, all without introducing phase shift, while getting rid of the passive crossovers (my biggest pet peeve) of your speakers. In my estimation, you have a much better chance of making improvements to the performance of your system this way than by “upgrading” your speakers.

REW has many other useful functions. It can generate a waterfall plot of the speakers’ frequency response that is derived from the impulse response. This is very useful for evaluating the effects of room modes, as well as identifying some design flaws of your speakers that perhaps you would rather not know about. It can also calculate the reverberation time of the room (the RT60, or the time it takes for the sound source to decay 60 dB), although this only applies to larger spaces. This is an important parameter to measure for recording venues.

Waterfall plot of one speaker between 0 and 500 Hz. The ridges indicate room modes causing standing waves.

REW also has a signal generator function that can produce sine waves, square waves, standard dual tones, tone burst, pink noise, periodic noise and sine wave sweeps. It has a real-time analyzer (RTA) that one can use with pink noise to do frequency analysis down to a resolution of 1/48^th-octave.  You can also measure the total harmonic distortion (THD) of your whole system. With conventional dynamic speakers, the THD would be in the several percent range (the THD of horn compression drivers and electrostatic panels are generally an order of magnitude lower), which makes the less than 0.1% THD of electronics pretty insignificant.

In addition to acoustic measurements, the software can also be used for electrical measurements, such as determining the Thiele-Small parameters of loudspeaker drivers and measuring the frequency response and distortion of electronics, The REW software also has an oscilloscope function. All this for the grand price of $0. The greatest bargain in audio. Who says good things don’t come cheap?

For those of you who want something a little more portable and don’t mind paying around $1,600, I would recommend the Phonic Audio Analyzer, model PAA6. It is a self-contained analyzer with two microphones, two balanced line-level inputs and a  signal function generator. The PAA6 has internal memory as well as an SD memory card slot and a USB output, so that data can be easily transferred to a computer. It has many of the functions of REW, albeit without as much resolution.  It has a 1/6^th-octave RTA, an FFT function and can measure RT60. It cannot do inverse FFT though, which means one cannot do time domain measurements.

There are some things that you just have to do at some point in your life. After reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as a teenager, one of these things I aspired to do was take a road trip across America. Growing up in Europe, I started with smaller-scale road trips, working my way up to driving from the Atlantic coast of Britain to the borders of Asia and from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

But the urge of driving across America still remained strong, so a few years later, armed with plenty of driving experience and enough mechanical aptitude to keep carburetors and contact breaker points adjusted, I finally got to drive from the Atlantic coast of New York to the Pacific coast of California and from the Canadian to the Mexican borderlines. I could go on and on telling stories from these road trips, but the one thing that had a huge impact on me while traveling across the US was getting to listen to and see the insides of several American high-fidelity tube amplifiers from the golden age of hi-fi, from 1950 to around 1960.

Their build quality was phenomenal! Heavy-gauge all-metal enclosures, point-to-point wiring, components that were generously rated for their applications, substantial transformers and plenty of attention to detail – not to mention the tubes themselves, from tube companies like RCA, Sylvania, General Electric and Tung-Sol, or even imported Telefunken, Mullard and Amperex vacuum tubes. The overall internal appearance of these components was closer to that of laboratory measurement instruments (think tube-era Tektronix) than the other, more mundane audio equipment out there.

I saw and admired the work of several manufacturers, such as Fisher, Marantz, Dynaco, EICO, McIntosh and many others, but the one I really just had to own was one of the 1950s H. H. Scott tube amplifiers. However, although I have worked on all of these amps and many more over the years, I had never actually owned a Scott. (Well, admittedly, I did own a solid-state Scott at one time, but this was already in the printed circuit board era. It just wasn’t the same as the older, pre-circuit-board amplifiers.)

As I got deeper and deeper into the professional side of audio over the years, I became fascinated by the significantly more massive theater amps by Altec and Western Electric, before eventually being won over by directly-heated triode tubes in their lower-power form (types such as the 300B, 2A3, 45 and others).

I had already developed a strong preference towards ultralinear output stages over pentode stages, and triodes just wiped everything else off the map for me, at least for anything other than guitar amplifiers. I had almost forgotten my early fascination with Scott amps and had not seen one in a few years – up until the pandemic struck.

Over this past summer, I had been incredibly busy building a new, and I’d like to say world-class audio facility (an ongoing project which I shall be presenting in further detail in the near future), which involved shaking up everything; frantically moving equipment around from lab to home to new facility; and building, adjusting, modifying and moving things around some more. But then came the lockdown, and while our work on the new facility had progressed well in anticipation of it, I suddenly realized that I was stuck at home, with a pair of decent loudspeakers and a good turntable, but no amplifier and no phono stage! All of the amplifiers and phono stages I could possibly use were now stuck in a different building, which, according to the local implementation of the lockdown, was now out of reach until the COVID-19 curve was flattened! Reality started to look pretty grim. Aside from the seriousness of the pandemic, was I to just endure life without recorded music for a while?

Or would I attempt to outrun the highway patrol, hoping to be able to go to the studio and bring back an amp and phono stage, without ending up playing “Jailhouse Rock” to the entertainment of my fellow inmates, guards and warden?

Realizing that my 40-year old Volvo weighs about twice as much as the V8-powered muscle car Kowalski was driving in the film Vanishing Point, while having about half the motor, I decided to try a more subtle approach. Horsepower concerns aside, Kowalski’s biography had a rather abrupt and untimely ending for my liking. He did not bring back an amplifier or phono stage and I would be even less likely than him to encounter scantily-dressed hippies riding mopeds in the middle of the desert, not least because there is no desert nearby (and we’re very much in the wrong decade for this kind of thing still being in vogue). Upon briefly contemplating the sheer futility of negotiating with a highway patrolman on whether high-fidelity audio was a basic necessity for survival – a patrolman who has already had to endure several hours of horrible weather and in all probability, a lifetime of listening to recordings of questionable fidelity on plastic table radios – I quickly concluded that it would be more prudent to stay put and have a look at my stack of parts at home.

J.I. Agnew's Scott 299.

I had enough directly-heated triodes on hand to produce several kilowatts of power while heating the house and water for the shower at the same time. I also had plenty of good driver tubes, enough of a supply of rectifier tubes to power all the Christmas decorations in Manhattan with DC if needed, and a wide selection of exotic output, inter-stage and power transformers – but very few small-signal tubes. I could put together a good pair of power amplifiers in an afternoon, but I’d still be stuck with no phono stage!

After giving up all hope of designing a phono stage that could pass for “high fidelity” around what I already had in stock, I also realized that by the time I designed something that would do the trick, put together a parts list, placed an order for needed parts and waited for them to arrive, I’d be several weeks into a music-less lockdown. And I’d still have to build it and test the phono stage.

I picked up my guitar and started wailing some miserable blues…then, remembering my experiences of years past it suddenly occurred to me: H. H. Scott! They had made vacuum-tube integrated amplifiers that contained a phono stage! Granted, these were not up to my usual standards of triode-only monoblock amplifiers and separate preamps, but if I could find one not too far away, this could be my only chance of being able to enjoy recorded music again soon. Besides, my mood suggested that I’d mainly be listening to Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters recordings for a good while, so absolute fidelity was perhaps no longer my top priority. I just had to get that listening system up and running as quickly as possible to begin with, and consider any improvements later.

Unfortunately, there aren’t that many Scott amplifiers in Europe and even fewer that happen to be up for sale, as fully functional items, when you need them. But I was in luck! There was a Type 299 stereo integrated amplifier in Poland, on one of the popular auction websites, which could be shipped quickly. What sealed the deal for me: I’ve traveled to Poland a few times and I can assure you that one can find excellent food there, so I decided to go for it. After all, audio equipment and fine food appear to be inextricably linked. This is not to say that British audio equipment is lacking finesse, even though beans on toast certainly does, but I shall leave the discussion on the impact of gastronomic refinement on amplifier output stage biasing tendencies for a future piece.

J.I. Agnew's Scott 299, top view.

The H. H. Scott Type 299 was introduced in 1958 and was the first stereo integrated amplifier produced by the company, which was already manufacturing high quality monophonic power and integrated amplifiers since 1948. Both Hermon H. Scott (the company’s founder) and Daniel von Recklinghausen (vice president of engineering) were MIT graduates. Judging by the build quality of the 299, they both had a passion for their craft. The output transformers were designed and wound in-house, along with the chassis and even the machined aluminum knobs. The 299 uses a pair of 7189 output tubes per channel, which are similar to the EL84/6BQ5 but can withstand a higher plate voltage. The Type 299 indeed operates the tubes with 355 volts on the plates and 300 volts on the screen grids, exceeding the published maximum ratings of the EL84. Many of the current-production EL84 offerings will not take kindly to this, so be warned if you have a 299 or any other amp calling for the 7189 and are contemplating a power tube substitution.

Despite the lockdown in its various forms in different parts of Europe, the amplifier made the trip in just a few days and I was now finally the proud owner of an H. H. Scott tube amp! Another item ticked off my “to-do-in-this-life” list!

So, could I listen to music now? Not so fast! This is a 62-year-old amplifier and regardless of what online sellers claim, I do not take for granted that anything of this nature is functioning properly, even if it appears that it might be at first look.

In Part Two, we shall have a look at what it takes to bring elderly amplifiers back to their former glow!

Postscript: creative writing aside, my heart goes out to all immunosuppressed and chemotherapy patients out there. These are already extremely challenging situations even without having a pandemic on top. It is them who are really struggling for survival now. By comparison, my sound system concerns are just luxury problems. The audio world has also suffered a great loss: On December 17, Tim de Paravicini of Esoteric Audio Research passed away aged 75, after a remarkably long career in audio.

There was a message for me to call Dan Meinwald early this afternoon, December 17^th. I didn’t think for a second the news would be what it was.

Tim de Paravacini is dead, of Stage IV liver cancer, in Japan.

 

I was just messaging with him last week, ironically about the health of someone we both care about. I thought he was doing at least as well as me. (Which ain’t so great, but I’m not dead yet…).

How do you encapsulate a life like Tim’s? He started out building rock and roll amplifiers for bands in South Africa (the Flames – who turned out Blondie Chaplin and Rikki Fataar, later to join the Beach Boys – were early clients). His knowledge grew until he built every single component in the recording and playback chain. He didn’t distinguish between consumer gear and professional gear – for him, it was all electronics, and he knew it all backwards and forwards.

He had a reputation for building exceptional transformer-coupled tubed equipment (on both ends, for both pro and home audio), but I recall visiting him at his home in England 28 years ago, and he was equally proud of his single-transistor amp. A single transistor – atop a maybe 6- or 8-inch pole – just for the look of it. Not many of us have had a chance to hear his 78 RPM turntable, or his multi-way speaker – but trust me, both were stunning. He didn’t overcharge, and often undercharged for his creations, but he knew what he had – and charged for the work that went into them.

And have you ever heard the magnetically-coupled EAR Disc Master turntable? No, because it’s really silent – so much so that it redefined turntable silence – it has no sound of it’s own. Its platter floated above a ¾-inch gap, created by magnets on each side of the platter. After I heard it, I couldn’t wait until I dragged the now-deceased turntable master Brooks Berdan to another listening session with me. And Brooks was appropriately stunned.

Tim would pursue any idea that he thought was interesting, and when he thought he had a product, he’d create the most interesting design to complete it.

I never met his mastering-gear clientele like John Dent (of the Exchange mastering studios in London), but he was another acolyte. (Sadly, he passed away in 2018.)

I met Tim de Paravicini in January of 1990 at Winter CES. As soon as he realized I was a musician, no one else existed. He wanted to tell me about his recording gear, and for about a decade I became the US importer of his professional line of equipment. In 1998 I brought him over to the AES show/conference in San Francisco, along with my 1-inch, 2-track tape deck and a selection of masters from Sheryl Crow (who’s Tuesday Night Music Club album was mixed to one of Tim’s machines), Kevin Gilbert and Altarus Records.

But Tim was a wild man. You didn’t want to cross him, or publicly disagree with him, unless you were equally stubborn (and they’re out there…). And he had a bit of a lack of control-of-himself issue, as anyone who did disagree with him found out. My friend, audio industry veteran and former Copper editor Bill Leebens just called, and reminded me of an audio show a few years back which featured a seminar with Paul McGowan, Arnie Nudell and Tim, among others. Tim was so unhappy with his voice through the PA that was provided that he just got rid of his mic and shouted. Such was the Baron de Paravacini.

And he really was a Baron, a title passed down, in proper English style, from ancestors who gave all their money (unwillingly) to Oliver Cromwell. The de Paravacinis are still owed quite a bit.

There’s a lot more to jazz than late nights on a club stage reading standards charts. Experimental trumpeter Toshinori Kondo sought to expand the definition of jazz to include the most creative and untethered elements of the musical mind. It might be more accurate to say that Kondo played without any regard to genre, and the world tried to fit him into a category.

Born on the Japanese island of Shikoku in 1948, Kondo started playing trumpet in his school band at the age of 12. His major at the University of Kyoto was mechanical engineering, but a fateful friendship with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki changed his plans for the future. Jazz took over his life, and very quickly he was drawn to its more outré community, thanks to free-jazz pioneer pianist Yosuke Yamashita.

In 1978, Kondo moved to New York, and for the much of his life used that city and Amsterdam as his bases of operation. These locations let him build long-term collaborations with cutting-edge artists. In Europe it was the likes of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, with whom he founded the free-improvisation group Die Like a Dog, and Dutch drummer Han Bennink. In New York he worked with composer John Zorn, bassist Bill Laswell, and others. He also started his own group, Toshinori Kondo IMA (short for International Music Activities), and famously spearheaded a project with DJ Krush to explore a then-new sub-genre known as trip-hop.

When Kondo died in October 2020 at the age of 71, NPR’s Nate Chinen called him a “sonic chameleon,” which is an apt assessment. Enjoy these eight great tracks by Toshinori Kondo.

1. Track: “H”
   Album: Moose and Salmon
   Label: Music Gallery Editions
   Year: 1978

This album’s record label alone is worth learning about: Music Gallery Editions was a short-lived enterprise in Toronto (hence the Canada-intensive album title) run by artists and focusing on the avant-garde. Moose and Salmon certainly fits right in with that mandate.

All the tunes have letter names as titles: A-K, but they are not in alphabetical order, J is missing, and there are three tracks called “B.” Kondo plays trumpet and alto horn; Henry Kaiser, a frequent Kondo collaborator, plays guitar; John Osborne is on alto sax. The 10-minute “H” opens with what sounds like springs and squeaky toys, but it’s actually the three instrumentalists using so-called “extended” techniques: sliding objects along the guitar strings without plucking, drumming on the trumpet’s brass tubing, etc. There’s also some non-articulate vocalizing. By around 3:00, you’ll start to hear the horns being played, evoking elephants and tropical birds.

2. Track: “Improvisation 102d”
   Album: Protocol
   Label: Metalanguage
   Year: 1979

Kaiser joins Kondo for guitar and trumpet duets on the first half of this album. The second half is Kaiser with drummer Andrea Centazzo, who has since built a career as a composer.

“Improvisation 102d” explores the trumpet mouthpiece as percussion instrument. Kondo buzzes and tightens his lips, releases air in quick little bursts, and then almost starts a melody but lets it become a pattern of inexact pitches instead. The timbre of Kaiser’s electric guitar sounds like an outgrowth of this alien trumpet.

3. Track: “Artless Sky”
   Album: Artless Sky
   Label: CAW Records
   Year: 1980

The trio here is Kondo along with a British duo act consisting of John Russell on guitar and Roger Turner on drums. Both were, and still are, specialists in free improvisation. This album was made by Russell and Turner’s own label, CAW Records (not to be confused with Caw Records, no matter what Discogs claims).

The opener is the 23-minute “Artless Sky.” After the pitchless percussiveness of the first two minutes, Kondo begins a wild range of pitched sounds, angry and searching. As his melodic arcs devolve again into rhythmic chatter, Russell strums chord-like tone clusters. Russell rumbles and ticks in answer.

4. Track: “Tea Girl”
   Album: Metal Position
   Label: Polydor
   Year: 1985

Not surprisingly, Kondo’s extremely unconventional style was a hard sell for major labels. The work of his ensemble, Toshinori Kondo IMA, was another matter. While still experimental, it has one foot in the world of jazz fusion, with a heaping spoonful of synth pop. “This,” thought record executives, “we can sell.”

The electronic energy of “Tea Girl” demonstrates the influence of Herbie Hancock on Kondo’s music. The two men became friends in Japan and eventually worked together.

5. Track: “La Strada”
   Album: This, That and the Other
   Label: ITM Records
   Year: 1987

For This, That and the Other, Kondo worked in the studio with Tristan Honsinger, an American free-jazz cellist best known for his collaborations with pianist Cecil Taylor. Other musicians on hand included Sean Bergin on saxophone and melodica and Michael Moore on clarinet.

Here’s the complete album, which starts with a hilarious spoken counterpoint of all the personnel telling mundane stories simultaneously in their native tongues. That’s followed at the 1:27 mark by “La Strada,” a fascinating confluence of free jazz and the highly organized sound of big-band swing.

6. Track: “Love Stone”
   Album: Touchstone
   Label: Moon Records
   Year: 1995

Back in the realm of free and pure improvisation, Kondo made the experimental album Touchstone while in Japan. It’s a far cry from the breathless, percussive jams of his earlier years. The track titles have an elemental quality: “Love Stone, “Beat Stone,” “Doom Stone,” “Water Stone,” “Talk Stone,” “Dream Stone.”

For all its electronic sound manipulation, these arrangements evoke nothing so much as ancient Asia. At first, the trumpet on “Love Stone” might be mistaken for a shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo end-blown flute), and the synthesizer seems to sweep over the landscapes of time.

7. Track: “Sun Is Shining”
   Album: Ki-Oku
   Label: Sony
   Year: 1996

Trip-hop combines fusion, electronica, dub, hip-hop, and other genres. The ever-curious Kondo became interested in this sound and collaborated on this album with Japanese mix master DJ Krush, famed for creating atmospherics out of samples by jazz and soul artists. Appropriately, his style is sometimes referred to as Future Jazz.

The album title, Ki-Oku, means “remembrance.” On top of the delicate yet funky bass foundation of “Sun Is Shining,” Kondo lays a shimmering, soulful solo. It’s clear from his playing here that, if he’d been so inclined, he could surely have been very successful as a trumpeter in more conventional jazz; that was not his calling.

8. Track: Untitled
   Album: Fear No Fall
   Label: Lowlands
   Year: 1998

As esoteric as his work may sound, Kondo never had any trouble finding fellow musicians willing to share in his experiments, not to mention audiences thrilled to witness them. The album Fear No Fall captures one such study, carried out at the Klapstuk Festival in Leuven, Belgium, in 1997.

Kondo and five other musicians met to improvise in a variety of duos and trios, and some of the results are presented on this album. Track 4, found at the 21:22 mark on this video, features Kondo with Belgian drummer Dirk Wachtalaer. The sounds they create seem three-dimensional and are beautifully terrifying.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Schorie.

If you know anything about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, you know to take jug bands seriously. Although this CMA and Grammy Award-winning country rock group has come a long way from its humble beginnings, they’ve never forgotten the roots music at their foundation.

Singer-guitarists Jeff Hanna and Bruce Kunkel had been in a couple of bands together before starting the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1966. The two residents of Long Beach, California often went to jam sessions focused on traditional country and blues. That’s where they assembled a collection of instrumentalists that included clarinet, washboard, and harmonica players. Among them was drummer Jimmie Fadden, who became one the band’s most permanent members. Jackson Browne was briefly involved too, but he had a solo career to attend to, so they replaced him with John McEuen, an outstanding banjo player who could also handle pretty much any other stringed instrument.

They signed with Liberty Records and released their first album, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, in 1967. A successful single called “Buy for Me the Rain” got them into the Top 40 and landed them some high-profile gigs. Jackson Browne left his stamp on the album despite not playing on it. Two of his songs are on the track list, including “Holding.” It’s interesting to hear this early NGDB recording, in which they’re going for a voice-centered, California rock sound, pushing their country and bluegrass identity – their greatest strength – far into the background.

After the first two albums, founding member Kunkel grew frustrated that his bandmates weren’t interested in either more original songwriting or a more standard electric rock set-up. He left, and Chris Darrow joined up (sadly, he died in 2020), only to find the band deciding to switch to electric instruments anyway. It did not go well at first. Rare Junk (1968) tanked.

They’d found their balance by the time Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy came out in 1970. The album produced three charting singles, with Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles” reaching the No. 9 spot. One nice surprise on this album is their cover of “Propinquity” by the Monkees’ Michael Nesmith. The lonesome harmonica turns it into the country heartbreaker ballad that the Monkees seem to be reaching for but not quite attaining on their own recording.

Although urban California brought them together, in 1971 the members of NGDB agreed to relocate to woodsy rural Colorado (hence their 2015 induction into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame), which has remained their center of operations.

In an effort to gain some traction with country and country blues royalty, John McEuen started approaching marquis-toppers and asking them into the studio. The resulting project, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, stretched over three albums and several decades, and features guest appearances by Earl Scruggs, Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, and others. Here’s Watson’s lead vocal and guitar on the Jimmy Driftwood tune “Tennessee Stud.” The studio chatter before the take starts is priceless.

In 1975, guitarist/singer Jimmy Ibbotson, who had joined in 1969, left for a solo career. Starting then and lasting through 1981 (at which point, Ibbotson returned), NGDB went through a phase of calling themselves just the Dirt Band. They named their 1978 record after this new iteration. During this period, they also added keyboardist Bob Carpenter, who still tours with them. The addition of someone focused on keyboards added a distinctively pop element to their sound.

The Dirt Band includes many of the regulars plus a studio full of guests. One of the tracks, John McEuen’s “White Russia,” is a top-notch banjo romp, with wild and sudden instrumental changes for each chorus to bring in jazz and klezmer sounds:

Genre-jumping is probably a key to NGDB’s long-lasting success and wide appeal. The album Let’s Go (1983) finds the band in solid country mode, and it sold well to that market. But they also branch out into an island sound, with steel drums and everything, on their cover of Rodney Crowell’s “Never Together (But Close Sometimes).” Jeff Hanna even hints at a Jamaican accent in his vocals.

The band’s popularity continued to climb through 1987’s Hold On, garnering them the top-of-chart single “Fishin’ in the Dark.” That song is by Wendy Waldman and Jim Photoglo, and continues the band’s tradition of focusing on an interesting range of covers, with only a few original numbers on each album. For instance, this album’s track list includes Wayland Holyfield’s “Blue Ridge Mountain Girl” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Angelyne.”

But there are always a handful of new songs by band members. “Oleanna” is a heartfelt soft-rock/country hybrid by Jimmie Fadden, whose drumming captures that 1980s Phil Collins sound.

As you can guess from its title, the 1992 album Not Fade Away opens with a Buddy Holly cover. One thing that sets this record apart from previous NGDB efforts is the small number of musicians involved. Only Carpenter, Hanna, Fadden, and Ibbotson, plus guest singer Suzy Bogguss, are credited.

Although they were deeply entrenched in the electronic norms of modern country music, the band continued to show their appreciation for the acoustic traditions at country’s roots. Their toe-tapping version of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” finds an appealing balance between traditional bluegrass and the tropes of contemporary arrangement.

That same quartet recorded Bang, Bang, Bang in 1999. Getting this album released was an unexpected challenge because both its first and second labels, Rising Tide and the country subsidiary of Decca, went out of business before they could put out the album. It finally found a home at DreamWorks.

There’s plenty of sardonic humor on Bang, Bang, Bang, the kind that looks real life right in the face. A good example is the fun Southern rock-style performance of “Forget the Job (Get a Life)” by Steve Bogard and Rick Giles.

The last time NGDB was in the studio for a full album was 2009 for Speed of Life, which they self-released. Although they’re not putting out new material, NGDB is still going strong as a touring band. They’re calling the 2021 tour (assuming COVID-19 cooperates) their 50^th anniversary celebration. You can find the details here: https://www.nittygritty.com/tour

In a way, the NGDB has come full circle, back to its origins. You can hear elements of high lonesome, bluegrass, and country blues in the song “Jimmy Martin.” The rhythm section keeps on chuggin’ along, just like this band.

In Issue 125, I told you about my war on LPs and my search for an alternative. After a lengthy affair with cassettes, I switched to CDs. The CD gave me everything I had been looking for in pre-recorded music: small size, no trouble finding songs, portable, easy to shelve, and all the album art and liner notes from the LP release.

But living the CD life is challenging. CD jewel cases crack and break. CD players are disappearing from cars. Recycling CDs is not simple. And when people hear about my CD library, they think I’m nuts. Even Fivethirtyeight questioned my behavior, and that was back in 2014.

The astute reader will note that I have yet to write a word about sound quality. I am not about to claim that music on a CD is superior to music on an LP – not in a high-end audio magazine, I’m not! I share the pages of Copper with connoisseurs – our esteemed editor, for one. When he was younger, he could hear frequencies that only dolphins care about. Intellectually, I know that the LP sounds better than the CD. But to me, the CD is good enough.

You could better understand that last statement if I had graduated from something extra loud, like artillery school. But no, there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. I’m just a guy who’s been loving CDs too long to stop now. I’ve been streaming music since I discovered Spinner.com in 1999, but I also love albums as objects. After some trial and error, “objects” came to mean CDs.

The Thrill of the Hunt

Twenty years ago, the CD was king – and expensive. To find CDs an impoverished writer could afford, I turned to Half.com.

At Half.com, you could buy CDs at half the original price. That was a great deal, given that new CD releases often went for $15 back then, or about $750 in today’s money. But then eBay bought Half and set prices free. That was even better for buyers: the price of rarities rose, but most prices sank. At the bottom of this Mariana Trench were the salvagers who bought orphaned CDs by the pound and sold them for 75 cents each or even a penny. (I’m not sure I ever found an album for a penny, but if I did, it was something like Rossini’s Awesome Overtures or Mozart’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 13.)

Half never changed: they sold books, CDs, VHS tapes, and games when they launched in 1999 and they sold books, CDs, VHS tapes, and games when they closed in 2017. (The last album I bought on Half was Elvis Costello’s Get Happy!!) After Half’s closure, I had one avenue left for dirt-cheap CDs: garage and estate sales.

It seems like everyone is getting rid of their physical music these days…except for me and the people I compete with at these events. Before the pandemic, I could spend a happy Saturday morning going from house to house, browsing the CDs set out on a card table or on a blanket on the lawn. This is, of course, a totally random way to buy music, as opposed to searching for specific titles on eBay, Half Price Books, etc., but that’s part of the fun.

You never know what you’ll find when people start decluttering their lives, although I can tell you from experience that most of the music on offer will fall into these categories:

• Country
• Christian
• Classical
• Celtic
• Mannheim Steamroller

If these are your categories, you’re in luck. If they’re not, be patient, and keep an open mind. You’ll most likely have to replace the jewel cases, but you might find a jewel you never knew existed.

A Torrent of Data

I once had an assignment at a bank where I was not allowed to bring in my CDs – you can’t bring foreign media into a bank. The head of IT opened a rift in their firewall so I could log in to Rhapsody.com, but he was puzzled. Why didn’t I just use an iPod? He had one in his shirt pocket. He had downloaded thousands of songs, but in our conversations I learned that he forgotten most of what he had downloaded. He had never had the time to listen to it all.

Why collect and listen to CDs? Maybe it’s a way of organizing the world, stopping down the torrent of data to something manageable. Or, in my case, maybe I’m haunted by a dusty warehouse and massive stacks of vinyl.

I hope all those Chicago VI’s I hauled around in the summer of 1974 made people happy. If I see this title at a yard sale, even if it’s on CD, I will walk on by.

The editor doesn’t have a copy of Chicago VI either.

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/Jorge Fakhouri Filho.

Christmas came early last month! In the space of ten days, I got four back issues of Gramophone: August, October, November, Awards! (Somehow the September issue managed to arrive in mid-October.) Pandemic postal priorities, presumably.

I’ve enjoyed reading Gramophone for years, but this year the annual Awards issue brought particular delight, because I hadn’t kept up with their customary half-year crescendo up to the actual Awards announcement. Nor had I checked out monthly Editor’s Choices. That made it more fun to discover just where my exultant thumbs-ups had synced — as they occasionally do — with the Gramophone jury’s.

Their 2020 Solo Vocal Award went to Nicky Spence and Julius Drake for a stunning take on Janáček’s Diary of One Who Disappeared (Hyperion). It swept me off my feet late in 2019, so I wrote about it in Copper 101.

Contemporary Award winner Thomas Adès’s one-two punch for DG, Adès Conducts Adès, also resonated with me. The album features Kirill Gerstein’s two-fisted approach to a piano concerto written especially for him. It’s a bonny, brawny brawl, especially with the Boston Symphony backing him up; I wrote about it in Copper 126.

And . . . actually, that’s all, folks. Although maybe I should get two cheers for at least having Gramophone’s Recording of the Year (and Orchestral Award winner) Weinberg: Symphonies 2 & 21 (DG), on my Qobuz playlist for months; I also bought the download. These astonishingly beautiful, heartfelt performances bookend the life of a 20th-century composer still not so well-known as he should be. The City of Birmingham Symphony and, in No. 21, violinist Gidon Kremer give these works a reading unlikely to be bettered for years to come. Bravo everyone, with special kudos to new CBSO music director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

And speaking of new music directors: Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been in Philadelphia since 2012, so, not that new. But in those eight years he has restored the Philadelphians to a position of highest honor in the musical world. Gramophone made them the Orchestra of the Year, including a recommendation for Philly’s most recent Rachmaninov concerto set with Daniil Trifonov. Good choice, considering the composer’s historic relationship with this orchestra. Rounding out the Rachmaninoff canon, I can also easily recommend this team’s earlier albums.

To get personal again: Orchestra of the Year is the only award Gramophone opens to its worldwide readership for consideration; our votes determine the winner. Early this year I attended an International Conductors Guild meeting in Montréal, allowing me to observe Nézet-Séguin in action with the Orchestre Métropolitain, an orchestra he has led for twenty years. Via rehearsals, informal discussions, and a sterling performance of the Mozart C-Minor Mass, he showed us how it’s done, connecting quickly, directly, and deeply with musicians and audience alike. What I saw in the frozen north made my Gramophone vote a no-brainer — I chose Philadelphia and Nézet-Séguin.

Let’s now move a few paces further from the Gramophone Awards. I wasn’t especially taken with their choice for Instrumental; others will strongly disagree with me. With respect, I’d rather plug a less-encyclopedic album that nevertheless gave me reliable, continuing pleasure this year, Vikingur Olafsson’s Debussy – Rameau for DG; I reviewed it in Copper 112. Another recital disc, with quite different music, has lately nourished me: French pianist Alexandre Kantorow’s Brahms, Bartók, Liszt (BIS).

This collection of three rhapsodies is fortified (not leavened!) by Brahms’ F-sharp-minor Sonata Op. 2, making a four-course meal of heaven-storming Romantic masterworks. Yet Kantorow’s intensity and technical command allow you to simply relax and enjoy the journey heavenward. I was particularly struck by his talent for creating multiple timbres — an entire landscape, really — placing these keyboard dramas in space as well as time. Listen to a couple of tracks and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

In 2019, at the age of 22, Kantorow became the first French pianist to win the Grand Prix of the Tchaikovsky Competition. This is his first recording since then.

The fact that Kantorow chose to record for BIS at this point in his career speaks volumes about label founder and CEO Robert von Bahr, who received a Gramophone Special Achievement Award for the unprecedented contribution he’s made since 1973. My love of BIS is quite simple: von Bahr maintains an extremely high batting average when it comes to producing music you can listen to more than once. He attracts those who want to create such recordings. I’m thinking of people like Christian Lindberg, Osmo Vänskä, Carolyn Sampson, Masaaki Suzuki, and many others. There are always BIS recordings waiting for me on my review pile (yes, I do get the physical discs, because they’re SACDs, dammit).

Speaking of Suzuki, his new recording of the St. Matthew Passion easily took the Choral Award this year. To usher in the 2021 Lenten season in February, I will survey recordings of Bach’s two great Passion settings (there is a third, sort of); for now I’ll hold off saying much about Suzuki’s contributions (he only just released a second — and extraordinary — St. John late this summer). Here and now, may I simply remind readers of Paul Moravec’s wonderful Sanctuary Road, reviewed in Copper 107 and now nominated for a 2021 Grammy? Thanks.

Moving on to the Recital Award, I’m going to throw the rulebook away and cast a renegade vote for an album released four long years ago: mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes’ remarkable Rossini collection (Aparté). Nothing against Gramophone’s choice in this category: I happen to own Sandrine Piau’s lovely collection of 19th-century French orchestral songs, part of an impressively focused catalog in this subgenre that Alpha Classics has been building. And I love Joyce DiDonato’s triumphant Agrippina, which took the Opera Award: right before NYC’s March lockdown, I wedged myself into a nosebleed seat at the Met to see Agrippina in Sir David McVicar’s production. Masterful! (Alongside Princess Joyce, they fielded a different but very strong supporting cast: see the roster at Met Opera on Demand.)

Deshayes will warm your innards on these cold winter nights to come; her passionate yet delicate way with Rossini will lighten your load, make you forget some of those mac-and-cheese-with-too-much-red-wine meals you’ve put away during quarantine. Her album includes music from La Donna del lago, Semiramide, Cenerentola, and Otello, including a marvelous scena with the “Willow Song.” Oh, and Il barbiere, of course!

Finally, here’s an attempt to make long-overdue amends: this December I have been playing the heck out of a 2006 recording of Handel’s Messiah in its original 1742 Dublin version. I no longer remember why I ignored it fourteen years ago — maybe I played a track or two, filed it mentally (absent-mentally-mindedly?) under okay, yet another Messiah — and stuck it on the shelf.

Except that was no “yet another”! That was phenomenal Bach scholar and organist John Butt, his A-list Dunedin Consort & Players, plus soloists every bit their equal. It won the Gramophone Choral Award in 2007. Only fitting to admit my boo-boo and celebrate them here once and for all. Happy holidays, my friends.

Header image: Itzhak Perlman won the 2020 Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award.

Booker T. & the M.G.’s – McLemore Avenue (50th Anniversary Edition)

Booker T. & the M.G.’s were basically the house band at rhythm and blues label Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, playing on countless albums over the sixties and into the seventies from the likes of Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, and Albert King. The group consisted of Booker T. Jones on organ and keyboards, Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, and Al Jackson Jr. on drums. In addition to the literally hundreds of Stax sessions they played on, they also recorded their own albums, and had a huge international hit with “Green Onions” in 1962. Countless bands in the US and across the pond tried desperately (and mostly unsuccessfully!) to imitate the sound of Booker T. and the M.G.’s. The group continued to play a non-stop schedule of album sessions and made their own records until Al Jackson Jr. was murdered in 1975. While that essentially signaled the end for the band, the remaining members occasionally reunited for gigs here and there, and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.

Despite most of their focus as being the “house band” of Stax Records – which along with Motown was considered one of the epicenters of soul music and Black culture – Booker T. Jones had an ear for music of all genres. When the Beatles’ Abbey Road was released in September, 1969 – he was completely knocked out! Booker T. and the M.G.’s had to record an album that would place their uniquely soulful spin on the Beatles’ music, and pronto. The result was McLemore Avenue, which was released in April, 1970, only six months after Abbey Road streeted the previous year.

The album’s name, McLemore Avenue, came from the physical address where Stax Records was located in Memphis. What made the album even more of a hoot was that Booker T. and the M.G.’s even spoofed Abbey Road’s iconic cover artwork with their own, featuring the four (by this time in 1970, very funky and hip-looking) members of the band crossing McLemore Avenue in an obvious tribute to the Fab Four. Without even considering the musical content, the execution of the album cover was brilliant, to say the least.

And that music has become legendary. No one else could pull this off – an almost complete re-performance of Abbey Road – except maybe Booker T. and the M.G.’s with their inimitable style and groove! The album consists of three extended medleys and the one song chosen as a single, George Harrison’s “Something.” The ordering of the tracks on the medleys doesn’t necessarily correspond with that of the Beatles’ original, but it works extremely well, nonetheless. Opening with a fifteen-minute-plus “Golden Slumbers”/”Carry That Weight”/”The End”/”Here Comes The Sun”/”Come Together” medley, the album starts off with a firm groove via Booker T’s organ work, with solid bass from Duck Dunn and extremely funky guitar licks from Steve Cropper. Al Jackson Jr. kicks things into high gear with a couple of drum runs on “The End” segment, but his drumming is rock-solid throughout – it’s no wonder the band was hesitant to carry on without him after his untimely death. “Here Comes The Sun” takes on an entirely new meaning with Jones’ incredibly soulful organ vamp, and Cropper’s Fender Telecaster adds a different dimension to a song that was essentially an acoustic affair on the original. As the sunniness of the Harrison-penned tune fades, the M.G.’s crank up the funk for John Lennon’s “Come Together,” with more of Booker T’s on-point organ work, and Cropper is perhaps at his most funky, seriously shredding throughout much of the tune.

The soulfulness you hear in that first medley carries on throughout the entire record; there’s an incredible vibe going on between Booker T. and Cropper in “Something” that gives the song an almost altered sense of meaning. It’s almost like listening compositionally to another song all together – albeit, a very entertaining one! The next medley is a dripping-with-soul seven-plus minutes of “Because”/”You Never Give Me Your Money,” which is in stark contrast to the almost chamber-like feel of the original. The album closes with the “Sun King”/”Mean Mr. Mustard”/”Polythene Pam”/”She Came In Through the Bathroom Window”/”I Want You (She’s So Heavy”) medley. Here’s where the M.G.’s pull out all the stops as they plow through a major chunk of Abbey Road’s Side Two, then give McLemore Avenue its summation with nearly five minutes of the funkiest “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” on record. Cropper fingerpicks the opening motif, then Booker T. Jones just starts wailing on organ; it’s absolutely stunning. With music this great, the five-minute run time passes all too quickly.

The appearance of McLemore Avenue marks the first time it’s been available for streaming in high-resolution; the 24/192 stream on Qobuz was quite simply, sublime. And for those who do MQA, there’s an equally high-res version in that codec available over on Tidal. This album was a landmark release in 1970, and it broke a lot of barriers and conceptions that people had of what kind of music came out of the Stax studios. I’ve already reached out to Craft Recordings for an LP copy (which had been tentatively scheduled as a Record Store Day release), but in the meantime, I plan on listening to the digital stream repeatedly; it’s that good. Very highly recommended!

Craft Recordings, LP (download/streaming [24/192] from Qobuz, [24/192 MQA] Tidal, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Pandora, Deezer, TuneIn)

Steven Wilson – The B-Sides Collection (EP)

If you’re a fan at all of progressively-oriented rock music, you should thank your lucky stars for Steven Wilson. I mean, what is there that he can’t do; he records and releases his own superb albums, and takes part in several side project bands, including Porcupine Tree. Above and beyond all that, he spends a copious amount of time remixing and remastering classic albums from the likes of Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, ELP, Gentle Giant and more, often with spectacular results – the dude is basically a genius.

Wilson has a new album to be released in January, 2021, called The Future Bites, and in advance of that blessed day, he’s released a streaming-only, four-track EP of alternate takes and B-sides. The EP is called (unsurprisingly) The B-Sides Collection; at first listen, it’s seemingly business-as-usual in his nonstop output of rarely-less-than-superb music. Hearing these excellent tracks has me basically on the edge of my seat in anticipation for The Future Bites next month.

Wilson’s music shows heavy influences of a lot of the artists he so reveres in his remastering/remixing work; in the tracks from The B-Sides Collection, I hear traces of Yes and Crimson, as well as perhaps a touch of Radiohead (especially in the song “Move Like a Fever”). However, his songs are also very accessible, and this current crop of songs might be among his most pop-tinged; the opening track, “Eyewitness,” is a driving, propulsive, and altogether proggy affair. But when the first chorus arrives, there’s a surprisingly catchy and poppish theme with a great accompanying bevy of female backup singers. The following track, “In Floral Green,” starts with a wash of synths that flows into a very striking piano-based motif, but soon transforms into a full-blown ballad of sorts. This is perhaps a real first for Steven Wilson, but incredibly entertaining nonetheless, with an especially good guitar solo near the track’s conclusion. Rounding out the EP is the instrumental “King Ghost (Tangerine Dream mix),” which is pretty true to its proggish billing. It’s billowing with Tangerine Dream-like synthesizers, and a subterraneanly driving bass track that will shake your brain, as well as your home’s foundation.

All my listening was done with the superb 24/96 digital stream from Qobuz, although the EP is also available with an MQA stream from Tidal, if you’re so inclined. I have Tidal, but don’t have an easily accessible MQA setup in my system, but I do eventually intend to check it out. As great as these B-sides are, I really can’t wait for the full album’s release! Very highly recommended.

Arts & Crafts Productions, (download/streaming [24/96] from Qobuz, [24/96 MQA] Tidal, Amazon, Google Play Music, Pandora, Deezer, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn)

Tori Amos – Christmastide (EP)

Christmastide is a four-track EP of Tori Amos originals, each with a yuletide theme designed to help assuage the souls of fans afflicted with an overdose of #2020. Tori released the following statement in advance of the EP’s release: “With Christmastide it was important to be positive and to try and lift people’s spirits. It’s a time of year that should be joyful with family and friends but also can sadly be a very lonely place for some. Many families will be unable to be together this year because of the pandemic as well as many that are also dealing with the aftermath of a long and bitter US election. I hope these songs contained in this beautiful package can be a small treat to help along the way.” By beautiful package, I assume she’s talking about the gatefold vinyl LP version, which contains additional artwork from illustrator and designer Rantz Hosely, who did the cover art and contributed to the video’s striking imagery (be sure to watch the video using the link below). The LP package also includes a Christmas card from Tori along with a special holiday message for her fans; a limited edition, signed-by-Tori version has already sold out.

If you were expecting “chestnuts roasting by an open fire” as part of Tori’s yuletide celebration, you’re in for a disappointment. The songs are a fairly spartan affair, with only Amos’ piano and vocals, and accompaniment from longtime collaborators Matt Chamberlain on drums and Jon Evans on bass. Mac Aladdin also adds to the proceedings with a variety of guitars. The opening track, “Christmastide,” is about as dour a holiday song as one could reasonably expect, although the message is very uplifting: “It’s time that we shine, we all need to shine…and with this Christmas time, side by side, we’ll sail on a Christmas tide.” “Circle of Seasons” is a song about Midwinter’s Eve, or the Winter’s Solstice, which, while only days away from the observed Christmas holiday, is also a period of pagan celebration, especially in Celtic cultures. “Called now to take the ancient pilgrimage…Midwinter’s Eve…a circle of seasons…we will see this through, ’til the sun rises new.” The closing “Better Angels” is the only song on the EP that isn’t in a minor key, and is the effort’s most uplifting track, reading almost like a chronicle of all the madness from this most crazy of years. “Oh what a year to be here, on this little rock, third from the sun…and we need some mercy, lighting a way from south to north,” and continues: “a flame for change grows…Heaven, help us out of this never-ending spell.”

All my listening was done with Qobuz’s 24/44.1 stream, and the sound was excellent, though an MQA version is also available on Tidal, so higher-res choices abound. While it ain’t Bing Crosby or Johnny Mathis, the message presented here by Tori Amos is a good one for the holiday season, with lyrics that are perhaps less obtuse than the typical offering from the goddess. Highly recommended, and true fans will definitely want to seek out the LP package.

Decca (UMO), Limited edition LP (download/streaming [24/44.1] from Qobuz, [24/44.1 MQA] Tidal, Amazon, Google Play Music, Deezer, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn)

Kacy & Clayton and Marlon Williams – Plastic Bouquet

Kacy & Clayton are a Canadian roots/folk music duo who consist of guitarist and vocalist Kacy Anderson and her second cousin, multi-instrumentalist Clayton Linthicum. They’ve been playing together for over a decade now (since they were kids), and have risen to a fairly high level of prominence and credibility in the last couple of years. After being signed by New West Records in 2016, they came to the attention of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who brought them onboard to open for Wilco’s tour. He then produced their next album, 2017’s The Siren’s Song in his Chicago studio, The Loft. After the album’s release, Kacy & Clayton were asked to open for the Decemberists on that band’s next tour. Tweedy then produced the duo’s follow-up record, Carrying On, in 2019. Suddenly, a whole lot of people were getting exposed to Kacy & Clayton. They’ve won a Canadian Folk Music award for Best Young Performers, and have been nominated for the prestigious Juno and Polaris awards.

New Zealander singer/songwriter Marlon Williams had just embarked on his own career, with several acclaimed releases, and tour appearances with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Florence + the Machine, Brandy Carlisle, and Lorde, among others. He’s won several New Zealand music awards, and was handpicked by Bradley Cooper to appear in the reboot of the movie A Star Is Born. While touring in Europe in 2017, Williams was checking out Spotify during a break, and a song by Kacy & Clayton appeared in his feed. He was completely enchanted by what he was hearing, and took a chance by firing off an instant message to the duo, who responded surprisingly quickly. They started chatting regularly, and by December of 2018, Marlon Williams had flown to Saskatoon to meet Kacy & Clayton. Their chemistry was undeniable, and they immediately started working on songs together.

Plastic Bouquet is the fruit of that union. They wrote and recorded most of what would ultimately become the album over a three-week period, and the trio soon discovered that their playing and singing styles meshed nearly seamlessly. Some additional recording was done in Nashville, along with some mixing work in Sweden. With the project now being international in scope, the timetable for Plastic Bouquet didn’t move very quickly. Suddenly, it’s 2020, and we’re in the great pandemic; the album’s release and an ensuing tour was temporarily shelved. With things continuing to drag on seemingly without end, a decision was made to go ahead and at least release the record.

Hearing the songs on Plastic Bouquet, you’d believe that the trio had been singing together their entire lives. Kacy Anderson has an angelic alto voice that’s not at all unlike that of a very youthful Emmylou Harris; she and Marlon Williams share most of the vocal duties. Clayton Linthicum branches out on this album, expanding his role from mostly fingerpicking acoustic guitarist to playing a variety of electric guitars (including pedal steel) and keyboards, including a vintage organ. The trio is rounded out by members of their touring ensemble on bass and drums. And with the addition of Marlon Williams, Kacy & Clayton have stepped pretty far outside their musical comfort zone, which had previously been limited to traditional folk songs from the British Isles and folk and country from Appalachia. Some of the songs are harder-edged, bordering on electrified rock, and the addition of the organ gives some of the songs a slightly bluesy, jazzy feel.

The songs here are brief, and the album clocks in at just under thirty minutes. If there’s a downside, it’s that some of the amazing playing by Clayton Linthicum could definitely benefit from being stretched out by a couple of minutes per song. Let’s say the partnership is a work in progress; hopefully when the pandemic ends, they can spend more time together, both in the studio and on the road, and deliver an album that’s a bit more substantial. The 24/48 digital stream on Qobuz is superb – it’s just over much too quickly! Highly recommended.

New West Records, CD/LP (download/streaming [24/48] from Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon, Google Play Music, Deezer, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, TuneIn)

Header image of Steven Wilson courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/joergens.mi.