Issue 179

It was the turntable that rattled cages around the world in the 1980s and 1990s – Ken Kessler, with jaundiced eye, recalls the power of the Linn Sondek LP12.

It’s just after the closing day of 2022, and yet – as Editor Doris pointed out – there was hardly a mention of the 50^th anniversary of the second-most influential turntable of all time: the Linn Sondek LP12. Technically, February 2023 is the 50^th anniversary, but the roots were planted in 1972, so – like the late Queen – two birthdays may be in order.

As for the activity in 2022, here is a morsel grabbed from the company’s current website pages: Gilad Tiefenbrun, Linn’s CEO, says, “With the 50th anniversary of Sondek LP12 fast approaching, these latest upgrades showcase the longevity of this iconic product. Linn is proud to expand the range of performance enhancements available to Sondek LP12 owners worldwide, regardless of where they are on their journey to vinyl perfection.”

Let’s back up, then, to 1972, by way of a clarification peppered with my own prejudices which will be disclosed as you continue. Starting with: I don't give a flying f*ck what anyone else might say, but the single most important turntable of all time, vis-à-vis sound quality, performance and layout, is the original, Edgar Villchur-designed Acoustic Research XA of 1961/2, a.k.a. the “AR Universal” or, simply, as “The AR Turntable.” It combined the best of its predecessors, such as the Stromberg Carlson and the Weathers, to determine the template for the majority of decent-sounding record decks for the next 50 years: belt-drive and a suspended subchassis.

It was designed to be affordable, built down to a price of something like $68, so, within short order, Thorens introduced its take on the AR, the dearer TD-150. In addition to more robust construction, it addressed the one incontrovertible weakness and/or limitation of the AR, which was its fixed tonearm and the inability to change it for anything else. The AR’s arm worked well enough with high-compliance moving magnet cartridges, but it was hardly a masterpiece of solid engineering.

Although Thorens offered the TD-150 with its own arm, it was also able to accept others, such as the SME 3009, the Grace G-707, and others, and it was good enough to exploit those superior tonearms. Blank arm boards allowed users to accommodate whatever they wished to fit, and the resultant deck was – and remains – a superb LP spinner even by today’s standards.

Come the late 1960s, and the world was awash with belt-drive decks, my own bucket list performer from that era being the Empire Troubadour. The market included certain Lenco models, Pioneer’s best-selling PL-12D, and many others, while Thorens would up the ante with the larger, more sophisticated TD-125. Then, from Scotland, came the Ariston RD-11, which looked exactly like a chunkier TD-150, with a heavier plinth.

Here the origins grow murky and borderline litigious, the truth lost in the mists of time, but in essence, Glasgow’s Castle Engineering manufactured key parts of the Ariston RD-11, including the most crucial item: the main bearing. Through whatever tortuous path it followed the RD-11, the all-but-identical Linn Sondek LP-12 arrived, the lone visual clue to the differences being the rotation of the on/off rocker switch by 90 degrees on certain variants.

Unfortunately for Ariston, it swiftly faced a far more commercially-aggressive rival. Linn Products was founded and headed by Ivor Tiefenbrun, whose family-owned Castle Engineering. You can do your own search online to find out who did what to whom. It’s out there and I am not interested in repeating any of it. Suffice it to say, the LP12 would emerge the victor in the turntable stakes, and it would control – not merely dominate – the British hi-fi market for the next quarter-century, while enjoying impact in many other territories, if not achieving the near-monopoly it achieved in Great Britain.

This very morning, I spent 40 minutes on a call to Glasgow to reminisce with Ivor, in part to clear up some of the mystery without digging up the actual origins. As our recently departed Queen Elizabeth II said of her great grandson Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s bleating, “Recollections may vary,” and I care too much for Ivor to contradict him, but what he certainly didn't dispute is that he and his fellow traveler, Naim’s founder, Julian Vereker, were both showmen, and it was their combined forcefulness, years before the same tactics were used by Steve Jobs, which created a fan base of star-struck British journalists, necessary for them to conquer the home market. It would, for nearly two decades, create a team-up to equal those of Apogee/Krell, Magnepan/Audio Research, and other shared efforts.

In retrospect, the way Linn (and Naim) manipulated the British press can be regarded as both exploiting what were “useful idiots” and precursors to “cancel culture,” for they used the same bullying tactics. From the late 1970s, by which time Linn and Naim had created their dealer networks, until the early 1990s, the British press was so dominated by the LP12 that an outsider would have been right to be suspicious. And as a Yank émigré, that’s exactly what I was when I landed a position with Hi-Fi News & Record Review in 1983.

As one of the only holdouts, who refused to use a Linn when he preferred his Oracle Delphi, I recall just how pernicious was the situation. You must understand that I had come from a country where Magnepan and McIntosh and Ohm and SAE and Audio Research and Infinity were at the top. The UK scene? For me it was like coming from a land of Porsches and Corvettes to one filled with Studebaker Larks. The UK journalists were utterly ignorant of the real high-end beyond their shores, as little of it was available in the UK. Their idea of “best” was like facing a wino who believed Ripple was better than Petrus.

Controlling the press was part of the campaign which ultimately would depend on the real force in hi-fi: the retailers. Linn/Naim dealers were presented with a package, and a highly profitable one at that. While it would only become evident with the passage of time, Linn’s master plan worked with the same efficiency as a dealer handing out the first nickel bag. Once you got your claws into a customer…

 

As the Linn’s modular construction was perfectly suited to continual refinement, it kinda contradicted its fans insistence that the LP12 was utter perfection: how do you improve on that which is perfect? Once infected, though, the LP12 owner would return to the dealer for an annual fix, whether it be a new power supply, a revised subchassis, better springs, ad infinitum

I asked Ivor two key questions about the upgrades, the first being, how many were there? His answer began with one word: “Hundreds.” He went on to clarify that the LP12 has been the subject of continual refinement, with absolutely everything having been improved bar two elements: the basic format and the dimensions.

Indeed, aside from changing to a two-speed deck when the original only played at 33-1/3 rpm, the Linn Sondek LP12 adheres to exactly what appeared as in 1972: a belt-drive, suspended subchassis turntable. Which begged the question: after so many refinements, what would happen if someone turned up with a first-generation LP12? Said Ivor, all was retrofittable.

In the next part, I will try to recount as many anecdotes as I can to illustrate just how omnipresent the deck became, including some input from Editor Doris regarding the LP12’s presence in the USA, and Harry Pearson’s reaction to it. As Ivor confirmed, the UK saw the greatest impact of the LP12 on an entire market, but there were territories with dedicated Linn distributors, such as Italy, where cults were also developed, if not to the scale of the domination in Great Britain.

With such success, it is no surprise that the Sondek LP12 and its less-costly siblings, the Majik LP12 and Selekt LP12, remain in the catalogue, after the Sondek LP12 itself having sold what Ivor told me was “far in excess of 100,000 units.” That is quite an achievement for a turntable well above entry-level pricing. Its original price of £59 with plinth and cover (but without tonearm) is equivalent today to £800/$962, the £59 figure taken from the first Hi-Fi Yearbook in which it appeared, with a cover date of 1974, thus collated in 1973. And the cost of the current, fully-loaded LP12? How about just north of $25,000?

Header image: Linn Sondek LP12.

Object of desire: a Bang & Olufsen Beogram 1800 turntable. This sleek, fully-automatic turntable looks dazzling in person.

The Beogram 1800 was simplicity itself to operate and changing cartridges was literally a snap.

 

The turntable's matching MMC4 cartridge. Photos courtesy of Howard Kneller, taken at Angry Mom Records, Ithaca, New York.

 

Before the Walkman there were portable reel-to-reel tape recorders, like this stylish, battery-powered early-1960s Grundig TK1 Luxus. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Hannes Grobe.

 

Here's one clean machine: a circa-1962 Fisher X-100B stereo integrated amplifier. It had 10 vacuum tubes and like many high-end integrateds of the day, offered a full complement of control and sound-tailoring features. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joe Haupt.

 

Physics quiz: are these audio porducts rocketing toward or away from the Moving Sound galaxy? Philips ad, circa 1980s.

Howard Kneller’s audiophile adventures are documented on YouTube (The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller) and Instagram (@howardkneller). His art and photography can be found on Instagram (@howardkneller). He also posts a bit of everything on Facebook (@howardkneller).

Founded by Kang Su (“KS”) Park, Allnic Audio is based Sungnam City, South Korea. In the early 1990s, Park started Silvaweld, known mostly in Asia and Europe for its single-ended (SET) tube amplifiers. In 1997, he founded Allnic Audio. That company is named after the term “all-nickel-core,” a class of magnetic alloys constructed of nickel and iron that includes the alloys contained in many of its output transformers.

Whatever Park designs, you know that it will be something that’s off the beaten path and deemed by others to be too expensive or difficult to perfect. Here, we have Allnic’s stunning H-5500 phono stage, which I recently auditioned and photographed. It features a pure Class A, no-negative-feedback design, two pairs each of MM and MC inputs, permalloy transformer cores, selectable load settings, single-ended outputs, and a very cool looking current meter to monitor tube status. The tube complement comprises four NOS E180CC twin triodes for signal amplification and one each 7233 and 5654 for the power supply.

Takeaway: in addition to auditioning the H-5500 phono stage, I’ve reviewed Allnic’s L-9000 OTL/OCL preamplifier and found both to be outstanding. I have spent a number of late nights speaking with KS Park in Korea and I each time I walk away from the conversation amazed at all of the insights that he has generously shared. I am authorized to announce that there will in the non-distant future be a very exciting and unexpected announcement coming from Allnic, which will be the subject of an exclusive video on my YouTube channel, “The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller.” Stay tuned!

Howard Kneller’s audiophile adventures are documented on his YouTube channel (The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller) and on Instagram (@howardkneller). His art and photography can also be found on Instagram (@howardkneller.photog). Finally, he posts a bit of everything on Facebook (@howardkneller).

Here's another in a series of street scenes from Silver City, a small town in New Mexico with a population of 9,578 as of 2021.

The Cost of Everything and the Value of Nothing

During the period from 1992 until 2002, Peter Copeland, employed by the British Library, wrote the Manual of Analogue Sound Restoration Techniques. Peter passed away in 2006, before the publication of his work, which was to take a couple more years.

A section of this outstanding compilation of knowledge is devoted to a historic overview of the cost of the various recording media available around the world. It begins with cylinders and progresses to wax blanks, lacquer disks, shellac and vinyl pressings, magnetic tape, and cassette tape, and concludes with the CD. He wrote, “As I write this, music distribution via The Internet is beginning to conquer conventional retail sales" (we are now at least 20 years down the line). After warning readers who would prefer a happy ending to read no further, he confides that “sound recording is no longer a ‘sexy’ industry. It shows every sign of becoming like the water industry – you just turn a tap, and there it is."

His final conclusion has stayed with me, and I have often quoted him: "It'll take a major shortage to remind people about the cost of everything and the value of nothing." Ever so relevant, I can think of many situations in a few of the industries I have an active interest in where this phrase would be painfully appropriate.

However, at present, vinyl record sales are still on the rise with the disk medium having experienced a massive resurgence over the past few years, while many lower-cost options for listening to music (such as the CD) are on a steep decline. Yet, there is no shortage of people who will take every opportunity to publicly state that they find records grossly overpriced nowadays, while they usually admit that they still buy them anyway. At the same time, the “race to the bottom" mentality is not proving very successful for the record labels that have been engaging in such practices. The lower-priced product is, more often than not, not the one with the highest sales figures, or turnover. Conversely, it is actually the better-quality, more elaborately packaged, mid-priced records that have been selling the highest numbers of copies over the last five years. But is selling more copies always more profitable?

We are living through a time of great change in every aspect of our lives. Many have been experimenting with different business models for sound recordings. The lowest-priced records are usually inadequate in terms of overall product quality to satisfy the market for this particular medium, in the digital age, where alternatives are plentiful and omnipresent for those who do not place quality particularly high on their priority list. As a consequence, they usually neither sell many copies, nor generate much profit in the vinyl domain. However, it doesn't seem like the high volume of sales associated with a carefully-created album is the most profitable avenue either. In fact, it is highly questionable whether there is any direct correlation between quality and profitability anymore.

So, what is the most highly desirable aspect of a product consisting of a carrier of recorded sound? What will make people splash out, when they are already complaining about the cost of a $19.99 record retail price?

A few episodes back, in Issues 147, 148, 149 and 150, we looked at the work of Stockfisch Records and their release of the DMM Dubplate Vol. 1, cut straight onto a copper-plated disk which you can play back on a regular turntable with outstanding sonic results. The disc also features superb packaging and presentation. The retail price far exceeds that of ordinary records and is high enough to not need to end in .99, as it won't make a difference, at least to anyone serious enough about sound quality and audio in general as to be willing to invest in something like that.

Similarly, Pete Hutchinson of the Electric Recording Company started a business offering exquisite reissues of outstanding recordings, cut from the original master tapes, using some of the finest vacuum tube mastering electronics ever made, along with a collection of excellent disk mastering lathes. ERC goes as far as using letterpress printing for a faithful and truly authentic reproduction of the original artwork. Their prices are also far beyond the $.99 range, but as with the DMM Dubplate, once the actual materials and processes used are taken into consideration, they merely account for the economics of producing something of genuinely high quality. There is not much left in the form of an enormous profit margin. It is a labor of love. If the motivation would have been the profit, there are certainly much easier ways of making money.

Both the Electric Recording Co. and Stockfisch Records are successful ventures. Both are certainly outside the ordinary. Both sell very limited-edition products and neither are likely to become tough competition for the individuals on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.

Back in 1953, using a modest Presto 6N disk recording lathe, Sam Phillips recorded Elvis Presley performing two songs for his mom, as a one-off record that was not intended as a commercial product. Elvis went on to make quite a bit of money, selling plenty of records. So did Jack White, beginning with the White Stripes and by now involved in a variety of musical projects and business ventures.

But, in 2015, Jack White purchased that one-off acetate of the very first recording of Elvis, for $300,000! It was a rather primitive recording of a man who up until that point was sustaining himself by hauling goods as a truck driver. It wasn't the highest sound quality ever captured in the universe, and it wasn't exquisitely packaged either. It wasn't even a commercial product. What it did have was scarcity, even if originally unintentional. As a one-off direct-to-disk recording, there was only one copy of it. And, it wasn't anywhere near the most expensive record ever sold!

Here's a video about how the disc was transferred to digital for preservation:

At around the same time in 2015, the very first pressed copy of the “White Album” by the Beatles (The Beatles), owned by Ringo Starr, was auctioned for $790,000. But that was peanuts. After all, it was just a mere copy of a record manufactured by the millions. OK, the first copy. I bet the press wasn't even fully warmed up!

More recently, T-Bone Burnett came up with a two-fold concept. One part of the concept was artificial scarcity and the other half was using a process of ionic deposition of a protective layer on a recorded lacquer master disk, so that it can be played back without damage, using a regular turntable. He called his concept Ionic Originals. As for the scarcity part, the idea was to make only one copy and see how much it sells for. For his first release, he got Bob Dylan to record a new version of "Blowin' In The Wind". It was a digital recording, recorded and mixed by Mike Piersante, pre-mastered for vinyl by Gavin Lurssen and cut to disk by Jeff Powell. It sold at auction for $1,769,508 in July 2022.

The reason I call this “artificial scarcity” is that, being a digital recording, there is no technically imposed limitation to how many copies could be generated, in various media. There was no particular reason why only a single record could be made, other than preference due to the business model.

It would make a fitting end to this story if the most expensive sound carrier in history was a one-off ionically-protected dubplate, containing a classic hit by Bob Dylan. But it wasn't. It wasn't even a record.

It was a measly little CD. Yes, that little piece of cheap plastic containing digital data, that costs a few cents to make. In 2015, Wu Tang Clan released on CD a single copy of an album they had reportedly spent six years recording. That copy sold for $2,400,000. The lucky buyer, Martin Shkreli, wasn’t that lucky after all and he was arrested, convicted and imprisoned shortly thereafter. The CD was confiscated by the Department of Justice and subsequently sold again in 2021 to PleasrDAO (a decentralized autonomous organization) for $4,000,000. For a CD.

Just let that sink in for a little bit.

Rewind: the cost of everything and the value of nothing...

Header image: The presentation case for the Wu-Tang Clan Once Upon a Time in Shaolin CD, the most expensive audio carrier in the world. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Wutangcashew. Pete Hutchinson of Electric Recording Co., with his Lyrec lathe. Courtesy of The Electric Recording Company.

Located in the former Time Warner Building, now The Deutsche Bank Center, is Dizzy’s Club. Along with Rose Hall and The Appel Room, the three venues comprise Jazz at Lincoln Center under the leadership of artistic director, Wynton Marsalis. Sound in the well-appointed space is finely tuned, and every one of the 140 seats at Dizzy’s has a clear view of the stage set against a sparkling backdrop of the New York City skyline,

On a stormy night in December, David Chesky played the grand piano, Peter Washington plucked an upright bass, and Billy Drummond was behind the drums, performing selections from Chesky’s new high-resolution digital record, The Great European Songbook, available from The Audiophile Society. The set list was as follows:

Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata

Bach's Prelude No. 2

Bach's Fugue No. 2

Beethoven's “Für Elise”

Bach's Prelude No. 6

Bach's Solfeggietto

Bach's Wachet Auf, ruft uns die Stimme

Beethoven's “Ode to Joy” from the 9th Symphony (David's daughter Paloma sang that one)

Tchaikovsky's “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker

The trio’s performance was a fantastic integration of European and American traditions as the jazz band swung through these classical pieces with freshness and flair and an excellent drum solo – something we could use more of in Bach pieces. I knew that David Chesky was involved with jazz and owned a record company, but I was unaware of his background in classical music and the breadth of his work in composition, recording, and technology.

Like many children of his day, taking piano lessons was a given – David started at the age of five. In 1974, at age 17, he moved from Miami to begin his music career in New York while studying with classical composer David Del Tredici and jazz pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. A few years later he made an album with Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, and Bob James.

Chesky didn’t stop at jazz. He plays and composes everything: concertos, operas, rags, Latin, folk, symphonies, piano solos, choral, and spiritual music. A lifetime of soaking up the city’s rhythms, including African drum beats and hip-hop, provides the heartbeat that fuels Chesky’s brand of “urban music.” It all flows from the sophisticated brain of a classical composer with the cool hair of a rock star ─ except rock is the one genre he doesn’t play. In addition to his vast repertoire and three Grammy award nominations, Chesky is also an innovator in the world of high-resolution recording.

In 1978 Chesky and his brother Norman founded Chesky Records, a label dedicated to producing audiophile-grade reissues as well as original recordings made in three-dimensional sound. Their binaural recordings employ a dummy head with microphones in its ears to capture the spatial imprint of ambient spaces like churches, bringing the listener closer to the instruments and musicians.

In 2008, the Chesky brothers started HDtracks, a high-resolution download store of recordings from 96 kHz/24-bit to 192 kHz/24-bit across all genres. These sample rates are much higher than a streaming MP3 or a standard CD at 44 kHz/16-bit resolution. Chesky's latest project is The Audiophile Society, which offers music in their 3D Mega-Dimensional Sound recordings of high-res PCM (in WAV, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF formats) and DSD (Direct Stream Digital) downloads with separate mixes for speakers and headphones.

How do digital files compare to vinyl? It’s a question complicated by many factors, including how an album was recorded, mastered, and pressed. What is lost in the tactile analog experience is gained in sonic consistency free of equipment variables such as the cartridge, turntable, and phono preamp. This quality of music is worth buying because learning, performing, and recording music is never free.

Although Chesky is forging ahead into the digital world, he is concerned about securing the future of American music. He wants there to be viable careers for young artists, so Chesky pursues a Leonard Bernstein-like dedication to introducing children to classical music through his compositions Classical Cats: A Children’s Introduction to the Orchestra, as well as The Zephyrtine: A Ballet Story, and the anti-war opera The Mice War. If kids don’t play instruments, join orchestras, and learn to compose, then who will buy music, attend concerts, and foster the next generation of musicians?

Chesky’s blog further addresses his concern for the fate of modern classical music in particular. "From 1900 – 1960 we have added to the standard repertoire Strauss, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel, Fauré, Holst, Honegger, Berg, Rachmaninov, Janacek, Webern, Sibelius, Saint-Saens, Elgar, Vaughn Williams, Schoenberg, Debussy, Gershwin, Prokofiev, Ives, Shostakovich, and all the Diaghilev Ballets Russes works...Now, what has been added to the standard repertoire from 1960 until 2020?"

There are certainly current and modern composers like Chesky, Phillip Glass, Leonard Bernstein, and several more listed by the historic classical New York radio station WQXR, Terrence Blanchard, Jennifer Higdon, Jessie Montgomery, Eric Whitacre, Caroline Shaw, John Williams, and John Corigliano. Music is being composed, but Chesky seems to be asking if we will still rely on long-gone European composers instead of creating what he calls indigenous music. Judging by the state of modern attention spans, I cannot imagine live entertainment 20 years hence.

Chesky continues: "Do we have less-talented composers these days or did the first half of the 20th century by luck produce all these? Or did they have leaders in the classical industry with a vision that was the catalyst to create these masterpieces? It seems like today, concert halls now sell history as their business models." However, some concert halls are attempting to attract wider audiences.

This past holiday season, the New York Philharmonic featured John Williams’ score to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the movie was projected behind the orchestra. I suppose that was part of their children’s programming. So maybe the classical music industry is headed towards multi-media, franchise-related, merchandise-driven extravaganzas. Without a foundation in classical music or ownership of our indigenous music, then it’s unlikely that Tchaikovsky, Bach, and Beethoven will make the cut in the future, let alone modern composers like Chesky.

I was fortunate to suffer through many fruitless years of piano lessons and, despite protests, my parents dragged me to Lincoln Center. I also had an uncle who owned Klipschorns and played dense Russian symphonies that shook his house in New Jersey and made me appreciate the vastness and complexity of opera and the philharmonic. I was lucky to know an audiophile who enjoyed that music and also knew that it should sound much better than WQXR coming through a radio speaker. In a world of constant super-sensory entertainment, perhaps 3D high-resolution digital music is the best way to attract new fans to jazz, classical, and modern original compositions. Just play any of Chesky’s immersive recordings, and everyone in the room will be captivated by a wall of sound with incredibly lifelike detail.

Old-fashioned vinyl listeners (like me) with outdated computers and tube amps might not be set up to play DSD files, but I am able to download PCM WAV-format music that is compatible with a basic Windows Music Player. All you need is a DAC and a cable from your computer. Then arrange yourself and your speakers in an equilateral triangle to experience the massive soundstage in David Chesky’s latest recordings from The Audiophile Society. Take a look at their selection and stream some samples (a free sampler is available at this link). If you prefer headphones, as noted, these downloads also include special headphone mixes. No special equipment is required – the tracks play on standard 2-channel stereo gear.

As Chesky says, “When you hear our new Audiophile Society recordings on speakers, you should feel like you are in the space with the musicians…You should experience a sense of height and a wider and deeper soundstage. It should be a more enveloping realistic experience.”

Here's David and the band in a previous Lincoln Center concert:

As a special offer to Copper readers, you can get a coupon for 50 percent off your first purchase. To receive the offer, sign up for The Audiophile Society’s newsletter at www.theaudiophilesociety.com and enter code COPPER. The 50 percent off coupon offer is good for 60 days and you can share it with friends. You’ll also be able to download a free music sampler by signing up.

In the early ’70s I was doing a stint at Elektra Records when Jac Holzman, the president, asked me to accompany him to a small event for Miles Davis. This was not a request; after all, Jac was the boss. I didn’t mind. Who wouldn’t want to meet Miles Davis? A few hours later we left the Gulf and Western building (located on the north side of Columbus Circle), got into his newly-acquired mousey-brown Porsche Targa 911, and drove north to the George Washington Bridge. Our destination was a private residence in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

There wasn’t much traffic, so it was a quick 45-minute drive up Route 17. We arrived at the designated location. A nice house, not a mansion, but good-sized. We were escorted to the back yard, where there was a pool. Next to the pool stood a small stage with about 30 folding chairs set up in the front. On the other side of the pool was an open bar. It was a cloudy spring day, not warm enough for swimming. No matter, this was not a pool party. There were middle-aged guys in polyester suits milling around holding drinks. Everyone knew Jac and when they came up to say hello, he would introduce me. Not that I impressed anyone. I believe most of the attendees were distributors, with a few record company executives, possibly from Atlantic and Warner’s.

A short time later everyone was asked to be seated, and a small ceremony began. The whole thing was leading up to an award presentation. I zoned out and have no memory of what transpired till Miles Davis appeared on the stage to accept the award. After a moment of Miles thanking everyone, the awards part was over.

Miles stayed and for about 15 minutes he hung out, meeting and greeting. He was shaking hands with everyone there. Then when all the chit chat was done, Miles was due to leave. He was escorted back into the house. Jac came up to me and said, “why don’t you go hang out with Miles for a bit?” “I thought he was leaving,” I said. “No,” replied Jac, “he has to wait for his ride back to the city.” “Oh, okay,” I said. He walked me into the house and introduced me to Miles. There were two cute teenage girls who were also standing there. One of the girls invited us upstairs to her room and the four of us climbed the stairs. It was a typical teenage girl’s bedroom with a window facing the back yard and the pool.

We were just standing around and I asked the girls who they were, and one said, “I live here, and my dad is the host.” The other girl was her best friend. Miles and I looked at each other. Miles asked if there were any “party favors” and they shook their heads. He looked at me and said, “do you have anything?” “No,” I answered, “I was not expecting to be here.” I asked the girls if they could get something, and they could not, and the thought crossed my mind that they probably did not even know what we were talking about.

So, we sat, and I took the seat by the window. I saw the suits still wandering around with drinks in their hands. We began talking and I told Miles about touring with Patti LaBelle and opening for Al Green. He was interested and of course he had met them. I was thinking he was a jazz artist and Labelle’s kind of music wasn’t his bag, but he liked their music. He then asked me about Sly Stone. I had never met Sly or the Family Stone, but I loved their music. He did too and he told me he listened to R&B often and had quite a record collection. He knew Jimi Hendrix and I asked him if he ever played with Hendrix, and he said no. “Why not?” I asked, and he said scheduling mostly.

At the time Miles was in his 40s and looked a little grisly. I was in my early 20s, but no worries. I thought to myself, “he is pretty cool.” Some folks in his position would be annoyed having to wait for their ride, but he was fine, patient even. No complaints, no attitude.

A few months later Jac asked me to drive his Porsche to Los Angeles. Jac was dividing his time between New York City and L.A. Elektra had opened a West Coast office out there in L.A. In New York Jac did not get a chance to drive much, whereas in L.A. that was the only way to get around. To some, making that coast-to-coast drive might be seen as a chore. To me it was a paid vacation.

I had just met Sheri who was a Playboy bunny. That is a story. One of my best friends, Lanny had just gone back home to Chicago for a visit. For his return trip back to New York he fell into the unusual opportunity to drive a decommissioned police car back to New York, gas included. He could cash in his airline ticket and save the airfare. A plane ticket cost as much 50 years ago as it does today. As luck would have it the drive was not trouble-free. The retired black and white broke down an hour out of Chicago in Indiana. Accompanying Lanny was Sheri, a gal he met in Chicago.

A few days after she and Lanny arrived back in the city. I hooked up with them while the two of them were having a drink at Dr. Generosity’s and the attraction was mutual. Sheri decided to stay with me for a couple of weeks till she returned to Chicago. Just a few days into her stay with me Jac asked me to transport his car and Sheri had her ride home. It is great when timing works.

The next Wednesday morning Sheri and I went to Elektra’s office to pick up the Porsche and some expense money. Then we headed west on Route I-80. Traffic was moving nicely and by the time we reached Pennsylvania we were averaging around 80 miles an hour. Not too fast but moving. In western Pennsylvania a Corvette whizzed by. Well, alrighty, stepping on the gas there was no problem keeping up. We were leapfrogging each other when in mid-Ohio a muscle car – a Pontiac Firebird – joined us, making a caravan of sorts. The three of us kept changing the lead and we were averaging a hundred miles an hour. Hot dang this was fun, and I figured there was safety in numbers. How could the police pull all three of us over? We traveled that way till we neared Detroit where they both exited the highway. I slowed back down to my cruising speed of 80 miles per hour and we made it into Chicago around 10 p.m. I never did see a cop car.

We checked into the Holiday Inn on Lake Shore Drive (my then-favorite Chicago hotel) had dinner and went to bed. In the morning, after breakfast Sheri wanted to say an extra-special goodbye so we went back up to the room. Afterwards we checked out and I drove her to the Playboy Mansion. She told me to wait, and she went in and came back in five minutes with a goodie bag of party favors. We kissed goodbye and she gave me directions to I-80 West.

A little after ten, I was cruising along at 80 MPH in very light traffic on Interstate 80 just past the border in Iowa. A thunderstorm hit. No big deal, so I thought. A new experience was in the offering: hydroplaning. I was motoring along in the right-hand lane of the two-lane highway when the Porsche began spinning to the left. It spun around two times, crossing the highway into the valley of the grassy meridian, finally coming to a stop at the lowest point in the meridian between the West and East lanes of the highway. The car was facing backwards towards Chicago. Luckily I was wearing my seat belt. My left hand was on the steering wheel and my right hand was holding the round wooden handgrip on the gear shift. I had squeezed the bulb-like handle so hard that I broke the grip off.

Stuck in the wet grass, I took stock of my situation. I was okay, the car was upright. I was amazed that I had spun out at 80 mph. With my breathing slowly returning to normal, I wondered how I was able to break the handle of the stick shift off. I looked back at my skid marks. The ripped-up soaked grass. A couple of more deep breaths and I turned the key. The Targa started right up. Releasing the clutch, I was able to drive forward a foot or so. But the tires were spinning and unable to get enough traction to get out of the meridian’s valley.

I also had the concern that I had some party favors on me (even though I had not partaken). That reality made me want to depart the scene without any official inquiries.

Trying to drive up the right side of the meridian, I couldn’t gain much traction with the tires spinning and slipping. But I had some success by putting it into reverse to back up the other side. I was in effect creating a rocking motion, back and forth, getting a little higher each time. It took some time, maybe 20 minutes or so, but eventually I made it to the top and my momentum took me right onto the westbound I-80, where I barely missed being broadsided by a big, horn blowing semi-tractor trailer.

Back on the Interstate, I wanted to make sure that the car was all right. Once moving, I settled into third gear going slowly, maybe 30 miles an hour. The rain had passed, and I wanted to see if there were any issues with the Porsche. I saw a sign that said there was a rest stop about five miles away.

Everything still seemed okay for those few miles to the rest stop. Once there, I parked and did a walk-around inspection. No scratches or obvious issues, muddy but no visible problems. There were no steering issues or strange noises. The only apparent damage was the wooden hand grip on the gearshift. I could still use it though. It would stay on, loosely, but workable.

Back on the highway I was regaining my confidence. I was still hoping to make Denver that night. I had only lost an hour or so.

Part Two, “Miles and Miles,” will appear in an upcoming issue.

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/JPRoche.

Country-pop surges, even as Shania Twain and Margo Price stare January down. And as beleaguered as culture feels for the Next Great Consensus, the variety feathering so many different year-end lists, and figures like Rosalia, tells of renewed curiosity across genres. Call it the spoils of a global pandemic.

Albums

Adjusted for inflation and last-minute entries. Or: maybe Courtney Barnett, Kacey Musgraves, and Kelly Willis leave too big a hole to fill. King Princess opened for Musgraves back in March, though, and she's a star.

Nikki Lane, Denim & Diamonds (New West)

Sunny Sweeney, Married Alone (Aunt Daddy)

Kelsea Ballerini, Subject to Change (Black River Entertainment)

 

 

Tenille Townes, Masquerades (Sony)
Ingrid Andress, Good Person (Warner Music Nashville)
Angel Olsen, Big Time (Jagjaguwar)
Callista Clark, Real to Me (Big Machine)
Brooke Eden, Choosing You (This Is Hit)
Soccer Mommy, Sometimes Forever (Loma Vista)
Morgan Wade, Wilder Days (Ladylike)
Rosalia, Motomami (Columbia)
Alvvays, Blue Rev (Celsius Girls)
Brei Carter, Brand New Country (no label)
Lizzo, Special (Atlantic/Nice Life)
Mary J. Blige, Good Morning Gorgeous (300/Mary Jane Productions)
Beyoncé, Renaissance (Parkwood/Columbia)
King Princess, Hold On Baby (Zelig/Columbia)
Lainey Wilson, Bell Bottom Country (BBR)
Ashley Cooke, Already Drank That Beer (Big Loud)
Built to Spill, When the Wind Forgets Your Name (SUB POP)

Ingrid Andress, Good Person (Warner Music Nashville)
Ashley McBryde, Lindeville (Warner Music Nashville)
Elle King, Come and Get Your Wife (RCA)
Amanda Shires, Take It Like a Man (ATO)
Reigning Sound, Memphis in June (Merge)
Willie Nelson, A Beautiful Time (Legacy)
Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope, 2CD)
Miranda Lambert, Palomino (Vanner/RCA Nashville)
Alana Springsteen, History of Breaking Up (Part Two) (Warehouse West Entertainment)
Stephanie Quayle, On the Edge (Big Sky)
Jo Smith, Wyoming (Cherokee Rose)

Rollovers (from last year)

Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Raise the Roof (Rounder)
Connie Smith, Cry of the Heart (Fat Possum)
Laci Kaye Booth, Laci Kaye Booth (Big Machine Records)
HunterGirl, One Day (Hunter Girl)
Weyes Blood, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow (SUB POP)
Carly Pearce, 29: Written in Stone (Big Machine Records)

Base Hits

Tasty Television cover from Luna: “Marquee Moon”
“Hey Cola: the Strokes called, they want their riffs back.”

Classical

RIP: pianist Lars Vogt 1970 — 2022

Classical still outsells jazz, but the peaking sub-subset of string quartets remains inexplicable: how many yobs seek out competing editions of Beethoven cycles, or Schubert’s Quintet in C Major, or follow these players live? The constants prove uncanny: Haydn still counts as the space’s crowbar composer. The Quatuor Psophos Haydn disc, Opus 54, has hijacked my attention as strongly as any Haydn release since the Jerusalem Quartet’s op. 20, 34 and 54 (Harmonia Mundi) over 10 years ago. The detail work animates Papa Joe’s larger curves: shapely dynamics, directional phrasing, and keenly felt ensemble – the act of listening feels palpable. (More conductors need to play chamber music.) The group adopted its name in 2016 from Pythagoras, the philosopher who believed music brought inner calm; “Psophos” is Greek for “noise.”

Quatuor Psophos, Haydn String Quartets Opus 54 (Tuor Psophos)

Lars Vogt, In Memoriam (Warners Classics)
Igor Levit, Tristan (Sony)
Jubilee Quartet, Schubert: String Quartet in E-Flat Major, D. 87 and String Quartet in G Major, D. 887 (Jubilee)
Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester, Schubert Symphonies Nos. 8 “Unfinished” and 9 “The Great” (Deutsche Grammophon)
Leif Ove Andsnes, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Chrstiane Karg, Matthew Truscott, Joel Hunter and Frank Guthmann, Mozart Momentum — 1786 (Sony)
Alisa Weilerstein, Inon Barnatan, Beethoven Cello Sonatas (PentaTone)
Pavel Haas Quartet, Pavel Nikl, Boris Giltburg, Brahms Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34; String Quintet in G major, Op. 111 (Supraphon)
Lisa Batiashvili, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Giorgi Gigashvili, Secret Love Letters (DG)
Paul Lewis, Brahms Late Piano Works, Opp. 116 –119 (Harmonia Mundi)
Ádám Fisher, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Brahms Complete Symphonies (Naxos)
Peter Sheppard Skærved and Daniel-Ben Pienaar, Mozart: The Palatine Sonatas, K. 301 – 306 (Athene)*

*friend of a friend

 

Classical Reissues

Warner Classics has launched a notable reissue campaign for Walter Gieseking, the French-born German pianist best known for his glittering Debussy. These include sets of Mozart, Grieg, Schumann, and Ravel, with a handsome catch-all. Don’t overlook his winning Bach box from 2017 (DG).

Pop/Rock Reissues/Singles/Etc.

We act like there’s a paradigm because there is one, it’s just not the only one. David Bowie’s Chuck Berry cover makes the perfect choice for this androgynous unicorn, and would have grounded Pin Ups if he ever gave a damn about context. Also, the “Changes” demo here runs atop deep undercurrents. And spinning out from an avalanche of live recordings coming out of New Jersey, pieces of Madison Square Garden’s roof are still falling back to earth from Springsteen’s 1979 No Nukes show. Forget that neutered Gentleman Soul lounge act… 

David Bowie, “Almost Grown” from A Divine Symmetry: The Journey to “Hunky Dory” (ISO/Parlophone)
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (Sony)
Lou Reed, Words & Music, May 1965 (Light in the Attic)
Ride, “Vapour Trail (Vapour Mix),” featuring Robert Smith (Eat Your Own Ears)
Patrice Rushen, Straight from the Heart (Elektra)
Plainsong, In Search of Amelia Earhart (Elektra)
Rolling Stones, Live at the El Mocambo (Polydor)
Beach Boys, Sail on Sailor [Deluxe] (Capitol Catalog MKT)
Various, Summer of Soul ( …Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised): A Questlove Jam [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] (1969, Legacy)
The Beatles, Revolver [Super Deluxe] (Universal Music)
Sonic Youth, In/Out/In (Three Lobed)
Prince and the Revolution, Live (1985, NPG/Legacy -2CD)
Pavement, Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal (Matador)
Neil Young, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion 1971 (Reprise)
Creedence Clearwater Revival At the Royal Albert Hall, April 14, 1970 (Craft)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Los Angeles Forum – April 26, 1969 (Legacy/Experience Hendrix)

Pop/Rock Compilations

The Toytown Pop Sound recalls a phase that proved Paul McCartney need not exist, but seeded music with more punch and verve when it sprouted “power pop.”

Various, Climb Aboard My Roundabout! The British Toytown Pop Sound 1967-1974 (Grapefruit) – proof that Paul McCartney need not exist.
Various, John Sinclair Presents Detroit Artists Workshop (Strut Records)
Various, Gotta Get A Good Thing Goin’: The Music of Black Britain In The Sixties (Strawberry Records)
Various, Miles Out to Sea: The Roots of British Power Pop 1969-1975 (Grapefruit)
Various, Biff Bang Pow! Better Life: Complete Creations 1984-1991 (Cherry Red)

 

Header image: Nikki Lane, Denim & Diamonds, album cover.

I first had the pleasure of becoming recently acquainted with Aston Sharman, when I stumbled upon his intriguing boutique, Vintage Technology Workshop, tucked away in the UK’s historic Barbican area in Plymouth (see header image above). A neighboring retailer had informed me of Sharman’s great engineering prowess and repair skills and that he had been a former engineer for Sony. I was particularly intrigued, as I had an old Sony Walkman which needed some professional attention. I had failed to resurrect it under my own steam, having only been able to replace the old belt, and although the playing mechanism was operating, my cassettes continued to produce a warbling and pitchy playback. Full of hope and promise, I soon returned to the shop with my beloved Walkman and sought out the man himself. Aston then performed an amazing repair for me, servicing the rollers, capstans, mechanism assembly and belt seating, and restoring it to its former operational glory.

Little did I realise just how extensive and far-reaching his working career stretched. Below is just a very small snapshot of some of his generous insights, and projects he has been involved in over the decades.

Russ Welton: Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?

Aston Sharman: Certainly! I am a Sony-trained audio engineer, and latterly, a Panasonic/Technics-trained [analogue] and digital audio engineer, dating from the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. It’s safe to say that between the companies of Sony and Panasonic/Technics (Matsushita), somewhere in your house, there will be a piece of technology containing components from one of these companies, from the lowly capacitor up to integrated circuits.

RW: How did your career develop into becoming an engineer for Sony?

AS: After leaving school I decided that electronics was the future, well at least for me anyway. I always found myself dismantling something or other around the house when I was little, so I thought it was long overdue that I actually learnt how to repair things properly. I enrolled in a compressed five-year college course for television and radio servicing, industrial engineering, et cetera and came out with a few choice degrees.

It was just a matter of luck that when I looked in the trade magazines for a job, a position at Sony had just been advertised and I had the right degrees needed for what they were looking for.

RW: What are some of your favourite Sony audio products and why?

AS: The TC-K950ES cassette deck. Very sexy looking, sounds like you're listening to pure velvet, and built like money was no object. The ultra-over-engineered Sony CDP-557ESD and CDP-X7ESD CD decks with their beautiful Burr-Brown DACs, and to a lesser extent the CDP-X777ES and CDP-X77ES CD decks with their 1-bit Pulse DAC processing, all looking like they were made out of unobtanium.

(Wikipedia’s definition of a pulse DAC states: "A Bitstream or 1-bit DAC is a consumer electronics marketing term describing an oversampling digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) with an actual 1-bit DAC…in a delta-sigma loop operating at multiples of the sampling frequency. The combination is equivalent to a DAC with a larger number of bits (usually 16 –20). The advantages of this type of converter are high linearity combined with low cost, owed to the fact that most of the processing takes place in the digital domain and requirements for the analogue anti-aliasing filter after the output can be relaxed. For these reasons, this design is very popular in digital consumer electronics…”)

I think we were talking about the WM-DD100 Boodo Khan Walkman the other day. A lovely piece of equipment, and horribly expensive at the moment on the second-hand market. However, there is a special limited-edition red anodised version that exists. I know, as I had the honour to service one back in the day. Supposedly there are only a handful of these “reds” out there.

The "Boodo Khan" name refers to one of the most famous indoor arenas of Tokyo [the Budokan]. The WM-DD100 was particularly prized by rappers of the era [thanks to] the massive headphones that were supplied [with the player].

RW: What’s your favourite Panasonic/Technics product?

AS: That prize has to go to the Technics SL-1210MkII turntable. The Technics SL-1210MkII was produced in dark charcoal for the majority of the world. America only had the SL-1200MkII which was silver.

It’s built like a tank, infinitely modifiable, impressively accurate, and surprisingly lightweight on the pocket. Although that last part might actually be becoming more difficult due to the demand outstripping the availability of un-thrashed second-hand ones. The modern reissues are, shall we say, less than stellar. They look nice, but their performance/cost ratio leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. (And a dent in the wallet.)

RW: Tell us about the old flagship WM-D6C Sony Walkman Pro and what made it special.

AS: The Sony WM-D6C was initially designed as a reporter’s portable recorder for travelling the world and handling a bit of rough and tumble along the way. This was the original version (the WM-D6); the “C” was later added due to the addition of Dolby C noise reduction and its new amorphous [tape] head. These propelled this little portable recorder (with its quartz-locked servo-controlled motor) to be the de facto weapon of choice for the audio-head looking for portable quality. Today the WM-D6C is highly sought after in good condition, and is now commanding prices akin to its original asking price (upwards of £1,000 in mint condition boxed). The thing is, if you replace the op-amps in the output stage, and re-cap the board, you are left with a Walkman that can come pretty close to a lot of audiophile decks.

 

RW: What were some of the most unusual projects and products you have been involved in?

AS: I think helping NASA with diagnosing and photographing [the way] tin whiskers propagate inside transistors has to be one of the most unusual projects I've had a part in.

It was found, rather unexpectedly, that certain electronics, and more importantly, transistors, that were encased in sealed tin enclosures, would propagate the growth of “live” tin whiskers, which would eventually short the component out, causing all sorts of problems down the road. This was of extreme importance to NASA, as a lot of their projects at the time were involving hardened circuitry encased in various metals including tin. So, as you might imagine, having something going horribly wrong on your super-secret-circuitry was a big no no. The webpage explaining this is still up on NASA's website here: https://nepp.nasa.gov/whisker/. In those days, [all we had was] film photography [to try and see what was going on], but [the webpage has] included lots more since.

RW: What were some of the most problematic component issues of the 1990s and 2000s as far as audio equipment was concerned?

AS: Leaking capacitors. Unbeknownst to most manufacturers of the mid-’80s through mid-’90s, due to a catastrophic error in the Chinese manufacturing plant that produced the majority of the capacitors for the world’s electronics, they accidentally put the wrong chemical into production, inadvertently destroying countless of pieces of audio equipment over the years. To this day engineers across the world are still trying to correct [the aftermath of] the problem.

Early lasers in the CDP-101, the first CD player to be produced by Sony, were, shall we say, a bit unreliable. The unit could overheat, burn out and generally misbehave unless absolutely set up to perfection. That and the fact that the unit could run so hot it would quite literally unsolder its parts.

RW: What are some of the most significant changes in audio design you have experienced as an engineer?

AS: I think the transition from full analogue audio design to digital signal processing [DSP] technology was an important (if not somewhat floundering in its early stages) step in the right direction. Pure analogue audio design requires exquisite forethought and dedication, using all of the skills of a design engineer to make sure that there is absolutely no colourisation of the audio chain. Yet while this is perfectly possible, it was only to be found incorporated into the very best of the best.

However, much in the same way that Triple-A computer games, (ones with massive development and marketing budgets and often classed as blockbusters) such as Grand Theft Auto 5 which has about 30 different updates available to patch out the bugs, are fixed "after the event," audio stages can now be tuned not by the engineer, but by either firmware upgrades or simple algorithmic changes in software. This is a game changer for the audiophile; now you can have a perfectly flat 20 Hz – 20kHz [frequency response from your electronics] at a touch of a button. Even my own basic Sony audio ES Series surround sound amp has a plug-in microphone to tune the room for acoustic loveliness. [However], Apple AirPods spring to mind as an example of [experiencing] an unexpected and not necessarily welcomed frequency response change due to firmware updates.

I think a more recent innovation that impresses me is AI stem-splitting algorithms. Using artificial intelligence and sophisticated computer learning, [engineers have] been able to create software to separate the vocals, drums, guitars and other instruments [in a recording] for remixing, [creating] multichannel surround sound, and remastering from recordings that didn't have multichannel audio recordings made in the first place. One example is Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of The Moon hybrid multichannel SACD. Peter Jackson’s [documentary] The Beatles: Get Back used this technology to pull out the voices from the recordings to hear what the Beatles were saying, as they had a tendency play their instruments to drown out their conversations for privacy. An example of AI stem-splitting can be found here: https://www.splitter.ai/

RW: What does the end of the dominance of Japanese audio manufacturing mean for you and the rest of the world?

AS: Sadly an end of an era, in which, in my opinion, during the 1980s and 1990s some of the greatest audio equipment was lovingly created. [Look at some of] the outrageous steps [manufacturers] took to separate the power supply and audio sections from interfering with each other, like the Sony “Gibraltar” chassis design and copper-plated steel and solid copper circuit bays. A feast to the eyes, and a banquet for the ears.

With [so much] of Japan now taken up by business headquarters, and [with] offloading manufacturing production to both Malaysia and Taiwan, no longer can you rely on the superb craftsmanship of the Japanese. That's not to say that the quality is terrible, but that little touch of Japanese precision has been lost along the way, in my opinion.

RW: What does the future hold for service engineers, and designers of new products?

AS: I'm afraid the era of the service engineer is in rapid decline. What I’m trying to say is that there have been no educational courses at college that teach individuals in the art of repairing anything for at least 20 years or so in the UK. No longer are there engineering courses that involve servicing in general, and indeed there haven't been for many decades. All the existing engineers are, myself included, getting a bit long in the tooth and sadly, over the last few years some of the greatest minds have been lost to the pandemic. If something isn't done soon to address the situation, the future of the repair industry is in jeopardy. There will be nobody left alive soon (think 20 years) who will be able to keep your (then) vintage stuff working. Yes, you will always have dabblers, but I'll leave them to the Darwin Awards.

As for the up-and-coming talented creators of new and as-yet-unseen products, the mainstream industry seems to be obsessed with mobile technology. This is all fine and dandy, but is mostly just a minor iteration of the previous generation of technology. Innovation comes from thinking outside the box, not just redesigning the box.

RW: Tell us about some examples of how the human touch and control is still essential for product manufacturing.

AS: Canon’s lens manufacturing plant is a good example of why the human element should never be neglected. The lens grinding masters at Canon have the ability to feel when the machine is not grinding a lens to perfection, and just by applying pressure on the machine in a certain manner, are able to correct the inaccuracies therein. Thankfully, this innate talent is being passed down to the next generation of apprentices in the factory.

RW: What advice, which is perhaps most often overlooked, would you give to audiophiles to help them improve their stereo sound?

AS: I think the art of listening, and I really mean that when I say art, is when you, the audiophile, gets the pure emotional joy that you're expecting from the piece of music you're listening to out of your hi-fi setup. Now, I realise that sounds like a strange thing to say, but if you know what you're looking for in a piece of music, and it's not there, that is when your journey begins for a better understanding of what it is you want out of your equipment. Now, whether that means auditioning different pieces of equipment to attain that feeling you strive for is ultimately for you to decide. Every individual is looking for their own acoustic nirvana. What I'm saying is that until you've heard your own personal version of audio perfection, you first have to use the art of listening to decide for yourself what is missing and act upon that.

To that end, you need to decide what kind of audio chain you are looking for. [For example,] are you looking for a flat response all the way through, or are you are looking for something different? Only you can answer that, but you'll know it when you hear it.

Header image: the Vintage Technology Workshop. Courtesy of Aston Sharman.

Few bands became part of the fabric of American music more quickly than The Cowsills. Discovered in their home town of Newport, Rhode Island in 1967 by a producer for The Today Show, this family act delivered five studio albums in three years, produced hits like “The Rain, the Park and Other Things,” “We Can Fly,” “Indian Lake,” ”Hair,” and the theme song from the ABC television show Love American Style. They were also the subject of a successful comic book, and were the inspiration for the popular 1970s television series The Partridge Family.

Over the years the band saw family members both join and leave the lineup, and the band break up and reunite. That changed about 18 years ago when they decided to join the “Happy Together Tour” alongside the Association, the Turtles, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, and the Vogues. Since then, they have maintained a steady presence on summer stages.

On that tour a few years back, they found the inspiration to write new material and then decided to put the songs to tape. That led them to a disastrous relationship with the now-defunct crowdfunding entity Pledge Music, where all of the money they had raised to record a new record was lost in the company’s bankruptcy. Fortunately, Ahmet Ertegun protégé Dr. Rock Positano arrived soon after to save the day. Positano was visiting Newport and looking upon its waterfront, decided that he had to work with the Cowsills. He reached out at just the right time and he and the band migrated to Louisiana where the three original members (siblings Bob, Susan, and Paul), along with their nephews and touring band, huddled and made what would become only the third studio album they’d release in over 40 years.

Rhythm of the World is the beginning of a productive label relationship with Omnivore Recordings and a musical outing that ties right back to the sound they made popular so long ago. The 11 new tracks are fresh, modern in theme, and live within a production that’s crisp, clean, and current. Just when everyone thought that the 2011 Showtime Documentary Family Band: The Cowsills Story would be the last time this band took a national stage, the future for this wonderful gift to American music is as bright as ever, and you soon will be able to see the Cowsills almost as often as you would have in 1968.

Copper caught up with Bob Cowsill just before the holidays and talked about how the Rhythm of the World project came about, what it was like to be writing again for the first time in almost 30 years, and how the family has stayed together on stage for so long.

Ray Chelstowski: Over the last 40 years you have huddled together as a group to make new music only three times. What prompted you to do it again now?

Bob Cowsill: Well, we did it twice before; once in the late 1970s, then again in the late 1990s. When you record that infrequently you go dry. You don’t write songs. I sure don’t, but Susan does. Susan is our “Neil Young.” She had been hounding us to make a new record and we thought she was out of her mind. But in the end it was the songs that generated all of this.

We’d been on the “Happy Together” tour for seven summers. A few years back we got inspired on tour to write a song together, which is something we’d never done. Every night on tour the Turtles would tell the crowd that they needed “to get up” and we thought there was a song there, even if there were already more than 80 songs about “getting up” already recorded. We decided to do one more and what that triggered was a frenzy of writing, and we had a lot of fun. There was no intent beyond the writing but we did it every day on that summer tour and there’s something to be said about that because it put us in the same place.

The songs turned out to be so good that we decided to record them and launched a Pledge Music campaign to fund the project. Just as we hit our fundraising goal, Pledge Music went bankrupt. It was a nightmare until Rock Positano was standing on Gull Rock Island just off Newport and looked toward the famous [historic Trinity] Church and decided that he needed to get ahold of us, and he did.

RC: Were these all half-cooked songs that you brought to the process, or did you create everything new?

BC: When we were on the [tour] bus it started with Paul [Cowsill] putting down a piece of paper with the first two verses of “Ya Gotta Get Up!” I’m a good melody guy and I picked up a guitar and put one to it quickly. Then Susan started singing what her part would be. What we discovered was that Paul and Susan are exceptional at bringing forward lyrics, and together we found a really good threesome that became one good brain.

We were lucky to get our physical recordings done just before the (pandemic) lockdown and got to mix them with Frank Filipetti at his studio in Connecticut. It took eight months because we were doing it remotely, but that was OK because no one was going anywhere. So it was a great experience.

RC: In the CD liner notes you reference scores of songs and artists that specifically impacted the music you made, track by track. Are those songs what you listened to on the summer tour bus?

BC: These are songs on playlists that we’d listen to as we were living our lives through the decades, whether we were together or apart. Many of these artists and songs influenced us when we began in the late 1960s. So it was a gift [for these influences to enable us] to record songs this good at this point in our careers. A part of why we were able to do it I think is because is because of the music that influenced us, and because of the fact that we hadn’t written or recorded for so long.

RC: The entire record feels new and of the moment. The art direction does as well.

BC: The visual strategist, Gail Marowitz, took a Danny Clinch photo of us on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey and she gave it that effect. We thought it was really simple and that you could spot it from anywhere in the store. In fact, the vinyl version comes out for Record Store Day on April 15, 2023, so we are really excited about that as well.

RC: You recorded this new album with your core group, no outsiders.

BC: The seven of us on that album have been touring together for 18 years. If you line up our albums you’ll see that there are varying numbers of family members who participate, because we had that kind of family flexibility. Now we are moving into our next generation. We’ve lost three brothers and our parents; so replacing two of the brothers with two sons keeps the DNA thing going forever.

RC: Was that liberating?

BC: The studio where we recorded this is [in a] remote [location] on 12 acres. There’s no booth visitors or record executives who are going to stop by, and there are no musicians who can get to us to [let them] “guest” on the album. If we did this in Los Angeles there’d be 10 musicians making guest appearances on the record. We were able to get the basic tracks down and then the fun began, where we could play with things.

RC: How have you kept it fresh and fun for so long?

BC: It’s a family, so you can have really [intense] arguments and disagreements but no one is going anywhere. No one can quit a family. And for all that we have gone through, we have always relied on each other to get all of us through. Today more than ever we are grateful that we have each other. You have better reasons for appreciating things.

RC: Ace session guitarist Waddy Wachtel has a long history with the band. You met early and pursued wildly different sounds. How did this begin?

BC: Waddy was in the front seat for many of the things that happened with us as kids. In high school he had his own band and played [a local club called] Dorians after we had left to play another set at the MK Hotel. His band, the Orphans, was [like] the Hammond B3 [based] Rascals where our band [by comparison] was the Beatles. We would run to each other’s gigs during breaks to check each other out. We became good friends from it all and he became a big influence for us all, musically.

RC: What’s next?

BC: In July, Omnivore Records is going to release our late 1990s album, Global. Then, for the next holiday season we have the song “Christmas Time” that’s going to be released, and on Black Friday 2023 we will release an a cappella album on all formats. Then after all of that Omnivore will re-release our late 1970s album Cocaine Drain. That’s the two-year plan. So, we’ve got a lot happening.

Header image courtesy of Danny Clinch.

Cov•er•ing: in music, performing a song that has been written or recorded by the original artist

Bor•row•ing: obtaining or receiving something with the understanding that it will be returned (or, in this case, at least acknowledged or credited)

Steal•ing: taking without right or permission

When the groundbreaking album Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos was released in 1968, it was received with both acclaim and derision, but at least no one could claim the music was uncredited. Many classical purists found it sacrilegious, yet famed pianist Glenn Gould, one of the most highly regarded performers of Bach’s music, praised it highly. The album would go on to win Grammy awards and ultimately receive Platinum certification, a rarity for classical recordings.

The original album cover shown above was quickly replaced with another image from the same photo shoot showing “Bach” standing by the synthesizer with a more bemused expression on his face. Carlos and producer Rachel Elkind had objected to the first cover for two reasons: 1) they felt the facial expression was undignified, and 2) the headphones were erroneously plugged into an input, rather than the proper output of the Moog synthesizer. The replacement image was also reproduced more clearly.

Progressive rock is often characterized by the use of elements of classical composition such as repeating themes, shifts in dynamics, rhythmic changes, unusual time signatures, and distinct sections within a song. It’s only reasonable to assume that snippets (or sometimes whole pieces) occasionally find their way onto a rock album.

The sticking point for me is when a classical theme or melody is incorporated into a rock song without crediting the composer. My sense of fairness and justice does not allow for that sort of thing. Here are some examples of rock artists covering, borrowing or outright stealing from classical composers. (The rock YouTube entry comes first, followed by the classical performance.)

Gustav Holst’s The Planets is one of those compositions that make a good introduction to classical music for non-classical fans, and, as such, certain parts like “Mars, the Bringer of War” have been incorporated into a number of rock performances.

King Crimson – “The Devil’s Triangle” – (Holst)

I am a big fan of the early King Crimson albums, and have a great deal of respect for guitarist Robert Fripp, but that is tempered by the fact that on In the Wake of Poseidon he took “Mars, the Bringer of War” without crediting Holst. No excuse.

The Mothers of Invention – “Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin” – (Holst)

Frank Zappa was no stranger to classical music and composers. On this track from the album Absolutely Free, he uses an uncredited snippet from Holst (“Jupiter”).

Ravel’s “Bolero” is another classical piece that has found great favor with a number of rock outfits. Well before the movie 10 brought Bo Derek and “Bolero” into our consciousness, Jeff Beck and others had adapted it.

James Gang – “The Bomber” – (Ravel)

On The James Gang Rides Again, Joe Walsh and company inserted “Bolero” into a long track that also incorporated a cover of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” After the release of the album, objections from the estate of Maurice Ravel resulted in the “Bolero” section being removed from the piece with a rather clumsy edit, and the album cover was reprinted to reflect that omission. My copy of the album doesn’t mention the Ravel piece on the cover, but the label on the record and the recording itself include it.

Colosseum – “Bolero” – (Ravel)

British drummer Jon Hiseman’s band was a jazz/blues/rock outfit in the early 1970s. In the liner notes for their album The Grass is Greener, the group’s guitarist Dave Clemson had this to say about the inclusion of “Bolero”: “A diabolical liberty really. It’s got a horrible guitar solo which I was told to play. I hate it. P.S This was written for me. I hate it. P.P.S. So was that.” (I’ve got to admit, it’s not the best version of the piece.)

Pete Sinfield – “Song of the Sea Goat” – (Vivaldi)

Peter Sinfield was the lyricist for the first four King Crimson Albums. He also worked with Emerson, Lake & Palmer. This track is from his only solo album, which was released on ELP’s Manticore label. Here Sinfield has adapted an instrumental work, Vivaldi’s Guitar Concerto in D, (fully credited) into a vocal piece. Although his voice is a bit weak, I actually think the melody works better sung, as the guitar notes seem too staccato to my ears.

Love Sculpture – “Farandole” – (Bizet)

Love Sculpture was one of the earliest bands for Welsh rocker Dave Edmunds. Their first album was Blues Helping, and you can guess the genre. The trio morphed into a more progressive outfit, and performed a number of fully credited classical pieces on their second album Forms and Feelings. Here, Bizet’s “Farandole” is given the full rock treatment.

Gabor Szabo – “Fire Dance” – (de Falla)

A number of Hungarian-American guitarist Gabor Szabo’s albums consisted of jazz versions of pop songs. For his beautifully produced album Dreams, on Gary McFarland’s short-lived Skye label, he branched out to record original material and several credited classical adaptations.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer – “Knife Edge” – (Janacek/Bach)

Keith Emerson arranged a number of classical pieces from composers such as Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Bach for his pre-ELP group, The Nice. This track from ELP’s first album is listed as an adaptation of Leon Janacek’s “Sinfonietta,” but it also includes an uncredited bit from Bach’s “French Suite No. 1” in the middle of the piece.

The Load – “Brandenburg Concerto #3 (third movement)” – (Bach)

The Load was a 1970s Midwestern emulation of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. They, too, did a number of classical adaptations on their cheekily titled album Praise the Load.

Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – “Starbird” – (Stravinsky)

Manfred Mann’s eponymous 1960s pop group had hits with “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn.” The 1970s saw a new lineup, new name (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band), and a new direction toward progressive rock. On their seventh album, The Roaring Silence, they scored another hit with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Blinded by the Light.” Also on that album was “Starbird,” the intro to which is clearly taken from Igor Stravinsky’s “Firebird Suite.” Guess who isn’t credited?

These are just a few examples of rock artists plundering the classical oeuvre. There will be another installment in the future.

File under, “inside the head of a Record Store Day consumer.”

Since 2014, it’s been like clockwork. Twice a year I download the Record Store Day (RSD) upcoming titles list and circle at least a half dozen special releases I’m interested in, and then end up picking up two or three others on impulse. Usually, they include a previously-unreleased live album, something from the studio that had been unearthed from the vaults, one jazz or blues record, and at least one pricey boxed set.

This past Black Friday didn’t disappoint since a bunch of my favorite artists showed up on the RSD list in those categories. On November 25, it took trips to two Manhattan stores, Rock and Soul and Village Revival Records, but I managed to get everything on my RSD Black Friday wish list. Analyzing how I settled on each pick is interesting to me, and I’m sure all RSD consumers have their reasons why they bought what they purchased. And honestly, I still haven’t listened to everything I acquired on Record Store Day over the past few years. So many records, so little time. Here’s a deep dive into the latest records spinning on my Pro-Ject turntable, and why.

Eric Burdon & War – The Complete Vinyl Collection (Rhino):

I’ll start with this pricey boxed set. I still have the first album, Eric Burdon Declares War, on original vinyl, the one with the massive hit “Spill the Wine” that I distinctly remember hearing on the school bus radio in 1970 while we were on a field trip. The expression on the teacher/chaperone’s face, as Burdon relays what clearly sounded like an LSD trip with a woman he met, is forever embedded in my brain. The double-LP Black Man’s Burdon is the band’s second release, which I still have on a double CD. In the early 1980s, I swiped the original vinyl from a roommate, but felt guilty and gave it back to him a few years later. War’s third album, Love is All Around, a collection of outtakes released four years after they broke up, was part of my original vinyl collection that I stupidly sold in 2010.

Despite the $99.99 price tag, for the boxed set, re-hearing this music brought me back to my affinity for all things Burdon, who I met in 2015 at a gig.

The first time I visited London was in 1983. I found an inexpensive hotel off Kings Road in Chelsea, and remember getting checked in by a very pregnant woman. As it turned out, she gave birth the next day. But with 24 hours rest, she was back at the front desk the following day.

Her Cockney husband, who also worked at the hotel, took a liking to me. About 10 to 15 years older, the hotel manager was impressed by my encyclopedic knowledge of British rock from the 1960s and 1970s. He told me how he and his mates’’ favorite band was The Animals, who were working class like them, even though the group hailed from Newcastle in North England. The hotel manager and his mates used to crash concerts all over London when the Animals played at local colleges.

He didn’t have to twist my arm to sell me on the Animals. At the time, I cherished my battered vinyl copies of Animalization (which Abkco earlier this year re-released and re-mastered along with three other of their classic albums) and The Best of the Animals.

The London hotel anecdote rushed back to me nearly a quarter-century later as I was sitting in 2008 at the majestic Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, my first concert at the famed hall, to see Eric Burdon and War, which had only one other original member, keyboardist Lonnie Jordan. War warmed up the audience with a 45-minute set of their own including some of their hits, like “The War Is A Ghetto” and “Why Can’t We Be Friends.”

Burdon made a grand entrance down a flight of stairs from right of the stage to the accompaniment of “Spill the Wine,” which he transformed from the hippie-inspired acid trip in Mexico to a field in London’s Hyde Park, which was literally across the street from the majestic concert venue. He was in fine voice.

Repertoire-wise, with the exception of a reggae treatment of the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” the rest of the setlist was entirely comprised of the War collaborations with Burdon, including a blistering cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black.” Between 1969 and 1971, Burdon and War invented a Latin-tinged funk-soul sound that was all their own, an amalgamation of talent that blended perfectly. The liner notes thankfully filled in the blanks on the partnership’s genesis.

Yeah, the boxed set might be a tad overpriced, but I don’t mind; it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Iggy Pop – Après (Culture Factory)

This album fulfilled my need for a lost classic that has received a new lease on life, despite initially being rejected by Virgin Records. Recorded in 2010 and 2011, this album was originally released only in France in 2012. Iggy had already put two French songs on 2009’s Preliminaires. More than half of Après features his rich baritone on French ballads like Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose,” that are a far cry from the yesteryear proto-punk of The Stooges.

But it works, especially for someone who’s now 75 years old. Other tracks include covers of the Beatles’ “Michelle,” Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” and other tunes written by Cole Porter and Serge Gainsbourg or popularized by Frank Sinatra – all performed in the same matter-of-fact delivery. Almost as much fun as the music are the exquisite drawings that adorn the fold-out poster/lyric sheet.

Big Bill Broonzy – Live in Amsterdam 1953 (Rockbeat/Liberation Hall)

I did not know much about this legendary bluesman other than that he composed “Key to the Highway,” popularized by Eric Clapton. Then, nearly three years ago I was asked by ORG Music to write liner notes for an RSD 2020 release of a Broonzy live performance recorded in 1957 in Nottingham, England. Broonzy had been recording since the late 1920s.

Broonzy’s relevance in the age of Black Lives Matter is epitomized by his 1953 live performance of “Black, Brown and White,” included on this Black Friday release, which he wrote and recorded in 1945 about racism in America:

“Tell me brother, what you gonna do ‘bout the old Jim Crow/Now if you is white/you is alright/If you in brown/Stick around/But if you’s black/ hmm hmm brother/git back, git back.”

No US label would put out the record for another six years, because of its obvious message. By the early 1950s, Broonzy realized his musical talent was more appreciated in Europe, where he finally could earn a living from playing his brand of country blues as a performer instead of taking on odd jobs like being a janitor. Broonzy’s affable personality shines through the entire solo acoustic set.

Mose Allison – Live in 1978 (Liberation Hall)

Filling my jazz quota this time around: I’ve loved Mose’s droll lyric delivery and rolling piano stylings since I first heard him in the 1980s. I have a few other live albums of his, as well as most of his original studio output (it’s a huge catalog). I met him once in the late 1980s after a gig and he graciously signed my LP of Middle Class White Boy, a studio album that was released in 1982 that I thankfully had held onto. This RSD release contains a few of his best-known tunes, including “Your Mind Is On Vacation” (and your mouth is working overtime!), Allison at his most sardonic.

Allison died in 2016. Unbeknownst to me, he lived most of his life a few miles away from me in Smithtown, New York, when I was a teenager.

Bryan Ferry – Taxi (BMG)

I have this on CD somewhere (no clue where it is) and Taxi, released in 1993, one of his better albums of cover versions, with selections and arrangements well-suited for his unique voice, such as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You” and the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”

Jonathan Richman – Jonathan Sings (Omnivore)

One of his best post-Modern Lovers albums, this record, originally released in 1983, falls into the category of “I stupidly sold it with my original collection,” and I’ve never seen it on CD. Its must-hear centerpiece is “The Neighbors,” whose protagonist is in denial that he’s not far away from committing adultery.

Duran Duran – Live at Hammersmith ’82 (Rhino)

This was a mostly-impulse pickup I bought for the encore of Steve Harley’s “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” because I interviewed the songwriter in the early 1980s and wanted to hear what Duran Duran would do with the huge UK hit. I always thought Duran Duran were one of the best 1980s bands, and I have two of their best early studio albums on vinyl. By the time of this gig, they had chalked up a bunch of hits like “Hungry Like A Wolf” and “Save A Prayer.”

Joe Strummer – Live at Music Millennium (Dark Horse)

This in-store 1999 acoustic performance by Joe Strummer was recorded at Music Millennium, my friend Terry Currier’s famous record store in Portland, Oregon. The former leader of The Clash would pass away three years later at 50.

Nightclubbing (MVD)

This RSD combo of a DVD plus CD release contains a full-length documentary about the Max's Kansas City Manhattan nightclub scene of the 1960s and 1970s.

Although I attended a half-dozen gigs at rival club CBGB towards the end of Max’s heyday, the only time I set inside of Max’s was when I met a college friend for an after-work drink in 1981, when it was about to close. The film covers the history of the place, including its being a mid-1960s hangout for Andy Warhol’s Factory crew, and the Velvet Underground becoming the house band during a 1970 summer residency. Soon thereafter, bands were regularly booked.

Regulars telling the club’s history include Copper contributor Jay Jay French, and Jimi LaLumia, a friend of mine. Some back-room revelations in the documentary: David Bowie took staging ideas from Jayne County. George Harrison once gave a ruby to the woman he was going to go home among the many sitting at the table, recalls Alice Cooper, who often made the Max’s scene before his band broke huge. Another revelation in the film is the club’s second owner counterfeited money, resulting in Max's demise.

We record collectors are a compulsive bunch. I talked about some of the not-quite-rational lengths to which we will go in order to acquire vinyl in Issue 137 and Issue 142, and identified some of the characteristic compulsions – er, traits – that distinguish the true record-collecting fanatic. Since identifying a case of gravis recordum publicanus requires specialized training and analysis, I’ve needed three installments (including this one) to outline all the symptoms.

Although nowadays you can stream almost anything you’d like (OK, Howard Menger’s Authentic Music from Another Planet is not on any streaming service I can find) when it comes to your favorite music, you still have to have the albums – even if the streaming version of the album might have otherwise-unavailable outtakes, and sound better than the LP, although this is far from assured. (Thanks to Ray Chelstowski’s article in this issue prompting my memory, I listened to the Cowsills’ 1967 smash “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” on Qobuz, and it sounded shrill. Sure enough, the YouTube cuts sounded warmer, if not as detailed. Not Qobuz’ fault – they use what the record company supplies.)

But one thing is certain – the original – not the reissue – vinyl LP sounds the way the producers, engineers, and record company and maybe even the artist (if they had a say) intended it to sound at the time it was released. It is the original authentic sonic document.

You sometimes buy a cheap used record just for the cover. I did this all the time when I could get records for a quarter or 50 cents at garage sales and thrift shops. And sometimes the music can be really good, or at least…interesting, like the old RCA “Living Stereo” Esquivel albums, which also sound terrific, or anything by Yma Sumac (Amy Camus?), who is said to have had a four-octave vocal range.

You get the Music Direct catalog and are very happy that they are willing to spend the money to issue it in this day and age of expensive printing and mailing costs. I guess the fact that it’s almost irresistible not to buy something from the catalog helps offset the cost. They have records you didn’t know you wanted. Hundreds of them, maybe more than a thousand. Not that you don’t also look at websites like Acoustic Sounds, Tower Records, Turntable Lab, Amazon, Amoeba Music, Vinyl Me Please, Discogs, eBay, Experience Vinyl, Sundazed, countless online retailers, and perhaps the most aptly-named of all: Intervention Records.

Although you buy records constantly, you’ve also sold dozens, maybe hundreds of records, and it doesn’t look like you’ve even made a dent in your collection. Selling, as well as buying records just seems to go with the territory after a while. Part of the collector mentality – move the items you don’t want or don’t have an interest in anymore to free up cash and space to buy new ones, whether LPs, HO cars, guitar effects pedals, or…no wonder my house is running out of room.

You use what I call the “chin” method of putting a plastic sleeve on a record. You’ve bought enough plastic record sleeves – of course you put your records in plastic sleeves! – to have noticed that some of them are a really tight fit, especially for gatefold albums. These sleeves can be hard to put on. Well, here’s a way to get them on easily: get the record a little bit into the sleeve, then place the record under your chin and pull on the sleeve with both hands. See how easily it goes on? Much better than trying to “walk” the record into the sleeve with just your two hands! No one has ever caught me doing this, so I’ve never been ridiculed for it, until maybe now.

You have your “good” and your “utility” turntable. Your good one resides in your main audio system, and your other one (or ones) is used for record-grading and seeing if a used record is good enough for more “serious” evaluation. Maybe, like me, your second turntable is fully automatic, great for lazy listening. My second turntable is an old, circa 1970s or ’80sTechnics SL-D3 that I bought from the original owner for $5 in a garage sale. I installed a new cartridge and the turntable works perfectly.

Perhaps this is oversimplified but I’ve encountered mostly two kinds of record collectors. The first group has a system based around a 1970s receiver and big box speakers that are 30 years old or older (perhaps sitting on the floor or propped up on something other than actual speaker stands), all wired with lamp cord and those cheap interconnects many of us have a drawer full of. The second type of collector is the all-out audiophile who prizes beautifully-done reissues and has a high-end system with a really nice turntable setup.

A corollary of this is that you’ve shaken your head at some of the funky stereo systems you’ve seen and heard at record stores. Extra points if the speakers are placed on shelves high up on the walls at opposite ends of the store. When the store plays an early Beatles stereo album you get to either hear the vocals if you're by one side one speaker, or the instruments if you're at the other end of the store. Or wonder: where's the other speaker?

You’ve bought record sleeves, storage boxes, record and CD mailers and maybe other items from Bags Unlimited or ULINE. I get the ULINE catalog, and after you’ve placed your records-related order, you can check out some other handy stuff, like warehouse ventilation fans, conveyor belts, and 60 by 60-foot tarps.

When you’re at a garage sale or thrift shop and see the “Living Presence” or “Living Stereo” logo, you get an honest-to-goodness adrenaline jolt. If you’re in a record store and hear a guy involuntarily exclaiming “Nyaahhh!” a la Curly Howard, that’ll be me finding that insanely rare Edicion Española version of Kraftwerk's Electric Café.

You’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of looking for certain pressings according to their stamper/matrix number. Way back when, when I found out this was a thing, I kind of didn’t want to know about it. Not only did you have to go on a quest for a rare record, you also had to make sure it was the one with the most-desired matrix number! I recall the snobbery of having to not only getting the even-then-rare Casino Royale soundtrack (Colgems COSO-5005), but the “right” pressing (2S/3S if I recall).

You buy records to have, not to play. You want the disc as a collector’s item, not as something you’re actually going to listen to. I mean, if you find a copy of the limited-edition Talking Heads 1983 album Speaking in Tongues with the Robert Rauschenberg cover – and good luck scoring one with unfaded artwork for anything resembling a reasonable price – are you really going to play it?

This particular example reminds me of another sure sign you’re an inveterate vinyl collector: you’ve swiveled over whether or not you should buy a record, decide not to – and then regret it for days, years, decades afterward. When I had the opportunity to buy Speaking in Tongues when it first came out, I balked at the $25 price tag, though I did buy one for a dear friend as a gift. The album quickly disappeared from shelves. I’ve kicked myself ever since. I’ve run into a few copies at used-record stores and record collectors’ conventions since, but in lousy condition. These only remind me that I coulda woulda shoulda grabbed a new one when I had the chance.

You’ve coughed after breathing in record dust. This might be a rare occurrence, but it's happened to me. You go to the basement of a used-record store or home or antique shop, or up in an attic, and while flipping through the long-neglected records, fanned up a cloud of dust and inhaled it with the inevitable results. The odds of getting a real score are slim when the records have been near-abandoned in this manner – but bad odds never discouraged a true record collector from trying to make The Big Score. Your pulmonologist might not agree.

Speaking of basements, it doesn't hurt to ask if a record store has one, or a back room that isn't usually accessible to the public. If you're a regular customer, or simply look desperate enough, they might let you in. After an hour of going through boxes of records in one store's basement, I scored a mint copy of Love Tractor's EP Till the Cows Come Home, featuring their cover of Kraftwerk's "Neon Lights." My back was killing me from stooping over for so long. It was worth it.

If you don’t have a complete set of an artist’s releases, it gives you severe mental unrest. This is not as much of an issue today when you can fill out your collection at the click of a mouse, but in the 1980s and 1990s (in the 1970s I was too broke) I’d literally travel far and wide looking for records by Roy Orbison, to name one example. Even then his old Monument and MGM records were hard to come by. I still vividly remember the day I went to Whirlin’ Disc and they had a nice selection of Orbison discs. After I walked out, they didn’t. And when it comes to having a complete set of records by an artist, bootlegs don’t count.

When you go somewhere to visit you immediately look to see if they have a record store. If you’re with someone else, you’ll plead with them shamelessly to make said record store your first stop on the trip. Of course, if you’re with fellow fanatics, this will be moot. The first time I attended a CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 1988, I got off the plane and immediately met Michael Fremer and Allen Perkins (of Spiral Groove and MoFi) – I might not have even checked into my hotel – and we walked from the hotel to Record Surplus, in those days a bonanza of used records. My luggage was significantly heavier on the return trip – does that ring any bells, anyone?

You lose interest in collecting an artist’s posthumous releases after they pass away. I know that goes against what I just said about wanting to be a completist, but they’re not the “real” albums. They’re just not!

You’ve opened a gatefold album and seeds have rolled out. Do I even need to mention which album is the most likely to have them wedged in its inner spine?

You’ve encountered the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ Whipped Cream & Other Delights album at least 50 times. Probably, more like 100 or 200. I went to one of my formerly-favorite thrift shops (my local Savers, and formerly, because last year they raised the prices of used records from 50 cents to $3.99) and sure enough, there it was again.

CDs have no emotional appeal whatsoever. They’re just objects. Crappy objects that break – “jewel case” has to be the most egregious appellation in the history of recorded sound. Cassettes and reel-to-reels, however, are interesting to vinyl collectors.

It goes without saying that you have multiple records that are worth more than $100. Maybe more than $500. And if you don’t have a “butcher cover” of Yesterday and Today, you wish you did.

It’s not a want, it’s a need. You need records!

Sure, record collecting is fun, and there’s an intrinsic cool factor in having and holding a vinyl record – the cover art, the liner notes, the label designs, the rarity, the memories of the time and effort spent in obtaining them.

Perhaps the ultimate reason to collect records: you think they sound better.

Header image: Hampton Grease Band, Music to Eat, 1971. According to Wikipedia, it's the second-worst-selling album in the history of Columbia Records (a yoga instructional record had the lowest sales). It's far from deserving of that status: the twin-guitar work of Glenn Phillips and Harold Kelling is utterly brilliant and the late Col. Bruce Hampton went on to greater jam band fame. (Columbia has since reissued the album.) Be warned, the music, and especially Hampton's vocals, are avant-garde-out-there. The album never ceases to bring a smile to my face.

At the end of the A&M 60^th anniversary series in Copper (in Issue 176)I featured recordings released as a collaboration between A&M Records and Creed Taylor’s CTI imprint. This CTI series picks up where the last A&M installment left off. In this article, we’ll look at a handful of recordings from CTI’s early days as an independent label, including artists who were a holdover from the A&M years.

Around the time Creed Taylor departed A&M there were a handful of recording sessions which overlapped, with the results ending up on either A&M or CTI. One album, like Stonebone by J&K (J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding), was squarely in the style that Taylor would become known for on his earliest CTI 6000-Series releases, yet the album remained with A&M, and was released only in Japan in 1970. It later saw release worldwide as a Record Store Day title just a couple of years ago.

Curiously, one A&M album, Paul Desmond’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, had Taylor’s sound and style, yet arranger Don Sebesky was listed as a producer. (Taylor produced Desmond’s two prior albums for A&M/CTI.) Another album that was shelved was Tamba 4’s California Soul, being the topic of rumors for decades until it was finally released as an A&M/CTI title just a few years ago.

We can only guess that the parting of A&M and CTI was not without its share of issues.

As with the A&M/CTI albums, Taylor demanded the best visual presentation for the packaging, and the photography of Pete Turner was carried over when CTI went independent.

The only artist whose sessions straddled both labels simultaneously was Antonio Carlos Jobim. He recorded two sessions with Creed Taylor. The first sessions from May, 1967 were released as the Wave album, but the second session’s recordings from March and April of 1970 were split between the lackluster A&M/CTI album Tide and the sublime release on CTI 6002, Stone Flower. (Tide, being one of the final A&M/CTI titles, curiously did not display the CTI logo on the original front cover.)

The title track of Stone Flower became better known when Santana covered it on the Caravanserai album a couple of years later; Carlos Santana also appropriated the riff from the melody of another Jobim song on the same album: “God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun.” The dreamy “Children’s Games” appeared on this album, as did Ary Barroso’s well-known song “Brazil.” My favorite from this excellent recording is the low-key “Andorinha.”

A couple of A&M/CTI 3000 Series catalog numbers were reserved but never assigned an album. One of those was possibly intended to be A&M SP-3026, an unnamed album by Hubert Laws. Those sessions from July and September of 1969 ended up becoming Laws’ Crying Song album. It first saw release in 1969 on CTI’s short-lived 1000 Series LPs, as CTI 1002. Laws never had an album on the A&M/CTI version of the label, but he was a session musician on many, if not most, of the albums Taylor recorded during these years.

Like the other four albums in CTI’s 1000 series, Crying Song sounds almost nothing like the other recordings Taylor produced during this era, except for the lone Laws composition on the record, “How Long Will It Be?,” which is featured below. The title track of the album is a cover of Pink Floyd’s original, and he also covers songs by the Bee Gees, the Monkees, Traffic, and others. The album would see a reissue only a year later under the same title, but started off CTI’s 6000 Series as CTI 6000.

If there was ever a “first” for the CTI label, it would ultimately be CTI 1001, a self-titled album by vocalist and composer Kathy McCord. Here is “Rainbow Ride,” which led off the record. While it has a couple of Taylor’s signature touches, it is aligned more with the pop/rock audience than it is jazz.

George Benson also followed Creed Taylor to CTI. For his first album, CTI 6009, he recorded in a quartet format with Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter, and Clarence Palmer on organ. Here, the quartet tackles the Miles Davis favorite “So What,” with plenty of room for everyone to stretch out.

Stanley Turrentine would join CTI early on, and his first album for the label, Sugar (CTI 6005), became one of his more famous recordings. Here is the title track.

Freddie Hubbard was another musician who played in the background of Taylor’s recordings, and his first session for the label as a leader, Red Clay (CTI 6001), melds the styles of hard bop, fusion and funk. His quintet on this record features Ron Carter, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, and Lenny White. The title track shows off this group’s strengths.

Astrud Gilberto did not follow Taylor over from A&M, but had worked with him on her handful of albums for Verve Records, during the height of the bossa nova movement. On this recording with Stanley Turrentine, Gilberto with Turrentine (CTI 6008), she performs a song written by renowned Brazilian composer Edu Lobo. Here is “Ponteio.”

Bill Evans also had a one-off CTI album, CTI 6004, with this live recording from the Casino de Montreux, Switzerland, in June of 1970. His trio for this gig was Eddie Gomez (bass) and Marty Morell (drums). Eight tracks from the gig were released as the Montreux II album on CTI. This is “34 Skidoo.”

Joe Farrell was a flexible woodwind session player specializing in flute, saxophone and oboe, and appeared on numerous jazz and pop/rock albums from the 1960s forward. Farrell was also a member of the first version of Chick Corea’s Return To Forever. CTI afforded him the chance to record albums under his own name and this first album, Joe Farrell Quartet, CTI 6003, found in in good company with Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, and Jack DeJohnette. McLaughlin’s “Follow Your Heart” opens the album.

The next installment in the CTI series will look at additional artists who joined the labels in the 1970s, and will also include a surprise hit based on the work of a classical composer.

Over the past year or so I’ve noticed an increasing use of streaming services to supply the music at audio shows and other audiophile events. This article explains why I currently don’t use streaming services and don’t anticipate using them in the future, and instead will likely stay with FM radio. From my perspective, there are a number of significant − indeed, possibly insurmountable − problems with using a subscription-based streaming service to provide your musical sustenance. Individually they are serious, but combined they are fatal.

First, the system mirrors the first attempts to introduce a rational scheme for radio (sorry, wireless) broadcasts in Australia in the early 20th century. That scheme failed and I believe today’s streaming systems possess many of the same drawbacks. Some historical background for the non-Australian reader: in May 1923 the Commonwealth government under the new Prime Minister, Stanley Bruce, called a conference to discuss the future of wireless transmission in Australia. It recommended the scheme proposed by AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australasia, the Australian license-holder for most of the relevant patents of Marconi and Telefunken) in which “sealed sets” would receive broadcasts on a single wavelength (now frequency), under payment by the listener of a licensing fee to the government and a subscription fee to the broadcaster. The annual license fee was 10 shillings for one station, £1 for two or more. Subscription rates varied widely, up to four guineas (£4 and 4 shillings) annually in some cases. That was a lot of money when the average male weekly wage was only £4 or so at that time in Australia. And women got only half that, on average!

Regulations for this “sealed-set” scheme were issued by the Commonwealth in July 1923 and the first broadcast took place in November 1923, by 2SB (later 2BL) in Sydney, using equipment manufactured by AWA. Just under a fortnight later, 2FC commenced broadcasts in Sydney, followed by 3AR in Melbourne and 6WF in Perth the next year. The system was not a success. By the middle of 1924, only 1,206 people across the nation had taken out licenses. The reasons were many. The subscription fees were obviously too high. Listeners wanted to receive more than one station, and many found a way of tinkering with their sets to receive more broadcasts than they were licensed to. Others constructed their own receivers and failed to take out the necessary license − hence the joke at the time of the huge demand among wireless listeners for “star aerials,” ones that come out only at night.

A better system was needed, and a new set of regulations was issued by the Commonwealth in July 1924 that saw the establishment of national A-class licenses, in which advertising was more-or-less prohibited, and lower-power, regional B-class licenses, in which income from advertising and ongoing subsidies from the parent company provided most of their revenue.  The A-class stations morphed in the government-owned national broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Commission, a few years later, and the B-class stations became today’s commercial stations. This, more or less, is the system under which radio operates nowadays in Australia. It works, and is even better now that FM joined the fray in the mid-1970s along with community-oriented stations (e.g., 3CR, 3PBS etc) a few years later. Both provided program material that substantially expanded upon that offered by the national broadcaster and the commercial stations.

I can’t see too many ways in which today’s subscription-based streaming services differ from the failed “sealed-set” scheme trialed in Australia and around the world in the early 1920s, other than today you choose what you stream and listen to rather than receiving an endless bulletin of wool prices, shipping news, military bands and readings from Dickens, the radio fare most common in the early 1920s regardless of broadcaster.

Second, in all too many cases streaming simply doesn’t work. In September, the Melbourne Audio Club held its monthly meeting with, as is its standard procedure, a manufacturer or distributor invited to display his wares over the evening. The designer/manufacturer of the equipment to be demonstrated struggled for nearly two hours to get the streaming setup to work. The situation was repeated the next month, this time when a club member demonstrated his personal system. His Denon streamer steadfastly refused to say hello to his Yamaha amplifier, despite attempted intervention from various tech-savvy members of the audience. Nope, this level of “success” and “reliability” is not for me.

We've all been there. Courtesy of Pexels.com/Yan Krukau.

Third, I object to the obligation that a subscription streaming service places on me to repurchase all my music, possibly for the third or fourth time. In many cases I first bought the music as LPs in the 1970s and 1980s. Then I replaced those LPs with versions on CDs in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, for music I really enjoyed, I replaced those early CDs with remastered CDs or even with SACDs in the following decade. And now, if I am to use a streaming service, I’ll have to “buy” it all again? Talk about bleeding the well dry.

This leads to my fourth objection. If I were to go down the track of using a streamer/server, I don’t get to even own the music I’ve just “bought” for the umpteenth time. I merely rent it for a single play. This is pirate capitalism as its most ferocious. Yes, you could burn all your CDs (but not SACDs?) to the inbuilt SSDs that grace some servers but I reckon that, like drinking cheap wine, life is too short to do that sort of thing.

Fifth, using a streaming service means that someone, somewhere, is keeping tabs on what you are listening to. Everything you have ever listened to since joining the service.  Everything you ever turned off halfway through. Everything you ever came back to for a repeat listen. Everything that might have a political overtone or provides some sort of social commentary. Listen to Bob Dylan and you are clearly a revolutionary, someone that some group somewhere would like to keep tabs on. Listen to Kylie Minogue or Katy Perry and you can be dismissed as posing no threat to the existing social order at all. God help you if your tastes run to Scandinavian thrash metal, for then you must be a Satanist or some other gross type of deviant.

Ostensibly this tracking of your behavior and listening habits is to allow the provider to tailor music selections to your likes, but I’m not convinced that a more nefarious reason doesn’t lurk just below the surface. Let me introduce the concept of surveillance capitalism. Slowly, surely, inevitably, the provider is building a profile of you. That profile will be sold to a marketing firm − without your permission or awareness, or if the collation and its subsequent sale is declared, it will be in 6-point typeface on page 1,267 of the terms of service. You have no control over this theft of your privacy, other than to refuse to subscribe.

Sixth, let’s address the vexing question of how much the performing musician gets from their music being put on the streaming service. By all accounts it’s trivial, even worse than the pittance most get from the original record company they signed to. Now this is a different sort of capitalism from surveillance capitalism: it is the final, cancer stage of the free market. This is not a metaphor − it’s a diagnosis of the current state of play.

The seventh reason is purely practical. I spend my waking days working on a computer, handling files of obscene complexity. At the end of the day I want to relax without the intrusive and mostly unfriendly technology of devices necessarily controlled by mobile phones or tablets and their various applications. I just want an input selector knob and a rotary, analog volume controller − and a large glass of malt whisky from the island of Isla in western Scotland.

Eighth, and building on my opening concern, is the lurking fear that the whole uber-complex streamer/server edifice will simply give up the ghost and I won’t know how to rectify the problem. This is what happened with the two demonstrations alluded to earlier. Servers require yet another bit of complex instrumentation, yet another thing that has to go through the internet and connect to some bank of servers in some distant, far-off land where electricity is cheap. Yet another unnecessarily complex bit of modern life that will fail. Compare that with receiving a signal on your radio: once you’ve tuned in to the desired station, it works with no further intervention required or constant fear of drop outs.

Finally, and perhaps most critically, my objection is based on the obsolescence inherent in all digital devices such as streaming services. Inevitably, if it’s going to be any good the streamer will be expensive. Anywhere between A$10,000 and A$15,000 has become commonplace. That’s not small change, but it is still no guarantee against rapid obsolescence or failure. An example: a few weeks ago I attended an interview by my friend Peter Xeni (who provides cartoons to Copper) with one of the most highly-regarded repairers of high-end audio equipment in Australia. During our discussions, the repairer made the point that digital technologies have redundancy and obsolescence inborn into them. It is an inherent characteristic and it can’t be escaped. Look at your phone: after two years you don’t (can’t?) get it replaced, even to the point of a simple thing like replacing the battery that now fails to hold its charge. Instead, you throw the phone out in the trash and buy another one, one that is admittedly likely to be (but not necessarily) better and smaller and cheaper.

Ditto with some other items of hi-fi gear (but not FM tuners): CD players of any age or by any manufacturer quickly become well-nigh irreparable, most often because the makers of the drives no longer supply that item, to a lesser extent because the integrated circuits and surface-mount technology in the DACs and amplifiers and sound shapers can’t be obtained anymore. The repair room in which the interview was conducted was littered with CD players that have met their end and awaited an inglorious burial. And they weren’t all cheap-and-cheerful models: I espied more than a few irreparable Accuphases and Mark Levinsons on the to-be-condemned shelf. I myself have an irreparable (but much loved) Cary SACD player sitting in a cupboard at home, the drive having failed.

Compare that situation with valves: the common-as-mud 6SN7, introduced in 1941, is still easily obtainable. Ditto 6922s, EL34s, KT88s etc. etc. Or even compare it with an old-fashioned transistor amplifier; if the components are discrete and not surface mount, there’s a good chance it can be fixed if it plays up. And FM tuners are the most reliable of the lot: there’s simply not much to go wrong in them. Maybe all this is not considered a drawback for most people: audiophiles are often not in the first flush of youth, so who cares if the device won’t last 10 or 15 years. Many consider they will likely be infirm or dead by then.

But it’s not only the hardware that’s of dubious longevity. I wonder how long the current mob of streaming services will last? Will there be a Tidal in 10 years’ time? A Spotify? Those of us with a computer-user background will remember long-vanished word-processing packages. Pity if you have a document in Pfs:Write or PC-Write or Wordstar or Symphony or WordPerfect and want to read it now. Some may think it unreasonable to expect 10 years of service from an (expensive) item of domestic equipment: I don’t. For those with longer memories, who among you remembers the earliest streaming services provided by Rhapsody or Napster? Where are they now? Dead as a parrot. Even MQA, the darling of streamers and downloaders, has lost its luster.

In contrast to buying a subscription streaming service, FM radio provides me with a free way to listen to music I’ve not come across before and has the benefit of the content having been chosen by someone knowledgeable in the field, not by a computer algorithm based on your prior listening habits and an array of dubious assumptions. No one tracking my every listening choice, no one making “suggestions” based on prior listening habits that just reinforce the types of music I’ve already been listening to, with little chance of my being exposed to something truly novel and way out of my musical comfort zone. And the sound quality with FM can be very, very good, especially if you use a tuner with an analog tuning circuit rather than a digital one (e.g., a Magnum Dynalab or many of the high-end Japanese tuners from the late 1970s, the latter now ludicrously cheap on the second-hand market) and a proper, external aerial pointing in the right direction.

FM radio has only one significant disadvantage (assuming you can tune into your station of choice): the inarticulate utterances of so many of presenters who announce the music. Here the curmudgeon in me emerges most fully formed. I often have to “enjoy” my FM radio through gritted teeth when the announcer starts to speak in an inarticulate mixture of phrases and clauses and mismatches between a plural subject and a singular verb and endless dangling participles and, too often, a confusion of mixed metaphors, even on the supposedly erudite national broadcaster. This is the ONLY drawback I find with listening to music via an FM tuner, and it’s clear that only a curmudgeon, a truly grumpy old man, would be annoyed by such trivial matters when the music that emanates from FM radio stations can be so good and so varied and so cheap (i.e., free).

Long live the FM tuner and all those who broadcast to her!

******

Paul Boon is based in Melbourne, Australia. Like many people in their 60s, he came to music and audio equipment in the 1970s while studying at university. In fact, he still uses in his office the first set of components he bought in the late 1970s, a Pioneer integrated amplifier with matching tuner and cassette deck and a Dual turntable with Empire cartridge. All are festooned with silver knobs and buttons and dials and meters, and all have proven astonishingly reliable over those 40+ years. Most gear he bought since those early days he still has and uses in various rooms in his cottage hideaway in the forested hills to the east of Melbourne, almost as a museum of audiophilia. After completing a BSc (Hons) he went on to complete a PhD in the 1980s in marine biogeochemistry and stable-isotope analysis and has worked in those fields ever since, variously as a research scientist, university professor, scientific journal editor, and private consultant. Despite this technical background, he maintains a love of old-fashioned audio equipment, and in particular of tube amplifiers and tuners, not only because of their aesthetics but because their sound is more to his liking. His musical tastes are divergent, but center on early music (e.g. baroque and earlier) and American roots music (like traditional blues and southern soul, tempered with some gospel and western swing).

Header image courtesy of Pexels.com/photo by Pixabay.

One of the many wonderful things about music is its ability to help us discover and appreciate musical styles from around the world. Some composers and performers assimilate styles from their native cultures, often passed down from one generation to another; some composers and performers reflect cultures other than their own that have a special meaning for them. Whatever it reflects, world music can provide us with starting points for more enjoyable listening.

Jim Kweskin and The Jug Band (Vanguard VRS-9139 mono and VSD-2158 stereo, 1963 LP) There are many popular American music genres – e.g., jazz, blues, rock, soul, disco, doo-wop, country, bluegrass, etc. One of our home-grown genres is the jug band, a small group of musicians that usually consists of a jug player plus conventional and homemade instruments. According to The New York Times, [1]“ragtime and jug band music, two popular styles that flourished consecutively from the 1890s to about 1930, disappeared for a while but were ‘brought back to life’ by folk musicians during the summer of 1963.”

Jim Kweskin became the unofficial leader of this revival which led, in turn, to the formation of his “ragtime-jug band.” The band's group of four musicians performed vocal music and played a variety of instruments including guitars, a washboard, washtub bass, standard kazoo (otherwise known as a membranophone – an instrument that creates sound by vibrating a stretched membrane) and homemade comb-and-tissue paper kazoo; a harmonica, Morier (a wooden salad fork and spoon struck against each other inspired by the vaudeville tradition called “the spoons”), banjo, mandolin, and of course, a jug. (Oddly no one on the album cover is pictured playing the jug although there is one on the floor.) According to Kweskin, this “is fun music...we take it very seriously but we don't take it seriously at all. We take it seriously in the sense that music is a very important part of our lives; but on the other hand, in performing in the ragtime-jug band idiom, if it is taken seriously it becomes overly self-conscious. The whole point of this style is that it's happy, good-time music.” [2]

Salad utensils used as instruments? Vaudeville influences? Songs with titles like “Washington at Valley Forge,” “Coney Island Washboard,” and “Sweet Sue”? What could be more American? So set your time machine for 1963, take a break from teasing your beehive or styling your pompadour, and put your comb to even better use by playing along with this all-American band. Don't forget to boodle and shake while you play.

“Boodle am Shake”

Fred Hersch Plays Jobim (Sunnyside Communications, Inc. SSC 1223 CD) Ask most people which country they associate with bossa nova and they're likely to say Brazil – the home of the “Girl from Ipanema.” Antônio Carlos Jobim's song, along with his “Desafinado, [3] has been a music standard for years.

In his album notes, Hersch writes about his special connection to the Brazilian composer:

“Over the last 25 years, I have increased my knowledge of Brazilian music by listening and studying extensively. I have had the great pleasure to go to Brazil on three occasions – and I have collaborated with the legendary Brazilian jazz singer Leny Andrade as well as with the wonderful vocalist Luciana Souza. I am a huge fan of chorinhos – the equivalent of Brazilian ragtime...I played briefly with Stan Getz in the mid-1980s [so] I had a good basic Jobim repertoire under my hands. But in approaching this project I wanted to find some of the lesser-known Jobim...Reading through so much of his music reinforced my belief that Jobim is one of the great composers of the 20^th century regardless of genre. His bittersweet harmonies, fabulous melodies and superb craftsmanship are evident in everything he writes...I have attempted to retain the essence of Jobim's music, while filtering it through my own perspective. I have always enjoyed playing solo piano, and his implied counterpoint and moving inner voices have always appealed to me. This disc is my loving and personal tribute to a true compositional genius.”

After your upbeat experience with the Jug Band, relax with some of Jobim's music performed by one of our most outstanding jazz pianists.

“Corcovado”

Sona Jobarteh & Band: Kora Music from West Africa (Video) The kora, an instrument played by the Mandinka people of West Africa, could be described as a cross between a harp, lute, and guitar. The instrument's body is composed of a long hardwood neck that passes through a gourd resonator, itself covered by a leather soundboard. 21 leather or nylon strings are attached to the top of the neck with leather tuning rings, are passed over a notched bridge (10 strings on one side of the bridge, 11 on the other) and anchored to the bottom of the neck with a metal ring. The kora rests on the ground in a vertical position, and the musician plays it while seated. He plucks the strings with the thumb and forefinger of each hand, while the remaining fingers hold two hand posts drilled through the top of the gourd. The instrument has a range of just over three octaves, and is tuned by moving the leather rings located on the top of the neck.

The Gambia River valley is one of the main centers where the instrument is played. Its origins are usually associated with royalty, the ruling classes, or religious practices and it has traditionally been played only by male musicians passed down from father to son. Today the kora is used to accompany narrations, recitations, and songs in honor of a patron.

Playing is reserved only to certain families called griot. [4] Sona Jobarteh is the first female professional kora player from one of the five principal kora-playing griot families of West Africa. She has studied the kora since the age of three, first taught by her brother with whom she traveled several times a year to Gambia as a child, and then by her father. Sona is a terrific instrumentalist, singer, composer, and educator: you can find out more about this wonderful performer by watching her interview on a recent 60 Minutes broadcast. Or, treat yourself by going directly to Sona Jobarteh and Band: Kora Music from West Africa for her version of the love song “Jarabi.”

60 Minutes Lesley Stahl report

“Jarabi”

The Cries of London/Theatre of Voices and Fretwork (Harmonia Mundi 907214 CD) If you had lived in London during the 16^th- century you almost certainly would have heard the raucous cries of London's street vendors, beggars, tradesmen and river workers selling their food and wares. Those cries are performed here by the internationally-known Theatre of Voices. The equally accomplished Fretwork viol consort performs music written by Orlando Gibbons that brings the following examples and other street cries to life: 

“God give you good morrow my masters, past three o'clock and a fair morning. New mussels, new lilywhite mussels...Hot codlings, hot. New cockles, new great cockles...New great sprats, new...New great lampreys, New fresh herrings, New great smelts, new....”

Now that your appetite has been piqued, listen to the Harmonia Mundi recording. Harmonia Mundi (“harmony of the world”) has done it again: Unusual content, excellent sound, and a booklet that includes scholarly notes, texts, and wonderful illustrations.

“The Cries of London I & II”/Music by Orlando Gibbons

World Keys: Joel Fan (Reference Recordings RR-106 CD) Some time ago, the Reference Recordings label recorded Joel Fan performing a program that, in Fan's own words, “navigates a diverse cultural path around the globe, with the piano as ambassador, enabling a polyphony of musical and cultural voices.” One standout is Syrian composer Dia Succari's “La Nuit du Destin (The Night of Destiny).” Succari is inspired by his homeland: his compositions include native rhythms and traditional folk themes, indigenous instruments such as the santour (hammered dulcimer), and melodies derived from maqam, a system of modal music that is based in Persian and Arabian traditions. Fan explains:

“Succari's 'La Nuit du Destin' refers to a night of prayer and spiritual illumination. This work combines traditional Western compositional style – where notes and rhythms are specifically notated – with interior sections where the pianist has the liberty to improvise in a [genre] called taksim (or taqsīm). The timbre of the taksim sections call forth Persian instruments such as the santour – in the soft, left hand of the piano – and the plucked intensity of the ud, a Persian lute.... Emotional power derives not from the development of its lovely themes, but from the repeated incantations and improvisations of the core melodic material.”

“La Nuit du Destin” (video w/Joel Fan performing)

Ernest Bloch/Schelomo (Rhapsodie hébraïque)/ Mistlav Rostropovich, cello/Orchestre National de France/Leonard Bernstein, cond. (Video) With artists like Rostropovich and Bernstein, this is a great performance of Bloch's cello rhapsody. (Read some of the listener comments for reactions to the music and presentation.) Bloch, born in Switzerland to Jewish parents, wrote music that reflected Jewish cultural and liturgical themes as well as music following European post-Romantic traditions. Natalie Clein, the cellist who performs with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on the Hyperion label (CDA67910), provides a quote from Bloch she thinks captures the essence of the composer and his music:

“I do not propose or desire to attempt a reconstruction of the music of Jewish music...or to base my work on melodies more or less authentic. I am not an archaeologist. I believe that the most important thing is to write good and sincere music – my music. It is rather the Hebrew spirit that interests me, the complex, ardent, agitated soul that vibrates for me in the Bible. The vigor...of the Patriarchs, the violence...in the books of the Prophets, the burning love of justice...the sorrow and the grandeur of the Book of Job, the sensuality of the Song of Songs. All this is in us, all this is in me, and it is the better part of me.” [5]

“Schelomo”

Miklós Rózsa/Hungarian Nocturne/Budapest Symphony Orchestra MÁV/Mariusz Smolij, cond. (Naxos 8.572285 CD) Yes, he's the same Hungarian composer of music for films including Ben Hur and King of Kings. Rózsa wrote a substantial amount of concert music and this CD contains several examples including the “Nocturne.” It could easily be mistaken (if played at a faster pace with a bit more drive like the Saygun selection below) for a composition by Bartók or Kodály, two other Hungarian composers who inspired him and shared his taste for Hungarian folk music.

“Hungarian Nocturne”

Adnan Saygun/Piano Concertos/Gülsin Onay, piano/Rundfunkorchester Hannover/Gürer Aykal, cond. (Koch 3-1350-2 CD) [6] I wasn't familiar with Saygun, one of Turkey's leading composers, until I read that some of his music was similar to Bartók's. Since Bartók is one of my favorite composers I bought the disk and, sure enough, both composers' works have similarities – music with drive, chromatic lines, distinctive harmonies and rhythms, and folk music elements – all present in the last movement of Saygun's second piano concerto. [7]

Piano Concerto No. 2, third movement

Ferran Savall/Mireu el nostre mar/Ferran Savall, voice, piano, and guitar (AliaVox AV9858 CD) 

Ferran Savall is another musician who uses folk music as a basis for his performances and compositions. He has also been greatly influenced by his Spanish parents, Jordi Savall and the late Montserrat Figueras, both known worldwide for their performances of early music.

The disc includes arrangements, new compositions, South American pieces, traditional songs, and old Catalan melodies played and sung by Savall and his small group of musicians. According to Ferran these pieces have been “reawakened by infusing them with the musical and multicultural influences of our own time.” “La Cançó Del Lladre” has been infused with a calm feeling and is one of the most beautiful pieces on the program.

“La Canço Del Lladre”

Jim Kweskin and The Jug Band (Video) To conclude the first part of our world tour we return to America for a reprise of “Boodle am Shake.” The selection is taken from the final live performance of The Jug Band's 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour in 2013 and even with an audience is still missing a jug player!

“Boodle am Shake”

[1] Robert Shelton, The New York Times, 1963.

[2] As quoted in the album notes.

[3] “Desafinado” was composed along with Newton Mendonça.

[4] A class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.

[5] From a letter Bloch wrote to the American music critic Philip Hale.

[6] Recommended recording, not available on YouTube. The available recording is performed by the same soloist.

[7] I later discovered Saygun was a colleague of Bartók and often collaborated with him.

Header image of Joel Fan courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Joel Fan.

In the early wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the music business was left in shambles. The outlook on touring seemed bleak, and artists’ ability to sustain themselves through new albums seemed more challenging than ever.

But as the dark clouds of death and despair began to part, so did the chokehold on the industry. As such, 2022 was a busy year with droves of recording artists – both old and new – hitting the road in support of new music.

For fans of rock music specifically, 2022 was a hell of a year. We saw comebacks, coming out parties, and continuations. In some instances, old lineups regrouped; in others, new casts of characters came together to stunning results. A spirit of rejuvenation seemed to swirl around many of these artists, yielding their best work in decades.

And so, with creativity afoot and the scene awash with new music, you might have missed an album here and there. But if you’re a rocker, never fear; here are 15 records that could be deemed essential as we move forward. Prepare to rejigger your Apple Music and Spotify playlists, as these albums are sure to leave you hitting repeat well into 2023.

15) Scorpions, Rock Believer

After a brief retirement, the Scorpions reloaded in 2022 with one of their best albums in years in Rock Believer. Truth be told, at 74 years of age, Klaus Meine’s pipes sound a bit tired, but still, he proved that he remains a capable frontman. Albums like Rock Believer are a not-so-gentle reminder of why the Scorpions were one of the ’80s’ most prominent bands. Moreover, they provide hope that after 50 years, the Scorpions might just have at least one last leg left in them.

14) Classless Act, Welcome to the Show

If you’re a subscriber to Gene Simmons’s myopic viewpoint that “rock is dead,” I’ll direct you to Exhibit A to the contrary: Classless Act. As the newest members of the New Wave of Classic Rock, Classless Act burst upon the scene with their debut record, the aptly titled Welcome to the Show. If Welcome to the Show’s ballsy sound, expansive production, and heavy riffing weren’t enough, the album also features cameos from the likes of Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe) and Justin Hawkins (The Darkness). Classless Act then proceeded to hit the road with Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Joan Jett, and Poison for 2022’s Stadium Tour. If you’re still thinking that rock is dead, think again.

13) Anvil, Impact is Imminent

Anvil has long been relegated as the real-life Spinal Tap by some fans and many critics, but for founding members Lips Kudlow and Robb Reiner, none of that seemed to matter as they barnstormed into 2022 with their latest, Impact is Imminent. Laced with classic riffs, thundering drums, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics, Impact is Imminent is yet another example of why Anvil remain cult heroes amongst metal scenesters. Stone-faced and unrelenting in the face of an unforgiving scene and indifferent to mainstream opinion, it does my heart good to hear that the boys in Anvil are as rage-filled as when they first formed in 1978. (For more about the band, watch the 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil.)

12) Def Leppard, Diamond Star Halos

Most Def Leppard records are good, and that’s been the case for a long time. But I’d wager that most fans had settled into “oh, that was enjoyable” status regarding their later albums, deciding that Def Leppard would probably never reach the heights of their ’80s exploits again. I know I certainly thought that, so it came as a great surprise when Diamond Star Halos found the mighty Leppard creeping closer than I would have ever imagined to their work on Pyromania (1983) and Hysteria (1987). Do I feel this newest record fully reaches those heights? No. But I must admit it comes damn close, and while not quite as good, it’s easily their best record since those chart-topping multiplatinum records. If Diamond Star Halos was released in the late 1980s, I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that it might be thought of in the same terms as Leppard’s landmark albums of that era.

11) Ozzy Osbourne, Patient Number 9

The Prince of Darkness’s latest record, Patient Number 9, doesn’t cover any new ground, nor is it his best record. But Patient Number 9 is far better than Ozzy’s last record, 2020’s Ordinary Man. Moreover, in some ways, it does scratch the long, irritating Black Sabbath itch. A verifiable guitar smorgasbord, Patient Number 9 features the likes of Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Jeff Beck, and of course, Osbourne cohort Zakk Wylde, making it a treat for guitar-hungry fans. But what’s most poignant about Patient Number 9 is that given Ozzy’s health, I get the feeling that this one might be his last record. I hate to say it, and it’s hard to believe, given the nine-lives life Ozzy has lived, but it seems that the raging rocker might be on his last legs. As such, this one is a treasure for that reason alone.

10) Dawn After Dark, New Dawn Rising

You could say that Dawn After Dark’s frontman, Howard Johnson, knows rock and metal music pretty well. After years of covering it for Kerrang! and Metal Hammer magazines, Johnson came on as Editor of Rock Candy Magazine in 2016. And now the journalist-turned-vocalist seems to be pulling double duty, with his pedigree serving him well on New Dawn Rising. His fellow band members join him through monstrous swells of straight-ahead rock ‘n’ roll dynamism. The best part? New Dawn Rising’s ability to pay homage to what came before it while still sounding just modern enough to fit in with the contemporary era’s newer, more commercial rock.

9) Skid Row, The Gang’s All Here

It seems that 2022 was the year of the comeback album, and Skid Row sure was the poster child. Skid Row’s first two records – Skid Row (1989) and Slave to the Grind (1991) – are revered, but the New Jersey outfit has spent the better portion of 30 years trying to reclaim lost glory. It hasn’t helped that since vocalist Sebastian Bach’s departure in 1996, fans have been all but begging for him to return. Well, Skid Row fans, have no fear; Erik Grönwall is here. The Swedish-born wunderkind has injected life into the left-for-dead hair metal outfit, seeing to it that The Gang’s All Here is Skid Row’s best record in years. Skid Row was a band that was freefalling for a long time, left to try to punch above its weight based on its legacy alone. But now, the mighty sleaze rockers have created music that stacks up against anyone.

8) Suede, Autofiction

Every release from stalwart London Brit-pop veterans Suede is a gift. With Autofiction, the group’s latest, you can bet that Brett Anderson and company have continued a long tradition of heroics through music. Anderson’s voice is in fine form, and the band follows suit, with sprawling, cinematic soundscapes accompanied by their trademark cataclysmic lyrics. But I must caution fans: if you’re expecting the same sort of record that made Suede perennial winners of the BRIT Awards in the ’90s, you’re going to be disappointed. Autofiction is more in line with Suede’s previous reunion work, which isn’t a bad thing. The record shows maturity and further proves that Suede will continue to work to step out of its own massive shadow.

7) Liam Gallagher, C’Mon You Know

As an admittedly huge fan of Oasis and a steady supporter of Liam Gallagher, not even I saw the success of his solo career coming. With good reason: most would attribute Oasis’s success to his big brother Noel, but then again, Liam brought the swagger, attitude, arrogance, and of course, the voice to Oasis. And so, when he embarked on a solo career, I was interested, albeit with careful trepidation. But since 2017, Gallagher has bucked notions that he can’t craft memorable songs, releasing three records, with each bettering the last, culminating in 2022’s C’Mon You Know. Gallagher’s trajectory is interesting, if only because his career will forever be compared to his older brother’s in Oasis and in Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, and so far, Liam is giving Noel a run for his money. While Noel might have a longer track record, and a remarkable songwriting career, there’s no doubt that since 2017, Liam has not only stood with him chest-to-chest, but bettered him at every juncture.

6) Saxon, Carpe Diem

This one came out early on in 2022, and I feel that it was subsequently buried beneath the myriad of releases that came after. But make no mistake, with Carpe Diem, Saxon is still roving the land and pillaging the countryside in the name of heavy metal thunder. Now 23 records deep, one might assume that singer Biff Byford is tiring, but no, his voice is as powerful as ever, and the current lineup – now 28 years strong – sounds utterly invigorated behind him. Ultimately, fans will always hang onto Saxon’s New Wave of British Heavy Metal-era records – with good reason – but if you’ve hopped off the train and left Saxon for dead, let Carpe Diem be your signal to catch a ride out of the next station.

5) King’s X, Three Sides of One

It had been 14 years since King’s X’s last studio release, 2008’s XV; as such, the consensus was that King’s X was perhaps finished as a studio outfit. What’s more, with all three members, including DUg Pinnick and in particular drummer Jerry Gaskill and guitarist Ty Tabor, dealing with various forms of sickness and personal sorrow, there were whispers of King’s X folding its tent. But through it all, King’s X remained relatively active as a touring entity, leaving hope that their creative juices might flow once more. Then, seemingly without warning, the band dropped Three Sides of One on the unsuspecting masses. Musically, Three Sides of One is what you’d expect: a raging yet blissful amalgam of heavy metal, hard rock, grunge and indie/alt steeped in majestic glory as defined by Pinnick’s ever-young voice and Gaskill and Tabor’s menacing instrumentation. But the lyrics are striking; musings of death and aging permeate the record’s thematic structure. The Grim Reaper’s bloody fingerprints are all over this thing, making for a truly introspective listen.

4) Michael Monroe, I Live Too Fast to Die Young

From his days with acclaimed punk-leaning glam metal outfit Hanoi Rocks, vocalist Michael Monroe has perpetually seesawed to and fro between various genres. Is he punk? Is he glam? Is he metal? Monroe is all these things and more, and that beautiful, chaotic mess has consistently left his records enjoyable whirlwind listens. With 2022’s I Live Too Fast to Die Young, Monroe has not diverged from that blueprint. If anything, the veteran frontman has leaned into it harder than ever. If you’re looking for a thrill ride, I Live Too Fast to Die Young has it all, from punk rock ragers to more melodic almost-ballads. At 60, Monroe has crafted a record for the ages, showing that musically, he truly is forever young.

3) Pixies, Doggerel

It’s no secret that the Pixies have had some trouble finding their footing since their 2004 reunion. After the messy departure of founding bassist Kim Deal in 2013, it’s been even more difficult. But perhaps we should never count out Pixies leader Black Francis/Frank Black because in 2022, Black and his bandmates – David Lovering (drums), Paz Lenchantin (bass), and Joey Santiago (lead guitar) – have crafted the Pixies’ best album since their heyday. Finally comfortable in their own skin and having fully integrated Lenchantin into the band, on Doggerel, the Pixies are firing on all cylinders. If you’re expecting another Doolittle, then your sense of reason is undoubtedly out the window. But if you’re open to the idea of what Santiago has referred to as “Doolittle senior,” then you’re going to be pleasantly surprised with this record. The biggest takeaway from Doggerel is that for the first time since her departure, the Pixies have got me saying, “Kim Deal, who?”

2) Melvins, Bad Mood Rising

Leave it to the Melvins to open an album with a 14 minute and 10 seconds long track, and have it be entirely gripping. And if you thought for even one second that vocalist/guitarist Buzz Osbourne would deviate from the Melvins’ established “what the hell am I hearing?” sonic template on 2022’s Bad Mood Rising, think again. Each song is a journey unto itself, with bone-crushing drums from Dale Crover and heavy basslines from Steven McDonald. The Melvins have always been an off-the-beaten-path sort of band, and that’s never going to change – thankfully. But what I love most about Bad Mood Rising is that in an age where artists are struggling more than ever to remain viable and make money from their art, Osbourne has defiantly flipped a middle finger in the industry’s face. On the precipice of their 40th anniversary, the Melvins appear poised to make some of their most interesting and noisy music yet.

1) Megadeth, The Sick, the Dying…and the Dead!

I won’t lie; I figured that The Sick, the Dying…and the Dead! would be my album of the year as soon as I was alerted of its official release date. As the singles began to trickle out, that notion was not even remotely dispelled. What more can I say? Vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine appears to be bulletproof. Having beaten alcoholism, drug addiction, and career-threatening arm, neck, and back injuries, as well as a life-threatening cancer diagnosis, Mustaine has nothing to prove regarding his toughness and will to live. However, seemingly never-ending upheavals in the band’s lineup had some fans doubting the future of Megadeth. Well, doubt no more. The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! finds Megadeth in exceptional form. With its finest lineup in years – Mustaine, bassist James LoMenzo, drummer Dirk Verbeuren, and guitarist Kiko Loureiro – the band seems stronger than ever. If The Sick, the Dying… and the Dead! has taught us anything; it’s never to doubt Dave Mustaine’s mettle until he’s dead and buried.

Header image: King's X, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Goongunther.

Chet Baker’s life was as rough as his vocal and trumpet sounds were smooth. His vibe is unmistakable and had a big influence on some of the biggest stars in 1950s jazz.

Both of Baker’s parents were musicians – his dad a guitarist, his mom a pianist – who had to take non-musical jobs during the Depression. Fortunately for Baker, born in 1929, they supported their son’s musical ambitions and dreams although theirs had been dashed. He started singing as a young child, and by the time the family moved from Yale, Oklahoma to Glendale, California, his father decided he was ready to learn an instrument. Trombone proved too large. Trumpet, however, was just right.

Baker and high school did not get along, so he dropped out and joined the Army. He put in two years studying music at El Camino College and then re-enlisted, being offered the chance to play in the Army Band at his post in San Francisco. On his nights off, he gigged in clubs. Then, in 1952, he got his big break – a chance to audition for Charlie Parker. “Bird” hired him before he’d even finished playing. A few months later, Gerry Mulligan hired him as trumpeter for his quartet.

In the early 1950s Baker helped invent the sexy West Coast cool jazz sound. When he started adding vocals to recordings, his success only grew. Brazilian guitarist and singer João Gilberto, the father of the bossa nova sound in jazz, credited Baker with influencing the sensual, half-whispered way he delivered lyrics.

But, like many jazz artists of his generation, Baker fell into heroin addiction. He lost gigs, signed to shoddy record deals in desperation, and was in and out of jail. Then, in 1966, while trying to buy heroin, he was badly beaten. His broken teeth were a deathblow to trumpet playing. Although Baker got dentures, his embouchure was ruined. It took nearly seven years for him to figure out how to play again.

Baker died in 1988, nearly forgotten by all but jazz aficionados. But that same year, Bruce Weber directed and Elvis Costello produced a documentary about Baker called Let’s Get Lost, and he started to regain recognition. It was a rediscovery well worth making.

Enjoy these eight great tracks by Chet Baker.

1. Track: “Long Ago (And Far Away)”
   Album: Chet Baker Sings and Plays
   Label: Pacific Jazz
   Year: 1955

The first time Baker sang on an album was the aptly titled Chet Baker Sings in 1954. He made its sequel, Chet Baker Sings and Plays, in 1955. That record became central to the definition of West Coast cool jazz.

Some of the tracks feature Baker’s quartet – Russ Freeman on piano, Bob Neel on drums, and Carson Smith on bass – while others use string arrangements. Baker’s rendition of Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin’s “Long Ago (And Far Away)” gets the quartet treatment.

2. Track: “Worryin’ the Life Out of Me”
   Album: Chet Baker Big Band
   Label: Pacific Jazz
   Year: 1956

The big band sound suited Baker well. He used to say that he got his vocal phrasing from the way he played trumpet; that lyrical, expressive trumpet style is on wonderful display amid a rich chorus of horns.

“Worryin’ the Life Out of Me” was written by trombonist Miff Mole. The arrangement for nine-piece band is by saxophonist Phil Urso, who’s also playing. Baker doesn’t sing on this track, but his trumpet sure does.

3. Track: “Summer Sketch”
   Album: Quartet: Russ Freeman/Chet Baker
   Label: Pacific Jazz
   Year: 1957

Baker and pianist Freeman continue their work as the core of Baker’s quartet, which now includes Leroy Vinnegar on bass and Shelly Manne on drums. Freeman wrote most of the tracks.

“Summer Sketch” is characterized by a use of dissonance reminiscent of pianist/composer Bill Evans. Freeman lays out the relaxed theme, evoking a lazy summer day, and is joined by the quartet at the 2:14 mark. Notice Baker’s careful, restrained use of vibrato on his sustained notes.

4. Track: “I’ll Remember April”
   Album: Stan Meets Chet
   Label: Verve
   Year: 1958

The Stan in the title Stan Meets Chet is the great tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. It was their only studio album together. While the rumors that they disliked each other may be true, I disagree with the theory that their mutual animosity harmed this album. There are only four tracks (one of which Getz plays on his own), so there’s plenty of time in each tune for the masters to explore both the music and each other’s ideas.

“I’ll Remember April” opens with them sharing the theme. While Getz takes the first long solo, Baker holds harmonic notes in the background. Marshall Thompson’s hi-hat work keeps the energy up but never frantic. Baker’s turn, starting at 3:45, is understated and searching.

5. Track: “I Could Have Danced All Night”
   Album: Chet Baker Plays the Best of Lerner and Loewe
   Label: Riverside
   Year: 1959

Baker’s sound on both voice and trumpet was ideal for the Great American Songbook, making this collection of Lerner and Loewe songs a joy. An invaluable bonus is the lineup of people who stopped by the studio to help out: Herbie Mann on flute, for instance, and Zoot Sims on tenor and alto saxophone.

“I Could Have Danced All Night,” the dreamy, romantic song from the musical My Fair Lady, is one of those tunes that has the whirling feel of a waltz despite being in 4/4 time. Baker felt that so strongly that he arranged the tuned in 3/4 time, for the opening and closing chorus! But because we’re expecting the original meter, the change causes an underlying syncopation. That enigmatic rhythmic quality remains when the duple meter is restored.

6. Track: “Flowers on the Wall”
   Album: A Taste of Tequila
   Label: World Pacific
   Year: 1965

By the mid-1960s Baker was considered unreliable and unsignable. Producer Richard Bock was willing to take the risk, but only by employing a marketing gimmick: jazz flugelhorn paired with the hugely popular Tijuana Brass style. Thus, Baker made multiple recordings with a band called the Mariachi Brass.

It’s not Baker’s best playing by any means, yet it represents a fascinating – maybe “weird” is the better word – moment in the history of jazz when these two styles attempted to join. The choice of repertoire is odd, too: “Flowers on the Wall” was a country song by Lewis DeWitt (made famous by the Statler Brothers).

7. Track: “Bud’s Blues”
   Album: Boppin’ with the Chet Baker Quintet
   Label: Prestige
   Year: 1965

Boppin’ with the Chet Baker Quintet is the last album before Baker’s teeth were ruined that truly represents him as a jazz artist; that is, it’s not just a marketing ploy he was forced to record. The personnel in this quintet include George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Kirk Lightsey on piano, Herman Wright on bass, and Roy Brooks on drums.

It’s no surprise that Baker would be attracted to “Bud’s Blues,” a tune by bebop saxophonist Sonny Stitt whose lush, warm sound was his hallmark. Yet Baker’s interpretation in his solo (starting at 6:50) plucks dissonant, angsty strands from the tuneful theme.

8. Track: “Ray’s Idea”
   Album: Live at Fat Tuesday’s
   Label: Fresh Sounds Records
   Year: 1981

Incredibly, Baker did eventually get his embouchure functioning again after his teeth were broken. This wonderful live quartet album from 1981 is proof. Baker’s top-notch colleagues are Hal Galper on piano, Bud Shank on alto sax, Ron Carter on bass, and Ben Riley on drums.

“Ray’s Idea” is a bebop tune co-written by Gil Fuller and Ray Brown. Baker’s solo is at 6:50. It doesn’t have the clarity and smoothness he had in the early days, but the musical ideas are just as good.

 

Header image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.

Dwight Yoakam fans are mad. Not at him, of course. They’re frustrated that, five decades into his career, Yoakam has still not been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The internet is teeming with exasperated blog posts on this matter. And they make a good point: few musicians have had a bigger impact on or presence in country music or done more to expand its boundaries.

Born in Kentucky in 1956, Yoakam was raised in Ohio by parents who loved country. His dad gave him a guitar, and by the fourth grade he was starting to write his own songs. Enamored of rockabilly and the rougher honky-tonk and bluegrass end of country, Yoakam started the Greaser Band with high school classmates. They got some traction in the Columbus area, enough to convince Yoakam to drop out of college. Lured by what turned out to be a fake record deal, he headed to Nashville.

That record scam aside, his timing was off: Yoakam was out of step with recent changes. Nashville had gone smooth and sweet, pushing the so-called Nashville Sound exemplified by soothing backing vocals and orchestral strings. Fiddles, banjos, and old-timey barroom pianos were the last thing the industry wanted. Not to mention the aversion to any hint of rock and roll, which Nashville feared would kill off country entirely. Johnny Cash, whom Yoakam greatly admired, was at the forefront of that battle, seeing rock as a natural outgrowth of country.

But young, unknown Yoakam was in no position to buck the Nashville system. He split for Los Angeles in the early 1980s. There he found an unexpected community in the cowpunk scene, where musicians folded elements of country and folk into punk rock. That breaking down of musical barriers inspired him and clearly has continued to do so for his whole career.

Having become friends with guitarist and producer Pete Anderson, Yoakam cut his first EP in 1984, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., with Anderson producing. A ballad like “South of Cincinnati” would have been drowning in orchestration in Nashville at the time, but Anderson and Yoakam’s arrangement sticks to traditional country instruments: pedal steel, strummed acoustic guitar, piano, fiddle, and mandolin.

The success of that EP on California indie radio led to Yoakam signing with Reprise records, which re-released Guitars with added tracks as his debut album in 1986. He had a big hit right away with his cover of Johnny Horton’s “Honky Tonk Man,” which became the first country single to have its music video played on MTV. The album itself was the first of three top-charting records in a row for Yoakam.

The second of those No. 1 albums was Hillbilly Delight, in 1987. The big singles were a cover of Doc Pomus’ “Little Sister” and a Yoakam original, “Please, Please Baby.” The album included two other covers: Lefty Frizzell’s “Always Late with Your Kisses” and a song by Alan Rose and Don Helms called “Smoke Along the Track,” which features an appealing, low-key honky-tonk feel.

Yoakam’s success with Reprise landed him a deal with Capitol Records. Hillbilly Delight was followed in 1988 by the extremely successful Capitol release, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room. It yielded Yoakam’s first two No. 1 singles: Yoakam’s own “I Sang Dixie” and Homer Joy’s “Streets of Bakersfield,” sung as a duet with Buck Owens, who’d had a hit with the song in the 1970s. Yoakam and Buck were close friends. When Owens died in 2006, Yoakam made a tribute album to him, Dwight Sings Buck.

In interviews, Yoakam has described his first three albums as a trilogy that let him work through the music he grew up with. He changed tack for If There Was a Way (1990), branching beyond his trad country and rockabilly comfort zone. It was also had more of a collaborative nature, featuring songs co-written by hitmaker Kostas and country star Roger Miller, plus duets with Miller and Patty Loveless.

The arrangement on “Dangerous Man” is strongly influenced by 1980s Southern rock, with solo electric guitar work in no way related to Nashville.

Kostas continued to work with Yoakam, co-writing the album This Time in 1993. Yoakam continued to expand his musical horizons, incorporating elements of R&B and Tejano music. Some critics at the time reported hearing influence from punk, which isn’t so surprising when one remembers Yoakam’s early association with the Los Angeles cowpunk scene. His sales, however, showed that he was stretching too far for the industry’s comfort.

So, he (and Anderson) returned to Reprise. Like many multifaceted artists, Yoakam has a consistent history of choosing interesting songs to cover. And as his musical tastes expanded, so did his courage for taking on unexpected material. Under the Covers 1997 was the first of several all-covers albums, and it’s fun to see what made the cut and wonder what else he tried.

Several of the tracks are classics of British rock groups like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The most surprising choice and transformation is the Clash song “Train in Vain.” To make it even more unrecognizable, Yoakam invited bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley to play banjo and sing background vocals! It’s hard to believe this was ever punk.

In 2005 Yoakam braved another change, making his first studio album without Pete Anderson, who ended their association over a legal dispute. Yoakam produced Blame the Vain himself and wrote all the songs. For a label that would let him have control of his work, he turned to New West, founded in 1998 by Warner/Chappell Records CEO Cameron Strang specifically to assist musicians who wanted to operate outside the demands of the mainstream industry.

Yoakam’s most recent studio album is Swimmin’ Pools, Movie Stars (2016), featuring old-school bluegrass arrangements of older Yoakam songs. A special treat is his reimagining of “Purple Rain,” recorded when he heard the news that Prince had died. It’s remarkably effective as a bluegrass tune. Apparently, a good heartbreak lyric spans all genres.

Yoakam is also an actor, with over 40 film and TV credits. He even got a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his role in Sling Blade in 1996. Most recently he appeared in Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho. He has contributed individual songs to several soundtracks and created a complete film score in 2000 for South of Heaven, West of Hell, which he also wrote, starred in, and directed. Add movies to the list of areas where Yoakam’s music has had an impact.

To sum it all up, Dwight Yoakam has been a major force in developing and expanding country music since the 1980s. Let’s get this man into the Hall of Fame.

Header image courtesy of Sacks & Co./Emily Joyce.

We began our interview with mobile recording pioneer David W. Hewitt in Issue 178. Hewitt and his mobile trucks recorded thousands of concerts from hundreds of artists across the United States and abroad, including Neil Young, Barbra Streisand, Simon and Garfunkel, David Bowie and countless others. We conclude the interview here.

John Seetoo: As you are primarily tasked with capturing the moment on your projects, were there any shows or artists who you recorded that you would have liked to have had the opportunity to also mix those record(s)?

David W. Hewitt: No, is the short answer. I think of the live mix as having one “life.” Remixing the multitrack recording is a different art. It can have endless versions into the future. I prefer to move on to the next performance. Done and dusted as my British friends say…

JS: What are some “impossible” situations where something went terribly wrong and you had to create a never-before-used workaround to salvage the recording(s)?

 

Side Trip: The Black Truck Crash (excerpted from On the Road):

The year 1989 was very difficult for me and my small band of road rangers. In the early morning hours of February 6, the Black Truck struck black ice on a high crowned country road and rolled over. Thanks to the skill of driver Phil Gitomer, we avoided crashing into a spinning car in front of us, or the surrounding trees.

My seat belt failed and I was thrown into the bunk instead of the windshield, saving me from more serious injury, but knocking me unconscious. Phil survived with lots of bruises and valiantly directed salvage operations to get the Black Truck home.

As the medics hoisted me up out of the sideways cab, I tried desperately to remember WTF happened and where we were supposed to be going!

By the time I arrived at the ER strapped on the board, I started to remember – DAMN! We were heading for New York to record Harry Connick Jr. at the famed Algonquin Hotel!

I grabbed a passing intern and got him to call my wife Dusty – and do not tell her what happened! She must call our friend Kooster McAllister and get him and the Record Plant White Truck over to record the gig! She did and he did and saved the day for Columbia Records and Harry Connick Jr. That show would help launch Harry’s career and we would record him many times as he became a star. My son Ryan engineered Harry’s [2019] album, True Love: A Celebration Of Cole Porter. It’s a glorious return to his Big Band roots.

R.I.P. Black Truck, my faithful road companion.

 

JS: You mention in your book that while working with Prince, he would sometimes record using your mobile truck, parked near his home. The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main Street was also a “studio” album recorded by a remote truck. Were these rare exceptions, or did you also use your trucks for other notable “non-concert” recordings? Was setting up for overdubbing tracks something that required any unusual workarounds, as opposed to doing live multitrack recordings?

DWH: Here’s another story from my book:

 

Prince’s Christmas Eve

Prince started rehearsals for [his] 1985 tour just before Christmas at the Saint Paul Arena. He hired a real performance venue so that Showco could set up their complete touring sound system and tune it for the Purple Rain tour.

On Christmas Eve, Prince called a wrap, but his road manager came out to the remote truck and announced, “PRN (Prince Rogers Nelson) wants the truck out to his house.” I felt bad for my crew, but we were on the client’s clock. So we saddled up and brought it out to Prince’s original, rather modest ranch house.

We were let into the house and even though there had been a studio there, the console had been removed and obviously we would work in the remote truck. I became the default electrician, looking downstairs for the main electrical panel to power up the truck. Let’s see, probably not the red room with the heart-shaped bed and all the mirrors. The laundry room had an Ampex MM-1100 16-track recorder sitting there, covered in clothes. (I preferred the later MM-1200s myself.) There was a 200-amp service to hook up the remote truck.

Prince’s assistant engineer, Susan Rogers, knew what was expected and already had the 24-track tapes of a Sheila E album that Prince was producing. She had that cued up as Prince made his grand entrance, nodded to the crew, and immediately plugged in his bass to overdub it on a few tracks. He seemed quite amused, played around with a guitar, and joked with Susan while he did most of the engineering.

In what seemed like the shortest session I’d ever attended, Prince happily thanked us all and went in the house. We just looked at each other and pronounced it a Merry Christmas. That’s a wrap!

I think maybe the man just wanted some company on Christmas Eve.

 

JS: You were a friend and colleague of my engineering mentor, the late Dennis Ferrante, when you both worked at the Record Plant. You mentioned that you seldom worked together, as you were usually recording from the remote trucks, while he was primarily studio-bound. However, you both worked together in 1978 on the Texxas Jam music festival. What can you tell me about that experience with Dennis working alongside you that wasn’t included in your book, in which you state it seemed like it was 120 degrees!

DWH: That Texxas Jam gig was fraught with problems. We had just finished recording a band on top of the World Trade Center helicopter landing pad days earlier. I was also trying to finish building the new Record Plant Black remote truck. We did have its new custom API console [already] built, so we installed that in the old White Truck and sent it off. It was now so overloaded that it blew several tires on the way to Dallas. Once we got there, it was a scramble to patch all the new wiring in and hope it worked. Dennis was a big help, keeping producer Jack Douglas and the band Aerosmith assured we had it under control. The sun was blazing and the feeble truck air conditioner failed! It was 120 degrees on the stage. We scrambled [to find] a window air conditioner [for the truck] and cobbled up a hose into the side cable hatch. Interior light out, shirts off, we managed to get Aerosmith and a few other bands recorded. Thankfully the band went on at night and rewarded the roasted crowd with a fantastic show. (Chapter six in my book has a lot more Aerosmith stories for you.)

David W. Hewitt (L) with the late Dennis Ferrante. Courtesy of David W. Hewitt.

JS: You mentioned the story of the Black Truck crash. Aside from weather-related road hazards, what other kinds of dangers have you encountered?

DWH: I have traveled my whole life, first as an Air Force brat and a veteran, then in sports car racing and 44 years of live recording. I’ve learned to look out. The danger is almost always our fellow humans.

I did not go to the original [1969] Woodstock. I had a race planned. My brother Lynn went and I heard about it for years…

Then came Woodstock ’94 or as it became known, “Mudstock.” We did take the Silver remote truck and joined many others. It’s in the book. The worst danger I experienced in our business was the Woodstock ’99, or “Riotstock” as we called it!

When they [had] announced yet another Stock, Woodstock ’99, I saw that it would be at Griffiss Air Force Base, a deactivated SAC (Strategic Air Command) base. I was familiar with it as an active B-52 bomber base with nukes on the ready. Well, that has to be well organized; what could go wrong? I would soon find out. There were way too many producers involved. There was strict security at the gates [who allowed] no bottles, even water, [to be brought in], which would turn out to be disastrous. The concession stands were hugely overpriced for the dry fans roasting in the sun! By showtime there were some ugly confrontations. Then the riots, the fights, the fires and looting…we were lucky to get out in one piece. I suggest you watch the documentary on Netflix: Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99.

JS: In doing some live recordings you’ve worked with a number of highly-regarded producer/engineers like Bob Clearmountain and Ed Cherney. Were there any tricks or tips that you saw them apply from their studio experience during live recording that were new to you? Conversely, did you have any live recording techniques that surprised them and that they would later utilize on their studio recordings?

DWH: Working with Bob Clearmountain, Ed Cherney and Elliot Scheiner, I found they shared three tricks in common. They were calm, confident and masters of their craft. Most importantly of all, the musicians knew they could be trusted. They were always inspirations to me.

After many years of working with Elliot Scheiner, he confided that after our first remote gig together, he would always book me for his live work! That first gig was a monster. It was at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. An international UNICEF fund raiser for world hunger, a huge world TV broadcast with many stars of the day like the Bee Gees, Rod Stewart, and Donna Summer. An orchestra and bands as well…two audio trucks and lots of television trucks.

Not your average rock band gig. It was Elliot’s first big live TV show. He did a great live mix and over the years we would do many monsters together, like Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival, and events for Eagles and Sting.

Those tricks we found in common were: advance preparation, calmness (unless someone really deserved some “correction”), and – enjoy the music!

David W. Hewitt. Courtesy of David Reiter.

JS: Looking at live music performance from the 1970s to the present, many technological developments in PA systems, microphones, monitoring, time-aligned speakers, computerized consoles, digital outboard gear and so on have changed concert sound for audiences in a variety of ways. How have you seen these changes impact your work, and how important has your rapport with the front of house engineer had a bearing on your final results?

DWH: The technical developments since the 1970s would fill an encyclopedia; they change almost by the minute! Maybe my next book [will cover them].

The importance of rapport with the FOH engineer remains very important. That person, often more than one person these days, I think of as the pilot of the airplane. They prepare it, set it up and fly it, and hopefully land it safely.

They are usually appointed by the stars and the management, so you need to connect with them, hopefully in advance of the show you are recording. Advance work is very important. Walking in on show day, you had better know who is mixing FOH!

Over the years I have made some great friends of FOH mixers. The late Jack Maxson, longtime Showco FOH Mixer for the Rolling Stones; Tim Mulligan, Neil Young’s FOH mixer for many years; and Clair Brothers FOH vets Dave Kob and the infamous (I’m joking Trip Khalaf! Great mixers all.

JS: Your son Ryan has become an audio engineer of note in his own career, which started with his learning from you. He is presently mixing a new project with Neil Young, your longtime friend and client. Are you at liberty to mention anything more about that project and Ryan’s role? Did Ryan’s familiarity with analog recording, which is Young’s preferred medium, have a bearing on his involvement?

DWH: The new Neil Young album, World Record, has been released. Ryan described his recording process with Neil Young and Crazy Horse as all-analog, using producer Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La studio’s API console and Studer tape recorders. His vast collection of mics was augmented with Ryan’s mics, some of which go back to my 1960s Regent Sound days.

When Rick brought Ryan in to engineer, Neil didn’t know he was my son, so that brought a big round of laughs and stories about Rust Never Sleeps! Yes, Ryan’s expertise allowed [them to record in] analog down to the last mastering step. All Studer tape machines, like [those] he grew up with in our remote trucks. But he is way beyond me with his editing skills and mixing abilities! I’m still waiting for my copy of the record…

Ryan Hewitt, Neil Young and Rick Rubin at Shangri-La studio. Courtesy of Ryan Hewitt.

JS: In 2022, what advice would you give to an engineer just starting out who wants to specialize in live concert recording?

DWH: Well, I would recommend listening to one of my favorite bands: The Byrds singing “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” (just substitute a remote truck for the guitar in the lyrics).

“So you want to be a rock and roll star?
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
Then take some time and learn how to play…

The price you paid for your riches and fame
Was it all a strange game? You’re a little insane…”

I also recommend a Peterbilt truck!

JS: If you were to outfit a new remote recording truck now in 2022, what would your equipment setup include from your old Black or White trucks, and what modern gear would replace the old equipment?

DWH: Frankly, I would not be interested in building a new remote truck today. The costs to do a proper design are only for wealthy hobbyists. When I read Copper I see so many talented young musicians finding ways to record their music and doing great work, much of it live. I’m happy to support them and listen…off the road!

JS: Your career discography credits also include work on a number of studio recordings. Do you have any favorite studio sessions or records in which you’re most proud of your contributions?

DWH: Depending on where you look for discographies on the internet, you may find several other David Hewitts who did studio recording. It’s why I finally started using my middle initial W, David W Hewitt, on all my work. You can try searching “David Hewitt Engineer” or go to my site davidhewittontheroad.com for more accurate information.

I have actually recorded very few studio albums, but one I am very proud of is Life in This World by David Calhoun on Motéma Music, catalog number MTM-119. My friend Sam Berkow brought me into iiWii studio, one that he had proudly designed. Sam had also designed the acoustics of the last remote truck I built. John Hanti is the owner of SST Studios and rentals and has built an incredible recording complex, with a large collection of vintage microphones and recording gear surrounding an original Focusrite console, one of only six made.

JS: Do you listen to your past recordings at all?  If so, what are your favorites? What is your personal listening setup like? Copper audiophile readers are always curious as to what the engineers and producers own for their own personal music listening outside of the job.

DWH: Past recordings were like a moving target. If it was a major artist or show the live recording might come out quickly. [For others] it could take months, years, or never! During my career as a live recording engineer and remote truck owner, I couldn’t do much studio work without missing live gigs. Good way to lose clients.

Funny, I still find old live records out there, some I didn’t know were ever released. Recently found a very rare David Bowie Live Nassau Coliseum ’76 on vinyl [that] we recorded on April 23 ,1976.

Over the years, I’ve had many different personal audio systems. I still have my original Bryston 11B preamp and 4B amp powering my classic B&W 801s and B&W Matrix speakers. All have been well maintained. Rega turntable, Ortofon cartridge. Apogee Duet for digital sources. Trusty old Sennheiser HD580 headphones. California Audio Labs Delta CD transport, and finally my ancient Nakamichi CR-7A cassette player with adjustable azimuth.

To be honest, I often just listen to classical and jazz radio stations on my Sonos [wireless] speakers.

 

For more stories, read David W. Hewitt’s book, On The Road: Recording The Stars in a Golden Era of Live Music, available at https://davidhewittontheroad.com and from online retailers.

 

Header image courtesy of John Seetoo.