Issue 136

The late Joe Guercio was the musical director and conductor for Elvis Presley from the summer of 1970 until the summer of 1977 when Elvis made his last concert appearance. Elvis was known for spontaneity and improvisation on stage and the band had to be ready for anything. This helped make Guercio maybe the best ever at his craft. In describing what it was like to work with Elvis, who would often just turn around and start a tune, Guercio once said it was “like following a marble down concrete steps.” There probably isn’t a more challenging role to be found on a rock n roll stage than being the “MD,” so when someone really shines at that helm it’s impossible to ignore. That’s the case with seasoned rock vet and musical director Marc Ribler.

Five years ago, when Steven Van Zandt decided to resurrect his first solo outfit, the horn-driven Disciples of Soul, he turned to Marc Ribler for help. Ribler, who had been working as musical director for Darlene Love, brought together the bones of the band, with Rich Mercurio on drums. Jack Daley on bass and Andy Burton on keyboards. Sax player Eddie Manion had been working on horn charts when Ribler got involved and Eddie and he decided on who the horn section should be – ultimately, they picked Stan Harrison, Clark Gayton, Ron Tooley and Ravi Best.

He then helped expand the group’s roster by adding a trio of backup singers, who deliver as much brass as the five-piece horn section. As the group hit the road, this traveling musical caravan developed a Mad Dogs & Englishman-like sense of wonder and like Leon Russell before him, Ribler kept the band on track, following Steve Van Zandt’s in-the-moment changeups, and impromptu appearances with guests like Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney. Like Guercio, Ribler was always ready for anything and the shows were heralded here and abroad as “thrilling.”

The experience with Van Zandt created a bond and kinship that is anchored to their shared love for the musical moment of the late 1960s. So when Ribler told Van Zandt that he was mixing tracks for a new album of his own, Van Zandt offered to release it on his Wicked Cool Records label. More importantly, he also provided a kind of production guidance that has resulted in making Ribler’s The Whole World Awaits You, an extraordinary 12-track experience that reflects all of those influences. Here you will hear Chris Hillman’s Byrds, The Rascals, and even some Tom Petty. The record is bright, fun, firm, and full of moments that will make you want to twist, shout, and kick the volume up a notch or two.

Steve Van Zandt agrees and told Copper: “When Marc isn’t putting together amazing bands for me he’s writing great songs and has been doing it for years. His new album for Wicked Cool plays like a greatest hits collection. He can do it all.”

We caught up with Ribler and talked about how working with Van Zandt helped transform a set of his songs into an exceptional musical expression that is set for a summer release (on July 16) and hopefully a stage near you sometime soon.

Ray Chelstowski: Having spent the last few years working in the soul realm, did you consciously decide to move your sound more toward bands like the Byrds and the Hollies?

Marc Ribler: Growing up in the late ’60s listening to radio in Brooklyn there was a station called WABC where you would hear a James Brown song, a Sam and Dave song, then the song “Spirit in the Sky,” and [the DJ would] close with the Byrds. It was an incredible melting pot that felt like [being in] the projects where I lived. I have such a sentimental affinity to that time in my life and have come to realize that the greatest sonic landscapes come from that period. It makes me feel most at home when my music can have some of that texture.

What’s funny is that this album was recorded four years ago. We had been out with Steven and went in to record his album Soulfire. He then left to finish off a two-month commitment to Bruce Springsteen with a tour through Australia. I had been writing songs for a few years and thought that it was a good time to go and record them.

RC: What is different from the early mixes and what did Steve help shape?

MR: So, we are about a month into the pandemic and Steven and I were on the phone and he asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was actually mixing my record. He said, “I didn’t know you were making a record! I wanna hear it!” So he listens to the songs, calls me back and says, “I’ve got some good news, and I’ve got some bad news. Let me tell you the good news first. I love a lot of these songs and I feel like we could work on them together.” I said, “that sounds like good news and even better news!” After working with him for so many years I was just so excited to bring everything to the next level, and it did. We share so much common ground that things got almost telepathic, there was a lot of harmony between us. We refined some of the vocal arrangements. With the guitars we didn’t get too far away from what we already had but instead capitalized on them a bit more.

RC: What does Steven specifically bring to the process?

MR: Steven’s historical overview is so deep. On one song he said, “I’m hearing ‘I am the Walrus’ at 2:42, that tom tom?” I said, “I know what you mean (laughing)!”

He has a way of keeping you inside where he feels your boundaries lie [but] without making things [feel] finite. It’s more about [him] trying to bring the best out of the area the artist is working in as opposed to trying to bring too much of himself to the sound.

On the song “This Is How the Song Goes,” Steven was really good at trimming the fat, in bringing the orchestration one level higher, and even suggested adding a trombone. That hadn’t occurred to me. I’ll produce artists who use horns and use horns myself. But Steven’s suggestion added an incredible lift to the song. It’s actually our favorite song on the record because of the trippy-ness of it.

Marc Ribler and Stevie Van Zandt.

RC: You’ve written a lot of successful ad jingles. How has that experience informed your creative process?

MR: The whole jingle experience was the last thing that I had ever expected, especially having success with it. When I was younger I sang on a few but had never really submitted anything as a writer. But when I started writing jingles the commercials [back] then tended to be more song-driven. Before that, in the 1980s, it was like, “I’m a Pepper, you’re a Pepper, wouldn’t you love to be a Pepper too?” They were like children’s nursery songs with corny words. “This Life” was a song I had laying around and it became this HIV awareness ad for Trojan condoms. The reason I think that it worked is because it was more song-oriented. It was about creating an emotional pop song as opposed to creating another “Trojan Man” [jingle].

From an editing standpoint there’s no fat. You have 15 or 30 seconds. So your skills as an editor have to be even more refined. For Steven, when the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl he had to cut one of Bruce’s songs down to fit within the amount of airtime they had available. He’s so good at that that you don’t feel like you’re losing anything. For example, the second song on the record, “I’m Coming Around,” initially had four verses and an instrumental intro. Steven’s suggestion was, “Let’s start with the vocal. No intro.” A five minute song is now the shortest song on the record and I don’t think that we lost anything.

In music it’s always been “don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” With jingles you have no time to get to the chorus. I used to write for a lot of other people and labels would call me because they needed hooks that were radio friendly and could sell quickly. So [the musical hooks] totally relate to jingles in that sense.

RC: How important is it to have an outlet like the Underground Garage channel on Sirius Radio to promote your music?

MR: It’s like the only artists’ development platform that exists now. It’s such a rare thing these days. Steven is like the only champion for the things we grew up listening to and for what the business was. That said, it’s a struggle. But we’re able to do what we love because Steven is walking the walk and talking the talk as he always does.

RC: You’ve opened for stars like Sly and the Family Stone and played alongside royalty like Sir Paul McCartney at The Roundhouse in London. Outside of Steven, who have you learned the most from?

MR: Well I’d say that it was seeing the grace of someone like Sir Paul. We didn’t know if he was going to sit in with us. We had some songs prepared but Steven told him to just sit back and enjoy the show. In the middle of the performance he leaned over to Maureen (Steve Van Zandt’s wife) and asked, “Do you think that I could still go sit in with them?” And of course we got him up for the encore. In the middle of “I Saw Her Standing There” Steven gives him the guitar solo and in the middle of the solo Sir Paul tosses the second half to me. Just to have that kind of grace and generosity, to see people that we tend to put up on pedestals behave like considerate human beings is a tremendous teacher. It’s so easy to be disappointed by people you admire, and I have [been]. So anyone who demonstrates that kind of grace is going to make a lasting impression.

RC: What do you want most for this record to do? How do you define a “win”?

MR: Well it’s already been a win for me because with it I think that I have done some of my best work and received tremendous guidance with Steven’s input. If it can become a vehicle that acts as a base that I could [use to] tour with and continue to make records, that would be great. I think some of these songs are hit-worthy but all of that remains in God’s hands.

Van Morrison’s new album is Latest Record Project, Volume 1 (LRPVI). That sounds generic, sure, but after 41 other albums, I guess one might run out of titles. The music is plentiful (28 tracks over two CDs), and the name suggests that more abundance may be forthcoming. And at age 75, he’s been working harder than ever in the recording studio, releasing so much and so often it’s hard to keep track.

There have been fine moments in recent years, the voice nimble, the players deft. The increasing reliance on Hammond organ, including two albums with Joey DeFrancesco in 2018 alone – You’re Driving Me Crazy and The Prophet Speaks, is a fine strategy. Organ has been the primary instrument in Van’s recordings for decades. I prefer my Hammond with a little more grind, but these versions of jazz, blues, soul, and pop, sprinkled with Morrison originals, go down easy. Listen to Van grab Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets” in his teeth and chew it apart like a bulldog with a bone: that’s singing, brother.

Of course, Van Morrison may be the most talented singer of the last two generations, starting with his Belfast pals in the band Them, the most underrated band of all those who came from across what then seemed like a distant ocean in the mid-1960s. Them were such provocative precursors of punk, so bellicose with the blues, they made the Black Keys and White Stripes sound like Simon and Garfunkel.

With Them, Van was the one with “Mystic Eyes,” who shouted “G-L-O-R-I-A” for the first time. Not enough people know or remember that he wrote that song. Then he went Top 10 in America in 1967 with “Brown Eyed Girl”: I know Van was disappointed with his company, Bert Berns’ Bang Records, but since then, there doesn’t seem to have been a label that did not irritate him so deeply that is surprising he has not declared he is no longer be addressed as Van Morrison but as a glyph, as Prince did with Warner Brothers. The Warners of the late 1960s was the hippest label in town, and it was on WB that Morrison released that pastoral stream of consciousness, Astral Weeks. The public didn’t get it, but it changed rock criticism forever, as writers from Lester Bangs to Paul Williams wrestled with an album so rich and nuanced, so spectral and spiritual and haunting, that it required thousands of words to describe the experience of listening to it. (Of course, it could have been the drugs, and it could have come with a label: “best listened to on mescaline.”

Moondance rendered Morrison a kind of immortality: It was a 10 of 10, a perfect album in a year, 1970, when everyone was striving for the perfect organic groove. The Beatles had called it quits, and Moondance was the balm for a counter-culture in search of relief and release. Before the year was over, Van did it again with His Band and the Street Choir. One of my favorite memories of college was playing pinball in the University of Colorado student union with my roommate, playing “Domino” on the jukebox over and over again, shaking that machine beyond “tilt,” dancing with our flippers: Hit it! To “Domino,” “Blue Money,” “I’ve Been Working.”

Great albums kept coming: Have you listened to Saint Dominic’s Preview lately? Terrific. But the true mass audience Van craved never congealed. The culture was fracturing, but there was another problem: the concerts. Has there ever been a live performer so moody and inconsistent, right from the start? Some shows would be two hours in an ecstatic groove that would leave the crowd drenched in transcendent pleasure. The next night, the applause still echoing through the cultural grapevine, he’d sing for 20 minutes, sniff the air as if he had determined something foul in the slipstream, and leave the stage without explanation. Buying a ticket to a Van Morrison concert became a bad bet.

And Morrison is the worst self-promoter in the history of modern show business. The interviews with which he could have advanced his agenda, sold more tickets, made much more money, defined new albums, have been such minefields that journalists who face him yearn for holiday in Baghdad.

When Laura Barton, an admirer from The Guardian, met Van in Cardiff, Wales, to ask pertinent questions about the songs on the 2019 album Three Chords and the Truth, he stonewalled her and impolitely asked, “What is this, a psychiatric examination? It sounds like one.” The interview lasted 16 minutes and 28 seconds, and must have felt like 16 hours to Ms. Barton.

Psychiatry seems to be on Van’s do not fly list: one of the songs on the new album is “Psychoanalysts’ Ball,” a gentle but firm tirade against their kind of healing game. Yet “Blue Funk” has the singer suffering from what both Winston Churchill and Led Zeppelin referred to as the “black dog” of depression.

In fact, while the music often maintains a vital groove, the lyrics on NRPVI fall into three categories: angry, bitter, and What the Heck? Maybe “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” and “Love Should Come With a Warning,” songs of romantic betrayal, might have been triggered by his 2018 divorce from a former Miss Ireland. “Where Have All the Rebels Gone,” one of the better new rockers, also seems bitter, as he wonders: “Were they really all that tough/or was it just a PR stunt.”

In many of the songs, Van is the victim of some unidentified “They.” Both “Double Agent” and “Double Bind,” the first two songs on disc two, insist the singer is being subjected specifically to “mind control”: “One must succumb to mind control…to rock and roll” in “Double Agent”; on the latter, “mind control keeps me in a bind.”

“They Own the Media” may be the most provocative and dangerous song here: “They control the narrative; they perpetuate the myth; they control everything you do.” Who “they” are goes unsaid, but as a trope, the “they” accused of running the media, or Hollywood, or Wall Street, has often meant some nefarious force represented by the Rothschilds, or George Soros, or someone with a name like Goldstein or Cohen. The mainstream American Jewish Congress defines one aspect of anti-Semitism this way: “false reports that claim Jews control the media, banks, and governments are part of a longstanding conspiracy of secret Jewish power.” https://global.ajc.org/files/ajc/upload/AJC_Glossary.pdf

But maybe Van is thinking about some other entity controlling the media: The Australian Murdoch family, who wield disproportionate global power with their ownership of Fox News, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal in America, The Times of London and some nasty tabloids in England, and influential media in Australia.

This would not be the first time Van has gone off the rails of respectable discourse in song in the last year. Last fall he released three singles railing against COVID-19 restrictions in the UK.

Musicians have disproportionately suffered, financially and spiritually, by bans against large gatherings, travel restrictions and forced isolation. Yet Morrison’s musical  response, especially in the single “No More Lockdown” was more aggressively anti-government than anything Johnny Rotten might have dreamed of when the Sex Pistols were creating anarchy in the UK and flipping off the royals. When Rotten and the Pistols sang, in “God Save the Queen,” that “the fascist regime made you a moron/a potential H-bomb,” they were using sarcastic humor to make the point that youth culture, an entire generation, had “no future” under the current system.

Morrison’s “No More Lockdown” was entirely about him, as he shouted “fascism” in the crowded theater of the pandemic: “Imperial College scientists [UK’s parallel to the CDC] making up crooked facts…no more government overreach, no more fascist bullies, disturbing our peace…Pretending it’s for our safety/When it’s really to enslave.”

There was also “Stand and Deliver,” a song Morrison wrote, performed by Eric Clapton, which asks: “Do you want to be a free man, or do you want to be a slave?”

Those words, “enslave,” and “slave,” may be the most tone-deaf songs these men every spoke, or sang. Because slavery was real, and not a metaphor for…inconvenience. Of all the people who should know that, Van Morrison and Eric Clapton have spent their lives acquiring great wealth (at least in Clapton’s case) and acclaim as the world’s greatest interpreters of blues and rhythm and blues, the music created by the descendants of slaves. Real people, in real chains, not metaphorical ones.

In this context, so much of Van’s new album remains troublesome, paranoid. “I’m a targeted individual,” he sings in the otherwise affable country blues of “The Long Con.” There is the poorly timed, for America, “Big Lie.” What is the “Diabolic Pressure” he’s feeling? It could be a migraine coming on. It could be worse.

So it comes with some relief that there is one very blunt song that is actually amusing, if unintentionally hilarious. In other places, Van does not seem to know the difference between propaganda and a protest song. But this one is a protest song, and it hits its target.

The song is called “Why Are You on Facebook?”

Van thinks Facebook is stupid, and I couldn’t agree more. I stick around to wish friends happy birthday and to self-promote when the opportunity occurs, like providing a link to this column. But there are so-called “friends” I don’t know, and I share Van’s concern when he asks: “Is your life that empty and sad?” “Why do you care who’s trending?” “Why are you so desperate?” Facebook is designed like cigarettes used to be: modifying the nicotine with other chemicals to make addiction easier to take, difficult to break. I’m not sure what he’s hooked on, except ego and misinformation. Maybe it’s time for Van to take off the tin-foil hat, wear a mask, get a vaccine, and get back on the road ASAP. He’s a great musician, and an often brilliant songwriter. After all these years, he should know better than most that words matter.

Header image of Van Morrison courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/ArtSiegel, cropped to fit format.

Octave Records has just released its first compilation album, Audiophile Masters, Volume 1. The hybrid stereo SACD disc features 10 new and previously-released tracks by a variety of Octave Records and other artists including pianist Don Grusin, trumpeter Gabriel Mervine, pop/female vocal group Clandestine Amigo and acoustic guitarist Bill Kopper, plus classical works by Mozart and Schumann and more.

The tracks were recorded in pure DSD with the intent of conveying the music with the highest level of fidelity – and offering listeners an involving listening experience. PS Audio’s Paul McGowan noted: “we didn’t just want to offer an ‘audiophile spectacular’ disc, although Audiophile Masters, Volume 1 certainly is a state-of-the-art demonstration record. It was equally important to offer selections that were musically engaging and had emotional resonance.”

Audiophile Masters Volume 1 is playable on any CD, DVD, or Blu-ray player. It also has a high-resolution DSD layer that is accessible only using a PS Audio SACD transport, or by copying the DSD tracks on the included DVD data discs. In addition, the master DSD and PCM files are available for purchase and download from psaudio.com by clicking here.

Among the album’s variety of tracks: “Modern Art” by Bill Kopper leads off the compilation with intimately-recorded piano, acoustic bass, drums and percussion, and the acoustic guitar duet of “The Hitchhiker,” with Taylor Sims and Kyle Donovan, captures the nuances of both players’ instruments with detail and harmonic richness. Don Grusin’s “Willow Dance” conveys the weight and texture of a grand piano as played by someone with decades of familiarity with the instrument.

(Excerpt from “Willow Dance,” Don Grusin)

“Saffron” is a percussion-based track that offers wide dynamics, depth, and a wealth of tonal color. Vocals are represented in tracks like Clandestine Amigo’s contemplative “Flying Blind” and Clara Schumann’s “Sechs Lieder, Op. 23, No. 1 Was weinst du, Blümlein,” featuring the powerful presence of soprano Ekaterina Kotcherguina.

(Excerpt from “Flying Blind,” Clandestine Amigo)

Additional tracks, some of which have never been released previously, include The Milanese (string) Quartet, trumpeter Gabriel Mervin’s jazz ensemble, Carl Dixon’s percussion workout “Tambores de Natureza” and more.

Audiophile Masters Volume 1 was recorded and mastered at Animal Lane, PS Audio and Moose Sound LLA studios using the Sonoma recording system. It features Octave Records’ exclusive DSDDirect Mastered 192kHz/24-bit process and 96kHz/24-bit and 44.1kHz/16-bit PCM.

Here’s the track listing for Audiophile Masters Volume 1:

1. Modern Art – Bill Kopper
2. The Hitchhiker – Taylor Sims and Kyle Donovan
3. Willow Dance – Don Grusin
4. Feels – Gabriel Mervine
5. Saffron – From Color of Sound
6. Sechs Lieder, Op. 23, No. 1 Was weinst du, Blümlein – Clara Schumann
7. Terra de Milagros – Bill Kopper
8. Flying Blind – Clandestine Amigo
9. Tambores de Natureza – Carl Dixon
10. Milanese Quartet No. 6 in B flat Major, K. 159, Second Movement – W.A. Mozart

For more information or to purchase Audiophile Masters, Volume 1, click here.

If you use the Internet to listen to music and you are, or aspire to be an audio enthusiast, you probably know about music streaming services like TIDAL, Qobuz, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora and the like. This article will focus on the first three because, in my own experience, they tend to offer the best combination of simplicity, variety, sound quality, and the most thoroughly-curated music catalogs. Your mileage may vary, and that’s OK; I only mean to offer a summary of my own personal experience over the past few years along with some hints, nudges, or just plain old-fashioned guesses about what any one reader might need or want from a few high-quality music streaming services.

First, let’s talk about what these services are not.

They are not replacements for FM radio (if you remember what that is). They all offer curated or machine-generated playlists – in fact, that’s largely Spotify’s raison d’être – but you mostly have to think of them as giant repositories of music, libraries in the sky, that give you immediate access to an enormous number of recordings via swift, easy search, with cover art, liner notes, reviews and other metadata. Although this is probably a moot point, keep in mind that you do need to have a live internet connection to use a streaming service, and, depending on the sound quality you want, anywhere from an adequate to bodacious amount of network throughput.

They won’t necessarily sound better than or even just like LP, CD or the various kinds of analog tape formats out there. It’s hard to explain why and can very complicated in some instances, but, using myself as an example, I often prefer the sound of physical media over streaming because I currently have really good disc players and only so-so streaming DACs. Even when I owned the remarkable Ayre QX-5 Twenty streaming DAC, I thought my two-box Audio Note CD player sounded better (but for a lot more money). However, as has been noted by many audio writers and listeners, the streaming rig gave me access to enormous amounts of music whenever I wanted to hear it, in very high fidelity that I could “just play” through my stereo by tapping on my iPad – all for about  $20 a month (using TIDAL HiFi at the time).

No single streaming service has everything you might want. Even if you subscribe to several and you want to hear a particular album or track, you might still have to buy physical media. At the time I write this, the 1992 CD Moodfood by Moodswings appears to be out of print and not on TIDAL or Qobuz. I had it in my well-alphabetized collection, found it, ripped it, played it. But I would have had to buy a used CD online otherwise. (It’s a little like the film Chronicle of a Summer, one of the first and best examples of cinéma verité. Until a few years ago, when Criterion released it, the film was impossible to find outside of an academic institution or maybe The Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley, CA.)

All that said, both Qobuz and TIDAL offer vast, well-curated libraries of music in many genres and have a large number of software and hardware platforms with which they work well. For me, Qobuz has a more interesting collection and, using a gigabit Ethernet internet connection, potentially better sound quality for albums offered in 24/192 hi-res PCM quality, which are a subset of their total library. However, TIDAL tends to sound better to me than Qobuz at 16/44.1 PCM and also offers more current, mainstream releases, like Lemonade by Beyoncé, a really wonderful and well-produced album.

 

The only other streaming service I tend to use (there are many) is Spotify, which is great for getting a guided tour of many kinds of music, both familiar and obscure. I’ve heard some wonderful harpsichord performances on Spotify that I would likely not have otherwise discovered. I do tend to use Spotify on the Apple TV platform so I can more easily follow the music and see the cover art, and I stream Spotify in MP3-quality because it’s just going through an Audioengine B2 Bluetooth speaker anyway. I’m not overly concerned with sound quality here; it’s a bit like listening to FM radio in the old days.

I have also tried Apple Music, Amazon Music, and the internet version of SiriusXM, to name a few others. In particular, I do like the programming on SiriusXM. For all the rest, they’re fine, no real complaints. I just find that Qobuz, TIDAL, and Spotify are enough for me. Your experience may differ, no problem!

Regarding other considerations when comparing streaming services, try to think in terms of the “use case” situations in which you commonly listen to music, and ask what problems any one service would solve for you.

Here are a few examples:

The Casual Listener

We are casual listeners most of the time. Although we enjoy music, think of ourselves as sound enthusiasts, and have no problem flipping records or changing CDs, we also like to relax, and an evening spent with Bach, Coltrane, or The White Stripes leaves us refreshed and hopefully not too stressed over how many different versions of Kind of Blue we can own.

Suggestion: TIDAL, lots of choices, generally good sound, easy to stream in “hi fi” without having super-fast Internet, not too pricey. For mainly classical listeners, consider QOBUZ as an alternative.

The Audioengine B2 Home Music System: streaming or wired stereo audio capability without breaking the bank.

The Serious/Audiophile Listener

We all know the serious listener. Such an audiophile sits precisely in the sweet spot with the amp at a fixed volume, has a preamp with no balance adjustment, and has probably heard the same 35 songs over and over again for decades on systems with increasing numbers of zeroes before the decimal point in the price. This listener is a likely candidate for cable lifters and talks about “golden ears.” However, this person may also listen to substandard recordings to learn more about, or simply enjoy, music.

Also, while I might personally scoff at someone who has a six-figure system and only streams music, it’s not the worst idea I’ve ever considered

Suggestion: Qobuz, at 24/192 PCM, with a very high-speed internet connection. Or TIDAL, for now.

The Curious Listener

Open-minded, perhaps musically a little naïve, affable and quirky, the curious listener questions everything, tries to draw few “final” conclusions about music, listens without (too much) judgment, and wants to learn about sound and music. The curious listener probably has a simpler system and delights in allowing time for their own “new music Fridays.”

Suggestion: try it all. Apple Music is good place to start, or maybe Amazon Music because you may kind of have it already if you use Amazon for other things. Also, try Spotify and, if you have an interest in music from different locations around the world, TuneIn radio. However, you would likely have to run TuneIn from a browser on a laptop, and there is no “hi-fi” version.

The Frugal Listener

A frugal listener does not avoid spending money on things per se; they just proceed with caution and, if moved to spend a bit more than usual, will do so with the confidence that it truly enriches their experience of recorded music.

Suggestion: Spotify. In some markets, you can get Spotify with lossless compression. You can also listen to it for free if you don’t mind commercials and if you hear something you like, you can then look for the LP or CD or pay for a download from a site like HDTracks or Acoustic Sounds, and enjoy the music free from commercials.

To conclude: if you’ve never tried streaming, you can start with Spotify or TuneIn radio, even just on a personal device. Don’t worry about lossless compression or having to hear limited commercial interruptions at first. There’s nothing wrong with Pandora and some other services, but I don’t personally find that they have large libraries of music to offer. Experiment and see what you like, and don’t forget that most services have free trials.

I don’t mean to dismiss any one service. And the last things I’d want to see are a monopoly on streaming, or on the other hand, too many services, which would fragment the market enough so that nobody wins. As it stands now, I do think that streaming comes about as close to FM-on-demand as one can get, minus the on-air personalities and midnight “Free Bird” marathons.

Header image: Ayre QX-5 Twenty music streamer.

The birth of Virgin Records, the recording of Mike Oldfield’s landmark Tubular Bells, and a whole new approach to granting recording artists time out of the city to compose with creative freedom are all special ingredients which contributed to entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson’s initial musical successes. The Manor Studio, one of the first recording studios to be housed in a residential setting, was owned by Branson and beginning in 1971 was the site of recordings by artists from Oldfield to Leo Sayer’s Silverbird and Cat Stevens’ Catch Bull at Four. Who was one of the innovative recording engineers and producers who blended this heady mixture into such global fame for the artists involved? His name is Tom Newman.

Thomas Newman helped to found The Manor Studio, worked on the original 1973 recording of Tubular Bells, and has released more than a dozen solo albums. He remains active with projects including a 2020 production of Mike Oldfield’s classic album by Tubular World (on Tigermoth Records). Tom mixed the album, which is the accompanying soundtrack to From the Manor Born, a documentary about the making of the original Tubular Bells and the early days of Virgin.

He reveals more about his favorite experiences at the iconic Manor Studio, his personal preferences for vintage gear and more.

Russ Welton: What are some of your favorite personal experiences from your time mixing in The Manor Studio?

Tom Newman: The whole period was quite magical, Russell. Though at the time, I suppose I was too close to all of it to be able to fully appreciate what was happening. I’d come from the band July [psych-rock aficionados among us may remember their debut single, “My Clown,” and their eponymous album – Ed.] and the break-up of band life, into this bizarre situation with Richard and The Manor, that I was “in charge of” yet I was busking desperately to learn how to do it all! Finding myself behind the faders of a professional mixing console, without any substantial training – I can now see being thrown into things as a crucial element in how my ‘sound’ developed!

Had I been trained BBC-style with its rigid protocols, I think I may have never been able to see the freedom possible by ignoring the rules. The poetry that developed between Michael Oldfield and I while mixing Tubular Bells, Hergest Ridge and so on I failed to enjoy fully at the time, due to the steepness of the learning curve Phil Newell – the only “real” engineer present – was imposing on us all!

Here’s a video of Tom talking about the recording of Tubular Bells:

Right from the start at The Manor, every session was golden! The Bonzo Dog Band (covered in Copper Issue 98) were the best imaginable band for me to “practice” on; Neil Innes was kind and full of helpful good humour. Vivian Stanshall was outrageous, unpredictable and exciting. Holy Roller, led by Paul Kennerley, were serious “Confederate rockers.” Henry Cow – superlative musicianship and dedicated anarchy! Adam Faith and Leo Sayer – my privilege to be part of working with enduring hit-making talent. There was a band called The Scaffold, with Tim Rice as executive producer! I had the opportunity to work with Cat Stevens! I was the luckiest person alive at the time – and too self-obsessed to realize it.

RW: How did you develop such an insightful and critical ear?

TN: All of the above conspired to deny me the need to construct a mix to any kind of convention. What is most important for me is emphasizing the emotional content of a piece of music. I try to find the “engine” of the music, whatever it may be, and focus on drawing the ear to that.

RW: For you, what makes for an excellent recording?

TN: Mmmm…well there’s technical excellence – i.e., good frequency response, low noise and so on. All that is very low on my list of priorities though. Does it move me spiritually and emotionally? That’s very high on the list! So many (poor-quality) recordings have been made on early, technically “sub-standard” gear, but have never been equalled in performance!

RW: Tell us about your new Tubular World double-CD project, which you mixed and performed on, and also how your approach to mixing has developed over time.

TN: The digital age was a double-edged sword for me. It took a long time for me to fully recognize its advantages. The Tubular World Tubular Bells project wasn’t mine at all. Paul Harris and Rob Reed started it as a “lockdown” project. I had been working with Rob Reed on his Sanctuary series of albums, when I heard of the Tubular World thing, and I wangled my way into it out of devilment!

RW: What techniques do you use to alter the emotions within a piece of music via your mixing?

TN: It’s kind of what I mentioned before, but also careful and empathetic exploration of each part in solo mode [listening to or “soloing” each track in the mix by itself – Ed.], to uncover the true “pecking order” of the piece – then careful placing of each individual track within the overall “landscape.”

RW: What is your favorite medium to listen to music via and why?

TN: Sadly, I only have a few minutes a year to spare to do listening! I have always preferred vinyl – almost as an act of rebellion, as I loathe the tiny cheap deal of the CD concept, and am rejoicing in the revival of proper records, with sleeve art and writing big enough to see.

RW: Could you tell us about some of your favorite hi-fi gear over the years?

TN: I’ve always been a Quad person amp-wise, and dearly wish I’d never sold my old Quad 22 preamp-based setup way back in ’72, as I now can’t afford to replace it! The best speakers are Tannoy speakers with 15-inch woofers, the Red or Gold [models], in corner cabs or Lockwoods. I also love Quad (electrostatic) loudspeakers for quiet classics.

RW: What hi-fi system do you like to use these days?

TN: I only have a very simple cheap set-up now, mainly to check mixes on: 30-year-old Richer Sounds Eltax column speakers – excellent! Driven by an old Denon amp plus a Revox A77 tape deck, and a record player. I’ve no idea what make…works great in our front room!

RW: How does your approach to listening to music differ between near-field monitoring in the studio and your home hi-fi set up?

TN: I work with both to achieve a compromise that retains the emotionally crucial mix elements, with as much dynamic range as is needed.

RW: What advice would you give to today’s aspiring sound recording and mixing engineers?

TN: Stop seeing the bass drum as the flag you wave to other “engineers” to prove you have a big willy! Listen to the song, don’t follow the charts, or listen to Simon Cowell!

RW: Who would you love to mix an album for whom you, as yet, haven’t had the opportunity?

TN: Kate Bush – The world’s best songwriter.

RW: What music excites you that you love listening to today?

TN: The same old stuff I listened to as an eight-year-old, 15-year-old, 29-year-old . . .

RW: What question do you wish you had been asked about your career or something else, which has never been put to you?

TN: Ha ha . . . “Tom – what’s your favorite color?”

Tom’s new album, A Faerie Symphony II is now available by clicking on this link.

Sir Richard Branson and Tom Newman.

For more on the early days of Virgin Records, please read J.I. Agnew’s two-part article on Philip Newell in Copper Issue 119 and Issue 120.

A selected Tom Newman Discography

Solo albums:

Fine Old Tom (1975)
Live at the Argonaut (1975) – Never released by Virgin, except for test pressings. It was released by Voiceprint Records in 1995.
Faerie Symphony (1977)
Bayou Moon (1986)
Aspects (1986)
Ozymandias (1988)
Hotel Splendide [Live] (1997)
Snow Blind (1997)
Faerie Symphony and Other Stories (1999)
Tall Scary Things (1999)
The Hound Of Ulster (1999)
The Secret Life of Angels (2014)
The Calling (2015)
A Faerie Symphony II (2021)

As producer and/or engineer (selected discography):

Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield (1973)
Froggy Went A-Courting – Mike Oldfield (1974)
Hatfield and the North – Hatfield and the North (1973)
Hergest Ridge – Mike Oldfield (1974)
Platinum – Mike Oldfield (1979)
All Right Now (unreleased single) – Mike Oldfield (1980)
Celebration – Sally Oldfield (1980)
101 Live Letters (1981)
Doll By Doll – Doll By Doll (1981)
Grand Passion – Doll By Doll (1982) Co-producer with Jackie Leven
Five Miles Out – Mike Oldfield (1982) Co-producer
Captured – Natasha (1982)
Islands – Mike Oldfield (1987)
Amarok – Mike Oldfield (1990)
Heaven’s Open – Mike Oldfield (1991)
Tubular Bells II – Mike Oldfield (1992)
Six Elementary Songs – Clodagh Simonds (1996)
Neon Emptiness EP – Cyan2 (1999)

Melody Maker ad featuring the Tom Cats, 1960s.

Header image: Tom Newman recording Jade Warrior.

Last issue I wrote about finally figuring out how to break through the seemingly impenetrable barriers of the SACD format in order to rip the DSD layer, to enable relatively effortless digital streaming over my home stereo system. My piece ran a little on the long side with all the technical details discussing the ripping process, which left very little room for one of the most important questions – why even bother? This time, I’ll talk a bit about my rationale for putting myself through the head-banging and serious wrangling required to figure the process out and make it workable. My current embracing of digital music playback involves a fairly complex equipment chain, with individual equipment providing high-level performance of specific functions within the process – but it wasn’t always like that. First, a little background…

I had almost zero involvement with computers until the late nineties; I worked for years in commercial art as both a graphic artist and typographer, where all work was done conventionally and manually. I often worked on typesetting equipment, which was indeed computerized, but this was before the current “what you see is what you get” operating systems of Mac and Windows. Typesetting was mostly mathematics; you sat and figured out how to write the necessary code to achieve the desired result, and often hundreds of keystrokes were involved just to get a properly formatted and kerned five-word headline output to film. Eventually the Fortune 500 company I worked for transitioned to all Macs in the work environment, and I later had a couple of early Mac models at home, but the cost was prohibitive and their capabilities were limited. You couldn’t run Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop simultaneously because the machines didn’t have the necessary amount of RAM or the needed processing power. It was almost impossible to get any actual work done from home using such a significantly hamstrung computer setup. 

Things changed when my brother called around 2000 and offered to build a custom Windows-based PC from spare parts he had around the house; he had become something of a computer early-adopter and had an insatiable bug to keep upgrading his system. And he had two kids (my nephews) who were both students studying computer science at Georgia Tech. Even today, he has a room in his house that looks like a scaled-down version of a Micro Center; there are computer parts of every make and model, along with boxes and boxes of cables, RAM, motherboards, hard drives, computer cases – you get the picture. Anyway, at that point, his offer – while incredibly generous – seemed tantamount to blasphemy to me; I was a Mac guy, and he was offering me a PC, or piece of crap, as we guys in the Mac world called them. And while it was to be an incredibly jacked-up PC, with a super-fast processor, loaded to the gills with RAM, and a relatively huge HDD, the fact remained that it was “Windoze” — I’d be the laughing stock at my day job if anybody found out I was using a PC at home. I’d have to think about it.

I didn’t think too long, and within a week he’d brought the new box down and gave me something of a primer on how the OS worked; he even included PC-based versions of Adobe programs like Illustrator and Photoshop among the complement of software included with the machine. It even had a built-in optical disc drive! And strangely enough, things changed at the day job, where suddenly tons of designers and the like were working from home offices, and sending jobs created on PCs for commercial print. Interestingly, expenditures had to be made to acquire PCs to process these new jobs, and I became the “PC” guy at work, handling much of the new overflow. In a matter of just a couple of years, I’d come from having virtually zero experience with computers to being fairly adept with both Macs and PCs – although it took a significant effort on my part to get the PC experience to be as relatively streamlined as it was working with Macs.

From 2000 and on, I already had an SACD player in my system, and I considered SACD playback to be the gold standard in digital audio. I had at one point earlier in the nineties had a digital to analog converter (DAC) made by Forte (an offshoot of Threshold), but it was intended (at the time) to only improve the quality of CD playback. Which was marginally better, but I wasn’t completely sold on the idea. Still, SACD to me was clearly, obviously much better than Red Book CD.

High Resolution Technologies Music Streamer II (discontinued version).

My first exposure to digital file streaming came during my concurrent tenures at Audiophile Audition and Positive Feedback; I wrote for both sites simultaneously over a multi-year period during the first part of the 2000s. I had just received a review opportunity from PF in 2010 for the HRT Music Streamer II, which was my second experience with a DAC; the HRT unit was a simplistic (but reasonably capable) 24/96 DAC. And it also handled the streaming aspect – although at the time, I didn’t really know what “streaming” really meant. I accepted the review offer, even though I wasn’t quite sure how to actually make the process happen. About the same time, John Sunier from Audiophile Audition offered me a review of the new Auralic Aries streamer – I declined, because I didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to do (I should have jumped at the chance!). I got the same impression from him; he didn’t want to turn down the review offer, but he wasn’t exactly sure what function the unit actually served.

Again, my brother stepped into the picture, and started talking about ripping CDs to FLAC for playback over the stereo system. Whaaaat? I was already onboard the MP3 train (mostly for use in my car), but ripping CDs at full resolution for playback – why not just pop a CD in the disc tray? What was the purpose? He explained that I could just run a USB cable from the computer to the HRT Music Streamer, and it would play FLAC files on the stereo that would sound just as good – possibly even better – than CDs. Most CD players were built to a certain price point, and an outboard box like the HRT had the potential to lift the playback experience exponentially. I bit, and of course (as usual) he was correct.

correct.

Also, at about that time, I was beginning to see high-resolution digital downloads appearing online, and was fortunate enough to obtain a number of them from quite a few record companies (like 2L, Channel Classics, and even HDTracks) – though most were of classical music. There was a range of available downloads, anywhere from 24/96 and higher PCM to even DSD downloads. Of course, I didn’t have any way to play back anything higher than 24/96 with the HRT unit, so that was the level of resolution I chose when files were offered to me. Also, playback was anything but effortless with the HRT; you had to have a special driver to get it to work with Windows, and there’d be the occasional pop or click when changing between files of differing resolutions.

And, of course, you had to have some sort of library management and music player software for getting your digital files across to the DAC and eventually to your stereo. I had begun to hear about JRiver Media Center; I reached out to them and got a review copy, and again, I didn’t know anything about how it was supposed to work. Fortunately, during this entire period of the dawn of SACD and into early digital file streaming, I had been transferred at my day job to an on site position at Delta Air Lines. They were one of our biggest clients, and they wanted a graphics person on site to act as a liaison between the two companies. This went on for almost ten years. Throughout the experience, I found myself with copious amounts of downtime that were perfect for trolling the internet in an attempt to get up to speed on the latest advances in digital audio technology. So I had plenty of time to figure out how to make JRiver Media Center and the HRT unit work, and how to optimize my PC for music playback. 

This entire chain of experiences ultimately led me through a number of DAC reviews over the next few years, including coverage more advanced equipment from HRT, Centrance, Fiio, and eventually, PS Audio, with DSD support from the last three manufacturers. Soon came review offers for advanced streaming equipment, from Sonore and Euphony Audio (both still currently reside in my home system). It took a lot of explanations from both Adrian (of Sonore) and Dalibor (of Euphony) to get through to me the ultimate wisdom of separating the streaming function from the DAC function. Also, the importance of incorporating a bare-bones, Linux-based OS controlling the streaming and (in the case of Euphony) music library organization.

.

And in no time at all, Roon had supplanted JRiver as my library organizer and music player. Roon isn’t perfect, but at the time, I felt it provided superior library organization, and better overall sound quality than JRiver was capable of. Over about a five-year period, I’ve had a reviewer subscription (free) to Roon for about four of those years, and actually paid for one of the years (the most recent). It’s not particularly inexpensive, at about $12/month or a lifetime subscription of about $700 – and I have gone round and round in my head about the value Roon provides. I used both the Sonore microRendu and then the ultraRendu with Roon with great success, but fearing that I’d soon have to pay for Roon, started playing around with both DLNA- and UPnP-based freeware programs for library organization and music playback. Both worked well with the Rendu units, but were also relatively glitchy during playback; I probably got the best results from a program called minimServer. Ultimately, it proved to be a mostly hair-pulling experience, and I finally caved and started paying for the consistency of Roon in January of last year.

Euphony Summus and Summus Endpoint music server.

But when the Euphony Summus arrived last year, it came with a bonus – not only did it provide superb streaming, but it also included library organization and a really great music player with a Roon core internal within the machine. And just recently, a new box has arrived from Euphony, the Summus Endpoint, which further separates the player/server function of the Summus and complements it with the streaming function of the Endpoint. In years gone by, all my music was internal to, or connected to, my Windows PC, but now everything is connected to my home network. The only function my PC now serves is to cue up albums or playlists from either Roon or Euphony’s remote desktop clients. And I can just as easily do that from a tablet, or even my smartphone. The convenience is off the chain!

I know this has been a really meandering discussion of digital music playback, but there are a few things I’d like to hammer home about streaming in a fairly high-end setup. Several items are a must here:

The Euphony Summus Endpoint separates the streaming and server functions, providing enhanced overall performance.

1) A Streamer of some sort is an absolute necessity; it is connected to your network via an ethernet cable, and also connects via USB to your DAC. The Sonore microRendu was one of the first that used what is essentially a Raspberry Pi-based setup that runs using a barebones Linux OS on a micro-SD card. The UltraRendu was a significant improvement over the microRendu, and there’s even an optical version now available. The streamer serves to attach your digital music playback to your home network, and removes the direct connection (via USB) to your computer that would otherwise be necessary. And the bare-bones, music-optimized OS eliminates a lot of potential distractions (such as continually running normal computer background processes) for music playback that are typically present with both Mac and PCs.

The difference in sound quality between a streamer and a directly connected computer is staggeringly good. There are a lot of choices out there over a broad range of prices, and there’s a whole community of DIY builders out there using the Raspberry Pi as the basis for a really good streaming setup. I currently use the Euphony Summus Endpoint as my streamer – it’s a highly customized Intel NUC running Linux with a 256 GB SSD and 16 GB of RAM in a custom case.

2) A Server setup is also de rigueur. It can be as simple as a network-connected laptop that contains your music files, but there are a lot of systems that incorporate Network Attached Storage (NAS) setups with multiple drives for music storage. In a simplified system, your laptop or computer is directly connected to either the DAC or streamer, but a network-connected system will provide much better overall sound quality in the big picture. Your server needs to include library organization software, and also needs to provide high-quality music playback. Of course, Roon is pretty much considered the gold standard here. Your server should preferably be built from a fairly uncomplicated computer setup; the Roon Nucleus ($1,400 and up, depending on included storage options), for example, uses an Intel-based NUC (Next Unit of Computing) setup in a fancy case, but you can build your own NUC for significantly less money. Intel NUCs sell from $300 and up, but only include the case and motherboard, so you have to include your own hard drive and RAM. I’d strongly recommend using solid-state drives and as much RAM as you can afford. The Euphony Summus server I currently use is a highly customized Intel NUC running Linux with a 1TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM in a custom case.

As a footnote, your server setup must include a music player, and I previously mentioned my experiences with JRiver Media Center. There are countless music players out there that are customized for either Mac (like Amarra) or PC, and you can get free trials of most of them to help you make a decision. While I liked JRiver, I felt that Roon was a definite step up, and the Euphony OS is even better sounding, while providing very good library organization. Don’t skimp on storage; I personally prefer solid-state drives for music storage, and it’s vitally important to include some kind of backup and redundancy capability to avoid file loss from a drive failure.

PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell DAC.

4) Consider getting upgraded Linear Power Supplies for your streamer and server equipment. The NUC-based equipment (even the expensive stuff) typically only includes a standard switching computer power supply, and you’ll want to go the linear route to achieve ultimate playback fidelity. I’m currently using a stacked, dual-supply unit from PliXiR that’s optimized for use with Intel NUC equipment, and trust me, it makes all the difference in the world in the overall sound quality and in the stable operation of the NUC equipment. Expensive, but worth every penny!

Computer audio is exactly that – audio with computers involved, and as someone who’s spent a significant portion of my working adult lifetime around them – they don’t always behave as expected. And they often require extensive expenditures of time and resources to get them back on track – I had an issue with the Euphony setup after a recent software system update where no music would play. It took almost a week’s worth of phone calls, e-mails and online chats with their tech guys to get to the root of the problem – and they’re located in Zagreb, Croatia. Having moved over a five-plus year period through multiple iterations of streaming systems, I’m now convinced of two things specifically: one, having all your equipment and music storage network-connected is definitely the correct path to improved system sound and fewer hiccups during playback, and two, utilizing highly customized barebones streaming and server systems (like Intel NUCs running Linux) is also key to great audio performance.

My home system is far from being the most expensive audio stack out there, and there are plenty of cost-no-object systems where the entire cost of my setup (about $40K) would only cover the MSRP of a single component. At most audio sites I’ve written for in the past, I’ve generally been considered one of the “good sound on a budget” type guys. And I’m at the point where I can no longer really justify or afford to drop huge bucks on a spinning disc player that will provide audiophile-quality playback of CDs, and especially, SACDs. We’re at the point where the choices of well-made, good-sounding disc players are becoming vanishingly few and farther between. And finding an audiophile-quality SACD player compounds the situation, especially with the cost consideration involved. When my Oppo universal player died a couple of years ago, they’d stopped manufacturing optical disc units, which made my possible choices very slim indeed. And having lived through the deaths of three Sony SACD players and an Oppo, I wasn’t too keen on buying from the used market. The $500 Yamaha BD-A1060 seemed like my only reasonable choice, but I still worry that the unit really offers the best-resolution playback.

Yamaha Aventage BD-A1060 Blu-ray player (discontinued).

Having a relatively high-end, great-sounding digital playback system for everything except SACD made me really want to find a way to replay the DSD content of my SACDs through this system. Being able to rip SACDs to DSD has completely solved that conundrum for me. SACD was created to offer what would perhaps be the closest available digital equivalent to analog, and I wholeheartedly believe they have accomplished that goal. At least, listening to all the newly-ripped DSD files over my current system now, that’s what my ears tell me! And I don’t want you to get the idea that I spend all my time only listening to the relative handful of DSD files I’ve currently converted (about 225) – the vast majority of my music library consists of rips from my CD collection, and presently numbers close to about 3,000 albums. Most of my listening involves music that I love, and more often than not, it’s a rip of a CD – and CD rips have never sounded better to me than on this system. But I do love finally being able to hear the collection of high-resolution DSD music I’ve amassed, streamed through the finest digital playback system I’ve ever had the pleasure to experience.

Header image: JRiver Media Center, from the JRiver website.

It was 1996 when Bob Guccione was watching The Cable Doctor Show when he purportedly said, “I like that guy; let’s hire him to do tech stuff for Penthouse.” Penthouse editor Peter Block called me the next day and asked me to come in for an interview. Peter explained that Bob, the publisher, wanted me to author a column called “Technomania” that was all about new cool consumer electronics (CE) products. This was the start of my 11-year run at Penthouse magazine. Back then Penthouse had sales of well over 200,000 copies per issue, a big subscription base and one the highest impulse-buy rates (at places like newsstands and airports) of any magazine.

Using my newfound status as a print journalist I was able to gain better access to major CE manufacturers, and invitations to all kinds of events that had corporate tie-ins, including concerts and sporting events like the US Open or a Yankees game. Olympus sent me to the Formula One races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the purpose of using and becoming familiar with their new digital cameras. They had a sponsorship and tie-in with Ferrari, who took us on a private VIP pit tour. We had access to the Paddock Club that was located right above the Ferrari pit and we could see the crew work and the tire changes close-up. The club provided great views of the start/finish line. Jackie Stewart stopped by to say hello. It was a great weekend and I never realized how loud the noise of those Formula One cars are. Ear plugs are necessary.

There were press junkets to Korea, Japan, Los Cabos. I was traveling at least eight times a year. Events like the one hosted by Richard Dreyfuss for Dragon Systems (the speech recognition company) were enlightening. A hugely entertaining event was for Sprint (now part of T-Mobile), which was launching a new double split screen phone. The entertainment was magician David Blaine submerged in a big glass tank filled with water. He was underwater for 15 minutes while sitting in an easy chair reading a newspaper, drinking red wine and smoking a cigar. How did he do it? Afterwards he came out and mingled and chatted with all of us. Fun event, but the phone did not do so well.

One of the yearly events I looked forward to was the JVC Jazz Festival, formerly and currently known as the Newport Jazz Festival. The festival has occurred in many summers in Newport, Rhode Island. It was initially established and financed by Elaine Lorillard and her husband Louis Lorillard in 1954. They brought in George Wein to organize the first festival and almost 67 years later he is still involved.

Newport/JVC Jazz Festival promoter George Wein.

In 1972, the Newport Jazz Festival was moved to New York City. In 1981, it became a two-site festival when it returned to Newport while also continuing in New York. From 1984 to 2008, the festival was known as the JVC Jazz Festival. In 2009, due to the economy and general downturn of business, JVC bowed out of its sponsorship. Newport Jazz Festival producer George Wein then sold his Festival Productions company in a merger with Shoreline Media. The merger saw the creation of a new company, Festival Network LLC. That company now owns and operates the event and controls the “Newport Jazz Festival” brand. George Wein continues with the new company in a senior position but has a relaxed role in everyday operations. Fortunately, the festival continues to this day (except for 2020, the year of COVID-19) and is hoping to resume in 2021.

Every year they would have something to the effect of 10 or 20 concerts during a two-week period at different New York locations. We are talking Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and even Yankee Stadium as well as other notable facilities. About a month or so before the concerts were announced, JVC would e-mail a list of concerts and invites to a select group of journalists. It was first come, first serve, and tickets were limited so once you got the list it would be important to respond quickly.

Michael Bloomberg and Ken Sander at the JVC Jazz Festival reception, New York, 2004.

In early summer before the festival kicked off, George Wein would hold a press conference at the Supper Club on 47th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. If you were on the list of journalists who were offered tickets it was considered good form to attend.

One year in the late 1990s George Wein was on stage going through the announcements pertaining to the upcoming festival dates when Bill Cosby (apparently uninvited) walked right in through the front door. It took a moment for him to be recognized as he made his way to the stage. George Wein was stunned as Bill stepped onto the stage and took the microphone away from George. Bill then began to compliment George and the festival, the town of Newport and JVC. The festival is possibly the longest-running concert series of all time. Most of the Jazz greats have played and jammed there. Many memorable live recordings have spawned from their stages and the collaborations between the jazz gods are priceless.

 

After 15 or 20 minutes of Bill Cosby praising George Wein and the Jazz Festival the press conference wound up. I headed for the exit, grabbed the commemorative T-shirt they were giving away, and stepped out to 47th Street in hopes of hailing a cab. About a minute later Bill Cosby and a person who was accompanying him stepped out on to the sidewalk.

Immediately a panhandler aggressively goes up to Bill and makes a demand for money. Bill turns his full attention to him and in a soft voice starts to talk to the guy. The guy is a little shocked. He was not expecting this kind of response. They talk and I cannot really hear them, but I can hear the tone of voice and Bill is talking very gently to this guy. After about a minute or so I see this guy’s face soften and his whole presence takes on a respectful and engaged posture. I stopped trying to hail a cab and just watched. It was amazing that a big star like Bill Cosby would take the time to acknowledge a panhandler like this guy. This is one of the most thoughtful, kind, and considerate exchanges I have ever witnessed. After about five minutes I had to go, but I was so impressed with Bill Cosby’s kindness. This guy was an aggressive and probably homeless panhandler and Bill was taking the time to make the guy feel like he mattered.

Later that week I was talking with Jim Veal, the only Black agent at CMA (Creative Management Associates). He handled the Fifth Dimension, Al Green, Donnie Hathaway, Patti LaBelle. I mentioned the Bill Cosby incident and Jim told me that Bill Cosby had been the benefactor and the person behind many good deeds. He contributed quietly and discreetly; not many people knew that. For instance, he paid for the rental of the sound system for Martin Luther King Jr’s. “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

Some years later Bill Cosby was indicted for sex crimes. This came after years of rumors that morphed into public accusations and then to indictment. What Bill did was crazy and wrong, and the audacity of his actions was predatory. It is difficult to reconcile these deeds with the man I witnessed outside the Supper Club.

 

The next year I was lucky enough to score two JVC tickets to Smokey Robinson at Carnegie Hall. It was one of the best concerts I ever attended. Smokey announced that this was the fifth time he was playing Carnegie Hall and he felt like a champion with his fifth win. He spoke at length about Motown Records, the beginning, the songs, the artists and all the talented people associated with the label. He would explain how some of the matchups of singers, musicians, songwriters and producers came to fruition. Then he would do a song and tell us the story of the birth and growth of the song. Smokey had the gift of gab. As the concert went on, he did more music and less talking. Pretty soon everyone in Carnegie Hall was singing along. Even my girlfriend Marlene and I were singing with smiles pasted on our faces. It was so much fun;, a great night and a fantastic concert. I will never forget it.

Not all of the JVC Jazz Festival shows were good, and some were surprisingly bad. Al Green, whom I had seen before when I was on tour with LaBelle, was a real disappointment. He came out in a tight tux that highlighted his pot belly. He started a song and sang about two lines, then stopped and started talking. Al Green does not have the gift of gab. He never finished a song during the entire show. It was annoying.

Then there were surprises. At Lincoln Center I had a single ticket to Joe Cocker. I have never been a big fan of his and my only association with him was when he was drunk and disorderly at the Whisky A Go Go at a Split Enz show. I particularly enjoyed John Belushi’s 1976 skit of him drunk on Saturday Night Live. His albums never moved me. That year there were not that many choices so I figured I would check him out. I had good seats up close, Row F center. Joe came out with a bang. He had a full band with horns and three backup singers. He brought those songs to life. He killed it. The show, his energy and his stage presence were amazing. Joe Cocker convinced me what other people already knew.

The internet has decimated the print magazine business. I still write for magazines, but they are online. There are still new products coming out, but all these press conferences and events have been suspended because of COVID-19. Even the largest trade show in the world, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was held online this year, instead of hosting its usual 175,000 (approximately) attendees, along with around 5,000 journalists and bloggers, in Las Vegas. The obvious result of not having the live show was devastating and affected countless numbers of people and manufacturers.

However, things are looking up and hopefully this COVID-19 nightmare is ending. But none of us know what the New Normal is going to be, in the consumer electronics industry or anywhere else.

The rock music biz has had its fair share of power trios, mostly consisting of a front man on lead guitar and vocals, accompanied by a bass guitarist and drummer. The power trio phenomenon became popular with the British group Cream, the Eric Clapton-led group formed in 1966 with a rhythm section of Jack Bruce on bass and Ginger Baker on drums. Though Clapton was placed on a “god-like” pedestal by the rock press and by fans (much to his displeasure), Ginger and Jack weren’t viewed as mere sidemen.

Most power trios, however, are hardly rooted in equality, with a large number having a 1+2 identity, the front man receiving disproportionate credit and recognition. In varying degrees, look no further than the Jimi Hendrix Experience (Jimi Hendrix), Nirvana (Kurt Cobain), The Police (Sting), the James Gang (Joe Walsh), Grand Funk Railroad (Mark Farner), ZZ Top (Billy Gibbons) and the Irish band Taste (Rory Gallagher), to name a few well-known guitar-driven trios.

 

Certainly there are a range of factors that contribute to a band having a 1+2 identity, including the group’s origins and each member’s leadership, vision, skill set, playing style, writing ability, production skills, stage presence and other factors.  In a few instances – and definitely not all – a band’s 1+2 identity is not only unjust, but the unfair disparity has even grown larger over time, especially when a front man moves on to greater success with a new band or solo career (like Sting from the Police to name just one example).

The supergroups Crosby, Stills and Nash (CSN) and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), though neither considered power trios in the “classic” sense, but trios nonetheless, created a semblance of equality from the very beginning via their chosen band names, though one can envision a squabble or two over top billing. In the case of CSN, the really serious infighting evolved over time.  ELP, on the other hand, set out with a more egalitarian solution by alphabetizing the three members’ names.

Among more modern-day artists, singer Brandi Carlile plays in a trio with the twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth, all performing under the name Brandi Carlile. They split everything three ways, and have agreed if the band ever breaks up that Phil and Tim can still perform as Brandi Carlile. Though that may sound like the makings of a gender identity crisis, it’s more about Brandi showing respect and appreciation for her mates.

Of course, the trio concept is more familiar in the jazz rather than the rock world. The traditional jazz trio consists of piano, bass and drums, with the trio often named after the pianist. In 1937 Nat King Cole introduced the piano-bass-guitar trio, while a Hammond B3 organ in place of a piano and bass is also a popular jazz configuration.

One pair of +2 musicians who perhaps haven’t received the public adulation they deserve are the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Noel Redding (bass guitar). Although it’s virtually impossible not to fall under Hendrix’s shadow, his aggressive, virtuosic and free-form style of playing did necessitate the accompaniment of a very strong rhythm section. Mitchell and Redding not only were the glue that held the Jimi Hendrix Experience together, they also helped to inspire it.

For this article, I’m especially honoring the Experience’s Mitch Mitchell, as his contributions to the group are particularly undervalued, arguably more than any musician in any other power trio.

Mitch Mitchell.

Yes, Mitch Mitchell makes almost every all-time greatest drummer list – from Modern Drummer to Rolling Stone – but those lists frequently are composed by magazine editors and industry insiders, not by the public at large. Among many rock enthusiasts, and certainly casual fans, Mitch Mitchell to this day is still a relative unknown.

Mitchell’s first foray as a professional drummer was as a session player, including a pit-stop with The Who, pre-dating Keith Moon’s arrival.  Like several drummers from that era, including Charlie Watts and Ginger Baker, Mitchell was influenced by great jazz drummers, including Elvin Jones, Tony Williams and Ronnie Stephenson.

From 1965 to late 1966 Mitchell played with Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames. Literally the day after leaving the Blue Flames, Chas Chandler, the former Animals’ bass player and then Hendrix’s manager, invited Mitchell to audition for a London-based trio being assembled around Hendrix, who was already gaining a reputation in UK music circles, but still a relative unknown in the US.

Noel Redding was already on board as a bassist, switching from guitar, his natural instrument. Mitchell won out over highly regarded drummer Aynsley Dunbar, with the final selection allegedly decided over a coin toss. The belief was that Mitchell’s fast-driving, jazzy playing fit well with Hendrix’s unorthodox style. Upon hearing he got the job, Mitchell replied, “(He’d) have a go (of it) for two weeks,” not entirely confident this was a sure thing.

Well, he definitely did “have a go of it.” Mitchell was instrumental in creating what is now known as jazz-fusion, with his blending of jazz and rock drumming styles. Just like a classic jazz drummer, Mitchell’s playing not only provided rhythmic support for Hendrix’s music, but also was a source of inspiration and momentum.

Mitchell and Redding played on all three Jimi Hendrix Experience studio albums: Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold As Love (1968) and Electric Ladyland (1968). They also appeared on Hendrix’s posthumously-released studio LP The Cry of Love (1971), though that album was not released as a Jimi Hendrix Experience LP.

Noel Redding. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/A. Vente.

Mitch Mitchell’s good friend Graham Nash (the Hollies, CSN) shared this amusing anecdote about the very early days of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in London: “Mitch had nowhere to live for a period at the beginning, and I had an apartment, so he just came to live with me for about a year. Jimi would come around a lot and we’d listen to music, though most of all we’d play Risk (yes, the board game). Jimi would drop a few tabs of acid and that was it – nobody could beat him at Risk.”

 

A drummer who was highly skilled at changing rhythms, and never very predictable, Mitchell was able to respond to Hendrix’s own original solo lines. This was evident on the band’s first album, Are You Experienced, on tracks like “Third Stone From The Sun,” “Fire” and “Manic Depression.”

Fellow drummer Gregg Bissonnette (David Lee Roth, Joe Satriani, Santana) once asked Mitchell out of curiosity if “Manic Depression” was recorded in one take. Mitchell replied, “It had to have been a first take because we were in and out of the studio so quickly. I remember going into a pub the night before and hearing a drummer play a jazz thing in four, and I thought that would be a great beat to put into a 3/4 groove for this ‘Manic Depression’ thing.” They recorded it the next day.

When asked about the song “Fire,” drummer Aaron Comess (Spin Doctors) had this to say, “It’s one of those rock drum songs that everybody plays and nobody gets right. Nobody gets the nuances. He (Mitchell) had a very definable style.”

 

One of the Experience’s most prominent gigs was their 1967 US debut at California’s Monterey International Pop Music Festival. Mitchell’s recollection of the festival is quite joyous. “It was the first time I’d ever been to America. I can’t tell you what a big deal that was for any English musician, really a dream come true. It was better than I imagined. For Jimi, Monterey was so special as well. He was going back home (to the US) with a band he felt was something special. Playing with Jimi was always instinctive. He gave (me) complete freedom and I would have to say there was a very close link.” The band’s set at Monterey is immortalized in a live Reprise Records LP, Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International pop Festival, featuring the Experience on one side and Otis Redding on the other.

Later that same year (1967), the band bizarrely opened for the teen band the Monkees on their first US tour.  The Monkees were in awe of Hendrix, and the belief was that a pairing with a cutting-edge band like the Jimi Hendrix Experience would lend some cred to the tour and the band’s reputation.

As the Monkees drummer/vocalist Mickey Dolenz remembered it, “Jimi would amble out onto the stage, fire up the amps and break into ‘Purple Haze,’ and the kids in the audience would instantly drown him out with ‘We want Davy!’ (the Monkees’ vocalist Davy Jones) – God, it was embarrassing.” Hendrix asked for a release from his tour contract, and he and the Monkees amicably parted ways.

Reflecting on the Monkees tour, Mitchell had this to say: “We discovered that Peter Tork could play banjo, Mike Nesmith could play guitar, Micky Dolenz was one hell of a nice guy, and Davy Jones was extremely short. The gigs all in all were okay, but by about the third day Davy Jones really started getting on our nerves. Noel (Redding) discovered he had an amyl nitrate capsule, which he claimed belonged to his grandmother for her heart condition. He broke it under Davy Jones’ nose, who passed out on the floor. It was a sight to behold.  I’m glad we did the tour as it was something I would never have experienced otherwise.”

The release of Axis: Bold As Love (1968), the band’s second album, was almost delayed when Hendrix left the master tape of side one in the back seat of a London taxi. With the deadline looming, the entire side had to be remixed, but they could never replicate the quality of the lost mix on the song “If 6 Was 9,” much to Hendrix’s disappointment. Regrettably and unfathomably, no safety copies had been made before the taxi fiasco.

 

With the “If 6 Was 9” remix, the engineers had to reference a damaged tape from the original session that Noel Redding had in his apartment. But they first had to smooth out the wrinkled tape with a shirt iron to hear how the original mix sounded. The real challenge, however, was replicating the song’s layered guitar work and effects, which they never quite got right. They just couldn’t get the feel and sound of the original master.

Of course, revisionist history and conspiracy theorists have had a field day with this long-told taxi tale, some going as far as saying Hendrix intentionally left the master in the cab because he didn’t like the mix.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s final studio album is the truly classic Electric Ladyland (1968). During this period, Hendrix increasingly felt more comfortable and confident in a studio setting, which ultimately lead to a parting with both manager/producer Chas Chandler and bassist Noel Redding.  The sessions were described as chaotic, as many friends dropped in and participated, including Steve Winwood, Brian Jones, Dave Mason, Jack Casady and Al Kooper.

With Ladyland, Jimi was enamored with the era’s relatively new 16-track recording technology, and he desired to take full advantage of its capabilities. Both Chandler and Redding were a bit inflexible with Jimi’s experimentation with multiple takes, overdubs and mixing techniques. Hendrix now viewed the studio not as a place to just record, but to develop new material and to experiment. He no longer was just a musician; he had also become a producer.

Noted Mitchell, “With Chas and Noel, it was ‘let’s get it done,’ but I was more okay with take after take. In my role with Jimi, I had an immense amount of freedom to throw ideas, and likewise back and forth, while Noel did an extremely good job of holding down, or keeping a pulse. Noel was more than a competent guitarist (his natural instrument), but bass guitar was never a particular instrument that he loved.”

As Redding recalled, “There were tons of people in the studio; you couldn’t move. It was a party, not a session.” When Hendrix started to record some of the album’s bass parts, it created tension between him and Redding, though Noel had already begun to stretch out with a new side band, Fat Mattress, in a more comfortable role as lead guitarist and vocalist. (Note: Fat Mattress opened for the Jimi Hendrix Experience on several occasions, requiring Redding to play sets with both bands.)

Hendrix biographer and producer John McDermott had this to say: “When you listen to outtakes from the Electric Ladyland sessions, initially there’s just Jimi and Mitch with bass added in later. There was a relationship between Jimi and Mitch that was really unique and supportive, and at the same time they challenged each other.  Mitch wasn’t there to just take direction. Jimi wanted him to bring his skill and talent to the fore.”

Electric Ladyland certainly captures Jimi’s desire for experimentation, from “Voodoo Chile,” to “Burning of the Midnight Lamp,” to his arrangement of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Said Mitchell, “Jimi really admired Dylan as a lyricist. In the early stages of a band you’re finding [out] about everyone’s tastes, musically or otherwise. I’d turn him (Jimi) on to John Coltrane, Roland Kirk or Miles Davis. At the same time, he’d turn me on to Dylan. Of course, I was aware of Dylan for many years, but I never paid attention to his lyrics. Jimi was never afraid of a new direction, and that appealed to me (both as an artist and a drummer).”

When asked about “All Along the Watchtower” and Hendrix’s evolving perfectionism, engineer Eddie Kramer (the Beatles, the Kinks, Small Faces, Traffic) had this to say: “It’s (Watchtower) a great example of an artist of Jimi’s stature starting from square one with a very difficult arrangement. He’s yelling at Mitch (Mitchell) to get the beat right, and then at one point Brian Jones walks into the studio drunk out of his mind and starts to play piano. Jimi politely lets him play, I think on take 20 or 21, and then excuses him by saying, ‘No, I don’t think so, Brian.’ Then by take 25 it’s a four-star, take 26 is good, but take 27 is the master, you can just tell. Everything is perfectly placed and has the intensity that Jimi wanted, so the song evolved because it had to.”

Of course, soon thereafter Hendrix created another power trio, the Band of Gypsys (1970), with Buddy Miles on drums and Billy Cox on bass. Their lone album fulfilled a Hendrix contractual obligation, though the band had limited rehearsal time prior to the live recording captured over four shows at NYC’s Fillmore East. The album received mixed reviews, and Hendrix allegedly wasn’t particularly happy with it. Though the late Buddy Miles indeed was a good drummer, with more of an R&B style, he lacked the flair and improvisational skills of a Mitch Mitchell. In fact, listening to the Band of Gypsys LP by comparison points out – perhaps unfairly given the Gypsys’ short tenure – the progressive skills Mitch Mitchell brought to the Experience.

Both Mitchell and Redding went on to play with other bands and projects. It later emerged that Hendrix’s co-manager, Mike Jeffery, had cut both out of royalties, demoting them to paid employees. This led Mitchell and Redding to have to sell off any legal claim to future Hendrix record sales, including the sales of CDs that reinvigorated income for many legacy artists.

John “Mitch” Graham Mitchell died in 2008 at the age 62, and David Noel Redding in 2003 at the age of 57.

In sum, neither Mitchell or Redding could be credited or acclaimed on the same level as the great Jimi Hendrix, but their contributions and collaborations with the Experience, and Mitch Mitchell’s in particular, deserve far greater recognition than what’s generally acknowledged.

In sum, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was most definitely not a 1+2 band.

Header image: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced album cover, featuring Noel Redding, Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.

We are proud to have Cliff Chenfeld as a Copper contributor. You may not know that along with Craig Balsam, he was the co-founder of indie label/music publishing company Razor & Tie in 1990 and co-creator of the immensely popular Kidz Bop franchise in 2001, which has sold more than 16 million albums worldwide. In 2019, Cliff became a partner in Ohio’s WonderStruck and WonderBus music festivals, which are set to happen again in 2021 after a 2020 hiatus. We interview Cliff here.

Frank Doris: You left a law practice to found Razor & Tie in 1990 with fellow student Craig Balsam. What made you guys make what must have seemed such a radical move? I know the two of you were musicians.

Cliff Chenfeld: Music was always our first love and almost immediately after graduating from law school, we began writing songs together. We didn’t enjoy being lawyers and were looking to do something in music as an alternative. Unfortunately, we were competent but not exceptional songwriters and soon realized that if we wanted careers in music, we were going to need to come up with some other ideas. By the way, we named our songwriting project “Razor & Tie” and one of the songs we wrote was [also] called “Razor & Tie.” A few years later, we came upon the idea of putting together a compilation of ’70s hits and advertising them through direct-response TV commercials. This was just at the dawn of the CD era so many of these songs were not available on CD.

We created The ’70s Preservation Society and named ourselves the co-chairmen. The CDs sold well and we were on many national TV talk shows (CBS This Morning, The Joan Rivers Show and others) where we extolled the greatness of the ’70s, often with tongues firmly in cheeks.

FD: Where did you get financing?

CC: We did it ourselves from the meager amount of money we saved as lawyers. Our generous and supportive wives also helped us.

We didn’t license superstars like Elton John or Led Zeppelin, not that we could have if we tried. The first CD featured on- hit wonders like “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” (Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods) and “Seasons In The Sun” (Terry Jacks). We were having fun with the decade. It’s hard to remember now, but at the beginning of the ’90s, the ’70s were sort of a pariah decade, stuck between the hippie 1960s and yuppie 1980s but we figured that a bunch of folks who grew up in the ’70s were turning 30 in the early 1990s and that they would become nostalgic for their youth and start jamming their memories on everyone else. Fortunately, we were right.

FD: For a while you focused on reissues. How did this evolve into your becoming an indie label, and a significant one, and signing original acts?

CC: After establishing our compilation business (sold exclusively at that time via TV spots and 800 numbers, “not available in stores!” until the late ’90s), we expanded to reissues and anthologies a few years later. The CD format was new and the major labels were very selective with regard to what they released on CD. They were focusing on their big sellers and the great bulk of their catalogs was not available on CD. So we began to license titles from them (and the occasional indie label) as well as [offering] career anthologies from underrepresented artists. It was a great business, we released a bunch of titles from artists that we loved and brought attention to others who received a new look after having been ignored for many years.

We took great care with the packaging and A&R (artists and repertoire development). It also allowed us to create a retail business [because up to] that date, we had only sold albums on TV. Other than (record and entertainment company) Rhino, we became the leading reissue/anthology CD label in the country. The retail experience that we gained via our reissues paved the way for us to start signing new artists.

FD: Did the fact that CDs were becoming established play into your efforts?

CC: Yes, the new format created all of these opportunities to revisit and release older music, and that was really the foundation of the label at the outset. We were also fortunate in that the major labels could have had their own compilation or reissue business [at the time]; they chose not to and we were the beneficiaries of those decisions.

FD: There seemed to be a sense of humor permeating Razor & Tie’s work. Did that reflect your own personalities?

CC: I  suppose. it was pretty wild to go from being a corporate lawyer to the co-chairman of The ’70s Preservation Society in one year and telling Joan Rivers how Pet Rocks changed the world on national TV. Craig and I like to have fun and I think Razor & Tie reflected our personalities more than taking depositions in securities cases on Wall Street.

FD: How did you do things differently from a major label like, say, Columbia or Warner Music Group?

CC: Our company’s success was based on counter-programming versus major labels and larger companies. They had no interest in selling music on TV, it wasn’t cool. We jumped in and made it fun and irreverent. They initially didn’t see the value of releasing much of their catalog on CD, so we dug in. Kids’ music wasn’t sexy, who could be bothered, and we came up with Kidz Bop. Later, as the major labels started to ignore the heavier side of rock, we went in and became the most successful label in the country at the active rock radio format. (Rock radio has basically split into three formats, Alternative, Active Rock and AAA, or Adult Album Alternative. Active Rock/mainstream is where heavier bands live, with lots of guitars; more aggressive-sounding bands like Shinedown and Bring Me The Horizon are staples of the format and bands like Metallica and AC/DC are the icons). We also utilized direct-response TV to see whether customers were interested in our compilations. We would make an inexpensive TV spot and do a small TV buy on select stations to see if we got any response. That’s how we started Kidz Bop. Once we had positive results, we would get more aggressive.

That was a very different approach than [what the major labels were doing in] spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to see if consumers liked what you were offering. We ended up being the top direct-response music marketer in the country, and after a while, the major labels, not having that capability in-house, would hire us to market their releases.

FD: You’ve had some great artists, like Dar Williams, Graham Parker, Joan Baez…and who is this Cledus T. Judd guy?

CC: The first artists that we signed were Graham Parker and Marshall Crenshaw, established artists who we loved who had an existing audience and were off their major label deals. We thought that was a smart way to enter the new music world. Dar Williams was our first signing of a “new” artist and we had a great deal of success with her and are very proud of the amazing albums that she recorded that we had the privilege to work on. For a brief period in the ’90s, Cledus T. Judd was the Weird Al of Country and we had a gold album with him. We released some great Grammy-nominated Joan Baez albums and we also co-produced How Sweet The Sound, the documentary on her that was part of the American Masters series on PBS. Later as the heavier side of rock became of less interest to the major labels, we began to focus on that genre and became the number one label in US at the active rock radio format with hits from The Pretty Reckless, All That Remains, Starset and more.

The Pretty Reckless. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Samuel J. Rodrigues.

FD: Since we have an audiophile readership, tell us about Analog Spark, which was launched in 2015 and releases albums on SACD and vinyl.

CC: When the vinyl resurgence really took off in the mid 2010s, we once again went to major labels and other rights holders and re-released amazing albums that had not been available on vinyl for years. We spared no expense on packaging, sound, liner notes and the like. It was a bit of a return to our roots and we were thrilled to help folks rediscover amazing music.

FD: You have new ownership – the Concord Music Group (now Concord) – as of 2015. How has this affected the company and your role in it?

CC: Concord bought Razor & Tie/Kidz Bop in 2018. Craig and I play no role in the company today.

FD: Tell us about Kidz Bop. What made you decide to do this in 2001 when the company was created?

CC: In 2001, Craig and I each had three young children and many of our peers were troubled by the explicit lyrics of Eminem, 50 Cent, Britney Spears and the like while at the same time many of their children thought that Barney, Sesame Street and the like were too babyish for them. We came up with a solution for both. The parents could rely on us to ensure that what the kids heard was appropriate and the kids were excited about the access to pop music.

FD: You re-record songs, often in “clean” kid-friendly versions with changed lyrics. How does that work? Do you ever get complaints from the original artists? How are the royalties shared?

CC: The publishers and songwriters of the songs are paid and we had great relationships with them as they would see significant revenue from our recordings.

FD: It’s become hugely successful, with live touring and other spinoffs. How did this evolve?

CC: The brand became somewhat ubiquitous and it really stood for something – cool for kids, safe for parents. As time went on, we expanded that concept to the live business, merch, international tours and releases and our own channel on Sirius XM, all guided by the same principle.

Kidz Bop 2021, available on vinyl!

FD: According to Wikipedia, Kidz Bop is No. 4 on Billboard’s list of the Top 10 albums of all time, beating out Bruce Springsteen and Madonna with 22 albums on the Top 10. How does that make you feel?

CC: It’s pretty crazy, certainly a testament to the longevity of the brand as well as its consistency. I guess Bruce and Madonna better start releasing more albums.

FD: Tell us about your involvement in Ohio’s WonderStruck and WonderBus Music Festivals. I know you’re originally from there.

CC: Denny Young and Steve Lindecke of The Elevation Group created the Cleveland festival in 2016 and I knew them through their management of a few artists on our roster. I liked their concept – a localized music festival in midsize markets with quality acts, reasonable budgets and a very engaged community. I grew up in Columbus and thought that would make a great festival market as well so in 2019 with Denny and Steve, we created the WonderBus festival in Columbus and put the Cleveland and Columbus festivals under one company in which I am a partner. We had to take 2020 off due to the pandemic but are very excited about our lineups in 2021 (Wilco, Portugal The Man, Kesha, Black Pumas and many others) and our ticket sales are very strong.

FD: With all this other stuff going on, what made you decide to do these festivals?

CC: I love attending music festivals, I’ve been going to Jazz Fest in New Orleans since 1990 and always try to work in areas that I’m passionate about. After selling Razor & Tie and Kidz Bop, I was interested in getting into the live space and thought that the niche festivals market was a logical place to go. Reminded me a bit of our counter-programming at Razor & Tie/Kidz Bop; start a little smaller, outside the established world and go from there. We aren’t trying to create a new Coachella; it’s a very different approach.

FD: Of course, the pandemic has hit the live music industry hard. How have you survived 2020, and what do foresee for 2021 and beyond? How will live music recover? What will we have to do to ensure the safety of the attendees, performers and the people working the events?

CC: I’m very bullish about live music and the festival business in the second half of 2021. Sales have been strong across the board for festivals and fans are ready to share amazing experiences together. We are following state guidelines, [and] evolving industry standards and protocols and will make every effort to insure that folks have a safe, fabulous time.

FD: Music is in your blood. How do you keep things fresh and exciting?

CC: I listen to new music constantly. There are so many wonderful new artists out there and streaming provides an endless opportunity to discover. It’s overwhelming, which is why I feel lucky to do the Be Here Now column for Copper and playlist to help folks hear new music and artists that they would otherwise miss. I also make an effort to discover music from the past that I missed. Although I feel pretty well-versed in popular music from the early ’60s on, there are countless numbers of artists, albums and songs that I missed so I make an effort to catch up on older music as well.

FD: Where do you see the music industry in five or ten years from now?

CC: I’m very optimistic. There are a variety of ways to monetize music that were not meaningful 10 years ago – streaming, satellite radio, gaming and the like. Obviously, there is always the possibility of disruption, but consumers have embraced various distribution methods of music that provide a foundation for a sustained business. It is a far cry from 10 to 15 years ago when the industry was facing an existential question of survival.

I do think that in the stratified digital world that we live in, many great artists live on the fringe and I  hope we have an era where there is more of a correlation between great music and commercial success. If you think about 1969, the Beatles, Creedence, Sly and the Stones were the biggest artists and [also] amongst the best. In 1984, it was Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Police and Springsteen. Would be nice to see more great contemporary artists have that kind of mainstream success. We’ll see.

FD: Are there any new artists you’re excited about?

CC: Way too many to count. What’s a new artist? If you talk about artists that have emerged in the last five to 10 years, I’m a huge fan of Tame Impala, The War on Drugs, St Vincent, Father John Misty, Jason Isbell. Newer artists that I like – Rufus Du Soul, Michael Kiwanuka, Sault, Mitski; there are so many. Go to Be Here Now, you’ll find lots of them there.

FD: Is there anything else you’d like to add, like information about your publishing company or other endeavors?

CC: Razor & Tie had a publishing company that was very successful with Number 1 songs including Blake Shelton’s “God Gave Me You” and “Home” by Philip Phillips. Also, Craig and I own RT Industries, which owns master recordings from Sugar Ray, Sheena Easton, Fat Joe and many others.

I am very lucky to have had Craig as my partner. We have always worked well together, complimented each other and remain very close friends.

Follow Cliff on social media:

Instagram: @cchenfeld

Twitter: @ChenfeldCliff

As the COVID epidemic winds down (hopefully soon) this time period will go down as one in which home entertainment (via Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, Disney etc. as well as podcasts and music) reached an all-time high.

Someone just posted, “I just finished Netflix!” on Facebook. I feel just about like that. My wife and I have burned through more series than I can count. The difference between us, though, is that I will retreat to my listening room on a regular basis to not only listen to how good my system sounds (especially when listening to excellently recorded music) but also to enjoy music with lesser-quality recording or production values, because I just want to hear great music.

I don’t know very many audiophiles who only listen to stuff that makes the financial outlay of their systems justifiable to family and friends, but I know enough to understand the logic.

That is a choice, but one that I don’t choose – I don’t want sound quality alone to control my music-listening preferences.

Case in point: I just started to listen, for the first time in a long time, to albums by the group the Move.

I became aware of the Move from my neighbor, Michael Kagan, an Anglophile who always had new UK music first.

He played the Move single “Night of Fear” to me in 1966. Michael also introduced me to The Who, Cream, Cat Stevens and the Bee Gees in 1966 and 1967.

No one else I knew had heard any of these artists.

While the Beatles had totally overtaken the UK charts in 1963 and 1964, with either actual Beatles music, or music by bands covering Beatles music, or bands who sounded like the Beatles with the Merseybeat sound (Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, The Cyrkle, The Fourmost, The Searchers and so on), the Move were a natural extension of the heavy melodic pop of the Beatles and the Who.

The Move were very, very popular in the UK and were a perfect example of how much the Beatles had affected the next generation of pop groups. The band was also clearly inspired by the Who and it is evident that the chords used in their music showed the Who’s influences – listen to “(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree” – but, in the end, all roads lead back to the Beatles, and the Move had all the chops (both as musicians, songwriters and vocals) to carry that weight (sorry!).

In 1967, the Move released their first huge hit (reaching Number 2 in the UK charts) with “Flowers In The Rain.” This was a perfect hippie, late Summer of Love track. The song was so big that, when the then-new BBC Radio 1 debuted, the first song they played was not by the Beatles, Stones or the Who. It was “Flowers In the Rain!” Their next big UK hit (also in 1967) was “I Can Hear the Grass Grow.”

The band caused quite a stir in the UK with the release of the song. Their manager decided to promote the single with a postcard photo of Prime Minister Harold Wilson in a compromising position with his secretary. Wilson sued, the band lost the case, and they had to turn over all the royalties (forever) to a charity of Wilson’s choice. Their manager, Tony Secunda, used publicity as much as he could, and the band seemed to always be involved with some kind of performance gimmick. They dressed as gangsters for a while, smashed up TVs onstage and generally did things to bring them attention.

I remember reading about all of that in Rolling Stone at the time.

When I finally got the album Shazam, in March of 1968, I was already primed to like them. What I discovered, however, was a pop rock album of exquisite songs that have stood the test of time.

Looking for Move albums became somewhat of a chore, and, of the five Move albums I own, only two, Shazam and Message From the Country, are actually purposely-recorded studio albums. The remainder are just greatest hits collections.

It seems that the Move changed record labels about as often as they changed members. Roy Wood was the only constant (in the band’s classic era) and as they evolved, the Jeff Lynne era closed out the band as Roy and Jeff moved on to form The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) in 1970.

The Move only showed up briefly in the US. I had tickets to see them at the Fillmore East in October 1969 but the tour was cut short and they only played a small club in NYC called Ungano’s for one night. They never returned and I missed out.

The creator of the band was Roy Wood.

The Move had no problem singing with their British accents out front. This was during the era where most UK bands wanted to sound as “American” as they could.

So, as I said in the beginning of this article, COVID caused me to return to the Move. No, these albums (and assorted tracks) are not sonic masterpieces. Neither are records by the Stones, Zep, Traffic or Procol Harum for that matter. What they are, however, are albums containing music that brings a smile to my face. Every time.

Here is a list of Move tracks that I suggest you listen to if Brit pop circa 67-72 is your thing.

“Flowers In The Rain”
“Blackberry Way”
“Beautiful Daughter”
“(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree”
“Fire Brigade”
“Curly”
“Yellow Rainbow”
“Brontosaurus”
“Cherry Blossom Clinic”
“Message From The Country”
“Do Ya”
“I Can Hear The Grass Grow”
“Hello Susie”

Previously we have briefly considered just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examining the factors which influence what audio equipment you may decide to buy. For me, and I imagine like many of you dear readers, this influence is highly governed by your expectations of the sound of the products you hope to purchase, as well as other factors such as appearance and build quality.

You may run through a series of questions such as, “Does this manufacturer know what good sound is? Do they have a reputation for quality control? How long have they been in business? Why should I buy their gear? Do I like the way it works, and the look and feel? How intuitive is it to use? Will I love the sound of it as part of my setup?”

You might have other questions besides these, regarding considerations like power delivery, cleanness of signal, total harmonic distortion, slew rate and more. Then, budget and space allocation to consider. Where to begin?

Some of the factors which have moulded my choice in equipment have been due to having worked in the music instrument retail industry for many years. While running my guitar shop, some customers would come in with a very clear idea of what brand and model of amp they wanted, while others would be clueless, and others still would fall between the two categories.

On many occasions their goal for tone was influenced by the guitar players they aspired to emulate, whether Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix, Kirk Hammett, Van Halen, Walter Trout, Jeff Beck, Richie Blackmore, Steve Morse or other greats. Bass players admired the musicianship and killer tones of Jaco Pastorius, Pino Palladino, John Entwistle, Tony Levin, Paul McCartney, Flea, Victor Wooten, Nathan East, John Paul Jones and so many more.

Yes, customers were often inspired to play and sound like their musical heroes and use the same equipment. Often someone would purchase a signature model. In recent times there has been huge success for guitar maker Paul Reed Smith with their popular John Mayer Silver Sky guitar. So much research and development went into recreating John’s elusive tone, which originated from one particular vintage guitar pickup he owned, and then incorporating that into his signature PRS model. This clearly shows how significant a personally-identifiable set of tones can be to an artist’s creativity and identity.

Paul Reed Smith's John Mayer Silver Sky guitar, Midnight Rose finish.

Finding that elusive tone was significant not just because it was hard to find, but also because of a unique characteristic it possessed. Specifically, in this instance, the pickup wire was of a bespoke thickness in diameter (and number of wraps under a certain tension and winding pattern), which had proven extremely difficult to ascertain by reverse engineering, because of the wire being stretched as it was wound onto the bobbin. Although there were other factors involved, once that particular detail had been discovered, the equally great challenge was to manufacture a pickup that would reproduce this sound consistently every time so that each Silver Sky guitar would deliver that sound.

So, how can we create an audio system that faithfully reproduces the tone of an artist like John Mayer, or anyone with a distinctive musical voice? Start by buying a good-quality recording that reveals the nuances of their playing. The artist’s tone comes from the physical density of his or her finger bones and how much pressure he or she applies, the amount of flesh on the fingers and palms and other extremely individualistic factors. A musician’s vibrato alone can identify them and often conveys something inherent in their personality. The vibrato of Steve Morse gives him away instantly, as does that of Steve Vai.

Jeff Beck is probably the ultimate case in point for instantly recognizable signature tone. You can tell it’s Jeff Beck because, well…it’s Jeff Beck! Watch “Angel (Footsteps)” from the Live at Ronnie Scott’s DVD or Blu-ray featuring Beck on guitar, Vinnie Colaiuta on drums and Tal Wilkenfeld on bass. It’s his approach to the instrument’s potential in dynamics which reveals unearthed tonality from within the guitar.

There are other major factors which serve to support Beck’s signature sound. His signature Fender Stratocaster uses active pickups for hum-free single coil (pickup) tones and upper-mid definition; a baseball bat-thick neck profile for sustain, resonance and vibrational mass, and a metal roller nut to stop the strings from pinching at that “speaking point.” But Jeff Beck would still sound like himself if you gave him a $50 guitar to play on and would still make it sing as only he can.

For me, this is why the reproduction, as well as the source of the sound is so important. A high-quality recording is the most honorable start in capturing an artist’s essence. In my humble opinion the media you choose to play it back on is secondary. Each medium has its own character and style and offers the listener a different reward in the experience. From the sound of the needle on the record to the “cleaner” signal of CD, I expect you love multiple media for different reasons. Likely you have a soft spot for the earliest formats you listened to because they were of their time, and they represented the cutting edge of technology then.

(Even though the present-day portability of music has almost become synonymous with audio compression, likely you still love to hear the album; to hear that artist even if the fidelity is compromised. Perhaps because of where you were and what you were doing when you first heard it, and are only too glad to have the memory of hearing your cassette on your Sony Walkman at the beach with the sun on your back.)

The most significant part of the audio reproduction comes from the artists themselves. So, what’s all the fuss about using high-quality audio equipment to improve the sound anyway?

I like to think of it like this. If the quality is there in the first place, it’s like the leather a shoe is made of. It can make for a very comfortable fit (or enveloping listening experience). You can then add a certain amount of polish (by using the right equipment). Some polish will add luster, depth, shine and bring out the details and warmth of the appearance of the leather. It can turn it into something you truly love and take pride in even more than before. The same is true for audio gear. The right power amp may add new tonal character, life, vivacity, dynamics and a particularly tight ”grip” to a recording (just like an effective tread pattern of your shoe’s sole as it grips the street). If the shoe is a cotton (canvas) sneaker, or a bad recording, it’s never going to perform like a leather shoe. (Incidentally, I’ve got nothing against cotton shoes – they breathe quite nicely, which is great for the summer months.)

To carry on the analogy, like shoes, some recordings develop “holes,” gaps in their fidelity because of poor mixing or mastering. So much so that the artists remix them at a later date to try and recover the original tones that were laid down the first time. An example of this was the remixing of the Rush album Vapor Trails, completed by David Bottrill and the band in their quest to recover the overly compressed and crushed-sounding tracks. If you listen to the original “sneakers” mix and then the remixed “leather” version and pay attention to Alex Lifeson’s acoustic guitar playing, you’ll hear a huge restoration of dynamics and clarity in the new one.

The difference is how much more improved it sounds when you have a better recording and are listening with good equipment. To name one noteworthy example, producer and musician Steven Wilson has been remastering the Yes catalogue and, because of his consummate experience and skill, has developed the most discerning of ears. This difference matters to the artists, engineers and producers. How much it matters to you when deciding what equipment to buy, and importantly that which will most faithfully reproduce the artist transparently, is for you to decide.

What should you listen for and what bearings can you steer by? We will consider this more closely in future articles.

Header image of Jeff Beck courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Mandy Hall.

In Part One (Issue 134), J.I. Agnew profiled the legendary Studer A80 open reel deck. Part Two (Issue 135) covered the equally-storied Ampex ATR-100 Series tape machines. In Part Three, J.I. interviews Greg Reierson of Rare Form Mastering.

One of the most impressive Ampex ATR-100 decks lives, among several other tape machines, at Rare Form Mastering, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Custom mastering gear at Rare Form Mastering. All photos courtesy of Greg Reierson.

Greg Reierson, the owner, has an impressive collection of tape machines, including a preview-head equipped Studer A80, as well as a Neumann VMS 70 disk mastering lathe, with which he cuts master lacquer disks for vinyl record manufacturing, entirely in the analog domain.

His 1/2-inch stereo Ampex ATR-100 was modified by Jeff Gilman at MDI Precision Motor Works, to have the Ampex MR-70 vacuum tube electronics on top!

In Greg’s own words:

JIA: How did you get into tape to begin with?

GR: I took an audio production class in college. That’s where I first learned how to splice tape. By the end of that course I decided to change my major, went to work for the local NPR affiliate and spent the rest of my college years in the studio.

J.I. Agnew: How many tape machines do you have and what models?

Greg Reierson: Let me count…I guess I have 15! The decks that get regular use in the studio are:

• Studer A80 MK I preview (1/4-inch and 1/2-inch, 2-track):

• Ampex ATR-100/MR-70 hybrid (1/2-inch 2-track):

• Otari MTR-10 (1/4-inch 1/4-track, 1/4-inch 2-track, 1/2-inch 2-track):

I also have a bunch of decks at home and in storage:

• Studer A80 MK IV master recorder (1/2-inch 4-track)
• Otari MTR-12 (1/2-inch 4-track)
• Three Revox B77 (1/4-inch)
• Two Revox A77 (1/4-inch)
• Studer A67 (1/4-inch, in parts)
• Ampex 351 (1/4-inch, in parts)
• Nagra III (mono)
• Teac A-3340S (1/4-inch, 4-track)
• Teac Tascam 32 (1/4-inch)
• I've also had an MCI-JH110, Otari MX-5050, Technics RS-1500 and a few others.

JIA: What sets your Ampex ATR-100/MR-70 hybrid apart from the rest of the tape machines in your collection?

GR: Both the MR-70 electronics and the ATR-100 transport are legendary. With the MR-70, Ampex was trying to make the very best, spare no expense tape deck of the day. It’s tube-based but designed to be very clean. It has a silky, creamy sound that is unlike any of the other machines in my collection. The ATR-100 transport may be the very best analog transport ever built. The marriage of the two is quite something to hear.

JIA: Do you also cut masters from the ATR-100/MR-70, or do you only use the Studer A80 preview head tape machine for that?

Greg presenting a freshly-cut lacquer master disk, in front of his Neumann VMS-70 disk mastering lathe.

GR: I primarily use the A80. I have cut directly from the ATR-100/MR-70 but only for short sides when fixed pitch disk mastering is possible. I mostly use the ATR-100/MR-70 for creating cutting masters when doing 100 percent analog cuts. In that case it goes like this: client mix tape on the A80 → analog mastering chain → ATR-100/MR-70 → EQ’d cutting master. Then it’s back on to the A80 and directly into the Neumann VMS 70 cutting lathe.

Here’s a video shot at Rare Form Mastering, using the Studer A80 preview head tape machine, plenty of custom mastering electronics of Greg’s own design, a Neumann VMS70 lathe and loads of other gear:

JIA: How does it affect your workflow and the quality of the end result if you are cutting with or without preview, from tape?

GR: Since the ATR-100/MR-70 is 1/2-inch it only affects jobs in that format. If the side is short enough to use fixed pitch then it’s an ideal solution. But if it’s a long side, or if it needs pre-mastering/editing/assembly as previously described, cutting from the A80 with preview makes more sense.

JIA: How does the Ampex ATR-100 transport compare to the Studer A80?

GR: The ATR transport is very sophisticated. Very smart. It’s a servo controlled, direct drive, pinch roller-less design. It’s the most stable tape transport available. Of the two, this is the modern supercar with traction control and paddle shifters. The A80 transport is very stable and extremely well built. Of the two, this is the classic sports car with a manual gearbox and no power steering.

JIA: Many thanks!

GR: You are welcome! Thank you for keeping analog alive!

Greg’s Neumann SX74 stereophonic cutter head, on the Neumann VMS-70 lathe. The little tube at the front delivers helium to the cutter head, to assist with cooling the drive coils, which operate in a helium atmosphere. (Helium has a higher thermal conductivity than atmospheric air!)

******

Made in the USA, the Ampex ATR-100 is popular among American audio professionals and (more recently) audiophiles, but these machines are very rare in Europe. European policymakers were very slow in understanding the concept of the free market. Following WWII and up until the creation of the EU, most European countries had strict currency controls and import restrictions. Even nowadays, importing goods from the US is prohibitive for most small to medium businesses, due to the outrageously complicated and costly import procedures. It is much easier and cheaper to import European goods into the US than to import American goods into the EU. As a result, Ampex tape machines were deemed uneconomical by European studios, with European offerings much easier to acquire. The situation is similar to this day in the second hand market. Tape machines are occasionally being shipped across the Atlantic, but it is usually the other way around, from Europe towards the US. This is not limited to tape machines, of course. How many Volkswagens, Audis and Volvos do you see in the US and how many Buicks in Europe?

ATR-100s are generally not as easy to find as Studer tape machines in the second-hand market, presumably because those who own them are not selling them! Parts and techs for the ATR-100 are also not as easy to find as for other machines and near-impossible to locate in Europe. At least there are still a few knowledgeable techs for these machines in the US. A restored example will easily set you back USD $15,000 or more nowadays (considerably more for the Ampex ATR-100/MR-70 hybrid), but will reward you with countless hours of smooth, reliable operation and excellent sound. Several specialist companies used to offer vacuum tube playback electronics (to replace the original solid-state electronics) that will work with the ATR-100, although most of these are now discontinued. Many Ampex ATR-100 machines are still in active service in recording and mastering facilities, as well as home listening rooms, around the US.

The Ampex ATR-100, with its electronic servo control system, is more demanding of accurate adjustment than other machines. If misadjusted, it will let you know by seriously underperforming. If you are thinking of getting one, make sure you also have access to a good tech (or be prepared to become one). Once set up properly, it is one of the finest machines money can buy!

In the next episode, we will look at another very interesting and rare Ampex ATR-100 machine in professional use.

Header image: Greg Reierson of Rare Form Mastering at his Neumann VMS70 record-cutting lathe.

We left off our last survey of the jazz side of Henry Mancini (Issue 135) in New York City, fresh off the Breakfast at Tiffany’s soundtrack. That album was recorded in 1961, a mere two years after the first Peter Gunn album was released. If it seems like I’m pulling from a lot of albums from a span of two years, you’re correct.

To put this into perspective, in his autobiography Did They Mention the Music?, Mancini mentions that his early recording contract with RCA Victor required three albums per year.  Let’s think about this for a moment. His first two albums were based on scores for the Peter Gunn television series, plus he recorded an instrumental album called The Mancini Touch. This made for three albums’ worth of music.

However, the way the music was produced adds more to the process. Mancini first penned the tunes at his piano. For the television (and later film) soundtracks, he had to write arrangements and record them for the television or film studio. For his RCA albums, he wrote his album arrangements, which were based on the arrangements for the TV series or film, but adapted them so they could be listened to as finished pieces on a record. In addition, he had to be selective in what he chose to record for a music album. As he mentions in his autobiography:

“A problem arose from those scores. The albums were made up of the most melodic material from the films. A lot of the dramatic music – which is what I really loved to do and really thought I had a feeling for – was left out. Days of Wine and Roses and Charade had a lot of dramatic music that was never released on record. For the albums, I used the source music that was the common denominator for my record-buying audience. And there was pressure from the record company: they didn’t want to know about dramatic music.”

So, in essence, one set of music for a soundtrack meant two sets of arrangements. If you consider that he might also record a music album in the same year, that is almost the equivalent of writing for five separate projects, per year. This would continue through the 1960s, and the quality of his output during this time is mind-boggling, considering the volume of his volume of work!

A brief aside – if you are interested in Mancini’s recordings from the film soundtrack, see if you can locate the Intrada CDs. These are the actual recordings used on the films, not the revised arrangements and recordings that made their way to the albums.  It is interesting to hear how the music was arranged for the films, and to also hear the performances sounding perhaps a little less polished than their album versions. These also include many of the dramatic musical cues used in the films that were never committed to an album. There aren’t many, but the films Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Days of Wine and Roses (which had no soundtrack album of its own), Charade and Hatari! all have Intrada editions.

Now, back to the music. Our last installment featured a big band blowout, and the soundtrack to Hatari! also offers a dose of the same with “Big Band Bwana.” Plenty of good soloing throughout.

1962 also gave us a Blake Edwards thriller (!) named Experiment in Terror. The B-side of the album features some wonderfully tense moments of music from the film, where the A-side is more standard fare, including “Kelly’s Tune,” which features a mellow Basie-esque big band arrangement, the guitar plunking along in the background à la Freddie Green.

1963 would prove to be another big year for Mancini, with two outstanding soundtracks, the first of which is Charade. The main title theme makes its appearance three times on the record, in three vastly different arrangements. During the ’50s and ’60s, Latin American rhythms were popular – everything from the cha-cha to the mambo worked their way into pop music, and Mancini took the rhythm and mixed it with a big band arrangement to create “Mambo Parisienne,” bringing Cuba to Paris. That sax solo is by none other than Plas Johnson, who would loom really large on the next soundtrack…

That next soundtrack being The Pink Panther. The theme to this film would not only become one of Hank’s most recognizable, but the credits to the film featured the cartoon Pink Panther, courtesy of Friz Freleng (of Warner Bros. fame), which would go on to become its own cartoon series. This album was recorded only two months after Charade, yet released in 1964. Plas Johnson’s melody in the title tune, and his soloing, place this tune squarely in big band territory, despite the brief appearance of the orchestra midway through the tune.

The Twist was another popular (dance) craze at the time. The album Experiment in Terror had no less than three twists, and yet another found its way to The Pink Panther soundtrack. This time, “The Tiber Twist.” Plas Johnson once again knocks it out of the park.

In a hat trick for 1963, the non-soundtrack album Uniquely Mancini arguably features some of his best and most dynamic big band arrangements. The unique thing about this album are the arrangements – there are many familiar tunes on this album, but Hank approaches some of them in ways we hadn’t yet imagined. His cover of the popular tune “Night Train” slows that train way down, propelling it at first with ominous bass flutes and bass trombones, followed by vivid splashes of brass coloring and punctuated with another fine solo by Plas Johnson.

How about some Booker T. Jones? Mancini puts a big band spin on it, with some unique brass section arranging midway through the tune.

The album has a few originals, but the major standout here is “Banzai Pipeline,” perhaps his best big band recording.  It has a swinging, swaggering beat that won’t quit, sharp brass lines throughout, a smoking Plas Johnson solo, and plenty of augmented chords to keep you in suspense through the end.

In the next installment, we’ll visit another 1960s album with some jazz treasures on it, and investigate a few recordings from the 1970s.

In Part One (Issue 135), we reviewed the history of the affordable digital sound production technology that emerged in the 1980s and how some semi-pro and consumer equipment was used to create and record the sound for our 1988 independent feature film, The Source of Power. Given that this was the genesis era of a still-burgeoning digital technology, there was a learning curve to be overcome by music production studios using analog multi-track tape, film production houses using striped 35mm. mag and optical stock, and video studios using analog video tape. None of these camps had yet to make the leap to digital that is now ubiquitous in 2021. The story of the creation of our film continues here.

******

Now that writer/director Dan Godzich and I were armed with our compiled custom sound library for the movie, and had hired a post-production studio that understood what we needed to do and had worked with us to devise a protocol for doing it, we were ready to begin. The running time of the film was roughly 110 minutes, including credits. The order for creating the soundtrack would be to record dialog, Foley (sound effects that are added in post-production) and music cues. Once those were done, we would mix stereo tracks for each.

Dialog:

We had the original English-speaking actors on a schedule for ADR (automated dialog replacement) sessions of all their respective scenes and hired local New York actors and actresses for the smaller parts. (The movie was shot in a Spaghetti Western style, with dialog in English and French.) While it was exciting to have access to post-production studio Active Studio’s mic collection, including a vintage Neumann U47, we learned that finding complementary mics for the various actors and actresses required some trial and error. The Neumann, an AKG 414, and a Sennheiser 441 were the three mics that worked the best, and required the least amount of outboard processing to tweak their sounds.

After years of disparaging the poorly lip synced English dubbing of Chinese kung-fu films and Italian spaghetti westerns, I came away with a much greater respect for well-dubbed films, as the process was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The actors and actresses were all local New York talent that we knew through friends from independent film, theater, and comedy circles. Although some had never done any type of ADR before, they all did a creditable and professional job. Among them was a then-unknown comedian named John Leguizamo, who would go on to become a movie star a few years later.

While owners Steve Tjaden and Carl Farrugia had designed Active Studios as the ideal multi-format post-production studio facility that The Source of Power required, the one thing it lacked was a completely isolated vocal booth. Although the dynamic Sennheiser 441 mic had the greatest rejection of room sound and ambient reverberation, the condenser AKG 414 and tube Neumann U47 were very sensitive to reflected sounds, especially when actors raised their voices to match a character’s performance in a scene. Keeping dialogue as “dry” as possible was crucial, so that reverb and delay could be added later to match different dialogue parts into sounding like they were in the same location.

Necessity being the mother of invention, we finally rigged the foam-lined Calzone road case for our Korg DSS-1 sampling keyboard on a table behind the actors’ heads as an effective baffle to reduce the ambient noise. Subtle application of a Rocktron Hush II noise gate unit provided the rest of the “fix.” Of course, this was decades before software like the Izotope RX8, which can simply remove echoes and other sounds with a few clicks of a mouse, was invented.

Jean-Yves Denis in The Source of Power.

Sound Effects:

Triggering pre-recorded Foley sounds like footsteps, door closings and openings, car chases, the sound of people drinking water and so on from a keyboard to sync with image proved to be a much easier process than expected, and certainly less time-consuming than physically trying to match a video clip in real time like a professional Foley artist would. The use of an Eventide Harmonizer, Ursa Major and Lexicon delays, and various reverb units to create depth to the  sounds saved hours of multiple overdubbing. We printed these added effects on an extra track or two for later mixdown. The DSS-1, an E-mu Emax synth and an Akai S900 sampler were used for creating loops of air conditioners, wind, pool water and other kinds of background location sounds when the sounds we recorded directly with the Sony PCM 501 ES digital audio processor were too short in duration.

Korg DSS-1 digital synthesizer.

Music:

Lead actor Didier Hubert was also the lead singer and saxophonist for the French rock band Laser. I produced Laser’s album, Bienvenue, the year following the completion of principal photography on The Source of Power. We decided to use Didier’s song, “Pionniers” (Pioneers), for the film’s closing credits. Laser’s keyboardist, Jean-Pierre Duclay, had previously composed and recorded all of the film’s synthesizer soundtrack music cues during the Bienvenue sessions under Dan’s direction. We also MIDI-sequenced all of the parts in case we needed to change or augment any sounds during mixing. (By doing this, we could use the MIDI files to trigger any sound we chose via MIDI control – we weren’t limited to just using the pre-recorded sounds.)

Recorded on 24-track analog and rough-mixed to a Sony PCM-F1 portable digital audio recorder in digital stereo in Tempe, Arizona, the soundtrack music was performed with Yamaha DX7II, Kurzweil K250 and Oberheim OB-8 synthesizers, with the MIDI-sequencing parts stored on a Korg SQD-1 unit with 2.8-inch floppy disks. As I recall, the digital stereo mixes worked for the most part, and we only needed to use the original multi-track tapes for the soundtrack music a handful of times. We replaced a few instrument sounds as needed, using samples from the Emax and Akai S900, as well as select programs from Oberheim Matrix 6R and Yamaha TX81Z rack units.

I wrote the title song, “The Source of Power,” with Dan and recorded all of the guitars, keyboards, and sequenced drums one afternoon at Active. Bass was provided by my former bandmate and session player Billy Asai. I recorded the lead vocals with my sister, Joanna Seetoo providing the harmony vocals. Click on the track below to play the song:

Mixing:

As I have mentioned in past articles, my audio engineering mentor was the late Grammy Award-winning engineer, Dennis Ferrante (John Lennon, Lou Reed, Aerosmith, Wynton Marsalis, Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington), who was a staff engineer with RCA/BMG studios at the time. [A posthumously published interview with Dennis Ferrante is in Copper issue 39 – Ed.],

Having had the past opportunity to sit in on some of Dennis’ sessions and assist him unofficially on occasion, I was familiar with work he had done on other films, such as Warren Beatty’s Reds. Dennis enjoyed the challenge of mixing the complete soundtrack for The Source of Power: dialogue, effects, and music – as long as we agreed to his rate, which was a no-brainer for us.

Dennis had been working on engineering and mixing orchestral music sessions for Spike Lee’s School Daze soundtrack and had expressed some frustration over the squabbling during sound mixing, with the dialogue, music and effects editors all lobbying Spike with their respective agendas. When I approached him about doing the sound mix for The Source of Power in its entirety in a familiar format (an audio mixing console used with state-of-the-art processing gear and analog multi-track tape) where he would have sole creative license and only have to deal with Dan and myself, he leaped at the opportunity.

Locating a 1-inch 8-track machine that could also take 14-inch reels proved to be a bit of a challenge, but Tjaden and Farrugia managed to track one down for rental and we were set to start mixing.

Sessions with Dennis were chock full of fascinating stories from his days working at the legendary Record Plant recording studio, interspersed with his great insights on the use of EQ, reverb, delay and panning to create a sense of space and depth in the stereo field. His experience with the Lucasfilm THX system had given him a boatload of ideas as to creating new ways to mix sounds in stereo, and Dennis relished the chance to put them to the test, as he intuitively knew what sound placements and balances would work best for a scene roughly 80 percent of the time.

One of Dennis’ funniest ideas was for a scene during a covert break-in of a hotel room. Shot from a low angle, he got the notion to make the squeaks of the actors’ shoes louder, the more they tried to be quiet. The scene subsequently elicited one of the bigger laughs during screenings.

Although he was hired for the film mix, Dennis also insisted on mixing my song, “The Source of Power,” after hearing the multi-track tape. Taking only a few hours, including his suggestion of my double-tracking the acoustic guitar part (cut right in the control room with a Neumann KM84 mic in under 20 minutes), the final mix exceeded anything I thought the song could sound like, and it actually went on to get radio airplay in France when the film later played at Cannes the following year. We were the fortunate beneficiaries of the “Ferrante magic” that graced such records as Lou Reed’s Berlin, Don McLean’s American Pie, and countless releases from John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Wynton Marsalis, and many others.

Once we finally completed mixing to the 1-inch 8-track tapes, we took the reels to Technicolor, who used the SMPTE time code to create synced mag tracks, which were then used to create an optical print.

While we were in the midst of creating the sound for The Source of Power, I don’t think Dan or I were fully aware of just how “crazy mad scientist”-like we must have seemed to our peers in the film, video and music production worlds, let alone to seasoned professionals. Dennis took me aside at one point and even exclaimed that he was amazed at how we pulled it off, and was even more shocked at why all of those pros charging big bucks never thought of it before.

A brief article about how we did the sound for the film was published in the December 1987 issue of Mix, but it was only two columns and since The Source of Power’s distribution was limited, the piece got little traction. Perhaps history will view it in a different light now with the missing details filled in.

Although distribution of The Source of Power was limited to only a few territories, moviegoers in France, like their adoration for Jerry Lewis and Clint Eastwood, have apparently developed a fondness for the film. It has a fan site that still exists today: http://jpaqman.free.fr/s_power/

The McIntosh CR 4 Satellite System Control. Per Steve Rowell of Audio Classics: no fumbling for the volume buttons; just feel for the knob and turn it! No lost remotes; just follow the wire! And, no batteries to replace! From The Audio Classics Collection.

The Nice price: 350 pounds! The cost of Freedom: 75 pounds! A January 1969 rate sheet for a number of well-known and not-so-well-known British bands.

Oh, my word. A magnificent Fisher 400 tube stereo receiver from the 1960s. You can read all about this unit here. Courtesy of eCoustics/Jeremy Sikora.

Well, that's one way to keep the tubes cool, and America probably still doesn't know about it yet! Philips ad, 1957.

The Four Seasons is one of the most-recorded works in all of classical music. A quick search of Spotify yielded over 500 versions, and the results hadn’t even finished loading. With that level of saturation, it’s not surprising that a number of recent attempts have focused on rethinking this timeless work.

Antonio Vivaldi’s most famous composition, first published in 1725, is a set of four violin concertos, considered “programmatic” music in that each is paired with a sonnet about one of the four seasons of the year. The composer may have written the sonnets himself, although that is still under debate. He also added dramatic cues on individual parts, such as “Dog barking” during a viola passage in the “Spring” concerto. This kind of extra-musical reference was avant-garde at the time, and the reception to the work varied widely, from adulation to mockery.

The earliest known arrangement of the Seasons for alternate instrumentation dates all the way back to 1739, when French composer Nicholas Chédeville reconceived the solo lines to feature his own specialty, the musette (small, delicate-sounding bagpipes with two chanters and a bellows under the elbow). He indicated on the score that one could substitute a hurdy-gurdy if one preferred. Since then, Vivaldi’s masterwork has never stopped inspiring new variations.

As a reference point, let’s start with a recent performance using Vivaldi’s original score, a Warner Music release by the Janaček Chamber Orchestra and violin soloist Bohuslav Matoušek under the direction of Zdenek Dejmek. The sheen of new spring shoots and the warbling of birds building their nests are painted vividly in their interpretation of “Spring.” This is not a particularly historically informed performance – Matoušek uses standard post-18^th-century bowing pressure, vibrato, and metrical elasticity, as does the orchestra – but the playing is clear, precise, and energetic. This is one of hundreds of perfectly pleasant and adequate recordings of The Four Seasons.

There’s a lot more originality in the version for cello recorded by Luka Šulić and the Archi dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia. Maybe a little too much originality, especially when it comes to phrasing. Conductor Luigi Piovano seems to work tirelessly to make every phrase meaningful and new, when the change in pitch and timbre of the solo instrument is enough on its own to make us listen differently.

Šulić wrote the compelling re-orchestration himself, and the melodramatic interpretation of rhythms and dynamics, barely related to the expectations of Baroque music, may stem from his main gig as half of the pop-music duo 2Cellos. It’s fun, but is it Vivaldi? Of course it is, just not in a way the original composer ever heard it.

For a completely different take on Vivaldi, there is the experiment by German-born British composer Max Richter, called The Four Seasons Recomposed. Not so much a re-orchestration as a change at the cellular level, this work was premiered by violinist Daniel Hope in 2012. A newer interpretation recently came out on Rubicon Classics by violinist Fenella Humphreys. Ben Palmer conducts the Covent Garden Sinfonia.

What Richter has done is imagine Vivaldi’s score as a cache of old material to use in new ways, preserving the original programmatic intent but imbuing it with a 21st-century sensibility informed primarily by minimalism. The harmonic motion is different, less goal-oriented, but the dramatic arc still works.

Humphreys’ playing has a pure sweetness to it that perfectly evokes the colors and scents of the great outdoors. No matter how much Richter reuses the Vivaldian phrases, the listener is not wearied by repetitiveness; Humphreys takes each phrase as a unique statement on its own, without regard to how similar the previous or next phrase is.

Richter is by no means the first composer to disassemble and rebuild the Seasons. Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) turned the whole set of concertos into an exquisitely angular four-movement Latin dance. It’s a gorgeous piece, newly composed with tango-like syncopation and flair, yet generously studded with big, juicy nuggets of Vivaldi.

A new live recording by the Orchestra of St. John’s, Oxford, on the orchestra’s own label, is conducted by John Lubbock and features Jan Peter Schmolck on violin. The opening begins at the 41:00 mark. But if you have the time, I recommend their sparkling reading of Vivaldi’s original that leads up to the newer piece.

You’d think that Piazzolla’s and Richter’s deconstructions of the work would be the least Baroque thing to be done with it, but that’s not the case. The prize for most intense anachronism goes to pianist/composer Mistheria, whose self-released Four Seasons for solo piano blends the rhythmic malleability and relentless sustain-pedaling of late Romanticism with the emotional flotation of New Age music. Here is the final movement of “Winter.” There is barely a trace of Vivaldi in this, even though all his notes are still present.

When Piazzolla wrote the version mentioned above, he intended the solo instrument to be accordion or bandoneon, which is what he played. A more recent, and more straightforward, re-orchestration for accordion and strings was recently prepared and recorded by Lithuanian accordionist Martynas Levickis, accompanied by the Mikroorkéstra Chamber Ensemble.

The high-frequency reediness of the solo instrument takes some getting used to, as does the folkish articulation that sometimes stops to scoop up extra ornamentation. But it’s worth the effort to adjust, since Levickis is astonishingly virtuosic at his instrument. That is not an excuse, however, for the final movement of “Spring” to be quite so fast.

It’s harder to know what to make of Karl Aage Rasmussen’s Four Seasons After Vivaldi, released on the Dacapo label by Concerto Copenhagen under the courageous leadership of Magnus Fryklund. Violin soloist Fredrik From has a bracing wildness in his brilliant and accurate playing.

But none of that explains the underlying purpose of Rasmussen’s exercise, and that’s just what it feels like – an exercise. The living composer has left his Baroque forerunner’s instrumentation and notes, but interrupts and distends the rhythm and meter violently. Remember the abrupt digital hiccup of a CD skipping? Rasmussen causes that discomfort on purpose, over and over. This orchestra is so good, though, that you’ll want to seek out their recordings of actual Baroque music. Their Corelli concerti grossi are glorious.

Header image: Antonio Vivaldi, public domain.

Sam Cooke was only two years old in 1933 when his family moved from Mississippi to Chicago. Lucky for us that they did, since it gave young Sam plenty of places to hear and perform gospel music before he even finished high school. He would go on, in his too-brief life, to become arguably the most influential soul musician ever.

His first solid job, starting in 1950, was as a tenor with the Soul Stirrers, a Chicago-based gospel group whose popularity increased in part thanks to Cooke’s voice, personality, songwriting, and good looks. Rock and roll hadn’t even arrived yet, but Cooke had the girls swooning at the stage door for his gospel sound and winning grin.

He was fully aware of the extent of his contribution to the Soul Stirrers’ success, and in 1957 he decided to strike out on his own. First he changed the spelling of his family name, Cook, and then he signed with Keen Records for his eponymous solo debut.

The majority of tracks on Sam Cooke (1958) are standards like “Old Man River” from Showboat and “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess. But the opening number is a Cooke original: “You Send Me” kickstarted his career with some serious propulsion.

Side B closes with “That Lucky Old Sun.” Dating from the 1930s, this tune is by Tin Pan Alley songwriting team Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie. Cooke’s wistful version is accompanied by the Bumps Blackwell Orchestra.

Cooke put out a second album in 1958, called Encore. This was also accompanied and produced by Bumps Blackwell, a musician who influenced the careers of many important artists, including Ray Charles and Quincy Jones. Encore is further proof of Cooke’s understanding of his own voice. He consistently chooses songs with wide-ranging, fluid melodies and emotionally demanding lyrics. That’s where he shone.

“Today I Sing the Blues” is one of the few new songs on the album, this one by Cooke’s guitarist, Clifton White, with lyrics by Curtis Lewis, one of the first Black songwriters to succeed in Tin Pan Alley. The melody lets Cooke show off his sophisticated sense of musical line.

The following year he made his last record for Keen, Tribute to the Lady (1959). The lady in the title is the matchless Billie Holiday, who died not long after the album came out. This record is further proof of Cooke’s ear for great songs, not to mention great performances. It’s thrilling to hear his supple voice capture the essence of Holiday’s signature melodies.

Except for “God Bless the Child,” Cooke avoids the most painful and controversial of the repertoire associated with the troubled singer. It would have been fascinating to get his take on “Strange Fruit,” for example. Maybe that absence is for the best, since Cooke is more focused on creating beautiful phrasing than on echoing Lady Day’s deep melancholy in songs like “Good Morning, Heartache.” The René Hall Orchestra accompanies.

For Cooke’s Tour (1960), Cooke leveled up his career by signing with RCA Victor. His producers were the team of Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, known as Hugo & Luigi, who also worked with The Isley Brothers, Perry Como, and Elvis Presley.

The theme of the album was travel, with songs about or from many parts of the world, from “Jamaican Farewell” to “Galway Bay.” To represent East Asia, Cooke chose “Japanese Farewell Song” by Hasegawa Yoshida and Freddy Morgan, a touching song that had already been a hit for Kay Cee Jones.

By this point Cooke and two colleagues had started their own label, SAR Records, but that company was not intended for Cooke’s own recordings. Instead, he stayed with RCA and used his new label as a way for other artists he respected to promote themselves. These included the Soul Stirrers (with whom he’d started his career) and The Valentinos, also known as the Womack Brothers. Bobby and Cecil Womack were friends of Cooke’s, and Cecil eventually married Cooke’s widow.

Although Cooke’s career was brief, few artists in history have enjoyed as much success in such a short period of time. Between 1957 and 1964, 30 of Cooke’s singles reached the Top 40. One of his biggest hits was “Chain Gang,” off the 1961 album Swing Low.

A lesser-known track from that album is the Hollywood-style cowboy song, “Twilight on the Trail,” first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1936 and made into a hit by Gene Autry a decade later. As far as I can find, Cooke’s is the first recording of it by a Black artist, beating out Nat King Cole’s version by a year.

For My Kind of Blues (1961), Cooke assembled a top-notch cadre of session musicians on saxophone and trumpet, bringing a richness and flair to the arrangements of American popular standards by the likes of Gershwin, Rodgers, and Berlin. Adding Milt Hinton on bass didn’t hurt either.

That R&B pomp is especially outrageous in “But Not for Me,” bolstered by Morris Wechsler’s rolling piano chords. Cooke makes some custom alterations to Gershwin’s oft-recorded melody, adapting the style to the new genre.

“The Twist” was a big hit from Twistin’ the Night Away (1962), and the album was Cooke’s second to hit the Top 100. He had far more success on the singles charts. From Mr. Soul (1963) came “Nothing Can Change This Love,” which reached the No. 2 spot.

Also on Mr. Soul, he included the haunting “Willow Weep for Me,” written in the 1930s by a big-band composer named Ann Ronell (she also wrote “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”!). The bird-like flute part is played by Plas Johnson.

Night Beat came out in 1963 as well, but its release was quickly followed by a terrible personal tragedy for Cooke. His son Vincent, only two years old, drowned in the family swimming pool. Grief forced Cooke to slow his pace, and he stayed away from the studio for six months. That left only one more studio album during his lifetime, Ain’t That Good News (1964). He had just signed a new contract with RCA.

The most culturally significant song on that record is the civil rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come.” At the time it was only a moderate hit but in subsequent years soared in popularity as American society struggled through the 1960s. Of a very different style is Clifton White’s heartbreak number “There’ll Be No Second Time,” swirling in a lush arrangement by René Hall.

On December 11, 1964, Cooke got into an argument with a hotel manager. She shot him, and the bullet struck his heart. Sam Cooke died that day at the age of 33, in the prime of his artistry. RCA had one more album in its vaults, Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963. It was finally released in 1984.

Wendell Diller is the marketing manager for Magnepan. Located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, Magnepan is the manufacturer of Magneplanar loudspeakers.

In the 1970s and 1980s, if you bought a pair of loudspeakers from your favorite stereo store, the salesperson might have offered to stop by on the way home to help you set up your new speakers. It was not unusual to become friends and the salesperson might have stayed longer than intended, listening to tunes with you and sharing a glass of wine. Today, you might get that kind of personal attention and service if you buy a very expensive pair of speakers. Otherwise, probably not.

Long before the pandemic, the industry experienced erosion of its dealer base, making it difficult to sell speakers and audio gear in person. However, a helpful resource is available and since you’re reading this at the moment, you may be looking right at it.

I am 77. I don’t text. I want my computer to work like my car – it starts every time and  it does not require downloads or complicated instructions to operate. It is not that I can’t learn; I don’t want to be bothered. If I buy something that is complicated, I want the help of a real person who knows what they are doing.

So, when you buy a loudspeaker (or electronics), an experienced human should be there to instruct you and ensure that you get the full benefit of the product. If you later have a problem, you should be able to contact the experienced human to resolve the issue. Ideally, a manual is redundant and never needs to be read.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe you are too young to remember when stereo was king. If you had such a dealer, you valued that relationship.

My goal as marketing manager for Magnepan is to provide a means for our customers to have that level of service and support from what I call the “virtual dealer.” Exactly how that will happen is a work in progress but it will involve videoconferencing.

I learned to like this new technology because it enabled me to be IN the customer’s home and help them in many of the same ways we did in the 1970s and 1980s. I’ve helped new Magneplanar 30.7 loudspeaker customers in Hong Kong, Australia, the US and many other locations. The speaker setup went something like this:

Magneplanar MG 30.7 loudspeakers.

Me: “I have some concerns about the distance of the speakers from the front wall. I can see that the door on the left is an issue. But I think we can work this out. Could you move the 30.7s forward on this side of the door?”

The customer moved the speakers and listened, and agreed that the bass was much better – not to mention the imaging and soundstage.

Me: “would you measure to confirm that the tweeter is one inch further than the midrange at the listening seat? I can’t be sure by looking at it from here. Also, would you consider putting diffusers on the left wall?”

And so it went. I could see that the customer was very impressed that the Old Man from Magnepan was helping to set up his 30.7s in real time. However, I will admit that it wasn’t as much fun as it was in the Old Days. If they had offered me a glass of wine, I wouldn’t have been able to accept.

I was doing all this while sitting in my dining room at home.

My advice to young Magnepan sales people: don’t just send a text. Be there when your customer is taking the speakers out of the carton. Help them through every step of the setup process. You will make friends and life-long customers.

Header image: Mike Hoatson of The Listening Room in Baltimore, Maryland assists a customer with setup via videoconferencing.

I met and fell in love with this succulent at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum and Botanic Garden. He's gorgeous, sturdy and logical, but just a little prickly.

Staff Writers:
J.I. Agnew, Ray Chelstowski, Cliff Chenfeld, Jay Jay French, Tom Gibbs, Roy Hall, Rich Isaacs, Anne E. Johnson, Don Kaplan, Don Lindich, Tom Methans, B. Jan Montana, Rudy Radelic, Wayne Robins, Alón Sagee, Ken Sander, Larry Schenbeck, John Seetoo, Dan Schwartz, Russ Welton, WL Woodward, Adrian Wu

Contributing Writers:
Ivan Berger, Steven Bryan Bieler, Robert Heiblim, Ken Kessler, Stuart Marvin, Bob Wood

Cover:
“Cartoon Bob” D’Amico

Cartoons:
James Whitworth, Peter Xeni

Parting Shots:
James Schrimpf, B. Jan Montana, Rich Isaacs (and others)

Editor:
Frank Doris

Publisher:
Paul McGowan

Advertising Sales:
No one. We are free from advertising and subscribing to Copper is free.

Should you leave your hi-fi gear on or turn it off?

Everybody knows, of course: if it’s solid-state, leave it on. If it’s tube, shut it off.

A couple weeks ago, in my queue on the YouTubes, up popped a vid starring Mr. McGowan, in which he supported that truism. Naturally! Of course!

But: au contraire, mon frère. Please allow me to beg to differ.

As really committed readers might remember, for roughly 25 years,

I used a system in which the anchor points were an EAR G88 preamp and a pair of Richard Brown’s BEL 1001 Mk. Something mono amplifiers – they started at Mk. II and evolved to somewhere beyond IV, over the years I owned them.

 

Dan Schwartz’s BEL 1001 mono power amplifiers.

 

The EAR G88 was an absolutely mind-blowingly sublime preamp that was pure-tube – and I very rarely turned it off. Unless we were leaving the house for a few days at a minimum, it was on 24 hours a day. In 25 years it had two tube changes. And that was only because I was trying to be a good housekeeper; I never heard the sound deteriorate, and I didn’t hear a substantial improvement with a new set.

In hindsight, I left the G88 on at the suggestion of its designer/maker, Tim de Paravicini. There’s something he knew about tubes and their operating characteristics.

The BELs, on the other hand: leave ‘em on, right? After all, they’re solid-state amps; it’s obvious.

No. Not so obvious.

Richard Brown insisted they go off every day. “Pshaw,” said I – as a reviewer for The Absolute Sound, I KNEW best. And so I left them on – for maybe three or four months. Then, just out of a sort of idle curiosity, I decided to test myself (and Richard’s thinking).

Well, whaddaya know? I was dead fricking wrong.

EAR 509 power amplifier.

When turned off and then back on, the sound was harmonically richer, more – wait for it – tube-like. Irony, huh? The sound emerged from a quiet background either way but was more 3-dimensional, more life-like when the amps had been turned off.

Solid-state turned off every day, tubes left on in perpetuity. Geez, these designers and their eccentricities…

BTW – I’ve told this tale in these pages, but I’ll tell it again. Dan Meinwald, the importer of EAR, is a good friend of 30 years, and a long time back, he brought over a pair of EAR 509 amplifiers for comparison with the 1001s. He thought the EARs were better across the board. But while I thought that the EARs made the presentation of classical music more genuine, for rock and jazz, the BELs had the edge.

Header image courtesy of Pixabay.com/Pete Linforth.