Today I started what I hope to be a daily offering of Christmas holiday themed YouTube videos. I have plenty of obscure songs not found on YouTube so I will share these treasures with everyone out there. All of these tracks come from Christmas music obsessed people--Andy Cirzan, et al.-- who spend their time searching for them and then share them via playlist downloads on the web. What I will do is take the ones I like best and provide them individually on YT. Sound quality is an issue on some of these recordings but it is not my fault! I realize most of them come from old vinyl that is not in the best of condition. But it is surprising to me that they were not digitized in a higher quality fashion. Since I am a digitizer of vinyl myself, I can attest to having taken some very poor condition records and turning them into some great quality mp3 files. The mono ones come out even better sounding than their stereo counterparts. If I had access to all this Christmas vinyl that I will be uploading, I would make some really great sounding files with the software I use. Alas, we'll have to work with what he have at hand.
My first upload for the season is one from Andy Cirzan titled, "A Little Bit Colder" by Cristy Lane. After a little bit of research I learned that this is the original 1971 version released on the very obscure Extremely Brave record label. She re-recorded this song for a 1983 release and it has nowhere near the charm of this early 70's nugget.
Showing posts with label mono. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mono. Show all posts
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Simon & Garfunkel Live At Kraft Hall 1968
For the last several days I have been watching live performances of Simon & Garfunkel from back in the 60's. The one I am particularly fond of is the live at Kraft Music Hall from 1968:
There are several 10-20 minute performances of theirs from around the world on YouTube but I especially like this one because there is a beautiful reverb that paints each song here. And two of my all-time favorite S&G songs are here: For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her & Patterns.
My first listening experience with "For Emily..." was the version on the 1972 best of collection. It was a live version and I was somewhat annoyed with live versions of songs on hits packages where I expected familiar studio recordings. Not really knowing this song meant it wasn't too burdensome for me to listen to it, but there were other songs on this album that I did know and was disappointed to hear live versions taking the seat of the ones I knew.
Mind you I was much younger then--in junior high, high school even--so I did not care too much for unfamiliar slow songs. But over the years "For Emily..." has grown deeply on me and has become a must-have S&G song. It is this live version from 1969, however, that is the penultimate classic for me. The original album version plays like a completely different song with more instruments and effects. This live version is Garfunkel's solo vocal with Simon's 12-string acoustic guitar and it is absolutely splendid!
A few days ago I decided to see if there was a live version video of this song on YouTube since so many wonderful things are now available on there to watch. To my surprise I came across this Kraft Hall version and I fell in love all over again. While the sonic fidelity may not be pleasing to many, I found it to be perfectly uplifting with an aforementioned large-hall reverb effect that added so much to the song. The sound source is from a mono film camera so there's plenty of noise and a flat, unequalized response. But that is good enough for me. Perfect even. I would eschew hi-fidelity, multi-track stereo any day for beautiful sounds captured by a single microphone and some wonderful, natural reverb.
To add to this wonderful live version of "For Emily...", there are some subtle strings which poke through just before the third verse. Just makes the song even more beautiful.
Watching this video also led me to learn the guitar intro to it and realize that the guitar solo in the middle is not as terribly complicated as the live '69 version had me believe all these years.
Among the other black & white videos I found of theirs was another where "For Emily..." was performed. While it was another fantastic rendition, there was absolutely no reverb and I just gotta have my fix of reverb otherwise it sounds too close and intimate. The only benefit to the no-reverb version is that you can hear every nuance of Garfunkel's effortless voice vibrato.
I only wish that this S&G Kraft Hall performance were longer. Would love to hear a few other of my favorites done there, including "Blessed", "A Hazy Shade of Winter" and "Scarborough Fair."
But there is one more performance I really enjoyed from this set. "Patterns" became a favorite song of mine the first time I heard it way back in my cassette days. And to hear them sing it here over the studio backing track is nothing short of what I define as the pinnacle sound of 60's pop/rock music. Once again that natural reverb sounds gorgeous and even adds an element of eeriness combined with the largely dark lyrics. Sound quality not an issue for me. Yes, it's not what I consider to be ideal but in my opinion a little de-hissing would be sufficient. In fact, it's the lo-fi-ness of the recording that makes it sonically more appealing to me. In this era of overproduction and limitless sonic technological improvements, there is much to be said about the simplicity of basic recording techniques and analog equipment.
I recommend watching the entire 19-minute performance but if the desire is to only see the ones I've written about, here they are:
Beware of other versions out there. Some YouTube users take the video, remove the original audio and superimpose audio from another source, usually a cd. I'm not a fan of this. I say leave the original audio in place no matter how bad it may sound to your ears. Some of us enjoy lo-fi!
And here is one that I uploaded myself:
There are several 10-20 minute performances of theirs from around the world on YouTube but I especially like this one because there is a beautiful reverb that paints each song here. And two of my all-time favorite S&G songs are here: For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her & Patterns.
My first listening experience with "For Emily..." was the version on the 1972 best of collection. It was a live version and I was somewhat annoyed with live versions of songs on hits packages where I expected familiar studio recordings. Not really knowing this song meant it wasn't too burdensome for me to listen to it, but there were other songs on this album that I did know and was disappointed to hear live versions taking the seat of the ones I knew.
Mind you I was much younger then--in junior high, high school even--so I did not care too much for unfamiliar slow songs. But over the years "For Emily..." has grown deeply on me and has become a must-have S&G song. It is this live version from 1969, however, that is the penultimate classic for me. The original album version plays like a completely different song with more instruments and effects. This live version is Garfunkel's solo vocal with Simon's 12-string acoustic guitar and it is absolutely splendid!
A few days ago I decided to see if there was a live version video of this song on YouTube since so many wonderful things are now available on there to watch. To my surprise I came across this Kraft Hall version and I fell in love all over again. While the sonic fidelity may not be pleasing to many, I found it to be perfectly uplifting with an aforementioned large-hall reverb effect that added so much to the song. The sound source is from a mono film camera so there's plenty of noise and a flat, unequalized response. But that is good enough for me. Perfect even. I would eschew hi-fidelity, multi-track stereo any day for beautiful sounds captured by a single microphone and some wonderful, natural reverb.
To add to this wonderful live version of "For Emily...", there are some subtle strings which poke through just before the third verse. Just makes the song even more beautiful.
Watching this video also led me to learn the guitar intro to it and realize that the guitar solo in the middle is not as terribly complicated as the live '69 version had me believe all these years.
Among the other black & white videos I found of theirs was another where "For Emily..." was performed. While it was another fantastic rendition, there was absolutely no reverb and I just gotta have my fix of reverb otherwise it sounds too close and intimate. The only benefit to the no-reverb version is that you can hear every nuance of Garfunkel's effortless voice vibrato.
I only wish that this S&G Kraft Hall performance were longer. Would love to hear a few other of my favorites done there, including "Blessed", "A Hazy Shade of Winter" and "Scarborough Fair."
But there is one more performance I really enjoyed from this set. "Patterns" became a favorite song of mine the first time I heard it way back in my cassette days. And to hear them sing it here over the studio backing track is nothing short of what I define as the pinnacle sound of 60's pop/rock music. Once again that natural reverb sounds gorgeous and even adds an element of eeriness combined with the largely dark lyrics. Sound quality not an issue for me. Yes, it's not what I consider to be ideal but in my opinion a little de-hissing would be sufficient. In fact, it's the lo-fi-ness of the recording that makes it sonically more appealing to me. In this era of overproduction and limitless sonic technological improvements, there is much to be said about the simplicity of basic recording techniques and analog equipment.
I recommend watching the entire 19-minute performance but if the desire is to only see the ones I've written about, here they are:
Beware of other versions out there. Some YouTube users take the video, remove the original audio and superimpose audio from another source, usually a cd. I'm not a fan of this. I say leave the original audio in place no matter how bad it may sound to your ears. Some of us enjoy lo-fi!
And here is one that I uploaded myself:
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
I Can't Handle It!
A shout out to Northwestern IL University for playing this song on their weekly R&B Flashback program:
An absolute jewel! Has that classic mid-60s sound which includes, electric guitar, bass, organ, drums and a horn section. And I just love the reverb on the vocal. Gives me chills.
This is one of those songs that once I come across I play it non-stop and annoy everyone around me with it. Sounds so great straight from a scratchy, mono 45. Thanks again to the program host and to the individual who made YouTube even better by uploading it.
An absolute jewel! Has that classic mid-60s sound which includes, electric guitar, bass, organ, drums and a horn section. And I just love the reverb on the vocal. Gives me chills.
This is one of those songs that once I come across I play it non-stop and annoy everyone around me with it. Sounds so great straight from a scratchy, mono 45. Thanks again to the program host and to the individual who made YouTube even better by uploading it.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Roger Miller Records
It's been over a year since I got my new turntable and over a year since I last blogged here. We'll I'm back and I'm going to write about some of the LP's I've come across recently.
I've been acquiring vinyl records over the last year from thrift stores and garage sales and found some pretty good stuff. Lately, I've become interested in Roger Miller's first few albums. (I show how to play the bass lick to his "King of the Road" song on my other blog.) I found out his early albums are not available on cd for some strange reason. I've seen other lesser known artists' albums get reissued on cd which is puzzling. I'm a Roger Miller fan, especially after having purchased the 3-cd collection, "King of the Road: The Genius of Roger Miller." I enjoy his unique style of country/folk/pop.
That 3-cd boxed set is obviously not comprehensive and I wanted to hear the other songs on the albums which did not make it to the boxed set. So I started looking around on blogs--which are a great source for sharing music--but no luck. Funny thing is, I was also looking around recently for some shared Sonny James albums on blogs but to no avail either. Seems there's no one out there blogging & sharing classic country music artists' music for some reason. I have my suspicions why but I will not get into it here.
So after having no luck on various blogs, I started looking on eBay for those original albums. Plenty of them there but I specifically wanted to find stereo versions. There were far fewer stereo editions than mono editions available. Oh, and the boxed set mentioned above features all the early cuts in pure mono. I've heard some of his songs in stereo and always liked those versions better. I saved the best ones I could find so I could decide whether or not to buy them later.
I had another idea; why not check out the records at a thrift store I had not been to in a while? That's what I did and guess what? I found a stereo copy in very good condition of "The Return of Roger Miller," his second album from 1965. For like a dollar or less!
I have a small stack of records I've been buying at various thrift stores over the last year and a half. I just recently checked them out and found out that I have 2 more Roger Miller albums there! I don't even remember buying them. But one of them is "The 3rd Time Around" from 1965 and one titled "The Tunes That Launched the Career of Roger Miller" from 1964 on Camden Records. The first 2 albums mentioned are on Smash Records.
Unfortunately, it's a mono copy of "The 3rd Time Around." So I have to keep looking around for a stereo edition of it as well as the next few that were released after this album.
The other album I discovered I already had was this one:
The sleeve has a copyright date of 1964 but after I recorded the album into my computer, created the individual tracks, burned them onto cd and then prepared to import them into my iTunes library, the year displayed as 1972. I can't find any info online about the precise year of this record. But it does have some of his earlier songs. Probably singles. I can't really say. But the songs are all in stereo and there are some on there that I was already familiar with because they happen to be on the boxed set. And a few others really stood out as some really good cuts.
Once I learn how to upload these LP's to a file sharing host I will make them available for downloading here. In the meantime I will keep looking out for more cool old records and digitizing the ones I already have.
I've been acquiring vinyl records over the last year from thrift stores and garage sales and found some pretty good stuff. Lately, I've become interested in Roger Miller's first few albums. (I show how to play the bass lick to his "King of the Road" song on my other blog.) I found out his early albums are not available on cd for some strange reason. I've seen other lesser known artists' albums get reissued on cd which is puzzling. I'm a Roger Miller fan, especially after having purchased the 3-cd collection, "King of the Road: The Genius of Roger Miller." I enjoy his unique style of country/folk/pop.
That 3-cd boxed set is obviously not comprehensive and I wanted to hear the other songs on the albums which did not make it to the boxed set. So I started looking around on blogs--which are a great source for sharing music--but no luck. Funny thing is, I was also looking around recently for some shared Sonny James albums on blogs but to no avail either. Seems there's no one out there blogging & sharing classic country music artists' music for some reason. I have my suspicions why but I will not get into it here.
So after having no luck on various blogs, I started looking on eBay for those original albums. Plenty of them there but I specifically wanted to find stereo versions. There were far fewer stereo editions than mono editions available. Oh, and the boxed set mentioned above features all the early cuts in pure mono. I've heard some of his songs in stereo and always liked those versions better. I saved the best ones I could find so I could decide whether or not to buy them later.
I had another idea; why not check out the records at a thrift store I had not been to in a while? That's what I did and guess what? I found a stereo copy in very good condition of "The Return of Roger Miller," his second album from 1965. For like a dollar or less!
I have a small stack of records I've been buying at various thrift stores over the last year and a half. I just recently checked them out and found out that I have 2 more Roger Miller albums there! I don't even remember buying them. But one of them is "The 3rd Time Around" from 1965 and one titled "The Tunes That Launched the Career of Roger Miller" from 1964 on Camden Records. The first 2 albums mentioned are on Smash Records.
Unfortunately, it's a mono copy of "The 3rd Time Around." So I have to keep looking around for a stereo edition of it as well as the next few that were released after this album.
The other album I discovered I already had was this one:
The sleeve has a copyright date of 1964 but after I recorded the album into my computer, created the individual tracks, burned them onto cd and then prepared to import them into my iTunes library, the year displayed as 1972. I can't find any info online about the precise year of this record. But it does have some of his earlier songs. Probably singles. I can't really say. But the songs are all in stereo and there are some on there that I was already familiar with because they happen to be on the boxed set. And a few others really stood out as some really good cuts.
Once I learn how to upload these LP's to a file sharing host I will make them available for downloading here. In the meantime I will keep looking out for more cool old records and digitizing the ones I already have.
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