Category: Vinyl / Tunes Blog

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING

Who Came First was a 1972 release created by Pete Townshend, songwriter and guitarist of the rock group The Who. It included demos from the aborted album Lifehouse, some of which appeared on the chart busting Who’s Next. These tracks were recorded at Townshend’s home studio and payed tribute to his avatar, Meher Baba. Continue reading “”

FROM COURT AND SPARK TO NIGHT RIDE HOME

Released 40 years ago this month, Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark was her first album in almost two years.

Mitchell infused her singer-songwriter folk-rock music with jazz inflections played by session musicians. The result was her most successful commercial effort ever. The album reached No. 2 in the United States in 1974 and eventually sold over 2 million copies. The recent WB 180 gram LP is a sublime reissue. Continue reading “”

LED ZEPPELIN II – A MASTERING LESSON

44 years ago today, Led Zeppelin released their second album. Eddie Kramer had engineered it, and Bob Ludwig was called in to give the record a “hotter” sound in the LP mastering phase. The resulting pressings have an “RL” inscribed in the run out area of the vinyl. Unfortunately, the dynamics in the grooves made these records unplayable on the inexpensive turntables of the day. So the lacquers were replaced with tamer sounding ones. Continue reading “”

NEIL YOUNG – ON THE BEACH BY CASSIUS (SH FORUM)

“Was it the Falcon? The Flying V used on the previous year’s tour?”

“It doesn’t really matter what guitar it was, because it’s the tone that cuts through. It’s the ‘real-est’. The most emotive piece of music I’ve ever heard.” Continue reading “”

GOATS HEAD SOUP

What a name for an album title… leave it to The Rolling Stones.

It was forty years ago that the band released this LP recorded at Kingston, Jamaica’s Dynamic Sound Studios. Keith Richards recalls, “Jamaica was one of the few places that would let us all in! By that time about the only country that I was allowed to exist in was Switzerland.” Mick Jagger says, “Songwriting and playing is a mood. Like the last album we did (Exile on Main St.) it was basically recorded in short concentrated periods.” Continue reading “”

EARLY 911S AND VINYL ARE HOT!

How did I happen to pick two passions 20 years ago that would become so popular today? I don’t know, but the modest acquisitions I made a decade or so ago have grown into a good chunk of my financial portfolio.

The important thing to me is that I use each as they were intended. I play my original ’60s first pressing UK vinyl on my turntable and drive my Porsche 1972 911S and 911T/ST enthusiastically on a regular basis. Those hobbies, my work and good health are all I could ask for. Of course, my wife is my greatest blessing – can’t put a number on that! Continue reading “”

JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE

Steve Winwood turned 65 recently. As a singer and musician, he’s received many honors for his solo work. However his greatest accomplishments may be as a leader of two bands influenced by folk, jazz, and blues: Blind Faith and Traffic.

Of all the albums Traffic released, one remains my favorite, 1970’s John Barlycorn Must Die. Steve is the sole survivor of that band whose other members were Chris Wood and Jim Capaldi. In 2011 he remastered a deluxe edition double CD with alternate takes of their great songs: “Glad”, “Empty Pages”, and “Freedom Rider”. If you are an LP lover, a clean UK Pink Island original is to die for. Continue reading “”

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

Exhausted, George Harrison entered 1973 on the heels of The Concert for Bangladesh, the first multi-artist fundraiser in Rock. It turned out to be less of the charitable event than he had hoped for, even with multi-million dollar sales from the subsequent film and album. Continue reading “”

EXILE ON MAIN STREET

Here’s an album released by The Rolling Stones 42 years ago that still has people talking…

In the spring of 1971 the Rolling Stones left Britain evading taxes. Mick Jagger settled in Paris, and guitarist Keith Richards rented a villa near Nice, France. The other members followed, along with the band’s mobile recording truck (and some unknown substances). They chose Richard’s chateau basement to record this double album that summer, widely regarded as the group’s best release. Continue reading “”

OUT OF AFRICA

100 years ago Karen Blixen asked her lover’s brother to marry her and travel from Denmark to Kenya to start a farm. Seventy years later Sydney Pollack made a film about the story starring Robert Redford (who played Denys George Finch Hatton) and Merryl Streep (who played Baroness Karen Blixen).

Critic Roger Ebert described the resulting 1985 Acadamy award-winning film this way, “Out of Africa is a great movie to look at, breathtakingly filmed on location. It is a movie with the courage to be about complex, sweeping emotions, and to use the star power of its actors without apology.” I agree. Continue reading “”

THE BEATLES FIRST ALBUM

Fifty years ago, the album Please Please Me was released in the U.K. A pop music phenomenon, this debut stayed at number 1 for 30 weeks until it was replaced by the band’s second LP, With The Beatles. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr at the beginning. Continue reading “”