- STUNNING sound for Jerry’s sophomore solo effort with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- “This was an opportunity for Garcia to do something different — to sing, to perform, and to arrange a variety of songs however he wanted. As a result, he surely sounded like he was having the time of his life…” – John Metzger, The Music Box
This vintage Round Records pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1974
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We Listen For on Garcia (Compliments)
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Let It Rock
When The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game
That’s What Love Will Make You Do
Russian Lullaby
Turn On The Bright Lights
Side Two
He Ain’t Give You None
What Goes Around
Let’s Spend The Night Together
Mississippi Moon
Midnight Town
The Music Box Review
Over the years, Compliments has gotten a bad rap due to both the brevity of its tunes and the polish of the performances, but those looking for extended jams are simply missing the point. This was an opportunity for Garcia to do something different — to sing, to perform, and to arrange a variety of songs however he wanted.
As a result, he surely sounded like he was having the time of his life, whether delivering an airy version of Smokey Robinson’s The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game, delving into the blues-based funk of Little Milton’s That’s What Love Will Make You Do, or bouncing through the New Orleans-baked groove of Dr. John’s What Goes Around.
Elsewhere, he puts an aching, mournful spin on Peter Rowan’s Mississippi Moon and offers a Django Reinhardt-inspired reading of Irving Berlin’s Russian Lullaby that positively swings.