Month: September 2020

The Allman Brothers – The Allman Brothers

More Allman Brothers

More Southern Rock

  • An excellent copy of the band’s debut, with seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides and reasonably quiet vinyl, especially on side one
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album, a vintage pressing like this one is the way to go
  • 4 1/2 stars: “This might be the best debut album ever delivered by an American blues band, a bold, powerful, hard-edged, soulful essay in electric blues with a native Southern ambience. There isn’t a bad song here, and only the fact that the group did even better the next time out keeps this from getting the highest possible rating.”

This album has some of the ABB’s very best music and on a copy like this, sonics, but man is it tough to find a good one. We’ve been picking these up for years and the fact that it took us until 2016 to get any copy at all on the site should tell you something.

Here’s a perfect example of an album that’s so mediocre on the average pressing that we had practically given up hope of hearing the record sound good. But we’re not ones to run away from a challenge, so we kept picking up copies, figuring out a few things in the process. Eventually, we made real progress and today we can proudly post a copy that’s beyond worthy of Hot Stamper status. (more…)

The Doors – Live at the Hollywood Bowl

  • Two amazing sides each earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades; exceptionally quiet vinyl too!
  • Both sides here are full-bodied, rich and Tubey Magical with plenty of extension on both ends
  • This is actually a pretty darn good live rock recording, with sound that’s quite lively and engaging — especially for 1968
  • “Like Alive, She Cried, it covered ground that was missed by Absolutely Live, most notably familiar fare such as “Moonlight Drive” and “Unknown Soldier”…” – All Music

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Al Di Meola et al. – Friday Night in San Francisco

A KILLER copy of this Columbia red label pressing with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades.

“… a meeting of three of the greatest guitarists in the world for an acoustic summit the likes of which the guitar-playing community rarely sees… All in all, Friday Night in San Francisco is a fantastic album and one of the best entries in all of these guitarists’ fine discographies.” (more…)

Give It Up Again For Val Garay on Prisoner in Disguise

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

More Records with Specific Advice on What to Listen For

The soundfield has a three-dimensional quality that was pretty much nonexistent on most of the other copies we played. Drop the needle on Many Rivers To Cross and check out the amazing sound of the organ coming from the back of the room. Only the highest resolution copies give you that kind of soundstage depth.

The piano sounds natural and weighty. The fiddle on The Sweetest Gift (played by our man David Lindley) is full of rosiny texture.

Emmylou Harris, dueting here with Linda, is SUPERB, with truly Demonstration Quality Sound on the best copies.

The acoustic guitars are tonally Right On The Money throughout — the transient information is captured perfectly. Listen to the opening guitar in the right channel of The Sweetest Gift; we used it as a test track and when that guitar is RIGHT THERE you know you have a copy with Hot Stampers.

What A Supporting Cast!

Check out all the cool cats who helped make this record: EmmyLou Harris, James Taylor, Lowell George, Andrew Gold, Peter Asher, Val Garay, Russ Kunkel, David Lindley, JD Souther and more. You see those same names all over our site! Perhaps it is time to rethink the conventional wisdom that says Linda Ronstadt’s records are not for audiophiles. Those people are involved with some of our all-time favorite records, and their contributions really help this music sound great.

Another Ignored Gem From Linda

I confess to never having taken this album seriously (much like Simple Dreams, an album I now LOVE), dismissing it as a commercial collection of pop hits with as much depth as the L.A. river, but I was wrong wrong WRONG. This is a great album on the right LP, not the compressed piece of grainy cardboard pop we’re used to. The typical pressing barely hints at the tremendous energy and top-quality musicianship that characterizes practically every track on this wonderful record.

Give It Up Again For Val Garay

Kudos must go to Val Garay, the man behind one of our favorite recordings, JT, with which this album shares much in common. That same super-punchy, jump-out-the-speakers, rich and smooth ANALOG sound is everywhere in evidence. I don’t think Mr. Garay gets anything like his due with audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them. This is a shame. The guy makes Top Quality Pop Records about as good as they can be made, and if you have the kind of Big System that can really rock out, you owe it to yourself to get to know his work.

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Al Stewart – Orange

  • Stewart’s fourth studio album makes its Hot Stamper debut here with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two, mated with an outstanding Double Plus (A++) side one
  • At the right levels on the right system, this early import pressing will present you with a living, breathing Al Stewart standing right between your speakers
  • This is the more folky side of Al Stewart – it also features none other than a Mr. Rick Wakeman on piano and organ
  • 4 stars: “… the first signs of the mix of acoustic and electric guitar sounds that he would perfect on his next album, Past, Present and Future, two years later… gets something of the beat and the sound that Stewart would refine in achieving his subsequent success”

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David Grisman – Quintet ’80

  • A stunning sounding copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Exceptionally quiet vinyl on both sides with each playing Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus
  • “This set features Grisman’s string group (which also includes violinist Darol Anger, Mike Marshall on mandolin, guitar and violin, Mark O’Connor on violin and guitar, and bassist Rob Wasserman)… The music is excellent…” – All Music

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Classic Tracks: “She’s Not There”

More of the Music of The Zombies

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of the Zombies

BY Robyn Flans

If one of the defining characteristics of a Classic Track is its immediate recognition, then The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” is as classic as it comes. One of its atypical characteristics, the distinctive opening bass notes and subsequent line that continues throughout the track, surely helped the band win the 1964 Hert’s Beat Competition, which earned them a recording contract with Decca Records. On the map and on their way.

The band had gotten together when they were 15-year-old schoolmates in 1961 in their hometown of St. Albans, England. Keyboardist Rod Argent recruited some of the members, as lead vocalist Colin Blunstone remembers, based on the alphabet. “We sat in class in alphabetical order, and I had a guitar,” Blunstone recalls.

Then after they won the competition, according to Blunstone, and just two weeks prior to their big recording session, producer Ken Jones said, “You could always try to write something.”

The complete story can be found at this link: “She’s Not There”

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Rastaman Vibration

  • Strong Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides, excellent from start to finish
  • Big and rich, with the kind of full-bodied sound that this music needs to work its magic
  • Big bass is of course key to the best copies – this one has the deep punchy bass we love on Marley’s music
  • 4 Stars in Allmusic and Marley’s first Top Ten Album

When a record like this sounds right it’s not hard to what “right” is — the music just works. Up against the other copies we had on hand this one was pretty much doing it all.

What are the criteria by which the album should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, presence, frequency extension, transparency, Tubey Magic, texture (also known as freedom from smear), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, and on and on down through the list. (more…)

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

More Marvin Gaye

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • A superb copy of an album that almost never hits the site, featuring seriously good sound throughout
  • More spacious and transparent than most other copies yet still super rich and smooth in the midrange; listen to the bells and percussion — there’s real ambience around them for once
  • Gaye’s vocals are full and present on these sides – they’re rich, full and Tubey Magical with plenty of energy and big bottom end
  • If you’re a fan of this great music, you need to snap this one up – most copies we’ve brought in were beat to death, full of groove damage or just sonically unimpressive
  • 5 stars: “What’s Going On is not only Marvin Gaye’s masterpiece, it’s the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music… arguably the best soul album of all time.”

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Vivid and Accurate Timbre for Reeds and Percussion – A Demo Disc Like No Other

Hot Stamper Pressings of Percussion Recordings Available Now

This is one of the most phenomenal sounding records I have ever heard in my life.

Take the best sound you’ve ever heard from the best authentic Mercury classical record you own (not that Heavy Vinyl BS) and translate it into pop arrangements for clarinets, flutes, saxes, oboes, bassoons, percussion and who-knows-what-else and what do you have?

Sound that leaps out of the speakers with absolutely dead on tonality.

But what is most shocking of all is how vivid and accurate the timbre of every instrument is.

Yes, it’s multi-miked, and sometimes the engineers play with the channels a bit much (especially at the start of the first track).

That said, if you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real on any other recording. It’s as if you were standing right in the studio with them. Yes, it’s that crazy good.

For our last shootout, it took two copies to provide you with top sound on both sides. Clean stereo pressings are very hard to find. Most copies are mono, and most copies are beat, and that combination makes for some slim pickings indeed. This side two is not especially quiet but it’s the best we can find, and we hope that when you hear the glorious sound the surfaces will be easy to ignore. If not, send it back.

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