More Glen Campbell
- Campbell’s wonderful 1967 release finally makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
- This vintage Capitol pressing is spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience – here is the Tubey Magical Stereoscopic presentation these kinds of recordings are known for
- 4 1/2 stars: “The best of Campbell’s early albums, and also his first real commercial success. . . Campbell’s cover of ‘Catch the Wind’ is one of the finest covers of a Donovan song ever done, stripping away any hint of the composer’s sub-Dylan pretensions and bringing out the song’s genuine beauty — it’s folk-pop, in the same manner that Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ was, but excellent folk-pop.”
This vintage Capitol 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 the Best Sides of Gentle On My Mind 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 1967
- 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’re Listening For on Gentle On My Mind
- 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
Gentle On My Mind
Catch The Wind
It’s Over
Bowling Green
Just Another Man
You’re My World
Side Two
The World I Used To Know
Without Her
Mary In The Morning
Love Me As Though There Were No Tomorrow
Cryin’
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
The best of Campbell’s early albums, and also his first real commercial success. Ironically, the title track (written by John Hartford) which started Campbell on the road to stardom, was never intended for release — he had submitted it as a demo, and Capitol issued it, to everybody’s profit. Campbell’s cover of “Catch the Wind” is one of the finest covers of a Donovan song ever done, stripping away any hint of the composer’s sub-Dylan pretensions and bringing out the song’s genuine beauty — it’s folk-pop, in the same manner that Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover of Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” was, but excellent folk-pop.
This is Campbell’s folksiest album, albeit with string orchestra accompaniment, as he covers “Bowling Green,” “Mary in the Morning,” and the title tune, and you get to hear him do a solo guitar and voice number, his own “Just Another Man.” Even the most overproduced stuff here, “You’re My World” and Rod McKuen’s “The World I Used to Know,” come off well, and Campbell is in excellent voice throughout, most especially on a wonderfully restrained and beautiful rendition of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.”