Julie London / Julie Is Her Name, Volume 2 – Notes from Our First Shootout

More of the Music of Julie London

More Recordings Engineered by Ted Keep

On side one listen to how rich the bottom end is. The Tubey Magic on this side is off the charts.

Some copies — or, to be more precise, some sides of some copies — can be dry, but that is clearly not a problem on this one.

The naturalness of the presentation puts this album right at the top of best sounding female vocal albums of all time.

To take nothing away from her performance, which got better with every copy we played.

Clap Hands

If only Ella Fitzgerald on Clap Hands got this kind of sound!

As good as the best copies of that album are, this record — like the first volume, the 1955 mono recording — takes the concept of intimate female vocals to an entirely new level.

The notes I took during this shootout lay out just how impressed I was with the sound of this remarkable copy:

  • Wide stereo.
  • Big Bass.
  • Swingin’.
  • Just the right amount of reverb.
  • Tonal perfection.
  • The stereo kills the mono (on this album, on the copies we played anyway).

Condition Is Always a Problem

Some of the copies we will be putting up may well have marks that play for a short while on a track or two (not this one of course), as finding copies that don’t have one flaw or another is difficult when the record is 57 years old, especially considering that the album was also extremely popular in its day. Few have survived in as nice a shape as this one. If some light crackle in the background is not going to cut it for you, it’s unlikely that we will be able to supply you with Hot Stamper sound for a copy of Julie Is Her Name, Volume II.

And we would never point you to the awful Boxstar 45 RPM pressing of volume 1 cut by Bernie Grundman, supposedly on tube equipment. I regret to say we actually sold some, but in my defense I can honestly say we never had a single nice thing to say about it.

We found the Tubey Magic on his pressing to be non-existent, as non-existent as it is on practically (there are a few exceptions!) every Classic Records release he cut. If you have his version you are in for quite a treat when you finally get this one home and on your table. There is a world of difference between the sound of the two versions and we would be very surprised if it takes you more than ten seconds to hear it.

Forgotten Sound

Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? These Liberty pressings are overflowing with it. Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — everything that we listen for in a great record is here.

THIS is the sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made that sound like this again, and no CD will ever capture what is in the grooves of this record. There actually IS a CD of this album, and youtube videos of it too, but those of us with a good turntable could care less.