- Lonely Girl returns to the site on this original Liberty Turquoise Mono pressing with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it from start to finish
- The vinyl is fairly quiet for Liberty in 1956, with only one minor pressing bubble to mar this otherwise well-cared-for copy
- Julie is in the room with you – her voice is intimate, breathy and Tubey Magical like practically nothing you’ve ever heard
- For late night listening, this is surely one of the best Sultry Female Vocal recordings ever made – you won’t believe how real the sound is
- Our last shootout was two and a half years ago, which should tell you just how easy it is to find early pressings in audiophile playing condition, let alone copies capable of winning shootouts
- 4 stars: “Lone guitarist Al Viola plays gentle Spanish-tinged acoustic behind the hushed vocalist, and it suits London perfectly. While the singer was often chided for her beauty and lack of range, she deftly navigates these ballads without any rhythmic underpinnings to fall back on. London’s intense focus on phrasing and lyrics recalls Chet Baker’s equally telescopic approach.”
- If you’re a fan of Miss London’s, or vintage Pop and Jazz Vocals in general, this 1956 release belongs in your collection
After hearing this amazing copy in our shootout we felt that it might be a bit too noisy to list, but another scrub cleaned it up nicely and now it’s about typical for an exceptionally clean copy of the album. No marks play — the noise one hears is mostly just the vinyl of the day.
I bought this very record in 1998. It took me close to twenty years to be able to clean it and play it right!
Side One
This side had breathy resolution that was hard to believe, along with size and immediacy that no other side of any copy could touch. It’s much richer and tubier than any other we played. Phenomenal.
Side Two
Not quite the equal of side one. Take some time to listen for the differences between the two sides and we’re sure you’ll hear what we heard. It is however exceptionally dynamic, always a nice quality to have.
What to Listen For (WTLF)
The Tubey Magic on these sides is off the charts. 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 the best sounding female vocal albums of all time.
To take nothing away from her performance, which got better with every copy we played. If only Ella Fitzgerald on Clap Hands got this kind of sound! As good as the best copies of that album are, this record takes the concept of intimate female vocals to an entirely new level.
Mono Versus Stereo
This is the kind of record that the mono cartridge owners of the world revere, and with good reason: the sound is amazing. But you don’t need a mono cartridge to hear how good, in fact how much better, this mono copy sounds than the stereo pressing of it.
The recording is mono, which means that the stereo pressing is in actuality not true stereo, but rather a mono recording that has been reprocessed into stereo. Not surprisingly the sound of the reprocessed copies is terrible. (There are a number of good sounding records that have been reprocessed from mono into stereo, but they are the exception and not the rule.)
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.
Mono, Stereo, Reprocessed Stereo, We’ve Played Them All!