More of the Music of Harry Belafonte
A Living Stereo knockout. We often forget to spend time with records like this when there are Zeppelin and Floyd records to play. We’ve always enjoyed Belafonte At Carnegie Hall, but when we’ve dug further into the man’s catalog we’ve been left cold more often than not.
However, when we finally got around to dropping the needle on a few of these we were very impressed by the music and completely blown away by the sound on the best pressings.
Our Shootout Winner showed us everything we could ever want in this kind of recording and more. More, in this case, was a side two that was a step up over our best side one. We used to give records with a side two like this one a grade of A++++, but we stopped doing that years ago. (We discuss the subject of outliers down below.)
The notes for side one read:
Track One
Big, dynamic and rich vocals. Very full and rich.
Track Four
Good bass, rich and note-like.
Vocals are silky and present and hi-rez.
The notes for side two read:
Track Two
Dynamic, three-deimensional vocals.
Frequencies extend high and low.
Sweet and breathy flutes and vocals. Tubey.
Track One
So sweet and rich, can’t complain.
This is a serious step up! Crazy good.
If you want to hear a record with sound like that, focus your attention on the pressings made in 1959 – that’s where that sound can be found, and you will have a hard time finding it on any record made in the last 50 years, no matter what anybody may tell you.
If someone disagrees with that assessment, have them play you the record that beats this one, something they will have a devil of a time managing to do.
1959 Tubes?
You just can’t beat ’em.
Here you will find the kind of Tubey Magical midrange that modern pressings cannot BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back.
An Inconvenient Truth We Never Tire of Pointing Out
You know what is unusual about these notes?
They’re the kind of notes we have never written for any Heavy Vinyl reissue, even for the one that won our shootout not long ago.
They are the kind of notes that make it clear to us what a sham the modern Heavy Vinyl pressing tends to be, even those that — against all odds — are actually done right.
No modern record we’ve ever played has ever had anything even approaching this kind of Big As Life sound, and we doubt one ever will.
Surprisingly, many of the most thrilling records we’ve ever played came from the same decade this record came from: the 50s.
Once you hear sound like this, you are not likely to forget it. It sets a standard that the modern remastered record simply cannot meet.
Outlier Pressings
We no longer give Four Pluses out as a matter of policy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t come across records that deserve them from time to time.
Nowadays we usually place them under the general heading of breakthrough pressings. These are records that, out of the blue, reveal to us sound that fundamentally changes what we thought we knew about these familiar — and in the case of this Belafonte record — not-so-familiar recordings.
When this pressing (or pressings) landed on our turntable, we found ourselves asking “Who knew?“
Perhaps an even better question would have been “How high is up?”
Further Reading