More Sixties Pop

• A killer sounding Gold Label WB Stereo LP with a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two
• Our early pressing here showed us a wonderfully Tubey Magical midrange for the Everlys that we’re pretty sure most audiophiles have never heard
• So much good material here – “Cathy’s Clown,” “Crying In The Rain,” “So Sad,” “That’s Old Fashioned,” “Lucille,” etc.
• “There are few sounds in American popular music more thrilling and sublimely satisfying than the harmonies of Don and Phil Everly…”

It took us a long time to find enough records to do this shootout. How many extremely popular 60+ year old records survived into the present era in such clean condition? We can’t be sure when the next shootout will be, but we can be pretty sure it won’t be any time soon.

“The Breath of Life”

Our early Gold Label stereo LP here has the Midrange Magic that’s no doubt missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 63-year-old tapes. As good as that pressing may be, we guarantee that this one is dramatically more real sounding. It gives you the sense that Phil and Don are right in the room with you.

They’re no longer a representation — they’re living, breathing persons. We call that “the breath of life,” and this record has it in spades. Their voices are so rich, sweet, and free of any artificiality, you immediately find yourself lost in the music, because there’s no “sound” to distract you.

Warners pressings are all over the map. When you find a good one, you can be pretty sure it’s the exception, not the rule. This has been our experience anyway.

What The Best Sides Of The Golden Hits of the Everly Brothers 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 1962
• 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.

Shootout Criteria

What are sonic qualities by which a record — any record — should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, spaciousness, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, three-dimensionality, and on and on down the list.

When we can get a number of these qualities to come together on the side we’re playing, we provisionally give it a ballpark Hot Stamper grade, a grade that is often revised during the shootout as we hear what the other copies are doing, both good and bad.

Once we’ve been through all the side ones, we play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Other copies from earlier in the shootout will frequently have their grades raised or lowered based on how they sounded compared to the eventual shootout winner. If we’re not sure about any pressing, perhaps because we played it early on in the shootout before we had learned what to listen for, we take the time to play it again.

Repeat the process for side two and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides of each pressing match up.

It may not be rocket science, but it’s a science of a kind, one with strict protocols that we’ve developed over the course of many years to insure that the results we arrive at are as accurate as we can make them.

The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.

What We’re Listening For on The Golden Hits of the Everly Brothers

• 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.

Side One

That’s Old Fashioned 
How Can I Meet Her? 
Crying In The Rain 
I’m Not Angry 
Don’t Blame Me 
Ebony Eyes

Side Two

Cathy’s Clown 
Walk Right Back 
Lucille 
So Sad 
Muskrat 
Temptation

Rave Review

This 1962 collection was the first Everly Brothers best-of released by Warner Bros, and the fact that it represented just two years of the duo’s career only underlines the degree to which Don and Phil were on a roll in those days. Even without the late-’50s hits on Cadence that kicked off the Everlys’ career, The Golden Hits is still a stunning statement.

The pair’s influences are well represented by their versions of Little Richard’s rock ‘n’ roll milestone “Lucille” and Merle Travis’ country stomp “Muskrat.” The Everlys’ way with bespoke songs comes through on the sorrowful, Carole King–penned Brill Building ballad “Crying in the Rain” and Sonny Curtis’ lonesome stroll “Walk Right Back,” but it’s the brothers’ own compositions that really take this set over the top. “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)” is a marvel of poignantly plainspoken regret, and “Cathy’s Clown,” with its majestic, classical-inspired sound and drama-drenched lyrics, is not just one of the duo’s greatest moments, but one of the most moving songs of the era.