More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

• The Nat King Cole Story debuts on the site with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on FIVE of the six sides of these vintage Stereo Capitol pressings, and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the sixth
• Here is the sound we love at Better Records – full-bodied and Tubey Magical, with especially smooth, present vocals
• Turn down the lights, gently drop the needle at the start of side one and you will soon find a living breathing Nat “King” Cole standing right in front of you
• Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup” is pretty much ruined here – but if you can live without that song, this copy is going to blow your mind
• 4 stars: “The 36 selections mostly focus on his pop successes of the 1950s, although there are a few wistful looks back at his trio days. [T]he remakes…find Cole in peak form and comprise a highly enjoyable retrospective of his vocal career.” -AllMusic

These vintage Capitol pressings have 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.

Having done this for so long, we understand and appreciate that rich, full, solid, Tubey Magical sound is key to the presentation of this primarily vocal music. We rate these qualities higher than others we might be listening for (e.g., bass definition, soundstage, depth, etc.). The music is not so much about the details in the recording, but rather in trying to recreate a solid, palpable, real Nat “King” Cole singing live in your listening room. The better copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

If you exclusively play modern repressings of older recordings (this one is now over 60 years old), 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 less than one out of 100 new records do, if our experience with the hundreds we’ve played can serve as a guide.

What The Best Sides Of The Nat King Cole Story 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 1961
• 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 these records 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 pressings that sound as good as these three do.

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t veiled or smeary of course. So many things can go wrong on a record. We know, we’ve heard them all.

Top end extension is critical to the sound of the best copies. Lots of old records (and new ones) have no real top end; consequently, the studio or stage will be missing much of its natural air and space, and instruments will lack their full complement of harmonic information.

Tube smear is common to most vintage pressings. The copies that tend to do the best in a shootout will have the least (or none), yet are full-bodied, tubey and rich.

Standard Operating Procedures

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 Nat King Cole Story

• Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
• 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 note-like 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

Straighten Up And Fly Right
Sweet Lorraine
It’s Only A Paper Moon
(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66!
(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
The Christmas Song

Side Two

Nature Boy
Lush Life
Calypso Blues
Mona Lisa
Orange Colored Sky
Too Young

Side Three

Unforgettable
Somewhere Along The Way
Walkin’ My Baby Back Home
Pretend
Blue Gardenia
I Am In Love

Side Four

Answer Me, My Love
Smile
Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup
The Sand And The Sea
If I May
A Blossom Fell

Side Five

To The Ends Of The Earth
Night Lights
Ballerina
Stardust
Send For Me
St. Louis Blues

Side Six

Looking Back
Non Dimenticar
Paradise
Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep
Ay, Cosita Linda
Wild Is Love