*Discoveries, Various

Records we’ve “discovered” with exceptional sound.

Mike Auldridge / Dobro

More Mike Auldridge

More Country and Country Rock

  • Amazing sound throughout this original pressing of Mike Auldridge’s highly enjoyable album of Bluegrass music, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from start to finish
  • Both of these sides are sweet and rich with tons of Tubey Magic, exceptionally breathy vocals, deep punchy bass, and a super extended top end
  • We had a lot of fun hearing how good banjos, mandolins, dobros and fiddles can sound when recorded and mastered properly
  • 4 stars: “The skill with which Auldridge put together vehicles for his tremendously appealing soloing style … not only resulted in a boost in interest in the dobro, but the entire civilization of soloists on various instruments benefited from such obvious evidence of potential appeal, while the Washington, D.C., bluegrass scene never quite recovered from the legendary status of these recording sessions and the magical things that went on as the tapes rolled.”

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The Dillards – Copperfields

More of The Dillards

More Country and Country Rock

  • You’ll find seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout this vintage Elektra pressing
  • Both of these sides are relatively rich, full-bodied and warm, yet clear, lively and dynamic
  • Those of you who enjoy the country-fried style of the Flying Burrito Bros., Gram Parsons or The Byrds will probably get a lot out of this one
  • 4 stars: “…it was a similarly eclectic and, for the most part, joyous romp through a fusion of bluegrass, rock, folk, and country, with a bit of pop and orchestration along the ride, and the group’s superb vocal harmonies being the main constant.”

This is the band the Jayhawks grew up listening to, along with, I’m guessing, The Byrds (circa Sweetheart of the Rodeo), The Grateful Dead (American Beauty), The Eagles (first LP), Poco, and no doubt plenty of other bands that never became famous.

Actually, the Dillards themselves never became famous, which is too bad, because based on this album they should have. It’s full of wonderfully melodic songs, with all the boys pitching in for harmony, backed by every stringed instrument that’s fit to pick: guitar, mandolin, banjo, pedal steel, fiddle, dobro — you name it, they play it. They even do one by the Beatles. And that’s not nostalgia: the Beatles were together (sort of) when this record was made!

By the way, the guy front and center is Herb Pederson. I never knew who he was until I attended a concert that Chris Hillman and his acoustic trio gave at a coffee house (!) and then again at a home concert (where I was lucky enough to sit three feet from them and got to chat with them during the break).

They performed mostly old bluegrass and country tunes (with Hillman on mandolin, his first and favorite instrument), some originals, and even covered one or two of The Byrds’ hits. The guitarist in the band turned out to be Herb Pederson, and one day I noticed a similarity between the 55+ year old gentleman I saw that night and the guy on the cover of The Dillards. Sure enough, that’s him.

You can also find his name on dozens of country rock records by artists like Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. He was the “go to” guy back in the day, with his top notch harmonies and authentic country guitar playing. Which is what he brings to this album too.

We’ve been trying to find great sound for this band for years, but it is one tough task. For one thing, it’s difficult to find clean copies out in the bins and even when we do most of them don’t sound that hot. It took years worth of purchases to get enough of these together for a shootout, and even then very few of them delivered the way this one could.

Our last shootout was 2013, close to a decade ago. Sometimes it takes ten years to find enough copies to do a shootout, and this is one of those times.

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Carlos Montoya – Flamenco Concert

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More Living Stereo

  • You’ll find seriously good Double Plus (A++) Living Stereo sound throughout this early White Dog pressing
  • The overall sound here is incredibly big, rich and Tubey Magical with tons of space and plenty of energy; Montoya’s guitar is really jumping out of the speakers!
  • “Montoya is credited with having transformed flamenco guitar music into a separate music style, beyond being a traditional dance accompaniment. He adapted flamenco to other genres of music to create his own recognizable style, becoming an international star.” – Wikipedia
  • If you’re a fan of the music of flamenco, this title from 1964 is clearly one of Montoya’s best, and one of his best sounding
  • The complete list of titles from 1964 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Ohm Stereo Imaging Demonstration Record – Potentially Superb Sound

This review is from 2008. If you see one of these in the record bins, pick it up, it won’t cost you much.

This Ohm LP has tracks from some of the world’s finest superdisks such as Flamenco Fever, Hot Stix and For Duke. It also includes various selections from Vanguard. The last copy I played had SUPERB sound.

Note especially the first track on side two performed by the PDQ Bach Ensemble — it’s truly DEMONSTRATION QUALITY. 

The record is pressed on Teldec Virgin Vinyl. The back cover features extensive liner notes, explaining what to listen for on each of these unique selections.

I was heartened to see Gino Vannelli’s name on one of the tracks, taken from Powerful People, a personal favorite of mine.

The album was mastered by none other than Bill Kipper, one of our favorite mastering engineers. We discussed his work in a previous listing:

Think what a different audio world it would be if we still had Bill Kipper with us today, along with the amazingly accurate and resolving cutting system he used at Masterdisk.

As far as we can tell, there are no records being produced today that sound remotely as good as this budget subscription disc.

Furthermore, to my knowledge no record this good has been cut for more than thirty years. The world is awash in mediocre remastered records and we want nothing to do with any of them, not when there are so many good vintage pressings still to be discovered and enjoyed.

The likes of Bill Kipper are no longer with us, but we can be thankful that we still have the records he and so many talented others mastered all those years ago, to enjoy now and for countless years to come.

Keep in mind that it’s all but impossible to wear out a record these days with modern, properly set up equipment, no matter how often you play it.

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Laurindo Almeida – It’s A Bossa Nova World

More of the Music of Laurindo Almeida

  • An original Capitol stereo pressing of this superb Bossa Nova classic with Double Plus (A++) sound throughout
  • Here is the Tubey Magical richness, size and space that only the best vintage pressings are capable of conveying to the critical listener
  • The brilliance of this All Tube Chain recording from Capitol makes all the hard work you’ve put into your system pay off
  • You will certainly hear this music far better than anyone who had the kind of vintage equipment it would have been reproduced with back in the ’60s
  • A Jazz Classic from 1963 that should appeal to any fan of Bossa Nova music
  • The complete list of titles from 1963 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Junior Wells – It’s My Life

More Electric Blues

More Soul, Blues, and Rhythm and Blues

  • A superb copy of Junior Wells’ recording from Chicago in ’66 (this is the read deal, folks!) with Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound – just shy of our Shootout Winner – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Bigger and bolder, with more bass, more energy, and more of that “you-are-there-immediacy” of a live performance that set the best vintage pressings apart from reissues, CDs, and whatever else might be out there
  • “Cut from the same cloth as Wells’ classic Hoodoo Man Blues LP from the same period, It’s My Life, Baby! captured the Junior Wells-Buddy Guy team in great form, both in the studio and live at Pepper’s Lounge on 43rd Street. This album tends a bit more towards slow blues, including a rare example of Wells’ chromatic harmonica playing on ‘Slow, Slow,’ but there are fine uptempo pieces…”

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Waylon Jennings – Ol’ Waylon

More Country and Country Rock

  • This vintage RCA pressing boasts excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from the first note to the last
  • These sides have the vocal presence and performance energy that modern records struggle (and more often not fail utterly) to reproduce
  • Waylon Jennings’ albums were not made for audiophiles, and most of them in our experience don’t sound very good, so it was a welcome surprise that this recording had the big, rich, solid, thoroughly analog sound we were looking for after so many years of searching
  • 4 1/2 stars: “… there are some great moments on Ol’ Waylon, particularly on the lead single ‘Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love),’ a wonderful reminiscence of times back…”

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Baja Marimba Band – Rides Again

More Exotica and Easy Listening

Yet Another Record We’ve Discovered with (Potentially) Excellent Sound

  • Baja Marimba Band returns with this superb copy of Rides Again, boasting Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides and vinyl that is about as quiet as we can find it
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • If you are familiar with other top recordings released by A&M engineered by Larry Levine, the killer Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendes albums just to mention a few, you know the sound of Rides Again
  • Super tubey, with low end weight and performance energy that leave most other records from 1965 in the dust

Larry Levine was the resident engineering genius at A&M Records, the man responsible for many of the best sounding Sergio Mendes albums.  What most people don’t realize is how good the best Herb Alpert recordings are, as well as the ones Herb produced, such as the second Baja Marimba Band album here.

The reason is simple: most of the A&M pressings out there only hint at the wonderful recording quality of these albums.

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The Doowackadoodlers – Doo Wacka Doo

More Titles on Living Stereo

  • This copy was just plain bigger, richer, and more Tubey Magical than every other copy we played; the energy level is off the charts and the bottom end is right on the money
  • “These albums aren’t quite as wild as Esquivel’s, but they’re worth looking for if you like music with a big zing, zang, zoom in it.” – spaceagepop.com

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Chet Atkins / More Of That Guitar Country – Superb Dynagroove Sound from Nashville in 1965

More of the Music of Chet Atkins

  • One of Chet’s biggest albums from the ’60s, More Of That Guitar Country, is back in all its guitar-pickin’ glory
  • With two Double Plus (A++) sides, this copy had the sound we were looking for
  • Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality — it’s all here
  • Need a refresher course in tubey magic after playing too many modern recordings or remasterings? This record is overflowing with it
  • 4 stars: “The follow-up album to Guitar Country, More of That Guitar Country spawned a bigger hit than anything on its predecessor — or anything in Chet Atkins’ long career for that matter. …[O]ne of Atkins’ least-cluttered, mostly reined-in, and most musical albums of the mid-’60s, searching for good material wherever he can find it, even outside the cloistered world of Nashville.”

We owe a debt of gratitude to Harry Pearson for pointing out to us with his TAS Super Disc List what great recordings Chet Atkins was making back in the ’50s and ’60s, although I’m pretty sure anybody playing those albums would have no trouble telling after a minute or two that a great many of them are very special indeed.

But were audiophiles playing these kinds of records before Harry Pearson came along? Unlikely. In the ’70s he practically single-handedly legitimized vintage pressings of all kinds for audiophiles to search out and enjoy.

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