Vocal Discoveries

Over the many years we’ve been in business, we’ve managed to stumble upon hundreds of titles that have both wonderful music and potentially top quality sound.

They may not be familiar to audiophiles, but we’re hoping to change that fact by offering the best of them to our customers in the form of Hot Stamper pressings.

There is lots of work still to be done to populate this section, so please come back from time to time to check our progress, however slow it may be.

Julie London – About The Blues

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More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • Boasting two outstanding Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, this original Liberty Turquoise label MONO pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on Julie London’s wonderful 1957 release
  • Julie’s lilting vocals are clear, breathy, Tubey Magical, and sweet, like nothing you’ve ever heard (unless you have one of our other Hot Stamper Julie London records)
  • Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead-on correct tonality – everything that we listen for in a great record is here
  • Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 stars: “About the Blues … may just be her best orchestral session. Since downbeat torch songs were London’s specialty, the album features an excellent selection of nocturnal but classy blues songs that play to her subtle strengths…”

Liberty and Ted Keep

Why does this 1957 recording sound so good?

Well, Liberty was a label that tended to produce very good sounding records. We’ve played scores of them, and we’ve done many shootouts for the ones that had music that could justify our high prices the time and effort required to find the best sounding copies.

But the most obvious reason this record has such good sound is that Ted Keep recorded it.

You don’t have to, but if you want this kind of sound quality, it pays to go back to the All Tube Recording and Mastering Chains of the late ’50s and early ’60s. That is where you are most likely to find it.

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Sarah Vaughan – Sings George Gershwin, Volume One

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  • Sarah Vaughan’s 1957 release returns to the site for only the second time with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this early Black Label Mercury stereo pressing
  • This copy has more richness, space, clarity, dynamics and, most especially, vocal intimacy than most of what we played
  • Hard to imagine we would ever run into a quieter copy than this one – Mint Minus Minus with no marks that play and no groove damage makes this a very special copy indeed
  • Hal Mooney brilliantly handles the arrangements, letting Sarah stretch and bend Gershwin’s notes to her heart’s content

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Doris Day – Hooray For Hollywood

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This fairly rare, fairly clean Six Eye Columbia original Stereo pressing has TWO SUPERB sounding sides, each earning our Super Hot stamper sonic grade. Frank DeVol did the orchestral arrangements, and it sounds like he let Miss Day have some of the same ones he’d done for Sinatra. Don’t mess with success, right?

The vintage Columbia sound is overflowing with Tubey Magic — it’s about as Big and Rich as it gets! If you don’t mind some heavy-handed reverb, the kind found on practically every vintage Tony Bennett and Nat King Cole record ever made, you will find much to like here.

There’s a bit of an edge to the vocals that we think has something to do with the reverb interacting with the compressors of the day, but this is all part of the sound of the tape (we’re guessing) and not something that can be altered in the mastering.

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The Hi-Lo’s / And All That Jazz – A Demo Disc for Tubey Magic

More Pop and Jazz Vocals

  • Superb sound throughout this early 6-Eye Stereo pressing, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • On the right system, the better copies of this All Tube Demo Disc from 1958 will demonstrate the superiority of both the analog medium and the vintage pressing (not to mention the concept of Hot Stampers)
  • With a copy this good, The Hi-Lo’s will appear as living, breathing (albeit disembodied) persons right in your very own listening room – we call that “the breath of life,” and there is plenty to be found on this record
  • “The Hi-Los weren’t really a jazz unit, but more of a pop band that knew how to incorporate jazz’s harmonic sensibilities. This was among their better albums, complete with catchy title.”
  • More records with exceptionally Tubey Magical sound

An audiophile friend of mine played me this album on his big system in a huge dedicated sound room, and the effect was so glorious that to this day I can still remember the feeling it gave me.

Let’s be honest: The Hi-Lo’s are a white-bread vocal group from the 50s that made a lot of forgettable easy-listening albums.

But for one album, and one album only, they hooked up with Marty Paich and his Dek-Tette, which included players like Herb Gellar, Bill Perkins, Bud Shank, Jack Sheldon — top West Coast jazz players all — and recorded this album of standards with jazz accompaniment.

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Carly Simon / Torch – Surprisingly Rich, Natural Analog Sound for the Eighties

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  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Surprisingly rich, natural and analog considering the recording date – very little sound of the sound of the day — the kind that ruined most of what was made in the ’80s — is on display here, and thank god for that
  • “Carly Simon’s Torch is a gorgeous throwback to the Fifties and early Sixties… By blending old and new material, and by incorporating a hint of jazz-fusion music into a studio-orchestra sound, Simon and her producer, Mike Mainieri, begin to suggest a continuity between Fifties torch and Eighties pop.”
  • If you’re a fan of Carly’s, this is a Top Title from 1981 that belongs in your collection.
  • The complete list of titles from 1981 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Mel Torme – Songs of New York

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Mel Torme Albums We’ve Reviewed

  • This surprisingly good sounding pressing of Mel Tormé’s 1963 album boasts outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • Like many of the best Mel Tormé recordings from the ’50s and early-’60s, the sound here is rich, warm and smooth, with Vintage Analog Tubey Magic to die for
  • Turn it up and The Velvet Fog will be standing right between your speakers, putting his heart and soul into these American standards
  • We freely admit that the originals are potentially better sounding — the only ones we ever find on the early label are much too noisy to enjoy
  • However, the best of them make great reference copies, so we keep them around and compare them to these reasonably quiet and very good sounding reissues
  • “This thematic recording, with songs all relating to New York City, has vocalist Mel Tormé singing in fine fashion… done with the heartfelt passion of a man who has lived in the Big Apple and has many tales to tell.”
  • A Male Vocal Classic from 1963 that should appeal to any fan of Mel Torme in his prime
  • The complete list of titles from 1963 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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Johnny Hartman / I Just Dropped By To Say Hello – A Forgotten Vocal Classic

More Pop and Jazz Vocals

Reviews and Commentaries for More Male Vocal Albums

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Folks, the later Stereo Impulse pressing of this classic Hartman album we dropped the needle on recently was so Tubey Magical, RICH yet CLEAR, and above all shockingly natural, it would be hard to imagine a Male Vocal record produced in the last thirty years that could hold a candle to it (outside of the Coltrane-Hartman record from the year before of course).

The Bennett-Evans record we love so much here at Better Records would qualify as a contender, but that album was recorded in 1975. And it doesn’t have half the Tubey Magic this Hartman album from 1963 does.

RVG Knocks Another One Out of the Park

Our hats are off to Rudy Van Gelder once again! Here’s an album that justifies his reputation. If only more of them did…

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Peggy Lee – Guitars Ala Lee

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More Pop and Jazz Vocals


  • This Capitol stereo pressing has superb sound on both sides
  • Tubey Magical with breathy vocals, this is one of the albums that made us big fans of Miss Lee
  • I thought the S&P pressing of Latin a la Lee was killer when it came out in 2003 – little did I know how much I was missing, a situation the average buyer of Heavy Vinyl is in without ever knowing it
  • A ridiculously tough record to find in stereo, in audiophile playing condition, with sound as good as this
  • “Peggy Lee’s alluring tone, distinctive delivery, breadth of material, and ability to write many of her own songs made her one of the most captivating artists of the vocal era…” – All Music Biography

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Ella Fitzgerald – Hello Love

Hot Stamper Pressings of Ella Fitzgerald’s Albums Available Now

More Titles that Sound Best to Us in Mono

  • Ella’s 1959 release finally arrives on the site with STUNNING Mono sound from first note to last
  • The sound is relaxed, full-bodied and lively, with Tubey Magical richness befitting the 1957 and 1959 recording dates of these sessions
  • Skip the stereo pressing on this title – none of the copies we played could hold a candle to this killer mono LP
  • “The album focuses on well-known songs not included in Fitzgerald’s epic Songbooks project, and several of the songs are tunes that she had recently recorded in duet with Louis Armstrong.”
  • 4 stars: “A fine gem among the diamonds of Ella Fitzgerald’s late-’50s period with Verve… Wrapped in the strings of Frank DeVol’s orchestra, Fitzgerald is a bewitching presence singing these dreamy standards…”

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Ella Fitzgerald – Sings the Johnny Mercer Song Book

Hot Stamper Pressings of Ella Fitzgerald’s Albums Available Now

  • With superb Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound on both sides of this Verve stereo original LP, we are fairly certain you could not possibly have heard Ella Fitzgerald sound better than she does on this very record
  • The huge, rich orchestral sound captured so beautifully by Val Valentin is always one of the highlights of these songbooks
  • By the time this one came out in 1964 Ella had already recorded 18 LPs of songbooks – this was the last, going out on a high note
  • Some of the Mercer Classics here are Too Marvelous For Words, Day In-Day Out, Laura, Skylark, Midnight Sun, I Remember You
  • Once you hear Ella sing Skylark on this album, you will have a very hard time sitting through Linda Ronstadt’s rendition of it on Lush Life
  • AMG raves “this is one of the best of Ella Fitzgerald’s songbooks. Fitzgerald’s assured and elegant voice is a perfect match for Mercer’s urbane lyrics and Nelson Riddle’s supple arrangements…”

When you are lucky enough to find a album that sounds as good as this one, full of standards from the Great American Songbook, you cannot help but recognize that this era for Ella will never be equaled, by her or anyone else.

The recording is outstanding, with huge amounts of space and midrange richness that might just take your breath away. (more…)