Country & Country Rock

Tammy Wynette – Bedtime Story

More Country and Country Rock

  • Bedtime Story debuts on the site with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this original Epic pressing
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “sweet and open”…”vox so present and breathy and dynamic”…”huge, deep and rich bass”…”huge, punchy, and tubey”
  • Both of these sides are full-bodied and lively, with exceptionally solid, present and breathy vocals, and plenty of vintage Tubey Magic
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “In many ways, Tammy Wynette deserves the title of ‘the First Lady of Country Music.’ During the late 60s and early 70s, she dominated the country charts, scoring 17 number one hits. Along with Loretta Lynn, she defined the role of female country vocalists in the 70s.” – AMG Biography

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Johnny Cash – Hello, I’m Johnny Cash

More of the Music of Johnny Cash

  • Hello, I’m Johnny Cash debuts on the site with solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides of this original Stereo 360 pressing
  • The vocal presence and freedom from coloration will put a very real sounding Johnny Cash front and center right in your very own listening room
  • Rich, smooth, sweet, full of ambience, dead on correct tonality, and wonderfully breathy vocals – everything that we listen for in a great record is here
  • 4 stars: “The energy that Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three captured on the legendary Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison live record can probably never be duplicated. That being said, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash comes very close, blending slow talking-blues songs with steam-engine-paced country rockers. This forgotten album may be one of the five best in the Cash discography.”

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Crazy Horse – Loose

More Country and Country Rock

  • The band’s sophomore LP debuts on the site with seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides of this vintage Reprise pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • The sound here is rich and full-bodied with much less grain and much more Tubey Magic than most of the other copies we played
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that

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Chet Atkins and Les Paul – Chester & Lester

More of the Music of Chet Atkins

  • Chester & Lester makes its Hot Stamper debut with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this vintage RCA pressing
  • Huge, rich, present, with an abundance of energy and great depth and room around the guitars — it’s all here
  • The notes for this copy rave about the sound — apparently, this live in the studio recording from 1975 has the sound that RCA and Chet Atkins were famous for back in the 50s and 60s. Who knew?
  • Chester & Lester won the Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 1976
  • Les Paul’s recordings from back in the day can be off the charts Tubey Magical, but the music is rarely compelling, so we don’t do shootouts for his records anymore, but you can be sure this wonderful sounding title will be a regular on the site from now on
  • 4 stars: “After eight years away from the microphones, Les Paul joined forces with country music’s Chet Atkins in a marvelously relaxed, tasty session of cross-cultural jamming. You won’t have any problem telling Chester and Lester apart on these tracks; Les’ bright, almost metallic sound and twirling, yet now more economical flurries are a world away from Chet’s mellow fingerpicking, lightly tarted with echo. Yet the two styles play brilliantly off each other….”

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Johnny Cash / Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison

More of the Music of Johnny Cash

  • Both sides of this early 360 Stereo pressing have killer sound for Cash’s 1968 live album, earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It ain’t easy to find great sounding Johnny Cash records, but this copy had the sound we were looking for
  • This one is richer, smoother and sweeter than practically all others we played, with lots of body and excellent transparency
  • Cash’s vocals sound right on the money here – present, full and natural with virtually none of the hardness, strain and edge you get on the typical copy
  • It literally takes us years to find a handful of copies worthy enough to put on the site, so don’t miss out on this one if you’re a fan!
  • 5 stars: “…At Folsom Prison is the quintessential Johnny Cash album, the place where his legend burns bright and eternal.”

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Buffalo Springfield – Retrospective

More of the Music of Buffalo Springfield

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them on both sides, this original Atco pressing will be very hard to beat
  • Big, full-bodied, clear and present, the Tubey Magical richness of the better pressings is a joy to hear on modern high resolution equipment (particularly on this side two)
  • “Kind Woman” and “I Am A Child” are just two of the best sounding songs – listen to all that space around the voices and instruments (particularly “I Am A Child” on this side two)
  • And the Pysch stuff – “On the Way Home,” “Broken Arrow” and “Expecting to Fly” – is guaranteed to be more three-dimensional than you’ve ever heard it
  • 5 stars on AllMusic – this is Must Own Music from one of the most groundbreaking and accomplished groups of the late-60s (even though they never cracked the Top 40 Album chart)

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Emmylou Harris – Blue Kentucky Girl

More of the Music of Emmylou Harris

  • Here is a vintage copy of Blue Kentucky Girl with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • These sides have the kind of rich, natural sound we found on far too few copies and little of the vocal edginess that many EH albums suffer from
  • Surprisingly full-bodied and not overly detailed for a recording from 1979 – they still knew what they were doing then
  • “In response to criticism that her records weren’t country enough, Harris recorded Blue Kentucky Girl, one of her most traditional outings. Relying on a more acoustic sound, the album largely forsakes contemporary pop songs in favor of standard country fare, including the Louvin Brothers’ ‘Everytime You Leave’ and Leon Payne’s ‘They’ll Never Take His Love from Me.'”

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Neil Young – Old Ways

More of the Music of Neil Young

  • A vintage pressing with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
  • Big, full-bodied and energetic, with remarkably present vocals – this kind of rich, analog sound is positively shocking for a recording from 1985, although it should not come as a surprise since Neil Young has often gone against the grain
  • Neil’s unabashed country album is guaranteed to make your MoFI pressing sound like the bad joke it was when it came out in 1996, and you can be sure that it has not aged well
  • “… this turns out to be his most carefully crafted album since Comes a Time… Pretty amazing.” – Rolling Stone
  • “Old Ways [is]…cut in the style of Harvest and Comes a Time, but with a stronger country leaning.”

This is Neil heading out to the sticks with his buddies, authentic country greats such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others (nice friends to have), doing what Neil loves to do — making the music that HE wants to make, not the music that anyone else wants him to, including David Geffen and his lawyers. Old friend Ben Keith (a huge part behind the sound of Harvest) shows up with his pedal steel guitar on a couple of tracks.

This probably wasn’t anyone’s favorite Neil Young album, but when it sounds like it does here it sure makes a lot more sense than it did when we heard it on the more mediocre pressings. The MoFi is a muckfest, as was to be expected from a record mastered during the Anadisq era, the darkest chapter in the dark and disgraceful history of Mobile Fidelity.

Copies with rich lower mids and nice extension up top (to keep the string arrangements from becoming shrill) did the best in our shootout, assuming they weren’t too veiled or smeary, of course. (more…)

Johnny Cash – At San Quentin

More of the Music of Johnny Cash

  • Here is an original Columbia 360 pressing of Cash’s legendary live album with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from top to bottom
  • What made these sides really stand out from the pack was their combination of richness and clarity – take it from us, it’s not easy to find a pressing that gives you both the way this one does
  • Forget the 70s reissues and whatever dead-on-arrival Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magical you-are-there immediacy of Johnny Cash live in concert, this is the only way to do it
  • So many great songs: “Wanted Man,” “I Walk the Line,” “San Quentin,” “A Boy Named Sue,” “Folsom Prison Blues” and more
  • If you only have one Johnny Cash album, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • 5 stars: “…listen to ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ … rescued by the wild-eyed, committed performance by Cash, where it sounds like he really was set on murdering that son of a bitch who named him Sue. He sounds that way throughout the record…”

We had a blast listening to this album. Cash’s banter between the songs is practically as good as the music itself!

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J.J. Cale – Troubadour

More Roots Rock

  • An outstanding copy of 5 with Double Plus (A++) sound from the first note to the last
  • The overall sound here is rich, full-bodied and musical with lots of Tubey Magic and a solid bottom end — the perfect sound for this laid-back bluesy rock
  • If you’ve got a hankerin’ to hear Cocaine on the authentic original, you will really have to work hard to hear it sound any better than it does on this pressing.
  • Wikipedia lists his many styles as “Americana, Cajun, blues, swamp rock, country rock, Red Dirt, Tulsa Sound” but we think Americana is probably all you really need.
  • If you like Dire Straits, try this one – J.J. Cale and Mark Knopfler have a lot in common, probably more than you think
  • “While Cale remains the ultimate laid-back Blues artist, he still manages to conjure up the spirit of Country, Soul and subdued Funk in each of the tracks on 5, making this album one of the best loved in his catalog.”
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Cale’s breakthrough album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.

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