Folk Rock, Hippie

Hippie Folk Rock

Letter of the Week – “The kind of sound my CD ‘audiophile’ friends can only dream about.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of Hippie Folk Rock Albums Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

Recently bought a Tarkio Hot Stamper and what a great album it is. This record has truly great ANALOG sound. The kind of sound my CD “audiophile” friends can only dream about. This recording is a lot of fun to listen to. There is much more to it than the songs that had airplay.

Anyway, another great find from the better records crew.

Jim S

Jim,

Thanks for your letter. This is one my favorite records too. I have it on tape and that tape has been played at least 500 times.

Along with Crosby, Stills and Nash’s debut, Tarkio represents the pinnacle of what we affectionately call Hippie Folk Rock.

On the best copies, the Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is some of the best we have ever heard, right up there with another record Stephen Barncard recorded, If Only I Could Remember My Name. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, the guy is a genius.

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Grateful Dead – Wake Of The Flood

More of the Music of the Grateful Dead

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades throughout, this vintage copy could not be beat beat
  • Both of these sides gives you clean, clear, full-bodied, lively and musical analog sound from first note to last
  • A difficult album to find audiophile quality sound for; this is one of the best copies to ever hit the site
  • Marks and problems 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
  • 4 stars: “Wake of the Flood was certainly as good – if not arguably better than – most of their previous non-live efforts.”

This is the album that comes after American Beauty on the Grateful Dead timeline, and while it’s certainly not in the same league as that masterpiece, there’s still a lot of good music on here.

Again, I think American Beauty is a stronger album, but this is a very good representation of the kind of jazzier sound The Dead carried on with for the next twenty-plus years. Many of these songs remained staples of their concert repertoire, including Stella Blue, Eyes Of The World, and Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo. You might get more incendiary performances of the tracks on the best of the band’s famous bootleg tapes, but you certainly won’t get sound this good. (more…)

The Byrds – The Notorious Byrd Brothers

More of the Music of The Byrds

  • Incredible sound throughout this early 360 Stereo label pressing, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • David Crosby is shown the door, fittingly replaced on the album jacket by a horse’s ass
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The Notorious Byrd Brothers showed the group continuing to expand the parameters of their eclecticism while retaining their hallmark guitar jangle and harmonies.”

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Cat Stevens Wants to Know How You Like Your Congas: Light, Medium or Heavy?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

During the shootout for this record a while back [the late 2000s would be my guess], we made a very important discovery, a seemingly obvious one but one that nevertheless had eluded us for the past twenty plus years (so how obvious could it have been?).

It became clear, for the first time, what accounts for the wide disparity in ENERGY and DRIVE from one copy to the next. We can sum it up for you in one five letter word, and that word is conga.

The congas are what drive the high-energy songs, songs like Tuesday’s Dead and Changes IV.

Here is how we stumbled upon their critically important contribution.

We were listening to one of the better copies during a recent shootout. The first track on side one, The Wind, was especially gorgeous; Cat and his acoustic guitar were right there in the room with us. The transparency, tonal neutrality, presence and all the rest were just superb. Then came time to move to the other test track on side one, which is Changes IV, one of the higher energy songs we like to play.

But the energy we expected to hear was nowhere to be found. The powerful rhythmic drive of the best copies of the album just wasn’t happening. The more we listened the more it became clear that the congas were not doing what they normally do. The midbass to lower midrange area of the LP lacked energy, weight and power, and this prevented the song from coming to LIFE the way the truly Hot Stampers can and do.

Now I think I understand why. Big speakers are the only way to reproduce the physical size and powerful energy of the congas (and other drums of course) that play such a big part in driving the rhythmic energy of the song.

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Cat Stevens Part 2 – Is This the Truest Tillerman of Them All?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Cat Stevens Available Now

If you haven’t read Part 1 of this story, please click here.

Back to our real story. I listened to my good original pressing. I call it White Hot at least!

Then I put the new pressing on the table, set the SDS for 45 RPM, and got the volume just right. I proceeded to carefully adjust the VTA by ear, going up and down with the arm until the sound was right, which is simply standard operating procedure for every record we audition.

These are my actual notes for But I Might Die Tonight.

This is what I heard as the song worked its way through the various sections, in real time.  The first thing I heard at the start was Zero Tubey Magic for the first verse. One of the last things I heard at the end was No Real Space. Space is what you hear at the end for the big piano and drums finish.

Let’s take it line by line. First up:

Zero Tubey Magic

I didn’t hear much Tubey Magic on the new pressing. The best early pressings — domestic A&M Browns, Pink or Sunray UK Islands — often have simply phenomenal amounts of the stuff. It’s a hallmark of the recording.

If a new pressing comes along without it, that’s a problem. I guess that George Marino‘s cutting system at Sterling could probably do some things well, but it sure doesn’t seem to be able get the sound of tubes right. His 33 RPM cutting had no Tubey Magic, and this one has no Tubey Magic.

If I had hired him to cut a record for me and it came out sounding like this, I would find somebody else to cut records for me.

He’s dead now, rest in peace. I would doubt that anyone at Sterling has a better cutting system, and therefore no one should expect any records that have been mastered there to sound very good.

Vocal Is Clear, Clean and Dry

This is the sound you sometimes get with modern, super-clean transistor cutting equipment. It’s low distortion, like a CD is low distortion. We don’t think we should have to put up with dry vocals on records when the good pressings we have been playing all our lives have noticeably richer vocals.

Not rich like Dream With Dean, nothing is that rich, but rich and full-bodied the way the good pressings of this album always make them sound.

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Crosby, Stills and Nash – Daylight Again

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills and Nash

  • With excellent Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides, this vintage copy is doing just about everything right
  • This is the embodiment of the classic CSN sound we love – rich, full-bodied, warm, punchy, dynamic and clear
  • Steven Barncard, one of our favorite recording engineers, no doubt deserves most of the credit
  • AllMusic on “Wasted On The Way” and “Southern Cross”: “Both were extracted as singles and became among the best-known tracks not only on Daylight Again, but also in the post-60s CSN canon.”

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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young / 4 Way Street

More of the Music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

  • These early Atlantic pressings boast roughly Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades or close to them on all FOUR sides, just shy of our Shootout Winner (side four actually won the shootout) – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This live album gives you the “naked” sound of the real thing – the real voices and the real guitars and the real everything else, in a way that would never happen again
  • Bill Halverson worked his magic, but only the better pressings let his genius shine the way it does here
  • This is a record we rarely do shootouts for, simply because reasonably quiet, unscratched copies are getting more scarce by the day – much of what we can find is not in good enough condition to pass audiophile muster
  • 4 1/2 stars: “4 Way Street, released in April of 1971: a live double-LP set, chock-full of superb music distilled down from a bunch of nights on that tour that more than fulfilled the promise of the group.”
  • Rolling Stone raves that “Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young are all performers of unquestionable talent, and mostly because they stay out of each others’ way, 4 Way Street must surely be their best album to date.”

If you want to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young rock out live in your listening room, this copy will let you do it. It’s not easy to find good sound on even one side of this album, let alone all four!

The Naked Sound of Live Music

The song “Triad,” just to cite one example, presents us with a lone David Crosby and his acoustic guitar. It’s as real sounding as anything I’ve ever heard from the band. Listening to that natural guitar tone brings home the fact that their studio recordings (and studio recordings in general) are processed and degraded compared to what the microphones must have picked up.

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If Only I Could Remember My Name – Another in a Long Line of Classic Records’ Mediocrities

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of David Crosby Available Now

What do you get with our best Hot Stampers compared to the Classic Heavy Vinyl reissue?

On high quality equipment, you can expect to hear improvements in all of the following areas:

  • Noticeably more warmth,
  • Noticeably more sweetness,
  • Noticeably more delicacy,
  • Noticeably more transparency,
  • Noticeably more ambience,
  • Noticeably more energy,
  • Noticeably more size (width and height),
  • Noticeably more correct timbres (without the boost to the top and the bottom end that the Classic suffers from).

in other words, the kind of difference you almost ALWAYS get comparing the best vintage pressings with their modern remastered counterparts, if our first hand experience with thousands of them can be considered evidentiary.

The Classic is a decent enough record. I might give it a “C” or so. It’s sure better than the Super Saver reissue pressing, but that is obviously setting a very low bar. No original I have ever played did not sound noticeably better than Bernie’s recut.

A Hot Stamper of an amazing recording such as this is a MAGICAL record. Can the same be said of any Classic Records release? None come to mind.

By the way, the remastered CD that came out in 2011 (I think that’s the one I have) is excellent, with a surprising amount of the Tubey Magic that is on the original tape. On a good CD player it would be clearly superior to the Classic vinyl, and for that reason, we say buy the CD.

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David Crosby – If I Could Only Remember My Name…

More of the Music of David Crosby

  • Outstanding sound throughout this vintage copy of Crosby’s solo debut, with both TAS-approved sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades
  • The ultimate Hippie Folk Rock Demo Disc – both sides are remarkably transparent, with huge amounts of bass, silky highs, in-the-room vocals and an abundance of Tubey Magic
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “If I Could Only Remember My Name is a shambolic masterpiece, meandering but transcendentally so, full of frayed threads. Not only is it among the finest splinter albums out of the CSNY diaspora, it is one of the defining moments of hungover spirituality from the era.”
  • This Folk Rock Masterpiece from 1971 is one that belongs in every audiophile’s collection
  • On big speakers at loud levels, this is a Demo Disc with relatively few peers

Here it is, folks…a True Rock Demo Disc! An outstanding copy such as this will show you why we’ve long considered it one of the Aal time Top Ten Rock albums for sound and music. You will not believe how Tubey Magical and three-dimensional this album can be when you have a pressing with this kind of sound. The harmonic complexity and extension on the acoustic guitars are absolutely stunning!

Harry Pearson put this record on his TAS list of Super Discs, not exactly a tough call it seems to us. Who can’t hear that this is an amazing-sounding recording? (We do applaud his decision not to add the Classic pressing of this title to the list, the way he did with so many other Classic pressings that have no business on anything called a Super Disc list.)

You Don’t Have to Be High to Hear It

When you drop the needle on this record, all barriers between you and the musicians are removed. You’ll feel as though you’re sitting at the studio console while Crosby and his no-doubt-stoned-out-of-their-minds Bay Area pals (mostly Jefferson Airplaners and Grateful Deads) are laying down this emotionally powerful, heartfelt music.

The overall sound is warm, sweet, rich, and full-bodied…that’s some real analog Tubey Magic, baby! And the best part is, you don’t have to be high to hear it. You just need a good stereo and the right pressing.

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and especially from modern remasterings).

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What to Listen For on Mr. Tambourine Man

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Byrds Available Now

This commentary was written about ten years ago and updated in 2025.

Want to hear what the best copies of Mr. Tambourine Man can do? Play Chimes of Freedom, one of the best sounding tracks on side two, if not THE best. Listen to how breathy Jim (later Roger) McGuinn’s vocals are. Byrds records almost never sound like that.

I Knew I’d Want You is another one that sounds amazingly Tubey Magical on the best pressings.

Years ago we wrote that the 360 Label original pressings were the only ones with the rich, warm sound of tubes:

Looking for Tubey Magic? The best 360 pressings are the only way to go, and even those are often lacking. (Forget most Red Label copies; they have nice qualities but Tubey Magic is not among them.) But the best pressings of The Byrds’ albums — those with truly Hot Stampers — are swimming in it.

This time around we found a Red Label reissue with lovely Tubey Magic. It did not win our shootout — this copy did — but it was very rich and tubey. I had no idea it was a reissue when grading it, because it sure didn’t fit with my idea of what a reissue would sound like. Fortunately I can’t see the labels of the records that I’m grading, which helps make the admittedly subjective evaluation of records somewhat more objective than might otherwise be the case.

UPDATE 2025

We no longer bother with the Red Label pressings of this album. The good ones are too rare, and the time spent finding, cleaning and playing them is just not worth the trouble when the 360 label pressings are often so much better sounding.

Speaking of labels, we have two lists for those who would like to know which Columbia label pressings win shootouts — one for 6-Eye winners and one for 360 Label winners.

Side One

The first track rarely if ever sounds as good as those that follow.

By the time you get to track two you’re hearing one of my favorite Byrds song of all time: I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better. It’s energetic and very present on this copy.

Notice that Gene Clark’s vocals usually sound better than Roger McGuinn’s.

For some reason they tend to brighten up his vocals, and the last thing you ever want to do with a Byrds recording is make it brighter. Most of the reissues are too thin and bright compared to the best originals.

The third track has wonderful space and clarity.

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