Vocals, Male

Willie Nelson – Always On My Mind

More Willie Nelson

  • This wonderful early Columbia pressing boasts incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Just drop the needle on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” to hear Willie and his bandmates doing what they do best
  • Fans of Stardust are going to love this one – it’s another solid album full of Willie’s heartfelt renditions of modern classics
  • Winner of the Album of the Year at the 1982 Country Music Association Awards
  • “…Throughout the late ’70s, Nelson’s freewheeling, organically eclectic music was not just the biggest thing in country, it was also some of its best, most adventurous music… At the time, it was a huge, huge hit — his biggest ever, actually, spending 22 weeks at the top of the country charts…”

This is one of Willie’s best-known and best-loved albums, and when you get the right copy the sound can truly be excellent. This copy is guaranteed to be a big step up from any other copy you’ve heard. With these grades, at these kinds of prices, it had better be!

Fans of Stardust are going to go crazy over this one. It’s another solid album full of Willie belting out heartfelt renditions of standards. Once again, he’s backed by a top-notch backing band of industry session masters. The arrangements are splendid — just drop the needle on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” to hear these guys doing what they do best.

Much like Stardust, a top quality pressing of this record is a real treat for the audiophile, no matter where they may be on the audio scale. The transparency and clarity on the best copies will be nothing less than astonishing. Even if your system isn’t at its best, a great copy of this record will still be musical and involving. On the other hand, if you’ve spent the time and energy to really get your stereo cooking, you’re going to be in for some amazingly soulful country-tinged midrange magic!

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Darin at the Copa / Another Great Sounding Reissue? What the Heck Is Going On!?

More Hot Stamper Pressings that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

More Records We’ve Reviewed that Sound Their Best on the Right Reissue

  • Darin At The Copa arrives on the site with stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from top to bottom 
  • Recorded live at the Copacabana in New York City, this album captures Darin’s unique charisma, as well his phenomenal music
  • With clear, present vocals, huge amounts of space, and boatloads of Tubey magic – the kind they had plenty of in 1960 – this copy blew away the competition in our recent shootout
  • “…an appearance that confirmed for the adult pop crowd that the former singer of ephemera like “Splish Splash” had made the complete transition from rock & roll to more “serious” music. Serious this record certainly isn’t, though.” 
  • If you’re a fan of Bobby Darin’s, this live album from 1960 surely deserves a place in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1960 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

This Shootout Winning pressing of Bobby Darin’s live album from 1960 has ENERGY and TUBEY MAGIC like you will not believe. The reissues on Bainbridge that we used in our shootout just KILL the original pressings, which are truly awful based on the ones I have heard. I started out with a copy such as this way back in the early ’90s, and when I finally tracked down a clean original on Atco, not a hard record to find really, I was shocked at just how bad it sounded.

This is, of course, one of the best reasons to own a good CD player. It’s simply a fact that some recordings, vintage and otherwise, were never mastered properly for the analog medium.

Defending Reissues

We bash reissue labels like Classic and Sundazed mercilessly on this site for making the worst kind of substandard pressings, all the while absurdly promoting them as “superior.”

Bainbridge reissued this album sometime in the early ’80s I would guess, and they did this one right. Discovery Records reissued some jazz in the ’70s (Shorty Roger’s Jazz Waltz comes readily to mind) and they did a great job.

Reissues can sound great, but they seem to be limited to the ones from back in the day when they still knew how to make good sounding records. Modern reissues, for whatever reason, almost never do, and that’s the reason we criticize them (and their apologists / promoters so relentlessly).

We are not anti-reissue. We are anti-bad-sounding-reissue.

Bobby Darin was a tremendously talented performer and this record catches him showing off his stuff to good advantage. I don’t know of a better Darin album on vinyl.

Variety Review

Darin’s finger snapping, jazzy and extremely hep delivery has its moments of humor, ease and at all times, a singular brand of charm that make it big at this particular scene.

Darin on CD

Speaking of CDs, This Is Darin from 1960 on the ’90s CD pressing is, or can be — CDs don’t all sound the same either — superb, and the record is, again, just awful. We don’t make many CD recommendations here at Better Records but we do recommend that one. We don’t know if the newer version is any good so that’s a caveat emptor situation you will have to figure out for yourself.

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Johnny Mathis – Up, Up And Away

More Johnny Mathis

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Recordings

  • Up, Up And Away debuts on the site with stunning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades throughout this original Columbia 360 Stereo pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • So hugely spacious and three-dimensional, yet with a tonally correct and natural sounding Johnny, this is the way to hear it
  • “Johnny Mathis’s return to the Columbia label purrs with the rich, romantic tones that suspend the very sensation of conscious listening … ‘Up, Up and Away’, ‘Misty Roses,’ and ‘I Won’t Cry Anymore’ are soothed and coated with Mathis’s seamless style – music running together like prefabricated daydreams padded with a feeling of luxury.” – Billboard Magazine
  • More Reviews and Commentaries for the Recordings of Frank Laico

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 Johnny Mathis singing live in your listening room. The best copies have an uncanny way of doing just that.

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Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Ella and Louis

Ella Fitzgerald Albums with Hot Stampers

Ella Fitzgerald Albums We’ve Reviewed

  • You’ll find very good Hot Stamper sound or BETTER on both sides of this early mono pressing – if only a record of this quality could be found on quieter vinyl!
  • One of the greatest duet albums of all time, if not THE GREATEST – a Desert Island Disc to beat them all
  • Problems in the vinyl is sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around it if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 Stars: “Ella and Louis is an inspired collaboration, masterminded by producer Norman Granz… Gentle and sincere, this is deserving of a place in every home.”
  • 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. Ella and Louis is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.
  • If you’re a fan of vintage Pop and Jazz Vocals, this 1956 release is an absolute Must Own
  • The complete list of titles from 1956 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Click and pop counters might want to give this one a miss. It’s not as quiet as a modern pressing would be, but it’s as quiet as this title can be found on vintage ’50s Verve vinyl. If you have a top quality, heavily tweaked front end and a quiet cartridge, you might be good to go, but if you are picky about your surfaces, we recommend you give this one a miss.

Those of you looking for a cheaper, quieter alternative to spending hundreds of dollars on one of our Hot Stampers should look into the original Speakers Corner pressing or the CD, both of which we’ve played and both of which are quite good. (more…)

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.

What makes this album exceptional is the recording itself. The voices are uncannily real. When the jazz musicians take their solos the sound of their instruments is as real as if you were in the studio with them. You will have a very hard time finding better sound anywhere, especially considering how beautifully spread out the players are on such a wide and deep soundstage.

Folks, if you’re looking for a Vocal Group album to beat them all, here it is. This album is overflowing with sonic qualities we look for as both audiophiles and music lovers: Tubey Magic, energy, immediacy, richness, breathy vocals — all the stuff that you will never hear on anything but the best vintage analog vinyl pressings. And you can take that to the bank.

Marty Paich Is an Arranging Genius

The high point here is “Then I’ll Be Tired Of You.” The sound is so perfectly suited to the song — everything is exactly where you want it to be, and Marty Paich’s arrangement is constantly surprising.

The first track on side one is very reminiscent of Art Pepper Plus Eleven, another Marty Paich arranging job that ranks with the best large jazz ensemble works ever recorded.

What The Best Sides Of All That Jazz 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 1958
  • 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 the record 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 a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.

What We’re Listening For On And All That Jazz

  • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
  • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
  • 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 punchy 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.

Side One

Fascinating Rhythm
Small Fry
Something’s Coming [From West Side Story]
Love Locked Out
The Lady in Red
Agogically

Side Two

Some Minor Changes
Then I’ll Be Tired of You
Mayforth
Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed
Summer Sketch
Of Thee I Sing

Dean Martin – This Time I’m Swingin’

  • STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides of this vintage Capitol Stereo pressing
  • Classic Capitol big, full-bodied, Tubey Magical sound — Deano’s vocals are present and natural in the best tradition of rat-mate Frank Sinatra in the early ’60s
  • With Nelson Riddle arranging, you can be sure the album has plenty of swing all right — and the brass sounds amazing here
  • If you want to find your own copies and do your own shootout, be prepared for a lot of ebay heartache – the beat-up, thrift-store, trashy LPs that we regularly get sent are truly shocking
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…an easy swinging collection…”

If you’re a fan of the Capitol Sinatra sound you’ll love this record. It’s an exceptionally difficult title to find in anything but trashed condition. I’ve been a fan of this record for many years but this is the first copy we’ve been able to find that’s clean enough to go up on the site with White Hot Stamper grades.  (more…)

The Ames Brothers with Esquivel – Hello Amigos

More Exotica

Living Stereo Titles Available Now

  • By far the best sound we have ever heard for The Ames Brothers
  • 1960 Webster Hall vocals in RCA Living Stereo sound at its best
  • Huge, rich, smooth and natural, the Tubey Magic is off the charts
  • Esquivel and His Orchestra bring some fun Exotica flourishes to these Latin tunes

This copy is super spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. This is vintage analog at its best, so rich and relaxed you’ll wonder how it ever came to be that anyone seriously contemplated trying to “improve” upon it.

This recording is the very definition of The Sound of Tubey Magic. No recordings will ever be made like this again, nor will any CD ever be able to capture what is in the grooves of this pressing.

For the audiophile of wide ranging taste, both the sound and the music should be lots of fun. If you want to demonstrate just how good 1960 All Tube Analog sound can be, I’d be hard pressed to think of another record that could do the job better than this one.

Perfect for demo-ing your stereo to anyone who thinks audio recording technology has improved in the last forty years. (more…)

Marty Robbins – By The Time I Get To Phoenix

More Marty Robbins

  • By The Time I Get To Phoenix finally returns with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides of this original Columbia 360 Stereo LP
  • Both sides here are rich, tubey, clear and present with wonderfully full strings, breathy vocals, and a solid bottom end
  • This one features a mixture of originals and covers – a showcase for Marty’s tremendous range and ability to cross musical genres

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Tony Bennett and Count Basie – Strike Up The Band on Roulette

More Tony Bennett

More Count Basie

  • You’ll find INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout this Roulette stereo pressing
  • So hugely spacious and three-dimensional, yet with a natural sounding Tony – this is the best way to hear it
  • The Roulette pressings tend to be gritty, edgy and bright, but we found a good one here, and it won the shootout
  • Although the Roulette originals, now that we know which stampers are good, will always win our shootouts, the Emus reissues still sound quite good to us, just not as good
  • A classic case of compared to what? – we had no idea the recording could sound any better than the Emus pressings that would win our shootouts in years past
  • Richness, transparency and Tubey Magic are key to the sound of Basie’s orchestra and you will find all three in abundance on these two sides
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The band raves through tunes like ‘With Plenty Of Money And You,’ and Bennett matches them, drawing strength from the bravura arrangements, while band and singer achieve a knowing tenderness on ‘Growing Pains’…This is an album well worth owning.”

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Ray Charles – Have a Smile With Me

More of the Music of Ray Charles

More Soul, Blues, and Rhythm and Blues

  • Have A Smile With Me returns to the site after more than a year with superb Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on side two mated to an excellent sounding Double Plus (A++) side one
  • The richness in Ray’s vocals and the wonderfully Tubey Magical sound overall makes this killer copy especially impressive
  • It’s not easy to find a Ray Charles stereo pressing from the Sixties that plays this quietly, but marks in the vinyl are the nature of the beast with these early LPs – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “…[Charles] elevates the material with soulful vocals and good arrangements, particularly when the Raeletts back him up (as they do on half the tracks).”

We search high and low for Ray’s records and have played them by the score over the years. We hope to keep a good supply on to the site in the coming years, so keep a close eye on the New Arrivals section.

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