Elektra

Carly Simon – Self-Titled

More Carly Simon

  • This early Elektra pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning outstanding Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Can you believe that the producer and engineer of Carly’s debut is none other than Eddie Kramer?!
  • “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” is the killer track here and it’s close to the BEST we’ve heard on this Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) side one – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This copy really brought this Big Production to life and allowed so many elements to work in harmony.
  • It’s a good example of what a truly Hot Stamper is supposed to do – let the music work as music

The richness and the sweetness of the midrange on the better copies are exactly what you’d be looking for on this heavily-produced pop album, and this copy gives you that sound like no other copy you’ve ever heard.

Credit must go to Eddie Kramer, legendary producer and engineer for the likes of Hendrix and Zeppelin. He knows how to get good sound all right, although Female Singer Songwriter albums in his catalog are fairly light on the ground. (Richard Perry became the go-to guy for those productions as the ’70s wore on.) This may, in fact, be the only one Eddie ever did. But he knows Big Production Rock, and that’s what most of this album is about.

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Grover Washington – Winelight

More Grover Washington Jr

More Bill Withers

  • Superb sound throughout this wonderful Elektra pressing
  • Both sides here are rich, full-bodied and musical – this is the sound of Analog that we fell in love with all those years ago (57 and counting in my case)
  • We’ve called this album a Demo Disc for Bass and any Hot Stamper copy will show you why
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Winelight is one of his finest albums, and not primarily because of the Bill Withers hit “Just the Two of Us.” It is the five instrumentals that find Washington (on soprano, alto, and tenor) really stretching out…”

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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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The Doors – L.A. Woman

More of the Music of The Doors

  • An L.A. Woman like you’ve never heard, with solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • This early pressing is huge, lively and rich, with in-the-room vocal presence that no Heavy Vinyl pressing can begin to offer
  • Here is the big Bruce Botnick sound we love
  • If all you know are the various Heavy Vinyl versions, this excellent copy will show you just what you’ve been missing
  • 4 1/2 stars:”The seven-minute title track was a car-cruising classic that celebrated both the glamour and seediness of Los Angeles; the other long cut, the brooding, jazzy ‘Riders on the Storm,’ was the group at its most melodic and ominous.”
  • If you’re a Doors fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this title from 1971 clearly belongs in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1971 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

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The Doors – Strange Days

More of The Doors

  • This excellent copy of Strange Days boasts Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on both sides
  • An outstanding-sounding pressing of one of the most difficult-to-find records in the world of Hot Stampers
  • Demo Quality sound for so many classics: “When The Music’s Over,” “Moonlight Drive,” “Love Me Two Times,” and more
  • “… if The Beatles had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club and The Beach Boys had Pet Sounds, then The Doors’ answer was Strange Days. This experimentation can be heard in the very first notes of the title track, as Ray Manzarek’s spacey keyboards set the tone for Morrison’s eerie, distorted warning, ‘Strange days have found us.’ It’s the perfect introduction to a perfectly strange album.”
  • If you’re a fan of The Doors, this early pressing from 1967 surely belongs in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1967 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1967 Tubey Analog sound can be, this copy will can do just that.

It’s spacious, sweet and positively dripping with ambience. Talk about Tubey Magic, the liquidity of the sound here is positively uncanny. This is vintage analog at its best, so full-bodied and relaxed you’ll wonder how anyone seriously contemplated trying to improve it. (more…)

Simply Red / A New Flame – A Personal Favorite

More Simply Red

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • This excellent UK import copy of A New Flame boasts Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • The key qualities for a record from this era are richness, smoothness, naturalness and Tubey Magic — with those, and clarity and presence, you have pretty much everything you need for a top quality pressing
  • Simply Red’s third (and in our opinion their BEST) album – this is where it all came together for the band, with “It’s Only Love” and “A New Flame” being the two best tracks the group ever recorded
  • Their cover of “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” on side two sounds FANTASTIC

This outstanding UK import pressing has some of the best sound we have ever heard for the album, Simply Red’s third and in my opinion their BEST.

This is where it all came together for the band, especially in the writing department. These songs about love (few popular songs are about anything else when you stop to think about it) harken back to the days when there was such a thing as “Blue-Eyed Soul Music,” a cross between real soul music and the standard radio-friendly pop song. Hall and Oates, Smokey Robinson (not exactly blue-eyed but definitely the right sound); the music of these artists combines pop craftsmanship with real soul.

I love this album. Every track is good; the slow ones are the best but unlike their previous records the uptempo tracks are taken at a more modest and listenable pace. The two tracks that open side one are two of the best the band ever recorded.

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Love / Self-Titled – Killer Sound from Bruce Botnick

More Love

More Psych Rock

  • An original Gold Label stereo pressing of Love’s debut album with excellent Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • Exceptionally quiet vinyl doesn’t begin to do this one justice – I simply cannot remember a time that a copy with sound this good played this quietly, and we have been doing shootouts for Love for 15 years or more
  • A classic from 1966, a combination of proto-punk and psychedelia featuring “My Little Red Book,” “Hey Joe” and more
  • The first Love album is without a doubt the punchiest, liveliest, most POWERFUL recording in the Love catalog
  • Engineered by none other than Bruce Botnick, here is the kind of massive bottom end weight and energy that we like to call WHOMP
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Love’s debut is both their hardest-rocking early album and their most Byrds-influenced…”

Some of you may not know this music, but it’s a true Must Own Psychedelic Gem from the ’60s, a record no rock collection should be without, along with other groundbreaking albums from the ’60s such as Surrealistic Pillow, The Doors’ debut, the first Spirit album and too many others to list.

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

More Carly Simon

  • 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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Judy Collins – Who Knows Where The Time Goes

More Judy Collins

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Judy Collins

  • The sweetness and transparency to the guitars and vocals on this wonderful pressing won us over
  • “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” – one of our favorite Judy Collins songs – is achingly powerful here
  • 4 stars: “Enthusiasts of Judy Collins rank this among their favorite recordings and it is likewise a perfect touchstone for the burgeoning listener as well.”
  • If you’re a fan of Judy’s, this early pressing from 1968 surely belongs in your collection
  • The complete list of titles from 1968 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Finding the Best Sound

Most copies were a bit thinner than ideal, and even the best pressings we heard had a bit of that quality. Frequency extension high and low was also hard to come by.

If the sound is rich and full-bodied, yet clear and transparent, you probably have yourself one of the few that were mastered and pressed properly — and one of the few that survived the turntables of their day to be playable forty-plus years later on the revealing equipment you undoubtedly own.

If you don’t own such a copy, and with all due respect chances are you don’t, we have a lovely copy right here for you, only a click away.

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The Cars – Panorama

More of The Cars

  • Panorama makes its Hot Stamper debut here with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish
  • 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
  • A tough title to find these days — it took us years to get this shootout going
  • “While it’s true that Panorama may be the work of a band in transition, taking baby steps in new directions, it’s also the work of a band that couldn’t help but make great music regardless. . . The production, too, is just as striking as it is on previous efforts, as are the performances.”

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