Masterpieces of Vocal Music

Vocal Masterpieces

Ella Fitzgerald / Like Someone In Love

Hot Stamper Pressings of Ella Fitzgerald’s Albums Available Now

  • With two Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this stereo pressing simply could not be beat
  • Ella’s voice is noticeably breathier, fuller, more relaxed and more musical here than it is on the other copies we played
  • An album that is beyond difficult to find with decent surfaces and undamaged inner grooves – most copies we get in are just trashed
  • “Most of the songs are veteran standards, Stan Getz’s warm tenor helps out on four tunes, and her voice was so strong and appealing during this era that all of her recordings from the mid- to late ’50s are enjoyable and easily recommended.”

Take it from an Ella fan, you can’t go wrong with this one, assuming you can put up with some ticky vinyl. This is about as quiet as we can find them. Like Someone in Love is five times rarer than Clap Hands, and twice as likely to be noisy.

The sound is rich and full-bodied in the best tradition of a classic vintage jazz vocal album. You could easily demonstrate your stereo with a record this good, but what you would really be demonstrating is music that the listener probably hasn’t heard, and that’s the best reason to demonstrate a stereo!

The space is huge and the sound so rich. The vocals have dramatically less hardness and the orchestra — especially on side two — is not brash for once.

Prodigious amounts of Tubey Magic as well, which is key to the best sounding copies. The sound needs weight, warmth and tubes or you might as well be playing a CD. (more…)

Harry Nilsson – A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • A lusciously Tubey Magical Top 100 album with orchestral arrangements by the superbly talented Gordon Jenkins
  • One of our favorite Nilsson releases (of which there are many) – it’s The Ultimate latter-day standards album
  • If you could only have one album of standards from the Great American Songbook, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • “This is a must have disc pure and simple as it is the best standards album any contemporary artist has ever recorded. All the ingredients were woven together for a remarkable vision.”

After our first big shootout for this album many years ago we were so blown away by what a great copy could do that we immediately added it to our Rock & Pop Top 100 list and have never once regretted doing so. It’s the only Nilsson album to make the cut. Even more unusual, considering it was recorded in 1973, it’s actually one of the better sounding orchestra-backed male vocal albums that we know of. (more…)

Nina Simone – Nina Simone Sings The Blues

  • You’ll find outstanding sound on this vintage copy of Simone’s RCA debut, with Double Plus (A++) grades for sound or close to them
  • This stereo pressing of Nina’s exceptionally hard to find, highly regarded 1967 release (5 Stars! ) is full-bodied, smooth and musical
  • 5 stars: “Nina Simone Sings the Blues is a hallmark recording that endures; it deserves to be called a classic.”

If you’re a fan of vintage female vocals – the kind with no trace of digital reverb – you may get quite a kick out of this one. And unless I miss my guess you’ll be the first and only person on your block to own it! (That’s not a bad thing considering the average person’s taste in music and sound these days.) (more…)

June Christy – Something Cool

More June Christy

More Pop and Jazz Vocals

  • Miss Christy’s Must Own Masterpiece returns to the site, this time with stunning Triple Triple (A+++) Mono Hot Stamper sound
  • Need a refresher course in Tubey Magic after playing too many remastered records? This 1955 original Capitol turquoise pressing is overflowing with it
  • One of our favorite Cool School vocalists – we just wish we could find more clean copies of her albums
  • 5 Stars: “Christy established herself as an artist who strove for the very best in song selection, arrangements, and notably intelligent interpretation. There were perhaps other vocalists with greater vocal equipment, but few could match June Christy’s artistic integrity.”

We are HUGE fans of this album at Better Records, but it’s taken us a long time to pull together enough clean copies to make this shootout happen. Boy, was it worth all the trouble!

The presence and immediacy here are staggering. Get the volume just right and June will be standing between your speakers and putting on the performance of a lifetime. This is one of our three or four favorite female vocal albums (along with Clap Hands, Julie Is her Name and not many others!) and this amazingly good copy will show you why — the sound and music are As Good As It Gets.

This early mono pressing is the only way to find the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s missing from modern records. As good as the best of those pressings may be, this record is dramatically more REAL sounding. (more…)

Sarah Vaughan – After Hours At The London House

  • Vaughan’s 1959 live album finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • No other copy could touch this pressing for warmth, richness, and, most especially, vocal intimacy and in-the-room presence
  • The multiple takes Sarah Vaughan does on Thanks for the Memory here blow my mind to this very day – pull it up on youtube and hear it for yourself
  • “… the producers invited a small group of friends and well-wishers to another Chicago club, London House, for an after-hours session. Vaughan expanded her trio with a quartet of Count Basie titans, including trumpeter Thad Jones and tenor Frank Wess, and… decided to record a set that, in true after-hours fashion, was completely improvised.”
  • Don’t waste your money on the mono pressings — the sound is third rate at best
  • Leave those monos in the bins for the jazz guys with Garrard turntables and speakers that sit on milk crates
  • Additionally, the original pressings we played were not remotely competitive with the best Hot Stamper reissues we are offering here

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Nat “King” Cole’s – Love Is The Thing

  • A lovely pressing of this audiophile favorite, with Double Plus (A++) sound and fairly quiet vinyl on both sides to rival the best pop vocal recordings we know of
  • Nat himself sounds especially immediate and real, and the strings are much less of a problem here than they are on most pressings
  • If all you know of this album is the weirdly unnatural remix DCC did (on Analogue Productions vinyl too) this pressing will be nothing less than a revelation
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Nat King Cole’s collaborations with Gordon Jenkins rank among the finest from either artist or arranger. 1957’s Love Is the Thing remains the epitome of the pair’s undeniable compatibility, and it topped the album charts for eight weeks.”

Love Is The Thing has always been one of the better Nat “King” Cole recordings we play. The music is sublime, and on the right copy the sound can be superb. Armed with a much larger variety of pressings to play, including some interesting “finds” among them, our recent shootout convinced us that it actually is The Best. We have never heard the man sound better than he does on the best copies of this very recording.

One of the key elements we noticed on the best of the best was the quality of relaxation in Nat’s performance. He sings so effortlessly on the good sounding pressings. On some pressings that casual quality is not nearly as noticeable. (more…)

Mel Torme With The Marty Paich Dek-tette

More of the Music of Mel Torme

  • A KILLER copy with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and solid Double Plus (A++) sound on the second; exceptionally quiet vinyl too!
  • Both sides here are incredibly rich and smooth with wonderfully breathy vocals and a solid bottom end
  • “Mel Tormé with the Marty Paich Dek-tette is a vocal masterpiece, an extremely satisfying record achieved only by a fusion of an excellent voice, an excellent band, and excellent material.” – All Music, 5 Stars

This vintage Bethlehem pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Unquestionably the Best Sammy Davis Jr. Album We’ve Ever Played

Hot Stamper Pressings of Our Best Vocal Albums

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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,” with an accent on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

This album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but would certainly benefit from getting to know better.

It’s one of the most emotionally rich and sublimely enjoyable collections of romantic ballads ever recorded.

Our Hot Stamper pressings are guaranteed to demolish the DCC CD (should you have one laying around, an admittedly unlikely proposition to be sure).

The sound is rich, warm and natural beyond expectation — assuming you’ve suffered through other of Sammy’s recordings from the ’60s, as we have, finding little of merit in their sound.

On most of them, at some point in the first track, the phony vocal EQ and heavy reverb would dash whatever hopes we might have had for the sound.

Soon enough the record would be consigned to the trade-in pile, perhaps to find a home where bad sound is not a deal-breaker (which means pretty much everywhere).

For us audiophiles, at least most of the time, it has to be.
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