Masterpieces of Soul

Soul, RnB, Blues, Reggae, etc. Masterpieces

Tower of Power – Back To Oakland

More Soul, Blues, and R&B

  • With solid Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Back To Oakland you’ve heard
  • Our Hot Stamper pressings are rich, warm and dynamic, with plenty of analog Tubey Magic
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, presence and energy on this copy than anything else around, and that’s especially true for whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently being foisted on an unsuspecting record buying public
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Back to Oakland had tougher, funkier and better-produced cuts, stronger vocals from Lenny Williams, and included an excellent ballad in ‘Time Will Tell,’ and a rousing tempo in ‘Don’t Change Horses (In the Middle of a Stream).'”

(more…)

Flack / Hathaway – Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway

More of the Music of Roberta Flack

  • Boasting two STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides or close to them, we guarantee you’ve never heard Roberta and Donny’s 1972 collaboration sound remotely as good as it does on this vintage copy
  • There’s Tubey Magic, sweetness and spaciousness all over this recording
  • One of our favorite duet albums, Flack and the woefully underrated Soul Man Donny Hathaway are in top form here
  • 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: “A duet classic, and perhaps the most popular album Roberta Flack made. ‘Where Is the Love’ dominated urban contemporary radio for almost the entire year, while ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ was just as influential…”

These soulful duets sound wonderful. The best sides are big, bold, open and transparent with a huge three-dimensional soundfield, strong presence, good rhythmic energy, and wonderfully dynamic leads and choruses. (more…)

Aretha Franklin – Live at Fillmore West

More of the Music of Aretha Franklin

  • A vintage pressing of this classic live album with an INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side one mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side two – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Aretha’s cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” is truly amazing, but really, there’s not a weak track here – her covers of current material take those songs to another level entirely
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The music here sparkles and crackles with the energy of a top-flight rhythm section — Cornell Dupree on guitar, Bernard Purdie on drums, and Jerry Jemmott on bass, with Billy Preston on organ, Curtis on saxophone, and the Memphis Horns… the most dramatic and deeply satisfying of Aretha Franklin’s live recordings, and is a historical document that every soul fan should own…”

Aretha’s cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water has STUNNINGLY GOOD SOUND and check out how good Ray Charles’s voice sounds when he guests on Spirit In The Dark!

Please note that there is some low-level stage buzz behind the music at times. It’s noted in the liner notes, so it’s obviously not a problem with this copy. It’s mildly annoying, but it’s certainly not a dealbreaker. The music and sound are still very enjoyable. One other note — side two seems to be cut a little lower than side one, so give side two a little extra volume for best results.

(more…)

Average White Band / Self-Titled

More Soul, Blues and R&B

  • This vintage Atlantic pressing of this classic White Soul album boasts seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Big, rich, and open (particularly on side two) – we guarantee you have never heard this album sound even remotely as good as this copy does
  • “Pick Up The Pieces” is rockin’ like it should, finally, but really, there’s not a weak track on the album
  • 4 1/2 stars: “AWB embraced soul and funk with so much conviction that it was clear this was anything but an ‘average’ white band.”

We’ve been playing this record for years, but until finding a very Hot copy back in 2007 we had no idea what a sonic monster it could be. We didn’t have enough clean copies around to do a full shootout at that time for a very good reason — we’d never heard this record sound particularly good before. The typical copy tends to be smeary, with sour horns and not very much energy.

The overall sound on both of these sides is lively and energetic with superb transparency. The bass is deep, rich, and tight — just what this funky music demands. The brass sounds wonderful — it has just the right amount of bite and you can really hear the air moving through the horns.  It’s smooth, sweet, airy, open, spacious and alive.

(more…)

Albert King / Born Under a Bad Sign

More Electric Blues

  • Born Under A Bad Sign returns to the site for the first time in years, here with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this original Stax pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • These are just a few of the the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “big and tubey and 3D”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”very full vox”…”weighty and rich”…”great energy”…”so much room and detail”
  • No other copy came close to this one, and we had a bunch, many of which earned grades of 1.5+ because,  on this record, you really have to know what to look for in the dead wax
  • Incredibly dynamic, rich and full, with lots of texture to the guitars, this copy brought the music to life right in our listening room
  • Accept no substitutes – no reissue of the album can ever give you the energy, size and you-are-there presence that’s on this disc
  • 5 stars: “It was immediately influential at the time and, over the years, it has only grown in stature as one of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time.”

A Must Own Record

We consider this album a Masterpiece. It’s a recording that belongs in any serious soul, blues, and R&B collection.

Others that belong in that category can be found here.

(more…)

Whitney Houston – Self-Titled

More of the Music of Whitney Houston

  • Stunning sound for Whitney’s debut LP, with both sides earning Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • This album has the kind of smooth, rich, tonally correct analog sound we thought they had forgotten how to record by 1985 – but here it is, thank goodness
  • Consistently strong material: “You Give Good Love,” “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “All At Once,” and “Greatest Love Of All” (the last of seven (!) singles released from the album)
  • 5 stars: “…introduced the world to ‘The Voice,’ an octave-spanning, gravity-defying melismatic marvel.”

The copies that do well in our shootouts have qualities common to many of the other male and female Hot Stamper vocal pressings we offer. The better copies are big, rich, clear and transparent, with breathy, immediate vocals.

Hardness, thinness, shrillness and the like — the kind of sound you would expect from a 1985 recording — will be very costly for any copy we play. I’m sure that sound can be found on the CD, and for a lot less money.

Energy and enthusiasm are key as well. You want to get the feeling that Whitney is really putting her all into these songs, and the better copies let you do that.

Space and depth are nice to have; otherwise you might as well be listening to the radio.

(more…)

Stevie Wonder – Innervisions

More of the Music of Stevie Wonder

  • With STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout, this copy is guaranteed to blow the doors off any other Innervisions you’ve heard
  • A Stevie Wonder classic as well as a proud member of our Top 100, but you will need a copy like this one to prove that it belongs there
  • Richness, warmth, Tubey Magic, and clarity are important to the sound, and here you will find plenty of all four
  • 5 stars: “Stevie Wonder applied his tremendous songwriting talents to the unsettled social morass that was the early ’70s and produced one of his greatest, most important works, a rich panoply of songs addressing drugs, spirituality, political ethics, and what looked to be the failure of the ’60s dream – all set within a collection of charts as funky and catchy as any he’d written before.”
  • This is our pick for Free’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.
  • If any record can be called a Must Own, Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece from 1973 is one, slotting in nicely right at the top of any list of the greatest soul albums of all time, if not THE greatest

Millions of these were made, but a whole lot of them sure weren’t made right.

Years ago we made some progress with regard to the various stampers and pressing plants we liked best, but trying to find clean copies with the right matrix numbers has proved challenging. Even when you do get the copies with good stampers, they often don’t sound all that amazing. I had practically given up on making this shootout happen until about ten years ago, when a friend dropped off a copy that had seriously good sound.

It didn’t turn out to be the ultimate copy — that’s why shootouts are crucially important to the discovery of the best pressings — but it was so enjoyable that we decided to give Innervisions another try, and since that time we’ve gotten better and better at finding, cleaning and playing Stevie Wonder’s Masterpiece, a record that should be played regularly and one that belongs in any right-thinking audiophile’s collection.

(more…)

Hall and Oates / Abandoned Luncheonette – Their Best Sounding Album

More of the Music of Hall and Oates

  • Solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER bring H&O’s Must Own classic to life on this early Atlantic pressing
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • By far the best sounding record these guys ever made, and for our money nothing in their recorded canon can touch it
  • A Better Records favorite, a longtime member of our Top 100, and an absolute thrill when it sounds like this
  • The early 4 Digit pressings are the only way to go on this one – all the reissues (including the worst reissue of them all, the MoFi) are terrible sounding
  • 5 stars: “Abandoned Luncheonette, Hall & Oates’ second album, was the first indication of the duo’s talent for sleek, soul-inflected pop/rock. It featured the single ‘She’s Gone,’ which would become a big hit in 1975 when it was re-released following the success of ‘Sara Smile.'”

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 accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

The list is purposely wide-ranging. It includes some famous titles (Tumbleweed Connection, The Yes Album), but for the most part I have gone out of way to choose titles from talented artists that are less well known (Atlantic Crossing, Kiln House, Dad Loves His Work), which simply means that you won’t find Every Picture Tells a Story or Rumours or Sweet Baby James on this list because masterpieces of that caliber should already be in your collection and don’t need me to recommend them.

Which is not to say there aren’t some well known Masterpieces on the list, because not every well known record is necessarily well known to audiophiles, and some records are just too good not to put on a list of records we think every audiophile ought to get to know better.

Out of the thousands of records we have auditioned and reviewed, there are a couple of hundred that have stood the test of time for us and we feel are deserving of a listen. Many of these will not be to your taste, but they were to mine.

I’ve always liked this record, but now I consider it a classic. I could listen to it every week for a year and never tire of it.

Don’t write these guys off as some Top 40 blue-eyed soul popsters from the 70s that time has forgotten. They are all of the above, but they don’t deserve to be forgotten, if only on the strength of this album. Without question this is their Masterpiece. We also consider it a Desert Island Disc and a true Demo Disc.

If you’re looking for a big production pop record that jumps out of your speakers, look no further. This record is alive. Until I picked up one of these nice originals, I had no idea how good this record could sound. For an early 70s multi-track popular recording, this is about as good as it gets. It’s rich, sweet, open, natural, smooth — most of the time (although the multi-tracked vocals might be a little much on some songs, depending on your front end) — in short, it’s got all the stuff we audiophiles love.

(more…)

War / Why Can’t We Be Friends? – Amazing Demo Disc Sound

More War

This Well Recorded Album Should Be More Popular with Audiophiles

  • A vintage copy (only the second to hit the site in over two and a half years) that was doing just about everything right, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • The best song this band ever recorded, “Don’t Let No One Get You Down,” is on side one we guarantee you’ve never heard it sound better
  • WCWBF is one of our favorite albums here at Better Records and clearly the band’s masterpiece – the bass and dynamics on the better pressings make this a Demo Disc on a big system
  • 4 stars [but we give it 5]: “Cut from the same cloth as the band’s 1973 Deliver the Word LP, War’s 1975 Why Can’t We Be Friends? is a masterpiece in its scope and breadth. [It] remains one of War’s truly outstanding efforts, and has become an integral part of the funk genre’s landscape. It also remains the nightcap of their finest hour.”
  • This is a Must Own title from 1975, a great year for popular music of all kinds
  • 1975 was an exceptionally good year for music — here are some other excellent pressings of well-recorded albums available now

Engineered by the brilliant Chris Huston, this recording displays all his trademark gifts. His mixes feature lots of bass; huge, room-filling choruses that get loud without straining or becoming congested; and rhythmic energy that few pop recordings could lay claim to in 1975.

“Low Rider” sounds awesome on this one. This is the kind of record you can take to any stereo store or audiophile friend’s house and bring their stereos to their knees. Audiophile systems are rarely designed to play this kind of music at the levels it demands, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be. Records like this are the challenge we audiophiles need to make our stereos even better. When the music is this good, it’s worth the effort.

(more…)

Janis Joplin – I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!

More of the Music of Janis Joplin

  • Boasting two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this original Stereo 360 pressing (the first copy to hit the site in seven months) could not be beat
  • This copy has the ideal combination of openness and transparency balanced with the richness and solidity of vintage analog
  • When Janis starts singing, watch out – her voice positively jumps out of the speakers, something we didn’t hear her do on many of the other copies in our shootout
  • Features “Try,” one of Janis’s All Time Classics – and with these grades you can be sure it sounds positively amazing here
  • 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

This Columbia 360 Stereo pressing is the cure for Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues.

Drop the needle on the great song “Try” and just listen to how crisp, punchy, and big the drums sound. The bottom end has real weight and the top end is silky and extended. The overall sound is rich, full, and smooth.

Energy is the key element missing from the average copy, but not on this bad boy (or girl, if you prefer). The electric guitars are super Tubey Magical and the bass is solid and punchy.

On many copies — too many copies — the vocals are pinched and edgy. Here they’re breathy and full — a much better way for Janis to sound. There’s a slight amount of grit to the vocals at times and the brass as well, but the life force on these sides is so strong that we much preferred it to the smoother, duller, deader copies we heard that didn’t have that issue.

On copy after copy we heard pinched, squawky horns and harsh vocals; not a good sound for this album. Janis’s voice needs lots of space up top to get good and loud, and both of these sides have it in spades.

Few other copies had this combination of openness and transparency on the one hand, and full, rich tonality on the other.

(more…)