Favorites – Vocals

If I still had a record collection — no longer in the cards because all of my records went to good homes a long time ago — these 80-odd vocal titles would be in it.

Frank Sinatra – The Concert Sinatra

More of the Music of Frank Sinatra

  • Boasting two INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sides, this copy is certainly as good as we have ever heard
  • Sinatra’s voice on this superb stereo pressing always sounds natural, even at its loudest – there is no strain or hardness, and that makes it a very special copy indeed
  • The 73 musicians you see stretched out across the soundstage at Samuel Goldwyn Studios behind Sinatra will give you some idea of the size and scope of the sound – with 24 mics feeding 8 tracks onto 35MM recording film, this was the sonic equivalent of Gone With the Wind
  • “It’s not exactly the swinging Sinatra of myth and legend, but it does make for a stunning musical experience; the Chairman is in great voice, and he scales the explosive orchestral peaks of Riddle’s arrangements with the confidence of a mountain climber on methedrine. His versions of “Ol’ Man River” and “Soliloquy” are big improvements over his Columbia-era attempts, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “My Heart Stood Still,” and “Lost in the Stars” are positively breathtaking.”

Folks, when we say that clean, good-sounding Sinatra records are hard to come by, we are not kidding. It took us five years to find enough copies of this title to do a proper shootout. In that time an awful lot of bad LPs passed through our hands: the monos (never heard a good one), the reissues (ditto), imports, and, most commonly, original stereo pressings in beat-to-death condition. People loved Sinatra and played his records until the grooves were gone.

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Helen Humes / Songs I LIke to Sing – A Forgotten Jazz Vocal Classic

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • With a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, this vintage Contemporary pressing was giving us the sound we were looking for on our all time favorite Big Band Vocal album – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Both of these sides are exceptionally Tubey Magical, yet incredibly clean and clear
  • Helen’s voice is perfection — breathy, full, and sweet; and the orchestra sounds just right — just listen to the nice bite of the brass
  • 5 stars: “One of the high points of Helen Humes’ career, this Contemporary set features superior songs, superb backup, and very suitable and swinging arrangements by Marty Paich. Humes’ versions of ‘If I Could Be With You,’ ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy,’ and ‘Million Dollar Secret,’ in particular, are definitive… This classic release is essential and shows just how appealing a singer Helen Humes could be.”

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Frank Sinatra – Strangers In The Night

More of the Music of Frank Sinatra

  • Boasting two solid Double Plus (A++) sides, this vintage Reprise pressing is doing just about everything right – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This Sinatra title surprised us with its Demo Disc sound – on the blog, it’s one of the records we “discovered” with audiophile quality sound, because who knew the album could sound this good but us?
  • Clearly one of the better sounding Reprise-era Sinatra albums we have ever played
  • Credit must be given to the extraordinarily inventive arrangements of Nelson Riddle and the Tubey Magical engineering of Lee Herschberg
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these early pressings – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • “Sinatra’s singing is relaxed, confident, and surprisingly jazzy, as he plays with the melody of ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ and delivers a knockout punch with the assured, breathtaking ‘Summer Wind.'”

We cannot recommend this pressing highly enough. If you want to know what the best sounding Sinatra records sound like, this is your chance. Folks, in my opinion it simply does not get any better than a killer White Hot Stamper of Strangers In The Night.

These originals are the only way to go for ’60s Sinatra, but finding them in good shape on quiet vinyl is no picnic and only a few of them actually sound the way we want them to. It’s a real treat to be in the presence of the Chairman Of The Board, in his prime, working his magic — but only an exceptional copy like this one has the power to put him right in the room with you.

What to Listen For

The Tubey Magic has to be heard to be believed. I cannot recall hearing a richer, smoother, tubier Frank Sinatra album in all my born days.

Weighty brass is key to the sound of more than just the horn section. Any leanness or thinness in the brass is instantly heard as Sinatra without weight and richness to his voice. This is the instantly recognizable sound of most reissues, the main reason we stopped buying them years ago. Having played so many amazing original stereo pressings for our shootouts over the years we don’t think that will change anytime soon. There simply is no substitute for a clean stereo pressing on the original label.

Full, Rich, Breathy, Present vocals are obviously critically important as well. This copy delivers some of the best we heard.

On this copy the orchestra and band are putting out plenty of low end, reaching down well into whomp land. It’s a thrill to hear to hear that sound on these swinging arrangements coming out of my speakers.

And of course the copies that are rich and tubey but also big, clear and open did the best in our shootout. (more…)

Billie Holiday – Music For Torching

More Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums

  • Boasting solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last, this Verve Mono reissue is doing just about everything right
  • A superb recording of jazz standards with a great lineup and Billie in top form – plenty of Tubey Magical richness and naturally breathy vocals as well
  • Great performances for classics such as “It Had to Be You,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “A Fine Romance,” and too many more to list
  • 4 1/2 stars: “The overall feeling on this 1955 recording is strictly after-hours: the party is long over but a few close friends remain for nightcaps and, is that the sun peeking through the windows?”

You’d be hard pressed to find a female vocal album from the 1950s with sound comparable to this one. We just finished up a big shootout for the sublimely titled Music For Torching, and this lovely copy was clearly one of the better pressings we played. If you love smoky jazz standards the way only Lady Day can sing them, we think you’ll be blown away to hear her sound this warm, rich and present.

The formula is simple: Take one of the best female vocalists in the game, back her with a stellar crew of jazzmen and set them loose to knock out incredible versions of classic torch songs — It Had To Be You, A Fine Romance, Come Rain Or Come Shine and so forth.

The good news is that the performances turned out to be some of the best ever recorded by this extraordinary singer, and fortunately for us audiophiles, the mono sound turned out to be dramatically better than we would have expected from Norman Granz’s Verve label in 1955.

Both sides are blessed with the kind of mid-’50’s Tubey Magical Analog Sound that’s been lost to the world of recorded music for decades — decades I tell you!

Nobody can manage to get a recording to sound like this anymore and it seems as if no one can even remaster a recording like this anymore, if our direct experience with scores of such albums counts as any sort of evidence.

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Harry Belafonte / Sings The Blues

 More Living Stereo Recordings

  • Here is a vintage pressing of Sings the Blues with seriously good Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • So hugely spacious and three-dimensional, yet with a tonally correct and natural sounding Harry, this is the way to hear it
  • Lively, balanced and vibrant, with a healthy dose of the Tubey Magical Living Stereo richness these recordings need to sound the way they should
  • This is yet another title that has taken us more than ten years to do and believe us when we tell you they usually don’t come as quiet as this
  • “Belafonte nails every song on the album … his version of ‘Cotton Fields’ is as good as there is and his ‘God Bless the Child’ is outstanding”

If you’re looking to demonstrate just how good 1958 All Tube Analog sound can be, this killer copy may be just the record for you.

Naturally the vocals have to be the main focus on a Harry Belafonte record. He should sound rich and tubey, yet clear, breathy and transparent.

To qualify as a Hot Stamper the pressings we offer must be highly resolving, not crude and ambience-challenged the way so many modern LPs seem to be.

You should be able to hear every element of the recording, with the voice and instruments surrounded by the natural space of the studios in which the recording was made.

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Peggy Lee – If You Go

More of the Music of Peggy Lee

  • Outstanding sound throughout, with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them from first note to last
  • Side two of this vintage Capitol stereo pressing is rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical – we’re talking All Tube Analog from 1961, after all – with wonderfully sweet and breathy vocals, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • Both our top copies in the shootout were too noisy to sell, ouch! I doubt if we will be doing this title again, the vinyl is just too noisy on these old Capitol pressings
  • “… the man writing the charts here is Quincy Jones, and he is only occasionally interested in underscoring the heartbreak with suitably sad music… Lee responds to the music with a world-weary tone, but an occasional swing in her step, as if this is not her first romance, nor her first one to go wrong.”

This vintage Capitol pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely begin to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing any sign of coming back. (more…)

Peggy Lee – Latin ala Lee!

More of the Music of Miss Peggy Lee

  • Excellent sound throughout this vintage Capitol Stereo pressing of Lee’s 1960 release, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Everything that’s good about All Tube Vocal Recordings from the 50s and 60s is precisely what’s good about the sound of this record
  • “The rhythms are not only authentically Afro-Cuban, but surprisingly strong and rarely watered down. The rest of the arrangements, though breezy and pop-slanted, support Lee’s vocals perfectly.”

Heavy Vinyl

When the S&P pressing came out, I was knocked out by the sound. Here is what I wrote in my catalog at the time:

The Record of the Year for 2003. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s true! If you don’t have a smile on your face fifteen seconds after playing track one, you better check your pulse, cuz, as the famous song has it: Jack, You Dead. Amazingly good sound, courtesy of a fabulous and painstakingly difficult remix by the mastering guru himself, Steve Hoffman. This is popular music for the previous generation — but why should we be denied these long forgotten treasures?

Now I would be much more likely to find fault in the sound of that pressing. I’m sure it has all the shortcomings typical of this era’s records from Kevin Gray’s opaque and ambience-free cutting system.

If you want to hear a copy with all the life, presence and space of a real record, you will have a hard time doing better than this very pressing.

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Frank Sinatra – Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

More of the Music of Frank Sinatra

  • With outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it from start to finish, this vintage stereo pressing of Sinatra and Jobim’s sublime collaboration will be very hard to beat
  • A Must Own for Sinatra fans, but one that has a marked tendency to be noisy, as many of the owners of the album loved it and played it to death, but no such problems here
  • The presence and three-dimensional space of the recording have the power to transport the Chairman of the Board and his Brazilian buddy right into your listening room (particularly on side two)
  • This is a magical album from start to finish, one of a handful of a Must Own Sinatra releases, and my personal favorite of all his recordings
  • 4 1/2 stars: “After a few plays, the album begins to slowly work its way underneath a listener’s skin, and it emerges as one of his most rewarding albums of the ’60s.”
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile/music-lover should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. This is a good example of a record audiophiles should make an effort to get to know better

This is, in our opinion, one of the two best sounding Sinatra album on Reprise (the other being September of My Years from 1965). The recording is so rich, sweet, and Tubey Magical, you would think it was prime Capitol-period Sinatra — but it’s not, obviously; it just sounds that way.

If you like romantic music, you will be hard-pressed to find a better album than this one. The song “Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars” perfectly encapsulates the mood of this album. My favorite track here is “Dindi.” Sinatra is the king of lost loves, and the song “Dindi” offers him another opportunity for regret. Nobody does it better than Frank. It’s a cliche to say he wears his heart on his sleeve, but the man made a career out of it. If the cliche fits…

Whatever you do, don’t waste your money on Kevin Gray’s mediocre cutting of the album. I gave it a C- years ago for sound, but these days I suspect it might get an F. A lot of his stuff does.

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Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Swings Brightly With Nelson

More of the Music of Ella Fitzgerald

  • A vintage Stereo Verve pressing (one of only a handful of copies to hit the site in almost two and a half years) with solid Double Plus (A++) grades from start to finish, and pressed on vinyl that’s about as quiet as we can ever hope to find it
  • Remarkably lovely All Tube sound from 1961, with a huge, rich orchestra conducted by the legendary Nelson Riddle
  • Fitzgerald’s performance on this album won her the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, her 7th Grammy
  • “The singer has rarely sounded better than during this period. Fitzgerald sticks mostly to familiar standards and is particularly memorable on ‘Don’t Be That Way,’ ‘What Am I Here For,’ ‘I’m Gonna Go Fishin,’ ‘ and ‘I Won’t Dance.'”

Take it from an Ella fan, you can’t go wrong with this one, assuming you can put up with some light crackle underneath the music. The record itself looks exceptionally clean and well-cared for, but it clearly does not play as quietly as we would have hoped.

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! The space is HUGE and the sound so rich.

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…)

Willie Nelson – Without A Song

More of the Music of Willie Nelson

  • A Without A Song like you’ve never heard, with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound throughout this vintage Columbia pressing – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • As he did so brilliantly on Stardust, here Willie brings his inimitable singing style to classics of love and loss taken from The Great American Songbook
  • Top quality arrangements – drop the needle on “Autumn Leaves” or “A Dreamer’s Holiday” to hear Booker T and his bandmates at their best
  • Top tracks include “Autumn Leaves,” “As Time Goes By,” “Harbor Lights” and, of course, “Without a Song”
  • The critics may not have been impressed, but music lovers sure were – Amazon buyers award the album more than 4 1/2 stars
  • Without a Song is a well recorded album of excellent music, one that we feel should be more popular with audiophiles

Once again Willie is backed by a top-notch backing band fronted by the one and only Booker T. Jones. Drop the needle on “Once In A While” and dig the uncanny presence of the vocal and astonishing clarity of the ensemble.

Much like Stardust, a Hot Stamper pressing of this record is a real treat for we audiophiles. This is some amazingly soulful music with midrange magic to spare.

There’s lots of air up top, giving the instruments plenty of room to breathe. The vocals are breathy and full-bodied; if Willie’s voice doesn’t sound a bit gravelly, you’re probably playing an overly smooth or lo-rez copy, and we take away a lot of points for both.

This copy gives you everything you could ask for from this music — tight bass, clearly audible guitar transients, generous amounts of warmth and sweetness, vocal immediacy and studio ambience like no other.

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