Top Artists – Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris – Blue Kentucky Girl

More of the Music of Emmylou Harris

  • Here is a vintage copy of Blue Kentucky Girl with a KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one
  • These sides have the kind of rich, natural sound we found on far too few copies and little of the vocal edginess that many EH albums suffer from
  • Surprisingly full-bodied and not overly detailed for a recording from 1979 – they still knew what they were doing then
  • “In response to criticism that her records weren’t country enough, Harris recorded Blue Kentucky Girl, one of her most traditional outings. Relying on a more acoustic sound, the album largely forsakes contemporary pop songs in favor of standard country fare, including the Louvin Brothers’ ‘Everytime You Leave’ and Leon Payne’s ‘They’ll Never Take His Love from Me.'”

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The Middle of the Midrange Is Key on Prisoner in Disguise

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Linda Ronstadt Available Now

Here’s what we learned when doing a shootout years ago: many copies sounded like they were Half-Speed mastered.

For those of you who don’t know what that means, or sounds like, the blog is full of commentaries about the sonic shortcomings of this mastering technique.

In this case, these Half-Speed sounding ones had a little something phony added to the top of Linda’s voice; they had a little bit of suckout right in the middle of the midrange, the middle of her voice; and they had an overall diffuse, vague quality, with sound that lacked the solidity we heard on the best of the non-audiophile pressings we played. 

These hi-fi-ish qualities that we heard reminded us of the kind of sound we decry at every turn. We’ve played literally hundreds and hundreds of MoFi’s and other Half-Speed mastered records over the course of the last twenty thirty-plus years, and one thing we know well is that sound.

But stop and think about it for a moment.

What if you only had one copy of the album — why would someone have more than one anyway? — and it had that Half-Speed sound?

You’d simply assume the recording had those qualities, assuming you recognized them in the first place.

(Let’s face it, most audiophiles can’t, or all these companies that use this approach to mastering would have gone out of business and stayed out of business, and their out of print records would sell for peanuts, not the collector prices they bring on ebay and discogs. More on that subject here.)

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Linda Ronstadt – Simple Dreams

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

  • An original Asylum pressing with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Linda’s best sounding recording and a proud member of our Top 100 – this is the album that showed us she could do it all
  • Val Garay does it again, filling the grooves with his trademark super-punchy, jump-out-the-speakers, rich and smooth ANALOG sound
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…reconfirms [Rondstadt’s] substantial talents as an interpretive singer…and [her] powerful performance makes the record rival Heart Like a Wheel in sheer overall quality.”
  • If you’re a Linda Ronstadt fan, this undeniable classic from 1977 is surely a Must Own
  • Simple Dreams is our pick for Linda’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here.

This is clearly one of Linda’s best albums and I would have to say, based on my fairly extensive experience with her recorded output, that it is in fact the best sounding record she ever made. I love Heart Like a Wheel, but it sure doesn’t sound like this, not even on the Triple Plus copies that win our shootouts. (It is her best album, though.)

I confess to having never taken the album seriously, dismissing it as a commercial collection of pop hits with about as much depth as the L.A. River — but I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is a great sounding album on the right pressing, not the compressed piece of grainy cardboard we’ve all been playing for years, unaware of the tremendous sound quality lurking in the grooves of other copies; the ones that were blessed with the right stampers, the right vinyl and a healthy amount of fairy dust wafting over the press that day.

That’s what Hot Stamper shootouts are all about — finding those copies, the ones no one knows exist. (No one but us it seems; who else would think to put this album in their Top 100?)

This Is a Real Band

Until a Hot Stamper found its way onto our turntable, we had absolutely no idea the album could sound like this, or that the music was so good.

The first thing that came to mind when I looked inside the fold open cover and saw all the guys who back Linda up on the album is that this is a real rock band. These are not a bunch of studio cats punching a time card. These guys know how to rock; just listen to the way they come blasting out of the gate on “It’s So Easy.” Linda is with them all the way, giving one of the best performances of her career.

Song after song, this super-tight band with the hot female lead (!) show that they can rock with the best of them. And do beautiful ballads (“Blue Bayou”) too.

Folks, I hereby testify that a Hot Stamper copy of this very album gave me a newfound respect for Linda beyond her work on Heart Like a Wheel. This is the album that shows she can do it all, as the All Music Guide points out, and I’m a believer.

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Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris – Trio

More Linda Ronstadt

  • With KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this original Warner Bros. pressing could not be beat
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this stunning copy in our notes: “present and breathy vox”…”big and rich”…”so present and open”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”clear and detailed”
  • Big, rich, smooth, and sweet, how did George Massenburg pull off this kind of analog sound in 1987?
  • We don’t know, but we do know good sound when we hear it, and we heard remarkably good sound on this copy
  • Problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear how incredible sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting stitches and just be swept away by the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…that rare example of an all-star collaborative effort that truly shows everyone involved to their best advantage, and it ranks with the best of all three headliners’ work.”

With three brilliant and accomplished singers harmonizing in the studio you can imagine that faultless midrange tonality is key to the best copies, and you would be right.

Some copies had the girls’ sounding a bit dark and veiled. Some had them a bit thin and bright. The Goldilocks Principle comes into play here as it does in so many of our shootouts: the best copies find the right balance of richness and clarity.

This Is 1987? Seriously?

And what richness! How did so much Tubey Magic get recorded onto a tape produced in the dark ages of 1987? I can’t think of another recording from the period that sounds this good.

A big fat solid snare, full-bodied yet breathy vocals, huge amounts of space around the musicians, a wide and deep stage, dead-on tonality from top to bottom — once we got into our shootout, these unexpected sonic qualities took us completely by surprise.

As a point of comparison, I am not aware of any Emmylou Harris album that is as well recorded as Trio. As for Linda, only her best 70s recordings are this rich and natural. Can’t say much about Dolly’s albums as we have never done a shootout for one, not that we wouldn’t like to.

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Which Side Lacked Space, and How Did You Figure That Out?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Linda Ronstadt Available Now

Big, rich, smooth, and sweet, how did George Massenburg pull off this kind of analog sound in 1987?

We don’t know, but we do know good sound when we hear it, and we heard remarkably good sound on this copy.

The first track on side one was big and rich, with vocals that were breathy and present, just the way we like ’em.

The third track was every bit as good, with sound that was rich and weighty. The vocals wer so present and open, sweet and silky. This is exactly what you want on this album.

And the way we know that is we played a bunch of copies and nothing could beat it. This side one took top honors for having sound we described above.

Side two is another matter. We came across a side two that was slightly better than the side one you see here.

How did that kind of thing happen, you ask?

Well, when we played the two best copies back to back, side one of this copy came out on top, earning a grade of 3+, but the side two of another pressing showed us there was even more space in the recording than we noticed the first time around.

We knew side two was “at least 2+,” the crossed-out text you see in the notes.

With another copy earning a better grade, 3 pluses, we felt the right grade for this side two was 2.5+.

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Emmylou Harris – Luxury Liner

More Emmylou Harris

More Country Rock

  • Here is a seriously good copy of Luxury Liner (one of only a handful to hit the site in two and a half years) with Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side two was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be amazed at how big and rich the sound is
  • Here is the full-bodied and natural sound we look for, with a nicely extended top end, plenty of space around the instruments and vocals, and far fewer of the problems that plague so many of the pressings we play
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Luxury Liner ranks as Emmylou Harris’ best-selling solo record to date, and it’s one of her most engaging efforts as well; her Hot Band is in peak form, and the songs are even more far afield than usual, including Chuck Berry’s “(You Never Can Tell) C’est la Vie” and Townes Van Zandt’s painterly tale of aging outlaws, “Pancho & Lefty.” – All Music

The sound that Emmylou and her producers were going for here is clean, detailed and low distortion, which is exactly what the best pressings like this one deliver. What really sets the good copies apart, though, is a natural, relaxed quality in the midrange. Emmylou sounds like a real person, with none of the too-clean, too-modern, tube-free sound that ruins many of the pressings of her records.  (more…)

Linda Ronstadt – Prisoner In Disguise

More Linda Ronstadt

More Women Who Rock

    • Prisoner In Disguise returns to the site for the first time in over two years, here with Linda’s trademark punchy, lively Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides of this vintage Asylum pressing
    • Here are just a few of our notes for this killer copy: “silky and breathy vox,” “big and punchy,” “huge, rich and silky,” “tons of space and detail,” “so tubey.”
    • This is an amazing recording, but it takes a special copy like this one to reveal all the magic that we know had to have been on the tape in 1975, almost fifty years ago
    • 4 1/2 stars – “Love Is a Rose,” “Tracks of My Tears” and “Heat Wave” were hits, but Linda really pours her heart into “Hey Mister, That’s Me Up On The Jukebox”
    • Andrew Gold (so critical to the success of HLAW) is still heavily involved, along with EmmyLou Harris, James Taylor, Lowell George, David Lindley, JD Souther, and of course Peter Asher

The soundfield has a three-dimensional quality that was nonexistent on some of the other copies we played. Drop the needle on “Many Rivers To Cross” and check out the amazing sound of the organ coming from the back of the room. Only the highest resolution copies give you that kind of soundstage depth.

The piano sounds natural and weighty. The fiddle on “The Sweetest Gift” (played by our man David Lindley) is full of rosiny texture.

Emmylou Harris, dueting here with Linda, sings beautifully throughout.

All in all, you will find truly Demo Disc Quality sound on the best copies.

The acoustic guitars are tonally right on the money, neither bright nor dull, with transient information that is captured perfectly as long as the pressing itself is not smeary, which the better Hot Stamper pressings won’t be.

Listen to the opening guitar in the right channel of “The Sweetest Gift”; we used it as a test track and when that guitar is right there you know you have a copy with Hot Stampers.

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Rockin’ Out to Simple Dreams

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

Clearly this is one of Linda’s best albums, and I would have to say, based on my fairly extensive experience with her recorded output, that it is in fact THE BEST SOUNDING record she ever made.

I love Heart Like a Wheel, but it sure doesn’t sound like this, not even on the Triple Plus copies that win our shootouts. (Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here.)

I confess to having never taken the album seriously, dismissing it as a commercial collection of pop hits with about as much depth as the L.A. River — but I was wrong wrong WRONG.

This is a great sounding album on the right pressing, not the compressed piece of grainy cardboard we’ve all been playing for years, unaware of the tremendous sound quality lurking in the grooves of other copies, the ones that were blessed with the right stampers, the right vinyl and a healthy amount of fairy dust wafting over the press that day.

That’s what Hot Stamper shootouts are all about — finding those copies, the ones no one knows exist.

This Is a Real Band

Until a Hot Stamper found its way onto our turntable, we had absolutely no idea the album could sound like this, or that the music was so good.

The first thing that came to mind when I looked inside the fold open cover and saw all the guys who back Linda up on the album is that this is a real rock band. These are not a bunch of studio cats punching a time card. These guys are a band, and they know how to ROCK; just listen to the way they come blasting out of the gate on It’s So Easy. Linda is with them all the way, giving one of the best performances of her career.

Song after song, this super-tight band with the hot female lead (!) show that they can rock with the best of them. And do beautiful ballads (Blue Bayou) too.

Folks, I hereby testify that a Hot Stamper copy of this very album gave me a newfound respect for Linda beyond her work on Heart Like a Wheel. This is the album that shows she can do it all, as the All Music Guide points out, and I’m a believer.

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Emmylou Harris – Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town

More Emmylou Harris

More Country and Country Rock

  • This copy was doing practically everything right, earning killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from start to finish – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • Both of these sides are big, rich and sweet with exceptionally breathy vocals, excellent clarity and plenty of bottom end weight
  • Old Timers like me remember the ridiculously bright and phony-sounding Mobile Fidelity pressing — one of their much-too-frequent embarrassments from back in the day
  • Our Hot Stampers will of course sound dramatically different, with tonally correct mids and highs and none of the blobby bass that is the unavoidable sonic signature of half-speed mastering
  • 4 stars: “Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town is a transitional effort that bridges the curveballs of Emmylou Harris’ earliest solo work with the more traditional country albums that comprise the bulk of the second phase of her career.”
  • If you’re a fan of Emmylou’s, this one from 1978 is surely one of her better albums

The sound that Emmylou and her producers were going for here is clean, detailed and low distortion, which is exactly what the best pressings like this one deliver! What really sets the good copies apart, though, is the natural, relaxed quality of the vocals. Emmylou sounds like a real person, with none of the harsh, sterile sound that ruins so many pressings. Check out the duet with Willie Nelson on “One Paper Kid” — both vocalists sound wonderful. That’s the sound you want. (more…)

Listening in Depth to Heart Like a Wheel

More of the Music of Linda Ronstadt

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series with advice on precisely what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Heart Like a Wheel.

A key test on either side was to listen to all the multi-tracked guitars and see how easy it was to separate each of them out in the mix. Most of the time they are just one big jangly blur. The best copies let you hear how many guitars there are and what each of them is doing.

Pay special attention to Andrew Gold’s Abbey Road-ish guitars heard throughout the album. He is all over this record, playing piano, guitar, drums and singing in the background.

If anybody deserves credit besides Linda for the success of HLAW, it’s Andrew Gold.

Our In-Depth Track Commentary

Side One

You’re No Good

Right from the git-go, if the opening drum and bass intro on this one doesn’t get your foot tapping, something definitely ain’t right. Check to make sure your stereo is working up to par with a record you know well. If it is, your copy of HLAW belongs on the reject pile along with the other 90% of the copies ever pressed.

It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

Amazing acoustic guitars! Lots of tubey magic for a mid-’70s pop album. And just listen to the breathy quality of Linda’s voice. She’s swimming in echo, but it’s a good kind of echo. Being able to hear so much of it tells you that your pressing is one of the few with tremendous transparency and high resolution.

Faithless Love

Another superb arrangement with excellent sound. The banjo that opens this track is key — the picking should have a very strong plucky quality, with lovely trailing harmonics, even some fret buzz.

So many copies are veiled or blunted sounding; this clearly demonstrates a lack of transient information.

The copies without the trailing harmonics lack resolution.

Once you hear either of these problems on the banjo, you can be sure to find them on the voices and guitars throughout the side.

That the Cisco pressing doesn’t do a very good job reproducing the banjo should be clear for all to hear. If you want the sound of the real thing, only the best Capitol pressings are going to be able to give it to you.

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