
More of the Music of James Taylor
More of Our Favorite Artists’ Best Sounding Albums
The good copies REALLY ROCK on songs like Honey Don’t Leave L.A. or I Was Only Telling A Lie, yet have lovely transparent, delicate sound on the ballads, songs such as Another Grey Morning or There We Are.
Just turn up the volume and play the opening to Honey Don’t Leave L.A. — this is James Taylor and his super tight studio band at the peak of their powers. Russ Kunkel hits the drum twice, then clicks his sticks together so quickly you can hardly notice it, then goes back to the drums for the rest of the intro. On a superb copy like this one, the subtleties of his performance are clearly on display.
Until copies like this one came along, we had never even noticed that stick trick. Now it’s the high point of the whole intro.
Sound Equals Music
As audiophiles, we all know that sound and music are inseparable. In our shootout, after dropping the needle on a dozen or so copies, all originals by the way, we KNOW when the music is working its magic and when it’s not.
As with any pop album, there are always some songs that sound better than others, but when you find yourself marvelling at how well-written and well-produced a song is, you know that the sound is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s communicating the Musical Values of the material.
The most important of all these Musical Values is ENERGY, and boy do the best copies of JT have it going on.
Val Garay is the man behind so many of our favorite recordings: JT (a Top 100 title), Simple Dreams (also a Top 100 title), Andrew Gold, Prisoner In Disguise, etc.
They all share his trademark super-punchy, jump-out-the-speakers, rich and smooth ANALOG sound.
With BIG drums — can’t forget those. (To be clear, only the best copies share it. Most copies only hint at it.)
I don’t think Mr Garay gets anything like his due with audiophiles and the reviewers who write for them. This is a shame; the guy makes Demo Disc Quality Pop Records about as good as those kinds of records can be made.
If you have a Big System that really rocks, you owe it to yourself to get to know his work. This is truly a KNOCKOUT disc if you have the equipment designed to play it.
We do, and it’s records like this that make the effort and expense of building a full-range dynamic system worthwhile.
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