- A vintage copy of Taylor’s 1977 breakthrough album that was doing practically everything right, earning STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides
- It’s a superb recording – a member of our Top 100, in fact – but it takes a pressing like this to show you just how big and lively it can sound
- The big hits “Your Smiling Face” and “Handy Man” both sound great here – thanks, Val Garay!
- Don’t waste your money on any copy that doesn’t have TML stampers on both sides – they never sound any good
- Interestingly, this time around even the worst side of any TML pressing earned a (1.5+) Hot Stamper grade
- If you are using the Prelude Record Cleaning system on the right machines, you can’t go wrong with the early pressings of this title (although you can go much more right if you do a shootout and find a top copy like this one)
- Marks 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: “JT was James Taylor’s best album since Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon because it acknowledged the darkness of his earlier work while explaining the deliberate lightness of his current viewpoint, and because it was his most consistent collection in years.”
- If I were to compile a list of my favorite rock and pop albums from 1977, this album would definitely be on it
The good copies really rock on songs like Honey Don’t Leave L.A. or I Was Only Telling A Lie, yet have lovely, delicate vocals on ballads such as Another Grey Morning or There We Are (two of our favorite songs on the album).
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 the best copies, the subtleties of his performance are clearly on display. Until the right copies came along, we had never even noticed that stick trick. Now it’s the high point of the whole intro.
Here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy bass and here are more of our favorite records with exceptionally punchy drums.
(more…)
