1970

Elvis Presley – Back in Memphis

More Elvis Presley

  • Back in Memphis makes it’s Hot Stamper debut with STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this early RCA pressing
  • Guaranteed to be a huge improvement over anything you’ve heard, these sides are big, rich, and full-bodied with Elvis’s exceptionally present and breathy vocals front and center where they belong
  • 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
  • “History has placed these ten tracks as mere outtakes to the great ‘From Elvis In Memphis’…but a closer inspection not only reveals ten great tracks but one of the most cohesive records Elvis ever delivered.”

(more…)

B.B. King – Indianola Mississippi Seeds

More Electric Blues

  • Indianola Mississippi Seeds debuts on the site with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout this original ABC pressing
  • This side one is big, full-bodied and Tubey Magical, yet still pretty clear, spacious and open, and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • Credit Bill Szymczyk for the punchy, huge and energetic sound he produced and engineered
  • An exceedingly tough album to find with audiophile surfaces – the top copy and two of the better second-tier copies from our recent shootout didn’t even make it to the site due to vinyl issues, which means that what we’re offering here is as good as it gets for the foreseeable future
  • 4 stars: “B.B. King hasn’t made many better pop-flavored albums than this. Joining King here were Leon Russell, Joe Walsh and Carole King; several pop luminaries who did more than just hang on for the ride.”

(more…)

Bartok – Music For Strings Percussion And Celeste / Marriner

The Music of Bela Bartok Available Now

  • We surveyed a large group of pressings containing this work, and in the end Marriner’s reading from 1970 had the best sound and the best performance of all those we played
  • Wonderfully textured string tone and huge hall space extending wall to wall and floor to ceiling – everything you want in a top quality orchestral recording is here, and more
  • To keep beating a horse that has been dead for years, this is precisely the sound that the modern reissue fails to offer the committed audiophile with top quality equipment
  • “… one of the best-known compositions by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.”
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we think offer the best performance coupled with the highest quality sound. This record has earned a place on that list.

(more…)

Cat Stevens – Mona Bone Jakon

More of the Music of Cat Stevens

  • Incredible sound throughout this UK Island pressing of Cat Stevens’s brilliant third album, with both sides earning Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them
  • So transparent, open, and spacious, nuances and subtleties that escaped you before are now front and center
  • When you play “I Wish, I Wish” and “I Think I See The Light” on this vintage pressing, we think you will agree with us that this is one of the greatest Folk Rock albums of them all
  • One of the most underrated titles on the site – you owe it to yourself to see just how good the album that came out right before Tillerman can be when it sounds this good
  • 4 stars: “A delight, and because it never achieved the Top 40 radio ubiquity of later albums, it sounds fresh and distinct.”

So many copies excel in some areas but fall flat in others. This side one has it ALL going on — all the Tubey Magic, all the energy, all the presence and so on. The sound is high-rez yet so natural, free from the phony hi-fi-ish quality that you hear on many pressings, especially the reissues on the second label.

Right off the bat, I want to say this is a work of GENIUS. Cat Stevens made three records that belong in the Pantheon of greatest popular recordings of all time. In the world of Folk Pop, Mona Bone Jakon, Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman have few peers. There may be other Folk Pop recordings that are as good but we know of none that are better.

Mike Bobak was the engineer for these sessions from 1970. He is the man responsible for some of the best sounding records from the early ’70s: The Faces’ Long Player, Rod Stewart’s Never a Dull Moment, The Kinks’ Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One, (and lots of other Kinks albums), Carly Simon’s Anticipation and more than his share of obscure English bands (of which there seems to be a practically endless supply).

Tubey Magical acoustic guitar reproduction is superb on the better copies of this album. Simply phenomenal amounts of Tubey Magic can be heard on every strum, along with the richness, body and harmonic coherency that have all but disappeared from modern recordings (and remasterings). (more…)

The Grateful Dead – Workingman’s Dead

More Grateful Dead

More Hippie Folk Rock

  • This early Green Label pressing was doing practically everything right, earning KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom – unusually quiet vinyl too for any record pressed in this era
  • A Top 100 album and a truly superb recording of the Dead at the peak of their creativity (along with American Beauty)
  • We love the amazingly big, rich, weighty bottom end found on the better pressings such as this one
  • 5 stars: “The lilting Uncle John’s Band, their first radio hit, opens the record and perfectly summarizes its subtle, spare beauty; complete with a new focus on more concise songs and tighter arrangements, the approach works brilliantly.”

This original Warner Brothers pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. (more…)

Poco – Self-Titled

More Country and Country Rock

  • Poco’s Masterpiece of Country Prog Rock returns to the site for the first time in years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from start to finish
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this stunning copy in our notes: “very rich bass and vox”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”full, breathy and 3D”…”lots of space”…”huge and open and tubey”…”dynamic guitar”
  • Big, rich, energetic, with an abundance of Analog Tubey Magic, this original Yellow Label Epic pressing has exactly the right sound for this music
  • A bonafide Desert Island Disc and 4 stars on the AMG: “These songs represent the group’s blend of country and rock at its finest and brightest, with the happy harmonies of ‘Hurry Up’ and ‘Keep on Believin” totally irresistible. Jim Messina’s ‘You Better Think Twice’ is a perfectly constructed and arranged song, one that should have been a huge hit but mysteriously never found its place in the Top 40 pantheon.”
  • When it comes to rock and pop music in 1970, our picks for the best of the best, numbering less than 30 titles, can be found here.

Poco’s second album is an unusual blend of country-rock, with some long, jazzy instrumental breaks that center around Rusty Young’s pedal steel, which doesn’t sound like any pedal steel guitar you’ve ever heard. It’s played with a wah-wah pedal and, if that wasn’t enough, the resulting sound is sent through a Leslie organ speaker.

We know it sounds crazy, but it really works. There is nothing else like it on record, nothing that we’ve ever heard anyway.

Country Prog Rock

Most of side two is taken up by a single track, “Nobody’s Fool / El Tonto de Nadie, Regresa.” It’s a suite in which the band stretches out instrumentally in a somewhat proggy way, although one could make the case that Bluegrass music is all about “stretching out instrumentally.”

The extended forays are held together by the brilliant pedal steel playing throughout. I have the feeling that Jim Messina, who left the band shortly after this album was released, was the guiding force behind breaking out of the 3-minute pop song format that Poco began with. Whoever may be responsible, they deserve credit for making what is in our minds one of the best Country Rock / Country Prog records of all time.

(more…)

Elton John / Tumbleweed Connection

More Elton John


  • Both sides of this early DJM import pressing have superb sound for Elton John’s 1970 Masterpiece, earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • The sound here is richer, with much less transistory grain, and more of the all important Tubey Magic than most other copies we played
  • An incredible recording and longtime member of our Top 100 — our pick for Elton’s very best music and sound
  • 5 stars: “….[Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s] most ambitious record to date… A loose concept album about the American West… draws from country and blues in equal measures…”
  • If you’re an Elton John fan, this is a classic from 1970 that belongs in your collection
  • We consider this album to be a Masterpiece. It’s a recording that should be part of any serious popular music collection.
  • As is sometimes the case, there is one and only one set of stampers that consistently wins shootouts for this album.  Click on this link to see other titles with one set of stamper numbers that always come out on top

This has to be one of the best sounding rock records of all time — certainly worthy of a Top Ten spot on our Top 100 list. Engineered by Robin Geoffrey Cable at Trident, there is no other Elton John recording that is as big and powerful as Tumbleweed.

A copy like this really tells you why we love this album so. The highs are silky sweet, the vocals are full-bodied and breathy, and the tonal balance is perfection from top to bottom. And big drums — monstrously big. Can’t forget those.

By the way, if you have any doubts that Elton was a pop music genius, simply play this album a few dozen times. It’s all the proof you will need. Tumbleweed Connection and Honky Chateau are the two titles that are as close to perfect pop recordings as will ever exist in this world. 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.

(more…)

Harry Nilsson – The Point!

More Harry Nilsson

  • An original pressing (only the second copy to ever hit the site) with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from start to finish
  • Side one was very close in sound to our Shootout Winner – the overall grades for this copy are only one half plus lower than our $450 WHS presing that sold
  • Both of these sides are relatively rich, yet still clear and highly resolving – the boosted midrange, the biggest problem with the copies we played, is under much better control here than it was on most of what we played
  • Analog gets this music to sound right, although the long out of print DCC CD that Steve Hoffman mastered is excellent if you can find one
  • 4 stars: “Especially at this stage of his career, Harry Nilsson was uniquely suited for writing and recording children’s music, given his sweet melodicism and love of whimsy. The tale is fantastical enough to be of interest to children (and the moral is strong enough to reassure them and their parents), but the songs and music are so strong that the album continues to be a source of wonder, even as those children become adults.”

(more…)

The Guess Who – American Woman

More Rock Classics

  • With INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides, this copy (only the second to hit the site in years) is practically as good as we have ever heard
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “big and tubey and spacious”…”plucky, deep bass”…”breathy vox”…”big and rich and jumping out of the speakers”…”rich and lively”
  • We have been working on finding this title for twenty years if not more — finally finding some that sounded good to us and played reasonably quietly was a real shock, and that was a whole lotta years ago!
  • Here you will find sound that is big, rich and clear, with plenty of energy, and vinyl that is about on par for any clean copy of American Woman, a title which is exceedingly difficult to find in audiophile playing condition
  • Both the title track and “When Friends Fall Out” sound especially impressive on this domestic original
  • 4 stars: “The Guess Who’s most successful LP, reaching number nine in America (and charting for more than a year), has held up well… the final testament of the original Guess Who.”

(more…)

Freddie Hubbard – Straight Life

More Freddie Hubbard

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Trumpet

  • This early CTI pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on both sides
  • Full-bodied, warm and natural with plenty of space around all of the players, this is the sound of vintage analog – accept no substitutes
  • The sound is everything that’s good about Rudy Van Gelder‘s recordings – it’s present, spacious, full-bodied, Tubey Magical, dynamic and, most importantly, alive in that way that modern pressings never are
  • 5 stars: “Recorded between trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s better-known classics Red Clay and First Light, Straight Life is actually arguably Hubbard’s greatest recording.”

Vintage covers for this album are hard to find in exceptionally clean shape. Most of the will have at least some amount of ringwear, seam wear and edge wear. We guarantee that the cover we supply with this Hot Stamper is at least VG

Straight Life is a great album for anyone who wants to hear some well recorded, seriously adventurous jazz. We freely admit that side one is fairly ‘out there,’ but side two balances it out with much more accessible, melodic material. A wonderfully sensitive and emotional version of “Here’s That Rainy Day” closes out the side with George Benson proving to be an especially sympathetic accompanist on guitar.

(more…)