1973-best

Jackson Browne – For Everyman

More Jackson Browne

More Singer-Songwriter Albums

  • A KILLER copy of JB’s sophomore effort with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • David Lindley joins the band, and talented helpers include Bonnie Raitt, Glen Frey, David Crosby, Elton John and Joni Mitchell
  • “His work is a unique fusion of West Coast casualness and East Coast paranoia, easygoing slang and painstaking precision, child’s-eye romanticizing and adult’s-eye acceptance… Brilliantly conceived, incomparably immediate, For Everyman truly earns its title.” – Rolling Stone

The average copy of this record is MUD, but this pressing will show you that the master tape of For Everyman is a whole lot better than most music lovers and audiophiles might suspect. (The first album is the same way.)

Want a quick test for transparency? Listen to the piano on I Thought I Was a Child. On most copies you can’t really hear the attack of the hammers hitting the strings, but here you can. If the tonal balance is correct — and it is on this copy — then you know you are getting a pressing of very high quality.

Note that the first track on side one almost never sounds as good as those that follow. (more…)

ZZ Top – Tres Hombres

More ZZ Top

  • An outstanding copy of Tres Hombres with solid Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
  • This is the right sound for this album – take it from us, it is not easy to find a copy with the size, clarity, balance and energy of this vintage pressing
  • A very difficult record to find with audiophile playing surfaces these days – this is one of the few “survivors” to have come our way over the last five years or so
  • 4 1/2 stars: “ZZ Top finally got their low-down, cheerfully sleazy blooze-n-boogie right on this, their third album. As their sound gelled, producer Bill Ham discovered how to record the trio so simply that they sound indestructible, and the group brought the best set of songs they’d ever have to the table.”

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Son Seals – The Son Seals Blues Band

More Son Seals

  • An excellent Electric Blues record with exceptionally big, clear, lively sound that earned Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • This copy will shame most Blues albums for sound and music – it’s quite a bit better than any other Son Seals album we have played as well
  • 4 stars: “The Chicago mainstay’s debut album was a rough, gruff, no-nonsense affair typified by the decidedly unsentimental track ‘Your Love Is like a Cancer.’ Seals wasn’t all that far removed from his southern roots at this point, and his slashing guitar work sports a strikingly raw feel on his originals ‘Look Now, Baby,’ ‘Cotton Picking Blues,’ and ‘Hot Sauce’ (the latter a blistering instrumental that sounds a bit like the theme from Batman played sideways).

Son Seals’ 1973 debut album has the kind of Live-in-the-Studio sound that most Blues albums (and every other kind of album) strive for but rarely if ever achieve. If you turn this one up good and loud, the Son Seals Band will be right there in the room with you. If there’s any overdubbing on this record, you sure can’t hear it.

If you’ve been suffering with one bad sounding Stevie Ray Vaughan album after another, this record should come as a godsend. This album will show you just how dynamic and energetic Electric Blues recordings can be.

You can’t see this guy live anymore, he’s dead, RIP, but you can still hear him perform live in your listening room if you have a killer system and a Hot Stamper copy of this album — and you can hear him as often as you want to, too. Play this one for all your friends who love Stevie Ray. Son Seals has the chops to go head to head with him, with recording quality that’s night and day better than Stevie’s non-posthumous albums in every way. Your friends’ minds will surely be blown (and if they aren’t, turn up the volume a click or two and try again. Live music is loud). (more…)

Steely Dan – Countdown to Ecstasy

More Steely Dan

Reviews and Commentaries for Countdown to Ecstasy

  • This early Black Label Shootout Winning pressing boasts stunning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it on both sides
  • The only real rock album this band ever made actually ROCKS on this pressing, and that’s what makes listening to vinyl of the highest quality FUN
  • Only 8 tracks (so the band can stretch out). and every one is guaranteed to sound better than you have ever heard it
  • 5 stars: “Smart, conflicted bands from Weezer to the Eels owe Steely Dan big time… because on Countdown to Ecstasy, the band was human, not just brainy. Like Exile on Main Street, this is a record where Steely Dan let slip their extraordinary mask of sarcasm, and could not disguise the joy in these excellent songs, or the fact that they were having a blast playing them.”

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Al Green – Call Me

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on this copy of Al Green’s superb 5 Star 1973 release, Call Me
  • This vintage pressing has the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s surely missing from whatever 180g reissue has been made from the 40+ year old tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copied from those tapes)
  • 5 stars: “Al Green reached his creative peak with the brilliant Call Me, the most inventive and assured album of his career. So silky and fluid as to sound almost effortless, Green’s vocals revel in the lush strings and evocative horns of Willie Mitchell’s superbly intimate production… A classic.”

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Leonard Cohen – Live Songs

  • This outstanding pressing boasts solid Double Plus (A++) grades on both sides
  • Drop the needle anywhere and you’ll notice the impressive immediacy to the vocals, the clear transients of the guitar notes, two areas that most modern heavy vinyl reissues struggle with (and fail most of the time)
  • Cohen’s voice sounds just right, deep and gravely
  • “… for those who’ve formed a friendship with the words and wisdom of Leonard Cohen, this album finds him raw and naked in one of his finest hours.”

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Harry Nilsson – A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night

More of the Music of Harry Nilsson

  • A lusciously Tubey Magical Top 100 album with orchestral arrangements by the superbly talented Gordon Jenkins
  • One of our favorite Nilsson releases (of which there are many) – it’s The Ultimate latter-day standards album
  • If you could only have one album of standards from the Great American Songbook, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
  • “This is a must have disc pure and simple as it is the best standards album any contemporary artist has ever recorded. All the ingredients were woven together for a remarkable vision.”

After our first big shootout for this album many years ago we were so blown away by what a great copy could do that we immediately added it to our Rock & Pop Top 100 list and have never once regretted doing so. It’s the only Nilsson album to make the cut. Even more unusual, considering it was recorded in 1973, it’s actually one of the better sounding orchestra-backed male vocal albums that we know of. (more…)

Bob Marley – Catch a Fire

AN AMAZING A++ TO A+++ SIDE ONE backed with a very good side two! This is one of the best Bob Marley and the Wailers albums, and you’re going to have a hard time finding better sound for it than what you get on this Super Hot Stamper side one. Clean and clear, open and transparent, with tight, solid bass and plenty of richness and fullness, this is just the kind of sound this music demands!

We recently undertook a big shootout for this album and were quite pleased with the sound of this copy, especially in relation to all the mediocre copies that hit our table that day.

We don’t find killer Bob Marley pressings very often, so you shouldn’t let this one get by you if you want to hear the King of Reggae sound amazing! (more…)

Gabor Szabo – Rambler

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Gabor Szabo

Yet another brilliant pop jazz recording from RVG in 1973 – he was plenty hot in the ’70s too. 

We had this to say about another favorite RVG recording from 1973:

The really good RVG jazz pressings sound shockingly close to live music — uncompressed, present, full of energy, with the instruments clearly located and surrounded by the natural space of the studio. As our stereo has gotten better, and we’ve found better pressings and learned how to clean them better, his “you-are-there” live jazz sound has begun to impress us more and more.

For those of you who have not been on our site for long, the record we are referring to is Grover Washington Jr.’s All The King’s Horses, one of RVG’s triumphs and a record we have offered Hot Stamper pressings of practically from the start. On big speakers at loud volumes the sound is glorious. (more…)

Duke Ellington – Yale Concert (and its dubbed in audience)

There is some interesting mic placement going on with this recording. Some of the instruments seem to be off-mic, creating an unusual effect that has its charms.

Only one song was actually recorded live, Boola Boola. The rest of the material was taped in the studio and an audience dubbed in.

Why the had trouble with the mics in the studio is beyond me.

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