1975-best

Freddie Hubbard – Polar AC

More Freddie Hubbard

  • A Polar AC like you’ve never heard, with KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or close to it throughout this original CTI pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in years)
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “rich horns and bass”…”3D and breathy”…”big and weighty”…”full and present trumpet”…”huge and tubey”…”great energy”
  • Both of these sides are clean and clear, punchy and lively, with excellent presence and a strong bottom end
  • All the usual faces are here — Ron Carter, Billy Cobham, George Benson, Airto — and the one and only RVG does his usual brilliant job capturing their performances
  • 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

We’ve been really digging this CTI jazz stuff lately. On the better albums such as this one, the players tend to sound carefree and loose — you can tell they are having a heck of a time with the material. Don’t get me wrong — we still love the Blue Note and Contemporary label stuff for our more “serious” jazz needs, but it’s a kick to hear top jazz musicians laying down the grooves and not taking themselves so seriously…especially when it sounds this good!

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10cc – The Original Soundtrack

More 10cc

  • With two seriously good Double Plus (A++) or BETTER sides, you’ll have a hard time finding a copy that sounds remotely as good as this vintage UK import
  • Superb clarity and energy, solid down low, silky up top, and as huge as any recording you’ve ever heard
  • A Top 100 Album and a real sonic blockbuster on a copy that sounds as good as this one does
  • “Musically there’s more going on than in ten Yes albums, yet it’s generally as accessible as a straight pop band… 10cc is among the few groups actively engaged in stretching rock’s restrictive boundaries in a constructive and meaningful manner, without falling prey to pretense or excess.” – Rolling Stone

The recording itself is a Tour De Force, one reason I’ve been demonstrating my stereo with it for more than thirty years. The extended suite that opens side one, One Night in Paris, has ambience, sound effects, and incredibly dynamic multi-tracked vocals at its climax that will make your jaw drop.

Reinventing The Wall of Sound The Right Way

This is the kind of record that makes you sit up and take notice. It’s classic 10cc everything-but-the-kitchen-sink “Wall of Sound” sound (minus the Phil Spector distortion), the kind big speaker guys like me live for.

Supertramp; Yes; Ambrosia; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Zeppelin; Bowie — to this day I’m a sucker for the Cinerama soundstage these musicians liked to play on. It’s one of the reasons I was the proud owner of the Legacy Whisper speaker system for close to ten years, with its eight fifteen inch woofer complement. You need that kind of piston power to produce The Really Big Sound with Super Low Distortion at Really High Levels. The louder the better.

We now have a pair of highly modified Focuses set up in our listening room. Three twelves per channel moves a fair amount of air too, and can do it with much less power, so that the system has much more resolving power than the Whispers could manage.

We’re CRAZY About This Album

This was my first 10cc album, and I fell in love with it completely. Used to play it all the time. “Une Nuit a Paris,” the suite that opens side one, is just an phenomenal Demo Quality track. As you may have read elsewhere on the site, it’s the kind of sound that a big powerful stereo reproduces well. Even back in 1975 I had speakers nearly as tall as I was that weighed 300 pounds apiece (the famous Fulton J!), so playing a record like this was just a thrill.

It still is. I still love it. And I recommend it highly to those of you who are fans of the band. If you don’t know who 10cc are, this album and this band may not make much sense to you, but if you have an open mind and like Art Rock from the 70s, you may end up falling for it the way I did all those years ago.

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Eric Clapton – E.C. Was Here

More of the Music of Eric Clapton

  • Outstanding sound for this UK import pressing (only the second copy to hit the site in years), with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings – here is the energy, the dynamic power, the low end WHOMP, and the Clapton-live-in-your-listening-room presence you’ve never experienced on the album before, guaranteed
  • “E.C. Was Here makes it clear that Clapton was and always would be a blues man. The opening cut, “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” clearly illustrates this, and underlines the fact that Clapton had a firm grasp on his blues guitar ability, with some sterling, emotionally charged and sustained lines and riffs… [the album] remains an excellent document of the period.”

Check out Clapton’s superb arrangements and performances of two of the best songs from his short-lived Blind Faith period: “Presence of the Lord” and “Can’t Find My Way Home.” They’re two of the highpoints on an album filled with good material that does not seem to get the credit it is due. I bought this album when it came out in 1975 and never really got into it. Of course I had an inferior domestic pressing and a stereo that couldn’t have done the album justice anyway, but in my defense I would have to say that there really wasn’t any such stereo system on the face of the earth; we still had a long way to go.

Eric Clapton has made very few consistently good albums, considering his career is going on 50+ years. Slowhand, Unplugged, and his first album come to mind. After that it’s pretty slim pickin’s. Now you can add this one to the list. This concert album shows Clapton at his bluesy best.

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Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 1 / Previn

More of the Music of Sergei Rachmaninoff

  • Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1 returns to the the site with outstanding sound throughout this original British EMI pressing
  • These sides are clear, full-bodied and present, with plenty of space around the players, the unmistakable sonic hallmark of the properly mastered, properly pressed vintage analog LP
  • The only Rachmaninoff symphonies we know of with the potential for audiophile sound are the ones Andre Previn made for EMI in the 70s
  • However, we have quite a large number of reviews and commentaries for Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos

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Joan Baez / Diamonds and Rust

More Joan Baez

  • Boasting two incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sides, this early A&M pressing is practically as good a copy as we have ever heard, right up there with our Shootout Winner
  • The sound is rich, full, warm, and sweet, the vocals are full-bodied and breathy, and the acoustic guitars are fairly natural for a pop recording from 1975
  • Guaranteed to handily beat the Nautilus Half-Speed as well as the TAS list-approved MoFi (which is awful by the way)
  • These are the stampers that always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others
  • 5 stars: “…the real hit was the title track, a self-penned masterpiece and… her finest moment as a songwriter…”

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Paul McCartney & Wings – Venus and Mars

More Paul McCartney

  • This vintage British pressing is doing practically everything right, with incredible Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) grades from start to finish, just shy of our Shootout Winner – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • We shot out a number of other imports and this one had better midrange presence, bass, and dynamics than practically any other copy we played
  • These sides have real depth to the soundfield, full-bodied, present vocals, plenty of bottom end weight, and lovely analog warmth
  • “Venus and Mars is an interesting mix of musical styles, punctuated by Paul McCartney’s unerring sense of melody and hooky songs.” – Oldies.com
  • These are the stampers that always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others

This original UK Capitol pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound. (more…)

Crosby / Nash – Wind on the Water

More of the Music of David Crosby and Graham Nash

  • With a STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a solid Double Plus (A++) side one, we guarantee you’ve never heard Wind on the Water sound this good
  • These are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “lots of space”…”huge and present and tubey”…”very detailed vox”…”tons of weight…”present and lively”
  • Here you will find noticeably richer sonics than practically all other pressings (hence the high grades) – many tended to be leaner and drier than we would have liked, and we take a lot of points off when they sound that way
  • It’s possible to get the clear, breathy vocals that bring out the wonderful harmonies these two are so rightly famous for – it’s just not easy
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs – those on “Carry Me” are especially bad – but if you can tough those out, this copy is going to blow your mind
  • 4 stars: “Wind on the Water has an instant classic, lived-in sound and is a definite must-have.”

Solo and In Combination

Of course it’s easy to argue that finding good sound on an album with two or more members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, in any configuration, has never been easy. It’s the rare copy of either of the first two albums that’s even listenable, and the CSN album from 1977 doesn’t sound nearly as good as any of the first three Crosby/Nash albums (of which this is the second). Which simply means that the “good” sound of our Hot Stamper copies is far better than what most audiophiles own of any of these guys in combination.

Their solo albums are a different story altogether. The first solo albums by David Crosby (1971), Stephen Stills (1970) and Graham Nash (1971) are three of my favorite records of all time; each is a brilliant recording, each is powerfully compelling music (the Nash album especially). Two made our Top 100. It’s puzzling to contemplate just how well-recorded each of their first solo albums are considering their less-than-stellar group recording efforts. Too many cooks spoiling the broth might make a good guess, but at this point it’s no more than speculation and mostly a waste of time. With so many records to play, we find we do better when we confine ourselves to the realities of the vinyl in front of us.

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Gary Wright / The Dream Weaver – One and Done

More Gary Wright

  • Superb sound throughout this vintage Warner Bros. pressing, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER
  • Big, rich and full-bodied with lovely texture to the synths and relatively little grit – these are all qualities critically important to the sound of the better copies
  • Only the second copy to hit the site in nearly two years – pressings with this kind of sound are tougher to come by than you might imagine
  • 4 stars: “Backed with only drums and a wide assortment of keyboards, Gary Wright crafted instantly recognizable tunes such as the title cut and “Love Is Alive,” which caught on and remain staples of classic rock stations around the U.S. … Dream Weaver hasn’t lost any of its magic over time.”
  • If you’re a Gary Wright fan, or perhaps a fan of mid-70s synth-pop, this title, a personal favorite of mine from 1975, is surely a Must Own.
  • In our opinion, Dream Weaver is the only Gary Wright record you’ll ever need. Click on this link to see more titles we like to call one and done

Dream Weaver checks off a few of our favorite boxes:

Keyboards and More Keyboards

An all-keyboard pop record like this was a rarity at the time. The only other instruments besides drums (and one track with guitar) are keyboards. Every song is layered with multi-tracked clavinets, organs, and Moogs – it was a remarkable feat in 1975 to create an album with nothing but keys. Listen to the title track, the most dynamic song on the record, and you will hear just how well all of those stacked keyboards and synths work together. (Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life borrowed a page or two from Gary’s solo debut here.)

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Bob Dylan and The Band – The Basement Tapes

More Bob Dylan

More of The Band

  • Boasting excellent Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides, this vintage copy will be very hard to beat
  • Side three was sonically very close to our Shootout Winner – you will be shocked at how big and powerful the sound is
  • The recording may not be an audiophile dream come true, but these pressings are far better than most others we can ever recall playing, and lets the music come through in a way that we guarantee you have never heard before
  • 5 stars: “… the music here (including the Band’s) is astonishingly good. The party line on The Basement Tapes is that it is Americana, as Dylan and the Band pick up the weirdness inherent in old folk, country, and blues tunes, but it transcends mere historical arcana through its lively, humorous, full-bodied performances. Dylan never sounded as loose, nor was he ever as funny as he is here, and this positively revels in its weird, wild character… among the greatest American music ever made.”

This vintage Columbia Double LP pressing has some of the very best sound we’ve ever heard for this album.

Of course, given the nature of these recordings, you don’t get stunning sonics along the line of, say, Magical Mystery Tour or Dark Side Of The Moon, but at least you get to hear these great songs sound the way they were intended to, without the complications of bad mastering and pressing getting in the way.

Most of the copies we’ve heard wouldn’t be fit to list on the site at any price, but we felt strongly that this copy did justice to the music in a way that the typical pressing does not. While this may not be a Demo Disc, it’s MUCH better sounding than most copies we’ve come across. We’ve played a bunch of these over the years and most of them paled in comparison to this one.

This is of course a famous album, with The Band backing up Dylan (and adding some of their own material) in the famous Big Pink House which would later be the place where The Band’s 1st album was born. (more…)

Bad Company – Straight Shooter (Swan Song)

More Rock Classics

  • A Straight Shooter like you’ve never heard, with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER from first note to last
  • If you’re playing this one good and loud, you’ll feel like you’re in the room with the boys as they kick out these classic riff-driven jams
  • Take it from us, it is not easy to find a copy like this that’s doing just about everything right, with the weight, balance and energy this music needs to rock
  • 4 stars: “Vocalist and songwriter Paul Rodgers wrote two acoustic-based rock ballads that would live on forever in the annals of great rock history: ‘Shooting Star’ and the Grammy-winning ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love.'”

The sophomore jinx is nowhere to be found on this album. In fact, you could make a pretty good case that this is actually a better album than their debut. The best pressings of this Bad Company classic have ROCK ENERGY that cannot be beat. (more…)