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Belafonte at Carnegie Hall – Key Tracks for Side One

Hot Stamper Pressings of Pop and Jazz Vocal Albums Available Now

Harry Pearson brought this record to the attention of audiophiles with his TAS list a long time ago, and rightfully so: it’s an amazing recording.

We happen to love the music too, which makes it one of the most recommendable records we have ever offered. If you can find a better combination of demo disc sound, with music worth the hassle and expense of reproducing it properly, more power to you. We sure can’t.

Because this is a live recording, because it has lots of natural instruments as well as a vocal, because it was recorded in the Golden Age by one of the greatest labels of all time, RCA, by Bob Simpson no less — for this and many other reasons, it has to be considered one of the most amazing recordings in the history of the world.

That said, it is our contention (and the basis of our business model) that the brilliant quality of the recording can only be appreciated if you have the pressing that captured the sound that the engineers recorded. In other words, a Hot Stamper.

From an audiophile point of view, you get to hear live musicians and all the energy they bring to this music, all on the stage at the same time: strings, brass, percussionists, and Harry Belafonte front and center. Tube mics (and not too many of them), a tube tape recorder, RCA’s superb engineering and all-tube mastering chain ensure that the “breath of life” is captured intact.

I know of no better live popular vocal recording on the planet.

Side One

Introduction
Darlin’ Cora
Sylvie 

This is a wonderful song, sung by Belafonte with virtually no accompaniment. His voice should be rich and full-bodied with plenty of presence. In other words, he should sound like a living, breathing person.

Cotton Fields 

The liner notes say this song was introduced in the previous year in Las Vegas. Before I read that I noted that the uptempo arrangement had a jazzy feel to it. The walking bass is well up in the mix and the piano and a few of the other instruments in the song are well behind — it’s pretty much Belafonte and bass. The bass is deep and very note-like.

This is of course a big system record. Do not expect good results from small speakers.

But what makes this one of the best Demo Quality tracks on the album is Belafonte’s amazingly energetic performance. He really sells this song.

As I was listening to the dynamics on the best pressings, it made me think about all the compressed-to-death vocals that are so much a part of the recording style of the modern era. Nobody gets loud anymore.

Belafonte did back in 1959, and not too many followed him.

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Harry Belafonte / Belafonte at Carnegie Hall

More of the Music of Harry Belafonte

  • Superb Living Stereo sound throughout these vintage pressings, with Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER on all FOUR sides
  • Side two of this copy is in reverse phase – for those of you who cannot switch your polarity, we will have some more copies coming to the site soon
  • A very large group of musicians will transport themselves directly into your listening room, Harry included, all backing him live on the stage in real time and in ANALOG
  • The palpable presence and performance energy of the man himself are really something to hear, and a copy this good lets you really hear it
  • Harry Pearson made his reputation bringing this kind of amazing recording to the attention of the audiophile public, and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude
  • 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
  • 5 stars: “The granddaddy of all live albums, this double-LP set captures the excitement of a Harry Belafonte concert at the height of his popularity.”
  • This is one of the pressings we’ve discovered with Reversed Polarity.
  • It’s also our pick for the man’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the Best Recording by an Artist or Group can be found here.

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Letter of the Week – “Honestly, these LPs make my system sound like I just dropped another $100,000 into it.”

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Willie Nelson Available Now

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom, 

My July 4 weekend was great. I had lots of company this weekend for three days straight. I slayed a bunch of them with my new collection of Hot Stamper LPs from Better Records.

Honestly, these LPs make my system sound like I just dropped another $100,000 into it suddenly.

I played Harry Belafonte (Carnegie Hall Live Concert) and Willie Nelson (Stardust) for some guests that grew up in another part of the world who had never ever even heard of these people. They had no clue about what they were going to hear.

I watched them and they were mesmerized – leaning forward in their seats practically holding their breath – holding themselves still like a deer caught in the headlights. Not a sound spoken – even the females!

The sense of being live was so palpable that most were simply speechless. Confusion was rampant since all that sound was coming from OLD BLACK VINYL.

My smile was a mile wide. Thanks for that satisfying experience.

John R.

John,

Thanks for spreading the word and sharing the experience of hearing this wonderful music sound so amazingly good!

TP

Further Reading

Letter of the Week – “the violin now is more natural as you described.”

More of the Music of Harry Belafonte

More of the Music of Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

  Hey Tom, 

I bought the harry Belafonte Carnegie Hall recently, a White Hot. I went to the On The Record site and came across the Offenbach Readers Digest discussion of reversed polarity. I had bought this record on your site a long time ago.

I listened to the record with the polarity reversed.

This is the first time I have heard this record sounding better.

Open, spacious and heard lots of macro and micro details, especially on side one, and the violin now is more natural as you described.

Btw, Do you have records with reversed polarity ready to hit the site? Please let me know.

Very interesting!

Hi,

Thanks for your letter. Glad I was able to help you get that Offenbach record to sound the way it should. It is a knockout performance with audio quality to match.

Funny how you rarely see much discussion of records with reversed polarity.

Do most audiophiles have polarity switches on their preamps or phono stages?

Can they be bothered to go back and forth enough times to make sure they have the correct polarity setting for the records they play?

Do they listen critically enough to hear any of the changes we describe when the polarity is right or wrong?

All good questions,. none of which we are able to answer. Sometimes our own customers don’t get around to switching the polarity of records that are reversed until many months later. Some of them may not ever switch polarity at all.

We discuss a number of records with well known (well known to us anyway) polarity issues here.

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Belafonte at Carnegie Hall – Our Shootout Winner from 2006

Hot Stamper Pressings of Living Stereo Titles Available Now

Harry Pearson brought this record to the attention of audiophiles with his TAS list a long time ago, and rightfully so: it’s an amazing recording.

We happen to love the music too, which makes it one of the most recommendable records we have ever offered. If you can find a better combination of demo disc sound, with music worth the hassle and expense of reproducing it properly, more power to you. We sure can’t.

Because this is a live recording, because it has lots of natural instruments as well as a vocal, because it was recorded in the Golden Age by one of the greatest labels of all time, RCA, by Bob Simpson no less — for this and many other reasons, it has to be considered one of the most amazing recordings in the history of the world.

That said, it is our contention (and the basis of our business model) that the brilliant quality of the recording can only be appreciated if you have the pressing that captured the sound that the engineers recorded. In other words, a Hot Stamper.

From an audiophile point of view, you get to hear live musicians and all the energy they bring to this music, all on the stage at the same time: strings, brass, percussionists, and Harry Belafonte front and center. Tube mics (and not too many of them), a tube tape recorder, RCA’s superb engineering and all-tube mastering chain ensure that the “breath of life” is captured intact.

I know of no better live popular vocal recording on the planet.

The best sounding versions we played are cut super-clean; the brass and strings have dead-on correct textures and timbres.

As good as some pressings are, the best pressings are clearly a step up in class. The brass has more weight and body and richness. Same with the strings. The voice gets fuller and sweeter and less sibilant, while still maintaining every nuance of detail. The presence is startling; Belafonte is absolutely in the room with you. (more…)