The Greatest Vinyl Album Ever..........

wby0nder said:
Since were strolling down music memory lane...

I was 13 and on summer vacation in the upper peninsula of MI with the family of a school pal. We'd been poking around old copper mines, hiking through the woods and old rail beds. I was really into the history of the place and fascinated with the big boats coming through the channel at Houghton/Hancock.

Late one night in bed at the motel I was listening to my trusty pocket transistor radio, carefully tuning through the AM bands. Out of the static and distant stations, suddenly I hear for the first time the electrifying scream of powerful steel guitar chords accompanied by Gordon Lightfoots haunting voice singing "Superior they said never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early..."

It was deliciously terrifying to be there surrounded by that lake and so close to where the 29 souls went mysteriously to their watery grave.

I still get chills everytime I even think about that song.
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That's a fantastic story, Matt! Ironically, I was listening to that song in the airplane the other day. CA asked me what I was listening to, so I held my player up to my headset. This 60 year old, stoic, ex-special forces officer sitting next to me started singing. Turns out he's been a Gordon Lightfoot fanatic (and I do mean fanatic) for decades. Such a fantastic song, for all generations!
 
wby0nder said:
Out of the static and distant stations, suddenly I hear for the first time the electrifying scream of powerful steel guitar chords accompanied by Gordon Lightfoots haunting voice singing "Superior they said never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early..."

....

I still get chills everytime I even think about that song.
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Wow... Didn't know if I was the only one who got chills...

Certainly a fun thread. A few faves:

- Beatles; 'Sgt. Peppers' in particular
- Milt Jackson, 'The Ballad Artistry of Milt Jackson'. This was actually my dad's album, I discovered it whilst learning to play vibes; 'The Cylinder' always sounds good :D
- Steely Dan 'Aja'
- Motown: 'Meet the Supremes' (mom's album... OK, not a technical wonder, but have fond memories of singing (or thinking I could sing :) ) to this around age 8 or so)


Sadly, by the time I'd acquired both awareness of good music and money to actually buy much, the movement to CDs was on....
 
wby0nder said:
I will mention that "Introducing the Beatles" on VeeJay records got played about a billion times. I still love that one.
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I have, and love, Meet the Beatles on Capital Records that came out 10 days after Introducing the Beatles. They share one song "I Saw Her Standing There."

Truly the greatest group ever. Time is proving that more and more. BTW, I think George Harrison did better solo work than Paul.
 
Lance F said:
I do too. But they sure didn't go mysteriously.

Great song.
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At the time it was mysterious in that no one knew what had actually happened. That wasn't figured out till much later.

I have one album in a frame Lance. It's a real nice original copy of Meet the Beatles. Our glider bum pal Burt Compton at Marfa gliders is also a major Beatles fan. We should all get together sometime.

I spent a little time today checking out a bunch of bootleg audio and video of the Beatles on youtube. There is stuff there I'd never even heard about much less seen.

I thought Harrisons last album was really great.
 
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Reminds me of a nice story about Harrison. I met him briefly when I was an engineer for A&M records in LA. He was doing backup for Billy Preston(sorry about name dropping) and we got to talking about some of his work. I told him I loved the story of 'While my guitar gently weeps' and wanted to know the origin of it. He chuckled and told me that he was restless one night and opened a book he had lying around. Closed his eyes and fanned the pages when he stuck his finger in and wrote a song about that word. It happened to be 'weeps'.

We talked mostly about levels, mixing and reverb, tremolo, then he played a few licks of it while I set him up for the sequence. That sticks with a guy for a long time.
 
While my guitar gently weeps, great song.

A little ditty from XM 40...

Eric Clapton played lead guitar in that song. George couldn't pull it off and invited Eric into the studio to help. IIRC it was the only time a non-beatle had a significant presence in a beatles song.
 
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timwinters; IIRC it was the only time a non-beatle had a significant presence in a beatles song.[/quote said:
Actually, George Martin played a lot more than people realize. Even on their early stuff it's often Martin banging away on the piano. More than anyone he was the "5th Beatle".

And, Billy Preston played a lot of organ on the Let it Be sessions. Those organ sounds are very prominent in several classic songs. He played live with them on the rooftop concert, their last show.

And lets not forget Jimmy Nicol who replaced Ringo for many live shows on the tour of Australia.
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Lance F said:
I have, and love, Meet the Beatles on Capital Records that came out 10 days after Introducing the Beatles. They share one song "I Saw Her Standing There."

Truly the greatest group ever. Time is proving that more and more. BTW, I think George Harrison did better solo work than Paul.
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Funny how the titles throw ya. I mostly knew songs from listening to WLS in Chicago. Remember seeing the .45 one time and couldn't think of the song; to me it was: she was just 17 <g>.

Funny how songs remind us of places, things we were doing or people we were with at the time. Palisades Park was playing one evening from a lake club house; neat girl I had met earlier was going and my parents wouldn't let me go; so, even though I don't really like the song; it's memorable.

Everybody knows about the bird: was in Hayward Wisconsin when I was on vacation. Met a neat young lady and remember that night well <g>

Remember the Swim? Didn't know how to do that, but Alita Higley was kind enough to show me one night at a party at her place.

Lots of HS stuff.

We sang a lot in RVN when a band would visit or we would get to a rear area. The music changed with the times. First tour, one fella in our A-team was a Johnny Cash fan and I got to listen to Folsum Prison a lot. Take me home country road was an oft played tune. As was I wanna go home.

Second tour was Moody Blues: for some reason Nights in White Satin was very popular in my air cav unit. Many folks could recite Late Lament word for word.

Best,

Dave
 
Hendrix: Axis Bold as Love
Steppenwolf: Monster
Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick
Of course, Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
 
Lance F said:
I have, and love, Meet the Beatles on Capital Records that came out 10 days after Introducing the Beatles. They share one song "I Saw Her Standing There."

Truly the greatest group ever. Time is proving that more and more. BTW, I think George Harrison did better solo work than Paul.
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I agree on all points. Though Paul did have his moments of inspiration, without George and John he did mostly hohum material.
 
For the 'Beatles' recordings you need to be a lot more specific. For example, Meet the Beatles is pretty much all the fab four, with very little accompaniment(and you can tell). Now, as for the White Album, Sgt Peppers, and Abby Road, there are dozens of tracks fitted in by many, many artists. I have a chum from the old days that played Sax and Clarinet on one or two of the songs on White Album.

Probably the most respected vinyl work from an engineers point of view are DSOM by Floyd and White Album by the Beatles. Excellent workmanship on very difficult to capture artists. There are of course, many other excellent works, but these two stand out for me.
 
The White Album is the only record I waited outside for the store to open the day it was released. You had to play it a few times to realize how special it was/is. Helter Skelter, Back in the USSR...good stuff. Anybody know if it was the first double album?
 
wby0nder said:
Since were strolling down music memory lane...
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Well, I'll never, ever get away from it.........

When I was 20 years old, I married the only woman I've ever heard of, let alone met whose first name was Memory.......

I, John Keith Lane, do take you Memory Dianne Glo..... to be my lawful....

And so we created our own Memory Lane
To top it off our first mailing address was on Easy Street in Macon, Ga.
To keep it music related, Macon is rich in musical history. Home of Otis Redding, Little Richard, Capricorn Records, burial place of Duane Allman, and Berry Oakley, both killed on Harleys in separate accidents on the same road in Macon. (Vineville, Avenue)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macon,_Georgia#Musical_heritage
 
A few I haven't seen mentioned and that are definitely worth mentioning:

Spirit
Captain Beyond
Batdorf & Rodney
 
wby0nder said:
Laurie Anderson, Mister Heartbreak
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Heh. Amazing what one can find on Youtube:


Yeah I know it's from Big Science, but that was the one we played non-stop in college. That, and Home of the Brave.

BTW, I just saw Laurie's Homeland performance at my alma mater this past fall. She performed this one:

 

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And I've got to throw this one in: Keith Emerson with the Nice.

I found this gem in some old record store. It was a double-album reissue of the Nice's Elegy and Five Bridges albums. On it, Keith Emerson blended the likes of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto with Bob Dylan's Country Pie,


and took on Bernstein's America (from West Side Story)


Bizarre.
 

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bbchien said:
Maynard Ferguson: 'Round Midnight
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Saw Maynard several times live when I was in highschool....yeah, me and my friends were band geeks....good concerts, and that man could blow a horn!

I still keep coming back to Dark Side of the Moon and Crime of the Century, though. I had a friend who had mucho Floyd, Supertramp, Steely Dan, Kansas, etc., on Mobile Fidelity 1/2 speed masters.

Those thru a Bang and Olufson turntable, Mcintosh pre-amp and amp, KEF and JBL studio monitors....those were the days....
 
Dark Side of the Moon.....Pink Floyd
Machine Head......Deep Purple
Brain Salad Surgery.....Emerson Lake and Palmer
2112......Rush
Led Zeppelin II....Led Zeppelin
 
Lance F said:
The White Album is the only record I waited outside for the store to open the day it was released. You had to play it a few times to realize how special it was/is. Helter Skelter, Back in the USSR...good stuff. Anybody know if it was the first double album?
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I still like Abby Road as my fav of the Beatles. But, all are good, I have both the "blue" and "red" compilation sets somewhere.

Speaking of sets, I just got a good Elvis box set, Elvis, The King of Rock n Roll, The Complete 50's Masters. Great early Elvis.
 
Bill Jennings said:
May as well add Moving Pictures to the list, probably my fav Rush.
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Should be required owning. Not only great songs, but great engineering -- everything has its space on that album.

And so should be Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, although to me, that represents the first well-recorded album for CD, not vinyl.
 
Wow! Another Laurie Anderson fan. How strange!

Of course I loved Big Science but when Mr Heartbreak came out we were all just floored. Not that you could compare but I recall people a little older talking about Sgt Peppers as being so freeking weird, strange, and unusual yet absorbing and wonderfull when they first heard it. I and many of my friends had the same reaction to Mr Heartbreak. It was all strange sounds, and tempos, and concepts but really engaging and fun to listen to.

Got to see her live once and very briefly meet her. I handed her a cassette of original music from central Iowa artists who'd been inspired by her. She probably never listened to it but she was very gracious in accepting it.


rpadula said:
Heh. Amazing what one can find on Youtube:


Yeah I know it's from Big Science, but that was the one we played non-stop in college. That, and Home of the Brave.

BTW, I just saw Laurie's Homeland performance at my alma mater this past fall. She performed this one:

Click to expand...
 
rpadula said:
And so should be Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms, although to me, that represents the first well-recorded album for CD, not vinyl.
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I was going to mention Brothers in Arms which is one of my favorites but I thought it was a little too recent for the time period in question.
 
Commander Cody - Country Casanova
The Eagles - Desperado
New Riders of the Purple Sage - The Adventures of Panama Red
 
And my favorite single when I was a DJ my freshman year in college was the Beatles "Hey Jude". Why? Because it ran over 7 minutes and you could get away from the board to take care of other business. Most other cuts ran around 3 minutes. :D
 
Ghery said:
And my favorite single when I was a DJ my freshman year in college was the Beatles "Hey Jude". Why? Because it ran over 7 minutes and you could get away from the board to take care of other business. Most other cuts ran around 3 minutes. :D
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The one we used was Stairway to Heaven. Led Zepplin.

That is until someone locked themselves out of the studio one night with it playing. And the turntable kept turning.... schritchKATHUNKscritchKATHUNK.....
 
wsuffa said:
The one we used was Stairway to Heaven. Led Zepplin.

That is until someone locked themselves out of the studio one night with it playing. And the turntable kept turning.... schritchKATHUNKscritchKATHUNK.....
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Well, at least the FCC didn't consider that dead air, did they? Makes doing a station ID at the top and bottom of the hour a little difficult, however. :D
 
Ghery said:
And my favorite single when I was a DJ my freshman year in college was the Beatles "Hey Jude". Why? Because it ran over 7 minutes and you could get away from the board to take care of other business. Most other cuts ran around 3 minutes. :D
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I've heard "Alice's Restaurant" was often used for smoke and/or bodily function breaks as well.
 
docmirror said:
Reminds me of a nice story about Harrison. I met him briefly when I was an engineer for A&M records in LA. He was doing backup for Billy Preston(sorry about name dropping) and we got to talking about some of his work. I told him I loved the story of 'While my guitar gently weeps' and wanted to know the origin of it. He chuckled and told me that he was restless one night and opened a book he had lying around. Closed his eyes and fanned the pages when he stuck his finger in and wrote a song about that word. It happened to be 'weeps'.
...
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Cool! It's not to hard to guess where 25 or 6 to 4 came from. Almost the same deal.
 
Remember all the karma-voodoo stuff about the Moody Blues? So, their answer was; "I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band". We tried to make so much out of strange music in the 60s and 70s. Most of it was written and worked on during garage jam sessions where everyone was stoned or drunk or both.

I've been on a few of those sessions. It's amazing that stuff was written down and recorded. One of my favorite tracks is Siberian Khatru from Yes. What a bunch of hogwash! Some of the interpretations of that are hilarious. Yes and MB both used a bunch of strange instruments that were a ***** to capture, even with the Avondale board we had. One of them shipped a Mellotran in one time, and it had to weigh 600Lbs. We spent days trying to make it sound right on the masters.
 
docmirror said:
Most of it was written and worked on during garage jam sessions where everyone was stoned or drunk or both.
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Try to say "In the garden of eden" when you're too drunk to talk. Apparently it comes out "In a gadda da vida", according to Iron Butterfly.

Who says alcohol abuse can only come to no good.
 
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