Future Sounds, Past Sounds: Astonishing Sounds

This article was originally published in 1999.

It was tough-no, agonizing, to choose the best FInesounding pop recordings and re-issue of the year. For the first time in many years, I heard many worthy candidates, well over a dozen in each category-a truly heartening phenomenon in stark contrast to commercial pop radio and video's continued devolution into complete musical and artistic worthlessness. (And I'm afraid, considering the current structure of the music bizness, that the trend will continue unabated-you know there's something mortally wrong when the biggest trend of the year was the compilation movie soundtrack.) Nevertheless, the editors asked me to limit my choices to four new releases and one re-issue, so after much dizzying deliberation, here goes:

James Lee Stanley: Freelance Human Being
Beachwood Recordings BR2425-2

A sublime musical, artistic and sonic achievement. One of the most incredible recordings I've ever heard, period, this album captures Stanley performing a selection of extraordinarily moving, memorable and heartfelt songs "live" to tape. Stanley's pure, supple tenor voice is remarkably expressive, conveying the deep emotional riches of his lyrics with clarity and poetic elegance, and his guitar playing, if I may quote my earlier review is "simply gorgeous, alternating between subtle finger picking, lush chording, stark simplicity, rhythmically-charged complexity and many and varied shades in between." (I just don't know how to say it any better.) Stanley's emotional palette is varied and wide-ranging, from regret over a love that could have been ("Somewhere In Between") to the knowing admonition of the breathtaking "When Love Comes Knockin' Around": "You better be there." Listening to this yet again as I write this-Freelance Human Being has been in heavy rotation at the Doris household-I am getting choked up all over again.

The sound quality is simply superlative, with amazing clarity and presence, exceptional detail resolution, wide frequency response and an extraordinarily natural tonal balance. Freelance was recorded using two matched AKG 1000E microphones in X-Y configuration, a Russian Oktava condenser mike to capture room sound, and a tweaked AKG 414 on Stanley's voice. The guitar was recorded using a combination of mike sound and direct input into the board, with judicious use of effects on a couple of cuts. This recording puts absolutely nothing between you and the music. Believe it: a masterpiece.

Available from Beachwood Recordings, 4872 Topanga Canyon Blvd. Suite 223, Woodland Hills, CA 91364 (818) 888-3534.

Tom Freund: North American Long Weekend
Red Ant 329 111 008-2 ADV (CD)

This debut LP from singer-songwriter-musician Tom Freund the is one of the most thrilling musical surprises of the year. Though young, his songs are knowing and worldly-wise, reflecting the ambiguity of life in all its convoluted pleasure and pain. Freund's voice is grittier and harder-edged than Stanley's sweet purity-to no less penetrating emotional effect. "Business of Knowing"-an expression of the futility of trying to figure out the Meaning of Life-is but one of the riveting songs on an album full of them.

The sound is excellent, clean and transparent, with a wide, deep mix that puts every instrument in proper perspective with exceptional weight and presence. The arrangements are superb, a rich combination of acoustic, pedal steel and electric guitars, lush strings, dynamic drums and crisp percussion. The musicians provide the perfect instrumental tapestry to accompany Freund's thought-provoking ruminations, and legendary jazz organist Jimmy Smith contributes his richly soulful Hammond B-3 organ to two tracks.

One of the most fully-realized debut albums I've ever heard, Tom Freund's North American Long Weekend vaults him to immediate Major Artist status in my estimation. Most artists don't get this good in their entire careers.

Little Hatch: Goin' Back
Analogue Productions Originals APO 2007 (LP)

Oh, my lord, what a super-badass, killer album.

When it comes to the blues, there are scores of blues artists and recordings that are decent, OK, even good-but they just don't have that indefinable it. That feeling that connects to your soul and makes you feel the raw power and emotion of The Blues.

Well, Little Hatch has it. This stark, unadorned, direct-to-two-track pure analog recording features Hatch, born in 1922 and sadly under recorded until now, singing a selection of blues classics and playing some smoldering harmonica, accompanied by acoustic guitarist Bill Dye. Let's just say this incredible LP makes up for lost time. Little Hatch has a classic blues voice-rich, resonant and tempered by a lifetime of living and singing the music, with hair-raising emotional intensity and expressiveness. Whether shouting out his lust for a woman or matter-of-factly reflecting upon the reality of life, love and heartbreak, Hatch grabs you in the heart and bones and doesn't let go. Guitarist Dye provides brilliant, and perfectly appropriate accompaniment. The liner notes call him "a master of a whole spectrum of jazz, blues, country and primitive guitar styles," and they're not foolin'-Dye's got the acoustic blues sound and feeling down cold, from sparse flatpicking to gut-wrenching slide playing.

The sound-good god in Heaven. Incredible. I could go on and on about the lifelike vocal and instrumental presence and dynamics, the utterly perfect tonal balance, the way the sound of musicians playing in a room is perfectly captured-you can easily hear the sound of musicians playing live in a room-but why don't I just say, five stars. The vitals: recorded by David Baker at Chad Kassem's Blue Heaven Studios on an ATR 102 tape deck, a Neumann U-67 on Hatch's vocals, two Oktava MC 012s on the guitar (Oktava mikes again, James Lee Stanley used one on his recording, hmmm...) a Shure SM 57 on the harmonica and a Shure VP 88 for room sound; mastered at AcousTech Mastering on 18-gram vinyl. Chad, you slayed me with this one.

Perhaps the ultimate compliment: my wife almost never comes downstairs while I'm listening in "reviewer" mode. Partly not to disturb me, partly because at times, I'm auditioning stuff barely fit for human consumption. When I put Little Hatch on for the first time, she came running downstairs, exclaiming, "Who is this? This is fabulous! make sure you tell the people who made this record that! This is incredible! "

Believe it, my friends.

Blue Oyster Cult: Heaven Forbid
CMC International 06076 86241-2

OK, I'm going to cheat a little bit here. While this record sounds really, really good, it's not up to the rarefied standards of the previous three-or of many other discs I wrestled over placing in the number four spot. However, there's no contest whatsoever that this is far and away my musical favorite recording of the year. A triumphant return by the Blue Oyster Cult after more than a decade without releasing an album, Heaven Forbid combines fiercely rocking intensity with brilliant songwriting and arrangements. Not to mention the incendiary and inventively melodic guitar playing of lead guitarist Buck Dharma, one of the greatest rock guitarists to ever grace the planet. By turns clever, provocative, and tongue-in-cheek, Heaven Forbid is a multifaceted reminder of why BOC is considered one of America's premier rock bands, from the panoramic power of "Harvest Moon" to the blistering guitar assault of songs like "See You In Black" and "Cold Gray Light of Dawn."

Sonically, the record is "big" and open-sounding, clear and punchy with plenty of detail and presence, although there's an upper-midrange brightness and a lack of depth on some songs. Heaven forbid that should deter you from listening to this album-the sound is hard-rock powerful and hard-hitting. They call this band "the Amazing Blue Oyster Cult." On this album, you can hear why.

Re-Issue of the Year:

The All-Time Greatest Hits of Roy Orbison
DCC Compact Classics DCC LPZ(2)-2042 (LP), GZS-1118/A 28888 (CD)

The past year was a truly exceptional one for audiophile-grade re-issues in both quality and quantity, with literally dozens of fine-sounding LPs and CDs from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (can I give them a seperate award for best re-issue label of the year?), DCC Compact Classics, Analogue Productions, Classic Records, Alto and others. Not to mention the releases from numerous mainstream and specialty re-issue labels, whether majors like Sony Music or re-issue spcialists like Rhino and Bar/None. Nevertheless, in my estimation, The Very Best of Roy Orbison towers among the year's pop music re-issues as the Best of the Best.

What can I say about the musical greatness of Roy Orbison that I haven't already said over and over in my revieweing career? Orbison had perhaps the greatest pop singing voice of anyone-anyone. Certainly the most powerful in its operatic intensity and range, and ability to convey the emotional depth of his magnificent songs: "Crying," "Blue Bayou," "In Dreams," "Only the Lonely," "(Oh) Pretty Woman" to name just a handful. Even Elvis called Orbison the greatest of them all. And, in an all-too-rare marraige of musical and sonic greatness, the original Monument Roy Orbison recordings are among the finest of all time, recorded by the master, Bill Porter, at RCA's legendary Nashville studios in the early Sixties.

The All-Time Greatest Hits of Roy Orbison LP and CD re-issues are phenomenal-outstanding detail, dynamic range and presence, spacious and expansive, with incredible frequency response and a richly-burnished, utterly lifelike midrange that captures Orbison's magnificent voice in awe-inspiring glory. Though sacrificing a hint of the classic golden-glow tube sweetness of the original Monument LPs from which the material is drawn, the CD is fantastic, and the LP is even better, with slightly better detail resolution and dynamic range than even the original Monument LPs. And they absolutely kill all previous All-Time Greatest Hits re-issues, including the original Monument re-issue pressings by a mile.

News Flash:

I've gotten a chance to hear Mobile Fidelity's first release using their new Gain II system, Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever (UDCD 735) and it is superb. I'm saving the full report for the next issue, but for now, here's an outline of the Gain II system: MoFi is using a Tim de Paravicini-modified Studer A-80 deck to play back the master tapes, which are then digitally encoded using the Sony Direct Stream Digital process in conjunction with an Ed Meitner-custom-designed A/D converter. The MoFi Full Moon Fever creams the original MCA CD (MCAD-6253) in every sonic respect-it's got more detail, much better harmonic definition, especially in the bass, and no-comparison-it's not-even-a-comparison more depth and presence. I'm looking for an original LP for comparison also.

And they couldn't have picked a better choice for their first Gain II title: Full Moon Fever is an excellent rock recording, with a plethora of hits including "Free Fallin'," "I Won't Back Down," "Runnin' Down A Dream," their definitive cover of the Byrds' "Feel A Whole Lot Better" and "Yer So Bad." (Remember, there was a time when an album would yield more than one hit? Or a band would have more than one hit in their entire career, for that matter?)