This was an e-mail dialogue with Dave, host of "The Sixties", CKCU 93.1 every Tuesday at 10 pm, in May 98.
Dave:
The story of the Red bird Recordings was that most of them were only ever
mixed in mono. Then, in the late 1960s, An album was released on Buddah
records called Incense and Oldies-where they actually remixed-and in a few
cases, added extra handclaps, piano bits to the songs. The remixes were
not stuctred to sound like the singles-thus songs like "Remember(walking
in the sand) and (Give him a great big kiss) had completely different bits
left in the songs that were actually edited out to create the singles.
Songs like "Boy from New york City" was actually stereo on this album(and
later turnded up that way on a K-tel box set!) but the mix ping ponged the
vocals from channel to channel(and the song would even drop to mono in odd
spots). When Red Bird was sold, The master tapes were split up and sent
to several companies, But it's believed that Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
held on to many of the session tapes. Trouble is, most of the music
industry attitude is that "if it was in mono then, it should be in mono
now(Atlantic and Motown records are good examples of labels that hold that
attitude these days.) The folks at Taragon are like us, fans of Stereo.
They put almost 2 years of work into this Red Bird/Blue Cat CD-and
actually had to reconstruct the songs from several tape sources (since the
session tapes did not contain all of the bits that turned up on the
single-such was the way mixing was done back then.) The only mono cut of
the 15 on the disc was "New York's a lonely town" by the Trade Winds (the
reason being it was an outside production-not done at Red Bird. Taragon
won't put something out unless they can get the absolute master tapes.
They've done discs of the Fortunes, Foundations, Steve Lawrence, Joni
James, Bent Fabric, The Critters, Shirley Ellis, Len Barry, Bert
Kaemphert,
Del Shannon-and they have plans for discs on the Cascades and the tokens
later this ywar. Hopefully they'll do a second Red Bird CD as well.
What's really sad is that the commmercial stations won't pick up on these
great CDs. They use what they have-and simply don't care about sound
quality or authenticity (if you've ever heard Majic's Sunday morning
Oldies
show, you know what I mean.)
Tony:
The stereo on the Sam Cooke tracks particularly was, as you said, true
stereo, with real phase difference info, the kind you only get today if
you make your own stereo recordings, with just two mics.
Dave
Well, depending on the recording studio, most were using 2, 3 or 4 track
recording in the early 1960s-mixing down to mono for single release. this
is why we're seeing many tunes turning up in stereo for the first time
ever. Atlantic Records apparently had an 8 track studio as early as
1958(if you've ever heard Bobby Darin's stuff in stereo, you'll hear what
I mean(sadly they keep issuing it in mono these days.) The Sam Cooke CD
was a dream come true. Knowing there has been an on going dispute over
who owns his material (either RCA or former Beatles/Stones manager Allen
Klien). It's Klien that is apparently trying to get this SC CD pulled off
the market-and from all reports I've gotten, it is starting to get hard to
find in the US. The early Sam Cooke disc had fake stereo and very narrow
stereo mixes-all of it lacking high end and crispness. This new disc is
outsdanding with clean flat mono and crisp wide stereo where multi tracks
were available. I do appreciate mono mixes when there is something
different about the sound. Sometimes overdubbs were added in when the
mono mixdown was done, so the only complete version is the mono one (the
Mama's & the Papa's "Creeque Alley" Comes to mind as a good example).
I've learned to appreciate mono for that reason, but I'd rather have
stereo in most cases.
Tony:
95% of modern recordings are not stereo; they are umpteen mono
tracks
mixed together with zero phase info left. I hate it. The early stereo
in both the pop and classical worlds is far more satisfying to listen to. Try
the Ray Conniff records for real stereo. Actually you might consider them for a program.
So, good on you Dave for getting this wonderful stuff! I always loved
the Dixie Cups, and now I can really listen to them for the first time!
How did you get on with Yuri my Russian friend at the Chateau?
- Tony
Dave:
I'm hoping to get Yuri up on the show sometime in the summer months, once
his work is published.
Glad you enjoyed the show. keep in mind there's a request show happening in a few weeks.
Thanks again,
Dave Sampson
CKCU FM 93.1 In Ottawa, Canada