• Savoy Brown, The Best of (1967-77)
• First Edition, 69 (1969)
• Milt Jackson, The Impulse Years (2 LP; 1956-69)
• Blind Lemon Jefferson, The Collection: 20 Blues Greats (Italian press.; 1920s)
• Miriam Makeba, The Many Voices of (1960)
• Modern Jazz Quartet, The Legendary Profile (1972)
• Gerry Mulligan, Reunion with Chet Baker (1957)
• Rascals, Freedom Suite (1969)
• Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, King and Queen (1967)
• REM, Document (1987)
• Righteous Brothers, Just once in my life . . . (1965)
• Dave von Ronk, Inside (1963)
• Phil Spector, Christmas Album (1963)
• Spirit, Spirit (1968) + Clear (1969)
• Various, The Blues: Volume 4 (1950-61 [Chess 1988])
• Ventures, Hawaii Five-O (1969)
• Weather Report, Mysterious Traveller (1974)
• XTC, Black Sea (1980)

• Animals, Animalism (1966)
• Art Blakey, Hard Drive (1957)
• Art Blakey, Thermo (2 LP; 1962-64)
• Association, Insight Out (1967)
• Beatles, Past Masters: Volumes One and Two (1960s)
• David Bowie, Space Oddity (1969)
• David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
• Dave Brubeck, Dave Digs Disney (1957; [1980s RE])
• Charlie Byrd and Herb Ellis (1965)
• Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline (1969)
• Impressions, We’re a Winner (1968)
• Joe Jackson, I’m the Man (1979)
• Joe Jackson, Live 1980-86 (1980-86)
• Milt Jackson and Ray Charles, Soul Brothers (1958)
• Ahmad Jamal, Sun Set = At the Pershing Vols. 1 &2 (1958) + At the Blackhawk (1961)
• B.B. King, A Heart Full of Blues (1962)
• King Crimson, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (1973)
• John McLaughlin, Mahavishnu Orchestra: Apocalypse (1974
• Miriam Makeba, In Concert (1967)
• Modern Jazz Quartet, Lonely Woman (1962)
• Morrisey, Kill Uncle (UK; 1991)
• Pentangle, Basket of Light (1969)
• Procol Harum, Grand Hotel (1973)
• Procol Harum, Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (1971)
• Staple Singers, Be What You Are (1973 [1990RE])
• Supremes, Reflections (1967-68)
• XTC, Go 2 (1978)
• Warren Zevon, Warren Zevon (1976

• Beach Boys, Wild Honey (1967)
• Beach Boys, 20/20 (1969)
• Harry Belafonte, Swing Dat Hammer (1960; mono)
• Breeding Ground, Tales of Adventure (1986)
• Elvis Costello, Blood and Chocolate (1986)
• Echo and the Bunnymen, Ocean Rain (1984)
• Herbie Hancock, Kawaida with Don Cherry (RE 2000s; 1969)
• Love and Rockets, Express (1986)
• Morrissey, Kill Uncle (1991)
• Wilson Picket, The Wicked Pickett (1967)
• Sonny Rollins, Sonny Rollins (Blue Note RE 1980s; 1957)

Jazz (Ludwig):

• Jimmy Giuffre, Free Fall (mono; 1963)
• Earl Hines, Life with Fatha (VSP 35 = Earl’s Pearls; 1960)
• Stan Kenton, Concert in Progressive Jazz (10″; 1951)
• Ramsey Lewis, Hang on Ramsey, Live at the Lighthouse (1965)
• Ramsey Lewis, The In Crowd, Live at the Bohemian Caverns, Washington (mono; 1965)
• Adam Makowicz, From My Window (1980)
• Dick McClish, The Dick McClish Quintet (Canadian Talent Library; 1967)
• Wes Montgomery, The Mastersounds with (1958)
• Phineas Newborn, A World of Piano (1961; mono)
• Phineas Newborn, Solo Piano (1975)
• Oscar Peterson, Affinity (1962)
• Oscar Peterson, Girl Talk (1968)
• Oscar Peterson, Montreux ’77, with Ray Brown and Miels Pedersen (1977)
• Herb Pilhofer, Jazz (Argo 657; 1960)
• Howard Roberts, Color Him Funky (1963)
• Shorty Rogers, Martians Come Back! (1955)
• Mongo Santamaria, El Pussy Cat (1965)
• George Shearing, Goes Hollywood (1949-53)
• Ralph Sutton, Piano Solos (1978)
• Art Tatum, The Tatum Masterpieces, Vol. 1 (1953-55)
• Various, The Great Big Band Vocalists (1940s)
• Various, Jazz Jam Session, with Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie (1940s)
• Various, Jazz Festival, with Maynard Ferguson, Teddy Wilson, Clark Terry and Rufus Jones (1965)
• Fats Waller, “One Never Knows, Do One?”: The Best of Fats Waller (4 LP; 1947-42)

• Argent, Nexus (1974)
• Art Blakey, Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World, volume 2 (1960)
• Jackson Browne, Late for the Sky (1974)
• Dave Brubeck, Brubeck and Mulligan Live in Concert (1970)
• Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Crosby, Stills and Nash (1977)
• Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On (1971; 1970s pressing)
• Roland Hanna, Gershwin Carmichael Cats (1977)
• Etta James, Etta James (1973)
• Kraftwerk, Autobahn (1974)
• Love and Rockets, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven (1985)
• Love and Rockets, Earth, Sun, Moon (1987)
• Mott the Hoople, All the Young Dudes (1972)
• Nice, Elegy (1969-70)
• Procol Harum, Shine on Brightly(1968)
• Split Enz, Frenzy (1978-79)
• Tin Machine, Tin Machine, with David Bowie (1989)
• Tonio K, Notes from the Lost Civilization (1988)
• Various, Unesco Collection: Musical Sources: Sung Poetry of the Middle East (1975 ; Dutch press. Philips)
• Zawinul, Zawinul (1971)

I just picked up a load of jazz lps from a local person who was married to a jazz pianist.  Here are a few that I’ve listened to so far:

• Monty Alexander, Facets (1979)
• Ernestine Anderson, Sunshine (1979)
• Chet Atkins, Chet, Floyd, and Boots (1950s)
• Count Basie, The Retrospective Sessions (1962-69)
• George Benson,  It’s Uptown (1965)
• Eubie Blake, The Eighty Six Years of Eubie Blake (1968-69)
• Bola Sete, At the Monterey Jazz Festival (1966)
• Ruby Braff, The Ruby Braff-George Barnes Quartet Live at the New School (1974)
• Bob Brookmeyer, Trombone Jazz Samba (1962)
• Dave Brubeck, Time In = Time (1955)
• Dave Brubeck, All-Time Greatest Hits (1950s-60s)
• Dave Brubeck, At Carnegie Hall (1963)
• Ray Bryant, Slow Freight (1966)
• Milt Buckner, Rockin’ Hammond (1956)
• Nat King Cole, Nat Cole at JATP 2 (1944)
• Mary Lou Collins, Canadian Talent Library (1967)
• John Coltrane, Impressions (1961-63)
• John Coltrane, Coltrane [on Impulse!] (1962)
• John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963)
• John Coltrane, The Best of John Coltrane: His Greatest Years (1961-66)
• James Cotton, 100% Cotton (1974)
• Count Basie, The Retrospective Sessions (2 LPs; 1962, 1969)
• Count Basie, Straight Ahead (1968)
• Stanley Cowell, Blues for the Viet Cong (1969)
• Ted Curson, Flip Top (1964, 1966)
• Jackie Davis, Big Beat Hammon: Jackie Davis at the Console (1962)
• Miles Davis, Get Up With It (1970-74)
• Manu Dibango, O Boso (1972)
• Duke Ellington, The World of Duke Ellington (2LPs; 1949)
• Herb Ellis, Herb Ellis at Montreux with Ray Brown and Jeff Hamilton (1979)
• Bill Evans, Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961)
• Bill Evans, We Will Meet Again (1979)
• Pete Fountain, Pete Fountain’s Jazz Reunion (1976)
• Erroll Garner, The Elf: Savoy Sessions (1945-49)
• Monica Gaylord, Monica Gaylord Plays Ben McPeek (1977)
• Stan Getz, Opus de Bop: The Savoy Sessions (1945-49)
• Stan Getz, Captain Marvel, with Chick Corea (1972)
• Egberto Gismonti, Sol do meio dia (1978)
• Benny Goodman, Trio and Quartet (French press.; 1935-38)
• Grant Green, Idle Moments (1964)
• Scott Hamilton, Scott Hamilton and Warren Vache(1978)
• Johnny Hammond, Wild Horses Rock Steady (1971)
• Johnny Hammond, Breakout (1971)
• Johnny Hammond, The Prophet (1972)
• Lionel Hampton, Steppin Out(1942-44)
• Harold Harris, Here’s Harold (1961)
• Beard Hearsy, Lookin’ for that Groove (1977)
• Woody Herman, 25th Anniversary (1962)
• Earl Hines, Grand Reunion Volume One, with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge (1965)
• Earl Hines, Plays Duke Ellington (4 LP; 1971-75)
• Paul Horn, Visions (1974)
• Illinois Jacquet, Jazz at Town Hall Volume 1, with Arnett Cobb and Milt Buckner (1973)
• Ahmad Jamal, Poinciana (Argo 719; 1958)
• Keith Jarrett, Treasure Island (1974)
• Keith Jarrett, Death and the Flower (1975)
• Keith Jarrett, The Koln Concert (1975)
• Keith Jarrett, Bop-Be (1978)
• Oliver Jones, Oliver Jones et Charlie Biddle (1983)
• Oliver Jones, The Many Moods of Oliver Jones (1984)
• Oliver Jones, Requestfully Yours (1985
• Quincy Jones, This is How I Feel About Jazz (1956)
• Quincy Jones, The Quintessential Charts [missing disc 1] (1961)
• Roger Kellaway, Center of the Circle (1972)
• Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Sing a Song of Basie (1957)
• Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, The Hottest New Group in Jazz (1960)
• John La Porta, The Most Minor (1959)
• Yank Lawson, The World’s Greatest Jazz Band, with Bob Haggart and Billy Butterfield (1970)
• Mead Lux Lewis, The Original Boogie Woogie Piano Giants, including Peter Johnson and Albert Ammons (1938-41)
• Ramsay Lewis, Solid Ivory (1974)
• London Experimental Jazz Quartet, Invisible Roots (1974)
• Maneige, Maneige (1975)
• Thelonius Monk, Who’s Afraid of the Big Band Monk? = Big Band and Quartet in Concert (1963) + Monk’s Blues (1968)
• Carlos Montoya, Plays Flamenco Guitar (1950s; Palace records)
• Joe Muranyi, Clarinet Wobble, with Herbie Hall (1970)
• Oliver Nelson, The Blues and the Abstract Truth with Eric Dolphy, Freddie Hubbard, and Bill Evans (1961)
• Oliver Nelson, More Blues and the Abstract Truth (1964)
• Phineas Newborn, The Newborn Touch (1984)
• Charlie Parker, Encores: The Savoy Sessions (1944-48)
• Charlie Parker, Volume V (1946-47)
• Joe Pass, Virtuoso (1974)
• Joe Pass, Portraits of Duke Ellington (1975)
• Oscar Peterson, Stage Right (1952, 1955)
• Oscar Peterson, Jazz Spectrum Vol. 3 (1959-62)
• Oscar Peterson, The Trio Live from Chicago (1961)
• Oscar Peterson, West Side Story (1962)
• Oscar Peterson, Rare Mood (1964)
• Oscar Peterson, Blues Etude (1966; mono)
• Oscar Peterson, Soul Espanol (1966)
• Oscar Peterson, Trio in Transition (2 LP; 1965-66)
• Oscar Peterson, Easy Walker = Action (1968)
• Oscar Peterson, Travelin’ On (1968)
• Oscar Peterson, The Way I Really Play (1968)
• Oscar Peterson, Mellow Mood (1968)
• Oscar Peterson, Hello Herbie, with Herb Ellis (1969)
• Oscar Peterson, Tristeza on Piano (1970)
• Oscar Peterson, Walking the Line (1970)
• Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson and Harry Edison (1974)
• Oscar Peterson, The Trio, with Joe Pass and Niels Pedersen (1974)
• Oscar Peterson, Porgy and Bess, with Joe Pass (1976)
• Oscar Peterson, The Silent Partner (1979)
• Oscar Peterson, If You Could See Me Now with Joe Pass (1983)
• Bud Powell, A Portrait of Thelonius (1965)
• Pat Riccio, The Pat Riccio Quartet featuring Teddy Wilson, with Ed Thigpen (Canadian Talent Library; 1965)
• Howard Roberts, HR is a Dirty Guitar Player (1963)
• Sonny Rollins, There Will Never Be Another You (1965)
• Tom Scott, John Klemmer and Gato Barbieri, Foundations (1968-73)
• George Shearing, The George Shearing Quartet [Sheba] (1972)
• Zoot Sims, Zoot! (1956)
• Zoot Sims, The Best of Zoot Sims (1980)
• Willie The Lion Smith, Grand Piano with Don Ewell (1967)
• Gabor Szabo, His Great Hits (2 LP; 1962-67)
• Art Tatum, Solo Masterpieces Vol. 8 (1953-55)
• Art Tatum, Art Tatum Discoveries vol. 1 (1956)
• Creed Taylor, Presents Know Your Jazz [volume 1 RE 1970s] (1956)
• Gene Taylor, Handmade (1986)
• Bob Thiele, Jazztime USA: The Best of Bob Thiele’s Classic Jam Sessions of the 1950s (2 LPs; 1952-55)
• Three Sounds, Live at the Lighthouse (1967)
• McCoy Tyner, The Early Trios (1962-64)
• McCoy Tyner, Reevaluation: The Impulse Years (1962-65)
• McCoy Tyner, Song for My Lady (1973)
• Michal Urbaniak, Fusion (1973)
• Various, Jazz Odyssey Volume III: The Sound of Harlem (1920-42)
• Lester Young, Pres and His Cabinet (1952-58)

• Laurinda Almeida, Duets with the Spanish Guitar Album 2 (1960)
• Animals, Love Is (1968)
• Beach Boys, Smile ( 1966-67 [2011])
• Beatles, Beatles for Sale (UK press. RE; mono; 1964)
• Harry Belafonte, The Midnight Special, with Bob Dylan on harmonica (1962; mono)
• David Bowie, The Lodger (1979)
• Dave Brubeck, A Place in Time, aka Time (1954)
• John Coltrane, Ballads, with Mccoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones (RE; 1961-62)
• Bob Dylan, Greatest Hits Vol. II, with unreleased material on side D (1971)
• Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace (2LP; 1972)
• Gentle Giant, In a Glass House (RE Alucard; 1973)
• King Crimson, USA (1974)
• Johnny Lytle, The Village Caller! (1963)
• Van Morrison, Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast (1983)
• Poco, A Good Feelin’ to Know (1972)
• Portishead, Dummy (1994)
• Renaissance, Live at Carnegie Hall (2 LP; 1975)
• John Renbourne, Sir John Alot of (1968)
• Sonny Rollins, The Freedom Suite Plus = The Freedom Suite (1958) + The Sound of Sonny (1957)

• Sidney Bechet, And the New Orleans Feetwarmers (1932-40)
• Art Blakey, A Night in Tunisia (1957; BMG RE 1998)
• Art Blakey, Mirage (1957)
• Bourgeois Tagg, Bourgeois Tagg (1986)
• Bourgeois Tagg, Yoyo (1987)
• Jackson Browne, Jackson Browne, Saturate Before Using (1972)
• Ida Cox, Volume 2 (Fountain Vintage Blues; 1923-24)
• Crosby, Stills and Nash, Crosby, Stills and Nash (Atlantic tri-colour; 1969)
• Eagles, On the Border (1974)
• Aretha Franklin, Young, Gifted and Black (1972)
• Gentle Giant, Free Hand (1975)
• Etta James, Her Greatest Sides Volume 1(19??)
• Billy Joel, An Innocent Man (1983)
• Leadbelly, Keep Your Hands Off Her (1943-47; Verve reissue of Leadbelly Sings Folk Songs)
• Little Richard, 20 Greatest Hits (1950s)
• Manassas, Down the Road (1973)
• Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, The Good Earth (1974)
• Moody Blues, Go Now (debut; 1965)
• Poco, Poco (1970)
• Poco, From the Inside (1971)
• Portishead, Third (2 LP; 2008)
• Billy Preston, I Wrote a Simple Song (1971)
• Ramatam, Ramatam (1972)
• Ramatam, In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns (1973)
• Lou Rawls, A Man of Value (1972)
• Paul Revere and the Raiders, Greatest Hits (1961-67)
• Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard Volume 3 (1957; Japanese press.,  1985)
• Spirit, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (1967)
• Mel Torme, Lulu’s Back in Town (1956)
• Westland Steel Band, Steel Band / Trinidad: The Sound of the Sun (1969; Nonesuch Explorer Series)

• Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You (1970)
• Atomic Rooster, In Hearing of (1971)
• Tony Bennett, In Person, with Count Basie and His Orchestra (1959)
• Diahann Carroll, The Andre Previn Trio (1960)
• Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, 4 Way Street live (2 LP; 1970)
• Brian Eno, Here Come the Warm Jets (1974)
• Florence and the Machine, Ceremonials (2011)
• Gentle Giant, The Missing Piece (1977)
• Stan Getz, Music from the Sound Track of “Mickey One” (1965)
• Junior Mance, Get Ready, Set, Jump!!! (1964)
• Joni Mitchell, Blue (1971)
• Shawn Phillips, Furthermore (1974)
• Mel Torme, Sings Sunday in New York (1963)
• U2 (the Edge), Captive soundtrack (1986)
• Vector, Mannequin Virtue (1983)

• Jackson Browne, For Everyman (1973)
• Betty Carter, Social Call (1955-56)
• Nat King Cole, The Man and His Music (1959-61)
• John Coltrane, More Lasting than Bronze = Coltrane and Lush Life (2 LP; 1958)
• John Coltrane, The Last Trane (1965)
• Miles Davis, In a Silent Way (1969)
• Donovan, Mellow Yellow (1966; orig. yellow label)
• Nick Drake, A Treasury(1969-72; I gave up hope of finding any originals or even the fruit tree compilation, so I’m happy to find anything by him)
• Florence and the Machine, Lungs (2009)
• Stan Getz, With Cal Tjader (1963)
• Billy Joel, The Nylon Curtain (1982)
• Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nuthin’ Fancy (1975)
• Charles Mingus, Mingus at Monterey (2 LP; 1964)
• Thelonius Monk, Straight, No Chaser (1967 – finally more Monk on vinyl!)
• Manfred Mann, Attention! Manfred Mann! (German press.; 1966-69)
• Mott the Hoople, The Hoople (1974)
• Osibisa, Woyaya (UK press.; 1971)
• Return to Forever, Live: The Complete Concert 4-Record Set (1978)
• Jimmy Smith, Take a Walk on the Wild Side (Verve French press.; 1964)
• Pete Townsend, Empty Glass (1980)
• David Wiffen, Coast to Coast Fever (Bruce Cockburn on guitars and producer; 1974)

• The Band, Islands (1977)
• Count Basie, Count Basie and the Kansas City 7 (1962)
• Bill Bruford, One of a Kind (1979)
• Canned Heat, Living the Blues (1968)
• Eric Clapton, Money and Cigarettes (1983)
• Bob Dylan, Planet Waves, with the Band (1974)
• Keith Hampshire, The First Cut (1973)
• Elton John, Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player (1972)
• Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, and Teddy Wilson (1955; German pressing of the 1980s)
• Odetta, The Essential (2LP; 1973)
• Rolling Stones, Some Girls (1978)
• Simple Minds, Live in the City of Light (1987)
• Traffic, Last Exit (1969)

• Chuck Berry, The London Chuck Berry Sessions (1972)
• Blue Rodeo, Outskirts (1986)
• Byrds, Younger Than Yesterday (1967)
• Cars, The Cars  (1978)
• Johnny Cash, Original Golden Hits Volume 1 (1955-57)
• Johnny Cash, Original Golden Hits Volume 2 (1957-59)
• Johnny Cash, Original Golden Hits Volume 3 (1957-59)
• Eric Clapton, Just One Night (1980)
• Cowboy Junkies, The Caution Horses (1990)
• Art Farmer, “Live” at the Half-Note, featuring Jim Hall (1963)
• Grand Funk, We’re an American Band (1973; orange vinyl).
• Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced (1967; orig. Canadian stereo press.)
• John Lennon, Mind Games (1973)
• Bob Marley, Shakedown / Best of  (1971)
• Steve Miller, Circle of Love (1981)
• Osibisa, Osibisa (1971)
• Robert Palmer, Double Fun (1978)
• Jaco Pastorius, Jaco (1976)
• Jaco Pastorius, Invitation (1983)
• Rush, 2112 (1977)
• Santana, Festival (1978)
• Various, Stand by Me (1950s)

• Blood, Sweat, and Tears, New Blood (1972)
• Booker T and the MGs, Greatest Hits (1970)
• Herbie Hancock, Secrets (1976)
• Jethro Tull, This Was (1967)
• Roger McGuinn, Roger McGuinn (1973)
• Muddy Waters, Can’t Get No Grindin’ (1973)
• Muddy Waters, Super Super Blues Band, with Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley (1968)
• Rolling Stones, Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)
• Steppenwolf, Rest in Peace (1972)
• Mel Torme, The Torme Touch (1956)
• Mel Torme, Loves Fred Astaire (1956)
• Zombies, The Best of… (1964-68)

• Beatles, Hard Day’s Night Parlophone RE (1964 [1987])
• Beatles, 1962-1966 [Red] (for my 8-year old son who asked me to find more beatles for him)
• Beatles, 1967-1970 [Blue]
• Beatles, Rock n’ Roll Volume 1 (1970)
• Bon Iver, Bon Iver (2011)
• Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976)
• The Dells, Love is Blue (1969)
• Electric Fly, A Long Time Comin’ (1968 – RE with Byrds label)
• Marvin Gaye, Here, My Dear (1978)
• Genesis, From Genesis to Revelation (London; 1969)
• Genesis, Nursery Cryme (1971; orig. Buddah/Quality)
• Genesis, Foxtrot (1972; orig. Buddah/Quality)
• Herbie Hancock, Jammin’ with Herbie Hancock = Rock Your Soul (1961)
• Isaac Hayes, Joy (1973)
• Isaac Hayes, Chocolate Chip (1975)
• Ahmad Jamal, Ahmad Jamal (1958)
• Elton John, Blue Moves (1976)
• Journey, Infinity (1978)
• Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, West Meets East (1966)
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, You’re Gonna Get It (1978)
• Stephen Stivell, Chemins de terre (1973)
• U2, The Unforgettable Fire EP (1985)
• Ultravox, Lament (1984)
• Sarah Vaughan, Sarah Vaughan Sings and Other Jazz Stars (195?)
• Stevie Wonder, For Once in my Life (1968)
• Zombies, Odessey and Oracle (1968; 30th anniv. Big Beat UK 1997)

Transferring some really good early 80s LPs for friends who wouldn’t let me buy them (and listening to them myself, as well):

• Depeche Mode, Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)
• Sinead O’Connor, The Lion and the Cobra (1987)
• REM, Chronic Town (1982)
• REM, Murmur (1983)
• REM, Green (1988)
• Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks (1977)
• Sheep Look Up, Sheep Look Up EP (1986
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, Once Upon a Time / The Singles (1978-81)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Scream (1978)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kaleidascope (1980)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, Juju (1981)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, Dazzle4 track 12″ (1983)
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, Hyaena (1984)
• Smiths, Hatful of Hollow (1984)
• Specials, More Specials (1980)
• Squeeze, Singles 45′s and under (1978-82)
• Stooges, The Stooges (1969)
• Tear Drop Explodes, Wilder (1981)
• Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes (1983)
• Violent Femmes, Hallowed Ground (1984)

Some CDs at a garage sale:

• Beautiful South, Choke (1990)
• Beautiful South, 0898 (1992)
• U2, Achtung Baby (1991 – to replace skipping one)
• Watchmen, Brand New Day (1996)
• Neil Young, Freedom (1989)

• Louis Armstrong, Town Hall Concert Plus (1947)
• Louis Armstrong, European Concert Recordings by Ambassador Satch (1955)
• Louis Armstrong, Louis Armstrong and Eddie Condon at Newport (1956)
• Pearl Bailey, The Best of Pearl Bailey (1950s)
• Count Basie, Basie’s Beatle Bag (1966; UK press)
• Chuck Berry, Bio (1973)
• Big Country, Steeltown (1984)
• Charlie Byrd, Mr. Guitar (1959)
• Nat King Cole, The Touch of Your Lips (1962)
• Johnny Eaton, College Jazz: Modern (1956)
• Fifth Dimension, Live!! (2LP; 1971)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Rodgers and Hart Song Book (1956)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Irving Berlin Song Book (1958)
• Bobby Hackett, Live at the Roosevelt Grill (1970)
• Bill Haley, Golden Hits (2LP; 1950s)
• Lionel Hampton, Hamp’s Big Band (1959; stereo)
• Lionel Hampton, Many-Splendored Vibes (1962)
• Herman’s Hermits, 15 Greatest Hits(1965-67)
• Housemartins, Now That’s What I Call Quite Good (1985-88)
• Elton John, 11-17-70 (live at WABC-FM) (1970)
• Kinks, The Ultimate Collection (1964-70)
• Gene Krupa, Swingin’ with Krupa (1936-50)
• Oscar Peterson,  On the Town (1958)
• Oscar Peterson, Trio Plays (1964)
• Oscar Peterson, Something Warm (1966)
• Oscar Peterson, Trio + One, with Clark Terry (1964)
• Oscar Peterson, Canadiana Suite (orgl Limelight; 1964)
• Gene Pitney, She’s a Heartbreaker (1969)
• Tito Puente, Let’s Cha cha cha (1956)
• Buddy Rich, Big Band Machine (1975)
• Buddy Rich and Lionel Hampton, Transition (1975)
• Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Under Analysis (1956)
• Seventy Sevens,  Seventy Sevens (1987)
• Ravi Shankar, India’s Master Musician, World Pacific Records (1958)
• George Shearing, An Evening With the George Shearing Quintet (1951)
• George Shearing, The Shearing Spell (1955)
• George Shearing, Shearing on Stage! (1959)
  
• George Shearing, Latin Affair (1960)
• George Shearing with Nancy Wilson, The Swingin’s Mutual (1961)
• Frank Sinatra, Come Dance with Me (1959)
• Frank Sinatra, Swing Along with Me with Billy May (1961)
• Dakota Staton, The Late, Late Show (1957)
• Steely Dan, Katy Lied (1975)
• Supertramp, Indelibly Stamped (1971)
• Tonio K, Notes from the Lost Civilization (1988)
• Mel Torme, Love Moods (195?)
• Mel Torme, Right Now! (1966)
• Mel Torme, Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head (1969)
• Sarah Vaughan, Sarah Sings Soulfully (1963)
• Sarah Vaughan, The Lonely Hours (1964)
• Mary Lou Williams, From the Heart (1971)
• Nancy Wilson, Like in Love debut with Bill May (1960)
• Nancy Wilson, Yesterday’s Love Songs-Today’s Blues (1963)
• Nancy Wilson, Broadway-My Way (1964)
• Nancy Wilson, Just for Now (1967)

From a garage sale at $1 a piece:

• Laurindo Almeida, Duets with the Spanish Guitar Album 3 (1958)
• Laurindo Almeida and Charlie Byrd, Brazilian Soul (1981)
• Joan Armatrading, The Shouting Stage (1988)
• Bach, Tripelkonzert a-moll BWV 1044 and Konzerte für Cembalo (Archiv; 1960)
• Bach, Magnificat BWV 243 and Katata BWV78 (Archiv; 1961)
• Byrds, Fifth Dimension (1966)
• Aldo Ciccolini, Piano Music of Erik Satie, vol. 1 (1968)
• Miles Davis, The Man with the Horn (1981)
• Faces, Long Player (1971)
• Handel, 6 Tiosonaten für 2 Oboen, Fabott und Cembalo (Archiv; 1969)
• John Klemmer, Blowin’ Gold (1969)
• John Klemmer, Brazilia (1979)
• John Klemmer, Hush (1981)
• Faces, Long Player (1971)
• Cleo Laine, Best Friends, with John Williams (1976) – 2 copies – how did I do that in one day?
• Cleo Laine, This is . . . Cleo Laine: Shakespeare and all that Jazz (1964; UK press)
• Bob Marley, Burnin’ (1973)
• Bob Marley, Catch a Fire (1973)
• Bob Marley, Uprising (1980)
• John McLaughlin, Al di Meola, and Paco de Lucia, Passion, Grace, and Fire (1983)
• Mozart, Requiem, Karajan and the Wiener Singverein Berlin Philharmonic (1962)
• Mozart, The Last Four String Quartet and The Julliard Quartet (2LP: 1976)
• Mozart and Schubert, Jupiter-Symphonie and Unvolledette, Eugen Jochum and the BSO (1973)
• Mozart, Klavierkonzerte and Piano Concertos Nos. 20 & 12, Rudolf Serkin and the LSO (1982)
• Pentangle, Solomon’s Seal (1972)
• Pentangle, Sweet Child (1969)
• Jean-Luc Ponty, Imaginary Voyage (1976)
• Jean-Pierre Rampal, Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano, with Claude Rolling (1975)
• Jean-Pierre Rampal and Lily Laskine, Sakura: Japanese Melodies for Flute and Harp (1976; Japanese press)
• John Renbourn, The Lady and the Unicorn (1970)
• James Taylor, JT (1977)
• Peter Tosh, Wanted Dread or Alive (1981)
• Vivaldi, The Complete Flute Concertos,with Jean-Pierre Rampal on flute (3 LP; 1959)
• Bunny Wailer, Bunny Wailer Sings the Wailers (1980)
• Stevie Wonder, The Secret Life of Plants (1980)
• Narciso Yepes, The World of Guitar Volume 1 (195?? [1967])
• Narciso Yepes, The World of Guitar Volume Four (195?? [1967])

• Chet Baker, Chet Baker and Strings, with Zoot Sims (1953 [1974])
• Chet Baker, She Was Too Good to Me, with Paul Desmond (1974)
• Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, Together Again (1976)
• Booker T. and the MG’s, Best of (1962-68)
• Vikki Carr, Just for You (2LP; 1973)
• Neil Diamond, Touching You, Touching Me (1969)
• Bo Diddley, Go (1959 [1986])
• Ella Fitzgerald, The World of EF = Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie! live (1961)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Rhythm is My Business (1962)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Ella at Juan-Les Pins (1964)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Hello Dolly (1964)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Ella in Hamburg (1965)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Misty Blue (1968)
• Roberta Flack, Quiet Fire (1971)
• Folkways, Anthology of American Folk, Volume Two: Social Music (1926-31 [1952])
• Free, Highway (1970)
• Robert Fripp, God Save the Queen (1980)
• Genesis, Nursery Cryme (1971)
• Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba mono (1962)
• Benny Goodman, An Album of Swing Classics live (3 LP Classics Record Library; 1955)
• Benny Goodman band, Salute to Benny Goodman, with Brussels World’s Fair Orchestra (red vinyl; 1959)
• Al Green, Love Ritual compilation albums from (1975-76; ss)
• Bobby Hackett and Jack Teagarden, Jazz Ultimate (1957)
• Isaac Hayes, Black Moses (1971 — with full fold-out)
• Isaac Hayes, This is Isaac Hayes – single versions (1972; German press)
• Heart, Dog and Butterfly (1978)
• Heart, Bebe le Strange (1980)
• Jimmy Hendrix, Cry of Love (1968-70)
• Woody Herman, Woody Herman (Metro; 1965)
• Al Hirt, Swingin’ Dixie (stereo; 1957)
• Billie Holiday, Greatest Hits (Columbia CL 2666; 1935-41)
• Billie Holiday, The Billie Holiday Story (2LP MCA;  1944-50)
• Billie Holiday, Billie Holiday (Everest)
• Harry James, All Time Favorites by (1955)
• Harry James, The Golden Trumpet of Harry James, Phase Four (1968)
• Janis Joplin, Pearl (1971)
• Daniel Lanois, Black Dub (2010)
• Brenda Lee, Let Me Sing (1963)
• Michel Legrand, Archi-cordes (1967)
• John Lewis, A Milanese Story Original Soundtrack (1962)
• Madonna, Madonna (1983)
• Glenn Miller, A Memorial 1944-1969 (2LP; 1939-42)
• Wes Montgomery, Greatest Hits (1967-68; A&M)
• Gerry Mulligan, Concert Days live, with Zoot Sims (1954-57; Sunset)
• Gerry Mulligan, Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band on Tour, with Zoot Sims (1960)
• Willie Nelson, Stardust (1978)
• Charlie Parker, Voume III (Everest Records; [1968])
• Shawn Phillips, Collaboration (1971; orig. NM copy)
• Pink Floyd, Obscured by Clouds (1972)
• Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix, Monterey International Pop Festival (1967)
• Sam and Dave, Soul Men (1967)
• Leo Sayer, Thunder in my Heart (1977; SS)
• Sly and the Family Stone, Life (1968)
• Sly and the Family Stone, Stand! (1969)
• Spirit, Spirit (1968)
• Various, The Jazz Round, with Fitzgerald, Armstrong, Peterson, Webster etc.  (VSP; 1966)
• Various, A Taste of CTI/Kudo, Vol. 1, Hubbard (1973-75)
• Various, The Tenor Sax Album, with Hawkins and Webster (Savoy; 1944-54 [1977])
• Various, Jazz Giants (I Giganti del Jazz), with Bud Powell, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims (2LP Curcio; 1981)
• Sarah Vaughan, Sarah Sings Soulfully (1963)
• Tom Waits, Mule Variations (1999)
• Paul Weller, Wake Up the Nation (2010)
• Wilco, Summerteeth (2LP +CD; 1999)
• Nancy Wilson, Today, Tomorrow, Forever (1964)
• Yes, Yeshowns (1976-78)
• Lester Young, The Lester Young Story, Volume 3, Enter the Count (2 LPs 1939)
• Lester Young, Lester Leaps In (1940-50; Italian Jazz Live series)

• Meredith d’Ambrosio, Little Jazz Bird (1982)
• Pearl Bailey, The Definitive Pearl Bailey (CL 985 six-eye; 1957)
• Count Basie, Hits of the 50′s and 60′s (1963)
• Count Basie, Basie Meets Bond (1966 ; German press.)
• Count Basie, Best of Basie (1938-44; Roulette)
• Count Basie and the Mill Brothers, The Board of Directors (1967)
• George Benson, Summertime (1977)
• Bill Berry, Hello Rev (1976)
• Bill Berry, Shortcake (1977)
• Brian Browne, Live at the Park Plaza (1960s?)
• Ray Brown, With the All-Star Big Band [with Cannonball Adderley] (1962)
• Dave Brubeck, Newport 1958 (1958)
• Dave Brubeck, Time Out (1980s RE)
• Ray Bryant, Solo Flight (1976)
• Canadian Brass, Basin Street (1987)
• Benny Carter, Summer Serenade (1980)
• Al Cohn, Billy Mitchell, Dolo Coker, Leroy Vinnegar, and Frank Butler, Night Flight to Dakar Recorded Live in Senegal West Africa (1980)
• Cootie and Rex, The Big Challenge [with Coleman Hawkins] (1957)
• Miles Davis, Kind of Blue (1959 [RE 1980s])
• Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain (1960 [RE 1980s])
• Bill Doggett, Jumping and Swinging (1952-58; German press.)
• Bill Doggett, Moondust for Dancers in Love (1955)
• Eric Dolphy, Last Date (1964 – mono)
• Eric Dolphy, Outward Bound (1960)
• Billy Eckstine, Orchestra 1945 (1945)
• Duke Ellington, Indigos (1958)
• Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Porgy and Bess vol. 2 (1959; German press.)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Ella in Hollywood (1961)
• Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass, Take Love Easy (1973)
• Tommy Flanagan, George Mraz, and Elvin Jones, Eclypso (1977)
• Panama Francis, Everything Swings (1984)
• Astrud Gilberto, Look to the Rainbow (1966; German press.)
• Dizzy Gillespie, The Ebulent Mr. Gillespie (1959)
• Jake Hanna, Kansas City Express (1976)
• Scott Hamilton, Apples and Oranges (1981)
• Coleman Hawkins, Hawkins! Alive! at the Village Gate (1962)
• Earl Hines, Back on the Street (1973)
• Earl Hines, Fireworks (1974;  French press.)
• Helen Humes, Songs I Like to Sing (1960)
• Bob James and David Sanborn, Double Vision (1986)
• Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Live in Munich (1976)
• Louis Jordan, Best of (1941-53)
• James Last, Beat in Sweet (19
• Chuck Mangione, CM Quartet (1972)
• Chuck Mangione, Chase the Clouds Away (1975)
• Chuck Mangione, Feels So Good (Audiophile Series; 1977)
• Chuck Mangione, Children of Sanchez (1978)
• Branford Marsalis, Roayl Garden Blues (1986)
• Branford Marsalis, Renaissance (1987)
• Rob McConnell, The Jazz Album [with Moe Koffmann] (1976)
• Dave McKenna Quartet, Featuring Zoot Sims (1974)
• Carmen McRae, Carmen’s Gold (1964-65)
• Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli, Strictly for the Birds (1980)
• Wes Montgomery, Bumpin’ (1965)
• Gerry Mulligan, What is There to Say? (1958-59 [1974])
• Joe Newman, Soft Swingin’ Jazz (1958)
• Art Pepper, So in Love (1980)
• Oscar Peterson, With Respect to Nat (1965)
• Oscar Peterson, We Get Requests (1965 [RE])
• Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson [Metro Hi-Fidelity] (1965)
• Oscar Peterson and Buddy de Franco, The George Gershwin Song Book (1954; German press.)
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Volume 1 (1977)
• Howard Roberts, HR is a Dirty Guitar Player (1963)
• Lucky Roberts and Willie Smith, Luckey and the Lion: Harlem Piano Solos (1960)
• Salt City Six, Dixieland at the Roundtable (1958)
• Jimmy Smith, The Cat (1964; German press.)
• Jimmy Smith, Got My Mojo Workin’ (1965; German press.)
• Jimmy Smith, Groove Drops (1969)
• Rex Smith, Rendezvous with Rex (1958; UK press.)
• Dakota Staton, Dakota at Storyville (1961)
• Ed Thigpen, Out of the Storm [with Herbie Hancock] (1966; German press.)
• Thomas Valentine, At the Kohlman’s Tavern (1972)
• Various, Hi-Fi Jazz Session (1957)
• Various, Riverside – The Soul of Jazz (1959-60)
• Various, Atlantic Honkers: A Rhythm and Blues Saxophone Anthology (1947-70)
• Sarah Vaughan, The George Gershwin Songbook (2 LPs; 1957)
• Miroslav Vitous, Infinite Search [with Herbie Hancock and John McLaughlin] (1970)
• Weather Report, Heavy Weather (1977)
• Weather Report, Mr. Gone (1978)
• Joe Williams, I Just Want to Sing (1985)
• Nancy Wilson and Cannonball Adderley (1962 – better copy)
• Lester Young, Giant of Jazz (1968)

Monster Records is closing in Toronto, and so I got a few at 40% off.  Also found some more at the local antique market.

• Accolade, Accolade 2 (1971)
• Beautiful South, Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989)
• David Bowie, Tonight (1984)
• Delaney and Bonnie, Accept No Substitute (1969)
• Bob Dylan, Infidels (1983)
• Brian Eno and David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Sings the Harold Arlen Song Book Vol. 2 (1961 – orig. still sealed – who on earth would not open it after 50 years to listen)
• Fleetwood Mac (Bob Welch), French Kiss (1977)
• Isaac Hayes, Shaft (1971)
• Headhunters, Survival of the Fittest (1975; Hancock produced)
• Hollies, Reflections = Hollies (UK press; 1965)
• Hollies, Hollies Sing Hollies (UK press; 1969)
• Hollies, Distant Light (1971)
• Housemartins, London 0 Hull 4 (1986)
• Impressions (Mayfield), This is My Country (1968 [Rhino RE])
• Joe Jackson, Look Sharp (1979)
• Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. II (1936-37 [1970, RE])
• Gene Krupa, Sidekicks (1955; original 6 eye)
• Jazz Wave Ltd, On Tour (2 LP; 1969)
• Jethro Tull, Benefit (1970)
• James Last, Beat in Sweet (1965)
• Level 42, Level 42 (1981)
• Level 42, The Pursuit of Accidents (1982; UK press.)
• Level 42, Standing in the Light (1983)
• Level 42, True Colours (1984; UK press.)
• Level 42, World Machine (1985; UK press.)
• Curtis Mayfield, Curtis (1970 [Rhino RE])
• Charles Mingus, Jazz Workshop (1954-55)
• Charles Mingus, Mingus at Antibes (1960)
• Muddy Waters, Fathers and Sons (1969; 2 LPs)
• Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy and the Wolf (1969)
• Shawn Phillips, Favourite Things (1965)
• Shawn Phillips, Faces (1969)
• Shawn Phillips, Contribution (1970)
• Shawn Phillips, Do You Wonder (1975)
• Shawn Phillips, Transcendence (1978)
• Renaissance, Turn of the Cards (1974)
• Renaissance, Scheherazade and other Stories (1975)
• Renaissance, Novella (1977)
• Sonny Rollins, On Impulse (1965)
• Frank Sinatra, Swingin’ Brass, arranged by Neal Hefti (1962)
• Small Faces, Collection (2LPs; 1966-69 [1985])
• Sonny Stitt, Personal Appearance (1957 [1981]; Japanese press.)
• Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring (1986)
• The The, Soul Mining (1983)
• Tomita, The Tomita Planets (1976)
• Tonio K., Romeo Unchained (1986)
• T. Rex, My People were Fair …(1968a [1988 Castle Communications])
• T. Rex, Prophets, Seers and Sages (1968b [1988])
• Traffic, Mr. Fantasy debut (1967)

• Animals, Greatest Hits of Eric Burdon and teh Animals Vol. 2 (1966-68 [1982])
• Joan Armatrading, Back to the Night (1974)
• Joan Armatrading, To the Limit (1978)
• Joan Armatrading, Me Myself and I (1980)
• Joan Armatrading, The Key (1983)
• Joan Armatrading, Track Record [Best] (1983)
• Harry Belafonte, The Midnight Special, with Dylan on harmonica (1962)
• Jackson Browne, The Pretender (1976)
• Jackson Browne, Hold Out (1980)
• Dave Brubeck, Anything Goes! The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter (mono CL 2602; 1966)
• T-Bone Burnett, Alpha Band, Spark in the Dark (1977)
• T-Bone Burnett, Alpha Band,Statue Makers of Hollywood (1978)
• T-Bone Burnett, Truth Decay (1980)
• T-Bone Burnett, Trap Door (1982)
• T-Bone Burnett, T-Bone Burnett (1986)
• T-Bone Burnett, Talking Animals (1988)
• Cheap Trick, Dream Police (1979)
• Chicago, Chicago Transit Authority (1969; UK pressing)
• Chicago, X (1976)
• Chicago, Hot Streets (1978)
• Chick Corea and Gary Burton, Crystal Silence (1972)
• Chick Corea and Return to Forever, Light as a Feather (1973)
• Colourfield, Deception (1987)
• Crosby and Nash, David Crosby/Graham Nash (1972)
• Richie Delamore, Delamore Sings, A Night in the Caribbean (1962)
• Derek and the Dominoes (Clapton), Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970)
• Bob Dylan, Basement Tapes (1967 [1975])
• Bob Dylan, New Morning (1970)
• Bob Dylan, Hard Rain (1976)
• Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards (1971)
• ELP, Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
• Fats Domino, Blueberry Hill! (1967; Pickwick)
• Fleetwood Mac, Bare Trees (1972)
• Fleetwood Mac, Tango in the Night (1987)
• Earth, Wind, and Fire, I Am (1979)
• Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Porgy and Bess (2 LPs; 1957; Verve German Grammophon pressing)
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Works Volume 2 (1977)
• Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, et al, 801 Live (1976; UK pressing)
• Four Tops, Greatest Hits (1964-68)
• Aretha Franklin, Aretha Arrives (1967)
• Robert Fripp, League of Gentlemen (1981)
• Genesis, Foxtrot (1972)
• Genesis, Win and Wuthering (1976)
• Gentle Giant, Three Friends (1972)
• Gentle Giant, The Power and the Glory (1974; Capitol)
• Eddy Grant, All the Hits (1984; UK pressing)
• Al Green, Tired of Being Alone [actually Green is Blues with "Tired of Being Alone" replacing "the Letter"] (1969 [1977])
• Al Green, Truth n’ Time (1978)
• Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, In Concert (2 LPs; 1978)
• Fletcher Henderson, 1927-1936
• Various, Popular Koto Melodies of Japan (1973)
• Quincy Jones, Quincy’s Got a Brand New Bag (stereo; 1965)
• Kansas, Leftoverture (1976)
• B.B. King, Completely Well (1969)
• Gordon Lightfoot, Old Dan’s Records (1972)
• Mahavishnu Orchestra (John McLaughlin), Birds of Fire (1972)
• Murray McLauchlan, Song from the Street (1971)
• Modern Jazz Quartet, The Quartet (1952; Savoy pressing MG 12046)
• Randy Newman, Good Old Boys (1974)
• Nice, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (1968; Italian pressing by Charly records)
• Paddington Bear Volume 2 (UK)
• Charlie Parker, Bird at the Roost, the Savoy Sessions (1949 [1977])
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band, When the Saints Go Marchin’ in: New Orleans, Vol. III (1983)
• Lou Rawls, When You Hear Lou, You’ve Heard it All (1977)
• Otis Redding, The Otis Redding Story, Volume One: Mr. Pitiful (2 LPs; 1962-66 [1986])
• Renaissance, Ashes are Burning (1973)
• Leon Russell, Asylum Choir II, with Marc Beno (1969)
• Boz Scaggs, Silk Degrees (1976)
• Frank Sinatra, Nice n’ Easy (1960)
• Donna Summer, Live and More (19
• Spirit, The Family that Plays Together / Feedback (2LP combo) (1968/1972)
• Cat Stevens, Foreigner (1973)
• Strawbs, Hero and Heroine (1973)
• T. Rex, Tanx (1973)
• Uriah Heep, Look At Yourself (1973)
• Who, Odds and Sods (1969-74)
• Stevie Wonder, Talking Book (1972)
• Neil Young, Zuma (1975)

• Dave Brubeck, Dave Brubeck Octet (1958)
• Dave Brubeck, Time Out (1959; finally a 360 label in pristine condition)
• John Coltrane, Blue Train (1957; BST 81577 Blue Note)
• Miles Davis, Jazz Track (1958; partial overlap with Ascenseur pour l’échafaud soundtrack)
• Charles Mingus, Blues and Roots (1960)

__________________________________

Another bunch, many still sealed original pressings (at least until I played them – who on earth wouldn’t open them — there’s some crazies out there)!:

• Allman Brothers, Eat a Peach (1972; 2 LP)
• Animals, In the Beginning [live] (1963; SS)
• Argent, Circus (1974)
• Big Country, Peace in Our Time (1988)
• Blood, Sweat, and Tears, 3 (1970)
• Charlie Byrd, Hit Trip (1968)
• Eric Clapton, 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974; Back to Black reissue)
• Jimmy Cliff, In Concert (1976)
• Bruce Cockburn, In the Falling Dark (1976)
• Eno, Moebius, and Roedelius, After the Heat (1978; 4 Men with Beards reissue)
• Aretha Franklin, Take a Look (1967; SS)
• Bobbie Gentry, Patchwork (1971)
• Al Green, Explores Your Mind (1974; SS)
• Al Green, Can’t Get Next to You (1977; SS)
• Herbie Hancock, Maiden Voyage (1965; Blue note reissue)
• Donny Hathaway, Extension of a Man (1973)
• Ike and Tina, ’nuff Said (1971)
• Ike and Tina, Feel Good (1972)
• B. B. King, The Blues (1958; UR)
• Gordon Lightfoot, Lightfoot (1966; original UA pressing)
• Mahalia Jackson, Recorded Live in Europe (1961)
• Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Composer of Desafinado, Plays (1963; German pressing)
• Quincy Jones, Big Band Bossa Nova (1962; UK pressing)
• Curtis Mayfield, Curtis in Chicago Recorded Live! (1973)
• Graham Nash, Wild Tales (1973; SS)
• Ramones, End of the Century (1980; Spector produced)
• Boz Scaggs, My Time (1972)
• Percy Sledge, The Best of Percy Sledge (1967; SS)
• Spencer Davis Group, Heavies featuring Stevie Winwood (1965-67 [1969]; SS)
• Spencer Davis Group, The Best of the Spencer Davis Group Featuring Stevie Winwood (1965-67)
• Edwin Starr, 25 Miles (1969)
• Edwin Starr, Involved (1971; SS)
• Ten Wheel Drive, Brief Replies (1970; SS)
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sincerely – Sacred and Secular (1941-69; Rosetta records)
• Traffic, Shout Out (1973)
• Dinah Washington, The Fats Waller Songbook (1957; Polygram Netherlands reissue)
• Stevie Wonder, Eivets Rednow (1968; SS)
• Stevie Wonder, My Cherie Amour (1969)

• Animals, Best of the Animals (1962-66 [1966])
• Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (2LP; 2010)
• Beatles, Help! (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1965)
• Billy Bragg, Life’s a Riot Between the Wars (1983)
• Bruce Cockburn /. Paul Stoddart, Day Coach Rider (1974)
• Miles Davis, Bitches Brew (1970)
• Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan (1962 [1990s-2000s reissue])
• Bob Dylan, Together Through Life (2LP; 2009)
• Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On (1971; 2009 180gram reissue)
• Daryl Hall, Sacred Songs (1977 [1980])
• Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced? (1967)
• Jimi Hendrix, The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (2LPs; 1968-70 [1982])
• Bert Jansch, Moonshine (1973)
• Masekela, Introducing Hedzoleh Soundz (1973 Nigerian import)
• Maytals, The Sensational Maytals: That’s My Number (1960s [1980s])
• Van Morrison, Recorded in Concert, LA and London (2LPs; 1973)
• Gerry Mulligan, Capitol Jazz Classics Vol. 4: Gerry Mulligan Tentette, Walking Shoes (1947, 1953 [1971])
• Randy Newman, Sail Away (1972)
• Nonesuch Explorer Series, The Koto Music of Japan (1965)
• John Prine, John Prine (1971)
• John Prine, Sweet Revenge (1973)
• Radiohead, OK Computer (2 LP; 1997)
• Radiohead, Kid A (2 x 10″; 2000)
• George Russell, George Russell Sextet at Beethoven Hall, with Don Cherry (1965 [1973])
• Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
• Peter Tosh, You Got to Walk and Don’t Look Back (with Jagger) / Don’t Space Out 12″ (1978)
• Velvet Underground, Loaded (1970; reissue)
• Walt Disney, The Story and Songs of Black Beauty (1966 – still sealed)
• Walt Disney, Fantasia, Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra (3 LPs; 1940 [1957])
• Zombies, The World of the Zonbies (1967)

So here is the player for streaming quality (not nearly as good as the FLAC files which you should download if you like what you hear here). The track-listing does not appear with this widget but you can skip ahead songs by simply hitting the skip button to the right of the play button:

• Argent, All Together Now (1972)
• Maggie Bell, Queen of the Night (1974)
• James Brown, Hell (1976)
• Eric Burdon (of Animals), Stop (1975)
• Johnny Cash, Songs of Our Soil (1959)
• Johnny Cash, Ride This Train (1960)
• Johnny Cash, Orange Blossom Special (mono, 1965)
• Chubby Checker, For Twisters Only (1962)
• Chubby Checker, For Teen Twisters Only (1962)
• Clancy Brothers, In Person at Carnegie Hall, with Tommy Makem (1963)
• Nat King Cole, SIngs My Fair Lady (1963)
• Cream, Fresh Cream (1966)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, Green River (1969)
• Sammy Davis Jr. et al, A Man Called Adam (mono; 1966)
• Eagles, Hotel California (1976) – finally a copy in near mint
• Ella Fitzgerald, Ella Sings Gershwin, with Ellis Larkins at the Piano (Decca, 1959)
• Genesis, Trespass (1970)
• Ian and Sylvia, Northern Journey (1964)
• The Jasmine Isle: Javanese Gamelan Music, recorded by Suryabrata and David Lewiston (1969)
• Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express (1977)
• Gene Krupa, Gene Krupa (1956, Columbia)
• Cleo Laine, Cleo’s Choice (1957 [1980])
• Led Zeppelin, Coda (1969-78 [1982])
• John Lewis, Albert Mangelsdorff and the Zagreb Jazz Quartet, Animal Dance (1962)
• Hugh Masekela, The African Connection (1972)
• John Mayall and the Blues Breakers, Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (1966)
• Gerry Mulligan, Mulligan and Getz and Desmond = Getz Meets Mulligan in Hi-Fi + Blues in Time (2 LP; 1957)
• Charlie Parker and Lester Young, Bird and Pres: the ’46 Concerts, Jazz at the Philharmonic (2LP; 1946 [1977])
• Leon Russell, Carney (1972)
• Santana, Santana
• Frank Sinatra, Rarities: The Columbia Years (1940s [1988]) – still sealed
• Spirit, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus (1970)
• Stephen Stills, 2 (1971)
• Tangerine Dream, Alpha Centauri / Atem (2LP combo; 1971 / 1973; German pressing)
• Tangerine Dream, Phaedra (1974)
• Sarah Vaughan, In the Land of Hi-Fi (1955)
• Sarah Vaughan, Sings George Gershwin (1958)

• David Gray at Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ontario, May 25, 2010

• Allman Brothers, Duane and Greg Allman = 31st of February demos  (1968)
• Alphaville, Forever Young (1984)
• Louis Armstrong, The Genius of Louis Armstrong, Volume 1: 1923-1933 (2 LPs; 1923-33 [1971])
• Dave Brubeck, Bossa Nova USA (1963 – better, pristine copy)
• Dave Brubeck, Anything Goes! The Dave Brubeck Quartet Plays Cole Porter (1965)
• Dave Brubeck, Jazz Impressions of New York (1965)
• Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash & June Carter (1967)
• Chick Corea, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968)
• Count Basie, Blues By Basie (1957 original pressing)
• Clash, The Clash (debut 1977; UK pressing)
• John Coltrane, Giant Steps (1960 – That’s Jazz pressing)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, Mardi Gras (1972)
• Miles Davis, Porgy and Bess (1958)
• Miles Davis, In Europe (1963)
• Paul Desmond, East of the Sun (1959 [1981])
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery (1973 — this copy in pristine condition with poster)
• Terry Gibbs, That Swing Thing! (1961)
• Woody Guthrie, Dust Bowl Ballads (1940 [1988], BMG)
• Woody Guthrie, Struggle (1940s [1976], Smithsonian; still sealed!!)
• Milt Jackson, Vibrations (1964)
• Ahmad Jamal, At the Top: Poinciana Revisited (1972)
• Leadbelly, Includes Legendary Performances Never Before Released [tribute to Blind Lemon Jefferson] (1935 [1970]; Columbia)
• Leadbelly, Huddie Ledbetter’s Best. . . His Guitar, His Voice, His Piano (1944 [1962], Capitol orange label)
• Led Zeppelin, Presence (1976)
• John Mayall, Jazz Blues Fusion (1973)
• Joni Mitchell, Mingus (1979)
• Muddy Waters, Good News volume 3 (1955-58 [1971] UK, Syndicate Chapter)
• Odetta, My Eyes Have Seen (1959 Vanguard; still sealed!!!)
• Oscar Peterson, Big 6 at the Montreux Jazz Festival (1975)
• Rascals, See (1969)
• Shakti (McLaughlin and L. Shankar), Natural Elements (1977)
• Ten Wheel Drive, Brief Replies (1970)
• Dinah Washington, The Bessie Smith Songbook (1957-58 [1986])
• Stevie Wonder, Greatest Hits (1962-67 [1968])
• Stevie Wonder, Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (1968-71 [1971])
• Yes, Close to the Edge (1972) – had the CD remastered edition but find that far too compressed – nice to hear it the way it was meant to be again

If I were asked what album they should do next, I’d say John Baldry’s It Ain’t Easy (but I won’t be asked;).

This was new to me.

• U2 Hilversum, Holland. KRO Studios October 14, 1980 (FLAC – via Qualitybootz).

“We invite people to bootleg our shows. We invite people to make CD copies, we’ve no problems with that, but if some guy is gonna make money off the back of this, we’re gonna find out where he parks his car…” (Bono; source: KROQ Radio USA, October 2000)

“We’ve never had a problem with bootlegs or people recording our shows for their own use. Our problem has always been people ripping off our fans with inferior recordings that they sell at exorbitant prices” (October 30, 2000; source: <http://www.u2.com/news/article/733>, official site accessed March 14, 2010).

One of my favourite concert recordings is an early one from 1981 which was a planned broadcast on FM (BBC) but sourced from the pre-FM tapes:

• U2′s concert at Paris Cinema Studio in London, England, on August 23, 1981 (FLAC – via Qualitybootz).

The setlists from that leg of the October European tour can be found here.

There are many, many freely available recordings of Cowboy Junkies’ live shows on archive.org.  The one I’ve been enjoying most lately is a great quality soundboard recording:

• Cowboy Junkies at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, 1996 (FLAC – via archive.org).

(For those who aren’t aware, FLAC and, less common, SHN formats are the best quality formats to download and do not result in any loss of sound quality.  For downloading shows from archive, I would suggest using Firefox with the free DownloadThemAll plugin which allows you to quickly identify the links for each song in FLAC and download them quickly.)

When I advocate a concert or music “bootleg” in this upcoming series, I am referring to a recording of a live concert that is not commercially released by the artist or which has been given sanction for fan-trading by the artist.  These “bootlegs,” or live recordings, should be exchanged among fans without any financial gain to the fans (i.e. for free) and with promotion of the artist (and therefore appropriate future financial benefit to the artist) in mind.  In other words, I will follow what I consider a strict ethic here.  We’re not talking about “pirating” but rather fans trading and promoting the unreleased (live or other) music of the artists they like most.  Unreleased is the key term here, because I believe it is absolutely essential to support the artists who create the music by buying what they release in LP, CD, or whatever form.  Another main issue is the quality of the sound on the bootleg, such that it does not misrepresent the quality of the artists’ performances (but these can be either “audience” recordings or “soundboard” recordings, usually the latter).  Here I will only link to very high quality bootlegs in uncompressed formats (e.g. “shorten” and “flac” formats, and never MP3s).

There are two main sites which I consider ethical (in my terms) and high quality when it comes to live recordings (there may be more, of which I am now unaware–let me know in the comments section and I’ll investigate):

• Dave’s Qualitybootz;
• The Internet Archive’s “Live Music Archive” (closely associated with etree.org), which seeks permission from the artists (or their representatives) themselves.

So most of my choices will come from these two sources at this point.  I’ll soon post my choice of this week.

CDs

• James Brown, 20 All Time Greatest Hits
• Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back Deluxe (2010)

The existence of these Warner-Reprise Loss Leaders was entirely new to me, but now that I have acquired seven of them (in immaculate condition from a very generous and friendly local) and have begun looking into them, I thought I would supply you with some interesting links about these compilation albums:

• Warner Bros. Records Presents Loss Leaders Revisited
  • Inside the Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders
• Rock Samplers: Warner Brothers/Reprise Records
• Sampler Daze: The Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders series
• Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders (Wikipedia article)

This will keep me occupied for a good stretch, I would say!

• Sunny Ade, In London (1977; Nigerian pressing)
• Sunny Ade, Ijinle odu (1982; Nigerian pressing)
• Sunny Ade, “Juju Music” (1982; Island)
• Sunny Ade, Synchro System (1983; Island)
• Sunny Ade, Ajoo (1983; Nigerian pressing)
• Sunny Ade, Conscience “Eri Okan” (1983; Yaba pressing)
• Sunny Ade, Vintage King Sunny Ade (1984 [1970?]; Nigerian pressing)
• Sunny Ade, Aura (1984; Island)
• Adedara Arunralojaoba, Yoruba Traditional Music (1981)
• Chet Atkins, Finger-Style Guitar (1956)
• Chet Atkins, The Most Popular Guitar (1961)
• Chet Atkins, The Best of Chet Atkins (1964; German pressing)
• Chet Atkins, Progressive Pickin’ (1965)
• Chet Atkins, More of That Guitar Country (1965; German pressing)
• Chet Atkins, The Best of Chet Atkins Volume 2 (1966; German pressing)
• Chet Atkins, Solo Flights (1968; German Pressing)
• Beach Boys, Surfer Girl (1963; German pressing)
• Beach Boys, Little Deuce Coupe (1963; German pressing)
• Beach Boys, Beach Boys’ Party! (1965; German pressing)
• Beach Boys, Surf Beat Fun (1966; German pressing)
• Beach Boys, Smiley Smile (1967; German pressing)
• Blood Sweat and Tears, BST (1968)
• Rose Brennan, Irish Pub Favourites (1963)
• James Brown, The Dynamic James Brown (1966 ; German pressing)
• T-Bone Burnett, Behind the Trap Door (1984 – Bono shows up on this one)
• Dave Brubeck, Time Changes (1963)
• Canned Heat, Canned Heat (1967)
• Johnny Cash, The Walls of a Prison (1970)
• Don Carlos, Harvest Time (1982)
• Don Carlos, Pass Me the Lazer Beam (1983)
• Ray Charles, Invites you to Listen (1967; orig. Tangerine/EMI UK pressing)
• Ray Charles, Greatest Hits (1962; UK pressing)
• Ray Charles, Greatest Hits, volume 2 (1964; UK pressing)
• Ray Charles, Live in Concert [recorded at the shrine civic auditorium, LA] (1964; UK pressing)
• Nat King Cole, The Beautiful Ballads (1967; Capitol orig. German pressing)
• Dixie Flyers, Light, Medium, Heavy (1977)
• Dixie Flyers, Just Pickin’ (1978)
• Dixie Flyers, Cheaper to Lease (1978)
• Dixie Flyers, For Our Friends (1980)
• Dubliners, More of the Hard Stuff (1967)
• Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965 – orig. German pressing)
• Brian Eno, Manzanera, 801, Listen Now! (1977)
• Everly Brothers, The Very Best: Newly Recorded in Nashville (1963; German pressing)
• Marianne Faithful, Broken English (1979)
• Fats Domino, The Innovator of Rock and Roll Recorded During an Exciting Live Performance (orig. Dutch pressing, Mercury 196?)
• Fats Domino, Million Sellers Vol. 4 (1969; German pressing)
• Ella Fitzgerald, Ella Swings Lightly (1958)
• Flatt and Scruggs, The World of Flatt and Scrugs (2 LP; 1973)
• Fleetwood Mac, Future Games (1971)
• Aretha Franklin, Aretha Now (1968; UK pressing)
• Aretha Franklin, Soul, Soul, Soul (1968; orig. German pressing)
• Peter Gabriel, Birdy: Music from the Film (1985)
• Bobbie Gentry, Ode to Billie Joe (1967; German pressing)
• Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, Jazz Samba (1962)
• Goon Show (Peter Sellers), The Best of the Goon Shows (1959)
• Goon Show (Peter Sellers), The Best of the Goon Shows no. 2 (1960)
• Eddy Grant, Going for Broke (1984)
• Guitars Unlimited, Volume 2 (1966; French pressing)
• Al Hirt, Live at Carnegie Hall (1965; German pressing)
• Al Hirt, Soul in the Horn (1967; German pressing)
• Billie Holiday, Stormy Blues (2 LPs; 1954-55 [1977])
• Hollies, Romany (1972)
• John Lee Hooker, The Blues (United Records)
• Ian and Sylvia, Lovin’ Sound (1967)
• Gregory Isaacs, Night Nurse (1982)
• Gregory Isaacs, Out Deh! (1983)
• Mahalia Jackson, Great Gettin’ Up Morning (1959)
• Mahalia Jackson, In Concert (1967)
• Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick (1972, with original news paper)
• Jethro Tull, Living in the Past (1972)
• Jethro Tull, Passion Play (1973)
• Jethro Tull, War Child (1974)
• Jethro Tull, Songs from the Wood (1977)
• Jethro Tull, Heavy Horses (1979)
• Jethro Tull, Strormwatch (1979)
• Jethro Tull, The Broadsword (1982)
• Jr. Walker and the All Stars, Soul Session (1966; UK pressing)
• Juluka, Scatterlings (1983)
• Juluka, Stand Your Ground (1984)
• Juluka (Johnny Clegg and Savuka), Third World Child (1987)
• Juluka (Johnny Clegg and Savuka), Shadow Man (1988)
• Kingston Trio, Kingston Trio (1958)
• Kingston Trio, . . . from the ‘Hungry i’ (live; 1958)
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Umthombo Wamanzi (1982)
• Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Shaka Zulu (1987)
• Leveillee and Gagnon, Leveillee-Gagnon (1965; French pressing)
• Claude Leveillee, 1 Voix 2 Pianos (1966)
• Limelighters, Tonight: In Person (1960)
• Little River Band, First Under the Wire (1979)
• Bob Marley, Legend (1972-81)
• Ziggy Marley, Conscious Party (1988)
• Messenjah, Rock You High (1983)
• Messenjah, Session (1984)
• Messenjah, Cool Operator (1987)
• Miriam Makeba, Pata Pata (1967)
• Mama’s and the Papa’s, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1966; German Pressing)
• Mama’s and the Papa’s, Deliver (1967; German pressing)
• Bob Marley and the Wailers, Confrontation (1983)
• Messenjah, Session (
• Montrose (with Sammy Hagar), Montrose (1973)
• Youssou N’Dour, Immigres (1988)
• Dean Martin, Dean Martin Hits Again (1965; German pressing)
• New Christy Minstrels, Ramblin’ (1963)
• Bob Newhart, The Button-Down Mind of (1960)
• Nice, Autumn to Spring (1968 [1973 release])
• Ebenezer Obey, Current Affairs (1980; UK pressing)
• Ebenezer Obey, Eyi yato (1980)
• Ebenezer Obey, Solution (1984; African pressing)
• Odetta, Sings Folk Songs (1963)
• Sonny Okosun, Liberation (1984)
• Peter and Gordon, Somewhere (1966; German pressing)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, Peter Paul and Mary (1962)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, Moving (1963)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, In Concert (1964; German pressing)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, A Song WIll Rise (1965; German pressing)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, See What Tomorrow Brings (1965; German pressing)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, Album (1966; German pressing)
• Peter. Paul and Mary, Album 1700 (1967; German pressing)
• Oscar Peterson and Stephane Grappelli, Quartet (2 LPs; 1973)
• Reggae compilation, Crucial Reggae Driven by Sly and Robbie (1982)
• Reggae compilation, Reggae Greats (2 LPs; 1985)
• Pete Seeger, Pete Seger Now (1968; German pressing)
• Pete Seeger, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy and Other Love Songs (1967; UK pressing)
• Pete Seeger, We Shall Overcome Recorded Live at his Historic Carnegie Hall Concert (1963; UK pressing)
• Alan Price (of the Animals), O Lucky Man! (soundtrack; 1973)
• Righteous Brothers, Best of the Righteous Brothers (1966; German pressing)
• Sam and Dave, Hold On, I’m Comin’ (1966; orig US pressing)
• Seekers, Come the Day (1966; German pressing)
• Shadows, Shadow Music (1966; German pressing)
• Paul Simon, Hearts and Bones (1983)
• Steel Pulse, Reggae Fever (= Caught You; 1980)
• Steel Pulse, True Democracy (1982)
• Steel Pulse,Earth Crisis (1984)
• Steel Pulse, Babylon the Bandit (1985)
• Steel Pulse, State of Emergency (1987)
• Billy Strange, 12 String Guitar: Folk Blues and Blue Grass (1963)
• Supremes, Greatest Hits (1 LP; orig. British Pressing)
• Tonio K, Life in the Foodchain (1978)
• Tina Turner, Private Dancer (1984)
• UB40, UB44 (1982)
• UB40, Labour of Love (1983)
• Vangelis, Chariots of Fire (1981)
• Ventures, Walk, Don’t Run vol. 2 (1964; German pressing)
• Ventures, Ventures a go-go (1965)
• Ventures, $1,000,000.00 Weekend (1967; German pressing)
• Tom Waits, Closing Time (1973)
• Tom Waits, Small Change (1976)
• Rick Wakeman, The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973)
• Rick Wakeman, Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1974)
• Rick Wakeman, White Rock (1976)
• Rick Wakeman, Criminal Record (1977)
• Rick Wakeman, 1984 (1981)
• Rick Wakeman, Silent Nights (1985)
• Warner-Reprise “Loss Leaders” / Songbook compilations
  • Songbook (2 LP; 1969)
  • Record Show (2 LP; 1969)
  • The Big Ball (2 LP; 1970)
  • Schlagers (2LP; 1970)
  • Looney Tunes Merrie Melodies (3LP; 1970)
  • Non-Dairy Creamer (1971)
  • Menu Hot Platters (1971)
  • Together (1971)
  • The Whole Burbank Catalog (2 LP; 1972)
  • Burbank (2LP; 1972)
  • The Days of Wine and Vinyl (2 LP; 1972)
  • Appetizers (2LP; 1973)
  • All Singing, All Talking, All Rocking (2LP 1973)
• Dione Warwick, The Windows of the World (1967)
• Dione Warwick, Valley of the Dolls (1968; French pressing)
• Weavers, Weavers at Home (1962)
• Weavers, At Carnegie Hall, vol. 2 (1960 [1963])
• Neil Young, Harvest (1972 -  better copy but not original pressing)
• Neil Young, Hawks and Doves (1980)

Classical and related (German pressings):

• Bach, Brandenburgische Konzerte (Baumgartner and Festival Strings Lurcerne / Archiv Producktion)
• Debussy, La Mer… (Karajan and BPO)
• Liszt / Brahms, Ungarische Fantasie fur Klavier und Orchester / Ungarische Tanze Nr. 5, 6, 3, 1 (Karajan and BPO)
• Ida Presti and Alexandre Lagoya, Musique baroque pour deux guitares (1967)
• Tchaikowsky, Ouverture 1812, etc. (Karajan and BPO)

Now also a few more from the local antique market.

• Cannonball Adderley, Cannonball Adderley and Friends (1973)
• Dave Alexander, The Rattler (1972)
• Bad Company, Bad Co. (1974)
• Long John Baldry, It Ain’t Easy (1971)
• Band, Music From Big Pink (1968)
• Band, The Band (1969)
• Beach Boys, Spirit of America (2 LPs; 1962-69 [1975])
• Beatles, Rarities (1962-70 [1980 Capitol])
• Jeff Beck, Beck-Ola (1968; Orange label)
• David Bowie, Hunky Dory (1971 – 2nd copy)
• David Bowie, Aladdin Sane (1973)
• Dave Brubeck, Time Changes (1963)
• Byrds, Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde (1969)
• Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends On Tour with Eric Clapton (1970)
• Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions (1988)
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, Creedence Clearwater Revival (1968)
• CCR, Green River (1969b)
• The Doors, The Doors (1967a)
• The Doors, Strange Days (1967b)
• The Doors, Waiting for the Sun (1968)
• The Doors, LA Woman (1971)
• Bob Dylan, Oh Mercy (1989)
• Dave Edmunds / Love Sculpture, Blues Helping (1968)
• Arlo Guthrie, Best of (1967-76 [1977])
• Hothouse Flowers, People (1988)
• Faces / Small Faces, Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (1968)
• Faces, Snakes and Ladders (1976)
• Faces, Faces Live Coast to Coast (1974 – better copy)
• Fleetwood Mac, Buckhingham Nicks (1973)
• Aretha Franklin, Aretha Now (1968)
• Peter Gabriel, Birdy – Music from the Film (1985)
• Hollies, Romany (1972)
• John Lee Hooker, The Blues (1960)
• Jefferson Airplane, The Worst of … (1970)
• Jethro Tull, Minstrel in the Gallery (1975)
• King Curtis, Live at the Fillmore West (1970)
• Kinks, Greatest Hits (Canadian version of Well Respected Kinks; 1964-66 [1972])
• Led Zeppelin, III (1970)
• Lynyrd Skynyrd, Second Helping (1974)
• Lynyrd Skynyrd, One More From the Road (1976)
• Lynyrd Skynyrd, Street Survivors (1977)
• Midnight Oil, Red Sails in the Sunset (1985)
• Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey (1971)
• Van Morrison, Irish Beat (1988)
• Graham Parker, High Times – The Best of Graham Parker and the Rumour (1980)
• Tom Petty, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)
• Pink Floyd, A Nice Pair – Piper at The Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets (1967-68 [1973])
• Pink Floyd, The Wall (1979 — this is my third try at a set that doesn’t have surface noise!)
• Police, Synchronicity (1983)
• Rolling Stones, More Hot Rocks (1972)
• Roxy Music, Stranded (1973 – 2nd copy)
• Santana, debut (1969 – 2nd copy)
• Steely Dan, Countdown to Ecstacy (1973)
• Supertramp, Crime of the Century (1974)
• Ike and Tina Turner, Workin’ Together (1971)
• Ike and Tina Turner, Get Back! (best of) (1960-75)
• U2, Rattle and Hum (1988 – finally have back all the U2 records I used to have before I stupidly jumped the CD bandwagon back in the late 80s)
• Who, Who Are You (1978)
• Yardbirds, Shapes of Things (2LPs; 1978 [1964-66])
• Yardbirds, Roger the Engineer (1966)
• Yes, Fragile (1971)

At 10 cents a piece and in excellent condition, I could not resist getting a number of classical and historical-related music LPs (time to broaden my horizons — previous to this, you would never guess my brother was an opera singer):

• Beethoven, Symphonie nr. 4 (Berliner Philharmoniker – Herbert von Karajan)
• Beethoven Bicentennial Collection, Vol. IV Piano Sonatas
• Dvorak, Slavonic Dances op. 46 and op. 72 (Mario Rossi conducting The Vienna State Opera Orchestra)
• O Come Sweet Music: Part Songs of the Colonial Period (Williamsburg Singers)
• Pomponio Nenna (c. 1555-1615): Madrigals and Motets (by Gesualdo and Nenna) (1973)
• Franz Schubert, Symphonies No. 5 in B flat major and No. 6 in C Major (Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Tchaikovsky Symphony no. 4 (L’Orchestre de la suisse romande, RObert Denzler)
• Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Ruggiero Ricci and the Stradivarius Chamber Orchestra (1964)
• West Side Story (Original Sound Track Recording) (1961)

• Alan Parsons Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe (1976)
• Alan Parsons Project, Pyramid (1978)
• Joan Armatrading, Joan Armatrading (1976)
• Joan Armatrading, Show Some Emotion (1977)
• Joan Armatrading, Steppin’ Out (1979)
• Chet Atkins, The Guitar Genius (1963)
• Chet Atkins, The Best of Chet Atkins (1964)
• Beatles, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967; better copy)
• Harry Belafonte, Belafonte
• Tony Bennett, I Wanna be around. . . (1963)
• Bunny Berigan, I Can’t Get Started (1978)
• David Bowie, Let’s Dance (1983)
• Tracy Chapman, debut (1988)
• Nat King Cole, Ramblin’ Rose (1962)
• Nat King Cole, Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer (1963)
• Phil Collins, Face Value (1981)
• Neil Diamond, Stones (1971)
• The Faces, Coast to Coast – Overture and Beginners (1974)
• Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly (1973)
• Daryl Hall, Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine (1986)
• Bruce Hornsby and the Range, The Way It Is (1986)
• Janis Ian, Aftertones (1975)
• Ink Spots, The Best of the Ink Spots (2 LP; 1965)
• Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968)
• Klaatu, Sir Army Suit (1978)
• John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy (1980)
• Level 42, Running in the Family (1987)
• Lighthouse, Thoughts of Movin’ On (1971)
• The Mamas and the Papas, 16 of Their Greatest Hits (1966-69)
• Melanie, The Best . . . Melanie (2 LP; 1972)
• Peter, Paul and Mary, Ten Years Together (1970)
• The Police, Ghost in the Machine (1981)
• Robbie Robertson, Robbie Robertson (1987)
• Santana, Santana (1969)
• Simple Minds, New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84 (1982)
• Simple Minds, Sparkle in the Rain (1983)
• Simple Minds, Once Upon a Time (1985)
• Stephen Stills, Stephen Stills (1970)
• Stills-Young Band, Long May You Run (1976)
• Sting, Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985)
• Strawbs, From the Witchwood (1971; with Rick Wakeman on keyboards)
• 10cc, Deceptive Bends [with cover by Hignosis] (1967
• B. J. Thomas, Billy Joe Thomas [with Stevie Wonder on Harmonica] (1972)
• Ultravox, Rage in Eden (1981)
• Midge Ure, The Gift (1985)
• Stevie Ray Vaughn, Couldn’t Stand the Weather (1984)
• Rick Wakeman, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1975)
• Barry White, Greatest Hits (1973-75)
• Steve Winwood, Steve Winwood (1977)
• Neil Young, Hawks and Doves (1980)

A few more:

• Earth, Wind, and Fire, Electric Universe (1983)
• The Elephant’s Child (narration Jack Nicholson, music Bobby McFerrin 1987)
• Marvin Gaye, Midnight Love (1982)
• Moody Blues / Justin Hayward and John Lodge, Blue Jays (1975)
• Grand Funk Railroad, Good Singin’, Good Playin’ (Frank Zappa produced; 1976)
• Stan Kenton, Kenton’s West Side Story (1961)
• Men at Work, Cargo (1983)
• Paul Simon, Graceland (1986)
• Spyro Gyra, Catching the Sun (1980)
• Midge Ure, Answers to Nothing (1988)

Tail end of August:

• Bruce Cockburn, Bruce Cockburn (debut; 1970)
• Bruce Cockburn, Salt, Sun, and Time (1974)
• Bruce Cockburn, Further Adventures of (1978)
• Jimi Hendrix,  Midnight Lightning (1975)

• The Band, Stage Fright (1970)
• The Band, Moondog Matinee (1973)
• Harry Belafonte, Calypso (1956)
• Harry Belafonte, Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (LIving Stereo; 1959)
• Harry Belafonte, Belafonte Returns to Carnegie Hall (Living Stereo; 1960)
• Dave Brubeck, Jazz: Red, Hot and Cool (CL 699; 1955)
• Dave Brubeck, Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A. (CL 984; 1956)
• Dave Brubeck, Brubeck Plays Brubeck (CL 878; 1956)
• T-Bone Burnett, Proof Through the Night (1983)
• Donovan, For Little Ones (1967)
• Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick (1972)
• Manassas (Stephen Stills), Mannassas (2 LP; 1972)
• Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin, West Meets East Album 2 (1967)
• Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975)

I’ve added a few more that I just picked up.

June 27: Hit a few garage sales yesterday and added quite a few more (buck a piece).

• David Bowie, Hunky Dory (1971)
• The Call, Scene Beyond Dreams (1984 – never released on CD)
• Bob Dylan, Blood on the Tracks (1974)
• Fifty-Four Fourty, Show Me (1987)
• King Crimson, In the Wake of Poseidon (1970)
• King Crimson, Red (1974)
• Van Morrison, His Band and the Street Choir (1970)
• Roxy Music, The First Roxy Music Album (1972)
• Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure (1973)
• Roxy Music, Flesh and Blood (1980)
• Chris Squire, Fish Out of Water (1975)
• Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (1971)
• Traffic, Welcome to the Canteen (1971)
• Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner (1975)
• Tom Waits, The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)
• Tom Waits, Blue Valentine (1978)
• Tom Waits, Big Time (1988)
• Stevie Wonder, Innervisions (1973)
• Stevie Wonder, Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974)

• Bad Company, Straight Shooter (1975)
• The Band, Northern Lights – Southern Cross (1975)
• Beach Boys, Endless Summer (2 LP; 1962-65 [1974])
• David Bowie, Pinups (1973; UK pressing)
• David Bowie, David Live (1974) – unexpectedly, a very bad recording and lame performance – may be one for resell, although I do like to keep some astounding duds
• The Byrds, The Original Singles 1965-67 (1980)
• Jim Croce, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim (1972)
• Crosby and Nash, Graham Nash, David Crosby (1972)
• Crosby and Nash, Wind on the Water (1975)
• Donovan, Sunshine Superman (1966)
• Doobie Brothers, Takin’ it to the Streets (1976)
• Doobie Brothers, Minute By Minute (1978)
• Bob Dylan, Dylan (1973) — almost universally considered Dylan’s worst album – fascinating for that reason
• Bob Dylan and The Band, Before the Flood (1974)
• Bob Dylan, Desire (1975)
• Bob Dylan, Street Legal (1978)
• Bob Dylan, Slow Train Coming (1979)
• Earth, Wind and Fire, All n’ All (1977)
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, ELP (1970 – better copy)
• Faces, A Nod is as Good as a Wink (1971)
• Fleetwood Mac, Penguin (1973)
• Fleetwood Mac, Mystery To Me (1973)
• Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac (1975)
• Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977)
• Fleetwood Mac, Mirage (1982)
• Steve Hackett, Voyage of the Acolyte (1975)
• Steve Hackett, Please Don’t Touch (1978)
• Emmylou Harris, Elite Hotel (1975)
• George Harrison, Dark Horse / Hoarse (1974)
• Mark Heard, Appalachian Melody(1979)
• Jimi Hendrix, Band of Gypsys (1970)
• Don Henley, I Can’t Stand Still (1982)
• Buddy Holly, A Rock and Roll Collection (2 LP;1972)
• Buddy Holly, Greatest Hits [MCA 561 - Enhanced for stereo] (1980)
• Jethro Tull, Aqualung (1971)
• Elton John, Captain Fastastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)
• Kansas, Point of No Return (1977)
• Van Morrison, Moondance (1970)
• Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey (1971)
• Van Morrison, Common One (1980)
• Pink Floyd, Animals (1977)
• Pink Floyd, The Final Cut, or Woe is Me: the Egotistical Ramblings of Someone with a Persecution Complex (1983) — the latter is my title for it
• Roxy Music, Manifesto (1979)
• Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning, 3am (1964)
• Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate (1967)
• Bruce Springsteen, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (gatefold, 1973)
• Chris Squire [of Yes], Fish Out of Water (1975)
• Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic (1974)
• Steely Dan, Gaucho (1980)
• Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman (1970)
• Strawbs, Early Strawbs (1970 [2 LPs 1974 in Canada])
• Strawbs, Grave New World (1972)
• Strawbs, Ghosts (1974)
• Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair (1985)
• 10cc, The Original Soundtrack (1975)
• U2, Live “Under a Blood Red Sky” (1983)
• U2, The Unforgettable Fire (1984)
• U2, Joshua Tree (1987)
• Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones (1983) – a second copy for the first friend who requests it – Waits LPs are hard to find, after all
• The Who, The Who By Numbers (1975)
• Steve Winwood, Chronicles (1987)
• Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (1970)
• Yes, The Yes Album (1970)
• Neil Young, Decade (3 LP; 1977)
• Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
• Neil Young, Old Ways (1985)

• Jeff Beck, The Jeff Beck Group (1972)
• Jeff Beck, Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live (1977)
• Blondie, Autoamerican (1980)
• Elton John, Honky Chateau (1972)
• Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975)
• Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord (1968)
• Moody Blues, To Our Children’s Children (1969)
• Bruce Springsteen, The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (1973)
• Rod Stewart, Never a Dull Moment (1972)
• The Waterboys, Fisherman’s Blues (1988)

Now add these, courtesy of my friend Tony (Jan 11 2009)

• The Alarm, Declaration (1984)
• The Alarm, Strength (1985)
• The Alarm, Change (1989)
• Aztec Camera, Highland Hard Rain (1983)
• Aztec Camera, Knife (1984)
• Bluebells, Sisters (1984)
• Cowboy Junkies, Whites Off Earth Now!! (1986)
• Crowded House, Crowded House (1986)
• Crowded House, Temple of Low Men (1988)
• English Beat, I Just Can’t Stop It (1980)
• Pogues, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash (1985)
• Talking Heads, Little Creatures (1985)
• U2, Joshua Tree (1987)
• Waterboys, Girl Called Johnny Mini-LP (1984)

Still more:

• Aretha Franklin, The Legendary Queen of Soul (2 LPs; 1981)
• Rod Stewart, An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down (1969)
• Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die (1970)
• Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life (1976)

• Band, The Last Waltz (1978)
• Blondie, Blondie (1976)
• Blondie, Parallel Lines (1978)
• David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974)
• Cream, Best of Cream (1970)
• Dire Straits, Communique (1979)
• Dire Straits, Making Movies (1980)
• Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms (1985)
• Doors, Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine (1972)
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Trilogy (1972)
• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
• Fleetwood Mac, Rumors (1977)
• Steve Hackett, Spectral Mornings (1979)
• Jimi Hendrix, The Cry of Love (1970)
• Jimi Hendrix, Smash Hits (1969)
• Iron Butterfly, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968)
• Elton John, Madman Across the Water (1971)
• Kansas, Monolith (1979)
• Led Zeppelin, I (1969)
• Moody Blues, On the Threshold of a Dream (1969)
• Moody Blues, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971)
• Moody Blues, Seventh Sojourn (1972)
• Patti Smith Group, Easter (1978)
• Queen, A Night at the Opera (1975)
• Rush, Moving Pictures (1981)
• Roxy Music, Viva! (1976)
• Santana, Amigos (1976)
• Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends (1968)
• Steely Dan, Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)
• Strawbs, Classic Strawbs (2 LP; 1970s)
• Wishbone Ash, Argus (1972)
• Stevie Wonder, Looking Back (3LP; 1977)
• Neil Young, Comes a Time (1978)

• The Call, Modern Romans (1983).
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo’s Factory (1970).
• Roxy Music, Siren (1975)
• Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones (1983).

• Alan Parsons Project, Ammonia Avenue (1984).
• Pearl Bailey, Sings For Adults Only (Performance of this Album Restricted from Airplay) (1960).
• David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (1974).
• David Bowie, Never Let Me Down (1987).
• Bill Bragg, Back to Basics (1987).
• Bruce Cockburn, High Winds, White Sky (1971; gatefold).
• Bruce Cockburn, Sunwheel Dance (1971; gatefold).
• Bruce Cockburn, Inner City Front (1981).
• Elvis Costello, My Aim is True (1977).
• Elvis Costello, This Year’s Model (1978).
• Elvis Costello, Punch the Clock (1983).
• Elvis Costello, Goodbye Cruel World (1984).
• Elvis Costello, King of America (1986 – T-Bone Burnett produced)
• Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Deja vu (1970; gatefold, textured paper picture separate).
• Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Deja vu (1970; gatefold).
• The Cure, Standing on a Beach – The Singles (1986).
• The Cure, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me (1987 2 LP best of)
• Depeche Mode, People are People (1984).
• Neil Diamond, Tap Root Manuscript (1970)
• Dream Academy, Remembrance Days (1987).
• Bob Dylan, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).
• Bob Dylan, Planet Waves (1974).
• Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Triology (1972)
• English Beat, Wha’ppen (1981).
• English Beat, Special Beat Service (1982).
• English Sacred Music of the 16th Century: Combined Choirs of Oxford and Cambridge (Tallis Scholars) (1977).
• Fifty-Four Forty, 54-40 (1986).
• Fixx, Shuttered Room ( 1982).
• Fixx, Reach the Beach (1983).
• Genesis, And then there were three. . . (1978).
• Honey Drippers, Volume One (1984).
• Honeymoon Suite, Big Prize (1985).
• Hüsker Dü, Warehouse: Songs and Stories (1987).
• Billy Joel, Piano Man (1973).
• Billy Joel, Streetlife Serenade (1974).
• Billy Joel, An Innocent Man (1983).
• Janis Joplin, Greatest Hits (1973).
• Journey, Escape (1981).
• Kansas, Leftoverture (1976).
• Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (1973).
• John Lennon Plastic Ono Band, Shaved Fish (1975).
• Lou Reed, Walk on the Wild Side – Best of (1977).
• New Order, Brotherhood (1986).
• Peter and the Wolf (Prokofiev) / Carnival of the Animals (Saint-Saens) (1975).
• Red Rider, As Far as Siam (1981).
• Red Rider, Neruda (1983).
• REM, Life’s Rich Pageant (1986).
• Rush, Rush (1974).
• Rush, Fly By Night (1977).
• Rush, Exit . . . Stage Left (1981).
• Rush, Signals (1982).
• Rush, Grace Under Pressure (1984).
• Rush, Power Windows (1985).
• Rush, Hold Your Fire (1987).
• Saga, In Transit (1982).
• Saga, Heads of Tales (1983).
• The Specials, Eponymous (1980).
• Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978).
• Bruce Springsteen, Live 1975-1985 (5 LP)
• Cat Stevens, Buddha and teh Chocolate Box (1974).
• John Stewart, California Bloodlines (1969).
• Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story (1973).
• Sting, Nothing Like the Sun (1987).
• Strange Advance, Worlds Apart (1982).
• Style Council, Introducing (1983).
• Style Council, My Ever Changing Moods (1984).
• Style Council, Our Favourite Shop (1985).
• Tears for Fears, The Hurting (1983).
• Jethro Tull, M.U. – The Best of Jethro Tull (1976).
• U2, War (1983).
• U2, Unforgettable Fire (1984).
• Van Halen, OU812 (1988).
• David Wilcox, Breakfast at the Circus (1987).
• Yes, Going for the One (1978).
• Yes, Drama (1980).
• Neil Young, After the Gold Rush (1970; NY gatefold).
• Neil Young, Harvest (1972; NY gatefold).

UPDATE:  Three more today.  I’m especially glad to have finally found the German version of Peter Gabriel 4 (deutsches album):

• Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection (1970)
• Peter Gabriel, 4:deutsches album; (1982, aka Security)
• Rod Stewart, Gasoline Alley (1973)

I had hoped to participate by writing a post (it’s been a while), but I am bogged down with writing one book and editing another right now.  And I’ve got to get the books done before a new baby arrives in the Fall and the beginning of classes (coming too fast!).  But I’ll be back once again with more posts in the future.

INTRO

You can greatly enlarge your music library for very little cost if you get back into vinyl like I did. I’ve been transferring LP records to digital / CD for about six years. (These days I usually just transfer most to an external hard-drive with my computer connected to my main stereo). I thought it would be a good idea to gather together some resources for those who would like to do the same without spending a bundle. If you arrange a very good set-up and take care with your transfers, you can end up with digitized music that sounds just as good as (if not better than) your typical bought CD. I am told that my hearing is quite sharp when it comes to music, so I have quite high requirements (without being a stuffy audiophile who insists on every element costing thousands). (I cannot stand the sound of an MP3 and will only listen to uncompressed audio, for instance, but I won’t hold it against you if you use MP3s). My main stereo includes used Paradigm Studio Reference 100 speakers and a very good amplifier (used NAD C372), which is quite revealing if there are any weaknesses in the transfers.  I have largely eliminated weaknesses with my current set-up and process.

I’ll begin by outlining the key elements in transferring and then also link to several other sites that provide further information. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, but I do want to note what I’ve found to work best.

THE EQUIPMENT AND THE PROCESS

Here is what you need (with some of my comments on each):

1) A very good turntable

• I use a direct drive Technics SL-1200MK2 (which you can buy new for about $600 or used for about $200). Direct-drive turntables, distinguished from belt-drive, maintain a steady playing speed and prevent what they call wow and flutter (arbitrary speeding up and slowing down). Some audiophiles prefer belt-drives nonetheless, and belt-drives are the most common. (I also have a vintage Dual 1229 turntable in the basement, which would have worked fine but not as well as the Technics).  Another more recent option is to buy a turntable with a USB out specifically designed for transferring (and often with in-built phono preamp).   Since such turntables are quite cheap, they are not likely to produce the quality of sound of the set-up I suggest here.  But they may well be good enough for your purposes.
• Most turntables will have two RCA connectors (red and white) which plug into the phono input of your amp and a ground wire. It is absolutely essential that you attach that ground wire to the ground connector on the back of your amplifier/receiver (or ground it in some other way), otherwise you will have a loud constant hum from the turntable.

2) An excellent turntable cartridge and needle / stylus

• I did quite a bit of research on what cartridge and needle provided excellent sound without costing an arm and a leg. At first I ended up with the Audio Technica AT 440MLa (MM), which has what they call an eliptical stylus/needle and which you can buy online for about $100 (list price is about $300).  As of 2010, I have upgraded to the AT 150MLX (similar design to the 440MLa but better), which does make quite a difference in conjunction with a better phono preamp.
• There are two main formats of cartridge: 1/2″ mount and P-Mount. Good turntables generally use 1/2″ mount. There are two main kinds of cartridge-needle combinations: MM (moving magnet) and MC (moving coil). MC cartridges are “low output” and sometimes require additional set-up requirements and equipment, but if set up properly can provide a lower noise floor (quieter background noise from the record-playing). Nonetheless, a good MM can provide excellent sound and is less complicated in making sure it all works out (I’m told a badly set up MC can sound horrible). A new cartridge and needle needs to be “broken in” for a good number of hours before it hits its peak in sound quality.
• It is important that you make all of the necessarily adjustments when hooking up the cartridge, including the weight counter-balance, anti-skate setting, and cartridge alignment (on which go here for some free tools including a protractor).  You also want to make sure that the tonearm is parallel with the record surface, which is also known as setting the VTA (vertical tracking angle).

3) A very good amplifier or receiver with proper “Phono” input (and phono pre-amplifier)

• By “very good” I mean mid-range priced amps by the likes of NAD, Yamaha, or Denon. You must have a proper “phono” input on your amp or receiver since the sound-signal from a turntable needs extra amplification (a built-in “preamp” as they call it).  If you have a good amp already but it doesn’t have a phono input, you can buy a separate turntable preamp. At first, I picked up a used NAD 7155 (from the 1980s) for just $20, which has a good turntable preamp or “soundstage” and also happened to have the ability to switch between MC and MM cartridges. When buying a used amp, you may need to buy a spray bottle of cleaner from Radio Shack to clean the inside of the volume and other nobs (if there is initially static).  As of 2010, I have acquired a used Bryston BP 0.5b (basically the same as a Bryston BP 1), which is a standalone phono preamp with volume control.  This has made a significant difference to my rather sensitive ears.  I am also told that the Bellari phono preamp is a very good, relatively inexpensive one to use.
• You of course need RCA connectors (your typical stereo connectors) to link the turntable to the amp and to link the amp to the computer’s soundcard (if the soundcard uses a 3.5mm input like a small earphone input, then you need a connector that goes from red/white RCA to 3.5mm plug, which you can get at most computer stores).

4) A computer with an excellent sound card

• This is, in my opinion, essential if you want CD quality sound from your transfers. You can simply use the built-in soundcard in your computer, but most such soundcards are far inferior to soundcards that were purpose-built for high quality sound. One of the keys here is the analogue to digital converter (ADC) within the sound card.  If the converter within the soundcard is not good or is just average, then you loose a lot when you’re recording.  M-Audio produces many useful audio interfaces for linking your computer to sound equipment, and I chose the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which has RCA in and out (analogue signal), as well as SPDIF (digital signal). The RCA connectors allow direct connections from stereo equipment.
• I should mention that I did thorough sound-tests with other equipment before choosing the 2496. I compared my in-built soundcard to the external USB Edirol UA1EX and found that the latter was better but not astoundingly better. I also tried Soundforge’s 24-bit external soundcard and found that it was inferior. I then tried the internal M-Audio 2496 and found it was considerably better that the external Edirol. As the name implies, my soundcard gives me the ability to record at 24-bit (higher quality than a CD’s 16-bit) and with sampling rates up to 96,000 (the quality of DVD audio).

5) Recording: Audacity software

• Audacity is an excellent, free audio recording program. This allows you to record any sound input into the soundcard device of your computer, in this case sound input from your turntable via your amplifier. You need to go into “Preferences” under “Edit” and click on “Audio I/O” in order to make sure that you have your high-quality soundcard (if you have one) chosen as default.
• Recording levels: The volume level of the sound from your LP that is going through the amp to your computer will not be at an optimum level (optimum level is a peak of -3 to 0 dB). You want to have a recording come close to but not exceed 0 dB (or, say – 3dB to play it safe) at its loudest moment. Any louder than 0 dB will create a terrible sound in digital music (Audacity warns you of this with a little red mark at the right end of the audio-meter). There are two ways to optimize recording level: (1) Adjust the volume level on some external equipment (e.g. amplifier, external preamplifier) such that the loudest moment on the LP reaches but does not exceed 0 dB on input meter in Audacity. (2) Adjust the volume level after you record by using the “Gain” slider to the left of the picture of your wav recording in Audacity. I find that the latter results in a lowering of the sound quality, in part because you are also adding gain (volume) to any background sound from the turntable or system, such as the equipment’s low running noise (but most others do not notice this as I do). I instead adjust the volume to an optimum level by using the large earphone output on my amplifier as my main out from the amplifier to the computer’s soundcard (which requires a earphone to RCA connector). (The tape-out RCA jacks of an amp cannot have the volume adjusted). Then I simply adjust the volume on the amplifier to arrive at the optimum level. Getting your recordings as close as possible to -3 to 0 dB also helps to have the volume of your recordings come close to those of a typical bought CD (so that you don’t find yourself always having to adjust volume level while listening). Avoid applying a software’s gain equalization feature to groups of files which makes all of your digital songs equal in volume level but may result in loss of detail in the sound quality.
• Lowering the noise floor (NEW Jan 2010).  If you want the best recordings, it is best to spend some time experimenting and lowering the noise floor.  Computer related equipment including DSL modems and monitors can add noise to your recordings if plugged into the same outlet as your turntable and amp or phono preamp.  Also, if you link your computer to another sound system or to a system that is linked to a TV cable or antenna, this can create a low hum (often caused by an electrical groundloop).  The “noise floor” is the overall running noise of the entire system as it would appear when you are recording in audacity with the volume already set to record a record but without lowering the needle to the record (in other words, you have the record player and amp on and have already set the volume to max out at 0dB but you haven’t lowered the needle to play).  At first, my noise floor was about -66 to -63dB (as viewed in Audacity) and then I moved my DSL modem and monitor to another outlet and the noise floor was lowered to -69dB.  Now with my Bryson phono preamp I have lowered things further so that, when I’m set to record maxing at 0dB, my noise floor is usually -74dB to -78dB (before setting down the needle).  This means that more of the small details in the music will have a chance to come through and you’ll have quieter sound in the silent parts of music.  If possible, link between your computer and another sound system using TOSLINK optical cables, which are not susceptible to electrical interference (digital coax and regular RCA cables will transfer noise — my TV antenna, for example, added about 10dB of noise to my recordings before I ensured my TV was utterly independent my main sound system which was connected to my computer, and optical connections between an amp and things that are connected to the TV and its reception cable, such as DVD players, permit this).
• Recording quality: Audacity by default records at a 32-bit level, which is exceptional (CD’s are 16-bit and you need to change this setting when you export). Leave it at 32-bit unless you have no room on your hard-drive. Before you record, you also need to choose the sample rate or “Project rate (Hz)” as it appears in the Audacity window. CD’s are typically 44100 Hz, so you need to use that rate if you mainly want to burn the recordings to CD. I tend to record at 48000 Hz and then convert to 44100Hz when I need a CD for the car. The bit-depth (e.g. 16 bit vs. 24 bit) is perhaps more important for sound quality, and that comes in at the exporting stage. (By the way, if your soundcard is only 16-bit, then that will be the maximum quality you will get regardless of Audacity’s ability to work at 32-bit and to export at 24-bit).
• Exporting quality and file formats: The essential stage for maintaining the quality of your recordings is when you export to other formats. Audacity allows you to export to just about every standard audio format, including MP3, FLAC, and WAV (look under “Edit” > “Preferences” > “File Formats” for options).  MP3 is a compressed format which means you loose sound quality (the most obvious loss comes with things like the deterioration of the sound of cymbals) but can fit a lot more on a CD or iPod or whatever.  WAV is an uncompressed format which means that no audio data is compressed or lost, but then it is much larger in size (in terms of the space it takes on your hard-drive or CD).  FLAC is, in a way, ideal, since it uses about half the space of a WAV file without loosing any data or detail in the sound-quality (both audacity and foobar2000 work with FLAC) and it supports “tagging” (attaching artist, date, album, album art info to the files).  With the way hard-drive sizes are going, there is no harm having large files, and if you want high quality recordings work with WAV (or AIFF on a Mac) or FLAC. (You will want to save the individual tracks as FLAC only AFTER you have used Clickrepair, since that program works with WAV only at this point).  Beyond the file format, you need to decide on what bit-depth and sample-rate to export the file at. Because I am going almost completely digital (and not usually producing actual CDs much anymore), I export all of my records at 24-bit and a sample rate of 44100 Hz, which does not take up much more space than 16 bit but does reveal more detail in the music if listened to on a good stereo system with excellent speakers. If you want to burn a CD, however, it will need to be at 16 bit, 44100 Hz. You can always export from Audacity twice for a particular recording, as I often do (once into my official music folder at 24 bit and again into my burn-a-CD folder at 16 bit). For more discussion of 16 bit vs. 24 bit recordings, go here. You will ultimately use Audacity to create track-breaks and to use fade-in and fade-out effects at the beginnings and endings of songs. However, for now you export the entire album in WAV to clean it up in a program called Clickrepair, which is the next step.

6) Restoring or Repairing the recording: Clickrepair software

• Audacity has some useful functions for cleaning up and preparing the recording of your LP. In the past I often used the “Repair” function under “Effect” to eliminate ticks or clicks that can be heard from an LP (you need to zoom into the image of the wav file). This does work but it is very time-consuming and I generally only aimed for larger clicks.
• However, there is an astounding program that I only recently discovered that does an incredible job of eliminating virtually all clicks or other faults in the recording without audibly damaging the music itself: Clickrepair. I cannot overstate how essential and effective this inexpensive ($40) program is. It was created by a mathematician / professor in Australia who wanted to transfer his LPs to digital but could not find any program to remove clicks and other artefacts without damaging the music overall. So he designed and created his own program that accurately isolates damaged areas and repairs them. This has even allowed me to salvage some LPs that I considered unusable (I generally only keep and use an LP if it has very limited noise / clicks). To remove clicks and other damaged areas from the recording, you simply “open” up the wav file of the entire album (or tracks using the “Batch” function under “File”) that you exported from Audacity (which can be saved at 16 or 24 bit depths and at various sample rates), adjust certain settings in Clickrepair, and then press “start”. You can then listen to the noise that is being removed to ensure no music is dissappearing (e.g. certain drum-beats), listen to the input sound with noise and all, or listen to the cleaned output music (listening to anything slows the program down, however — I now turn “sound output” off since I know what settings are best). The settings I use in Clickrepair are not the defaults: I always leave “Pitch Protection” on (to avoid loss of things like repeated trumpet blasts that can look like clicks in a wav file); I set the “Declick” slider to 30 (unless a record is really bad in which case I put it up to 40); and I set the “Automatic” slider to “Automatic: All” (you may wish to put that at semi-automatic at first just to understand the process). Clickrepair then saves the repaired file (at its original bit depth and sample rate), which can then be imported back into Audacity. Once back in Audacity with the clean file for the entire album, you can then insert track breaks and fade-ins or fade-outs before exporting the individual tracks using “Export multiple” (where you once again need to ensure that the export bit-depth setting is what you want).

• Here is a sample from an album in quite poor shape (usually I would discard it). This is a recent transfer of Bruce Springsteen’s “Something in the Night” from Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) which illustrates how well the program works (to save server space, these are mere mp3s):

Before Clickrepair

After Clickrepair

7) Listening to your music: Foobar 2000

• I have found Foobar 2000 to be the best (free) program for playing music of various sample-rates and bit-depths (it can play 24 bit WAV or FLAC files which things like Realplayer cannot). This player is flexible for “tagging” information to your files (e.g. artist, date, album, track), if you are using MP3 or FLAC (but not WAV), and making various playlists from digital music on your hard-drive. (I used to run an RCA audio cable from the tape-out on the amp attached to my computer to the auxiliary input on the amp of my main stereo in a different room. Lengths of 50ft or less with RCA cables do not significantly lose audio quality to my ears.  As of 2010, I now have a digital to analogue converter — a Cambridge Audio Dacmagic — which is connected with a 50ft optical cord.  This has significantly improved the reproduction in the other room).

OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES

This sounds quite complicated but is actually quite easy once your get things together and run through the process, and the results you get are incredible. My outline here is based on my own experience, but others have far more detailed comments on various stages of the process. Here are a few of the websites I found most useful when I first started:

• Transferring LPs to CDR: Some Advice: This is among the best overall descriptions of the process, which goes into more detail than I did here.
• Convert Vinyl Records to CD: This is another useful guide to the process.
• Vinyl Engine: An excellent site that provides important information and free manuals for many turntables, as well as very good forum discussions.
• Tweaking Your Record Player: This is a rather long but helpful article on how to set up a turntable properly.
• Turntable Adjustment and Set-Up – Phono Cartridge Alignment
• Phono Hum Troubleshooting: This helps you through one of the more common issues with turntable set-up.
• Turntable Basics Advice page: Explains various terms and issues relating to turntables.
• Dynamic Comparison of LPs to CDs, part 4 (at Audioholics): This article discusses the sound quality of the LP and shows how it compares on various issues to the CD.
• 16 bit vs. 24 bit Audio Recording Demystified: This helps you to understand and decide whether to use 24 bit.
• Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary: This will explain all kinds of music and audio related concepts.
• Glossary of Audio and Music Industry Terms (by Yorkville Audio): This will help you understand some of the terminology you’ll encounter.

Shawn Phillips is still a charismatic and capturing performer! Phillips’ guitar playing in incredibly subtle and varied, as are his vocals, which range from the highest to the incredibly low. His vocal range, which is also emotionally evocative, was often noted by commentators in the past and is very noticeable on the albums I have so far (First Contribution [1969], Second Contribution [1969], and Faces [1972]). It is good to see that even forty years later he has not lost this incredible and often haunting voice.

These musical performances were accompanied by some of the most interesting and funny stories I have heard at a concert. Between pieces, Phillips discussed in an entertaining way personal anecdotes and stories ranging from his travels and career in the late-60s to his own current occupation as a sea-rescuer in South Africa. He also mentioned that he now has a live DVD-CD combination out called Shawn Phillips: Living Contribution, which you can purchase on his website, along with his earlier works.

Phillips played for over two hours, and the set included a range of pieces from the late sixties to the present (Phillips is still actively writing and playing, and he mentioned that he has written a total of over 1200 tunes over the years, if I heard him correctly). Phillips made use of about five guitars and his style of performance varied from one tune to the next, which is very desirable in a solo performance like this one. Perhaps most surprising was his sudden shift to a distorted Jimi Hendrix riff as a segue within one tune.

The highlights for me were his performance of several songs that I have become familiar with, including “Lovely lady” (from Contribution) and “The ballad of Casey Deiss” and “Woman of the land” (from Second Contribution). He also performed “Spaceman” from Collaboration (1971), “Blunt and frank” from Do You Wonder (1974), and “Lady in violet” from Transcendence (1978). Another unreleased tune was “Devil’s Highway”, which is based on Phillips’ reaction to the book with that title by Luis Alberto Urrea. Phillips told a story about first meeting Luis and their subsequent friendship. Doing a quick google, I now see a recent review of another Phillips concert by Luis Urrea himself.

I’m very glad I found that LP at the local record store a while back. You can find Phillips tour dates here.

Here is a 1989 (?) performance of “Ballad of Casey Deiss” from youtube:

There’s also a more complete version of that concert (30 minutes) here:

The record is, tongue in cheek, Fripp’s most “commercial” offering and it begins with his comments to that effect. Just to show how “commercial” it was, Daryl Hall’s management and record label (RCA) refused to allow Hall’s voice to appear on several songs (in part) for fear of Exposure‘s lack of commercial appeal (on which see the Allmusic article here). I should say that a Fripp-infused Daryl Hall is a Daryl Hall I can listen too, and I’ll be looking for that Fripp-produced album this week.

Several things stand out from my repeated exposures to Fripp’s album in the past few days. The main thing is the way in which the entire album is united by theme, namely exposure to suffering. Interspersed throughout the album’s lyrics or spoken samples are either painful expressions of the inevitability of human suffering (as in Buddhism) or dire warnings of more suffering to come (as in the apocalypse of ancient Judaism or Christianity). This is done in an intriguing way both lyrically and musically.

There’s “You burn me up, I’m a cigarette” with a very down-to-earth expression of suffering in terms of relationships, “Exposure” with its terrifying screams, and Gabriel’s “Here comes the flood” with its apocalyptic warnings of the coming end (on flood imagery and ancient apocalypticism, go here; on Dylan’s use of similar flood imagery, go here). Spoken samples are also built into the songs, as when a scientist speaks of the coming of catastrophic floods in the near future and when someone (a follower of the Buddha?) speaks of the inevitability of suffering, at least in this world.

Perhaps most astounding is the way in which the music itself takes you on a roller-coaster ride that involves the listener in suffering and relief from suffering. The album runs the gamut of genres, from experimental new wave and heavy-metal to soothing ballads and ambient music (reminiscent of Fripp’s ambient work with Brian Eno — I’ll have to post on that soon, since I also managed to find a copy of the LP No Pussyfooting). Quite often, you are moved from harsh and jarring sounds in one track, to a soothing aural experience in the next. The heavy-metal style vocals of Peter Hammil are juxtaposed with the soothing R&B voice of Daryl Hall or the gentle (Joni-Mitchell like) vocals of Terre Roche on some tracks. Yet Roche’s screams of “exposure” found on the title track are both impossible to listen to and impossible to abandon, despite the torture. And one could not ask for a more calm and emotive performance of Peter Gabriel’s “Here comes the flood”, which is stripped of the somewhat over-produced sounds on Gabriel’s debut album and replaced with Gabriel and his piano along with the subtle guitar loops of Frippertronics. Also interspersed throughout are ambient songs which likewise use the Frippertronics tape-loop experimentation begun on Fripp and Eno’s No Pussyfooting.

This is one form of suffering I would recommend.

UPDATE: It seems that the vocal samples involving a scientist’s predictions of the coming flood and the quotation regarding the inevitability of suffering are both by John G. Bennett, a British scientist who combined his scientific views with Eastern religious ideas. Interesting combination.  He started up his own school to teach such things.

Bill Bruford, who is best known as the drummer of Yes in the early years and then of King Crimson (on which see my post here), comments on his involvement with Genesis once Phil Collins became lead singer in 1976 (after the departure of Gabriel, on which see my earlier post on Trick of the Tail). Bruford became Genesis’ drummer for the 1976 tour. Seeing that Bruford was, at one point, a member of all three of the most well-known progressive rock bands, it is interesting and somewhat humorous to hear his perspective.

First of all, he comments on how Genesis was viewed in the early days:

I think everybody in Yes and King Crimson thought that Genesis would never make it because they sounded like a combination of the two groups. We thought they might be too late — we’d been there and done it. We saw them along the lines of ‘Genesis are quite fun, but they’ve got a guitarist who sits down like Robert Fripp and a drummer who plays a bit like Bill; the Americans have already had that’. . . (p. 198)

Bruford also comments on the overall atmosphere of each of the three bands in connection with his own less orchestrated style:

I like to wing it a bit on stage, but Genesis were very, very precise. I’m much more accustomed to making it up as I’m going along. . . I’d learnt the tunes from the albums, and if it felt a little different from what Phil would have done, people would look at me and say, ‘Hey, Bill, could you make it sound a bit more like the record?’. . . [N]ot being much of the session type, I didn’t do terribly well at just delivering the parts. In fact, what finally drove me out of rock n’ roll was the repetition. That’s what had separated me from Yes. Why I had found King Crimson so attractive was because they were way more open: ‘Surprise us, go ahead, let’s improvise, terrific.’. . . (p. 198).

The mood in Genesis was such a contrast to the chaos of Yes, where nobody could agree what day of the week it was . . . How we in Yes ever got anything done, I still don’t know (p. 199).

Anyone who has heard an album like King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man knows what Bruford means by improvisation.

The sitar is a stringed instrument with strong resonation that was used since the middle ages in classical Hindustani music in India, as explained in the Wikipedia article. The sitar has a distinctive sound and produces a rich harmony. Before the mid-1960s, it would occur to noone that the sitar could be a rock and roll instrument as well, but that’s what it became.

There were apparently two main performers who first noticed the sitar and began to get others, such as George Harrison, interested in the instrument. In 1965, David Crosby (then of the Byrds) came into contact with the musician and sitarist Ravi Shankar and began to spread the news about classical Indian music.

The second figure was Shawn Phillips, whose Second Contribution was a topic of a previous post here. Phillips himself was more directly responsible for Harrison’s use of the instrument, it seems. Phillips, who had already become familiar with playing the sitar, actually gave George Harrison lessons, as mentioned in a recent interview of Phillips in Modern Guitars Magazine:

Interviewer: I understand that you sang backup on the Beatles “Lovely Rita”. How did you get there and what was that like?

Phillips: Well, hanging out in England and working with Don, you just sort of ran into all these people at the clubs we’d got to like the Speakeasy. We’d run into Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, all these people and gradually you get to know people.

At one point I was giving sitar lessons to George Harrison. He was just getting started with the instrument. We had dinner over at his house, I don’t know how many times, and I’d sit down and give him the pointers I knew and so forth and one day he said, “Why don’t you guys come over and visit the studio? We’re doing this new album.”

We walked in and Paul said, “Hey, why don’t’ you guys sing back up on this tune?”

You don’t think about the fact that you may be making music history. We were just a bunch of guys hanging out.

The sitar was soon to become an important sound of the Beatles as they entered their more interesting, psychedelic stage. “Norwegian wood” on Rubber Soul (1965) was the first use of the sitar on a rock record, it seems, and Harrison would continue to use the sitar along with his continued involvement in Hinduism. You can read a good description of this influence on Harrison’s life in The Guardian obituary. Soon others such as the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones likewise began to incorporate the sitar into their music, as on “Paint it black” (1966).

As to Shawn Phillips, there is an interesting video on Youtube in which Shawn Phillips explains a bit about the sitar and he and Donovan perform on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest show in 1965. Whether this was before or after giving lessons to Harrison, I’m not sure:

There’s also a video there regarding George Harrison’s subsequent lessons with Ravi Shankar:

I’ve been listening to a lot of Motown and related (R&B, Soul, Funk) since getting back into vinyl, including the likes of Al Green, Supremes, Roberta Flack, Stevie Wonder, and others. Marvin Gaye has been one of the highlights. The three-disc Anthology gives a great overview of his contributions, including his performance of “I heard it through the grapevine” (1968) , which is definitely a strong point in his repertoire. (The song was also done by Gladys Knight and the Pips the year before.)

What I had forgotten about was perhaps the rockinest (to use my five year old son’s vocabulary) and longest (11 minutes) version of this tune, which, in my opinion, may top any version of the tune. I am referring to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s southern-blues-rock-soaked rendition of 1970 (on the album Cosmo’s Factory).

From the slow-moving bass lines and staccato drumming that initiate the tune to the ever-interesting, rough vocal treatment by John Fogerty and the fine guitar solos, this version keeps my musical interest throughout. The rhythmic interplay of the two basses together with the slow-train-coming beat of the refrain create a trance-like experience in listening to this tune (it helps that it’s 11 minutes long). The final guitar solo that accompanies this swamp blues onslaught brings the whole thing to a perfect culmination, in my opinion.

I am really beginning to appreciate CCR, despite the fact that I might have thought of their music as southern, “old-people” music at one point. Maybe this is because I am an “old person” (read: over 30) now.

For an excellent site about Creedence Clearwater Revival, including discography, lyrics, and guitar riffs, go here. Wikipedia also has some information here. The cover up and to your left is the cover of Bayou Country (1969), which has some other CCR classics including “Bayou country”, “Good golly Miss Molly”, and “Proud Mary”. That one happens to be my favourite of their albums.

Don’t let the strange (though cool-looking) cover with a multi-coloured unicorn eating a flower fool you. This is a Christmas album, and an excellent one!

Don’t get me wrong. I have quite a few favourites to listen to around the Christmas season, including Bing Crosby’s White Christmas (1961). There are times when I like to listen to some traditional carols or some Amy Grant Christmas tune (despite the fact that I would consider anything Amy Grant produces utterly hokey at any other season). Sometimes I even get out the ol’ trumpet and play a few Christmas carols myself, or torture friends by doing a trumpet duet with my friend Jeff. I always like to hear U2′s rendition of “Chistmas baby please come home”, the Eurythmics’ version of “Winter wonderland”, or Sting’s “Gabriel’s message” on A Very Special Christmas (1987). Bells of Dublin (1991) by the Chieftans is another lively and upbeat one with a different sound.

In terms of jazz, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (or without that cartoon), and I do especially like Diana Krall’s Christmas Songs (2005). But this bluesy and jazzy album by Ella Fitzgerald, which is very well-produced and remastered, wins out in many ways.

Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (1960, Verve) opens with a fast paced “Jingle bells” that my five year old son requests to have replayed just about every time we listen to the album (it ends with a memorable “I’m just crazy ’bout horses” line from Ella). The swinging beat stands out it in this song, as it does throughout the tunes, and the not-overdone style of back-up-singing that accompanies Fitzgerald’s smooth but trumpet like vocals is also characteristic of the album as a whole. There are also slower, softer pieces, like “The Christmas song”, in which Ella is accompanied by a vibraphone and some soft-playing saxophones. Vibraphones are also prominent on Ella’s excellent rendition of “White Christmas”. More somber but especially highlighting the range of Ella’s voice is the We Three Kings / O Little Town of Bethlehem medley. The album concludes with an up-beat and swingin’ version of “Christmas island”. This album stands the test of time.

A while back I posted on the Alarm as part of my ongoing series on bands of the 1980s. A friend of mine, Tony, commented that he remembered a recent incident involving a Milli-Vanilli-like “scam” of sorts in connection with a come-back of the Alarm. Now another reader (Jeff Fulton) of that post has supplied enough information that I could find some articles.

It turns out that, in an attempt to be heard as fresh blood and not as old-folks, the reincarnation of the Alarm (still with Mike Peters at its head) sent a single titled “45 RPM” to high-profile djs in the UK under the band-name “the Poppyfields” (in February 2004). The single began to get significant play as a lively, new, young, retro-punk band. As the following articles also mention, there was a video shot with young fill-ins to accompany the single, which ultimately did hit the UK charts. I couldn’t find that video online, but I did find a video of the Alarm performing “45 RPM” online that you are now listening to (if you clicked play above). Here are a couple of relatively reliable looking pages about it:

Wales Music: In the Poppyfields review

Babble and Beat: Interview with Mike Peters of the Alarm.

The official Alarm site has a few of the news reports about the 45 RPM “scam” posted, including two from Skynews here and here.

Although I have an appreciation for Quincy Jones’ Big Band Bossa Nova (1964), for instance, letting this cover go by on his own label is just unforgiveable. The funk may not be heavy enough to forgive the Brothers Johnson either.

• AC/DC, Back in Black (1980)
• The Beatles, Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), White Album (1968), Abbey Road (1969), Let it Be (1970)
• Berlin, Count Three and Pray (1986)
• The Buddy Holly Story
• The Doors, 13 (1970)
• Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac (1975)
• Marvin Gaye, Anthology (3 discs; 1974)
• Al Green, Greatest Hits (1975)
• Jeff Healey Band, See the Light (1988)
• Jesus Christ Superstar Motion Picture soundtrack (1973)
• Journey, Frontiers (1983)
• Led Zeppelin, IV (1971)
• Lighthouse, Best of Lighthouse (1974)
• Queen, A Night at the Opera (1975)
• Bruce Springsteen, The River (1980)
• Supertramp, Paris (1980)
• The Who, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy (1971)
• The Who, Who’s Next (1971)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HM0b_M-ToU

The first time I heard the band The Call, it was a tape of Modern Romans (1983) that my friend Sue lent to me. The tune you are listening to now, if you pressed play above, is “The walls came down” from that second album (and, yes, that is Garth Hudson, seated, on keyboards). I remember thinking how raw, direct, and (often) angry the album sounded, and I was intrigued enough to start listening to more (I was about 16 at the time).

I still listen to The Call’s albums and wonder why it is that, unlike some of their contemporaries, the band has been largely forgotten. Clearly they were talented, and their brand of alternative rock involved an interesting combination of musical influences. They also evolved over their career, shifting from this more basic and direct sound to a more mature and well-constructed musical style.

There were also clear signs that a good number of musicians appreciated The Call. Peter Gabriel liked them enough to ask them to open for his “Shock the monkey” tour, as the Wikipedia article points out. Gabriel, Bono of U2, and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds all offered backing vocals on certain albums. Garth Hudson of The Band played keyboards on thefirst few albums, and Robbie Robertson played guitars on the Reconciled (1986) album, which is among the best contributions of The Call.

The album Modern Romans (1983 [out of print and never released on CD]) was a politically charged album about the decadence and decline of western society using the image of debauched Romans (see cover) as the analogy. As a student of the Roman empire, I would not exactly subscribe to this picture of the actual Romans (see the post Golden rule: Do unto others according to the “pagans” or Apart from vomitoriums and orgies, what did the Romans do for us?). But as an album concept and critique of western society, it works. The song you are listening to offers a critique of militarism and Cold War politics in particular with an allusion to the falling walls of Jericho built into the song title and chorus:

Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down.
They’d all been warned
But the walls came down.
I don’t think there are any Russians
There ain’t no Yanks
Just corporate criminals
Playin’ with tanks.
(by Michael Been, 1983)

Although the first three albums have not been released on CD and are out of print, The Walls Came Down: The Best of the Mercury Years (out of print), which can still be found, gathers together the best of these first three.

After a slightly disappointing synthesizer-heavy Scene Beyond Dreams (1984), several excellent albums were to follow beginning with Reconciled (1986) with the better known “Everywhere I go”. There is a sense in which this album represents the maturation of the band. The quieter and more atmospheric Into the Woods (1987) is also a favourite of mine. The lyrics here are still quite serious, intense, and, at times, introspective, as in “It could have been me”:

It could have been me
Lying in that jungle
Out in that heat
Fighting for my life
Dying for nothin’
Feeling a bullet
enter my soul
It could have been me
It could have been me
It could have been me
Living in that prison
Locked in a cage
Damning the walls
Damn the division
Wondering why it had to be me
Well, it could have been you. . .
(by Michael Been, 1987 Neeb Music / Tarka Music).

The follow-up, Let the Day Begin (1989) brought the band momentarily into the spotlight with the title-track, which was number one for a while. However, I find the final album of this era, Red Moon (1990), among the best by this largely forgotten band.

• Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Tarkus (1971) and Trilology (1972).
• Roberta Flack, First Take (1969) and Killing Me Softly (1973).
• Peter Gabriel, Plays Live (1983).
• Mike and the Mechanics, Living Years (1988).
• Pat Metheny Group, Still Life (Talking) (1987).
• Sade, Promise (1985).
• Santana, Moonflower (1977).
• Simple Minds, Sons and Fascination (1981).
• Talking Heads, Fear of Music (1979) and Speaking in Tongues (1983).
• Weather Report, Heavy Weather (1977).

The Band and Robertson also have an important page in the history of rock and roll due to their work with Bob Dylan during the tomato-throwing switch-over to electric in the tour of 1965-66 (following on Highway 61 Revisited, with “Like a Rolling Stone”). Also legendary are the tunes they recorded with Dylan in The Basement Tapes (1975), which were recorded in the same era as Dylan’s Planet Waves (1974), also with The Band.

Secondly, Robertson’s first solo piece is significant for collaborations with two soon-to-be superstar icons and a then up-and-coming Canadian producer. In 1986, Peter Gabriel was recording the most popular album of his career, So (1986). Gabriel’s backing vocals for “Fallen Angel” on Robertson’s album made this one of the most memorable pieces on this release. Also in 1986, U2 was recording its monumental The Joshua Tree (1987), and U2 joined Robertson on two main tunes: “Sweet fire of love” and “Testimony”. The collaboration of both Gabriel and U2 likely had something to do with the fact that Robertson’s album was co-produced with Daniel Lanois, who was the main producer for both So and The Joshua Tree. Lanois left his mark on all three albums, which do have the bass-heavy and atmospheric feel characteristic of most Lanois productions (which I like).

“Sweet fire of love” is the better of the collaborations with U2, I would say. The song is heavily marked by the presence of U2. The song opens with the clear, syncopating echo of The Edge’s guitar and Bono soon starts to supply a counterpoint to Robertson’s intense musical cries. It’s not long before Bono is the lead and Robertson supplies the counterpoint. Throughout, the drumming style of Larry Mullen is unmistakable, and the walking bass of Adam Clayton is noticeable as well. Very well done is Robertson’s own guitar playing as the song closes, which complements and duels with the Edge. Bono’s cries of “sweet fire of love” help make this song what it is.

Read more about Robbie Robertson and about The Band (the photo of Robertson above is from that excellent site).

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The release of the remastered edition of Joshua Tree (original 1987) is coming up in a few days and the 2 or 3 disc editions (“deluxe” and “superdeluxe”) include the original B-sides, along with a few previously unreleased songs. One of these songs is “Wave of Sorrow” which, as Bono explains, is based on Bono and his wife’s time working in Ethiopia during famine. In this video (from ILike.com) Bono explains the song and even does his own impromptu performance of it!

I’m looking forward to the remastered edition. The Toronto Exhibition Joshua Tree tour performance is still burned in my memory, so this will all bring back very good memories. It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed! I think I’m still 18.

Listen while your read: Open up the Plant / Krauss “jukebox”

This album involves quite an unexpected team-up. Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin, joins one of the most important voices and fiddles in bluegrass music, Alison Krauss. There is a third artist, not mentioned on the cover, who really makes this entire album work so well: T-Bone Burnett. T-Bone Burnett is less known for his own solo work, which is a unique blend of cynical critique with an experimental twist on popular music, and better known for his production. Here he is both producer and musician, as on other albums he has produced (such as the soundtrack for Oh Brother Where Art Thou?).

Although I am not much of a bluegrass man myself, this very well produced and performed album has certainly caught my attention and I’ve been listening to it a lot lately. There are several things that make the album so intriguing (beyond the fact that the lead singer of Led Zeppelin is involved). Perhaps foremost is the variety that is here despite a coherency relating to the genres of bluegrass and American folk. The team performs a range of pieces from the 1950s to the present, including a tune by the Everly Brothers (“Gone gone gone” [1964]), a piece by the Byrd’s Gene Clark (“Polly come home” [1969]), and a remake of a Plant-Page tune, “Please read the letter” (1998).

Although the album sounds quite consistently like bluegrass or folk, there is a nice range of musical styles within this framework, thanks largely to T-Bone Burnett’s work in assembling this band and thanks to his production. Some songs are played solely acoustic (e.g. “Sister Rosetta goes before us”) while others are high on reverb. Some approach rockabilly (“Gone gone gone”) while others have a Celtic feel (“Trampled rose”).

Variety is also there in terms of the vocal focus of each song, with some sung solo by either Plant or Krauss, others as full duets, and still others with one taking the lead while the other backs. The vocal tones of Plant and Krauss blend very well and complement one another in unexpected ways. One rarely hears Plant singing so gently as on this album in tunes like “Killing the blues”, and yet there are others where the vocal range of a Zeppelin album are approached, as in “Fortuneteller”. In “Nothin’”, Plant gently sings a slow-moving tune backed by an unexpected heavy electric guitar and fiddle accompaniment (by Krauss).

There is also humour thrown in at times, as when the innocent-sounding voice of Alison Krauss sings “Let your loss be your lesson” solo:

Once I had myself a good woman
But I just didn’t treat her right
I was always leaving
Living the party life
True love was waiting for me
I was much too blind to see (© Hillgreen Music [BMI]).

The hymn-like “Your long journey” completes the album well with an acoustic sound and banjo — a hymn-singing Robert Plant. The liner notes appropriately joke about teaching an “old dog” new tricks.

The official site for the album is here.

A 1982 live version of Rhythm of the Heat from YouTube

By haunted, I don’t mean in the halloween sense, but in the sense of losing your self entirely to the spirits, of losing your very soul. One of the most haunting and experiential songs I know of is Peter Gabriel’s “Rhythm of the Heat” on his fourth album (also known as Security; © 1982 The David Geffen Company). The low quality live version are listening to now may not do justice to the song, but it is better than nothing. You’ll have to listen to a high quality version of the entire piece (preferably on your own in the complete dark and with the volume considerably high) to understand the full emotional effect of Gabriel’s brilliant work here.

The complete tune opens up slowly with an initial cry by Gabriel and some mysterious distorted voices. The drum beat begins to slowly build at this point, moving towards the first climactic cries of “The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. . . The rhythm has my soul!!” (© 1982 Peter Gabriel Ltd).

Now the drums are incredibly heavy but still slow, backed by a repetitive chant of “the rhythm of the heat” that evokes spirits, or is it demons. The bass and drum combination is now so intense that it brings chills. There’s a hesitation in the song as it quietens, seemingly bringing relief from the intensity. Quietly: “Smash the radio. . . smash the watch. . . smash the camera (cannot steal away the spirits). The rhythm is around me. The rhythm has control. The rhythm is inside me. The rhythm has my soul!” Following on this second wild, piercing, sustained cry, the song now breaks out into an onslaught of African style drumming (by the Ekome Dance Company) that seems to never end. You cannot escape it. The rhythm has your soul.

In some ways, the Surdo and Ghanaian drum sections in this piece indicate Gabriel’s future direction into world music, which would climax, in a way, in his soundtrack, Passion (1989) for The Last Temptation of Christ. That album is saturated with the sounds of the Middle East in particular, but also Africa. Gabriel ultimately founded a record company and studio, called Real World, devoted to promoting bands and music from around the globe, particularly from “developing” countries.

Where did this haunting song, “The Rhythm of the Heat”, come from?

Gabriel’s song is based, in large part, on psychologist C.G. Jung’s autobiographical description of a nocturnal ritual dance (the n’goma) among villagers in the Sudan (in Africa). Carl Jung (1875-1961), as you may or may not know, was an influential psychologist and student of Sigmund Freud. In the autobiographical interviews collected in Memories, Dreams, Reflections (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), Jung outlines his own fears of the local villagers in a particular area of the Sudan, that, to him, seemed less welcoming than those in previous African villages.

Sixty men, along with women and children, gathered together and lit fires before beginning what Jung labels “savage singing, drumming, and trumpeting” (p. 271). Jung expresses that “I did not know whether I ought to feel pleased or anxious about this mass display”, a statement which reveals a tension to which I turn below. So the uncomfortable Jung decided to join in the dancing, however hesitantly, and was somewhat comforted to notice the approval he received from the villagers for doing so.

As time passed, Jung reports, “the rhythm of the dance and the drumming accelerated” (p. 271). Here Jung begins to reveal his fears in noting that “the natives easily fall into a virtual state of possession. That was the case now. As eleven o’clock approached, their excitement began to get out of bounds. . . The dancers were being transformed into a wild horde, and I became worried about how it would end” (p. 271).

In reading these autobiographical remembrances that inspired Peter Gabriel’s song, I was struck by the tension within Jung’s own description of his experiences in the Sudan. On the one hand, his trip was ostensibly one of studying the human psyche in what he considered its more “primitive”, not-yet-conscious form, something he describes as a “primal darkness” that will only meet light with the dawning of psychological consciousness (something he believed was possessed by the psyches of Europeans). And so Jung seemingly explains away his fear of the possessive tribal dance as a fear of dying by being accidentally stabbed by the swords of the fully involved tribal members in their ecstatic, “possessed” stage. It is a down to earth fear, so he claims.

On further investigation, on the other hand, it seems that his fear may be a fear of becoming part of this collective psychological experience, a concept that he himself had developed in reference to some supposed universal human psychological makeup, and a fear of losing his soul to the possession of the tribal beat. This, I believe, is what Gabriel saw as well. For Jung concludes his story of the tribal dance with a statement of his own profound, personal experiences in Africa. For, as Jung states:

“I had undertaken my African adventure with the secret purpose of escaping from Europe and its complex problems. . . The trip revealed itself as less an investigation of primitive psychology. . . than a probing into the rather embarrassing question: What is going to happen to Jung the psychologist in the wilds of Africa? . . . It became clear to me that this study had been not so much an objective scientific project as an intensely personal one, and that any attempt to go deeper into it touched every possible sore spot in my own psychology” (p. 273).

Here, then, was the “advanced” European academic in fear of having his soul stolen by the “rhythm of the heat”, and yet unable to come to terms with his own fear and unable to analyze himself fully, let alone the supposedly “primitive” villagers.

Happy Halloween.

Peter Gabriel’s official website can be found here. Real World Records can be found here.

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In Rainbows is a very highly produced album with great attention to detail, something that may make reproduction in live shows a trial for the band, I would imagine. The result of this production is a very clean and sharp sound, with percussion, guitar, and other instrumentation often jumping out at the listener in stark ways. Although there’s a bit of ambience as well, it’s hard not to pay complete attention to most tunes on this album when they are playing — this is no music for airports!

Despite having played this album a number of times, I still wonder what’s next as I listen, simply because of the rather non-traditional structures of the songs and the interesting juxtapositions of the different instruments and sounds, both acoustic and electronic, harmonic and dissonant. This is what makes the overall aural experience very intriguing. I sit on the edge of my seat for most tracks on this album, even though I do find the high level of production sometimes lacking in warmth or even emotionally sterile at times (but warmth is not likely what Radiohead was going for on some of these tracks).

The sterility I mentioned may well be intentional. The running lyrical themes of this album, which are also echoed by the music, are futility, darkness, and despair — the end, the singer’s end, is near in just about every tune. If he is not falling off the edge of the earth or going to hell, he’s dead from the neck up or trapped in the prison of his body. The album evokes phantoms and there are times, as in “Nude”, when the vocals are best described as the cries of displaced angels.

When you are listening to “Weird Fishes/Apeggi” it is truly the sounds of the depths that you hear, and Mephistopheles (Satan) is indeed grabbing at you to bring you down to destruction, as in the finale, “Videotape”. Despite the haunting darkness of this album there are moments of light, and the finishing lines suggest that light wins out: “No matter what happens now, I won’t be afraid. Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.”

There are a number of fast-paced songs here, including “15 Step”, “Bodysnatchers”, and “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi”. It is here that one senses the feel of The Bends at times. The solemn and haunting “15 Step” combines heavy drumming with synthesizers in a sort of sombre harmony. In “Bodysnatchers”, distorted guitar gives way to a whining guitar background reminiscent of tunes on U2′s Achtung Baby.

The slower songs reflect an interesting range of sounds from one track to the next. A highlight of the album, in my view, is “All I need” with its slow cello-like sounds juxtaposed with distorted synthesizers. This gives way to a piano and violin-sounding climax with heavy drumming. Lyrically, here the persona of the singer is a moth trying to get out of the darkness and towards the light, and the music itself suggests some hope in this regard. Also very effective, musically, is “Reckoner”, where the interplay between lead guitar (played as bass) and distant tambourine-like percussion provides the ideal background to the gentle vocal tones that climax in an ambient string orchestral arrangement before returning to the beginning again.

Radiohead’s “Jigsaw” combines acoustic guitar and funky bass in a slow build that leads to a full sound once again more reminiscent of The Bends or OK Computer. Here the statement is made: “What’s the point of instruments. Words are a sawed-off shotgun”. Overall, Radiohead’s In Rainbows proves quite the opposite. It is the rich mix of instrumentation and juxtaposition of various sounds that make it possible to withstand the darkness (or dodge the shotgun) of the album and come out alive. I would recommend this album, as you may have guessed.

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So I requested and received a review copy of Stephen Catanzarite’s Achtung Baby: Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall (New York: Continuum, 2007). This book is part of a larger series of album-focussed books known as 33 1/3. You can read more about this series on the 33 1/3 blog here. Catanzarite approaches the album track by track, delving into the human relations and religious themes he sees reflected in the music. As he proceeds, he creates fictional narratives, stories about human relationships, that he sees as reflecting a message communicated to him from the tracks on U2′s album. His central argument is that Achtung Baby is a many-faceted reflection on the condition of “fallen” humanity (fallen in the Adam and Eve sense).

I have mixed reactions to this book. On the one hand, this is a well-written piece and there are some insightful observations regarding the lyrical and musical aspects of this experimental album by U2. There are times when Catanzarite describes the musicality and instrumentation of Achtung Baby in an eloquent (if somewhat overstated) way:

“The melodies throughout are simply stunning — and stunningly simple — but cast against, around, and on top of complex arrangements overflowing with guttural howls, jarring chimes, trashy beats, and sheets of decadent noise. The guitar riffs, masterfully rendered and brilliantly layered, and also regularly and deliciously off-kilter. The bass lines are solid but frayed, made all the more engaging by their Anglified funkiness. The beats are straightforward and harsh here, tasteful and restrained there. . . And then there are the voices. The passion and elegance, beauty and grace, desperation and longing, lust and regret, truth and confusion communicated in each and every note vocalized on Achtung Baby prove two important things about music. First, no instrument is more potent or versatile than the human voice. Second, you don’t always have to sing on key to make music of enduring beauty and relevance” (p. 5).

The strengths of the book lie in its lively writing style and in Catanzarite’s ability to offer some interesting insights like these. The final chapter of the book also delves into more of what I would have expected from a book of this type, as Catanzarite discusses the cultural context and influence of the album. More of this cultural analysis, rather than (or at least alongside of) theological reflection, would have strengthened the book, in my view.

There are times when Catanzarite’s own admittedly impressionistic take on Achtung Baby rings true to me (and potentially other listeners), as when he describes “One” as “a love song that reaches beyond romance, a kind of post-modern blues ballad that rises swiftly and powerfully above the banal” (p. 18). He then goes on to a very intriguing and, to me at least, accurate description of the “sonic elements” of this track which match with this overall theme that he identifies.

In some cases, Catanzarite’s tendency to think of religious themes actually does work. In particular, he is on solid ground (and not floating around in heaven somewhere) in identifying religious themes when he explores “Until the End of the World”. After all, this song is, expressly, Judas’ perspective on Jesus’ whole obsession (in Judas view) with the coming end — lighten up, Jesus! It is certainly not far-fetched when we hear Catanzarite stating that the “fuming riff of a panoramic guitar reveals the landscape of damnation” (p. 30) now faced by Judas as he reflects back on what he has done. And in some of the performances of this tune at concerts, Bono (as Judas) takes on the role of Satan himself in the final battle between good (Edge representing God with a sword-like guitar) and evil. Ancient combat myth meets rock and roll.

However, it is the very narrow and specific manner of interpreting Achtung Baby within a religious context that I find, well, restrictive and limiting. I do agree that art is about the viewer’s or listener’s take on things, and that what one person sees or feels, another will not. Nonetheless, this book can be too focussed on one person’s religious take on the album (and less so on the album itself), which makes it hard to identify with it if you do not hold its religious perspectives or presuppositions (namely Christian and, more specifically, modern Catholic). (Particularly problematic for me, for example, were Catanzarite’s a-matter-of-fact statements regarding gender and the “mystery of womanhood”, which reflect a particular modern, though traditional, Catholic perspective on the supposed inherent differences between the sexes). The concept of the entire book is that Achtung Baby represents U2′s (or at least Catanzarite’s) take on the fallen condition of humankind, and Catanzarite frequently quotes from religious writers, including recent popes.

It should be stated that Catanzarite does not do this theologizing by subterfuge. Rather, he opens the work by stating that he will approach things from a religious (Catholic) perspective, and, as he states explicitly, “I have superimposed my own particular narrative over the songs on Achtung Baby” (p.96). This focus on a particular mode of religious interpretation together with the accompanying novelistic tendencies sometimes left me behind and I found it hard to identify with Catanzarite’s take on the album. It’s not that I believe there is a true meaning that everyone must find in Achtung Baby, but there are ways of describing our own individual takes that may be less specific or self-contained, and more in touch with the variety of other takes that are possible in listening to an album like U2′s Achtung Baby. There’s more than religion in Achtung Baby, baby.

UPDATE: Over on the @U2 site, there is another review of the book, as well as an interview with Catanzarite.

Buy at Amazon

• The Beatles, Rubber Soul (1965), Hey Jude (1970), Let it Be (1970).
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country (1969).
• Peter Frampton, Frampton Comes Alive! (1976)
• Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon (1973).
• Supertramp, Crime of the Century (1974), Breakfast in America (1979).
• Stevie Wonder, Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974), Songs in the Key of Life (1976) — which is an absolutely amazing double album that I’ll have to post on.
• The Yardbirds, For Your Love (1981).