Category: Music

Not Fakin’ Mono

Mono vs. Stereo is an endlessly interesting aspect of Sixties Pop music.

The rise of FM radio in the late 60’s was, I would conjecture, a reason why “folded mono” became standard for singles after albums were produced in stereo exclusively.

Mono FM receivers collapse stereo broadcasts into mono. So, if that was what people were already hearing, why bother laboring over dedicated mono mixes for singles played on AM stations?

Barnes Newberry opened this week’s “My Back Pages” on WMVY with selections from Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends album.

“Fakin’ It” from Bookends is an all-time favorite of mine. There’s so much creativity in the production. I love the “Strawberry Fields Forever” fade-out. All it needs is “I buried Paul (Simon).”

The true mono mix for the 45 provides a striking contrast to the album’s stereo mix. Note the running time.

Tom Fooler Me

Towards the end of Tom Hanks’s “Here Comes Summer” show on Boss Radio 66, he played “Time Won’t Let Me” by the Outsiders, a #5 hit from 1966. The record sounded so different from my memory of it, I wondered if it had been remixed.

So let’s compare a mono reissue 45 of the single from the early 80’s, with the mono recording Tom played. See what you have time to do when you’re retired and recuperating from surgery?

Is this the third different, vintage turntable of mine, in regular use, that I’ve featured here in two days? Yes, it is.

This is my single.

This is what Tom Hanks played.

The mixes are very similar, and yet they sound very different. Although Tom apparently played a mono copy of the single, there’s no way a modern remix would be done in mono. At first I thought the effect must have been the result of a clean remastering, but then I remembered something and discounted that idea.

Some of the records heard on “Songs From the Back of the Station Wagon” are in stereo, but played in mono. All of them were given the mono treatment for Tom’s “AM Gold” show a month ago. Here is a Facebook exchange I had with Boss Radio 66’s Debbie Daughtry.

So the most likely explanation is, the two recordings of “Time Won’t Let Me” are indeed different mixes. My copy is an original mono mix, and Tom played the stereo mix of the song in mono.

Royal Mail Rascals

Steve Stanley of Now Sounds Records has produced a wonderful new CD box set scheduled for release on Friday.

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Atlantic-Recordings-Rascals/dp/B0CZ3NHLGG/

The last time I ordered a Now Sounds CD as an Amazon import, it didn’t arrive on the release date. I waited, then received a message from Amazon saying there was a delay. Then I waited some more, until eventually it arrived.

This time around, rather than saving the cost of shipping, and risking another delay, I ordered the set directly from Cherry Red Records in the UK.

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/the-rascals-it-s-wonderful-the-complete-atlantic-studio-recordings-7cd-box-sets

Updates from Royal Mail were received…

… and, lo and behold, the set arrived today, three days before its scheduled release date.

But wait, what’s this? Royal Mail is being sold to a Czech billionaire? As with all such coincidences, it must be my fault. It comes from having an inherently guilty conscience.

Royal Mail owners to back £5bn takeover offer

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nn0n93zj4o

Meet Them in St. Louis

Shades of R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders! Look at what tastewar put up on YouTube today.

In 1998, I heard Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong perform “Saint Louis Blues” at the Lowell Folk Festival.

Before Ghost World, former Cheap Suit Serenader Terry Zwigoff was known for the documentary about his pal Crumb. His first film was about Louie Bluie.