Here's a link to the series of related pieces on Canned Heat, including some background on the band, reviews of four albums of the "classic line-up," an extended interview with Skip Taylor, their long-time manager (whose own history in the biz is pretty wild), and a short "sidebar" about the blues "rediscovery" period, in which some of the band's members were directly involved. http://thevinylpress.com/essential-heat-canned-heat-four-albums-conversation-with-skip-taylor-sidebar-rediscovering-the-blues/
TheVinylPress.com
As some of you know, I have been pursuing vinyl and audio for a long time, and recently decided to write about it. I launched a site called http://TheVinylPress.com which is devoted to older records that deserve renewed attention. The site launched quietly last month with a feature about the U.S.Library of Congress audio-visual restoration archive, and the latest installment features an inteview with Olav Wyper, the creator of the legendary Vertigo Swirl label. For now, this is a labor of love. I hope you find something worthwhile.*
Bill Hart
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*N.B. The powers that be at Audiogon gave me permission to start a thread about the site.
Bill Hart
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*N.B. The powers that be at Audiogon gave me permission to start a thread about the site.
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The recent exploration of Canned Heat on TheVinylPress generated some real enthusiasm among readers, one of whom turned out to be Rebecca Davis, the author of “Blind Owl Blues,” an authoritative biography of Alan Wilson. Several readers had asked for a follow up piece on “Hooker ‘n Heat” (which I mentioned only in passing). Rebecca and I also had started to correspond. Who better, I thought, to write about this album than the biographer of Alan Wilson? The album came together in part because of the “Blind Owl’s” love for John Lee Hooker. My thanks to Rebecca Davis for her significant contributions to the body of work on Canned Heat and Alan Wilson. And for her essay on "Hooker ’n Heat," which appears for the first time on TheVinylPress, http://thevinylpress.com/hooker-n-heat-by-rebecca-davis/ |
Brooks Arthur has engineered and/or produced some incredible records over the course of more than 50 years: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, as well as Blowin' Your Mind, which featured "Brown-Eyed Girl", some of the best-known early Phil Spector stuff, Springsteen, Dusty, Peggy Lee, Marvin Gaye, Neil Diamond, Gordon Lightfoot, and a long, long list of others. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that I live not far from the little country studio Brooks once had in Rockland County, New York. But it is part of the local lore here- the place where some of the early Springsteen tracks were recorded, among many others. The choice of the recording we discussed was no coincidence, however: Janis Ian's Between the Lines has been a musical and sonic benchmark for me since its release in 1975. It is neutral but rich sounding, intimate in its focus on Ms. Ian’s songs and voice, but grand and spacious and full of instrumental nuances. The key people behind this record are still with us today, continuing to make music. Janis Ian still records and performs; Brooks still records, produces and acts as a music director for films; Robert Ludwig, who mastered the record at the time of its original release, is still as prolific as ever. Here's the piece, called The Art of Recording: A Conversation with Brooks Arthur |
Slaw: It really does bring a different perspective to the recording; I think I also re-ranked the old DCC as a really good listen (but that one is costly). Wilson’s remix of Benefit is also a huge improvement over the original in my estimation. I think Steve Wilson is a genius. (Check out In Absentia, one of his Porcupine Tree albums if you haven’t listened to his own work- it was reissued and is readily available on vinyl). Don’t know if you saw it, but I recently interviewed Ian Anderson on the early Tull records. And there are more Wilson goodies in the pipeline. best, |
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