Whats on your turntable tonight?

Björk -Deput on One Little Indian
...thanks Elke for the S/S copy all the way from Antwerp!
sounds great

Humble Pie - Town & Country on A&M

Spencer Davis Group -Gimme Some Lovin' on Island UK

Traffic -Mr. Fantasy on Pink rim Island UK

Free -Fire and Water on A&M

Rolling Stones -Beggars Banquet on London/King records JP
(another fine engineering job by Glyn Johns!)

Over the last couple of days...

Neil Young: Greatest Hits (Classic Records reissue) (OK, I admit I just don't get it. I'll listen to this one more time and see if I connect with this any better.)

Smetana: Ma Vlast (Ancerl/CzechPO, Supraphon SV 801) (From about 1954 and atill one of the great performances of this work)

John Lee Hooker: Burnin' (Get Back 7502) (grainy sound, and overloaded by too much backup, but great performances by Hooker.)

Stravinsky: Firebird Ballet (Dorati/Mercury/Classic Records 45 rpm reissue) (Our standard recording to pull out for critical comparative listening with new equipment, amp stands in this case...)

Vierne: Sym 6 (for organ) (Sanger, Meridian E77067)

Grieg: Sonata No 3 for Violin & Piano
Brahms: Sonata No 3 for Violin & Piano
Olav Thommessen: "Please Accept My Ears" (1981, for vn & pf)
...(Milanova -vc & Smebye -pf, Simax PS 1015) (One of those digital recordings on LP that prove digital can sound very good indeed, one of the best sounding recordings in my collection. The Thommassen piece is a beautiful work that deserves more attention.)

Leadbelly: "Leadbelly Sings Folk Songs" (Smithsonian Folkways SF40010)

Woody Guthrie: "Folkways: The Original Vision" (Smithsonian Folkways SF40001) (The musicianship on both these Smithsonian Folkways recordings is outstanding, and the sound seems about as good as the mastertapes are likely to allow.)

Haydn, Cello Concertos (Christophe Coin, Hogwood/AcademyAM, L'Oiseau Lyre DSDL 711)
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Well, as the winter solstice is passing and the days grow unrecognizably longer to me yet, If new vinyl on my porch this fine gray day in Detroit can be taken as a harbinger of good things to come in the new year, then the signs have arrived and it will be another good year for our preferred, so called inferior format, that by the way was supposed to be replaced by the new perfect format now decades ago. I love progress.
Today, actually moments ago I stepped out in the cold and snow to find a fresh new copy of Richard Thompson’s “Some Enchanted Evenings” EP on OMR @ 45RPM. This record has but five tales of personal disaster, misfortune, despair, forlorn longing and other uplifting affairs to song by one of our finest troubadours of the time, hell of any time. Three songs were originally written by our enterprising lad and two are stylized covers that he performs regularly at live shows with more than a bit of tongue in cheek. If you haven’t seen Richard live friend, you’ve really missed something on this dust ball. The only bit of sad news about the recording is that OMR stopped there. Two of the songs appear to be from “Two Letter Words” an excellent live performance double CD from 1994. Press the whole thing to vinyl and do it justice I say! Anyway, I’m enjoying what I have and it spins well indeed. Happy Listening and Cheers! In the new year.

All 200 + 180 gram vinyls:
* Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - Going Back To Acoustic
* Pete Townsend & Ronnie Lane - Rough Mix
* Albert King - Born Under A Bad Sign
* David & David - Boomtown

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker Ballet (complete), Ansermet/OSR, SXL 2092-2 (Speakers Corner reissue - marvelous performance and a very nice sounding reissue)

Geminiani: Cello Sonatas, Pleeth -vc, Hogwood -hpd, L'Oiseau Lyre DSLO 513.

Clannad: Crann Ull, Intercord 160.153 (not sure where this falls within the Clannad discography, but I sure have listening to it for the first time)

Handel: Water Music, Szell/LSO, Decca (Speakers Corner reissue) (I've heard of this performance for years, but had never heard it. I can hear virtues in it, but I guess I'm just to imbued with the "historically informed" performance practice to move this very high up on my list of preferred performances of this work. My favorite performance continues to be the Trevor Pinnock/English Concert on DGG (and yes, its a digital recording))

Albeniz: Suite Espanola, De Burgos/NewPhilO, Decca SXL 6355 (been listening to both the Speakers Corner and the King Super Analogue reissues to select which one that stays in the collection. The Super Analogue, USA pressing, has a number of virtues, but it sounds like it was mastered from a tape one generation down from the tape used by Speakers Corner, adjusting volume for the relative difference in gain cut into both.)

Poulenc: Gloria, Pretre/FNRO, Carteri -sop, EMI ASD 2835 (a marvelous work performed with great panache and Gallic flavor by Pretre. I always find myself enjoying this performance more than the more refined Fremaux, also on EMI, even though the Fremaux is in arguably better sound. Also compared the EMI pressing to an early brown label Angel and the Angel held up surprisingly well in the comparison.)
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