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No artist in the history of sound recordings has a more confused recorded legacy than Elvis Presley. Thanks to several generations' worth of ruthless avarice by his label, the constant machinations and eventual fire sale by his manager, Col. Tom Parker, and his own pathetic sloth, due in part by a 20-year addiction to prescription drugs, Elvis's recorded catalog is an absolute disaster: cut and pasted, issued and reissued as both budget and full-priced collections, exploited beyond all recognition. Keeping track of Elvis's catalog is one of, if not the most, labyrinthine discography in rock…
Four new Jorgensen/Semon-produced Elvis reissues—Elvis is Back, Such a Night, Tomorrow is a Long Time, and Burning Love—attempt, to varying degrees, to be "albums that never were." All of the songs on each album, including singles, were recorded around the same time, usually in the same studio with the same musicians; had the recording philosophy then been what it is today, these tracks would probably have ended up on the same album anyway.
Assembling tracks cut at the same time was a relatively easy decision. Deciding on the mix was another story.
"In the first three cases […
In compiling this Elvis disc that never was, Ernst Jorgensen's aim with Such a Night was to provide a window on what went on during one of Elvis's legendary all-night recording sessions. The opening track is a good example. Although it became the master take of the title tune, the producers of this compilation left in two false starts, with the engineer calling out the master and take numbers. Other than "Such A Night" itself, this 20-track CD consists only of alternate takes, none of them previously released. (A 1991 disc, The Lost Album, collected tracks cut in Nashville between 1963 and…
"Tiger Man was a very unbalanced mono recording," Jorgensen says. "At the time the TV producers didn't care about the sound. It was just a necessary evil to go with the picture. [In remastering] we didn't interfere with the high end because that's where the fragile echo of the guitar strings is hanging. We did re-EQ to get more bottom end and try to remove some of the alarming sensation of the tambourine that runs through it."
Energized by the success of the TV special and the fact that he "still had it" in front of a live audience, Elvis then fell into one of those great bits of…
But Jorgensen, Semon, and the other RCA participants did at least compress history a bit when compiling Burning Love. This collection includes the title cut (Elvis's last Top Ten single), six other studio tracks from the same 1972 session, nine live songs from his 1972 stand in Vegas, and a pair of studio tracks from 1971. The recordings date from May 1971 to March 1972—a reasonable stretch for an "album that never was" that groups cuts indicative of Elvis's emotional tenor and singing during a certain period. Jorgensen freely admits that Burning Love is an adventurous packaging job, but he…
Sidebar: The Elvis Reissues
Elvis Presley: The Home Recordings
RCA 67676-2 (CD). 1999. Dennis Ferrante, Lene Reidel, dig. engs. AAD? TT: 49:22
Elvis is Back!
RCA 67737-2 (CD). 1960/1999. Bill Porter, orig. eng. AAD? TT: 48:12
Such a Night: Essential Elvis, Vol.6
RCA 67840-2 (CD). 2000. Bill Porter, orig. eng. AAD? TT: 53:24
Tiger Man
RCA 67611-2 (CD). 1999. Dennis Ferrante, mix, mastering; Al Pachucki, Mike Moran, Dick Baxter, Tom Brown, Ron Olson, orig. engs. AAD? TT: 50:09
Tomorrow is a Long Time
RCA 67740-2 (CD). 1999. Felton Jarvis, orig. prod…
PJ HARVEY: Dry
Too Pure/Indigo/Island 162-555 001-2 (CD only). Head, PJ Harvey, Robert Ellis, prods.; Head, eng. AAD? TT: 40:06
Too Pure/Indigo/Island 162-555 001-2 (CD only). Head, PJ Harvey, Robert Ellis, prods.; Head, eng. AAD? TT: 40:06
People who don't know any better than to write record reviews for a living have been stringing together words like "folk-punk-patty-smith-tori-amos-with-a-safety-pin-through-her-nipple" to describe PJ Harvey, the woman and the group, whose first album Dry is. It's all true as far as such market nichespeak goes, but it doesn't tell you that this is a band and a person with a lot to say if you can figure out the words, and almost as much even if you can't. (I…
The first thing you notice about Walter Sear's legendary Manhattan studio is that it feels so darn comfortable. Sear Sound doesn't have a wall of gold records, gleaming million-dollar consoles, or the latest high-resolution digital workstations, but a quick stroll around the three studios reveals a treasure trove of tube and analog professional gear: a pair of Sgt. Pepper–era Studer recorders plucked from EMI's Abbey Road studios; an early Modular Moog synthesizer Sear built with Bob Moog; and a collection of 250 new and classic microphones.
Sear Sound's clientele runs the gamut, from…
Guttenberg: Why did the musicians go along with this?
Sear: Starting around 1980, it started slipping away; we forgot what it's all about. The engineers had all of these new knobs and toys, so they were distracted. Either through ignorance or necessity, recording has become a separate art, no longer related to music. We further lost it when CDs came in 20 years ago and the audience stopped listening.
Guttenberg: Tell it, Brother Sear!
Sear: There's a big commercial juggernaut plowing through the industry—and killing it. The traditions should be passed down through the…
You'd think I'd be used to Charlie Hansen by now. After all, I've been speaking to Ayre Acoustics' renaissance man for a decade, having first encountered him when I was trying to arrange the review of Ayre's 100Wpc V-3 power amplifier that was published in the August 1996 Stereophile (Vol.19 No.8). I thought the V-3 was impressive.
Then I met Hansen. In person, Hansen resembles nothing so much as Mr. Mxyztplk, the mischievous imp from the fifth dimension in the Superman comics—and, like that little pixie, Hansen tends to chortle maniacally as he throws out his barbed…