Ultimate Cat Stevens

[jadis]

There's even a DVD of this album.

Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman A Classic Concert DVD

Music Performer Cat Stevens
Narrator Spike Milligan
This DVD, coinciding with Yusuf's 60th birthday, features a rare and classic performance from 1971 which captures the warmth of his studio recordings but with even more passion and depth. It also includes the delightfully animated short film by Cat Stevens entitled Teaser And The Firecat, with wacky narration by Spike Milligan. His recording career spanned 12 years from October 1966 to November 1978, and he recorded 11 albums in all, but his most creative and interesting period was probably whilst he was recording Tea For The Tillerman and Teaser And The Firecat during 1970 and 1971. With the hit single Wild World entering the US charts in 1971, Cat Stevens flew to America where this intimate concert, which features the best of his repertoire at the time, was recorded. After all these years, it is good to be reminded of Cat Stevens' original and creative talents and the huge contribution he made to the singer/songwriter genre.

This healthily supplemented release of Cat Stevens's rarely seen yet classic 1971 concert also includes the singer-songwriter's drolly animated film, TEASER AND THE FIRECAT, featuring narration by Spike Milligan.

 

[jadis]

While I was telling a good friend about the negative feedbacks of QRP's TFTT, he told me that he just got and listened to a QRP re-issue of Ben Webster's Gentle Ben and it was very good. He noticed this one was mastered by Kevin Gray. And another title, Muddy Waters Folk Singer was mastered by Bernie Grundman.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/72783/Ben_Webster-Gentle_Ben-Any

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/73422/Muddy_Waters-Folk_Singer-45_RPM_Vinyl_Record

So, it seems now that the 'quality' of the LPs depends on the mastering engineer.

And, We Get Requests by Oscar Peterson and Getz Gilberto were done by George Marino. So if these sound good, we now wonder what happened to TFTT which was done by George too.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Even in his youth, Cat Stevens' voice had a lot of deep overtones in it, and his preferred guitar at the Time of TFTT was a Gibson Everly Brothers model, a model that is more "thunk" than shimmer. So if careful recreations of the original master have crisp guitars and thin voice, those masters are missing lower mids and probably boosting upper mids. A re-master restoring the depth of Cat's voice at the expense of guitaristic crispness that probably didn't exist in the guitar, would be preferred in my view.

Which one is that?

Tim

 

[jadis]

Even in his youth, Cat Stevens' voice had a lot of deep overtones in it, and his preferred guitar at the Time of TFTT was a Gibson Everly Brothers model, a model that is more "thunk" than shimmer. So if careful recreations of the original master have crisp guitars and thin voice, those masters are missing lower mids and probably boosting upper mids. A re-master restoring the depth of Cat's voice at the expense of guitaristic crispness that probably didn't exist in the guitar, would be preferred in my view.

Which one is that?

Tim

Nice insight, Tim. I agree that Cat's voice has always been deep, with his voice seemingly emanating from this chest and throat. I think the descriptions on the QRP, Mofi and UK pressings have been quite clear in the previous posts, as to which has the deep voice and less crispy guitars. At any rate, I just thought that since the UK pink (and perhaps the US A&M) were the first and original issues, and the sound of which is what people say were deep voice and non-crispy guitars, how can the subsequent re-issues like the MoFi and QRP sound so radically different by having a wiry voice and crispy guitars unless they altered the process. I mean even the Eric Clapton Unplugged re-issue tonally sounded very similar to the original pressing save for improvements in dynamics, detail and focus. Changing the texture and tonal balance of the voice is not really a good thing even at the expense of clearer accompanying instruments, imo.

 

[MylesBAstor]

While I was telling a good friend about the negative feedbacks of QRP's TFTT, he told me that he just got and listened to a QRP re-issue of Ben Webster's Gentle Ben and it was very good. He noticed this one was mastered by Kevin Gray. And another title, Muddy Waters Folk Singer was mastered by Bernie Grundman.

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/72783/Ben_Webster-Gentle_Ben-Any

http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/73422/Muddy_Waters-Folk_Singer-45_RPM_Vinyl_Record

So, it seems now that the 'quality' of the LPs depends on the mastering engineer.

And, We Get Requests by Oscar Peterson and Getz Gilberto were done by George Marino. So if these sound good, we now wonder what happened to TFTT which was done by George too.

YES+++++++++++++++++++++ That's what I've been saying. I really don't like George Marino's masterings eg. Power of the Orchestra, etc. Listen to the strings on POTO. They sound hard and piercing, decidly hi-fi-ish, solid-state-ish. That's because it is solid-state! Anyone familiar with the original RCAs know RCA was known for its string sound. If you want hard strings, listen to Mercury

Kevin Gray's remasterings kill Marino's work by a mile. But the problem is that the record company won't ship the tapes to the West Coast for mastering
Gentle Ben indeed is very good -- as are Kevin's Grateful Dead remasters for Audio Fidelity. Kevin recently shared with me that he had a real blast doing Gentle Ben and really loved the sound! In addition, AF just announced another GD reissue. BTW, the Rhino GD reissues don't stack up to Kevins; still awaiting the MOFI GD reissues!

 

[jadis]

YES+++++++++++++++++++++ That's what I've been saying. I really don't like George Marino's masterings eg. Power of the Orchestra, etc. Listen to the strings on POTO. They sound hard and piercing, decidly hi-fi-ish, solid-state-ish. That's because it is solid-state! Anyone familiar with the original RCAs know RCA was known for its string sound. If you want hard strings, listen to Mercury

Kevin Gray's remasterings kill Marino's work by a mile. But the problem is that the record company won't ship the tapes to the West Coast for mastering
Gentle Ben indeed is very good -- as are Kevin's Grateful Dead remasters for Audio Fidelity. Kevin recently shared with me that he had a real blast doing Gentle Ben and really loved the sound! In addition, AF just announced another GD reissue. BTW, the Rhino GD reissues don't stack up to Kevins; still awaiting the MOFI GD reissues!

Thanks for shedding more light, Myles.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Changing the texture and tonal balance of the voice is not really a good thing even at the expense of clearer accompanying instruments, imo.

I agree in principle, but it's kind of the nature of the re-master beast. If the producer developing the re-mastering project liked the original master the way it is, there wouldn't really be a re-master at all. They'd just leave it as is, or at most, go in to carefully remove any artifacts, maybe add a tiny bit of noise reduction, though there are purists that consider these things as bad as artless EQ. But the mastering process is all about eq. And one man's crisp guitar is another man's thin voice.

I'll take the depth of Cat's voice with the un-crisped Gibson, though. Is there a digital master that fits that description?

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Thanks for reminding me of this wonderful music, guys. I'm listening to The Best of Cat Stevens 20th Century Masters on Spotify right now...yeah, I know that's not audiophile-approved, but really, it sounds pretty good. A bit bass heavy, perhaps, but the deep overtones are there in Cat's voice and the rhythm guitar sounds about right, not overly crisp. Of course I wasn't 20 seconds into the first cut before I forgot about listening to the sound and commenced listening to the music. I'm a bit ADD in that regard.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Actually, I may have to get myself a lossless file of this somewhere. Even at 320kbps on Spotify it has a big, warm, enveloping sound...very nice.

Tim

 

[jadis]

I agree in principle, but it's kind of the nature of the re-master beast. If the producer developing the re-mastering project liked the original master the way it is, there wouldn't really be a re-master at all. They'd just leave it as is, or at most, go in to carefully remove any artifacts, maybe add a tiny bit of noise reduction, though there are purists that consider these things as bad as artless EQ. But the mastering process is all about eq. And one man's crisp guitar is another man's thin voice.

Tim

Good point, Tim. Somewhere along the way, I get caught up with the words, '...from Original Masters' that I get to think that those words meants the re-issue SHOULD sound like the original master tape. And you're right that remastering is all about the eq. In fact, Mofi prides itself on remastering using half speed, claiming that the process would make their re-issue sound better than the original pressing.

 

[garylkoh]

Even in his youth, Cat Stevens' voice had a lot of deep overtones in it, and his preferred guitar at the Time of TFTT was a Gibson Everly Brothers model, a model that is more "thunk" than shimmer. So if careful recreations of the original master have crisp guitars and thin voice, those masters are missing lower mids and probably boosting upper mids. A re-master restoring the depth of Cat's voice at the expense of guitaristic crispness that probably didn't exist in the guitar, would be preferred in my view.

Which one is that?

Tim

We'll have at least 5 different pressings/versions/masterings of Tea at RMAF - may be we might be able to find the one for Tim

I'll also bring my all-pink label Firecat.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Good point, Tim. Somewhere along the way, I get caught up with the words, '...from Original Masters' that I get to think that those words meants the re-issue SHOULD sound like the original master tape. And you're right that remastering is all about the eq. In fact, Mofi prides itself on remastering using half speed, claiming that the process would make their re-issue sound better than the original pressing.

While at first blush, it seems that the LP should sound like the master tape, that's not always the case There's artistic license. But more importantly, it's the producer's job to "adjust" the LP/CD so that the media matches the original recording eg. making up for deficiencies in the recording chain, etc.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

While at first blush, it seems that the LP should sound like the master tape, that's not always the case There's artistic license. But more importantly, it's the producer's job to "adjust" the LP/CD so that the media matches the original recording eg. making up for deficiencies in the recording chain, etc.

The master is that adjustment, Myles. It's not uncommon for there to be a master for vinyl and one for digital these days. It was not uncommon in the analog days for the master of singles to be different than the same cut on the album. I think we're talking about the same thing. If you have 5 different "masters" of the same material, there has probably been some re-mastering going on after the fact. There's a lot of that, these days. But regarding historical material that was recorded analog, there will typically be just one original master.

Tim

 

[MylesBAstor]

The master is that adjustment, Myles. It's not uncommon for there to be a master for vinyl and one for digital these days. It was not uncommon in the analog days for the master of singles to be different than the same cut on the album. I think we're talking about the same thing. If you have 5 different "masters" of the same material, there has probably been some re-mastering going on after the fact. There's a lot of that, these days. But regarding historical material that was recorded analog, there will typically be just one original master.

Tim

Sure that's true but I don't consider that a positive What I'm referring to is correcting for correct tonality, placement, spaciousness, etc.

 

[jadis]

But regarding historical material that was recorded analog, there will typically be just one original master.

Tim

Talking about master tapes, and the fact that R2R players are being used by some people here, what kind of tapes are being used here? Are these copies from the master tapes too? And how is the copying done if such were the case?

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

It begs the question..is there even a remaster out there from the original source that is 100% true to that source? I suspect not.

 

[jadis]

It begs the question..is there even a remaster out there from the original source that is 100% true to that source? I suspect not.

I think not too, John. And imo, it would defeat the purpose of that remastering effort. The purpose of that remastering job is to make it sound better than the source, hence the need to do it again, or remaster it again. And looking at those remastered LPs that I have owned, I have no doubt the intention is very noble, though the end result of success or failure depends on the listeners, and their playback equipments to some extent.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Sure that's true but I don't consider that a positive What I'm referring to is correcting for correct tonality, placement, spaciousness, etc.

I'm sure every engineer who re-masters something would like to believe he is "correcting" it, unless he is simply doing something his client demands, against his better judgement, but given that there are multiple "re-masters" of much material, what is correct is obviously subjective. I don't consider many re-masters to be s positive these days either, though the further you get from pop music the better they tend to be. The original master, which is the best possible source for a re-master (going back further would be a re-mix) is stereo or mono, though, not a multi-track tape. So it is impossible for the engineer to affect instrument placement at that point and the only way he could change the perceived spaciousness would be to add time-based effects -- reverb, delay, etc. Re-mastering is about adjusting tone, eliminating noise and, too often, increasing volume.

Tim

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I think not too, John. And imo, it would defeat the purpose of that remastering effort. The purpose of that remastering job is to make it sound better than the source, hence the need to do it again, or remaster it again. And looking at those remastered LPs that I have owned, I have no doubt the intention is very noble, though the end result of success or failure depends on the listeners, and their playback equipments to some extent.

IMHO I'm a beleiver in leaving the original source alone...don't tinker with it, unless there were obvious technical deficiences.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

IMHO I'm a beleiver in leaving the original source alone...don't tinker with it, unless there were obvious technical deficiences.

I agree. And I often find I even prefer listening to some technical difficulties over re-masters. The re-mastering trend I'm waiting for is the one in which some subset of the industry decides that the mastering and remastering of the last 10-20 years yielded some audio abominations, and they go back and restore the dynamic range and tonal balance. I have a great example riding around in my car right now, a mixed CD of old country rock and new alternative country. When it goes from The Band to modern Steve Earle the volume, and particularly the boomy, dominating bass, nearly blows me out of the driver's seat. I can turn it down, of course, and I do, but it's not just the volume. A more artful remaster could bring the best out of these great songs by giving them subtler dynamic range and a better overall balance. My tastes are such that the volume wars haven't impacted my favorite music much. Earle is an exception. So is Springsteen. Earle's recent albums always make me reach for the volume knob. A couple of Springsteen's recent efforts are all but ruined for me. I find them difficult to listen to.

Tim

Tim