Stevie Nicks, Partridge Family, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and Stevie Wonder round up

We having a bit of a musical round up on the blog this week.

We're back to 1981 a year  I still can recall  pretty well and the members of the band Fleetwood Mac were on a break after touring in support of the Tusk album and Stevie Nicks issued a well regarded album that had a lot of input from Tom Petty and to which he duetted on the hit "I Will Run To You"

Move forward to 1983, another pivotal year in my life, and in August I heard the first single that came from the just released  follow up album, The Wild Heart on the radio. 

Entitled Stand Back, it announced to the world that in that year where the English synthesizer new wave bands dominated,  she could compete with a sound that borrowed elements of it and yet keep the feel that makes her solo work so compelling, the space for her singing to transmit her emotions clearly. 

This was followed in October with the second 45 If Anyone Falls one the songs that continues to remind of the Fall of '83 even now.

It remains a favourite album of mine from when I bought the West German Chrome cassette version back in the day that sounded better than many pre-recorded cassettes just a year or two before.

One problem in the cd era for Stevie Nicks fans was the cd versions sounded thin, lacking bass and very bright, so much so for both albums that many Americans believe there is no good cd version of either album. 

However they are wrong as in 1990, EMI UK took over the UK rights and mastered this themselves to a much higher standard. It's simply that they've never encountered the discs that I obtained recently that I'm pleased to finally hear in digital form these albums. They sound really good.

Going back a decade further this time to when I was most definitely in single digits (too bad about not having ringlets at de time!) one thing I can recall is rushing on over to a family friend to see this TV show where they song nice songs and David Cassidy was super awesome looking.

I had been looking for a cd of the hits from the show such as "I Think I Love You"a big hit from 1971 for a while now and recently Sony/Bmg issued this 14 track Playlist set which can be gotten quite cheaply (like £5.09 shipped).

It features Breaking Up Is Hard To Do remixed to a more modern stereo spread for the first time where on previous cds it was mono only.

It wasn't long after the introduction of cds that box sets started to emerge following on from those of the lp era covering typically a genre or whole artists career and a number of truly worthwhile releases came out from the late 1980's up to the mid 90's.

The common factor between these, the good and the sort you though "and just who is this for?" ones was the large boxes typically 14 x14 inches and equally large booklets as well as mouth-watering price tags.

Over the years some had become out of print as new titles and others repackaged in simpler typically cd sized packages with reduced prices reflecting both the period of time that had elapsed from issuing and that often they were not re-mastered which isn't necessary a bad thing given many how many contemporary poorly remastered cds have been put out.

Over the years Warner Bros have been re-issuing a number and example of which I wrote about in the Rod Stewart entry a few years back and this is  one of two recently re-issued.

What this box set originally issued in 1991 comprises of  selections from all the studio albums Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young) issued including a number of alternative mixes and versions  plus a selection from their respective solo albums, so giving you a wide appreciation of their talent that if you chose to investigate it from scratch would set you back rather a lot. 

You see how the talents blended and equally what each themselves all having a group past prior to C, S, N, (and Y) brought to the table. Although mastered back in 1991 by Joe Gastwirt prior to the individual albums being remastered in 1994, the sound remains very clear with good dynamics. 

I should point out Audio Fidelity have done specialty remasters of the First CSN album and CSN (1977).

The booklet is substantially the same but rejigged to fit the cd case with a short history of the artists and track by track narration. 

It would either make a good bookend to a collection of CSN individual albums or serve well as a inspired selection of their output where their music and vision was apart of our lives. 

For approx £18 for four cds I'd highly recommend it.

As several of you know I do love Motown and a few years back Audio Fidelity issued this speciality Gold cd of the classic Talking Book album by Stevie Wonder plus a few others.

To recap a number of his albums were first issues in the halycon days of cd by Motown under BMG in Europe, then reissued in 1992 by Polygram and finally remastered in 2000 thru Universal.

Unfortunately most of these year 2000 titles are shrill, bright and very loud sounding you could tell even with the stores stereo system playing them but the 'classic' 1972-1976 albums in the 1992 series really could be better so I'm replacing them with these specialty gold remasters done by Kevin Gray using more modern devices to convert the sounds from the analogue tapes to digital.

Talking Book is the the home to "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" hit 45.

1972's Music Of My Mind was the disc that bought Stevie's use of the Arp synthesizer to our attention way back then featuring the hit single Superwoman.
My 1992 version sounds poor.

1973's Innervisions is in my opinion one soul album you just got to own featuring "Living For The City", "Higher Ground" and "He's Misstra Know-It-All" covering such topics as false religion, racial discrimination and mans relationship with his spiritual side.

Let it not be said Stevie took the white mans dollar and failed to address issues affecting African-Americans cos on this as with several albums he does bemoaning the failure of the political system on "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and "It Ain't No Use". 

All Stevie did was avoid the excesses of political sloganizing that ultimately dates his contemporaries  lyrics.

I feel this is the most improved disc of the set.

In 1976 he issued a double lp plus 4 track 7" EP entitled Songs In The Key of Life" where talks about everything he feels is important in the lyrics. This album included the smash hit tribute to jazz performer Duke Ellington, Sir Duke, I Wish and As although isn't She Lovely was a "radio hit" and a hit when recorded by England's David Parton in the UK and Europe.

The original cd split the bonus tracks across the two cds but in 2000 the reissue that otherwise was very poor not helped by playing a Dolby A tape without it sounding very bright and compressed at least put the EP tracks at the end of disc 2.

For this 2011 Audio Fidelity release they kept to that disc running order with much improved sound.

Here's my brief series comments:

Having done a comparison with my older cd I'd say the major improvements are in the timbre of percussion smoother with more snap revealing greater fine detail and vocals.

Innervision is probably the next best thing to the rare and very expensive Mobile Fidelity cd issue from the early 90's that accidentally did use the master tape.

To summarize it builds on the original adding more subtitles within the limits of having to use a copy tape because Stevie does not give any record company any master tapes including Motown and for that reason is to be preferred although I am sure with the actual masters the results would be more noticeable.

I also picked up the 1985 mastered Love Songs 20 Classic Hits cd on Motown which offers a selection of his 60's output in much better sound than the 1998 Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits Vol:2 re-issues although it misses out Fingertips Pt2, Work Out Stevie Work Out and Travellin' Man