A trio of releases

You may remember back in August  my post about the DCC Gold Paul McCartney cds I got and how a certain album was being re-released at the time. Well finally it's here!

Packaged like the other McCartney and Stereo beatles releases has the white band to indicate it's a new remaster done by the same team at Abbey Road although this is on Concord records not Capitol/EMI.

It's a digipak rather than true Mini Lp mores the pity with slots for the discs to scrape and a booklet in 1976 was the first time in many years Paul performed his Beatle hits back to back with his solo works with a great band and is one the best live albums issued.

The sound on this is quite a bit better than the original 80's cd version and for the modest price I paid for it well worth the money. 

Moving on, the 50's thru the 70's were for many the heyday of Soul - no not that  R&B as in Rap and [insert word] stuff they try to pass off as "Black Music" today but rootsy soul delivered with conviction (rather than having one!) from folks straight out of Gospel singing.

One of the finest examples you can ever hope to hear of that is the recordings of Aretha Franklin during her long period  at Atlantic.

A few weeks ago Mobile Fidelity Inc of Illinois re-issued this stereo compilation of hers from 1969 with a good number of her early hits from when she left Columbia who didn't really know how to use her abilities.

Because of that, it does miss a few gems of hers from the early 70's however in the opinion of many this Super Audio cd that is also playable on regular cd players, has the best ever sounding stereo versions of these early recordings such as Respect, Chain Of Fools and I say A Little Prayer that simply as a soul fan I have to say you really need to hear.

Strongly recommended. Also note the Rhino "Queen Of Soul" 4 cd box set can be had cheaply featuring many mono versions and much of her output to 1976.

Summer '83 for me is wrapped up with seeing Flashdance, the movie several times and an infatuation with the songs featured.

I've had this 12 single since it first came out but there's a pressing fault actually several such as  being off centre, a pressed mark at the end of the track and so on.

Finally I've gotten a replacement copy!
In my opinion this was one of last truly great 12" remixes  totally transforming the song.

That was the original Chromedioxide pre-recorded tape of the soundtrack album I bought back then that sounded pretty amazing for a tape back then that by the late 80's had gotten worn out so I bought the cd version that remains one of the best sounding early cds.

You'll notice how the image from the lp inner is includes on the credits side of the 'J' card.

I did get recently a mint copy of the UK vinyl release which sounds absolutely superb.