Billy Joel and Streetlife Serenade

If you read the previous editions of teen beat and the predecessors, you may of gotten the idea I do rather like Billy Joel and over the last five years a whole batch of his albums have had so-called 'audiophile' editions promising and delivering the best possible  sound from the Master Tapes.

 In 1974 he recorded a second album in Los Angeles whose songs referenced  both Surburbia and the Inner City.

Billy has publicly expressed his feeling the album as released didn't realize his intention and like with The Piano Man and Cold Spring Harbor, he re-recorded some of the songs live for the 'Songs In The Attic' album released in 1981.

The song most remember from this is album is 'The Entertainer' a #34 single hit, where he expresses his disapproval of how 'Piano Man' had been severely edited for single release inserting the sarcastic response "If you're gonna have a hit, you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05".

Personally I like this albums wider musical range.

What's nice about this edition is the Mastering Engineer, Kevin Gray has prepared it from from the original mastertapes as mixed from the multi-track session rather than a copy of that so it's a clear sounding as possible and has the widest range between the quiet and loud passages.

The original recording to my ears was very well captured.

As well back in 1974, a four channel mix was made for the SQ quadraphonic record designed to reproduced over four speakers in the corners of your listening area and that mix is added as a extra to the Super Audio cd layer for those with players that support that format.

Rod Stewart

If you were around in the 70's you could not of escaped Rod Stewart, the UK singer-songwriter responsible for many of decades top selling records but where do you start if you're not a rabid fan of his given many compilations have been issued in the passing decades most of which had cd re-issues?

At the risk of sounding like boring, I feel his best solo material was recorded for Mercury between 1969 and 1974 taking in such gems as You Wear it Well, Gasoline Alley, Reason To Believe and unforgettably, Maggie Mae.

While some of these albums have been re-issued by specialty labels such as Audio Fidelity and Mobile Fidelity, these discs will be dear to track down regardless of sonic merit  so I'd suggest most would be better of getting new a 3 cd set called "Reason To Believe -The complete Mercury studio recordings" having all the albums and some bonus tracks in a single inexpensive set.

For an overview of his career from the mid 60's to 1990 I feel there's one which is a complete no-brainer  and that's "Storyteller" as it does just that telling the story of Rod's music career over 4 cds that originally came out in 1990 costing a small fortune.

It was recently repackaged but keeping the notes and can be got from Amazon UK for £7.99 shipped. Although a few tracks from the mid 60's were sourced from records, most of this set sounds really good.

I would put this now above "The Story So Far - the best of" a 2 cd set issued by Warner Broa. in the UK in 2003 as Storyteller has more 'classic' Rod while all The Story So Far adds is some remakes and less essential tracks he did with Helicopter Girl even though I bought "Story So Far" on release.

Finally, Rod was an essential part of the Faces who emerged from the Small Faces and you simply have to have a selection of their rootsy bar music that included tracks like Stay With Me and Cindy Incidentally. Although there's a new double cd set due out in October which I hope to get, One that can be got cheaply and is very good is The Best of the Faces (Good boys ...while they're asleep).

Currently available on Rhino and priced at £2.99 on Amazon UK you really cannot go wrong with this single cd retrospective..

Crosby, Stills And Nash on Audio Fidelity

The late 1960's and early 70's is a period where I do remember rather more than many of my contemparies do and I guess for me it involves numerous automotive journeys with the clunking of dads in-car 8 track player and the sometimes downright screwed up track orders of the albums we played and given that is even know how they 'play' in my head, perhaps our generation ought to be compensated by Lear Jet for it!

Crosby Stills and Nash fit that era to a tee and recently Audio Fidelity a small Californian reissue outfit re-issued their first album freshly re-mastered by Steve Hoffman.

Songs like Wooden Ships, Marrekesh Express and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes were always on tape player plus the FM radio and what they've tried to do on this cd is to bring out a more natural bass quality and improve the clarity of the individual instruments on what has to be said is a so-so original recording. 

It works well even if ultimately this album is one you enjoy for the performances and songs some of which like the Graham Nash ones were originally intended for his 'old' group the Hollies during that period when he wanted to write songs with more meaning while the groups record company (EMI) just wanted simplistic pop songs to sell hit 45's instead. 

In Crosby's case he famously fell out with the Byrds as they didn't wish to issue his songs and so Graham Steven Stills and himself formed this 'supergroup'.

Shortly afterwards Neil Young a now celebrated Canadian singer-songwriter joined them for the Deja Vu album which was a good a distillation of the ethos of those 'Woodstock' days as any I can think of from the cover of the Joni Mitchell song of the same name to Almost Cut My Hair, Nash's Our House and my favourite Neil's Country Girl a seemless suite of three songs.

I owned this originally on 8 track and later the casette version during the 'Walkman era'.

Sometime in the mid 1990's ('94 I think) Joe Gastwirt remastered this and pretty much all the C,S,N &Y output for compact disc and these can be got cheaply with decent sound from the likes of Amazon. They are only just a little louder than a specialist remaster and I like his version of this a lot.

In the fall of 2013 Steve Hoffman tackled this, the 1977 album (aka "The Boat") for Audio Fidelity catalogue number AFZ 144, the home of Cathedral and several other fine compositions. Having heard a number on the 2013 reissued box set CSN, my interest was piqued so I bought it. 

The sound is really good on this issue maintaining its analogue warmth and can be recommended 

*Updated 2013 by Tammy*

Billy Joel, Piano Man

This week we're back to music and looking at Billy Joel who I followed certainly around the time I was in high school  and I've been collecting recordings by him ever since.

He was born William Martin Joel in 1949 in Long Island, New York formed a band called the Echoes in 1964 the year of the 'British Invasion and later on formed a hard rock band in late 1960's called The Hassles from which a duo with their drummer Jon Small.

In 1973 on the strength of shows in the Northeastern United States he signed a recording contract with Columbia Records  which led to his debut album album Cold Spring Harbour being issued. 

The first two cds by Billy I bought were An Innocent Man and The Bridge in their European issues following up with the Japanese cd made for Europe of Nylon Curtain, The US versions of Storm Front plus River Of Dreams and a minidisc (RIP) of Streetlight Serenade together with Greatest Hits III in 1998.

Recently I have acquired a couple of specialty label cds from Mobile fidelity (Mofi) of Chicago, Ill. by him and it's these I wish to talk about.

In so far as most Britons are concerned he came to notice during Elton John's unavailability late 77, Early '78 but actually Billy went back much further than that but simply they'd not heard that early material.

 
Piano Man which remains one of the finest albums by a contemporary rock artist taking his observations on NJ life including the controversial Captain Jack that tackles drug abuse . 

As well it is worth noting this album is clearly influenced by Elton's Tumbleweed Connection as well as having a Western theme running thru it.

Piano Man is a fictionalized account of his own story working the bars, trying earn a dollar.

Turnstiles was the next one up and was the second just issued by Mofi which features New York state of Mind in it's original mix rather than the remix used for all previous cd versions as well as Miami 2017 and the epic Say Goodbye To Hollywood.

All these discs are Super Audio cds with a higher resolution layer for suitably equipped layers and  a regular layer for my own cd player.
 
I was fortunate to borrow  the the Audio Fidelity 52nd Street which I didn't like  finding it too muddy so elected to elected to stay with my 1994 Sony Mastersounds gold disc.