Here it is Sunday morning, and it feels like winter up here in Wisconsin today. Indian summer, which we enjoyed for three or four days early last week, is clearly over. I don’t usually blog here on Sundays, but since my radio station changed format, I’ve got time to spare. So let’s start with a couple of weeks of links to my posts at WNEW.com:
Founding Father: Bill Graham
Founding Father: Ike Turner
Rock 101: Led Zeppelin IV
Rock 101: Duane Allman
This Week in Rock History: Undercover
This Week in Rock History: All-Birthday Edition
I hope you’re visiting WNEW.com regularly, and not just because of me. There’s some good writing and interesting features over there. The same thing is true at Popdose, where this past week I contributed an edition of Chart Attack!, covering the week of November 7, 1970. (That’s a week I know a little about.) At Best of the Blogs, another of my bloggery haunts, there was plenty of election-related stuff last week, including a five-hour live blog event on Election Night. If you care, you can check it out here.
Coming this week right here: the tale of how a band of superstars ended up behind a unknown frontman who beat the odds and stayed unknown, and (maybe) some more talk about classic-rock radio.
And now, music. A couple of weeks ago, whiteray put up “One Fine Morning” by Lighthouse at his place. That prompted a reminiscence from a former DJ about the time he was asked to take the album version and recreate the 45 edit, which was not available on CD. Sometimes creating edits like that is easy—snip snip and you’re done—but sometimes, as in the case of “One Fine Morning,” it wasn’t. The post and comment reminded me that I’ve got the original 45 edit of “One Fine Morning” in my library, and it’s one of a handful of 45 edits (as distinct from 45 mixes) that I prefer to the original.
Of course I’d prefer to hear it blasting over an AM station through a transistor radio. Maybe crappier speakers are the answer.
“One Fine Morning” (45 edit)/Lighthouse (out of print, but you can buy the album version and more Lighthouse here)
Filed under: Tracks
Was there something in the water that made Bob McBride, David Clayton-Thomas and Keith Hampshire strive for that gravelly-voiced soul approach, eh?
“Music Eyes” by Heartsfield was another one of those long, rambling album tracks that benefitted greatly from a surgically-constructed single edit.
I forgot to add that crappier speakers will only produce crappier sound. Aside from differences in the frequency responses of today’s typical AM and FM receivers, the differences between AM and FM audio processing and in the modulation method itself (amplitude vs. frequency) resulted in different sounds. There was definitely an “AM sound” that is unique to that band. Back when AM radios were of better quality, and singles were mixed specifically for airplay, AM music radio sounded great.
Those big-sounding AM rockers sounded that way because of that “AM sound.” Whenever WLS-AM does one of its occasional Rewind Weekends over a summer holiday, check it out, and you’ll see what I mean.