Although it did not have the historical legacy of Columbia or RCA, by the late 60’s and early 70’s, Warner was a significant force in popular music. Its roster of talent was impressive and many of the recordings sound great. This “golden era” seemed to coalesce around several key figures and events: Mo Ostin, once Frank Sinatra’s executive and numbers guy at Reprise (Ostin majored in economics at UCLA), was put into place after Warner acquired Reprise Records in the early 60’s; Ostin, who developed the reputation of being very artist “friendly,” brought Lenny Waronker on... Read More

People seldom buy albums according to the record label on which the music was released. In retrospect, certain “labels” have come to be associated with great music from a specific era, for stellar sound quality (and occasionally, for both the music and sonics) and achieve a certain “collector’s” status as a result.   There were, to my knowledge, only a few labels that enjoyed this kind of reputation during their heyday- and Island Records- during the era of the so-called “pink label” is one such label. It was a significant independent label (perhaps the most significant... Read More

Rock music has always been dangerous; its precursors, from secular black music and the blues in the decades before WWII, to rockabilly and rock and roll of the 1950’s- music that spoke to the travails of the world, of carnality, crime and pain, and all those indecent thoughts and pleasures of life- posed an obvious threat to social conventions.   It wasn’t just a battle between the sacred and profane; it was the fear that the sex, drugs, politics and other uncomfortable subjects would influence and seduce the young. That fear is certainly nothing new- it can be traced to the dawn... Read More

Vertigo Records, in the era of the ‘Vertigo Swirl,’ is legendary- from its unique ‘swirl’ label, to its eclectic mix of artists, strong musical talent and extremely high production values, to the ‘art’ of the album jackets and the clever album packaging. My introduction to the label came late-this UK label carried the work of some famed artists, like Black Sabbath, but so many of its records- and some of the most desirable ones in my estimation, musically, were recorded by bands like Cressida, May Blitz, Patto, Affinity and Gracious, which are hardly household names. Even fewer... Read More

I’m listening to Les Paul in 1948. His tone is big, rich, and woody- with added percussive accents when he slaps the body of the guitar. What I’m hearing is vivid, real and alive- in a room thousands of miles and more than half a century away from the garage where these recordings were made. We sit in a studio that looks like a cross between an old time record mastering suite and something from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. There is nobody else in the room but the preservation engineer. Nearby stands a library cart full of old discs, each one holding a single track, or... Read More