Lighthouse 40 Years of Sunny Days CD/DVD 5.1 mix

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elmer

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
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Recently, I pulled out my long neglected copy of Lighthouse's "One Fine Morning" LP only to discover that it was essentially unplayable. It is out of print and has not been released on CD (AFAIK). I did however discover a greatest hits remastered CD package which features 16 "legendary songs" (5 from One Fine Morning) - good enough for me. The bonus DVD has the current line-up of the band which includes several original members including founder and drummer Skip Prokop performing the same 16 songs live in the studio. The mix is active and discrete - and despite being "Dobly" quite dynamic (IMHO). The playing is stellar and the songs and arrangements sound as good now as they did back then - they were always a very strong live band.

Lighthouse really only had the one stateside hit of note - the title song "One Fine Morning" and were really much bigger in their Canadian homeland. The story of the band and it's members is actually quite interesting and well noted in the extensive liner notes of this package. Skip Prokop and several members were integral players in the late 60's early 70's West Coast music scene with Mama Cass and Peter, Paul & Mary( they were the studio musicians on "I Dig R&R Music") - also former member Howard Shore turned up years later as the Oscar winning composer of the Lord of The Rings Soundtracks. It was via their friend Al Kooper who used them as part time players for several of his live Super Session shows with Mike Bloomfield that inspired them to move towards the B,S &T jazz rock sound with the added addition of a string section.

All in all a very nice, hidden (and now found) gem - and in 5.1. The authoring of the disc is a little wacky - with each song getting a short introduction by a band member in DPLll- then when the song begins it goes back to Dolby 5.1. My solution was to extract the songs only (via DVD Audio Extractor) and save them as multichannel wave files). I converted those files to DTS via Audiomuxer so I could play them in my car and without having to hear the intros over and over again. Still recommended for anyone for a fondness for the jazzrock scene of B,S&T, Chicago, Chase, Dreams, The Flock, Ten Wheel Drive, Ides Of March and of course Lighthouse.

Lighthouse.jpg
 
Yes Elmer it was your review that I actually came across that convinced me to grab it. I was looking for Lighthouse Live a couple of weeks ago and just came across thistoday. Excellent band.
 
Thanks Elmer! Don't how I missed your initial review, so thanks for re-posting. I had been looking from time to time for a good clean copy of One Fine Morning in stereo; and now I find that there's a well regarded re-recording in 5.1 too. :banana::banana::banana:

Thanks for the Amazon link Gene (GOS). I picked up one of the used listings.

AR
 
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