Was YES' Close To The Edge Album Earmarked For Quad (See R2R Images Provided)?

[Zephead2112]

I just purchased these interesting reels from Omega Auctions which were consigned by Chris Squire's family (I posted about this yesterday in 'Random Stuff' but I now I've purchased them, I think that it's probably a better fit with this thread).

The reel containing 'And You And I' is particularly intruiging; from the track descriptions and the writing on the spine, I assume that they were thinking about a Quad release that never happened (note the 73/74 date marks top right). I'd be very appreciative if anyone has further knowledge of this. I also note from the spine that Tom Dowd appears to have been the engineer/producer in charge. I'm aware of his associations with Clapton, The ABB and Skynyrd et al but I didn't know that he had worked with Yes. I can't find a reference anywhere to say that he did.

I don't know whether or not the 1970 reels contain the finished studio versions of those tracks or something that was more 'work in progress'. I envisage that one or more reels will probably require baking before I can make a transfer to find out. Interesting stuff, I'm quite excited to own these. The 'And You And I' box would actually make quite a cool '3D' piece of wall art if framed and mounted properly.

 

[steelydave]

For what it's worth, during the original (abbreviated) Quadio run (CTA, Aretha), mastering engineer (and QQ member) Bob Vosgien had been looking through the Warners vaults and claimed that a quad mix of CTTE was done - I think ForagingRhino has since disputed its existence but your photos suggest Vosgien was right. Hopefully the mix of You and I on that tape was compiled on to a quad album master with the rest of the record and is resting safely somewhere in the Warner vaults.

Interesting to note that this mix was done at Criteria in Miami and has Tom Dowd's (T. DOWD) name on the spine. He's obviously famous outside of quad for producing a million huge albums from Layla to Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he also oversaw Atlantic's quad output and remixed most, if not all of the label's early quad output including Aretha's Greatest Hits, Bette Middler's Divine Miss M., and the upcoming Quadio release of Donnie Hathaway's Extension of a Man amongst others. It's sort of surprising to see his name on this, I was expecting that the quad remix of this album would've been done in the UK at Advision Studios, which is where the Gentle Giant quad mixes were done in 1975 and 1976, but perhaps they weren't ready for quad when this was done in late 1973.

Speaking of dates, it's interesting to see scrawled on the side of the box "9/9/73 or 21/1/74", presumably done by someone Squire or someone British, as Americans normally write in month-day-year format. Close to the Edge was originally released in stereo in September 1972, so my guess this mix was slated to be part of the small batch of evergreen titles reissued in quad in 1974 that included Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Deep Purple's Machine Head, Jethro Tull's Aqualung, and The Doobie Bros. Toulouse Street but for whatever reason wasn't released. They had plans to release a quad mix of Tales from Topographic Oceans in 1974 (press clipping included below) so maybe it was shelved in favour of that seeing as it was a 'current' album, even though a quad release of TfTO never happened either.

 

[Zephead2112]

For what it's worth, during the original (abbreviated) Quadio run (CTA, Aretha), mastering engineer (and QQ member) Bob Vosgien had been looking through the Warners vaults and claimed that a quad mix of CTTE was done - I think ForagingRhino has since disputed its existence but your photos suggest Vosgien was right. Hopefully the mix of You and I on that tape was compiled on to a quad album master with the rest of the record and is resting safely somewhere in the Warner vaults.

Interesting to note that this mix was done at Criteria in Miami and has Tom Dowd's (T. DOWD) name on the spine. He's obviously famous outside of quad for producing a million huge albums from Layla to Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he also oversaw Atlantic's quad output and remixed most, if not all of the label's early quad output including Aretha's Greatest Hits, Bette Middler's Divine Miss M., and the upcoming Quadio release of Donnie Hathaway's Extension of a Man amongst others. It's sort of surprising to see his name on this, I was expecting that the quad remix of this album would've been done in the UK at Advision Studios, which is where the Gentle Giant quad mixes were done in 1975 and 1976, but perhaps they weren't ready for quad when this was done in late 1973.

Speaking of dates, it's interesting to see scrawled on the side of the box "9/9/73 or 21/1/74", presumably done by someone Squire or someone British, as Americans normally write in month-day-year format. Close to the Edge was originally released in stereo in September 1972, so my guess this mix was slated to be part of the small batch of evergreen titles reissued in quad in 1974 that included Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Deep Purple's Machine Head, Jethro Tull's Aqualung, and The Doobie Bros. Toulouse Street but for whatever reason wasn't released. They had plans to release a quad mix of Tales from Topographic Oceans in 1974 (press clipping included below) so maybe it was shelved in favour of that seeing as it was a 'current' album, even though a quad release of TfTO never happened either.

View attachment 104721

Fantastic information, thank you for taking the time to write that out, very much appreciated!

Shame about TFTO!

 

[Zephead2112]

P.S. I note "Day Song" on the first 1970 reel; I'm assuming this could be 'Everydays' (?). I wonder if these recordings are 'sans orchestra'.

 

[atrocity]

I envisage that one or more reels will probably require baking before I can make a transfer to find out. Interesting stuff, I'm quite excited to own these. The 'And You And I' box would actually make quite a cool '3D' piece of wall art if framed and mounted properly.

Was that a known issue with Scotch recording tape? I thought it was primarily an Ampex problem.

 

[Zephead2112]

Was that a known issue with Scotch recording tape? I thought it was primarily an Ampex problem.

That's right. I'm hoping that I'll be lucky as it's Scotch 206 tape which I understand was not overly susceptible to SS. However, the image of the reel itself did look a little iffy. Ahead of the auction, Omega told me that all of the tapes consigned by the family were stored well and that they are good shape. I shall soon see!

 

[kvsawilson]

It was definitely in the old record catalogs as Q8. I had it on order with my local record store for at least a year and would go down every week just to be told that it will probably be here next week. Of course, eventually I realized that no one had ever actually seen a copy of it on Q8. Even had a friend tell me that he had it, but when I checked it out it was only a stereo 8-track.

 

[Zephead2112]

It was definitely in the old record catalogs as Q8. I had it on order with my local record store for at least a year and would go down every week just to be told that it will probably be here next week. Of course, eventually I realized that no one had ever actually seen a copy of it on Q8. Even had a friend tell me that he had it, but when I checked it out it was only a stereo 8-track.

Recollections such as this make my day, thank you sir.

 

[ssully]

I just purchased these interesting reels from Omega Auctions which were consigned by Chris Squire's family (I posted about this yesterday in 'Random Stuff' but I now I've purchased them, I think that it's probably a better fit with this thread).

The reel containing 'And You And I' is particularly intruiging; from the track descriptions and the writing on the spine, I assume that they were thinking about a Quad release that never happened (note the 73/74 date marks top right). I'd be very appreciative if anyone has further knowledge of this. I also note from the spine that Tom Dowd appears to have been the engineer/producer in charge. I'm aware of his associations with Clapton, The ABB and Skynyrd et al but I didn't know that he had worked with Yes. I can't find a reference anywhere to say that he did.

I don't know whether or not the 1970 reels contain the finished studio versions of those tracks or something that was more 'work in progress'. I envisage that one or more reels will probably require baking before I can make a transfer to find out. Interesting stuff, I'm quite excited to own these. The 'And You And I' box would actually make quite a cool '3D' piece of wall art if framed and mounted properly.

-- Tom Dowd was a producer/Atlantic records overseer on The Yes Album. After that there's no record of him working with Yes that I know of.

--The dates written on the quad tape box don't correspond to any time Yes was known to be in or near America, much less Florida. On 9/9/73, they were still recording Tales from Topographic Oceans in London . On Jan 21 1974 , they were still in England, prepping for their upcoming American tour. The tour brought them to Florida from Feb 7 (the first gig of the US Tales tour) to Feb 9. So this quad project was done without known Yes input.

 

[ssully]

For what it's worth, during the original (abbreviated) Quadio run (CTA, Aretha), mastering engineer (and QQ member) Bob Vosgien had been looking through the Warners vaults and claimed that a quad mix of CTTE was done - I think ForagingRhino has since disputed its existence but your photos suggest Vosgien was right. Hopefully the mix of You and I on that tape was compiled on to a quad album master with the rest of the record and is resting safely somewhere in the Warner vaults.

Interesting to note that this mix was done at Criteria in Miami and has Tom Dowd's (T. DOWD) name on the spine. He's obviously famous outside of quad for producing a million huge albums from Layla to Lynyrd Skynyrd, but he also oversaw Atlantic's quad output and remixed most, if not all of the label's early quad output including Aretha's Greatest Hits, Bette Middler's Divine Miss M., and the upcoming Quadio release of Donnie Hathaway's Extension of a Man amongst others. It's sort of surprising to see his name on this, I was expecting that the quad remix of this album would've been done in the UK at Advision Studios, which is where the Gentle Giant quad mixes were done in 1975 and 1976, but perhaps they weren't ready for quad when this was done in late 1973.

Speaking of dates, it's interesting to see scrawled on the side of the box "9/9/73 or 21/1/74", presumably done by someone Squire or someone British, as Americans normally write in month-day-year format. Close to the Edge was originally released in stereo in September 1972, so my guess this mix was slated to be part of the small batch of evergreen titles reissued in quad in 1974 that included Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Deep Purple's Machine Head, Jethro Tull's Aqualung, and The Doobie Bros. Toulouse Street but for whatever reason wasn't released. They had plans to release a quad mix of Tales from Topographic Oceans in 1974 (press clipping included below) so maybe it was shelved in favour of that seeing as it was a 'current' album, even though a quad release of TfTO never happened either.

View attachment 104721

Yup, that never happened. Though at least some of the live shows were presented in quad.

 

[steelydave]

Tom Dowd did all of Atlantic's quad mixing at Criteria, so it's no surprise he'd do this there, and the major labels did almost all of their quad mixing without band involvement. Maybe that's why this mix was never released, and why Squire had it in his possession, they weren't happy with it and didn't want it released. In Squire's hands there's no way the label puts it out without their knowledge.