Never released. If you follow some of the abc artists with the releases after the last quads, they do exist. I have Shades by Keith Jarrett, which is a qs encoded lp. Does not say so. That being said, these were single issues, unlike Sony which did both stereo and sq titles. And by then, Sony quad at Stamford was being dismantled(1977). My guess is if it was way into production it got released(return to forever), but anything else was canned. This could have been one, and write dave or go to a show and ask. Not that he would know!
I see, so by 1977 Columbia's Quad mixing studio would have started to be or was completely dismantled. That makes sense since the year before 1976 we started to see less titles or to "Stereo only" releases. You can see the decline of Quad here and by 1978 one could forget any major titles by anyone - just going by memory. Quad was effectively dead in 78, but strangely enough, people installing stereo cassette decks into their cars used 4 speakers, 2 for the front and 2 for the back as most decks – as I remember it – had the wiring for 4 speakers. Well some people didn't want to cut holes in their doors!
Just no Quad cassettes or any new Quad material. But four speaker’s front and back still remain today as standard equipment in new cars, as a friend just found out with a new Ford “focus.”
Doing more research in the last few days what’s not mentioned on Wiki is that Dave Mason’s record company released “Certified Live” in a sort of like Peter Frampton pose like on “Frampton Comes Alive” to cash in on said record. And why not? Both records are similar types of music and this was a great live record. Point being though, no Studio album that year in 1976. Here is Dave Mason’s e-mail from his Official website:
http://www.dave-mason.com/contact.html
Speculation:
So it would be interesting to find out when “Let It Flow” was recorded. According to Amazon, It came out in April 1977. I’m guessing he was still recording new studio stuff in 1975 / 76 since the release of 1975’s “Split Coconut.” And since the previous 3 records of his were mixed into Quad and he was a major artist they were still doing the Quad mix. A few copies were released, but perhaps the label didn’t print as many as say an Aerosmith Quad record because the demand was low - because it was 1977 - and the record companies were more interested in pushing the Stereo product as one of his biggest hit’s up to then was “We Just Disagree” on "Let It Flow." They played the shit out of that song on AM radio!
Almost same situation – I’m speculating – happened with the Blue Oyster Cult’s "Agents of Fortune" Quad release. Although I only saw 2 copies EVER at Wherehouse records in Concord on Willow Pass Road and I bought one of them, Blue Oyster Cult was also having its first AM break though hit with “Don’t Fear The Reaper.” Why bother confusing the market with Quad product when lots of people, pot smoking teenagers, are all of a sudden discovering this "new" act and buying lots of stereo records. Perhaps in both cases contractually Quad mixes had to have been produced as in both artists cases their previous releases were released in Quad, but were not released for one reason or another (like a mix being rejected) and a few copies made it out of the plant by mistake or were released in very small numbers just to fulfill the contact.
Not Speculation:
I am absolutely positive I owned these 2 records. I remember too many small details about each, including the way the mixes sounded. Like Patty Smith’s voice coming from the right rear speaker. I owned no more rare Quad records and did not sell anything to Rasputin's Records between late 79 to 1980 that you can’t find today on eBay fairly easy. I do remember going to “Rather Ripped Records” in Berkeley and seeing a few items that claimed to be such and such, but I didn’t own them so I can’t say what was on them or not. “Rather Ripped Records” had the Quad Who and Rolling Stones Bootlegs we’ve seen on eBay. They also had many Japanese CD-4 Quads and different test pressings and the Brazil ELO record.
My only motive in posting about these 2 records is if anyone has them or seen them. And if not, if we could track them down or gain more info about their existence.
