I'm really glad to see that word of these has finally gotten out - I've known about these titles for a little while (and had involvement with a couple of them) and it's hard to to keep quiet when you have juicy info like this.
I wrote pretty extensive liner notes for The Main Ingredient 'Euphrates River' and Tower Of Power 'Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now', about 2,000 words for each which translates to 7 pages or so in the booklets I think. All the information is newly researched from Billboard magazine and other newspapers and magazines of the time - I didn't want to just regurgitate what was already on the web in biographies etc. and I've hopefully found some original information and insight in the process. I tried to strike a balance between band history, chart information and commentary on the album itself, the idea being to give you some context for where these albums sit in both the bands careers and music in general. I was even able to make mention of the quad mixes toward the end of each of them, which I hope might catch the interest of people who buy these albums just for the CD portion and get them wondering about SACD/surround sound etc.
I also wrote a 2,000 word blog entry about the rise and fall of quadraphonic sound and tied it in to the current resurgence of SACD surround titles with quad and 5.1 mixes for Dutton Vocalion's website, which I think will be published tomorrow with their formal announcement of these dozen titles. It's more geared toward their CD buying audience who isn't familiar with quad or surround sound in the hopes they can be intrigued enough to upgrade their systems to be SACD capable, but I think there's some interesting info in there for everyone, and lots of soapbox-standing about sound quality and how great surround sound is, something I'm sure we can all agree on.
I haven't actually heard any of these discs yet but I have full confidence in Michael Dutton and his team, as the sound quality of all their previous releases has been second to none. I had an email from him earlier today - he's seen this thread and wanted me to pass on that the reason the titles are so cheap is because Vocalion believes in surround and wants it to get more coverage. The prices of these discs will be going up in the new year so get as many as you can while they're as cheap as they are now. He also added that all of Vocalion's new classical recordings will be done/available in SACD based on the positive customer feedback they've had thusfar.
Speaking personally, I would encourage you to buy as many copies of these discs as you can. I know Marshall from AF said 'only buy the discs you like' but it's clear that more support = more future releases. I know this isn't a dozen Blue Oyster Cult style hard-rockers, but one of my favourite things about my "quad journey" so to speak was that I discovered all this music in other genres as a result, a lot of which I love now. There's some really great music here across a variety of genres, and you could buy all 12 of these discs for 2/3 the price of that Soundgarden 'Badmotorfinger' box set alone. As is the case with AF, Vocalion only licenses these albums for a limited time so the potential for them being hard to find in the future is very high. I actually plan to buy a few copies of the two albums I did liner notes for to stock away as investments, because they're so cheap now and I have a feeling that won't be the case in a couple of years.
Some random thoughts and info about these titles:
- Rózsa conducts Rózsa (1965) As far as I know this was never released in quad or 5.1 so this release is either an unreleased quad mix, or a 3-channel presentation like the Living Stereo discs that Sony and AP have put out over the last few years.
- Michel Legrand - Twenty Songs Of The Century (1974) This is a double-LP, released on the Bell label. Bell was one of the labels that was folded in to create Arista Records in 1975 after Clive Davis took over. This was only available on SQ vinyl and is really difficult to find - I assume they probably took it out of print after Bell became Arista, which means it was only in print for a year or so. It's also the only US quad release that Bell did - they did one other in Japan, a Michel Legrand live album.
- André Kostelanetz Plays Music of Villa-Lobos & André Kostelanetz Conducts Music from Spain (1974) Kostelanetz was doing easy listening before the term 'easy listening' was even coined. I haven't heard these but presumably they'll be very accessible versions of Spanish classical music. They're also notable because they were both produced by legendary Miles Davis & Dave Brubeck producer Teo Macero. I believe these are the first Macero quad productions that have seen modern digital release.
- Hugo Montenegro 'Love Theme from The Godfather (1972) & Music from A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (1969) A couple of Montenegro firsts: 'Godfather' was the first US RCA QuadraDisc ever released (catalog number APD-0001) and 'Fistful Of Dollars...' (which is all covers of Ennio Morricone spaghetti western soundtrack material) was part of the first batch of RCA 'PQ8' Q8's released in 1970. The Montenegro quad mixes are pretty much uniformly great - I'm especially looking forward to 'Fistful..' because it was only ever released on Q8, but even what I've head of the mixes in that format sounds great.
- Hugo Montenegro 'Neil's Diamonds' (1973) and 'Hugo In Wonder-Land' (1974) If you bought the Montenegro discs Vocalion put out last year, you're probably already buying this one. Features Montenegro's space-age bachelor pad musical take on the songwriting catalogs of Neil Diamond and Stevie Wonder. It's no accident that the quad mixes of Montenegro's albums were demonstration material as he actually did his arrangements with the format in mind. The original LP release of 'Wonder-land' actually featured an endorsement from Stevie Wonder himself.
- Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass 'Travelin & Carribean Cruise' (1973) This stuff reminds me a lot of Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, just with less jazz and more country/bluegrass elements in the arrangements. Fun stuff maybe verging on a little cheesy but in a good way I think. As far as I know neither of these albums has ever been released on CD at all before, let alone quad SACD.
- Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops 'Greatest Hits Of The 70's Vol. 1 & 2 I haven't heard these albums, but I have heard their cover of Mack The Knife in quad and it's a lot of fun, imagine popular music of the time rearranged for a symphony orchestra but including a drummer, etc. This is my favourite kind of easy listening. Another set of albums that have never been on CD before.
- Percy Faith 'Romeo & Juliet' (1969) & 'Chinatown' (1974) The first of the Percy Faith quad mixes to be released on SACD, I think this is actually the first album he ever did in quad (Romeo) and the last (Chinatown). These are really active, discrete quad mixes of covers of a lot of popular music of the time. Of all the Columbia easy listening material, Percy Faith is my favourite.
- Ray Conniff 'Laughter In The Rain' (1974) and 'Love Will Keep Us Together' I'm not a huge fan of Conniff (a bit too syrupy for me) but Mike Dutton told me that the sound quality on these two is really great. The Laughter In The Rain Q8 is incredibly hard to find, and I've never seen a copy of Love Will Keep Us Together in the wild ever, so getting these two albums together on one disc for a bargain price makes this a no-brainer for me as a collector.
- Henry Mancini 'Mancini Country' (1970) & 'Country Gentleman' (1974) Mancini's quad mixes are second to none..well maybe second to Montenegro, but still fantastic, as you'll know if you have the Vocalion Mancini discs from last year. Really glad I can just sell the two Q8's I have of these without having to bother transferring them to digital myself!
- Tower Of Power 'Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now' (1976) As Jon said, one of the last Columbia quad albums, released in October 1976, and out of print by 1978. If you can find this on Q8, be prepared to pay $75 or more. And as Adam mentioned, the mix is a bit unconventional - drums in the right rear and bass in the left rear, but this album has loads of horns and strings and vocals spread all over the place. I kinda think of it as being like the quad mix of Sly & The Family Stone's Greatest Hits, just on steroids. Music-wise, it's a fantastic album, widely regarded as the last 'classic' Tower Of Power album by most. Highly reccomend this one!
- The Main Ingredient 'Euphrates River' (1974) If you like the Isley Brothers (HELLO FREDBLUE) I can almost guarantee you'll like this. It's like the Isleys, with the lead guitar replaced with some amazing swirling string and horn orchestrations from Bert DeCoteaux, along the lines of what you'd hear from guys like Gene Page (Barry White's arranger) or Motown arranger David Van De Pitte (Marvin Gaye etc.) RCA went back and remixed this in quad more than a year after the stereo version, based on the fact that it had 3 hit singles (Just Don't Want To Be Lonely, Happiness Is Just Around The Bend, & California My Way) and was a top 10 R&B album, releasing it in the summer of 1975, but as we know they basically abandoned quad shortly after that. As a result the quad version is really difficult to find, especially the Q8 which I've never seen with my own eyes. The lead vocalist in the Main Ingredient is Cuba Gooding Sr., father of Cuba SHOW ME THE MONEY!! Gooding Jr. I didn't really know this album intimately but after doing the liner notes for it I've fallen in love with it, and this is the Vocalion release that I'm anticipating most highly.
You can listen to samples of most of these albums on Youtube, but if anyone has any questions about them, historical or mix-wise I'm happy to answer whatever I can.