Leon Russell-Delta Lady CD on Del Rack

Del-Rack was a DCC "budget" line for the rack jobbers (K-Mart, etc.) A repackaging of some higher priced DCC titles. I took advantage of this by actually remastering some things from scratch for Del-Rack. I think I did a Dwight Twilley like this, etc.

For some reason, I decided that, since the thing was going to be released to rack jobbers only, I could put the actual credits on there. By contract, the "guests" like Ringo, etc. were not supposed to be mentioned by name on the regular release.

 

My search list has just been increased!

 

Sigh. This is all fuzzy, but I believe:

The Del Rack CD is possibly from the remixes I did.

The FIRST silver DCC Leon-self titled is from the alt. mixes (rough mixes, second mixes, etc.) and not the Glyn J. mixes. The GOLD version is from the album mixes plus my bonus track remixes including the Mick Jagger with Ringo "Shine A Light" demo.

Capitol used (I believe) the silver 1630. They never used my Gold version, because I believe it came out well after Capitol started issuing the Shelter stuff.

Make sense?

To recap, three different mixes of the first album, the LP mix, the alt. LP mix, and MY mix....

 

Well, when DCC first got the Shelter catalog, I felt that the actual Glyn Johns mixes were very compressed and lifeless compared to the actual sound of the beautiful Olympic Sound multi-tracks. Bill Wyman's bass was amazing on there.

So, for the first DCC release, I used the less "stressed" rough mixes I think.

I remixed the stuff, maybe for the Del Rack and MAYBE for the "Best Of Leon" that DCC did, can't remember which. For the Gold, I used the actual album masters. OR I did TWO versions of the silver, the first with the rough's and the second with the Johns mixes. I CAN'T REMEMBER. I guess I was so mad that DCC sold the stuff to Capitol that I tried to block all memories of this stuff out of my brain.

We never gave Capitol the Gold mastering, that stayed at the manufacturing plant (where it still is, I guess), so it has to be the silver version, but which one, I don't know.

I thanked Toi Moritimo of MCA for finding the REST of the Shelter stuff that was still there from the ABC days. The Shelter people didn't even pick it up when they bought the rights. MCA still had a bunch of stuff like "Carney", "Shelter People", etc.

Reading your post over Luke, I think now that Glyn mixed it TWICE!!!!! Once at Olympic (the less stressed more tuneful mixes that I call rough mixes) and the second time in LA with compression city on the tape. I might have mixed and matched them on the first release, depending on the song.

Sorry to be so vague, but after DCC sold the stuff to Capitol, I stopped listening to Leon, except for the occasional "Tightrope"..

 

Could be, yeah.

 

I asked Steve Todoroff, THE Leon Russell expert to refresh my memory on the above subject. Here is his response, via email to me earlier tonight:

Steve,

I'd be delighted to tell you what I remember. If memory serves me right,
you remastered the tapes in 1989 and released the silver Leon Russell CD
in 1990 using what you referred to as the less "stressed" rough mixes.
The songs titles for this CD were the same as the original LP release
with the exception of adding a solo version of "Shootout On The
Plantation" as a bonus track. I agree with your comments though about
mixing and matching mixes on this CD depending on the song, so you may
have used other mixes as well.

In 1990 I attended some of the remastering sessions at your invitation
on what I believe were considered the "alternate" mixes on the original
tunes, plus many so-called "rarities" that were not available for the
original CD release. I believe that these tracks were used for the Del
Rack and Gold CD releases as you stated in your comments. Apparently
many of these master tapes revealed alternate takes and/or demo versions
of many of Leon's original songs, which if I recall excited me greatly.
You then experimented with the mixes, remixing to reveal some subtle but
definite differences. Some of these takes also have very different
mixes. For example, "The Ballad of Mad Dogs and Englishmen" was a solo
demo version with no strings. "Sweet Emily" was a remix with harmony
vocals. "Beware of Darkness" was a remix with lead guitar. "Delta Lady"
was a remix with George Harrison louder. "Dixie Lullaby" was a remix
with harp. In addition, many of these unreleased "Russell Rarities" made
their way onto the Gold CD as bonus tracks, remastered in glorious digital. These
included "The New Sweet Home Chicago", "Jammin' With Eric", "Indian
Girl" (which if I recall needed editing), and "(Can't Seem To) Get A
Line On You" ("Shine A Light"). Too bad this CD is out of print. It's a gem. There are
still many of those unreleased tracks that, to my knowledge, still
haven't been released yet. I doubt at this point that Capitol/Right
Stuff will even bother with it.
The Del Rack CD release was such an unbelievable bargain for what you
got that it was almost too good to be true. Here's an example of some of
the differences in the song lengths on this CD versus the original
silver CD release:

Song Original Length Length on the
Del Rack CD
Delta Lady 4:02
5:00
Beware of Darkness 4:40 5:40
Ballad For A Soldier 4:24 5:50
She Belongs To Me 3:26
4:00
Dixie Lullaby 2:30 3:00

Longer, alternate takes of Leon's hits, all digitally remastered,
available for a bargain price. What more could a person ask for?

Just a side note on Glyn Johns. Leon chased the sound he got on these
early recordings at Olympic Sound for many years, and actually brought a
board over from England, the Swetenham board, which was a 16/24 board,
and brought it to the Church Studio in Tulsa. It had a great sound, but
part of the key to Johns' success was due in part to how he miked the
sessions. He was just the MASTER, and he owed a lot of his success to
the official BBC Engineers Handbook. Just straight out of the book.

I hope this answers some of your questions and helps you to recall some
of those sessions.

 

I remember we had tons of Del Rack "Leons". We couldn't get rid of them! I think they were finally sold to a cutout house for five cents each. Little did people know that these were remixed (by me) to showcase the superstar talent (George Harrison, Ringo, Eric Clapton, etc.) that were mixed too far down in the released mixes.

I hope some of you can find this!

 

Probably car wash fodder by now....

 

I think the Del Rack stuff was "cut out" years ago; nothing in the old DCC storehouse.

Did you ask him though?