New Analogue Productions Nat King Cole vinyl: "Mixing directly to 45 RPM lacquer" adventures!

By the way, thanks Ben!

Best, Ben

 

I am planning to buy all of the titles in this series, but the sleeper may be, for some, the St. Louis Blues title.

This is a wonderful album. Nat is singing the blues with great orchestrations from Nelson Riddle. Don't miss it.

 

Fair question-since I sort of coined it I thought I'd explain it as best I can. If you follow his entire career starting with his trio days his singing style evolved from a light swing blues delivery in his higher register to the more well known longer, open vowel sound that made him so famous. One of his vocal signatures was a deep drop, letting his lower register resonate and linger. In the song "On The Street Where You Live" he starts off the tune with it- "I.......have.......often walked, etc. Most people will recognize the part in "Mona Lisa"- when he sings "Men have named you...." That low timbre of Nat's is SO unique. He also enunciates certain words very distinctly: "I" is sort of "ahyeee". "Where" becomes "whoo-air" (listen to "Where Did Everyone Go").

At the end of his life he was playing up those signature "Nat-isms" more, and (again) in "The Nat King Cole Story" I always felt like he was almost imitating himself a little. He still sounds great, but in most cases I prefer the original to the stereo remake for that album.

Just my 2 cents. Nat RULES!!!

 

Steve,

If you retained the information and are willing to share it, I'd love to know who engineered which dates. According to your previous issues, John Kraus engineered LOVE IS THE THING, THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU, and JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS, and I believe you mentioned at one time that Johnny Cue did at least one of the New York sessions for the NKC STORY. Any info on the other sessions?

Thanks.

 

It's great to have any Nat, but we're extra blessed with a group of the top choices. All these are among the masterpieces of their genres in their own ways. Amazing group of releases.

Delightful album.

iirc Jordan, it's been determined that while Krauss did Love Is The Thing, Pete Abbott engineered for The Very Thought of You.

To muse a bit. I've had a thing for so many artists and records come and go over the years, waxing a waning in time and with repetition. Nat keeps coming back. I've played some of these so much, but I'll come back in a while and it's happening again. They're good in "replay value" and they don't keep dating, I liked 'em when I was younger and like 'em at least as much decades on. Some of that's in the musical approach they tap that makes it so nice to go through the song again. Doesn't hurt that his "batting average" was strong and even some of the ones I wasn't big on I've warmed to. Beyond the collector factor as a fan, I have to say that many Nat records have counted among my best buys. The kind of records I seldom get rid of unless it's to get a better edition. A lot of Nat's records are "keepers." Love finding music like that.

 

That is definitely news to me. The DCC listed Kraus as the engineer.

 

These discs/vinyl will be my first foray into Nat's work and I absolutely can't wait to get them! I hate bringing up these kinds of questions, but is it safe to say these albums represent the crux of Nat's career or will any further buying be required? I don't want this to become a "this album is better than that album" thread, I'm just wondering if this collection of albums will serve as the best overview of Nat's vocal work?

 

When do these come out?

 

The Nat King Cole Story title may be of special interest to you as it in itself offers an overview of his career from his first big hit through to near the end. The others of this group are also among his top choice vocal albums. I'm happy to say that there is more good stuff to be found if you do opt to explore further, but these would certainly give you a solid set from which to make that choice. Hope that covers what you were wanting to know.

 

From Steve's second post in this thread...

 

Wow. I'll have to get these. Long live the "King."

 

This is what it was like for me the first time I heard SH's DCC of Love is the Thing and The Very Thought of You. It was almost eerie in a very good way feeling like Nat was right there.

I'm quite impressed with the techniques used to get the best sound quality for these versions, which seems quite bit beyond what was done for the DCCs. The description of the process of mixing the masters live was quite interesting. Am I remembering correctly that back in the 1950s they sometimes did this too?

 

You mean Capitol cutting the disc direct from a tape as Kevin Gray did on these? Yes, that was the way they used to do 'em. Using the session tape? Yes sometimes, for mono. Not a three track stereo tape though. Those were always dubbed to a two-track tape with balances, filtering, echo etc done in the process, then that finished copy became the master to cut the records from. Does that description make sense?

Perhaps an understandable assumption carried over from LITT that Kraus did, given the scarcity of documentation etc. Nowadays it sometimes seems the fellow bringing the water is in the liners...

 

MTP20: apileocole already gave you a good answer to this question, but I'll just expand on it a little.

If you're just looking at limited selection of the best of NKC's concept albums, this is pretty much a perfect selection and a great place to start. And for many people, this would be all the Nat King Cole they'll ever need.

In terms dates, these albums range from 1956 (After Midnight) to 1962 (Where did Everyone Go?). Nat's recording career lasted from 1936 to 1964. There's not a huge amount that's essential after 1962, but there's a lot in the earlier period that Nat King Cole fans consider essential.

There are some interesting tracks in his very early career from 1936 to 1943, but his truly "classic period" with the trio begins when he started recording for Capitol in late 1943. The minimalist and jazzy trio sound lasted until around 1950, when hits like Mona Lisa fairly quickly sidelined the trio. This period is covered in the vast 18-CD set released by Mosaic records in the early 90s. It's huge, but not as much material as it sounds like because they didn't fill the CDs to capacity, there are often different takes of the same song, and the included quite a bit of post 1950 material that has the Trio sound (like the After Midnight album). The Mosaic set has long been out of print, and is quite pricey on ebay. But there's an excellent and inexpensive (c. $35) 4 CD distillation of the best of the Mosaic set called Cool Cole.

Nat started recording to magnetic tape in very late 1948, I believe, and at that point there's a big jump in sound quality. There are a huge number of wonderful singles that came out from 1948 to 1956. Probably isn't going to happen, but it would be interesting to have Steve H. master a selection of the "best of" these singles from this period and beyond that weren't part of any concept album. There's enough to make a mega set the size of the Nat King Cole Story that wouldn't have a single track found on that 3 LP set. Many of these great singles were for movies, with standouts like Blue Gardenia, I'd Rather Have the Blues, Raintree County China Gate, etc. To get many of these tracks you'd need to look into individual CDs released by Collector's Choice and Capitol, and the mega sets recently put out by Bear Family.

If this set of Steve H. NKC releases is successful, there are also some other concept albums that might be worthy of the same treatment. They are maybe slightly below the albums that they chose to release, and are Nat King Cole Sings For Two in Love (1953/55), The Piano Style of Nat King Cole (1955), Welcome to the Club (1958), The Touch of Your Lips (1960), Let's Face the Music and Dance (1961), and Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays (1961).

And there several other "flawed" concept albums that nevertheless have some outstanding tracks, such as Tell Me All About Yourself, Wild Is Love, Ramblin Rose, etc.

Anyway, the bottom line is that any of these releases would be the perfect place to start. But if you really enjoy them, there's plenty more that's really of equal quality. Here's a stunning number for you: from 1936 to 1964 Nat King Cole recorded somewhere around 1000 tracks. If you figure a standard LP has about 14 tracks (and usually it was more like 12) that's the equivalent of about 70 albums. Yikes!

For an outstanding NKC discography, as well as commentary on all of the albums, please take a look at apilecole's site:


http://apileocole.alongthehall.com/

 

Yes, thanks very much apileocole. Fascinating...

 

I don't think I assumed Kraus did THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU because he engineered LOVE IS THE THING; I thought, as I'm you're you did, that he did the former because he was given liner credit - presumably by Steve? - on its DCC incarnation.

 

Perhaps a good reason to pick up the upcoming Nat King Cole Story. Most likely cheaper than the DCC GH!

 

I would assume so too, Roland!

 

When you write "this mono presentation" - does that mean it's different from subsequent (post-1957) mono pressings? I'm asking because I'm just listening to my early 1980s Japanese pressing, which happens to be in glorious mono.

Arne

 

I meant to say, perhaps they assumed, when the DCCs were done.

 

If I recall correctly, Nat King Cole Sings For Two in Love was slated for a DCC release. So I don't think it would be an impossible choice for a next AF NKC batch if the first six were successful releases.

 

You are correct. In fact Amazon even still has the DCC listed.

http://www.amazon.com/Sings-Love-Mo...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1244592210&sr=1-1

My favorite all time Nat CD. Love the sound on the Larry Walsh mastering.
Steve would do wonders with Sings For Two In Love.

 

I predict these to be a huge success. So hopefully, if possible, more NKC titles will be done.