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Byrds Expert John Nork Interviews Chris Hillman Interview Part 1

John Nork | Sep 30, 2004 | First Published: Dec 31, 1969 | 0 comments

John Nork: Let me start back in the past, Chris - how did you get into music?

Chris Hillman: Okay, that's a good question. You know, you'd think I'd get that question all the time, but I never do. I grew up in a home where my parents were not musicians but they had wonderful tastes and there was always music on the record player. Their tastes ran from big-band music, which was their era, and Duke Ellington and Count Basie was what I heard...in fact, one day when I was in my early teens I found an old 78 album of Josh White and I asked my father, "Where did you get this?" And he said, "Oh, I just picked it up at one point." And what's really interesting is that my older sister steered me into music - she went to college in the '50s and she came back from her first year or two in the early '50s, you know, with The Weavers and Pete Seeger and stuff, and I started to listen to that. I bought rock-and-roll records in 1956 and 1957, junior high school. You know, 1957: the year of rock and roll. So, I bought all that, and then, like a lot of people my age, I drifted into folk music. I didn't really get into The Kingston Trio or The Brothers Four; I lasted maybe a week with that, but I really liked the more traditional stuff. I gotta hand it to my older sister. She sort of steered me in that direction and I took it from there. Of course, I wanted to get a guitar and I got an inexpensive guitar and started banging out chords out of a chord book. I didn't take any lessons or anything.

Interviews

Byrds Expert John Nork Interviews Chris Hillman Interview Part 2

John Nork | Sep 30, 2004 | First Published: Dec 31, 1969 | 0 comments

TA: You probably don't remember this, Chris, but when I interviewed you and Roger in 1977, way back when you were in Miami, I asked you guys why you didn't call yourselves The Byrds when you were in McGuinn, Clark and Hillman, and you said that you promised you wouldn't unless David were there, and I said, "What did he do? Threaten to write more 'Mind Gardens'?" and everyone got a good yuk out of that.

CH: (laughs).

TA: What about "Hey Joe?"

CH: Well, that's okay. I think that David did it really good, but I don't remember. I think that I don't take it as seriously because the Lees, kind of this Byrds-clone, put it out.

Album Reviews

Bob Dylan Blooming

Michael Fremer | Sep 01, 2004 | 1 comments

Dylan's Halloween '64 performance before an adoring Philharmonic Hall (currently Avery Fisher Hall) audience waited forty years for release but remarkably, here it is in the digital age, still available in the LP format, sumptuously packaged, mastered and pressed for Sony by Classic Records.

Album Reviews

Creedence Clearwater Survival: Box Set Shines

Michael Fremer | Sep 01, 2004 | 1 comments

Grand Funk Railroad proclaimed itself “an American band,” but CCR was arguably, the American band of the late '60's early '70's rock era. Even if Fogerty and Co. was not your premier domestic purveyor of rock'n roll, the group's sound has stood the test of time and actually grown in stature. Dredged from blues, swamp, and rhythm and blues, and overlaid with a now-classic propulsive '60's rock sensibility, CCR today still sounds fresh and remarkably pure, even as so much of the music from back then sounds “of the time.”

Album Reviews

Ramones 1978 NY Palladium Concert Gets Double LP Treatment

Michael Fremer | Sep 01, 2004 | 1 comments

Originally recorded for a King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show and taken from a decent stereo board mix, this set chronicles The Ramones at their peak before an adoring home audience. The group had just returned from a triumphant European tour during which It's Alive had been recorded at the Rainbow Theatre on New Year's Eve just a week before.

Album Reviews

Link Wray's Swan Singles From Sundazed

Michael Fremer | Sep 01, 2004 | 0 comments

Mining America's musical blue highways is Sundazed's specialty. This collection of Wray's Swan singles, “A” and “B” is a perfect example of what the label does best. Best known for his classic hit, the trend-setting, iconic “Rumble,” the guitar twanger had a long, if not quite as successful recording career afterwards, specializing in rock'n'surf tinged, raunchy instrumentals. When he did sing, it was Elvis all the way-and a good Elvis it was, augmented by some hard-edged falsetto screaming.

Interviews

Tales Of Hoffman: Michael Fremer Speaks with Steve Hoffman: Part 1

Michael Fremer | Aug 31, 2004 | First Published: Dec 31, 1969 | 0 comments

Musicians have fans. Baseball players have fans. But mastering engineers? It would seem unlikely that a guy or gal who transfers tapes to CD or vinyl would garner a substantial public "following" ( a few groupie audiophiles notwithstanding), but over the past decade Steve Hoffman has managed to do just that.

Interviews

Tales Of Hoffman: Michael Fremer Speaks with Steve Hoffman Part 2

Michael Fremer | Aug 31, 2004 | First Published: Dec 31, 1969 | 0 comments

M.F.:Here and there. Okay. Now what's happening with these Everest 35MM tape classical LP titles. Are they selling?

S.H.:Yeah. We would like to do some more. It's so expensive

M.F.:What 35 millimeter plyaback chain are you using to play those back?

S.H.:We're using a local collector in Los Angeles who has a pretty good sounding set up.

M.F.:It's a Westrex?

S.H.: It's been modified a little bit, but it's still very hard on the film.

Album Reviews

Veteran Recording Engineer Tony Faulkner Goes Back to Analog

Michael Fremer | Aug 01, 2004 | 0 comments

I’m not comfortable writing about classical music. I’m not an expert, and I can’t tell you how this performance of Schumann’s music compares to others. According to the liner notes Mr. Lill is a world-class concert performer who has toured with the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony and many others, and performed with the New York Philharmonic and more than a dozen others. He was the joint winner of the prestigious Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1970.

Album Reviews

Eva Cassidy Compilation Remastered by Steve Hoffman

Michael Fremer | Aug 01, 2004 | 0 comments

The review of the original Blix Street vinyl issue appeared in the February, 2003 musicangle.com home page. I wouldn't bet heavily against Nick Webb's Abbey Road mastering and Pallas's pressing quality, so when this S&P reissue showed up, I wondered how it could possibly improve upon the original—good as Steve Hoffman's work can be—but this reissue, mastered at AcousTech and pressed at RTI, does improve on the original.

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