Any Linda QUAD LPs?

[rick]

This thought has occurred to me in the past and I keep meaning to ask on here.
Back in the early 1970s, in an attempt to create better sound quality, some albums were released not only in stereo versions, but also in Quadrophonic versions.... ideally for four speakers.
Oftentimes the Quad versions contained different mixes/different takes/longer versions than the songs on the stereo version released of the same album.
To anyone's knowledge, were any of Linda's albums ever released in Quadrophonic?
Thank you.

[sliderocker]

I'm almost certain I saw a quad LP version for "Prisoner In Disguise" in 1975. Quad albums didn't last much beyond two or three years on the market. Part of the problem was I don't think the records lived up to the hype. Unlike mono albums, which you could play on stereos and still have good sound quality, quad albums didn't sound so hot on most stereos. It was like playing a stereo album on a mono record player in that half of the sound would be cut out. And for another, the record companies added a dollar or two to the suggested retail price. By 1975, most albums were in the $6.98-7.98 range - the suggested retail price on quad albums was $8.98. So if you bought a quad album with the hope of intensifying your listening pleasure on your stereo, you ended up very disappointed. Of course, quad players never went away. They just called it surround sound on stereos and you can get some very interesting sounds listening to the surround sound only on the stereo. From almost all vocals only to instruments you couldn't necessarily hear through the main speakers sometimes to people actually talking which was mixed out of the main, surround sound was worth a listen.

[rick]

May 26, 2012 1:19:26 GMT -5 sliderocker said:

I'm almost certain I saw a quad LP version for "Prisoner In Disguise" in 1975. Quad albums didn't last much beyond two or three years on the market. ....

Thank you, Slide.
As a youth, I remember going to Tower Records, The Wherehouse, etc. and seeing Quad albums by artists but because I had a stereo, I didn't think they would play properly.
I never bought them.
Years later, I learned from other Barbra Streisand fans that the Quad versions of her albums there were released from 1971 to 1975 had different/alternate mixes/versions, with completely different vocal takes. Another fan once made cassette dubs for me of the tracks from such Streisand albums as "Stoney End," "Barbra Joan Streisand," "Live at the Forum," "Butterfly," "Lazy Afternoon," and "Funny Lady (Soundtrack)." And, yes, indeed, several of the tracks were very different from the album versions that I had known, and, which were ultimately the versions released on CD.
Slide, I'm curious to know if you are aware if that Quad version of "Prisoner" had any different/alternative mixes/takes than the released stereo version.
Am wondering, too, if there were a QUAD "Prisoner in Disguise," were there also QUAD versions of "Heart Like a Wheel," "Don't Cry Now," and "Linda Ronstadt (1972)"?
Wonder if any of these ever show up on eBay.
With Linda not recording any more (except for the occasional guest appearance), it would be interesting to at least be able to hear, say, an alternate vocal take or mix on "Faithless Love" or "I Can Almost See It."

P.S. -- Just found this mention of a January 12, 1971, Quadrophonic concert broadcast on TV featuring Linda, Boz Scaggs and The Chambers Brothers --

www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/flashback/documents/05200316.asp

[sliderocker]

Thank you, Slide.
As a youth, I remember going to Tower Records, The Wherehouse, etc. and seeing Quad albums by artists but because I had a stereo, I didn't think they would play properly.
I never bought them.


Except for Elvis Presley's "Aloha from Hawaii via Sattelite" album which was only released in quad at the time, I never bought any further quad albums either. My brother had a quad copy of Jim Croce's "Greatest Hits" and a quad copy of the Four Tops album which had "Keeper of the Castle" on it and had the stereo copies of both of those albums, and it was those albums I had to compare on the differences. The quad albums being played on a two-speaker stereo system were like a stereo LP being played on a mono record player in that you lost half the sound. Differences, except for backing vocals on the first run through of the chorus on Jim Croce's achingly sad "Operator" (which wasn't present on the original stereo version), I didn't really hear any differences in the mixes. Certainly no extended mixes.

Years later, I learned from other Barbra Streisand fans that the Quad versions of her albums there were released from 1971 to 1975 had different/alternate mixes/versions, with completely different vocal takes. Another fan once made cassette dubs for me of the tracks from such Streisand albums as "Stoney End," "Barbra Joan Streisand," "Live at the Forum," "Butterfly," "Lazy Afternoon," and "Funny Lady (Soundtrack)." And, yes, indeed, several of the tracks were very different from the album versions that I had known, and, which were ultimately the versions released on CD.


As mentioned, the few quad albums we had had no extended mixes although I did hear of some albums later that had them. But, I also read that in one instance, one extended version was created by the artist-musician and another musician going back into the studio years after the song was originally recorded and recording some additional instrumentation, stretching the song from just over three minutes to four and half minutes. If it wasn't done that way to begin with, why bother? Ironically, that artist was no longer signed to the record company which released the album and which released the quad version but the quad version was only available in the now defunct 8-track format.

Slide, I'm curious to know if you are aware if that Quad version of "Prisoner" had any different/alternative mixes/takes than the released stereo version.
Am wondering, too, if there were a QUAD "Prisoner in Disguise," were there also QUAD versions of "Heart Like a Wheel," "Don't Cry Now," and "Linda Ronstadt (1972)"?
Wonder if any of these ever show up on eBay.


I can't recall hearing or reading of any differences on the quad version but if there had been, I'd probably would've been searching out the album in the auction pages of Goldmine and DISCoveries magazines. Back in Goldmine's early days, when the magazine was like Rolling Stone in its glory days - so far as content and pages were concerned, they used to cover differences between mono and stereo and stereo and quad, but I don't recall any mention about Linda's albums. I've looked at ebay several times on Linda's recordings but all I see there are the same albums time and time again. Mostly the recent stuff. I've tried to find a mono copy of "Evergreen, Vol. 2" as Capitol was known for either releasing different mixes or slightly longer versions of songs in mono. Of course, the stereo copy on vinyl I have of Ev2 has the "extended" version of "Different Drum," extended by ten seconds by repeating the harpsichord break in the song's middle.

With Linda not recording any more (except for the occasional guest appearance), it would be interesting to at least be able to hear, say, an alternate vocal take or mix on "Faithless Love" or "I Can Almost See It."

P.S. -- Just found this mention of a January 12, 1971, Quadrophonic concert broadcast on TV featuring Linda, Boz Scaggs and The Chambers Brothers --


It would be great to hear alternate versions of Linda's songs, whether the vocal and/or music was mixed differently. I believe there are actually already three examples on youtube of the same song - in Linda's performance of "Long Long Time" on the "Johnny Cash Show," on Bobby Darin's "The Darin Invasion" TV special and on "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour." The musical backing on all performances sound like alternate recordings rather than actual live performances. In none of the performances do you see any musicians playing on the song though it's possible instrumental backing tracks could've been specifically recorded for any of the shows. But, I do know other artists who ssometimes used unreleased alternate recordings of their songs to give the impression they were playing live rather than just miming to the known version of their song. Some would call that cheating but I looked at it as being able to hear an unreleased alternate take. Playing live had its drawbacks: missed notes, poor playing or singing, although Linda certainly did a good job on "Playboy After Dark" singing LLT, accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.

Linda singing LLT on the "Johnny Cash Show" btw, appeared to be a composite of at least two filmed performances as her hairstyle appeared to be slightly different between the far shots and the close ups.

[rick]

Thank you, Slide, for your thought-filled response.

I respect your opinion and know that you can discern the difference in mixes, such as the 10-second extension on "Different Drum" that others' ears might miss.
I now wish I had picked up these Quad LPs back in the day. Of course, there were for sale (when I was basically in high school), but not something that occurred to me to purchase back then.
It was only years and years later, that I learned that the QUAD LPs of the Barbra Streisand albums did contain different mixes. Last night, I went to YouTube and found that people had posted several cuts from the QUAD albums of her LPs. Since this is a Linda Ronstadt Forum, I will refrain from going into the differences there.
In doing some research, it seemed that Columbia (Streisand's label) released numerous albums in the Quad format. Other Columbia artists with Quad releases included Santana, Paul Simon, among others.
Also, A&M Records did the same and I noticed on YouTube that there are QUAD versions of songs by The Carpenters.
But there were also WEA (Warner-Elektra-Asylum) releases in QUAD from Carly Simon ("Playing Possum") and James Taylor. During the early 1970s to mid-70s, Linda recorded for Capitol and WEA.
In signing up for an audiophile forum last night, I did a search for "Ronstadt," and what came up instead were posts about the SACD release of "What's New?"

Here are some of the forum posters' comments --

" Linda Ronstadt "What's New", first thoughts

I received a screener copy of this disc about two weeks ago, and in that time have had the pleasure to play it back on both a Kenwood DV-5700 and the Meridian 598/568.2 combination.

The stereo tracks are direct from the 30ips stereo masters. The surround tracks are from original multi-track masters. Both the original stereo tracks, and the multi-channel mixes were performed by George Massenburg (apologies if I've botched the spelling of his name).

Stereo and multi-track mastering were done by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering and DVD, using dCS 24/192K A/D convertors.

This disc is a collection of American Popular music, from composers such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin and other great tunesmiths of the 1st half of the 20th century.(Aside -- this sounds like I'm a music historian... I'd better watch out).

The arrangements are from an ackowledged master, who literally wrote the book (<strong>Arranged by Nelson Riddle</strong>) on the topic. The arrangements are lush and rich, with some lovely dissonances heard throughout. Nelson Riddle is most widely known for his orchestrations and arrangements for some of Frank Sinatra's most famous recordings.

The backing group is first rate, with notables such as Plas Johnson on Tenor Sax, Don Grolnick on Piano, and even the (late) great Ray Brown on Bass for some of the tracks.

The stereo track is nice, but once you listen to the surround mix, it's very difficult to go back to the stereo mix. The stereo mix seems flat and two dimensional by comparison.

The surround mix places you at the center opening of a U shaped surround field. You aren't "fully immersed" here, as no common information exists between the surrounds to close off the back of the surround field.

On the Kenwood, there were spots where I thought LRs vocals were clipping slightly, but the Meridian combo shows that this was a limitation in the analog stage of the Kenwood player.

It is a very clear, hiss-free recording from the early to mid 1980's, and WB/Rhino have a done an excellent job on preserving the stereo mix, and an outstanding job with a tasteful, engaging surround mix.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time discussing the tunes, because you will either love or hate the music. Given that I'm a "retired" jazz saxophonist, I've played them time and again.

If you enjoy the repertoire (What's New, Someone to Watch over Me, Goodbye et al) you will in all likelihood enjoy this disc.

If you don't, it might not be your cup of tea.

Keep in mind, I am not a professional music reviewer nor do I play one on TV or the internet. "

" My copy arrived in the mail yesterday, so your review was quite timely. I purchased "Round Midnight" in 1982, one of my first CD's, which is the 2 CD album set of which "what's new" was the first of three albums. I noticed the first two were AAD, and the third DAD, recordings. Anyway this has always been one of my favorite recordings - along with the Ella Fitzgerald various songbooks.

To the point: I compared my original CD with this release, and the mult-channel recording just blows the old CD away. It is as good as John says it is. I did have to turn down my subwoofer to a much lower setting than I normally use - for whatever reason that track is really powerful, and I had to listen to the original release to get the base back into perspective. I only wish warner had released this as a two disc set, like "round midnight" so we had all of the sessions in DVD-A. A great album. "

[the Scribe]

As I recall Linda's appearance on IN CONCERT as Cat Steven's special guest was supposed to be the first quad broadcast for a live concert. It is now referred to as Cat Steven's Moon & Star Concert and is very special to his fans and now to Linda's fans.

Here is Linda's segment, unedited as it was shown that night:

www.bing.com/videos/search?q=fill+my+eyes++first+cut++&mid=6943785A9CEE86AEE0476943785A9CEE86AEE047&view=detail&FORM=VIRE1



If you can find a reel to reel version of this quad broadcast consider yourself very lucky. Not sure how anyone could NOT love Linda after viewing this segment.

It is always great to see Lowell George again (and her other band members). I dare say it is the first time most of Linda's fans ever heard either of these songs.... Fill My Eyes and The First Cut Is The Deepest.......

I hope someone here records this unedited version before it gets lost. I don't have the capability.

Uploaded by our friend linda2006nicci on Oct 10, 2010 and originally by Julian I believe although he separated the songs.

[Partridge]

I only bought a couple of quadraphonic LPs, even though I never had quad equipment. The first one I bought was Moonshot by Buffy Sainte-Marie. As was mentioned with the Barbra Streisand releases, the vocals were entirely different performances than the stereo LP. I was already accustomed to the stereo album, and these vocals by comparison sounded tired, more like a rehearsal. I did not play the quad album very much.

Later on I bought a quad copy of Maria Muldaur's Waitress in a Donut Shop as a cut-out. I don't recall the vocals being different, but the grooves were tiny and only took up about 2/3 of the album side.

[sliderocker]

Thank you, Slide, for your thought-filled response.

I respect your opinion and know that you can discern the difference in mixes, such as the 10-second extension on "Different Drum" that others' ears might miss.


You're welcome. For a long time, I thought the "Evergreen Vol.2" version of "Different Drum" that I have could be found on every copy of that album, but apparently some copies had the 2:35 (to 2:38) "single" version, leading me to think some of Capitol's manufacturing plants got a different tape copy of the album. How else to explain a ten second difference on some of the albums?

Another anomaly on Linda's recordings is her version (or the Stone Poneys's version) of "Some of Shelly's Blues." The version on the original album was a quirky, short 2:04 but whent he song was reissued on the 1974 LP "Different Drum," the run time shown was 3:00. Did Capitol mean 2:00 as the version on that album was almost identical to the 1968 version with one not so subtle difference: the presence of a steel guitar that wasn't on the 1968 version. One might be tempted to say yes, Capitol made a mistake but fast forward a few years to their next Linda reissue, "Linda Ronstadt: A Retrospective," in the inner sleeve notes for the songs, it noted the song was released in 1968 followed by a longer version of the same song in 1974. However, I've never come across a longer version of the song anywhere but it might be one of those situations where a longer version was released on a few copiess but not all copies. And coming across a copy might have more to do with luck than anything else.

I now wish I had picked up these Quad LPs back in the day. Of course, there were for sale (when I was basically in high school), but not something that occurred to me to purchase back then.


Likewise, I sometimes feel like kicking myself on not picking up quad copies of the artists I followed. I'm a fanatic these days for getting mono copies of albums because the mono copies usually had some differences to the stereo equivalent and should've realized some of the quad versions might've had some differences. Still, one would had to have owned a copy of the stereo version and a copy of the quad version to know what to look out for.

It was only years and years later, that I learned that the QUAD LPs of the Barbra Streisand albums did contain different mixes. Last night, I went to YouTube and found that people had posted several cuts from the QUAD albums of her LPs. Since this is a Linda Ronstadt Forum, I will refrain from going into the differences there.
In doing some research, it seemed that Columbia (Streisand's label) released numerous albums in the Quad format. Other Columbia artists with Quad releases included Santana, Paul Simon, among others.
Also, A&M Records did the same and I noticed on YouTube that there are QUAD versions of songs by The Carpenters.
But there were also WEA (Warner-Elektra-Asylum) releases in QUAD from Carly Simon ("Playing Possum") and James Taylor. During the early 1970s to mid-70s, Linda recorded for Capitol and WEA.

I think almost every record company released quad albums on almost all of their artists with some notable exceptions: none of the Beatles's original albums or reissues were given the quad treatment. Likewise, I don't think any of the Rolling Stones's albums got the quad treatment. Not sure about Elton John either and despite being supernova white hot at the time, none of the Bee Gees's albums got the quad mix either. Very unusual. But, I did note that RCA released several of Elvis's then-current albums in the quad format despite allegedly not being good sellers in either stereo or quad, RCA deleted some of the titles prior to Elvis's death only to reissue them again in the wake of his death. (I say allegedly because those were the albums RCA had to pay royalties on to Elvis - most of Elvis's back catalog they didn't have to pay thanks to Col. Greed.)

In signing up for an audiophile forum last night, I did a search for "Ronstadt," and what came up instead were posts about the SACD release of "What's New?"


To the point: I compared my original CD with this release, and the mult-channel recording just blows the old CD away. It is as good as John says it is. I did have to turn down my subwoofer to a much lower setting than I normally use - for whatever reason that track is really powerful, and I had to listen to the original release to get the base back into perspective. I only wish warner had released this as a two disc set, like "round midnight" so we had all of the sessions in DVD-A. A great album. "


Some pretty good comments about Linda's album of standards, which I actually like that era of music. Most of it anyway. I've been meaning to get around to buying another stereo system as my old two decades old stereo has just about seen its day. Still works but I've had to replace some of the equipment. I'd like to acquire a stereo with the SACD technology but here again, I know not every recording has been released in that format nor is every recording going to be released in that format. I prefer CDs to downloading music into iphones and what have you because I want to hear the music in all its glory and not filtered through something that's a little better than a transistor radio. Everyone's trying to go the digital download route but I'd rather have a CD. If they can come up with something that can be played on a stereo ssystem, then I might go for it. Otherwise, forget it!

[Quadraholic]

Howdy all. I'm a Quad collector and found this thread/forum through a google search.

To answer a few questions:

No, Unfortunately no Linda Ronstadt albums were ever released in Quad. I believe one was slated for Quad release but either never got finished or was abandoned at the 11th hour. I'm sure I've seen a title of hers on an unreleased list. I'll have to check my files later as I'm on my laptop right now.

Secondly, Quad LP's are perfectly compatible with stereo and even mono equipment. You don't "lose" any sound by playing a Quad LP on a stereo set. All sounds will be heard in the stereo pair of speakers regardless of Quad format: SQ, QS, CD-4 even EV-4 are all stereo compatible.

You may be thinking of Quad 8-tracks. They cannot be played on a stereo set. Granted, they WILL play however the stereo head can only read two tracks of the tape simultaneously, so you can hear the front or the back channels. Only a Quad 8-track player will player all four channels at once.

[musicaamator]

I would love for her albums to be mixed for 5.1 audio. Man, I could just hear (choose any Linda record) in that format easily!