Stan Hitchcock-View From a Distant Piece of Vinyl-July 17, 2013

You either like the sound of vinyl recordings or you don't. Yep, you hear a needle drop sometimes, there are scratches after awhile, and they are not perfect...but, more important to some of us, they are the real deal. You see, vinyl recordings were made in the era when all the musicians, all the background singers, sometimes the songwriters, along with the Producer and engineer, were all in the same small room together making the music. That does not happen today...the musicians may never even see the star vocalist. They come in, single or in groups, overdub to rhythm tracks and build a perfect piece of digital recording.

The occasional old recording of mine that I put on my Facebook Timeline Page are just me, in my office, or at home in my music room, going through my recorded collection from when i was a recording artist, and incredible writers and musicians, producers and engineers, banded together to compile my recording history. Most of it was cut in Owen Bradley's Quonset Hut, but also at Studio A at Columbia Studios, RCA recording studio in Nashville, Mercury Recording Studio in Nashville, Sound Shop, Creative Workshop, Scotty Moore's little studio and just about every other recording studio in Nashville. I also did one session of four songs at the Columbia Studios in New York City, under the direction of Goddard Lieberson and Billy Sherrill, which just made me appreciate the Nashville pickers even more. I also did a couple of sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and one session in Charlotte, North Carolina. All of my sessions were for vinyl, 8 track tapes, and cassette tapes...and before the arrival of digital cd discs.

My first recording was a very rudimentary effort in the radio station of KWTO, in Springfield, Missouri, in 1959. It was a Gospel Album to benefit the Good Samaritan Boys Ranch. My first Nashville recording was in 1961, for Columbia's Epic label, and was produced by the man that discovered me at the Boys Ranch and brought me to Nashville and signed me to the label. His name was Don Law. Don Law was an Englishman who had made his mark in recorded music, after working under the Great Art Satherley, recording pioneer at Columbia. I could not have been under the guidance of a more kind, patient and gentle mentor in the early days of my recording career. I mean I was raw material, green as a gourd and twice as seedy. But Don Law brought me along, he gave me the confidence that I needed to sing in a recording studio, which is a lot different that singing in a church somewhere, which is what I had been doing.

In 1961, through 1984, I recorded a large body of music, on 45 rpm discs, on 33 1/3 long play stereo albums, a few extended play mini albums, radio transcriptions on vinyl, etc, etc. I say all that to make the point...when you hear one of my recordings, you either like the sound of vinyl, with all the imperfections, scratches and pops, or you don't. Younger ears are tuned to the perfection of digital recordings, and vinyl sounds old timey to them. And they are right, it is old timey. However, the difference is much more than just the digital disc or the old black vinyl records. The whole recording process has changed. When you hear one of my old records...every single musician, background singer, arranger, producer and engineer is on the property, lending their talent at the same time. Oh sure, they may bring in a musician later to overdub a part, but the performance is made in total with the whole cast. It was not uncommon for 20 or 30 musicians and singers to be in the stuido at one time. And to me, that is the difference, vinyl is real. It was before the era of digital machines that can "tune" a voice. In other words, hit a sour note, don't worry we'll fix it in the mix. There was someting warm and wonderful in those old vinyl recordings, we, as vocalist, were in a small room with the very finest musicians and background vocalists that will ever be. They were not just great individual musicians and vocalists, they were a cohesive force of music that had worked together in so many sessions. that this A Team group knew exactly what would fit, at any given miment, in any part of a song you were singing. There will never be any time in music like that period of the 50's, 60's early 70's.

So, sometimes when I am in my office or music room at home, scrolling through my music library, I may come upon something that keys a music memory with me, and I may want to share it with you, nothing more than that. Those writers, musicians and singers from my generational era, were and are special, and I was there, I felt it happening, I was blessed to be a small part of it. Most of my vinyl has been converted over to digital, to save and store it safely, but the imperfections may still be there, that is part of the charm of vinyl...it is real.   Stan