Features

There was a great deal of excitement a few months ago when Toshiba-EMI announced a new series of Beatles albums. The 1970’s EAS series from the label are considered by most collectors to be among the best sounding Beatles albums issued anywhere, but a ‘90’s series issued by the label, and cut from digital masters was expensive and sounded brittle and uninviting, though as usual, the packaging was sumptuous and the pressing quality was pristine.

Roger McGuinn. McGuinn co-founded the group with Gene Clark and was its nominal leader. If you disassemble the complex tapestry of the Byrds' sound into its molecular underpinnings, McGuinn's distinctive voice and unique twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar are the nucleus. Lead guitarist McGuinn's unique style simultaneously employs a flat pick and fingerpicking patterns, drawing

more from five-string banjo rolls than typical guitar scales. When this unusual picking pattern is done on an electric twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar, the resulting sound is a brilliant cascade of harmonic intervals and gleaming overtones. McGuinn also sang lead on many of the group's songs, including all of their Dylan interpretations.

(This piece, originally written in 1988, runs with a few updates)

Maddy Matlock and the Paducah Patrol, Warren Barker, The Vestry Choir, Raoul Meynard and Orchestra, Clint Walker and the Sunflower Serenaders, Gus Farney at the Giant Wurlitzer- these are just a few of the exciting musical acts that helped Warner Brothers Records lose a whopping $3 million a year between 1958 and 1962- its first four years in existence.

Not a great start. In fact the parent company, Warner Brothers films almost shut the doors, but didn’t, according to Fredrick Dannen in his excellent and often hilarious book “Hit Men,” out of fear that it wouldn’t collect money owed by slow paying independent record distributors.

The Gruvy Awards are back yet again! An annual event, The Gruvys are given to the best products AnalogPlanet reviewed in the most recent calendar year. This time around, the Gruvys honor the gear we tested in 2023 and subsequently found to possess a combination of high build quality, exceptional sonics, and in the case of less expensive gear, provide great value for the money. Read on to see what products made the 2023 AP Gruvy Awards cut. . .

MF: Just to change the subject, do you know who P.D. Ouspensky is?

RR: Yes.

MF: Did you read “In Search of the Miraculous?”

RR: Yes.

MF: That book changed my life. I don’t live it but he managed to merge mysticism with science and create a music-based universe.

RR: Have you ever listened to the Gurdjieff piano pieces?

MF: Keith Jarrett recorded some, and Thomas D. Hartmann?

RR: Yes. They are so beautiful. I listen to those quite a lot.

MF: You seem like the kind of person who looks around and sees what’s bother you in music—things that are not being done—and you do them. I mean, that’s how you got started in music, essentially. So who’s out there now that’s lying fallow that need to be re-cultivated? Don’t say Yoko Ono.

RR: There are a couple, but I can’t talk about it yet. A couple that I think could really be special.

MF: Have you approached any of them?

RR: A couple.

MF: Well they’ve seen what you’ve done so I can’t imagine it will be as difficult as it might have been getting to Johnny Cash. How about Neil Diamond as a person to do a record with?

RR: He’s one of my favorite artists of all time. Incredible.