Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab – UD1S 2-027, Limited Edition, (2022, Sept.), #2163 of 10 000.

Originally released on Asylum Records – AS 53014 or 7E-1039 (1975, June)

Ratings:

Global Appreciation: 9.5
– Music: B
– Recording: 9.5
– Remastering + Lacquer Cutting: 10
– Pressing: 10
– Packaging: Deluxe

Category: soft rock, country rock, folk rock, soulful disco.

Format: Vinyl (2×180 gram LPs at 45 rpm).

As the ’60s came to a close, with the dawn of the new decade just on the horizon, many rock bands abandoned references to psychedelics in their music, favouring instead a return to roots, folk, and country. Such was the case with swamp rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival with the release of their second album Bayou Country in January 1969, which featured “Proud Mary”—a far cry from “Susie Q” six months earlier.

Even San Francisco acid acts the Grateful Dead turned a leaf with their albums Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, both from 1970, on which CSNY’s country/rootsy influence is reflected in the albums’ reliance on acoustic guitars and tight vocal harmonies. And while Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde released in June 1966 was the first record to combine folk, blues, and country with rock, Dylan upped the country quotient in his music three years later on Nashville Skyline.

Just as Dylan’s influence can be heard in the Byrds’s folk-rock beginnings, it can be heard in the band’s later, country-er material, such as on Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the band’s first release with country musician Gram Parsons. Not well-known at the time, Parsons was briefly part of the International Submarine Band which spawned only one album, Safe at Home, a few months prior to him joining the Byrds.

The Rolling Stones were not immune to this new rock aesthetic, which, in December, 1968, appeared on Beggars Banquet, which clearly featured country, blues, and roots rock, and on the band’s 1969 single “Honky Tonk Women”. Heck, even the Beatles dabbled in country on “Get Back” in April, 1969.

Take It Easy…

From these folk-rock country roots, the Eagles were hatched. Hailing from Los Angeles, the band was formed in late 1971 when Randy Meisner and ex-Flying Burrito Brothers’s Bernie Leadon joined Glen Frey and Don Henley who were then part of Linda Ronstadt’s touring band. The four are credited, among a large ensemble of musicians, on Ronstadt’s third, self-titled LP.

The Eagles’s self-titled debut came out in June, 1972, on David Geffen’s new Asylum label. It contained the singles “Witchy Woman”, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, and one of their biggest hits, “Take It Easy”.

It would be the first of six LPs with lead guitarist Don Felder joining the flock on their third album, On the Border, and Joe Walsh—formerly of the band James Gang—replacing Leadon with the release of Hotel California in 1976, as the band favoured a harder edge to their sound.

Tracks like “Tequila Sunrise”, “Desperado”, “Best of My Love”, “Hotel California”, New Kid in Town”, “Life in the Fast Lane”, and “Heartache Tonight” followed one after the other via yearly album and single releases, each becoming a staple of FM and AM radio stations in the 1970s and beyond, perhaps rivaled only by Fleetwood Mac in terms of sales and staying power in the smooth, sophisticated soft-rock landscape.

Take It to the Limit…

“One of These Nights”, from the album of the same name, was the first Eagles single I remember hearing on CKGM AM radio back in the day. Because my DNA is more disco than country, it explains why I was first attracted to this beat-driven single rather than to the band’s more typical hits. After all these years, it remains my favourite song of theirs. To quote Glen Frey, “We made a quantum leap with ‘One of These Nights’. It was a breakthrough song.” Frey called it his favourite Eagles song. “If I had to pick one, it wouldn’t be ‘Hotel California’; it would be ‘One of These Nights’”.

One of These Nights was produced and engineered by Bill Szymczyk, with assistance by engineers Allan Blazek, Michael Braunstein, Ed Marshal, Michael Verdick, and Don Wood in 1974 and 1975. They split their recording time between two studios: Criteria in Miami, where they had a custom-made 24-track MCI console, and the renowned Record Plant in Los Angeles, which had an API console. Szymczyk is well known as a perfectionist, who preferred to capture the Eagles singing all together in the studio around one mike rather than recording each individually and overdubbing them. By doing several takes and selecting the best ones or the best parts of those takes, then editing them directly on the 2-inch master, Szymczyk was able to approach as close to perfection as possible. For the drums, his recipe was usually to use a combination of eight or nine mikes—Shure 57, Neumann 67 and 87, AKG 414, etc.—around the kit, sent to four tracks. The team did an incredible recording and mixing job, as they did on the band’s follow-up monster release, Hotel California. Every instrument and voice is mixed at just the right level with the requisite refinement, nuance, dynamics, and energy you expect from the real pros. If all rock records had this level of sound quality, every audiophile would love rock.

The MoFi deluxe box set I received contained the usual items and presentation we are now accustomed to getting from MoFi. Engineer Krieg Wunderlich remastered and cut the four set of lacquers at 45 rpm from the 1/4-inch / 15 IPS analogue master converted to DSD 256 in accordance with their ‘One Step’ method. In the dead wax of my copy is inscribed KW@MoFi’, plus A5; B8; C8; and D8 respectively, indicating which cutting ‘cycles’ were used to make the converts for this run. All four sides were well centered, visually glossy, and black, although when held up to the light you can still see through the vinyl. Pressings were done at RTI on the slightly translucent 180g “High-Definition SuperVinyl” formula by Neotech. They played perfectly from start to finish.

I did not have the original US pressing to compare the Mofi to. From the opening title track to the final ninth, “I Wish You Peace”, the sound is absolutely gorgeous. Fat, warm yet solid, sufficiently detailed in the top end but not overdone, wide soundstage—in a nutshell, very 24-track analogue tape-sounding, and one of the best ‘One Step’s I’ve heard, reminding me most of MoFi’s Alan Parsons Project Eye in the Sky remaster, which was a regular double-45 rpm release, but now presented with superior low-end control. Picky as I am, I can’t find any area of the MoFi remaster where I would have wished for a different sonic setting… Goldilocks would approve. Goldi-Claude certainly does.

If you wanna find out what turns on your lights, you better watch your back, ’cause coming right behind you, I swear it’s gonna find you…one (step) of these nights!

A final note:

I believe that both MoFi’s Crosby, Stills & Nash and this release are worthy of being added to your collection, but if you can only choose one, on a purely sound basis, go with the Eagles.

Personnel:

• Glen Frey – vocals, acoustic and electric rhythm guitars, piano, electric piano, harmonium, lead guitar.
• Don Henley – vocals, drums, percussion, tablas.
• Bernie Leadon – vocals, guitars, banjo, mandolin.
• Randy Meisner – vocals, bass guitar.
• Don Felder – vocals, guitars, slide guitar.

Additional Personnel:

• David Bromberg – fiddles.
• The Royal Martian Orchestra – strings.
• Albhy Galuten – synthesizer.
• Jim Ed Norman – piano, orchestrations, conductor, string arrangements.
• Sid Sharp – concert master.
• The Eagles – string arrangements.

Additional credits:

• Produced and engineered by Bill Szymczyk.
• Recorded in 1974 and 1975 at Criteria studios in Miami and the Record Plant in Los Angeles.
• Engineered (assisted) by Allan Blazek, Michael Braunstein, Ed Marshal, Michael Verdick, and Don Wood.
• Remastered and lacquer cut by Krieg Wunderlich at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in Sebastopol, CA.
• Plated and Pressed by RTI, CA, USA.
• Art direction and design by Gary Burden.
• Photography (cover) by Tom Kelley.
• Photography by Don Hunstein.

Reference List (Singles, albums, and labels):

• Bayou Country [Analogue Productions AAPP 8387, Fantasy 8387]
• Workingman’s Dead [MoFi MFSL 2-428]
• American Beauty [MoFi MFSL 2-429]
• Blonde on Blonde [MoFi, Columbia MFSL 3-45009]
• Nashville Skyline [MoFi, Columbia MFSL 2-424]
• Sweetheart of the Rodeo [Columbia CS 9670]
• Safe at Home [LHI-S-12001]
• Beggars Banquet [Decca SKL 4955]
• “Get Back” [Apple Records PXS 1, PCS 7096]
• Eagles [Asylum Records SD-5054 or MFSL UD1S 2-024]
• On the Border [Asylum Records 7E-1004 or MFSL UD1S 2-026]
• Hotel California [DCC Compact Classics LPZ-2043 or Rhyno Records R1 1084]
• Eye in the Sky [MoFi MFSL 2-500]

_______________________________________

For more from Claude Lemaire visit…

https://soundevaluations.blogspot.com/